Tarumath

In the last few days I've had a few thoughts about it. Something important to note is that no magical perspective is supposed to be superior to the others : mysticism is not 100% right about everything while even the transcendental high end of theism, animism and sorcery are inferior to the result of successful mysticism. The main difference seems to be the old divide between orthodox and manifest mysticism, and only mysticism with its austerities is orthodox mysticism, everything else is manifest. Greg Stafford eventually dropped the terminology but from his later explanations it's less that the divide doesn't exist anymore but more that manifest mysticism became the transcendental high magic of theism, animism and sorcery (learning a Great Secret in Hero Wars is obviously the same thing as what manifest mystics were doing in Arcane Lore) that yet isn't mystical by definition because intermediaries are used; and orthodox mysticism became the only true mysticism with things like martial arts being normal magical powers obtained through deviant mystical practices that aren't paths to transcendance. In Imperial Lunar Handbook vol 2, the end goal of lunar mysticism seems to be the same as learning the Great Secret of a God : you become a pure expression of a single Rune (Moon) but the text is clear about how is it transcendant and making you part of the All. All the examples we know involve elemental runes (or possibly elemental runes like Moon) but the few "mystical" gods with power runes that we know either seem to be a orthodox path (Dayzatar) or have Geases like Humakt, Yelmalio and Danfive Xaron, something that is indeed classified as a form of utilitarian, thus "failed" mysticism. (Like East Isles martial arts and maybe the Path of Immanent Mastery) Illumination in HQ:G is represented as an infinite rune placed before the most appropriate rune for the way you became an Illuminate, so there is the notion that you connect to the infinite through a Rune. (Superheroes like Harrek are also like that too) It's possible that transcendance always involve complete identification with a single Rune even for orthodox mystics : Generally Truth for Dayzatari mystics for example or varying depending on the individual. Leaving the world (orthodox) or becoming one with it (manifest) could be a side-effect of the method used or of identifying yourself with an elemental or power rune. (Greg Stafford said that manifest mystics think that the physical world is the source of reality while orthodox ones think that energy is the source of reality) Nothing special probably happen to dead Illuminated people : without completing a transcendental practice they are still as bound as anyone else even if they can ignore some magical and mental restrictions, they are not automatically accomplished mystics and a lot of them actually end up unhinged because they are merely deeply aware that the world is an illusion without having access to the Ultimate after the first contact that caused their Illumination. (Unless they come in contact with a mystical system teaching them higher truths, something unlikely in western Genertela between the death of Nysalor and the Lunar Empire, one of the main reasons Illuminates have such a bad reputation) They are probably judged by Daka Fal with gods and spirits accusing or defending depending on their actions, I don't think anything bad is guaranted to happen to them just because they are Illuminated but those who abused their Illumination are probably going to pay for it. Obviously some can avoid that thanks to their powers (like Sir Ethilrist escaping the Underworld) but that's a Heroe / Demigod thing and most Illuminates are not Heroes or even Immortals. It's possible that they lose their illumination if reincarnated though. Truly enlightened people who stay in the world probably can't really be destroyed, maybe they stay in some way in Glorantha and will meet the fate of the orthodox mystics after the end of the world or even if they are just "killed", a bit like the Utuma of the dragons. Dragonewts and other lesser dragons need to avoid entanglements and could be "orthodox" mystics, but it's probably mostly because their path is about reversing the draconic devolution to even become transcendental beings as they are so far down on the chain (succumbing to elemental temptations is bad because it makes them non-draconic), the Grand Ancestral Dragon and probably other elder dragons could be already transcendental in the "manifest" way and merely liberated when they are killed; maybe that's also what True Dragons who are ready for their Utuma are and why death liberates them from the world. (So the draconic path at least for dragonewts is a weird mix of orthodox and manifest mysticism)

To be honest I said buy points as an example but anything that isn't random and out of the player control, arrays and that kind of thing are just as good and are probably saner alternatives to rolling stats if you think that buy points systems are abusive. The problem I have with rolling stats is that luck chooses what kind of character you will play instead of yourself, makes players inherently unequal and ruin the character you are trying to make if rolling is not the first creation step (even choosing your runes will generally be done with a cult in mind); unless you reroll so much after bad results that rolling in the first place is a waste of time. IMO even by old school standards, rolling stats was always a weird thing much more appropriate for generating dozens of characters for meat grinders like Tomb of Horror than as a sane and worthwhile measure against min-maxing. I dunno, these justifications about why rolling stats is good begin to sound convulated, that kind of results still sound like much more of a problem than a player trying to minmax a little too much with their starting stats generally is. It's not an horrible problem that ruins everything...but you could say the same thing about all bad things without real benefits that just happen to not be that bad. And it makes the point about minmaxing moot given that the reason minmaxing is bad is that it's not fun if a player is much stronger than the others but power imbalance between the players is a premise of rolling stats so I don't even get how it's helping against the problems caused by minmaxing if you include them in the game by default; what is the point of curing a disease if it's to get all of its symptoms?

I mean, I understand the principle but in this case knowing how much points you are "supposed" to use would be better than choosing whatever you want, otherwise player characters would probably end up either underpowered or overpowered. Changing rules unless you really understand them is just going to break the game most of the time.

Will there be an option in the GM book for buying stats with points instead of rolling for them? I mostly like RQG so far but I really don't like rolling for stats.

Something important to consider is that there is probably some amount of abstraction made for the sake mechanical soundness and balance. Using the Spirit Rune or the Law Rune like in Heroquest was maybe not possible or ideal because of the sorcery and spirit magic rules.

What does it make of fusion with an element through learning the Great Secret of a Great God like Orlanth and Ernalda? Is this just the same thing as the ultimate goal of mysticism but achieved through theism or is that a different / inferior goal?

If I understand the rules, moon shamen only get five free charms if they choose the Spirit Rune as their third rune, even if they base their tradition on their dying phase moon rune?

Do Old Pavisites count?

Not all Runes have cults in Sartar or even among the Orlanthi as a whole and some combinations of Runes and gender will leave you without anything. (Like Sartar Kingdom of Heroes warns the reader) In-universe, most people are born with appropriate runes (even if not all men are perfect Air Movement Mastery Orlanth initiates) and ancestry tends to cause a lot of the normal variations like having the Water or Fire Rune so I don't think that Darkness Stasis Magic people are a thing in a troll-hating Orlanthi clan. The Sartar book (page 92) also says that the GM is free to create minor local divine cults with a single Rune, either for flavor or for player characters with unusual runes. I think that's probably the best option for playing characters with unusual runes for their culture and can give them a stronger connection to their local communauty. (They are the worshippers of a minor deity only worshipped by their clan, members of a family with a strange but ancestral cult,etc...) instead of making them people with out of place powers. Earth, Life and Plant are good IMO, maybe a Nandan man if you really want him to be a man + initiate of a local plant cult? two magical abilities for the latter is a bit weak but you could add a few Talents to boost it as you are not going to be a devotee anyway. (Having a Form Rune generally means that you can shapeshift into it)

Ancestors are disembodied spirits and that type of interactions with small otherwordly entities is typically (and best represented as) a form of animism : getting a bit of magic from them, communicating and summoning them,etc... Even Orlanthi can ritually interact with their ancestors but only in a very limited way and I doubt that any of them would primarily be "ancestors worshippers" even if they are laymen so in some way or another Duke Raus must have access to more than that. Glorantha Classics's Borderlands and Beyond also states that him and his immediate family are Daka Fal style ancestors worshippers and Daka Fal is one of these deities that are present everywhere in some form. I suspect that his ancestors worship ways were retconned later on though as the more recent Pavis books don't mention it and the Heroquest one gives him the Fire, Truth and Mastery Runes. (The doylist reason why he was ever an ancestor worshipper was probably to make him very neutral anyway)

True Dragons seem to be demigod equivalents and not that unusual besides being a numerous race of demigods living in the lands of the mortals and being especially hard to kill because of some of their powers. Ancestral Dragons are probably the "gods" and are not there and active anymore (even living in the God World). My understanding of the Great Compromise is that is it really a constant of Glorantha and affect anyone above some thresholds of power, making them more and more static and bound to what they are mythically.

Thank you too Iskallor, very informative.

Thanks for the quick answer! 👌

Maybe a stupid question but can you use the Law Rune as an Augment for Grimoires that don't use the Law Rune as their keyword? (Stand-alone abilities or breakout of another keyword) If yes, could you have something like a "+1 Talented Sorcerer" breakout ability of the Law Rune to do the same thing as a specialized ability instead of just using the Rune?

Conditions Runes unlike other Runes can be rebundant (You don't need Mastery to have decent leadership powers because they already exist in all the elemental runes, the Harmony Rune and a few others like Truth), they modify the other Runes or emphasize some of their aspects.

Technically there is also the reversed Mastery Rune of fonritian slaves and their God but it's probably just an unusual aspect of the normal Rune. (If I remember well, they have a single divine affinity for pleasing their master and succedding at doing whathever their master is tasking them with)

Are their Dying Phase completely working like the Spirit Rune or are they limited to spirits of their tradition and spirits with the moon rune?

They work the same way as other animists, "integrating spirits" is just a term used about all animists for them making relationships with spirits. (ie getting new charms)

That's how I interpret it too and I remember some fluff about how Jakaleel initiates are pure traditionnal animists instead of being eclectic like most lunars. Obviously they can learn lunar grimoires under another of their Runes, as independant spells, improvise Glamours of their phase with the usual stretches and get other phases if they are illuminated but their Dying Phase "only" has access to the spirits of the lunar tradition, not all of them being Lunes. Like other animist traditions, they integrate spirits from various Spirit Societies. Most other lunar immortals instead indistinctly give Grimoires, Evocations and Lunes based on their powers.

If an intelligent magical item is your companion, then what is its species keyword? They don't have one? a keyword for representating the broad powers of the powerful item? are you supposed to stat its personal spirit instead, making the companion the same as an allied spirit?

It makes sense to me, thanks.

I agree that the serial immortality of Belintar and The Red Emperor are similar but I think that we know quite a bit about both: Belintar takes over the body of the Winners of the Tournament of Luck and Death but their essences are united until the new body is weared down by the essence of Belintar, then the Winner is liberated with full consciouness to a blessed existence. Winners seems to be completely passive when they are inhabited by Belintar and liberated ones probably become godlings or equivalent in the mysterious otherside of the Holy Country, it's possible that they become extensions of Belintar but we don't really have any evidences. The Red Emperor seems to be a construct of the Egi, maybe not originally (he could still have been the demigod son of the Red Goddess, or maybe it's pure fiction/only symbolic) but the Egi all have to "contribute" to his new body and Sheng Seleris killing some of them made him less stable, so he is probably at least partially a kind of over-soul (wyter in the general sense of the word) of the Egi. (The reason why he is not exactly the same when he gets a new body could be that since Sheng Seleris not all the Egi involved are always the same) In both cases, I'm not convinced that Illumination or Mysticism is needed.

The way the three otherworlds seems to work now is fine IMO. There are no longer the absurd situations where you would have to roll to know if you get a penalty because the cloud you try to magically control is an essence instead of a daimon and Misaplied Worship is gone but the three otherworlds still exist even if their separation is less absolute and that many religions and beings are mixed in various and interresting ways. I would be a bit sad if all deities are now both equally gods/spirits/essences because that's a bit boring and overly simplistic but getting spirits from Orlanth despite him being a bona fide God makes sense especially if your religion has mythical precedents of having such a relationship with him. (But the Pentans theistically worshipping Orlanth and also having a Spirit Tradition would also be interesting, and obviously West King Wind could be a Great Spirit corresponding to the same winds as Orlanth, just like Elmal and Yelm are both the sun) For example, Aeol probably still had to do some work to make his brand of Henotheism possible, and Aeolians still have some sort of mutually beneficiable relationship with the Orlanthi gods. (But I guess that some henotheists could only mimic the magic of gods and deluding themselves with the belief that they are venerating/worshipping them but I don't think that's what most henotheists are doing) I don't really understand how someone could get theistic magic from an Ascended Master or a Spirit (Spirit -> Grimoires and Ascended Master -> Spirits make sense in my head but getting theistic magic from something else than a god without it just being misaplied worship without a malus doesn't) but I'm probably just lacking imagination.

Does this mean that they are worshipped in Esrolia?

Is Pavis the same type of entity as a Wyter and is his actual magic working the same way for the communauty of Pavis? I assumed that City Gods and Wyters are the same thing (also assumed that communauty spirits of animists are similar and that Malkioni simply use Chains of Veneration for all their communal magic instead) but I'm not sure given that the description of the communal worship of Pavis imply that they are just worshipping him and then he uses his own magic to magically maintain and protect the city. My own guess is that he is not even really a City God and that people sacrificing to him is a theistic form of a Chain of Veneration (or just lending him magical energy in a similar way) but maybe City Gods are different from Wyters? Thanks!