> I'm thinking of toning down magic a little. I don't think I want people flying around magically or shooting lighting bolts yet.
Magic is woven into the very fabric of Glorantha, but it's not necessarily so spectacular or versatile as, say, D&D mages. In Sartar, a peasant can cast spells to make his plough cut the earth faster, or to lift heavy rocks out of his fields. A mother can use magic to heal her child's scraped knee. A merchant can use a charm to make himself more persuasive and convincing. And a warrior can make his sword cut more sharply, or, yes, throw a lightning bolt at his enemies. But only if he worships the god of lightning-bolt-throwing, or acquired the power in some other special way that might require a separate scenario to explain and justify. And if he does worship the god of lightning-bolt-throwing, he certainly can't hurl a fireball instead because that's a power from an entirely different god.
Also, remember that the way HeroQuest works, a power of "Hurl lighning 5M" is actually no stronger, in game terms, than "Hit someone with your fists 5M".
The truly spectacular Gloranthan magic - rains of fire, earthquakes, resurrection, etc - generally require either deity-level entities or dozens, hundreds or even thousands of people all working in concert for a long period of time (days, weeks, even years) to build up the power. (Which can also backfire on them.)
> there's a "big spike" on the map(no idea what that is);
>> /// Not sure what you mean here ; is it the Block in Prax ? The Spike vanished a looong time ago.
>
>No, there's this thing called THE BLOCK next to a river south of Days Rest and The Dead Place, SE of Sartar.
The Block is a giant piece of Truestone, a fragment of the primaeval Spike that once nailed the universe together, back in the earliest days of creation. It shattered into fragments when Chaos invaded the world.
In one of the final battles, the great spirit Storm Bull confronted the Devil. The earth itself lent him her power, which is why the Dead Place is there in the first place; it was drained of all its life energy to save Storm Bull himself from dying. But the Bull would still have lost, had not the Cosmos itelf answered his call for help. A fragment of the Spike that had been tossed high up into the air came crashing back to earth at that moment, bouncing and skidding a couple of times (you can still see the marks it left on the map) then crushing the Devil under it. The world was saved, Storm Bull was truimphant. The Block is now a sacred place to his worshippers - but they have to beware, because the squished corpse of the Devil still lies under it, and its foul corruption sometimes seeps into the surrounding lands and gives birth to hideous Chaos monsters.
At least that's the story as the Storm Bull cult tells it. Other people might have other explanations, which is one of Glorantha's main features: there's rarely a right or a wrong answer, only "our answer, which WE think is right" and "the other peoples' answers".
Stephen
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