Re: Enchanting?

From: Chris Lemens <chrislemens_at_...>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 09:58:54 -0700 (PDT)


I would handle 90% of "enchanting" by using the guardian rules. If you find an old "magic item," you need to create a relationship with the thing (spirit, daimon, essence) inhabiting it.

Mike Holmes says lots of sensible things:

> So, as Rory says, with animism all magic is done with "enchanted
> magic items" in that it's all actually spirits in charms and fetishes, etc.
> How does one get a fetish? One goes to the spirit world, and finds
> the proper spirit, and puts it into the item.

Yes, but . . . . Charms and fetishes are pretty personal. If you take someone's fetish, it does nothing for you. I think the question was orieted more towards magic items that anyone (or at least a broad group) can use, like a magic sword stuck in a rock. I take your point (which I snipped) that Glorantha has lots of magic and plenty of mechanics to represent magic items.

> So the question is for other magic types, what's going on there with magic
> items. Well, for theism, I posit that there are few such "magic items" that
> are not emulations of some item that belongs to a god or the like.

Yeah. Doing the Arming of Orlanth gets you his weapons. The thing is that, in the God World, a lot of those act actually other thesitic entities (god and daimones). So, for example, his sword "is" Humakt. If you do the Arming of Orlanth, you bring back a daimon to inhabit the receptacle you made before departing on the quest.

> But even in those cases, and more generally, there's always another way
> to create a "magic item." Which is to put a guardian in it.

Yeah, yeah!

> For wizardry, we're talking about embedding essences in something. An
> essence being just "magic stuff" if you will, this makes things seem pretty
> straightforward. Want a flaming sword? Get an essence of flame to be a
> guardian in the sword. In this case the "hero band" in question could be as
> small as just the wielder. It's also interesting because to make it flame
> up, you'll have to "attune" to the essence likely. Could involve a contest
> something like the ones for attuning to any landscape essence.

I think the interesting thing about a lot of Wizardry is that essences seem to have less personality that daimones or spirits -- or maybe that's just my take on it. But I can see Wizardry producing magic swords that "almost anyone" can use. I think this is partially reflected in the rules. The Divine Landscape and Spirit Landscape sections do not seem to contain a contest similar to the "Attune an Essence Source" contest found in the Essential Landscape section. The "Attune an Essence Source" contest allows you to use the Venerate God ability, which I imagine will be fairly common throughout the west (which is what I meant by "aklmost anyone"). By comparison, if you found a spirit-inhabited sword and wanted to make friends with it, I'd make you treat it like trying to join a hero band. There's no specific rule on that (or at least not that I can find), so I'd use the "Befriend a Spirit" contest, which requires Follower of [Majestic Spirit], where the Majestic Spirit  is an appropriate one. That's a much more limited group than westerners with Venerate God. I guess that the "Become a Communal Worshipper" or "Become an Initiate" contest might be a good analog for theists. I think this limits the use of animist and theist magic items more than wizardly magic items, which fits well with my take on essences having less personality.

Chris

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