Spirit Charms

[Jon Hunter]

Hi Guys I have an idea ( which someone else may have had before me) for a type of low level Gloranthan magic item, tied into spirit magic and shamans.

I call them spirit charms, it is where minor spirits are bound into breakable very mundane items ( rune carved sticks and bones, dreamcatchers, animal skulls, small medicine bags, vials of liquid) which reflect the nature of the spirit and the tradition which creates them. To use the them the owner simply breaks the item, release the spirits and manifests one use of the battle magic spell within.

These are a relatively easy to make and common form of spirit magic used by shamans as they only require common minor spirits which would not usually be relevant to game play. Spirit charms are often gifts to clan members often before war parties or raiding. 

They are work like one use powered spirit magic matrixes, so no power is required to cast the spell, but once the spirit is released the item is broken and useless forever.

• For RQ the mechanic is simple, the charms just reflect battle magic spells, variable spells of a certain level, or similar level effects. 
• In WOD Glorantha spirit charms work as powered battle magic as well, but are cast with the runes of the spirit not the character, thus all come with complete dice pools.
• I'm not as hot on HQ but low level one use words, which are quite tightly defined is how id would try to tackle it.

Has this been done before and can anybody think why this isn't very Gloranthan?

[Richard S.]

It sounds Gloranthan, but HQ already has charms, which are only useful for augments by most people unless they temporarily release the spirit (AKA they make the charm unusable for the rest of the session), in which case they can describe it as having supernatural effects. Charms are usable by anyone, and most people have picked up one or two in their lifetime. Dedicated spirit-worshippers are the only ones capable of making new charms, as they must convince a generally weak spirit to inhabit the charm.

[Mankcam]

I'm sure this was done with RQ2 and RQ3 magic items which had Spirit Magic in them.

I do remember permanent magic being stored at the cost of POW to the enchanter.

In RQ2 the items were required to have a Power Crystal crafted into them in order to contain the magic, given that crystals represented or were the blood of gods from The Gods War, and thus had natural properties that allowed crystals to hold magical energy. So a POW 4 Crystal could hold up to 4pts of magic, which would cost up to 4 POW to be transferred into the crystal by the enchanter if the magic was to be a permanent enchantment.

In RQ3 it didn't seem this was necessary in the generic rules; perhaps the POW crystal stipulation was purely a setting feature of Glorantha..

However we also had one use-items which were just item's with delayed spells cast on them (from memory). These were the everyday folk charms which were common place, and once the spell had been triggered and utilised then the item was simply a mundane item.

I ended up playing Glorantha using a mix of RQ3, BGB, and house rules ported from HW/HQ concepts etc, so I cannot remember what was canon now.

I dont think the term 'Charms' is actually anywhere in the earlier RQ rules, but it is Gloranthan as it is referred to as such in the HQ rules.

The RQ term was 'matrixs,' although characters in Glorantha would refer to them as charms, fetishes or artefacts ( I think only the God Learners would have referred to them as Matrixs).

In my mind you could have both permanent and limited-use matrixs/charms, but it has been a while since I read the RQ3 rules. I'll take at look at the earlier editions of RQ later tonight to see how it officially worked

Edited April 12, 2017 by Mankcam

[Noita]

They are fetishes in my game.

[Jon Hunter]

7 hours ago, Richard S. said:

It sounds Gloranthan, but HQ already has charms, which are only useful for augments by most people unless they temporarily release the spirit (AKA they make the charm unusable for the rest of the session), in which case they can describe it as having supernatural effects. Charms are usable by anyone, and most people have picked up one or two in their lifetime. Dedicated spirit-worshippers are the only ones capable of making new charms, as they must convince a generally weak spirit to inhabit the charm.

Cheers i'm not a HQ man so, that is useful info.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Jon Hunter

[pachristian]

Check out Cults of Prax. In the fiction linked to the cult of Daka Fal, the hero gets a use-use item that allows him to summon a a baboon ancestor, once. Very similar idea. So, yeah, I'd say your idea is both Gloranthan, and game-appropriate.

[soltakss]

We use charms as one-use Common Magic, basicaly we cast Common Magic into a charm and can use it later.