Midnight game prep: A Dornish Crown

[Mike Holmes]

Although that said, I do like to leave my prep as open-ended as possible.  No matter how much I prep, I develop in play and NPCs will change on the spot when it feels right in a scene.  So orienting major NPCs towards the PCs in prep can help me drop one "grabber" in favour of another if that's what fits best in the session.

That's why I said sorta overdone it. In fact, I think I even said myself that a character had to have some potential with a PC of some sort to even be on the map. I'm just kinda backing off of that, and saying now that the map has to be grabby in some way. Once on the map the bangs take over.

The dead go nowhere. That's right.  The Veil is keeping them.  They linger. That's why the world suffers from so many Fell and angry ghosts.

OK, so we've got this veil otherworld, and it's the heroquesting otherworld. So magic does not come from it (other than one can go there and get magic from the associated stuck otherworld beings and such). This matches well HQ, actually, because the heroquesting plane there is defined as a collision of all of the other otherworlds. So you find everything there, but like Bryan said, stuck, and therefore not able to provide magic.

Non-Izradian magic is available from magical energy and otherworldly creatures trapped in this world since Izrador's fall - this magic is diminished by Mirrors.  Izradian magic is available through serving Izrador as legate - this magic is enhanced by Mirrors.  

Legates choose Izradian magic from the Nine Books of Shadow.  The "books" are basically affinities and the feats in them are fairly powerful, but Legates can't improvise.

So they get magic from the Shadow otherworld, right? You haven't answered my question on that: there is a Shadow otherworld, right? Where the Astiraxes are from and such? And this is where the bad guys get their power.

Here's a more important question, apparently there are all sorts of spirits in the Shadow world, or so Scott implies. Can people be shamans as he implies? That is are there animist traditions that draw on the powers of the spirits of the Shadow otherworld? Or are you just chucking that for your game?

Other magic can come in either of two forms: Common magic, which people can just pick up from what's floating around in the land and/or in their family, no religious implications.

Well...in Glorantha, common magic comes ultimately from the otherworld beings that reside in the mundane world. There are religious implications, just not strong ones. That is, one can get the magic without even knowing much about the religion where it comes from. But that doesn't mean that there aren't such religions. You could choose to ignore this for your game, but consider keeping them. I mean, do you have dryads, nymphs, and such in the game? These are simply nature spirits that inhabit the mundane world. If people get magic from them, then cool, no? This would be charms. You also have said you have "angels" and yes, these are daimones, from which you get common magic feats. If you want something even less sentient and more "just magic" there are essences, which are unintelligent, from which you get common magic spells.

And, yes, there are basic magics that come directly from the mundane world alone, these are called talents. So why not keep the full array?

Or "channeler's books", which again are affinities that have less powerful feats than Izradian books but allow for improvisation and development.  You learn these books from a mentor, either a channeler or an otherworldly being. What with being taught, developed further, misremembered, lost, pieced together from half-lost fragments etc., no two channeler books are exactly alike.  

Sounds like theism, but where does the power come from? That is, channeling usually refers to bringing the power in from a diety or somesuch. But there are no other dieties, right? So what do these books represent? Are they, perhaps, tapping into some sort of leftover resonance of the gods? If, in fact, it's just a matter of daimones living in the mundane world, then you've just described common magic feats again.

Oh, and the magic trapped in the physical world is also trying to escape and go home but can't, so it adds its own properties to the soul smog and all this mixed toegther starts to grow into slivers of otherworld.  

Ehh. Will you ever really explore this? If not, I wouldn't worry about it.

Ok, every single case where I've managed to "grab" this player in the past was about elves. He really goes for that.  That, and straightforward, preferably suicidally heroic action.

Put more elves on the map. And, again, make sure that each decision leads to action, and the action leads to decisions.

This would be a fantastic place to start the character off. Especially if I also give him an accreditation letter, to represent the wood elves who are considering extending their magical protection to the Pike if Apari reports back that these humans can still be trusted.

Cool, so whether or not they hate him, they have to endure him. Very fun.

Perfect place to tie him into the event of Nollorn getting caught. I have an orc ambush planned around that already.

So they're caught together, but Apari has the accreditation? Cool.

I have a number of things that'll surprise him I think. One is that I'll let him have his magic daggers. Apparently they have this ability of being really, really unobtrusive when they really can't afford to be seen.

Cool. Why wouldn't you let a character have such a thing? Make sure he understands the "pompous naming rule" however. That is, the daggers have to have a rating like anything else, and only work so well depending on that rating. (You're not contemplating "this just does X" sort of abilities? It's just a bad idea.)

Even better is the reason Arrenu stayed in that hiding place with a hundred or so undead guards:  it's an ancient magical effect that keeps Fell from hungering for human flesh and going insane.  We've established that in play already. So if Arrrenu leaves that place, he's going for a really really important reason.  And he probably carries some nifty protection, perhaps given to him by Jahzir ... which of course won't keep working forever. Oh, the possibilities!

Just so I'm clear, he stays there to stay sane, right? What are the guards about? They keep him in if he goes a little nuts? Or are they protecting him? I'm not clear on what this is about.

Anyhow, yeah, give him a good enough reason to leave. I'm fond of "I couldn't go on without seeing your face!" to Katrin. A very literal haunting.

She has "Loves Tam 3w." And "Inspired by Arrenu 3w." Same ratings. Neat, eh?

Couldn't be better. Have to get these opposed to each other. Players sometimes will look at two opposed relationships and just decide for the larger of the two. She can't do that here. :-)

I have someone who's already applied for the position:  Olec of Eirinn.  He'll be really eager to show Katrin her place, and yeah, I can make him a nasty little chauvinist, no problem with that.  He's had to play second fiddle to two women (the Ladies of Norfell) all his life, and now he's kicking free and getting to deal with Roland, who does he find? Another bloody woman possibly outranking him!  

Perfect.

7w2, in a fight with just standard augments (like Big, Strong).  
So he'd need to start in the four-masteries range before augments?

No, he needs to end in the four masteries range. That is, if you expect Katrin to come in with a 15W2 total, he should end up with a 15W4 or so after augments. Even as low as 5W4 or so works. The former gives her a 4.75% chance to win, and the latter a 7.25% chance. So you see that it's not all that important where in the range he's at (the victory levels shift around some, but that's not all that important).

Go for the minimum you need to really have a good chance to squash her. I'm assuming you use standard equipment bonuses? Just make sure these cancel out, which makes sense for a duel. So if she has +8 from equipment, then he does too. So I'm seeing him like this:

Swordsman 5W3
+8 for equipment
+12 in other augments (Big, Agile, Hates Women, Driven, Proud, Fight Hard Charm - or whatever)

That would work fine.  He's a middle-aged, tough pirate type, plus he hasn't appeared in play yet, so I can easily introduce him as "the most feared blade in the Western Pellurian". Katrin would have heard of him because she grew up on the south shore of the Pellurian Sea.

Not "the most feared." If you say that, then you can't introduce anyone better. This is why you want to keep his base ability as low as possible. He's a master's master with a sword at this level, but there are still some who may be better in the 3 mastery range. So, instead, he's "one of the most feared blades..."

Just have to think of a neat Dornish challenging tradition so it won't look like an uncontrolled brawl, but I'll find something.

Uncontrolled brawl works, too... :-)

Roland will still support her despite her apparent cowardice (but he'll likely be angry about it, or demand something more from her).

Nah. He'll be enchanted. He'll offer her protection.  He'll even offer to marry her to secure her status and keep her safe. ;)

That's about what I was thinking. He needs her, so supports her anyway. Which just puts more pressure on things.

If she doesn't, then she has to deal with the men she's supposed to lead not respecting her.

Huh, that last sentence scared me again briefly. No worries though, I'll get used to it yet. I can sense how cool this kind of thing is and I want to do it.  

Men as in troops. Gender is not particularly relevant here. The issue is that they've been assigned a leader who has been bested. Call this the "Butterbar" effect after the nickname for second lieutenants, who often aren't given much respect since they have little or no experience despite their relatively high rank.

He hates elves, too.  

Of course he does. And little kids, too. ;-)

Ok. I was leaving too many things open for development in play, that's true. I tend to do that.  Reifels was my candidate for small-minded and nasty before, but he wouldn't play that way.  I can do boorish racism and sexism though. Easier to do for me than more subtle stuff.  

Yeah, if you don't assign a particular villain, what often happens is that you let the "realism" of the character make them all merely grey. Villains aren't particularly realistic in many cases, so you have to designate them specifically at times.

And add to that the two captured elven friends and the father-and-son pair of admirers... it'd be a scenario that comes in pairs!

Well, that's the easiest way to create conflict.

One thing to keep in mind going forward: the best bangs aren't ones in which there are only two choices. In fact these have the lowest success rates, because it's likely that the player will just see one avenue as the obvious choice. The best bangs are when the decision to be made is multivariate - where the player could do many, many things. Always be looking for ways to set these up. Often they involve giving a lot of open-ended power to the character. Which automatically asks "what are you going to do with it?"

I don't want to sound like I think that you're still stuck in the D&D mode, but this is an important note: it's OK to give the players lots and lots of power. For one, the HQ system is self-limiting that way. If they don't pay for the power, it goes away by rule. But also, there's no risk of there being no "challenge." Since play isn't about player challenge.

He can't bring himself to kiss her. That should chill things for a while, and really make Katrin hate the villain.

Oh, very nasty.

So, which do you prefer? Political power drain, or drain of Tam's love? Or both? Call it a humiliating scar.

I think Roland, in his own hall, surrounded by his followers, with his passionate, long-boiled hatred of the orc and his big lonely ego deserved a higher resistance than the low three-masteries range.

Nah. He was caught short. I mean, let's say he wasn't augmenting at all (didn't really have time to get fired up angry etc). That means he's got some one ability in the 3 mastery range. Even with 20 points of augmenting, he's still got some ability in the 2 mastery range. Which is damn good.

PCs are heroes, and with HP, they're very, very tough. They're meant to overcome tough opponents. You made him plenty tough. And Katrin is no slouch. All worked out just as I'd have done it.

As for a guardian, yes, make that up right away. Roland, again, didn't have time to call on it or somthing (make that part of it's definition). In any case, get the guardian into some scene soon, to establish it bieng there. Part of asking Katrin to be a general will entail her paying to join the hero band. That spikes things nicely. :-)

This session didn't have enough time in it, but easy stuff should be coming up again. Thing is, with the easy stuff I tend to make it automatic (it's just such a relief to be getting beyond DnD bog-down fights and sundry other die rolls), but perhaps I should make those situations contests more often to give the easy stuff more emphasis in player eyes.

Nope, you're doing it right. You just didn't read me closely. The protagonizing moments are not "easy." That is, if it's really "easy" that means that the player has a mastery or so advantage. And then, sure, just "automatic success" those situations (actually roll them once in a long while, just for kicks). But if a being is in the same mastery bracket as yours, it has a reasonable chance to defeat you. In fact, like I said, these often consist of putting the character up against something his equal. Which should naturally be a fearful event. It's winning these, contests against competent opponents, that really make a character cool.

Yes, roll these every time.

Mike

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Legates choose Izradian magic from the Nine Books of Shadow.  The "books" are basically affinities and the feats in them are fairly powerful, but Legates can't improvise.

So they get magic from the Shadow otherworld, right? You haven't answered my question on that: there is a Shadow otherworld, right? Where the Astiraxes are from and such? And this is where the bad guys get their power.

I don't think of it as an otherworld, at least not a complete one and certainly not one that people could travel to. Izradian magic comes from the Mirrors, which take their magical leech-and-dispense qualities from Izrador's own body/blood (which is lying rotting somewhere near the north pole in the physical world).  Astiraxes - hm. Not sure, I don't have a clear imagethey could be some kind of spinoff of Mirrors, or they could be created by feeding godsflesh to animals that are then killed in a nasty ritual, "harvesting" the animal's soul to become an incorporeal demon. Sorry, I don't have a better answer yet. It has to start with some kind of image or idea for me, I can't do the abstract bits first and fill in colour later.

Here's a more important question, apparently there are all sorts of spirits in the Shadow world, or so Scott implies. Can people be shamans as he implies? That is are there animist traditions that draw on the powers of the spirits of the Shadow otherworld? Or are you just chucking that for your game?

I don't remember reading about a Shadow otherworld in Scott's conversion, but if there was one then he created it.  All "spirits" in the Midnight books are present in the physical world.  And the creatures referred to as "spirits" in Midnight aren't necessarily animist spirits. Only a few "spirits" are described in any detail, and at least some of those sound much more like daimones to me.  

And I don't currently see the benefit of including animism in my game to be honest. I don't really want to rule it out for the future, but neither of my two players is very interested in how magic works.  Katrin took one common magic ability and Apari's player took a Swamp magic affinity that he doesn't really sound happy with, so we might swap that for a common magic ability as well to free up ability slots for him.  Which means that almost all magic they are going to be confronted with is NPC magic - and for that, two extra magic systems?  I think I'll just leave it at my two theism-like variations for channeler/Izradian magic.  

Maybe I'm overlooking something important here though. I haven't seen any magic other than theism in play (in Ian's game), and just from reading the rules I can begin to understand how the mechanics work, but I don't get enthusiastic about them.  (Normal for me, again. Game mechanics don't tend to leap off the page and come to life for me. I have to see them in play, especially complex stuff like magic.)

Well...in Glorantha, common magic comes ultimately from the otherworld beings that reside in the mundane world. There are religious implications, just not strong ones. That is, one can get the magic without even knowing much about the religion where it comes from. But that doesn't mean that there aren't such religions. You could choose to ignore this for your game, but consider keeping them.

Ok, I'm not forbidding it. Just not using it right now. So perhaps the magic people get "just so" out of nowhere really comes from beings that they may know nothing about, that's fine by me. I like it because it opens up possibilities for plot stuff.  If your pain-relief magic ability is really due to a pain-leeching daimon, say, then that daimon might be up to something at some point, or might get in trouble (which screws with your magic), or might learn cool new stuff that boosts your magic in unexpected (sometimes nice but sometimes embarrassing or nasty) ways.

Although that said, I suspect I have more material than I need for this game, so I'll deal with that as and when it becomes relevant.

I mean, do you have dryads, nymphs, and such in the game?

I haven't used any. They could exist, sure, but I'm keeping the number of "weird" creatures low for colour reasons. I think the "angel" may have been the first one, encountered after, what? eight months? of play.

These are simply nature spirits that inhabit the mundane world. If people get magic from them, then cool, no? This would be charms. You also have said you have "angels" and yes, these are daimones, from which you get common magic feats. If you want something even less sentient and more "just magic" there are essences, which are unintelligent, from which you get common magic spells.

And, yes, there are basic magics that come directly from the mundane world alone, these are called talents. So why not keep the full array?

Why do I have to have three different types of creatures that give me magic abilities with different names? What am I overlooking here?  

In Glorantha it makes sense because it ties in with the the three magic systems. But if I'm using only one streamlined system?

Or "channeler's books"...

Sounds like theism, but where does the power come from? That is, channeling usually refers to bringing the power in from a diety or somesuch. But there are no other dieties, right? So what do these books represent? Are they, perhaps, tapping into some sort of leftover resonance of the gods? If, in fact, it's just a matter of daimones living in the mundane world, then you've just described common magic feats again.

I think it's a mix. People use anything, both leftover resonance, i.e. the magic that the Mirrors leech from the land, and what "spirits" (in the general, Midnight sense) contribute;  and they are mostly ignorant about what they are doing.  To my mind this is the reason why magic is much less powerful than it used to be:  people are out of synch with religion.  The only religion they can perceive clearly (whether they are in it or against it) is Izrador's church.  It's a pretty bleak world, a world with no (or almost no) religion - but that's what Midnight is to me.

And in the end, do I even have to decide this for the game? If we're not interested in exploring in detail how magic works?

I have a number of things that'll surprise him I think. One is that I'll let him have his magic daggers. Apparently they have this ability of being really, really unobtrusive when they really can't afford to be seen.

Cool. Why wouldn't you let a character have such a thing? Make sure he understands the "pompous naming rule" however. That is, the daggers have to have a rating like anything else, and only work so well depending on that rating. (You're not contemplating "this just does X" sort of abilities? It's just a bad idea.)

This is my idea, not his.  We haven't negotiated abilities for those daggers yet, this is one I'm going to suggest to him.  I'd give him that kind of thing immediately if he asked.  Unfortunately he's mourning fireballs, invisibility and teleport spells too much to get into the spirit and come up with stuff on his own.
And of course it gets a rating.

Just so I'm clear, he stays there to stay sane, right? What are the guards about? They keep him in if he goes a little nuts? Or are they protecting him? I'm not clear on what this is about.

Sorry, that was too abbreviated.  Arrenu has become Fell - soul stuck in body at death, body rises on the third day, that kind of thing. Fresh Fell are pretty normal, except for an insane hunger for sentient flesh.  They can struggle to resist that but it gets harder all the time.  If they don't feed for a month, they deteriorate to the next stage where they start rotting, are seriously insane and superhumanly strong.  If they still are deprived of flesh, after another month they turn into near-mindless shambling zombies who'll hang on until they have worn down to skeletons, or longer.  (Got to love that Midnight undead system.)

Now Arrenu was lucky and came to a place where a bunch of royal guards have been un-living since the Last Battle 99 years ago.  Apparently they swore some gruesome oath to defend their city even after death. As long as they don't leave that place, nothing goes too wrong.  Newcomers can swear an oath and join them, which is what Arrenu did.  He replaced their captain.
They had Katrin, Apari and other living people staying overnight, and no one got so much as nibbled on.  But they knew that if they ever left the ruins of their city, they'd get "the hunger". (Meaning some of them must have tried leaving.)  

No, he needs to end in the four masteries range. That is, if you expect Katrin to come in with a 15W2 total, he should end up with a 15W4 or so after augments. Even as low as 5W4 or so works. The former gives her a 4.75% chance to win, and the latter a 7.25% chance. So you see that it's not all that important where in the range he's at (the victory levels shift around some, but that's not all that important).

Ah ok. That's one thing I'll hopefully get a better feel for with time. I'm flying blind much of the time with "balance" type matters in HQ.

I'm assuming you use standard equipment bonuses?

No, we stopped using bonuses after our playtest session.  

Not "the most feared." If you say that, then you can't introduce anyone better.

Wait. Is "the most feared" equal to "the best"? What I thought it should convey was "the nastiest" - the dirtiest fighter perhaps, or the most ruthless once he wins, or the most unpredictably provocable.  And the Western Pellurian is a big region, but it doesn't cover everywhere.
But ok, I'll consider dropping him a notch.

Just have to think of a neat Dornish challenging tradition so it won't look like an uncontrolled brawl, but I'll find something.

Uncontrolled brawl works, too... :-)

LOL :)
Too abbreviated again. It was merely a question of style - but not sure how valid that is. I'm probably best off not thinking too much about it, it'll all depend how Olec turns out in play. He might just be the brawling boor;  or he might have that bit of presence of mind and awareness of tradition that'll make him a truly dangerous opponent on the Dornish political stage.

Men as in troops. Gender is not particularly relevant here.

No no, I got that, I wasn't thinking gender.  It's only that at times, I suddenly feel scared and guilty planning nasty consequences for PCs.  For no good reason at all, but it happens - and that was one such moment.  

So, which do you prefer? Political power drain, or drain of Tam's love? Or both? Call it a humiliating scar.

Ok, I have to practice this. So, uh, both.  

In any case, get the guardian into some scene soon, to establish it bieng there. Part of asking Katrin to be a general will entail her paying to join the hero band. That spikes things nicely. :-)

Oh wow.  Oh yes.  I'm planning to have Katrin come to talk to Roland just as Olec swears his oath to him.  Good moment to introduce the guardian, and make it look appealing. (We'll also be talking about the guardian for the possible Katrin-Apari hero band tomorrow, so that fits in nicely on another level as well.)

[Mike Holmes]

I take back all the stuff I said about magic. Midnight is predicated on the Middle Earth paradigm, and, interestingly, that's very, very non-magical in many ways. More importantly, magic signifies belief in HQ, and the only belief characters have in Middle Earth, and apparently in Midnight, is in their homes and in their people. You've actually stuck to that very well, the only substantial magic item the good guys have that you've mentioned so far being a crown (heck, we're not even sure that's magic), and that's just a symbol of the homeland again.

I am still curious - do the people of Midnight have any sort of belief system at all? I mean, without the flashy effects of the magic in RPGs we have religions and beliefs. What's happened to those in this world? Or is it just not discussed?

I don't think of it as an otherworld, at least not a complete one and certainly not one that people could travel to. Izradian magic comes from the Mirrors, which take their magical leech-and-dispense qualities from Izrador's own body/blood (which is lying rotting somewhere near the north pole in the physical world).

Well, that sounds like an otherworld to me. Otherworlds aren't places just for traveling to, they're where magic comes from. I mean, Izrador's blood doesn't actually flow all over the planet physically, right? So it gets to the mirrors by...some other place, right? In fact, mirrors are classic portals to otherworlds. Also, don't the dead go there at least part of the time?

I think you've described an otherworld whether you like it or not. But it doesn't require you to do anything about it, really. I mean it just gives us a parallel explanation for where the magic comes from that matches the HQ metaphysics.

Why bother finding the matches? Well you look for further fun implications. For example, maybe one can go to the world of shadow. Perhaps the Night Kings get around this way at times, using the mirrors to travel quickly by entering one, and exiting at another in what seems in our world to be the same instant. Maybe this is how they get their abilities, essentially going on heroquests into Izrador's blood to gain powers from him.

Not saying you have to do any of this, just that often when you do this sort of exercise, you find ways of doing things in interesting mechanical ways that explain some of your game world better than you thought it could be explained.

Astiraxes - hm. Not sure, I don't have a clear imagethey could be some kind of spinoff of Mirrors, or they could be created by feeding godsflesh to animals that are then killed in a nasty ritual, "harvesting" the animal's soul to become an incorporeal demon.

Are these from the Midnight text, or not? Did Scott make them up perhaps? I was imagining with how he mentioned them that they would be something well written up in the canon.

I don't remember reading about a Shadow otherworld in Scott's conversion, but if there was one then he created it.

Then he must have created it. So there's nothing canon called "Shadow" or "the Shadow" or anything? Hmm. Could just be Scott doing the logic I did above and extrapolating the shadow otherworld from the description of how Izrador works.

All "spirits" in the Midnight books are present in the physical world.

That alone doesn't tell us anything. But you're correct that the term spirit doesn't neccessarily imply anything in particular here, either. The real question is how they interact with folks, and what their "belief" system is about.

Only a few "spirits" are described in any detail, and at least some of those sound much more like daimones to me.

How so? Are they all servants of Izrador?

And I don't currently see the benefit of including animism in my game to be honest. I don't really want to rule it out for the future, but neither of my two players is very interested in how magic works.

Well, part of Hero Quest is the idea that characters change in their beliefs sometimes, and that sometimes leads to new magic. They might be more interested if they saw better how it works. But, again, given the Middle Earthiness of the game, It's probably not a huge deal to have all of these options.  

I think I'll just leave it at my two theism-like variations for channeler/Izradian magic.

I quite agree there. Again, I was thinking of player options. They meet some NPC Shaman, and he shows them some spirits, and they become interested...can be a fun source of bangs.

Maybe I'm overlooking something important here though. I haven't seen any magic other than theism in play (in Ian's game), and just from reading the rules I can begin to understand how the mechanics work, but I don't get enthusiastic about them.

Well, I think the trappings of animism and wizardry are interesting. Part of it is about who you have to know to get magic. If you treat it as just something you ger from...nowhere I guess...then it's not well linked into the setting. The HQ magic systems tell you something about the magic you're using, gives it context.

Although that said, I suspect I have more material than I need for this game, so I'll deal with that as and when it becomes relevant.

Well, I was trying to work through it with you because you have characters with magic already. I thought that perhaps we could find some of the bangier stuff from how magic works to leverage in with the other stuff. The more you play, the less you can go back and say that the magic was part of somthing larger all along, and it just never got noticed in any way.i

I mean, do you have dryads, nymphs, and such in the game?

I haven't used any. They could exist, sure, but I'm keeping the number of "weird" creatures low for colour reasons. I think the "angel" may have been the first one, encountered after, what? eight months? of play.

I was asking more about from the canon. Does Midnight have these beings? If so, they strongly imply animism exists (or, rather, that either it does or that they're being defined in a less interesting way than they could be). Which has other ramifications if it's true.

All easily avoidable by not having such beings come into play, however.

Why do I have to have three different types of creatures that give me magic abilities with different names? What am I overlooking here?  

In Glorantha it makes sense because it ties in with the the three magic systems. But if I'm using only one streamlined system?

Well that's like saying why do I have to have three different sorts of vehicle when they just take me from point A to B. I mean a pickup truck, a sportscar, and a family van all accomplish getting you from A to B, but they're pretty different. In Hero Quest these things have mechanical importance. For example, charms are "always on" and provide their augments whether or not you have time to use the magic. With a spell, you need to have an object (talisman) to cast it with, and some time. Feats just need time. Then there's concentrating on one of the sorts. Etc.

You can just ignore all of that, but I, at least, think it's interesting stuff. In any case, I don't think you "need" any of it, just that I wonder if the setting implies any of this fun stuff.

I'd give him that kind of thing immediately if he asked.  Unfortunately he's mourning fireballs, invisibility and teleport spells too much to get into the spirit and come up with stuff on his own.

Are those things canonical to Midnight? Those kinds of spells, that is? Who uses them, if so? Why would you get rid of them? Or are they somehow antithetical to Midnight canon?

Now Arrenu was lucky and came to a place where a bunch of royal guards have been un-living since the Last Battle 99 years ago.  Apparently they swore some gruesome oath to defend their city even after death. As long as they don't leave that place, nothing goes too wrong.  Newcomers can swear an oath and join them, which is what Arrenu did.  He replaced their captain.

That's practically right out of Tolkien, huh. So, if he leaves he gets hungry. But he can control it, in theory? Cool. So be breaks his oath for her, and then she's got to worry about having a friend that everyone thinks needs to be killed. Very nice.

How does one kill a Fell? Just hack them to bits?  

I'm assuming you use standard equipment bonuses?

No, we stopped using bonuses after our playtest session.  

Cool. So she's pretty tough then? What's her ability with a sword?

Not "the most feared." If you say that, then you can't introduce anyone better.

Wait. Is "the most feared" equal to "the best"? What I thought it should convey was "the nastiest" - the dirtiest fighter perhaps, or the most ruthless once he wins, or the most unpredictably provocable.  And the Western Pellurian is a big region, but it doesn't cover everywhere.
But ok, I'll consider dropping him a notch.

Well the point is just to leave your options open. Use whatever verbage works for that.

OTOH, if you want him to be the absolute best, that's always fun, too. In that case jack him up to the upper 3 mastery range, or even into the 4 mastery range if he's sorta superheroic.

Men as in troops. Gender is not particularly relevant here.

No no, I got that, I wasn't thinking gender.  It's only that at times, I suddenly feel scared and guilty planning nasty consequences for PCs.  For no good reason at all, but it happens - and that was one such moment.  

Ah. Well leave it for the spur of the moment. Decide right then. But you'll find that you'll have to make something worthy of the moment, or the drama will be lost. You'll almost feel the player demanding something appropriately bad.

I'm assuming that you roll everything out in the open, right? Very important. When this happens, let her in on the ability she's up against, and then let her calcualate what happens with the rolls by looking at the dice. When she gets that Complete Defeat, and then decides not to bump it up, she'll look up at you with that, "So what badness befalls my character" look.

So, which do you prefer? Political power drain, or drain of Tam's love? Or both? Call it a humiliating scar.

Ok, I have to practice this. So, uh, both.  

Yay! Gives her two things to "heal."

Oh wow.  Oh yes.  I'm planning to have Katrin come to talk to Roland just as Olec swears his oath to him.  Good moment to introduce the guardian, and make it look appealing. (We'll also be talking about the guardian for the possible Katrin-Apari hero band tomorrow, so that fits in nicely on another level as well.)

Cool, that should be fun, given what I've heard so far.

Mike

[Kerstin Schmidt]

I take back all the stuff I said about magic.

Yay! I win.  ;-)

Midnight is predicated on the Middle Earth paradigm, and, interestingly, that's very, very non-magical in many ways. More importantly, magic signifies belief in HQ, and the only belief characters have in Middle Earth, and apparently in Midnight, is in their homes and in their people.  

That's exactly it, yes.  Expressed much more clearly than I could have.  Sometimes I just have a hunch of what I want things to be like and can't articulate why.  

I am still curious - do the people of Midnight have any sort of belief system at all? I mean, without the flashy effects of the magic in RPGs we have religions and beliefs. What's happened to those in this world? Or is it just not discussed?

You mean in Midnight canon?  It's not discussed in the way we are discussing it here, but there are references.  

I see two conflicting views in the Midnight material.  On the one hand the Midnight designers have cut all the D&D gods other than Izrador off from the world, and make sure they stress despair and hopelessness on every page.  If there is any sort of belief system that pervades the setting material, it is that the gods are lost and all hope is lost because nothing can stand against Izrador.  You can join Izrador – or nothing.  

Yet there are "Religion" sections in the book.  It looks almost as if the designers wanted to create a completely bleak and hopeless world, but couldn't quite manage to bring their cultures to life without giving them spiritual traditions.  Here are some examples.  

Dorns believe that their departed ancestors "have power over the affairs of the living" and demand honourable behaviour from them (MN 143).  Despite the ghost problems Dorns still cremate their dead in rings of standing stones – dangerous, haunted places these days, where you don't want to go after nightfall or even linger too long over a funeral.  

The southern humans, Sarcosans, still believe in the Riding Host, a vast pantheon believed to be the stars.  They believe that after death a Sarcosan will be judged either worthy or unworthy to join the Riding Host, depending on their deeds in life.  As I read the text, the Riding Host never promised or granted benefits in life, so its being cut off from the world doesn't make a noticeable difference.  (MN 158) (Strangely enough the elves appear to have established that the souls of the dead go nowhere, which is why there are so many Fell and angry ghosts around. But this isn't mentioned in the Sarcosan religion writeup.)
Sarcosans also make for the most numerous and most powerful following of Izrador.  Both human Night Kings and apparently most puppet lords, even in Dornish lands, are Sarcosans.  Strange again.  They are the people with the strongest religious affiliation and yet the people who succumbed to the Shadow most easily?

Gnomes and many human riverfolk "pay religious homage" to a vast entity, "the Watcher of the River" (MN 177).  Halflings make offerings to local nature spirits (MN 171).  

The elves worship "both named and anonymous spirits" (MN 115).  Heepa-Heepa, small and weak entities, look after children, there's Zulion the Trickster, Xione the Mistress of the Frozen Wood, and others.  There's mention of a shrine to Xione in Fury.  Jungle elves use a lot of ritual in their daily lives, such as stirring water with a stick before drinking to drive out evil spirits.  (Hm, I should remind Apari's player of this, he never went for these things in the past but with the new style he might like to include it in his play.)
Besides, there is a temple to the Lost Gods hidden away in Erethor, where old traditions are kept;  and more recently there is the "Cult of the Witch" – elves who believe the High Queen Aradiel to be one of the Lost Gods.  

Dwarves believe the Lost Gods are lost for good and irrelevant.  Some, but not all, dwarves believe in mountain spirits.  Father Sun and Mother Moon figure prominently in Dwarven mythology.  (MN 185)

I mean, Izrador's blood doesn't actually flow all over the planet physically, right? So it gets to the mirrors by...some other place, right? In fact, mirrors are classic portals to otherworlds. Also, don't the dead go there at least part of the time?

If that qualifies for an otherworld, fine by me.  If the dead go there I've missed that bit though.  I don't think they do.  

Not saying you have to do any of this, just that often when you do this sort of exercise, you find ways of doing things in interesting mechanical ways that explain some of your game world better than you thought it could be explained.

Fine by me – as long as I can keep it simple.  Interesting mechanics and explanations are great as long as I can bring them across without too much rules baggage.  

Astiraxes ...

Are these from the Midnight text, or not? Did Scott make them up perhaps? I was imagining with how he mentioned them that they would be something well written up in the canon.

Astiraxes are part of canon, fully statted D&D monsters and all.  They were created by Izrador a century or so ago, to track down and kill spellcasters.  They are "naturally invisible and incorporeal spirits" classified as "Magical Beasts" (MN 229), which fight by possessing animals.  How or from what they are created isn't described.  

So there's nothing canon called "Shadow" or "the Shadow" or anything? Hmm. Could just be Scott doing the logic I did above and extrapolating the shadow otherworld from the description of how Izrador works.

That's how I think it must be.  "The Shadow" is the parallel to Tolkien's "Enemy".  It's a personified reference to Izrador's side.  

All "spirits" in the Midnight books are present in the physical world.But you're correct that the term spirit doesn't neccessarily imply anything in particular here, either. The real question is how they interact with folks, and what their "belief" system is about.

Ah right, now I'm getting a clearer idea of why this kind of thinking wasn't getting me anywhere.  The text bits on religion don't really talk about spirits, lost gods, ancestors or stars interacting with people.  What they describe is people's beliefs and rituals, but not actual interaction.  

Well, part of Hero Quest is the idea that characters change in their beliefs sometimes, and that sometimes leads to new magic. They might be more interested if they saw better how it works. But, again, given the Middle Earthiness of the game, It's probably not a huge deal to have all of these options.  

Actually I suspect that it might detract from the focus of the game as it has developed.  It's been very much about taking personal strength from things in the world – your home, your family, your honour, your ancestors, your bond to someone you've fought side by side with.  I'd much prefer religion and magic to remain subtle and non-intrusive for the most part, to be honest.  Again it's more of a hunch than something I can explain very well, it feels as if varied mechanics for religions would be baggage in this case.  

That's not speaking generally, mind you.  It took me a while to realise this, but I can see how having all three systems in a setting can lend itself to very cool options and themes.  Only tacking them onto my game that has been going elsewhere for a year doesn't feel like the right way to go.  

Part of it is about who you have to know to get magic. If you treat it as just something you ger from...nowhere I guess...then it's not well linked into the setting. The HQ magic systems tell you something about the magic you're using, gives it context.

In Midnight you get only arcane magic, which in D&D comes from either studying very hard or from having some unexplained innate gift – "from nowhere I guess" is a very precise and rather frustrating description of it.  Now what do I want to change about that at this stage in the game?  

Midnight has no magic communities.  That's a lack you may argue, but I like it for this setting and for echoing Tolkien.  You can have a home, a family, a heroband (or three) - but you cannot have a church unless you're on the side of the Shadow.  

Midnight as written also doesn't really have entities that grant magic, although some bits of description of spirits may be hints of this - for instance gnomes believe that their boats sail more safely when they make offerings to the Watcher of the River.  I'm thinking magic could actually be granted by "spirits" without people necessarily knowing about it.  You believe you've learnt that "Rally the Clan" from your grandmother or "Swamp" magic from your mentor channeler, while in reality the gestures and words you use for them mimic an old, forgotten ritual of worship.  Something like that would work for me, and it leaves some options open without necessarily leading into three different magic rulesets.  

We have had magic in the game before (like every D&D game it was dominated by magic), but magic never had any religious connotation.  So if it starts having one now, I'd like it to be subtle and possible to be overlooked unless you look closely.  

I thought that perhaps we could find some of the bangier stuff from how magic works to leverage in with the other stuff. The more you play, the less you can go back and say that the magic was part of somthing larger all along, and it just never got noticed in any way.

My simplified magic and religion system doesn't have much bang potential in it as such, that's true – no conflicts or contradictions inherent in it.  

I was asking more about from the canon. Does Midnight have these beings? If so, they strongly imply animism exists (or, rather, that either it does or that they're being defined in a less interesting way than they could be). Which has other ramifications if it's true.

Technically speaking Midnight can have all the monsters that are in the D&D Monster Manual.  That includes dryads, nymphs, elementals, devils, demons and angels, giants, as well as all the D&D-specific monsters that have no root in mythology.  And yes, that's defining them in a not-very-interesting way, that is inherent in D&D.  Of the Midnight spirits-specific spirits, some classify as Outsiders (incorporeal beings from other planes) and others as Fey (native corporeal or incorporeal spirits).  

Minions of Shadow added some touches;  most have a weird gothic horror feel that I can't really work with for my purposes, but a few work with in mythology, which is great for a olkienesque feel.  For example unicorns have turned into evil black Splinter Steeds, with splintered horns (this happened when the Veil sundered the world from the gods, 9,000 years ago).  

And if you're looking for daimones of other gods than Izrador, they can be present, too.  According to canon many "outsiders" (otherworldly beings) were trapped on Aryth at the Sundering.  

I think you can make arguments for each of the three otherworlds to have some relevance in Midnight if you choose to.  That's not my point.  My point is that I want to streamline it all, to avoid having to learn and teach all those rules and to avoid diluting and distracting from the feel of our game as it has developed in the past (despite the hindrances from D&D).  
Perhaps D&D has made me more wary of system intrusion than I need to be, but perhaps I have a valid point here.  What you said about Midnight and Middle Earth being devoid of religion rings very tue to me.  

In Hero Quest these things have mechanical importance. For example, charms are "always on" and provide their augments whether or not you have time to use the magic. With a spell, you need to have an object (talisman) to cast it with, and some time. Feats just need time. Then there's concentrating on one of the sorts. Etc.

You can just ignore all of that, but I, at least, think it's interesting stuff. In any case, I don't think you "need" any of it, just that I wonder if the setting implies any of this fun stuff.

Interesting, granted.  Interesting enough for me to take the trouble to add it to my current game?  I don't think so.  Don't get me wrong, if there's a cool opportunity for a religious/cultural conflict that will be great.  But I would prefer not to have rules complications for religions.  As you said so well, Midnight/Middle Earth has a focus on believing in and taking strength from home and people, rather than from outside spiritual entities, and I don't want to dilute that.  

Unfortunately he's mourning fireballs, invisibility and teleport spells too much to get into the spirit and come up with stuff on his own.

Are those things canonical to Midnight? Those kinds of spells, that is? Who uses them, if so? Why would you get rid of them? Or are they somehow antithetical to Midnight canon?

My pet peeve about Midnight.  The setting so shouldn't have been written for D&D.  Oh well, it's a good enough decision commercially.  But it really doesn't do anything for the feel.  I haven't seen any magic in the HQ book that I'd have a problem with for Midnight, but D&D spells (again, this mindless wargaming collection) just don't work for me here.  

Fireballs and invisibility and teleport are all on the D&D spell list and are a wargamer's bread and butter.  Teleport doesn't work in Midnight because you'd have to be able to go through other planes to teleport (first disappointment for Apari's player when we were still playing D&D), but the other spells are available.  

Mass-destruction spells like fireballs (channeler) or flame strikes (legate) in everyone's hands are the wrong kind of magic if I want any sort of a Tolkien feel.  Besides when I'm playing Midnight in D&D, I run into big-time balance problems with those spells.  To resist fireballs or flame strikes, I need divine magic (unavailable to PCs) and lots of magic items (unavailable to most everyone).  
I ended up reducing fireball and flame strike to spells that target an individual creature per casting, rather than incinerate everything within a 40' radius.  This effectively eliminated both spells from our game.  Apari's player wouldn't use fireballs anymore because they were now "iffy" (note that he considers Gandalf's magic "wussy").  And I still couldn't have legates use flame strikes on the PCs because with the lack of protective magic those spells were far too deadly, albeit now only for one PC at a time rather than for the entire party.  

Invisibility was and still is available in my game, but I'm using the "difficult magic" rule in HQ.  This made the player decide he didn't want the spell anymore (nor in fact any HQ magic) because it was no longer automatic.  

And I'll stop now.  No one in my game is currently asking for those kinds of spells and I should be grateful for that.  :)  In fact Apari's player is now busy exploring whole new worlds of playing since we played, so currently interacting with ghosts is getting a lot more interesting.  

We posted about the session here, in case you hadn't seen.  

So, if he leaves he gets hungry. But he can control it, in theory? Cool. So be breaks his oath for her, and then she's got to worry about having a friend that everyone thinks needs to be killed. Very nice.

He also is Sarcosan, which won't go down well with people on the Pike, seeing how many Sarcosans are powerful collaborators helping oppress Dornish towns.

How does one kill a Fell? Just hack them to bits?  

Unfortunately, yes.  Although perhaps this one could be special.  

I'm assuming that you roll everything out in the open, right? Very important. When this happens, let her in on the ability she's up against, and then let her calculate what happens with the rolls by looking at the dice.  When she gets that Complete Defeat, and then decides not to bump it up, she'll look up at you with that, "So what badness befalls my character" look.

Well... it didn't happen quite like that in the session.  But maybe next time.  :)  

And yes of course, all my rolls are in the open.

[Mike Holmes]

Yet there are "Religion" sections in the book.  It looks almost as if the designers wanted to create a completely bleak and hopeless world, but couldn't quite manage to bring their cultures to life without giving them spiritual traditions.

Well, see, I agree with them, really. That is, if things are as bleak as you say, then people have to believe in something, or they're going to either all join Izrador (I mean why not if he's all there is?) or they're going to just slit their wrists. They have to have something to live for. If they truely believe that the only supernatural force in the world is Izrador, then I think that they couldn't resist him.

Dorns believe that their departed ancestors "have power over the affairs of the living" and demand honourable behaviour from them (MN 143).  Despite the ghost problems Dorns still cremate their dead in rings of standing stones – dangerous, haunted places these days, where you don't want to go after nightfall or even linger too long over a funeral.  

Classic ancestor animism. I mean classic. Katrin is a Dorn, right? I don't see why she shouldn't have her 5 tradition charms for being a spiritist.

The southern humans, Sarcosans, still believe in the Riding Host, a vast pantheon believed to be the stars.  They believe that after death a Sarcosan will be judged either worthy or unworthy to join the Riding Host, depending on their deeds in life.  As I read the text, the Riding Host never promised or granted benefits in life, so its being cut off from the world doesn't make a noticeable difference.  

Right. So even if it doesn't give magic, it's still the religion part of their homeland keyword.

(MN 158) (Strangely enough the elves appear to have established that the souls of the dead go nowhere, which is why there are so many Fell and angry ghosts around. But this isn't mentioned in the Sarcosan religion writeup.)

Sarcosans also make for the most numerous and most powerful following of Izrador.  Both human Night Kings and apparently most puppet lords, even in Dornish lands, are Sarcosans.  Strange again.  They are the people with the strongest religious affiliation and yet the people who succumbed to the Shadow most easily?

Well, perhaps the appearance of very manifest supernatural powers is convincing to such a people?

Gnomes and many human riverfolk "pay religious homage" to a vast entity, "the Watcher of the River" (MN 177).  Halflings make offerings to local nature spirits (MN 171).  

The elves worship "both named and anonymous spirits" (MN 115).

I see where Doyce got his need for a spirit world. This is all animism, or, at least, common magic from spirits.  

Besides, there is a temple to the Lost Gods hidden away in Erethor, where old traditions are kept;

Again, a religion keyword addition, if not one that allows magic keywords.

and more recently there is the "Cult of the Witch" – elves who believe the High Queen Aradiel to be one of the Lost Gods.  

Sounds like either a full theist cult, or at least a Hero Cult.

Dwarves believe the Lost Gods are lost for good and irrelevant.

Even that's a belief.

Some, but not all, dwarves believe in mountain spirits.  Father Sun and Mother Moon figure prominently in Dwarven mythology.

Dwarvern animism. Cool.

Fine by me – as long as I can keep it simple.  Interesting mechanics and explanations are great as long as I can bring them across without too much rules baggage.  

I think that the rules are either minimal or non-existant. For instance one rule is that getting to any otherworld is a 10W3 resistance. Since you're going to have one otherworld, you'll need this rule. The other rules are only important if one of the characters really wants to have magic of the sort implied. If not, then there's nothing to worry about at all. If, say, a player wants their character to be a animist, it's really very simple. They just get a few "fetishes" which are magic abilities like any other, with an additional ability to "release" the fetish and add it's entire ability rating to one of yours (which is way powerful).

I mean, it's just not a lot of rules. Learning it from the book can be interesting, but just ask me, and I'll work through it with you. That is, again, if it ends up getting used at all.

The reason that I think it's interesting to work this stuff out is not so you get to use the rules in question, but because it gives you a view into what your character's cosmological outlook is like. I mean, what does the character think happens when they die, for instance? This can tend to really have some formative qualities as far as personality. And it, again, links the character to the setting.

Think of it this way. The Native American tribes were pretty much animist in outlook, despite not having the flashy effects of magic from this fantasy world. It's important to understand this belief system to get what they were (and are in some cases) really about. Without knowing a character's belief system it's hard to understand them. I mean, it seems to me that Katrin's honor is not just to satisfy her father, but to satisfy his and her ancestors as well, who they probably feel are looking down on them.

The important rules here, is the religion keyword. They should have a skill ability that represents how well they know the myths of their ancestors, for instance. And relationships to Spirit-Talkers who help them speak with the dead, so they know what to do. Etc.

Astiraxes are part of canon, fully statted D&D monsters and all.  They were created by Izrador a century or so ago, to track down and kill spellcasters.  They are "naturally invisible and incorporeal spirits" classified as "Magical Beasts" (MN 229), which fight by possessing animals.  How or from what they are created isn't described.

There's not one word in all of HQ about how or from what spirits are created.  That's irellevant for the most part. All you need to know is that they're spirits, and that they can be bound into charms and fetishes, or even become spirit allies to help people who are devout about worshipping the spirits.  

All "spirits" in the Midnight books are present in the physical world.But you're correct that the term spirit doesn't neccessarily imply anything in particular here, either. The real question is how they interact with folks, and what their "belief" system is about.

Ah right, now I'm getting a clearer idea of why this kind of thinking wasn't getting me anywhere.  The text bits on religion don't really talk about spirits, lost gods, ancestors or stars interacting with people.  What they describe is people's beliefs and rituals, but not actual interaction.  

Right. What HQ does is to give a simple framework to all of that.

Actually I suspect that it might detract from the focus of the game as it has developed.  It's been very much about taking personal strength from things in the world – your home, your family, your honour, your ancestors, your bond to someone you've fought side by side with.

Did I hear ancestors? Mechanically that's simply animism. I mean, how cool would it be for Katrin to have the spirit of her great-grandfather bound up in her sword or something? And drawing on his strength to help her defeat foes. Heck, with a big enough fetish, she could have defeated whasisname if she'd released the spirit.

I'd much prefer religion and magic to remain subtle and non-intrusive for the most part, to be honest.  Again it's more of a hunch than something I can explain very well, it feels as if varied mechanics for religions would be baggage in this case.

Well, from what it sounds like, it's all animism at this point. If you really want to make it simple, then just say it's all common magic charms. That is, the player takes an ability like "Hit Like Grampa" and that augments any attack they make. It's really not much different than what you have, except that now we know where the magic is coming from.

Because, again, if you don't want to mess with fetishes, devotees, and orderlies, that's fine. The very basic common magic rules work great. And they're very, very simple.

In Midnight you get only arcane magic, which in D&D comes from either studying very hard...

OK, what do you study? Books? Where do they come from? Who has them? Or do you have a mentor?

or from having some unexplained innate gift

These, again, are natural magic. So they're in the system already. There's also talents which are similar, but which characters have to discover, and which most people can discover if taught. These often do have little religions based around them.

Midnight has no magic communities.

It has communities. It has people who worship these beings. It has magic communities. In HQ it's not about Guilds or something. You learn magic from the dude in the tower, or as an acolyte to a priest, or from the shaman. And these are the people who lead the "communities" which are, in effect your people. You don't need separate communities.

Midnight as written also doesn't really have entities that grant magic, although some bits of description of spirits may be hints of this - for instance gnomes believe that their boats sail more safely when they make offerings to the Watcher of the River.

This is a river daimone, then. Note that the name doesn't matter. What matters is that the being either covers you personally just like a human would, or it gives you the ability to do it yourself. In the case of a daimone, it teaches you the "Cross Waters Safely Feat" when you give it the offering. Note that the character doesn't think of it this way. All he knows is that when he crosses he drops some of his bread in, and he makes it more often than he used to before he knew this little trick.

I'm thinking magic could actually be granted by "spirits" without people necessarily knowing about it.  You believe you've learnt that "Rally the Clan" from your grandmother or "Swamp" magic from your mentor channeler, while in reality the gestures and words you use for them mimic an old, forgotten ritual of worship.  

That's precisely how it works. Note that you don't have to learn the Cross Waters Safely Feat from the Daimone itself - you can learn from anyone. The reason it works, however, is because of the Daimone. It actually comes up under your boat and guides you across. In common magic, the being actually is there, helping you out.

Passively. This is important. In the end all common magic is really subtle, because it's all augments. You don't use the Cross Water Safely Feat 17 rating, you get a +2 to your "Rowing" ability. Yeah, the hull may glow as it helps you out, but it's not a big thing, and if you don't Row, you don't go.

We have had magic in the game before (like every D&D game it was dominated by magic), but magic never had any religious connotation.  So if it starts having one now, I'd like it to be subtle and possible to be overlooked unless you look closely.

I see what you're saying. And while, again, I agree that you can do without the religious connotations, I think you're missing an opportunity to explore what's actually canon about the religion, and what HQ explores really well. Again, in terms of who in your community you learned the stuff from and such, and what the rituals look like to some extent.

Technically speaking Midnight can have all the monsters that are in the D&D Monster Manual.  That includes dryads, nymphs, elementals, devils, demons and angels, giants, as well as all the D&D-specific monsters that have no root in mythology.  And yes, that's defining them in a not-very-interesting way, that is inherent in D&D.

See, this is precisely why I use HQ and not D&D. It's not the narrativism resolution system, I can get that from a number of places. It's how the system nails characters to the setting. And that means the magic that they use in addition to everything else. There's no "you just got magic from somewhere" that you see in other games.

Of the Midnight spirits-specific spirits, some classify as Outsiders (incorporeal beings from other planes) and others as Fey (native corporeal or incorporeal spirits).  

This is classic. Fey are mundane world spirits, and Outsiders are spirit world spirits.

And if you're looking for daimones of other gods than Izrador, they can be present, too.  According to canon many "outsiders" (otherworldly beings) were trapped on Aryth at the Sundering.  

Again this seems to imply common magic only.

I think you can make arguments for each of the three otherworlds to have some relevance in Midnight if you choose to.

You're completely missing what I'm trying to do here. I'm not trying to mangle the interpretation of Midnight in order to get the three otherworlds in somehow. In fact if one or more don't exist, no biggie. I'm trying to look at Midnight, and define what does exist in the terms that HQ would.

See, this is my argument for why to use HQ for conversions of most fantasy worlds. They all already fit the HQ conventions in some ways. HQ just "finds" and brings these things out where the older systems, not the settings, failed to bring out these elements.

What I'm saying is that I think that from what I'm reading that the designers did want animism in the world, but just didn't have any good rules in D&D for it.

Perhaps D&D has made me more wary of system intrusion than I need to be, but perhaps I have a valid point here.

Well, only if your argument is that the rules don't really match Midnight, or really are irrelevant to playing in it effectively. Which I almost buy when compared to Tolkien. But the more that I hear about all of the spirits, the more I feel that perhaps animism, at least, is warranted.

Actually, I agree that they're using "spirit" broadly, and what I really think is that all three sorts of beings exist in the mundane world. Meaning, again, that common magic would best display this sort of thing. Note that what makes a being what it is, is the way in which you commune with it. If you do ecstatic worship (dancing around fires, or taking substances) to get it to play, it's an animist being. If you Sacrifice to it, it's a theist being. If you venerate it throught the chain of veneration, or just study it, it's a wizardry being.

My pet peeve about Midnight.  The setting so shouldn't have been written for D&D.  Oh well, it's a good enough decision commercially.  But it really doesn't do anything for the feel.  I haven't seen any magic in the HQ book that I'd have a problem with for Midnight, but D&D spells (again, this mindless wargaming collection) just don't work for me here.

Who gets fireballs in Midnight? I mean, I take it you can take the wizard class? And they are the ones that learn the magic with much studying? This is HQ wizardry (perhaps unsurprisingly). And, yes, you can make it fit midnight without allowing the fireballs, by determining what books and spells each school (or mentor) has.  

Mass-destruction spells like fireballs (channeler) or flame strikes (legate) in everyone's hands are the wrong kind of magic if I want any sort of a Tolkien feel.

Hmmm. Gandalf does it. Yup. Chasing off some wargs. I personally feel that it's how D&D handles fireballs that's the problem than the fireballs themselves. Try it using HQ and you'll see what I mean.

Besides when I'm playing Midnight in D&D, I run into big-time balance problems with those spells.  To resist fireballs or flame strikes, I need divine magic (unavailable to PCs) and lots of magic items (unavailable to most everyone).

Not a problem in HQ.

Invisibility was and still is available in my game, but I'm using the "difficult magic" rule in HQ.  This made the player decide he didn't want the spell anymore (nor in fact any HQ magic) because it was no longer automatic.  

He just needs time to adjust to how the system works, and then he'll want it back. :-)

How does one kill a Fell? Just hack them to bits?  

Unfortunately, yes.  Although perhaps this one could be special.  

No, no. Just curious.

Mike

[NickHollingsworth]

It sounds as if magic is rare but a big deal when it happens. In glorantha and hence vanilla HQ magic is ubiquitous. You have a lot of choices for how to model this difference. Your choices are all about how often magic crops up, whether there is any 'little' magic and the flavour you want to impart to it.


First off: you dont have to use all or any of the types of magic in HQ. The system will not break if you take any one of them or all of them out. Not only will it not break it wont be any the worse for it. They are in there because Glorantha needs them not because the rules do.


Second: magic is not religion. Mike is spot on in saying that the 'good' guys must have strong beliefs or they would have folded. Your quotes mention those beliefs explicitly. There is nothing wrong with having religion keywords that dont have magic abilities; they would still have abilities for beliefs, relationships, lore, etc.  They would still have a list of optional traits.

In HQ it does not really matter much what categorising label you choose to put on an ability, so such things as beliefs, relationships, lore, etc are all very useable in play. And in fact they are more interesting than 'spells'. For example augmenting against the desire to flee from wraiths by reciting the names of your fathers (ie using Revere Ancestors) and reminding each other that wraiths can destroy the body but not the soul (ie using What Our Ancestors Taught Us) reveal more about the setting and the characters than we would get if they cast 'Bravery' or something.


Third: If you want to model magic as being something only supernatural beings and artifacts can do (ie not PCs) there is another option. You can make the things that can do it npcs and use the rules for followers, allies, etc.

If by definition they are all greater powers than the pcs then dont allow them as followers (npcs that do what the players want most of the time). This way the PCs can use their relationships as abilities to draw these powers attention to the mortal world and convince them to act.

Items like magic swords or other kit can be handled as followers or allies depending on how powerful and how much autonomy you think they should have. If its like LotR then followers would probably be right as they dont get personalities and dont tend to rebel. There is however a gap in the rules in that there is no explanation of how to make a known npc with known abilities into a follower, this issue does not exist with allies for whom this is expected. Hardly a big issue though.


Fourth: its not necessary to establish how or if the 'good' guy's magic works in order to use it in the game. You can make magic simply a set of prayers that never have any observable physical manifestations. It then remains unclear if there is an outside agency subtley at work or if its simply the psycology of belief.

If you do this you can choose to use the theistic structure of vague Affinities and more specific Feats if you want organised areas of power for the being(s) being prayed to. Or just as reasonably you can describe how they are beleived to interact with the world and have all interaction come off whatever abilities seem relevant in the circumstances.


Lastly: you might also take a look at the heroforming rules that allow powerful entities to inhabit a vessel for a time. There may be stuff related to that that is useful for making magic  rare but powerful.


As far as Otherworlds go... If its LotR-like then they are unreachable and uncontactable right? So forget about them. No explanation is needed.


Cheers

[Mike Holmes]

I think Nick's saying some of the things that I'm trying to say, better than I did. I do have a slight disagreement, however.

"Bravery" as a spell is, indeed not all that interesting unless you know where it comes from. That is, if it is indeed from an ancestor animism religion, then we know that Bravery is calling on the bravery of your ancestors, and it does have meaning. Much like the examples that you gave, Nick.

That said, common magic is what I think we're looking at here, and it's considered so...small?...that you're not required in HQ to have any relationships to represent how you got it or anything.

Here's what I'd consider a good rule of thumb. If the magic is just something that everyone in the community might have, it's just a part of being a member of that community, and the community relationships apply. If, however, the magic is more unique than that, then I definitely recommend expanding into more full-blown descriptions of where it comes from. For example, if you're converting a D&D wizard with lots of spells, then I'd definitely define it using the wizardry rules and all that it entails.

As far as the common magic divides, you can probably leave these undefined. That said, for very few rules, I think it's pretty fun stuff. Very basically here are the advantages and disadvantages of each type:

Charms: Always on (no time to cast), charms can be stolen or damaged, spirits sometimes balk
Spells: Never balk, have to take time to cast, talisman can be stolen or damaged.
Feats: Don't need anything to cast, takes time to perform.

These are basically all things to make contests from or given context to magic to make using magic more interesting. For example, ambushed suddenly? Then there'll be a limit on how many spells and feats you can use to augment (or you'll have to take unrelated actions in an extended contest), but not for charms. If you've got a lot of time, you can use as many feats and spells as you like to augment. Have somebody steal a talisman to give the character a goal. Have a charm refuse to do something antithetical to it's nature (a Protect Nature charm being used to protect an animal that's been destroying the local wildlife). Etc, etc.


Basically I think little stuff like this is worth learning for the fun that the color provides. I guess I've been playing with it for so long now that I personally would be loathe not to use this stuff in any world with magic that it could represent. Basically I'm done with magic being generic, and now require that it have some sort of actual in-game rationale behind it now.

Mike

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Mike, Nick:

I reposted much of our current religious discussion in this thread to enable Lucy to drop by if she's interested.  I'd be grateful if you could post any religious stuff in that new thread, thanks.  I'll keep this one for specific future game prep.

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Play is moving beyond the Redgard map, so I think it's time to start a new thread. This will allow Lucy to eventually start reading this one without stumbling on too much stuff she wouldn't want to see before it enters play.