Earth Witch? (more Spirits versus Daimones..)

From: Santo_at_...
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 20:55:44 -0000


Hey all..

I'm attempting to start up a HeroWars game for my gaming community, and one of the elements I wanted to involve in my campaign was a conflict between Spirits and Daimones.

The idea I had was the following:
The PC's Clan is situated in somewhere in the wilds of Dragon Pass, and is located over a tremendous Earth Spirit. The founders of the Clan, fleeing the Pharaoh in Kethela, included among them a follower of Sedrodosa (sp?) the Earth Witch. She was able to come to some sort of peace with this Earth Spirit, allowing the Clan to settle in its lands. Due to Oaths made between the original Earth Witch and the Spirit, the nature of this deal was shrouded in secrecy, and over the years has been mostly forgotten by the Clan.

The Clan has maintained an Earth Witch among their Clan Circle since their founding, however in the past few generations, more orthodox Heortlings have marginalized her role within the Clan's society.

As the campaign continues, the Earth Witch will die mysteriously, and not have selected or trained a succesor, which will lead to the Earth Spirit becoming a very angry enemy of the Clan. The PC's will of course be the ones that have to decide whether to fight the Earth Spirit (with the aid of certain eager Ernalda the Queen Priestesses), or find a more peaceful solution (probably contacting the other animists outside the Clan for help.)

Unfortunately for me, the Earth Witch Tradition write-up was dropped from "Storm Tribe", and I understand that the entire Animism rules are undergoing a thorough revision in any case. I'm not inclined to delay starting my game until HW2 is released, however, so I figured asking the list for advice would be the next best thing.

Some questions that I have are:

The Earth Witch - what exactly is her Heortling name? Mythologically, I understand that she was the only Earth Power the Heortlings could contact when Ernalda and her family were killed during the Great Darkness. What is she? A Great Earth Spirit? A missaplied form of Worshipping Asrelia? (as suggested on the list somewhere..) Or is she some other Primal Earth power? On the Glorantha website, the Earth Witch is listed as one of the corner's of the Earth Rune, but I'm not sure if that's the same entity the Heortling's worship, or even some sort of vile Godlearnism. ;)

Do people have suggestions for a simple Tradition write up for her? I'm not interested in having a PC join the Tradition (yet..) but I'd like to have some ideas for running the Earth Witch NPC.

Do you think it make sense for Earth Spirits and Earth Daimones to battle? I know their human followers may not get along, but what happens when they are forced into direct conflict? I presume it could be very bad things for a land's stability and fertility, in any case.

Thanks for you help.
-Santo

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