Peter Metcalfe:
> I think it better to work through in terms of mythic examples rather than rules mechanics. The best example would be Yelmalio losing his fire powers to Zorak Zoran. Another example is Kyger Litor losing the Sandals of Darkness to Orlanth. The lost power becomes a slave deity (Amanstan) or artifact (Sandals of Darkness) under the control of the victor.
> Now since a Yelmalio going to the Hill of Gold likely does not have any fire magics (or else he wouldn't be a good Yelmalion, wouldn't he?), what he loses to the Zorak Zorani would be something innate like body heat. The Zorak Zorani who already can worship Amanstan to get fire would not get a new ability or artefact but easier access to fire magics or his innate fear of fire (common to Uz) is transformed instead to pyromania. There is no magic exchanged between the deities because the exchange happened long ago. What happens instead is that the worshippers have become marked by the exchange.
So, in order to have spell stealing vampires (make that sorcery spells to start with), we need a precedent where Vivamort stole a spell, and rather than make that spell an innate power, artifact or slave deity, choosing to make the theft of the spell his power.
Then we might have Vivamort taking away a bit of a god's being for a one use "spell", letting it go to waste afterwards rather than retaining the power.
Not so different from taking the life for a temporary extension of his existance, letting it go to waste, is it?
In your Hill of Gold example, the winner confirms a mythical win and loss. With a vampire stealing just any feat, there is just one mythical precedent - the time when all gods died (and presumably lost their power to act). Powers were lost to chaos then.
To make this a valid Vivamort myth, Vivamort must have picked up such a power. Prerequisite would be a loss of life - done by draining a victim's blood. Tying this to taking and using (up) a magical power is a bit far-fetched, I admit.
Another idea: the vampire does create a short-lived slave entity from what he drains out of his victim, an undead power. Without means to replenish itself, it fades to chaos - either slowly, unused, or at once in the act using that power. The power is already dead to both the victim and its deity, but still lingers on until the vampire chooses to spend it.
After all, Vivamort was a participant in the Sword Story.
>> Same goes with magic drawn into Truestone...
> The problem here is that the rules were developed for rune magic and hadn't quite taken into account similar high level magic for sorcery and animism (not to mention the fact that HQ 2 feats are a lot different from RQ Runespells).
The high-level animist powers were described as RQ2 (or RQ3) Runespells as well. It got problematic only because sorcery was described differently.
>> That's what we have had to work with for the past thirty years or so. While it is legitimate to ask whether this is necessary in Gloranthan vampires, there is a load of precedents to carry along or tactfully dispose of.
> Except that when _Lords of Terror_ came out, it didn't repeat the
> information about Vivamort's vampires stealing spells but said that his magic was sorcery. So the thirty years of tradition argument has less weight than you think. Admittedly I'm not enthusiastic about the description in Lords of Terror.
As far as I am concerned, there wasn't a description of Vivamort in Lords of Terror, just a reference "we have to think about this for future publications"...
>> Blood is the carrier of life, a thing Vivamort gave up to continue his existence.
> Again this only works for Vivamorti magic. When you are applying it to his victims, by saying that it can be drained along with the blood, you are saying that an objective relationship exists between the victim's divine magic and his blood which many gloranthan religions do not recognize.
I am saying that the Vivamorti forces this subjective relationship onto his victim. Given the usual difference in personal power between a vampire and his victim, this might be a clash of mythic realities between vampire and victim, and one that might be won by the victim, leaving the vampire without any spell gain.
> An Orlanthi would say that his magic is in his breath, not his blood.
Yes. He will need to establish that as an objective truth to an opponent of a different origin. In case of the Orlanthi, where is the soul of the Ernaldans located? Do enemies of the Orlanthi have to provide two different powers to attack the souls of male and female Orlanthi, or do they have one power disregarding those differences?
The Crimson Bat isn't known for fine distinctions. How does this work with less powerful chaotics?
>>> If Vivamort were to be a soul vampire (for the sake of argument, I think it's accepted that his vampires drink blood) then my belief is that the victim's divine magic is untouchable as they are the immortal portion of his soul. >> Chaos is well able to destroy also the immortal portion of a soul, so I don't let this argument stand.
That's a question of power levels, then. I'm not suggesting that any vampire can destroy any deity. Given a very weak deity (such as the soul of a mortal), permanent crippling damage can be done. The disease Soul Waste does so, too.
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