Cults of Glorantha II

[Michael Hopcroft]

I'm waiting to place a good-sized Drive-Thru order of Glorantha stuff when I have the funds, but I was browsing through the book at my local shop and a thought occurred to me about The Bad Man (the omnipresent being trying to keeps spirit powers away from mortals) -- shamans may think he's bad, but does he?

I have a suspicion that he might be a sort of self-appointed Guardian of the Spirit World who sees Shamanism as a form of extra-planar slavery and believes that the Spirit World has nothing to gain from connection to the World of Man, and that therefore it should be avoided as far as possible.

what he does to Shamans is not out of any particular malice towards them as people, but is roughly the equivalent of an old coot with a shotgun crying "You goldurn stinkin' hippies! Get the heck off'n ma lawn or I'll fill ya full a birdshot!". He only has a problem with humans that don't stay on their side of the property line (like Shamans and possible some Runecasters).

 

[Exubae]

I've been reading the Shaman chapter again a couple of questions came to mind...
1. Spirit spells (aka Rune Spells), can these only be learnt by a shaman?
(Excluding Charm and Fetish)
2. Spirit spells do or donot require runes or charms... It kind of says not, but the references to Runemagic gets confusing.

COG2 and COG1, Both are cool but could have benefited from more time in proofing/editing (This is not a critism of the Editor/proofer, but of the mad restrictive time scales you guys are under.) - MRQ(Glorantha) is a reasonably solid game, its just a shame that they don't get the proper finish for the amount of work thats gone in to them. I do hope the localised printing facility will grant a bit more leway on time scales.

The Bad Man (the omnipresent being trying to keeps spirit powers away from mortals) -- shamans may think he's bad, but does he?

I've been working on converting Nephilim to MRQ and also doing a little research into a summoning on the side...
There is an entity that cropped up during my meandre through some quite bizzare resources, one entity is refered to as the Keeper on the Threshold- he is kind of a personalised enemy on the astral/spirit plane - the emphasis of the character flaws and negative emotions... perhaps bad man isn't an assault by an individual but by the darker side o the character... any that was completely off topic.

 

[gamesmeister]

I've been reading the Shaman chapter again a couple of questions came to mind...
1. Spirit spells (aka Rune Spells), can these only be learnt by a shaman?
(Excluding Charm and Fetish)

Are you asking whether the spirit magic spells can be learnt by non-spirit worshippers i.e. cultists? I think it says they're intended for shamans, but can be used by others at the GMs discretion. I don't think that's what you meant though... :?

If you are asking whether only those at a rank of Shaman can cast them, then no, I believe the spells can be learnt by anyone from Practitioner upwards.

If you don't mean that either, you'd better try again :wink:

2. Spirit spells do or do not require runes or charms... It kind of says not, but the references to Runemagic gets confusing.

This confused me at first, as its poorly written/contradictory in a couple of places. However, my understanding is that yes, Spirit Magic spells need a Charm of the right Rune type in order to cast them. I can't quote you the exact paragraph as I'm work, but the book definitely states that shamans must use Charms to cast spirit magic spells. The exception to this is when the shaman is commanding a spirit bound into a fetish to cast the spell instead, in which case no Charm is required.

 

[Voriof]

I have a suspicion that he might be a sort of self-appointed Guardian of the Spirit World who sees Shamanism as a form of extra-planar slavery and believes that the Spirit World has nothing to gain from connection to the World of Man, and that therefore it should be avoided as far as possible.

It is possible. Remember, awakening the fetch is in essence a very speicalized heroquest. By their very nature, heroquests draw their own opposition - they can't not!

However, I am of the opinion that Bad Man is the oppositon to the act of creating a fetch - and drawn from that cult's usual enemies. Kolat shamans are faced by the Beast Enchanter, Troll shamans face the Burning Man, and hsunchen shaman (who are sort of the default back in the old days of RQIII) face the Bad Man - who is the Horned Man's special foe.

I'm not into the kinder, gentler, understand-the-enemy-he's-only-doing-his-job school of thought. Bad Man is what it is. It could simply be the world trying to prevent soemthing like Shamans awakening as the barrier between the realms tends to resist being breached... and the dual nature of Shamans is a walking breach. But in the end, its just the Bad Man coming to get the little boy who didn't cry out in the night when the Horned Man visited him so long ago.

But hey, YGMV!

Jeff

 

[Magistus]

Does anyone know what COGII will be available on Drive Thru RP?

 

[Magistus]

Anyone?