Magic items in RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha (RQG) fascinate me. This is no surprise since I’m kind of the magic item guy. My love for RQG‘s magic items isn’t restricted to the big splashy ones which pervade my books. RuneQuest first won my magic-item-love because of the player-focused magic item creation system. Unlike Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) or Pathfinder, RuneQuest didn’t just provide a list of ingredients required to make an item. It provided a variety of core spells for item creation. Players can then use enchantment conditions to customize, tweak, and even kind of “program” these items to create different effects. Conditions put creativity and ingenuity at the fore.
The flexibility and complexity of RQG magic items creates an interesting player conundrum: What the hell does this thing even do?
I like this—very much “feature, not bug” for me—because identifying a magic item becomes a roleplay experience. RQG lacks a do-all identify spell like D&D or a number of other TTRPGs. Consequently, it’s worth talking about the identification process and how to play it out at the table.
It’s also, in my opinion, a lot of fun.
Is it Magic?
The gold standard is the spirit magic spell Detect Magic. For 1 magic point this spell reveals if anything in a 50-meter radius of the caster is a magical object or is enchanted. However, the spell doesn’t reveal additional information about the object—just says “yup, magic.”
Detect Magic is a great tool for spotting magical traps, checking if a spirit is bound into a suspicious animal (though it won’t spot an allied spirit), and alerting enemy Rune Masters by making their favorite toys glow. In my games, most great markets (like Nochet) ban casting Detect Magic because all the glowing causes headaches. This is an in-setting social rule, not a game mechanic. It’s also a fantastic way for a trickster to cause problems without triggering the Create Market spell.
No one knows Detect Magic? Life’s going to be a bit more difficult.
Mucking About
Provided there’s no overt signs of magic, the quickest way to discern if an object is magical is to try activating it.
For spell matrices, this requires a POW×5 roll. Spirit magic matrices will take magic points, if the adventurer has enough, and cast the spell on a valid target. If there’s questions, I let the player pick something of the right type. For example, both Bladesharp and Dullblade can be cast on a weapon. So if the player’s trying to figure out if an item is a spirit magic spell matrix, I’d tell them the spell will cast on an edged weapon of their choice.
For Rune spell matrices, this is also a POW×5 roll. However, the matrix doesn’t require magic points or Rune points. As above, the spell casts on a valid target.
If the object has a different activation requirement (like rolling a Rune affinity), the player can roll for that ability instead. For dangerous items—or if the gamemaster is just feeling especially devious—the gamemaster might look at the adventurer’s sheet, and then have the player roll against an unknown ability.
Some items, however, can’t be activated! Binding Enchantments are the most common example, but this also applies to Magic Point Enchantments and some of the masterwork items described in Chaosium’s Weapons & Equipment. One way to begin identification is trying to jam a magic point inside. Whether or not the item stores the magic point is a good step forward (and if you can use the magic point inside!). Otherwise it’s time to start waving the item around, stabbing people with it, using it for obviously intended or unintended purposes, and so on.
Another important source of information is the enemy. If someone fiddles with an amulet and then a spirit appears, that amulet is probably a Binding Enchantment. (There are other options, but a bound spirit is pretty likely.) Interrogating a defeated foe is, of course, also an option. Doing so likely tests the adventurers’ Honor Passions or Harmony Runes.
In general, when an adventurer handles an item they can quickly figure out the following information:
- Does it activate?
- Does it use my magic points?
- Can it store magic points?
Handling a magical object can also reveal information about its conditions and its attunement requirements, if any. The standard process for attuning a magic crystal is described in Weapons & Equipment. This basically requires carrying around the object for a week and then making a POW resistance roll. One option for adventurers is to do the same, and see what happens. If the object doesn’t require attunement or doesn’t attune by that method, the resistance roll automatically fails. Of course, the adventurer doesn’t lose POW since they couldn’t have risked it for the attunement in the first place.
In my games, adventurers typically learn that an item requires attunement to use one or more of its abilities when they pick it up. Rather than performing a ritual, attuning minor to medium-power items often requires sacrificing 1 point of POW. Upon touching the item, the adventurer feels a gentle “tugging” at their soul. This informs them that the object wants a sacrifice. Again, typically this is POW, and typically this is 1 point, but variations exist. I usually tell the player what characteristic the item wants, but don’t tell them how many points. If there are additional requirements (like making an ability roll or having a certain rating in one of their Rune affinities) the player learns this information but doesn’t learn the additional requirement until they attempt attunement.
If the gamemaster is feeling especially malicious, the attunement might happen automatically as the result of a target condition and an attack condition. I don’t recommend doing this routinely, but accidental attunement happening even once is a memorable gameplay experience. (I would definitely consider this a “cursed” item, even if the effects are benign once attuned.)
Adventurers learn if a condition is blocking them from using the object, but in my games the player doesn’t learn what the condition is or what abilities are blocked behind the condition.
Providing limited information about conditions and attunement encourages the players to continue investigating the magic item. This process turns magical treasure into an interactive experience. It drives player activity by giving them meaningful minor goals to accomplish. An adventure might not advance a particular ongoing plot by leaps and bounds, but learning that an item doesn’t activate in a particular situation helps players feel they’ve made incremental long-term progress.
Research
Some information, however, can’t be learned through fiddling with an object. That’s when it’s time to swing by a temple and get a bit of help.
The primary information learned from research is an item’s history or the procedures for creating or attuning to it. Some magic items also have a ritual purpose after attunement. Those items might provide the ritual’s information upon attunement, or the adventurer may need to discover the ritual themselves.
Above all else, researching a magic item’s history requires the Library Use skill. However, you can’t use a library without access to one! The best library in Dragon Pass is in Nochet. Boldhome and Furthest both have quite good libraries, if a bit specialized. Jonstown is the classic “adventurer’s library” which plausibly could have a rare tome about anything. Larger libraries may have greater variety. They’re also more poorly organized due to the politely civil internecine wars waged by Lhankor Mhy’s librarians, each convinced of their own pet system’s superiority. Thus Library Use is less about the quality of a library’s texts, and more about the adventurer’s ability to find them within a given library.
Discovering a magic item’s history places it within its Gloranthan context. This helps the adventurers understand how various cults, cultures, and species might view the item. A bow stolen from the elves may feel irrelevant at first, but the adventurers better not flaunt it in an Aldryami forest! History, in my experience, is central to what makes a Gloranthan magic item compelling. This is especially true for major items—a 2-point spirit magic matrix is unlikely to have a meaningful history.
“Book learning” isn’t the only way to discover an item’s history. Successful Cult Lore and Homeland Lore rolls provide basic information (with a special or critical success telling a detailed story). Another approach is to base the Lore roll’s information on the adventurer’s rating. After all, even on a success it makes sense that a Sage with 90% knows more details than an adventurer with 25%. On the other hand a Customs roll, a Craft roll, or an Art roll might reveal what cultural or artistic traditions a magic item belongs to. It may even reveal the name of a famous crafter!
If the adventurers lack these skills (or lack them at high enough rating to provide useful information), then it’s also time to find an expert. Unsurprisingly, these cluster around libraries and temples. Other options include clan and tribal elders (whose Customs skill may have a high rating), temple priests (for Cult Lore), or crafters who might recognize a master’s handiwork.
Need a collection of weird artifacts for your players to identify? I’ve got you covered! Treasures of Glorantha 2 gathers magic items from the Second Age, a time of god-manipulating sorcerers and expansionist empires. Better yet, since you’ve read so far I’ll even give you $5 off the softcover. 😉
Identification Magic
If all else fails, it’s time to bring out the big gun: magic.
Lhankor Mhy provides the key spells needed for identifying a magic item:
- Analyze Magic: Each Rune point cast gives a “single true statement.”
- Knowledge: Read the item’s history, if it can be summarized in 15 minutes.
However, Issaries also has access to Analyze Magic as an associate cult of Lhankor Mhy. This gives merchants valuable access to identification magic and allows adventurers to seek out persons of a somewhat more … mercenary disposition.
Depending on the item, brute-forcing identification with magic can be quite expensive. Analyze Magic specifies that the spell can repeat the same truth if cast multiple times. How many times does it need to be cast? How should the truths be tracked?
To be honest, I find it hard to bother with tracking truths. I’ve done this but it requires a bit of bookkeeping. Basically I’ll go through a magic item’s description, and each function or ritual counts as one “truth.” Yes, that’s not exactly a “true statement,” but I can not be bothered to provide trivial true statements like “this is made of iron” or “this sword deals 1D8+2 damage.” I typically assume Analyze Magic is only going to provide a truth about an item’s magic, not its physical properties.
When making a list of truths, I’ll then number them on some looseleaf paper and ask the adventurer to roll a die based on the total truths possible. If the same cast re-rolls, I just bump to the next number on the list. Then I’ll mark which truths were revealed for the next time the spell is cast.
Here’s an example from Treasures of Glorantha 2. “Eurmal’s Backdoor Key” distills to seven truths. That requires an Analyze Magic spell stacked with 7 Rune points, which at 20 L per point would cost 140 L for a Sage to cast! You’d also need to find a Lhankor Mhy worshiper with sufficient Rune points to spare (which may not be trivial).
| Description Section | Statement |
|---|---|
| History | This key was made during the Second Age in the Trickster College of Slontos. |
| Procedure | Attuning the key to a location requires 1 point of POW and an Illusion Rune roll. |
| The key can be attuned to up to three locations. | |
| If you fail to attune the key, you can never use this item again. | |
| Powers | While holding the key you can go from one attuned location to another instantaneously without cost. |
| You can bring one other person along, but they must make a successful Passion roll. | |
| Value | This key’s value is equal to a trickster’s promise. |
If I track this sort of information, I typically ignore Analyze Magic’s specification that truths may be repeated. I just randomize which truths are revealed, and let the players chip away piecemeal until they item’s fully described. Repeated truths and irrelevant truths can be entertaining once in a while, but I’ve found that in the long run they’re tedious, not interesting.
There’s two player-friendly shortcuts I’ve come to like fairly well while gamemastering. First, telling players directly how many Rune points are required to fully describe the item. If you want an in-world explanation, casting the Divination spell is a fair excuse. Asking Lhankor Mhy directly how much information can be revealed seems within the god’s purview to me! This improves fun by giving the players more context about the item so they can decide how to spend limited resources. After all, points spent in downtime identifying an item are also points which may have been spent instead on a Heal Wound to keep your friend alive.
Second, I’ve ruled before that 3 points of Analyze Magic can identify any magic item entirely, except for extremely complex, ancient, and/or powerful objects. A Spell Matrix Enchantment with a linked Magic Point Enchantment and a couple of conditions can easily rack up a bunch of “truths” without a meaningful improvement in information. Because 3-point spells tend to be the top-end spells for a Rune (like Sever Spirit or Heal Body), it makes sense to me that Analyze Magic 3 can handle most magic items.
A third idea occurs—you could also make a roll on the resistance table of the Analyze Magic spell’s points versus the item’s total truths. On a success, the item yields all of its secrets, perhaps for a fraction of the Rune point cost! I don’t know if I’d use this in my own games, but for gamemasters who like more gritty play but want to avoid bookkeeping, a resistance roll may be a useful shortcut.
While Analyze Magic can be complex, fortunately Knowledge is straightforward. I assume almost all items can be analyzed within the spell’s duration. Worst-case scenario, add a point of Extension so the spell lasts an hour and quadruples the information.
Closing Thoughts
The weirdness of RuneQuest’s identification spells and the complexity of its enchantment conditions make identification a process rather than autopilot. I actually find that really rewarding! On both sides of the GM’s Screen it’s fun to muck about and try to discover something’s function. Rather than just casting identify object or something like that, the players are required to engage with the game world. Often this also requires engaging with the game’s setting, thinking about an item’s potential relationships with different Runes, cults, and communities as ways to discover its function.
However, only do this if you think it’s fun. I think it’s fun, and even I don’t follow “rules as written” while using Analyze Magic!
Distilling every single magic item into a list of truths and then randomizing every single time isn’t something I’m interested in doing constantly at the game table. I’m happy for players to choose between “let’s muck about” and “screw it, lets burn some resources.” Often, I don’t even know exactly how many truths an item ought to cost. I just pick a number between 3 and 6, and tell the players that’s what the Sage says they’ll have to cast. Paying someone to cast is almost always rather expensive. If the players are willing to spend their silver, as a gamemaster I don’t think it’s more fun for me to get in the way.
Don’t play identification the “Conrad way” or the “Chaosium way.” Play it your way! I just encourage you to think about how you want to play it—to think about what challenges will create the most interesting stories for your RuneQuest table.
Until next week!
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