If everyone knows a little magic....

[Michael Hopcroft]

If everyone in typical RQ worlds knows a little magic, what sorts of seemingly trivial things would magic be used for on a daily basis?

I remember reading an article years and years ago mentioning the use of spells like "Plowsharp", a variation on Bladesharp that makes it easier to deal with hard ground when a farmer plows his field. Other spells that adventurers would use could be used by nomral folk to do things like repair broken tools.

 

[Utgardloki]

Based on the ancient Runequest materials from the early 1980s, it seems to me that magic would be too expensive for common farmers to use it for things like "Ploughsharp" or to replace what can be done with a little bit (or even a lot) of elbow grease.

On the other hand, magic would be commonly employed by merchants, nobles, and other aristocrats, not to mention military leaders of all types. They might use spells like "Unseen Servant" to make their lives easier. Their daughters would be likely to be protected with a "Chastity" spell.

Valuable goods would probably be magically protected, and even tussling with a local militia would often (depending on the resources of the town) result in the offenders being hit by battle magic. The D&D Dungeon Masters Guide has guidelines for town wealth that could be used to determine whether and how much magical protection is available for a town.

Another consideration I have is that in Glorantha, everything appears to be tied up in the cults. Therefore every spell has to be connected with some deity or other. If there is no deity interested in creating a spell (whch seems unlikely, given the number of deities there are), then the spell might not exist. Of course, domestic deities are likely to make domestic spells available.

When I get a chance to look at the new rulebook, I'll probably make up a good list of utility magic.

 

[atgxtg]

Two very useful spells of the "daily use" variety would be Heal (cut your finger or step on a nail?), and Reapir. These two seplls are probably so useful that a entire village might chip in to have someone around who can perform these tasks.

THe idea of iternant healers and tinkers using magic also fits in.

Coordination could be useful to crastmen and musicians. Ignite would be a gnerally useful spell for a culture that depends on fire. Extinqusih would likewise be vaulable, allowing someone to stop a small fire before it spread.

Glamour and Golden Tonguew would be useful for community leaders, as well as performers.

Light could also prove useful. It could be used in the rain or on windy days. It is cheap once known. It could also prove a boon to those who work with flamable products. Imagine a swahsbuckling campaign and being able to go down to the powder room.

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

The Crucible Glorantha Book gives a bit more info in this regard. One interesting paragraph includes:

Hunting and agriculture both benefit from magic. Fertility spells increase herding and crop yields, weapon-enhanching spells aid hunters arrows, and so on. Thus more people can be fed from the same resources.

 

[atgxtg]

The Crucible Glorantha Book gives a bit more info in this regard. One interesting paragraph includes:

Hunting and agriculture both benefit from magic. Fertility spells increase herding and crop yields, weapon-enhanching spells aid hunters arrows, and so on. Thus more people can be fed from the same resources.

Glorantha has a lot of community type magic. Communities would conduct rituals, pray, and make sacrifices to the gods for blessings. HeroQuest and KoDP handled that well, but I wonder what they will use for MRQ? Perhaps some sort of addtion to the Divine Spell magic to reflect multiple worshippers. Something like the Head Priest being able to draw 1 MP for each participant to boost the sepll with a successful ceremony roll?

 

[homerjsinnott]

If everyone in typical RQ worlds knows a little magic, what sorts of seemingly trivial things would magic be used for on a daily basis?

I remember reading an article years and years ago mentioning the use of spells like "Plowsharp", a variation on Bladesharp that makes it easier to deal with hard ground when a farmer plows his field. Other spells that adventurers would use could be used by nomral folk to do things like repair broken tools.

The magic price given in RQ2 were laughable, the prices give in RQ3 were much more reasonable. But most people in most societies wouldn't have to buy magic anyway, the shamen, or priest or mystic would be there to forfill their magical needs. A spell might be a comming of age present, or for long service or just expected as part of being a productive member of society. Spells might be given in a gift exchange (bought) once in a while by a member of the community. It would only be those who have no ties by kith, kin or friendship that would need to really buy spells.

To get back to what spell would be common or useful, this is a bit of a how long is a piece of sting question, demoralise might be useful to a sheepherd but to a civilised farmer?

There also be hedge/fetish magic that isn't that useful in combat, but helps in everyday life.

One to look at the magic book yourself and decide, I'm afraid.

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

There also be hedge/fetish magic that isn't that useful in combat, but helps in everyday life.

One to look at the magic book yourself and decide, I'm afraid.

:shock: Fetish Magic? :shock:

That would be "Dominate" then? :lol:

 

[homerjsinnott]

There also be hedge/fetish magic that isn't that useful in combat, but helps in everyday life.

One to look at the magic book yourself and decide, I'm afraid.

:shock: Fetish Magic? :shock:

That would be "Dominate" then? :lol:

Yer a sick, sick man, I like it!

 

[TRose]

Your local peasant would get what magic/he or she nows from the local priest/shaman of what ever local God was popular apmong the peasants(And agriculure deity most of the time)Payment would not be in a lump sum like adventurers do but for years of suporting the Shaman or Priest through tithe, ect.. Beside the above spel already mention like repair. heal and ignite( And anyone who has ever tried to start a fire without matchs would know why Ignite would be popular) could be xenohealing for livestock and detect spells( How about detect edible roots and detect water for those in arid areas). spel I have come up with for my peasants/ primitives include. banish inscects( gets rid of small small insects in a 1 meter are) Heal plants,, preserve food, and treefall( Last spell is for lumberjacks, make sure the tree that is cutdown falls in the right direction)
But peasant in some areas would know combat spell if they had to worry about you local Broo or Praxian Nomad raider showing up to pillage the area. thos earound Pavis and near chaos infested area would more like the English Yeoman Or Scottish peasants, maybe spending most their time farming, but keeping their longspear or longbow around just in case thing go bad.

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

Peaceful Cut (if it's a spell in MRQ) would be very widely known by Praxian nomads. A read of The Travels of Biturian Varosh gives good examples of day-to-day magic use in Glorantha, too.

 

[Utgardloki]

I'm not sure how shamans/priests pay for learning spells. On the one hand, I imagine that magic follows some sort of economy such that it is not available for free. (A shaman might be willing to dispense healing for free, but she has to pay for her magic somehow.)

So I'm thinking, not only is the question what a person would like to have, but what would a person be willing to pay for? A "Silvertongue" spell would be nice to have for a mayor, but unless there is a lot of cuthroat competition, some simple voice training would probably be more effective, and that magic be used to protect himself from sharp objects, or even to make his wife look stunningly gorgeous.

In cities, there would probably be a "magic arms" race between the authorities who use magic to put a lid on crime, and the criminals who use magic to commit crimes. My thinking is that the gods would in general take a dim view of being exploited by mortals, and so the gods of justice would provide plenty of anti-magic charms, while the gods of thievery would be a little stingy about sneaking-around charms. (You want Chameleon? You have to cough up some good cash first....)

Another question is that while everybody would love to have powerful spells, very very very few people can actually get them. To reference my homebrew D&D campaign of Audor: yes, there are a lot of 4th and 5th level spells that are very useful in combat, but the army that the PCs marched with didn't have any wizards above the 4th level, so they were limited to using 1st and 2nd level spells. The same principle probably applies in Runequest: lots of 1 point spells, but few 3 point spells.

When I get home, I'll think of a few spell ideas. In the meantime, I suggest The Book of Erotic Fantasy as an interesting reference for spell ideas that might be found in some areas. If I can get my mind out of the gutter, I'll probably think of more.

 

[atgxtg]

There also be hedge/fetish magic that isn't that useful in combat, but helps in everyday life.

One to look at the magic book yourself and decide, I'm afraid.

:shock: Fetish Magic? :shock:

That would be "Dominate" then? :lol:

No this is the thread for using spells on a daily basis.

No that for the thread about using spells on a nightly basis.

I don't even want to go where your at with new spells like Bestial Enchancement, Cover of Night, Emotion, Hand of Death, Oath or Ordeal and Pierce.

Save that for the BrooQuest supplement.

 

[Michael Hopcroft]

There also be hedge/fetish magic that isn't that useful in combat, but helps in everyday life.

One to look at the magic book yourself and decide, I'm afraid.

:shock: Fetish Magic? :shock:

That would be "Dominate" then? :lol:

No this is the thread for using spells on a daily basis.

No that for the thread about using spells on a nightly basis.

It isn't even a proper use of the term.

I think one could come up with a list of interesting spells granted by the Goddess of Love and Lust that would benefit from (and even require) full consent from both participants. whiloe the Fertility God would be interested in seeing people being fruitful and multiplying, the Goddess of Love and Lust would be concerned with seeing that her followers actually enjoy the experience.

I don't know if exists in any of the offiical lists yet, but hygine spells would be very useful in city settings. Any city that exists before the days of indoor plumbing is, by neccesity, going to smell awful and pose severe sanitary hazards, and this is compounded if people don't have the money to bathe regularly. It would be a cultural thing: a culture like the judea of jesus's time, where cleanliness was a ritual compulsion, would bathe and wash themselves at every opportunity, while a Northern Barbarian, spending his life herding and fighting in the prarie, would only ever bathe by accident should he fall into a body of water -- to those people, the smell of an unwashed man or woman would be extremely attractive.

 

[atgxtg]

I think one could come up with a list of interesting spells granted by the Goddess of Love and Lust that would benefit from (and even require) full consent from both participants. whiloe the Fertility God would be interested in seeing people being fruitful and multiplying, the Goddess of Love and Lust would be concerned with seeing that her followers actually enjoy the experience.

Google Uleria. It's out there.
It was funny that in RQ3 they made the cult skill an all emcpmpassing skill for the romantic arts to prevent it from degenerating into a bunch of sexual specialties. When HeroQuest appeared, the very nature of the game steered itself right to the sort of se\pecilization that made the Uleria cult almost impossible to write up without it turning HQ into a XXX-RPG.

 

[homerjsinnott]

It isn't even a proper use of the term.

What do you mean?

You didn't seem to explain.

 

[Michael Hopcroft]

It isn't even a proper use of the term.

What do you mean?

You didn't seem to explain.

I meant that before the term "fetich' came to describe a sexual peculirarity (such as a BDSM fetish) or a fascination with something (like a fetish for collecting Transformers), it was a noun -- despribing an object of particular religious signifcance, ususally to people who weren't you. european explorers in Africa expressed contempt for the 'fetishes" they found on their travels while reverencing the "icons" they brought with them.

 

[homerjsinnott]

It isn't even a proper use of the term.

What do you mean?

You didn't seem to explain.

Despribing an object of particular religious signifcance, ususally to people who weren't you. european explorers in Africa expressed contempt for the 'fetishes" they found on their travels while reverencing the "icons" they brought with them.

That was my original meaning (in a positive way), I did some anthro in my degree. The Pit Rivers Museum in Oxford (where I live) has a good collection.

I thought the other writer misunderstood on purpose.

 

[Utgardloki]

For my D&D campaign, I envisioned a prestige class dedicated to a goddess of love. One of their spells (called Fetish) would allow them to take an item, and enchant it so that any man seeing it would become insanely fascinated with it. There were saving throw penalties if the item were something closely associated with the woman, such as a shoe she wore. (A bra would inflict an even higher penalty :shock: )

I suppose you could call that fetish magic.