Steal Breath... et al

[Shiningbrow]

So, Steal Breath "converts 3 cubic metres of air into magic points" (paraphrased)

Presumably, that means a temporary vacuum is created, but extra air rushes in to fill the 'void' (although, @Joerg has suggested otherwise in a thread from about a year ago, IIRC - compelling argument!)

So, what I want to know is - what about the other Runic equivalent spells? Steal Moonbeam, Steal Darkness/Cold (would they be separate spells??)? Steal Fire/Light? etc.

Would Steal Moonbeam reduce the local areas Lunar Influence to that of Black Moon?

Would Steal Light make the area darker?

Would Steal Darkness made a cave lighter and brighter?

Or Steal Cold warm up the air?

@Joerg suggests that Steal Earth would make rocks crumble - but doesn't imply creating holes...

[Austin]

30 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Would Steal Moonbeam reduce the local areas Lunar Influence to that of Black Moon?

I'd see this as something more like "Steal Glowspot" or "Devour Glowspot." Though maybe it would only last until the next Full Moon day before the nearest Temple of the Reaching Moon restored the patch. I don't know how the "mechanics" of a magical "generator" supporting the Glowline works.

[David Scott]

7 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Would Steal Moonbeam reduce the local areas Lunar Influence to that of Black Moon?

As moonbeams stream from the moon, it just converts them to mps much like the Twinstars spirit magic spell Benison.

7 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Would Steal Light make the area darker?

No, you'd have to add dark. There would just be less light, I imagine more blue like Dayzatar.

7 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Would Steal Darkness made a cave lighter and brighter?

No you need to add light. It would make the darkness less dense.

7 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Or Steal Cold warm up the air?

No you'd have to add fire, it would likely cause ice to form (imbalance of sub runes)

7 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

@Joerg suggests that Steal Earth would make rocks crumble - but doesn't imply creating holes...

yes

 

[Austin]

11 minutes ago, David Scott said:

As moonbeams stream from the moon, it just converts them to mps much like the Twinstars spirit magic spell Benison.

What is this? Source? (Not trying to be querulous, just curious. )

[Shiningbrow]

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

As moonbeams stream from the moon, it just converts them to mps much like the Twinstars spirit magic spell Benison.

No, you'd have to add dark. There would just be less light, I imagine more blue like Dayzatar.

No you need to add light. It would make the darkness less dense.

No you'd have to add fire, it would likely cause ice to form (imbalance of sub runes)

 

You seem to have an image of Glorantha that doesn't have oppositions as strongly as my mind imagines...

Less light =/= more dark??

Less dark =/= more light...

(and yet, you suggest that Steal Cold would bring Ice...????)

 

There was another question I forgot to ask... using any of those spells - I'd imagine that their respective deities would be very unhappy with their use - yes? Or, is  the mundane form of the element irrelevant?

[HreshtIronBorne]

In our Glorantha nearly EVERYONE not in a Western, Sorcerer-Centric, Society loathes the Tap spell. Literally when I asked about it being related to ALL the techniques my GM said no freaking WAY would a LM sage use TAP ever on anyone's anything. As far as our Glorantha, especially in Dragon Pass, is concerned Tap is for Evil Bad Guy Sorcerers.

[Shiningbrow]

3 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

In our Glorantha nearly EVERYONE not in a Western, Sorcerer-Centric, Society loathes the Tap spell. Literally when I asked about it being related to ALL the techniques my GM said no freaking WAY would a LM sage use TAP ever on anyone's anything. As far as our Glorantha, especially in Dragon Pass, is concerned Tap is for Evil Bad Guy Sorcerers.

I'm not so sure.

Orlanthi hate the Lunar Empire - and the Red Goddess. Many hate trolls and darkness. They're not totally fond of the Sky either (although, some are...). Chaos? Tap that shit out of existence! (although, obviously, that would require having learned the Chaos Rune...)

[PhilHibbs]

17 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Chaos? Tap that shit out of existence! (although, obviously, that would require having learned the Chaos Rune...)

Or learn the Law rune, assuming that they are opposites and thus related.

[Joerg]

46 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

You seem to have an image of Glorantha that doesn't have oppositions as strongly as my mind imagines...

Less light =/= more dark??

Dark is an elemental building block of Glorantha and a lot more than just an absence of Light. It can be tangible, it is a sensory medium (for Darksense, which is not sound). Just taking away light means that you reduce sight, but a troll wouldn't immediately benefit in terms of Darksense.

Quote

Less dark =/= more light...

Same thing. Less dark means less cooling, less shading, less tangible Darksense, less fear.

Quote

(and yet, you suggest that Steal Cold would bring Ice...????)

Rather than melt it?

Himile's Cold is a spreading cold. Yes, it targets Warmth (and vice versa), pushing the other aside.

Tapping weakens such a characteristic.

Quote

There was another question I forgot to ask... using any of those spells - I'd imagine that their respective deities would be very unhappy with their use - yes? Or, is  the mundane form of the element irrelevant?

Tapping weakens the world, taking the reality out of those targets. This wasn't a problem when Creation still was an ongoing process - on the contrary, it was a stabilizing influence then when an excess of Creation would cause troubles. Since the beginning of entropic Time, Tapping hastens along that eventual doom of the world.

There is no real way of reverting Tapping. The Mostali have magics to imbue matter with energy rather than to extract it, but that is far more demanding than Tapping.

35 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Orlanthi hate the Lunar Empire - and the Red Goddess. Many hate trolls and darkness. They're not totally fond of the Sky either (although, some are...). Chaos? Tap that shit out of existence! (although, obviously, that would require having learned the Chaos Rune...)

You don't see the Orlanthi unleash Chaos on their foes (other than denying the Crimson Bat its food) to eliminate them forever. Dragons, yes, but that's different.

Hating something may be enough to kill, maim, plunder the target of that sentiment, but does hate warrant total annihilation? Aren't your overcome foes supposed to serve you in your afterlife in some way? Then annihilating them only hurts yourself.

 

Tapping Chaos? The Boristi had this idea, and keep practicing it. Sounds too good to be true, and from the rumors about sorcerers' basements in Borin, probably is. Extermination of opposites will open the way for bad things to creep in. The Loskalmi experiment may have resulted in the Kingdom of War.
 

[David Scott]

On 5/10/2019 at 4:05 PM, Shiningbrow said:

You seem to have an image of Glorantha that doesn't have oppositions as strongly as my mind imagines...

Less light =/= more dark??

Less dark =/= more light...

(and yet, you suggest that Steal Cold would bring Ice...????)

The elemental runes in Glorantha are not opposites. When Yelm leaves the sky, Xentha covers the world with her darkness -Glorantha source book page 79:

Quote

After the Great Compromise, when Time began, Xentha and Yelm shared in the rule of the Surface World.

It's a mythological relationship not a real world one.

A better example would be steal heat, heat and light being the sub-runes of Fire. If you steal the heat the light is left behind and IMO would appear brighter.

Edited May 12, 2019 by David Scott
remove incorrect info about sub-runes

[David Scott]

2 hours ago, Crel said:

What is this? Source? (Not trying to be querulous, just curious. )

Tales 16 Lunar Spirits , but will be in GaGoG

[Joerg]

21 minutes ago, David Scott said:

The Darkness rune has two sub-runes Cold and Ice (although this is slightly misremembered so on checking not correct, but implied Cults of Terror classic edition page 88, original page 91).

Removing the cold would leave the ice.

Ouch, and no, please stop putting your finger into this wound.

Fire has two subrunes: Light (without heat), and Heat (without light).

Darkness has two subrunes: Cold (without shadow) and Shadow (without cold).

[David Scott]

19 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Darkness has two subrunes: Cold (without shadow) and Shadow (without cold).

I couldn't find the reference.

[Joerg]

Just now, David Scott said:

I couldn't find the reference.

Shadow crops up in Troll Cults, and probably already in RQ2 Trollpak (there probably in Book of Uz). Argan Argar and Xentha have it, IIRC, and archetypically Moorgarki/Qualyorni has it.

Ice has been/become deprecated. It was presented as a hybrid of Darkness/Cold and Water (and totally failing to describe Styx). Opening all manner of cans of worms, a step in the wrong direction, never picked up again.

 

[David Scott]

1 hour ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

In our Glorantha nearly EVERYONE not in a Western, Sorcerer-Centric, Society loathes the Tap spell. Literally when I asked about it being related to ALL the techniques my GM said no freaking WAY would a LM sage use TAP ever on anyone's anything. As far as our Glorantha, especially in Dragon Pass, is concerned Tap is for Evil Bad Guy Sorcerers.

This has changed a bit from the RQ3 version of sorcery back in 1984. The background was not Glorantha and the Spell tapped a characteristic. In the Glorantha section (book 5) it said:

Quote

The spell of Tapping is considered evil and damnable by most Malkioni

The gave a list of who tapped what, but was all about tapping beings not the current version which is Runes. I'm not suggesting that you abandon your ideas based on RQ3 if it works in your game, but we have moved forward in Gloranthan concepts in the last 35 years. The big change was the discovery of the Xeotam Dialogues in Greg's notes.

https://www.glorantha.com/glorantha/the-xeotam-dialogues/

It was this that allowed a new look at sorcery. Firstly in the Guide then HeroQuest Glorantha then to the RQG version.

Quote

Tap. Convert a local manifestation of a Rune into raw magical energy.

There's only one cult in RQG that actually forbids Tap and it's Chalana Arroy, even Lhankor Mhy doesn't have this restriction. IMO Lhankor Mhy would use tap, just not using the Malkioni model. Tapping some leather armour (beast rune) for a few useful magic points or a cave mouth to make it crumble (earth rune) trapping the broos, is fair use.

I also believe that the RQ regeneration of Magic Points is clearly the natural tapping of Glorantha, set up by the Compromise.

[AndreJarosch]

Tapping Chaos might be frowned upon. Because you tap CHAOS energie, and use it yourself. You can argue that the use of chaotic energie makes you chaotic too!

 

[Brootse]

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

Dark is an elemental building block of Glorantha and a lot more than just an absence of Light. It can be tangible, it is a sensory medium (for Darksense, which is not sound). Just taking away light means that you reduce sight, but a troll wouldn't immediately benefit in terms of Darksense.

Same thing. Less dark means less cooling, less shading, less tangible Darksense, less fear.

nah

From the Bestiary:

Trolls can move in the darkest night, due to their stygian
origin. They use “Darksense,” a perception not available to
other races. Darksense combines hearing, smelling, feeling,
and some non-specific sensing abilities, and allows trolls to
maneuver as though humans in sunshine.

[HreshtIronBorne]

So, LM sorcerers wouldn't be cool tapping Air or other closely related runes?

 

On a completely different note, could someone use a Tap Movement Spell to gain MP AND slow something down, like a merchant's cart or something? There seems to be quite a wide range of what sort of 'target' is acceptable for a sorcery spell, Boon of Kargan Tor hits one object, as do neutralize armor, preserve item and such. Ward against Weapons targets a whole body. Moonfire, Steal breath, and a couple others target literal Cubic meters of space or area, and they scale pretty quick.

 

I am having a hard time trying to quantify exactly what might be reasonable or 'balanced', can't think of a better term, for creating new spells with my LM sorcerer, even though the rules say it isn't all that hard, coming up with a reasonable spell without feeling OP is hard. Just Boon of Kargan Tor has changed the landscape and I can only put it up at 2d6 for a couple years at this point. 

Let me know if this isn't the appropriate thread for this rant. sorry.

[Brootse]

16 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

So, LM sorcerers wouldn't be cool tapping Air or other closely related runes?

Why wouldn't they? Is it different from breathing?

[HreshtIronBorne]

 

7 minutes ago, Brootse said:

Why wouldn't they? Is it different from breathing?

isn't it? I guess if that is the understanding of Tap then it makes a ton more sense.

[HreshtIronBorne]

2 hours ago, David Scott said:

This has changed a bit from the RQ3 version of sorcery back in 1984. The background was not Glorantha and the Spell tapped a characteristic. In the Glorantha section (book 5) it said:

The gave a list of who tapped what, but was all about tapping beings not the current version which is Runes. I'm not suggesting that you abandon your ideas based on RQ3 if it works in your game, but we have moved forward in Gloranthan concepts in the last 35 years. The big change was the discovery of the Xeotam Dialogues in Greg's notes.

https://www.glorantha.com/glorantha/the-xeotam-dialogues/

It was this that allowed a new look at sorcery. Firstly in the Guide then HeroQuest Glorantha then to the RQG version.

There's only one cult in RQG that actually forbids Tap and it's Chalana Arroy, even Lhankor Mhy doesn't have this restriction. IMO Lhankor Mhy would use tap, just not using the Malkioni model. Tapping some leather armour (beast rune) for a few useful magic points or a cave mouth to make it crumble (earth rune) trapping the broos, is fair use.

I also believe that the RQ regeneration of Magic Points is clearly the natural tapping of Glorantha, set up by the Compromise.

Would eating and breathing be akin to the natural Tapping of MP from Animal, Plant, and Air?

[PhilHibbs]

3 hours ago, Brootse said:

Why wouldn't they? Is it different from breathing?

Yes. Tapping destroys the air. Not in the literal sense of making a vacuum, but in the sense that the air is drained of its natural air power.

[HreshtIronBorne]

So, what things might a sorcerer Tap around the Tula without mucking things up too bad for the community? Would there be ways he could use Tapping to help out around the community? Could something like Tap + Beast help manage or destroy an infestation? Could a spell like Tap + Stasis make it easier to Move Big Stuff around a village, I am thinking pushing logs uphill and such. 

Could my Lhankor Mhy Philosopher think up a spell to keep the damn wind from messing up all my papers and scrolls in the library AND Generate MP out of it to boot? Maybe Tap + Movement, or Tap + Movement + Command + Stasis? I don't know if you can combine anything with Tap at all. Would love to have a little better idea of the philosophy for putting together a new sorcery spell. Scaling a new Rune Spell isn't super difficult as there are a lot of examples of different affects, and the No God Can Have a Better Spell Than the God With the Rune is a great guideline, nothing straight up better than sunspear makes a whole lot of sense from any other Fire/Sky God.

 

So, I am not sure if I should necro the old additional spells thread, create a new thread, or field more questions about Sorcery and Tapping here. 

Edited May 10, 2019 by HreshtIronBorne

[PhilHibbs]

1 hour ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

So, I am not sure if I should necro the old additional spells thread, create a new thread, or field more questions about Sorcery and Tapping here. 

If there's a perfectly good thread for it, I see no reason not to keep using it, keeping it all in one place. I have no time for necromoaners.

[Wrestlepig]

1 hour ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

Would there be ways he could use Tapping to help out around the community? Could something like Tap + Beast help manage or destroy an infestation? Could a spell like Tap + Stasis make it easier to Move Big Stuff around a village, I am thinking pushing logs uphill and such.  

They could, and it would work, although it would be a fairly radical and strange thing to do for most communities. Most Lhankor Mhy worshippers are focused on Truth-related sorcery for divination and investigating, and there's generally a rune cult that can help with their usual magics. In the west, the Seshnelans are super rigid and would very rarely consider tapping and Loskalm is too philosophical and idealistic to commit to entropy. That said, there's going to be exceptions since it's possible to derive how to tap easily, it's very powerful and a Sorceror without a sense of Hubris is just a man in a funny hat. Also, Safelstrans have secret societies that teach it, Fonritan Masarins would absolutely do it, and the Brithini and Vadeli have no restrictions on it. No idea about the Lunars but they probably don't unless you're illuminated or something like that.

Tapping tends to have consequences beyond the immediate casting so it's probably not a good idea when there's a safer method or it's a predictable effect, but that never stops anyone.

1 hour ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

 Would love to have a little better idea of the philosophy for putting together a new sorcery spell. 

The section on Sorcery in the new book has a pretty clear structure. You combine a Technique with a Rune (or two if it's combine/separate) and then give it a more specific definition and effect. You're expected to come up with custom spells, and there's specific rules about the effect based on MP invested in it that define damage, range etc.

Edited May 11, 2019 by Wrestlepig