From: Sandy Petersen (sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com)
Date: Thu 10 Nov 1994 - 07:42:37 EET
Colin Wilson
> As I see it there are two issues:
> #1/ What it takes to bind a spirit
> #2/ What you can do with the spirit when it's in a binding
enchantment.
Tragically, here I must take issue with Colin. I believe that the use you can make of spirits is NOT part of their binding enchantment, and that all binding enchantments are much the same. The differences between Intellect, Power, and Magic spirits I believe to be part of the spirits themselves, some inherent variation in their genus. The original intent of the rules change in RQ III making different types of spirits was to have a diverse spirit fauna, and having different kinds of "Bindings" isn't the same at all, merely muddlig the issue.
>The current rules imply that the use of MP/INT/spells is a peculiar
>quirk of the spirit itself which only manifests when the spirit is
>bound. That's what I don't like. It's too contrived.
In the first place, I see no reason why the use of Power and Intellect spirits "only manifests when they're bound". My shamans use them all the time, including them in their fetch. Since when you use a Power or Intellect (or Magic spirit for that matter), you don't have to unleash it from your fetch in some sort of attack, I play that shamans can quite contentedly hold them till the cows come home.
No doubt there's something that Power and Intellect spirits can do on the spirit plane that we don't normally have use for in the "real world". I have some suggestions along those lines.
I believe that Power spirits have the ability to drain MPs out of the loser in a spirit combat (and the reverse is also probably true -- beating a Power spirit in spirit combat allows the victor to drain its MPs to restore his own). Now, normally when you beat a spirit, its MPs are at 0, so this ability is useless. But since I play that reducing a spirit to 10 points less than your own MPs counts as a "win" for purposes of binding, possessing, and even covertly possessing the victim, if a Power spirit was very strong it could use this ability in an interesting way. The small Power spirits we normally encounter are presumably "baby" ones, or fragments of stronger ones.
I believe that when a person "forgets" a spirit spell (or a sorcery spell for that matter), it doesn't just go away -- this would violate the Gloranthan law of Conservation of Magic. Instead, Intellect spirits "absorb" such a spell, incorporating it into their mind. Then they transport it back to the source of such magic, where it can be re-incorporated into a spell spirit or whatever. Thus they are a part of the Gloranthan magic ecology. Their ability to hold spells which others can use is simply a useful side effect.
Mark Hansen:
>Who is Urox?
He is Storm Bull.
>Who is Gagarth, the Wild Hunter?
He is NOT a hunter cult. He is a cult of outlaws and bad guys, but non-chaotic. He has a spell that can be cast on a steed to enable it to run through the air with the wind. He also has power over whirlvishes. He is an enemy of Orlanth, though he is also Orlanth's nephew. He is somewhat more friendly to Storm Bull, but many right-thinking Storm Bull's have no truck with such bandits.
>What is the darkened square Rune for Babeester Gor?
It is the Earth Rune (malign). The open square is the Earth Rune (benign). The Earth Rune is a basically dualistic Rune, and so all earth gods get only one or the other Rune, but whichever one you have, it's the "full" Earth Rune. The God Learners only used one of the Runes and didn't bother to have a different Rune for benign and malign.
>why are some of the Runes shown twice?
This demonstrates that the holder of that Rune is the Source of that Rune to all Glorantha, and that if that deity were somehow to be destroyed, all Glorantha would be forever changed.
>Do Ernalda initiates stick with the Grain Goddess they originally
worshiped? Or do they change when they move to a new region?
Normally they change. They're automatically considered initiates of the new goddess, after all.
THOUGHTS ON MALKIONI
In thinking over the principles of Malkioni marriage, I have
reached the following conclusions, supported, I believe, by earlier
debate on the subject.
Item: Men can marry women from a lower caste. This transforms said woman into that higher caste. I.e., the wife of a Wizard becomes wizard-rank -- even if she's not allowed to learn spells in her lifetime, her daughters can.
Item: Women can NOT marry men from a lower caste. It's immoral and wrong, and it's better to get thee to a nunnery.
Item: High-ranking women sometimes have trouble finding men high-ranking enough to marry them.
Now, 'tis my belief that even WITHIN the four basic castes, there are recognized "subranks". That is, a lowly clerk or military sorcerer, though wizard-caste, is NOT considered to be anywhere near as mighty as an ordained Bishop or court wizard, and the daughter of a Bishop would NEVER marry a clerk. Plus she couldn't marry a farmer or a knight of any kind. She could probably marry a noble, but her family would be upset if she wed any but a reasonably high-ranking noble.
As some of us know, England once fought a civil war largely over the fact that Richard (the Kingmaker) Neville's two daughters couldn't find good husbands, because the grasping Woodville clan had snapped up all the high-ranking eligible bachelors.
I don't think the Kingdom of Seshnela is anywhere near fighting a civil war over something like this (but who knows?), but I see some possibilities:
More ideas no doubt can occur to you all, but it seems to me that the difficulty of finding husbands for Wizards especially (ESPECIALLY because many Rokari wizards are celibate, further reducing the available husbandage!!!), can be the source of some fascinating interactions.
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