Common Magic Religions and Common Magic

[Ian Cooper]

Hello,
I may be wrong, but at present I blame the spectre of old-school RuneQuest, whose fans probably wailed like banshees, "Wherrrrrre's my Spirit Magic?" and cited the long-standing quote from Stafford that all of Glorantha is magical all the time.

Trouble is that it seems to be important to Greg's vision of Glorantha, but the reasons for that part of the vision, other than 'it is so' has not been clearly set out. Some comments on lists lead me to guess that it will be important in the Hero Wars when the distinctions are cirumvented.

A few points for anyone who is not clear (not aimed at Ron who I suspect gets this). Check out HQ p.104-5 again as well.

The important distinction about common magic is that it has no Otherworld. All the specialized magics come from the Otherworld. Thus though all kinds of magic can have religion only those that are specialized intercede with deities, common religions don't (though they might claim a philosophy or divine purpose).

Common magic that comes from this world is talents. Everyone can do this. Common religions also offer feats, spells, and charms from Otherworld entities resident in this world (so effectively demons in popular terminology). So joining a religion gives you access to the powers of these petty entities.

My personal assumption is that common religions thus rarely heroquest - they don't have the Otherworld access that would allow them to enter the hero plane. I've never checked this with the power-that-be, perhaps I should do a divination on it.

Yes you can just add abilites Hero Wars style to your character - and make them part of your common magic armory - the reason for classifying it seems to be related to some over-arching Gloranthan consideration. Not much help I know.

[Mike Holmes]

I'm sure it makes sense to Greg, no matter how opaque or clear it may seem to any of us.

So, you're saying Imarja is a demon? What does the distinction matter, if she acts like a diety?

That said, I agree with your assessment that CMRs, per se, don't hero quest, but most CMRs are, in any case, really part of larger religions that include otherworld portions. That is, Imarja is common magic, yes, because she's in this world (essentially being a titanic landscape diety for all of Esrolia), but she's still overall part of the Esrolian Earth pantheon. If I was confused about that previously, I had it confirmed for me recently. As such, there probably would be hero questers on her side. They might or might not be able to affect her myths, I'm not sure on that (given that she was at some point from the otherworld, or at least part of everything when there was only one world, I think she still has myths on the hero plane). But even if one cannot affect the myths positively on the other side, that makes the diety relatively inviolate to heroquesting against them as well, does it not?

I'm going to guess that Ron's counter-argument to all of this is that one doesn't need such mechanisms to create an opportunity to examine these issues, just the appropriate back drop. The question becomes to what extent, these rules exist to inform about what glorantha is like vs allowing one to examine the themes implicit.

Anyhow, I think we might be getting into a whole new topic here. Again, for purposes of the thread, I'm not so much concerned with the philosophy behind this, but rather just getting the mechanisms straight. If it turns out that the mechanisms are something I don't want when I understand them, then they can go then. But I'm not going to discard something before understanding how it works.

Mike

[lightcastle]

I don't want to wander too far backwards, but something you said, mike, intrigued me.

It really is that whenever you learn a new common magic thing, it starts at the level of your keyword? Automatically?

This doesn't apply to other magics, though, right?

[Mike Holmes]

I split off my reply to a new thread:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=13117

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Mike, please don't ascribe statements to me or anticipate my responses.

Best,
Ron

[jrichard]

Ian sayeth:

Common magic that comes from this world is talents. Everyone can do this. Common religions also offer feats, spells, and charms from Otherworld entities resident in this world (so effectively demons in popular terminology). So joining a religion gives you access to the powers of these petty entities.

My personal assumption is that common religions thus rarely heroquest - they don't have the Otherworld access that would allow them to enter the hero plane. I've never checked this with the power-that-be, perhaps I should do a divination on it.

I think this is right - the sources of common magic are within the mortal world and there is no Otherworld source of power.   Remember, you don't even need to necessarily join a common religion to get common magic.  In my game, I have plenty of local clan heroes, places, and ancestors that provide common magic.  Those characters who have concentrated in theistic magic are restricted to feats.  Those characters who have devoted themselves to a god are restricted to worshipping only those heroes that can be worshipped as a subcult of their god (and only get feats).

As a result, I don't mind common magic.  Then again, I'm fine with the Three Otherworlds.  I would agree with Mark that it is an issue particularly relevant to Gloranthan metaphysics (frex, I don't think that mythic Russia would necessarily have them), but it complements my view of Glorantha.

Jeff