Lunar Magic in The Lunar Way

[Nick Brooke]

On 4/23/2024 at 10:50 AM, David Scott said:

Ephemeris works fine - here it is a few minutes ago running with CheerpJ plugin in Chrome. See The Movable Ephemeris and the Gloranthan Sky (1997).

"My god, it's full of stars..."

If I can run this, anybody can. (NB: David forgot to mention that you need to change a default CheerpJ plugin setting to get the CheerpJ icon added to your toolbar.) 

[Scotty]

19 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

(NB: David forgot to mention that you need to change a default CheerpJ plugin setting to get the CheerpJ icon added to your toolbar.) 

Fixed

[Soccercalle]

On 4/23/2024 at 11:54 AM, Shiningbrow said:

Sounds like what's going through my head... A couple of number changes, but essentially another C&P from... 40 years ago?

 

However, I do get that there's the need to introduce this to the new fanbase, and so old grognards aren't the main priority to write for.

There is no value in changing old rules if you dont replace them with something better. 

[Mameluco]

On 4/24/2024 at 9:18 AM, David Scott said:

Out of interest - where?

I'm sure it was in rpg.net, but I cannot find the posts. So, it can also be "in my head"... 😅

Edited April 25 by Mameluco

[davecake]

I remain convinced that Irripi Ontor sages that go on to become Red Goddess Initiates are the magical power gamer powerhouse of choice.

Yes, sorcery and Rune Magic. And unlike Lhankor Mhy, and his mostly detection and  investigative stuff, IO gets some great combat magic immediately- Mind Blast (one of the best attack spells in the game) and their sorcery includes ‘combat artillery’ like Moonfire. 
Free INT is used for both sorcery and Lunar magic, so that’s handy. And you know what makes having access to lots of spirit magic while maintaining a good Free INT much easier? An allied spirit!

So already looking good - Linar magic really punches it up though. 

but want to know what really makes it crazy? The Rune spell Cyclical  (Characteristic), specifically INT. bumps 18 INT up to 27, which of course applies to Free INT, for an entire day. 

Alternatively, consider a Jakaleel shaman, already a master of spirit magic, can use their whole INT for Free INT and still have loads of spirit magic through their fetch and allied spirit, and can comb8ne shamanic abilities like spell barrage with Lunar magic.

Or, and let me really push things to the limit here, why not both? We already know they are Illuminated, and joining multiple Lunar cults is rather encouraged, especially in the Major Classes of the Lunar College of Magic. Is there any reason why they can’t be both a shaman and a sorcerer? 

[Akhôrahil]

On 4/22/2024 at 9:06 PM, Squaredeal Sten said:

Reading The Lunar Way, one of the most important things I see is in the Red goddess chapter, pages 123-125, "Lunar magic".  This is going to be very useful to GMs running Lunar related adventures.  Ler me just whet your intrerest here:

A. Upon initiation in the cult of the Red Goddess, the initiate gains starting % in each of the Lunar magic skills, essentially sorcery skills that relate to spirit magic.  and they may train for more %.  Free INT is required just as in the sorcery rules, and each point of Free INT enables the use of a point of one of those skills.

B. Those skills are Amplify, combine, distance, prolong.  As i read p.124, three of the four affect sprit magic only, but they enable increases in effect, duration, and range.  There is a list of specific amplify effects for specific spirit spells on p.124. 

As a first example, with 2 points of Amplify, the Speedart spell could be changed from its usual spirit magic effects ( adding 15% to hit and +3 damage), to +25% to hit and +5 damage .  It would cost a total of 3MPs, but it would pretty reliably break through plate armor and hit like a bullet  With a composite bow and a damage roll of 8, you  do 1D8+6 or a max of 14 without rolling a special. 

As a second example, with 2 points of amplify plus 2 points of distance, for six MPs you can cast  a Demoralize spell that will decrease a victim with 90% attack skill to a 35%, and do this 150 meters away.

I am sure i have not yet figured out all the possible applications and combinations here.  The Tribe will be coming up with new ones for years..

Lunar Magic was superb already in RQ3, like a more useful and less annoying Sorcery.

[Squaredeal Sten]

7 hours ago, davecake said:

I remain convinced that Irripi Ontor sages that go on to become Red Goddess Initiates are the magical power gamer powerhouse of choice.

Yes, sorcery and Rune Magic. And unlike Lhankor Mhy, and his mostly detection and  investigative stuff, IO gets some great combat magic immediately- Mind Blast (one of the best attack spells in the game) and their sorcery includes ‘combat artillery’ like Moonfire. 
Free INT is used for both sorcery and Lunar magic, so that’s handy. And you know what makes having access to lots of spirit magic while maintaining a good Free INT much easier? An allied spirit!

So already looking good - Linar magic really punches it up though. 

but want to know what really makes it crazy? The Rune spell Cyclical  (Characteristic), specifically INT. bumps 18 INT up to 27, which of course applies to Free INT, for an entire day. 

Alternatively, consider a Jakaleel shaman, already a master of spirit magic, can use their whole INT for Free INT and still have loads of spirit magic through their fetch and allied spirit, and can comb8ne shamanic abilities like spell barrage with Lunar magic.

Or, and let me really push things to the limit here, why not both? We already know they are Illuminated, and joining multiple Lunar cults is rather encouraged, especially in the Major Classes of the Lunar College of Magic. Is there any reason why they can’t be both a shaman and a sorcerer? 

Crafty combination!.  So given a crystal or sprit or a fetch as a MP battery, Cyclical (INT) means free INT can be cranked up to give any spirit spells a powerful punch.  

Edited May 2 by Squaredeal Sten
spelling / typing

[Rodney Dangerduck]

On 4/23/2024 at 3:05 AM, AndreJarosch said:

If it isn´t broken: Don´t fix it!

Depends if the new RQG rules "broke" things, or at least made massive changes.

For example, now that rune magic is reusable and readily accessible to all PCs, 40 year old rune magic needs editing.

This includes the rune spell descriptions, which spells are "common", and recovering rune points during cult or weekly  holy days or associated cult holy days. 

For one example, Lanbril is now doubly broken.

1. The bad news is that they are extremely limited in recovering rune magic.  No associate cults, nor can they get by like some Humakti PCs by joining another cult for "backup" rune points.
2. The good news is they don't have much rune magic worth casting.  🙂

40 years ago when rune magic was generally one-use and rarely cast, this wasn't a big deal.  Now it is.

Edited May 2 by Rodney Dangerduck

[g33k]

On 4/23/2024 at 12:45 AM, Mameluco said:

I must confess, I'm a bit disappointed the Lunar Magic is just a reprint of the 3e rules. I was expecting a new perspective like what Chaosium did for the sorcery rules in RQG. I'm going to buy the book, of course, but it seems like a missing opportunity to me.

I don't actually see any reason for Lunar Magic to get a new suite of rules.

It follows the established precedent of using mostly RQ2+RQ3 rules... no substantive changes to "Spirit Magic" so I haven't expected to see anything new in "Lunar Magic" either.

[French Desperate WindChild]

A question by the way

why / how is there a lunar magic ?

I mean, not a « irl why »,  designers do what they want, but from a gloranthan perspective, what is the power behind ?. Is it just « moon is the rune of magic, and when moon is powerful , magic is powerful » ? Something like our irl moon impacting the tides. Or is it something more complex and … interesting I have not seen ?

[Nick Brooke]

2 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

why / how is there a lunar magic ?

Because the Red Goddess has mastered strange powers - a weird combination of mysticism, sorcery and spirit magic - and can teach them to her inner circle. Nobody else on Glorantha can do this. The Lunar Way has brought many new things into being.

See the article Mistress of the Three Worlds in my free Manifesto to understand the uniqueness of the Red Goddess. We aren't making this up, she really is special and different. And the unique and powerful magic available only through her cult reflects this.

[Joerg]

I don't know anything, but it certainly looks like an attempt to turn Battle Magic into the core for sorcery. It feels like this was shelved as "too easy for sorcery" and then unshelved when the Red Goddess could use some extra magic.

For a non-Gloranthan setting with a non-chaotic moon, I made this the basis for "druidic" (in the stone circle wizard sense) magic.

[metcalph]

2 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

why / how is there a lunar magic ?

The Red Goddess said "We Are All Us' and somebody applied that to the magic they used.

[soltakss]

4 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

why / how is there a lunar magic ?

Because the Red Goddess makes up the third side of the Law Rune, with Malkion as its base, Hrestol on the side, supporting the Red Goddess on the left side. Without the Red Goddess, the Law Rune is incomplete.

Now, clearly I am no artist, but this should give you some idea of what I mean.

[Eff]

6 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

A question by the way

why / how is there a lunar magic ?

I mean, not a « irl why »,  designers do what they want, but from a gloranthan perspective, what is the power behind ?. Is it just « moon is the rune of magic, and when moon is powerful , magic is powerful » ? Something like our irl moon impacting the tides. Or is it something more complex and … interesting I have not seen ?

Well, indulging in texts from the verboten period between 1999 and 2007, for Greg Stafford at that point, magic was something you got from the Otherworld. The Lunars have their own magic because they have their own Otherworld, and they have their own Otherworld for reasons not directly articulated but which are pretty easy to pull out of the subtext- one is that the Lunars for Greg were postmodernist, and so were aware of the fact that magic is socially constructed through rituals, and so a shaman and a sorcerer aren't working with fundamentally different things. So they have an Otherworld that provides a unique magic that appears to be the other kinds of magic to outsiders at different times and with different perspectives. 

Another is that for Greg the Lunars were feminists, and so they have a separate Otherworld for the same reason that feminist retellings of mythology exist- the project of creating a new world requires a new, critical Otherworld. 

Yet another is that the Lunars for Greg were a universalist religion, believing that the Lunar Way is for everyone, and that is new to Glorantha, so Glorantha physically expands with a new part of the material world and a new Otherworld to accommodate this, and the magic that comes from that universalist place is universalizing- it can interact with other forms of particularist magic. 

Some of this thinking probably dates back to the mid-1980s, because RQ3 Lunar Magic consists of RQ3 sorcery rules being applied to RQ3 spirit magic, which you called Battle Magic when used in Glorantha, like in RQ2. That is to say, RQ3 Lunar Magic allows you to mix different types of magic together by applying procedures from one to procedures for another.

[Nozbat]

10 hours ago, Joerg said:

I don't know anything, but it certainly looks like an attempt to turn Battle Magic into the core for sorcery. It feels like this was shelved as "too easy for sorcery" and then unshelved when the Red Goddess could use some extra magic.

For a non-Gloranthan setting with a non-chaotic moon, I made this the basis for "druidic" (in the stone circle wizard sense) magic.

I like that idea Jörg

[Akhôrahil]

On 5/4/2024 at 11:37 AM, Joerg said:

I don't know anything, but it certainly looks like an attempt to turn Battle Magic into the core for sorcery.

Agree - you can see the same kinds of design features. RQG already has Boosting for MPs - this takes one more step in allowing boosting for other effects. Sufficiently advanced Spirit Magic is indistinguishable from Sorcery?

On 5/4/2024 at 11:37 AM, Joerg said:

For a non-Gloranthan setting with a non-chaotic moon, I made this the basis for "druidic" (in the stone circle wizard sense) magic.

I think this would work particularly well if you connected it to prolonged or ritual casting?

Edited May 13 by Akhôrahil

[metcalph]

In the Playtest Manuscript of the original Runequest*, there were battle magic spells such as Farreach, Manapower and Mainstay, so Lunar magic really has its roots in the original rules, rather than a revamped version of RQ3 sorcery.

*https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/glorantha/viewtopic.php?p=56161#p56161

[Garth Coriales]

Apologies if this a dumb question but does anyone know how to calculate FREE Int with Sorcery in RQG (I never really got my head round this in RQ3 either?) I suppose this is not just for Lunar sorcerors... but to me It's not 100% clear what affects FREE Int. I think I have Runes and Techniques sorted (which I don't believe affect Free INT right?)

Let me use an example so someone can explain - Sorceror has Int 18 so can master up to 7 Runes &/or Techniques.
If the Lunar Sorceror has Moonfire (*4pts) and Solace of Our Goddess (*2pts) - is that 6pts (ie then Sorceror's Free INT is 12)
OR are they only 1pt each (eg Free INT is 16) ... and if they know Countermagic III spirit magic spell on top does that reduce it by 3 or 1?
It's not clear in the example in RQG rules IMHO

"Damastol wishes to increase the intensity of his Enhance INT (Fire + Summon) spell, increasing its strength. He has an INT of 17 and 3 points of spirit magic. As a result, he can add up to 14 levels of intensity, divided among strength, range, and duration. "

This is either implying that knowing Sorcery doesn't use up Free INT (it's a 2pt spell) ... as it should either be reducing his Free INT to 12 with the 3 points of Spirit Magic (or 13 if knowing Sorcery spells only take up one point?)

Again sorry if this a basic question and I missed something around this Sorcery very Technical Question ... I was hoping I might resolve reading Irripi Ontor in the Lunar Way but am still none wiser!
 

Edited June 3 by Garth Coriales

[Scotty]

1 minute ago, Garth Coriales said:

Apologies if this a dumb question but does anyone know how to calculate FREE Int with Sorcery in RQG (I never really got my head round this in RQ3 either?) I suppose this is not just for Lunar sorcerors... but to me It's not 100% clear what affects FREE Int. I think I have Runes and Techniques sorted (which I don't believe affect Free INT right?)

Let me use an example so someone can explain - Sorceror has Int 18 so can master up to 7 Runes &/or Techniques.
If the Lunar Sorceror has Moonfire (*4pts) and Solace of Our Goddess (*2pts) - is that 6pts (ie then Sorceror's Free INT is 11)
OR are they only 1pt each (eg Free INT is 16) ... and if they know Countermagic III spirit magic spell on top does that reduce it by 3 or 1?
It's not clear in the example in RQG rules IMHO

"Damastol wishes to increase the intensity of his Enhance INT (Fire + Summon) spell, increasing its strength. He has an INT of 17 and 3 points of spirit magic. As a result, he can add up to 14 levels of intensity, divided among strength, range, and duration. "

This is either implying that knowing Sorcery doesn't use up Free INT (it's a 2pt spell) ... as it should either be reducing his Free INT to 12 with the 3 points of Spirit Magic (or 13 if knowing Sorcery spells only take up one point?)

Again sorry if this a basic question and I missed something around this Sorcery very Technical Question ... I was hoping I might resolve reading Irripi Ontor in the Lunar Way but am still none wiser!

answered in the q&a:

 

[Videopete]

On 5/4/2024 at 9:28 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

A question by the way

why / how is there a lunar magic ?

I mean, not a « irl why »,  designers do what they want, but from a gloranthan perspective, what is the power behind ?. Is it just « moon is the rune of magic, and when moon is powerful , magic is powerful » ? Something like our irl moon impacting the tides. Or is it something more complex and … interesting I have not seen ?

It's been this way since Cults of Prax

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, Videopete said:

It's been this way since Cults of Prax

Actually, it has been there since White Bear and Red Moon, the board game which established the seven day cycle of the Red Moon as a strategic element clad in mythology.

As far as I can tell there was no phasing, static moon in Greg's Glorantha prior to that game (although the planet Artia may have been named a moon, and the fallen Blue Moon already may have appeared in Fronela before the Blue Moon Plateau was discovered on the Pelorian map northeast of the Crater).

[Dan McLaughlin]

The Cyclical (Characteristic) spell. So in the glowline is it always half moon so it doesn't do anything or does it ignore the glowline or does the glowline mitigate the bad effects and you still get the full moon bonus? If you cast it on yourself can you just drop it when you don't want it any more, or can you dispel it or do you have to wait until it runs out?

[Aurelius]

With this ruling, illuminated Jakaleeli witches are an insanely powerful force in the empire. 

Shoving all their Spirit Magic into fetches and if lucky allied spirits, they can soon run around with a couple of permanently Extended spirit magic spells amplified to their free int. 

By spending 3 points of Shamanic Abilities they can live happy lives with something like +15-20 Charisma, Constitution and Strength.

But when a time comes to prepare for a fight, they can just swap the Charisma and Strength, for instance, to Bladesharp and Protection on similar levels. 

(Sure, this is powergaming, but not minmaxing. After all, nothing much needs to be minimized to get all that candy.) 

[David Scott]

15 minutes ago, Aurelius said:

With this ruling, illuminated Jakaleeli witches are an insanely powerful force in the empire.

Yes, but I think there's only a few who are this powerful with at least one based at the temple in Torang, with the others acting as advisors the Emperor, Great Sister, and one is almost certainly an Examiner. I'd also had one be a troll.

As Illuminated and Red Goddess initiates, they need to join the cult (roughly 30% chance per year) and gain the Chaos Rune. They also need to spend 100% of their time in the activities of both cults (90% Jakaleel and 10% Red Goddess).

15 minutes ago, Aurelius said:

Shoving all their Spirit Magic into fetches and if lucky allied spirits, they can soon run around with a couple of permanently Extended spirit magic spells amplified to their free int.

By spending 3 points of Shamanic Abilities they can live happy lives with something like +15-20 Charisma, Constitution and Strength.

Don't forget the cost of Spell Extension. A shaman gets one shamanic ability plus one for every round they defeat Gbaji. Most Jakaleel shaman likely start with one ability. If that's Spell Extension thats fine. Increasing it from 1 to 2 is going to costs 1 characteristic point, to 2 costs 2.

15 minutes ago, Aurelius said:

But when a time comes to prepare for a fight, they can just swap the Charisma and Strength, for instance, to Bladesharp and Protection on similar levels.

I'd suspect they do little fighting, at this level they are effectively the Empire itself and because of their links to the Lunar College of Magic are likely summoning and binding huge lunes and demons, to unleash on enemies.

15 minutes ago, Aurelius said:

(Sure, this is powergaming, but not minmaxing. After all, nothing much needs to be minimized to get all that candy.) 

It's always fun to run a game where every one is a Rune level, I've done it with troll, but a group of Seven Mothers Red Goddess initiates would be great.