Choosing Divine Spells

[languagegeek]

I'm a complete newcomer to RQ, and have not looked at any rules except for what I have in the MRQ2 corebook and the Necromantic Arts (which I just picked up).

My question: how does an adventurer select their Divine spells? On page 117 of the corebook, the Edric's Saga section says: "As an Orlanth the Dragon initiate, Edric learns Dismiss Elemental, Mindlink, Soul Sight and Channel Strength."

If I go to the Orlanth the Dragon cult (page 152), it says "Divine Magic: Blessing, Consecrate, Lightning Strike." How come Edric gets to learn four spells not on the cult list? I've looked around this forum and others, and have heard talk of "Common Divine Magic", that I can have a shared selection of spells available to most cults, and have even read some suggested Common Divine spells.

1. is there a canonic list of Common Divine spells from which Edric chose his four divine spells?
2. is there a better term than "Common Divine" as "Common Magic" is a different spell set?

I decided to go with MRQ2 after a lot of research into gaming systems I hadn't played/GMed before. I must say that after a few reads of the corebook, I'm extremely excited to start a campaign and the system has inspired me to create a new setting unlike anything I've ever developed before - I'm not sleeping properly - I can't get my brain to stop! It was in developing a couple of new cults (I've read some helpful threads here about that) I arrived at my Divine Spell confusion.

I really like how so much of the game is fluid; it seems with RQ, players and GMs can play in the kind of world they're interested in: concepts like cults, mythology, and cultural backgrounds really suit my interests. That said, not having played RQ before, it's very difficult for me to house-rule anything which seems inconsistant to me at this point (like Common Divine Spells), I need some guidance and direction from the rulebook. Once I've played an adventure or two, then I can add house rules much more easily. At this point, I'm leaning towards making MRQ2 my game of choice, and I'm a good customer - I like to buy nice hardcover books

 

[Loz]

Choosing Divine Spells is dependent on several factors.

First - what does the cult offer? There are some standard, common divine spells that most cults will have which are:

Behold
Blessing
Consecrate
Dismiss Magic
Excommunicate
Extension
Soul Sight

Now, these are standard for Glorantha, but if you use your own world, then the list may be different - but this serves as a useful guide. Remember that cults have spells beyond the standard range that reflect their nature. You're unlikely to find a spell like Sever Soul in a healing cult, for example. If you're roleplaying your cult membership properly you'll pray for spells that reflect your cult's nature AND the underlying myths.

Second - how much POW do you have dedicated? If only a point, then you need to carefully decide on what you want to pray for. However, if several you have a wider base for deciding what magic is available. Divine spells can be taken multiple times: so you could have Dismiss Magic twice, taking 2 of your Dedicated POW points.

Third - what do you need the magic for? If you're on a cult quest or mission then you can probably choose appropriate spells. However it may not be so clear cut: you might think you need a spell of a particular type but just can't be sure. Its better to pray for it and have it and not use it, than not bother and be caught out.

Fourth - how quickly can you get to a holy place to regenerate a divine spell you've received? Take this into account and take multiples of the same spell if you think it might be difficult or too time consuming to go and rededicate.

Fifth - do you have some common magic that would do just as well as a Divine Spell? Some common magic spells fulfil this need, so worth considering your Common Magic available too.

Sixth - what do other cultists have in the way of Divine Magic? Try to complement rather than replicate or choose spells that will be at distinct odds with your colleagues.

Remember that the divine spells you choose are not necessarily with you forever. You can drop a Divine Spell you've received in favour of another if you're at a holy place and pray for it. There is always some flexibility.

Hope this helps.

 

[languagegeek]

Choosing Divine Spells is dependent on several factors.

First - what does the cult offer? There are some standard, common divine spells that most cults will have which are:

Behold
Blessing
Consecrate
Dismiss Magic
Excommunicate
Extension
Soul Sight

Now, these are standard for Glorantha, but if you use your own world, then the list may be different - but this serves as a useful guide. Remember that cults have spells beyond the standard range that reflect their nature. You're unlikely to find a spell like Sever Soul in a healing cult, for example. If you're roleplaying your cult membership properly you'll pray for spells that reflect your cult's nature AND the underlying myths.

I think this is kind of what I was looking for, thank-you. So "common divine" spells are campaign specific? Nevertheless, from this list you've given above, on page 117 of the corebook Edric only has Soul Sight. If I'm to assume that he got Dismiss Elemental, Mindlink, and Channel Strength from some home-campaign-specific common divine spells (and I still think using the word "common" here is confusing), it might be good to explicitly explain it as such in the core rulebook. It has been troubling me ever since I bought the book.

I usually read rules by: 1) Read the rule mechanic and not really get it, 2) Read the example, 3) Re-read the mechanic in the context of the example and aha! If the the example and the mechanic don't add up in an obvious way, I get stuck.

All that said, I really do like that there is not a concrete "these are the common divine spells" table. I like that it's open for us to decide what would be reasonable in the setting.

Remember that the divine spells you choose are not necessarily with you forever. You can drop a Divine Spell you've received in favour of another if you're at a holy place and pray for it. There is always some flexibility.

Ah, that's a good point I wasn't aware of, thanks for that.

The other points you mentioned were, I think, well explained in the core rule book, and I'm happy that you added those points in response to my question. Over all the magic/cult system is just what I was looking for. It's very modular in that the GM can limit the magic accessible to an adventurer through cult spells, without the adventurer's feeling ripped off because certain "cool" (but inappropriate) spells are forbidden to them.

 

[Breschau of Livonia]

As a newbie I'm working through similar issues.

First, what precisely is the purpose of the portion of the cults chapter where it mentions a cult giving access to four or five divine spells if you can learn others. While I understand the need for GM judgement I could use some guidelines as to what it means mechanically to be part of a cult. For example, sorcerers can learn spells from their cult's grimoire. If they want more spells, they must learn via other cults/grimoires.

Similarly, I'm a little unclear on what it means to drop access to a spell. I infer that this means a divine spell caster has essentially three lists. The first is the pool of divine spells he can learn from the cult. Second the spells he has been taught. Third the ones he has available for casting. From a reading of the rules I'd assumed that the first was limited to about five spells and the second and third were identical and limited by dedicated Pow

Again I'm fine making judgment calls but i'd like them to be informed such that I don't give unfair advantage or disadvantage to divine casters.

 

[PhilHibbs]

My question: how does an adventurer select their Divine spells? On page 117 of the corebook, the Edric's Saga section says: "As an Orlanth the Dragon initiate, Edric learns Dismiss Elemental, Mindlink, Soul Sight and Channel Strength."

If I go to the Orlanth the Dragon cult (page 152), it says "Divine Magic: Blessing, Consecrate, Lightning Strike." How come Edric gets to learn four spells not on the cult list?

I'm pretty sure there's a mistake here somewhere, the spell list ends with a comma so I think half of it is missing.

 

[Loz]

As a newbie I'm working through similar issues.

First, what precisely is the purpose of the portion of the cults chapter where it mentions a cult giving access to four or five divine spells if you can learn others. While I understand the need for GM judgement I could use some guidelines as to what it means mechanically to be part of a cult. For example, sorcerers can learn spells from their cult's grimoire. If they want more spells, they must learn via other cults/grimoires.

Similarly, I'm a little unclear on what it means to drop access to a spell. I infer that this means a divine spell caster has essentially three lists. The first is the pool of divine spells he can learn from the cult. Second the spells he has been taught. Third the ones he has available for casting. From a reading of the rules I'd assumed that the first was limited to about five spells and the second and third were identical and limited by dedicated Pow

Again I'm fine making judgment calls but i'd like them to be informed such that I don't give unfair advantage or disadvantage to divine casters.

It works kind like this.

Cults may have a similar bank of standard spells (see further up this thread). Next they will have some specific spells reflecting the nature and myths of their cult - these will therefore differ from cult to cult. Both standard and specific spells don't belong to separate lists; they're available to the ranks of the cult as per the spell's description (some spells can't be used by lower ranks).

You choose to pray for divine spells depending on what you need to do, up to the limits of your dedicated POW. If you have 4 DP you can choose up to 4 spells usable by your rank and these might vary according to your task, mission or daily use. Some cultists might always keep one or two standard spells memorised and then pray for others - either standard or specific to the cult - when they have to undertake certain duties. You pray for the spells you want or need at your temple before you undertake those duties. When you cast a spell its put beyond your use until you can return to a temple or shrine and pray for it again - or pray for a different spell.

Thus you can drop a spell you might have memorised and pray for another assuming you're at, or can get to, a holy site.

So to recap:

Cults may have a standard working list of spells (certainly true in Glorantha)
Cults have four or five specific spells
All are available to cultists although some will be rank dependent
You can keep a spell memorised indefinitely, but it keeps DP occupied
You can change spells within your cult's list of available spells according to need/task/mission/preference

Hope this helps make things clearer!

Oh and Edric's spells as quoted in the rules are snafued a little. My fault. I made some changes and didn't carry them across through the example. The principles, though, are sound and as outlined in this post.

 

[Nidhogg]

I was under the impression that there were three lists like mentioned earlier:
1) The list of all spells available to your cult
2) The pool of spells you have learned
3) The spells you currently have memorized up to the value of your dedicated POW. These equate to single use spell slots.

The post above me seems to imply that 2) does not apply... but then what is the purpose of the table giving the cost in improvement rolls for gaining spells in the divine chapter?

 

[Denalor]

So divine cults have those common spells in addition to the four to five mentioned elsewhere.

The example list above is 7 divine spells... that's 21 affinity burned if you're using Guilds, Factions and Cults, granting divine cults quite a massive advantage in comparison to sorcerous or spiritual cults.
Or should one assume a similiar argumentation for those cults, e.h. Guardain spirits and Ancestor spirits are always included for free ?

 

[Breschau of Livonia]

I took a look at some of my ancient Runequest 3 books from Avalon Hill/Chaosium. I see there discussion of "common" divine magic and I see it in OpenQuest as well, based off of the Mongoose Runequest SRD, so I assume it was in the previous Mongoose incarnation. However my reading of the rules of Runequest II don't see any mention of "common" divine magic. Is this an official errata Oran assumption?

It seems a reasonable errata but I can see how it might have been intentional given that sorcerers now must learn magic on a per grimoire basis.

 

[PhilHibbs]

However my reading of the rules of Runequest II don't see any mention of "common" divine magic.

I don't remember seeing it either. I just searched the PDF for the word "common" in the Divine Magic and Cults chapters, and it's never used in that context, only in the sense of "Common Magic" or in the vernacular. There doesn't seem to be any such concept in RQII, so according to the rules, a cult only has, say, Extension if it is listed as a cult spell. Unless there is an Errata.

p.s. nice choice of name

 

[Loz]

However my reading of the rules of Runequest II don't see any mention of "common" divine magic.

I don't remember seeing it either. I just searched the PDF for the word "common" in the Divine Magic and Cults chapters, and it's never used in that context, only in the sense of "Common Magic" or in the vernacular. There doesn't seem to be any such concept in RQII, so according to the rules, a cult only has, say, Extension if it is listed as a cult spell. Unless there is an Errata.

p.s. nice choice of name

No, its not an errata. 'Cults of Glorantha' contains the list of Standard Divine Spells, which are precisely as I've listed earlier in this thread. It IS a Gloranthan thing, but no reason why it can't be used in other settings, so that's why I published the Standard Divine Spells.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Aah, gotcha. I'll be awake soon.

 

[Denalor]

There used to be a link between common magic spells and specific runes.
E.g. the common spell Heal was linked to the Fertility rune or Strength was linked to the Beast rune.

There used to be a link between divine spells and the type of cult/god worshipped. Which, of course, also represented a link to a specific rune.
E.g. the spell Sunspear was linked to a Sun cult, or Reflection was linked to a Trickster god or Sureshot to a Hunter god or Fear to Chaos or Night cult. That list of common divine spells is based on the same issue, but these mentioned spells could be learned by all cults, hence the adjective “common”.

This was all based on the idea that you need to have a certain affinity with a specific rune before you could learn spells linked to that rune.

This has all been dropped in MRQII.

 

[PhilHibbs]

That was an interesting idea, but I prefer the flexibility and idiosyncrasy of specific lists. Divine spells are more to do with replicating something your God did in a myth than they are a runic formula. The heavy emphasis on rune associations felt a bit more appropriate for sorcery IMO. After all, the Gloranthan runes that we know and love were created (or discovered, codified, whatever) by the God Learners.

 

[Loz]

This has all been dropped in MRQII.

No, it hasn't. See page 115 and the first bullet point. Cults will always have spells linked to the runes they possess. You won't - or shouldn't - find a Darkness cult with light spells; or a Healing cult with Lightning Strike.

The very specific rune/spell association found in RQI has been dropped so that spells become more flexible and to allow spells to be associated with particular myths. You could, for instance, have a cult that doesn't have the Light rune but has myths associated with how that cult assisted in bringing light to the world and so might have access to a light spell. But, by and large, divine spells should reflect:

a) the cult's runes
b) the god's nature
c) myths

To reinforce this, I'd refer you to page 100 in RQII: I quite deliberately wrote this chapter to help communicate how runes and magic work together.

The post above me seems to imply that 2) does not apply... but then what is the purpose of the table giving the cost in improvement rolls for gaining spells in the divine chapter?

My bad, there. I had forgotten that this is in the chapter. Yes, you're right. So, this is how it works...

When you dedicate POW to your cult and choose Divine spells that's your base. You don't have to spend all your DP on spells; a cult might offer certain Gifts that you want to take instead, or in addition to spells. But further dedications of POW that are to be used to fuel spells mean you have to learn that spell through prayer, meditation and time, which is reflected in Improvement Rolls. Let's say Edric advances from Initiate with, say, 3 DP and 3 spells known, to an acolyte and he dedicates a further 2 POW. He can now learn an additional 2 spells if he chooses - or, if his cult offers Gifts he could use that POW for those (or a combo). If he wants to learn a new spell offered by the cult available only to acolytes he can do so, as he's now an acolyte, but he must spend 2 days and 2 IRs to gain it. If he wanted to learn a further, 4th, initiate-level spell it would be 1 day and 1 IR.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Once you have "learned" a spell, can you drop it and replace it with a different "learned" spell? Do you have to be at the right place to get the spell, or will any shrine do? For instance, if I have 1 DP and have learned both Truesword and Amplify, can I switch between them by visiting a shrine and doing a simple prayer?

 

[Loz]

Once you have "learned" a spell, can you drop it and replace it with a different "learned" spell? Do you have to be at the right place to get the spell, or will any shrine do? For instance, if I have 1 DP and have learned both Truesword and Amplify, can I switch between them by visiting a shrine and doing a simple prayer?

Yes. As page 118 says, once learned, spells have no further cost, so you can drop/swap learned spells at an appropriate holy place.

 

[languagegeek]

Here's what I ended up doing, coming from someone unfamiliar with the RQ spells and the way Runes are used in the game.

1. I wrote out a list of all the runes and got familiar with their symbols and areas of influence.
2. Put each of the divine spells into a spreadsheet, along with whether they're for initiates, acolytes, or Rune Priest/Lords.
3. Then I associated one, two or three runes with each spell, depending on what the spell does or the source of the spell's power.
4. Now, for any cult I come up with, I can filter the spreadsheet to the cult runes and see what kinds of spells that cult is likely to have
5. I then did the same for common magic and sorcery.

This helped me in a number of ways:

• The process made me look at and become familiar with every spell in the rulebook (and Necromantic Arts) so now I know what, for example, alter target does.
• Made me take a close look at how Runes interact with the universe, and I ended up house-ruling some of the Runes to fit the philosophy and feel of my campaign.
• Whenever I want to make up a new cult, I can select the Runes and then see very quickly the kinds of spells that cult will have. But I'm not restricted to those spells, because the cult's myths might imply certain other spells to be appropriate.

I'm really enjoying cult spells because it encourages players and NPCs to know spells which make sense in game context, instead of only choosing the best quantitative bang for your buck. Also, because of the small selection of spells available to PCs, it lessens the pigeon-holing of: "this PC is the cleric and only does clericky things", "this PC is the sorcerer and only does sorcery"... and for new players, they don't have to spend hours learning the spell list to decide which spells they want for their new character.

I like that we get to decide the nature of spells in our campaign worlds, and how to integrate them. If there are too many specific rules for spells the GM has to reverse engineer each spell (e.g. remove the spell school) and then build them back up again to fit the setting.

I think what would have helped in the rulebook is a sentence like, "in some campaigns there is a collection of standard divine spells available to most cults, for example..." After reading this and other threads, everything seems much clearer.

 

[Loz]

Here's what I ended up doing, coming from someone unfamiliar with the RQ spells and the way Runes are used in the game.
I wrote out a list of all the runes and got familiar with their symbols and areas of influence.
Put each of the divine spells into a spreadsheet, along with whether they're for initiates, acolytes, or Rune Priest/Lords.
Then I associated one, two or three runes with each spell, depending on what the spell does or the source of the spell's power.
Now, for any cult I come up with, I can filter the spreadsheet to the cult runes and see what kinds of spells that cult is likely to have
I then did the same for common magic and sorcery.

A brilliant idea! Would you share your spreadsheet perhaps?

I'm really enjoying cult spells because it encourages players and NPCs to know spells which make sense in game context, instead of only choosing the best quantitative bang for your buck. Also, because of the small selection of spells available to PCs, it lessens the pigeon-holing of: "this PC is the cleric and only does clericky things", "this PC is the sorcerer and only does sorcery"... and for new players, they don't have to spend hours learning the spell list to decide which spells they want for their new character.

Precisely. You can follow as many types of magic as you like. You can have divine worshippers who are also students of sorcery, or shamans who also worship specific deities. Its entirely up to you.

I think what would have helped in the rulebook is a sentence like, "in some campaigns there is a collection of standard divine spells available to most cults, for example..." After reading this and other threads, everything seems much clearer.

Yes, it would!

 

[Denalor]

This has all been dropped in MRQII.

No, it hasn't. See page 115 and the first bullet point. Cults will always have spells linked to the runes they possess.

The very specific rune/spell association found in RQI has been dropped so that spells become more flexible and to allow spells to be associated with particular myths.

Sorry, Loz, I didn't mean to imply that you guys did a bad job or something, I only meant the specific references, just like you said.