From: Dane 'Danger' Johnson (dane@frame.com)
Date: Thu 04 Jan 1996 - 05:12:46 EET
I've been lurking here for a month or two, but I've been silent because my
Gloranthan Lore skill is probably only around 18% or so. However,
Martin/Argrath has been discussing what he calls Independant Magicians in
the last few digests and it's a topic I think I can discuss without getting
Gregged (or Petered or Lorened or Sandied, or whatever) too badly :)
Martin's main point seems to be that Gloranthan communities must (that
would, presumably, be the Orlanthi 'must', ie, most probably) have some
workers of magic who are not the usual cult initiates/priests and spirit
magicians of local spirit cults.
These people would be able to cast charms for you, forecast your future, and
cast curses and whatnot on your troublesome neighbors.
He argues that a) a local intiate or priest would not be willing to curse
one member of his 'flock' for another, b) on Earth you can't swing a dead
cat without hitting four or five palm-readers or Psychic Friends, and c)
there are some magics which 'need' to be done but which 'don't require' a
priest or cult shaman.
Laying aside the question of whether it's reasonable to argue that something
First and foremost, just about everybody can cast magic in Glorantha. A lot
should be true on Glorantha because it's true on Earth, the rest of Martin's
arguments can be answered, I think, as follows.
of the minor "mischief" magic can probably be handled either by yourself or
your family or your friends. The lack of minor divination (ie, tea reading)
or 'curdle milk' spells in RuneQuest doesn't necessarily mean they don't
exist in Glorantha.
Second, most regions of Glorantha have a mix of cultural influences. Sartar
Thirdly, there are always the wandering 'Adventurers' or Evil Sorcerers to
Fourthly, local Trickster cultists are going to be more than happy to cause
has a large number of Orlanthi, but there is also a large contingent of
Lunars. In these regions, you can get the "other guys" (Evil or not) to
cast spells on your neighbors, if they have the appropriate disposition.
do this sort of thing for you.
whatever trouble you might be willing to pay for and/or suggest, not to
mention being perfectly happy to lie to you about your future. :)
I think the important thing here isn't "who fulfills the role of independant
magician", though. I think the important question is, "what do you mean by
independant magician"?
In the examples Martin brought up (that I can remember) he suggested cursing
Do you need a minor oracle when you can go and ask the Lankor Mhy (or
I think what you really want is an expansion of the Spirit magic spells
Besides, in a magic-rich environment like Glorantha too much of this curse
your neighbor, getting your palm read, or getting a love charm as the sorts
of things an independant magician would do. How much cursing of your
neighbor do you really need? In a small village of 100 people or so is
there enough work for even a single independant worker of magic who curses
people's cows, spreads bad luck, or makes a healing poultice? I'm not sure
there is. Especially not when there's an initiate or priest who can knit
bones back together and your grandmother can heal one point wounds (heal)
and your dad can kill rats by thinking at them (disruption).
whomever is in charge of divination) priest/intiate? There are a lot of
people on modern Earth who will tell you your future (by phone yet!), but
there is also a suspcious lack of nationwide organized religions that can
actually fortell the future. The same is not true on Glorantha.
available to include some more of the sorts of magic that "Typical Fantasy"
stories attribute to wandering gypsies or old hags or malicious dwarfs who
can spin straw into gold. This isn't necessarily a bad idea, but it's also
not necessarily going to mesh with established Gloranthan Dogma (at this
point I expect MGF will get invoked :)
your neighbor and love charm kind of thing and the local constabulary is
going to cast a divination of their own to find out who is causing all the
trouble.
Dane
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