RuneQuest Starter Set Design Diary #3: The New Adventurers

[Bill the barbarian]

On 4/28/2021 at 5:23 PM, lordabdul said:

I have struggled to understand the differences between these spells too

Me too, me too!

20 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

well you know my english but

Nope, do you have any..  :)

[Baron Wulfraed]

23 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

well you know my english but: "With this spell, the caster asks the deity to send a cult spirit of some type."

some type ==> "some" defined by the caster, no random type

 

Imagine: you want to summon a sylph to fly,  and you get randomly a spirit of reprisal. that would not be fine. I see the spell cast as "Please Orlanth send me a sylph to help me"

I'd probably rule that, while the caster may ask for "some type", the deity (GM) may still send something else -- or ignores the request entirely. The trick now is to define some means of determining which outcome takes place. Maybe GM rolls players spell chance with success=receives "some type", failure=receives something other than the requested type -- but which should still be helpful to the situation, fumble=ignored by deity or something not useful is sent.

[Lordabdul]

10 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

That makes no sense as it is listed as a cult spell that you can take, and several pregens have done so.

Indeed, and that's one of the reasons why I don't let players decide on the spirit type when they use the generic Summon Cult Spirit spell.  I was however pointing at the few little changes you need to make for those who do allow it.

[Shiningbrow]

I'd have thought that during the "ask deity to send a spirit", the type of spirit is specifically requested, and that's what you'd normally get. Maybe toss in a Worship (Or Devotion deity) roll to fully determine... Success = you get what you ask for; fail = you get something different: special and crit for higher stats; and fumble gets a spirit of reprisal (but non-violent).

[Akhôrahil]

15 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Maybe toss in a Worship (Or Devotion deity) roll to fully determine...

Or Cult Lore.

[Lordabdul]

18 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I'd have thought that during the "ask deity to send a spirit", the type of spirit is specifically requested, and that's what you'd normally get.

But then you get back to the whole question of why would you bother specifically buying "Summon X Elemental" if you could do it already with common magic.

[French Desperate WindChild]

47 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

But then you get back to the whole question of why would you bother specifically buying "Summon X Elemental" if you could do it already with common magic.

for me:

you call cult spirit for cult reason

if you just want an elemental for your own purpose you summon the elemental.

 

with other words :

cult spirits have INT. They can decide what is "good" what is "wrong" (from their cult perspective)

They can complain to their god how bad worshipper you are, or praise your name.

 

elemental have no INT (those you can summon) , they are your servant. The rules say when you sacrifice the pow to learn summon elemental, you create a bind to a specific elemental (always the same ==> your servant)

 

Quote

Having sacrificed for an elemental, the summoner will get the same elemental every time he summons it. Its characteristics will never change, even if it is physically destroyed. However, if its POW is reduced to 0, it will never return, and the character must resacrifice if he wants another elemental (...)

Elementals do not possess INT, and act solely based on physical tropisms. Orders to the elemental are followed literally, and complicated orders are likely to be mixed up

(...)

More powerful and sentient elementals are known; such entities are usually servants of the gods or even lesser gods. Such elementals often have other powers and abilities beyond the general properties described below.

 

[Shiningbrow]

5 hours ago, lordabdul said:

But then you get back to the whole question of why would you bother specifically buying "Summon X Elemental" if you could do it already with common magic.

Maybe add FDWC's bit... Summon Elemental gets you an unintelligent bit of air/fire etc. Simple, easy. Simmon Cult Spirit gets you a sentient spirit of a certain type requested.

8 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Or Cult Lore.

I.take Lore to just be knowing about the cult, God, myths, and appropriate ways to act. Worship Or Devotion to the deity is about the connection between the supplicant and the actual god... If you're on good terms with them, you get mate's rates  😛

(ETA - it also makes getting that skill up worth something)😛

Edited May 2, 2021 by Shiningbrow

[Shiningbrow]

5 hours ago, lordabdul said:

But then you get back to the whole question of why would you bother specifically buying "Summon X Elemental" if you could do it already with common magic.

Ooops, I confused myself..

You're right!

Unless.... Your deity isn't directly associated with an element, and so for the purposes of clarity, non-elemental cults can't simply use SCS to get an elemental... ???

Maybe resurrect the Ask Jeff design question thread?

[Akhôrahil]

3 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I.take Lore to just be knowing about the cult, God, myths, and appropriate ways to act. Worship Or Devotion to the deity is about the connection between the supplicant and the actual god... If you're on good terms with them, you get mate's rates  😛

I was thinking of knowing what to ask for, maybe even by name, or other ways to navigate the bureaucracy.

[David Scott]

10 hours ago, lordabdul said:

But then you get back to the whole question of why would you bother specifically buying "Summon X Elemental" if you could do it already with common magic.

A cult's spirits are listed in long cult write ups, of which there are no RQG versions at present (except those in the preview GoG). They are usually present in older RQ2 write ups. They are in the subservient cults section.

use the right tool for the job:

• If a cult has a specific summon spell use that, it has a specific set of rules associated with it.
• If it doesn't check the cults spirits, if available use Summon cult spirit

eg Chalana Arroy

Quote

Subservient Cults

CULT SPIRITS

Chalana Arroy is the mistress of healing spirits and can call upon them as cult spirits.

ALLIED SPIRITS

[...]

SPIRIT OF REPRISAL: INFECTION

[...]

These are all cult spirits so command cult spirit works on them.

For healing spirits use Summon Cult Spirit (Healing Spirit) which is defined in RQG as Summon Healing Spirit 1pt, and specifically broken out as Summon Healing Spirit in the RBM (page 92).

Why use the specific summons vs Summon cult spirt. The specific summons has a specific set of rules with it. In this case It's a ritual (so ritual augments work). As it's no longer temporal, the spirit doesn't disappear, so could be easily bound if an appropriate binding enchantment is available. 

For the other cult spirits, Allied and Spirit of reprisal, a priest would use Summon Cult Spirit and ask for the appropriate spirit (or would have the appropriate spirit sent by the god, given the context of the event).

As to why you would use Summon X Elemental" if you could do it already with common magic: The summon elemental rules have specific effects:

Quote

Having once successfully summoned an elemental, the deity sends the same elemental every time the adventurer summons an elemental of that size and type.

Finally, just because Summon Cult spirit is a common Rune magic, it's entirely possible for a cult to have no cult spirits or elementals, so the spell isn't usable. Or for all the cult spirits to be covered by specific Summon spirit spells For example Barntar has no associated cult spirits, and Daka Fal's spirits are all covered by specific summon spells. Neither has a use for summon cult spirit (Barntar has no use for Command Cult spirit either).

[Akhôrahil]

9 hours ago, David Scott said:

• If a cult has a specific summon spell use that, it has a specific set of rules associated with it.
• If it doesn't check the cults spirits, if available use Summon cult spirit

I think this makes a lot of sense, and it’s what I’ll be doing, but it’s not the official rules. See Mago’s elemental.

Edited May 2, 2021 by Akhôrahil

[David Scott]

14 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

I think this makes a lot of sense, and it’s what I’ll be doing, but it’s not the official rules.

I'll add it to the official Q&A if you are unsure.

14 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

See Mago’s elemental.

Mago has Summon small air elemental, Storm Bull teaches Summon small air elemental.

[Akhôrahil]

54 minutes ago, David Scott said:

I'll add it to the official Q&A if you are unsure.

That would be helpful - I still don't understand this properly. Asked in the Q&A thread.

Edited May 3, 2021 by Akhôrahil

[Jape_Vicho]

Come to think of it, I wonder if Chaosium thinked about making pre-gen sheets of the characters of Jeff's White Bull campaign. I watched a couple of episodes and they all looked very solid and interesting PCs, and they even have the art done!

Edited May 4, 2021 by Jape_Vicho