Lhankor Mhy Sorcery and Meldeks

[simonh]

Apothecary?

[Joerg]

3 hours ago, JonL said:

"Laboratory" is from the Latin "laboratorium."

Yeah, work-space. (Way too true for me...)

3 hours ago, JonL said:

If you just drag out every syllable a bit, it will sound ancient.

I'm German, and in my language I already do that.

3 hours ago, JonL said:

  If that's too mundane, "Εργαστήριο" (erevastirio) in Greek, "مختبر" (mokhtabaron) from Arabic, or مایشگاه • (âzmâyešgâh) from Persian could all be put to work.

None of these have made it into normal western European parlance, not even badly mangled (like "algorithm" derived from al'Quarismi).

I was more thinking into "magic kitchen", only without the everyday food aspect of kitchen.

(And before you complain, Ernalda has a kitchen somewhere in Dragon Pass, rather than just the hearth fire. At least according to Dragon Pass: Land of Thunder)

Apothecary is the term for pharmacy in German, so no thanks. (Although, if you take a classical Chinese apothecary with all its sympathetic targeting stuff, just maybe...)

 

Maybe something derived from the tools used in transmutation and extraction. Alembicry (basically a furrin term for still shed)?

[soltakss]

On 6/19/2018 at 11:48 AM, Ian_W said:

To Orlanthi, sorcery is something that has happened inside Time - it isn't part of any of their core myths.

Well, yes and no.

It is true that Arkat gave his Malkioni Relics to Orlanth when he joined the cult of Orlanth and that was in Time. I'd say that gave some Orlanthi the ability to learn Sorcery.

However, Lhankor Mhy was always from the West and was probably always some kind of Sorcerer, although it was never given much prominence before. RQ2 didn't have Sorcery, RQ3 basically said "Divine Magicians can't be Sorcerers", then tied itself in knots explaining those that were. Lhankor Mhy only really explicitly gained Sorcery in HeroQuest.

I haven't got a problem with it. In fact, I can think of no good reason, not a single one, why a Theist cannot learn Sorcery. Your god might frown on it and there might be cultural reasons why you don't, but no reason why you can't. A spell is a spell is a spell, it's just a different type of magic to me.

[Ian_W]

4 hours ago, soltakss said:

I haven't got a problem with it. In fact, I can think of no good reason, not a single one, why a Theist cannot learn Sorcery. Your god might frown on it and there might be cultural reasons why you don't, but no reason why you can't. A spell is a spell is a spell, it's just a different type of magic to me.

We call people like you 'God Learners'.

Edited June 22, 2018 by Ian_W

[simonh]

6 hours ago, soltakss said:

I haven't got a problem with it. In fact, I can think of no good reason, not a single one, why a Theist cannot learn Sorcery. Your god might frown on it and there might be cultural reasons why you don't, but no reason why you can't. A spell is a spell is a spell, it's just a different type of magic to me.

But then what is magic, if it isn’t a form of religious practice? For me thats a defining feature of Glorantha. The different forms of magic entail fundamentally different ways of thinking about how the world works and that implies different ideas about what is right or wrong, and different ideas about the foundations of moral authority.

How is going to a Malkioni sorcerer and learning western magic different from going to a Lunar temple and learning Seven Mother’s magic? Clearly the latter would imply initiation into a different religious practice and trigger spirits if reprisal, so why not the former?

Honestly I’m not entirely sure how to answer that satisfactorily. It does seem that it is possible to learn and use some sorcery outside a materialist or Malkioni religion. Non religiously affiliated ‘philospher’ characters in RQG can do this. But I think that’s a bit like a theist character learning Spirit Magic without being an Animist.

Clearly some types of magic are more closely tied to religious practice than others. Rune magic is very closely tied, Spirit magic and sorcery less so but there is still some connection.

Maybe the suggestions in Heroquest of how to think about the three forms of magic can help. Spirit magic is something you have, rune magic is something you are and sorcery is something you know. Having something doesn’t say a lot about who you are, what you believe or how you think, so spirit magic should be usable by anyone. Being something is pretty fundamental to your identity, beliefs and values. It’s hard to see how a character can be more than one thing at a time, so many different theist religious practices are likely to be fundamentally incompatible.

Knowing something is somewhere in between. It’s not as fundamental to identity and faith as who you are, but it’s certainly not irrelevant to it. So some sorcerous knowledge might be compatible with a theistic character’s religious practice and others not. How to manifest that in game rules though?

Edited June 23, 2018 by simonh

[Joerg]

7 hours ago, Ian_W said:

We call people like you 'God Learners'.

"We" being the fundamentalist hill-billies who fled a perfectly reasonable and prosperous administration in Kethaela for the promise of a death by dragonkind and other non-humans in the scorched lands of Dragon Pass. There are about 140,000 Orlanthi of Kethaelan descent in Dragon Pass, most of them in Old Sartar, the rest Vendref. Substract about 20,000 urban folk who have regular contact with non-devil sorcerers and another 50,000 in regular contact with those, your "we" shrinks to rather few Amish or Taliban, compared to the vast number of civilized Orlanthi in Kethaela.

Kethaela does have its rednecks, too. But they are at worst the smaller part of the majority (like the biblical literalists in the USA - influential in politics way above their proportion in the population), and at best minorities (like the Pennsylvania Dutch or the Amish).

The Pelorian-descended Orlanthi of Dragon Pass remember the Carmanian sorcerers fondly as brothers in arms against the dragons, and as the people who really showed it to those bloody Dara Happans. Their distaste for Lunar religion and sorceries has been bred out in Tarsh, and half of the roughly 60,000 non-Lunarized rebels of the Far Point have been Lunarized in the generation under Lunar occupation, learning to be more accepting of such things. The other half and the Wintertop fanatics are true Taliban (only without a holy book - only the God Learners had those).

Looking at population numbers, the typical Manirian Orlanthi lives in Esrolia and is ruled by despotic Grandmothers. The rest is evenly divided between  Lunar or Malkioni overlords. Argrath may have become overlord over Sartar, but that's a rather small population.

[Jeff]

8 hours ago, simonh said:

But then what is magic, if it isn’t a form of religious practice? For me thats a defining feature of Glorantha. The different forms of magic entail fundamentally different ways of thinking about how the world works and that implies different ideas about what is right or wrong, and different ideas about the foundations of moral authority.

How is going to a Malkioni sorcerer and learning western magic different from going to a Lunar temple and learning Seven Mother’s magic? Clearly the latter would imply initiation into a different religious practice and trigger spirits if reprisal, so why not the former?

Honestly I’m not entirely sure how to answer that satisfactorily. It does seem that it is possible to learn and use some sorcery outside a materialist or Malkioni religion. Non religiously affiliated ‘philospher’ characters in RQG can do this. But I think that’s a bit like a theist character learning Spirit Magic without being an Animist.

Clearly some types of magic are more closely tied to religious practice than others. Rune magic is very closely tied, Spirit magic and sorcery less so but there is still some connection.

Maybe the suggestions in Heroquest of how to think about the three forms of magic can help. Spirit magic is something you have, rune magic is something you are and sorcery is something you know. Having something doesn’t say a lot about who you are, what you believe or how you think, so spirit magic should be usable by anyone. Being something is pretty fundamental to your identity, beliefs and values. It’s hard to see how a character can be more than one thing at a time, so many different theist religious practices are likely to be fundamentally incompatible.

Knowing something is somewhere in between. It’s not as fundamental to identity and faith as who you are, but it’s certainly not irrelevant to it. So some sorcerous knowledge might be compatible with a theistic character’s religious practice and others not. How to manifest that in game rules though?

Some cults forbid their initiates from knowing sorcerous technique. For example Ernalda, Maran Gor, Lodril, Yelmalio, Orlanth, Humakt, and Storm Bull all forbid their initiates from learning sorcery. Other cults have no objection or even teach sorcery (such as Lhankor Mhy),

[soltakss]

13 hours ago, simonh said:

Maybe the suggestions in Heroquest of how to think about the three forms of magic can help. Spirit magic is something you have, rune magic is something you are and sorcery is something you know. Having something doesn’t say a lot about who you are, what you believe or how you think, so spirit magic should be usable by anyone. Being something is pretty fundamental to your identity, beliefs and values. It’s hard to see how a character can be more than one thing at a time, so many different theist religious practices are likely to be fundamentally incompatible.

Spirit Magic is something you have - If you can get it you have it, so this is easy for anyone to gain, assuming they have access to whoever teaches Spirit Magic.

Rune Magic is something you are - So, you can become, changing what you are. A Sorcerer could join a theistic cult and learn runemagic, if that cult accept sorcerers, or people who know sorcery.

Sorcery is something you know - So, if you can learn it then you can know it. The trick is getting someone to teach you it, not being unable to learn it.

Again, these are cultural and philospohical arguments as why people don't learn these types of magic, rather than why it should be impossible to learn them.

[simonh]

The problem comes when you are something that is impossible or contradictory according to what you know. Or you know that you are not something your religion says you are.

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, simonh said:

The problem comes when you are something that is impossible or contradictory according to what you know. Or you know that you are not something your religion says you are.

That's why they invented Illumination. 😉

[styopa]

6 hours ago, soltakss said:

Spirit Magic is something you have - If you can get it you have it, so this is easy for anyone to gain, assuming they have access to whoever teaches Spirit Magic.

Rune Magic is something you are - So, you can become, changing what you are. A Sorcerer could join a theistic cult and learn runemagic, if that cult accept sorcerers, or people who know sorcery.

Sorcery is something you know - So, if you can learn it then you can know it. The trick is getting someone to teach you it, not being unable to learn it.

Again, these are cultural and philospohical arguments as why people don't learn these types of magic, rather than why it should be impossible to learn them.

Which is why I personally have a hard time conceptualizing sorcery available to Theists at all; I see the magic you use as an embodiment of your worldview.

IIRC some probably non-canonical Western source material mentioned that Malkioni see Theists as little more than deluded people bargaining with very powerful spirits, thinking those spirits are gods when "in fact" (to a sorcerer) the universe is filled with impersonal, objective forces (and why their "god" is invisible/unreachable).  

(It's also why we played that sorcery spells were truly blind - they could hit/hurt anyone, particularly area-effect spells.  Divine spells, on the other hand, were guidable even within a confused melee: fire Orlanth's Lightning and it'll cheerfully avoid all your friends....unless one of them was perhaps sacrilegious or something, then it might tingle them a little.)

It's also why sorcery is manipulateable and theistic spells really aren't - ones more of a rational result, the other is a gift from some remote being, already wrapped up and ready.

Edited June 23, 2018 by styopa

[Tarumath]

4 hours ago, styopa said:

Which is why I personally have a hard time conceptualizing sorcery available to Theists at all; I see the magic you use as an embodiment of your worldview.

It's more a trait of most gloranthan religions than of theism, animism and sorcery IMO.

But people who use both sorcery and theism have a worldview (even if sometimes only has a subset of a larger cultural one, like Lhankor Mhy sorcerers) combining them.

Henotheists probably don't have much of a problem conceptualizing the existence of both Gods and the impersonal laws of the Invisible God. (Or equivalent)

The fluff about Lhankor Mhy tends to frame his sorcery in theistic terms : he knows the cosmic laws, wrote a great book that was stolen by Zzabur who corrupted it and created godless sorcery,etc...his cultists don't have a problem with both emulating a mythic being and studying impersonal laws and I don't think that they see much of a duality between the two.

[simonh]

If I can reference real world examples without in any way discussing their merits, but there are real world examples of religious beliefs that are serious obstacles to some forms of practical activity.

Some religious people believe it is wrong to do blood transfusions. That would make it very difficult to be practicing doctors in certain fields. Similarly some real world religious beliefs are pretty much incompatible with functioning as a palaeontologist or evolutionary biologist, yet might even go to the same church as people who have a more allegorical than literal faith don’t find any such incompatibility.

Similarly a Lankor Mhy scholar might find most sorcerous practices quite compatible with their religious beliefs, while most Orlanthi personally would not.

[soltakss]

4 hours ago, simonh said:

Some religious people believe it is wrong to do blood transfusions. That would make it very difficult to be practicing doctors in certain fields. Similarly some real world religious beliefs are pretty much incompatible with functioning as a palaeontologist or evolutionary biologist, yet might even go to the same church as people who have a more allegorical than literal faith don’t find any such incompatibility.

Sure, they are incompatible with their beliefs, but that does not stop them being able to do it.

Someone with a religious aversion to blood transfusions is not physically incapable of having a blood transfusion.

Similarly, someone in a theistic cult that bans sorcery is not incapable of learning sorcery, it is just forbidden. The fact that it is forbidden means that it must be possible, otherwise why go to the trouble of forbidding it?

[PhilHibbs]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

Someone with a religious aversion to blood transfusions is not physically incapable of having a blood transfusion.

That's because the magical laws of this world don't work that way. Glorantha's nagical laws clearly do. A Humakti's religion prevents resurrection, for example.

[styopa]

4 hours ago, soltakss said:

Sure, they are incompatible with their beliefs, but that does not stop them being able to do it.

Because our RL religions don't have the ACTUAL GODS looking over our shoulders giving us ACTUAL MAGICAL POWERS...I think your analogy sort of breaks down...I suspect that likewise Gloranthan prohibitions are rather more than guidelines as well...?

I don't believe I've ever heard of a Catholic or Islamic Spirit of Retribution, either?

[Richard S.]

1 hour ago, styopa said:

Because our RL religions don't have the ACTUAL GODS looking over our shoulders giving us ACTUAL MAGICAL POWERS...I think your analogy sort of breaks down...I suspect that likewise Gloranthan prohibitions are rather more than guidelines as well...?

I don't believe I've ever heard of a Catholic or Islamic Spirit of Retribution, either?

I think that for most Catholics and probably a lot of Protestants God himself would be the "spirit of retribution". Personally I don't believe that God directly punishes bad behavior, but that sin will naturally lead to consequences.

[simonh]

8 hours ago, soltakss said:

Sure, they are incompatible with their beliefs, but that does not stop them being able to do it.

Sure, that’s reasonable. There may be some cases where it’s just a case of can’t because won’t. There may be other cases that might trigger spirits of reprisal or revocation of priestly powers.

I could imagine there may be other cases where e.g. having a theistic allied spirit or having priestly powers of some cults might be obstacles to using certain sorcerous magic, because they change the way a character interacts with the magical environment.

Edited June 25, 2018 by simonh

[Ian_W]

9 hours ago, soltakss said:

Sure, they are incompatible with their beliefs, but that does not stop them being able to do it.

Someone with a religious aversion to blood transfusions is not physically incapable of having a blood transfusion.

Similarly, someone in a theistic cult that bans sorcery is not incapable of learning sorcery, it is just forbidden. The fact that it is forbidden means that it must be possible, otherwise why go to the trouble of forbidding it?

Given we now have mechanics for how in-tune a character is with their gods, I'd suggest this.

 

To learn Sorcery, you need to roll the better against your Rune of Law than your highest Rune score of any of Divine cult you are initiated in to that does not teach Sorcery to it's members.

So, our apprentice Philosopher is an Initiate of Orlanth, and wants to learn Sorcery.

She has Law Rune of 40% and her highest of Orlanth's runes is Movement at 75%. She therefore probably will have issues learning it, because she knows the Universe is fundamentally at flux and thats how it should be.

On the other hand, if they are the other way around, then she will probably see that the Universe does indeed work by knowable,. usable physical laws, and these laws can be systematically manipulated via magic.

[Jeff]

2 hours ago, Ian_W said:

Given we now have mechanics for how in-tune a character is with their gods, I'd suggest this.

 

To learn Sorcery, you need to roll the better against your Rune of Law than your highest Rune score of any of Divine cult you are initiated in to that does not teach Sorcery to it's members.

So, our apprentice Philosopher is an Initiate of Orlanth, and wants to learn Sorcery.

She has Law Rune of 40% and her highest of Orlanth's runes is Movement at 75%. She therefore probably will have issues learning it, because she knows the Universe is fundamentally at flux and thats how it should be.

On the other hand, if they are the other way around, then she will probably see that the Universe does indeed work by knowable,. usable physical laws, and these laws can be systematically manipulated via magic.

In RQ, humans do not have the Law Rune as part of their character sheet.

[Joerg]

43 minutes ago, Jeff said:

In RQ, humans do not have the Law Rune as part of their character sheet.

Nor Communication. How does this disadvantage prospective initiates of Issaries, Argan Argar, Lhankor Mhy etc.?

[David Scott]

3 hours ago, Ian_W said:

Given we now have mechanics for how in-tune a character is with their gods, I'd suggest this.

To learn Sorcery, you need to roll the better against your Rune of Law than your highest Rune score of any of Divine cult you are initiated in to that does not teach Sorcery to it's members.

So, our apprentice Philosopher is an Initiate of Orlanth, and wants to learn Sorcery.

She has Law Rune of 40% and her highest of Orlanth's runes is Movement at 75%. She therefore probably will have issues learning it, because she knows the Universe is fundamentally at flux and thats how it should be.

On the other hand, if they are the other way around, then she will probably see that the Universe does indeed work by knowable,. usable physical laws, and these laws can be systematically manipulated via magic.

Aside from law not being part of RQG adventurers, If they learn sorcery they are breaking cult rules and will suffer the consequences, spirit of reprisal etc. The only clear way is to be illuminated or an esvularing:

Quote

Guide page 247

The Esvularings were once atheists like the folk of God Forgot, but have embraced a unique 

henotheist variation of Malkionism called Aeolism, which holds that the Orlanthi gods are emanations of the Invisible God. They worship the Invisible God as the Supreme Creator, but heartily participate in Orlanthi rites as well.

 

[David Scott]

22 minutes ago, Joerg said:

How does this disadvantage prospective initiates of Issaries, Argan Argar, Lhankor Mhy etc.?

Why would this disadvantage them, we have their runes in the rulebook. 

[simonh]

12 hours ago, Joerg said:

Nor Communication. How does this disadvantage prospective initiates of Issaries, Argan Argar, Lhankor Mhy etc.?

No, but if you want to use a law rune rating in a rule, you will also need to come up with your own rules for assigning it a rating.

[Ian_W]

32 minutes ago, simonh said:

No, but if you want to use a law rune rating in a rule, you will also need to come up with your own rules for assigning it a rating.

Part of learning not-culturally-appropriate Sorcery - as for example something other than a mystery cult within the cult of Llankor Mhy - would be expressed in rules terms as developing that link to the rune.