Below is some discussion on religion in Midnight that I'm reposting from the Midnight prep thread. My player Lucy doesn't want to go into that other thread to avoid spoilers, but I'm sure she'd like to see and contribute to this discussion.

So here goes - my apologies for not having thought of this sooner and now having to repost a bunch of stuff here; also apologies for somewhat arbitrarily starting in the middle of things.

Bryan_T wrote: Just to comment on a couple of the topics you raised.

From what you said, going to the veil = a heroquest. Even in Glorantha most quests are done to re-play the deeds of heroes of more historical perspective (although they were often repeating the deeds of demi-gods or gods). The "hero plane" where most heroquests take place is basically trapped history, which in many ways sounds muck like the slivers caught in the veil.

The key points of a heroquest is that you are leaving the here and now and going into an eternal past, that without some sort of story to guide you, you don't know where you will end up, and that you can gain power, in various forms, for doing so. It sounds like the first two are definately the case with the veil fragments. I don't know about the third aspect, bringing back new power, and how that matches your view of the veil.

Mike Holmes wrote:

StalkingBlue wrote: I haven't a clear answer for the metaphysics question yet, not one that's easy to relate to the Gloranthan model anyway.

Well, it's not really neccessary to parallel the Gloranthan model precisely. All that's really neccessary is to come up with a cosmology that you want to work with. Then you can kinda pick and choose how magic works based on that.

So if there's any kind of Shadow otherworld in my game, it's going to be in the Mirrors.

OK, but is this the only available otherworld? I mean, this sounds like the homeworld of the Astiraxes and such, but is it also where the dead go? Is it also where the spirits are that shamans deal with? Or are there other otherworlds that are not blocked off by the Veil.

There's also the inaccessible gods' otherworld, however this isn't too relevant to our game.

Cool. What I'd do is just have it in the back of your mind that theism is possible if somebody does pierce the Veil somehow, but currently it's not possible.

We called PCs crossing over into those other-time-places "going into the Veil".

Sounds to me like this is definitely otherworld itself. Possibly part of the Shadow Otherworld from what you've said, but possibly an otherworld of it's own. Which way do you see it? I'm imagining a sort of purgatory where the souls await the opening of the Veil so that they can go to the otherworlds beyond. Think there might be some potential in that?

Now obviously I could say that the Veil also contains slivers of various otherworlds seeping through from the far side or cut off and trapped in the Veil barrier.

Nah. Again, I'm not suggesting that you find ways to include other Gloranthan worlds or magic types. Just that you find the otherworlds that you want to deal with.

The amount of learning involved for the three of us seems a bit offputting to me, that's why I've been edging around the question.

Well, again, just decide on what otherworlds you have, and then we can implement them. The only study you'll have to do is in knowing how it works for your own game. Which can be kept pretty simple if you want.

StalkingBlue wrote:

Bryan_T wrote: From what you said, going to the veil = a heroquest.

Yes. I was staggered when I first read about heroquests - here was a game that did stuff like I'd started doing with my veil scenarios, only about thirteem million times better!

The key points of a heroquest is that you are leaving the here and now and going into an eternal past, that without some sort of story to guide you, you don't know where you will end up, and that you can gain power, in various forms, for doing so.

That's all fine by me for veil stuff. In play up to now we've had a distinct lack of story guidance and little tangible power brought back, but that can change. In the past the PCs were always agreeing to do veil stuff for the elves who told them virtually nothing; the elves presumably knew a bit more than they were letting on, but not enough to want to take the risks of going themselves. ("This veil has been extensively tested on humans." ;) )

StalkingBlue wrote:

Mike Holmes wrote: All that's really neccessary is to come up with a cosmology that you want to work with. Then you can kinda pick and choose how magic works based on that.

Here's what I have for magic and cosmology:

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. (Midnight canon, so far.)

Otherworldly beings and otherworldly magic also go nowhere. They are trapped by the Veil just like souls are. If Izrador's side keeps leeching magic from the land with Mirrors and killing or controlling otherworldly beings for long enough, all magic except Izrador's magic will die out.
As Izrador's magic relies on the leeching Mirrors, that means that in effect Izradian magic will also die out after a time, unless the Veil is burst when he rises.

I see the original Veil as some kind of transparent bubble. The souls of the dead can get to the inner surface of the bubble but no further. There's a huge backlog of souls, it builds and builds. Some get reincarnated (but population is dwindling), some stay trapped in their bodies (Fell) or near their homes or place of death (ghosts). This ever thickening smog of souls is where veilquests take place.

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.

I wanted the Legate side of magic to be powerful yet lifeless, to suit the concept of a mostly-dead god. They have "resurrection" magic but it causes the victim of it to rise as Fell (sentient undead). If they win this war and manage to "revive" Izrador he'd be in a dead body btw. A Fell god, ick. :)

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. 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.

We called PCs crossing over into those other-time-places "going into the Veil".

Sounds to me like this is definitely otherworld itself. Possibly part of the Shadow Otherworld from what you've said, but possibly an otherworld of it's own. Which way do you see it?

Yup, definitely an otherworld of its own. I'm thinking it's the "soul smog" I described above. Call that a purgatory if you like, have to ask rush-hour commuters next time I see some... ;)

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. (Possibly those are even nuclei of new otherworlds, if the Veil is ever broken. Which would allow mortal heroes to ascend and become deities. Cool?)

The "soul smog" also explains why I want to have several layers to the otherworld for the Dornish Crown heroquest. Again, it's also to keep my options open, I might very well decide on the spur of the moment to ignore all the layers but one if it feels right. But more importantly I want this place to be a huge, crowded, angry, broken mess. Like rush hour. :) And a bit like the world will be if Izrador wins: full of angry dead people.

Mike Holmes wrote:

StalkingBlue wrote: 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.

StalkingBlue wrote:

Mike Holmes wrote:

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?

Mike Holmes wrote: 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.

...fireballs, invisibility and teleport spells ...

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?

StalkingBlue wrote:

Mike Holmes wrote: 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.

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.

Mike Holmes wrote:

StalkingBlue wrote: 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. :-)


Mike

KingOfFarPoint wrote: 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 wrote: 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

That completes the quotes from the other thread.


------


Now on with the discussion.

Mike Holmes wrote: 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

...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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Great post, thanks Nick.

KingOfFarPoint wrote: It sounds as if magic is rare but a big deal when it happens.

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.

Mike Holmes wrote: 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.

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.

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).

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.

So are you asking if I want Katrin to believe in the spirits of her ancestors? Yup, I think she already does. Should that be on her character sheet? Probably. Should she have some kind of religious-magic abilities related to it? Yes, please!

I got the HQ book quite recently, and was really, really drawn to animism as a possible religious path for Katrin as I read it. I'd like to think that the Dornish Ancestor Spirits are real entities with which Katrin could have some kind of relationship, the way that the elves have relationships with the tree-spirits in Erethor. Katrin was originally conceived as a "paladin type" character, which as far as I'm concerned is a religious archetype. She's always had faith in her vaules, but it would be great from my point of view for her to have some kind of religious faith also, it would make for a really strong bond to her culture.

It seems to me that there's lots of animism built into the Midnight setting as it's written anyway (but what with it being a D&D setting, it didn't really work well). There are spirits everywhere - earth-bound spirits, yes, but spirits all the same. And I love that all the ideas about the Veil are so neatly and prettily handled in HQ.

Yes, I love all these ideas!

OK, several big points.

First, next time you want to split a thread, talk to Ron Edwards, the admin, and ask him to do it. He could have saved you a ton of effort, and it would have looked prettier. It was an excellent idea to split, there's just a function in the software that makes it easier.

Second, actually, I'm hedging on my assessment of "everything is animism!" When I see the world "Spirit" I jump at animism. Especially ancestor animism which I'm really fond of. Thing is that if we ignore the term Spirit as being generic, and not really saying anything about the beings it refers to, it really means just "otherworld being." As such, they could be any of the three sorts.

Again, given the description of the one river spirit, that sounds more like a theism being. I'm avoiding using the Glorantha specific term here. Let's call it a theist spirit, using the HQ term to separate them, and the Midnight term for otherworld being. So the question is whether or not the ancestors of the Dorns are actually animist spirits or theist spirits (I'm pretty sure they're not wizardry spirits).

The question comes down to how the Dorns worship them. Is it about ecstatic worship of some sort? Or is it about sacrificing things to them? Also, from the magic POV, do the Dorns have charms and fetishes that carry parts of their ancestors in them, or do the ancestors teach them how to do things that they did in the past as a form of magic? That is, with animism, you get a part of the spirit in an object, and then it helps you directly: charms and fetishes. With Theism the magic is that you re-enact the ancestor spirit, and that becomes a magically empowering act: a feat.

At this point I'm going to guess that the theism model is actually more correct here. But that's really knowing very little about the Dorns and their religion at this point. At some point you both may just have to decide on what you want to do with it.

As for what that would make Katrin, again, if these spirits are only known wandering the mundane world, then it's common magic. That would mean that thought they might believe that there are ancestors watching, there is no magical effect (though they might have "Feels Watched By Ancestors" as part of the religion keyword or something that spurs them on). In the case of it being common magic, then if it's animist it's Common Magic Charms that go into the CM religion keyword. In addition you can make up a religion keyword as well if you like. It's not required however.

Here are the animist options:
Spiritist - she's not really any more invested in the religion than anyone else, and all she gets is five tradition charms to augment.
Practitioner - in addition to the tradition charms, she'd get some fetishes. These hold entire spirits, and are potentially very, very powerful when "released." She also might have a Spirit Ally at this point, probably an ancestor who follows her around.
Shaman - I'm thinking not. But if so, she'd get a spirit guide who could lead her through wherever it is that spirits spend their time when they're not in this world. Which is a question we still need to answer.

For theism:
Communal worshipper - She worships the ancestors with everyone else. The only magic she'd get is the ability to call on the gods which would normally be a 10W6 difficulty. Probably much higher in this world. I'm thinking that an act that actually gets the gods to appear would be at least as hard as a monotheist miracle (10W9) if not more like 10W12. Basically it's one of the goals of the whole world, so it's gotta be up there. Something to work towards.
Initiate - this normally gives affinities. In this case, the gods are not available to give them, however. So the best that's probably available would he affinities from Hero Cults. At this point the character might get a "Divine Companion", again an ancestor who hangs around.
Devotee - this adds feats to the affinites. And makes a Divine Companion more likely.

Those are the basic options. More later.

Mike

randomling wrote: I'd like to think that the Dornish Ancestor Spirits are real entities with which Katrin could have some kind of relationship, the way that the elves have relationships with the tree-spirits in Erethor.

Mike Holmes wrote: First, next time you want to split a thread, talk to Ron Edwards, the admin, and ask him to do it. He could have saved you a ton of effort, and it would have looked prettier. It was an excellent idea to split, there's just a function in the software that makes it easier.

The question comes down to how the Dorns worship them. Is it about ecstatic worship of some sort? Or is it about sacrificing things to them? Also, from the magic POV, do the Dorns have charms and fetishes that carry parts of their ancestors in them, or do the ancestors teach them how to do things that they did in the past as a form of magic? That is, with animism, you get a part of the spirit in an object, and then it helps you directly: charms and fetishes. With Theism the magic is that you re-enact the ancestor spirit, and that becomes a magically empowering act: a feat.

Ok, I now realise I've allowed myself to be dragged off track here. Let me try to refocus on what I want to achieve.

--

Mike, Nick, you say that without believing in anything, people in Aryth would not be able to resist the Shadow. I agree.

If you go on to conclude that this means non-Izrador religions are widespread and fervently followed, I disagree. Emphatically.

For one thing, the whole thematic point of Midnight is that people have lost their religions and are defenceless (religiously) against Izrador. That's why most people have lost hope and aren't resisting, merely hanging on to life. That's why the Shadow is able to control the world, even with their god in a severely handicapped state. That's why it's so difficult and so special to be a resistance fighter in this world. To most people resistance fighters aren't shining paragons and heroes. They are desperados, madmen, terrorists. That is canon by the way, but it's also one of the things I really, really buy into in this setting; and it's not just me eager to push through a personal vision here I think. It's what our play has been about.

How to hold out against hope? What to sacrifice to alleviate the suffering of others when you can't be sure that there is a reward, or a tomorrow? If there's no outside entity to tell you what to do, what is left? Can there be moral values, can there be compassion, can there be a drive to do right that comes only out of yourself, out of your ties to your immediate world (family), and often out of the agony of even these ties having been cruelly cut? Will you say, Where there's life there's hope? Or will you keep fighting just because? Because you've got nothing left to lose? Because killing something relieves your pain for moments at a time? Our most thematically charged and intense moments in this game have been about questions like that. Oh yes, in D&D. The theme grew on us like that.

Do we abandon our mission to go after the legate to help this struggling village hide the corpses of the orcs we have killed in the middle of their street? Or do we focus on the mission and leave these people to be tortured and executed when the next patrol comes through? They wouldn't help us after all, instead they grow wheat to make bread for orc troops. That's just one example (nothing to do with my prep, it simply played out like that); there are more.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have religion of any sort in this game, I'm not saying that religion should be devoid of any trappings of magic. I am saying I need one of our most powerful themes respected: the theme of being thrown back on your own devices, the theme of finding strength in yourself.

---

Lucy, I want you to look at context a bit here. Do you agree with what I'm saying about theme?

I feel that your previous character Jez was classic really. She fought feverishly, as if she was looking for her pain to end if only she could kill enough of the enemy - and then suddenly she turns around full circle and speaks up for the collaborating villagers who need her help. And then again, with no religion (none that I'm aware of anyway), no surviving family, nothing in the world left but the little band of crazy guerrilla she's joined, she faces down the legate who has captured her and hangs on knowing that if she can keep the legate occupied with her long enough, there might be time for her friend to escape. Why was she doing this? Loyalty to a sister-in-arms? Hate of the Shadow? Sheer stubbornness? Love? Maybe any combination of those or something else entirely. My point is, it made her human in a very, very powerful way. With that character, giving her a strong religion would almost feel like a cop-out.

Now Katrin is someone different obviously. She takes a lot of support from believing in honour, Dornish traditions, her family, for example. Maybe she also has a religion, you tell me - if you want we'll work on something for her. But let's not cheapen beliefs in Midnight by tacking on religions all over the place simply because the HQ book has shiny rules in it. (And I'm liking those rules by now, I can tell you. But I do think the humanity-in-itself theme that we've developed is worth defending.)

Ancestors didn't get any points on Katrin's sheet, and you decided to give up the Guardian heroic path when we converted (this would have given Katrin magic and a supernaturally-aided feel - as "paladin" as you get in Midnight). She's a highly honour-bound person obviously - you gave her a very high rating in Honourable, it's almost her highest rating. But does it have anything to do with religion, or is it upbringing perhaps, or a value highly personal to Katrin, or something else entirely?

All this can can change obviously if you feel that she needs a different focus or added outside moral support in a religious belief. Characers can always grow and evolve, and there's a lot of cool stuff we could explore if you'd like to go down that route. Just be aware that it will be a change to the character as you've played her up to now.

For a religion for Katrin, look at what we have established Dorns are. Not only who Dorns are compared to Sarcosans, or elves or orcs. Look also at Dorns in detail, what her father is like, look at Tam, at Roland and Olec. Try to get a feel for how religious they'd likely be. Not very? That's my guess anyway. (Reifels may actually be a different matter, and it's not making his life any easier.)

How would Katrin fit in there? Or does she? Judging by what we've played up to now, I'd say she fits in. Of course that can change if you want that, but that also will mean something. She'll be unusual in a different way from before. How would religious beliefs figure in Katrin's daily life, do you think? Does she pray, does she make offerings (secretly perhaps?), does she go into trances? More importantly: how much of her moral beliefs, her understanding of honour, her will to fight do you want to be based on her religion? Or is religion of marginal importance to her? (I suspect not, you wouldn't be this enthusiastic about it if it were.) See how the whole characer begins to shift when you introduce religion to it? Lots of things to consider - or maybe you already have answered them for yourself, I don't know. All I'm saying is that context is important. Katrin's own personality that you've established in play; the people around her; other cultures, and the overall Midnight theme.

Hm. This is slightly thorny. I agree with all you're saying about theme. And Jez had no religion, no family, no hope of any kind except that which she found in herself and her friendship with Zana. She was all about self-reliance, from start to finish.

How about Katrin, though? Katrin was created as a contrast to that. She has allies, family, a position, and a people (scattered and fragmented as they are) to draw on, all things that Jez lacked. I feel that she also draws strength from thousands of years of Dornish history. Among her love of her family and honouring of her House, she also has Reveres Ancestors in her Dorn keyword. It's at the same rating as the keyword (2W) but it's there on her character sheet, all right. It might not be religious as such, but perhaps it's proto-religious. I'm not entirely sure. I see her as occasionally whispering a prayer to her ancestors to protect her before battle, which is where the reverence comes in, but I'm not sure I see her devoting an hour a day to it or anything like that.

The strength in yourself theme is something that I want to hold onto too, though. I think that if you stripped everything away from Katrin - as perhaps we will, at some point - she would still have awesome personal strength. I'm sorry, this is all very nebulous at the moment, but maybe suddenly deciding that Katrin's been religious all her life isn't what I'm driving at here? Maybe this is something that we should develop and explore in play, rather than suddenly drop into the game from a great height? It would be a cool and interesting thing to introduce, Katrin discovering some kind of personal relationship with her ancestors.

I don't want to suddenly and for no apparent reason make big changes to Katrin - I like her very much as she is - but these are themes I'd like to explore. Maybe that proto-religious reverence for her ancestors might at some point develop into something more concrete and powerful (emotionally and thematically powerful, I mean) in play?

Kerstin, do you see the listed religions in the canon material as a mistake? Should they have not included them? Do they militate against the theme that you're looking for?

Or is it that the belief systems in question are "broken" that creates the despair for the people of this setting?

Think of it this way, if you never had a religion or belief system at all, and then access to such things was taken away, then things would be no different before than after. But you didn't say that it was about people who had no beliefs and who then continue to live in a world which is essentially no different than that with the exception of Izrador. No, it's a hopeless world because they have beliefs but Izrador has cut them off from that which they believe in. Do I have that right?

This is, BTW, very different in this particular detail than Tolkien's stuff. His characters have beliefs, but they're just never brought into question in any way. When the characters need strength, they harken back to their homelands. But it sounds like the homes of the people of Midnight have already been sullied by Izrador encroaching. The canon, at least, is saying that all that they have to hang on to is their old broken beliefs.

What represents this best, IMO, is not ignoring the religion, but putting it in play in such a way that reflects the loss. Again, what I'm thinking is that is sounds like Izrador has cut off the otherworlds from which "specialized magic" comes, leaving only magic that comes from the mundane world. In fact I hear reinforcement of this idea over and over.

So, again, what I'd do is to allow characters to take religion keywords of these specialized magic religions. Heck, I'd even allow them to take the magic keywords, too, but only allow them to have the mundane skills associated - no magic abilities from them. So there might be some whacko out there who claims to be a devotee of some long lost god, following all of the rituals and ways of said god. It just doesn't get them any magic. In fact, this pantomime failing seems perfect to highlight the loss of the gods in the setting.

But for the most part, I think that you'll just have communal worshippers and the like. People who have been taught the basics of the religion, but who realize the futility of trying to delve into it's depths since it no longer gives any magical benefit. Realize that in the HQ model, this level of worship is the "not very" level that you describe. To some extent religion is an inescapable part of a culture. I mean, not to have the "Know Myths" part of the religion at the very least that links the culture part of the keyword to the religious portion is like saying that there might be an American who doesn't know who Jesus is. You might not know the details of his life, but you know he's the one that the Christians worship. If you were brought up in a Christian household, even a very lax one that only participates on Easter, then you have the religion keyword at the communal worshipper level.

Then all of the magic that they can get would be pretty similar to what you have now really. Just use the common magic rules for all magic, representing that all magic comes from the mundane world. Very simply this means that anyone who uses magic gets a rating with the Common Magic Keyword (usually starts at 17), and starts with 5 abilities listed under it.

Now, these abilities can (and I'd argue should) be listed as being one of the standard types: Charms, Feats, Spells, Talents or Natural.

And you can stop there if the player is satisfied at that point. The designations of what sort of magic these things are does say something about where they come from, but that doesn't have to be worked out any more than that, unless people want to do so. If they are interested in where they come from, what you can do at this point is to work up the common magic religion keywords from which the common magic in question comes.

Let's do an example. Let's assume that the Dorn religion was a lot like that of the Heortlings (they sound a lot alike to me the more that I hear about them). That means that the religion keyword would look something like:

Dorn Ancestor Pantheon
Abilities: Boast, Know Lineage, Myths of the Ancestors (this last one should probably actually be part of the cultural part of the homeland keyword - everyone should have heard the stories)
Virtues: Stoic
Relationships: Worship Ancestor Pantheon, to Priest, to Temple
Magic: Diving Intervention 10W12
Other Side: The halls of the ancestors (unavailable due to the veil)

Sample Organizations
Standard List of Gods who were the first Dorns (no magic available, because they're cut off by the Veil).

Despite the lack of magic, you might want to allow an Initiate or devotee to have the "Soul Vision" ability, which would allow them to see theist magic at work (basically it's like "detect magic" but more specific and fun).

Anyhow, I think that a religion keyword like this is very, very important, because it tells you how the character got the value system they have, and something about what that value system is about. Homeland alone is about customs and language and the skills that everyone knows there. It's the religion that tells you where the character's belief system comes from. Again, using the example of Christianity above, each American is taught the Judeo-Christian value set (which doesn't mean that they neccessarily follow it, just that they know what it is). The magic is just fun detail tacked on top, without it you still have the necessary core for what the characters believe.


Then a character might take several common magic feats like the following to represent that magic that you say is still in the canon. Note that I don't have to say where they come from, really, other than to say what kind of magic they are (feats in the example, though you can mix them up if you like):

Stand Bravely Feat
Do Hard Work Willingly Feat
Leap Chasm Feat
Track Enemy Feat
Ignore Pain Feat

Then, if they really wanted to get into it, they could say that these feats come from the "My Ancestors" common magic religion, which is about finding those souls of their ancestors that still wander this world, and gaining what insight one can from them. The keyword could look like:

My Ancestors
Abilities: Find Lost Souls
Virtues: Honors Ancestors
Relationships: Worship Ancestors
Magic: Stand Bravely Feat, Do Hard Work Willingly Feat, Leap Chasm Feat, Track Enemy Feat, Ignore Pain Feat, Drink to the Ancestors Feat, Find Grave Feat, Hear the Dead Feat

So you see where the character was merely taking the magic from the keyword without taking the religion above? That's totally kosher with Common Magic Religions. You don't have to take the keyword if you don't want to - maybe you learned the magic from your father or aunt. But it's there to explain where the magic comes from in case people want to know what the abilities are all about.

In this case (assuming that you went with something like this), this is what the description of the religion might look like:

Most Dorns spend time honoring the souls of their ancestors. Some believe that with the closing of the veil, that their ancestors are unable to pass through to the Halls of the ancestors, and thus they all roam the world in some state waiting to pass. Others believe that some of the souls wait at the veil itself for it to one day fall so they can move on. But whatever the case, many souls do stay on Ayrth. Some Dorns know how to sacrifice to these lost souls and thus gain the abilty to emulate some of the great feats of the past. These abilities are taught to anyone who cares to know about them, but some few people actually organize their efforts and seek these souls to worship them by finding out about them and honoring their names, and to find new feats to emulate these honored individuals.

Anyhow, the point here is that you get the magic that I think you're looking for, and in addition, you get the sense that there's this larger religion that's no longer properly functioning. Yes you can get magic from your ancestors, but only because something is wrong with how things are supposed to work (the My Ancestor thing may have existed before the closing of the Veil, for the odd soul who didn't make it across, but is now more prominent because of the closing).

So if somebody wants to play with the My Ancestor thing, you can have them find souls of ancestors of which they were previously unaware, and have them exhort the characters to find a way to pierce the veil so they can get home. The character can ask about what the ancestor did when alive, and he can show them how if they sacrifice to him they can emulate these feats. Maybe Aunt Jeera healed somebody with her tears once, so the character can learn the Healing Tears Feat.

So does this give you an example of what I'm talking about? I think that rather than interfering with the theme of self-sufficiency, it adds to it. That is, yeah, the character can go to his ancestors and get this little magic from them (note that it's likely that a character won't be able to concetrate their magic with these, so they'll almost always be augments only), but it only serves to remind them that they've been cut off from the great god ancestors, and that really all they have is the beings around them. If you really want to emphasize how bad things are, have them find some ancestors who have been tainted by Izrador's might (AKA your standard undead). Useless for worshipping and dangerous, their best bet is to destroy the incarnation any way they can, and hope that the soul moves on to the veil to wait.

And, again, this all assumes that the player wants to get involved with this. They can have the common magic, and not take the religion. In fact you don't even have to work up the religion if you don't want to, so this is very much what you have already, allowing players to take magic that has no particular explanation of where it comes from. The idea here is just to allow for the possibility, so that the players know that the magic isn't just "from nowhere" that if they looked into it, they'd find the source of it eventually (in fact they probably do know what it is, even if it's not been established for the players).

So you wouldn't have to make any big changes to Katrin, perhaps only adding the religion keyword, and deciding that her abilities were feats or talents or some mix of things. So that there's a feeling that behind the magic somewhere is a real connection to the setting. Then, at a later date, should you want to delve into where her abilites come from, you can create any CM religions that might exist (or just the beings in question - some CM just has no religion associated with it at all, but just comes from some being).

Note that the above are just examples, certainly not to be taken verbatim without reworking I'm sure that knowing the setting material better than I, that you could do a better job with them. I'm just trying to give you an idea of what's involved here.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Think of it this way, if you never had a religion or belief system at all, and then access to such things was taken away, then things would be no different before than after. But you didn't say that it was about people who had no beliefs and who then continue to live in a world which is essentially no different than that with the exception of Izrador. No, it's a hopeless world because they have beliefs but Izrador has cut them off from that which they believe in. Do I have that right?

Having read through this thread, it sounds to me like:

- for most humans on the "good" side there is no specialized magic key word. Although a selection of common magic might be appropriate.

- There probably are animism specialized magic key words. Certain groups know how to get along with the spirits of the world well enough that they can get spirits into charms, maybe into fetishes. This sounds like it might be the case with some of the elves, maybe some others. Note that the abilities of the charm or fetish are basically whatever the spirit does, so just because this magic is available doesn't mean that it is useful enough to most people to make them bother.

Of course, what makes things interesting is when you bring things into conflict :) I don't know what the canon is on this, but what if something like the "old" religion and its beliefs persist, viewing itself as the pure, untainted way. The spirits of the dead are sent off, and if they are stuck at the veil well, we still did the right thing. Then some newer group worships these ancestor spirits, in ecstatic rites, and is able to contact and bind some of them. To the old-style purists this would be a horrible heresy, enslaving your ancestor who should be in the halls of the dead? What next, you'll bind him into a corpse to make a Fell? Just an idea....

Another idea, related to the "how far would you stoop to fight evil" theme. If you look at the sections in HQ about landscape spirits, you'll see how people can worship them and use them like a guardian--or make charms of of them, weakening them. Now it sounds like maybe the mirrors suck all the magic out of the land, probably including weakening spirits of the land? So are you willing to pillage the spirits of the land for magic, when they will end up drained by the mirrors anyway?

Sorry that these are probably off the topic that you were thinking of, but they popped to mind reading all of this in one shot.

--Bryan

I disagree with you, Kerstin, but it's your game so do what you think is best. I'm done trying to change your mind.

Bryan, I think that some of what's labeled as Spirits might be animist spirits, but I think that they might be other things as well, as I've said. That is, they're using it as a generic term for otherworld being. Look more at how the religions work to see if they're really animist or some other type.

Mike

Thanks for commenting, Bryan. If I develop a better idea of magic in Midnight, I will certainly want conflict in it as well. Mike is right about the "spirits" I think. If it's the form of worship that defines the type of otherworldly being, then many Midnight "spirits" aren't (although some are).


Mike, very sorry if I'm being boneheaded here. I highly appreciate your input on this (I think I've said so already), I've learnt a lot from this discussion about what makes HQ religion cool, and I agree with you on many aspects. Still, at this point I can't follow you where you're going with the religion examples you wrote up, not sure how to pin that down. I very much agree with you in not wanting to go through another loop of our discussion, which has turned weirdly circular. So I'm now going through the HQ book step by step again to see where (if anywhere) our disagreement starts and I'll report on what I find out.

As always, as and when I come up with more thoughts your comments will be more than welcome. Though of course I'll understand if you feel that you've done enough here. In any case even if we haven't reached a workable solution yet, your advice in this thread generally has been fantastic for me, and even where we couldn't agree it has helped me think more clearly about what I might possibly want, or not want, from Midnight metaphysics. So thanks.

StalkingBlue wrote: Mike, very sorry if I'm being boneheaded here.

Hi Kerstin:
Sorry to hop in late here. I know you're not too keen on my conversion for Midnight-HQ and I respect that. But I highly recommend you take a second look at the religions in that document. Other than Peers, which I created as sort of a religious interface between Legates and the common populace, 90% of what is in there is straight from either the Midnight corebook or Against the Shadow. I didn't add for the sake of adding and, where I did, I made notes of the additions. Mike and Lael were major motivators on this end.

Canon is a funny thing to bring into these sort of conversion things. Everyone's canon is different, primarily because everyone tends to focus on the bits of a setting that interest them and then either forget or file away the rest.

That said. I didn't invent a SpiritWorld for Midnight. There is already one there. IIRC, it's in the Corebook but the best I remember of it off the top of my head is that it's where the Astiraxes live in their visible form. Remember they only pop in and out every now and again in Aryth.

There are also spirits that reside in this Spirit World, as on Aryth, trapped by Izrador drawing the Veil.

Now, here's where I'm not sure if I get the utility of the Spirit World right according to canon or add in my own logical extensions of the existence of this Spirit World. To my thinking, in Midnight, when someone dies one of three things happen: 1) they rise again as Fell, 2) their spirit is trapped on the material plane as a ghost or whatnot, 3) they go to the Spirit World. There really aren't any other options afforded by the setting.

I've always thought, and this is quite possibly just my own interpretation of the material, that the "SpiritWorld" was where Izrador lived in proper form. Bodiless, of course. But it was where he was most powerful and that the mirrors existed as gates or linkages between Aryth and his consciousness. Now whether the Legates and Orcs are trying to raise Izrador in bodily form or just keep him where he is to bide the time and further their own agendas I'll leave up to whoever wants to answer. But I've felt that Izrador feeds through these mirrors and also, by his presence, off the souls of the dead in the Spirit World. Now that part is 100% my interpretation but there is some corroboration in the text for that line of thinking (the fact that magic is tougher and tougher to cast within certain proximities of the mirrors for instance).

Now, if there is a spirit world and there are "spirits" (which the corebook mentions in a number of areas), then Animism is possible. In fact, it's all over the Midnight-HQ conversion, including a number of example spirits with abilities taken straight from the text of the corebook (or a close approximation thereof).

In Midnight-HQ, the Dorns' religion (Ancestor Worship) is misapplied. They *should* be using Animism to deal with the *spirits* of their elders. Instead, according to the conversion, they're treating it as a form of Theism. They're worshipping the spirits of their elders. The conversion keeps in mind that there are no gods left on Aryth, just Izrador. So the worship of anything in the conversion is considered misapplied.

Now, that may not be how you want to treat it in your game, which is fine. But I don't think it would hurt to consider it as an option or to glean it for material. I don't see a good reason to reinvent the Heepa-Heepa spirits in the conversion just to do it. Like I said, most everything in there is straight from either the corebook or Against the Shadows. Just take it. Twist it to your needs, add in any bits from the later supplements and have fun.

Another question that Mike posed that I tried to offer a non-canonical answer to was introducing Peers into the world of Midnight. Just like Mike, I questioned why anyone would want to worship Izrador. Brute force and fear only goes so far in my book. So I came up with Peers, which is, again, 100% non-canon. The conversion says as much. In fact, almost every point where I deviated from the text of the two early publications I've noted it in the conversion, as well as made it optional for inclusion.

Peers are the liturgists of Midnight. They lead the masses in prayers and supplications to Izrador, who answers them when he wants to. Peers are a notch on the stepladder to Legatedom for most and, as such, can be as evil and ambitious or as good-hearted and well-intentioned as you like. Peers would be like village priests or friars. Legates are more like Bishops, Deacons and Archbishops in this arrangement. Admittedly, this might not be something you want to consider including but it certainly gives the general populace a reason (and means) to worship Izrador. After all, their old gods certainly aren't going to answer their prayers. And who else is going to ensure good crops this season?

Again, I apologize for stepping into this discussion late. I hope you've found my input helpful.

Scott

Hiya Scott - first, thanks for commenting.

Scripty wrote: I know you're not too keen on my conversion for Midnight-HQ and I respect that.

But I highly recommend you take a second look at the religions in that document.

Canon is a funny thing to bring into these sort of conversion things. Everyone's canon is different, primarily because everyone tends to focus on the bits of a setting that interest them and then either forget or file away the rest.

That said. I didn't invent a SpiritWorld for Midnight. There is already one there. IIRC, it's in the Corebook but the best I remember of it off the top of my head is that it's where the Astiraxes live in their visible form. Remember they only pop in and out every now and again in Aryth.

I've always thought, and this is quite possibly just my own interpretation of the material, that the "SpiritWorld" was where Izrador lived in proper form.

Now, if there is a spirit world and there are "spirits" (which the corebook mentions in a number of areas), then Animism is possible. In fact, it's all over the Midnight-HQ conversion, including a number of example spirits with abilities taken straight from the text of the corebook (or a close approximation thereof).

Another question that Mike posed that I tried to offer a non-canonical answer to was introducing Peers into the world of Midnight. Just like Mike, I questioned why anyone would want to worship Izrador. Brute force and fear only goes so far in my book.

Legates are more like Bishops, Deacons and Archbishops in this arrangement. Admittedly, this might not be something you want to consider including but it certainly gives the general populace a reason (and means) to worship Izrador. After all, their old gods certainly aren't going to answer their prayers. And who else is going to ensure good crops this season?

StalkingBlue wrote: Not keen? That's not entirely accurate. I couldn't have begun converting my own game if I hadn't had your document showing me some possible ways to go, and providing lots of nifty ideas to borrow. I owe you for that.

StalkingBlue wrote: I like your take of it being misapplied Wizardry, so if I move away from my simplified approach towards more religions, that's likely what I'll do. I also kind of like the idea of having Peers, but I wouldn't want to give them access to specialised magic. Again, that's more to do with the tone of my game than with whether it's canon or not. Specialised magic, if any, should remain extremely rare in my game.

StalkingBlue wrote: Midnight especially lends itself to that sort of thing because it's written in a style that evokes rather than state hard facts or build a coherent system. Which is one of its great strengths IMO (although I always get scolded for this attitude over on Todd's forums): it evokes themes and gives you a chance to charge the game with those themes that appeal to you and ignore or fade out the rest.

StalkingBlue wrote: Interesting. So where do channelers get their magic from? Is it specialised magic even, do you think? If it is, it would have to come from an otherworld, wouldn't it? Now if the one otherworld on Aryth has Izrador in his most powerful form in it, it makes me wonder how channelers are going to get magic from there, and why it's even necessary to hunt them down with Astiraxes in the mortal world. It seems to me it would be easier to kill them off, or taint them, when they are on the other side.

StalkingBlue wrote: That, too. Always assuming Izrador's servants can actually bless crops. Unlikely in my case unfortunately, because in my game Shadow magic is the antithesis to life. What they can do is assure that only part of your harvest is taken away, that you may hope for compensation when orcs trample your fields (again...), and that you can trade your produce lawfully for other goods and services in a Church-regulated market.

StalkingBlue wrote: That said, I still like a low-level clergy. And coming to think, perhaps there could be common magic "growth" spells that help pump up a harvest... they'd likely have unnatural-looking effects though. Plants shooting up, wheat too heavy on the grain, insects falling dead, lack of flavour and scent... Like modern agriculture, in fact. Hey, I'm beginning to like that.

StalkingBlue wrote: Lucy, I want you to look at context a bit here. Do you agree with what I'm saying about theme?

I feel that your previous character Jez was classic really. She fought feverishly, as if she was looking for her pain to end if only she could kill enough of the enemy - and then suddenly she turns around full circle and speaks up for the collaborating villagers who need her help. And then again, with no religion (none that I'm aware of anyway), no surviving family, nothing in the world left but the little band of crazy guerrilla she's joined, she faces down the legate who has captured her and hangs on knowing that if she can keep the legate occupied with her long enough, there might be time for her friend to escape. Why was she doing this? Loyalty to a sister-in-arms? Hate of the Shadow? Sheer stubbornness? Love? Maybe any combination of those or something else entirely. My point is, it made her human in a very, very powerful way. With that character, giving her a strong religion would almost feel like a cop-out.

StalkingBlue wrote: But I do think the humanity-in-itself theme that we've developed is worth defending.

S'mon wrote: I think there's a problem with using Heroquest for Midnight religion in that it's developed for a gameworld emphasising very very different themes, a very spiritual, pagan message. In Heroquest-Glorantha, humans reach out to become one with the cosmos, in Midnight humans are cut off from the cosmos and ground down to a tiny defiant nub of vitality holding out against the encroaching dark.

Scripty wrote: Sorry to interrupt.

The Church of Izrador

Izrador’s religion is monotheistic even though in reality Izrador is one of the gods in a pantheon. This means that all Church worship is misapplied.

According to Church doctrine, Izrador will rise again to His full glory once all pagan magic and belief is extinguished on Aryth. This is why the Shadow armies are fighting their bloody war of extermination against elves and other fey. This is why Legates (Izrador’s elite priests) and their Astirax companions (incorporeal horrors from beyond the Black Mirrors) hunt down and destroy channelers and people who use non-Izradian magic.

The Izradian Church is near ubiquitous in civilised lands. Every settlement of importance in Erenland has at least one church with a Black Mirror in it. Only the empty plains in the south, the Sea of Pelluria and of course the great elven forest in the west remain largely free of Izrador’s Mirrors.

The Church controls trade, travel, and legal affairs. If you wish to trade in the marketplace or file an accusation against your only son’s murderer, you had better be a worshipper of good standing with your local church. If you need to travel, a dispensation from your local church and a list of churches to register with en route will help prove that you are legitimate and not a pagan outlaw or a hunted heretic.

The Church can also provide help in more direct ways. Crops and animals force-grown with Church blessings grow to huge proportions. They are strangely flavourless compared to fruit growing in the wild or game hunted, insects trying to feed off them fall dead, and monstrosities such as two-headed calves are not uncommon. Yet – the orc armies need feeding, the Church needs its tithe and then you need to feed and clothe a family.

Then there’s the undeath problem. Many people’s essences these days are stuck in their bodies when they die, forcing them to rise as Fell with an insane hunger for sentient flesh. The Church captures Fell, to destroy or to use for its own purposes, possibly as grisly recruits in its war against the elves.

And finally people who go willingly to be sacrificed over a Mirror on one of the Holy Days, or to appease a roiling angry Mirror, are assured that they will never rise as ghosts or Fell.



Abilities: Dutiful Worker, Recognise Church Authority, Worship Izrador
Virtues: Accept Lot in Life, Obedient
Magic: tbc
Relationships: tbc
Other side: The House of Roiling Shadow, beyond the Mirrors. (false demesne)

---

Here’s where I’m a bit stumped. In the published material for Midnight, Legates are both the priests and leaders of the religion and the most powerful spellcasters. I’m not sure how to put that into Wizardry terms. I’m under the impression, and Scott seems to be saying in one of his posts above, that under Wizardry rules you have liturgists as religious leaders on the one hand, and Adepts (and orderlies?) as the people who are really powerful mages on the other. Am I wrong?


(Edit: included description of the "other side".)

Hi Scott - yeah, I meant that the underlying cosmologies are so different it can cause problems in translation. I think the bare-bones mechanics of Heroquest can potentially work great with Midnight, but any discussion of an area like religion in Midnight with reference to Heroquest rules inevitably raises a potential culture-clash.

StalkingBlue wrote: Here’s where I’m a bit stumped. In the published material for Midnight, Legates are both the priests and leaders of the religion and the most powerful spellcasters. I’m not sure how to put that into Wizardry terms. I’m under the impression, and Scott seems to be saying in one of his posts above, that under Wizardry rules you have liturgists as religious leaders on the one hand, and Adepts (and orderlies?) as the people who are really powerful mages on the other. Am I wrong?

Wow, lots to cover here. Listen up, because I don't think I can do this twice.

First, I disagree with a lot of what's being said.

Trying to reconcile the cosmology of Glorantha with what's going on in Midnight is a dead-end, in my opinion.

Mike Holmes wrote: I mean otherwise you could claim that electricity was magic. If you don't see electricity as magical, then you have to see magic sans a backing belief system as non-magical, too. A phenomenon to be explained.

Hi Mike -

I see where you're coming from and I think we're basically in agreement. This is essentially a restatement of my earlier point with the bit about "not needing to reconcile Gloranthan magic with Midnight".

Mike Holmes wrote: So what I suggest to people is that they do not attempt to make their world into an extension of Glorantha.

Scripty wrote: I haven't convinced myself, yet, that reconciling Glorantha's otherworlds and spheres of magic with Midnight's religion is a really effective approach. I'd recommend having the religions work as best suits the results you're going for in your game. Trying to back engineer them into Glorantha's cosmology is really unimportant if you're getting the results you want.

Scripty wrote: I'd recommend having the religions work as best suits the results you're going for in your game. Trying to back engineer them into Glorantha's cosmology is really unimportant if you're getting the results you want.

Mike Holmes wrote: Animism, Theism, and Wizardry are all from Earth, not Glorantha specifically.

I've said before, that one has a basic choice when doing a conversion of a fantasy system to HQ. One can convert the original system and setting to HQ, or one can just convert the setting.

Well, if you don't know who Mithrandir is, then you might buy into that. Turns out that Gandalf is more Angel or demigod than human. In fact, there's no evidence that humans can do much if any magic at all in Middle Earth. Only supernatural beings, or those touched by the West (read heaven), can do it. It's so very much based on a belief system. Has to be to feel magical.

As soon as you actually play Gandalf as not having a supernatural belief system - which obviously Tolkien would laugh at since he's a daimone in effect to Tolkien - you note how there's a lack of explanation of where the magic comes from. Since you don't know what Gandalf did know in LotR, even though we didn't see it, you note the gap.

Or do we see that HQ is the fix for this mistake made all those many years ago? And change the magic not to Gloranthan magic, but to Earth magic? Which we can all grok, and which seems, well, magical.

Put another way, the best and only reason, IMO, to play Midnight, or any other fantasy heartbreaker, using HQ, is to fix the error of non-magical magic.

So what I suggest to people is that they do not attempt to make their world into an extension of Glorantha. I suggest that they look at what the setting should be, but is not because of the associated system for which the setting was designed, and then find out how HQ fits that model. Because from what I've seen it always does.

This is not to say that one actually has to use animism, theism and wizardry, actually.
...
What the rules tell you is that there are potentially many systems, and these are just three of them. Meaning that it's up to you to create more.

It's the source of the magic. Which are the religions of the setting, which should be read "belief systems." Because even Glorantha allows for atheism and magic - they're called Sorcerers.

What's really important is that the magic relates to the themes of the setting. And the religion (again, read belief) keywords are what nail characters to the setting.

Scripty wrote: In substance, we're saying the same thing from where I'm sitting. As I understand it, you're advising that we use the HQ system to make magic work the way we want it to in our setting. I see no disagreement here.

I was under the impression, however, that some schools of Adepts don't necessarily have to be associated with a form of Monotheistic worship and also that some forms of Monotheistic worship, in Glorantha, don't necessarily have corresponding schools of Adepts working with them.

Your argument is well-stated and I 100% agree with your major points. But magic in Midnight is very different from magic in D&D (except, of course, for the Legates who function as Clerics). And magic in Midnight is different too from magic in Tolkein.

It's a spell point system, not a Vancian-Gygax system.

That's the reason, as I'm sure you remember, that my Midnight-HQ conversion provided two optional "Spell Drain" systems for Channelers.

The catch, and this returns to my earlier posts, is when one tries to pull the magic whole-hog out of Glorantha and plug it into the Midnight setting.

But Midnight doesn't have Otherworlds, except for a briefly mentioned and vague "Spirit Plane" or "Spirit World". This leads Kerstin to ponder about the other "Otherworlds" and how they exist (or don't) in Midnight and what effect that has.

...

And I think attempts at reconciliation of this sort are a fruitless exercise.

Using a conversion to HeroQuest to "fix" the magic in Midnight necessitates a change in a major setting element of Midnight, one that may fundamentally change other related setting elements in unpredictable ways.

I also remember the discussions I had with both you and Lael about my early drafts of Midnight-HQ in which I pressed my own creative agenda too strongly, in essence attempting to "fix" to the setting on my own. The caveat is that such a fundamental change is not always welcome.

Remember my attempts to "fix" the Wildlander by associating them with the protection of some magical item, place or person? It's only an option now but, man, did it raise some hackles when it wasn't.

I'd positively love to see magic similar to that in the Conan RPG or in Kenneth Hite's GURPS Cabal supplement make its way into Midnight. That would be awesome, in my opinion. But making a judgement on the setting like that is not something I think a reasonable GM should make on their own without consulting with the play group beforehand.

Again, I believe, in hindsight, that my own conversion is tainted (for lack of a better term) by my not being able to put down the uber-kewl cosmology of Glorantha but I think I did follow my own advice below at heart.

The explanation is the least important aspect of what is trying to be achieved. Cosmology-schmozmology.

Following up the post above with another right away...and a much shorter one...

I'm glad that I've finally said this in a way that made sense to you. :-)

Basically it all comes down to linking the belief system to the magic. If all that means is that you have some knowledge ability of the "Right Way" to act, that when you act that way gets you magic, you're good. This is represented by the "Piety" abilities. Note that for Sorcerers, these are just knowing how the person who wrote their books did magic - not neccessarily moral codes. Even more interesting, we don't even actually have to know what these codes are - just having the ability on the character sheet is enough.

So the minimum HQ magic system, to me, would be to have a Piety stat linked to simply stated magic abilities. Uh, something like:

Skills:
Know Things Ways

Magic:
Throw Big Ball of Fire

In fact, it gets easier than that, because you have relationships to family and such in the homeland keyword, which imply moral code transmission, and from them you can get "common magic" which are simply abilities. What's the rationale for them? You learn them from the people that you meet each day. There, that's the bare miniumum.

Beyond that, all magic systems are just there for color to make them seem in some ways more like the sorts of magic that we're used to. Even common magic is required to correspond to one of these types just so we know how it operates from a simple mecanical perspective.

Sans this, all magic is just another ability on the character sheet. And no more magical than "Strong" is.

Mike

Scripty wrote: Despite the many nods to the LotR series, Midnight's magic has very little in common with Middle Earth. If anything, I'd say magic in Midnight, at least as far as arcane magic goes, has more in common with the computer rpgs, Everquest or Diablo, than D&D.

As we've seen in both my conversion and earlier posts to this thread, bringing magic from Glorantha to Midnight necessarily begs the question of the existence of Otherworlds.

But Midnight doesn't have Otherworlds, except for a briefly mentioned and vague "Spirit Plane" or "Spirit World". This leads Kerstin to ponder about the other "Otherworlds" and how they exist (or don't) in Midnight and what effect that has.

Therefore, introducing the magical cosmology of Glorantha with its dependency on Otherworlds and whatnot isn't necessary in Midnight.

I'd recommend having the religions work as best suits the results you're going for in your game. Trying to back engineer them into Glorantha's cosmology is really unimportant if you're getting the results you want.

Using a conversion to HeroQuest to "fix" the magic in Midnight necessitates a change in a major setting element of Midnight, one that may fundamentally change other related setting elements in unpredictable ways. I think a group should be on board with a setting shift like this.

I agree with you that Gygax's magical system breaks down into just another boring form of proto-technology. It's practically a truism. The Midnight setting doesn't have that as much, but it is still there with the Legates.

I'd positively love to see magic similar to that in the Conan RPG or in Kenneth Hite's GURPS Cabal supplement make its way into Midnight.

Figure out an explanation later. The explanation is the least important aspect of what is trying to be achieved.

Hi Mike:
Thanks for clearing up that bit on Wizards, Sorcerers and Monotheism in Glorantha.

Mike Holmes wrote:

Scripty wrote:
But magic in Midnight is very different from magic in D&D (except, of course, for the Legates who function as Clerics). And magic in Midnight is different too from magic in Tolkein.

I get that. But is the magic in midnight different from magic? Is it technological? If not, then I strongly believe that some of what's in HQ must apply.

Mike Holmes wrote:

Scripty wrote: The catch, and this returns to my earlier posts, is when one tries to pull the magic whole-hog out of Glorantha and plug it into the Midnight setting.

Why must it be binary? This is what I was trying to say above! It's not ever Glorantha. If you use the whole HQ system, it still has nothing to do with Glorantha, it has to do with magic as we think of it here as real people on Earth. You make this error no less than five times in your post.

Mike Holmes wrote: I think you did mostly the right thing. Actually what I think is that you really didn't do enough in terms of going in the right direction with this stuff. That is, I think the problems of the conversion are that you're still trying to keep too many of the D&Disms in. Which aren't embedded in the setting AFAICT.

Mike Holmes wrote: Completely incorrect, IMO. Sans cosmology, I think you might as well go back to playing D&D. That was my whole point - I must have made it very badly. What makes magic magical, is knowing the supernatural reasoning behind it. Without that, you have the technological magic of D&D.

Mike Holmes wrote: That is, magic comes from the otherworlds, or from supernatural "beings" in the mundane world. Which happen to include "Essences" which aren't really intelligent, but "just magic." That covers everything.

Mike Holmes wrote: Beyond that, all magic systems are just there for color to make them seem in some ways more like the sorts of magic that we're used to.

Hi Kerstin,
I'm posting a response and then taking a break for the rest of the day. I seem to have ruffled some feathers somehow but I did want to continue our discussion briefly.

As I think I made clear in my post above, I believe you're too far along to take much of my advice to heart. Your statements that you already have some Otherworlds going and all pretty much nails down the path you'll be taking. And I'm not saying that's the wrong path. I'm just saying that I don't think it's a necessary path. I don't see it as the "One True Way". Honestly, I don't see anything as a "One True Way" in gaming or in life. So I'm not here to preach, prostelytize or convert. Just here to share, discuss, assist and, yes, learn.

Kerstin wrote:

Scripty wrote: Therefore, introducing the magical cosmology of Glorantha with its dependency on Otherworlds and whatnot isn't necessary in Midnight.

I'd say the opposite, even arguing from the book. There are otherworlds in Midnight, only they are (mostly?) cut off from the physical world.

PCs (and possibly certain NPCs) get heroic paths, which are basically a bagful of common magic tricks.

"Real" speallcasting, Magecraft, is something else entirely. It's dangerous and punished horribly if detected. Heck, they have a special breed of demons (Astiraxes) specifically to hunt down and exterminate Magecrafters! If that doesn't mean there's at least two types of magic, common and special, I don't know what does.

Kerstin wrote:
Yeah I agree with that - only the cosmology in the HQ goes far beyond Glorantha because it reflects underlying structures of human religious beliefs. I don't want Glorantha in Aryth. I do want something that I and my players can understand and relate to; and if the HQ religions structure help achieve that, then I'll use it, or modify it where necessary.

Kerstin wrote:
You'd choose Conan d20 magic over Gloranthan magic for Midnight? Really? :)
If that's your thing, it may be worth checking out www.againsttheshadow.org again (did they ever manage to put your conversion online btw?). I vaguely remember seeing threads about Conan corruption and similar stuff in Midnight on those boards.

Kerstin wrote:
I've had a big paradigm shift there. And now I look back at our Midnight campaign and see what? A game that's been cheerfully ignoring all issues of religion. Which is a tad strange for a setting competely dominated by the fact that an evil god has fallen into it... If there ever was a religious war, this one is it.

An explanation for our god-less-ness of course is that when played with D&D, Midnight won't bring out religious themes. We brought out some other cool themes instead (which worked more easily within the gamist structures of D&D), which I don't want to cut off now - but I don't think that is going to happen if I stay sensitive to them as I work on the conversion.

My last post to this thread (and responses to it that I seem to remember...) have been lost. I can't retype it all, but two brief points to Scripty:

1. You ruffled no feathers here, at least not mine. Your input was and is welcome. I may disagree with some of your points but that's ok, those points help me define my position more clearly, so you're helping in any case. I hope you'll keep reading and commenting.

2. Yes. Paradigm shifts are wonderful. This one especially so. :-)

Below are my current notes on one particularly nasty feature of Izrador's Church: Mirrors. Once again I’m indebted to Mike Holmes, for suggesting the process of seeding new Mirrors (very cool) and the use of guardian rules.

As always, comments more than welcome.

Caveat: While the Mirrors themselves are canon, many of the details below, especially the Master Mirror and Izrador’s dead body, the seeding of Mirrors and Mirrors in transit are additions. I seem to remember that the appearance of Mirrors is described differently in different placed in canon material: either a black pool or an upright, polished metal mirror in the place where the congregation’s worship takes place. I'm including both below; but I haven't been able to find mention of the pool version in recent rereadings of the MN books I own, which may mean I borrowed that idea from somewhere else. In which case, many thanks to its creator.


Mirrors

Mirrors are the guardian beings of Izrador’s Church congregations. A Mirror consists of a body of utterly black, ice cold liquid, kept in a bowl of black lead in a lightless place in or underneath each Temple. The main hall of each Temple has a standing mirror of black lead, a representation of the actual Mirror. Many pious households make a point of keeping a smaller black-lead mirror in a place of honour in their homes.

The first Mirrors were created from drops of the black liquid roiling in the chest cavity of Izrador’s rotting body, the Master Mirror. It is believed that when pagan resistance is finally overcome, the Master Mirror will expand to engulf all of Aryth and Izrador will rise bodily again, to rule a people united in the One Faith.

To this day, new Mirrors are seeded by siphoning off part of the liquid from an existing Mirror, carrying it to its new location and installing it in its new bowl with appropriate rituals and sacrifices. The blood of sentient beings sacrificed over a Mirror accelerates the Mirror’s growth, especially in the early stages.

At times a Mirror will grow agitated and roil with increasing violence. Often this can be explained by the Mirror having been contaminated in some way. Unless pacified by the proper rituals, an agitated Mirror may Blast, destroying life in its range in an uncontrolled explosion of Shadow magic.

Destruction of a Mirror also causes a Blast, followed by a Backblast of equally uncontrolled non-Shadow magic that causes hallucinations in living things in its range.
One known way of destroying a Mirror is by throwing in a crystal known as an Earthlight. Earthlights are rare and highly illegal to possess. They are variously believed to be the frozen tears of a divine being, shed at seeing Aryth about to be sundered from its otherworlds, or crystals containing dormant otherworldly creatures left behind to aid the people of Aryth in their last defence, or the tears of Aryth itself at its hopeless plight.


Method: Manifestation

Form: Utterly black, ice cold liquid. Kept in sealed containers while in transit, otherwise in wide bowl of black lead.

Communication: A roiling in all surfaces of blackened lead within the Mirror’s range. When the Temple itself comes under attack, a gut-freezing shriek.

Functions: As a result of their common origin, all Mirrors share the following general functions. Local differences may exist.
Awareness: Sense Fey, Sense Pagan Magic, Recognise Temple Intruder
Blessing: Endure Hunger, Fight Pagan, Shadow Fanaticism
Defence: Defend Church Member, Defend Temple, Defend Legate
Overshadow Pagan Magic: Non-Shadow magic used within a Mirror’s range is subject to a penalty from the Mirror’s appropriate rating.*
Blast: Uncontrolled, deadly Shadow magic unleashed from a Mirror when contaminated or destroyed. When destroyed, the Blast is followed by a Back-blast of hallucinogenous non-Shadow magic of equal strength.

[*Unsure how my own rule works... The Overshadow Pagan Magic function should make using magic harder in a Mirror’s range. Contests inside a Mirror’s range are subject to a penalty from the Mirror's rating as per usual rules; so far, so clear. But what happens when a character uses, say, his CM Pass Unnoticed Feat before crossing into the range of the Mirror? Under canon rules, non-Shadow magic effects may discontinue each time they cross a range threshold into a closer range. In HQ I can see two constellations:
(1) The intent is to go into the Mirror’s range. In this case I apply the Mirror penalty in the contest for using the magical ability in the first place.
(2) The character didn't intend to cross the threshold, but is subsequently forced into that direction or is surprised by a Mirror's range spreading over his position. In which case … what happens? New contest? If so, is it a second use of the character's same magical ability, modified by the Mirror penalty? Or does the Mirror use its rating actively, resisted by the character's magical ability? Or what?]


Ratings:

Mirrors grow in power over time. Ignoring the permanent effect of sacrifices and the varying community bonus from the congregation (see below), Mirrors tend to reach the following thresholds at the following ages.

Mirror in transit: usually 13**
Pale Mirror: new - 13***
Red Mirror: 1yr - 20w
Black Mirror: 10yrs - 20w2
Grand Mirror: 100yrs - 20w3
Master Mirror: currently ??? [tbc]

**Mirrors in transit are usually carried in sealed containers of limited size because it has been found that prolonged proximity to the liquid destroys the carrier’s mind and causes unpredictable reactions from the carrier.

***Drawing off liquid for seeding a new Mirror weakens an existing Mirror, e.g. a 20w2 Mirror will fall to 3w2 when one container-full (13) is drawn off. As a result new Mirrors will usually be seeded from just a single container, although in some cases liquid from several containers (from one or more Mirrors) has been combined to provide a more powerful Mirror from the outset. Note that in practice as a result of the sacrifices made at initiating a new Temple, a newly seeded Mirror will normally start at a higher rating than 13.

Bonus from sacrifices, permanent: Sentient sacrifices boost a Mirror’s rating, at diminishing returns. Use community support bonus table, HQ 91, for total of sacrifices made to a Mirror over time.

Community bonus, variable: Varies with the members of the Mirror’s Temple congregation. Use community support bonus table.