Malkioni special abilities: a suggestion

[metcalph]

This post is a suggestion of mine about how Rightness and Caste Magic will affect encounters with the Malkioni based on this article by Jeff (with usual caveats on how Chaosium remains free to do something completely different)

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/notes-on-hrestol-and-the-invisible-god/

All Malkioni have Rightness.  Most have 1 to 3 points while the leaders among them will average 10.  The amount of rightness can support caste magic.  I've based caste magic on the Shamanic Abilities (RQG p360-362) as those were based on Sandy's Shaman rules which in turn proceeded from his sorcery rules.  

WARRIOR

Weapon Affinity:  Each point in this ability adds +1 damage to the weapon.  The bonus applies only to Malkioni cultural weapons.  If the warrior uses a non-Malkioni weapon (such as a High-Llama Dagger-Ax) then the Affinity won't apply.  

Armour Affinity:  Each point in this ability adds +1 absorbance to any piece of worn armour.  Only applies to Malkioni cultural armour and does not apply to Criticals.

Shield Affinity:  Each point in this ability adds +1 absorbance to any shield.  Only applies to Malkioni style shields.

Spirit Defense:  The warrior's Spirit Combat skill is increased by +10% 

Spell Extension:  The warrior can keep one sorcery spell that has been cast upon them indefinitely per point of Spell Extension.  The spell can be dropped any time to be replaced by another.  The spell can be dispelled normally of course.

Enhance (STR/CON): Every level will increase the chosen statistic by 1 point.

Worshippers of Humakt and Ehilm (Yelmalio) can increase their Rightness by taking on additional geases.  They receive no gift from this.

SORCEROR:

Magic Attack: Each point adds +1 mp to the sorceror's effective magic point total when overcoming an opponent's magic points.

Magic Defense:  Each point adds +1 mp to the sorceror's effective magic point total when resisting an attack spell.

Soul Expansion:  Each point adds +1 to the magician's species maximum POW.

Spirit Defense: As per warrior.

<Rune> Rapport:  Each point adds +1 free intensity to any sorcery spell cast using this Rune.  Won't stack with other Rapports.

<Rune> Defense:  Each point adds +1 defensive against any magic which uses that rune.  Spirit magic spells are defended against using Spirit Rune Defense.  Can stack with other defensive magic.

Wizards can increase their Rightness by becoming White Wizards.  This involves initiation to Zrethus (Dayzatar) and taking on additional geases.  They receive no rune magic from doing so.  At a bare minimum, they must wear white robes, be tonsured and shun the material world.  Many reconcile the apparent conflict with their atheism by saying Zrethus doesn't exist.

FARMER

Tool Affinity: Each point in this ability adds +1 damage to the tool.  Only caste approripate tools may be so affected (ie scythe, hunting spear etc).

Enhance (STR/CON): As per warrior.

Spirit Defense:  As per warrior.

LORDS:

All warrior caste abilities can be chosen.  

Enhance STR/CON/DEX: as per warrior.

Riding Affinity: Each point adds +1 to movement speed.

Aura of Authority: Each point adds +10% to social skills when pitted against another to cause a change in their position or attitude.

Aura of Firmness: Each point adds +10% to social skills when defending against being asked to do something unwanted.

[Richard S.]

I like most of your ability ideas, though with the ease at which Rightness can be lost or gained it might be a headache to track all your modifiers. You did also leave out the one ability we do have confirmed for zzaburi: their ability to store MP in the spirit world (1 RIGHT = 1 MP? Or maybe 1D10 in the spirit of enchantments). I'm not sure how I feel about your idea of White Wizards being Dayzatari - I know there's been reams of conversation on the place of theism in Malkionism, but I think the zzaburi of all people should have no part in it.

Personally, I think I'm going to ditch Rightness altogether from my own west (can you ditch something that technically doesn't exist yet?). I think that giving caste restrictions having magical consequences not caused by human action goes against the Malkioni idea that humans can exist without external magical aid. Instead, I'm ruling it that most Brithini or Brithini-derived spells can only affect people who are obedient to caste law (the level of obedience can vary with the spell), and in return give significantly improved benefits over standard sorcery like we see in the core book. "Bless the Fields of Dromal", for instance, probably doesn't work on fields not being tended by the most righteous of dronars, but if it is then that field might see yields rivaling those of Esrolia.

Of course, this leads to the whole new headache of tracking exactly which caste laws the characters have kept, broken, returned to, etc...

[jajagappa]

6 hours ago, Richard S. said:

I know there's been reams of conversation on the place of theism in Malkionism, but I think the zzaburi of all people should have no part in it.

I have yet to see any indications that any zzaburi ever practices any theism or uses any theistic magic. They are the priests of the Invisible God, and the Invisible God alone.

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I have yet to see any indications that any zzaburi ever practices any theism or uses any theistic magic. They are the priests of the Invisible God, and the Invisible God alone.

Sorcerer-Men-of-All like Aamor (a prince from western Safelster, the pupil in the Xeotam dialogues and unsung hero of the re-discovery of lost Brithos, listed as active in Fornoar in the Guide 1621) might, although I see mainly Daka Fal magics used by them.

[metcalph]

I agree that the White Wizards practice no theism - they are in a similar position to the Dwarves who gain no magic from Mostal despite it being available to other people (Caladra and Aurelion - Diamond Edge CoR: the Earth Goddesses p64).  Zrethus is not a foreign god to the Malkioni but one of the Erasanchula like Humct or Ehilm.  Dedicating themselves to him would not be alien to their mythology IMO.  That the God Learners discovered another side to him might have led to interesting tensions between them and the White Wizards. 

If you still don't like the idea that's fine.

That said, I see that Zrethus has been promoted.  He was originally identified as Dayzatar (Weapons and Equipment p13) but has now been upgraded to Aether (CoR: Prosopedia p142).  So... oops.  Might have to call him Enroval instead.

[PaulJW]

To my mind, I think Malkioni sorcerers should primarily rely upon sorcery.  They operate in a different philosophical world to the theists who use rune magic so, for me, I would like to see them developed as rounded philosophies and sorcerous magic systems that operate independently of either deism & rune or shamanism & spirit magic.  They do, after all, view the world and reality very differently from the theists and animists.

As too the castes, I can see adding in technical rules for 'rightness' would probably get a thumbs down from my players.  Besides, fleshing out a viable caste system based society will be a big ask and what we end up with as canon I can see may well be quite different from the various notes and musings people like Greg and Jeff have written in the past.  So I can see ''Chaosium remains free to do something completely different'  being a very real possibility in this case.

For one thing, if you look at a real world caste system (India) - things get very fuzzy in practice.  However neatly you feel you define caste, there are always people who don't fit within the boundaries.

Consider a bronze age farmer.  Bronze age farmers were often called up as levies in armies.  Would that be acceptable within the framework of their caste?  In medieval India where you do have a warrior caste, it is a fact that Vaishyas and Shudras also became soldiers (these castes were farmers and merchants) in times of war.  The difference was only that the warrior caste never sullied their hands with farming or trade but not the other way around.  An Indian merchant was primarily a merchant but became a soldier when needs must.  That was how a medieval/ancient caste system worked in practice.  Even farmers who do not fight at all, need to know how to use weapons.  If you keep sheep or goats - how do you keep them safe from wolves?  You need to know how to use a sling, and a maybe a spear or a club.  You also need to use a dagger from time to time.  So farmers must have weapons and they must know how to use them.  They may not use them in war - but they do use them to protect their livestock and themselves vs wild animals and (in reality) against bandits and raiders.  An ancient society in which that does not happen at all would probably be non-viable.

And what about all the people who are not farmers, lords, sorcerers or warriors?  What does 'rightness' mean for them?  What about a merchant?  Or a carpenter, leatherworker, a smith, a mason or other craftsmen?  How about healers?  What does rightness mean for them?  That's where I can see a points based rightness system running into a lot of complications.  

I am not saying that I can see Chaosium junking the castes altogether by any means - but I can see them doing a lot of work on fleshing out the details of how the different castes work in practice and how castes inter-relate before we get to a final canon version.

 

[radmonger]

2 hours ago, PaulJW said:

Consider a bronze age farmer.  Bronze age farmers were often called up as levies in armies.  Would that be acceptable within the framework of their caste?

I'm not sure that was universally true. For example you can find this military historian talking about how Gauls and Iberian Celts only transitioned into having mass armies under pressure from Rome and/or when iron weapons become cheap to make.

Quote

But as we get into the fourth and third centuries in Celtiberia, these smaller aristocratic burial groups are supplemented (and in many cases, replaced) by much larger cemeteries with a lot more and a lot simpler burials, which nevertheless often contain weapons.

There is a lot of story potential in the idea that farmers trained as soldiers do become bad farmers, because doing so is a violation of caste rules. So come the _next_ war, you'll be worse of because you can't keep feeding a mass army. Nevertheless only the Brithini on their isolated island would claim to have never needed to do so at some point or another. 

Note that Sartarite Orlanthi are bad farmers by this standard; less than half of the population knows Bless Crops or other useful agricultural magic, despite 90% of people doing that for a living. This is of course why they can find it hard to meet Lunar taxes, which are sometimes set on the expectation of more productive Lodrilli peasantry.

 

[metcalph]

The Lunars, among others, manage fine without levies of bronze age farmers so I doubt that the Malkioni would do so - they are not feudal europeans.  

That said, there is some scope for replacing military losses from the commoners without caste crime.  The ideal is the one lives and dies within one's caste.  What happens if someone becomes legally dead?  What the Seshnegi could do is take commoners who have been condemned for some crime or another, enter "death recorded" for the files, coerce them into joining Humakt and viola, new troops!

 

[Kloster]

7 hours ago, metcalph said:

What the Seshnegi could do is take commoners who have been condemned for some crime or another, enter "death recorded" for the files, coerce them into joining Humakt and viola, new troops!

Remo Williams, nous voila. Nice idea.