Clan Military Logistics - Wyter Magic

[M Helsdon]

Just now, davecake said:

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 have seen an outline of Polaris, but not the GoG preview. 8-(

2 minutes ago, davecake said:

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. 

My suspicion is that whilst Humakti Battalion standards (battalion, and lesser standards for each Hundred) might hold the spirits of favored Humakti heroes, they would probably be those assigned by the god, not volunteers. Being sacrificed as ghosts would seem to contravene Humakt's hatred of undead, but I can see favored spirits being assigned their final duty as guardian spirits (suspect the Humakti spirit in the Snakepipe Hollow scenario is an extreme example).

[davecake]

3 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

Being sacrificed as ghosts would seem to contravene Humakt's hatred of undead, but I can see favored spirits being assigned their final duty as guardian spirits (suspect the Humakti spirit in the Snakepipe Hollow scenario is an extreme example).

The Humakti generally do not consider ghosts as undead, but simply as dead who have made different choices. They do believe that being a ghost must be voluntary, and will free ghosts who remain. It’s explicit in the Bind Ghost spell description that they are volunteers.

if the Humakti considered ghosts to be undead, it would be absurd for them to have the Bind Ghost spell, which they have always had. 

 

[Bill the barbarian]

2 hours ago, davecake said:

The Humakti generally do not consider ghosts as undead, but simply as dead who have made different choices.

Being dead is now a life choice? I don't think I belong in this century.

Edited June 5, 2019 by Bill the barbarian

[M Helsdon]

5 hours ago, davecake said:

if the Humakti considered ghosts to be undead, it would be absurd for them to have the Bind Ghost spell, which they have always had. 

Yes, you are correct. I haven't seen GoG so don't know if the spell has been renamed.

[davecake]

6 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

The wording I’m referencing, while I still believe it to be current for RQG, was first published in cults of Prax in 1978, definitely in the previous century...  (Bind Ghost spell description). 

Humakti have always been (only) willing to bind people as ghosts who volunteer. 

Edited June 5, 2019 by davecake

[Imryn]

Has anyone considered using the enchantment rules to get those uber shield spells that were mentioned back on page one of the thread?

RQG P249 has the following to say about enchantments:

The POW sacrificed for the enchantment does not have to be provided entirely by the enchanter; if the enchanter sacrifices at least 1 point of their own POW, others can voluntarily contribute to the sacrifice, with no limit.

To create an enchanted item to give us an extended shield 10 we would need; Extension 5, Shield 10, and a Link spell condition. That’s 16 points of POW. For the Wyter to make 5 of them we need another 1 point, so 17 points in total. The Wyter must sacrifice 1 point, but the rest can come from worshipers. The interesting thing is the way this scales up.

Create 5 items – 17 points POW, 10 items – 18 points POW, 15 items – 19 points POW, 20 items – 20 points POW

No matter how many are made the Wyter only has to sacrifice 1 point of POW. The cost goes up if you want to make the shield bigger, but in every case the cost per item scales the same way.

If I want to create a 100 point shield with extension 5 it should be pretty much impossible, but wait! If I use my friendly Wyter to create 200 of them it would only cost 146 POW, only one point of which has to come from the Wyter!

And the items are reusable! And can be added too at a later date!

This must be wrong! What have I missed?

OK, I can already see one problem – the points for the Wyter multiplying the items are not necessarily part of the enchantment so a cruel and unfeeling GM might rule that they all have to come from the Wyter. That rules the 100 point shield out, but for the 10 point shield the Wyter sacs 1 point for the enchantment plus 1 point per 5 items. To make 20 the Wyter sacs 5 points and the 20 lucky worshipers sac 1 point each (16 for the enchantment and 4 go back to the Wyter). If you make it a 20 point shield the cost to the Wyter is the same and the cost to the worshipers is 2 each, and the Wyter gets 10 points back for 5 points spent.

There must be something else I am missing!

Edited June 7, 2019 by Imryn

[HreshtIronBorne]

I think the missing link with enchanting is the wyter can only sac POW to multi-target "Community Members" Defined as anyone who sacrificed mp during the last worship ceremony. As the Enchantments cannot be members of the community themselves they cannot be muti-targetted. I could see a wyter being used to assist in the creation of a special item to the tribe, maybe to be taken on a heroquest to become an even more powerful artifact.

[Imryn]

14 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

I think the missing link with enchanting is the wyter can only sac POW to multi-target "Community Members" Defined as anyone who sacrificed mp during the last worship ceremony. As the Enchantments cannot be members of the community themselves they cannot be muti-targetted. I could see a wyter being used to assist in the creation of a special item to the tribe, maybe to be taken on a heroquest to become an even more powerful artifact.

An enchantment can be cast on any materiel object, including on people

"Anything material can be enchanted: such as one or more hit locations of a creature (if it has material form) or inanimate objects (up to 25 SIZ points per point of POW used in the enchantment). There is no limit on the number of enchantments performable on an object. Even a place can be enchanted: intruders might activate one or more spells; a magician might have stored magic points or spells at a certain location—a dryad’s grove, a hero’s tomb, a temple’s inner sanctum, or an isolated mountain shrine.

To enchant an area, thing, or creature, the enchanter must inscribe the Runes of the enchantment on, in, or around the thing to be enchanted. The symbols need not be visible, but they must be made of or from some real substance. Enchanters usually inscribe the Runes in as permanent a fashion as possible: if the symbols are destroyed, the enchantment is also destroyed."

So, tattoos or brands or something but what the hey!

Edited June 7, 2019 by Imryn

[Imryn]

I am now considering creating a new spell "etch bones" to inscribe the runes for the enchantment directly on the worshipers skeleton

[PhilHibbs]

13 hours ago, Imryn said:

Has anyone considered using the enchantment rules to get those uber shield spells that were mentioned back on page one of the thread?

...

There must be something else I am missing!

Correct. You can make a matrix of a spell, but you can't make a matrix of a special ability.

[Imryn]

Just now, PhilHibbs said:

Correct. You can make a matrix of a spell, but you can't make a matrix of a special ability.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand. Are you saying it won't work?

I am not proposing making a matrix that allows the wyters special ability to be used by the worshipers. The wyter is using its special ability to apply the matrix to additional worshipers, but the matrix that's being applyed only consists of normal rune spells.

[PhilHibbs]

1 hour ago, Imryn said:

I'm sorry, but I don't understand. Are you saying it won't work?

I am not proposing making a matrix that allows the wyters special ability to be used by the worshipers. The wyter is using its special ability to apply the matrix to additional worshipers, but the matrix that's being applyed only consists of normal rune spells.

Ah, I see. Still... the ability is intended for spells that the wyter casts, and I'm not convinced that it can use a matrix in conjunction. If it is not intended in the original conception, then it's a big, big change to allow it.

Edited June 8, 2019 by PhilHibbs

[Imryn]

1 minute ago, PhilHibbs said:

Ah, I see. Still... the ability is intended for spells that the water casts, and I'm not convinced that it can use a matrix in conjunction. If it is not intended in the original conception, then it's a big, big change to allow it.

Its right there in the RQG description on P286

..The wyter can cast any Rune spell or spirit magic spell known by its priest (assuming the priest is within range of the wyter). A wyter spends points of its characteristic POW instead of Rune points when casting Rune spells, with a chance of success equal to its CHA×5.

As long as the priest knows the necessary enchantment rune spells the Wyter can cast them.

[PhilHibbs]

2 minutes ago, Imryn said:

As long as the priest knows the necessary enchantment rune spells the Wyter can cast them.

Ok I totally mis-read the post! Still no though, the wyter's ability is for replicating spells cast on community members, not on enchanted items.

[Imryn]

And enchantments can be cast on people. RQG P249

Anything material can be enchanted: such as one or more hit locations of a creature (if it has material form) or inanimate objects (up to 25 SIZ points per point of POW used in the enchantment). There is no limit on the number of enchantments performable on an object. Even a place can be enchanted: intruders might activate one or more spells; a magician might have stored magic points or spells at a certain location—a dryad’s grove, a hero’s tomb, a temple’s inner sanctum, or an isolated mountain shrine.
To enchant an area, thing, or creature, the enchanter must inscribe the Runes of the enchantment on, in, or around the thing to be enchanted. The symbols need not be visible, but they must be made of or from some real substance. Enchanters usually inscribe the Runes in as permanent a fashion as possible: if the symbols are destroyed, the enchantment is also destroyed.

[Imryn]

I think this is why the PBI still exists in Glorantha. With magic being so common and so powerful it never made much sense that people would sign up to be infantry. This is a real equalizer for professional soldiers.

[Joerg]

3 minutes ago, Imryn said:

And enchantments can be cast on people. RQG P249

Yes, so basically the wyter can multispell the enchantment. What it cannot do is multiply the effect of the POW contributed to create the enchantments, each single enchantment needs to be paid in full.

[Imryn]

Nope. RQG P287:

..A wyter may cast spirit magic or Rune spells on any member of its community when directed to by its priest. The wyter may even simultaneously cast the same spell on multiple members of the community by spending additional points of POW. Each point of POW spent lets the wyter cast the spell on an additional five members of the community.

The only additional cost is the 1 point of POW per 5 worshipers.

To make myself completely clear - the writers have explicitly created a way of generating POW out of thin air. They will probably change that at some point, but for the moment it is there.

Edited June 8, 2019 by Imryn

[Imryn]

I think a lot of this is going to be dependent on the Wyter. The rules say that the priest can order it around but I don't think it as simple as the priest says "do" and the Wyter "does". They have told us that Wyters have POW and CHA that scales with the size of the community, but they haven't ruled out other characteristics, and all three of the examples in RQB have far more than just POW and CHA.

The Wyter will have a personality and it will represent the type of community it serves. A Wyter that serves a peaceful farming community will not want to use its abilities for these sort of war like purposes and will resist the priests orders. Conflict between the priest and the Wyter will probably be mirrored in the community causing all sorts of problems.

On the other hand, the Wyter serving a mercenary company will probably be well on board with this type of thing.

Edited June 8, 2019 by Imryn

[Joerg]

So, the wyter casts enchant for one point, and collects the remaining POW from volunteers. Fine, possibly save 4 POW per five extra recipients for that one point. The rest of the POW is provided by volunteers, and there is no indication that a wyter can multiply those contributions.

 

Note that you are entering the territory of the God Learner sin of mass producing magical items here. This will attract spectres of the past, and possibly Mostali guard mechanisms currently stationed in the Clanking Ruins descending upon your community. The recipients could become marked as gobbler-food, something you don't really wish to witness even on your worst enemies, let alone unleash on yourself.

(Trying to puzzle out your use of "PBI" in connection to Glorantha...)

[Imryn]

PBI = Poor Bloody Infantry

[Jeff]

6 minutes ago, Imryn said:

Nope. RQG P287:

..A wyter may cast spirit magic or Rune spells on any member of its community when directed to by its priest. The wyter may even simultaneously cast the same spell on multiple members of the community by spending additional points of POW. Each point of POW spent lets the wyter cast the spell on an additional five members of the community.

The only additional cost is the 1 point of POW per 5 worshipers.

To make myself completely clear - the writers have explicitly created a way of generating POW out of thin air. They will probably change that at some point, but for the moment it is there.

The example of this is having the Wyter cast Shield 2 on 10 members of the community. That costs 4 points of POW and is the sort of thing that might be done as part of a heroquest or as the result of gaining community support.The wyter can only cast the spells it possesses - I don't believe many (any?) wyters can create enchantments as that isn't really their magic. Admittedly the short section on p 287 says "any spell the priest knows", and maybe I should have said "any common or special Rune spell the priest knows - excluding enchantments," but honestly, the wyter rules are there so that that the gamemaster can use them in their game as a special resource and not to play mental exercises with about how those rules could be theoretically minimaxed by NPCs.

I am not sure what the problem here is. 

[Imryn]

The Wyter casts the Matrix Creation Enchantment and Extension 5 and Shield 10 and creates the Link spell condition to activate both spells simultaneously. The Wyter also sacrifices an additional 1 point of POW per 5 worships it wishes to target. As per RQG P249

The POW sacrificed for the enchantment does not have to be provided entirely by the enchanter; if the enchanter sacrifices at least 1 point of their own POW, others can voluntarily contribute to the sacrifice, with no limit.

So the Wyter has to sacrifice 1 point for the enchantment, and 1 point per 5 targets, and the rest can come from the worshipers.

[PhilHibbs]

"Casting a spell" is not the same as "creating an enchantment". Problem solved.

Edited June 8, 2019 by PhilHibbs

[Imryn]

5 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

"Casting a spell" is not the same as "creating an enchantment". Simple.

enchantments are rune magic spells, learnt and used in exactly the same way as common and special rune magic spells.

Regardless, this evidently wasn't one of the intended uses for Wyter's.

Edited June 8, 2019 by Imryn