New Design - Spirit Magic

[MJ Sadique]

O_o : I just get some juicy news and Share them with you XD

 

Start of Google + news---------------------------------------------------------------

From : Topi Pitkänen in Google+/Glorantha
 

Spirit Magic in RuneQuest
The Upcoming RuneQuest

I wrote this bit based on ideas and input of Jeff Richard's workshop in The Kraken Gaming Retreat at the Schloss Neuhausen, Germany, october 2016. The Chaosium is working on a new (go fourth!) edition of RuneQuest role playing game. Jeff Richards, the Vice President and the Creative Director for Chaosium, shared some ideas the New RQ developing team has for spirit magic rules in the upcoming New RuneQuest. New RuneQuest will be built upon the solid foundation of the RuneQuest II, the classic second edition of the game, released in 1980. Many praises to the original game! The Spirit Magic rules were however one of the somewhat broken parts in the RQII rules system. Following is a draft how I might want the Spirit Combat rules to be exciting and game balanced in the future RuneQuest games.

What are Spirits

• Spirits are immaterial beings of the Spirit World.
• Spirit World is everywhere in Glorantha.
• Spirits have two statistics, power and charisma,
• (POW + CHA). Spirits do not have intellect.

Spirits in the Mundane World

• Spirit beings sometimes work their magic to reach otherworlds like Glorantha of Humans.
• Spirits that acquire SIZ+CON may be holy places or magic items.
• Spirits that include INT+STR+DEX may be active guardian beings and daimones.
• Spirit beings that acquire a mortal form with all seven attributes be Shamans !

This is the everyday way things are.
(From the point of view of human cultures in Glorantha this is all backwards. A shaman is a person that awakens his fetch, her second soul... etc)

Spirit Combat

• Every culture in Glorantha knows of spirits.
• Spirit Combat is a basic skill known everywhere.
• Spirit Combat starts at 20% untrained, and should feature every character sheet.

How spirit combat works?
- The basic act of spirit combat is showing emotion, since spirits are sensitive to CHA.
- Magic affects spirits, so showing magical power is the other effective way to fight spirits.
- Spirit defenders appear.

Spirit World Status Quo

The whole objective world of Time is alive and enlivened by spirits.

Spirit Attackers trigger responses in the relationship Spider Web of Spirit World.
Spirits Defenders appear quite naturally, without thought, when situations arise.

How quickly defender spirits appear?
- Place of Power. Rightaway! (d6 -3 to 4d6 -12 meleerounds after).
- Inside the Tradition Area. Soonish! (d6 to 4d6 melee rounds)
- Outside the Tradition Area. Cautiously. (d12 to 4d12 rounds, hours, days, years...)
- Enemy Hell. Nevermore!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------End of the Google+ post.

 

I didn't follow well the New Design Notes but Sorcery will rock for sure now and Spirit Magic get a great Lifting and has taken some of Panoramix's Magic Potion.

 

 

[Pentallion]

I'm pretty sure this is jut one person's idea of how THEY would do it, not the official version of how it's going to be done.  Perhaps MOB or Jeff can correct me if I'm wrong.

[Noita]

This is from the Kraken.

I have heard that spirit combat is a skill now.

Edited October 15, 2016 by Iskallor

[styopa]

Why not just actually post the link?

 

[MJ Sadique]

For Lazy readers (like me) XD

[Pentallion]

8 hours ago, Iskallor said:

This is from the Kraken.

I have heard that spirit combat is a skill now.

Quote

Following is a draft how I might want

That's not official spirit combat rules, that's just how Topi might want.

[RosenMcStern]

Yet Topi tends to have very creative ideas. I admit having played in HeroQuest games with his GloranthaCards as "unofficial" additional resources and they added to the experience. His variant rules are usually fun.

[Noita]

Spirit combat is a skill. Heard it from someone who played the new RQ at Kraken.

[Mugen]

I'm surprised to see Spirits have a CHA and no INT. That's very different from RuneQuest 2 and 3.

Spirit Combat as a skill makes sense.

[MJ Sadique]

• CHA is mean to be the main carac. for shamans (I think, it was already confirm by Jeff in some other post), this will represent the Aura / attraction for spirits. The more charismatic you are, the more Pokemon Spirits you can attract.
• INT is now fundamentally only useful to sorcerers for making calculations and remembering lots of formulae (sorcery spells) but Spirit magic aren't spells to learn but instead a power of your spirits so no need to have a big brain.
• POW is source for magic points but sorcerers and shamans can have extra magic points others ways. If I recall well, POW is the only carac. to know the max of Rune Points you can have.

We can guess, INT / POW / CHA will be triplet like Spirit / Divin / Sorcery are : You can be the best at one but not all. ex: The new Free INT limit Sorcery + Spirit combo.

Edited October 16, 2016 by MJ Sadique
forgot some words

[davecake]

I'm hoping the range of denizens of the spirit world will be wild and varied and far from all alike, and hopefully exhibit an array of different powers etc. Some certainly should have INT, some not, etc. 

That said, I like the idea that Spirits are more about emotion than intellect, it helps keep sorcery and shamanism distinct in flavour. I think in general most sorcerers, or certainly most Malkioni, think mixing emotion and magic is a bad idea. I've made the analogy before that most Malkioni tend to the think of getting involved with spirits much like many modern people think of getting involved with drugs - its bad for your mental health, it makes you do crazy things, in the long run it is a terrible idea, even if sometimes it seems pleasurable or useful. 

Of course, just because the Malkioni feel that way doesn't mean all sorcerers feel that way - magic that does combine sorcery and spirits might be very effective (I bet those troll Arkati don't mind a bit of that) but the Malkioni consider it demonology. 

[Runeblogger]

I talked with Topi about his theories about RQ shamanism at The Kraken 2016.
This was after attending a talk by Jeff Richard about the new RQ shamanism.  

I summed it all up in a post in my runeblog. You can read it here (after a somewhat long introduction). The only handicap is that it's written in Spanish! However, you will find a useful translation gadget on the right margin.

I also have written a report of my experience in The Kraken in three posts, full with a summary of upcoming Chaosium books and board games. Yes, it's also in Spanish, so you may need to use the translation gadget again:

 

The automatic translation is decent enough, and at times it provides funny sentences! 

 

 

Edited October 28, 2016 by Runeblogger
Specify where to find info about the new spirit magic rules

[styopa]

Nice write-up(s), thanks!

Edited October 28, 2016 by styopa

[Yelm's Light]

I can actually read that in the original Spanish, but it's a little bit easier in my native language.  I particularly like the one-page cult write-up.  Was that just a quick reference sheet for the run, or is that the form that it will take in the final game?

I'm not a huge fan of a two page character reference in general, but I guess you could print those front and back to keep it on a single sheet.

And so I wait, impatiently...  

Edited October 28, 2016 by Yelm's Light

[Runeblogger]

1 hour ago, Yelm's Light said:

I can actually read that in the original Spanish, but it's a little bit easier in my native language.

Wow, then I'd recommend reading the original Spanish. The automatic translation always makes some funny mistakes.

1 hour ago, Yelm's Light said:

I particularly like the one-page cult write-up.  Was that just a quick reference sheet for the run, or is that the form that it will take in the final game?

I'm not sure, but I'd say it was taken straight from the draft. Every player got his/her cult in a page as reference, so we all could know what runespells we had available.

1 hour ago, Yelm's Light said:

I'm not a huge fan of a two page character reference in general, but I guess you could print those front and back to keep it on a single sheet.

In fact, they were printed front and back on a single sheet. :-D

[Zit]

On 16.10.2016 at 5:13 PM, MJ Sadique said:

• CHA is mean to be the main carac. for shamans (I think, it was already confirm by Jeff in some other post), this will represent the Aura / attraction for spirits. The more charismatic you are, the more Pokemon Spirits you can attract.

I'm currently re-writing rules for shamanism for another d100 publication, and this also the way I'm seeing things. Old RQ shamanic rules were oriented towards combat only, where shamanism actualy includes different ways to interact with spirits, the most usual being negociating and exchanging with them. Just like with mundane beings.