Um, I'm not even sure if this is an appropriate topic for the Forge, but I hope it is!

I was just going through some of my old D&D notes, which were the result of me trying to convert some very old ideas of mine into the D&D system. It didn't work. It didn't work so much, it was painful. But because back then I was strictly a D&D player, I persevered. The amount I had to pervert my original ideas and work disturbs me deeply now. The world was called Ch'Tarra, the country I'd done most work on, Cellsor.

Nowadays, HeroQuest is my system of choice for anything and everything that I can think of, and turning Ch'Tarra into a workable setting for games is still something I'm dead keen to do - after all, writing stories in it never seemed to work out. The thing is, though, that I don't really know how to construct a setting with HQ rules - I have a decent idea how HQ rules work, but don't own the book yet.

I'm guessing that the place to start would be borrowing and writing keywords for occupations, homelands, species (everybody's human, but there are different origins) and possibly religion... right? The other important thing for the setting is the religions themselves and how they work. How do I do that?

I'm essentially not going to be converting the setting from D&D to HQ, because the D&D version of Ch'Tarra was so twisted and poor and so different from what I wanted, plus incomplete. So I guess I'm essentially turning raw ideas into HQ setting material here.

Any tips, ideas or comments would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Until the experts arrive, here's a couple of things that helped me out.

Mike's Improvising Keywords article: http://www.glorantha.com/support/na_keywords.html

And Bruce Ferrie's sample keywords for (i.a.) Buffy, Exalted and Modern games here:
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/bferrie/resources/index.htm

For a recent example of non-magical fantasy keywords see Brand’s Ice and Fire thread: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=13582
(It’s where I borrowed Katrin’s Lord keyword from.) Brand uses Allegiance instead of magic.

If otoh you're thinking of including magic, it's worth checking out the various magic systems HeroQuest offers. More knowledgeable people will probably be able to point you to places on the Issaries website that have helpful material on Gloranthan magic as a starter until you get the book.
(Note that in the Midnight game we're currently having only rudimentary bits of one of the four HQ magic systems in play (common magic), plus we discussed some options for another (theism) when we made your characters. Each of those systems comes with its own world view, mythology and religious communities attached.)

Thanks, Kerstin!

I'm thinking there is some magic in Ch'Tarra, but I think it's mostly subtle, and it's ill-defined at the moment. I've got vague ideas how religion might work in various parts of the world, but at this stage I'm not entirely sure how that's going to relate to magic yet. (I'm kind of thinking that any magic is automatically linked to religion, but all religions don't necessarily have magic as a part of their rituals.) I do like Common Magic as it seems to be in our game...

The tips you were already given should put you on pretty good footing I think.

One thing that I want to emphasize from a setting point of view, is that relationships are a really key part of Heroquest. So you really need to have key people defined and available to be used by the heroes. Both in the specific sense King Joe, hero Jane, Priest Jaro, and also in the generic "The country is ruled by a king, who appoints the seven counts, under whom come numerous barons, who appoint knights" or whatever the structure is your homelands.

Then when it comes time for a specific game, give background so that specific local people, people important in the game you plan, can show up in the narratives.

I really suggest getting the HQ book and reading the different magic sections. No, not because I'm a sadist, they aren't as bad as some people make them out to be :) Really, when you look at them carefully, there is real effort to put magic and religion in a social (and more) context. It isn't just a way to put more oomph in your sword-arm or to throw nifty fireballs. The danger of using common magic is that it can look like just a list of potentially handy augments, without a broader story attached to it.

Have fun!

--Bryan

Yup, that's exactly what I was thinking - the important thing for a setting in HQ is the R-maps, both in large scale (hierarchies, power struggles) and small scale (some important individual towns or groups).

I'm going to be writing an R-map for the gods, too, as that seems kind of important. But speaking of religion, is that usually part of a Homeland keyword? (A potentially optional part, I guess?) Or is it separate? Does a religion keyword have its own abilities?

Well, religions in your world should work however you want them to, of course :)

In Glorantha, as defined by heroquest.....well, get the book! But the thing to keep in mind is that in Glorantha religion only gives magic to those who make substantial contributions.

In pretty much all Gloranthan religions there is a "lay member" type level, that takes 10% of time and commitment, and gives at best some minor blessings, granted through others (the character has no real control over the magic).

Then there is some level of greater commitment, name varying by religion type (recall that there are three distinct forms of magic/religion in Glorantha). In each case there is a greater commitment of time and resouces, on the order of 25% to 40%--roughly the same commitment as to their profession. In return the hero gets some amount of magic that they can call on directly. It might be broad augments, it might be limited bonusses or active abilities. In whichever case, at this level there are usually abilities taught along with the magic, along with typical personality traits. So an initiate of Humakt, god of death, honor, and war, will learn some form of sword combat (the sword is Humakts embodiement in a way), and some other military skills. Not as broad as the skills of a warrior or soldier, but such that a worshipper of Humakt, no matter his or her profession, will have the essential skills. Likewise they are offered the personality trait honorable amongst others, because to worship Humakt you should be honorable.

Also in Glorantha there are specific abilities to see magic and magical beings related to the three magic systems, and these are usually gained at that level.

If you want a very good example of how religion can permeate a society, how abilities go with religious key words, and so on, pick up "Thunder Rebels" (or to a lesser extent "Storm Tribe"). These show the gods of the central Heortling people, and how the Heortlings interact with them at various levels. These two were written for Hero Wars (the predecessor of Hero Quest) but are almost totally compatible with it (the biggest difference I can think of off-hand is that they use "virtues" instead of "personality traits"). There are also examples from various religions in the HQ core rules, but the scattered samples don't give the same unified view.

And yes, if you like Heroquest, supporting Issaries by buying its books is a good idea!

--Bryan

Hi Bryan -

Trust me, as soon as I can scrape together the spare cash to buy gaming books again (hopefully a couple of weeks!), I'll be ordering HQ. I'm kind of at subsistence level at the moment. :)

Thanks for the rundown on religion and magic, that was extremely useful and it certainly sounds like a good way to go about for the Cellsori religions. Last query though: is there a single pantheon that can be worshipped by one of three different "magic systems", or does each system have its own deities/spirits/whatever?

(And yes, I'm going to buy the book. As soon as I have the money.)

randomling wrote: Last query though: is there a single pantheon that can be worshipped by one of three different "magic systems", or does each system have its own deities/spirits/whatever?

Last query though: is there a single pantheon that can be worshipped by one of three different "magic systems", or does each system have its own deities/spirits/whatever?

Thanks everybody for the advice on magic!

My current thought is that there are two major "brands" of religion. The most common is derived from what was once a fairly unified pantheon. The pantheon has now fragmented into a number of factions and cults, but most are fairly straightfoward worship of gods. Some cultures, however, are animistic, worshipping spirits (sun-spirits, tree-spirits, animal spirits, whatever) rather than gods. I'm thinking that will work rather differently. I'm not sure if those will relate to different types of magic.

I'm also imagining the ideas the phrase "common magic" makes me think of, which is a bit of low-key, everyday sort of magic that a few people in rural villages might have access to. Be that healing, knowing stuff... not sure yet.

On a different note, I'm wondering how to work keywords for Species and Homeland. As I understand it, the idea is that the Species would carry physical characteristics (Short, Tall, Pointy Ears, whatever) and perhaps a personality trait or two. Homeland contains cultural learning, like particular skills you might have grown up with, relationships to your family, more culturally oriented personality traits, etc. The thing is, the way I'm thinking of Cellsa, your species (biological origin), tribe (some cultural learning based on heritage) and homeland (more cultural learning based on geography) are three different things, though species and tribe are likely to be the same in most (not all) cases. How would I best work this out? Add some traits to the Homeland keyword based on species? Make the Homeland keyword into two half-keywords for tribe and homeland?

In heroquest there are three types of magic--theistic, animism, and wizardry/reverence. This is not because the rules writers really loved writing about magic, but because it is intended to reflect Gloranthan "reality." Below is a simplified and no doubt slightly garbled summary of the three systems, intended to let you think about how you want to use one or more of them in your world.

Theists sacrifice--time, goods, and in a sense some of their sense of self. It is only through their worshippers that the gods can still experience the world within time (to save the world, the gods locked themselves out of it, and no longer really can change, exert free will, or directly interfere in the inner world). Worshippers can call on their gods broad magics, but few of them can call it strongly or in specific, active, ways. That is, most people have three affinities, like "combat" "movement" and "wind" for a storm worshipping warrior, or "hunting" "sensuality" and "wilderness survival" for a follower of the hunting-cat god. Each affinity will normally only give something like a +2 augment--but notice how broad they are! More skilled magicians can use specific feats within the affinities, like "lift object with wind" in the wind affinity, or "sleep anywhere" in the sensuality affinity. Really exceptional heroes learn a deeper secret of their deity, things like turning into an alynx (hunting cat) at will.

Animists practice ecstatic worship (alcohol, dancing, sweat lodges, etc) of great spirits, roughly on par with the gods. But they get their magic by capturing and forming relationships with weaker spirits that "belong" to that great spirit. Spirits can't stay in the inner world for long if they don't have a "body" of some sort, so these are bound into charms or fetishes. Animists can get simple charms that act as augments, or with greater commitment they can have a more interesting spirit in a fetish. These "practice" spirits typically have a few abiliities, and the practioner can use them as augments, or release the spirit to add its rating to their own briefly (this can be very potent!). A horse spirit might have "run fast", "kick hard" and "proud" for example. Once captured, a spirits ratings are fixed (can't be improved with HP), and it takes HP to cement a spirit into a fetish in the first place (the more powerful, the more it costs). Finally practioners can gain a spirit ally, which is like a practice spirit, but with more free will (it can pop in and out of its fetish as it likes). Some spirit practices have secrets too, but most don't. There are also shamans, who have more powerful spirit dealing abilities.

Wizardry/sorcery/veneration (there doesn't seem to be as good of an all purpose term for it) is much less individual. Most people just "go to church" (10% time/resource commitment), worshipping the Invisible God, and several stock blessings are put on the congregation at each service--things like "work hard" "resist pagan gods" "resist heathen spirits" and so on. Which in mini-maxing, in game-world view, is actually a pretty good deal. There are also more specialized orders (worshipping "saints"), and the services for those give more specific blessings "bless armor" for a warrior saint, "gentle touch" for a healer perhaps, and so on. The people who run the services are called liturgists, and players can be one of those if they want. Members of an order can also learn spells, tied to a talisman. Again these spells will relate to their order, like "flaming sword" for the warrior order "stop bleeding" for the healing order. Those spells can only be used once after each order service--they "re-charge" with the service. And then there are wizards/sorcerers (the only difference is that one is within the church, the other is outside of it. I forget which is which). They are more the classic wizard, with grimoires of spells that they learn, and can use at will, but of course it is not easy to become one.

Most Gloranthan homelands actually have a "mixed" religion, where people gain common magic from several sources and may take part in services of different types at some level. But anyone who wants to be good at magic has to choose one path and concentrate on it, forsaking the others. Most homelands also have one type of magic that is by far dominant there.

I hope that gives you enough background to think about which of those you'd want to use for what in your world. For example, the veneration may match the "gods" worship that you have in mind more than theism does.

I hope this was of some help.

--Bryan

Good advice from everyone so far.

Yes, this is a good Forge topic. I'm a tad concerned that you'd think it wasn't. Probably my fault in part somehow. But let me say that threads like this are my favorite sort. And to the extent that we might seem to be really intense about our theory, doesn't mean that you can't discuss less intense things. That said, I'm about to get a tad intense about this subject below.

You're getting the book? Good. You need it like yesterday. :-)

You've made what I consider to the by far the most important decision already, and the correct one, IMO. That is, when converting a setting to HQ, I think that it's best to drop whatever presumptions were imposed on the setting by the previous system. So you're doing the best thing in making a conversion directly to HQ, and not filtering it through D&D.

That said, what you have to decide upon now, is just how, and I hesitate to say this because it's inaccurate, "Gloranathan" you want your world to be when it's done. As Bryan has pointed out, a lot of what the HQ rules are about is how the metaphysics work in Glorantha. Put another way, there's a nice tight little "generic" game that can be found in just a fraction of the rules, all of which can be downloaded from here if you haven't already: http://www.glorantha.com/support/GameAids.pdf

What this doesn't have are most of the specific rules for how the metaphysical abilities, magic IOW, are organized. Now, as it happens, the next article that I'll be writing for the narrator advice column is the follow up to the one that Kerstin linked to above, one creating new "magic" keywords. So this is going to be a nice warm up for me. :-)

Above I said that it's not really accurate to say that these rules make the game "Gloranthan" IMO. What I've discovered, is that Glorantha is really a very "generic" world in some ways. Yeah, the elves are plants, and the dwarves are machines, and the trolls can eat anything, but that's all detail. What I find interesting is that the metaphysics of Glorantha are actually based on our own metaphysics those of the real world.

Put another way, when Tolkien wrote LotR, or Greg Stafford wrote his pre-RPG Glorantha stuff, they both did something that every author must. They made it from what they knew. So the metaphysiscs of their worlds have something in common with belief systems that have existed on Earth at some point and time. Modified for their fiction, but in some ways very identifiable. Magic, interestingly, one might claim is not accessible to you and me, because we don't believe it exists (well, some of us). But the fact is that we do have Tolkien, and Greg's stuff, and religion.

Here's the thing that some people have a really hard time wrapping their heads around with regards to this. All of the Gloranthan models of magic are no more "outside" the normal for the residents of Glorantha, than transubstantiation is for the Catholic, or praying to god is for the Moslem, or being one with the world is for the Bhuddist. D&D sorta messed this all up from the get go with fantasy RPGs, by disociating magic from the belief systems that it comes from (in some ways we can blame Jack Vance).

What Glorantha does is to recognize that what makes magic resonant is where it comes from. In all of the source material, what makes magic cool is the answer to "where does it come from." Even if answered only briefly, the answers make the magic...well...magical. Without such answers, magic obtains a feel of being very clinical, and more scientific than magical. Often magic is described in D&D derived games as coming from some "force" that serves as it's source. The problem with this is that this source says nothing about the humans it serves. And that's the key.

Magic is about there being some meaning to life beyond our mundane existances. Magic is "proof," if you will, of this larger existence. If it's not related to that, then it's no different than any mundane power.

So, in all cases in Glorantha, magic is linked to man's need for a meaning to life. Usually this means religion. Put very roughly and in D&Dish terms, all magic in Glorantha is "priest" magic. There is no "secular" magic per se, like there is in D&D. I think this is key.

Now, other games have come to this concusion too, previously. As far back as Chivalry & Sorcery (and probably earlier), there were games that said that all magic comes from god, and is either used in his name, or perverted against him. Ars Magica was a lot about the relationship of that world's Roman Catholic church to use of magic in an otherwise historical Europe. I think that they discussed what magic meant outside of Europe, but can't remember it at all. In any case, I don't think there were separate rules.

What HQ does is to look at the fact that every culture has it's own religion - in fact for the sorts of societies in question it could be said that the religion defines the culture in most ways. Or at least informs it, depending on your definition. And further that there are some substantively different belief models that are interesting to look at. Basically the models that Bryan listed above.

Again, these models are parallels of groups of real world religions to an extent. That is, the Judeo-Christian-Islamic religions are represented by Wizardry. The religions of the classic civilizations that we think of as related to fantasy (Norse, Greek, Egyptian, Chineese, anything you'd find in Dieties & Demigods) are covered by Theism. And the religions of "primitive" societies are covered by Animism. I'm being very rough here. But the point is that with these three models we can come up with ways of rating the majority of religions that we can imagine.


Here's the big conclusion that I've been trying to get to. HQ is very universal, actually, in how it handles magic. I've yet to see a magic system that I couldn't find a parallel for in it, and which wasn't improved by the conversion. I think it applies marvellously well to just about any true fantasy environment, because it deals with the issues of magic in a way that's resonates with everyone. Even if it doesn't seem like it at first.

So my best recommendation is to keep the whole supposedly "Gloranthan" set of metaphysics and keep it for your fantasy world.

Now, you're probably saying, just what I said when converting Shadow World to HQ. There are just no cognates for some things. Some things just don't fit. Two points here:

1. They do fit better than you think.
2. To the extent that they don't fit, they're going to be better when you alter your world slightly to fit.

Yes, my advice is to abrogate your own vision for your world to a small extent, and take on the assumptions that HQ imposes. Because Greg knows more about it than we do. That is, again, I started out thinking that I could keep some of the setting assumptions intact that I had, and that would mean changes. But the more I converted, the more I played, the more that I realized how flexible the HQ religion system is, and how making the world fit that model made everything better than it had been.

For example, the first cry I often hear is that the world has secular magic - how can a religious system deal with secular magic? Well, in an excellent way, actually. It turns out that HQ does have secular magic, it's called Sorcery. Sorcery is the use of wizardry outside of the guidelines of any established church. Sound familiar? Now that seems to violate the principle of keeping the magic related to supernatural meaning. But that's not true when you convert. Again, in most of these settings secular magic is described as coming from some source, some "force" of some sort. In Shadow World this was blindingly easy, because it was called "essence" just like it is in HQ. Which should have made the conclusion simpler to make. Essentially (no pun intended), the essence is "God" for all intents and purposes, but most everyone in Shadow World does not worship it as such. Anyone who practices this form of magic is, in the HQ technical sense, a Sorcerer, meaning an Adept outside of a church.

If you look at it, this all works brilliantly from a mechanical POV. "Saints" are simply the school founders the ones who wrote the grimoires of spells. The way that spells work for characters makes sense, they learn them individually, or as part of a grimoire. Matches most "secular" magic concepts pretty well.

This worried me at first, because what's missing from Sorcerers is their relationship to God. But then two things occured to me:
1. The Sorcerer can still be reasonably be said to have a relationship to the essence. In fact, from a game mechanical POV, this is reflected in the original Rolemaster by the number of "power points" that the character has, meaning how well tapped into the essence they are. And The monotheistic God is pretty distant, even in Glorantha - he doesn't prevent Sorcerers from using magic, for instance.
2. In some ways, this is the lesser of two relationships anyhow given the distance of God. What's more important for play in most cases, is the question of where the character learned his magic. That's reflected by one or more relationships to teachers or schools. Which is so "standard fantasy" canon, it's ridiculous.

Basically, these relationships are about whether or not the character has access to his abilities. For Wizardry, God does not care - he'll allow you to use his magic all you like, and then sort you out when you die. For the school or master, if you go against their precepts, then they'll attempt to cesure you.

This is what's key about how HQ handles magic in all forms. It's not about what powers you have, but what you have to believe in to get them, and what pressures that creates in the character's life. Suddenly magic is no longer just more Kewl stuff, but a source of trouble in the character's life. And the relationships link the character to the setting in a concrete way. There's no just being a generic wizard, and learning generic spells, you have to be from a certain school that exists as a number on your character sheet begging to be used. And the spells must make sense to that school. No friken fireballs. Why? Because who would make a damn fireball spell? What sort of school teaches such a thing?

A school of war wizards you say? OK, you got your fireball back. Now, who's the traditional enemy of that college... the magic becomes a part of the setting inextricably, and not just in background - most games will say that your character had to have learned his spells in a school or something. But that's usually forgotten promptly the minute play starts.

Actually this is just the tip of the iceberg. I could go on and on and on about how the HQ magic model makes magic really fun in play of your fantasy game. All sorts of things that I had thought previously impossible to see in play are now possible with this model. All of that really cool stuff from fantasy literature that you've never seen in RPG play because of "power balance" considerations or the like.

Anyhow, the last point I'll make here in terms of convincing folks that converting to the model is a good idea is that the models above that Bryan puts out aren't limiting. That is, if you really do have an idea for a magic system that really somehow does not fit one of the three classic models, you can just make up another. Not the easiest thing to do, but the implication of the system is that these are just the three (four, really) models that we've seen so far, and that there are more coming. For example Mysticism from the HW book. So there's no reason not to create more magic systems.


What stays the same however, is how you, again, relate the magic system to the setting. Here's where I'll start to get a bit more concrete. On the following page are a set of templates that will help things out immeasurably: http://www.glorantha.com/support/templates.html

You'll note that under the homeland keyword page there's two sections, one for the homeland proper, and one for the specialized religion of the homeland. Generally there's one religion per homeland - if there are two or more, consider that it might actually be two or more closely related homelands.

There's a potential point of confusion here that I'll clarify quickly. The religion keyword is a subset of the homeland keyword. That is, you take a homeland and you get the associated religion keyword for free. The religion keyword is, for lack of a better term, your "default" magic keyword. That is, it's the basic keyword from which that religion's magic keywords come. So, if you're religion is an animist one, the specialized magic keyword is a "Spiritist of X Tradition" keyword. In the book Spiritist is listed in the section as a magic keyword, and, indeed it does deliver magic (five tradition charms). So everyone has a magic keyword. It's just that Communal Worshippers for theism, and Lay Worshippers for wizardry don't actually get any magic other than the ability to call on their dieties for divine intervention, based on their relationship with the diety.

Put another way, the Specialized Religion Keyword is a "first level" Magic Keyword. Once the character has that, then they can be eligible for second and third level (and theoretically higher) magic keywords. Also, note that there are some very strong societal limitations on having more than one magic keyword, but generally that it's theoretically possible. There are some specific limits mechanically depending on the type of keywords one has. That is, the rules don't limit getting more magic keywords, the keywords you have limit you. For example, a devotee cannot have any magic keywords or abilities outside of those related to the diety to which they are devoted. They are allowed to have affinities from associated sub-cults, or hero-cults.

I'm not trying to get into specifics here, but point out the generalities of how the system works. You get a religion with your homeland, then you can have specialized magic keywords associated with that religion (technically a religion doesn't prevent you from having kewyords from outside the religion by rule, but it was the intention of the designers to have such a rule - they just didn't think that anyone would try to take a magic keyword from outside of their religion). Note that a religion can have elements that span the "types" that Bryan laid out. That is some religions are more or less "mixed" in terms of type. In those cases, the specialized religion keyword starts out with one of the types, but the magic keywords that one can take might be from any type. As an example, the Heortling religion is "Storm Pantheon" which is generally theist, but which includes an animist tradition related to somebody called Kolat. Kolatings have somewhat different ways, but are considered to still be part of the religion.

A more intense example is Teshnos where anything goes. IIRC, you start out as a Communal Worshipper (and, as such, able to call upon any of the myriad gods of the religion for divine intervention), but then one can pick up animist practices, or saintly orders or whatever from the various branches of the overall religion.

So religions have a "root" in one of the types, which defines what sort of first level worshippers the religion has, but it's possible from there to branch out into other types of worship in that religion. So, defining a religion involves at it's base determining what that "root" type is, and then filling in any needed higher level keywords associated.

Here's where you'll want to mostly use the "make it as you need it" principle. That is, you need to have the basic religion specified for each culture that a hero will be at the very least. Then if the player wants the character to be more invested in magic, you then have to come up with the theist cult, or animist practice, or whatever that fits the bill.

So the process I use is to flesh out as many cultures as I can with specialized religion keywords. I even leave common magic keywords for creation - when they take a homeland, I ask them if they want such a thing. Once they've got their specialized magic keyword, and know a tiny bit about the religion (like "Theist religion centering around a Storm God"), then I ask if they'd like to go to a higher level of magic. If so, then at that point, I come up with the cult or whatever.

For example, I have a nomadic horse culture, and they are generally theist centered around a god of strength. But it seems cool to me to have them be like the Grazers from Glorantha, and also have some of their religion be about horse spirits. So, telling that to one player (OK, fine, Bob McNamee), he decides that he wants to be an animist. Actually it might have occured in reverse, him deciding that he wanted to play an animist, and me agreeing that it was a good idea. Can't remember, but this is how the "Bloodhoof Practice" came about: http://random.average-bear.com/ShadowWorld/Bloodhoof

Anyhow, if you're ambitious, by all means make up more stuff. But it's a ton of creative work, so consider the "as you go" method. Basically what'll happen is that the metaphysics of the world will form before your eyes as you play. The more characters you make, the more detailed the world gets.

Note that one thing that's really cool about HQ is that there are more magical organizations than you can imagine. Meaning that, if the players want to be so creative, that their character's magic doesn't have to be anything like anyone else's. Every character can have his own distinct style.

Now, you're saying "Mike, I already have a pantheon of gods for the world. I can't have a ton more being created all over!" Well, what I'd suggest is that you allow for more. That is, make the pantheon you have important to a group of cultures, sure. But then allow that outside cultures have other pantheons. Even easier than that is to assume that there are spirits in the world that don't "interact" with the gods so to speak, so nobody has a problem with loads of animist traditions all over - they don't even really conflict with each other, one tradition simply seeing the next tradition as worshipping the wrong spirits. And, again, it's not hard to get those HQ Sorcerers in there, either - their claims of secularity will only get them discluded from religions that don't buy it (so you can finally have your good rationalization for having homelands that persecute sorcerers). So the only potential problem is that of multiple pantheons. Considering that HQ rectifies such things with it's otherworld view, it would be a shame to force all of your cultures to have the same religion. At the very least, consider having each homeland have a splinter religion of the overall pantheon, a different "interpretation". So in one land, the Old Male Patriarch god is king, but in another the goddess of planting is queen over all.

Anyhow, you'll find that there's no reason not to continue to add on more and more magical types as you go. Yes, keep them honest to your overall idea for the setting. But I think you'll find it's more fun to say yes to your players notions (or at least "yes, but") than it is to come up with reasons why their religion cannot be.


That's enough for now from me. Let's get some specifics from you. Let's take a look at your one homeland and it's religion first. Just a list of your pantheon with three things each diety rules over, and some short notes as to it's nature.

Mike

Hello Mike!

After reading your post three times, I think I understand what you're on about! :) So, le me leap right in. The country of Cellsor is divided up into lots of provinces which will probably serve as at least one homeland each, so we'll start with one of those.

IRONA
Irona is a northern province of Cellsor, mostly inhabited by a race called the Cellsa (they conquered and named the country). Nowadays Irona is fairly peaceful, settled and wealthy - the Cellsa are in charge, and they know it. They worship a pantheon known as the Ten Gods, and their mythology is based around the concept of the World (physical reality as we know it) and the Not-World (unseen reality, the metaphysical, the subconscious, etc), and the gods' interaction with the new world. The Ten Gods are:

CHENNA, the Child Goddess
love, beauty, pleasure
Like all children, Chenna is a creature of the Not-World. She is pure, and totally innocent of the pain and trials of the World. She is the patron goddess of children and lovers.

THINTOR, the Fool God
passion, enterprise, fear
Thintor is a creature entirely of the World, denying the existence of the Not-World in favour of worldly pleasure and experience. He is passionate but jealous, enterprising but not consistent, daring and fearful at the same time.

JOSSATARO, the Angry God
war, fury, the truth
In Jossataro, who is usually pictured as a wolf-man or man-wolf, the impulses of the Not-World begin to break through into the World. Without control, these impulses are destructive, but also carry a splinter of the truth that lives in the Not-World.

DRISSA, the Unseen Goddess
nature, healing, the moon
Drissa marries the World and the Not-World harmoniously. On the one hand she is nature, the very life's blood of the World, but on the other she is the moon, a symbol of the inner life that the Not-World exists in.

MOSSTOR, the Wandering God
knowledge, travel, hope
Mosstor is an explorer of the World and the Not-World, who travels in order to learn. Like his mother Drissa, he unites the World and Not-World by exploring and discovering both.

JEHNANN, the Mad Goddess
madness, ecstasy, revelry
It is said that Jehnann walks the fine line between ectsasy and torture. Where Jossataro is tormented by uncontrollable impulses, Jehnann willingly plumbs the dangerous depths of the Not-World, by turns tormenting and pleasing herself.

ROSTIRNO, the Dead God
death, discovery, the unseen
Rostirno is not a wanderer but a guide towards the World from the inner space of the Not-World. He is seen leaving the Not-World, having seen madness and even death, and returning to the World with the lessons he has learned.

TIAMANTI, the Ancient Goddess
prophecy, luck, pain
All-knowing, all-seeing and all-understanding, the wise and ancient Tiamanti knows her place: at the gate between the World and the Not-World, overseeing all travellers. Like her siblings Drissa and Rostirno, she is seen as a guide figure.

CELADON, the Living God
honour, authority, change
Celadon is a denizen of the World, carrying all the lessons of the Not-World with him. He is the most mundane of the gods, but also the most authoritarian, using the truths of the Not-World to effect changes in the World.

MANAIRA, the World Goddess
magic, light, the sun
Manaira, the daughter of Tiamanti, walks the paths of the World, with all the knowledge that can be conferred by the World and the Not-World. It is this mastery of two worlds that makes her the goddess of magic: she can bring the potential from the Not-World into the World, making it true and real.

Lucy;

I liked the ten gods, a good mix that makes me want to explore them more :)

I have a couple of questions, things that are probably clear to you but not yet to us.

- How do you envision most people's relations to the gods. Are they worshipped as a collective pantheon, or as individuals only?

- How much do the gods affect the world? Are they distant and abstract forces, or very present? (i.e. what is the relationship of the gods to the world)

- Do people worship them for the blessings they give? Because it is the rigth and proper thing to do? Because they are all that keeps the world and not-world from collapsing together in an apocolypse? Because it is only through showing your piety that you can obtain social advancement? (i.e. what makes people want to have a relationship with these gods).

- Are they usually worshipped directly, or through intercessors of some sort (saints, the spirits of ancestors who have joined them, to the cult mother who is a demi-god, passing worship and magic back and forth?) i.e. is the relationship directly to their gods, or are the gods too "big" for that so that most have a relationship with some lesser being.

- How much magic do the gods give? Is individual magic common, or rare? Is active magic common, or rare? Are blessings mostly given by "priests" (or whatever officials are called), or do worshippers get them directly from the gods? i.e. what is the quo for the quid, in terms of individual benefit.

- How strong is the social organization of the religion? Is there a strong central authority like the catholic church? Ten strong religions each with its own structure? Many holy preachers with with own congregation, but no central authority? Or is worship mostly a personal thing, with temples and priests being just a minor adjunct?

In answering these questions I think you'll clarify which magic system maps best (veneration or theism most likely, although animism is not impossible....), and you'll also define a lot about what the cultural magic key word is, and what specialized magic key words might hold.

Regards;

--Bryan

Hi Bryan,

Bryan_T wrote:
I liked the ten gods, a good mix that makes me want to explore them more :)

- How do you envision most people's relations to the gods. Are they worshipped as a collective pantheon, or as individuals only?

- How much do the gods affect the world? Are they distant and abstract forces, or very present? (i.e. what is the relationship of the gods to the world)

- Do people worship them for the blessings they give? Because it is the rigth and proper thing to do? Because they are all that keeps the world and not-world from collapsing together in an apocolypse? Because it is only through showing your piety that you can obtain social advancement? (i.e. what makes people want to have a relationship with these gods).

- Are they usually worshipped directly, or through intercessors of some sort (saints, the spirits of ancestors who have joined them, to the cult mother who is a demi-god, passing worship and magic back and forth?) i.e. is the relationship directly to their gods, or are the gods too "big" for that so that most have a relationship with some lesser being.

- How much magic do the gods give? Is individual magic common, or rare? Is active magic common, or rare? Are blessings mostly given by "priests" (or whatever officials are called), or do worshippers get them directly from the gods? i.e. what is the quo for the quid, in terms of individual benefit.

- How strong is the social organization of the religion? Is there a strong central authority like the catholic church? Ten strong religions each with its own structure? Many holy preachers with with own congregation, but no central authority? Or is worship mostly a personal thing, with temples and priests being just a minor adjunct?

For the Cellsa, magical ability is directly linked to understanding of the Not-World.

Bryan_T wrote:

For the Cellsa, magical ability is directly linked to understanding of the Not-World.

Does this only come through the gods? That is, are there also "aetheist"* sorcerors, who have obtained an understanding of the not-world without the gods? Or is understanding of the not-world only possible through the gods?

* aetheist in the sense that they don't get their magic through the gods, although they may believe that the gods have objective reality.

From the sounds of it, what you have would map very well to veneration/wizardry in the HQ rules.

Historically, the Ten Gods were worshipped as an entire pantheon. The gods themselves represent a kind of mythic journey - from innocence, through pain and knowledge, to mastery of the world and the self - to the Cellsa. Many people still worship like that, but there are individual "cults" (not quite the right word) for each god, sometimes several for one god.

each deity has a rich mythology attached. Which I haven't written

Some (very few!) have actual personal relationships with the gods in a "you are chosen" sense. Most people worship on a very basic, feasts-and-holy-days sort of level, praying to Drissa for good harvest, Chenna for a happy marriage, etc - that's more a social obligation, I guess. Those who worship more seriously do so for understanding, I think, because the Ten Gods hold the secrets of the World and the Not-World. Magic, true magic, is the reward for understanding those secrets.

Hum. There are priests, but no "services" as in the Christian church where the priest serves as an intermediary. Priests are just advanced worshippers and guide figures really. Worship is direct.

There's not a massive amount of magic flying around in the Cellsa culture, though priests and other advanced devotees can be have quite strong magic.

If you're strong and knowledgeable enough, you get magic from the gods directly, even share it with others (priest level). For the Cellsa, magical ability is directly linked to understanding of the Not-World.

One strong, central religion is still there, but waning in power these days. Single-god cults, of which there are more than ten, tend to be small and very localized but quite authoritarian in their practises and structures. Essentially each priest will communicate with a god or several gods in their own way, and sometimes pick up a congregation who sees that priest as a guru or mentor - so the individual cults are more "priest-based", I guess.

Bryan_T wrote:
OK, so most likely the cultural magic would be something like "venerate the ten gods" There are various sub-churces (or whatever you want to call them), but this would probably be the generic, almost everyone in the culture has it, key word, right? It would look something like:

Magic: pray for miracle (essentially impossible)
abilities: venerate the ten gods
relationships: to congregation, to preacher
typical personality traits: (anything you want, keeping in mind what should be cultural key word, and what magic general key word).

Do people who participate in this also have access to common magic? Either taught by the church, or taught by official schools, or through underground teaching, or just everyone knows sort of thing?

If you use the veneartion model, then this could be modelled as special blessings. Basically at each service all of the "basic blessings" of their church are applied, and one special blessing. At a basic level you could have five or so basic blessings, and one special blessing available from each god. So not only do they pray for a good harvest, they actually do get a blessing on their crops--but it is a function of the liturgist leading a service and the congregation participating, it isn't the worshippers individually casting blessings on their crops.

Alternatively, if you use theism, you can treat them as lay worshippers. They don't get any magic for their crops, but they know that the appropriate god needs their prayers to keep the cycle of life that leads to good crops healhty. But then probably the "priest" would have crop magic that she/he might use on behalf of the community.

By intermediary I meant more like the Virgin Mary or the saints of the catholic church. That is while everyone knows that the ultimate power is one of the gods, do they direct their immediate worship to some lesser, but still not-worldly, type being--a demi-god, hero, etc.?

Hmmm, direct worship sounds more like theism in HQ terms than veneration, where more dedicated worshippers call upon the god for magic directly, although they still need people to conduct ceremonies.

Something to think about: Not much magic at all, or not much active magic? Does everyone mutter a quick prayer before planting seeds (or go to the right worship ceremony), does every warrior have the death god's symbon inscribed on his sword, is Chenna's blessing invoked on babies, and her symbols daubed at every entrance to a house to keep childhood illnesses out?

Augmenting magic, where almost everyone gets +2 from magic, can add a lot of atmosphere, and make the gods seem really part of the environment, without changing the world too much from what we are used to. But of course it is totally up to you if that fits your vision of your world.

This models well with any of the magic systems in HQ in one way, and not at all in another. The HQ rules don't have any prerequisite abilities for the deeper levels of dedication in various religions. They do have suggested contests to be accepted, which sort of functions that way, but either in the character write-up or just by narrator fiat these can be avoided. But it is understood that a deeper knowledge of "mythology" is generally requireed to understand the deeper secrets.

This works especially well with veneration. Each liturgist can have a slightly different liturgy, with a different set of blessings, depending on their worship. Better liturgists give better blessings, so you could have some odd congregations built up around especially adept liturgists.

Note that so far I've only talked about liturgist and lay worshippers. There are more advanced magic users who use magic actively, but I figure if you get the general population to "feel" the way you want it, the details of how people stand out from the crowd are less important than that they DO sstand out from the crowd.

Is there some kind of parallel for theists? I guess it might have to be less priest-based, but what I want to get across is the idea that the cults themselves are essentially human-made, rather than resulting from direct instruction by the gods, or anything. For instance you might have several cults of Mosstor - one highly studious, one rather ascetic/nomadic, one politically active, etc.

Ah, I see. I think I get it now, although the book will help lots! The Ten Gods feel to me like a Theist pantheon: I'm starting to get a feel for the wizardry/veneration ideas and how I might use them in other cultures, though. The sub-cults idea seems to be exactly what I was thinking of, too. Same place in the not-world, but different places in the world. Excellent. Thank you!

Now maybe it's time to try and turn all this into a Cellsa homeland keyword, or something? I'm going back to look at Mike's articles, but I'm still not at all sure how to do that.

I'm thinking definitely theist pantheon at this point. For several reasons (priests, heroes become gods, the level of the powers). There are a few discrepancies, however, such as the sorcerers you mention. I thnk Bryan drew you offsides with that one. One thing to consider is just adjusting to the Theist model completely. But I think we can actually accommodate the entire religion as you've stated it.

Here's how I'd do it. First you have the standard looking Communal Worshipper basic level. Then you have the gods as cults, with aspects as sub-cults. This means that a lot of those beings that you didn't get down first because it "didn't work." Note that you don't have to cover everything, all keywords are samples. So you just cover what you think is most important for people to get the feel. Then they can adjust from that.

For example, I look at the gods and see Mosstor, the wandering god. He fits my wanderer character well. Except my character is all about wandering because he feels that he's lost everything, and that there is no hope. So I invent Mosstor's alter-ego, Morvasta, the wandering goddess, who is an aspect of Mosstor. She has knowledge, travel, and despair instead of hope. And we go from there. Or, if you decide that Mosstor is not a "Great God" then his sister can just be a lesser known goddess, rarely worshipped.

Is the Not-World the "God Plane" and is the World the Mundane World, the one the characters roam around in? If not, then you're going to have to describe these things a bit more. Is he Not-World something like hell? That is, just another otherworld? Making the World an otherworld, too? It's kinda key to indentify the otherworlds at work as opposed to the world of the characters.


OK, that pretty much covers the theism side of things. Now, what I'm thinking is that there's another cult for Rostirno, perhaps, that's actually a Sorcery school. That is, Rostirno wrote down how to reach another otherworld that he'd been to, and it was his opening the door there that lead to his death. So, of course, he's not worshipped directly anymore, but he is venerated as a saint, and before he died, he wrote some sacred texts that are linked to the magic world. These are the grimmoires that sorcerers learn their spells from.

Or, if you don't like that, even more monotheistic, is that there was a being that existed long, long ago, whose name has been forgotten who gave birth to the three elder gods of the ten. Long ago, a prophet told of the nature of this being as coming from a "higher" place than the god world, where all magic comes from, and penned a book that tells of how to commune with this higher plane which is seen as somewhat synonymous with the being in question. It's so distant, and alien, however, that it doesn't ask for worship (or so these schools say). But various scholars over the years have studied the prophet's work, and have written their own treatises on how to tap into this higher plane. The schools in which these grimoires are studied are the Sorcery shools in question.

The important part is that they're considered to be part of the same religion, because the theists all admit that their gods descend from this being. They just don't see any merit in trying to understand a being that is, by the admission of the sorcerers, unknowable. The sorcerers for their part mutter that, in fact, the gods are merely channels into the magic that are percieved as beings. Illusions that miss the "correct" way to understand magic, and which are, therefore not suitable to be worshipped.

Or something like that. Get it?

OK, so now you have your sorcerers. You could also have sects that do worship the Ultimate Being (or Rostirno, or whoever) as liturgists, orderlies and adepts per usual. This would explain where the blessings come from. But I think there's a better way there. Instead, I'd have an animist cult, too. Who see one of the gods as a spirit instead, and have access to all of the little spirits that come under it. Typically your nature god works good for this, so I'd choose Maniara. The spirits of the rivers, and trees, and mountains, etc, reporting to her as practice spirits. Again as an accepted part of the religion, her worshippers could recieve charms from practitioners. Things to put over doors, etc.

(Hey, here's a cool idea for role reversal, have Manaira, since she is a goddess of magic be the monotheist pillar, and have Rostirno be the spirit with lots of little sub-death spirits running around. Could be necromantic dealing with the spirits guiding the dead back and forth to the otherworlds or something. My point is to think up your own version of all of this.)

Anyhow, so you see how you're not restricted to a religion being just one type or another? What happens is that, yes, you start as a Communal Worshipper, who can only call on the gods of the pantheon for divine aid, but who can also maybe get some blessings if they go to services (if you decide to add that), and who can get charms if they are brave enough to ask the local practitioner (social reasons may make this more or less rare).

Anyhow, of course, a character can become an initiate or devotee of the gods in question (including the ones worshipped as wizardry or animism given that they'll have theist aspects as well, likely - you don't have to get rid of the god as one to have the other). But you can also become a Manaira practitioner, or a sorcerer in some school.

You can even, in theory become more than one of these. For example, there's nothing saying that a sorcerer can't also worship a god as an initiate. The one thing he can't do, then, however, is concentrate in either wizardry or theism (because, by definition concentration in one makes the others impossible).


So this would then be the basic Ten Gods Pantheon Specialized Religion Keyword.
Magic: pray for divine intervention (happens only slightly less often than praying for a monotheist miracle)
abilities: Worship the Ten Gods
relationships: to Temple, to Priest
Virtues: again, like Bryan said, these are personality traits that people who belong to the religion generally have. A good way to think about this is to concoct a character in your head from the homeland, but who happens to somehow be part of a different religion. Then change the religion to the one that's standard for the homeland. Whatever did not change, those are the homeland personality traits. Whatever does change, the new ones are the personality traits of the specialized magic religion. :-)


Bryan is right that the amount of magic will seem correct, IMO. That is, the magic of Initiates which will be most common, is pretty darn subdued. You can see it in that people glow and whatnot, but it just makes them better at things. Only the devotees will regularly be doing magical stunts. And the Sorcerers. Which seems to fit the model.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: I'm thinking definitely theist pantheon at this point. For several reasons (priests, heroes become gods, the level of the powers). There are a few discrepancies, however, such as the sorcerers you mention. I thnk Bryan drew you offsides with that one. One thing to consider is just adjusting to the Theist model completely. But I think we can actually accommodate the entire religion as you've stated it.

Here's how I'd do it. First you have the standard looking Communal Worshipper basic level. Then you have the gods as cults, with aspects as sub-cults. This means that a lot of those beings that you didn't get down first because it "didn't work." Note that you don't have to cover everything, all keywords are samples. So you just cover what you think is most important for people to get the feel. Then they can adjust from that.

For example, I look at the gods and see Mosstor, the wandering god. He fits my wanderer character well. Except my character is all about wandering because he feels that he's lost everything, and that there is no hope. So I invent Mosstor's alter-ego, Morvasta, the wandering goddess, who is an aspect of Mosstor. She has knowledge, travel, and despair instead of hope. And we go from there. Or, if you decide that Mosstor is not a "Great God" then his sister can just be a lesser known goddess, rarely worshipped.

Is the Not-World the "God Plane" and is the World the Mundane World, the one the characters roam around in? If not, then you're going to have to describe these things a bit more. Is he Not-World something like hell? That is, just another otherworld? Making the World an otherworld, too? It's kinda key to indentify the otherworlds at work as opposed to the world of the characters.

OK, that pretty much covers the theism side of things. Now, what I'm thinking is that there's another cult for Rostirno, perhaps, that's actually a Sorcery school. That is, Rostirno wrote down how to reach another otherworld that he'd been to, and it was his opening the door there that lead to his death. So, of course, he's not worshipped directly anymore, but he is venerated as a saint, and before he died, he wrote some sacred texts that are linked to the magic world. These are the grimmoires that sorcerers learn their spells from.

Or, if you don't like that, even more monotheistic, is that there was a being that existed long, long ago, whose name has been forgotten who gave birth to the three elder gods of the ten. Long ago, a prophet told of the nature of this being as coming from a "higher" place than the god world, where all magic comes from, and penned a book that tells of how to commune with this higher plane which is seen as somewhat synonymous with the being in question. It's so distant, and alien, however, that it doesn't ask for worship (or so these schools say). But various scholars over the years have studied the prophet's work, and have written their own treatises on how to tap into this higher plane. The schools in which these grimoires are studied are the Sorcery shools in question.

The important part is that they're considered to be part of the same religion, because the theists all admit that their gods descend from this being. They just don't see any merit in trying to understand a being that is, by the admission of the sorcerers, unknowable. The sorcerers for their part mutter that, in fact, the gods are merely channels into the magic that are percieved as beings. Illusions that miss the "correct" way to understand magic, and which are, therefore not suitable to be worshipped.

Or something like that. Get it?

OK, so now you have your sorcerers. You could also have sects that do worship the Ultimate Being (or Rostirno, or whoever) as liturgists, orderlies and adepts per usual. This would explain where the blessings come from. But I think there's a better way there. Instead, I'd have an animist cult, too. Who see one of the gods as a spirit instead, and have access to all of the little spirits that come under it. Typically your nature god works good for this, so I'd choose Maniara. The spirits of the rivers, and trees, and mountains, etc, reporting to her as practice spirits. Again as an accepted part of the religion, her worshippers could recieve charms from practitioners. Things to put over doors, etc.

(Hey, here's a cool idea for role reversal, have Manaira, since she is a goddess of magic be the monotheist pillar, and have Rostirno be the spirit with lots of little sub-death spirits running around. Could be necromantic dealing with the spirits guiding the dead back and forth to the otherworlds or something. My point is to think up your own version of all of this.)

Anyhow, so you see how you're not restricted to a religion being just one type or another? What happens is that, yes, you start as a Communal Worshipper, who can only call on the gods of the pantheon for divine aid, but who can also maybe get some blessings if they go to services (if you decide to add that), and who can get charms if they are brave enough to ask the local practitioner (social reasons may make this more or less rare).

Anyhow, of course, a character can become an initiate or devotee of the gods in question (including the ones worshipped as wizardry or animism given that they'll have theist aspects as well, likely - you don't have to get rid of the god as one to have the other). But you can also become a Manaira practitioner, or a sorcerer in some school.

You can even, in theory become more than one of these. For example, there's nothing saying that a sorcerer can't also worship a god as an initiate. The one thing he can't do, then, however, is concentrate in either wizardry or theism (because, by definition concentration in one makes the others impossible).

So this would then be the basic Ten Gods Pantheon Specialized Religion Keyword.
Magic: pray for divine intervention (happens only slightly less often than praying for a monotheist miracle)
abilities: Worship the Ten Gods
relationships: to Temple, to Priest
Virtues: again, like Bryan said, these are personality traits that people who belong to the religion generally have. A good way to think about this is to concoct a character in your head from the homeland, but who happens to somehow be part of a different religion. Then change the religion to the one that's standard for the homeland. Whatever did not change, those are the homeland personality traits. Whatever does change, the new ones are the personality traits of the specialized magic religion. :-)


Bryan is right that the amount of magic will seem correct, IMO. That is, the magic of Initiates which will be most common, is pretty darn subdued. You can see it in that people glow and whatnot, but it just makes them better at things. Only the devotees will regularly be doing magical stunts. And the Sorcerers. Which seems to fit the model.

randomling wrote: A lot of the beings I didn't get down in this pantheon will be resurrected in other places - such as the spirits of the Amarein and the Muab (single higher power) that the Vilini worship.

I love the idea of the Ten Gods having lots of aspects, too, and that those can be created by players. I feel like the actual gods are a closed set: that is, any "new" gods will have to be aspects of the existing ten.

Well, there definitely are a number of otherworlds, so yes, the World is an otherworld of its own too, a particular place in a large number of places. The religion of the Cellsa makes a pretty broad distinction between the World, where all the people live, and the Not-World, where people don't live. Other faiths make more distinctions. But there indeed a fair number of worlds out there.

Mr Holmes, YOU SCARE ME! In my very first writeups about Rostirno, a good decade ago, this was almost exactly my idea of him. The original Rostirno was a magician who discovered Axis, the first known of the otherworlds (which is the god-plane, nowadays. Funny you should mention Mosstor, the one god who reputedly won't go near the place). He did indeed write it down, before the crossing killed him. Hence, um, Dead God. :-)

That sounds like a really cool seed idea for the Muab. [swipe!]

Hm, I think from your description, Drissa (nature goddess) sounds like the natural choice for an animist aspect to the religion - Chenna too, to an extent.

Manaira might actually inspire a more veneration-oriented sect, like Rostirno - the two are counterparts in a way, being life and death respectively, and there are as I see it a number of saints in the Manairan "church".

(Hey, here's a cool idea for role reversal, have Manaira, since she is a goddess of magic be the monotheist pillar, and have Rostirno be the spirit with lots of little sub-death spirits running around. Could be necromantic dealing with the spirits guiding the dead back and forth to the otherworlds or something. My point is to think up your own version of all of this.)

Ooh, that's cool too. :) Then again, who's to say all of this isn't true? There are a hell of a lot of Cellsa, after all!

Hi, Mike and everyone - thank you so much for the advice! I'm putting this on hold just for a little while, while I wait for my HeroQuest book (yay!) to arrive. It should be here next week. At which point, I'll have a better idea what everybody is going on about.

So...the book came, right? :-)

Mike