davecake

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.

To be honest, not only do I ignore the rule about spirit magic reducing Free INT, but I generally remove the whole idea of Free INT. I'm not really sure what it adds to the game any more. Even once you take it away, sorcerers are still quite limited as magicians, generally slow casters, and going through so many magic points, and so on. I am not sure I agree with Darius that you can always translate a spell into your best language once you know it. I tend to think that sorcery is a bit more 'intimate' with language than that (like eg kabbala), and might be difficult to easily translate. I find Enhance INT quite an oddity. Its existence as written without the rules would imply that Fire sorcerers are notably more capable than other sorcerers. Yet I don't remember a single mention of a Fire sorcerer, or Fire sorcerer, tradition in all Gloranthan writing about sorcerers, which would imply that they aren't particularly remarkable. I'm inclined to say that Enhance INT does not Enhance INT for spell casting purposes, just to avoid the potentially quite unbalancing rules issue. Or at least, not give any of my players the spell.

I think this is another one of those issues that gets missed a bit because a lot of Glorantha fans tend to have a lot of implicit ideas about the reasonable limits of magic in their head from RuneQuest (and fiction, etc) and so there is a kind of shared mental model that isn't there for new people who are dealing with Glorantha only from HeroQuest. We have the same problem with creatures being described in a way that sometimes doesn't even make it clear how big a creature is.

While I would definitely recommend rereading Revealed Mythologies, for the Vadeli mythology the early parts of Middle Sea Empire are the best starting point IMO.

It’s more inspirational and esoteric than useful. There are some interesting and fascinating fragments, but also a lot of out of date theorizing.

I would absolutely not put much faith in RQ3 niche mechanics, especially as they are likely to be gone in RQG. I do not think the RQ3 Red Goddess magic will see a comeback, and I suspect likewise with the Godunya magic. We know a lot more about both sorcery and mysticism than we did back then.

As far as the EWF using sorcery goes, from History of the Heortling Peoples The EWF certainly used its dragonnewt allies and their dinosaurs in war, and their mystics gained access to the sort of draconic magic normally only used by dragonnewts once they had experienced draconic illumination. But the EWF was an Empire, not just a mystic sect, and the Empire developed its own magical techniques of all kinds, very much including its own sorcery. The mystics sat at the top of the pyramid and directed things, but the magical work needed to perform complex magic on an imperial scale was very much mostly performed by the un-enlightened for practical reasons (just as the Lunar Empire has grand magical projects that rely mostly on the old Dara Happan magic and people).

I wasn’t meaning to imply that Brithini were not sticklers for following caste law themselves. Rather, that the Brithini do everything that Zzabur says they must, and also do the things that they just think Zzabur probably thinks they should. The Vadeli do what they must, and nothing more. I do think that yes, quite likely either Viymorn or Vadel discovered something terrible and changed them. Possibly when Viymorn discovers the Underworld.

You haven’t seen anything that suggests the EWF were strong sorcery users, other than all those sorcerers hangiing around the place doing stuff? Like the Lunars, they have multiple forms of magic within their system , all joined into one system by mystic insight, building a new magical world.

My version of the Vadeli is that they scrupulously follow caste law to the letter (so as to maintain immortality), but not a step further. That is why they are immortal, and actually far better at keeping their caste purity than the Brithini. They regard most other ‘laws’ of the Malkioni as deceptive nonsense (and may, indeed, regard it as almost their duty to explore). The Brithini try to keep to the spirit of the law of Zzabur. The Vadeli keep strictly to its letter, shamelessly exploit loopholes, and think the Brithini are fuzzy thinking idiots. Many of the ‘loopholes’ the Vadeli exploit are because the laws of Zzabur are so ancient, far older than many of the things Zzabur now forbids (which the Vadeli regard as something more like the strongly held opinions of aging and irrelevant and erroneous Zzabur). And the laws of Zzabur predate death, chaos, etc. He didn’t forbid fooling around with demonic spirits (who weren’t even known prior to the explorations of their great ancestor Viymorn), turning people into zombies en masse (a great Vadeli innovation), enslaving and torturing lesser races (who?), and many other vile practices. And whatever isn’t explicitly forbidden is therefore permitted. They have nothing resembling empathy, compassion, or morality. The closest they have is a sort of highly reasoned game theory that says that, under certain conditions, betrayal is unwise, and cooperation can have some short term strategic value (and those conditions essentially almost never apply to anyone not a Vadeli, almost always anyone not Vadeli is considered a sucker/fair game/a walking blob waiting to be converted into useful resources). Basically, they mostly look at normal humans the way a carnivorous conman would look at a cow that had just won a lottery. (Well the brown ones do. The Red Vadeli look at normal humans more the way a sadistic butcher would look at that cow). They think trust, honour, love etc are weaknesses that can be exploited. They are generally stone cold, to the bone, nihilists and well controlled sociopaths. They do still have caste restrictions, but they exploit loopholes. As the blue and yellow are gone, they have to improvise on issues of sorcery and leadership. Brown Vadeli sorcery is often practical, and concerns manipulation of the material world or animals, justified as just a sorcerous extension of crafts and animal husbandry. Many of them are sailors and have nautical magic, others embrace their ancient explorer heritage (and use exploring and movement magic). Red Vadeli magic is almost always combat magic. Vadeli leaders are almost always Admirals or other naval ranks - they exploit a loophole that says a ship always has a commander, no matter the caste of its crew - but they are still forbidden to perform some Talar functions (this is why the Vadeli welcomed Hrestol as a judge, it let them resolve some otherwise unresolvable disputes). The Vadeli don’t just enjoy and indulge in torture, forbidden ritual, perverse sex, etc for its own sake. They also have learnt to exploit them for their own purposes. Breaking taboos has power. They have found that perverse sex can create succubi, who make perfect agents of corruption and seduction - possibly this is the origin of the Seseine cult. The Blue Vadeli have necrophiliac necromantic rituals. The Red Vadeli have torture rituals, like a sorcerous version of the Bloody Tusk magic. Probably cannibalism tooo. They think their ability to gain power from doing what disgusts others just shows the superiority of their logic. They also find it all kind of funny. The reason the Brithini hate them so very very much, in contrast to their usual dispassionate approach, is that the Brithini have never been able to prove the Vadeli wrong with logic and reason. They *know* the Vadeli are wrong, hate them with every fibre. But they can’t prove them wrong, implicitly reducing the Brithini to being like the emotion driven barbarians they despise. The Vadeli are quite logical about most things, and also quite cheery and happy most of the time. They don’t fear death (though they wish to put it off as long as possible). They have a sense of humour, and often enjoy irony, complex wordplay, and laughing at the suffering of other. In short, they are smart, and sometimes funny, but in all other ways, they are the worst people you’ve ever me.

I have a long standing theory, since the RQ3 era, that if professional magicians all get roughly the same number of POW gain rolls, and priests mostly put that POW into rune magic, and shamans split it between their fetch and rune magic, sorcerers (even considering Inscription in RQG) are going to have a lot more POW to invest in enchantments, especially as enchantments are more necessary and useful to them. And Malkioni sorcerers have a strong incentive to work collectively, with specialists of various kinds. So RQ would seem to imply that the West is comparatively littered with magic items, and the power of the ‘church’ is in large part due to its reserves of enchantments that powerful wizards have access to (and collaborative magical efforts to bind big spirits and elementals). Mostly in the form of magic point storage and bound spirits and elementals.

This is of course true, and the wizard who has multiple spirits and elementals bound will feel very powerful. Until he meets a shaman who has more spirits, can command them more effectively, cast spells infuriating fast, and has other neat powers besides. Which is about the time the sorcerer retreats and realises that it’s very important for RQ sorcerers to plan ahead. Sometimes several years ahead.

Essentially, the history of the EWF would tend to put this in doubt, or at least indicate that there is a lot more going on. The EWF is known to use sorcery quite a bit (admittedly not as much as theism), and while Pavis sorcery doesn’t directly show draconic abilities, it certainly seems to be linked to draconic philosophy at some level, if nothing else being written in Auld Wyrmish (and of course, it’s explicitly not Malkioni and reads as blasphemous to them, should they be able to read it at all). Draconic magic is mystic. Antithesis is the wrong way to think of it - to the extent that you might think of other forms of magic as antithetical to dragon powers, draconic Illumination is the synthesis of these opposing ideas. This is almost explicit in the way we talk about theism and draconic illumination - Orlanth destroying the dragons becomes Orlanth gaining dragon insight. So - I think of EWF sorcery as being totally different to draconic magic (like dragonnewt powers), but amenable to synthesis by those who have undergone draconic illumination, in ways that are hard to explain to the inilluminated.