From: Joerg Baumgartner (joe@toppoint.de)
Date: Fri 30 Aug 1996 - 00:55:00 EEST
Sorry for all that rules stuff. Some Gloranthan content is promised...
Sandy Petersen replied to my
>>wizards are even better able to command spirits quickly than are
>>full shamans under RQ3, who have to defeat the spirit by leaving
>>their body, beating it to zero MP and then capture that useless
>>bundle of spiritual energy used up - the wizard just tries until one
>>of his 1-point Dominate spells does the job.
> This comment makes me suspect that you have not tried this in
>practice, Joerg. Consider the following points:
I know that I tried to run each of a shaman apprentice and a beginning
shaman against spirits, and an experienced sorcerer. Only the latter ever
stood a slight chance...
>chance of resisting a 1-point Dominate.
The beauty of this powergaming trick is that with a multispelled Dominate 1
the statistical chance is a lot better than the linear chance you
calculated. Already after five tries your wizard has a 22% chance to have
succeeded at least once, which is enough, and by far quicker than to beat it
down to zero MP. As soon as the critter's POW is greater than 12, this pays off.
>It will take the wizard an
>average of 18 tries to successfully Dominate the critter.
You failed your statistics roll. It takes 14 rolls to get a 50% chance to
dominate the critter (0.95 ** 14 is the counter-probability for any these
rolls to succeed).
I'll skip the other rulesy stuff here.
>>a Rokari wizard is well able to provide a protective circle with
>>Spirit Resistance, and with the appropriate equipment (religious
>>symbols, even better relics) even should be able to banish spirits
>>that haunt his parish.
> Hmm. About that protective circle ... a reasonably mighty
>wizard can put up a Protective Circle with a strength approximately
>equal to the average evil spirit's POW -- remember that a typical
>spook is usually in the 16-17 range. This means that when the spirit
>attacks the Rokari wizard, fully half the time it won't be able to
>attack in spirit combat (because it will fail to overcome the Resist
>Spirit). And I'm sure that it will never think of casting a
>Neutralize Magic, or of just wandering away much much faster than the
>wizard can move his circle.
That Neutralize Magic (a sorcery spell) has about the same chance to succeed
Wandering away is about the desired effect, isn't it?
as has the Dominate. The spirit will be hard put to produce a Dispel Magic
16, really. Sorry, there is a (maybe not-so-large) loop-hole in "da roolz as
written" here.
When I said banish, I wasn't thinking of an ordinary spell anyway, but
rather a relic-using Saintly Intervention.
> Wow! Joerg, now I can see why wizards are so much more
>effective vs. spirits than shamans. Add to this their utter inability
>to exorcise a spirit from any possessed individual, and I'd never
>want to have a shaman around again!
Ok, it is impossible to Dominate a possessed individual of any kind (unless
you have the spell "Dominate disease-spirit possessed human", which should
be extremely rare). It is possible, however, to Dominate a spirit to attack
the possessing spirit, let it win spirit combat thanks to its Spirit
Resistance and take over, and then order it to leave the body.
> Seriously, wizards are at a _severe_ handicap vs. spirits, as
>we ought to know by looking at the record of the wars of the West.
>Traditionally, the most deadly foes of the Malkioni have always been
>shamanistic cultures.
You mean the Basmoli kingdoms of their Dawn Age wars? I have to disappoint
you. There is some information on them in an unpublished, but ancient
Glorantha source I happened to bid for this Convulsion (the "Book of Kings").
The Pendali (as the grandchildren of Basmalt were called after Pendal,
Basmalt's son with the dryad Aelra, compare Enerali/Galanini in Ralios from
the Broken Council Guide) were about as civilized as were the Malkioni of
Frowal and Neleoswal. They ruled their land from cities, and had about as
good agriculture as had the people of King Froalar. They had more of the
native gods on their side than had the Malkioni (until Prince Hrestol became
a knight, slew Penadal's wife Ifftala, the daughter of Seshna Likita, and
King Froalar on his rescue mission for his son made a pact with Seshna
Likita leading to his alliance with the land, the Serpent King dynasty, and
Hrestol's exile) and had numerical superiority as well. The entire kingdom
of Frowal was founded on a land grant given by one of the Pendali kings to
Malkion during the Darkness (=Ice Age).
During the Darkness, the Malkioni enclaves of Frowal and Neleoswal on the
west coast of the Seshnelan peninsula and the Pendali kingdoms on its
southern shore and towards the lands which later became Arolanit. (To locate
them in modern sunk Seshnela, Neleoswal covered about the islands of Ginorth
to Guebelle and straight south, and Frowal is shown on the Castle Coast as
ruins. The Pendali Kingdoms formed a semi-circle around these two Malkioni
realm (separated by Kanthor's Forest) reaching from the Kanthor island
featuring the plant rune over the Pasos Islands towards the Iron Mountains,
including the Tanisoran duchies of Estaurenic, Noyelle and Vogai plus the
western half of Tanisor. The Basmol ruins could have been the last refuge of
the easternmost Pendali kingdom. More about them below...)
The Pendali were organized in five separate kingdoms, once again similar to
the Enerali who ruled east of them (and who are quite well detailed in the
Broken Council Guide). Each of the kingdoms had been founded by one of the
sons of Pendal, and three still were ruled by their founders at the Dawn.
Their kingdoms and capitals were named after the founders, like Orphalsland
and Orphalsket for the westernmost Pendali kingdom. Each kingdom had several
more cities, also named their noble founder plus -ket. (The Malkioni-founded
cities are all named -wal.)
The Pendali were quite civilized. They had good access to the magics of the
land through their ancestress, Ifftala, and were ruled by descendants of
Pendal, their founding god. When Froalar (the younger son of Talar) arrived
with his followers from Brithos (where he had left to avoid civil war
between his more numerous followers and those of his older brother), the
ruler of the central Pendali kingdom granted a little settled strip of land
at the harsh northwestern coast to the newcomers. This must have been during
the Lesser Darkness, aka Ice Age. During the Greater Darkness, forces of
Darkness invaded Seshnela from the East (Zorak Zoran after his destruction
of Flamal at Hrelar Amali?), and slew some of the Pendali kings and peoples,
who nevertheless persisted.
The Malkioni kingdom had to struggle as well, but it came out of the
Darkness in about as good shape as did the Pendali kingdoms. Troubles with
the Pendali began around the Dawn, when resettling efforts led to rivalries
about the border lands. When one Malkioni lord slew a rival suitor (a
Pendali king) for a Pendali noble's daughter in a supposedly non-lethal
(Pendali) ritual combat, war broke out, and the righteously enraged Pendali
swept the outnumbered and outmagicked Malkioni from the battlefields.
What is interesting about this conflict is its cause. The fact that a
Malkioni lord would have married a Pendali princess indicates that they
regarded the Pendali as their social equals, though different through their
ancestry. The Pendali do have their own pecularities, like the taboo to ride
horses after their ancestor Pendal once had been beaten unconscious by a
horse. In later encounters during their losing war against the Serpent King
dynasty they did use chariots, though.
Only one of the Pendali kingdom did actively use lions in their battles.
This was the kingdom of Kaanilland, the easternmost kingdom, and last to
resist the encroaching Malkioni. Of the other kingdoms, three had been
conquered, and one had submitted and been turned into a Seshnegi earldom,
apparently without any cultural difficulties.
After their betrayal by their ancestress Seshna Likita (who did not avenge
the death of her daughter Ifftala), the Pendali looked for other deities to
aid them against the Malkioni, and at different times in different kingdoms
worshipped Kraaljiid, a god of Darkness; Yelm, a sun god; Aerlit, a storm
god, and their own ancestor Basmalt.
During their wars against the Malkioni, the Pendali produced one set of
divine children of their lion ancestor Basmalt. These were born to the
sister of one of their kings who disappeared one day, to be found again only
later. Her three children became the greatest warrior, the greatest sorcerer
(sic) and the greatest witch of the Pendali, and they directed much of the
Pendali resistance against the Serpent King dynasty, inflicting great
desasters upon the Malkioni. Their manipulative treatment of those Pendali
kings who dared to have their own policy did cause much of their losses, though.
After three of the five Pendali kingdoms had fallen, only the easternmost
kingdoms of Jorilland Kaanilland remained free from the Seshnegi, as the
Malkioni called themselves by this time. The kingdom of Kaanilland had
earlier conquered parts of Tanisor, but failed to hold them in a two-fronted
war against both Tanisor and Seshnela as their king became senile. His
successor was remarkable by the fact that he and his band of noble warrior
supporters kept pet lions which they trained to cooperate in battle. He also
introduced the worship of Yelm to his kingdom (at about the same time
Jorilland turned to Yelm worship, and used chariots and bows in battle).
When the Serpent Kings finally invaded his lands and his fellow kingdom
failed to support him, the warrior king went to his enemy who, impressed by
the bravery, granted him one request. The Pendali king took those of his
people who would follow him (the vast majority) and left the lands conquered
by the Malkioni to settle in Tanisor. This he and his people did for a
while, but then the Tanisorans gathered to strike back and pushed them
further east into the savage lands of the Mislari Mountains. When the land
prevented a proper kingdom to grow, the people resorted to cruder and more
primitive means of existance. After their king and his lion kin had chosen
to be entombed below a (city looking like a) mountain (compare Genertela
Book p.79, Basmol Ruins), the last unconquered Pendali had reached the
primitive stage and were barely recognizable as their former race. They were
called the lion-men, for they retained the friendship and partial control of
the beasts, and lived in their mountain savagery undisturbed for years.
This much for the apocryphal stuff on the Basmoli and their not so Hsunchen
origin...
What other "shamanistic" cultures were the nemesis of the Malkioni? The
Ok, the Fronelan Malkioni did have problems with the White Bear Empire in
Doraddi in Pamaltela? The Praxian beast riders?
the early 3rd Age, built around a powerful leader called Black Hralf the
Weasel. However, this realm was a deviation from shamanic ways (as were the
great counter-movements of the Doraddi against outer enemies) and IMO/AFAIK
also used sorcery of the demon-calling kind (nameless Man, Gate of Banir
etc), similar to its precedessors among the great enemies of the Malkioni,
which were the Vadeli, the Pendali, the Tanisoran Vampire Kings, and the
Stygian Empire.
Note that, in this context, I use the term "sorcery" as "gaining magic from
personal power as well as from any god or demon which will answer an
invocation." This kind of old Kingdom of Logic wizardry seems to have spread
before the expansion of the Malkioni way (Solace, castes, proper conduct
etc) into the east all the time. The Blue People of Peloria turn out to be
adherents of a Kingdom of Logic, and sorcerers. The Tanisoran kingdom uses
sorcery against King Gerlant, and is only defeated when the superior
sorcerers from Brithos come to Genertela. The Waertagi used wizards' magic
plus their sea demons and ruled the seas until the Jrusteli wiped them off
it in the battle of Tanian's Victory. The Stygian Empire has taken
mainstream Malkioni wizardry and merged it with native Ralian and trollish
concepts, and is regarded as hardly or even non-Malkioni by a majority of
the winners (Middle Sea Empire) and their descendants (modern Seshnela).
Except for Akem/Loskalm, the main foes of the Malkioni seem always to have
been sorcerers, not shamans.
If you look at the scarce material we have about the early Malkioni/Brithini
and the Kingdom of Logic, the wizards were magicians who knew all the gods
of the land, but worshipped none. (The material we have is the God Learner
history of Glorantha in Cults of Terror, the stuff on Gods and Goddesses of
Glorantha in Wyrm's Footnotes/Footprints, and various hidden mentions in
other texts, like e.g. the Monomyth in GoG.) They did bargain with the local
deities, or did even summon them (Cthulhu-style?), but never worshipped
them. The most powerful wizards (like e.g. Ostorious Archmagus, or more
recently Argin Terror) could command lesser gods to do their bidding, being
quite similar to the shamans of Nomad Gods in this respect.
However, I do agree that the Rokari village wizard _should_ be less
effective against roaming spirits or demons than a Kolating (acolyte, in
Nomad Gods rating?) shaman from the Storm Mountains of similar experience.
This should manifest in the rules, and not so much by making the wizard even
less effective than he already is, but by making the (lesser) shaman's
interactions with spirits more playable, and a bit more powerful. A new
mechanic for spirit combat with a couple more options for embodied
participants trained to do this would do the trick, and even render the
"Control <(Otherworld Entity) Species>" spirit magic spell useful in actual
play for less powerful shamans or advanced shamanic acolytes.
All IMO...
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