Wyter magic

[Lordabdul]

I've got two questions regarding wyters and magic:

1. The RQG rulebook (p286) says that wyters don't have Rune Points: they spend POW when casting Rune Magic. Good enough. But the RQ Bestiary says the same (p174) while at the same time giving an example wyter that has Rune Points separate (and different) from its POW. The RQ Gamemaster Adventures provides stats for the Colymar tribal wyter and it too gives separate Rune Points (although it ties those to Orlanth Rex specifically). So do wyters have Rune Points or not? If they do, what spells are they good for?
2. AFAICT wyters can also cast spirit magic. Their MPs seem standard (equal to POW) but as the wyter casts Rune Magic, if their POW goes down, their chances of casting spirit magic goes down... is that intended? (big communities' wyters probably rarely go down in POW enough to go below 95%, but it can matter for small wyters).

Thanks!

[Lordabdul]

2 hours ago, lordabdul said:

is that intended?

Answering the 2nd question myself, and based on this, I think it is totally intended, actually:

 

[Dissolv]

Good find.  I recently had to sort out how to handle this as my PC's steered two War clans into conflict with each other.    As a preamble, the Two Pine wyter magics were restored by the PC's restoring the seven tributes, one at a heroic time.   Along the way three large scale conficts (for clan warfare) occurred.  The first one saw the Emerald Sword use their Wyter, while the Two Pine were still trying to get all of their tributes together, giving them a big magical edge.  However they were outnumbered by the  Two Pine and Red Cow alliance.  Here I ruled that the Wyter gave the Emerald Sword Bladesharp 4, Protection 2, and unending stamina (immune to fatigue) to all Emerald Sword fighters, so long as the battle line held.   Pretty basic, but it is a clan Wyter of a fairly small clan, so there you go.

The second time the two groups were on collision course the Lunars intervened and enforced the peace.  After three days of negotiating both sides decided that a duel between clan champions would settle the matter.  However the Lunars substituted a ringer of the Yanafal Tarnils variety and he out magicked (Full Moon) and then hacked down the Two Pine Humakt champion, dealing the PC's efforts in the region both a tactical and a strategic set back.

The third time the Players finally got to see the Two Pine wyter effect that they had worked so hard to restore.  It was the great Telmori war and it was Wildsday.  Again fudging things, and deciding that it was a primarily Humakt powered totem originally intended to help fight Telmori , I went with Bladesharp 6, and Countermagic 2 to all members of the Shield Wall -- but not the support priests nor the skirmishers.  Humakt despises them.   In hindsight I might have gone with spirit screen as the Telmori make strong use of shamans, but since the Telmori are presented as being very strong in spirit magic in my campaign, Countermagic works too.   I considered having it cause all the bronze to act as enchanted metal, but that seemed too focused, and useless in every regard other than fighting Telmori. 

This is warfare with up to hundreds on each side -- small potatoes war.  Larger, more magically military units, Tribal Wyters (of a war like tribe), I would start to dip into Rune magic, act as a source of shared magic points, or more likely some type of "outside the rules" magic.  The Lasdag Lions have their wyter that keeps lookout on the march, and can turn into an actual Lion during battle.  Something like that, but thematically appropriate to the clan/tribe/unit, would be much better than just "everyone gets X spell". 

Now that this is a thing, I am definitely going to consider what the unit magic(s) should be in military conflict.  Especially for the more elite units of the Lunar Empire. 

[dumuzid]

The wyter of the settlement my group founded the last time I was on the player side of RQG had rune points separate from its POW too, based on the same statted examples @lordabdul cites.  It was a Darkness + Harmony entity from the Gods Age that helped officiate the wedding of Orlanth and Ernalda, and had RP in the Kyger Litor and Arachne Solara cults.  Its most useful power was the sheer range of its senses though; bound to my character's lance, it made for a superb scout when we fought alongside the Feathered Horse Queen's forces in Tarsh.

[French Desperate WindChild]

9 hours ago, lordabdul said:

The RQG rulebook (p286) says that wyters don't have Rune Points: they spend POW when casting Rune Magic. Good enough. But the RQ Bestiary says the same (p174) while at the same time giving an example wyter that has Rune Points separate (and different) from its POW. The RQ Gamemaster Adventures provides stats for the Colymar tribal wyter and it too gives separate Rune Points (although it ties those to Orlanth Rex specifically). So do wyters have Rune Points or not? If they do, what spells are they good for?

Not sure, but I see it like our "heroes" :  if they are initiates, they have rune pool. If they are worshipped they have hero pool (--> wyter POW)

 

9 hours ago, lordabdul said:

AFAICT wyters can also cast spirit magic. Their MPs seem standard (equal to POW) but as the wyter casts Rune Magic, if their POW goes down, their chances of casting spirit magic goes down... is that intended?

seems to me normal, that is just the POW mechanic.

[Scotty]

10 hours ago, lordabdul said:

I've got two questions regarding wyters and magic:

• The RQG rulebook (p286) says that wyters don't have Rune Points: they spend POW when casting Rune Magic. Good enough. But the RQ Bestiary says the same (p174) while at the same time giving an example wyter that has Rune Points separate (and different) from its POW.

Correct.

10 hours ago, lordabdul said:

• The RQ Gamemaster Adventures provides stats for the Colymar tribal wyter and it too gives separate Rune Points (although it ties those to Orlanth Rex specifically).

The Black Spear is an example of a complex wyter. As well being a wyter, it can be seen as an allied spirit of the Tribe, and thus as initiate of Orlanth Rex hence its rune points. Unusually It has a long and complicated history, due to the fact the clan has existed for centuries.

10 hours ago, lordabdul said:

• So do wyters have Rune Points or not?

No. Except when they are complex composite beings.

10 hours ago, lordabdul said:

• If they do, what spells are they good for?

The Black Spear can cast the Orlanth Rex Magic the tribal King has, in this case Command Priests, Command Worshipers, and Detect Honor.

10 hours ago, lordabdul said:

• AFAICT wyters can also cast spirit magic.

Yes.

10 hours ago, lordabdul said:

• Their MPs seem standard (equal to POW)

Not exactly. Their points come from seasonal holy days and are capped at POW, and they cannot regenerate them. (see RQG page 287).

10 hours ago, lordabdul said:

• but as the wyter casts Rune Magic, if their POW goes down, their chances of casting spirit magic goes down... is that intended? (big communities' wyters probably rarely go down in POW enough to go below 95%, but it can matter for small wyters).

Yes. The thread you referenced by Jeff covers the Wyter POW economy.

[Lordabdul]

8 hours ago, Scotty said:

The Black Spear can cast the Orlanth Rex Magic the tribal King has, in this case Command Priests, Command Worshipers, and Detect Honor.

So to be clear:

1. The wyter is, in addition to being a spirit, an initiate of Orlanth Rex itself, so it has its own Rune Points pool for that cult.
2. A wyter can cast spells known by the priest by spending POW, but an initiate can cast spells it has acquired from its cult by spending RPs... in this case, the priest is also, by definition, an Orlanth Rex initiate, so those 3 Orlanth Rex spells can be cast either through the priest (spending POW) or by the wyter itself (spending RPs), depending on what's best in a given situation?  (most likely RPs, since POW is precious)

This opens up a couple more questions:

1. Can the wyter sacrifice POW to gain more Rune Points in whatever cult(s) it belongs to? Or even initiate into new cults? I'm not sure how we could handle the wyter regaining such POW through POW XP rolls so I assume that's not possible -- possibly, the wyter only has "fixed" cult membership and RP pools, set to whatever it had when it was alive (if a clan hero/ancestor) or when it was created/summoned?

Edited February 22, 2021 by lordabdul

[PhilHibbs]

This leads to the question, "how does having RP interact with the wyter's normal ability to spend POW on rune magic to cast on members".

I would say that they do not interact. If it wants to use the funky multi-casting trick, where it can cast Shield 5 on 5 people for 9 POW, it can't use RP for any of that. POW only.

[Akhôrahil]

On 2/24/2021 at 10:32 PM, PhilHibbs said:

This leads to the question, "how does having RP interact with the wyter's normal ability to spend POW on rune magic to cast on members".

I would say that they do not interact. If it wants to use the funky multi-casting trick, where it can cast Shield 5 on 5 people for 9 POW, it can't use RP for any of that. POW only.

Agree. It would be pretty obscene if it could use regular Rune Points for the spell and then permanent POW only to multitarget.

On 2/22/2021 at 6:44 PM, lordabdul said:

1. Can the wyter sacrifice POW to gain more Rune Points in whatever cult(s) it belongs to? Or even initiate into new cults? I'm not sure how we could handle the wyter regaining such POW through POW XP rolls so I assume that's not possible -- possibly, the wyter only has "fixed" cult membership and RP pools, set to whatever it had when it was alive (if a clan hero/ancestor) or when it was created/summoned?

Spirits (like Allied Spirits and presumable others) can be initiates in cults, sacrifice POW for Rune Points up to the CHA cap, and so on.

However, as there seems to be no reason for a wyter as old and powerful as Black Spear to not be capped out on Rune Points (it has 12 out of a possible 24), your explanation that it's "fixed" makes a lot of sense. Basically, if it could have and wanted to, wouldn't it have done so already? (Regaining POW wouldn't be an issue though, as it receives POW through sacrifices.)

Edited February 26, 2021 by Akhôrahil