davecake

I certainly hope so. They still are unlikely to improve much beyond their starting levels unless the rules are radically different. i think they may have to be quite radically different to make Loskalmi Men-of-All work under the rules, and they aren’t fun to play under the rules that will be a deep disappointment.

Of course. A Lhankor Mhy is going to really regret using all those points on sorcery spells when they realise how far behind it puts them in trying to become a Sage. As the lore skills they need are not in readable by experience, so every pint is hard won. Sure, but not for your Sage skills. A LM who focuses on sorcery has effectively chosen not to try to progress beyond initiate. Honestly the rules are kind of brutal for LM. In practice PC sages are going to hope they get lots of cool books using those new book rules, and other GM given opportunities for advancement, and NPCs are just going to become full Sages quite late in life.

Why would you think combat is the only situation where “in the heat of the moment” counts? For any situation that is a bit surprising - I need to travel across a barrier, I need to defend against spirits, i need to camp in enemy territory and not get captured, I need to catch a thief, I need to enhance my ability to seduce someone, etc, the sorcerous answer is going to usually be the same - “ I can definitely solve your problem , just give me a year” - which you continue, for some reason, to confuse with being able to achieve anything interesting in a game. abd what in the least does any of this have to do RP or it’s lack? Being a divine magic user is a role playing opportunity cornucopia! Complex cult likes and dislikes to manage, cult duties, temple hierarchies, etc - literally not an exaggeration to say that the core appeal of RuneQuest is that playing a devoted divine magic user is rich in role playing opportunities and fun. While the vision of sorcery you seem to advocating seems to provide mostly the role playing experience of constantly explaining how you are unable to do anything useful now, but definitely something by next Dark season. Your defences of sorcery are looking increasingly like very flammable straw men. (Not that I actually dislike the idea of sorcerers whose activities are to slowly do innovative focussed magical projects over a period of years, but RuneQuest ain’t Ars Magica, and RQ sorcerers are less interesting than ARS Magica magi, in large part because the are not the core focus of the game like magi are, and so nowhere near as developed, and probably never will be) I’ve been clear all along it is about 1) the number of different magical effects a character can perform (implicitly with some reliability) and 2) the ease of gaining new effects. It seems as if you didn’t read that, and have been arguing against an entirely different theoretical concept, and what you might potentially do given infinite time and resources to achieve it. Generally speaking a character in a major cult won’t run out of new spells to learn for quite awhile, and can probably join an associated cult if they do. So, divine magic has about 15 different spells they can cast as a beginning initiate, and that goes up with every RP, which requires them only to donate POW to learn more. So steadily goes up, presuming they choose to use their POW gains for that, but a point a year isn’t unreasonable- and that’s not ‘grinding’, it’s being a normal adventurer who mostly focuses on doing adventurous and professional things. A sorcerer gets roughly enough points to have 3 spells at a reasonable chance at character creation. If they Really work at it, and literally do grind, spend seasons on nothing but sorcerous work, they can maybe average a spell or two a year, but still have them at terribly low percentages, plus they need to increase other skills. But most likely, for being able to cast ‘reliably’, they might never get much more than those three spells. Learning a new spell, and raising it to a reasonable level, takes an average of far more than a year. So in terms of flexibility of any given single sorcerer, sorcerers start at a disadvantage, and stay behind. Now sure, the sorcerer has more flexibility of parameters, and a few advantages. Duration is the big one. A few disadvantages too - the mechanics of their spells often are a bit less powerful or reliable per point, and their effects are often (but not always) narrower. But in terms of their ability to flexibly respond to an unplanned situation? The number of magical effects an individual can call on? Clearly, they start far behind and stay there.

I know there is info about Sheng in the GloranthaCon IV book. If there is more info about him published I’d like to know.

In the heat of the moment is literally the point of the argument. I believe sorcerers can always effectively counter any threat, given a few years to prepare. If you think that ‘already having the solution available’ isn’t a lot better than ‘I just need a few years’, I don’t know what to say. Sorcery has some useful flexibility as a cultural system of magic. As an individual practitioner, it’s extraordinarily less flexible. Land as a player character, it’s terrible. Literally the few spells you choose at character creation might end up being the only ones you are ever able to cast reliably.

Of course they can. And every single spirit magic spell makes them a worse sorcerer. If they are going to be significantly competent spirit magicians, why bother with the sorcery at all? You’d be ignoring that spirit magic vs sorcery trade off, so using more spirit magic jus5 means your sorcery is mediocre, and it is difficult to cast the long duration powerful spells that are the best thing about sorcery. And of course, if you try to bypass it with Matrices or Inscription, then you become weaker at Rune magic, because you are spending POW on something other than Rune magic. IO does have a great advantage though, in that they have access to some of the best offensive Rune Spells in the game, plus a much more interesting collection of sorcery spells. (The real winners are folks like Kygor Litor or Aldrya or Golden Bow, shamans with good access to Rune Magic, IMO. But add some Illumination and sorcery if you really want to crazy)

And I think your arguments are essentially terrible ones based on wishful thinking rather than the actual rules. That whole point about spells starting out at a tiny percentage , and being very hard to improve, ruins your optimistic version unless you presume a very very friendly GM. Though we don’t really disagree that much. Just change ‘unexpected immediate combat’ to ‘any situation that requires a flexible response, including all adventuring’, then I only think sorcerers are several years behind their theistic counterparts...

I always assumed something like blades that cast Tap Pow or something similar were popular among Dart Competition assassins, and perhaps some more disreputable sorcerous types. The sword Wrath is an example of something similar to, if considerably lesser, than a Dragaeran Great Weapon. Wind Sword too. I once met Stephen Brust, at a convention in Austin Texas. I asked him how it felt to be approaching the end of the (planned to be) 19 book Taltos series. He just shrugged and said he was a heavy smoker, and wasn’t assuming he’d make it yet.

I would absolutely say that the Larnstings, and the ‘Larnstings of the sea’, are both connected to Mastakos. Note that the GoG preview, Mastakos has acquired powerful new shape hanging powers as well as his traditional teleport powers. I think very few of the Orlanthi (who really only deal with Mastakos as an associated deity of/subcult of Orlanth) have access to this magic, but Larnstings may.

I think vampires, Krarsht, and other corrupting subtle chaos gods have travelled and infiltrated Fonrit, and to a lesser extent Umathela, but not had much success beyond that. They are civilised foes. There are plenty of chaos monsters on the plains, like Charnjibbers, and grue, but Vangono and other deities are used to fighting them (and it gives them an outlet for heroic deeds that don’t lead to war and civil strife, so strongly encouraged). But subtler chaos is more of a problem - a common source being succubi/incubi leading to the birth of ogre (and other monster) children who grow up to be wicked leaders and bandits. You are probably thinking of the various other Greater Hydrae, all of them around the size and power of the one in Dragon Pass, one unable to move but most roaming in a distinct territory. And they (again, apart from one, cursed by Nyanka) give birth the less hydrae, which are quite nasty themselves. Mallia is everywhere in Glorantha, though again less prevalent on the plains (certainly the relative lack of broo gangs is a factor). One of the greatest chaos nests and Malia centres of power if the Forest of Disease in Laskal. I think of this as mostly corrupted Aldryami, willing to use both Disease as a weapon against humanity that they hate, and plant diseases against other Aldryami (Disease as an enemy of Aldryami, and Pamalt, has a long history in Pamaltela, going back at least to the Sunstop), the Forrest of Disease May be that old or older. Plenty of corrupted gorakiki insects and such too. And then there are the deep grue pits, the remnants of Vadeli (or corrupted Artmali) ruins, Gary the Calm zombie strongholds, etc. and last but not least, the infamous suckerbunny tree, something that should definitely be revived!

I think the water association is interesting to speculate about - the Doraddi goddess most associated with sex and sensuality is Nyanka, who besides being a water deity primarily, also have humanity the ability to reproduce by giving the Agi water to drink, and is referenced as a lover in myth. I think she is socially sometimes a bit of a feminine counterpart to Vangono for the Doraddi, as a deity that is beneficial, but a bit troublesome in that she appeals to younger people wanting some individual agency and fame (in her case as a lover or beauty). Which makes a water connection to Seseine boosting the idea that (as Echeklikos shows) the Doraddi might consider Seseine a perversion of Nyanka’s natural sexuality/sensuality. (Of course the main sexual myth of the Doraddi is the union of Cronisper and Yanmorla, but that is more of a primal sexuality of all of nature thing) i do not think Seseine is subservient to Ompalam (though I’m sure the Ompalam priests might claim so). I think a large part of her appeal in Fonrit is stories of slaves seducing their masters (or other powerful benefactors), and so she offers a (possibly illusory, of course) hope for slaves. Always a safe bet in Pamaltela. Yes, I think Pamaltela naturally comes by the power of Love due to Artmali connections to Uleria, the Tilntae are either another factor or a consequence, etc. And the Vadeli approach this as a source of power they can turn to their own ends/corrupt, through perverse sexual rituals that create succubi, which they use as weapons against the Artmali, empowering Seseine in the process. The modern (or at least, pre-Oenriko rocks) Vadeli a bit like US televangelists, publically claiming that they representative the power of God so you should give them wealth and power, in private often committing all the sins they condemn.

Fonrit rather than Laskal, she is one of the Glorious Ones. I don’t think Echeklihos and Seseine are the same entity (and Echeklikos is supposed to also have ties to Nyanka, whose sexuality is much more innocent and wholesome), but the two deities are closely associated in practice if not so much mythologically.

Well, 60% for elemental or 75% for Power starting usually a bit more - possibly +10% cultural bonus, plus whatever of the 50% assignable is used to boost Runes relevant to their cult (in practice, almost always some of of it. Because Common divine magic uses the highest of the cult Runes, in practice their chance will be almost always 75% or higher. So this argument is pretty weak and incorrect, as frankly that compares pretty favourably to sorcerers, who likely will have many spells at a lower %age. But it’s true that they get less spells to cast. Lucky almost all divine magic users also have good access to spirit magic and no reason not to load up on it (except you, Lhankor Mhy and friends who made Bad Choices), so they can mostly keep there Rune Magic use for emergencies. My argument is that sorcerers are lacking in flexibility, not about overall capacity. But it’s notable that problem with flexibility doesn’t go away either - an experienced member of a Rune cult is also learning new Rune magic spells as the sorcerer is (slowly) learning new spells, and spirit magic too, and often pushing their Rune %ages up too. (Note that the sorcerer is often using their POW increases more or less running on the spot in this comparison, making spell matrices etc to preserve their Free INT for little real net gain) Pin general, a divine magic initiate gets a limited use, but powerful, Swiss Army multitool, with a useful capacity for most situations they might find themselves in. The sorcerer gets a couple of big hammers, and spends the rest of their adventuring career more or less hoping they only encounter the right kind of nail.

Joerg, the problem would be a lot more obvious if you (and Greg) looked south of the equator, to see all manner of temperate, non-deciduous, forests all over the place. My stance too. Some day I’d like to do a grand retcon of the Aldryami, explaining how their entire elf classification scheme is nonsense the Aldryami have carefully chosen not to ever correct. It requires more biology than I have to do well.

I though the Loskalmi were pretty smug about their ability to defeat spirit magicians? Admittedly it is amongst the specialties of the Furlandan school, so they have an advantage over most sorcerers. But historically, the sorcerers seem to have won against the Hykimi when it came down to it. My main point though is that a sorcerer can have some reasonable magic against spirit magicians - if they take a few years to specialise in it, they can be roughly equal to a beginning initiate. A sorcerer can have reasonable generic magic defences like a divine initiate with Dispel Magic and Warding - if they take a few years to specialise in it. A sorcerer can have combat healing magic like a divine initiate with Heal Wound - if they take a few years to specialise in it. A sorcerer can summon a few interesting spirits, if they take a few take a few years to specialise in it they can be roughly equal to a beginning divine initiate With Summon and Command Cult Spirit. A sorcerer who take a few years to work on magic perception spells can be roughly as good as a initiate with Find Enemy, Sanctify and Soul Sight. And so on. In theory a specialist sorcerer can be pretty good at any given form of magic. In practice, they are hugely behind in their ability to respond to a range of unexpected threats and have a magical response to many routine problems, and both spirit magicians and most divine magicians (eg any with all common Rune spells) have a huge advantage over any individual sorcerer. And getting to the point where they have that collection of basic spells, let alone at a reliable level, is a huge undertaking in time and resources. In practice, choosing sorcery over any other form of magic makes you a much less flexible, mostly weaker, magician in RQG. This certainly applies for pure sorcerers, but also applies to Lhankor Mhy sages choosing sorcery over Spirit magic (presuming they are not restricting themselves only to LM cult spirit magic). You do get to have a small number of potentially powerful sorcery spells, but you really pay in flexibility of response.

That weird idea that the only non-deciduous trees are either conifers or tropical is one of the most long term irritating things about Glorantha to me.

I don't think indexing is a thing that happens in Glorantha. There are alternatives to page number indexes (which as Bhemond say, only really happen after the printing press), but they seem even later innovations. As an example, the system of organised Bible verses now used only happened in the 16th century. Catalogs, yes, but there are still a lot of challenges with that. There are books that contain discussion of the contents of other books - such as Garangian Bronze-Guts of the Jonstown Library and his 120 volume Compendium of Persons Eminent in Every Branch of Learning with a List of Their Writings - but many books will be listed under other names, in partial forms, with poorly translated titles if in another language (if translated at all), and full of the authors biases. Some books may be listed as artifacts instead, some may be i poor condition, etc. Plus knowing the book should be there is no guarantee it will be. Plus every cataloging system will be different (there is no Dewy Decimal etc standard) and probably disorganised. Actually making a working catalog of a large diverse library, requiring the cooperation of multiple scholarly experts, is probably a Lhankor Mhy hero task.

It's true that Dismiss Magic can cost a few RPs if you are up against powerful magic - but a single point can dispel a Befuddle or a Demoralise or a Madness, which can turn the tide of battle if it is on your best fighter. Multispell is obviously spectacularly useful in combat for anyone that has multiple useful Spirit magic spells, especially if they have a few stored magic points. Also stacked Disruption is very powerful. Warding is a great defence spell in any combat where you are defending a position and have a minute or so to prepare. Soul Sight lets you fight in the dark, lets you know which enemies are more magically dangerous, and lets you know about defensive magic so you can target offensive magic and Dismiss Magic appropriately. Essentially, it is useful in any combat involving magic casting, and more besides. Summon and Command Cult Spirit let you summon a useful ally (yes, in combat, it is not a ritual) and Command it to attack your enemies (or do whatever else it can do, which can include casting other magic, maybe healing - almost every cult has some useful spirits), and major cults can have many. I have no idea what you even mean by 'stronger than Rune Magic levels' - there is no stackability limit on Spirit Block. The sorcery spell Spirit Warding is less effective than Spirit Block - a Spirit Warding will never 100% protect you against spirit attack, so if you have no way of attacking the spirits in return you will never be in a situation where you can ignore Spirit attack (3 points worth lets you effectively ignore Spirit Combat from normal spirits below POW 24, for example, no matter how many). In situations in which there are a lot of spirits, this difference is significance. Plus this is such a false comparison, because it is comparing a sorcerer who has effectively spent years in preparation to a normal divine magic user who has made no particular effort to prepare for spirits at all. Which really gets at my main point - you are effectively saying 'why, a sorcerer could imitate normal common divine magic by merely spending several decades in study, many points of POW in enchantments, and adequately preparing for the particular incident some hours or days in advance, and then he would clearly be superior to an initiate'. Lets dive into this example to illustrate the issue Let us compare in the situation in which the spirit attack is not know to be happening in advance, that is in an adventure situation in which there is no particular reason to suspect spirit combat. A character with Common divine magic access can be protected from spirits by simply casting Spirit Block at the beginning of the first melee round. A sorcerer can be protected from spirits by - spending a season or two learning Spirit Warding in advance. - spending a few more seasons and/or a LOT of experience rolls to get their Spell ability high enough to be reliably cast. OR have happened to spend a lot of (time and magic point) resources i casting a long Duration version of the spell as part of their regular routine. If they have cast it in advance, it is probably a relatively low level so it is likely only defending against attack around 50% of the time. - if they have not cast it in advance, they have to spend two rounds or so casting, while under spirit attack, precluding them from attacking back - so if they fail to cast the spell they are usually in a much worse position than if they had never tried to. So the message is a sorcerer who spends multiple seasons of time and significant other resources is able to respond to spirit attacks in a less reliable and more resources heavy way than a beginning divine magic using PC who has put literally no thought into the issue at all. Now, multiple that by however many common divine spells you think are useful. We end up with a result something roughly like given a decade or so of preparation and significant investment of other resources, a sorcerer will be able to respond to unexpected threats and common problems with something like the flexibility of an average beginning initiate.

Of course, Yelm;s worship varies considerably depending on where you are. The Six Parts of Yelm is very much a Dara Happan doctrine. In the Heartlands/Dara Happa they are worshipped both separately and sometimes together (mostly at big state rites). I think Dara Happans would recognise they are they are all, conceptually, parts of Yelm but distinguish the different Rites. Of course only a tiny elite are direct initiates of the Yelm cult, but the Enverinus cult is very common and presides over sacrifices and cremations for both Lodril and Yelm cults (and is mostly commoners). Antirius is recognised as a sub-cult of Yelm dedicated to Justice. I think Berneel Arashagern is invoked during the (many) rites that recognise Dendara as the wife of Yelm. And so on.

The direct Yelm worship among the Aldryami in Pamaltela was popular among the House of Erinorru.

Just like other once separated aspects of Yelm, represent powers like terrestrial fire, Justice and rulership, and so on. Now they are no longer separated, but combined. They are always going on about that stuff, Dara Happan religion evolves and changes far more than they admit. But they also exaggerate it. As I said - maybe they don't talk about Yelms fertility much in most civic rituals, but the fertility powers are much in evidence in Dendara rituals etc. Yelm is not Dayzatar. He can interact with his wife in appropriate ways.

Would you mind sharing those? I'm curious. I seem to recall it being described as loosely rooted in "Neoplatonism" by persons on these forums but my memory says that was in a very unofficial context (rather than quoting/paraphrasing designers). I'd love to know what Stafford et. al. have noted as their inspirations. As something of a Platonist myself, that could be a lovely rabbithole to get myself lost within. @Jeff has mentioned Neo-platonism, so that is a relatively official source of inspiration. Also kabbalism, gnosticism (obviously especially Neo-platonic gnosticism), Hinduism (especially the four varnas), Zorastrianism. But mostly lots of Plato and Neo-Platonism. Of course these sources are not unified on many specifics, but nor are Gloranthan sorcerers (or Malkioni). I personally tend to think that anachronist magic that descends from some of those sources, like John Dee's Enochian, Hermeticism, etc can be useful inspirations for your later developments of sorcery such as God Learner or Arkati sorcery.

It depends which Fonritians - it is a pretty diverse place, and any given Fonritian city can diverge significantly from the standard scheme, and there are lots of weird little traditions - including isolated cities that reject the Ompalam slave religion. But most of the non-Veldang population of the cities are going to worship one of the 17 Glorious Ones, plus acknowledging Garangordos as ruling god, and Ompalam. You generally would give them a few spells (Spirit and Rune) related to their profession (many of the 17 are effectively deities of professions and sort of guilds), and perhaps some appropriate elemental spells. Grab appropriate spells from any relevant cult. Particularly popular Glorious Ones include - Bendaluza, whose magic is mostly about building stone cities but also very phallic, and his magic is mostly about knowledge and fire, and El Jazuli the Earth Witch (a bit like Asrelia,with Earth elementals and domination of the powers of the Land), and Varama the Sun God. Many of the Fonritians you meet in Genertela are going to be sailors, who might worship Chouanaibos, patron of boat building, navigation, and exploration - probably Movement rune magic and spells like Float Soldiers mostly would worship Abdamedric, the Man of Two Swords, who I think you could roughly treat as Humakt without any of the Truth or honour parts. As he is supposed to correspond to the Fire-War god Vangono, Fireblade is pretty likely. There certainly are Ikadz (torture god) worshippers, and they make good antagonists because they are pretty hatable. Stealing the Pain Tooth spell from The Bloody Tusk (in the Bestiary) isn't a bad start for improvising some Ikadz magic. Outside the cities, many worship the Millet Goddess, Ernamola - she is roughly a standard grain goddess, so the agricultural aspects of Ernalda. You are also going to find a lot of smaller shamanic traditions, most connected to Earth or Sea and worshipped by farmers or fishermen. Baraku is the Fonritian equivalent to Orlanth, but he is more of a rebellious enemy storm god - he is worshipped, particularly by outsiders like sailors, but is not a leader or culture hero god to most Fonritians, more a god you worship if you are afraid of the power of storms (or want others to fear your storm powers). There are plenty of other minority religions in fonrit - Notable are the Selarn thief cult, the Jokuto murder-tricksters, and Seseine as a seductive Chaos cult of desire. Plus lots of sorcerers, many of whom are involved in odd variations on the Invisible God (usually acknowledging Ompalaman and slavery), but also many independent sorcerers (many of whom have studied Vadeli corrupted magic). Most of the Veldang are wretched slave and have very little good magic at all. If you want them to have good magic (usually meaning they are part of a secret illegal rebel cult), they can have all sorts of mysterious things, probably Invisibility as a blue moon power for example.

I figure each of the Glorious Ones has just a little Rune magic, usually shared with their equivalent Doraddi Pamalt pantheon deity (who is explicitly acknowledged in their rites). Plus teaches spirit magic like a normal cult. There are a couple of exceptions - notably Mandakusour, who probably some shamans, and Garangordos, whose power is very different to Pamalts. Sorcery is mostly a separate thing, but there are lots of sorcerers, and a real wide mix of traditions, including plenty of sinister Vadeli magic. Shamans are rare, though ancestor worship is definitely a thing there and a few other things.

FWIW, I think the most well used cooperative magic in war time is roughly the same for sorcerers as it is for other magicians - it is Dragon Pass (the board game) style regimental magic that is (as described in the Glorantha Sourcebook) based around a magical entity that is a type of wyter. She Who Strikes From Afar in the Glorantha Bestiary gives you an example of how this functions for the Lunars, but something similar could be easily imagined for sorcerers (or other traditions), my feeling is that such spirits can often be used by groups of sorcerers for something like a mass Multispell. I also think it is no coincidence that this form of magic seems to be best practiced by groups containing Illuminates (of whatever variety), but that’s a significant digression. Essentially, I think Illumination (which already means you’ve had an experience of ego transcendence) helps you tolerate becoming (temporarily) part of a group mind without going crazy.