Rules for Illumination

[davecake]

On 1/8/2022 at 10:02 AM, Alex said:

Illumination finesses a lot of the "god's eye view" restrictions on what you can do magically, but does nothing -- or worse! -- for the human side. 

In RQG, one of the most common abilities is that it lets you suppress your own Passions. That is a very big change for the human side of things. 
Personally I think doing so should have consequences- but the most likely consequence is simply reducing the Passion. It’s a great potential for bringing Illumination into the roleplaying side of things - both showing the way Illumination changes who the person is, and providing interesting roleplaying choices in play, as to whether to lean into the characters past and individual drives, or into the bigger perspective of the Illuminate. 

noted that the rules are very vague, and imply rules may differ in detail between forms of Illumination - I personally don’t think such an ability, or most Illumination abilities, would be 100% reliable.

For Nysaloran Illuminates, often the Passion in question may be Devotion (deity) - and doing things like joining a hostile deity probably requires overcoming your own Devotion. It’s not just going down the enemy temple disguised as Guy Incognito to pick up some new spells. And Illumination, even with the most extreme of Nysaloran irresponsibility, doesn’t just flip the sociopath switch. 

It’s also pretty notable that reducing your own drives and Passions seems to be a foundation of (though this vastly oversimplifies it) dragonewt way. And using Dragon Magic may increase them. But notably mysticism connected. 

The relationship to the Runes is also similar, though more directly connected to magic as well, and I argue it’s probably more restricted. But an Illuminated Seven Mothers priestess who becomes high in both the Life and Death runes does not just get immediate magic benefits (they already have access to both Death and Life runespells, but now might actually have a reasonable chance at casting both), but also has changes at the personal level, becoming capable of being both warm and loving and nurturing, and a callous killer, as needed. Like our beloved Jar-Eel. 

[davecake]

In case it is not clear, I really like the decision to make it clear that Illumination as we now it is the core (or one variant of the core) experience of mysticism, and though the changes to Illumination since RQ2/3 are relatively minor, and the specific changes relating to the Lunar religion minor too, and I think that it’s a really sound basis for building up mysticism as a playable form of magic that enriches our games and lets us build up new parts and aspects of Glorantha in ways we’ve needed for a long time. I am very excited to be working on ideas for this myself (soon to be in a JC near you). 

[Dragon]

7 hours ago, davecake said:

In RQG, one of the most common abilities is that it lets you suppress your own Passions. That is a very big change for the human side of things. 
Personally I think doing so should have consequences- but the most likely consequence is simply reducing the Passion. It’s a great potential for bringing Illumination into the roleplaying side of things - both showing the way Illumination changes who the person is, and providing interesting roleplaying choices in play, as to whether to lean into the characters past and individual drives, or into the bigger perspective of the Illuminate. 

noted that the rules are very vague, and imply rules may differ in detail between forms of Illumination - I personally don’t think such an ability, or most Illumination abilities, would be 100% reliable.

For Nysaloran Illuminates, often the Passion in question may be Devotion (deity) - and doing things like joining a hostile deity probably requires overcoming your own Devotion. It’s not just going down the enemy temple disguised as Guy Incognito to pick up some new spells. And Illumination, even with the most extreme of Nysaloran irresponsibility, doesn’t just flip the sociopath switch. 

It’s also pretty notable that reducing your own drives and Passions seems to be a foundation of (though this vastly oversimplifies it) dragonewt way. And using Dragon Magic may increase them. But notably mysticism connected. 

The relationship to the Runes is also similar, though more directly connected to magic as well, and I argue it’s probably more restricted. But an Illuminated Seven Mothers priestess who becomes high in both the Life and Death runes does not just get immediate magic benefits (they already have access to both Death and Life runespells, but now might actually have a reasonable chance at casting both), but also has changes at the personal level, becoming capable of being both warm and loving and nurturing, and a callous killer, as needed. Like our beloved Jar-Eel. 

Well said. I was thinking it was pretty obvious that if you made that Sacred Time Illumination roll with a e.g. skill of 14, you would be able to overcome your Passions by an opposed roll of the Illumination skill vs Passion. Which is to say, still pretty rare when you first start out.

[davecake]

16 hours ago, Dragon said:

I was thinking it was pretty obvious that if you made that Sacred Time Illumination roll with a e.g. skill of 14, you would be able to overcome your Passions by an opposed roll of the Illumination skill vs Passion. Which is to say, still pretty rare when you first start out.

That’s one possible way to handle it. There are others that give it a higher initial chance, such as simply letting it be automatic with a cost, or making it easy to augment (such as with meditation). It’s also possible that different mystic paths have different rules, or different access to various abilities. 
I like that the rules aren’t trying to lock it down too quick, just take the first few steps. 

[Shiningbrow]

2 hours ago, davecake said:

It’s also possible that different mystic paths have different rules, or different access to various abilities. 
I like that the rules aren’t trying to lock it down too quick, just take the first few steps. 

I like both of these - but perhaps reversed??

Good that different paths have different abilities (which makes a lot of sense - because they'd be teaching those abilities in some way or another), but in having that, defining which schools teach which abilities, and in what order (if required).

I'd imagine that being able to stop Spirits of Reprisal would be a difficult thing to master (until such time as we work out how that actually works... a priest summoning a spirit and siccing it on someone should be just ignored because of Illumination). Having an understanding that Chaos is actually an inimical part of the universe would be an easier thing to teach (Yin/Yang etc).

[Ladygolem]

On 1/4/2022 at 6:20 AM, David Scott said:

Based on Cults of Terror, with a few added RQG mechanics for spells, passions, and runes.

Two of the Illumination abilities in Cult Compendium (I assume the same is true in the original Cults of Terror ) are "Immunity to Detect Chaos/Law skills" and "immunity to Detect Chaos/Law spells". I assume Detect Chaos (skill) is now Sense Chaos, but I haven't seen any mention of a Detect or Sense Law in any RQ:G product. What's the current equivalent of these? Detect Honor? That doesn't quite seem right.

On 1/4/2022 at 6:20 AM, David Scott said:

You could easily use the CoT rules for RQG, everyone has the secret (number 1) and a la carte the rest.

Number 1 listed is "Sense Illumination in others." The reference to secret makes me think this refers to "Secret knowledge". I'm assuming the latter, is this correct?

[David Scott]

7 minutes ago, Ladygolem said:

I assume Detect Chaos (skill) is now Sense Chaos

Yes.

7 minutes ago, Ladygolem said:

but I haven't seen any mention of a Detect or Sense Law in any RQ:G product. What's the current equivalent of these? Detect Honor? That doesn't quite seem right.

It was a Krasht skill.

7 minutes ago, Ladygolem said:

Number 1 listed is "Sense Illumination in others." The reference to secret makes me think this refers to "Secret knowledge". I'm assuming the latter, is this correct?

Yes

[Dragon]

4 hours ago, Ladygolem said:

Two of the Illumination abilities in Cult Compendium (I assume the same is true in the original Cults of Terror ) are "Immunity to Detect Chaos/Law skills" and "immunity to Detect Chaos/Law spells". I assume Detect Chaos (skill) is now Sense Chaos, but I haven't seen any mention of a Detect or Sense Law in any RQ:G product. What's the current equivalent of these? Detect Honor? That doesn't quite seem right.

I recall a certain classic RQ scenario having a matrix for Detect Chaos as a spirit magic spell that took 4 magic points. I would welcome its return, as a player. For when Sense Chaos fails or worse, fumbles while standing next to the Ernalda High Priestess.