Are the new Cult rules workable?

[Loz]

Are you now able to dedicate all your POW to a pact or do you need to keep 1 POW back?

You can dedicate the whole lot - but doing so will mean you have no MP for rune magic and/or sorcery. There's no requirement to always have 1 POW undedicated.

Can you *know* more divine magic than you can store in your Pact at once. E.g. If you have a Pact of 7 and know 15 Mag of Divine Magic can you keep 7 in Pact then swap things in and out through the usual mechanic?

I'd say yes you can - but within the confines of your cult rank. And I think as RosenMcstern asked earlier, to swap you'd need to go to a temple or shrine and spend time praying; you couldn't do it in the middle of a fight, say.

 

[gran_orco]

A)Do you gain the runic powers when you are initiate of a cult? Or only the capacity to do rune spells?

B) Is it necessary to change the existing cults?. If I do the conversion and the cult has 10-14 affinity points, it will has only 2 form runes (for exemple), 3 rune spells, 1 gift and 2 divine spells... precious little!. So I suppose that these rules are made for new invented cults. Or maybe I should add more affinity points to the existing cults. How do you treat this?

C) If we can allocate 100 points to create an association, why is the example on page 6 like this?:

• SIZ 3
  MIL 12
  INF 18/11/0
  COM 10
  WTH 18
  POP 18

Total 90??

D) I have read that, when you die, the god come to take your pacted soul. Means this that you lose your dedicated POW?

Finally, could do you put in the web the association record sheet to download?
Thank you

 

[Denalor]

Or maybe I should add more affinity points to the existing cults. How do you treat this?

I suppose the answer can be found on page 7. By choosing a seasoned (veteran, ...) asscociation you gain additional characteristic points. Therefore you could increase SIZ and/or INF which would therefore change Affinity. PLUS you gain additonal Affinity (1d3 in case of a seasoned).

Still, if I look at some cults in "Cults of Glorantha I" and find that some allow all common Divine Magic, I'm baffled. RQ Deluxe lists 10 Divine spells as accessible by all cults, RQ Spellbook lists another 55 (!). Take Ernalda Earthmother. Not counting any gifts etc. the cult has alotted 5 affinities to have the rune of Earth, Fertility and Hamrony, 5 Affinity to gain 5 runic spells, 5 special divine spells for a cost of 15 affinity and at least 10 common divine spells for 30 affinity, that' 55 affinity total... even if you make that one a Heroic Association (and thus gain 1d8+4 affinity, let's make it a 12), there is still 43 needed affinity. SIZ is capped at 21, so INF needs to be at least 25 (so you can roll 2d20+5 for affinity). Well, whatever, all that is without counting those 55 spells from RQ Spellbook.

Also concerning Point allocation. If you take the second option, ie. the fixed values plus 20 you only end up at a total of 80... am I missing something here ?

It feels wrong that within 5 minutes of being initiated, a character can be as magically strong (in terms of dedicating his pow) as he can ever be. Relating size of pact to either cult rank or to the actual skill itself seems like a good idea.

Hmm, okay, as it stands currently an initiate could indeed devote all his POW into one pact, but he'd still be far away from the power of a runelord. The initiate can only learn Divine spells up to magnitude 2 ! So take an initiate of the Orlanth Dragonbreaker cult. Only three divine spells accessible. Attune (which is Magnitude 3) and Cairn of Worship (which is magnitude 5) cannot be learned by an initiate. Only the last spells is progressive, the initate could learn Divine Strike at magnitude 2. I don't really see any rules-wise explanantion why this initiate should put more than 2 POW into the pact.
Still, it might indeed be a good idea to limit the pact size to the rank.

Which reminds me of something I have some trouble in grasping, concerning the previous “Once Only” (which is now a “once per hour” … at least for the higher ranks) in combination with “Splitting Magnitude”.
You cannot learn the same divine spell twice. But you obviously can learn a spell at a certain magnitude and split that magnitude into several uses.
As far as I understood it, you can only learn progressive spells at different magnitudes.
So you could learn “Heal Body” at magnitude 6 and split it as you wish, but you could learn “Heal Wound” only once (as it is not progressive), and only at Magnitude 1. “Fear” is also non-progressive, yet the example on page 87 of RQ Deluxe mentions someone who is splitting a Fear 5 spell.
Is the example wrong or is my understanding wrong ?

 

[Deleriad]

Which reminds me of something I have some trouble in grasping, concerning the previous “Once Only” (which is now a “once per hour” … at least for the higher ranks) in combination with “Splitting Magnitude”.
You cannot learn the same divine spell twice. But you obviously can learn a spell at a certain magnitude and split that magnitude into several uses.
As far as I understood it, you can only learn progressive spells at different magnitudes.
So you could learn “Heal Body” at magnitude 6 and split it as you wish, but you could learn “Heal Wound” only once (as it is not progressive), and only at Magnitude 1. “Fear” is also non-progressive, yet the example on page 87 of RQ Deluxe mentions someone who is splitting a Fear 5 spell.
Is the example wrong or is my understanding wrong ?

I personally ignore the rules about only being able to learn a non-progressive spell once. Instead, I rule that progressive spells can be cast at any Magnitude while 'fixed' spells must be cast at their fixed Magnitude. E.g. Berserk is a 2 Magnitude spell. If you have learned Berserk 4 this means you can cast it twice before you have to regain it.

On the regaining side, I've ruled that each regaining attempt is for all of a single spell regardless of whether or not you've cast all of it. e.g. You know Shield 5 and have cast Shield 3 so have Shield 2 left in your Pact. When you make your regain attempt you regain Shield back to its maximum. Otherwise all that happens is you end up with people pointlessly casting a spell so they can regain it. If you force people to regain 1 mag of Magic per regain attempt then it takes half a lifetime.

Rather oddly, an initiate with a low pact skill is probably better off relearning a spell than trying to regain it as it's likely to take a lot longer to regain.

 

[gran_orco]

Or maybe I should add more affinity points to the existing cults. How do you treat this?

I suppose the answer can be found on page 7. By choosing a seasoned (veteran, ...) asscociation you gain additional characteristic points. Therefore you could increase SIZ and/or INF which would therefore change Affinity. PLUS you gain additonal Affinity (1d3 in case of a seasoned).

Still, if I look at some cults in "Cults of Glorantha I" and find that some allow all common Divine Magic, I'm baffled. RQ Deluxe lists 10 Divine spells as accessible by all cults, RQ Spellbook lists another 55 (!). Take Ernalda Earthmother. Not counting any gifts etc. the cult has alotted 5 affinities to have the rune of Earth, Fertility and Hamrony, 5 Affinity to gain 5 runic spells, 5 special divine spells for a cost of 15 affinity and at least 10 common divine spells for 30 affinity, that' 55 affinity total... even if you make that one a Heroic Association (and thus gain 1d8+4 affinity, let's make it a 12), there is still 43 needed affinity. SIZ is capped at 21, so INF needs to be at least 25 (so you can roll 2d20+5 for affinity). Well, whatever, all that is without counting those 55 spells from RQ Spellbook.

Also concerning Point allocation. If you take the second option, ie. the fixed values plus 20 you only end up at a total of 80... am I missing something here ?

I would suppose that cults presented have 500 years of experience and improvement rolls, 200 affinity points approximately.

What do you think about A, C and D?

 

[duncan_disorderly]

What do you think about A, C and D?

A: I don't think I'd give Runic Powers just for initiating. Amongst the Orlanthi, for example nearly everyone initiates. I'd consider giving them once you achieve "Rune Level" (Rune priest/rune lord) though.

C: the only answer I can offer is we can allocate 100 points to create an association, but we don't have to allocate all 100 if we don't want to. But it's not a very good answer, so maybe Loz can give a better one!

D: I'd say, for Glorantha at least, that your God takes your pacted soul once you are dead beyond any resurrection (around 7 days IIRC). So if you have pacted all but 1 point of your POW, get killed then resurrected, you do not end up with a character with 1 Pow and no divine magic...
I wonder about Relife Sickness though - maybe there is a chance that your pacted POW is "lost", but you can replace it with an equivalent Pact to Humakt....

 

[Deleriad]

What do you think about A, C and D?

The book is pretty clear that the cult's possession of runes does not give its members runic powers. My personal theory is, however, that you might be able to dedicate 1 POW in your pact to a cult's rune and get its powers as a gift.

As for pacts and soul etc. According to Loz it is now possible to dedicate all your POW despite the fact that this leaves you with no MPs. I guess that effectively you still have the MPs keeping you conscious just can't access them. I personally would rule that on death you start your journey into the afterlife and the various entities to which you have dedicated your POW come to collect it. Before the 7 day journey is up, you can still be recalled to life and regain all the parts of your POW but after that it becomes impossible. Perhaps for the first season days after you die you are only "mostly dead"...

 

[Denalor]

I would suppose that cults presented have 500 years of experience and improvement rolls, 200 affinity points approximately.

Sure, but even so the affinity caps at 65 (plus 1d8+4 in case of heroic association) ? And you cannot increase affinity with improvement rolls directly... or can you ?

What do you think about A, C and D?

A) Even with the new rules I'd like to keep the "uniqueness" of actually finding and integrating a rune (call it questing for a rune). Thus I will not grant the runic powers. Though I do like the suggestion of Deleriad to offer ist a a gift option in exchange for 1 POW.
C)+D) nothing to add, really

Deleriads solution to the "once only" issue looks nice, as does his ruling concerning recalling divine magic. I will take those .

I also note, that in CoGI even Laymen were able to learn runic spells from their cults (which they weren't able to according to RQ Deluxe). Now the initial rule is again in place: laymen can only learn cult skills, no runic spells for them. Which makes learning spells that much harder, of course. Or to be blunt: to learn Heal you must become an initiate OR start as a healer or witch.

So what happens when you become an initiate (btw: I do share Deleriad's concern about actually passing those 5 skill tests) ? You immediatedly gain Runecasting skill in each cult rune ? Actually the examples in GFC suggest differently. Are the Runecasting skills now "common" advanced skills that need 2 Improvement Rolls to purchase ?
And is the cultic Runecasting skill the same as the integrated Runecasting skill ? I suppose Yes.

Okay, so you start a new character, a peasant healer who starts with the Runecasting Skill of Fertility and the runic spell Heal (I choose this character as it makes quite clear how long it would otherwise take till you can cast Heal). After several adventures that healer has increased his Runecasting (Fertility) to 45%. He then becomes an initiate of Barntar Orlanthson as he wants to learn the runic spell Endurance (because he simply can't stand to learn this spell from some primitive shaman). Would you differentiate between (Cultic Runecasting Fertility) and ("normal" Runecasting Fertility) ? Or would you simply allow the character to learn the new runic spell and let him cast it at 45% skill chance rather than a newly developed cultic POW+CHA skill chance (which would first need to be acquired at the cost of 2 Improvement rolls)? Or would you actually go way back to another suggestion found elsewhere and have the new runic "Endurance" be cast at the character's "Lore (Barntar Orlanthson theology)" ?
By the way: as a starting character you are not supposed to even be a Layman yet. Yet, you must be a layman in order to be allowed to learn a specific theology lore. This directly implies that the "Priest" is a layman, right ? Anyway, can a starting character choose Lore (Specific Theology) with his cultural background pick ?

Deleriad, you mentioned your skill "Invoke". When do you learn that skill ? Surely only when you are allowed to cast divine spells, i.e. at initiate rank. Do you need to purchase it (2 Improvement rolls) or do you give it for free ?

Umm... actually, I'm way beyond the topic. Sorry

 

[Deleriad]

I can tell you what I do for Glorantha, specifically Second Age Heortland where my campaign is based.

Runecasting is an advanced skill that can be learned from cults, associations, hedge wizarrds, shamans, basically anyone who is able to teach it.

Cults and associations may teach rune magic to a maximum Magnitude of 2 to anyone prepared to become a lay member or equivalent and pay a lot of money.

Individuals like hedge magicians can teach rune magic of whatever Magnitude they want provided someone will pay enough and they know the appropriate spell at the required Magnitude.

Many organisations know non-standard mappings of rune spells onto runes. For example, Orlanth cultists know how to cast Bladesharp using Runecasting (Air). These are secrets gained through myths, legends and heroquests.

In Glorantha I allow PCs to develop up to three starting runecasting skills based on their background and history. E.g. all male Orlanthi start with Runecasting (Air). These are effectively common skills for them. I do let players wait until play before they specify which are their common runecasting skills.

When it comes to cha gen then, basically you may be able to start play with 1-3 runecasting skills and can buy rune magic with starting funds. If you want more than 2 Mag in a single spell though you need to justify where you got it from. Ditto any unusual spells or runes.

Invoke is an advanced skill that you can learn as a lay member. However until such time as you get a pact the skill is purely theoretical as you don't have magic to cast.

The outcome of this in Orlanthi cultures seems to be that most people know one or two runecasting skills at a basic level of competence and 1 or 2 rune spells to around Magnitude 2. Although most become initiates, most only develop a small pact and don't increase their Invoke that much. After all, they can't spend all their time at church. This means that most Orlanthi seem to end up with 1 to 2 Magnitude of Divine Magic - almost always one use of Flight....

For the record, I've made healing magic much rare. Heal Wounds is no longer a common divine spell and Rune Magic Healing is nearly always only found in fertility or earth runes which means that healing is predominantly female because the fertility and earth runes are seen as feminine runes in Orlanthi societies.

That was longer than I intended but hopefully it shows how I've been making the new cults rules work for me. I'm pleased with it so far.

 

[PrinceYyrkoon]

This new approach seems to have gotten good feedback, but reading through GF&C, I cant get my head around it. It seems really badly designed and thought out, sorry.

How does it work in cults other than Gloranthan ones, how does it work in Gloranthan ones, and whats the difference between the two as regards procedure?

And, is it an official approach now? I mean, do all future supplements work this way now? Who made that descision, and why? Are we getting a new version of the rules? What about guys who prefer the original way? Will my two Cults of Glorantha books (investments), be obsolete soon?

 

[Deleriad]

And, is it an official approach now? I mean, do all future supplements work this way now? Who made that descision, and why? Are we getting a new version of the rules? What about guys who prefer the original way? Will my two Cults of Glorantha books (investments), be obsolete soon?

Loz has said that the way rune magic and divine magic works in GF&C is the official way and will be used in future supplements. It also says directly in the books that you can ignore them if you want. YRQWV...

As for the rest, not sure what you're asking. My understanding is that the approach is GF&C is a generic one that can be adopted and adapted for each game world.

Some of the discussion here is pretty tangential because there are, as always, questions that need answering.

 

[PrinceYyrkoon]

And, is it an official approach now? I mean, do all future supplements work this way now? Who made that descision, and why? Are we getting a new version of the rules? What about guys who prefer the original way? Will my two Cults of Glorantha books (investments), be obsolete soon?

Loz has said that the way rune magic and divine magic works in GF&C is the official way and will be used in future supplements. It also says directly in the books that you can ignore them if you want. YRQWV...

As for the rest, not sure what you're asking. My understanding is that the approach is GF&C is a generic one that can be adopted and adapted for each game world.

Some of the discussion here is pretty tangential because there are, as always, questions that need answering.

Cheers Deleriad.

I suppose my first reaction to new rules is to bark at them. Thing is though, although I know we can ignore this stuff, its a pain when all the new material doesnt take the old version into consideration anymore. Was there any huge issue with the way it was originally done, I suppose is my question. I wont say I used the rules as is, (simplifying rules is always good for me), but the houserules I used were based upon what was in the book. This new version doesnt really appeal to me, and actualy, doesnt seem all that well playtested or thorough.

 

[Deleriad]

Was there any huge issue with the way it was originally done, I suppose is my question..

Yes. The old rules didn't work at all, especially for Glorantha. No one knew how to match up rune magic from runes available to cults. No one knew what cults having runes actually meant. 95% of people didn't like having to integrate a physical rune to cast rune magic. 99.73% of people hated the way Dedicated POW was used for divine magic and the fiddliness of having to recalculate all your magical skills after casting Divine Magic. No one quite knew what the point of having to buy a legendary ability to become a rune lord/priest was.

To this day not even the author of Shamanic (properly animistic) magic understands what happened to the rules.

Those are the main problems I remember. The new system goes a long way to fixing the problems. As always there are some issues that need sorting out and some answers that I don't personally like. The new system has been used in MRQ since Elric and seems to have worked well there so there's every reason to assume that it'll work ok as a generic system.

 

[PrinceYyrkoon]

Was there any huge issue with the way it was originally done, I suppose is my question..

Yes. The old rules didn't work at all, especially for Glorantha. No one knew how to match up rune magic from runes available to cults. No one knew what cults having runes actually meant. 95% of people didn't like having to integrate a physical rune to cast rune magic. 99.73% of people hated the way Dedicated POW was used for divine magic and the fiddliness of having to recalculate all your magical skills after casting Divine Magic. No one quite knew what the point of having to buy a legendary ability to become a rune lord/priest was.

To this day not even the author of Shamanic (properly animistic) magic understands what happened to the rules.

Those are the main problems I remember. The new system goes a long way to fixing the problems. As always there are some issues that need sorting out and some answers that I don't personally like. The new system has been used in MRQ since Elric and seems to have worked well there so there's every reason to assume that it'll work ok as a generic system.

Yeah, I guess my simplified house rule is fairly dependent upon BRP, and owning RQ 1, 2 and 3. I cant say I really used the MRQ rules. But as far a Rune magic concerned, I treat the runes as concepts rather than physical things. Your expertise relies upon your familiarity with each rune. That way, you use the rune as a focus for the spells that it has an affinity to, and you inscribe the runes you 'have' anywhere upon your person, or wherever. That seems more 'Gloranthan' an approach to me. For Divine magic, I pretty much use the rules from 3rd ed.

The new version just seems to come from a totally diferent perspective. I dunno, maybe it doesnt, maybe I was just blinded by the newness.

 

[Denalor]

Actually I really do like the new rules, there's just a little need to decide upon the final "dot above the i".

For me that means:
- cults can teach the advanced skill of Runecasting for their cultic runes. This is in addition to the five cult skills and without the need to pay for it with affinity points as mentioned on page 71 GFC. This Runecasting skill is used to cast the cult rune spells.
- Cult rune spells may be cast without the rune mentioned in RQ Deluxe (or RQ Spellbook or whatever), e.g. Orlanthi may cast Skybolt via the Air runecasting skil lrather than via a Chaos rune
- Runic powers are not gained from cults, but only as a gift or by integrating a specific rune. Questing for runes of your cult and successfully integrating them will increase your Pact skill
- Pact size is limited by your rank and/or your Lore skill. I'm not yet clear about the specifics
- even non-progressive divine spells can be leaned multiple times.
- recalling a divine spell refills any previous castings, i.e. you do not need to cast the complete magnitude before being allowed to recall the spell

What I really would like to see is a re-shaping of CoGI-cults with the new rules given... at least a couple of examples (the Pantheon of Orlanth please), preferably as a free download :wink:

 

[Deleriad]

This is what I have been using for Orlanth Adventurous in my campaign.
Runes: Air, Mastery, Motion.
Cult Skills: Athletics, Dodge, Influence, Invoke (Orlanth), Perception, Stealth, 1H Sword, Spear, Shield.
Cult Rune Spells: Air (Bladesharp, Skybolt, Thunder’s Voice), Mastery (Cover of Night), Motion (Mobility).
Standard Divine Magic: Consecrate, Excommunicate.
Special Divine Magic: Command (Sylph), Flight, Lightning Strike, Wind Words.

Runecasting for a cult's runes are cult skills by default.

Basically, as I see it, all you need to do is decide which rune spells map onto which runes.
A second level of updating would be to add in gifts and decide how and when worshippers could gain them.
The third level would be to see if you could retro-engineering the existing cults to fit with the cult characteristic rules. Not sure what doing that 3rd level would offer though.

 

[PrinceYyrkoon]

This is what I have been using for Orlanth Adventurous in my campaign.
Runes: Air, Mastery, Motion.
Cult Skills: Athletics, Dodge, Influence, Invoke (Orlanth), Perception, Stealth, 1H Sword, Spear, Shield.
Cult Rune Spells: Air (Bladesharp, Skybolt, Thunder’s Voice), Mastery (Cover of Night), Motion (Mobility).
Standard Divine Magic: Consecrate, Excommunicate.
Special Divine Magic: Command (Sylph), Flight, Lightning Strike, Wind Words.

Runecasting for a cult's runes are cult skills by default.

Basically, as I see it, all you need to do is decide which rune spells map onto which runes.
A second level of updating would be to add in gifts and decide how and when worshippers could gain them.
The third level would be to see if you could retro-engineering the existing cults to fit with the cult characteristic rules. Not sure what doing that 3rd level would offer though.

That approach seems very much like 3rd edition to me. Would you say, as in 3rd, that larger temples have access to further skills and magic?

 

[RosenMcStern]

Well, the Cults rules, with Loz's clarifications, have solved many important problems that affected Rune Magic for Cults, so +1 for Cults. I still have some questions about Pacts and Divine Magic, but the Pact rules are an improvement of Dedicated POW (which I did not dislike, after all) so I welcome them, too. And in fact we have built upon them.

I cannot say anything about what will appear in new Gloranthan supplements, but I have just sent the magic rules for Merrie England to the printing department, so I can tell you something about how we have used the Pact rules in Fantasy Europe. As Fantasy Europe is a setting used almost exclusively in Alephtar Games supplements, we tried to build a common ground for Middle Ages Christianity and Islam based on Cults & Factions, which will be in effect for Merrie England and Stupor Mundi 2, and can be retrofitted to the original Stupor Mundi. We did not worry too much about possible differences with forthcoming Glorantha supplements: Earth is Earth, and Glorantha is Glorantha, after all.

Basically, Divine magic works as described in Cults, with some names changed (Piety instead of Pact, etc.), but the rules are 90% the same. We have put into place caps to the number of POW points that can be dedicated to one's pact. These caps can be evaluated in two different ways, at GM option:

a) the easy way - your cult rank dictates how much POW you can dedicate to your Pact

b) the complex way - your maximum pact POW is determined by Vows that your character takes, a la Sandy's Sorcery. In a game with friars and nuns, the nature of such vows is rather obvious, but we have worked out an interesting vow list to flesh characters out. Also, many of these vows are related to pilgrimages your character can and should make. Soltakss has written an extensive description of pilgrimages in medieval Europe, and the deep impact that they can have on character development will encourage players to send their characters to some holy place.

After some tinkering with the rules, we have found out that this method allows you to create workable, interesting clergymen with some divine powers - magnitude 3 for a starting novice friar, for instance - which become more and more reusable as the character's Piety (the Pact) grows. Gloranthan priests are of course more powerful, but this is fine because they are generated for a high magic world.

 

[Deleriad]

b) the complex way - your maximum pact POW is determined by Vows that your character takes, a la Sandy's Sorcery. In a game with friars and nuns, the nature of such vows is rather obvious, but we have worked out an interesting vow list to flesh characters out. Also, many of these vows are related to pilgrimages your character can and should make. Soltakss has written an extensive description of pilgrimages in medieval Europe, and the deep impact that they can have on character development will encourage players to send their characters to some holy place.

That looks like a very cool way to handle the issue. If you haven't read Adam Thorpe's recent redoing of Robin Hood ("Hodd") then I recommend it as it's really about various heresies and religiousity; it'll be gold mine for Merrie England.

 

[Denalor]

Cult Rune Spells: Air (Bladesharp, Skybolt, Thunder’s Voice), Mastery (Cover of Night), Motion (Mobility).

I would leave Thunder's Voice in Mastery, why change it to Air when Orlanth Adventurous has the mastery rune in his profile ?

The third level would be to see if you could retro-engineering the existing cults to fit with the cult characteristic rules. Not sure what doing that 3rd level would offer though.

Only necessary if you'd want to play cults in the metagame frame...

As Fantasy Europe is a setting used almost exclusively in Alephtar Games supplements

I acquired Stupor Mundi (which I admittedly only leafed through) and I assumed that Rome is set in a completely different time. What about that Merrie England ? What time is this one staged at ?

EDIT: Forget that question, I just saw it in another thread !