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Newest RQ Designer Notes


Jeff

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20 hours ago, Zit said:

Isn't there a contradiction here ? Saying that "spirits reside in the natural energies" is definitely an animistic point of vue, and not a materialist or even theistic one. Are all the cultures animist in Glorantha ? In order to conciliate these differents conceptions, couldn't we understand Spirit Magic instead as "effect triggered by the mental force of the caster", which resides, as we all know :huh:, in his spirit ? Whatever are these forces, spirits or energie currents or god's will, is left to each culture.

 

 

The presence of spirits are recognized by all Gloranthans, not just those who practice shamanism. Even a Brithini atheist acknowledges that there is a magical energy that surrounds everything "living" thing (I use that term very broadly) and that there are savages who specialize in communicating with and bargaining with those senseless forces. Such magic is limited, crude, and vastly inferior to sorcery, but it is definitely there.

Now many of those spirits serve the gods, and most spirit places are also important holy places to various cults. Priests and Rune Lords have rites by which they can teach any spirit spell they know to an initiate of their cult. And so on.

I think people are making more of a rigid distinction here than actually exists. Pretty much every culture and religion in Glorantha practices some variety of spirit magic, except the most radically materialist or transcendent philosophies.

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Could the definition of 'Spirit Magic' with some cultures perhaps be interpreted as being akin to a concept of interaction with 'intuitive energy'? This may be in keeping with how the Malkioni define it, given the example above.

" there is a magical energy that surrounds everything 'living' thing"  

hmmmm George Lucas and Greg Stafford perhaps on a similar wave length here, heh heh

Edited by Mankcam

" Sure it's fun, but it is also well known that a D20 roll and an AC is no match against a hefty swing of a D100% and a D20 Hit Location Table!"

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As an aside, The Swedish RPG fanzine Mjölnir is back (after a brief hiatus of only 34 years)! And the new issue features an ad for the forthcoming Chaosium edition of RuneQuest!  (To think, the previous issue of Mjölnir goes back so far Chaosium were still producing the classic second edition of RuneQuest...)

http://mjolnirfanzine.yolasite.com

Edited by MOB
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13 hours ago, Jeff said:

The presence of spirits are recognized by all Gloranthans, not just those who practice shamanism. Even a Brithini atheist acknowledges that there is a magical energy that surrounds everything "living" thing (I use that term very broadly) and that there are savages who specialize in communicating with and bargaining with those senseless forces. Such magic is limited, crude, and vastly inferior to sorcery, but it is definitely there.

Now many of those spirits serve the gods, and most spirit places are also important holy places to various cults. Priests and Rune Lords have rites by which they can teach any spirit spell they know to an initiate of their cult. And so on.

I think people are making more of a rigid distinction here than actually exists. Pretty much every culture and religion in Glorantha practices some variety of spirit magic, except the most radically materialist or transcendent philosophies.

The RQ2 explanation was that these spells simply "...involve the forceful alteration of the fabric of reality by the use of one's POW." (Presumably meaning "temporary POW" in RQ2 terms, ie MP.  No theoretical construct or interpolation of 'spirit entities' was even hinted at that time.  

Which, I think, was what you were saying a couple of posts ago: "... An animist might understand this as "the spirits aid my sword" while the materialists might understand this as "the natural energy flows briefly favor my sword" or whatever. ..."  

At the same time, then, to say it's "Spirit Magic" and not "Basic Magic", "Common Magic" or "Hedge Magic", etc is to take a side, isn't it?  To say that it IS, in fact, little spirits doing this stuff is saying that the animists are right and the materialists are wrong.  It seems rather unGloranthan to to attribute a single magical 'culture' that their interpretation is metaphysically correct.  Frankly, I could see it having all those names DEPENDING ON WHICH CULTURE YOU'RE TALKING TO.

 

 

 

 

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The terminology used is that of the God Learners, who identified three basic approaches to magic - Rune magic (sacrificing to gain some part of a god's Runic power), Spirit Magic (use of the spirits who embody the animals, plants, places, and objects), and sorcery (manipulation of the cosmic laws to create an effect). Most human cultures have at least a vestigial acknowledgement of the spirits that reside everywhere in Glorantha - and the term has broad applicability.

 

 

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So ...might we see some "Common Sorcery" or "Basic Sorcery" rules/spells?

For the "everyman" sorts of tasks, such as mending, water-dowsing, animal-tracking, etc...  It could actually be pretty damnded cool to have both at low-level, with "house spirits" doing some sorts of "housewife" spells (such as sweeping & fire-starting), while "outside objects" (tools, clothes) had "sorcery" spells; or maybe it'd be a question of relative complexity, with more-complex tasks needing a higher INT -- if you can't summon/control/instruct a sufficiently-clever spirit, you need to use Sorcery...  or ...?

LOTS of options open up!  I think I like the way this could go...

 

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Yes, 'not believing in animism' really translates more into 'thinking animism is very unwise' rather than disbelief in its existence or power. 

In the same way Brithini 'atheists' don't disbelieve in the gods existence or power - they just disbelieve in the idea that theism is in any way a sensible practice. Logically, why would you go out of your way to interact with a much more powerful spiritual being who will certainly come to dominate your will? Similarly, they obviously believe in spirits, they just don't think interacting with them the way animists do is vaguely sensible. Getting closer to the spirit world deranges the senses, confuses the emotions. Malkioni sort of feel that animism is like the magical equivalent of recreational drug use. Shamans are like the magic equivalent of scary PCP addicts, all hopped up on spirits to the point they are strong and scary and hard to take down, but a danger to all those around them (and most of them are peddlers as well, introducing the neighbourhood kids to animism) . 

But they acknowledged that big spirits are powerful and can be used to achieve powerful magic. They just think that the appropriate way to deal with them is by careful logical domination of them, usually with the intent of removing them from your vicinity as fundamentally dangerous things. 

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  • 1 month later...
On 5/30/2016 at 7:30 PM, MOB said:

As an aside, The Swedish RPG fanzine Mjölnir is back (after a brief hiatus of only 34 years)! And the new issue features an ad for the forthcoming Chaosium edition of RuneQuest!  (To think, the previous issue of Mjölnir goes back so far Chaosium were still producing the classic second edition of RuneQuest...)

http://mjolnirfanzine.yolasite.com

Now also available in English! 

http://mjolnirfanzine.yolasite.com/resources/Mjolnir7_2016_English_ebook.pdf

I love the apologetic note from the editor, which comes straight after the ad for the new edition of RQ: "Sorry for the delay. This issue was originally due in 1983 – but a couple of things came up."

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24 minutes ago, MOB said:

I love the apologetic note from the editor, which comes straight after the ad for the new edition of RQ: "Sorry for the delay. This issue was originally due in 1983 – but a couple of things came up."

Fits in perfectly with the history of Chaosium schedules then. ;)

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Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

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27 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Fits in perfectly with the history of Chaosium schedules then. ;)

Who would have thought the 30 year gap between issues of Wyrms Footnotes would be beaten?

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