Phil Hibbs:
>> I don't see why not. So the HQ rules don't model it - doesn't mean it can't happen.
Peter:
> It's not HQ - it's just that the magic comes from the God and the idea that a God would be unable to tell whether the magic is being used on the behalf of a worshipper or a vampire carries more than the whiff of implausibility to me even using RQ rules.
This stealing is not so different from Issaries spell trading in allowing someone unrelated to the deitiy to perform this deity's feat. Basically, the difference is that the Vivamort victim makes an involuntary "trade" and doesn't gain anything in exchange.
I have no real problem with the way RuneQuest handled this - the spell has been paid for in advance in a significant amount of the magician's soul. Modeling either of these in HeroQuest is a lot harder.
> I know Vivamort is chaotic but he's the god of vampires not powergamers.
He sort of is... sacrificing your soul and life for continued existance...
>> By sustaining itself on someone's blood, some of that person's magical powers might become available and by using those powers, the vampire might weaken the victim's association with his god.
> I agree that the Vampire can get magic from the victim's blood but it would be better to have him use the blood to fuel his own magic rather than than have the vampire somehow fool the god.
Getting a part of your connection to your deity ripped out and used against you or yours is big time scary.
Blood magic tends to be really powerful, which is why beast and human sacrifices have so much importance. The laws of sympathetic magic do exist in Glorantha to some extent. Using the blood of a vampire's victim to command it to perform mundane tasks would be no stretch of imagination. Using it to animate the body of the victim wouldn't, either.
Now you're protesting using that power to manipulate the soul link that this victim shares with the deity, and yes, the deity part of the divine magic isn't governed much by the initiate's blood. The question is, how much of this divine magic has become an integral part of the victim initiate, and thus can be manipulated by the vampire holding the blood bond.
That said, a Sun Spear spell would still be pretty useless to a classical Vivamort cultist because of the requisitives.
Side thought:
The Vampire Kings of Tanisor flourished at the edge of the Bright Empire, and Illumination may have been part of the deal. If an illuminate can break (e.g. Humakti or Yelmalian) geasa yet retain the magic, would she be able to break other, harder restrictions like the effects of daylight on vampires? "Refute Daylight", anyone?
And how much of this effect can be intrinsic in the nature of a vampire (not immunity to daylight, but refutation of divine control over the powers once granted)?
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