From: DevinC@aol.com
Date: Fri 01 Jul 1994 - 17:12:08 EEST
Devin Cutler here:
David Dunham writes:
On the other hand, their cult does provide them with more than it appears. As I play it, you can learn spirit magic from any associated cult. This still leaves spells you can't learn. Frex, Orlanth worshippers can't learn Multimissile. (Kind of a shame, them having slings and all.)"
If I were high priest of a cult, I'd certainly have my priests concentrate on summoning spell spirits (not via Spellteaching..but via the normal way) and combatting them to learn non-cult and non-associated spirit magic. This woudl not only increase the power of my cult and, more importantly, my initiates, but it would raise revenue by encouraging pilgrimages.
In my campaign, temples do this, and they keep the True Names of their defeated Spell Spirits secret, even from other temples in the cult. It is matter of prestige for the Yelmalio Shrine outside of Greydog that they know a Spell Spirit that can teach Bladesharp 6.
Why wouldn't temples collect Spell Spirits of non-cult spells so that they get access to those other neat spells?
Gary James writes:
"I have never the liked the idea of priests and priestesses spending x
days in the temple to regain their rune magic. "
In River of Cradles in the Troubled Waters scenario, it seems that the PCs get Rune Magic back simply by worshipping at a holy ceremony. IMO, this is a better way for priests to regain Rune Magic. I.e., they merely worship at a weekly ceremony (prehaps with a Ceremony roll).
Alex writes:
"> "Probably partially true, but in many cases the Spirit of Reprisal will be
> summonned/invoked by a high priest, rather than dreaming it up all by
itself,
> or doing so under direct orders from God HQ."
> I could actually see it happening both ways.
I could have sworn I just said that."
I know. I was agreeing with you in my own demented way ;-)
"This doesn't preclude _not_ being devout, then, and still performing them
correctly. Please check the direction of that implication arrow carefully."
OK, take two. "Only if I am devout can I perform the rituals correctly."
"CA is still
their only source of reusable resurrection, though."
In CoP, Deezola had reusable Resurrection, When was THIS changed?
"Why would we assume this, if one follows the RQ2 pattern of priests having
~18m POW? This would mean less than one POW per year. At this rate of
sacrifice, you'll be lucky to _be_ a High Healer at 30."
"
"Only" half of her POW? What about all the other "easy magical healing"
she's supposed to be doing?"
A CA needs less of the other healing magics. Why? They are not time critical in general. In any case, Sandy's (and Jeorg's) argument that CA don't have time to gain back too many Resurrection spells at one time puts it to paid anyways.
"At 1/2 of her spells, and 1 POW per year, 5 uses at age 60."
One POW per year is way too low. Priests get a Seasonal Ceremony skill to gain a POW gain roll.
"Even though it was all caused by Eurmal?"
Well, even Eurmal likes his jokes to be original I would imagine. Resurrection over and over again is commonplace, lacks panache, as is boring.
"I agree. The 3% is conspicuously high."
We don't agree (surprise, surprise), in presented material, the 3% rate is way too low.
"I don't think Gloranthan disease is exactly
"easily" healable: note that characteristic loss to disease (or otherwise)
can obly be healed with one-use rune magic. And death by characteristic
loss is not reversable."
As the disease rules now stand, it is almost impossible to die or even lose much in the way of stats from disease. We probably both agree (what?) that disease in RQ3 is horribly broken.
"Except that when we get a nice, _juicy_ source of tension like the Elmal/
Yelmalio schism, certain parties Whine Incessantly about it. (No names,
no pack drill. (What does that _mean_, anyway?))"
"Other than as a POW-fuelled knee-jerk, to use your own (faulty) model?"
In what way have I claimed that DI SHOULD BE a POW-fuelled knee-jerk. I have been writing about DI complaining that the rules make it far too common (i.e. knee-jerk) and IMO, RQ2 and RQ3 DI makes it far too uninteresting. I much prefer the sound of RQAiG DI, wherein the beneficiary gets Divine Magic from hsi god/goddess.
In any case, I find it interesting that you are assuming I am for knee-jerk DI when I am against it. Please give me a quote wherein I have advocated this approach.
"To the point where we should have One True Cults (or at any rate, only
Devin-Approved Variations, a distinction I'm somewhat hazy on), robotically
devoted worshippers, and Thought Police deities, seemingly."
My, we ARE getting nasty aren't we? I should be getting used to the friendly repartee on this net by now!
Excuse me for putting forth my point that I see a different Glorantha than you. I know this makes me scum...but I will try to live on with myself.
Obviously, I am not calling for "Devin-approved version" although certainly I would favour any approach that more closely followed my vision of Glorantha (who wouldn't want things to work out their way?).
Fine, you see Robotic Devoted worshippers and Thought Police Gods.
I see Devoted worshippers who are willing to live, fight, and die for their
gods, who provide the essence of their existence in a magically rich
environment. I see Gods who are conscious entities, rather than the figments
of their worshippers' imaginations, and who take an active role in those who
serve them and in the world and universe in which they exist.
I could rephrase your quote as:
"To the point where we should have No True Cults (or at any rate, no
"I'm arguing that since most historic earth cultures _believed_ they had
"actual gods and actual magic", your differences seem to be predicated on
your conviction that ancient earth was remarkably like the present day, only
with less well developed NNTP facilities. Not the kind of place where
hardened pragmatist nations of warriors would wait a couple of weeks for the
correct phase of the moon before marching to the aid of their allies at
a crucial moment of a war, or spend thousands of man-years of effort on
raising mausolea to the dead, or conducting human sacrifice, or going to
war about which holy book to use, or anything so senselessly devout as
that. How the hell much more devoted do you _want_?"
Not comparing ancient man to modern man. You haven't been paying attention Alex. Am saying that Gloranthans have cause to be MORE devoted than the admittedly devoted ancient Terrans.
"I wonder why about half of Gloranthan history doesn't give Devin hives:
fancy all those Devout worshippers wanting to do such Naughty Things, and
fancy their gods _letting_ them."
To what "Naughty Things" do you refer?
"Are you listening, at all? Didn't I just say "in playing their characters
_accurately_"? _Obviously_ the Orlanthi believe in their magic; this isn't
contingent on it being any "truer" than any historical earthly belief."
Trying to listen. Don't get the distinction, Try again.
"We're talking about the reality of magic in general, aren't we? Does the
description seem much different from the description of magic in "historical"
myths?"
KoS is not the end all and be all of Glorantha, and I will not restrict my view of Glorantha and Gloranthan society to one book. Gloranthan magical reality involves the casting of spells as a widespread, universal, common everyday occurance. This does not occur in ancient earth. I don't give a hoot if KoS doesn't illustrate or involve these personal magics. KoS is telling its story on a such a grand scale that such things have been ignored. That does not mean they do not exist or occur in Glorantha.
"I was trying to wean you away from the attitude of "Magic Works, Look, the
Rules Say So. Let's Reverse Engineer A Suitable Culture." Hopeless task,
evidently. Does the culture described in KoS sound like one which is only
consistent with mechanistic magic, and divine edict at every turn?"
Believe it or not, we get a lot of our Gloranthan info from the rules. The rules tell me that everyone in Sartar knows Spirit Magic and casts these regularly, without too much effort. KoS doesn't contradict this, it merely ignored it due to scale.
Once again, if you are complaining in my view of magic as following the RQ rules, then what do you propose in its place? The rules indicate that Sartarites all know Spirit Magic, it is cheap to obtain, commonplace, easy to cast, has very tangible effects, etc. Which of these characteristics, as presented in the rules, do you think is wrong for Glorantha?
"What about the Eternal Battle?"
"To wit, a big hole in the ground which had, to that point, had two dead
people in it. This, according your previous reasoning, is not a Hard Fact,
but an Easily Discountable Myth, in any case. Your point?"
"To wit, spirit-plane manifestations of dead folks. From the point of view
of _theists_, this is somewhere between cold comfort, and a Dire Warning."
Fine, Dire Warnings do well to promote devoutness.
"Guess someone was Slacking when Faltikus was appointed, non?"
Guess illuminates are different, non?
Crhis Cooke writes:
"If there is any interest, I can post the background and history of the 7
core
PC's along with a campaign update."
I personally am always interested in reading other cmapaign writeups.
Sandy writes:
"Note that CA initiates
probably get killed more often than other peaceful cults -- not as
often as Storm Bull or Humakt, but certainly more commonly than
Mastakos, Ernalda, or Lhankor Mhy, since they are on frequent call to
accompany warriors into battle. Of course, the initiates probably get
first call on Resurrections, but still ..."
But since few enemies would knowingly harm a CA healer, you would think that the injury/death rate would be lower for CA, except when fighting Chaos.
Regards,
Devin Cutler
devinc@aol.com
Regards,
Devin Cutler
devinc@aol.com
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