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THE SORCERY RULES YOU NEED TO REMEMBER FOR RQ:RiG !


Darius West

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4 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Tatius was a good ritual and research magician, well steeped in Imperial Lunar intrigue, so chaotic that he almost made his own glowspoit, and a lousy general whose only virtue was to maximize casualties of his own troops. For ritual purposes, mind you, but that's his track record.

If you were a soldier, you preferred to march for Fazzur, who conserved his troop strength for the next phase of his campaign, rather than for Tatius who might decide at any time that you and your unit would make the next ritual suicide attack.

Heh. He obviously didn't have Logician, or grok that it could be used with Battle. Or maybe he just got precisely the effects he wanted out of his field encounters... Them rituals have structure donchaknow? It's hard to get that sort of glyph drawn in dead bodies on a battlefield...

:)

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On 12/12/2018 at 8:18 PM, Darius West said:

To clarify what I meant, IF you are capable of understanding a sorcery spell written in another language (and that's a big IF), then you have already translated it into your own language.  Think about it.  This is the way humans think.  For example if know enough Spanish to decipher a spell from the Picatrix (a famous Spanish grimoire), in my head I won't be thinking in Spanish, as it isn't my first language, and nor will I cast it in Spanish if I have properly understood it.  I will take notes on it in English, write my queries in English, and ultimately cast it in English.  Why?  Because I handle more complex concepts in my first language.  Seriously, the sorcery rules are punitive enough.

In practice, I don't think it really matters unless you are the sort of magician who is really intent on stealing the secrets of other traditions, so it is a minor point. Malkioni, for example, will all work with written Western and regard all other sorcerous documents as somewhat suspect. Lhankor Mhy sorcerers will mostly work only with Torvalds Fragments, presumably written in their native language. 

And you could always decide that the Lhankor Mhy 'Alien Combination Machine' magically all converts it to the language of the Lhankor Mhy if you want. Or otherwise having rules for translating spells (something like the creating new spells rule, but given it is a translation it will be easier). That way its just a minor speed bump for most sorcerers. 

But it is very common for the real world esoteric traditions that we tend to look to for inspiration around sorcery to play complex language games. Geomatria/numerology, anagrams, sorcerous diagrams and symbols often include linguistic elements incorporated, etc. And to emphasise the importance of linguistic elements (some a great deal - John Dee's magic system is so related to the angelic language its usually referred to as Enochian). But then, it is not uncommon for magicians to rote learn some aspects of magic. I don't know whether the continued use of the Hebrew alphabet in most syncretic Western esoteric traditions, despite the majority being unable to speak Hebrew, counts for or against my point really - certainly I think that the Western script details are probably deeply embedded in Malkioni traditions and sorcery that originally derives from Malkioni tradition. 

The Picatrix is an odd choice to pick - it has itself been translated at least 4 times - The Spanish translation I think comes via Arabic and Latin versions, and much of the content is probably originally hellenistic. And I'm certainly not claiming that sorcery can't be translated, but just that it is probably translated book/system at a time, that the literacy requirement is about your ability to read and comprehend details of the source, not your ability to make notes about it afterwards. 

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18 hours ago, womble said:

In my noodling about with a Sorcerer NPC, Enhance INT isn't too much of an issue.

My real objection to it isn't so much the imbalance, but its association with Fire. If learning the Fire Rune significantly Enhances your ability as a sorcerer, then we'd have a strong historical association between sorcery and Fire somewhere along the line, but it's almost conspicuously missing in at least in Western/Malkioni history (where we know about the Water magic of the Debaldans/Waertagi, the Darkness magic of the Stygians, the Air magics of the Orgethites/Chariot of Lightning, Earth Magic of the First Age Henotheist Seshnelans, you don't get Fire rune  magic even really mentioned until you get to the Carmanians) and modern Loskalmi tending away from Elemental magic entirely. I've never heard anything that makes me thinks the Brithini regarded Fire as being any more valuable than any other element, for example. 

It seems to be a case where we have what should be a big historical issue in Glorantha but is otherwise unknown proceeding from a minor rules quirk, which implies to me the rules quirk is a bug. The RQG rules I think overemphasise the importance of the elemental associations with attributes (attributes themselves being a rules convention not a fundamental aspect of Glorantha). This is fun and flavoursome for PC creation etc, but when it starts to tell you things about Glorantha it is the tail wagging the dog. 

So, if I decide that Enhance INT enhances INT for casting purposes, it will be because I've decided non-Elemental versions of the spell are freely available in at least Malkioni grimoires. 

(the Lhankor Mhy and Carmanian versions of the spell can stick with the Fire association due to the Mistress of the Light of Knowledge and Idovanus, respectively) 

Insane alternative theory: OR it could be that the association between Intellect and Fire isn't noted in Malkioni etc myth because the NATURE OF INTELLECT ITSELF changed after the Sun Stop to associate it with Fire. And it just took a few centuries for people to really catch on. Still, you'd think the God Learners would be much more into Fire magic if that was the case. 

 

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On 12/12/2018 at 3:43 AM, Jeff said:

Spirit magic is intellectually incompatible with the rigorous logic of sorcery. If you want to rock at being a sorcerer, don't rely on petty little spirit charms.

The Irony here is that actually, to rock at being a sorcerer, you almost certainly heavily rely on spirits. Bound spirits are the best way to get the large reserves of magic points you need (far superior in practice to magic point enchantments which require refilling). And almost the only way you can do anything with sorcery that takes effect in a single melee round and lets you respond directly to threats to your person is to have bound spirits or elementals ready to go. 

So I understand the intent of the rule, but I think it does so clumsily. 

I appreciate that the sorcery system we have not is seriously incomplete. There are the bonuses and restrictions, plus the chain of veneration, for Malkioni, which will significantly change the practical use of sorcery for the majority of sorcerers in Glorantha. We don't need to find a way to discourage spirit magic for Malkioni - it can be one of those restrictions. I'm not sure we really need to discourage it too much though - it would be truly embarrasing if the rules end up with some horali better at practical magic than zzaburi, and it sounds as if they'll already go some way in that direction (eg practical healing magic, which needs to be fast).

We don't need to discourage spirit magic for Arkati and other weird cases like Irripi Ontor (whose magic already doesn't seem bound by 'rigorous logic', given its association with Madness). And I always figured Illuminates can really get in there and practice competing forms of magic, not just opposing cults, if they wish. 

And for Henotheists like Lhankor Mhy and Aeolians, denying spirit charms as illogical would be akin to saying their own gods practical day to day magic is illogical, which doesn't really seem compatible with worship and adoration. Not to mention that whole 'becoming a sorcerer makes you, in practical terms, actively worse at using magic' thing. 

And of course, the end result will not be that sorcerers do not use spirit magic. The ability to use some magic that is castable in a short time frame is too valuable, especially for characters who have already specialised in magic and probably have huge MP reserves. The end result is sorcerers will acquire matrices, and so an effective sorcerer PC is probably one who has put some real resources into getting some spirit magic - which sorcerer PC isn't going to jump at the chance to acquire a Befuddle matrix! 

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On 12/12/2018 at 6:19 PM, Jeff said:

If you are a *real* sorcerer, residing in an ivory tower and spending your days meditating on the cosmic laws of the universe and reading texts, why on earth are you concerned about access to quick healing?

Ask a Loskalmi Man of All. Or a sorcerer in a combat order, for that matter, who despite their largely support role are still going to want to patch people up. 

I get that in general sorcerers are more like professional philosophers than D&D combat artillery, but that doesn't mean they are all non-combatant ivory tower dwellers either. We still need to make them effective as professional magicians (as they are), and even somewhat as combatants who come to sorcery relatively late in life (or Loskalm just doesn't make sense). 

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54 minutes ago, davecake said:

The Irony here is that actually, to rock at being a sorcerer, you almost certainly heavily rely on spirits. Bound spirits are the best way to get the large reserves of magic points you need (far superior in practice to magic point enchantments which require refilling). And almost the only way you can do anything with sorcery that takes effect in a single melee round and lets you respond directly to threats to your person is to have bound spirits or elementals ready to go. 

Why do sorcerer have to blast off spells quickly and often? Being a sorcerer probably means swings and roundabouts. Great spells but limited in how quickly and in how many spells you can get off within a certain period of time, even with using magic point enchantments. Does this slow and infrequent casting of spells not reflect how it works in Glorantha? 

It is OK to use spirits if you're a RQG munchkin player, but I would imagine in Glorantha there are restrictions on sorcerers that limits this. Just like being to be the most effective warrior probably means using Mostali weaponry, if it wasn't for the in-world difficulties doing this. 

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37 minutes ago, davecake said:

 

My real objection to it isn't so much the imbalance, but its association with Fire. If learning the Fire Rune significantly Enhances your ability as a sorcerer, then we'd have a strong historical association between sorcery and Fire somewhere along the line, but it's almost conspicuously missing in at least in Western/Malkioni history (where we know about the Water magic of the Debaldans/Waertagi, the Darkness magic of the Stygians, the Air magics of the Orgethites/Chariot of Lightning, Earth Magic of the First Age Henotheist Seshnelans, you don't get Fire rune  magic even really mentioned until you get to the Carmanians) and modern Loskalmi tending away from Elemental magic entirely. I've never heard anything that makes me thinks the Brithini regarded Fire as being any more valuable than any other element, for example. 

I second the problem that sorcery is fire-dependent in its stats. You would want Fire as your highest  rune to get those extra two points of manipulation (or, with mediocre stats, just enough to be able to be taught any sorcery). Enhance INT basically is a spell to get a few extra points of manipulation into the spell you are preparing.

The obvious solution for a Lhankor Mhy sorcerer is to have a fire-sorcerer spouse to cast Enhance INT on them - mythically appropriate, isn't it? Sorcerers work best in that kind of support structure. A student trained to do so might be another way to outsource this preparatory activity.

 

37 minutes ago, davecake said:

It seems to be a case where we have what should be a big historical issue in Glorantha but is otherwise unknown proceeding from a minor rules quirk, which implies to me the rules quirk is a bug. The RQG rules I think overemphasise the importance of the elemental associations with attributes (attributes themselves being a rules convention not a fundamental aspect of Glorantha). This is fun and flavoursome for PC creation etc, but when it starts to tell you things about Glorantha it is the tail wagging the dog. 

So, if I decide that Enhance INT enhances INT for casting purposes, it will be because I've decided non-Elemental versions of the spell are freely available in at least Malkioni grimoires. 

That''s not that much of a problem, except for the casting cost, if you have Fire as an implied rune (Water or Earth). Fortunately the MP-doubling dpesn't require any Free INT-doubling. Debaldans and Waertagi at least are covered. Those irrational storm magicians aren't that close to the Brithini anyway.

 

37 minutes ago, davecake said:

Insane alternative theory: OR it could be that the association between Intellect and Fire isn't noted in Malkioni etc myth because the NATURE OF INTELLECT ITSELF changed after the Sun Stop to associate it with Fire. And it just took a few centuries for people to really catch on. Still, you'd think the God Learners would be much more into Fire magic if that was the case. 

They had the Battle of Tanian's Vicory, then magic to explore Umaliath, the Slontans had those fire-spewing turtle ships...

Their God-Learning probably went after deities that were victorious in their feats, leading to less mythic exploration of the sky deities and a stronger focus on Sea and Storm.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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1 hour ago, jongjom said:

Why do sorcerer have to blast off spells quickly and often? 

It is true that not all sorcerers ‘rock’, some are going to be slow acting mediocrities unable to respond easily to any unanticipated situation, and unable to perform significant magical acts without assistance. Which in no way invalidates my point. The sorcerers that rock are the ones that have understood, anticipated, and overcome their limitations. Just like the best shamans will have plenty of ability to deal with problems outside the spirit plane, and the best theists will be prepared for problems outside their runic focus (such as taking advantage of their associated cults). Top sorcerers will have a tidy pack of bound spirits ready to go, because it’s one of the best ways to prepare for magical challenges.

1 hour ago, jongjom said:

It is OK to use spirits if you're a RQG munchkin player, but I would imagine in Glorantha there are restrictions on sorcerers that limits this.

I think you would imagine incorrectly! The sorcerers, for example, may be literally the only culture that has a myth about the origin of Binding Enchantments (Vadel learnt it from the Mostali, and passed the knowledge to Zzabur who improved it), so having a bunch of spirits in Binding Enchantments seems very appropriate for sorcerers. 

Defeating powerful beings from other other worlds and having them as servants is central to many Western myths. And there are schools of sorcery that specialise in defeating spirits (notably the Furlandan, popular in Loskalm since at least the Dawn, but widely known elsewhere). And multiple examples eg in the Guide, of sorcerers who have bound powerful spirits.

What (orthodox Malkioni, at least) sorcerers disapprove of is allying with, serving, or making pacts with spirits. They think becoming part of a spirit cult is essentially demonology. They think entering the Spirit World is to journey into an  irrational, intrinsically deranging, world of emotion. They think shamanism is something like voluntary psychosis, only with added magic powers to spread the madness. 

But summoning a spirit into your world, defeating and capturing it with sorcery, and keeping it around as your helpful servant? Entirely sensible and rational, and demonstrates the superiority of sorcery. And noting, of course, that even the very limited subset of sorcery spells in RQG includes a full set of spells for doing this. 

There is probably a bit of a side issue of terminology here - in the Hero Wars era we used to disguise between spirits, minor gods, and essences, as being creatures of natural, divine or sorcerous nature. In current RQG (and HQG) the term spirit still admits some cultural ambiguity (the full explanation is on page 132-133) but includes what would have been called essences or minor gods then. They are all called spirits now and the rules don’t really distuish, or even when they do somewhat distinguish do so with adjectives (eg cult spirit, allied spirit). And the ideas about cosmology that made it necessary to distinguish are considered outdated for the most part. If anyone (remaining students of God Learner theory?) still uses those terms, I would think it would refer to the origins of things - with spirits coming in to existence through natural processes, minor gods being created by divine power, and essences given full separate existence by magical acts of mortals, usually by the sorcery that first summons them (or combines certain energy with certain symbols to create a theoretically new thing). The only game significance in RQG of this distinction is that the Malkioni (and perhaps other sorcerous sects) are likely to have somewhat different rules for dealing with Essences on philosophical grounds. 

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3 hours ago, davecake said:

My real objection to it isn't so much the imbalance, but its association with Fire. If learning the Fire Rune significantly Enhances your ability as a sorcerer...

You don't have to learn the Fire Rune to cast Enhance INT. You can do it with Earth or Water; you just have to have a bigger pot of MP to sup from. And I'll say again, I don't think it really does 'significantly' enhance your ability. It's "nice to have" rather than "essential". It's a toss-up whether the POW you put into the Inscription for it (and therefore, effectively, into all your spells at lesser effect) is more efficient than feeding the Inscriptions for specific spells. If you're a specialist, it's 'more efficient' just to push more POW into one or two burgeoning Inscriptions. You've  possibly also got the cost of learning a different Elemental Rune you didn't want to (if you're a Dark or Air specialist), and the restrictions on how many Runes and Techniques you can learn make that an opportunity cost which is more difficult to judge.

In the end, a Sorceror can achieve just as much for the same POW investment without Enhance INT as with, unless they're very generalist. And once they start sorting their MP supply issues, Water and Earth Sorcerors (or those who've one of those Runes as a sideline) can use it just as well as Fire.

Consider: there are plenty of Dispel-rather-than-Summon casters, and that doesn't crimp their style either.

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25 minutes ago, davecake said:

What (orthodox Malkioni, at least) sorcerers disapprove of is allying with, serving, or making pacts with spirits.

Depends on how you define Malkioni orthodoxy. Pacts with spirits are pretty much the norm for Rokari Horali.

The ancient Malkioni made pacts with spirits and goddesses, too, e.g. married them to sire the various tribes. At the Dawn, the Brithini were willing to make deals with the land goddesses of both Brithos and Seshnela.

Approaching spirits and other supernaturals as anything but superior entities probably is in keeping with sorcerous traditions.

 

I found that there are various approaches for optimizing a sorcerer. You can create a few tricks monster spending the minimum amount of MP by having the exactly right runes for their spells. You can try and create a sorcerer who can learn almost any spell he wants with just one technique (Command or Tap), two elements. up to four powers and just enough forms to be able to target whatever he expects to encounter, but paying multiples of the spell cost. Such a sorcerer could create all manner of phantoms, for instance.

If your sorcerer comes from a school that allows some limited form of Tapping, magic points are not much of a problem - you tap them, and then you use them up before they dissipate. There is no upper limit other than the time limit to how many MP you can have from Tapping, and you needn't bother with binding spirits. You can store the tapped MP in crystals or enchantments if you don't have any immediate use for them. (In Wheel of Time terms this sort of Tapping was called "grasping the Source".)

The verdict still is open whether tapping huge localities or elements like the storm or a river does permanent damage to that entity or whether the amounts lost there are re-created in a sustainable way. The sorcerers of the brass citadel in Sog City tap the hell out of the volcano god they are plugging with their settlement, and no significant loss in heat intensity has been observed in their lifetimes.

What can a sorcerer do with ley lines? Can sorcerers tap the Dragonewt roads? The description of people drawing magic from them does suggest such a mechanism, maybe even without any Tap spell.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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As an added question on Enhance INT, do you think that a sorceror with an Enhance INT spell active for more than one season (cast by himself or not, it doesn't matter) can use the extra INT point(s) to learn a new rune or technique? If yes, it greatly enhance the usefulness of the spell, because it is clearly written that a rune or technique that has been learnt CAN NOT BE FORGOTTEN, and would thus not disappear ant the end of the spell. If not, it greatly limits the power of the spell.

Kloster

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23 minutes ago, Kloster said:

As an added question on Enhance INT, do you think that a sorceror with an Enhance INT spell active for more than one season (cast by himself or not, it doesn't matter) can use the extra INT point(s) to learn a new rune or technique? If yes, it greatly enhance the usefulness of the spell, because it is clearly written that a rune or technique that has been learnt CAN NOT BE FORGOTTEN, and would thus not disappear ant the end of the spell. If not, it greatly limits the power of the spell.

Kloster

As soon as the duration ends, the extra rune/technique will still reduce the amount of Free INT available. The RQG rules allow 9 points of manipulation once you have learned your INT limit (INT above 9). If you overextend yourself using Enhance INT, that drops to 8 or less, before you deduct Free INT for known (and memorized) spells.

Basically, this is a way for a sorcerer to cripple his manipulation limit for good, so why forbid it?

The sorcerer can still use inscribed magic to have some manipulation available. Welcome to the POW dump.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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On the subject of Enhance INT, I don't think arguments that the Malkioni don't have a strong association of fire magics to be compelling.  For starters, the spells in the rulebook are spells known in Dragon Pass and most of the sorcerors etc there are Lhankorings (whose God loved the Light of Knowledge) and Pelorians (with strong fire associations) with the God Forgottens being a distant third.  So Enhance INT could be a spell common in Dragon Pass and neighbouring lands but not in more sophisticated sorcerorous countries.

I'm also of the opinion that there should be more than one way for a sorcerer to be powerful (i.e. Enhance INT should not be an essential part of a gloranthan sorceror's repertoire).  So I think it would be more productive to speculate on how the Rokari, Safelstrans, Zzaburi and Hrestoli might enhance their sorcery without resorting to Enhance INT.

A good starting point for the Rokari and the Zzaburi would be the Law Rune.  They might use that knowledge to inscribe points in their other rune knowledges so they have a permanent bonus on their chosen magics without having to waste fancy magic points on Enhance INT everytime they want to cast a big spell.  For the Hrestoli, I imagine the Magic Rune is used instead (to reflect their focus on Hensosis with the Invisible God) which behaves similarly.  I think the God Forgottens use the Eye that Pierces the Veil although I see in the RQG rules there's already a spell called Pierce Veil which might be confusing (and also it's not psychedelic enough).

Because the Safelstrans are so big on darkness associated Arkat, I doubt they would use Enhance INT.  They would use a spell based on the Darkness Rune which being associated with SIZ increases the size of their spells.  

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Joerg said:

As soon as the duration ends, the extra rune/technique will still reduce the amount of Free INT available. The RQG rules allow 9 points of manipulation once you have learned your INT limit (INT above 9). If you overextend yourself using Enhance INT, that drops to 8 or less, before you deduct Free INT for known (and memorized) spells.

Basically, this is a way for a sorcerer to cripple his manipulation limit for good, so why forbid it?

The sorcerer can still use inscribed magic to have some manipulation available. Welcome to the POW dump.

I don't understand what you mean. I read p 384 that you can learn an extra rune or technique for each point of INT above 13. I thus understannd that a 18 INT sorceror can have 7 runes + techniques, and that does not touch his free INT. My question is having hist INT boosted to, let's say, 20 through the use of Enhance INT for a duration of more than one full season, can he learn 1 (in this case2) extra rune or technique because his INT is now 20? As runes and techniques can not be unlearned, he would keep it at the end of the spell, but the free INT is untouched.

Kloster

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13 hours ago, Lord High Munchkin said:

On a related Sorcery topic:

In Sandy's Sorcery rues, how is "Presence" initially determined? I can't find that bit.

There are two basic vows - The High Vow gives a basic amount of Presence, INT+POW-20 or a minimum of 1. The Vessel gives your Free INT as Presence. So a decent stat sorcerer can start with around 25-30 Presence just from those.

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On 12/12/2018 at 6:29 PM, Darius West said:

The Second Age.

The God Learners weren't running around with super-sorcerers blasting their foes in hand-to-hand combat. Their claim to fame was understanding how Gloranthan mythology fits together and taking advantage of that road map to make new and innovative connections in the Gods World. 

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6 hours ago, davecake said:

 

My real objection to it isn't so much the imbalance, but its association with Fire. If learning the Fire Rune significantly Enhances your ability as a sorcerer, then we'd have a strong historical association between sorcery and Fire somewhere along the line, but it's almost conspicuously missing in at least in Western/Malkioni history (where we know about the Water magic of the Debaldans/Waertagi, the Darkness magic of the Stygians, the Air magics of the Orgethites/Chariot of Lightning, Earth Magic of the First Age Henotheist Seshnelans, you don't get Fire rune  magic even really mentioned until you get to the Carmanians) and modern Loskalmi tending away from Elemental magic entirely. I've never heard anything that makes me thinks the Brithini regarded Fire as being any more valuable than any other element, for example. 

As an aside, the Fire Rune means Fire/Sky, - which includes celestial studies, purity, and intellect. It makes absolute sense to me that sorcerers would seek to attune their mind to the aetherial heights and let their intellect soar into the pure sky. The Sky is the element of thought after all. Any wizard who wishes to expand their mind should study the Sky.

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4 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

And to say that the inevitable consequence of that would be a historical record full of sorcerers throwing around fireballs is not the only possible conclusion.

Of course not. The historical record is full of sorcerers contemplating the skies, looting Kralorelan celestialogical records, and identifying Ehilm/Idovanus with Keter/the Supreme Light of Consciousness/Pleroma/whatever. Angels of Light communicating secrets with wizards, or wizards levitating their intellect into the Aetherial realm. 

Only the silliest of wizards would take such cosmic secrets and sully them into a petty fireball. Fireberg yes, because that is awesome. Fireball? That is the sort of petty thing I'd expect to see from some half-barbarian Ralian. Or a fully barbaric Fonritian.

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Some people may find the idea of consigning Sorcery to sequestered gnostic aesthetes "fun".  Then again, some people find role-playing the managing of a stead "fun" while others are entertained by the compelling cut-&-thrust of a grocer & farmer negotiating the price of leeks...

My players?  Not so much.

Relegating sorcery to more of an NPC function like 'magickal alchemist/astronomers' is not only dramatically uninteresting, it's not narratively persuasive either?  As I understand it, sorcery is one of the three principle magical 'pillars' of Glorantha: Divine, Draconic, and Sorcery (with spiritualism and spirit magic potentially a fourth pillar, or more of a magical 'underbrush' depending on your viewpoint, and Lunar magic is...a new exception).  I *certainly* don't see the mighty Jrusteli Empire, the Brithini, the Mostail, Fonrit, and pretty much the western 1/3 of 3rd age Genertela as feebling along on what amounts to dilatory buff-spells.  None of those societies could have become what they were without a rubber-meets-the-road PRACTICAL magical toolbox, and it just doesn't seem consistent or credible that they were actually tossing around divine spells and spirit magic to get stuff done.  How...drab?

This presentation of sorcery of course is deeply colored by the deliberately-occluded presentation of RQG as "pretty much only the Dragon Pass area" - there, sorcery may indeed be relegated as described in this thread.

No, while I CERTAINLY can see the narrative justification to sorcery having much broader intellectual underpinnings, scholasticism, and a theology based on deduced magic (rather than the 'revealed' fixed-effect magic of Divinity), I think the imagined constraint of Sorcery to only that is pretty badly mistaken and inconsistent with Glorantha as presented (barring more retconning).

2 hours ago, Jeff said:

Only the silliest of wizards would take such cosmic secrets and sully them into a petty fireball. Fireberg yes, because that is awesome. Fireball? That is the sort of petty thing I'd expect to see from some half-barbarian Ralian. Or a fully barbaric Fonritian.

While I fully agree that viewpoint is perhaps common in some circles, your quote itself pretty strongly implies that there ARE in fact practical applications of sorcery out there, no matter how much they are dismissed by ivory-tower elitists committed to preserving their narrow worldview?

 

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53 minutes ago, styopa said:

I *certainly* don't see the mighty Jrusteli Empire, the Brithini, the Mostail, Fonrit, and pretty much the western 1/3 of 3rd age Genertela as feebling along on what amounts to dilatory buff-spells.

I don't think having units of foot armed with +3d6 Boon of Kargan Tor'ed weapons, strength 20 Ward Against Weapons and a couple of Neutralised Runes led by captains with 300-odd Battle and instant voice comms with their General is 'dilatory'. And that's entirely doable for an organised army from an organised society. Some of the Sorcerors who made those 'buffs' would even be marching in the ranks. And in a battle situation, the casting time for big Sorcery spells isn't quite such a problem as it is in a dozen-body skirmish which'll be done by the time the spell is cast. Those big-Intensity Fingers of Fire fuelled by platoons'-worth of MP Enchantments will sting, even if they're cast at double cost by a magus with the Earth Rune mastered.

It's also far from the only thing they could do. We don't have anything like 'all' the spells for Sorcery yet (and probably never will, since you can make what you like, within reason..) There's a thread of additional Sorcery spells and that's got Flying in it...

We also don't have much info about how the Divine interacts and synergises with the Sorcerous, in places where Sorcery is part-and-parcel of worship and the two go, and work, hand-in-hand. Maybe there are ways of storing Sorceries in a Vancian manner, or just in some kind of glyph or Enchantment so they can be used with snap-timing: how much more efficient is it to heal yourself with MP you wouldn't have used for anything otherwise than to have to use the ones sitting in your aura now? Even if  those MP only heal at 25% of the effect per point cast compared to Heal Wound or Heal?

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What we have now is sorcery rules for the humans of the Dragon Pass area. It may be that sorcery in the west is different, with spells of their own, based on different principles and/or other limitations, and perhaps the Brithini (or whatever) start with 3d6+6 INT instead of 2D6+6.

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One thing that does bother me about Sorcerors: they need all the POW they can get for their Inscriptions and MP stores, but they don't really have any way of getting more POW per year than their two rolls for Sacred Time and High Holy Day, without some POWvPOW Spirit Magic. All their spells seem to compare Strength vs... or Intensity vs... The only activity they get POW gain rolls for is Spirit Combat. Or 500L for a training session. That's more of a crimp to their style than lack of Fire Rune, and makes 'native' Free INT even more important: if that's pretty much all they'll ever have, how can they ever hope to amount to anything?

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26 minutes ago, womble said:

One thing that does bother me about Sorcerors: they need all the POW they can get for their Inscriptions and MP stores, but they don't really have any way of getting more POW per year than their two rolls for Sacred Time and High Holy Day, without some POWvPOW Spirit Magic.

The old POW gain trap that never worked even moderately well in my old RQ3 game.

 

I do wonder whether sorcerers should have a way to manipulate their spells so that overcoming a target's POW is made easier. In the past, having tapped a nice pool of extra Magic Points was a surefire way to crush target resistance.

 

 

26 minutes ago, womble said:

All their spells seem to compare Strength vs... or Intensity vs... The only activity they get POW gain rolls for is Spirit Combat. Or 500L for a training session. That's more of a crimp to their style than lack of Fire Rune, and makes 'native' Free INT even more important: if that's pretty much all they'll ever have, how can they ever hope to amount to anything?

Drain Soul looks like the ideal preparatory spell for a follow-up with Dominate spells and looks to be a spell offering a POW vs. POW contest. I would expect spells like Tap Body also to require a victory in the POW vs. POW roll.

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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