davecake

I agree that becoming a dragon requires becoming Illuminated. There are many differences in doctrine that either might regard as proof that the other is 'doing it wrong' though - certainly a Lunar would argue that most draconic followers were Occluded. I certainly think it is possible to be a Hero, or a demigod, without being Illuminated, and that that is the normal course of events. It's probably not possible to be a Lunar hero without being Illuminated though, or a draconic one, or any other fundamentally mystic path.

I love this discussion. I strongly agree that mermen should be able to sleep without magical assistance. They may, of course, use magical assistance to make it more comfortable or practical in some cultures. In the guide, the description of the Malasp talks a lot about bubble nests, which seem to be formed of some biological secretions, and recreated annually, so that would appear to address the question of where Malasp live for the most part. How they get air into their bubble nests I don't know. It's also worth noting that besides mermen, cetaceans exist, and some, quite possibly many, are sentient. At least some dolphins are sentient, possibly some species of whale. Pond of the reasons Ludoch hate the Malasp is the Ludoch think of cetaceans as cousins, often living with dolphins as domesticated animals, and revere the sentient whales. The Malasp, by contrast, regard cetaceans as hateable air-breathing things that are also delicious, and a useful source of raw materials. Of course, Malasp feel the same way about Ludoch, so it's not as if they needed extra reasons to hate them.

Sedenya and Yanafals Tarnils. Pamalt. And Arkat. favourite villain Vadel.

There is more than one school of Illumination within the Empire (though the Lunar Sevening Rites described in the Seven Mothers cult might be the only one within the mainstream Lunar religion). Some are reasonably well known, some are obscure, some are officially supported, some are suppressed. But Lunars who have been kindled would begin to learn about it in the abstract (practical instruction is secret, and comes later). It would be unlikely for an initiate to become Illuminated just through Lunar cult ceremonies. But it could happen through other ways that are unplanned, including dialogue with Nysalor riddlers, Lunar heroquests, encounters with particular otherworldly entities, even extraordinary works of art, etc. Normally it is something that takes long training and you are eventually selected for , but it is mentioned in the Entekosiad that the goddess herself judged several people Naturals who were ready to experience Illumination without training, and such people might still be found. Though the Empire might no longer be able to identify them as reliably as the goddess, assessing readiness for Illumination was in the goddesses time performed by people called the Insighters, and the Examiners probably know their techniques. Identifying someone as being ready for Illumination without training is a different ability to the Illuminates ability to recognize other Illuminates, and probably far more mundane and unreliable (such as quizzes about doctrine). The trick about Occlusion is it is, to a large extent, a matter of opinion, and Examiners may disagree (and is not necessarily a permanent judgement, the Occluded may be healed), so what is done about it depends on the nature of the accusation (are they a drooling madman? Or just making suggestions of possible actions that the Examiner judges as against doctrine?) and perhaps more importantly who is doing the accusing. I suspect the truly mind blasted are treated with compassion (and there are perhaps some techniques of healing), the politically problematic treated ruthlessly, and those in the grey areas treated inconsistently (and often with no result at all, if the "Occluded" has more powerful friends than the accuser). But if the modern Lunars follow the practice of the Goddess, 'Naturals' and others who largely trod the path to Illumination outside the Lunar religion may be expected to find a way to heal themselves of the 'Occlusion' outside the Lunar path, such as via HeroQuest to discover their own Illumination path (as Valare Addi did). This is hero (or PC) territory. A PC who had become Illuminated, or nearly Illuminated, via an encounter with a dragon, or by traversing the Puzzle Canal, might have weird non-Lunar insights that might cause the Examiners to reject them as Occluded, and be asked to leave the Lunar religion to seek their own path to reconciliation - but welcomed back as a hero if they succeed.

(Great Stuff David Scott) I've run shamanic initiations as adventures - most significantly I ran a Kargzant initiation where they went into the Sky World, followed the path of the Young God across the Sky, fought Bakoka the scorpion goddess who was going to destroy them, and survived by finding a fetch who would take them out of the sky world. This wasn't intended to be a standard initiation though - the shaman had already heroquested etc and some of the experiences they had had came back to influence their initiation. As Joerg says you can run such things for a group using a 'split screen' technique, so I had the forces of Darkness (mostly a troll priestess and some accompanying warriors) try to stop the process, fought off by the remaining party members. For later shamanic adventures in the spirit world, they can also take the rest of the party with them if they are a powerful shaman - but of course, there has to be a good reason why they would do that. Or you can abstract it off stage (I agree with Simon - rules would be really handy for managing shamanic activity like that).

I mentioned I had previously started a thread on this on the G+ group - its here https://plus.google.com/u/1/106541352279675586776/posts/4M9PNpSnGGF?cfem=1 (also contains Malkioni heavy metal) To recap and expand on what is said in that thread: Familiars aren't mentioned in the description of HQG sorcery. They aren't mentioned in Revealed Mythologies. They aren't mentioned in the Xeotam dialogues. The only mention I could find of a familiar in the Guide was the daemon familiar of Jannisor, who is presumably theist. So there is basically no Gloranthan source reason for them to exist, other than mentions of them in RQ3 products that derive directly from the RQ3 rules. Jeff said quite unambiguously that "Familiars are not a component of Malkioni sorcery and won't be in any rules treatment." and further clarified "What I mean is the RQ3 style familiar as a significant element in the development of a sorcerer." So sorry David Scott, I think the idea that a familiar is as significant as an allied spirit or fetch is absolutely ruled out as a concept that is still considered part of Gloranthan sorcery. That said, it was also clear that sorcerers use bound spirits, just as other magicians do, and that it is possible for a sorcerer to have a bound spirit in the body of animals that can act in many ways as a traditional familiar would. This is not normally an orthodox Malkioni practice as far as I can tell, and not a common one among sorcerers, which is in contrast to RQ3. But there is a story of Malkion taming a lion, which I'm sure is used by some sorcerers to justify the practice of having a bound spirit in an animal companion. The sidekicks rules in HQG are perfectly appropriate for such bound spirits. Personally, I think that wizards staffs are a much more common thing, and are more commonly used by some orthodox Malkioni (there is the School of the Iron Staff mentioned in Revealed Mythologies, for example, who are orthodox Rokari wizards). And if you assume a sort of POW economy like RQ3 had, where priests are always putting POW increases into getting more Rune magic, and Shamans are always stacking it into their fetch, I think most likely sorcerers are stacking their POW into having more enchantments than everyone else. But there are certainly some schools of sorcery that think would use animal familiars (naughty hint - a wicked sorcerer could Tap the existing animal spirit into non-existence and then place a different spirit within).

In the Pavis book, School of Red Masks has been given Dying phase and Spirit Rune as well, exactly the same as Jakaleel. If this is wrong, that is something important to note for errata etc. The whole Lunar connection to Moonbroth seems to be connected with water powers, possibly Blue Moon, etc - I certainly agree that there are probably Lunar powers accessible at Moonbroth not easily accessible via normal Red Goddess methods. They are probably not directly part of any shamanic path, but associated spirits/spirit societies that any Lunar shaman at Moonbroth could potentially access (or the 'ragtag collection of magicians' description wouldn't really work).

The geases as failed mysticism idea is one that has been around for a long time and that I still like. I'm not sure it fits, or fits in an extrinsic acknowledged way, with every geas using cult, though. In practical terms, Geases and Austerities seem to behave very similarly. Not that I think austerities are always associated with failure (there are a number of prominent heroes who gained great magical benefits from austerities who are acknowledged as valid mystics in the East Isles), but transplanting this form of magic into a divine cult that is no longer aware of its mystic roots is clearly failure, so... It fits well with Yelmalio, which of course has deep historical links to the mystic Daysenarus cult and the EWF. Yelmalio cultists clearly kind of act like mystics sometimes (all that sitting in a tower meditating on the sun stuff they do in retirement). And they do see to often get the sort of rewards we associate with austerities, like martial skill, immunities to stuff, etc. And if Humakti geases are related to mysticism, then it seems very likely these are due to Arkats influence - now, of course, having lost the explicit mystic link. I like the idea because it means that some practical mystic magic has been in RQ all along....

FWIW, I like a few narrative elements in my RQ, having lost the enthusiasm for 100% simulationist stuff long ago, but I appreciate the simulationist roots of RQ, and I'd really quite appreciate an optional rule or two rather than the game taking a very solid stance one way or the other.

I think of 13th Age as almost two games in one. A loose, improvisational, simple and very collaborative narrativist game for everything but combat. And an almost pure gamist (shorn of any irritating pretence at simulationism) complicated and GM driven combat system that is the core of the game. Essentially, you could run a very narrativist game in it, but its the core of the game is about having big fights with a lot of detailed tactical choices.

Passions are a great way of driving the story, but they need a little practice to use well. They are deliberately a bit exaggerated in the way they work in Pendragon (for reasons that should be apparent to anyone who has read the Morte d'Arthur), but they can be subtler. They do need some negotiation, giving a PC passions that go against the players conception is no fun, but mostly they are a tool for enforcing character consistency that works because they are mostly carrot rather than stick - most of the time, there are good reasons for your character to have a passion, so as a player you want them, and the times when they come back to bite you are often fun roleplaying. Sometimes they are a great way of enforcing cultural values. Sometimes they are like a contact between player and game - if you want to say this is your characters motivations at this point, when it is in their favour, we can expect some consistency later. Sometimes they are a tool that pulls the group together. Passions are a great tool. If nothing else, giving you incentive to have a passionate character, and play that passion, makes for more interesting characters and more fun play. You don't even really need a way to enforce passions that often. Just let players use them to inspire themselves in combat or enhance other abilities, and then tell them they might be drastically reduced if players don't act on them when the question comes up, and players will tend to follow them. And if they do have a change of heart, it matters. The only thing I'd say about passions is make sure there are good gamemastering suggestions so people know appropriate ways to use them.

FWIW, I once had (in a game I was GMing) a PC who qualified for Rune Lord at character creation, under RQ3 rules. A Green Elf, who got x5 on some skills that were necessary to be a Wood Lord (such as Bow), and rolled 2d8 for years of previous experience, getting 15. So +75% to a base bow attack etc. I made him wait for a few sessions to 'pass the examination', but he essentially vastly outclassed the other PCs from the start (some of whom were Westerners with virtually no magic). RQ3 was capable of having very powerful characters at character creation, but it happened somewhat randomly. I much prefer a system that allows you that option if it what you want. I also like the idea of a system that can be used for extended down time during play, as well - eg 'after two years in the new city <everyone gets experience> you see the enemy you fled from in the market one morning'

FWIW, I've obviously got no issue with Waha's cult having a close association with spirits, it has always been that way. It is the parts that don't have a close association with spirits that are new. When I referred to the Spirit Rune being like becoming an apprentice shaman I meant that (for both the Waha cult and the Kolat cult) having the Spirit rune is identified with seeing and interacting with spirits day to day, essential an apprentice shaman kind of power. Most shamanic cultures are not so much like this IMO - they interact with the spirits a lot at special ceremonies that allow it, and they have charms that specialist magicians have given them that allow them to talk to that spirit, and sometimes spirits choose to interact with them. But if a spirit is passive and uninterested in interacting with humans, they can't walk into its space and look around and see it - they have to put some effort into doing so. To put it in RQ3 terms - having the Spirit Rune is described as being like having a Second Sight spell always active, like a shaman, not knowing the Second Sight spell like a normal spirit magician might. However it works in new RQ it should describe a universe that works the same as HQG.

OK, I am a little bit annoyed about the Gregging too. But I am very much looking forward to this eventually making its way into publication. I appreciate details like the lack of hunting dogs, and hope there is a lot more of that sort of cultural detail.

Dave, my point is a bit subtler than 'we were Gregged'. My point where I start to disagree with you is not the idea that the Praxians are very tied to the spirit world, or that this is a problem for a minority who aren't capable - my problem is jumping to the idea that this is synonymous with 'possessing the Spirit Rune', which is a statement about HQG rules not Glorantha. If that rules statement is also a statement about how the relationship with the spirit world works for everyone in Glorantha, its a huge statement about how the world works snuck in inappropriately via a single cult writeup detail. If that rules statement isn't also a statement about how the relationship with the spirit world works for everyone in Glorantha, then it should have been written without the references to the Spirit Rune that imply it is. I think it is a generic problem with writing about Glorantha, really - we spend an enormous amount of time ensuring that the descriptions of the details of the world, both physical and cultural, are consistent, but enormously significant basic facts about how the mechanics of the world, especially magical ones, often vary wildly and inconsistently between games systems. And FWIW, even with all that background I have literally no understanding at all of why Devotees are written the way that they are. Why would becoming closer to Waha mean you have to now discard Wahas best magic? Why would the Waha cult even have a special cult status with special super awesome magic (a pretty great feat) that is reserved for a cult status that they think only the spiritually crippled would be interested in?

Yes, 'not believing in animism' really translates more into 'thinking animism is very unwise' rather than disbelief in its existence or power. In the same way Brithini 'atheists' don't disbelieve in the gods existence or power - they just disbelieve in the idea that theism is in any way a sensible practice. Logically, why would you go out of your way to interact with a much more powerful spiritual being who will certainly come to dominate your will? Similarly, they obviously believe in spirits, they just don't think interacting with them the way animists do is vaguely sensible. Getting closer to the spirit world deranges the senses, confuses the emotions. Malkioni sort of feel that animism is like the magical equivalent of recreational drug use. Shamans are like the magic equivalent of scary PCP addicts, all hopped up on spirits to the point they are strong and scary and hard to take down, but a danger to all those around them (and most of them are peddlers as well, introducing the neighbourhood kids to animism) . But they acknowledged that big spirits are powerful and can be used to achieve powerful magic. They just think that the appropriate way to deal with them is by careful logical domination of them, usually with the intent of removing them from your vicinity as fundamentally dangerous things.

That is very much how I see the school (who I have used in my games quite a lot over the years), other than I don't know why a syncretic Lunar school wouldn't just initiate new shamans into the Jakaleel cult or native Praxian traditions, and then just try to rush them to Illumination to master other magics. But then, its possible that this new Shaman path has much overlap with Jakaleel anyway, given they have the same runes. The only non-Lunar spirits Jakaleel works with seem to be spirits of the dead, I assume the Red School of Masks usually substitutes some native Praxian spirits for this knowledge, or perhaps even water/tidal/Blue Moon spirits contacted directly at Moonbroth. In my game they literally wear masks, and are usually somewhere lurking behind any elaborate Lunar magical plot anywhere in Prax.

Tindalos, this is exactly the sort of thing that bugs me so intensely about it. So, because the Spirit rune has been decided to be important, almost all Praxians now have a magical ability that is rare for other Gloranthans to have? And that somehow has not been mentioned in any of the many, many, discussions about Prax in the last 40 years? And actually, kind of contradicts things we've already been told about how shamanism works in Prax (such as Storm Bulls being able to interact with spirits without using the Spirit Rune, or the Axis Mundi spell of Daka Fal allowing anyone to interact with the ancestors). And changes how spirit interaction has always worked before (because before its always been the case that either spirits themselves or shamans have been able to facilitate the interaction of normal people with spirits quite easily). Not to mention it is a revelation about the structure of the Waha cult that has never been even hinted at in any previous material. It is making huge changes to the world that seem to derive from ideas based on game mechanics. Yechh. I like the idea of Praxians having a life that regularly involves interaction with spirits. I deeply dislike the idea that the idea of somehow having or not having the Spirit Rune has turned into this idea that it is normal in Praxian life to be effectively an apprentice shaman, and the Waha cult discriminates against people who aren't. Even weirder, that the entire religion is based around the idea that almost everyone can see spirits, BUT parts of the best Waha magic is only ever used by people who people who can't!

I discussed this in the G+ group a while ago. The general consensus was that familiars, though vital to RQ3 sorcery, no longer were considered something Malkioni sorcerers (or most other sorcerers) did. Arlaten in Strangers In Prax is interesting, but his familiars etc are basically extrapolations from RQ3 sorcery, and I'm pretty sure canon sorcerers work nothing like that. There is no mention of familars in HeroQuest:Glorantha, for example. They may have bound spirits, but they bind them into inanimate objects generally. They may even bind spirits into objects that are enchanted with spells for various purposes - I think if you really wanted to recreate Nailhead for Arlaten, you could, but it would be a weird thing he did. They may also magically enslave creatures. Sorcerers (Rokari and other traditionalists, anyway) use staffs a lot according to Revealed Mythology and MSE.

I never really thought of the Red School of Masks as having their own shaman path - rather, I thought of them as providing access to Praxian Lunar spirits to magicians from a range of other traditions, and shamans who were trained within the Red School were either Lunar shamans in the Jakaleel tradition, or Praxian Twin Stars etc shamans from the sable tribe.

I have some agreement, and some disagreement. For the most part, I take the direct incorporation of runes into the rules as a good thing. But thats because I don't see them as a statement about the direct truth of Glorantha, more nods to a bigger truth about it. The runes we show in the game are an abstraction, like all rules. We represent a persons entire physical body by 5 attributes (plus a few skills maybe) in RQ, and an arbitrary number (but probably less than 5) in HQ, and we know that in both games, these are abstractions that represent a very simplified version of the amazing variety of physical capacity that real people have. Every so often, we realise that these abstractions are inadequate to represent the range of things we know happen in reality, and we need to add something to them (eg we realise that, say, a specific injury like losing an eye or some toes, matters but can't be summarised with an attribute loss, or that it would be nice to have a way to distinguish between someone whose SIZ comes from being fat and bulky vs skinny and tall), and we all kind of understand that this is just the limits of abstraction and there are pros and cons to how we represent things in the game, and understand that trying to read big truths about how Glorantha works from physical stats is wrong. I think the incorporation of runes into the game as a different kind of player attribute is a nod to a big truth about Glorantha - that everyones 'magical body' is different, and complex, and there are a whole bunch of things about your drives and world view and deep nature and connections to the magical currents of the world in there. This is a change from RQ1, but I think represents an evolution not a break. That you are limited to three runes in HQ (or that your magical nature is expressed in that particular rune system) is not so much a statement about Gloranthan reality, but a statement about how we might best represent that complexity to suit the needs of HQ. The new RuneQuest will represent the same thing in broadly similar, but more detailed, ways to suit the needs of THAT game system. 13th Age In Glorantha will do it differently again. A non-Gloranthan magical game might use different runes, but similar ideas (look at Nephilim for an example). I do think, however, that sometimes the Runic representation within the game system is taken as being significant, and that's problem. I dislike the Waha writeup in HQ:G a lot for this reason - it takes the lack of a Spirit Rune as being very significant, but I think that the lack of a Spirit Rune is a game abstraction that might disappear or appear very differently in another game system that operates at another level of abstraction.

Oh, the Gods predate (or perhaps exist significantly outside of linear time) the mortal cultures that worship them, yes. But the myths and forms of worship do not, and are interactions of the timeless nature of the gods with changeable and historically layered mortal culture. And the richness of that interaction is a large part of the appeal of this sort of deep mythic discussion.

The White Healer, source of Compassion, is an ancient goddess in Pelanda, though. And we already know that Chalana Arroy incorporates the eleven healing god Arroin into her cult. I don't think Chalana Arroy is simply of Western origin, even less than Lhankor Mhy and Issaries, but it may well be that the modern Chalana Arroy cult is the result of several healing deities being recognised as the same/related in the First Age (one of them being the Pelorian Erissa/Pelandan White Healer), and the Arroin cult is recognised as being not the same, but closely related (perhaps the Arroy part of the name is added in recognition of this). Its notable, BTW, that Lhankor Mhy and Issaries, the two gods suspected of clearly originating in the West, are the two Orlanthi gods whose ancestry is given as two Power Runes, while all the others (except CA) are part of some elemental genealogy or other. Its also notable that both have explicit myths about them journeying a long distance to meet the Lightbringers, so they are acknowledged, at some level, as foreigners. Though its also notable that the two cults were among those theist paths embraced by the God Learners, and both still bear significant signs of God Learner influence. I think that while Lhankor Mhys connection to sorcery probably dates as far back as we can trace it (maybe back to the Tadeniti), the Alien Combination Machine is just too damn God Learnerish. You could probably also make a case that the various marriage myths of LM and Issaries represent the recognition of the essential oneness, and subsequent combining, of Western and Theyalan traditions.