davecake

I would disagree. We don't have full game rules, but in the GSB pg 211-212, we have quite detailed description of how warlock magic manifests in a game situation. it is based around meditative techniques a warlock can be part of almost any magical tradition it includes Illumination or draconic Illumination as a crucial part of the magic they create a wyter for the group they discorporate, leaving their bodies, and are in magical communication with the wyter the wyter travels a significant distance from the location of the magicians bodies, up to 30 km the wyter is accompanied by the discorporate souls of the magicians. While every regiment is unique, I think three things are relatively clear. The magic of warlocks is collective, not individual - we don't need to concern ourselves with the additional powers that warlocks may have, beyond those we associate with mysticism/Illumination, and there is enough variance there as to include almost every known mystic tradition somewhere. The other powers and traditions of warlocks differ very radically, so as to have no defining powers. And while we might not have every set of rules we might want for a full simulation of the entire warlock experience, we do know a fair bit about wyters and we have the Discorporation spell, add a Mind Link and a bit of Extension and we have a pretty good idea what being involved in a unit of the SMU is going to be like in game terms. I certainly feel I have enough information for either being attacked by a unit of the SMU, or a PC warlock, without feeling I was having to hand wave the combat much.

FWIW, one of the favourite RQ games I ever ran ended with a huge plot around the Lunars invoking Daga in Prax - they (mostly the Red School of Masks at Moonbroth) adapted the Daga myth, so it became about using the power of the Sun Eagle (as analogue for Yelm) to imprison the Thunder Bird (as analogue for Heler) within the Sea Dragon at the centre of the Puzzle Canal. The PCs did a mighty version of the Aroka myth, travelling around Pavis in a giant spiral that saw them collect the various winds and other ritual items from various opponents (defeating Lunar shamans, Gagarthi bandits, chaos vermin, and various others along the way), and then their Wind Lord leader defeated the dragon by unleashing the gathered elementals and spirits on it, while the rest of the PCs battled the Coders attempts to interfere in the fight. But I very much had Daga as a long term strategic threat (that was keeping all of Prax in drought so everyone not near a water source was suffering, which meant all the Praxian tribes were kept out of Prax but the Lunars could survive near the Zola Fel and Moonbroth), the PCs defeated Daga the same way Orlanth did - not by direct confrontation which always failed, but by freeing a powerful Water power. I do think that most Gloranthan army level battles tend to see the summoning of high powered magical entities, be they god or spirit or demon, as the ultimate trump card (despite my scepticism about Daga or Tarumath being particularly good choices), and the cornerstone technique of magical warfare. I think that an organised group of sorcerers, by they orthodox or heterodox, is ultimately pretty likely to base their war strategy around something like that (though there are a few rare war magician orders who focus on buffing troops, for sure). Summoning giant magical entities is something that comes up all the tine in Gloranthan sources. I think they are far more likely to do that that do attempt elaborate bureaucratic schemes for trying to cope with all contingencies by trying to have just the right set of buffs known by some otherwise barely competent soldier somewhere. In short, I think large groups of sorcerers involved in magical warfare mostly do the same things other magicians do - concentrate on techniques around collaborative collective magic and the summoning of powerful magical entities. Wyters (or whatever the sorcerous equivalent is), major summonings, coordination of long range attacks, regiment level magic, etc. My examples of magic that sorcerers would find hard to cope with (an attack of spirits, etc) aren't really intended to show that sorcerers are vulnerable to attacks - its intended to show that sorcerers are likely to behave like normal magicians at war (collaborating to create regimental level magic defences, or coordinate powerful magic assaults utilising many spirits/etc) rather than in coordinating bureaucratic army level buffing schemes. The question is how would they create those magical defences? I do not think it is by managing to keep high powered Spirit Warding on all their soldiers at all times, or even usually a low level one - they have bound entities on watch, are prepared to cast large Protective Circles to protect troops, and similar means. (not that sorcerers don't spend magical effort on buffing their soldiers - for the Brithini in particular, it is the core of their strategy - but when they do its a core group of sorcerers casting on a core group of soldiers, not a Fordist army wide magical assembly line)

To be honest I have doubts about both of these specifics. Daga is a god whose powers do not exert themselves instantly or directly - a might foe of the Orlanthi it is true, but one with strategic value rather than tactical. And Tarumath... well, I don't think is easily contacted by sorcerous means anyway, as Tarumath is a fundamentally mystic entity, and it is a fairly close contest between even Lokomayadan and Garindarth - sure, Lokomayadan defeats Garindarth, but at a huge cost to his army. And thats with the greatest follower of Tarumath who ever lived, backed by thousands of followers- just summoning up Tarumath by sorcerous means and hoping for instant victory probably isn't terribly reliable.

I absolutely think that yes, the temple-libraries are disorganised piles of things - not just scrolls, but collections of things that attracted the attention of a sage one time, historical artifacts that a sage absolutely intends to cast a lot of extended Reconstruction spells on some time, maps with scribbled geomantic notes, collections of rocks or pressed plants or foreign fabrics. Many of the books will be in languages most of the temple doesn't speak, some in languages no one speaks (and may not even be known, just bits filed away in the hopes someone will be able to translate them in the future). The grand Temple in Nochet has a bit of the feel of the Pitt-Rivers museum in Oxford, a grand collection of fascinating things all jammed in. But if the Buserian sages differ, its only in that they are less interested in foreign knowledge for its own sake. The Irippi Ontor sages, while they have no prohibition on foreign knowledge, have a far greater pile of 'official' Lunar knowledge to focus on - individually, they might be as curious about foreign knowledge as any Lhankor Mhy, in practice as an institution keeping on top of the great pile of Lunar and Solar knowledge keeps them pretty busy. Neither cult has modern organised libraries. My real point though is that none of these cults think of themselves as anything other than both rational and learned. They might scoff at the ways of the others, and certainly IO and Buserian scholars might make fun of a provincial hill clan Lhankor Mhy who mostly functions as a lawspeaker and handles difficult questions by dream interpretation after sleeping under a leather sheet - but a Lhankor Mhy sage from Jonstown or Nochet has the same attitude about their more rural cousins too. Lhankor Mhy especially is a socially complex that adapts to its social role, and includes many different 'archetypes' of scholar - philosophically sophisticated sorcerer, proto-scientist natural scholars, book learned sages, lawspeakers who are repositories of oral tradition and poetry, sword sage, economically prudent specialists in evaluation or document trading, etc. There is certainly a debate within the cult on what is the ultimate source of knowledge - empiricism, pure reason, or magical revelation - but in practice all three are used by most sages, and the same debate happens within Malkionism. The idea that any of the three is considered 'irrational' is very much a modern epistemological argument.

The Emperors, particularly Godunya, do not feel like Chinese Emperors at all, though - they are more akin to living Saints, religiously revered, like the Dalai Lama, rather than the much more political and secular Chinese Emperors. I agree. Kralorela needs to be less singularly Chinese in nature. It is also a bit more bland than China - China has competing religious traditions, for example, while Kralorela seems to be dominated by Darudism, with all other seriously competing traditions pushed outside of the Empire. The idea of a singular, unbroken, line of Emperors is clearly propaganda, with Sekever, Sheng Seleris, etc just written out of history as awkward interruptions rather than true breaks in Imperial rule.

I like them. I like to keep the Passions pretty fluid - a lot of the time they go up or down by more than a skill roll would (certainly major events get you bumps up and down like Reputation does), and it is pretty easy to gain a new passion from a significant event. I have a few quibbles - Man and Beast being opposed doesn't really work for me well, and sometimes you need to note that an elemental Rune is really a sub-rune - but mostly the Runes work very well.

The Blues mentioned in Pelanda seem to mostly be Waertagi who travelled up the Janube River. There are also some Kachasti around the place through Western Genertela. I'm guessing the 3EB are the latter, as they don't seem associated with Water. They don't seem to be Vadeli, as they aren't monstrous sociopaths.

The one thing I'd add to what has already been said, is that there is a LOT of great information in the HeroQuest books, most of which can be treated a lot like a statistics free setting independent supplement, and is easily adapted to RuneQuest. The Sartar:Kingdom of Heroes and Sartar Companion books have heaps of information about Sartar (including things like encounter charts, maps of major cities, etc) and adventures that are more or less 'just add stats' form. The Pavis book does the same for Pavis and Prax. The Coming Storm gets you an enormous amount of background about an area in northern Sartar, and the Eleven Lights gets you a multi-year campaign set there - again, effectively 'just as stats' material for RQG. Get the RuneQuest Glorantha stuff first, for sure, but if you are still looking for more info after that, consider grabbing the HQ books.

Generally speaking, active Mystic magic is really other forms of magic, only with all the rules broken where they inconvenience the Mystics (who, as Illuminates, can break the rules). The mystic magic itself is rules wise, more or less something very much like Illumination, not that powerful on its own. I generally treat Larnstings as having access to a wide range of Movement magic that goes beyond the limits of Orlanth etc. Probably just giving them access to any Movement/Change rune magic they want is a good call, and relating the shapechanging magic that is now associated with Mastakos to Sartars magic is useful. Its not a perfect system, but it will probably work well enough for campaign. It is worth remembering that there are many Illumination schools that may not know much about how to teach Illumination. Obviously the Nysalorans do, but I tend to think that groups like the Larnstings and Imarjans may not - they know how to become Illuminated via heroquest or other difficult and traumatic magics, but they usually don't know how to communicated it easily via words. Even the Lunars aren't very good at teaching Illumination themselves, which is why they sponsor Nysaloran schools. Revealed Mythologies talks about Austerities as a classic mystic magic. I'm not sure the Larnstings themselves do this, but its useful for thinking of how some mystics practice magic. It is basically taking on Gifts and Geases, like Humakt or Yelmalio. Then, because you are Illuminated, ignoring the Geases when it gets in your way. For PCs we sort of need a bit more rules than that to stop it getting out of hand, but that works pretty well for NPCs - just give them a few special magic skills or permanent Rune spells etc, and a few weird practices they follow most of the time but ignore when its inconvenient. A Larnsting might have a permanent movement blessing, for example, or mastery of Dodge, or heightened DEX, in addition to their normal magic.

We might reasonably say that Lhankor Mhy is more Aristotle than Plato or similar. But jumping from that to 'so, it's irrational' is wildly anachronistic. And, FWIW, I don't think it is very representative of LM either, as LM obviously is interested in sorcery, alchemy, and investigation of the true nature of things. I think LM knows both, to the extent that Heortling law works that way. But if we had to choose between the two, that LM lawspeakers literally recite the exact terms of the law before each moot would tend to indicate that they know them. You are not distinguishing between command and control, maybe? Esrolia and Dara Happa have centralised command, but they exercise command over a broad collection of independent authorities, who have their own privileges usually enabling them to control their own internal organisation. They can't, for example, demand the Granite Phalanx retrain as peltasts. I specifically think the Talars can order the zzaburi to help them defend against a threat, or even join them in a way, but I don't think the Talars can, for example, demand all the Debaldan school switch to learning Furlandan magic, no matter how terrifically handy it would be. I think even the implied central bureaucracy of the Lunar Empire, with its professional Buserians and giant logistics chain, is a bit idealistic, and is a continual struggle to make it work in practice. Mostly units struggle into town with a chest full of cash and begin buying and extorting what they need individually. Everything is a lot more devolved than the idea that the talars can order up a carefully balanced package of sorcery experts would imply. Often, control over an organisation is illusory - it relies on accepting that you can command what they have without expecting to change it, and knowing that there are many commands they will not obey, and might cause them to leave if you try. The God Learners had not one dubious, in hind sight heretical or unwise, idea, but multiple. I do not think the only God Learners that used some divine magic were the Malkioneranists, but that there were quite a few henotheists (largely those who combined worship of 'accepted' gods like Issaries or Lhankor Mhy), or others who interacted with Pagan deities. The Emanationalists in Pamaltela were not Malkioneranists, but they did deal with pagan deities, although only a few became full blown pure pagans (the Inflamers). There are plenty of Emanationalists following such marginally acceptable deities as Issaries and Lhankor Mhy throughout the Middle Sea Empire. It works excellently as long as the enemy doesn't do anything unexpected. Which they will be trying very hard to do. Specific Runic Protection is particularly fragile - it relies strongly on having a very good idea of your enemies magical resources, so one bunch of unexpected allies can be devastating. And any explanation of battlefield magic that doesn't include wyters as a major factor is going to be way off, especially for the Orlanthi. Plus we are simply dragging the rules into territory they are not expected to cover in detail. Push the rules into a corner case, they stop working well, especially when important rules are missing. For example, we literally do not have rules to cover how organised, coordinated long range magical attacks work from a rules point of view - and yet, here we are, arguing about the effects of magic on mass warfare, ignoring literally most of the evidence we have on how large scale mass warfare works in Glorantha! We *know* the Lunars and the SMU focus their magical efforts on long range coordinated magical attack. Maintaining big combat buffs on your front line troops does nothing at all to protect you from otherworldly long range bombardment - and for every sorcerer who has specialised in buffing your troops, that is one sorcerer less to work on magical defences. What really happens with our hypothetical unit of sorcerers with big Boon of Kargan Tor buffs and Neutralise Storm? Well, they might end up meeting a bunch of Orlanthi warriors in straight combat, and chew threw them. Or they might have a group of Windlords fly/teleport into their sorcerers stashed behind the lines and slaughter them. Or they might have the Snakepipe Dancers drop a horde of spirits on them from 20 km away. Or get an earthquake dropped on them. Sorcerers are absolutely great at developing perfect plans, as we have had several times explained. How often those perfect plans survive contact with the enemy is another thing entirely.

And I think regarding a god who is entirely about the value of learning as being 'irrational' because they aren't making the same sort of epistemological distinctions as, say, a 20th century logical positivist is absurd. It would be a pretty ridiculous stance to take even to a 20th century philosopher, but it is so far from being era appropriate as to be ridiculous. It is clearly described a power they have in the Xeotam dialogue. On the other hand, kaelith are mentioned nowhere else, and are also said to be a able to change their shape, and we have few records of the known kaelith heroes doing this, so it is suspect. I was just trying to make the point that I think any abilities resembling shamanism are extremely rare even among the most magically renowned Westerners. Full shamanism is strictly not even a real possibility except for weirdoes that have drifted into both mysticism and foreign heresy. [Lunars] Well, that makes it *magically* possible, but I think it is still psychologically difficult for Lunars that are not Illuminated. I think Lunar sorcery resembles Western sorcery in form (rituals, formulae, tables of correspondences and complex conceptual relationships, etc) but always has a self-referential, fundamentally non-rational, core symbolism. But it still requires you to take a cool, logical, approach to puzzling it out, which is psychologically somewhat incompatible with journeying through the spirit world adrift in a sea of sensation and emotion. FWIW, though, IIRC Jakaleel shamans are not restricted to the Lunar otherworld, but may journey into the normal Spirit World as well, typically the underworld to contact spirits of the dead. [Warlocks] Nor am I. The collective achievement is the point. But I think even experiencing other magic through that group awareness is sanity threatening (to the unIlluminated, anyway - with the usual caveat that many would claim Illumination is already evidence of sanity slipping).

I literally just pointed out the in the line above that the reason they are old is because it takes years to master a spell. We clearly are not longer meaningfully arguing if we are just ignoring arguments that don't support our thesis. Indeed, but the point is it rapidly fails to scale, and requires years of preparation to do well (you can't just decide you want a specific spell specialist, if you want them to able to cast the spell without days of preparation, it takes them at least a season). And you need a lot of them just to replicate the level of flexibility your rune magic users get just from common rune magic. If the other magicians learn to get similarly organised (which is precisely what the Sartar Magical Union is), sorcerers are in trouble. You are imagining a version of sorcery that is supported neither by any version of Gloranthan society we've ever known, or by the rules. As your putative soldiers have not mastered their runes, casting at max Free INT (so 12 for the average soldier, presuming they know one single spell) takes twice as many magic points as they have, and is wildly unreliable, and if they cast at a duration of hours or more reduces it to a level of potency that is about on a par with normal spirit magic levels. If they cast at short time, higher level, they are vulnerable to magic and all the enemy commander has to do is delay. And it is highly unreliable to cast (to boost it being reliable would require your opponents letting you wait around). Your average Orlanthi can just cast a little spirit magic before battle for the same effect as a long duration spell. And has far more flexibility. And it flat our contradicts what we've been told about Western society in multiple places. I don't really want to argue about alternate Gloranthas in which the Malkioni reorganise their society around the optimisation of details of the RQG sorcery rules. Besides, we've already been there - there was a period when the Malkioni understood the Runequest rules and reorganised themselves accordingly, and they ultimately chose to Learn about the Gods. 😁 Battle covers tactics and leadership, not strategy. And sure, it helps. But so does having the magical advantage. Sorcerers don't have multispell any more - if you are talking about a strength 12 Boon of Kargan Tor, you aren't able to cast it on many people, you probably have a tiny number of sorcerers able to reliably cast it in your army, and those sorcerers are quite limited in the number of people they can cast it on. It really IS about one to one, because the number of people you will be able to buff like that will be a comparable percentage of your army to the number of rune levels (maybe) on the other side, and that is probably if you have spent literally decades training war wizards. My strong impression is that, society vs society, almost every zzaburi war wizard makes the same arguments you are making - and many a talar discovers, to his regret, that he just can't seem to ever have enough of the right kind of sorcerer when they need it. Sorcerers are a very limited resource, incredibly slow and expensive to 'make', and very inflexible. And next thing you know, the talar is hiring foreign mercenaries or making alliances, discreetly enquiring with the War societies about their secret magic (if Rokari), falling into some heresy or another, or desperately heroquesting. Or, if they are Brithini, acknowledging sorrowfully that an embarrasing military defeat every few centuries is a small price to pay for immortality 🤣 Well, briefly. It takes a very long time to organise, at minimum many years. It requires a very significant domination of your sorcerers, so you are able to get many of them to spent many years and many points of power becoming specialist war wizards. It requires a degree of centralised control that is alien to the bronze age societies we discuss. And probably just requires too many sorcerers to cover too many bases to work. The flexibility provided by common rune spells and the ability of shamans to teach/cast any spirit magic is significant. For example, you'll need a number of specialist spirit defence sorcerers to not be very vulnerable to spirit attacks - while almost every Rune magic user already has Spirit Block. And it ends up being (especially if you rely on Neutralise Rune as your magical defence) being kind of an extended game of Rock, Paper Scissors in which you have to invest several years effort to change option - your system is sufficiently inflexible that one attack you don't have the means to defend against, and that is smart enough to target your sorcerers, effectively destroys you as a power. A horde of ghosts, or an earthquake that destroys the castle you are in, or a bunch of werewolves when you don't have enough magic weapons. Sorcery based states that rely only on sorcery are historically brittle. The Brithini either fall into henotheism (dawn age seshnela) or get beaten despite being master sorcerers (Arolanit falls to God Learners, First age defeat by Nysalorans). The Rokari claim purity, but ignore that their Horali caste flagrantly prefer their War Societies non-sorcerous magic. The Loskalmi were not notably martially powerful pre-Ban (being conquered by the God Learners, White Bear Empire, Black Hralf the Weasel, etc and was losing to Nysalors armies until they got Lightbringer and Hsunchen aid), and their fine wizard knights will probably get chopped into mincemeat by the Kingdom of War. The God Learners, of course, got so much of their success by NOT being purist sorcery users. In general, sorcery using cultures (other than the Brithini) either seem to not be that effective militarily, end up not that purist after all, or hope a hero saves them with a great magical act. I think that this is pretty much what the rules will support as well - pure sorcery users can be very effective with preparation and near perfect organisation and execution, but it is very easy for their lack of flexibility to be their downfall. Or for them to have to rely on big magical effects to save them when their military falters. (The Vadeli and Mostali are special cases, because I don't believe either qualifies as relying on standard sorcery. The ancient Vadeli relied heavily on demonology, the modern Vadeli on deceit. The Mostali have many magical techniques that go beyond the limits of standard sorcery, especially jolanti and other constructed beings, and alchemy including gunpowder.) And you know, this whole argument is why I hate the 'spells and spreadsheets' effect of Duration. It immediately leads to long explanation of how sorcery 'obviously' works based on a bunch of back of the envelope calculations that have nothing to do with Gloranthan flavour, and are the opposite of fun, and don't stand up in practice.

I think you reductio ad absurdum your own argument there.

In RQG its clearly a minority that having any significant natural talent (with the minimum 13 INT to master a Rune), and so sorcery becomes a clearly fairly poor choice of magic for a lot of the population - this is clearly a change from early HeroWars/HQ1 material, but was not that clear in HQ1. It is consistent with the Guide, though, which has the Rokari rejecting any magic beyond the trivial for non-zzaburi. This is exactly the sort of thing where I think Jeffs warning about trying to extrapolate from the rules of HQ can lead to confusion. In HQ, if you succeeded, and it was dramatically significant, then you clearly were able to muster the significant magical resources you need somehow. If you didn't succeed, you were not. That says nothing really about the process of how it was done. If you have a high ability in HQ2, that might include all sorts of personal qualities, skills, resources and knowledge, it only needs to be dragged out into a separate ability (like Intelligence) if it is narratively interesting to do so. Similar arguments apply to all the rest of the things on your list. But there are differences between the systems that are not artifacts of the game system, but reflect basic principles of the Gloranthan magical world they are trying to model. For me the differences between RQG and HQ2 sorcery that are significant are: incompatibility at the non-specialist level. In HQ2, while there were prohibitions on shamans, sorcerers and devotees becoming one of the others (for the most part), it seemed as if using charms, spells or affinities did not restrict each other. (and I, at least, assumed that pretty obviously a lot of what we call spirit magic in RQG was, if the source was a God, abstracted as part of an Affinity in HQ2, rather than being treated as a Charm). In HQG, you learnt spells, but the fundamental determinant of knowledge and ability is the Grimoire, and this was quite explicit - you couldn't even specialise in an individual spell if you wanted to. In RQG, the fundamental determinant of ability is the individual spell, and the more skilled/powerful you are as a sorcerer the more this becomes true. In RQG the concept of a grimoire is basically just flavour text. In HQ2, the concept of sorcery as clearly based on 'what you know' was pretty core. In RQG, it is muddied to the point of no longer being all that meaningful as a design concept - for powerful sorcerers, their practical level of power is clearly determined largely by Inscriptions and Enchantments. And it is explicitly forbidden, more or less. And Joerg missed the rule that explicitly forbid them In HQG you could not make a single spell better than the others in your grimoire - and making a single spell better than the others is exactly what Inscriptions do.

Yes. And there are probably a few other historical and obscure weirdoes, but its rare and associated with Illumination at least. It is quite likely a hero thing for most cultures - probably the most common way for a Malkioni sorcerer to experience the Spirit World is by becoming a 'kaelith' through returning from the Underworld with the ability to discorporate. The Lunar magicians almost certainly have developed the combination of sorcerery, shamanism and rune magic - but it is a uniquely Lunar form, quite possibly only works with Lunar sorcery and Lunar shamanism, and almost certainly requires Illumination. And, of course, madness inducing goes without saying, at least as far as non-Lunars would claim. But I don't think it would be that uncommon for a Major Class magician. The really interesting question is what combinations of magic have been mastered by Argraths Warlocks. But this is all kind of beside the point. You can always special case such rules, and the combination of sorcery, shamanism and mysticism is a pretty obscure corner case where it seems reasonable. No one thinks that sorcerer-shamans are a common thing. It's the much more day to day magic as used by those who are not specialists, let alone weirdo specialists like Arkati, that matters.

There is essentially almost nothing you can do to broaden your repertoire of spells that you can cast in under a day, apart from studying for multiple years. And there is plenty you can do with POW gains to make your shaman or Rune Priest both more powerful and more versatile. The sorcerer doesn't really have any easy way to become more versatile (except the obvious one of... getting some spirit magic matrices). So a sorcerer mostly remains a one or two trick pony. The cosmological relationship of spirit magic and sorcery has actually changed in practically every edition of every Gloranthan game. This is actually a major change in how Glorantha works from literally the last roleplaying game rules Jeff wrote, only three years ago. From HQG 2015 The version of sorcery therein is almost completely different in detail too. This is one of the things that most bugs my about RQG sorcery - we are told 'that is just how sorcery is in Glorantha', but it is actually a radical rewrite of how sorcery was in Glorantha until very recently. And it is a rewrite that makes it less fun in practically every way, and goes in the opposite design directions to other parts of the game.

Being old and wizened (and knowing spells to a high level so you can cast them with ritual preparation, and having a large number of power points in Inscriptions) IS being a master sorcerer. Yeah, you think you are arguing against me while arguing my point for me. Yes, a platoon or company of troopers who are able to fill up your magic point stores - versus a big crowd of initiates who are individually able to cast good magic. The point being the sorcerers are able to cast a small number of powerful spells - while an equivalent group of theists is likely to have individually weaker magic, but a LOT more of it. Orlanthi culture does though. Imagine spending 5 years learning how to cast Neutralise Air at a decent level because you want to take on those Orlanthi over the hill, and then dying in 5 minutes to the priestesses Earth Elemental. So you go back, get another sorcerer to spend years learning Neutralise Earth to a decent level as well, and the clan Champion Sever Spirits you. So.... you learn Neutralise Death as well and then... get ambushed by trolls. Neutralise <Rune> is an excellent example of why the inflexibility of sorcery goes too far for my taste. I actually have no problem with sorcerers being inflexible in the short term, and powerful in the long term, but the problem for me is they are also inflexible and by far the least interesting in the long term. Almost everyone who is saying sorcerers are powerful in the long term are accepting that sorcerers will essentially be powergame obsessive who focus on being incredibly good at a small number of spells, spending all their time in training and all their POW in Inscriptions to be good at a very small number of spells. How incredibly dull. FWIW, I think there are probably shaman-sorcerers in Glorantha. But they are almost inevitably Illuminates of some kind, and maybe have to learn from other Illuminated weirdoes. And even then damn unusual. Its heretical to the Malkioni, and unthinkable to most shamans, and weird as hell. But we are only incidentally talking about shamans, the question is spirit magic. So the issue is more like 'why would some Lhankor Mhy think the most common magic taught by Lhankor Mhy is irrational'. Or 'why would the magical experts of the Malkioni have far less access to day to day useful magic than those around them. Of course, Magic-User clerics have been in D&D for roughly three decades (and the Mystic Theurge class, that lets you advance as both at once, for close to two decades.). Its one of those arguments that doesn't really work the way you think it does.

Until multispell reappears, those things probably aren’t that big an issue at an army scale. There will be a LOT more initiates of cults than there are master sorcerers, so a few Thunderbolts or Mindblasts will deal with the buffed individuals - and as for Neutralise Rune, that’s what associated cults are for (plus most major cults, like Orlanth, have decent magic from more than one Rune). And the sorcerers currently do not appear to have anything like Morale to buff their entire army. Ironically, what probably makes Western armies contenders in RQG rules is that the Horali still have spirit magic, and possibly a bit of rune magic too.

It is true that not all sorcerers ‘rock’, some are going to be slow acting mediocrities unable to respond easily to any unanticipated situation, and unable to perform significant magical acts without assistance. Which in no way invalidates my point. The sorcerers that rock are the ones that have understood, anticipated, and overcome their limitations. Just like the best shamans will have plenty of ability to deal with problems outside the spirit plane, and the best theists will be prepared for problems outside their runic focus (such as taking advantage of their associated cults). Top sorcerers will have a tidy pack of bound spirits ready to go, because it’s one of the best ways to prepare for magical challenges. I think you would imagine incorrectly! The sorcerers, for example, may be literally the only culture that has a myth about the origin of Binding Enchantments (Vadel learnt it from the Mostali, and passed the knowledge to Zzabur who improved it), so having a bunch of spirits in Binding Enchantments seems very appropriate for sorcerers. Defeating powerful beings from other other worlds and having them as servants is central to many Western myths. And there are schools of sorcery that specialise in defeating spirits (notably the Furlandan, popular in Loskalm since at least the Dawn, but widely known elsewhere). And multiple examples eg in the Guide, of sorcerers who have bound powerful spirits. What (orthodox Malkioni, at least) sorcerers disapprove of is allying with, serving, or making pacts with spirits. They think becoming part of a spirit cult is essentially demonology. They think entering the Spirit World is to journey into an irrational, intrinsically deranging, world of emotion. They think shamanism is something like voluntary psychosis, only with added magic powers to spread the madness. But summoning a spirit into your world, defeating and capturing it with sorcery, and keeping it around as your helpful servant? Entirely sensible and rational, and demonstrates the superiority of sorcery. And noting, of course, that even the very limited subset of sorcery spells in RQG includes a full set of spells for doing this. There is probably a bit of a side issue of terminology here - in the Hero Wars era we used to disguise between spirits, minor gods, and essences, as being creatures of natural, divine or sorcerous nature. In current RQG (and HQG) the term spirit still admits some cultural ambiguity (the full explanation is on page 132-133) but includes what would have been called essences or minor gods then. They are all called spirits now and the rules don’t really distuish, or even when they do somewhat distinguish do so with adjectives (eg cult spirit, allied spirit). And the ideas about cosmology that made it necessary to distinguish are considered outdated for the most part. If anyone (remaining students of God Learner theory?) still uses those terms, I would think it would refer to the origins of things - with spirits coming in to existence through natural processes, minor gods being created by divine power, and essences given full separate existence by magical acts of mortals, usually by the sorcery that first summons them (or combines certain energy with certain symbols to create a theoretically new thing). The only game significance in RQG of this distinction is that the Malkioni (and perhaps other sorcerous sects) are likely to have somewhat different rules for dealing with Essences on philosophical grounds.

Ask a Loskalmi Man of All. Or a sorcerer in a combat order, for that matter, who despite their largely support role are still going to want to patch people up. I get that in general sorcerers are more like professional philosophers than D&D combat artillery, but that doesn't mean they are all non-combatant ivory tower dwellers either. We still need to make them effective as professional magicians (as they are), and even somewhat as combatants who come to sorcery relatively late in life (or Loskalm just doesn't make sense).

The Irony here is that actually, to rock at being a sorcerer, you almost certainly heavily rely on spirits. Bound spirits are the best way to get the large reserves of magic points you need (far superior in practice to magic point enchantments which require refilling). And almost the only way you can do anything with sorcery that takes effect in a single melee round and lets you respond directly to threats to your person is to have bound spirits or elementals ready to go. So I understand the intent of the rule, but I think it does so clumsily. I appreciate that the sorcery system we have not is seriously incomplete. There are the bonuses and restrictions, plus the chain of veneration, for Malkioni, which will significantly change the practical use of sorcery for the majority of sorcerers in Glorantha. We don't need to find a way to discourage spirit magic for Malkioni - it can be one of those restrictions. I'm not sure we really need to discourage it too much though - it would be truly embarrasing if the rules end up with some horali better at practical magic than zzaburi, and it sounds as if they'll already go some way in that direction (eg practical healing magic, which needs to be fast). We don't need to discourage spirit magic for Arkati and other weird cases like Irripi Ontor (whose magic already doesn't seem bound by 'rigorous logic', given its association with Madness). And I always figured Illuminates can really get in there and practice competing forms of magic, not just opposing cults, if they wish. And for Henotheists like Lhankor Mhy and Aeolians, denying spirit charms as illogical would be akin to saying their own gods practical day to day magic is illogical, which doesn't really seem compatible with worship and adoration. Not to mention that whole 'becoming a sorcerer makes you, in practical terms, actively worse at using magic' thing. And of course, the end result will not be that sorcerers do not use spirit magic. The ability to use some magic that is castable in a short time frame is too valuable, especially for characters who have already specialised in magic and probably have huge MP reserves. The end result is sorcerers will acquire matrices, and so an effective sorcerer PC is probably one who has put some real resources into getting some spirit magic - which sorcerer PC isn't going to jump at the chance to acquire a Befuddle matrix!

My real objection to it isn't so much the imbalance, but its association with Fire. If learning the Fire Rune significantly Enhances your ability as a sorcerer, then we'd have a strong historical association between sorcery and Fire somewhere along the line, but it's almost conspicuously missing in at least in Western/Malkioni history (where we know about the Water magic of the Debaldans/Waertagi, the Darkness magic of the Stygians, the Air magics of the Orgethites/Chariot of Lightning, Earth Magic of the First Age Henotheist Seshnelans, you don't get Fire rune magic even really mentioned until you get to the Carmanians) and modern Loskalmi tending away from Elemental magic entirely. I've never heard anything that makes me thinks the Brithini regarded Fire as being any more valuable than any other element, for example. It seems to be a case where we have what should be a big historical issue in Glorantha but is otherwise unknown proceeding from a minor rules quirk, which implies to me the rules quirk is a bug. The RQG rules I think overemphasise the importance of the elemental associations with attributes (attributes themselves being a rules convention not a fundamental aspect of Glorantha). This is fun and flavoursome for PC creation etc, but when it starts to tell you things about Glorantha it is the tail wagging the dog. So, if I decide that Enhance INT enhances INT for casting purposes, it will be because I've decided non-Elemental versions of the spell are freely available in at least Malkioni grimoires. (the Lhankor Mhy and Carmanian versions of the spell can stick with the Fire association due to the Mistress of the Light of Knowledge and Idovanus, respectively) Insane alternative theory: OR it could be that the association between Intellect and Fire isn't noted in Malkioni etc myth because the NATURE OF INTELLECT ITSELF changed after the Sun Stop to associate it with Fire. And it just took a few centuries for people to really catch on. Still, you'd think the God Learners would be much more into Fire magic if that was the case.

In practice, I don't think it really matters unless you are the sort of magician who is really intent on stealing the secrets of other traditions, so it is a minor point. Malkioni, for example, will all work with written Western and regard all other sorcerous documents as somewhat suspect. Lhankor Mhy sorcerers will mostly work only with Torvalds Fragments, presumably written in their native language. And you could always decide that the Lhankor Mhy 'Alien Combination Machine' magically all converts it to the language of the Lhankor Mhy if you want. Or otherwise having rules for translating spells (something like the creating new spells rule, but given it is a translation it will be easier). That way its just a minor speed bump for most sorcerers. But it is very common for the real world esoteric traditions that we tend to look to for inspiration around sorcery to play complex language games. Geomatria/numerology, anagrams, sorcerous diagrams and symbols often include linguistic elements incorporated, etc. And to emphasise the importance of linguistic elements (some a great deal - John Dee's magic system is so related to the angelic language its usually referred to as Enochian). But then, it is not uncommon for magicians to rote learn some aspects of magic. I don't know whether the continued use of the Hebrew alphabet in most syncretic Western esoteric traditions, despite the majority being unable to speak Hebrew, counts for or against my point really - certainly I think that the Western script details are probably deeply embedded in Malkioni traditions and sorcery that originally derives from Malkioni tradition. The Picatrix is an odd choice to pick - it has itself been translated at least 4 times - The Spanish translation I think comes via Arabic and Latin versions, and much of the content is probably originally hellenistic. And I'm certainly not claiming that sorcery can't be translated, but just that it is probably translated book/system at a time, that the literacy requirement is about your ability to read and comprehend details of the source, not your ability to make notes about it afterwards.

Yes, I meant just use INT=Free INT. Or perhaps, as I am wary of the potential of the Enhance INT spell, Free INT = Unenhanced INT. I don't like spirit magic reducing your Free INT for spellcasting ability because spirit magic is now based on CHA, and because it means literally that spending years learning sorcery literally makes you a worse magician for most practical purposes. I dislike Sorcery spells in mind reducing your Free INT because it means sorcery, which is supposed to be 'what you know', becomes 'stuff you sort of know, but not right now' and practically becomes far more about 'stuff you have' than any other magic system. Inscriptions are still very useful as a way to work around the limits of your INT, in a much more balanced way than Enhance INT. I also run with multiple spells learnable as part of a single 'grimoire' skill. And I currently just ignore Techniques, because adding that much complexity to the game just so sorcerer who already have spells costing far more magic points than others can sometimes double that seems far too much complexity for a very dull payoff. I'm still not really happy with how Duration dominates the game (who knew that the 'spells and spreadsheets' factor was the bit of RQ3 that was going to be the bit that needed to be kept? Didn't see that coming), but I have yet to find a solution I like while still keeping some level of compatibility with the base RQG spells descriptions etc. RQG seems to have adopted Sandys shamanism rules from the late 90s pretty much wholesale (and while I think they could be better integrated with the Spirit cult/tradition rules, they are great), and by the sounds of it will adopt some ideas from Sandys 1990s sorcery rules (sorcerous sect vows, for example), but not taken up any of his suggestions to replace Duration as a mechanic. Can't have everything.

I personally think the Vadeli Immortality is through obeying caste rules, same as the Brithini - the source of their immortality predates the split between the races. The Brithini treat the rules as the foundation of a lifestyle and moral philosophy - the Vadeli treat it as a long immortality ritual with no moral significance. There may be some variations where the Vadeli have learnt to interpret the rules 'creatively'. There are Vadeli who have found other, variant, ways to become immortal (eg vampirism) but most of them stick with obeying caste rules because it is more convenient and reliable.