Richard S.

If losing Rightness can result in expulsion from your case, I wonder how many Dronars in places like Seshnela are actually Dronars, since they are used in the army occasionally.

I think the former is true, but not necessarily the latter. In Loskalm, initiation to Hrestol is probably near universal, given that the cult is the only way to move between castes (and the only way to go against caste restrictions without losing Rightness), but not everyone is a man of all (though an argument could be made that Loskalmi men of all aren't the same thing as the men of all started by Hrestol). Edit: just saw in the original post that initiation in Loskalm is fairly rare too, so there goes a good portion of my point with this post...

Talars may worship ascended masters as ancestors still. As long as they don't get uppity and start calling them gods.

Cults among Talars, Horali, and Dronars work exactly the same as for other Genertelans, with all the same roles. Zzaburi use sorcery exclusively, and don't join cults except for presumably in Henotheist schools (unless you count the invisible god as a proper cult). The Zzaburi lead the masses in worship to the invisible god, but they don't worship gods or spirits normally. And on the flipside, the other castes will not use sorcery - learning and using it is the purpose of the Zzaburi.

Non-Zzaburi do initiate to cults. Talars worship their ancestors, which often include gods (the trader princes are noted to worship Issaries as an ancestor). Horali join martial cults such as the Seshnelan beast societies, Humakt, or other war gods. Dronari do whatever - nobody really cares about them as long as they don't get out of line, so they worship local earth goddesses, spirits, and any other local gods. I believe, based on what Jeff said at the impromptu con, that Loskalm is the only Malkioni place where this isn't the case, and among all the castes only ancestor worship is practiced (and it's a matter of cultural bias rather than any sort of suppression or restriction). The perfectly logical society they managed to set up inside the ban apparently had no need for gods, though it seems that may be a weakness now that the ban is lifted.

Sorcerers don't have anything like Rune levels. The only difference between an apprentice and a master is how much they know, not what special abilities a higher power has granted them. Obviously, this plays hell with spells that affect Rune levels differently, since there's no clear line as to when a sorcerer's power is on par with a Rune master's.

I feel like this thread is now very off topic...

If you want to YGMV how sorcerers work in your Glorantha that's fine, but don't expect RQG's sorcery rules to align with it.

No, sorcerers all over Glorantha are long game players. Sorcery as Greg Stafford envisioned it is extremely flexible with the potential to be more powerful than anything a Rune or Spirit magician could pull off, but is also extremely time consuming and preferably is done with the support of a school and/or congregation. Sorcery is preemptive, not reactive.

I don't think Ralzakark counts as a god king. He's a supremely powerful chaotic entity, yes, but he's not quite a god in mortal flesh.

"At age 13, the novitiate selects three Runes (the Spirit Rune, an Elemental Rune, and either a Power Rune or the Magic Rune)" p.389

According to the Malkioni glossary in Revealed Mythologies Dromal is just an alternate spelling of Dronar, not a separate person.

I mean, it kind of was. Sorcery at its core is a magic system for old men in schools and towers who have other people do all the adventuring while they work up huge spells, research obscure arcane lore, and make magic items. There are plenty of ways you can make it work for active adventurers, but it's always going to feel a little hacky and will occupy a much different space than either spirit or rune magic in the party.

Sorry to say, but I highly doubt you'll influence much, both because a lot of these flaws and gaps have already been brought up before, and also because I believe Jeff already has a mostly complete manuscript for western sorcery and the invisible god.

The way I generally use runes is that they may affect your personality, but it's not that they are your personality. So, for instance, someone with very weak magical abilities may have a tenuous connection to the air rune, but they could still be a timid, quiet person. If they decide to invest in their magic, though, air will begin to influence their actions more and more as their connection grows stronger, and they'll start becoming proud and boastful and reckless as they become more powerful.

Q&A: Actually a little different than I remember. The answer implies that instead of it being restricted to only the inscriber it's actually a looser restriction of "anyone who knows the spell and all its runes and techniques", which also means you don't need to sac POW to expand the user pool. There's also this, which contradicts a little of my interpretation above: So it looks like I was actually conflating answers in my head and gave some misinformation in this thread, my bad.

Looks like a version of Barad Dur to me. Also kind of reminds me of that one chaos god whose eye is either the sun or the whole sky, though I don't remember their name.

That's pretty much the same procedure for making a matrix though. The creator of a matrix needs to know the spell being enchanted and sacrifice POW equal to its cost. The primary difference between matrices and inscriptions is that the group of people who can use it is "everyone" instead of "caster", and that a separate spell isn't needed to make an inscription.

Inscriptions are just like any other enchantment in that regard. They give a lot of long-term benefits, but they're expensive as all hell. You could maybe put the effect of a sorcery spell into a potion with another spell, like using a sorcery spell to brew a potion that taps the SIZ of whoever drinks it, but because of how intellectual sorcery is I don't believe that you can condense and bottle up the knowledge of a spell for anyone to use.

Grimoires, the cornerstone of sorcery, are going to be covered when proper Malkioni sorcery does, though that book is unfortunately pretty far down the road. It seems like they'll probably just be books that give knowledge of spells, possibly even a straight +% bonus if they're anything like the skill books Jeff posted about a while back. Another option is that they're books of inscriptions. As for sorcery "matrices", that's basically what inscriptions are, an external place to hold spells so they don't take up space in your noggin. And yes, like with other enchantments you can spend extra POW to mess with who can use them (though in this case the default is "caster", not "everyone", so each extra point would expand the pool rather than shrinking it, though even at "everyone" level only a sorcerer could actually use it). Spirits probably can't hold spells, since the sorcerer either needs to have it in their mind or be able to read it (it is a literacy-based discipline). Scrolls would probably be forms of inscriptions, though they wouldn't be one-use unless the inscribing sorcerer somehow worked that into the enchantment. You can't put sorcery spells into potions, though doubtless there's several spells out there that deal with alchemy and making potions.

The Rokari social order is in no way threatened by Rune magic, they have no need for a spell to see and identify Rune magic. The wizards don't care much about what the lower castes do as long as they follow their caste laws and sacrifice mp to the invisible god. The New Hrestoli society in Loskalm is arguably more restrictive of Rune magic than anything the Rokari of Seshnela do, since in their "perfect logical society" worship of the gods is seen as beneath everyone (though ancestor worship is still cool with them). I doubt they have an inquisition or anything though, it's just a cultural bias against cults.

Adulthood initiation is a different thing from initiating to a god. The initiation you go through when passing into adulthood is best thought of as "pantheon initiation", after which you are now a lay member of the cultural god(s). If you want to go further, you can dedicate yourself to an individual god, but it comes with much more responsibility (in heroquest, it was abstracted as a 30% time commitment as opposed to the 10% time commitment of a lay member). Cult Initiation is basically the first step into the priesthood - you've become a first-level Cleric, if I can pull in a D&D analogy. Edit, circa 2023: I'm completely wrong. Adulthood and cult initiation are usually the same thing.

I doubt that there's any sort of inquisition or restriction on Rune magic, it's just that the West is one of those regions where most of the population is lay members, who see no reason to engage in the responsibilities and politics of initiating into the deeper mysteries (and thus obtaining Rune magic). At most, a community will probably have one Rune priest for each temple, with maybe a handful of initiates to help them. No need for any sort of check by the Zzaburi. RQG does make initiation seem like the norm, but full initiation really is a serious step in a person's life that most average humans won't bother taking regardless of where they live (though Heortlings do have an abnormal amount). All our heroes just happen to be initiated because a) well, we're heroes, and b) players want big magic. RQG also neatly sweeps most of the responsibilities and restrictions of initiation under the rug, so we neither have to deal with them nor really understand them, which I do feel is a bit of a loss. I hope the cults book emphasizes the social aspects of initiation more, so it's not just viewed as a completely free source of a power.

Just because something is useful doesn't mean it'll be widely known. Sorcerous schools are just as bogged down in tradition and secrecy as everyone else. Arkat was famous for mixing magic with heroquesting and just jumping between religions, so it makes sense that his schools would have spells unique to them that let them deal with other magics.

Yeah, that's the part of the Q&A I was referencing. While for the most part it seems to agree with the "only doubled once" ruling, this first line that I quoted contradicts that, which confuses me. It's possible that they though you were talking about base spell cost and not cost per intensity level, though, which would agree with what's said later. So, it's probably safest to rule that the base cost of a spell is 1mp for each mastered rune or technique plus 2mp for each unmastered, while the cost per level of intensity is 1 if all the runes and techniques in the spell are mastered and 2 if any of the runes and techniques in the spell are unmastered.