From: Jim Ogle (Ks. Jim) <jogle@aoc.nrao.edu>
Subject: Re:  Living Land stuff...
X-Gated-By: The Black Marble Wombat@morticia.cnns.unt.edu
X-Gated-From: torg mailing list
Organization: University of North Texas
X-Gatemail-Version: 1.0b
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 06:11:11 GMT

Isaac writes:

> Someone brought up the subject of the living land, and how
> the miracles are really quite effective...well, this is true; LL
> miracles are rather nasty.  However, the thing about the LL that
> bothers me is the fact that the LL SB does not exercise/explain
> the spiritual axiom of 24.  It says that all jakatts can cast miracles,
> even lowly peons.  That's nice, but there are no rule mechanics to
> back this up!  There is nothing that says that all jakatts have a free
> add in focus/faith (which would make sense), or any other game mechanics
> explanation for how all jakatts can cast them.  Also, it does not state

According to the rulesbook section on the Spirit axiom, it says that
any gathering (at Spirit 20 or better) of the faithful will generate a
'minimal Focus value'; what I take this to mean is that the group has
a Focus skill value equal to the average Spirit of the group.

However, it then goes on to say that the faithful must have the proper
training to invoke the miracle, which sounds like they still need the
Focus skill to perform a miracle....  Perhaps this means that a group
of the faithful can invoke a diety (using their Spirit in place of the
Focus skill) but actual, "regular" miracles must still be performed by
a priest.

> how many miracles one has access to; this has always been a hazy point
> on miracles.  Considering that the axiom *is* 24, perhaps jakatts/optants
> should have access to ALL LL miracles...otherwise, Optants are really no more

The Storm Knight's Guide and the Ravagons SB contain the rule that a
priest has access to a number of miracles equal to the number of his
Focus adds.  I interpret it slightly differently depending on the
religion and cosm in question though.  Jakatts I allow access to all
Lanala miracles, due to their very close relationship with their
diety.  The Sacellum, Cyberpapacy, and several Core Earth religions I
do use the restriction on because it is more in line with how I see a
structured, organized religion expresses its relationship with its
deity.  Pantheonic religions like Aysle and the Nile I allow access to
almost everything since there's a large number of dieties you can
petition from (you still have to go through your diety to get to the
other dieties, so it is possible that he will not allow certain
miracles from other gods to get through, like a god of death not
allowing healing miracles.)

>         The LL can be fun, but it has died due to lack of good explanation
> and/or exploitation.  I won't miss it too much.  If only WEG had their
> act together on this one...BTW, am I the only one who is bothered by the
> fact that the LL has no World Laws in the proper sense?  And no, the Deep
> Mist and the Compass Curse do not count.

According to WEG those are the world laws (they just didn't quite have
the format determined when they came out with the LL SB).  You could
always use my rewritten versions of the WLs....  8-)

Kansas Jim (jogle@aoc.nrao.edu)