Bless Pregnancy

[French Desperate WindChild]

28 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

I think this was about regaining the population post-Windstop, though - if we imagine that fertile women make up 30% of the population and Bless Pregnancy is used, almost 5% of the population could be recovered yearly (the number of natural deaths will be reduced for a number of years as a lot of the elderly and the young died during the Great Winter already).

there is then another question (sorry my post is a mix of glorantha and runequest):

if they used bless pregnancy more than usual, what did  they not cast ? bless crops ? heal body ? Or did they sacrifice more pow to compensate the new needs of rune points, with the risk of losing oppotunities to use this pow for anything else than RP  ?

I m not so sure they had to use bless pregnancy. I see it like a new spring, the Life 's energy " explodes " after a long sleep, impacting , , and , not because the priestess but because the goddess (and her husband).

Where sartarite magic may be usefull is more to raise the number of adult population...  You need them to work (farm, build, craft, war). Babies are not really usefull for such things and waiting 10-15 years to fight the wild, the world and the lunars empire (they have not demogaphic issue at this time I think) seems to me unacceptable.

I think that after a so big event, the answer must be bigger than use "standard" way (rune spell). So more god interventions, more "miracles", more heroquests, more childhood sacrifices (I mean : their "voria" time, not their life of course), more extraordinary things

 

 

 

Of course it works if in your glorantha the gods are not just machine to drive😛

[Akhôrahil]

3 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

there is then another question (sorry my post is a mix of glorantha and runequest):

if they used bless pregnancy more than usual, what did  they not cast ? bless crops ? heal body ? Or did they sacrifice more pow to compensate the new needs of rune points, with the risk of losing oppotunities to use this pow for anything else than RP  ?

If we keep going by RQG, even a basic Ernalda initiate with 3 Rune Points can spend well over 100 Rune Points per year (due to weekly minor holy days). Rune Point availability isn't really a limiting factor - you don't have to cut back on anything in order to drop a Bless Pregnancy 1 on every woman in the community if desired. There's essentially zero opportunity cost.

[French Desperate WindChild]

7 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

If we keep going by RQG, even a basic Ernalda initiate with 3 Rune Points can spend well over 100 Rune Points per year (due to weekly minor holy days). Rune Point availability isn't really a limiting factor - you don't have to cut back on anything in order to drop a Bless Pregnancy 1 on every woman in the community if desired. There's essentially zero opportunity cost.

mmm i m not confortable to use the creation rules to measure the "rp" economy. Because, if we follow your way, what did they with your option... before ? (1600, 1500, etc...)

I see it, individual by individual, as a "zero sum game"  (?)

Why not use the full RP they disposed, like blessing pregnancy in 1500-1600 to have more and stronger babies  ?

Edited June 8, 2023 by French Desperate WindChild

[Akhôrahil]

24 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Why not use the full RP they disposed, like blessing pregnancy in 1500-1600 to have more and stronger babies  ?

Completely legit question - there's essentially no reason why every pregnancy wouldn't be Blessed with at least 3 points. More babies is not a good idea at most times - the clan is probably already at carrying capacity with regards to food - but fewer pregnancies (I assume Ernaldans can control fertility) with healthier and more powerful babies seems like a no-brainer from a game perspective. Nobles should by every reason shop around for even larger Bless Pregnancy spells - it's a solid investment in their offspring. 5-10 points should be quite achievable. My PCs obviously drop the biggest Bless Pregnancy they can find every time it comes up - it's a no-brainer in case the campaign lasts very long and the kids can be promoted into PCs. 

Although perhaps Bless Pregnancy explains the free points of characteristics PCs get during chargen...

Edited June 8, 2023 by Akhôrahil

[Ironwall]

On 6/8/2023 at 4:59 AM, Akhôrahil said:

Completely legit question - there's essentially no reason why every pregnancy wouldn't be Blessed with at least 3 points. More babies is not a good idea at most times - the clan is probably already at carrying capacity with regards to food - but fewer pregnancies (I assume Ernaldans can control fertility) with healthier and more powerful babies seems like a no-brainer from a game perspective. Nobles should by every reason shop around for even larger Bless Pregnancy spells - it's a solid investment in their offspring. 5-10 points should be quite achievable. My PCs obviously drop the biggest Bless Pregnancy they can find every time it comes up - it's a no-brainer in case the campaign lasts very long and the kids can be promoted into PCs. 

Although perhaps Bless Pregnancy explains the free points of characteristics PCs get during chargen..

Considering magic used for fields like rain, cloud clear bless fields, etc the carrying capacity of the land is likely (in most years) well above what it would normally be. Sartarite clans may actual have a lot of extra food for a high growth. And considering most things will still be done by hand having more children ie more farmhands is a really good idea

Edited June 12, 2023 by Ironwall

[JRE]

I have said this before, but I see socially Glorantha has more in common with the XXth century than the real Bronze Age, and one of the key factors for this is low infant mortality (magic), effective anticonception (magic, herbs, alchemy...) and high carrying capacity when you are not wasting community magic in war magics, weather magics, or other magics.

That is not often shown as spells, but I am sure they are there, built on the framework of spells we know, such as Pregnancy and Blass Pregnancy, and are the focus on normal temple magic.

That is also why humans recover extremely fast from terrible catastrophes. That also allows women or men that do not wish to have kids to do so without becoming social outcasts, as long as they have an accepted role.

[General Confusion]

Even if you did want to use game rules as a framework (which probably isn't a great idea tbh) I don't think Rune magic is anything like that unlimited a resource.

Let's say you have an Orlanthi clan of 1,000 people. Based on statements from the writers (such as this post from Jeff a couple years back) roughly 23% are full-fledged Ernalda initiates; so if that ratio holds we're looking at 230 Ernaldans. For a rural farming clan maybe it's 300 - I think in the last few years assumptions about the ratios of initiates have changed slightly, so we'll bump it up. Now, adventurers are specifically called out as exceptional people with exceptional resources - and generally have background full of unusual amounts of conflict and challenge - so probably those 300 Ernaldans have 1, maybe 2 RP each on average. Let's call it 2 for the sake of argument.

So we're looking at ~600 RP of Ernaldan magic available, in theory, for our 1000-person clan. And in theory, these can be fully expended and refreshed every week, right? Well, no, not really, for a few reasons;

1. People fail Worship rolls. Sure, you can sacrifice MP, but depending on what else is going on they may either not have enough MP to sacrifice right at the moment - maybe the scythe broke and needed Repair, or a sheep got torn up by briars and needed a Heal - or they may feel the need to keep some back in case of emergency, or maybe they just have naturally mediocre POW and physically don't have enough. And these are subsistence farmers; glancing at the income rules, they definitely cannot afford to be sacrificing goods every week, or even every season unless the harvest last year was genuinely exceptional. 

2. A holy day celebration, even a minor one, canonically takes all day. That's a major commitment of time and effort! On any given week I think it's very likely - basically guaranteed - that some fraction of the population, probably a large fraction, cannot or will not put down their work and go to the temple in order to join the full worship ceremony and regain Rune Points.

3. They probably don't ever want to be at 0 Rune Points. What if Timmy falls out of a tree and breaks his back? What if a wandering broo gets into the herd? What if your teenage son is goaded into a duel and takes a sucking chest wound? What if the neighboring clan that hates you stages a raid? There's a lot of situations in rural Orlanthi life where having just that 1 or 2 RP on hand for an emergency Heal Body or Regrow Limb might be hugely valuable on short notice. So many of those initiates are going to be reluctant to use their Rune Points 'efficiently', because full efficiency will create periods where they don't have any available, and people tend to be risk-avoidant.

I think when you consider all these factors it becomes easy to say that Rune Magic, while definitely part of everyday life, is far from unlimited - and this also shows the value of maintaining a major temple like the Three Emeralds or etc., because those temples maintain a specialized body of priesthood who have a bunch of Rune Points each and do dedicate the time and money and effort, every week, to keep themselves topped up. So 20 assistant priestesses with 5 or 6 RP available each and every single week, rain or shine, can perform the magical work that otherwise might consume all the spare time and magic available from a couple of hundred rural farming initiates.

 

 

 

Edited June 13, 2023 by General Confusion

[French Desperate WindChild]

13 hours ago, JRE said:

I have said this before, but I see socially Glorantha has more in common with the XXth century than the real Bronze Age, and one of the key factors for this is low infant mortality (magic), effective anticonception (magic, herbs, alchemy...) and high carrying capacity when you are not wasting community magic in war magics, weather magics, or other magics.

I agree !

And there is another, probably the main reason in my opinion :

players are from XXth and XXIth centuries.

Even if some (few, very few I hope for chaosium if they want a lot of customers), know (a lot of) things about bronze age, none had any real experience of bronze age daily interactions (and probably depending on where in bronze ages, interactions are not the same)

So for me, what the background describes is more important than what was really made in  bronze age in a specific irl location .

 

[Shiningbrow]

8 hours ago, General Confusion said:

1 or 2 RP on hand for an emergency Heal Body

Apologies for the excessive nitpicking, but.... Heal Body is 3 RPs.... 😄

 

On 6/8/2023 at 5:59 PM, Akhôrahil said:

Completely legit question - there's essentially no reason why every pregnancy wouldn't be Blessed with at least 3 points. More babies is not a good idea at most times - the clan is probably already at carrying capacity with regards to food - but fewer pregnancies (I assume Ernaldans can control fertility) with healthier and more powerful babies seems like a no-brainer from a game perspective. Nobles should by every reason shop around for even larger Bless Pregnancy spells - it's a solid investment in their offspring. 5-10 points should be quite achievable. My PCs obviously drop the biggest Bless Pregnancy they can find every time it comes up - it's a no-brainer in case the campaign lasts very long and the kids can be promoted into PCs. 

Although perhaps Bless Pregnancy explains the free points of characteristics PCs get during chargen...

Except...

Those RPs used in a Bless Pregnancy can't be regained until the child is born. (note the special duration).

However, what might be a better idea is to feed the local Wyter the POW to do the Bless Pregnancies (at least a basic 1 point... not sure if you'd get the x5 targets for each stacked point into the characteristics).

 

On 6/8/2023 at 5:33 PM, Akhôrahil said:

If we keep going by RQG, even a basic Ernalda initiate with 3 Rune Points can spend well over 100 Rune Points per year (due to weekly minor holy days). Rune Point availability isn't really a limiting factor - you don't have to cut back on anything in order to drop a Bless Pregnancy 1 on every woman in the community if desired. There's essentially zero opportunity cost.

As above, and... the 'basic' Ernalda initiate doesn't have 3 RPs - they have 1. Special Ernalda initiates have 3 RPs, and so they're less common.

So, back to the maths (as above), they would spend that 1 RP on one Bless Pregnancy for about 3 seasons, and then... ok, then there's options for more. Heal Wound they could do every week... Bless a Crop every week (depending on season).

As @General Confusion mentioned above, there won't be too many basic initiates who have the time to just drop tools and go worship for a full day every week. just to get their RPs back. Special initiates - those looking to head into the priesthood - sure. But that's not the vast majority of the farm workers.

[Akhôrahil]

23 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

As above, and... the 'basic' Ernalda initiate doesn't have 3 RPs - they have 1.

I disagree with this. A completely newly initiated Ernaldan has 1 Rune Point. But if you take a look at NPCs in published products, it's pretty clear that the average initiate of a cult has 3 Rune Points or so.

And who wouldn't sacrifice at least a POW for 1 Rune Point and Bless Pregnancy if it's not already otherwise available? This is a no-brainer. Bless Pregnancy not being One-Use is extremely generous.

And while it does lock down Rune Point(s), you can get this time down to 2/3ds of a pregnancy (cast it in late first trimester) which then wouldn't interfere with Bless Crops (the heavyweight among what the average farmers need their Rune Points for).

Edited June 13, 2023 by Akhôrahil

[Shiningbrow]

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

And who wouldn't sacrifice at least a POW for 1 Rune Point and Bless Pregnancy if it's not already otherwise available? This is a no-brainer.

Ummm... most people? Just looking at the list of Ernalda only spells (not including Associate cult ones), there's about 5 I'd expect most initiates to go for before BP. Restore Health, Reproduce, Bless Crops, etc Once you hit 3RPs, then Heal Body becomes fairly obvious. And, these are all spells that allow you to get the RPs back quickly.

I see Bless Pregnancy to be a more specialised spell, one that is given to someone who has a certain role in the community.

Of course, this is just my vision of Glorantha...

[French Desperate WindChild]

one thought among others :

remember that we are gm/players used to manipulate figures, models (at least the rules of rpg), able to optimize decisons, without any devotion for any of gloranthan divinity (well... I  think 🙂  )

I m not sure that a gloranthan will follow our process or even understand such optimization (no offense, we know things that ancestors did not, and they knew things we are totally unable to do  without years of unusual training)

Quote

Well that's my initiation, I will sacrifice 1 pow (?!!!!) to learn my first spell...."

 

(after few seasons)

Argh my target is to bless the pregnancy of my sister, and if i success my bargain roll, I will obtain from Kiki enough money to buy a chainmail

So I need to fight spirits tomorow and probably one or two more in the next seasons to obtain enough pow to sacrifice and then having enough RP

 

(after few weeks...)

This shaman is really not good, she failed her summoning spell, and the spirit was too low to let me obtain one pow more.. I hope I will roll a critic to obtain more pow next sacred time

or maybe gloranthan are.... very weird ?!

 

[JRE]

My own take is that many people would prefer to sacrifice their extra POW to the local wyter than go through the whole rune magic acquisition, sacrifice, time at the temple,  and having the priests and the gods take notice of you, unless they are already considering a rune career. That is one of the things that make the PCs and Priest NPCs quite extraordinary. 

I consider the Wyter rules as they are, with all spells costing POW, do not represent in a workable way community magic, as it is clearly better for the community to go for reuseable RP. However, it shows what I feel is the right direction, if there is a certain recovery, or return, or potential bigger effects than are possible with spells. The magic of the community, available in an emergency to most, but mainly controlled by the community leaders, and flexible enough to do different things, but if you use it for one thinh, like a cattle raid, it will not be available for other, such as pregnancies. 

IMG I have wyters possess a community pool, which works as described, from POW given freely by the people, but a certain percentile, dependng on the size of the covered area and the number of people, goes to the wyter itself, making it inherently more powerful, and it can sacrifice that permanent POW for conventional magic as well.

That way a wyter, even of an abandoned site, can use magic without suiciding itself, but in a living area it also has access to the big community repository. Alternately I also consider that there may well be a MP - POW conversion, so in a community event that all pitch in, the clan may end up giving 3000 MP to the wyter, and that is enough to add 3 POW to the community pool, even if nobody sacrificed POW, only MP.

It is like donating blood. You donate regularly, and hope that when you need it there will be blood for you as well. 

[Akhôrahil]

8 hours ago, JRE said:

I consider the Wyter rules as they are, with all spells costing POW, do not represent in a workable way community magic, as it is clearly better for the community to go for reuseable RP.

Agree - Wyter casting is either really inefficient (when done in most normal ways) or brokenly powerful (when you manage to abuse the multi-target casting, like resurrecting hundreds of people after a battle for a fraction of a Rune Point each or dropping a an Extended Shield 10 on every warrior in a battle).

[Akhôrahil]

21 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Ummm... most people? Just looking at the list of Ernalda only spells (not including Associate cult ones), there's about 5 I'd expect most initiates to go for before BP. Restore Health, Reproduce, Bless Crops, etc Once you hit 3RPs, then Heal Body becomes fairly obvious. And, these are all spells that allow you to get the RPs back quickly.

I see Bless Pregnancy to be a more specialised spell, one that is given to someone who has a certain role in the community.

Of course, this is just my vision of Glorantha...

I can't imagine how anyone would want to go through a non-Blessed pregnancy when it's readily available. Even today, avoiding "any of the pains and sicknesses of
her condition" and "during childbirth, she suffers only mild pangs and can control the timing of the birth" seem like they would be strong selling points, and multiply that several times over for bronze age medical conditions when the risk of death for both mother and child is severe. The cost of locking up one Rune Point for most of a year seems almost negligible. Yes, it might be preferable if someone else casts it (so that you don't have to learn it), but if that's not available, who wouldn't want to spend a point of POW for it and have one more Rune Point forever afterwards (including for later pregnancies)? The reward seems overwhelmingly stronger than the cost. 

[Shiningbrow]

20 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

I can't imagine how anyone would want to go through a non-Blessed pregnancy when it's readily available. Even today, avoiding "any of the pains and sicknesses of
her condition" and "during childbirth, she suffers only mild pangs and can control the timing of the birth" seem like they would be strong selling points, and multiply that several times over for bronze age medical conditions when the risk of death for both mother and child is severe. The cost of locking up one Rune Point for most of a year seems almost negligible. Yes, it might be preferable if someone else casts it (so that you don't have to learn it), but if that's not available, who wouldn't want to spend a point of POW for it and have one more Rune Point forever afterwards (including for later pregnancies)? The reward seems overwhelmingly stronger than the cost. 

I think your first line is important here...

Sure, everyone  would want a Blessed Pregnancy. But that's a vastly different idea to who would or should sacrifice to get the spell.

Following your logic, and everyone getting the spell, we should ask "how many times will that spell get used?", and the answer is probably in the realms of only 2 or 3 times in their entire life. Probably less, because someone else in the household would do the casting (remember, we should expect about 70% of all adult females to be Ernaldans).

This then means, the spell is wasted for the vast majority of the time, and for the vast majority of the people.

So... should there be at least one member of a family who has the spell? Again, I don't think it makes sense for this, as once one member of a family has it, then it's unlikely to still get cast except for every few years.. maybe only a few times in each generation.

So, how many times would it be cast per clan? How many kids are getting born each year? And that's the actual answer. A clan apparently has about 30% children, so even a large clan of 1000 people will have 300 kids - i.e., under the age of (let's say) 15. That's an average of only 20 kids per year. Which means - you only need 20 people of the 300 or so Ernaldan initiates needing to cast the spell per year.

And so, the sacrifice to get it is wasted for the approx 280 Ernaldan initiates remaining..... (and that's still presuming 1 spell-casting per individual)

[Akhôrahil]

57 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

I think your first line is important here...

Sure, everyone  would want a Blessed Pregnancy. But that's a vastly different idea to who would or should sacrifice to get the spell.

Following your logic, and everyone getting the spell, we should ask "how many times will that spell get used?", and the answer is probably in the realms of only 2 or 3 times in their entire life. Probably less, because someone else in the household would do the casting (remember, we should expect about 70% of all adult females to be Ernaldans).

This then means, the spell is wasted for the vast majority of the time, and for the vast majority of the people.

So... should there be at least one member of a family who has the spell? Again, I don't think it makes sense for this, as once one member of a family has it, then it's unlikely to still get cast except for every few years.. maybe only a few times in each generation.

So, how many times would it be cast per clan? How many kids are getting born each year? And that's the actual answer. A clan apparently has about 30% children, so even a large clan of 1000 people will have 300 kids - i.e., under the age of (let's say) 15. That's an average of only 20 kids per year. Which means - you only need 20 people of the 300 or so Ernaldan initiates needing to cast the spell per year.

And so, the sacrifice to get it is wasted for the approx 280 Ernaldan initiates remaining..... (and that's still presuming 1 spell-casting per individual)

I think we're arguing different things - my point is that there's little reason any Heortling pregnancy should go unblessed. It's better if there's an expert at it, but if there isn't, then it can be easily fixed by personal sacrificing.

Edited June 14, 2023 by Akhôrahil

[JRE]

As a special spell, I would expect that in most cases only priestesses know the spell. Or the wyter. Sacrifice to the wyter and the wyter casts it on you or your family member. If using the current rules, get all the pregnant women together one season and bless all in one go. Make a party and celebrate, while you are at it.

I am refining my own ideas about wyters to present as house rules.

[French Desperate WindChild]

59 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

my point is that there's little reason any Heortling pregnancy should go unblessed. It's better if there's an expert at it, but if there isn't, then it can be easily fixed by personal sacrificing.

I agree with you, there is no reason to not bless everyone... if it were so easy (aka imo where we have a disagreement is the rune pool - pc & exceptional npc vs anyone - )

 

but in another way, as RQG describes that the characteristics depend on the homeland...  -example Bisons-.

If it were so easy, the RQG should say that, in Sartar, Esrolia, Old Tarsh, characters have a +1 in a characteristic of player's choice. That's not the case 🙂

 

so the issue is in my opinion that you are wrong (with all my respect, I m not sure of the "strength" of my words) to consider rqg creation rule as unnamed npc (= population)

 

--> there is no legit question between before and after great winter, if you consider creation rules are only dedicated to "hero" and potential "associates"

--> there is no creation rule issue (aka my +1 charac in any ernaldan location), if you consider creation rules are only dedicated to "hero" and potential "associates"

 

for me the original issue we share and try to manage (in different ways)  is that initiate status allows now (rqg) reusable magic and that any adult is initiate.

the impact then is very important. (but only for those who ask themselves a lot of questions, I m pretty sure a lot of gm and players don't care !)

The issue is how the rules + background answer to the game design choices :  players must be able to cast rune spells again and again. That is the most important point. The answer was to say initiate have rune pool and can cast again and again.

Is it the best answer ? Yes because it is simple, and enough for most players and gm.

A better "mathematic" answer may be :

"considering a new intermediate status for pc and powerfull people:

- a standard initiate is as before, sacrificing pow to cast one use spell

- pc, exceptional initiates, priests, rune lords, etc... sacrifice pow for rune pool, and use rune pool again and again to cast spell, as raw "

that's solve everything: most ernaldan cannot use bless pregnancy every hour (yes it is a provocation 😛 ), just very happy few.

But that provides another issue (how to explain this status ? how can i get it ? etc..) so a lot of words for anyone when only few people need them

[Joerg]

37 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Sure, everyone  would want a Blessed Pregnancy. But that's a vastly different idea to who would or should sacrifice to get the spell.

Following your logic, and everyone getting the spell, we should ask "how many times will that spell get used?", and the answer is probably in the realms of only 2 or 3 times in their entire life. Probably less, because someone else in the household would do the casting (remember, we should expect about 70% of all adult females to be Ernaldans).

This then means, the spell is wasted for the vast majority of the time, and for the vast majority of the people.

So... should there be at least one member of a family who has the spell? Again, I don't think it makes sense for this, as once one member of a family has it, then it's unlikely to still get cast except for every few years.. maybe only a few times in each generation.

Unless you go with minimal benefits, usually you would want one Ernaldan per pregnancy, as the spell (and its rune points) won't be available again until delivery of the child(ren).

[Akhôrahil]

24 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Unless you go with minimal benefits, usually you would want one Ernaldan per pregnancy, as the spell (and its rune points) won't be available again until delivery of the child(ren).

Which does seem quite doable. Bless Pregnancy 1 - 3 seems like something anyone could and should get; above that it starts to get a bit sparse as you will lock up the spellcasting of a Priestess or other more advanced caster.

[DrGoth]

21 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

So, how many times would it be cast per clan? How many kids are getting born each year? And that's the actual answer. A clan apparently has about 30% children, so even a large clan of 1000 people will have 300 kids - i.e., under the age of (let's say) 15. That's an average of only 20 kids per year. Which means - you only need 20 people of the 300 or so Ernaldan initiates needing to cast the spell per year.

And so, the sacrifice to get it is wasted for the approx 280 Ernaldan initiates remaining..... (and that's still presuming 1 spell-casting per individual)

Which is saying about 1 person a stead would have it.  Sort of makes sense to me if you think of it that way. In the pre-industruial real world, midwives were specialised too.

[Shiningbrow]

21 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

I think we're arguing different things - my point is that there's little reason any Heortling pregnancy should go unblessed. It's better if there's an expert at it, but if there isn't, then it can be easily fixed by personal sacrificing.

Then my apologies....

 I was reading

22 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

who wouldn't want to spend a point of POW for it and have one more Rune Point forever afterwards (including for later pregnancies)? The reward seems overwhelmingly stronger than the cost. 

differently than intended (or, without the strength of the preceding "

 

22 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Yes, it might be preferable if someone else casts it

" bit....)

 

 

[Shiningbrow]

19 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

I agree with you, there is no reason to not bless everyone... if it were so easy (aka imo where we have a disagreement is the rune pool - pc & exceptional npc vs anyone - )

 

but in another way, as RQG describes that the characteristics depend on the homeland...  -example Bisons-.

If it were so easy, the RQG should say that, in Sartar, Esrolia, Old Tarsh, characters have a +1 in a characteristic of player's choice. That's not the case 🙂

 

so the issue is in my opinion that you are wrong (with all my respect, I m not sure of the "strength" of my words) to consider rqg creation rule as unnamed npc (= population)

 

--> there is no legit question between before and after great winter, if you consider creation rules are only dedicated to "hero" and potential "associates"

--> there is no creation rule issue (aka my +1 charac in any ernaldan location), if you consider creation rules are only dedicated to "hero" and potential "associates"

 

for me the original issue we share and try to manage (in different ways)  is that initiate status allows now (rqg) reusable magic and that any adult is initiate.

the impact then is very important. (but only for those who ask themselves a lot of questions, I m pretty sure a lot of gm and players don't care !)

The issue is how the rules + background answer to the game design choices :  players must be able to cast rune spells again and again. That is the most important point. The answer was to say initiate have rune pool and can cast again and again.

Is it the best answer ? Yes because it is simple, and enough for most players and gm.

A better "mathematic" answer may be :

"considering a new intermediate status for pc and powerfull people:

- a standard initiate is as before, sacrificing pow to cast one use spell

- pc, exceptional initiates, priests, rune lords, etc... sacrifice pow for rune pool, and use rune pool again and again to cast spell, as raw "

that's solve everything: most ernaldan cannot use bless pregnancy every hour (yes it is a provocation 😛 ), just very happy few.

But that provides another issue (how to explain this status ? how can i get it ? etc..) so a lot of words for anyone when only few people need them

One of the things that affects this is the idea that if you sacrifice a point of POW for a Rune Point, you automatically get a new Rune Spell - and it's implied that you can choose any from the list available (in a major temple... obviously, more limitations the smaller the holy place).

I think this should be restricted.

And, perhaps payment should be necessary - especially for the more specialist spells. Bless Crops - cheap. Bless Pregnancy - more expensive.

It would also take care of the "every Orlanthi has Lightning" issue... if Lightning became more difficult to acquire.

[Shiningbrow]

15 minutes ago, DrGoth said:

Which is saying about 1 person a stead would have it.  Sort of makes sense to me if you think of it that way. In the pre-industruial real world, midwives were specialised too.

I'd imagine two people... the older, wiser midwife, and the younger apprentice who is learning the trade.