Gods'n'spirits; Various stuff

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From: Colin Watson (watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk)
Date: Thu 07 Oct 1993 - 14:31:48 EET

My incomming email seems slightly screwed at the moment so I'm reading the Daily from soda.berekeleye (did I get all the e's this time?)... Henk, the email problem isn't at your end, is it?


Geoff:
> The idea of transferring myself physically into the SP I'm having a lot of
> problems with ( e=mc^2, after all! The physical can't exist on the spiritual,
> so where does it go ? Saved up as raw energy for the transfer back ?

The physical (SIZ) is left behind in the mundane world. Everything else STR, CON etc (or at least POW+INT+APP) is transferred into the spirit world. This is how I see discorporation working. The shaman leaves his body (SIZ) behind.

> And transferral the other way (i.e. Demonic appearence) has the same problems.
> But note - the use of energy to create mass might account for the temperature
> drop/rise present at so many mythical happenings. Anyone help me out of this
> hole I've dug myself ?

I'd say when demons are summoned from the spirit plane some substance (SIZ) must be provided for them to form bodies (just like elementals). Demons summoned from the God Plane might already have bodies however. __

>re: Colin Watson saying that Ghosts never acheive that state without help from
>the living ..
>*WHAT !??!* Loose all those lovely traditions of hauntings because of a
>horrible crime, or unfulfilled life, and so on ? If there's one gripe I have
>with RQ it's that it falls down heavily on the supernatural. I want fear,
>terror, dread of the dark ! If it's just another monster to bash, that flies
>out of the window as the players start to figure out how to kill it.

Sorry, it *wasn't* me who said the bit about Ghosts! (Someone must have quoted me before saying it, or something. You got the wrong man, guv. Would the real culprit now stand up..?) I'm quite happy to have "naturally" occurring ghosts. Would you say the process was voluntary? I'd like to have a better idea of the conditions under which a haunting will take place.
__

>And in a previous letter I mentioned using physical skills on the spirit plane.
>This is because I want to send players into there and not have them torn apart
>by the first bunny rabbit...

I'm all for PCs adventuring on the spirit plane, but I don't think it should be made too easy for them. New arrivals on the spirit plane will almost be as helpless has new-born mundane creatures. SP adventuring is really for Professionals: ie Shamans. If, somehow, other PCs could enter the SP then they would be wise to travel under the protection of a Shaman (the same way that Shamans are protected by warriors on the Mundane Plane). Just 'cos a PC is a mighty warrior in the Mundane world, I don't see why he should be equally mighty in the spirit world. Quite the opposite IMHO. A *group* of PC spirits who are willing to cooperate could be quite powerful - they could gang up on solitary Spirit entities. I'm not sure of the mechanics for multiple spirit combats. Anyone got any ideas? I think spirit alliances could make interesting politics on the SP. Why do spirits have to be solitary? I think intelligent spirits would band together for mutual security etc.
[BTW I think bunny spirits would be as non-aggressive as corporeal bunnies:-)]

>The idea of 'outer' and 'inner` spirit planes completely escapes me - why not
>just regionalise the SP, like terrain has places where bad dudes hang out ?

Yup, I agree. IMO Outer & Inner are just abstract concepts used in the encounter tables to simulate different geographical regions of the SP.

>And re: Colin Watson's comment 'what happens if you break an object with a
>spirit in into pieces - does each pebble have a spirit ?'
>If I break you into pieces, does your hand have a spirit ? Your nose ? No.

This is exactly my problem. I can understand that a human spirit stays with the "living part" of a body. But what is the "living part" of a place? (Well, I guess you could say that the living part of a place is where the spirit is! So some, special, Mundane features might appear on the Spirit Plane - but not every rock and stream... I could almost go for this).

>I agree, not every inanimate thing has to have a spirit, but an awful lot of
>cultures early on in our history did think so.

But they weren't playing RQIII. :-)

>So if my Telmori believes that
>the little pebble he sat on earlier has a spirit and my Sorcerer thinks it
>doesn't, who's right ?

This is the crux of the matter. Obviously, from a players point of view, it's good to have differing viewpoints to roleplay. But what's the Objective Truth of the matter? From a GMing perspective its useful to have an Objective view of the way things *Really Are*. Mind you, in mythic Glorantha it's possible that there is no Objective Truth - maybe each subjective belief is correct. So the Telmori and the Sorcerer are both right. It all depends what you believe.
I hate this kinda thing. :-)


Dave (Cake):
>I prefer to think that most of the
>summonable creatures with bodies are summoned from the GP, and that the GP has
>some sort of physical existence.

Yes, I heartily agree with this.


Mounted combat (charging):
The rules do have some notes about Opportunity Strikes: where you hit moving targets as they pass by (a lot sooner than your normal SR). This should allow the victim of a charge to strike back (assuming he's not crippled). I agree you have to use a certain amout of common sense when dealing with SRs and Statements of Intent.

Simon (Hibbs):
>2. Of course rivers and mountains have spirits! These spirits/deities
>are the Mythical consequence of the _worldly_function_ of the thing, and are
>_not_ simply a result of it's mere material substance. They do not inhabit
>the stream/mountain in the way that a living being does, though they may
>manifest within it at times.

So, what do they look like on the spirit plane? How do they APPear? Do they look like Mountains & Rivers? Or not? This is what I'd like to get ironed out.


Paul (Reilly):
> Dave Cake brings up the example of River Gods & spirits as creatures that
>exist on the God and Mundane planes simultaneously.
> Many gods are like this.
> Orlanth's body is made of the great circulating winds of Glorantha.
> Yelm IS the Sun.

This is another thing that I can't reconcile with The Compromise. In Theory the Gods are bound not to interact directly with mortals. But what about someone who dies from severe sunstroke? Yelm IS the Sun. Yelm killed them. Directly. Yelm gets a 15 yard penalty for unnecessary roughness?

Some people *believe* Yelm IS the sun. But that don't necessarily make it so. Maybe he's really only the Sun in the God Plane?


Protective Circle:
>Somebody replied to my solicitation for comment on Protective Circle.

'twas I.

>Why would the caster want to make the intensity of the Prot
>Circle *larger* than the radius of the inscribed circle, if the
>effect cannot extend beyond the circle?

I was just assuming that all the multispelled spells would be of the same intensity. I guess this isn't necessarily the case. It might be worth making this explicit.

>CW>to scribe the circle (say DEX SR + 2 SR per m radius)."
>Hmmm....this doesn't quite work as a formula. The result is that
>the larger the circle, the faster the sorcerer can move while
>inscribing it!
???
>Dex SR + 2SR per M of DIAMETER is what we need.

Radius, Diameter, Circumference what's the odds? They're all proportional. I don't really mind the how you detail the formula, so long as it's simple. ___
CW.

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