From: Rich McAllister (rfm@Eng.Sun.COM)
Date: Mon 21 Jan 1991 - 09:56:33 EET
In RQ digest 05#05, Countzero
<JAMES%POLY-EAST-LONDON.AC.UK@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
asked about RQ vampires:
> In my third edition GDW creatures book, it says under the entry for
> Vampires that they would make potent sorcerers. In glorantha, however
> Vampires operate to some extent through the Vivamort cult...
> ... so whats with this sorcery thing? Is it a "generic
> RQ" nasty? Comments please...
This definitely looks like a "de-Gloranthization" change.
I've been thinking recently that there ought to be non-Vivamort vampires, even in Glorantha. The Vivamort connection makes it rather hard to have somewhat-sympathetic vampires in the modern mold (like in Quinn Yarbro's Saint-Germain historical vampire novels.) So it would make sense to invent "biological" vampires as well as the "divine" Vivamort vampires. Such creatures, with long lifespans for study, would indeed make potent sorcerers.
Even without introducing vampires as a race, with judicious use of some of the nastier sorcery spells like Immortality and Tap a sorcerer could turn himself into a pretty close equivalent of a vampire. I suspect that your typical Humakt or Storm Bull worshipper wouldn't bother to draw a distinction between a sorcery-vampire and a Vivamort-vampire.
In any case, is there a general prohibition in the RQ3 materials against god-worshippers/priests learning sorcery? Most of the Gloranthan cults seem to prohibit it, but Vivamort's enough different in other ways that the cult might not object. Note that the Elder Races dwarf writeup has dwarves using sorcery, and they're god-worshippers (Mostal being kind of a weird god as well.)
[Note that Mostali (dwarves) use sorcery exclusively.]
Rich
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