Purchasing magical items?

[French Desperate WindChild]

9 minutes ago, Brootse said:

Why is a male slave's price only 100L, if an average male slave has 2000L worth of POW?

good point !

[Kloster]

22 minutes ago, Brootse said:

Why is a male slave's price only 100L, if an average male slave has 2000L worth of POW?

Because he can not be forced to provide this POW. Only a voluntary person can. This is how I play it, after a thread where Jeff (iirc) explained that you can not force a spirit to contribute to an enchant, even with control / dominate spells. I will apply the same rule to humans / trolls / ducks and others. Let's say the non complete voluntary gift corrupts the POW, making it unusable.

[Brootse]

13 minutes ago, Kloster said:

Because he can not be forced to provide this POW. Only a voluntary person can. This is how I play it, after a thread where Jeff (iirc) explained that you can not force a spirit to contribute to an enchant, even with control / dominate spells. I will apply the same rule to humans / trolls / ducks and others. Let's say the non complete voluntary gift corrupts the POW, making it unusable.

Yeah, that's how I've played it too, but in many Earth cultures slaves could buy their freedom, and if anyone can sell POW, slaves are walking banks.

[Akhôrahil]

42 minutes ago, Brootse said:

Why is a male slave's price only 100L, if an average male slave has 2000L worth of POW?

Careful, I got a post removed from the Facebook group for arguing along these lines...

[Akhôrahil]

2 minutes ago, Brootse said:

Yeah, that's how I've played it too, but in many Earth cultures slaves could buy their freedom, and if anyone can sell POW, slaves are walking banks.

Agree, you could just say "you can buy your freedom for X points of POW, and I will even set you up a starting fund".

Or if not slaves, then beggars. One point of POW versus starvation isn't exactly a hard choice.

[Kloster]

30 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

One point of POW versus starvation isn't exactly a hard choice.

This is exactly the point I was speaking of: For 1 point, you get 5 to 10 years of cost of living for you and your family. This is why I can easily envision people doing it. I don't think many people would accept, and I am not sure there are many buyers (even for enchanters, 200L is also quite a high amount of cash) , but if we accept that the rule exists, the phenomenon also has to exist.

[Kloster]

36 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Agree, you could just say "you can buy your freedom for X points of POW, and I will even set you up a starting fund".

Yes, it can occur.

[Godlearner]

There is no way to "donate" POW. The person would have to have skills and spells to do so. The closest thing to it would be Tapping someone, or performing a ritual sacrifice on someone. Both seem to be chaotic.

[kirinyaga]

consider POW cannot be given and stored, it has to be used for enchantement, during a ceremony. And the enchanter has to spend 1POW, s/he won't enchant a matrix every week.

So, episodically, peoples having both the know-how and a large amount of money may gather a few poors from a compatible culture/pantheon, happening to have a few POW to spare at that time, s/he trusts enough not to mess with the long and delicate ceremony. I think it's probably easy to find 1-3 POW to buy if you invest some time to do a bit of communication a couple seasons ahead. Probably easier in cities. Enchanters will also probably favor less peoples giving more POW than the opposite.

[PhilHibbs]

This is very much in the "extrapolating Glorantha from the RuneQuest rules" hole.

If you can extrapolate Glorantha from RuneQuest, then you can extrapolate Glorantha from HeroQuest, and you can extrapolate Glorantha from 13th Age in Glorantha.

Are there therefore three very different Gloranthas? Well, there are as many different Gloranthas as there are GMs, possible more. So sure, if you WANT to extrapolate your Glorantha from RQG, there's nothing stopping you from doing so. But there's also nothing forcing you to do so either.

Feel free to tell us hilarious stories about the crazy consequences of the extrapolations that you have chosen to make, but don't expect anyone to take any notice of them for their own games. And if your GM is making crazy extrapolations and hitting your characters over the head with them, then have a polite word about them maybe not being such a jerk.

[soltakss]

On 12/17/2020 at 12:28 AM, Scorus said:

Do you have magical items available for purchase in your game?

Sometimes, but Players often think it cheapens magical items, making them easily available rather than being treasured items.

On 12/17/2020 at 12:28 AM, Scorus said:

Does Sora Goodsell have matrices or even crystals for sale in her Clearwine shop? How much would a normal broadsword with a Bladesharp 2 matrix cost? How much per point for a power storage crystal?

RQ2 had prices for buying Magical Items, Griffin Mountain  might have had them at Gonn Orta's Castle. You could take those prices and divide them by the recommended amount in the RQ Conversion rules.

 

On 12/17/2020 at 12:28 AM, Scorus said:

How about commissioning items? How difficult would it be to find a priest that would make a matrix for a player? Or to create a Binding Enchantment item? Do you charge the 200L per power point used, as per the rules?

Yes, that can work, but you have to use Charm, Bargain or some other skill to persuade them.

Now, to read the other comments ...

[Brootse]

2 hours ago, Godlearner said:

There is no way to "donate" POW. The person would have to have skills and spells to do so. The closest thing to it would be Tapping someone, or performing a ritual sacrifice on someone. Both seem to be chaotic.

No, RAW in the current edition state that anyone can donate POW for enchantments. I don't allow that in my campaign, since it leads to silly situations like stickpickers having sellable property worth of 2000L.

[PhilHibbs]

1 hour ago, Brootse said:

... it leads to silly situations like stickpickers having sellable property worth of 2000L.

Anyone with even an average POW probably isn't a stickpicker.

[Joerg]

56 minutes ago, Brootse said:

No, RAW in the current edition state that anyone can donate POW for enchantments. I don't allow that in my campaign, since it leads to silly situations like stickpickers having sellable property worth of 2000L.

Stickpickers don't usually get access to "Enchant" magics, that's restricted to runemasters who by definition are of a higher social standing or shamans who have a different, but also elevated standing. I don't see any stickpicker sorcerers happen.

One thing a GM might want to consider is letting people donate POW to pay off weregeld or ransom, but not at a rate of 200L per point of POW - those are for high ranking specialist magicians like rune masters whose time and POW regeneration is way more valuable than a mere troubleshooter PC's, and yet more than a stickpicker's.

I did point out that IMO low ranking clansfolk are likely to be magical folk to get a day or two in the course of the year, and that they are likely to spend a significant amount of POW for those moments of respect and glory. They might even be treated like adventurers or at least sidekicks of adventurers wrt POW gains etc., but that may at best lift them up from destitute to poor standard of living. And as soon as that happens, they are no longer stickpickers, so that silly situation doesn't crop up.

Holy folk usually create magic items tied to their cult, which makes them loanable to cult members, but not really sellable, or usable in a ransom or weregeld situation. Neither would their spending of rune points or casting of one-use rune magic be counted at adventurers' buying prices.

I bet it is possible to get clandestine castings of rune magics at prices wildly different from listed prices. The cost for an aldryami spell for plant growth from an Issaries merchant (via Spell Trading) may be a lot higher than trading for some directly with your own Issaries magic or that of your Issaries retainer.

 

Retainers' services are bound to cost less than hiring folk just for a single service. There are other costs, as having a retainer is a long term expense that goes into pension territory. On the other hand, a person who has retainers will in all likelihood also have retired retainers to take care of, or their dependents in case those retainers lost their lives during service. Maybe it's a zero sum difference in the end, but creating possible story elements for players and GMs to exploit. (And I love "building" style games, whether in role-playing or in computer games.)

 

[Bill the barbarian]

9 hours ago, coffeemancer said:

Shouldnt most people be mere lay members?

 

Yes and no, the way RQ G treats the issue is that everyone is an initiate to a cult. very likely lay worshippers of cults that are part of the cultural fabric. Now, not all initiates are created equal. That is, the NPC initiates are kind of like one rune spell laypeople in RQ 3...

 

9 hours ago, coffeemancer said:

even if Sartar is exceptionally high in initiates I still think the majority of the population would be lays.

 

And as you know, in my games they are. Well lay worshipers of Issaries any time they go to market and lay worshippers when they plant crops and...

Edited December 18, 2020 by Bill the barbarian

[Akhôrahil]

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Are there therefore three very different Gloranthas? 

Yes. There are at least four Gloranthas going by different canons.

1. Guide to Glorantha canon. This is the minimalistic (as much as anything that big can be minimalistic) canon. It’s probably the most official one. Much of the Stafford Library is almost-canon here.
2. RuneQuest canon. This makes some changes to Guide canon, perhaps most  noticeably with regards to the runes. It likes to completely ignore HeroQuest material. Rules effects on the world are significant.
3. HeroQuest canon. This differs a lot from RuneQuest canon, especially with regards to cults and magic, and its Orlanthi are more Celto-Germanic. The system, being free-form and narrative, pushes unusually few rules effects on the world.
4. 13th Age canon. This one is pretty bonkers, has a setting that does not easily map to any other known HeroWars future, and is unusually ”loose”.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Kloster]

6 hours ago, Godlearner said:

There is no way to "donate" POW. The person would have to have skills and spells to do so. The closest thing to it would be Tapping someone, or performing a ritual sacrifice on someone. Both seem to be chaotic.

RAW, there are at least 3 ways I can think of:

- Giving POW to a wyter.

- Giving POW to a god (and taking RP in exchange).

- Giving POW to an enchant in progress.

6 hours ago, kirinyaga said:

consider POW cannot be given and stored, it has to be used for enchantement, during a ceremony. And the enchanter has to spend 1POW, s/he won't enchant a matrix every week.

So, episodically, peoples having both the know-how and a large amount of money may gather a few poors from a compatible culture/pantheon, happening to have a few POW to spare at that time, s/he trusts enough not to mess with the long and delicate ceremony. I think it's probably easy to find 1-3 POW to buy if you invest some time to do a bit of communication a couple seasons ahead. Probably easier in cities. Enchanters will also probably favor less peoples giving more POW than the opposite.

This is exactly what I described: Few donors and few buyers, but both exist.

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

This is very much in the "extrapolating Glorantha from the RuneQuest rules" hole.

If you can extrapolate Glorantha from RuneQuest, then you can extrapolate Glorantha from HeroQuest, and you can extrapolate Glorantha from 13th Age in Glorantha.

Yes, and if you don't play HQ, nor 13G,it is the only one that matters for you.

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Are there therefore three very different Gloranthas?

Yes. I never bothered buying anything for HW, and I don't know anything about 13G but the Glorantha I felt from reading Herowars is completely different from the one I felt reading RQ (both 2 and 3).

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Well, there are as many different Gloranthas as there are GMs, possible more. So sure, if you WANT to extrapolate your Glorantha from RQG, there's nothing stopping you from doing so. But there's also nothing forcing you to do so either.

Agreed on both.

 

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Feel free to tell us hilarious stories about the crazy consequences of the extrapolations that you have chosen to make, but don't expect anyone to take any notice of them for their own games. And if your GM is making crazy extrapolations and hitting your characters over the head with them, then have a polite word about them maybe not being such a jerk.

I don't feel his extrapolations are crazy. This is how he understand the rules and how they describe the world functions. So they matters. My readings are not the same as his, but they also modify the way I perceive Glorantha and how it works.

 

3 hours ago, Brootse said:

No, RAW in the current edition state that anyone can donate POW for enchantments. I don't allow that in my campaign, since it leads to silly situations like stickpickers having sellable property worth of 2000L.

It is not worth 2000L because nobody would accept to sell more than 1 POW, especially if that amounts to 5 years of income.

[Kloster]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Stickpickers don't usually get access to "Enchant" magics, that's restricted to runemasters who by definition are of a higher social standing or shamans who have a different, but also elevated standing. I don't see any stickpicker sorcerers happen.

They don't need to have access to said magic. They only need tohave somebody that has access to said magic has access to them (RAW).

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

One thing a GM might want to consider is letting people donate POW to pay off weregeld or ransom, but not at a rate of 200L per point of POW - those are for high ranking specialist magicians like rune masters whose time and POW regeneration is way more valuable than a mere troubleshooter PC's, and yet more than a stickpicker's.

I did point out that IMO low ranking clansfolk are likely to be magical folk to get a day or two in the course of the year, and that they are likely to spend a significant amount of POW for those moments of respect and glory. They might even be treated like adventurers or at least sidekicks of adventurers wrt POW gains etc., but that may at best lift them up from destitute to poor standard of living. And as soon as that happens, they are no longer stickpickers, so that silly situation doesn't crop up.

Holy folk usually create magic items tied to their cult, which makes them loanable to cult members, but not really sellable, or usable in a ransom or weregeld situation. Neither would their spending of rune points or casting of one-use rune magic be counted at adventurers' buying prices.

I bet it is possible to get clandestine castings of rune magics at prices wildly different from listed prices. The cost for an aldryami spell for plant growth from an Issaries merchant (via Spell Trading) may be a lot higher than trading for some directly with your own Issaries magic or that of your Issaries retainer.

 

Retainers' services are bound to cost less than hiring folk just for a single service. There are other costs, as having a retainer is a long term expense that goes into pension territory. On the other hand, a person who has retainers will in all likelihood also have retired retainers to take care of, or their dependents in case those retainers lost their lives during service. Maybe it's a zero sum difference in the end, but creating possible story elements for players and GMs to exploit. (And I love "building" style games, whether in role-playing or in computer games.)

I fully agree on this (no comments on 13G, about which I don't know anything).

7 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Yes. There are at least four Gloranthas going by different canons.

1. Guide to Glorantha canon. This is the minimalistic (as much as anything that big can be minimalistic) canon. It’s probably the most official one. Much of the Stafford Library is almost-canon here.
2. RuneQuest canon. This makes some changes to Guide canon, perhaps most  noticeably with regards to the runes. It likes to completely ignore HeroQuest material. Rules effects on the world are significant.
3. HeroQuest canon. This differs a lot from RuneQuest canon, especially with regards to cults and magic, and its Orlanthi are more Celto-Germanic. The system, being free-form and narrative, pushes unusually few rules effects on the world.
4. 13th Age canon. This one is pretty bonkers, has a setting that does not easily map to any other known HeroWars future, and is unusually ”loose”.

You go further than I do (but as I don't have the guide, this is logical). Apart to this, I fully agree.

[Godlearner]

Quote

The POW sacrificed for the enchantment does not have to be provided entirely by the enchanter; if the enchanter sacrifices at least 1 point of their own POW, others can voluntarily contribute to the sacrifice, with no limit.

Yeap, this piece I have inked out of my book as an editing mistake.

[Kloster]

2 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

Yeap, this piece I have inked out of my book as an editing mistake.

Why? (just curious)

[jajagappa]

16 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

HeroQuest canon. This differs a lot from RuneQuest canon, especially with regards to cults and magic, and its Orlanthi are more Celto-Germanic. The system, being free-form and narrative, pushes unusually few rules effects on the world.

And you really need to divide this into:  HW/HQ1 canon with lots and lots of petty cults vs. SKoH/HQG which returns to a far more standardized view of cults/magic.

[Godlearner]

5 minutes ago, Kloster said:

Why? (just curious)

As pointed out, it is too open to abuse. All you need to do is Dominate/Command/Control spell and you are sitting on a POW mine.

And I am not even mention just plain old fashion coercion.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Godlearner
added information

[Akhôrahil]

14 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

And you really need to divide this into:  HW/HQ1 canon with lots and lots of petty cults vs. SKoH/HQG which returns to a far more standardized view of cults/magic.

Well... I'm not certain there's an actual canon issue here - HQ doesn't exactly say these subcults don't exist (IIRC), it just doesn't bother with giving them special rules coverage. You can pick up any any magic from HW as a breakout ability if you feel like it.

And even if there are changes, later publications in the same system of canon can overwrite/retcon earlier stuff (I'm assuming there are actual contradictions between Thunder Rebels and S:KoH), while still being one maintained canon. For instance, mainstream (non-cinematic, non-Ultimate, and so on) Earth-616 in Marvel continuity has seen more retcons than Glorantha could ever dream of, but it's still one system of canon. While the DC Universe is not, as it has been fully rebooted any number of times by now.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[PhilHibbs]

24 minutes ago, Kloster said:

You go further than I do (but as I don't have the guide, this is logical). Apart to this, I fully agree.

Ok, fine, if you want to do that. But it really sounds like people are complaining about things that they are choosing to do.

[Kloster]

16 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Ok, fine, if you want to do that. But it really sounds like people are complaining about things that they are choosing to do.

I am not complaining. I am just explaining what I understand of the rules and of their consequences. But on that specific point, I never complained.

And in fact, it is fine for me.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Kloster
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