Spells from Allied Divinve Cults

[Breschau of Livonia]

Rereading the chapter on Divine Magic I see the following:

If a deity is part of a wider pantheon then the Adventurer understands the Lore of gods associated with the pantheon at half his Lore (Specific Theology) value but he cannot use this to cast Divine Spells. Pantheistic cults do, frequently, teach the spells from one member god to cult members of an allied cult and where this is permissible then the Adventurer uses his full Lore (Specific Theology) for spell casting.

Now this means if you are, for example, a priest of Odin, you could learn spells from a Thor cult. Their magnitude would be whatever magnitude your Odin spells are, you'd use your Lore (Odin) to cast them. Am I right so far? I'm pretty sure I am but it doesn't hurt to check - I keep thinking the magic chapters could use a few more pages to better spell some things out.

If I'm reading that right, there is limited in-game reason to join other cults. The section on joining other cults suggests that you can only joined allied cults in any case. The main reason I could see is that perhaps the cult of Thor will gladly share some minor weather control spells with a priest of Odin to aid some voyagers on their trip to Vinland. But they would be far less likely to share their "Uber Butt-Kicking-Smiting Thunderbolt of Awesomeness" with a member of an Odin cult - they might invite him to join the cult if he wants it - in which case I'm a little fuzzy on which skill he'd use to cast the spell - since it comes from a different pool of dedicated POW, probably Lore (Thor).

Sound reasonable? Other interpretations possible?

 

[andyl]

You are pretty much right.

However Thor would only grant a few of his spells to Odin. Those spells are likely to be those mirrored in the myths and legends of the gods themselves. For example Thor was well known as the protector of men and the Aesir so maybe some protection magic would be shared.

I don't think that Thor would grant all of his magic to followers of Odin or Freya (or any other allied cult).

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

Only one spell would typically be shared (based on older RQ versions)... unless they were mystically, bosom-buddies, in which case perhaps two.

 

[Ultor]

It always seemed to me that there should be a mythological reason for the shared spell. Thus, Grunty the Thunder God needed to pass over the ocean to defeat the Big Black Manticore of the East, so Sodblot the Sea God helped speed him on his way = Grunty worshippers get access to Ebb and Flow from Sodblot. They should need to pass a Lore/Resonance test to get it (and some of the myths might be quite obscure).

 

[PhilHibbs]

Only one spell would typically be shared (based on older RQ versions)... unless they were mystically, bosom-buddies, in which case perhaps two.

Yes, in the old RQ1 Cults of Glorantha, it would list four or so cult spells, and then would list allied cult spells with something like "Orlanth Thunderous provides: Command Sylph".

 

[Loz]

And this is still the case. Its very rare for a cult (Gloranthan, certainly) to offer more than one spell to its allies.