Official Answers from Chaosium
This covers the first part of Chapter 3, pages 105-109.
For the Spirit Magic spells see : Chapter 03 Spirit Magic Spells Q&A
- RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha Quickstart – Q&A
- RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha – Q&A by Chapter
- RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack – Q&A
- RuneQuest Glorantha Bestiary – Q&A
- The Red Book of Magic – Q&A
- The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories – Q&A
- Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories – Q&A
- RuneQuest Starter Set – Q&A by Book
- Weapons & Equipment – Q&A
- The Prosopaedia – Q&A
- The Lightbringers – Q&A
- Earth Goddesses – Q&A
- Mythology – Q&A
- The Lunar Way – Q&A
- The Glorantha Sourcebook – Q&A
- Dragon Pass – Q&A
Spirit Magic by Cult and Associate Cult
See:
Creating New Spirit Magic Spells
Some of my players are asking if they can create new spirit magic spells, as sorcerers can do with their magic.
They might find a shaman or meet a spirit that knows a unique spirit magic spell. In the case of a shaman they will charge for teaching it (I suggest using the cost of the more expensive Special Cult Spirit Magic 107 and 109 in RBM as a guideline).
As spirit spells are actually spirits that carry a spell that you can gather if they are defeated in spiritual combat, they are asking me to approve the spell (so I check if it makes sense in the campaign or it is not overpowered or illogical) and then give a shaman the possibility to find this specific spirit in the astral plane.
In the case of a spirit: Any adventurer defeating a spirit in combat may learn its magic, forcing it to teach them any spells it knows (per RQG 368). These spirits will be unique or everyone would know the spell. See the Spirit Rarity table (RQG 375), Unique spirits should have a POW of 6D6+, so will not be pushovers for normal adventurers and tough for a shaman. Shaman have an automatic -50% when searching for them using a spirit travel roll.
The easiest way is to find a spirit cult where such a spirit can be worshipped and teach its unique spell, or with a normal cult, have a local hero teach a unique spirit magic.
Is this reasonable? My concern if I agree with this, is to open a door for abusing the spells acquisition as the players can design more and more spells and simply try to find the spirit in the astral plane.
Don’t let them design spells, unique spirit magic is the realm of story hooks and rewards for adventures. In one of my games, one of the adventurers was taught webfeet (variable) adds +5% to swimming and that’s it) by the Great Newt as a reward for a task. Another was from an Eirithan hero cult, Katran the Herd, Move herd (targets the herd leader and allows a whole herd to follow for 4pts, 6pts charge, 8pts trample, cost 100L per point). The hero’s sacred cow prod was found by an Eiritha initiate on an adventure and had her spirit inside.
Special Cult Spirit Magic (page 106)
- Preserve Herbs: Aldrya, Chalana Arroy
Spirit Magic Descriptions (page 108)
Some of the spell names include a qualifier in parentheses. Qualifiers specify a substance or species, sense, or characteristic that the spell affects.
Spirit Magic Spells Q&A
Related Pages
- CHA4034 Red Book of Magic – Chapter 01 Introduction Q&A
- CHA4034 Red Book of Magic – Chapter 02 Rune Magic Q&A
- CHA4034 Red Book of Magic – Chapter 02 Rune Magic Spells Q&A (A-M)
- CHA4034 Red Book of Magic – Chapter 02 Rune Magic Spells Q&A (N-Z)
- CHA4034 Red Book of Magic – Chapter 03 Spirit Magic Spells Q&A
Page Last updated: 2025-04-19 13:58:42