Time required to learn spirit magic

[Wheel Shield]

Is there a specific time required to learn spirit magic spells?

For additional context, I'm running Six Seasons and the players have just become initiated in to the community spirit cult. So they started pre-initiation and are not initiates in any Rune Cults yet.

[Jens]

27 minutes ago, Wheel Shield said:

Is there a specific time required to learn spirit magic spells?

According to the core rules (page 253), it takes a week of instruction to learn a spirit magic spell, with the exception of certain cult spirit magic that may be learned during holy day ceremonies. No other training can occur during the week you learn a new spell. 

[Wheel Shield]

Thank you! 
 

oh jeez, I looked at that page at least twice. Embarrassing. Doesn’t exactly jump out at you though.

[Jens]

No worries- it’s a dense book! You can also learn a spell if you defeat a spirit in spirit combat, but generally only shamans use that route (normal people can’t initiate spirit combat, and wouldn’t know what spells a spirit might carry). 

[g33k]

On 11/29/2023 at 5:32 PM, Jens said:

... certain cult spirit magic that may be learned during holy day ceremonies... 

Personally, I would most-likely include gaining 1 spirit-magic spell as a "usual" part of initiating to the community.
 

[Squaredeal Sten]

On 12/5/2023 at 12:11 AM, g33k said:

Personally, I would most-likely include gaining 1 spirit-magic spell as a "usual" part of initiating to the community.
 

Since the thread started in the Six Seasons context,

In The Vale the adulthood initiation is also an initiation to the Black Stag.  So they will end up with 1 Rune Point from Black Stag. But immediately after that they get their cult initiation, so that is when I gave mine their cult skills and spirit magic too.  ... and the Playing Inexperienced Adventurers box on p.25 of RQiG just says skip their Step 7 personal Skill bonuses.

So the way I did it - which is just my way, not compulsory for anyone else -

At the start, Session Zero,  i gave my Six Seasons players two pages of Notes on Character Generation, and part of this says::

You are all going to start as inexperienced, meaning age 16 not age 21. The year of our first campaign
events is 1618-19, not 1625. When and if your characters get to 1625 we will then merge into the
current RQG timeline, and I expect that everyone will be experienced with 25 seasons of “cult and
occupational “ skill checks plus whatever you get from adventures.
And cults to initiate in will be chosen after the youth adventures. No Eurmali, no Chaos cults.

..... steps...

6. Cult; Don’t do this. You are not yet adult, cults don’t take children. Children are not taught
magic.

7. Personal skill bonuses: Don’t do this, this will be achieved in your 5 years of growing up before
age 21.

And I also gave everyone a blank skills calculations spreadsheet, because at the later steps they will get more skill%, so it's important to have at hand a record of when and how they got their char gen skill %.

And then of course we played through the initiation chapter. 

==

Anyway, I do see that giving them all their starting 5 points of spirit magic and 3 points of major-cu;t rune magic may seem a little overpowered for starting youth characters.  I looked ahead at their future challenges and didn't want them to die before the six seasons ended, so I gave those to them.  But an alternate way of doing these things would be to dribble them out in the next three seasons or so.  They are very likely to need their Black Stag rune spell(s) by the end of the sixth season.

 

 

Edited January 9 by Squaredeal Sten
fixed typos

[Richard S.]

41 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

6. Cult; Don’t do this. You are not yet adult, cults don’t take children. Children are not taught
magic.

I think the current view is that cult initiation happens between 16-18, and is synonymous with adulthood initiation. So, technically, cults do take children, though they're probably no longer children by the time they gain their first spell.

[French Desperate WindChild]

for me, if you start at 16, like @Squaredeal Sten what you don't get at 16 is "lost" as an automatic benefit, but you fill the gap with experience.

Now the question is what do you lose ?

magic. of course yes,. (well of course is my opinion 😛 ) you don't have magic since you are too young to  learn it (be allowed to learn it) but you may be the exception

cult skill ? of course you lose a part, but all ? cult secret (aka cult knowledge) of course you are not yet initiate so you can't learn the secrets. But other ? I would allow to pick one or two skills and split maybe 30% between them. After all, as rituals are everywhere everytime, if you are interested by one cult you will see, practice (roleplay) etc... and doing that get some experience

personal skill ? not all of course, but as a child, you may have some secret, story, "adventure", other don't have. Maybe you are/were friend with an alynx and run some nights in the wood,  with it, getting +10 in one survival skill. Or even you are in a farmer family, but you obtain from some LM followers they teach you this secret knowledge called Read/write. Or you were so happy to see these entertainers that you learn how to disguise yourself ? Or you were attracted by this strange guy who lives as an ermit in the boundary/wild of your tula (lunar / troll / elf / kralori ==> speak the appropriate language +10, local spirit ==>spirit lore, or spirit combat or spirit speech or ...)

Seems to me good to have a past, even when you start at 16. Maybe a secret skill (not very high, just you have and no one knows, it is "our secret") maybe an official one (it is obvious you are able to disguise your self, since you did it during the last party) so I would allow 20% to split in one or two skills related to one background (no you can't be friend with both the troll and the elf ) and add a passion associated (loyalty to XXX)

[radmonger]

The characters in 6SiS are being actively supported and educated by their clan[1], so this should be an ideal case for using the training rules (RQ:G p416). Six seasons of training would give 6d6-6 points, or 0-30. Which seems a bit light, but is easily tweaked.

For example, 5% gain for a skill 0-25, 3% for 26-50. the current rule about taking 2% stays for skill higher than that, with skills over 75 still being untrainable.

Another option is to record the number of points of cult and occupation skills they would normally get. So long as that pool isn't empty, they may use up to 5 points from it instead of rolling for training or experience.

[1] note that the rules say 'cult', but for rules purposes, a clan is a type of cult. For the Haraborn, characters slightly older than the PCs who seem destined to become scribes or other specialists would commonly be sponsored for training at a temple in Clearwine, Boldhome, or elsewhere. This would normally come with an expectation of coming back to the clan afterwards, although alternative arrangements are possible.

 

 

Edited December 6, 2023 by radmonger

[soltakss]

On 11/30/2023 at 1:51 AM, Wheel Shield said:

Doesn’t exactly jump out at you though.

That applies to an awful lot of the RQG Rules, unfortunately.

[Cassius]

On 12/6/2023 at 5:45 AM, Richard S. said:

I think the current view is that cult initiation happens between 16-18, and is synonymous with adulthood initiation.

In my opinion, adulthood initiation,  and therefore full membership of the clan, comes between the ages of 14 and 16: it includes the day of initiation itself, with its trials, as described by SiS for example, plus the two-year period in the hills (for boys) or in the service of Ernalda's temple (for girls). During this period, they can be considered lay members of Orlanth Adventurous or Ernalda. They have no spiritual or runic magic.

It's at the end of these two years that young people are fully and completely accepted as adults of the clan. It is also at this point that they choose to become an initiate of a particular cult, according to the revelations they have known on the day of their adulthood initiation and the experiences they have had over the two years since.

[Geoff R Evil]

Agree, in our game of SiS our chars were initiated into the clan and into a cult at the same time. The downside is POW use as some cults require a POW sacrifice to join as an initiate. So none of us took any Black Stag runespells, which SPOILER ALERT….was a good thing as the clan wyter is lost at the end of year 1 so you would have wasted those rune points, although a nice GM might decide that the rainbow wyrm takes over the duties of enabling access to the spirit stag to recover these.

we got by year 1 with a rune spell each and 2 initial spirit points and we earned a couple more as the year progressed. Certain combats were very difficult tho, could easily have turned into wipeouts except for some lucky rolls on the PC’s parts.

[Shiningbrow]

On 12/27/2023 at 7:38 PM, Cassius said:

They have no spiritual or runic magic.

I can agree with the rest of this, but I would think that as the cult and the community is so interwoven as to be inseparable, that the kids would slowly be taught some spirit magic over the course of those couple of years - especially things like a Heal. Something like 1 point per season or similar. This has the advantage of not suddenly dumping a pile of spirit magic spells on them all at once just after the initiation rites.

[jajagappa]

4 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

that the kids would slowly be taught some spirit magic over the course of those couple of years - especially things like a Heal.

If they've passed the adulthood initiation, they are no longer "kids" - they are full adults. And in my opinion, yes, the community teaches them some basic spirit magic over those years - i.e. one point/spell per year, which is why our 21 year-old adventurers have 5 points of spirit magic.

[radmonger]

The way I specifically rule this point is that after completing the adulthood initiation heroquest, PCs get a standard heroquest reward; a single-use rune spell. This is could be  freely chosen Or it could be suggested by the GM, perhaps based on their actions during the initiation.

Making the new spell reusable requires learning a worship skill, which is done by joining a cult. In the case where a spell can come from one of several cults, this means they get to choose which cult to join. This is one common path to becoming a Vingan or Nandan, based on the pair of rune spells Orlanth and Ernalda share by association.

It is also possible to disregard the free spell and join any cult However, this would generally be seen as rejecting the clan heritage, and perhaps going against the will of the gods. This is likely what prospective Seven Mothers initiates in Sartar during the Lunar occupation would have ended up doing.

 

 

[Cassius]

7 hours ago, jajagappa said:

If they've passed the adulthood initiation, they are no longer "kids" - they are full adults. And in my opinion, yes, the community teaches them some basic spirit magic over those years - i.e. one point/spell per year, which is why our 21 year-old adventurers have 5 points of spirit magic.

Sounds good to me. If we assume that the period of adulthood initiation lasts roughly two years from age 14 to 16, that's one spell point of spirit magic per year, to reach five points at age 21.
Between the ages of 16 and 21, the young man or woman has certainly been initiated into a cult and may also have learned runic spells.

[Squaredeal Sten]

On 12/27/2023 at 1:30 PM, Geoff R Evil said:

Agree, in our game of SiS our chars were initiated into the clan and into a cult at the same time. The downside is POW use as some cults require a POW sacrifice to join as an initiate. So none of us took any Black Stag runespells, which SPOILER ALERT….was a good thing as the clan wyter is lost at the end of year 1 so you would have wasted those rune points, although a nice GM might decide that the rainbow wyrm takes over the duties of enabling access to the spirit stag to recover these.

we got by year 1 with a rune spell each and 2 initial spirit points and we earned a couple more as the year progressed. Certain combats were very difficult tho, could easily have turned into wipeouts except for some lucky rolls on the PC’s parts.

On the other hand, another SPOILER Alert:  Some of that is the way you played Six Seasons.

At least one if the Black Stzg rune spells will go a long way to keeping the Six Seasons player characters alive at the end (6th season), and the clan wyter is only going to be killed by bad luck or bad player management, otherwise he is merely sidelined for most of Company of the Dragon. - END SPOLIER- 

When I ran it, The default assumption was that the  player characters would take at least one Black Stag rune point, and shortly thereafter would have the opportunity to initiate into the gods' cults. taking more rune points.  I pro rated their acquisition of skills and magic over the next year.  My argument is that the clan invests in these new adults.  And Gordangar. foreseeing the conflict ahead (it's in the 6S book) accelerates their training.

Edited January 9 by Squaredeal Sten
fixed spelling and capitalisation

[Shiningbrow]

8 hours ago, Cassius said:

Sounds good to me. If we assume that the period of adulthood initiation lasts roughly two years from age 14 to 16, that's one spell point of spirit magic per year, to reach five points at age 21.
Between the ages of 16 and 21, the young man or woman has certainly been initiated into a cult and may also have learned runic spells.

The other thing that hasn't been raised here (which is tangential to the OP) is how long it takes to learn Rune Spells... And I don't mean the 'special' ones! So, during this early stage of initiation - between 'childhood' and 'full adult', there's that time in-between when they need to be taught things.. and this would include the Rune Spells - especially the Common ones. Yes, I do expect each of those to also take 1 week to learn... after all, they're mini-Heroquests, learning to channel the god's power. (and only after which you've got what it takes to channel down the special stuff! - so, those 3 RPs on 'special spells' - they're only taught at the end...(the RPs are there and useable, but in something like SSIS, I'd ask players which order they learn the Common ones in... Probably Heal Wound, and then Sanctify... Summon/Command Cult Spirit comes towards the end).

[Cassius]

3 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

The other thing that hasn't been raised here (which is tangential to the OP) is how long it takes to learn Rune Spells..

It's a good question and I don't know if there's an answer in the RAW.

However, "an adventurer gains access to all common Rune spells available to the cult at initiation - there is no need to gain each spell individually!" (Mythology, p. 137 - book). So there is no "mini-Heroquest" for each spell. Learning a rune spell is linked to initiation into a cult. Being a lay member of a cult does not give access to rune magic. That's why I believe that young men and women, during their period of adulthood initiation, don't have any rune spell.

If I understand correctly, SSiS is an exception in that the characters are initiated into the wyter cult, which gives them access to a rune spell. I wouldn't say that all wyters allow you to learn a rune spell, and I'd even say that it's quite rare. Normally, a wyter can only cast rune spells known to his priest (the clan chief, for example).

[Shiningbrow]

9 minutes ago, Cassius said:

there is no need to gain each spell individually!" (Mythology, p. 137 - book). So there is no "mini-Heroquest" for each spell

Personally, I think that's a silly rule. HOW do the newly initiated learn to cast those spells?? It also presumes, by a certain interpretation, that all Common Rune Spells are the same from each god/spirit... I would say they most definitely aren't. (at the very least, hence why the Runes used are different). I think it's simply a quick mechanic that someone thought of to make things easier for the game, and not really representative of the world.

[Cassius]

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

Personally, I think that's a silly rule. HOW do the newly initiated learn to cast those spells?? It also presumes, by a certain interpretation, that all Common Rune Spells are the same from each god/spirit... I would say they most definitely aren't. (at the very least, hence why the Runes used are different). I think it's simply a quick mechanic that someone thought of to make things easier for the game, and not really representative of the world.

It's not an easy sentence to interpret, but here's how I understand it. It doesn't mean that an initiate can write on their character sheet "Common rune spells" and cast any of them during the game. But they have access to all of them at once during their initiation and doesn't need a special ritual to learn each one individually. Initiation is the global ritual, the "mini-HQ".

However, access is not possession, and they must accomplish something to actually know such common rune spell. But they can change it during a ritual (which doesn't have to take place in a temple on a holy day - it's one of the uses of the Worship skill), and they don't need to go through the teaching of a priest, whereas they do when it comes to the special spells of the cult.

[radmonger]

Ir clearly doesn't make any kind of in-world sense to have absolutely everyone, in a clan or not, everywhere in glorantha, receive a standardised multi-season magical education of exactly the same long list of mostly low-value spells.

For one thing, it would make joining a cult in-play impractical.

Maybe those spells are just completely natural expressions of magic, as intuitive to anyone who has gone through the initiation process as breathing. Or maybe, common spells are, as they were in RQ2, just 'spells you can commonly learn'. Or maybe they are  mostly ritual magic, not castable in combat and so different from full rune spells that are.

Or, ideally, someone goes through the list and sorts them into those 3 cases.

 

 

[Cassius]

42 minutes ago, Cassius said:

It doesn't mean that an initiate can write on their character sheet "Common rune spells" and cast any of them during the game.

Oh, I was wrong. Reading the NPCs sheets in The Pegasus Plateau, I realize that all initiates and priests know "all the common rune spells" of their cults.

[jajagappa]

2 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

HOW do the newly initiated learn to cast those spells??

I'd say there are two options:

1) it through Cult Lore that you learn the basic mythic frame. As a Lay Member, you're going to the services, hearing the basic stories, watching the rituals of the priests, and these provide you with an understanding of the Common Rune Spells, or how to draw the god into you to achieve these basic capabilities.

2) when you are initiated you are filled with the essence of the god - you have a moment of one-ness, and that endows you with how the god interacts with the world and how you commune with it. As Rune spells are embracing the god, you're letting the god into you and the god guides you with these basic Rune spells.

The latter probably aligns better to the basic Rune spell concept. 

[David Scott]

8 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

how long it takes to learn Rune Spells

An adventurer gains access to all common Rune spells available to the cult at initiation—there is no need to gain each spell individually!

Common Rune Magic box, RQG 74 / Mythology 141.

Note that there will be a few of cults that don't follow this format, including the upcoming Seven Mothers (all common a season after initiation) (then pretty much the same as Cults of Prax 41).