Issaries or Eurmal sorcerers?

[PaulJW]

On 6/29/2024 at 11:19 PM, Kloster said:

In RQ3, being a sorceror meant having created your first familiar.

You're right, in RQG, there is no clear definition. I understand that being a sorceror means having at least 1 sorcery rune and/or 1 sorcery technique.

At a fundamental level 'being a sorcerer' simply means knowing some sorcery.  In somewhere like Sartar and Dragon Pass the primary route to learning sorcery would mean Lhankor Mhy.  There are other sorcerers in the region - the problem is most of them would be regarded fairly negatively by Lightbringer cultures.  If you think about it you'd have Irripi Ontor (Lunars), Delecti and his followers (Necromancers and Vampires) and a few Black Horse Troop sorcerers (hardly loved by most people).  Aside from that you have a few weird Aeolians in the far south, who most Sartarites probably regard as heretics and who, in any case, are a fairly closed culture, unlikely to teach sorcery to outsiders.  And then you have the atheists of God Forgot.  All groups viewed with suspicion or downright fear by most ordinary folk living in Dragon Pass.

That said many of the people who know sorcery in the region are not Malkioni - Lhankor Mhy, Irripi Ontor, Delecti's lot, Black Horse troop (maybe they once were, but I doubt if many other Malkioni would see them as such now).  Even the Aeolians would probably be labelled as 'not real Malkioni' by most western sorcerers.

You could have an Issaries sorcerer, but probably only as a visiting foreigner, since the Manirian Trader Princes are pretty close to being precisely that (i.e. Issaries sorcerers):

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/the-manirian-road-and-the-trader-princes/

[Kloster]

4 hours ago, PaulJW said:

In somewhere like Sartar and Dragon Pass the primary route to learning sorcery would mean Lhankor Mhy. 

Agreed.

4 hours ago, PaulJW said:

There are other sorcerers in the region

Agreed.

4 hours ago, PaulJW said:

the problem is most of them would be regarded fairly negatively by Lightbringer cultures. 

I mostly don't agree.

5 hours ago, PaulJW said:

If you think about it you'd have Irripi Ontor (Lunars),

Lunars, but as far as I remember, in quite good terms with Lhankor Mhy, so with most of local sorcerers. As lunars, they will have bad relationships with lots of people south of Tarsh.

5 hours ago, PaulJW said:

Delecti and his followers (Necromancers and Vampires)

Feared by even the lunars and hates by almost everyone, agreed.

5 hours ago, PaulJW said:

Black Horse Troop sorcerers (hardly loved by most people).

On them, I don't know.

5 hours ago, PaulJW said:

Aside from that you have a few weird Aeolians in the far south, who most Sartarites probably regard as heretics and who, in any case, are a fairly closed culture, unlikely to teach sorcery to outsiders.

As far as I remember what Jeff told about them, they are the most numerous, are seen by other Orlanthis as good Orlanthis with strange magics, so not as heretics, and are a closed culture (earthly equivalents we spoke about are Druzes Hazaras and Yezidis). And as a closed culture that don't proselytize, they are, as you say, very unlikely to teach sorcery to anybody else, specially with their endogamous castes.

5 hours ago, PaulJW said:

And then you have the atheists of God Forgot. 

As inhabitants of one of the sixths, probably well seen by citizens of the Holy country, and unknown to other dragon pass region inhabitants.

5 hours ago, PaulJW said:

You could have an Issaries sorcerer, but probably only as a visiting foreigner, since the Manirian Trader Princes are pretty close to being precisely that (i.e. Issaries sorcerers):

Yes, but you also can have other Issaries that are sorcerors.

I think you forgot 3 of the groups, and perhaps the 2 largest: The dwarves, the trolls and the non troll arkati.

[French Desperate WindChild]

17 minutes ago, Kloster said:

I think you forgot 3 of the groups, and perhaps the 2 largest: The dwarves, the trolls and the non troll arkati.

As weird you may find too those who are LM sorcerers or their children who started with LM sorcery then explored other ways of sorcery. So a standard LM knows LM sorcery but a weird LM may focus on other magics

 

one century ago Yojo was sent by his family  (and his very poor clan) to the big city LM temple. He knew that all his clan spent a lot of its resources to offer him this opportunity. There he learnt how to manipulate runes and technics. Of course he learnt too the spells allowing him to discover the truth but his speciality was exploring the runes, the matrix of the world

20 years later his clan was attacked by some vicious ennemies. A lot of people died, a lot of people who paid for his studies. He came back to his clan but everything he knew was useless to protect and save what could be saved.

He saw how useless was his sorcery. But it was not sorcery the issue.. it was the spells he knew. Then Yojo decided to do new search, to explore the matrix and to teach some of the smartest young’s of the clan what he knew and discovered

Today… 3-4 generations later the clan is not powerful but life is better

behind the warriors you may find two sorcerers who improve the protection and the damage of the weapons. Other clans and brigands know they have good magic and life is peaceful

behind the farmers and the builders one sorcerer helps to stabilize their work, trench, bridge, wall, irrigation… What is impossible for other clans may be possible for the clan and life is easy.

[PaulJW]

16 hours ago, Kloster said:

Yes, but you also can have other Issaries that are sorcerors.

Except that Issaries has no sorcerous tradition.  So, from whence does your budding Issaries merchant acquire the requisite training?  That said, of course, Issaries merchants are traders, so if anyone can find a teacher willing to teach sorcery for coin, it would be an Issaries cultist.

16 hours ago, Kloster said:

I think you forgot 3 of the groups, and perhaps the 2 largest: The dwarves, the trolls and the non troll arkati.

The dwarves, however, practice a unique form of sorcery that is not really available to outsiders.  Their Maker Magic is in a category of its own in so far as it uses different techniques from the sorcery found in the core rules.

The Arkati and Arkat king troll sorcerers would be found mainly in Ralios / Halikiv rather than in the Dragon Pass / Holy Country region.  And the Kingtroll sorcerers do not teach non-trolls any sorcery.  In any case, looking at the tables in the Mythology book, the Arkat Kingtroll cult would appear to be a tiny sect, even in Halikiv (to my surprise - I had expected them to be more numerous).  They do not even warrant a mention in the cult table for the troll population of Halikiv (presumably they are bundled in with 'other').  That means that probably only around 1% or 2% of the trolls in Halikiv are actually Kingtroll cultists.  

[metcalph]

16 minutes ago, PaulJW said:

In any case, looking at the tables in the Mythology book, the Arkat Kingtroll cult would appear to be a tiny sect, even in Halikiv (to my surprise - I had expected them to be more numerous).  They do not even warrant a mention in the cult table for the troll population of Halikiv (presumably they are bundled in with 'other').  That means that probably only around 1% or 2% of the trolls in Halikiv are actually Kingtroll cultists.  

I think it more likely that the Arkati of Halikiv are subsumed within the Zorak Zoran cult.  Only a minority of Zorani in Halikiv would also worship Arkat yet they would be influential within the leadership.

[metcalph]

 

16 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

one century ago Yojo was sent by his family  (and his very poor clan) to the big city LM temple.

I think that an average clan is incapable of supporting a sorceror (as opposed to a Lhankoring) for an extended period of time.  At a tribal level, it's a different case.

I think it more likely that groups that desire the services of a sorceror would be more likely to hire one from outside rather than have a internal lineage of sorcerors.  For those types of magicians, gold is thicker than blood.

[Kloster]

3 hours ago, PaulJW said:

Except that Issaries has no sorcerous tradition.  So, from whence does your budding Issaries merchant acquire the requisite training?  That said, of course, Issaries merchants are traders, so if anyone can find a teacher willing to teach sorcery for coin, it would be an Issaries cultist.

Agreed, and not necessarily for coin. It can be for services, or rune magic (spell trading is one of the trade mark of Issaries cult).

3 hours ago, PaulJW said:

The Arkati and Arkat king troll sorcerers would be found mainly in Ralios / Halikiv rather than in the Dragon Pass / Holy Country region.  And the Kingtroll sorcerers do not teach non-trolls any sorcery.  In any case, looking at the tables in the Mythology book, the Arkat Kingtroll cult would appear to be a tiny sect, even in Halikiv (to my surprise - I had expected them to be more numerous).  They do not even warrant a mention in the cult table for the troll population of Halikiv (presumably they are bundled in with 'other').  That means that probably only around 1% or 2% of the trolls in Halikiv are actually Kingtroll cultists. 

I do count the trolls among the most numerous sorcery users, not among those that would teach to non members of their culture, but of course exceptions may (and will) exist.

3 hours ago, PaulJW said:

The dwarves, however, practice a unique form of sorcery that is not really available to outsiders.  Their Maker Magic is in a category of its own in so far as it uses different techniques from the sorcery found in the core rules.

Agreed. But, as you say, their 'unique form of sorcery' make them one of the most numerous sorcery groups just because most, if not all, dwarves will be sorcery users. This is what I meant in my post.

[French Desperate WindChild]

4 hours ago, metcalph said:

 

I think that an average clan is incapable of supporting a sorceror (as opposed to a Lhankoring) for an extended period of time.  At a tribal level, it's a different case.

I think it more likely that groups that desire the services of a sorceror would be more likely to hire one from outside rather than have a internal lineage of sorcerors.  For those types of magicians, gold is thicker than blood.

oh, I did not say they wanted a sorcerer: they sent a young potential to the "best" LM temple, because they needed, or expected, a "better" LM in few years (better because the network, because the "best diploma", etc...)

What did happen in the Temple is what the gods wanted. I m not sure that there are a lot of "sorcerors" in the way of the guy in the tower who do things that nobody understand and sometimes walks among the crowed, whi a big hat, smoking a pipe and shouting "you should not pass" 😛 . So, for me a LM " sorceror " is just a LM who knows things that other don't (because the use of the LM sorcery). For the rest it is just a LM (law and tradition keeper, advisor, etc..)

 

then, after the crisis, Yojo decided to use his sorcery knowledge in an other way than just finding the truth. Less LM, but still Orlanth

 

Edited July 15 by French Desperate WindChild

[Kloster]

I like twice, but could only click once.

Thanks, Windchild.

[Squaredeal Sten]

The OP's bottom line is that he wants to have a sorvceror amount his pregens.  Why is not explained.

OK, it's your campaign , your publication.  But any way you shoehorn this in is going to clash with the basic presentation of Sartarite Glorantha.  So make up a back story.  

As for Issaries, Issaries and his initiates in Sartar are all about trade.  Studying sorcery for years and years will interfere with business.   They are two different directions in life.

IMHO a Eurmali sorceror is not very believable.  Sorcery requires years of disciplined study, but Eurmal initiates will have trouble with even an hour of disciplined activity.  Your back story is never going to be believable.

This leaves your other choice, the LM cult.  So why not just make one more pregen character and forget shoehorning the duck in with sorcery?  If a player wants the sorceror as much as YOU want a sorceror, it's an option, not a railroad.  

Edited July 15 by Squaredeal Sten
review and edit

[PaulJW]

11 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

As for Issaries, Issaries and his initiates in Sartar are all about trade.  Studying sorcery for years and years will interfere with business.   They are two different directions in life.

Here, I see a way in which an Issaries sorcerer could work.  The Manirian Trader Princes are essentially Issaries merchants who utilise sorcery.  However, contact with them would most likely require spending time in Notchet City, since you'd be unlikely to encounter any in Sartar.

To become a truly competent sorcerer would require years of work.  However, to simply be a dabbler would not necessarily require such an investment of time.  To my mind an Issaries merchant who knows some sorcery would be a dabbler, a dabbler whose primary focus lies in the world of trade.  I could see some of the Manirian Trader Princes perhaps fitting such a bill.

11 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

IMHO a Eurmali sorceror is not very believable.  Sorcery requires years of disciplined study, but Eurmal initiates will have trouble with even an hour of disciplined activity.  Your back story is never going to be believable.

I would agree that this is more problematic.  Sorcery is scholarship heavy and by its nature you would associate it with the law rune and a high level of self discipline.  The disorderly mayhem of Eurmal would seem at odds with the sober book worm types who constitutes the typical sorcerer.  I also wonder why you would want a sorcerer-Eurmali?  What sorcery spells would they wish to learn - surely all the sorcerous illusion spells are far easier to replicate with Eurmali rune magic for one thing.

If it is possible at all, I would imagine you'd need to create some obscure fringe sect of Eurmali of your own.  I would imagine they would be very difficult to contact, certainly in Sartar.  I find it hard to imagine such a group existing anywhere in any numbers, but you might perhaps find a teacher from such a tradition operating in a very large metropolis like Notchet.

[Joerg]

Under the old (RQ3-era until HQ1-era) impression that all Malkioni practice some form of low sorcery, the assumption that Issaries-leaning Malkioni would learn sorcery was logical.

Under the new canon, the Kingdom of Logic forbids the Talar caste (whose jobs include logistics, trade, diplomacy) to practice (adept class) sorcery, and most Malkioni schools concur. (The Loskalmi explicitely don't, older Hrestoli schools tend to make exemptions only for Men-of-All.)

Non-Talar or Talar-born Man-of-All trader princes (sedentary Garzeen merchants overseeing great markets or caravanserais) might find the time to study sorcery if they have access to friendly and openhanded sorcerers. (Friendly sorcerers would include Vadeli hirelings.)

Ready-to-use fixed-parameter sorcery exists, but the only example we get is the Open Seas ritual. While not canonical, there is nothing to prevent GMs, players or Jonstown Compendium authors from creating similarly over-specialized sorcery spells for everybody (qualifying e.g. with regard to the literacy or Free INT requirements) as base double-zero magical skills for RQG. I rather wonder what spells could be designed for Issaries initiates that aren't covered by their cult spells, though.

[mfbrandi]

34 minutes ago, Joerg said:

[W]hat spells could be designed for Issaries initiates that aren’t covered by their cult spells[?]

Do they have these?

• Automate Payroll
• Avoid Tax
• Colour Map
• Optimise Trade Route

Aren’t these the sorts of problems that sorcerers would love to get their teeth into?

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, PaulJW said:

The Manirian Trader Princes are essentially Issaries merchants who utilise sorcery.

I'd put it differently. The Manirian Trader Princes are western talars whose ancestor is Issaries.

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Under the new canon, the Kingdom of Logic forbids the Talar caste (whose jobs include logistics, trade, diplomacy) to practice (adept class) sorcery, and most Malkioni schools concur.

But what the talars can do is worship their ancestors, so they can gain some Issaries magic through ancestor worship.

What they probably have is a companion sorcerer who can perform any necessary sorcery for them.

[PaulJW]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Under the new canon, the Kingdom of Logic forbids the Talar caste (whose jobs include logistics, trade, diplomacy) to practice (adept class) sorcery, and most Malkioni schools concur. (The Loskalmi explicitely don't, older Hrestoli schools tend to make exemptions only for Men-of-All.)

Although I very much see the Trader Princes as existing on the blurred edges of Malkionism.  A mish-mash of Malkionism and Issaries worship with a bit of stygian heresy thrown in for added spice.  More 'all-things-to-all-men' than 'men-of-all'.  I can see them as presenting themselves as 'good' Malkioni when in Safelster but as good, honest, Issaries merchants in Notchet City.  So the fact that some might learn a bit of sorcery despite the idealised views of 'purer' Malkioni, is not necessary a huge problem for me.  That said, I don't see them as specialist sorcerers in the manner of a properly trained zzaburi.  More dabblers, rather like a Lhankor Mhy sage who happens to know two or three sorcery spells but relies mainly on their rune magic.

 

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

I rather wonder what spells could be designed for Issaries initiates that aren't covered by their cult spells, though.

That is the bigger problem here in my view.  I'm not sure I can see many spells in the core rules that would be that pertinent to a travelling merchant.  Geomancy perhaps?  Pierce veil maybe? Preserve item?   I struggle to see others that might be of use without a bit of a stretch.  Here, you'd need to make up some new spells.  Things useful for trade, travel and communications. 

Edited July 16 by PaulJW

[Squaredeal Sten]

On 7/16/2024 at 4:42 AM, mfbrandi said:

Do they have these?

• Automate Payroll
• Avoid Tax
• Colour Map
• Optimise Trade Route

Aren’t these the sorts of problems that sorcerers would love to get their teeth into?

Long distance traders thrive on information.  I have read of a late- medieval merchant who wrote several letters a day (a real task when you are using ground ink and a quill on parchment.  Also not cheap when there is no post office and you are paying a sailor to carry it, with a reward at the other end.).  He was swapping market  information with his correspondents.  Of course if he was in Venice and his correspondent was in Britain his hottest info would still be months old.

This would appear to be something you could improve on with sorcery.  Imagine a spell or an enchanted object that would do one of these things:

A. Move a pointer up or down as a matching pointer hair or needle far away is moved up or down.  So the British correspondent is indicating olive oil prices, and the Venetian ships oil when prices peak.

B. Write on this waxed board, and the warm wax on the distant board shows matching writing.   We have a set time to do this daily, warm your wax with a lamp ahead of time.

C. Do you know how as a child you could  listen to a large seashell and hear the waves (actually white noise or the sound of your own pulse?)

Speak loudly into this enchanted  seashell, and someone distant who puts his ear to the matching enchanted  shell  hears you whispering above the usual sound of the waves.  Best used in a quiet environment.

/////

If we work through the RQG sorcery rules, we should find that  action at a great distance is enormously expensive in MPs, but this is compensated for by the minimal physical effects. It is also enormously expensive in Free INT, but it looks as though Inscription and/ or long Duration would help give a long lasting effect.

 

Edited July 20 by Squaredeal Sten
inscription? & spelling

[mfbrandi]

2 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

If we work through the RQG sorcery rules, we should find that  action at a great distance is enormously expensive in MPs

Although, if I understand it right, sending a message 100 km using sorcery costs you an extra 19 magic points (over whatever the base might be), but to do that with Mindbridge needs 100 points of the spell.

Krarsht’s methods have their drawbacks, but range and multiple message recipients are not a problem.

Mastakos needs to start working as a messenger boy, else the information revolution will be Chaos-driven, either via Krarsht’s interdimensional shortcuts or tapping.

However, if we use sorcery to create the functional equivalent of a radio, we should be able to dodge the range maths: it is not the magic that has the reach but the mundane effect you use it to create, so instead we would be looking at MP cost for wattage. 😉

[metcalph]

I do't like the idea of a sorcerous radio network.  If anything they would summon magical birds (owls, ravens, whatever Radagast comes up with) to regularly send messages back and forth.  The Middle Sea Empire has the following examples (the context is comms between Seshnela and Jrustela after the Closing)

The Last Flyer "a young messenger girl, borne aloof with wizard spells and a set of paper wings as strong as shark hide".

Calls to mind the High Sparrow.  

It does also have

Quote

 

Some wizards still practiced long distance communication, and had kept some communications open on the old channels and schedules.  In this year, the last message come through from Jrustela.  It said "damn the torpedoes".

 

 This suggests prepared messages were sent rather than spontaneous two way conversations.

[PaulJW]

On 7/17/2024 at 8:53 AM, metcalph said:

I do't like the idea of a sorcerous radio network. 

I feel it should probably not be possible to do such a thing just by casting a sorcery spell per se.  However, maybe it could be done by sorcery by means of a ritual that creates a pair of enchanted items capable of communicating over distance.  I would expect a permanent POW sacrifice should apply to create something like that.  Using them should probably require MPs to provide range and probably requires time to use (and maybe meditation rolls) - perhaps an hour long ritual to 'tune in'.

I guess my feeling is, such things should be possible with sorcery BUT only via means of lengthy rituals.  I feel uncomfortable with the idea that a sorcerer would be able to do that at the drop of a hat.

I see sorcery as like medieval magic.  But by that I mean 'real' learned medieval & renaissance magic, not d&d style pastiche medievalism.  Thus powerful spells should require rituals and a lot of time to work and you need a grimoire or spell book to be able to follow all the complex ritual instructions in the right order to get it to work.  (btw, I am assuming 'grimoires' as they existed within the old second age stuff are pretty much a junked concept ... I personally prefer to think of grimoires as grimoires - i.e. something you need as an aid and 'how to guide' when performing complex ritual magic).

Edited July 20 by PaulJW

[metcalph]

2 hours ago, PaulJW said:

  (btw, I am assuming 'grimoires' as they existed within the old second age stuff are pretty much a junked concept ... I personally prefer to think of grimoires as grimoires - i.e. something you need as an aid and 'how to guide' when performing complex ritual magic).

They also existed in HeroQuest/Hero Wars.  I think Grimoires are Illuminated/Inscribed texts so magicians can cast the spells without having to have the spell in their heads.  They can't be quickly read and doing so in combat is a good way of getting killed.