Where's da Vivamort?

[The BoogerMan]

Hey guys!

This may be a stupid question, but in what book, article, etc can I found information on the Vivamort cult?

I gather from the mention of them in the campaign setting chapter of the Glorantha: The Second Age world book that it’s some sort vampire cult. There is also some mention of them at the beginning of the sorcery school chapter in Cults of Glorantha Volume 2, but there is no section on them in said chapter (unless of course, I just overlooked it).

So, can any of you fine ladies or gentleman point me in the right direction?

 

[zozotroll]

It is indeed a vampire cult of long standing in Glorantha.I dont know where the Goose has stashed it, but if it isnt out, it should be.

 

[Blackyinkin]

Hi,

Vivamort is one of those things in Glorantha that has always been a little problematic. Vivamort is the Lord of the Undead, but the nature of his magic has caused mechanic issues in the past. Initially in RQ2 he was a theistic deity, but because Vampires had problems generating POW, he did not work particularly well. In RQ3 his cult was never actually published, Lords of Terror had a couple of paragraphs about him and a great Paulis of Longvale chapter. In this version he is described as a sorcerous religion, akin to Mostal and the Invisible God. So I am not sure what happened to him in MRQ (dropped in edit I assume) or perhaps still too ill defined for Jeff to write up.

Simon.

 

[RosenMcStern]

There should be a home version made by Soltakss (who else?) somewhere, where the big V is described as providing Sorcery. This is no longer necessary in MRQ since undead now have POW, but the equation Sorcerous = soulless is very Gloranthan, so I would go with a sorcerous cult in any case.

 

[Darran]

Here is the HeroQuest version - though it keeps a lot of the complexity of the old RuneQuest versions and goes for a mechanic approach.

http://www.glorantha.com/hw/fan/cultshort_vivamort.html

 

[The BoogerMan]

Thanks folks!

Your replies really helped cast some light on this Cursed Lord of Chaos, Darkness & Undead™. :wink:

Between the link provided (thanks Darran) and a little Google research, I’m developing some cool ideas for my own version of the cult (and for the resulting vampires).


Thanks again!
The Mighty, Mighty BoogerMan.

 

[duncan_disorderly]

Vivamort is one of those things in Glorantha that has always been a little problematic.

IMG the "universal" cult of Vivamort is one of those Godlearner constructs, taking various vampiric entities from around the lozenge and mixing up their mythologies and histories to make an entity whose power they could (ab)use, and who could be "slotted in" to other heroquests.

Thus there are sorcerous Vampires who, through the use of Tap, or similar magic, steal the life-force of their victims to prolong their own (un-)life. There are Vampire Spirits that posess dying victims and animate the body in a state of perpetual half-life, driven by hunger to attack victims, and there are theistic Vampire worshippers, who sacrifice both their own humanity and the blood and POW of other sentient beings to a Darkness spirit wounded by the Devil with an unhealing wound.

Their are probably (failed) mystic Vampires too, who follow a corrupted path to enlightenment that has seen them revoke both Life and Death - but I don't have a clear enough understanding of how mysticism works to be sure of this!

The end result of all these types of vampire is the same - an undead being who drains blood and POW from their victims, and capable of "passing on" this ability under certain circumstances. (So the "What" is constant but the "How" and "Why" will vary)

 

[Blackyinkin]

Hi,

We already know of trollish vampiric entities that abhor darkness, seek the light and prey on their own kin. They were detailed many years ago in Stephen Martin's Drastic Darkness book.

Claude Manzato detailed them as follows

I found the description of troll vampires (kozoru) that I remembered. It's in Drastic : Darkness.
"Cast from darkness into light, they are warm and empty, and seek to regain substance at the expense of the trolls" "Kozoru are not armed by light; their darkness has been drained away and they haunt the day as empty shadows, seeking to replenish themselves with life-giving darkness"
They have some weird powers, who are mostly unusable in total darkness, and are believed to be the spawn of Zukozor, who is known to humans as Vivamort.

Jamie Revell who wrote the Anaxials Roster, the Bestiary for Glorantha Hero Wars also devised an aquatic vampire that drained moisture from its victims and turned them into rigged husks.

Elf vampires were also mentioned, sap drinking monstrosities.

The Tower of Lead in Dorastor was scheduled to be a vampire campaign back in the eighties or nineties, but was never released.

In my own campaign I had a vampire Praxian Khan who ravaged the priestesses of the Paps on his undead bison mount, his warriors were ghoulish praxians on zombie mounts.

Amongst the Pentans and Char-Un an undead Vampiric horse is also known, cursed by Kargzant for betrayal.

I would imagine Kralorelan Vampires to hop, for those lovers of Hong Kong cinema.

 

[Voriof]

I wrote an Order of Vivamort for Cults of Glorantha but it did not make it into the final product.

Jeff

 

[RosenMcStern]

Any chance that it fits into S&P like Shannon's Voralan stuff?

 

[Voriof]

Any chance that it fits into S&P like Shannon's Voralan stuff?

No clue. I am suspect a lot of those cults might be suitable.

Jeff