PhilHibbs

It's fairly niche and unusual to need to know this, but there may be circumstances in which you need to use a different rune. If you just fumbled a Moon augment and have temporarily lost the ability to use it, you will need to know if you can use your Harmony rune, or Luck, or whatever, and the runes of the associate cult determine that.

Certainly not, they aren't ignorant unimaginitive barbarians that just make things in simple rune shapes imagining that that somehow imbues them with power.

The question relates to the Shield spell that the Seven Mothers get from her as an associate, and to cast Shield you need to use any Rune of the deity granting the spell, hence the question. So a Seven Mothers priest who gets Shield from HD can cast it using their Movement, Moon, Light (Fire/Sky?), or Harmony (if they're from Jillaro) runes. I think that's the only case where an unpublished associate gives a spell that means you need to know their runes. @Shiningbrow, your suggestion would grow this list to include all the unpublished associate cults that give spells that have more than one rune. I'm not saying it's a bad suggestion, I do think it is worth considering, just pointing out an issue with it. I would probably not imose the rule due to the additional complication, Shield is bad enough already as quite a few cults get that from an associate so you need to look up the associate's runes and/or doodle them in next to the spell on your character sheet.

Ah I see. They summon cult spirits, I think.

I let the apprentice shaman (and "man" here is not the same root as our word so "shamans" is better) in my game just attack the spirit after discorporating with the rune spell. I'm not sure if there should be more to it than that.

No, the only rule question is "What are Hwarin Dalthippa's runes", and since I'm unlikely to have a Seven Mothers priest in my campaign it's fairly niche. The other question is about a house rule.

It may seem contrived, but it isn't really all that unusual. Yanioth is only one rune experience tick away from this very situation. She has Fertility and Beast both at 85%, if she gets a tick on her Beast and it increases (or fumbles a Fertility augment and loses points), she has a better chance of casting Charisma with a non-Ernalda rune. Nathem has a higher Movement rune than any of his Odayla runes, but there aren't any Odayla rune spells that have the Movement rune. And there are cult rune spells that have to be cast with a rune that the cult that does not have. Find (Substance), for instance. Find Lead would clearly use the Darkness rune and Issaries doesn't have that. Find Gold would use the Fire rune. There may be Find spells which could be cast with more than one runes. Which raises an interesting question... what Rune would Sorala's Find Magic matrix use? Oh, a POWx5 as it's a matrix, that's easy. But if it was her own spell from Lhankor Mhy... Also, it leaves problems, such as, what are Aldrya's runes? Well, now that the Bestiary is out we now know that they are Earth and Plant, so you can't cast Accelerate Growth with your Fertility rune. But before the Bestiary was out, that was an unanswerable question. Asrelia, does she have the Fertility rune? Can an Ernaldan use Fertility to cast Bless Grave, or does it have to be Earth? We don't know, because we don't know Asrelia's runes (without referring to an old publication or the internet - it's Luck and Earth, apparently). In fact there's an unanswered question in the rules already - if your Seven Mothers priest gets Shield from Hwarin Dalthippa, what runes can they use to cast it?

So if a Chalana Arroy has Heal Body, and they happen to have a higher Earth rune than Harmony or Fertility, they can't use Earth to cast Heal Body because Earth isn't a Chalana Arroy Rune? I'm not so sure about that. Essentially you are saying that there should be a rule that says "A Rune spell can only be cast using a Rune that the originating cult has listed". I can see the argument in favour, it's essentially an extension of the Common Rune Spell rule. I'm undecided on it right now.

If it's during the period of Lunar occupation in which worship of Orlanth is outlawed, that's different. Yes, obvious Orlanth magic would be cause for arrest. You might get off with crucifixion if they were feeling generous.

I can't say I'm excited about the "conversions" part. Everything else is golden though.

The very idea that anyone would even consider saying "lets not call upon Odin in this duel" is just bizarre and inconceivable to me. When Ubbe fought a duel with a king in the final season, of Vikings, he literally calls upon Odin to give him strength, and gets up and pounds the king into the dirt. It's like asking a Christian not to pray before a meeting, or a martial artist to not do their kata warm-up or focus their Chi before a competition.

Yes, if Chalana Arroy gets Analyze Magic from the associate Lhankor Mhy, she has to use her Truth Rune to cast it. Most will probably have 50% in that. More tricky would be when an Issaries or Lhankor Mhy gets Clever Tongue from Eurmal. Issaries would have to use Illusion, as their Harmony probably means that their Disorder is really low. Lhankor Mhy would have to use Disorder, as they have a similar problem with Truth vs Illusion. So the Issaries munchkin has a tricky choice - do they raise their Truth so they can cast Analyze Magic, or do they raise their Illusion so they can cast Clever Tongue? I don't think an associate spell is linked to the associate cult's runes, though. Orlanth gets Charisma from Eurmal, there's not reason he has to use an Eurmal rune to cast it. He could use Beast, Illusion, or Fertility. Shield is tricky, though. Chalana Arroy gets it from Orlanth, does she have to use an Orlanth rune? I guess so.

If you were watching an episode of Vikings and there was a duel (or an argument), and someone said "Hey he's cheating, he's got woad on, that's magic!", don't you think that would be rather odd and out-of-place?

The Crack spell specifically says that items held are subject to a resistance roll, but I think that is a special case. Some magic is more subtle, and some less so, so the rules can be different. If there were a rune spell that stole an item from someone, that would probably be subject to a resistance roll as well.

Maybe... there is a distinction, magic does have effects, it's just that Gloranthans think of magic as being just as much part of the world as not-magic. Socially, there is no difference and it isn't considered cheating any more than reading books is cheating. Then again some people might think that reading books is cheating, and those that read cannot be trusted.

The discussion only exists because RuneQuest has a hard line between magic and not-magic, whereas Glorantha and the HeroQuest game system do not, so the RuneQuest forum is the only place where this discussion can happen! It is essentially a discussion of whether game mechanics have a direct effect on the world that they are simulating, and my answer to that is definitively no. Although I've just had one of those moments where you realise that you've just argued yourself into a corner. Magic has visible effects Gloranthans don't consider it cheating, because there's no difference between magic and not-magic Therefore... how can magic have visible effects if there's no distinction? I'm not sure how to get out of this particular corner. Help!

There's plenty of evil around, just as there is in the real world that has neither Chaos nor God Learners. The God Learners didn't consider themselves evil, more people consider the Vadeli to be evil than the God Learners.

I'm bringing this across from the other thread, because it's on topic here, and not there. Lets be nice and talk about tapping in a tapping thread, and immortality in the immortality spell thread. You can't make an emphatic claim that the rules say that it is NOT evil. The rules don't say much about what is or is not evil.

Yes, that's why I said that the rules should have made it clear.

Which part, the first or the second? The first part is GM's call, until we get an official clarification, and even then YGMV. The second I'd have thought was pretty clear and doesn't need clarification. Let me re-read the section... Seems pretty clear to me. No unspent Rune points, it's all POW. As to the first point... Hm. I suppose a spent Rune point is still a sacrifice, equivalent to 1 POW, so I guess that would be ok. Then again, with my GM hat on, you're all egregious munchkins so I'm going to be mean to you and say no!

Maybe you can sacrifice the first permanent RP from "spent" RP, I'm not sure if I'd allow that or not, but the 1D10 is definitely going to come straight off your POW.

And if you use enough Extension, you could sell them.

I feel that the rules should have made it clear, there's a possibility that someone will make a character built around Steal Breath and then find out after a few scenarios, when more information about sorcery is published, that it's anathema to everyone around them and that they are being hounded out of Sartar. That would be deeply unfair to the player who genuinely didn't know, because they didn't read the Rune Cults section from which it ought to be obvious that Orlanthi are not going to be big fans of Steal Breath.

In my opinion, just as likely, maybe a little more.

...and someone related to the dead person - or a local animal spirit of the dead creature - might come and have a go at you for interfering with the passage to the land of the dead and the cycle of life and death.