Sorcerer occupation

[JRE]

Now I suspect the problem is terminology. Without considering heroes and heroquests, humans (and other intelligent races, but let's focus on humans) can awaken their souls to the otherworld.

In the game Runequest, an option, available to spiritualists, is to awaken a fetch, a part of you that is normally in the spirit plane, but takes the place of your soul when your conscious self is roaming the spirit planes.

Theists instead, once they reach a certain point in their involvement with the deity, receive an ally spirit, that (we hypothesize) links with your own soul as you can communicate and share things that are not possible since Mindlink disappeared from the spell list. This fragment of the divine linked with your own soul occupies the same place the fetch would occupy, so they are incompatible, except in heroic cases.

The base of this discussion is to propose that sorcery users that do not take the spirit or theist path may awaken or link something in their souls (which for continuity with RQ3, clearly I made the mistake of calling familiar, as that word has a set of baggage that has nothing to do with this). As this is coming from a gaming perspective, this awakened portion of the sorcerers mind should be available at similar power levels as fetches are available to shamans, and ally spirits to theists, and the most important gaming effect, in my opinion, to avoid all sorcerers becoming henotheists going the ally spirit way, should be that it can cast spells separately from the character, as fetches and ally spirits can do. And I feel it is quite humanist if the magic user can awaken this soul on their own, and that they can pick what form it takes.

Coming from the discussion, it seemed a good excuse to separate caste sorcerers with religious function from other sorcerers fully focused in their magic development, and also an excuse to disallow the seconds from access to community magics and the tons of magic points from worship, which would be very useful to the local parson equivalent in casting magic for their flock

The other factor is how long will be the wait for a set of complete sorcery rules. And the comments here indicate it will be long.

Finally, I find comments that people do not have piety when they use the main proof of their deity existence, or that they do not believe in their own religion a value judgment that we do not do with other magic traditions. 

[Joerg]

21 minutes ago, JRE said:

The base of this discussion is to propose that sorcery users that do not take the spirit or theist path may awaken or link something in their souls (which for continuity with RQ3, clearly I made the mistake of calling familiar, as that word has a set of baggage that has nothing to do with this). As this is coming from a gaming perspective, this awakened portion of the sorcerers mind should be available at similar power levels as fetches are available to shamans, and ally spirits to theists, and the most important gaming effect, in my opinion, to avoid all sorcerers becoming henotheists going the ally spirit way, should be that it can cast spells separately from the character, as fetches and ally spirits can do. And I feel it is quite humanist if the magic user can awaken this soul on their own, and that they can pick what form it takes.

If you are talking about the spiritual organ for your brand of magic, only the shaman's fetch gets to manifest in the spirit world in a way that it could be perceived as a separate entity. A theist's spiritual organ is the theist's link to their deity, and not the (rather rare) allied spirit some rune levels may receive.

The RQ3 sorcerer's familiar was a corporeal entity in range-unlimited mindlink with the sorcerer, a second pair (or however many the creature may have had) of eyes, ears etc., and may have been created by the sorcerer donating a point of a characteristic to it (thus "flesh of his flesh"), but all of this doesn't seem to have anything to do with Malkioni philosophy, or with a secondary existence of the sorcerer. The RQ3 model was an interesting twist for a generic setting, with rather generic spells, but never quite managed to satisfy the Gloranthan theme (not even with a more medieval look and feel for the Malkioni). The Land of Ninja variation which had sorcerers creating a mandala felt like a better approach, and I guess that's where you got your concept of using a grimoire in that function.

Under the old Three Separate Worlds dogma, the Grimoire as a memetic palace in the Essence realm would have been a good parallel for a fetch, with a physical book as the focus. Or some other tool exclusively associated with the zzabur caste.

The grimoires in HQG might have worked in that way, too - although it looks like a sorcerer could have had several, belonging to different philosophies. (But then, multiple theist initiation is a thing, too, and a shaman is not limited to their own tradition or spirit society.)

So far, we don't have anything like that for the Malkioni. And I don't envy the designers having to come up with something that is somewhat compatible with the Lhankor Mhy-based runic sorcery we know but models Malkionism better.

[metcalph]

8 hours ago, JRE said:

 

Finally, I find comments that people do not have piety when they use the main proof of their deity existence, or that they do not believe in their own religion a value judgment that we do not do with other magic traditions. 

The Invisible God is not a God that is worshipped but something that exists.  Is a scientist pious because he believes in the existence of Quarks?  Is a Doctor pious because he only eats food with low cholesterol?  As for whether the other Malkioni are pious: they do not believe in the Invisible God - they believe in the Wizards.  

[JRE]

I would say that in the Real World there is an ad-hoc Church of Science, with rituals, dogma, secrets and high priests. Faithful and heretics, and totally unreasonable cult restrictions. And publishing is the act of worship. I lived in it for a few decades.

[PhilHibbs]

23 hours ago, Jeff said:

This is something that a lot of people don't seem to get about Malkionism - it is humanist. It places mortal beings (let's be more accurate, it places humans) at the center of the universe.

Oh yeah, that's absolutely clear! Some (Sedalpists?) more than others, if I recall, but generally, yes. That's why I'm entirely comfortable with the idea that Malkioni don't use animal or spirit familiars (in My Varying Glorantha where old-school familiars could be a thing, I haven't decided yet, but Malkioni would do something different) because RQ3 familiars are zero steps away from krjalki.

[Baron Wulfraed]

11 hours ago, JRE said:

I would say that in the Real World there is an ad-hoc Church of Science, with rituals, dogma, secrets and high priests. Faithful and heretics, and totally unreasonable cult restrictions. And publishing is the act of worship. I lived in it for a few decades.

L. Ron Hubbard's "Scientology" or

Mary Baker Eddy's "Church of Christ, Scientist"

[JRE]

I was talking about the scientific method and the whole self-sustaining edifice of modern science. Modern because it has been accreting since the seventeenth century. But there is nothing in Glorantha like that, neither in the West nor the Mostali. Some jrusteli may have started developing something resembling the scientific method, but they all got annihilated and their memory cursed and obliterated...

But you can have a pure intellectual faith, and express it in intellectual pursuits. 

[Joerg]

39 minutes ago, JRE said:

I was talking about the scientific method and the whole self-sustaining edifice of modern science. Modern because it has been accreting since the seventeenth century. But there is nothing in Glorantha like that, neither in the West nor the Mostali. Some jrusteli may have started developing something resembling the scientific method, but they all got annihilated and their memory cursed and obliterated...

But you can have a pure intellectual faith, and express it in intellectual pursuits. 

But is the pursuit of say the scientific method or the platonic ideals an activity that involves piety, whether outward or personal? Does mysticism (on the other end of the spectrum) involve piety?

[JRE]

The Oxford dictionary defines Piety as: the state of having or showing a deep respect for somebody/something, especially for God and religion; the state of being pious.

Pious: having or showing a deep respect for God and religion.

Put Science in place of somebody/something, and you have the Church of Science (even if there is more showing than having). And I still expect Piety from any Malkioni at the fact of using Malkion's magic to achieve effects, as I expect most Malkioni of the zzaburi caste to be pious according to the definition.

It may be again a matter of terminology, and as a non-native English speaker that is always a risk, which is why I went to the dictionary.

The Spanish equivalent, Piedad, has a wider, more traditional Catholic meaning, including also mercy, pity and loving your neighbour, which is why I made sure of what was the English definition.

Edited July 14, 2022 by JRE
Adding the note on Spanish.

[PhilHibbs]

29 minutes ago, JRE said:

The Oxford dictionary defines Piety as: the state of having or showing a deep respect for somebody/something, especially for God and religion; the state of being pious.

...

The Spanish equivalent, Piedad, has a wider, more traditional Catholic meaning, including also mercy, pity and loving your neighbour, which is why I made sure of what was the English definition.

I think most Western cultures will associate piety with Christian piety, which ostensibly carries all those things with it, and that will doubtless make its way into many dictionaries. A pious worshipper of an evil god might not show mercy and pity!

[Scotty]

This topic has wandered far and wide from the OP. Please consider starting new threads with relevant titles.

[Shiningbrow]

On 7/12/2022 at 7:39 PM, JRE said:

Now I suspect the problem is terminology. Without considering heroes and heroquests, humans (and other intelligent races, but let's focus on humans) can awaken their souls to the otherworld.

In the game Runequest, an option, available to spiritualists, is to awaken a fetch, a part of you that is normally in the spirit plane, but takes the place of your soul when your conscious self is roaming the spirit planes.

Theists instead, once they reach a certain point in their involvement with the deity, receive an ally spirit, that (we hypothesize) links with your own soul as you can communicate and share things that are not possible since Mindlink disappeared from the spell list. This fragment of the divine linked with your own soul occupies the same place the fetch would occupy, so they are incompatible, except in heroic cases.

The base of this discussion is to propose that sorcery users that do not take the spirit or theist path may awaken or link something in their souls (which for continuity with RQ3, clearly I made the mistake of calling familiar, as that word has a set of baggage that has nothing to do with this). As this is coming from a gaming perspective, this awakened portion of the sorcerers mind should be available at similar power levels as fetches are available to shamans, and ally spirits to theists, and the most important gaming effect, in my opinion, to avoid all sorcerers becoming henotheists going the ally spirit way, should be that it can cast spells separately from the character, as fetches and ally spirits can do. And I feel it is quite humanist if the magic user can awaken this soul on their own, and that they can pick what form it takes.

Coming from the discussion, it seemed a good excuse to separate caste sorcerers with religious function from other sorcerers fully focused in their magic development, and also an excuse to disallow the seconds from access to community magics and the tons of magic points from worship, which would be very useful to the local parson equivalent in casting magic for their flock

The other factor is how long will be the wait for a set of complete sorcery rules. And the comments here indicate it will be long.

Finally, I find comments that people do not have piety when they use the main proof of their deity existence, or that they do not believe in their own religion a value judgment that we do not do with other magic traditions. 

I disagree with this "organ" thing that seems to have become a very recent trend to accept (and jump on bandwagon).

Fetches, allied spirits, and familiars (and I'm quite happy with the way you perceived it previously) I see as completely different entities, and none of them preclude the option of having any other.

I think that, although Mindlink may not be part of the current spell line-up, that doesn't mean the concept can't (or doesn't) exist any more.

 

IFF I was to accept this 'part of your soul' interpretation, then I'd also have to be considering what a 'soul' is. And it's already been said that different cultures have different views... including that Gloranthans have multiple parts to a 'soul', each having different significance. And, thus, each part of that 'soul' could make a different connection - one part could be the fetch, another makes a link to an allied spirit, and another to a familiar.

 

And, attempts to limit this by calls to this 'soul organ' thing is merely an attempt at 'balance'... and we know what RQ thinks of that!

Edited July 14, 2022 by Shiningbrow

[Scotty]

New piety & sorcerers thread here:

 

[davecake]

On 7/11/2022 at 12:49 AM, Jeff said:

Malkioni sorcerers do not generally use familiars (in fact, there is no Create Familiar spell in the RQG core rules).

And I, for one, will be perfectly happy if RQ3 style familiars never reappear in RQG.

Bound spirits, sure. They are both clearly within the rules, and staggeringly useful to most sorcerers (awkwardly, in large part because it lets them cast spirit magic without hindering their sorcery, though the magic points would be enough). Bound spirits in animals - sure, not in the current rules but trivial to add to them (pretty much just replace enchanted animal with magic item in the Bind Spirit spell description), and almost certainly something some sorcerers do, because it’s so useful, if not as prudent as a sturdy object. Bound spirits of an artificial nature that have the capacity to move etc - sure, with enough spells and extra enchantments on top of your binding enchantment, why not, if you really want to bring back Nailhead etc. 

But it never really made sense as an intrinsic part of sorcerous philosophy to me. And the rules always seemed very strange, as in practice the natural idea of what a familiar is (an animal) was disincentivised by the rules, and all manner of cheezy  bending of the rules was actively encouraged by example (eg HvE’s ‘well, I first get this creature, kill it and get a ghoul to possess it’). 

Lets just return the word familiar to the way it is used in the RQG rules - a bound spirit in an animal body - and accept that it’s a minority sorcerous practice, useful but not essential.

And I don’t really buy the idea that familiars must be an analogy to the fetch and allied spirit for sorcerers (and even less mystics). Though the idea of a sorcerer developing a presence in the otherworld is a reasonable one, and works for me - neo-Platonism is often mentioned as a useful way to think about RQG sorcery, so we’d be talking about something like the autogeides, or ‘body of light’. This idea was in Sandy’s sorcery system, as Presence, and helped resolve several other issues. 

[davecake]

On 7/14/2022 at 6:39 PM, Shiningbrow said:

Fetches, allied spirits, and familiars (and I'm quite happy with the way you perceived it previously) I see as completely different entities, and none of them preclude the option of having any other

I agree. Allied spirits and fetches are not analogous. 

[Darius West]

On 7/11/2022 at 6:38 PM, JRE said:

 I would expect most zzaburi, specially those with church duties, will never have a familiar, or even get close to Magus status. It may be linked to heroquests into past ages, it may be linked to the community or its absence. But unless the aim is to have no sorcerer players, except as a hobby to keep busy Lhankhor Mhy nerds, by creating spells and long term boosts, we need a framework for player character sorcerers that is workable and fun, even if it is not balanced. And that includes having progression targets.

I agree JRE.  This has been the ideal for a long time, and we haven't achieved it.  RQ seems to have a long term anti-sorcerer bias in many ways.  I suspect this is because they somewhat detract from the "primal" setting of RQ, and of course Greg hated Mostali and Mostali are sorcerers.  Presently sorcery does have things going for it, especially Duration.

That being said, I do like the new sorcery rules in RQG as they compare to RQ3.  I am also very interested to see how the rules will change with the upcoming GM's book, and perhaps a Sorcery/Malkioni/West book in the future.  

I am aware that in Glorantha a sorcerer is supposed to be some grayface in the background who spell buffs the Horali before they go into combat, but we can do better.  A sorcerer should be a playable role, and not an afterthought NPC.