Lhankor Mhy Sorcery and Meldeks

[Richard S.]

The rune of law is a power unlike those of the Elements and Forms, or even the Powers. One cannot embody the powers of Law like the barbarians do with the runes of their gods. Rather, Law is comprehended through study and the practice of sorcery, through the techniques of command, tap, summon, dismiss, combine, and seperate. The understanding of the cosmic law is formed by the understanding of these techniques and of how they influence the runes that makes up the world. Law is not something that you are or that you can have, it is something that simply is, something that you can only know.

[Hteph]

21 hours ago, Jeff said:

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

And my ad hoc houserule is: In order to use sorcery you have to substitute the Beast rune with the Law rune, this is done by Study, Conditioning and mojo-shenanigan-magic.

To me it explains why Wizards (and some Lankhor Mhy) feels so alien.

Of course Mostali ilks has the Law rune by birth  from the vat.

[simonh]

1 hour ago, Hteph said:

And my ad hoc houserule is: In order to use sorcery you have to substitute the Beast rune with the Law rune, this is done by Study, Conditioning and mojo-shenanigan-magic.

Since the man rune represents civilisation, culture and society, that doesn’t seem quite right.

Anyway shouldn’t law oppose chaos?

Edited June 26, 2018 by simonh

[Hteph]

18 minutes ago, simonh said:

Since the man rune represents civilisation, culture and society, that doesn’t seem quite right.

Anyway shouldn’t law oppose chaos?

That was the reason i would choose to substitute the Beast rune, sorcery becomes trancendence from Beast to something beyond Man, a higher organisation, a other kind of being. Just as I imagine Plat opposing the Man Rune for Aldryami and DragonNewt Rune opposing Man Rune for ... well Dragonnewts.

The Chaos part is perhaps logical, but here we have an unatural substitution, hence the problems sorcery user faces now and then.

And in my mind the RQ Chaos rune opposes everything.

[Jeff]

On 6/25/2018 at 9:55 AM, Joerg said:

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

It doesn't. 

[Tindalos]

On 6/25/2018 at 8:55 AM, Joerg said:

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

In the cases of runes not on the character sheet, their role is taken by other runes. The role of Communication is replaced by it's parent rune Harmony, with the Create Market and Spell Trading rune spells (for instance) being based on Harmony. Likewise, the powers usually associated with Orlanth's use of the Mastery rune are instead given to Air, such as Command Priests, Command Worshippers and Detect Honour being associated with the Air rune.

Lhankor Mhy has the Stasis rune, which is what he has whenever he doesn't have the Law rune.

 

[Tarumath]

Frankly adding the Law Rune for Sorcery and Spirit Rune for Shamans or whatever would be a bit on the nose and awkward.

There are probably good reasons why sorcery and animism were made that way in RQG and shoehorning these two runes wouldn't have been a good idea, a bit like the Mastery Rune and Orlanth. (Because a whole Rune for only a few rarely used spells is a bit too much and make players less likely to use them)

Issaries and Argan Argar being Movement/Darkness and Harmony is just as good.

Edited June 28, 2018 by Tarumath

[GianniVacca]

On 6/25/2018 at 9:10 AM, Jeff said:

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

I thought this was because the core RQ:G book was centred on the Dragon Pass region. Are you saying Malkioni humans do not have the Law Rune?!

[simonh]

49 minutes ago, GianniVacca said:

I thought this was because the core RQ:G book was centred on the Dragon Pass region. Are you saying Malkioni humans do not have the Law Rune?!

We don't know yet, I suppose source material on other regions might introduce more runes into the system. The questions is, to do what? It's all very well saying sorcerers should have the Law Rune and Shamans should have the Spirit Rune, but that only makes sense if you give them a meaningful job to do in the game system and I'm not seeing an obvious gap for them to fill right now.

Also let's be clear that just because a rune isn't on a character sheet, it doesn't mean your character has no connection to it. All it means is there's no specific role for that connection in the game system right now. Sorcerers might all have Law Rune 90% just by knowing sorcery, but it's just not relevant to the game mechanics so it's not on the sheet.

Edited June 29, 2018 by simonh

[Ian_W]

22 minutes ago, simonh said:

 The questions is, to do what? It's all very well saying sorcerers should have the Law Rune and Shamans should have the Spirit Rune, but that only makes sense if you give them a meaningful job to do in the game system and I'm not seeing an obvious gap for them to fill right now.

 

You mean you wouldn't let a Shaman roll against their Spirit rune for assitance on a summoning, or a Wizard role against the Law rune for assistance in a spell ?

[metcalph]

4 minutes ago, Ian_W said:

You mean you wouldn't let a Shaman roll against their Spirit rune for assitance on a summoning, or a Wizard role against the Law rune for assistance in a spell ?

From what I can see, having the Law and Spirit Runes only for those purposes renders them inferior to the other runes (ie You could use a Storm Rune for swinging a sword  or a Fire Rune to spot stuff).  You have to give them something else and there we run into problems...

[simonh]

47 minutes ago, Ian_W said:

You mean you wouldn't let a Shaman roll against their Spirit rune for assitance on a summoning, or a Wizard role against the Law rune for assistance in a spell ?

I'll counter with a question of my own. Can you name any situation where a Shaman character would not use their Spirit rune affinity to enhance their summoning ability, or similar shamanic abilities relating to the spirit world and spirits?

In general, if an ability only exists to enhance one particular other skill, or only one particular kind of activity, then it should not be a separate ability. It should be subsumed into the character's rating in that ability or set of abilities. The shaman's relationship to the spirit rune is a deeply intrinsic part of their ability to deal with the spirit world. Therefore it's already factored into their relevant abilities.

Finally, how would non-shaman characters use Sprit and Law? It seems like they'd only be there to be used by shamans and sorcerers, or they'd always be used just in very specific kinds of circumstances. They're both one-trick ponies. Law is also duplicative of runes we already have. Law is immutable - but we already have stasis. Law brings order - but we already have Harmony. Law brings Justice, but we already have the Man Rune representing culture and civilisation.

I'm entirely open to persuasion on this of course, but any new runes need to be able to do useful work for us not already done by some other part of the system.

Edited June 29, 2018 by simonh

[Joerg]

Cults based purely on Power runes have it harder already. Elemental cultists can easily have their cult rune with scores beyond 100%, whereas cults like LM, Issaries, Humakt or Chalana Arroy can have at best 100% in their cult runes, pushing the opposite rune to zero, with more extreme limitations on their behavior than elemental runes in that range. Nothing stops them from having elemental runes that high, but they don't benefit in their cults from any of that. A LM initiate wishing for intellectual inspiration as an augment may be better off to use the Fire rune than the Truth rune. As per cults of Prax, they would have looked for that in their wives rather than in themselves.

Reducing the number of runes you need to attune to isn't necessarily a bad thing. The skill list still is quite long, compared to the dozen or so abilities a HQ character would use.

[David Scott]

2 hours ago, GianniVacca said:

I thought this was because the core RQ:G book was centred on the Dragon Pass region. Are you saying Malkioni humans do not have the Law Rune?!

We have two distinct rules systems here. HeroQuest Glorantha and RuneQuest Glorantha, both use the same basic rune set, but each uses character runes a different way. For example in HQG the spirit rune represents a connection with the spirit realm and spirit magic, in RQG it represents discorporate beings. It’s likely that RQG malkioni humans don’t have the law rune and that HQG ones do. In HQG you don’t need the techniques of RQG to use sorcery, you just use the Law rune, and in RQG that situation is reversed. In RQG an adventurer gaining the Law rune is likely to use it in a very different way, perhaps as an affiliation to the spike in heroquesting or as an abstract concept in combining the different forms of magic.

It will hard not to read some concepts of the runes between rules sets.

[Ian_W]

2 hours ago, metcalph said:

From what I can see, having the Law and Spirit Runes only for those purposes renders them inferior to the other runes (ie You could use a Storm Rune for swinging a sword  or a Fire Rune to spot stuff).  You have to give them something else and there we run into problems...

Air is for action. Death is for killing. Fire is for spotting stuff. Law is for sorcery. Spirit is for dealing with spirits. Earth of for surviving. Beast is for animals. And so on.

If you're a herder, then you'll use Beast a lot more.

If you're a Wizard, ensorcelling armor for the fighters that are sent out, then you'll use Law a lot more, because cows are those things that go moo in the markets, right ?

Likewise, a Healer will use Harmony, and so on.

[simonh]

40 minutes ago, Ian_W said:

If you're a Wizard, ensorcelling armor for the fighters that are sent out, then you'll use Law a lot more, because cows are those things that go moo in the markets, right ?

Likewise, a Healer will use Harmony, and so on.

And we're back to my point on this. In what situations would you not use Law to ensorcel things? If characters are going to do the exact same augment every single time, that's just not a useful or interesting mechanic.

Yes, I do think sorcerers use their connection to the law rune when they cast sorcery spells. I think they do it all the time and it's absolutely fundamental to doing all sorcery. In fact it may not be possible to do sorcery at all without invoking the law rune. The problem is how do we make that interesting? Sorcerers doing a law rune augment every single time they use a sorcery skill just isn't interesting. Better to just assume it's subsumed it into the existing skills and mechanics.

Edited June 29, 2018 by simonh

[PhilHibbs]

6 minutes ago, simonh said:

46 minutes ago, Ian_W said:

 

 

 

47 minutes ago, Ian_W said:

Air is for action. Death is for killing. Fire is for spotting stuff. Law is for sorcery. Spirit is for dealing with spirits. Earth of for surviving. Beast is for animals. And so on.

Air is for action, Death is for killing, whether it's rune magic, spirit magic, or sorcery. You augment sorcery with the appropriate rune for the kind of spell.

[Ian_W]

21 minutes ago, simonh said:

And we're back to my point on this. In what situations would you not use Law to ensorcel things? If characters are going to do the exact same augment every single time, that's just not a useful or interesting mechanic.

Yes, I do think sorcerers use their connection to the law rune when they cast sorcery spells. I think they do it all the time and it's absolutely fundamental to doing all sorcery. In fact it may not be possible to do sorcery at all without invoking the law rune. The problem is how do we make that interesting? Sorcerers doing a law rune augment every single time they use a sorcery skill just isn't interesting. Better to just assume it's subsumed it into the existing skills and mechanics.

Under RQG rules, you get to augment once per session, ie when it's important. Page 144.

 

[Ian_W]

16 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

 

Air is for action, Death is for killing, whether it's rune magic, spirit magic, or sorcery. You augment sorcery with the appropriate rune for the kind of spell.

No.

Sorcery is about Law. Spirit Magic is about Spirit. Dragon Magic is about Beast.

There are several sorts of magic.

[David Scott]

44 minutes ago, Ian_W said:

No.

@PhilHibbs is correct under the current RQG rules, what rules set are you referring to?

Quote

Sorcery is about Law.

Under HQG yes, under RQG each spell is linked to runes, and techniques. The law rune is not needed. 

Quote

Spirit Magic is about Spirit.

Under HQG yes, under RQG the spirit rune represents discorporate beings, their form. Spirit magic can be augmented by any relevant rune. 

Quote

Dragon Magic is about Beast.

Under HQG dragon magic is linked to the dragonewt rune, in the upcoming bestiary its an effect that dragonewts use. It’s not rune based. If you have access to WF14, it’s basically the same. 

Quote

There are several sorts of magic.

Yes, please give your sources and which rules set you are referring to. 

[simonh]

1 hour ago, Ian_W said:

Under RQG rules, you get to augment once per session, ie when it's important. Page 144.

 

I understand that, but it doesn't make any difference to my argument. It's still a one trick pony augment. It's also still the Law Rune augmenting something you're doing based on the Law rune already simply by the nature of it being sorcery. I wouldn't let someone use their Air Rune affinity to augment casting a Rune spell they're casting using their Air Rune rating either on the same principle.

Quote

Sorcery is about Law. Spirit Magic is about Spirit.

 

We know that and are not disputing it, under the hood that's what's going on. We're just saying we haven't seen an interesting way to represent that at the game system level yet. Given a cool, interesting use of a Law Rune rating in the sorcery system and good way to represent that ability in the rest of the system (is it opposed by anything? How do you determine a rating?, etc) I think we'd all be on board with you.

Edited June 29, 2018 by simonh

[styopa]

4 hours ago, simonh said:

We don't know yet, I suppose source material on other regions might introduce more runes into the system. The questions is, to do what? It's all very well saying sorcerers should have the Law Rune and Shamans should have the Spirit Rune, but that only makes sense if you give them a meaningful job to do in the game system and I'm not seeing an obvious gap for them to fill right now.

Also let's be clear that just because a rune isn't on a character sheet, it doesn't mean your character has no connection to it. All it means is there's no specific role for that connection in the game system right now. Sorcerers might all have Law Rune 90% just by knowing sorcery, but it's just not relevant to the game mechanics so it's not on the sheet.

I think it's regrettable if different regions have fundamental character differences like that, as if a Malkioni from Loskalm is somehow intrinsically different than Dragon Pass Orlanthi.  Then again, it's a mythic-based world, not an empirical one.  I can certainly see it being true, and maybe even interesting gamewise.  But maybe it's the fundamental American in me that objects to irrevocable determinism in biology for people, that we're not all fundamentally the same.

[simonh]

36 minutes ago, styopa said:

I think it's regrettable if different regions have fundamental character differences like that, as if a Malkioni from Loskalm is somehow intrinsically different than Dragon Pass Orlanthi.  

I do hope that what we have now is complete and extensible enough to not need significant adaptation for human characters. However it’s not the end of the world if some new type of magic or such brings in a role for a different rune. As I’ve said before, all people have affinities with all the runes, they’re just not all represented in the game system. If we need to change that down the line it doesn’t necessarily mean these people are different in some fundamental way, it just means they have some magical technique or such that makes use of this rune connection that other people don’t know.

Also it’s possible heroquesting might introduce new ways to ‘activate’ or use connections to new runes.

Edited June 29, 2018 by simonh

[Jeff]

Mortal humans regardless of culture have the same basic rune pattern - Elemental Runes, Power Runes, Man v Beast. That's the human condition. Some other species have variations of that, but generally follow the same pattern more or less.

Mortal embodied beings don't have the Spirit Rune - that is for disembodied entities. Fetches do, if we felt the need to give them Runes (which I don't).

Same thing with the Law Rune - within RuneQuest it is not necessary to have the Law Rune (shades of midi-chlorians). Instead anyone can study sorcery, but it may not be something acceptable to your cult.

 

 

[soltakss]

On 6/24/2018 at 10:00 PM, PhilHibbs said:

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.

Does it?

I know that Humakti cannot come back as Undead, but wasn't aware that they cannot be Resurrected.