radmonger

• common rune magic is added to the list of spells taught by most cults, rather than being inherently castable without learning it.
• the number of magic points that can be used to boost a rune spell is limited by the size of the rune pool
• pow vs pow spells don't require an additional roll to cast.

On 12/31/2022 at 11:11 PM, Lordabdul said:

But really, it's not about that -- it's about what it means to "initiate" into a cult. My original understanding was that it was about dedicating your life to a deity, and serving a temple.

As I understand it, an initiate is defined by knowing the cult secrets, and so being able to cast the cult magic. The social construct is that typically requires temple attendance and some level of dedication (although not particularly  exclusive).

For example, for some rural orlanthi, their initiation ordeal will be the first time they visit a temple. And the guy from an enemy clan casting lightning at you is clearly an initiate (or higher), even if you would never normally let him in your temple.

On 12/31/2022 at 11:11 PM, Lordabdul said:

IMHO, initiating into Aldrya as a human (or non elf) you would not have the Plant Rune, and might not be able to cast half of the cult's magic.

As far as i can see, 'like an initiate, but can't cast magic' is a synonym for 'lay member'.

There could legitimately be sub cults of Aldrya, present at an Aldraya temple,  that provided only the non-plant magic. Such sub cults would then be potentially open to humans who didn't fancy the idea of being planted. but such an arrangement would only make sense in places where an elf wood was not fundamentally in conflict with the local humans.

Which I suspect implies that either the humans do not practice agriculture. Or the elves are resigned to living in a designated garden as part of a larger political system (e.g. kingdom or empire).

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

You can't cast Plant Rune magic unless you've the Plant Rune. Yinkin & Odayla Beast magic is easy for humans as Man & Beast are core Runes.

Quick theory as to what happens in rules terms when you go through the gory procedure; it transfers your current rating in the beast rune to plant.

This would imply it is not necessary if you already have the plant rune. Now, how you would get such a rating is another question.

- as a quirk of ancestry, perhaps being descended from the Durev mentioned above.

- coming from a homeland where such a thing is common or universal

- due to a unique personal otherside experience, as a shaman or heroquester

- intense and prolonged sorcerous study 

- chaos or illumination

Obviously, some elves would still have political or pragmatic objections to someone with a demonstrable plant rune who hadn't been planted. They might insist on the procedure 'just to be sure'. 

1 hour ago, Eff said:

If it's just a reiteration of the Orlanth myth, he won't have anything to say about it because he'll be dead before the high priestess can shack up with anyone else.

They may well be, though generally defeat in some ritual contest is enough. The thing is, if they are, their son (or other heir) is not going to consent to be part of the clan ruled by the person who killed their father. So the clan is unlikely to stay together without a problematic amount of bloodshed.

There is always another way. In this case that means having the guy you killed resurrected so he can publicly acknowledge your rightful rule.

it should be stressed that this kind of kinstrife over clan leadership is not really a thing that routinely happens in 1620s Sartar, But the reason it doesn't happen is because of the Sartar-level institutions (like the axe maidens. lawspeakers and cult of humakt) that largely exist to prevent it.

4 minutes ago, Eff said:

Why would this happen? 

Because it happened before; 'running off with the boss's wife and founding his own company' is kind of Orlanth's thing. The local clan/tribal rex will not appreciate ending up in the mythic role of the Emperor. But most of the things they could do to stop that happening would end up only reinforcing that identity.

The problem with putting trolls on the menu is of course staying off the menu yourself. But yes, that is a valid option.

One thing that could definitely potentially happen is that an earth temple sponsors enough of a full-time military force that they require a full-time military leader. And then that military leader marries the high priestess. And now you have a earth clan bordering a storm clan, instead of an earth temple supporting a storm clan.

Likely this is how the Old Earth Temple in Tarsh works. And it is more or less what happened with the sun domers under Monrogh a generation or two back.

Avoiding that issue ever coming up is the main reason earth temples mostly use Babeestor Gor axe maidens as guards.

If that option is not available for some reason (e.g. they all died in battle with the Lunars), then the temple leadership has a number of choices. In Esrolia, they would have the full range of 6 potential husband-protectors. But Sartar has a much more limited set of choices, with Argan Argar, Flamal and Magasta all being more or less off the menu. This leaves;

- Orlanth: fully commit to being part of one particular clan, holding no farmland or herds in their own right. 

- Yelmalio: come to a similar arrangement with any local sun domers

- Storm Bull: offer to shelter a storm bull chaos-fighting band for a season or two. 

if coin is available, they can hire Humakti mercenaries. Excellent protection, no unfortunate mythic implications. But few can afford this indefinitely.

So any time a temple can get some necessary fighting done by orlanth adventerous types not closely affiliated with any clan (i.e. the player characters), they will jump at the chance.

1 hour ago, Brian Duguid said:

The big question for me is: if there are other cursed lycanthropes, how were they cursed, by who, when, and why? The Nysalor / Talor story is huge. What's the equivalent for the Tusk Brothers, Tiger Sons etc? (And why are they all male?)

It takes an empire to burn down an elf-wood, but anyone can start a fire. The Telmori are a tribe, and were cursed by an empire. So logically an individual were-whatever could  be the result of a curse by an individual magician.

Or maybe the cause is dominant possession by the wrong ancestral spirit.

Or maybe no-one actually caused it, it was just the consequence of a personal moral or mythical failure by the Hsunchen practitioner themselves. 

On 11/1/2022 at 3:27 PM, g33k said:

AA's would have a core function of raising/training Value-Trollkin to be spearmen-mercenaries.

As i see it, teaching and training are core functions of Rune Priests across all cults, and the priest occupation in general. There isn't a seperate 'teacher' occupation; it is Sunday School or nothing.

Cult initiates are those who _do_ magical things, rather than teaching them. A Rune Lord is an advanced type of initiate who fully dedicates their time to the cult, but does so by following some profession other than priest. In return they get supported by the cult as if they were a priest, albeit with a slightly different magical benifit package.

Heros are, by definition, exceptions. But in order for a cult to routinely have Rune Lords it must have an ongoing need for ritual champions. In effect, they are following an 'athlete' occupation. For example, I suspect hunter cults sponsor Rune Lords mostly so they can compete in the Great Hunt. Ernalda's Husband-Protector cults do so so they can compete for her favour. And so on.

I think these rules are both simpler and more scaleable than the default

1. humans get 1 combat action per arm, with maybe martials arts or other similar training allowing kicks as well.

2. with two weapons you can attack twice.

3. with two shields you could parry twice; obviously hardly anyone does that.

4. a parry always uses your highest weapon skill; you are threatening and anticipating the actions of a specific opponent to limit their lines of attack.

5. If you are using a shield, a successful parry hits the shield, otherwise the weapon.

6. shield skill is rarely trained in, but allows using  a shield as a weapon to make a second attack

7. if you need more combat actions, you need to split your attacks and parries as per RQ:G

8. > 100% skill (after modifiers and splitting) gives 1 free success. So you then roll any excess skill with fumble = miss, sucess = special, special = critical and criticial = critical and pick locatiopn.

3 hours ago, metcalph said:

I myself that a complicated position - some Seshnegi priesthoods are compatible with Rightness and others aren't. 

'Compatible with Rightness' can mean many  things.

Maybe it means that there exist wizards who fully know and understand that god's nature and position in the cosmos. So they can act as sorceror-priests of that god[1], rather than Rune Priests. They don't lose Rightness, and the magic they teach is Caste Magic.

Maybe it means there is a level of indirection going on; the wizards fully understand the summoning and binding spells they use, and the terms of the pacts they are making. They in effect are sorceror-shamans[2]. What the ancestor or spirit does once summoned is not the moral responsibility of the wizard.

Maybe it means that doctrinally one of the above is true, but some or all of the wizards involved are mistaken or lying. They actually do lose Rightness, but take it is a personal failing (or, as suggested, blame it on Zzabur) rather than a systematic issue.

Maybe it just means that the loss of Rightness is written off as acceptable, especially if the cult is secretive or restrictive in entry. It seems clear that no mortal society can have everyone being Right; someone has to take one for the team.

I like both of your examples for how a vaguely priest-shaped hole in society can be filled by non-zzaburi who are nether sorcerors nor priests. Noble shamans healing the ills of the poor, Humakti Rune Lords supplying muscle to the lords.

What I wouldn't expect to see is Rokari sorcerors indulging in any spiritually-risky activities they don't have to. They see themselves as the last best hope of the future. Going round teaching people what they are told is caste magic, but isn't, will be an unbounded source of caste transgressions.  So I can't see that they are going to be publicly leading official Rune Cults.

[1] This is an old joke that captures what I see as the difference between a Rune Priest and a Sorceror-Priest (aka  wizard):

Quote

 

A novice was trying to fix a broken PC by turning the power off and on.

The master, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly: “You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong.”

The master turned the machine off and on.

The machine worked.

 

When a wizard invokes a god, they are far more likely to use a title or descriptive phrase than a name (Old Man Mortal, or Lord Death). The stories they tell of the gods are more noted for having a point than being interesting.

[2] This is not that different to the Daka Fal cult, which uses reusable and teachable Rune Magic to kickstart the process of becoming a shaman. Non-cult shamans presumably come to that path as a result of a unique and  likely dangerous spiritual experience[3].

[3] Which, as Monty Python once pointed out, is not a viable basic for a system of government.

2 hours ago, metcalph said:

and reconcile it with your apparent thinking that the Talars worship the Invisible God and nobody else.

Worshipping other deities, for non-wizards, never breaks caste restrictions in itself. Only actions, not beliefs, can break caste restrictions. The relevant things that do are:

- non-wizards following the priest occupation.

- wizards teaching anyone magic inappropriate for their caste role.

The linked picture shows what are clearly Zzaburi wizard-priests; they have the Law Rune, not an Earth Rune. They are handing the King an enchanted magical object, the regalia of the kingdom. Likely that crown has inscribed spells of some form of incarnate/summon ancestor. Those are entirely appropriate spells for Zzaburi to supply to a Talar.

The King may then use that ancestor magic the Right way, casting _Command Soldier_ or _Detect Loyalty_. Or they could commit a caste violation and cast _Bless Crops_. Few actually-existing Rokari would openly say that such a caste violation reflected badly on the wizard-priests who crowned him. 

But some would quietly think it.

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

Why not European colonialism in the Caribbean or on the American mainland?

 

Because if slavery was Right, slaves would be a caste. Which is presumably a thing someone somewhere believes. But within mainstream Malkionisn, using violence to make a worker work  is inherently going to be a caste violation. 

A different analogy is a modern 'third world' country trying to follow a particular path of development. Instead of Brithos as a template of what the end result could look like, there is Britain. Zzaburi are scientists and engineers. Caste magic is jumbo jets, cars and smartphones. The root ideology, fundamental worldview is materialism in general, with something like liberal capitalism as specifics. Within that framework,  Rokarism is the belief that the right way forwards is building a university and airport in the capital; Hrestolism is more like establishing a health clinic in every village.

Other nations accept that they are not planning on mass prosperity for all; only the ruling classes and their enforcers. The others must make do with whatever worldview doesn't require the effort of having them killed.

The fundamental dilemma all non-immortal Malkioni have is that training a sorceror takes at least half a lifetime, during which time they are not productive. So it is very difficult to support the number of skilled zzaburi Malkioni society actually needs to function. Say ten Dronali can materially support one Zzaburi, and one skilled Zzaburi can magically support ten Dronali. Half the Dronali are going to be without Caste magic; the Zzaburi they are supporting won't be good for anything for another 10 years. Except without that magic, they can't meet even a 10:1 support ratio, more like the 100:1 of real world ancient societies. So ever since Time, everything doesn't add up.

The mainstream Malkioni solution is to accept that the lack of Zzaburi mean that most or all of the lower castes are not going to get any caste magic, so they might as well not follow caste restrictions. Just pick the least-worst options for what gods they get to follow.

The radical Rokari solution is monasticism, where the best candidates from all other castes are educated intensively from an early age, at great opportunity cost. To support that, caste rules are actively enforced  in the general population. This serves to maintain the Rightness of those critical zzaburi, with the goal of the best of them living longer, ideally indefinitely. At which point everyone will get their rewards for the current austerity.

The radical Hrestoli solution is to have the candidate Men-Of-All work as farmers and then soldiers, so they are always being productive, or at least filling a role that would have needed to be supported anyway. Men of All aren't as good as fully trained Rokari wizards, but there can be more of them. Any progressive increase in their numbers represents the arc of history bending towards Rightness.

In both cases, a lot of nominal Hrestoli and Rokari do not fully buy into the corresponding plan, and so can be more accurately described as mainstream Malkioni. Everyone knows that regiment  secretly worships a misspelled version of Humakt. But so long as some level of plausible deniability is maintained, then noone gets hit with an unmanageable loss of Rightness.

I think we have been reading the same soources, but it seems reading them differently.

As I see it, malkioni society can be divided into 5 groups. 4 of them are Brithini, Vadeli, Rokari and Hrestoli.  

Brithini society works stably for them, Vadeli are ther own thing. Rokari and Hrestoli both have aspirations to bascially become Brithini. Neither is a stable society, they will either succeed or collapse.

It is all the others who are  'most Malkioni'. Almost all Malkioni accept Rune Lords of approved gods as Horali, and God Talkers as Dronals. Most Malkioni accept Rune Priests of farming gods as (socially, but not magically)  Zzaburi. Fewer accept Heros of ruling gods as Talars. There are enough options to thoroughly paint the map of Western-Central Glorarantha with direrent interpretions of who society can afford to be Right.

A Rune Priest acting socially as a Zzaburi has low Rightness, and so cannot benifit from the magical support of more othodox Zzaburi. But if the local Talar merely turns a blind eye to them, the caste transgression may be recoverable, and not contagious. It may not be perfectly Right, but everyone gets to eat.

It seems consistent to me, so long as you don't make additional unstated assumptions.

> peasants have their own, entirely independent source of beneficial magic, which is just as good as the Sartarite kind. 

For it to be _as good_, it would require full time Rune Priests, with ornate temples funded by the rich. 

A full-time Rune Priest of a fertily/farming god would be zzaburi by occupation but dronali by magic. This would not be Right; such an individual could not receive any caste magic. If no Talar breaks caste taboos by financially supporting them, then by the rules, they top out at God Talker.

For Zzabur to maintain Rightness, they can only give Caste  Magic to those following caste restrictions. It would not be Right for a Zzaburi to crown a Talar who had been funding fertility temples. Just as it would not be Right for a non-Talar to own or manage land or other resources that could be used for that purpose.

The core Rokari theme is Return to Rightness. They think they can get back to the stable state of all castes relying on only Caste magic. Their chosen plan for doing seems to be Zzaburi-first. Educate a sufficient quantity of skiiled Zzaburi, with high Rightness. If even a few can get to the point of being immortal, then the resource crunch facing the next generation becomes far easier. 

This means giving up on all the pragmatic relaxations to caste rules that make things work in the short term.

2 hours ago, metcalph said:

Because the Brithini who also use caste magic don't use spirit magic or rune spells.

If you assume Zzaburi are the source, or at least gatekeepers, of Caste Magic, then that makes sense. Castes persist mostly because the Zzaburi providing the Caste Magic are required to maintain Rightness in whom they provide that magic to. The words 'cast' and 'caste' very likely are as similar in the relevant Gloranthan languages as they are in English.

Only the Brithini (and possibly Vadeli?) have enough skilled sorcerors to provide all castes with all the magic they might rightfully need. Only they have the magically-productive farmers who can suport the number of required magical specialists, and so on. Though the Hrestoli can perhaps envision getting there in a generation or two, so long as there are no disasterous wars.

Some Malkioni are more 'so the peasants are poor; how is that my problem?'. They do without the full range of Caste Magic, accepting thet the peasants are going to do whatever is necessary to survive, Right or not.

Other Malkioni societies either cheat, or legitimise cheating. If _these_ Rune Priests are totally righteous Zzaburi, then _this_ Rune Spell is totally Caste Magic. This all works so long as the Zzaburi maintain Rightness, and never get confused about whether a particular Orlanthi is Dronal, Talar or Horal.

15 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

Since we are in the RuneQuest topic area, I am going to stick with what is in the current rule set, and until we see the actual rules for Malkioni zabburi  use sorcery, the other casts use Rune and Spirit Magic and all references to Caste Magic => 😨🤡👺

In case my phrasing was a bit indirect, that is my plan too.

A bladesharp is a bladesharp whether learnt from a god, spirit or wizard-priest. The same for any pre-paid (aka Rune) spell .

There are at least 5 currently-unwritten Caste Cults for the West, for Zzabur, Talar et al. No doubt they do have distinctive spells, the same way as any other major cult does. But such Caste Cults would only bend, not break, the Rune Cult writeup format.

Maybe one day there will be an extension to the sprcery rules that does provide mechanical details as to  exactly what restrictions apply when a PC sorceror wants to grant magic to their followers. But there are no RQ rules for Orlanth doing whatever he does to enable an initiate to fly, and no stat block for Humakt that covers why his initiates can't. And that certainly doesn't hinder the playing f Oralnthi or Humakti.

2 hours ago, metcalph said:

Not how it's shown in the rules.  There spirit magics are something you have and are cast by you. 

Agreed; that is why I said shamanism, not spirit magic. Being a member of a shamanistic society or cult involves persuading a shaman to bargain or compell a spirit to teach you magic. By the rules, the spirit is not further involved (unless the nature of the spell implies it, for example summonings). Shamans themselves also get specific magical powers, skills and abiltities.

Buimg a member of a Rune Cuit involves persuading a priest (to request a temple wyter?) to teach you magic. Priests themselves also get specific magical powers, skills and abiltities.

Perhaps confusingly, both of the above methods can get you a spirit or rune magic spell. Mechanically, spirit magic is directly cast and infinitely reusable, rune magic is more powerful, but  has to be paid for in advance, not at the point of casting. But a bladesharp is a bladesharp whether learnt from a god or a spirit, and so is a Cloud Call.

If proper Caste Magic[1] does turn out to be something other than the results of sorcery cast by Zzaburi on other castes, there would either need to be yet another magic system that did describe what does happen when they do, or a justification for why they never would.

1[] there is definitely room for a gradation between different groups of Malkioni in what counts as legitimate caste magic. Do you need to get the magic from a rightful ZZaburi directly, or is it ok to have someone summon a Zzaburio ancestor who knows it? This spectrum ends up with those who consider full by-the-rules Rune Priests of Orlanth to be rightful Zzaburi, Rune Lords of Humakt to be rightful Horali, etc.

Shamanism is largely a magic system where you get spirits to cast magic _for you_. I expect caste magic is something similar.

As a sorceror, you require a very specific set of skills, spells, statistics and power sources to cast a specific spell of a long enough duration you never need to recast it.

As a guard, you need to sacrifice some amount of POW, and make a donation of time or money,  to get a permanent or one-shot ability.

If the guard is the player in your group, you don't want to have to work out the skills, spells and available time of whatever sorcerer was on duty that week when they got the magic. So as GM, you use a different magic rule system for what is fundamentally the same type of magic.

So in rules terms, Caste Magic is either Rune Magic, or a slight variant therof. The main difference is that Caste Spells tend to be either 1-use or lifetime-duration, and commonly require maintenance of Rightness to avoid premature expiry. Reusable caste magic would require learning a  'worship name of sorceror' skill. This is generally considered heresy or paganism, even by those that do it.

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

Firstly, travel is dangerous.

I think the original plan was to train the horses while travelling through wilderness. Certainly there is no spreadsheet entry for stabling fees and fodder.

You can do anything once as an adventure, and if you succeed, make money from it. But few groups will want to want to run the same adventure over and over again. But you also can't abstract it out assuming success. Otherwise you could just do some calculations to say 'every three months, we clear out a new set of ruins, each netting _this_ much money, which we spend on magic items which allow us to clear out more profitable ruins, and then ...'.

If you want earn more than the profession-rules income stably and repeatably, you are going to need land. In this case, land to safely graze and exercise the horses, to grow winter fodder. Which requires you to defend that land, and so provides you with all kinds of obligations and plot hooks.

You could imagine there being a RQ:G version of Pendragon's Book of the Manor; a full rule system for being a land-owning noble. But most GM's will find it easier to just wing things; take the 'noble' profession income and bump it up or down depending on campaign circumstances.

3 hours ago, Richard S. said:

Zzaburi don't use rune magic though.

No, they use 'caste magic'. Which, as I understand it, is mechanically close enough it might as well be identical. Or at least it is closer to rune magic than it is to sorcery. It's described in the book of cults, which has one section for each divine or heroic caste founder.

If you think about it, it's a logical progression. A sorceror starts by enchanting their bodyguard's weapon. But keeping that enchantment at full power for weeks at a time is wasteful. It would be much better if the bodyguard could be taught a simple magical technique to trigger the start of the duration.  

Even with that, it's still wasteful of the sorcerors time if they have to refresh the enchantment every season. So the bodyguard needs to learn a little more; how to renew the enchantment.

You now have something that you might as well treat as a reusable rune spell, and so a sorceror who can fulfill the social riole of a rune priest.

4 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Zzaburi = Priest of the Invisible God. 

My take would be that:

- the Brithini have full Zzaburi wizard-priests. These function more or less according to the normal rules for Rune Priests, but they are doing it all with sorcery. Every bit of the process of teaching  Rune spells is intellectually understood by the wizard-priest, and subject to their will alone. Orthodox Brithini would never use that flexibility, but they could. 

- the Rokari claim the same, but are less good at it. If they are honest, all but a few of the oldest and most powerful wizards have a greatly reduced menu of Rune Magic learnable. The less honest ones use techniques of bargaining or identification to manifest powers they don't fully understand. This can and has led entire congregations, or kingdoms, into Error.

- the Hrestoli Men-of-All are more runelord-wizards than wizard-priests. They rarely learn the sorcerous techniques of spell-teaching. Instead they gain magic by potentially dangerous questing. This works for them at scale because they become competent through rigorous and organised training _before_ they go on the quest.

- the Aeolians (and other full-on heresies) consider Orlanth (or whoever) to be a close enough substitute for the Invisible God that those of Zzaburi caste are allowed, indeed encouraged, to be normal Rune Priests. They are little different from Llankhor Mhy cultists, in that the cult  teaches sorcery, but knowing it is not necessarily required for advancement or status.

14 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

The Zzaburi have little to no involvement with the cults followed by the lower castes, unless they become a problem and need to be dealt with. Worshippers and priests both will be from the same caste.

But surely anyone with the actual occupation _priest_, in charge of an officially-existing temple, would be following a wizard-only profession?

Which, in areas with fully Malkioni political structure, leaves the lower castes stuck with god talkers, spirit cults and the like.

Except, perhaps, in Brithini lands, where the wizard-priests know the sorcerous techniques required to extract and process Runic cosmic energy into caste-appropriate magic. In Rokari lands they claim to do the same. However, many outsiders suspect they commonly skip some of the more complex processing steps. The result is directly channeling unfiltered runic energy into the congregation. This can means the congregation develops behavioral traits and mythic potentialities entirely unsuited to their caste role. Farmers defend themselves with weapons, traders adopt new foreign ideas, and so on. 

The Hrestoli naturally consider all that to be proto-God Learnerism. Instead, they profess a fair, flexible and meritocratic caste system. If a peasant has the desire and capability to become a warrior, they become one. There is no need to for the complex magical filtering of worship and cosmic energy when the two inputs are correctly balanced in advance.

1 hour ago, Eff said:

Impressive work on their part intuiting the existence of a god that seems to have a cult in Fonrit and maybe Umathela. 

Dormal's voyages were about 50 years ago, plenty of time for people to hear stories and Get Ideas. 

Some Lunar philosophers claim that the true god of liberation is Gark the Calm. Only his magic can truly free the souls of those who labour. All lesser forms of liberation leave the job the slave was doing undone. Which only requires someone else to work the mine or plantation; the quantity of freedom does not increase.

Admittedly, zombification is currently an expensive process involving imported exotic magical specialists. Many of whom have fervent, and frankly unsavory, views. However, the College has made considerable progress towards the goal of training locally-sourced practitioners. Meanwhile, even a small fraction of zombified workers turns out to have a salutary effect on the enthusiasm to which the remainder approach their assigned tasks.  While not full liberation, this has decreased the number of those required to perform such spiritually-degrading heavy labour considerably.

Sadly, that doesn't stop the local Yanafal-knockoffs talking ignorantly about 'undeath'. I hear in some cases they have attacked plantations, and slaughtered everyone working the fields, zombie or not. Apparently, they call that _liberation_.