Godlearner

17 minutes ago, icebrand said:

seeing one of your close friends die in a horrible way in front of your eyes should maybe mean something, either now or later, instead of stuff being business as usual.

In an insane society, a sane person would appear to be insane.

A Bronze Age, magic using culture, would have much different standards from ours.

SAN measures one's beliefs in the basic natural laws. In RQ magic is everywhere, therefore anything is possible and that is the only basic natural law. Therefore, having SAN rules is pointless. 

Running a small battle in my campaign where a fishing village militia, supported by adventurers, defended against some coastal raiders. The raiders had better armor and their skills were about 20% better and, on the average, they were 3 points bigger in SIZ. The adventurers made their Battle skills and had the militia line up in a double line with the front rank forming a shield wall. The raiders charged and attempted to break that up by slamming into the front rank. 

It turned into a slaughter. It is now round 4 with over half the raiders unconscious or dead. The shield wall lasted only a round, but in that round, the set spears took a heavy toll, while the braced militia managed not to give way.  

34 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

ETA: and thus, does one need separate Control Dog and Control Dog Spirit ? or is one superfluous?

Technically thereare no Control Dog spells, they are all Control Dog Spirit spells.

39 minutes ago, Darius West said:

It is perfectly possible to refuse to recognize spirits as being anything other than magical detritus.  

Sure, but it would have no effect on the mechanic of control spells.

6 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Of course, that has nothing to do with Glorantha.

Sure, so to get back to the topic at hand a possessed Dog would not be subject to a Control Dog spell, even if its POW is overcomed. 

37 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Mind and body are one in a materialist paradigm.

That is like saying that material and spirit world are one which is not the case. They are interdependent but are clearly separate. 

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

The brain is part of the body.  So is the nervous system.  This is the materialist paradigm of sorcery.  Control the body, control the mind, because the mind is part of the body. Spirit is a delusion to sorcerers, as it is just a shell of residual POW that exists after someone dies.  A ghost is not a person to sorcerers, it is just an echo on the mythic energy background.  If we started worrying they were all somehow "people", not just spirit trash, then what would we tap?  Clearly all good Malkioni's souls go straight to Solace, and these "spirits" they leave behind are simply a product of their shedding of their sins.😉

Even if what you say is true, and I have serious doubts about a lot of what you said there, this does not cover the Theist or Animist's point of views. The body is the body, a meat suit if you will, while the spirit is the mind and is eternal. In this case controlling the body restricts movement and actions, but does not affect the mind. Then you overcome the spirit in POW vs POW roll you do not necessarily subjugate the mind, but rather remove its control of the body.

41 minutes ago, Karlak One-eye said:

My players have through hero-questing fought in many non Gloranthan places

We dip heavily into Middle Earth, Young Kingdoms, Ancient Egypt and Connan setting.

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

I think the important thing about dominate is that it is a cruel spell.  You can't do anything but what you are told to do.  Worse still, the spell lasts for the length of the duration, even if the sorcerer dies.  Your body is likely to breathe, fall asleep, urinate, defacate etc without "permission", but according to natural rhythms, not the victim's control, which can be humiliating.  I assume that food and drink placed in the mouth can be consumed, but more as an animal reaction than with any conscious control.  The sorcerer can order the victim to perform these personal tasks, but must do so directly, and cannot use hand-wavium to just say it happens, as potentially a command like "do as you please" can utterly break the domination.

It is cruel as it subsumes the Will of the target, but the actual affects are in the realm of the GM. I would say "permission" is granted by default, unless something is specifically forbidden. Other game systems for example treat distasteful actions as another reason for a battle of wills which may give the subject a change to shake off the effect, even for a while.

This topic should have its own thread IMO.

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

because it is spirit magic and works against spirit. 

Disagree. Demoralize works on the mind even though it needs to overcome the POW. That is why it is species agnostic. There are spells that work on certain spirits and not others like Summon spirit of Disease and Healing, Command and Create Ghost. Previous versions had Dominate POW or INT spirits, and even the current RQG Bestiary lists different spirit types breaking them down to Plant, Animal (even breaking them down to species), etc. 

35 minutes ago, svensson said:

It doesn't matter that these behaviors and tactics were learned on the surface, as the exile from Wonderhome happened in the God Time. The mythological reasons for stealth are there.

What I am saying is that Stealth is the domain of the newer Troll deities. 

13 minutes ago, svensson said:

since Uz warfare relies heavily on night-fighting, and by extension stealth,

Stealth is not Uz forte. They fight at night, not because it gives them an advantage, which it does, but because that is because they hate the light. They learned stealth when they can to the surface, it is not natural to them. That is why it is the Surface Gods the Uz worship which have stealth type spell such as Xentha, Argan Argar and Zong. 

Argan Argar (Darkwalk)

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

IMO the spell controls the flesh of the dog.

I would say the spell controls the mind.

21 minutes ago, David Scott said:

but you would still need to overcome the possessing spirit's POW as usual.

Sure, but would that even work? Let's say you have a spirit in a dog and a sorcerer casts a Dominate Dog and overcomes the spirit's power. is the spirit cast out? Is the dog controlled and stull possessed, or does the spell fail because it's the wrong species?

If a spirit is possessing an animal or person has a control, command or a dominate <species> spell cast on them, will it work?

< full Godlearner mode>

Here is what is happening (IMO). There "trade routes", there are areas of "open oceans", and there are areas of "high risk ocean". I like to think of these are different tables for random encounters with the frequency of encounters and their danger differing based on each one of these. So, the frequency of an encounter higher on the "trade routes", but the danger level would be the highest on the "high risk ocean"

Pre-Closing: The rates are as defined, and Path Watch works on the "trade routes" within the spell limitations

Closing: The Curse in effect makes each voyage on the "high risk ocean" and increases the chances on an encounter occurring to 100%. Path Watch stops working because there are no longer any "trade routes" as everything is now "high risk ocean"

Open Seas: Dormal ceremony temporarily and locally counters the Curse, and Path Watch works on the "trade routes" within the spell limitations

Boat Planet returns: The Curse ends or dispelled, or whatever. It's no longer there. We are basically in the Pre-Closing situation. Open Seas may no longer be necessary or may still function in certain cases against any remnants of the Curse if it's still there somewhere, and Path Watch works on the "trade routes" within the spell limitations.

</ full Godlearner mode>

10 minutes ago, dumuzid said:

i don't think I've ever seen a Pamalt cult write-up

There is one in the RQ3 Gods of Glorantha.

4 hours ago, soltakss said:

Probably, yes.

Why would it? Even if their sorcerous ceremony is no longer effective (and that is debatable), there are no real reasons not to follow Dormal.

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

That's called superstition.

Hmm, sailor and superstition ...... its like bread and butter, ice cream and apple pie, military and marching music.

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

That's called superstition. Path Watch, if used in the way you suggested earlier, would literally show whether or not there was a great hostile spell on the sea and thus put the Dormal cult out of business by proving that there was no Closing anymore...

I would disagree. The Curse is not the hostile, it is what is summoned by it which is. Path Watch would not to the Closing Curse (at least in my opinion) 

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

If that were true then there would be no more reason for the Dormal Cult to cast their Open Seas Ritual, and the cult would likely fold inside a decade.

No, no, no. Just because there is no more Closing, does not mean that the Open Seas Ritual is not needed. Think about it, who would want to test their ship on such a thing when performing the ritual covers you anyway. 

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

Okay, the minute you turn on Path Watch, the whole ocean lights up as an inimical threat to your existence because of the Closing.

Please, and like casting a Path Watch on a Hero Quest any better? Or walking around in Dorastor?

54 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Thats only 650 years, as an equivalent, we've still (UK) churches from the 1350s and earlier with chapels and shrines from ye olde times. My local church dates from 1300s and is full of old inscriptions, burials plaques etc. They don't throw anything away. I hear in places such as Egypt that there are even older sites, covered in religious stuff that no one cleared out.

Yes, but that is the major religion. A more correct comparison would be a patron saint of making tools out of flint, or anything else that is no longer done. There is no longer a reason to offer worship to this entity. The name may still be in the myth, and could be brought back, but most worshipers have no idea that it even existed.