From: Colin Watson (watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk)
Date: Thu 11 Nov 1993 - 17:09:50 EET
>CW>A reasonable premise. Is there a Good Reason for this?
>Culturally biased as I currently am, yes, there is. Creation is the
>domain of the Invisible God in his Creator aspect. If any magician
>could do the same, why have a creator?
It's a matter of scale. It takes a god (or many gods) to create a world, but perhaps a man would be capable of small creations. I think any independent sorceress worth her salt would consider herself to have the potential for god-hood. Start small, aim big.
>And there is the cost for permanent effects of magic. I doubt a mere
>mortal's soul would give enough material for 1 ENC of any substance
>while being burned off totally.
I feel otherwise. To be game-mechanicky: I reckon 1 point of permanent POW sacrificed should, in theory, suffice to create 1 point of SIZ or thereabouts. There might be some variation, but I think that this is the correct order of magnitude. Consider the yield of the Tap spell... it leads me to suspect that spirit may even be worth more than base substance. (But this could just be a game-balance thing ;-)
I'm willing to admit that it should take a lot of *MP* for a permanent creation. Mind you, 30+ duration is as good as permanent in Glorantha. :)
>If you go the runic way, to create anything within time you must master
>the (time-defying) Infinity rune. Held by the Invisible God, Arachne
>Solara and Flamal, all three of them active creators.
I agree, this sounds very reasonable. But it's conceivable that a sorcerer could gain some small control over the Infinity rune IMO.
[...my lengthy explanation of how creation spells might work...]
>Then I'd call it "Summon (substance)". The substance provided would be
>taken away somewhere else along the fibre.
BTW I think a generic Summon(substance) spell is a potential can-of-worms; Summon(Gold) Summon(Diamond) etc. you can see the problem... I'd restrict it to creating pure elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water etc. This way you don't destroy the economics of your campaign. (I also think, in this case, it would be best to lay down the specific effects for each spell rather than just have a general "1 enc per intensity" rule or whatever.)
>CW>...Phantom (sense) is an active spell for creating complex things.
>CW>I was thinking more of creating simple substances (elements) which did not
>CW>require active concentration to maintain.
>
>Hmm. If I had a matrix with a trigger condition, who would have to
>concentrate to keep up the phantom?
My opinion is that active spells flop unless the caster concentrates. Matrices with triggering conditions can effectively cast themselves but they have no inherent ability to concentrate on a spell to maintain it. So triggering conditions only really work with passive spell matrices. If you want an item which can maintain an active spell by itself then you have to bind an appropriate spirit (which can concentrate indefinitely thus maintaining the spell).
I wonder how other people treat active spells. If you cast an active spell,
say Fly, you can fly for as long as you concentrate on the spell. If you
stop concentrating then you stop flying, but does the spell actually end?
I thought it did, but other people are of the opinion that the spell
runs for its full duration so you can "re-start" your concentration and take-
off again as many times as you like for the duration of the spell. How do
you play active spells?
(I realise that there are some special cases eg. Dominate, where the spell
begins as active, but becomes passive once the commands are given).
___
CW.
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