davecake

In the Guide its called 'The Essential World', which is a better name for it, and its described on page 162. Its not dropped entirely, but its a lot less important. Contact in the Essential world is how sorcerers contact the Runes I think, but its no longer something that would be played out or put into the foreground. For example when the HQG sorcery rules says of a mage seeking to create a new spell: That intellectual union occurs in the Essential world, and is a difficult task itself, but we probably wouldn't play it out, rather we would usually play out an associated dangerous obstacle (a dangerous experiment, retrieving lab notes from a ruin, observing a perilous phenomena, defeating a powerful magical being) that represents that struggle in a more playable form.

And I'm sure we aren't going to convince one another Jeff, but to me, there is still a difference. In HeroQuest and RuneQuest for a theist, the fundamental limit of trying a magic effect remains 'is this something my god can do with this Rune', for an animist 'can a spirit in my tradition do this'. I can easily handwave away the issues of how many rune points, magic points, skills levels, attributes of the spirit, and come up with more or less the same answers. But the difference between 'is this spell in the Master of the Faceless King grimoire' and 'is this doable with Stasis or Harmony runes' are quite different questions. A character in one game can not do some things that a character in the other may be able to. It breaks the abstraction. Add to that that HeroQuest sorcery is deliberately treated in a less abstract way than other HeroQuest attributes (in that you can't stretch, etc) and its hard to maintain the idea that the two systems represent the same thing. Handwaving has its limits. It wouldn't even be that hard to turn HeroQuest Sorcery into the same system as RQ - at a first guess, keep track of which Runes and Techniques had been mastered by the sorcerer, base all sorcery ability off the characters Law rune or an appropriate keyword (which tends to happen anyway) and reduce grimoires to books full of spells that you can learn if you know the runes. It would at least then feel like the same system.

If you were Illuminated, you'd understand. Gbaji just means deceiver. But if nothing is true, then aren't we all deceivers? And if nothing is true, then everything is permitted.

So how does the 'each spell is a skill' part come in? Does this mean a sorcerer may be able to cast many spells, but will probably be basically terrible at many of them?

The problem is not so much about the mechanics matching to me (though, FWIW, I think mechanics that worked more like HQ-G would work fine, and probably better), its that they describe fundamentally different worlds. In one, sorcerers study Runes, in the other, sorcerers study grimoires. Of course there are plenty of different layers of abstractions in RQ, and many more moving parts. But ultimately, priests still devote themselves to the Runes of their god, animists still summon spirits, there is plenty of detail about exactly how it is adjudicated in terms of different resources, but HQ still makes sense as an abstraction of the more complex process. But if grimoires are an irrelevant concept, then HQG sorcery is not an abstract presentation of RQ but of some other sorcery system.

The Ars Magica verb/noun construction doesn't really work for me anywhere near as well here. The verbs don't seem a particularly well chosen set (where do Perception and Communication spells go? if you want to buff your Strength, is that Summoning or Commanding, either way a strange way to think about it). And really, the Power runes are more or less Verbs, just abstracted. Stasis is an abstraction, but stop is a verb. Death is an abstraction, but fight and die are verbs. Movement is an abstraction, but move is a noun etc. So many spells will be verbing an abstracted noun. Again, the HeroQuest Glorantha construction (a grimoire has a rune, you mix it with a second rune, so a Element/Form + Power worked well as a noun + verb) worked better for me.

Removing the multiple manipulation skills is a good change, working the runes in is good, and familiars were a disaster in many ways. All of these things are excellent changes, especially removing familiars, which never worked as designed (hardly anyone wants an actual animal familiar, which meant sacrificing INT) and have no support in Gloranthan writing at all that I've been able to find. I think this was far more observed in theory than in practice. I saw a lot of overpowered NPCs in supplements and things, and lots of discussion about it - but very few people who actually ran a sorcery based game to get to that level. I tried running a game with sorcery PCs, and my experience was that making your way through being a low to middle powered sorcerer was so long and difficult that no one ever did it. And when you did do it, it was kind of unrewarding - sure you got to buff the party and yourself, but you didn't actually get to cast much cool magic (your powerful combat spells were often not as powerful as your friends Rune Magic, and took enormous time to cast) and the skill based system meant it basically wasn't worth learning new spells, because you wouldn't want to risk using them in combat until they were at a decent percentage. I think you've removed some of the worst bits of RQ sorcery, but kept some of other worst bits. I hope that ceremonial magic doesn't translate to 'your character won't really be any use in combat or any other fast paced scene'.

Ideally, sorcerers should start out about as powerful as other magicians, and progress roughly as quickly. Except possibly a little more so if you are playing Rokari etc (in which a wizard really is expected to be a completely dedicated magician, more so than most theists). If you are playing New Hrestoli, who basically start out as non-magicians and have to learn most magic as they go, it really sucks - learning new skills to a reasonable level is far far slower than learning new spells as other magicians do. Obviously I haven't experience with this system - but I did try to run a game with Hrestoli characters in RQ3, and basically concluded that spells as skills made that totally unviable. You do want to make the various kinds of magician be a bit different in how they progress etc, but not so different that players feel they have been screwed for choosing the wrong one. If your specialist magician character actually advances as a magician slower than other people, that player is likely to be annoyed. And using totally different mechanisms for advancement makes it hard to get that right (that was part of the problem with RQ3 sorcery - priests and shamans advanced by getting more POW, but sorcerers advanced by getting more skills, which was totally out of whack). It is. And presumably a starting sorcerer will be competent. But if they advance at a different rate to other magicians (and with spells as skills, probably a lot slower) than other magicians, eventually it will be an issue. Its also an issue of flexibility. If a priest wants to gain a new interesting ability, he spends some POW for a new spell, or joins a sub-cult, or something. If a shaman wants to get a new ability, they go and capture a new spirit. Both things that can happen in a single game session. But if a sorcerer wants to gain a new spell, then they can learn it in a single session - but it isn't as useful as their existing spells until they've had maybe dozens of sessions to get it up to the same level.

Peter I said the Loskalmi were fond of the Furlandan school because Against the Demons is one of their core texts, and it is the specialty grimoire of the Furlandan School. We also know the sort of spells it contains - resist spirit, banish spirit, remove curse, etc. Not the most exciting, but with its practical uses (it's good against disease as well as shamans and other spirits). I assume that its popular across Loskalm because its a core text of Siglats New Hrestolism. It is true that it isn't uniquely Hrestoli magic, but they are clearly enthusiastic about it. You are quite right that I said Telendarian when I meant Zendamalthan. My mistake. The New Hrestoli of course regard the Telendarian school very unfavourably, since it was banned by Talor at least. Quite right too, with its ancient Vadeli connections, and associations with unsavory travelling types. I presume also a favourite of Nysaloran missionaries in the first age, hence Talor hating it (and its not just good for travellers, but also perfect for infiltrators and spies). The Zendamalthan school is I think uniquely the only major sorcery school that is described, but without knowing any sample spells. I personally think it concentrates on improvement of all mental attributes and perceptions. Boring, I know. The idea of geometry and magic together also makes me think of magic circles, walls, lines, all manner of magic defences, magic prisons. Even using the magical correspondence of one circle to another to create teleport circles, clairvoyance devices, etc. I do think the Zendamalthans are very influential in New Hrestoli magic theory, replacing old rote lists of correspondences and conditions with new geometric and numerological correspondences, so New Hrestoli sorcery seems more intellectual and less concerned with material detail than the older forms. But to answer your more general question - I think the New Hrestoli are as capable of learning any form of magic as any other, and confronted with the Kingdom of War will turn back to the less favoured but very effective elemental magic and Death magic, and corrupt their Furlandan spells to begin commanding spirits rather than just defending against them. This is really rediscovered God Learner magic, though they won't say as much. But their native magic, perfected in their time of isolation, will concentrate on self-empowerment - but eventually to the point where this is symbolic, or entirely transcends. A beginning wizard will enhance his ability to fight with a spear. A better wizard will send his spear screaming away from his hand like a rocket to slay enemies on its own at a distance. A great wizard might attack with a spear that exists only magically. Knowledge of the body that enables them to enhance it (including various ways of filling the body with runic power, such as fire), or disrupt it (spells to paralyse, blind, etc). Plenty of spells to manipulate perception. Spells that work in the world of the purely mental, such as telepathy, mindlinks, confusion, mental attacks. Spells that enhance themselves in subtler ways, such as boosting morale and the charisma and presence of their commanders. Spells of self-empowerment don't stop at simple mundane boosting (thought that is where they start), but extend to making things approach their platonic ideals - a wizard-knights sword cuts through both magical and mundane protections as if it was the true Sword of Justice, his Shield protects against magical attacks, he is not just indefatigable but is not confused or afraid. But its not just their philosophical ideas, but also the structure of their society that will influence their magic, at least. Perhaps the idea that every wizard was once a farmer or crafter manifests as more spells that deal with animals and plants. That so many wizards are also warriors and former crafters almost certainly means that the New Hrestoli are masters of practical enchantments such as magical armour and weapons. (and to pick up on a smaller point from earlier - yes, Hrestol did not discover henosis. But he did discover that it could be used fully by castes other than the zzaburi.)

I have to say that this sounds really disappointing to me as well. I have one really big issue with it - it sounds like it conceptually is very different to sorcery as described in HeroQuest Glorantha. In HeroQuest Glorantha sorcerers studied Grimoires (that were associated with a Rune). Now in RQ sorcerers study runes, and a grimoire is just a collection of spells if it is anything at all. This means RQ and HeroQuest now describe quite different versions of Glorantha! (for theism and animism, they feel like the same magic system described at a different level of abstraction - this does not) But it also seems to have kept a lot of the bad ideas from RQ3 sorcery. Spells as skills was absolutely terrible in RQ3. made it terrible to start as a sorcerer, and hard to progress. Free INT was also an idea that should have died with RQ3. Of course, without looking I can't tell if the duration etc rules are also as problematic as they were in RQ3. So this is basically the last thing I expected from Jeff - some bad ideas retained from RQ3 sorcery, but throwing away the core ideas of his own recent previous work!

I think that knowing things like the Furlandan and Zendamalthan magic does tell use something about what the Loskalmi use. We know it is not uncommon for Loskalmi to train as Furlandan exorcists, and we know they get spells to combat spiritsa. We know the Telendarians avoid physical effects, and like geometry, are known as a cult of engineers, so they have spells that enable them to perform works of engineering. But we also know there is no reason for them not to have access to other schools even if they are not held in quite such high esteem. But in general, I agree that we simply do not know enough about what sorcery grimoires actually contain. We need much more info about what the common schools are, what spells they teach as standard, etc. We don't have it yet, and as a result discussion of sorcery and the West tends to flounder in philosophy before getting to the playable. I agree that neither the Rokari nor the Irensavalists are likely to have any enthusiasm for Tapping others. They leave that to the various heterodox sects of Ralios mostly. Though Tapping a spirit might seem perfectly sensible to either.

The rewriting of the animism and spirit sections was appreciated, and looked great to me.

And it is worth noting that most of what people have described here is about the default setting - which is one small corner of Glorantha. Other parts of it vary a great deal - different people, different factions, different concerns, different magic. The Western nations are more philosophical, and their magic (sorcery) is much less directly tied to their morality. Or there are various shamanic nomads ranging across the plains. Other parts differ wildly in a whole range of other ways - jungles, savvanahs, etc. Its a broad and rich world - but the Lunars vs the Orlanthi is the default setting, and most of what you'll get in products in the near future.

Peter, I think we actually know a fair bit about Loskalmi magic at least (though of course virtually all modern Malkioni magic could be regarded as Hrestoli). Furlandan Exorcists. Zendamalthan geometry magic. Abstraction, purity, rejection of the messy physical and everything that interferes with the pursuit of the perfect intellectual. Not that I think the Fronelan Irensavalists are ignorant or reject sorcery that manipulates the physical but the sorcery they esteem most highly goes very much in the opposite direction, and manipulates mind, magic, and other high immaterial and abstract ideas. Just as they value health and physical ability, but never as highly as they value intellectual attainment. They are Platonists. They seek total intellectual understanding, not the reconciliation of the unreconcilable that Illumination provides.

Yes, I've always thought of Horned God as more fundamental - best understood as an advanced shamanic initiation, or set of techniques. Related to the Pamaltelan Amuron. They conceive of his powers as a fire rather than a wind, but in reality it is always something beyond physical reality anyway.

Peter, much of this is redundant since Jeff made it clear that Illumination and Joy are absolutely not the same thing, but a few points. I do think the God Learners (or at least some of them) were Illuminated, but I trace this via the original 5 New Ways book and the imp discovered within, that originated the entire God Learner magical program, rather than via generic Hrestolism. I take this book to be a remnant of Nysaloran magic that was not fully destroyed by Arkat. Note the reference to Gbaji in MSE. Yes, but we have no evidence that it was known to the West prior to Nysalor. Exactly - he was not Illuminated by contact with Hrestoli, but by elves (who presumably learnt it from Nysalor - the transmission of Illumination within the elven population clearly different from humans). You suggested that they use Joy to cast magic that combines Opposing Runes. I have seen no evidence whatsoever that any Hrestoli (or any other sorcerer for that matter) has ever done this ever. I really dislike the idea (giving the high adepts of Loskalm a power otherwise only associated with Lunars seem wildly off to me). I do think my suggestions of powers are a bit off, but I'm not sure I like yours much more. I suspect that the great power associated with Joy is really simply becoming a Man of All (or, as Jeff said elsewhere, even being able to access the full range of zzaburi sorcery without being a hereditary Brithini zzaburi).

Perhaps the only magical effect of Joy is the simple knowledge that, whatever insights you bring back from your moment of unity, they are absolutely correct.

I'm very reluctant to consider Joy to be the same as Illumination. For one thing, it makes the entire Arkat/Gbaji story sort of nonsensical. Illumination, instead of becoming a dangerous and disruptive new philosophy and magical power, instead becomes simply a foreign version of something that the West has been dealing with for centuries, reducing Arkat to a mere xenpphobe. I do believe Joy of the Heart should have some intrinsic magical powers, but I don't think they should be the same as Illumination - I think Joy constrains and sharpens the moral senses of those who possess it, in stark contrast to Illumination. I can think of a few powers it might provide. It is essentially the power of perfect intellectual union with The One. Perhaps it allows sorcerous powers to be accessed in a more direct manner than by laborious rote learning. Or perhaps the pure Joy of ecstatic union with The One provides powers such as resisting all magical attack from others, or an inner fountain of Energy. As long as it is something different to Illumination. The big problem with Joy of the Heart to Rokari and other conservatives is that it is individualistic at its core. Pre-Hrestolic Malkionism is about Society, and civic virtue. Hrestolism is about your individual journey to comprehend The One, being the best Dronar you can be is no longer about serving your community best, but about striving to improve oneself in all ways.

I've been thinking about a campaign set in Seshnela and Ralios and dealing with a lot of Western ideas. Based around a mercenary company (somewhat inspired by Glen Cooks Black Company books), start with aiding Nolos and/or Pasos against the invasion of King Guilmarn and his Brithini allies, then continuing with a flight to Tanisor fleeing the Rokari Crusade, and running into the various intrigues around the multiple returns of Arkat.

As I said over in that other thread, I've been using both Kabbalah and the entire Western Esoteric magical systems that ultimately descend from Neo-Platonism as inspirations for how sorcery works, and that has given me a lot of insight into not just sorcery (and related magical topics like Heroquesting) but the entire society. There are a lot of ways in which this material is very useful for grasping Malkioni mythology and philosophy. The Malkioni as Neo-Platonists, but for whom the perfect Just City of Plato, ruled by Philosopher Kings, is not an ideal that might one be approached, but the perfect Golden Age of the past from which mankind has fallen through error, is one useful way to understand the Malkioni. Another useful idea thinking of them as Jews, but for whom Kabbalah mysticism has always been regarded as an absolute mainstream part of not only religion, but practical society (as the foundation of magic). Kabbalah and Neo-Platonism are both a long way from being unified traditions, but of course this is true of the Malkioni as well. Gnostic ideas help to understand Hrestolism. I mostly associate Zoroastrianism with Carmanians. Some of the magic that ultimately descends from Neo-Platonist theurgy that is far too modern for terrestrial Bronze Age (eg highly syncretic modern traditions like The Golden Dawn, or Renaissance ones like Pico Del Mirandola) makes sense to me as inspiration for sorcery after the 'magical revolution' of the God Learners. John Dees Enochian magic works for post-God Learner traditions like Zistorism. Goetic (eg demon summoning) traditions of the Middle Ages clearly descend from neo-Platonist theury - and while they would be inappropriate for Malkioni, would work as inspiration for Vadeli and other wicked Sorcerers. Even very modern traditions can still be helpful for ideas about modern Gloranthan traditions that have no corresponding ancient traditions such as Crowleys Thelema for Illuminated sorcerous traditions, Laveyan Satanism for the Vadeli. Non-magical ideas it gets a bit more complex, because the caste system is the core of Malkioni society. Indian ideas about caste are an obvious inspiration. But the division into gold-souled rulers, silver souled warriors, bronze or iron producers in Plato's Republic is another useful idea. Neither, of course, quite corresponds to the Malkioni system - in the Hindu system one caste (Kshatriya) is both warriors and rulers, to Plato one caste (the gold souled) are both the intellectual caste and the rulers. Of course some Hrestoli very much believe in social mobility. And if you want to learn about the ideas of Plato without having to just dive straight into Plato, I highly recommend the novels The Just City and The Philosopher Kings by Jo Walton, that will gently introduce you to many of the ideas of Plato, specifically Plato's Republic.

I strongly suggest looking at real world magical traditions that are related to sorcery, in preference to trying to decide what sorcery is based entirely on reasoning from modern ideas about the intellect. So don't think of it as being related to what we modern people think of as intellectual focussed effort, or hostile to emotion or altered mental states. Its hostile to certain types of emotion, and to certain altered states, but only some. It is true that the philosophy of the Malkioni and other sorcerous cultures is very much focussed on the intellect and logic, but they are not modern day ideas of intellect and logic (and they are not simply an imperfect, undeveloped, version of modern ideas either - they live in a world were magic is verifiably true, after all). Neo-platonic philosophy, along with a bit of Jewish Kabbalah and a bit of gnosticism, have been mentioned by Jeff as good places to start for inspiration regarding the Malkioni, and so for ideas about how sorcery works you can start with them, and with their magical practices, and then to understand some of the full range of how Malkioni practices develop you can then look at all the magical practices that follow on from them. So start with Neo-platonic theurgy (essentially the invocation of benevolent spirits), which strongly resembles the sorcery described in the Xeotam dialogues that are a crucial reference on Gloranthan sorcery. Add ideas from the Kabbalah, such as the the divine thoughts, including its hidden secrets, being revealed through close study of an intrinsically magical language and alphabet (in Kabbalah ancient hebrew, in Glorantha the Runes). This stuff all becomes the basis of Western European ritual magic, getting confused and corrupted and going in all sorts of weird directions (the summoning of demons is much more a direct descendant of this well meaning sort of stuff than most people realise, for example, and modern descendants like the Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley mix it all in and add a lot of Hindu and other non-European theory as well). Similarly, in Glorantha the pure magic of Zzabur gets mixed up and corrupted and evolves, via Hrestol, the Vadeli, Henotheism, Arkat, the God Learners, etc - plus in Glorantha, non-human influence (the Mostali especially). So while sorcerers certainly do value their intellect, reason their way around problems, etc that doesn't mean that they think like a modern atheist humanist, or even have modern ideas about what intellect and reasons *are*. They certainly want to avoid emotions like extreme anger, lust, or depression - they might even regard these as being the result of external influences on the pure soul (remember, the pure soul doesn't even have a body). But the they might regard some things that we see as hallucinatory altered states as an example of the awakening of the minds magical senses and rejection of the base physical, and some altered states, like religious ecstasy, are actually the goal of many sorcerous practices (certainly by the Hrestoli).

The active Dream Magic we know of is Eastern (and while linked to Mysticism, as most Eastern stuff is, that doesn't mean we should think of it as Mystic in nature). Personally I think that the Eastern Dream world is probably accessible by all forms of magic. There are gods with a powerful connection to dream, spirits can be met in dreams, and attempting to create organised systems of dream interpretation might be sorcerous. And there are mystics who argue dreams are a potential source of great insight, and others who argue its all distacting illusory nonsense. The biggest questions to me about dream magic are not so much about its deep origins, but about what the dreamworld is like - does it resemble other Gloranthan otherworlds, is it like actual dreams (confusing, and full of entirely private meaning), or like Jungs collective unconscious, or like Lovecrafts Dreamlands? Perhaps like the Dream world of Sandman Comics, or Little Nemo?

I think that most often the Essence plane is entered via a dream or vision, or by a process of deliberate scrying and meditation. I think that, while sorcerers enter it most often as a solo rite (though not without likely assistance from their fellows in the form of protective enchantments, reserves of power, enchantments, etc), it is possible for a strong sorcerer to take their fellows with them to that realm (and of course this will happen often in games, just for practical reasons). And remember that not all sorcerous heroquesting is a pure Essence world quest - their heroquesting can be 'this world' heroquesting, entering the sky world or underworld, on the Hero Plane, etc just as with anyone. While I know the medieval vision of the West is outdated, I still find thing like the very allegorical quests in the Arthurian stories, or things like the Faerie Queene, to be quite useful in imagining this sort of questing. The point is not so much the knightly questing, but the idea of a quest that appears to be a physical one but is really about more spiritual and moral tests. For purer magical quests I draw inspiration from things like alchemical art, Enochian vision magic (such as Aleister Crowleys The Vision and The Voice), the Tibettan Book fo the Dead (in the way it talks about how to understand the symbolism of each deity, and how to avoid the illusions and mistakes. Much of this symbolism is complex and opaque to the outsider. A sorcerer knows a strange animal (a green lion, or white swan, in Europeran alchemy) would correspond to an alchemical process, which also corresponded to a spiritual process, and a magical one, etc, so a vision of such might give him an understanding of the magical process he needs to follow, which leads to a spiritual change. A key sorcerous concept for me is the idea of correspondences - in Western European ritual magic, almost everything (colours, scents, herbs, planets, gods, body parts, gems, magical implements, names of god, numbers, demons, names of god, etc) could all be arranged in complex tables of correspondences. While obviously Gloranthan sorcerers think much more in terms of Runes than terrestrial ones, I think they probably use similar tools very often - elaborate correspondences all memorised, learnt at a deep rote level, so what to others might seem a confusing jumble of sensory impressions is to the sorcery immediately categorised, intellectualised, analyzed. A sorcerer should be able to look at the demon he is confronted by, and by looking at the shade of blue of its skin, the number of its eyes, the smell of its breath, deduce its nature, and then know which spell can be used to defeat it. Names are also important - a name can also be analyzed, used to conjure with, not just a simple identifier but something that fits into a complex system where every letter has a magical meaning (Western is a magical language). In an Essence world adventure (which of course takes place in a purely intellectual world) the 'treasure' ight often have a name written on it, a strange unfamiliar name - and that name is real reward. You might get a sword in the essence world, and the sword has a name written on the blade - and the real reward is that you can invoke that name to cast a spell that cuts through things the way the sword does.

In Heortlng myth, Eurmal is also associated with goats (which is why the scapegoat is a goat). Plus there is Uryarda, a perfectly non-chaotic reasonable goat goddess. And there is, of course, a whole Pelorian mythology about the goat people, also not associated with goats at all. So only some goats are associated with chaos. Possibly only goats are strongly associated with broo in Heortling lands, and even then not all goats. In The Wastes any herd beat, etc. In Pamaltelan plains probably associated with antelopes more than any other creature (though Pamaltela has goats). Etc. Eurmal associated Disorder goats seem a pretty likely thing, wandering around eating everything.

If it was legit I would totally buy a Gloranthan shower curtain. Also cushions, phone covers, drink coasters, notebooks and mugs. For starters. I realise that I'm probably in a minority, but its not that hard to put up a redbubble store. Seriously, Chaosium or the artists themselves (I don't know how licencing etc goes), you should do this.