Sorcery in other magic practices

[David Scott]

Following on from the  Practicing sorcery: any material components? topic: 

I thought I'd mention one of the discoveries I had in doing the spirit magic for HeroQuest Glorantha. Spirit Magic users can learn rituals that will do things like summon a specify spirit. These are clearly different from a charm. A charm is a spirit in an object that will do a specific task for it's "owner". But a ritual is a set of knowledge based tasks that produces a particular result every time. Waha Khans can learn to summon special spirits - The Founders and Borabo Nightmare the cult spirit of retribution. Doesn't this sound like sorcery with specific limitations (must be a khan)? Theists can also learn rituals.

[Patrick]

Yes, rituals are probably where the limits are most obviously blurred.

In the old time of RQ3, skills for rituals where applicable for all systems ("worlds") of magic.

I think the HQ p161 commented elsewhere tells that it's now canon - magic systems are different approaches/ways to the same reality (which IMHO is best represented via "runes", and runes are magic-system-agnostic).

 

In fact, there is probably room for plenty of cross-overs of sorcery in other systems.

e.g. the way a Hero becomes Immortals - something attested among sorcerers (e.g. Ethilrist, Talor), theists (e.g. Hachrat, Etyries), shamans (e.g. Cragspider)... Not too knowledgeable about mystics, but probably applicable, too (Kralorelan emperors).

It would be interesting to "map out" the magical economy/ecology of Glorantha...

[Joerg]

6 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Following on from the  Practicing sorcery: any material components? topic: 

I thought I'd mention one of the discoveries I had in doing the spirit magic for HeroQuest Glorantha. Spirit Magic users can learn rituals that will do things like summon a specify spirit. These are clearly different from a charm. A charm is a spirit in an object that will do a specific task for it's "owner". But a ritual is a set of knowledge based tasks that produces a particular result every time. Waha Khans can learn to summon special spirits - The Founders and Borabo Nightmare the cult spirit of retribution. Doesn't this sound like sorcery with specific limitations (must be a khan)? Theists can also learn rituals.

Back in RQ3 rituals were presented as a common approach to magic that isn't done on the fly, by a single person.

Rituals are involved in starting a heroquest, in worship/veneration/ecstatic communion, and even in preparing a charm. Basically, in all advanced forms of magic.

Every Praxian male learns the ritual of the Peaceful Cut. It is clearly a spirit magic - a release of the spirit for rebirth - but it requires knowledge and skill. You don't just take a charm and off goes the spirit.

The sentence "sorcery is something you know" is a vast simplification. Just reading a grimoire won't activate a spell, you need to direct the energies to effect a spell, through the energetic channels and nodes that the grimoire can direct you to. You draw on that Otherworld, draw it in, let it build up around you.

In case of the specific summoning of a Founder, you draw close the spiritual realm of that founder. The specific limitation "must be a khan" sounds like a theist concern. (And no, I don't think it is a question of having the regalia in order to be able to summon - or rather invite - the Founder.) And the final element still is the personal negotiation between the Khan and the Founder to convince the Founder to join his tribe.

[Tindalos]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Every Praxian male learns the ritual of the Peaceful Cut. It is clearly a spirit magic - a release of the spirit for rebirth - but it requires knowledge and skill. You don't just take a charm and off goes the spirit.

Interestingly inn RuneQuest the Peaceful Cut functioned skill rather than a spell, and thus worked differently to other forms of magic.

HQ:G treats it as a usage of Waha's Death Rune; but I could also see it as a spell taught to all male members of the Praxian Tradition, as a basic part of the keyword, so that people who don't have the Death Rune can use it. Of course, no Praxian would view it as sorcery.

You could make similar cases for Daka Fal's Funeral Rite and Lhankor Mhy's Head Smashing Ritual as they only do one very specific thing; were taught to members of the cult (the Head Smashing Ritual even being taught to outsiders!), and functioned in a completely different way to spirit or divine magic.

[David Scott]

@Tindalos, for HQG I rewrote the Peaceful Cut so that it resembled a more traditional real world shamanic song. In this context it's a ritual (and therefore fulfils the spell criteria). It has the Death rune in front of the description as it's categorised as a charm and so needs the rune defined, It's part of the tradition so never needs to be noted separately.

Interestingly Daka Fal's Funeral Rite that you mentioned works the same way in the current version I've done - it's a shamanic song as the Peaceful cut.

[metcalph]

29 minutes ago, David Scott said:

@Tindalos, for HQG I rewrote the Peaceful Cut so that it resembled a more traditional real world shamanic song. In this context it's a ritual (and therefore fulfils the spell criteria). It has the Death rune in front of the description as it's categorised as a charm and so needs the rune defined, It's part of the tradition so never needs to be noted separately.

I think Peaceful Cut and Summon Borabo Nightmare should be best understood as ritual charms; in other words, the ritual is the charm through which the spirit can act or depart.  The spirit magician needs to observe a taboo for the ritual charm to work: Peaceful Cut - never create a ball of tails, Summon Tribal Founder - be a tribal khan, Summon Borabo Nightmare - never break a tribal taboo.

Rituals by theists are really a lower class of heroforming/feats.  Instead of being a devotee heroically expressing the feat, the worshippers painstakingly recreate the myth in order to bring about the feat.

 

[Tindalos]

6 hours ago, David Scott said:

@Tindalos, for HQG I rewrote the Peaceful Cut so that it resembled a more traditional real world shamanic song. In this context it's a ritual (and therefore fulfils the spell criteria). It has the Death rune in front of the description as it's categorised as a charm and so needs the rune defined, It's part of the tradition so never needs to be noted separately.

Interestingly Daka Fal's Funeral Rite that you mentioned works the same way in the current version I've done - it's a shamanic song as the Peaceful cut.

Ah good point, I hadn't realised it was a separate ability. I'd been assuming it was what was referred to with "His initiates are known to use the Death Rune to send the souls of herd beasts to the Afterlife." Although that did strike me as unusually restrictive, so I should have known better.