Clan Military Logistics - Wyter Magic

[Shiningbrow]

3 minutes ago, davecake said:

Yes, that is the basic tradeoff - but I think we very much differ on where the trade off points lie. You are talking about using 80% of a wyters power - at that level, I think you are essentially accepting that you have probably destroyed your community in its functional form, or at least medium term reduced it to that level, so you would never do it to 'win'. You do it to avoid annihilation when you have already lost. You might try to get together and re-POWer it - but you would be accepting that that outcome might likely never recur. 

For now, I'd say the debate is fairly pointless, until there's much greater information about what it is and how it works.

Can you envisage any form of wyter for real earth societies?? I'm at a loss... And so this makes me question the importance of a wyter - (NB - not that they don't exist in Glorantha, or that they have meaning - just actual ignorance about them...)

[HreshtIronBorne]

I would think a much more reasonable expenditure would be something like 20-25% of a Full strength mid-sized wyter. A 42 Max POW wyter can afford to go down to around 31 or so POW as it will still have a 95% chance to resist most enemy magicians and can probably still hold its own in spirit combat as well. 11 POW allows some pretty cool shenanigans.

[Jeff]

2 minutes ago, davecake said:

Yes, that is the basic tradeoff - but I think we very much differ on where the trade off points lie. You are talking about using 80% of a wyters power - at that level, I think you are essentially accepting that you have probably destroyed your community in its functional form, or at least medium term reduced it to that level, so you would never do it to 'win'. You do it to avoid annihilation when you have already lost. You might try to get together and re-POWer it - but you would be accepting that that outcome might likely never recur. 

Or the city is destroyed in its current form, and later survivors form a new social structure, with a new wyter, from the ruins, probably one that no longer has a Queen at all. If you reduce the wyter of a metropolis to one less powerful than an average ghost, you risk that alternative outcome. And those that the Queen depends on for power and support know that, and may judge her accordingly. 

Eg if you have reduced the wyter to one that weak, a wicked magician could easily destroy or capture it. A hostile foreign forced could take the city, and without the power of the wyter, the inhabitants might just let them. 

 

I doubt the either faction in the Nochet civil war drew down the Nochet city wyter at all until the siege of Nochet. And even then it was only to help repel a foreign military assault. And I suspect the city is now paying the price for that decision. Once you weaken a community's spirit it is awful hard to get the community back together to "re-POWer" it. One might even call that oxymoronic.

[davecake]

4 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Can you envisage any form of wyter for real earth societies?? I'm at a loss... And so this makes me question the importance of a wyter - (NB - not that they don't exist in Glorantha, or that they have meaning - just actual ignorance about them...)

I absolutely can.Many towns have stories of guardian spirits and such, even today but certainly historically, many of which are credited with multiple small daily interventions. Not far from me there is a town I have visited that is centred around a Benedictine monastery. We did a tour, and they told me about the time the town was threatened by a bush fire, and the Abbot took a portrait of the Sacred Virgin Mary out, and showed it the fire, and asked for help, and the wind changed and diverted the fire away as a result, and now the portrait is kept revered and credited with miracles. Sounds very wyter to me. 

[Shiningbrow]

6 minutes ago, Jeff said:

One might even call that oxymoronic.

That implies, to me, that you cannot have a community until a wyter is created/established.

 

8 minutes ago, Jeff said:

I doubt the either faction in the Nochet civil war drew down the Nochet city wyter at all until the siege of Nochet.

Were there other wyters within the city that could have been called upon? (not merely family)

[davecake]

8 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

I would think a much more reasonable expenditure would be something like 20-25% of a Full strength mid-sized wyter. A 42 Max POW wyter can afford to go down to around 31 or so POW as it will still have a 95% chance to resist most enemy magicians and can probably still hold its own in spirit combat as well. 11 POW allows some pretty cool shenanigans.

Providing you don't get attacked by an actual magical force that might have their own wyter or other serious attack spirits. She Who Strikes From Afar is a fairly minor Lunar attack spirit, and has a power of 46 on Full Moon Day. So your example would make the difference between having a fighting chance to fight off a typical magical warfare attack, to being easily crushed. 

[Shiningbrow]

2 minutes ago, davecake said:

I absolutely can.Many towns have stories of guardian spirits and such, even today but certainly historically, many of which are credited with multiple small daily interventions. Not far from me there is a town I have visited that is centred around a Benedictine monastery. We did a tour, and they told me about the time the town was threatened by a bush fire, and the Abbot took a portrait of the Sacred Virgin Mary out, and showed it the fire, and asked for help, and the wind changed and diverted the fire away as a result, and now the portrait is kept revered and credited with miracles. Sounds very wyter to me. 

Why do you see that as 'wyter' rather than 'city-god'? (The demi-god Virgin Mary... hmmm) Or even holy relic, as Bill posted above?

As I'm sure we're all aware of here, city-gods were all the rage a couple of thousand years ago...

(NB - I"m not saying it's not... I"m just trying to get my head around the concept... I'd be inclined to think more along the lines of totemic creatures as wyters... although, I'd be once again left with "but why wouldn't that be a city-god type of thing?":)

[davecake]

7 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

That implies, to me, that you cannot have a community until a wyter is created/established.

 

You can't magically express that power of community, which leaves the community magically vulnerable. 

8 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Were there other wyters within the city that could have been called upon? (not merely family)

Most notably, Temple guardians. But their inclination will mostly be to guard their temples. Organised military units will have regimental wyters as well. 

 

[Bill the barbarian]

Good answers Dave, They also makes sense from a real world magical reality as well. (yes these words can exist in a single sentence without time and space collapsing be nice or set phasers on ignore if you must this will be the only flakey sentence you will have to endure in this post). 

What sources are you referencing. Your material is a little too dense to be checking up on sans citations. Not that it needs checking but, again it is quite a bit of material. Is it all from play and knowledge gained from playing or are yo a bit of a scholar of the of HW/HQ stuff. 

Again, thanx for the answers, It makes it easier to evoke the mental images required to run our games until our references of all things good and Gloranthan arrive.

Cheers

[davecake]

1 minute ago, Shiningbrow said:

Why do you see that as 'wyter' rather than 'city-god'?

Because it's associated with a specific community and its spiritual practice, and explicitly directed by a 'high priest'. 

2 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

I'd be inclined to think more along the lines of totemic creatures as wyters.

Often happens, if appropriate for the community. Look at the village spirit Kogui in the bestiary. But it will very much differ by the nature of the community and its founding. For Orlanthi clans or tribes, a heroic Orlanthi ancestor seems to be the most common form. But it is certainly not the only form - look at the Black Spear of the Colymar. 

[davecake]

2 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

What sources are you referencing. Your material is a little too dense to be checking up on sans citations. Not that it needs checking but, again it is quite a bit of material. Is it all from play and knowledge gained from playing or are yo a bit of a scholar of the of HW/HQ stuff. 

My self-description as Lhankor Mhy is only half a joke - you can assume I've read pretty much every public thing written for HW/HQ/RQ (most editions) etc. I also play regularly, both HQ and RQ. 

For wyters, specific useful references, besides the references in RQG, RQG- bestiary, are:

- for creating clan wyters in play, the Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes clan creation system. Also, the way in which wyters are used in HeroQuesting is informative - lending the support of the clan (in the form of the wyter) to heroquesters is a big decision, as it is a risk to the clan (but heroquests can also reward the whole clan). 

- for examples of clan wyters in play, The Coming Storm and the Eleven Lights. This also includes creation of a wyter.

- for wyters in warfare, the Glorantha Sourcebook description of the Sartar Magical Union is very useful. 

[Bill the barbarian]

13 minutes ago, davecake said:

My self-description as Lhankor Mhy is only half a joke - you can assume I've read pretty much every public thing written for HW/HQ/RQ (most editions) etc. I also play regularly, both HQ and RQ. 

 

Yeah makes sense, I am a bit ahead for your average RQ player in these new things but I have been reading them in the digest for 1 or 2 decades and a friend gifted me with some classic HW/HQ materials at the time that RQ 6 hit the shelves and talk of RQ in glorantha was heard in the lands... greg and steve were coming back being whispered in dark alleys. Well since RQ G was announced I  have been struggling to get my old game in order in time to incorporate all the new and failing miserably (don't look in that dungeon, its under construction).

Now its time to start grasping the new realities as it were.

 

13 minutes ago, davecake said:

- for creating clan wyters in play, the Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes clan creation system. Also, the way in which wyters are used in HeroQuesting is informative - lending the support of the clan (in the form of the wyter) to heroquesters is a big decision, as it is a risk to the clan (but heroquests can also reward the whole clan). 

- for examples of clan wyters in play, The Coming Storm and the Eleven Lights. This also includes creation of a wyter.

- for wyters in warfare, the Glorantha Sourcebook description of the Sartar Magical Union is very useful. 

Great, I will have a look. 

Cheers

Edited June 4, 2019 by Bill the barbarian

[Grievous]

This discussion really highlights what I feel is a key developmental area for RQG, at least for it be excellent for producing the styles of campaigns I run and play in. The need for meta-level systems that run communities (such as clans and cults) is there (granted RQG already has some framework for this), and the kind of high level mechanics for wyters that we see discussed in this thread. I understand that for many GMs these are things that are ruled by GM fiat and/or hand-waved, but for me they are key draws. My initial thoughts regarding this have been to use HQ mechanics to run the meta-level, but that is definitely a patchwork. The GM's book really feels like a place for mechanics of this sort, but as far as we know they aren't really in the cards. It'll be interesting to see whether this is a direction the game will take in the future. 

[dracopticon]

Why not kill off the whole Wyter idea? For me, Runequest and Glorantha is NEVER about min-maxing and finding the cracks in the rules, it's about experiencing a world with islands such as QAPHQA and exploring them and having fun with your friends. Power gaming is so far from what RQ and Glorantha should be.

[davecake]

Wyters are, to me, not power gaming at all. They make powerful spirits and big magic not a pure power gaming thing, but about your relationship with community. 

I agree that clan and cult mechanics enrich the game. 

[soltakss]

4 hours ago, davecake said:

Or the city is destroyed in its current form, and later survivors form a new social structure, with a new wyter, from the ruins, probably one that no longer has a Queen at all. If you reduce the wyter of a metropolis to one less powerful than an average ghost, you risk that alternative outcome. And those that the Queen depends on for power and support know that, and may judge her accordingly. 

Eg if you have reduced the wyter to one that weak, a wicked magician could easily destroy or capture it. A hostile foreign forced could take the city, and without the power of the wyter, the inhabitants might just let them. 

RQ3 Doraster has Dokat as the ghost of the city of Dokat, which wanders about trying to take revenge on those that destroyed it, i.e. everyone. That is clearly a wyter in RQG terms, but one that has lost its cores support and grows by destroying enemies, i.e. everyone.

[soltakss]

4 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

For now, I'd say the debate is fairly pointless, until there's much greater information about what it is and how it works.

Welcome to the Internet, where most debates are pointless.

[Joerg]

I am getting a mite irritated about this discussion, as if wyters are the only type of middling deity/larger spirit that is used in temple defenses etc.

Wyters have the advantage of being closely tied to the community, and to have a permanent link to the chief priest of the wyter. This makes them both fairly reliable, and it creates a bottle-neck if the chief priest is (or has become) unavailable. When building up a spiritual defense force, you may want other guardian entities than just the wyter.

Temple defenses may rely on local cult heroes that may have been somewhat upgraded with gifts or a portion of the local worship energy. I would be quite interested in an energy flow scheme as a God Learner sorcerer with RuneQuest Sight might have been able to observe and provide. Note that the first (and throughout the Imperial Age most important) such energy flow was that of the energies channeled in Malkioni services. These are quite likely the source for the huge step up in sorcerous abilities after the revelation of the Abiding Book, leading to magics like the burning of Vralos.

It isn't quite clear whether the Malkioni use something like wyters, or whether they insert sorcerous spells instead. Chain of Veneration worked for the dragon-wannabes like Isgangdrang and Burin, too, and I have speculated whether this was a contribution to the EWF by Delecti.

9 minutes ago, dracopticon said:

Why not kill off the whole Wyter idea?

Something like this has been present in published Glorantha since the publication of Nomad Gods, where the Protectresses are a communal spirit of the herds, wielded by an aspect of Eiritha. Units sending their spirits against others is in the first ever publication of Glorantha, White Bear and Red Moon, their identification with wyters came a bit later, with/after the definition of the term wyter (KoS softcover edition, 1992). The Glorantha Sourcebook now confirms those deductions made in the early years of the digest.

What is new is the mechanical treatment for RQG.

9 minutes ago, dracopticon said:

For me, Runequest and Glorantha is NEVER about min-maxing and finding the cracks in the rules, it's about experiencing a world with islands such as QAPHQA and exploring them and having fun with your friends. Power gaming is so far from what RQ and Glorantha should be.

Powergaming and fun with friends are far from being mutually exclusive, and for all his great contributions to narrative roleplaying, Greg Stafford was also deeply rooted in wargaming, calculating the military and magical potential of the various portions of Glorantha. (That's what the population numbers in the Guide are for/come from.)

Yes, there is a whole lot of exploration to magical and at times downright weird places to be made in Glorantha. The Outer World of Glorantha is badly under-used in Gloranthan context. There are two epic journeys on the Sky River, and a number of quests into the Underworld along the Sunpath, mainly for the HeroQuest system.

But yes, we want RuneQuest to become a vehicle for exploring these magically overpowered aspects of Glorantha, too. Taking community support along on a heroquest is one way to do this. There may be other ways to do so than just taking the wyter and its holding object along - easy to do with the Colymar Black Spear, nigh impossible to do with the Thunder Oak.

[soltakss]

4 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

That implies, to me, that you cannot have a community until a wyter is created/established.

You probably can, but it won;t be anywhere near as cohesive.

A group of people coming together is a community. I think that the act of creating the community will form a small, weak wyter, especially if the community has an official formal founding.

Even an Adventuring Party can have a wyter. HeroQuest had the idea of Hero Bands, which were groups of people banded together with a Guardian, essentially the same as a wyter.

4 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Why do you see that as 'wyter' rather than 'city-god'? (The demi-god Virgin Mary... hmmm) Or even holy relic, as Bill posted above?

As I'm sure we're all aware of here, city-gods were all the rage a couple of thousand years ago...

There isn't much difference, really. A wyter is more like She who Waits or Jinna Jar, the spirit that guards. A City God is normally the Founder, a real person who becomes a deity. However, once the deity has passed over to the Other Side, it becomes in effect a wyter that is worshipped. You could think of the wyter as being the soul/spirit of the Founder.

 

29 minutes ago, dracopticon said:

Why not kill off the whole Wyter idea? For me, Runequest and Glorantha is NEVER about min-maxing and finding the cracks in the rules, it's about experiencing a world with islands such as QAPHQA and exploring them and having fun with your friends. Power gaming is so far from what RQ and Glorantha should be.

I don't think that wyters are power gaming. They can be used to help clans etc. and people can then try to optimise them, but anyone who abuses a wyter for their own personal gains will find that the wyter is reduced in power and might not be able to, or want to, support them.

[Kloster]

4 hours ago, davecake said:

For wyters, specific useful references, besides the references in RQG, RQG- bestiary, are:

- for creating clan wyters in play, the Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes clan creation system. Also, the way in which wyters are used in HeroQuesting is informative - lending the support of the clan (in the form of the wyter) to heroquesters is a big decision, as it is a risk to the clan (but heroquests can also reward the whole clan). 

- for examples of clan wyters in play, The Coming Storm and the Eleven Lights. This also includes creation of a wyter.

- for wyters in warfare, the Glorantha Sourcebook description of the Sartar Magical Union is very useful. 

What we need is explanations, rules and examples in Runequest terms, not generic, nor Herowars/Heroquest terms.

[Bill the barbarian]

11 hours ago, davecake said:

My self-description as Lhankor Mhy is only half a joke - you can assume I've read pretty much every public thing written for HW/HQ/RQ (most editions) etc. I also play regularly, both HQ and RQ. 

 

If HreshtIronBorne, will permit what seems a bit of thread drift... not much and it gets back on track immediately!

Awesome, than you might  have some insight into a little puzzle that has been picking at me There is a passage from thunder rebels page 34 that I have always wondered about... It's the Hospitality Test and how it seems to be a spell. But what powers it, says I. 

 

Quote

 

The ritual greeting combines Orlanth’s protection and welcome at the same time. It consists of a series of questions whose answers, if correct, are a binding oath empowered by Orlanth. Anyone who enters into the questioning is under Orlanth’s scrutiny and power. If the stranger speaks a lie during the rite, the questioner knows this before the stranger has a chance to act.

Thunder Rebels page 34

 

So might this be powered by a wyter? and seeing as the source is no longer canonical, do you think this interpretation will carry through to RQ G? Just opinions would be fine, but if anyone actually knows and would like to chime in, that would be lovely too!

The military applications of this are not to be overlooked, better than passwords or asking about denizens of a town and/or their sporting heroes to pass guard posts in out world. Friend of Foe, advance and be recognized my hairy northern butt.

Cheers

Edited June 4, 2019 by Bill the barbarian

[Joerg]

14 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

If HreshtIronBorne, will permit what seems a bit of thread drift... not much and it gets back on track immediately!

Awesome, than you might  have some insight into a little puzzle that has been picking at me There is a passage from thunder rebels page 34 that I have always wondered about... It's the Hospitality Test and how it seems to be a spell. But what powers it, says I. 

 

So might this be powered by a wyter?

I don't see the necessity for that. The hospitality rites are ancient, and probably go back to the Celestial Court - possibly the obscure deities of that, too.

Umath granting hospitality to Veskarthan already uses the rite. There is probably a Green Age event for the rite, as there is a passage in the Entekosiad which is about visitors misbehaving, IIRC one of the three errors blamed on the men.

By engaging in these hospitality rites, some of the most ancient magics of Glorantha are invoked. Think of that as a This World heroquest granting the performing host the divine ability to see through the intention to ask for hospitality and then break it.

Though granting hospitality to a party containing one or more tricksters either sets off these warning signals (and you might have to grant hospitality despite the knowledge that you are letting disorder into your home) or tricksters might lie to themselves to adhere to the demands of hospitality. The Only Old One lost his son this way...

14 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

and seeing as the source is no longer canonical, do you think this interpretation will carry through to RQ G? Just opinions would be fine, but if anyone actually knows and would like to chime in, that would be lovely too!

Such rites are magical, but while RQG has a number of ritual spells, none of them has been created for this kind of ritual (yet). In practice, you'd probably have to succeed in a custom (culture) roll to perform the rite correctly. No idea whether a rune point or a small magic point expenditure is warranted for this to give magical feedback.

14 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

The military applications of this are not to be overlooked, better than passwords or asking about denizens of a town and/or their sporting heroes to pass guard posts in out world. Friend of Foe, advance and be recognized my hairy northern butt.

There will be guests you know that will bring trouble, despite any vows of hospitality you might exact from them, but you still will have to offer them hospitality or suffer political and probably magical consequences. Tricksters and Storm Bull Berserks alike are more or less certain to obey the rules of hospitality more in the breach. SMU warlocks or openly chaotic Lunars aren't any better. And then there are in-laws...

[M Helsdon]

There's a major distinction between community wyters, which are primarily defensive, and regimental standards, which are not. Whilst a clan or tribe, or city could take their wyter to war, its loss or depletion would be catastrophic. Many regimental wyters, whether of Humakti battalia or Stone Wall phalanxes are centuries old, if not more, and correspondingly powerful, and often supplemented by lesser military standards of companies. The third group are magical regiment wyters which act to focus the combined magic of their magicians, their servants, and any others bound into their ceremonies.

I am probably wrong, but the rules at present, seem to mainly deal with the first variety. 

[Bill the barbarian]

39 minutes ago, Joerg said:

There will be guests you know that will bring trouble, despite any vows of hospitality you might exact from them, but you still will have to offer them hospitality or suffer political and probably magical consequences. Tricksters and Storm Bull Berserks alike are more or less certain to obey the rules of hospitality more in the breach. SMU warlocks or openly chaotic Lunars aren't any better. And then there are in-laws...

That would suck for some poor low level fyrd member pulling short straw and being on patrol and encountering a very sturdy very dangerous looking bunch of murder hoboes, but of rank and obviously by the standards they carry tied to people of greater rank. The militia grunt is thinking of bed, fishing, his kids anything but the fact that fucking up here can mean more than his head but could bode ill for his clan should he fail his culture lore in "welcoming" the strangers. Then, as his heartbeat and sweat his very terror can not get anymore obvious they fail the Hospitality Test, They obviously mean to harm the clan. What does one do... The correct answer is his duty, this is way above his pay grade, He is to accompany these strangers to his next higher up and somehow alert them to his discovery but...

Edited June 4, 2019 by Bill the barbarian

[davecake]

3 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

I am probably wrong, but the rules at present, seem to mainly deal with the first variety. 

There is one example in the bestiary of the wyter of a unit of magicians - She Who Strikes From Afar, wyter of a Lunar Minor Class unit. I personally found it very useful, enough to run a magical attack in game.

i agree it would be nice to see an example of a conventional regimental wyter. 

3 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

Many regimental wyters, whether of Humakti battalia or Stone Wall phalanxes are centuries old, if not more, and correspondingly powerful, and often supplemented by lesser military standards of companies.

There is a little information about Granite Phalanx in the GoG preview, but as a sub-cult of Polaris, no stats as a wyter. Grants the Morale Rune spell, which is a huge advantage. I suspect many regimental wyters do, or something similar. 

I’m increasingly thinking that many Humakti, if they know they are going to die for some reason, especially disease or poison or old age, volunteer to be bound as a ghost to their temple or regiment, and this way the wyter is additionally supported.