Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal - part II

Originally Posted by AsenRG

Actually, Uncle, I meant "armour" under "gear", and the post you quoted was my attempt at an educated guess why casting in armour was forbidden in EPT. Obviously, I had it wrong!

But now I'm curious, would metal coins count, or is gold sacred to all priests and sorcerers?

No, it's just not all that clearly stated in the game mechanics. 'Priests' in EPT can wear armor and cast spells, but it's assumed that they are wearing chlen-hide armor and are limited to the lower leves of spells. 'Magic-users' don't wear armor, and the greater freedom of movement allows them to better cast the higher level ritual spells.

Coins count; it has to be a specifically sorcerous item not to count.

Originally Posted by Horu hiFa'asu

Yes, Revered High Priest, it definitely helps. I had neither seen nor heard of the exception for magical items. Is this a general property of all metal items imbued with other planar energy or a specific property of some magical items? For example, do all items affected by "Enchant Weapons and Armor" spell meet this criteria? That would seem to make even minor magical weapons and/or armor very useful for spell casters of all stripes.

I knew of the connection between copper and the priests of Sarku - what are the other common 'sacred' metals for the 20??


In terms of 'Temple' spells - is that more of a guideline or a hard and fast rule? I am assuming that various temples and their spell casters are not going to teach 'their' secret spells to outsiders, but have those spells always been exclusively at those temples or are (or were) there other sources for learning those spells?


Horu hi'Fa'asu hi'Vriddi
Priest of Vimulha

If I may offer a side note, I am not a 'Revered High Priest' of the Temple of Vimuhla - that's several pay grades above me. ; I am a military sorcerer, and my Temple title in that role is 'Master of the Energies of the Planes Beyond' - it sounds a lot more impressive, but pays less as I'm in the army...

I don;t know if it was in EPT, and I'm not sure about S & G, as that RPG was never finished. Phil played it that way in his games, and any magical item like a sword or something didn't count. So, I'd say yes, anything done with the 'Enchant' spell would count.

Let's see. Silver for Ksarul, gold for Vimuhla and Karakan; if you look in EPT where the colors are given for the temples you'll find their preferred metal.

It's a pretty hard and fast guideline, for the reasons that you give. On the other hand, Phil did 'port over' spells from EPT to S & G; I know 'The Grey Hand', for example, which is a very secret Gruganu spell, so there's an adventure where I picked up this bit of forbidden knowledge. So, yes, there are exceptional circumstances where this kind of thing can happen, and they form the basis of adventures. Mayhem will ensue, as we like to say hereabouts.

Originally Posted by Dulahan

This actually makes me wonder how the various magic sorts discovered to make Magical Items without going kaboom! And who the first one to realize they could use something like that was.

Well, Phil was right up front that a lot of pioneer magic-users became late pioneer magic-users in pretty short order, and the spells we have are ones that the survivors came up with. All this happened in the Latter Times, very early on after the planet was dumped into the pocket dimension.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Once Phil changed the initial startup from "you are a barbarian who doesn't speak the language" to "you are a citizen and clan member," things like acquiring a water skin became a lot less important.

Heck, I had to buy armor for my cohort out of my own pocket! Back to the City of the Dead, I need a hundred more vambraces!

I hear that. Priced three thousand water bottles, needed tomorrow? Sheesh!!!

Got the barracks cheap, though, from a clan that was speculating in pre-fab buildings for the legions, and speculated in the wrong direction...

Originally Posted by Baron

Somehow I hadn't thought this through, but what you say makes perfect sense. So, Sarku and copper. I can't, off the top of my head, think of any other examples of a metal having been stated as being so strongly related to a particular sect. Are there other examples?

On the other hand, copper would have to be magically strengthened to be used for armor or weapons, no? I mean, with the possible exception of a sacrificial dagger that's just gonna go *poke* every now and then?

Agreed; there's no list per se, but you can see from the descriptions in EPT what metals are favored by whom.

Yes, it would, and there's historical precedent, which Phil knew all about:

http://www.timetrips.co.uk/dagger.htm

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Agreed; there's no list per se, but you can see from the descriptions in EPT what metals are favored by whom.

Yes, it would, and there's historical precedent, which Phil knew all about:

http://www.timetrips.co.uk/dagger.htm

Dlamelish/Hrihayal would be all about the silver as well. Can't be a priest or priestess of the Emerald Ladies without a bunch of silver doo-dads dangling from all your limbs and joints.

To be honest, I think that whole metal vs magic thing was a poor fit for Tekumel and had nothing to do with the Professor's vision of "real" Tekumel. It was more a direct port from Gygax/Arneson D&D, in an effort to turn Tekumel into a game. Don't want your sword-swinger and your magic user to be the same person. Just a game mechanic thing, to make Tekumel function a bit more like D&D.

Not unlike his "jack-priest" concept, which to me seems like nothing he ever (originally) imagined for Tekumel, or that makes any sense there. An awkward post-hoc rationalization for making magic users somehow separate from clerics (as per D&D) in a setting where they shouldn't really be any different from one another.

I believe you could dump that whole metal vs magic restriction and still be as true - or more so - to the Professor's original vision of Tekumel as a setting (as opposed to a game)

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

No, it's just not all that clearly stated in the game mechanics. 'Priests' in EPT can wear armor and cast spells, but it's assumed that they are wearing chlen-hide armor and are limited to the lower leves of spells. 'Magic-users' don't wear armor, and the greater freedom of movement allows them to better cast the higher level ritual spells.

Coins count; it has to be a specifically sorcerous item not to count.

Thank you, Uncle! As an amusing side effect, now we know why magic users always seem to lug around different shiny stones...
They use them to pay for lunch, right?