From: Nils Hammer (nh0g+@andrew.cmu.edu)
Date: Mon 11 Oct 1993 - 15:35:02 EET
I like people's ideas about the spirit plane, but It should certainly
have a more complex terrain than a surface map of Gorantha. I think of
it as a "hypertext".
In addition to the choice of moving away from your farm towards the woods, you could move along the path of "cowness" towards the spirit-source of all cows. Or through the hearth fire towards the spirit-center of the fire rune, from there you then come out at some other fire. This lets you take huge shortcuts around glorantha if you can see the connections and know how to follow them. The innocent who does not know what they are doing will probably follow one of these paths by mistake and get horribly lost.
I also think that the terrain does not have the same shape as glorantha. I was inspired many years ago by a National Geographic article that had distorted maps of the world according to national oil production and oil consumption. I envision an ancient forest in the mundane plane as being many times larger on the spirit plane. Likewise the "dead place" where magic does not work is probably one small unpleasant spot on the spirit plane.
When traveling on the spirit plane consider the runic affiliations (if any) of the travelers. and the mundane skills they have. Movement should be easier within a place you can claim affiliation with, and more difficult if you have a runic opposition.
ex: Seeing that the spirit-plane adventure party is surrounded by broo, the orlanthi initiate says "follow me" and climbs up on a rock. Reciting orlanthi stories he feels around for a wind. Finding one he walks onto the air, holds hands with his comrades and says Run!
Mundane skills, even ones not written on the character sheet, could be used to base your spirit-plane navigation. Hunters may be familiar with the woods, and if they are decent, they will not be on bad terms with prey animals.
ex: Clio the whip lady, a sorceress and party girl, has been dumped in the center of spirit-plain Beast-ness by a jealous trickster during a dream. Confused by the environment, she asks the GM to let her roll against her INT (18)x3 to recognize anything costing 1 MP per try. Eventually she recognizes cows. Aha! she grew up on a farm. She does things cows like, reciting her good memories of cows. This lets her follow them to the center of cow-ness. Here she bargains for help, expending MPs while doing whatever constitutes cow-care. Her new cow-spirit guide hears from her about the cows she thinks are closest to her mundane plane body. Once in the neighborhood, she can say goodby to the cows and find her way to her own body by straight navigation. Waking up from a bad dream, she finds that she has been dressed in a cow costume and can't find the fasteners.
Now, I understand that my blatherings here are not a system. I just want to emphasize that the spirit-plane should be different from the mundane plane.
Nils K. Hammer
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