How to use the SMU

[Richard S.]

So I just bought the sourcebook and the part on the warlocks and the SMU really stood out to me. Now I'm thinking of doing (or probably just planning out) a campaign where the players are warlocks, but considering that an average magician regiment has 30-60 members and the average bodyguard unit 500, it's a tad large for an adventuring party. How would y'all go about having warlock characters or using the SMU in your campaigns?

[albinoboo]

The SMU started out life as part of the boardgame Red Moon, White Bear. The Lunar College of Magic and the SMU were the first versions of spirit magic. Each constituent unit had a spirit which was used to attack, separate to the units  attack and defence value. Both the SMU and the LCM aren't easily used in an RPG setting. The whole point is the combined abilities of the warlocks being stronger that constituent parts. 

Edited July 7, 2019 by albinoboo

[jajagappa]

39 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

So I just bought the sourcebook and the part on the warlocks and the SMU really stood out to me. Now I'm thinking of doing (or probably just planning out) a campaign where the players are warlocks

There's some additional information on warlocks in general in HQG as a distinct "occupation". It's also a relatively new one, the first units of the SMU forming under Argrath in 1624.

"The magicians of the Sartar Magical Union are popularly called “warlocks” after a derisive comment by the Lunar general who opposed them in 1627. They include men and women in roughly equal measures, as well as a substantial minority not so easily classified— far more than usual in the population. They have been taught techniques to wield great magical power through meditation, austerities, chants, ecstatic dance, and even sex, to achieve a higher consciousness and unshakeable focus.... While performing their collective rites, the magicians are physically defenseless and must be defended by bodyguards. Many warlocks have been Illuminated by Argrath or his Companions. The warlocks are widely feared, and their cryptic and often transgressive words and deeds do not endear them to the superstitious. They are nonetheless under the direct protection of the Prince, who favors them greatly."

As a military unit of course, they also need food, clothes, supplies, etc. So they will need merchants, probably scribes, wagon-drivers, scouts, etc. - i.e. everything you might expect in any adventuring band. 

They are new, so likely still building up the power of their wyter, and are going to need objects for rituals, things to increase their power and status, ways to prove themselves and earn enough to support their organization, and discover/uncover ancient secrets. 

From the Guide, p.736, "While the Lunar Field School regiments had been trained together and had comparable magical power, the mounted battalions that Argrath organized were a dizzying array of temple priests, bush shamans, twisted philosophers, wandering devotees, crazed holy men, a mystic or two, and various adventurers. Yet Argrath melded them together by creating new magical societies with greater powers than the sum of the members. Argrath showed them that they could, in this way, do what the great Lunar magical schools achieved when they devastated whole armies with their power."

Identify their commander, and determine what they need to do to pursue their objectives!

[jajagappa]

Btw, you can also find many useful ideas for an SMU campaign in the 13th Age in Glorantha book. It includes material related to the Eaglebrown Warlocks, the Snakepipe Dancers, and the Eleven Lights. 

p.326: "But the mass battles of the Hero Wars and Argrath’s organizational coups are not our concern. Your 13th Age Glorantha campaigns make the PCs the heroes that count. There won’t be any pivotal battles between the Lunars and the Orlanthi if the cosmos falls apart first. Our treatment of the Sartar Magical Union focuses on how affiliation with bizarre groups and traditions can shape your character’s heroic attempts to prevent the world from unraveling. The groups in question might or might not eventually come together as full-fledged members of a
magical Union, but even if not they’ll provide your heroes with powers to use against Chaos and other enemies."

Perhaps if you're campaign focuses on the Eaglebrown Warlocks, you are sent off as "storm-chasers", looking for signs of the Thunderbird so that you can gain: a Thunderclaw (a melee weapon, usually sword or spear) hurled from the sky by the Thunderbird; or the Magnificent Wings Cloak; or the Eaglebrown Mask; or perhaps even a Thunderstone to hurl at your foes.

Or pesky Raven keeps stealing your weapons or magics and you need to track it down to defeat it once and for all.  Might even need a quest into the Gods War to do that - but you'll need to defeat Sun Hawk and his allies first.

p.409 has an example of another possible scenario: "For example, perhaps the Sartarites have been taking shipments of enchanted copper weapons and ritual paraphernalia from the Shaker Temple held by the Tarsh Exiles to the northwest. The Sartar Magical Union is using these sacred items for a powerful magical effort that they have underway. When these shipments mysteriously cease, the characters are sent to the sacred mountain of Kero Fin, Wintertop Fort and the Shaker Temple, to find out what has blocked them."

Or p.410: "One of the PCs’ regular contacts has a special mission for them. Ironhoof, the heroic centaur leader of the Beast Men, is leading an elite regiment of centaur spirit archers in
coordination with the Sartar Magical Union, so he is far from Beast Valley. He needs someone to bear a message to his captain in Duck Point, and since the heroes are going that way. . . ."

The adventure Ascending with the Eleven Lights (p.434+) looks at a different group from the Sartar Magical Union and ties in well with the Eleven Lights campaign.

[Joerg]

Several of the hero bands described in the Hero Wars era products would evolve into units of the SMU, so it might be worth taking a look at the Sartar Rising series of scenario pdfs in the Chaosium Vault. The Eaglebrowns and how they start to be a magician unit are part of that campaign.

 

[Shiningbrow]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Several of the hero bands described in the Hero Wars era products would evolve into units of the SMU, so it might be worth taking a look at the Sartar Rising series of scenario pdfs in the Chaosium Vault. The Eaglebrowns and how they start to be a magician unit are part of that campaign.

 

That's sort of what I was thinking... Before the SMU is actually formed. It came together as a ragtag bunch of magicians working together... Which sounds a lot like a typical adverturer party.

I'd imagine it became a cohesive whole only after quite a while. Before that would have been lots of fun and shenanigans...

Also, the PCs would obviously have to prove their worth before being officially accepted. Years of side quests there on behalf of the Prince...

[Akhôrahil]

17 hours ago, Richard S. said:

So I just bought the sourcebook and the part on the warlocks and the SMU really stood out to me. Now I'm thinking of doing (or probably just planning out) a campaign where the players are warlocks, but considering that an average magician regiment has 30-60 members and the average bodyguard unit 500, it's a tad large for an adventuring party. How would y'all go about having warlock characters or using the SMU in your campaigns?

You will want to check out The Eleven Lights, part two of Red Cow.