metcalph

Sorry, the wrong reference was posted: And bound spirits in animals have been called familiars as far back as RQ2. Examples include: Griffin Mountain. Numerous appearances of familiars in the statsblock such as Littlefist (Bound spirit in small monkey familiar). 37 instances. Only 7 allied spirits are bound as familiars. Pavis: Threshold to Danger: 1 instance (p145)

A fetch may or may not be part of oneself (I suspect I depends on the tradition), an allied spirit certainly isn't. For familiars, the RQ rules are in RQG p250. There are also Awakened Beasts described in Weapons and Equipment p44-46 although they do not have a mental link with their companion. Do the Malkioni have familiars and the like? Almost certainly. Snow Hares are specifically mentioned in W&E p45 as the favourite for Awakened Beasts in Fronela and I doubt they meant the non-Malkioni part. Priests, Rune Lords and Shamans of the non-sorcerous cults in Malkioni lands will have access to Allied Spirits and Fetches. That just leaves the sorcerers...

I think it's most likely that as part of his initiation ceremony, the Yanafali will have to do a heroquest in which he fights his former master. With his victory, he has transformed and is not affected by Humakt's Sword Curse.

The Invisible God is not a God that is worshipped but something that exists. Is a scientist pious because he believes in the existence of Quarks? Is a Doctor pious because he only eats food with low cholesterol? As for whether the other Malkioni are pious: they do not believe in the Invisible God - they believe in the Wizards.

I don't think that the Malkioni sorcerors are particularly pious. They do sorcery for the Good and restrict themselves to sorcery because that makes them better at it (points to Lhankhor Mhy as an example of what happens if sorcery is mixed with rune magic). Their attitude to the caste laws is not that it is morally wrong to break them but doing so weakens their magic. Many will be fanatically obsessive about observing the laws but when observing others breaking those same laws will respond in a variety of ways (snide and cutting putdowns, remonstrations to do better, malicious gossiping etc).

For me, calling books, wands and breastplates familiars is to warp the traditional understanding of the term. There's very little sense in the material that we have of the paraphernalia actually being intelligent and moving of their own accord among other known familar attributes. If it is to aid the Malkioni in having more powerful magic then inscriptions and the like IMO would be a better way to handle it. For example, the runic breastplate (Guide to Glorantha p50 for those of you who are in the dark) rather than make it intelligent, I would just say the runes are individual enchantments that give the the sorceror a bonus with any spell that uses that rune. That said, it's your campaign so feel free to do what you want.

My own (idle) thinking is that they are a fusion of shamanic gifts and sorcery spells with Rightness acting as a Geas. A common (to all castes) caste magic would be the ability to cast Mend Flesh only on oneself, using the largest caste lore skill as the chance of caste magic success. They are castable so long as one has the necessary magic points. They are not learnable but rather enchanted by a local wizard (in exchange for cash, service or a favour).

Leaving aside the correctness of your thesis - there's a big leap from "consistent with" to All Malkioni magicians must do this to be "taken seriously".

Weapons and Equipment p119+

From the hints about Caste Magic, they do.

Think you are conflating two different events. The Dragonrise of 1625 (which involved the Brown Dragon) and the future battle of Moonfall (which involved Sh'hakazeel). Details on the later battle can be found in King of Sartar (last parts of Argrath's Saga which commentary elsewhere).

The Crystal rules in Elder Secrets did have some crystals being useful for sorcery.

Oh. By the way, what does BTW mean?

How to be a powerful sorcerer. IMO the way a sorcerer would become really powerful is to achieve unity with the Godhead. There's all sorts of ambiguous flaff in Revealed Mythologies so I'll stick with standard cosmology. Gloranthans are generally the equivalent of the inhabitants of the Fourth World/Storm Age. A sorcerer seeks gnosis by reaching back through successive stages of cosmical understanding (Golden Age, Green Age, Creation Age). I think Adepts have reached the Golden Age stage of awareness and Maguses the Green Age. Only Zzabur has reached the Creation Age. Acquisition of gnosis is generally done by swotting up on the runes and studying the spells. When a sorcerer feels ready, they casts great spells weaves together all that they know for translation to a higher realm. Translated sorcerers travel in worlds lesser mortals cannot imagine to the extent that they are gods in human clothing with lightning bolts shooting from their fingertips. Translated sorcerers do not die but generally leave the mortal realms behind. The worst sort of translated sorcerers are not those who are evil but those who remain active in the mortal world.

I got the impression from the RQG rules that Tapping (specifcially Steal Breath) was easier in that there was less moral objection whereas originally most Malkioni schools have forbidden the usage. HVE appeared as a Magus in Griffin Island not Monster Coliseum. The Sorcerer in Monster Coliseum was an Adept. But the three you mentioned were by design bigwig sorcerers storywise rather than would-be player heroes. There's no discussion of how Kallyr and Argrath get to be so powerful within the rules that we have but their powerful status fits the background. So your plaint really isn't about the rules that we have but the story reasons why they got to be so powerful. HVE is just evil with a recycled text description from Griffin Mountain (stating he is just 25 years old), Maculus is at least century old and Arlaten's background does have a disconnect with his power.

It may have been known as the city of Elempur within the Godtime Empire of Dara Happan. It would have been sacked and destroyed by the Orlanthi leaving only a few Dancers behind. One dancer went north to Dara Happa to serve as the Empire's Bow God but the others remained behind.

I think they would worship Yanafal Tarnils rather than Humakt as he's the better Fighting God. Humakt to them would be kinda like Umath to the Orlanthi - once a powerful god but no longer. Being his worshippers won't stop them from being exiled. Bisos is really a version of Storm Bull (he once wasn't but he now is). But it depends on why they were exiled. In the Western Reaches, real troublemakers would be madea walk into the Ban while the potential trouble-makers (weaker side of a brewing feud) are not exiled as such but think it will be easier if they just went elsewhere. While there are local variants of Humakt (WelPolo in the Enkosiad), they would be used as colour in the local ceremonies rather than distinct cults in their own right. If the exiles are pretty dedicated enough they may get an exotic rune spell or guft from his worship but that would be about it.

Rather than have actual sorcery spells to make a familiar, I would (ab)use Caste Magic and rule that the Malkioni (not just their sorcerors!) is manifesting a portion of their ideal self. So they'll be like material fetches. They won't give additional free INT or POW but they can cast any magic that the caster knows. The Seshnegi wizards will shun this practice while tolerating it in their warriors (who would have familiars of their beast order - wolf, lion, serpent etc). Wealthy Seshnegi farmers and women would have small household goblins that grumble through all their tedious tasks. The Noble familiars range from cute pets to highly magical guardians. Most Lokslami use their familiars like the Seshnegi farmers. But their leaders are fond of using flying creatures such as the swallow to represent the soul's desire to escape the corrupt world. They use the familiars as an aid to heroquesting and reaching the Hidden Mover. The Brithini do not have familiars as it is incompatible with their immortality. The familiars start off small but can be grown through further caste magic enchantments. If a familiar dies or is killed then it can be re-manifested through POW sacrifices and the help of a friendly wizard.

I think the question is why do Sorcerers have a need to make a familiar? It's not so much as the question of whether they can make familiars (Probably) and how to do so (Probably similar to Weapons and Equipment) but the idea that every sorcerer *must* have a familiar to demonstrate mastery of their craft. There's scope for a particular school to mandate the creation of a familiar for recognition (I once had the Surgeons of Vitality become qualified by making a homunculus which they called a minime...) but I'm really not seeing why every sorceror must have one.

It bears a lot of resemblence to the RQ3 version and I don't know of any other RQ editions that had sorcery. We do have a fair idea. The Malkioni have rightness through which they can do caste magic. Caste magic is probably similar to Shamanic Gifts (or even the gifts from Yelmalio and Humakt) except that the magic are caste specific and sorcerous in nature. What's not known is how many gifts a Malkioni would have.

"Sandy likes it" is not what I would call "the glorantha reasoning to make it stick"

Because RQ2 had spirits bound into animals (as opposed to allied spirits) which were often referred to as familiars. RQ3 junked this in favour of the sorcerous version but never had the gloranthan reasoning to make it stick. RQG has gone back to the RQ version.

It's also repeated in the Glorantha Sourebook p70 which originally appears in Wyrms Footnotes. Given Teshana's maritial discord described in the book and curious features in the Teshnan frieze in the guide, it's my belief that Teshnos was at the other end of the Goddess Switch suffering the failed marriages.

An adventure around this question is in the Starter Set

Yelmalio has been in Prax since the Imperial Age. The Ostrich Riders probably only worshipped minor light spirits to compensate for lost Yamsur until Yelmalio came along.