Rituals Wanted!

[Steven Marsh]

(EDIT: The submission deadline has now passed. Thanks to everyone who participated! When I know who will be credited for what, I'll say so in this thread. --PK)

Rituals Wanted!

The ritual magic system from GURPS Monster Hunters 1: Champions has been so popular, we're expanding it into its own standalone GURPS supplement. And we need your help to complete our summoning . . .

In addition to greatly expanding and clarifying the system, GURPS Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic will include a collection of sample rituals to help mages do the impossible. We'd like your contributions for this chapter.

Rules
We're looking for rituals created using the Ritual Path Magic rules from GURPS Monster Hunters 1: Champions. Expanded details of what we're looking for and how to format it correctly are in this Microsoft Word file. There are also a few other rules to keep in mind:

• Be familiar with SJ Games' style guide.
• Be creative. This is not a supplement for Monster Hunters (although it'll work great for that), but a standalone magical expansion. Your rituals need not be tied to a monster-hunting cosmology, a modern timeframe, or anything else. (Again, see the ritual template file for more.)
• Be original! All rituals must be your own original creation; do not adapt anything from literature, film, other games, etc.

Terms and Payment
All submissions become the property of Steve Jackson Games. All authors who have material accepted for GURPS Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic will receive name credit in the supplement. In addition, the three contributors who provide the most and/or coolest submissions (at our sole discretion) will receive a PDF comp copy of the supplement via e23. If we receive so many awesome submissions that we can do a follow-up Pyramid article with the overflow, we'll follow the same process for them (name credit in that Pyramid issue for everyone, comp copies of that Pyramid issue for the three coolest).

Deadline and Contact Info
All submissions must be received by March 16, 2012. All submissions (and revisions, if needed) must be sent via e-mail to Jason "PK" Levine, with the subject line of "RPM Submission". Please attach one copy of the Word file, which should contain all of your rituals; do not submit them as plain text or use a separate Word document for each one. (If you think of more cool spells later, but still before the deadline, multiple submissions are fine.)

[Refplace]

Great news!
Quick question, can it use different Ritual Path skills?

[PK]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Great news!
Quick question, can it use different Ritual Path skills?

Please use the standard nine Path skills from MH1. The RPM supplement will offer support for variant Path skills, but we want to keep the spells chapter consistent, with no variants or house rules.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

Please use the standard nine Path skills from MH1. The RPM supplement will offer support for variant Path skills, but we want to keep the spells chapter consistent, with no variants or house rules.

Ok, Thank you.

[tg_ambro]

I'm glad to see that RPM is getting it's own book! Plus, I feel my noggin bursting with potential spells!

As an aside, the template is already very useful to me; One of the my players took a magician ally in my MH game, and I've tinkered with various formats for the spells. This template beats them all. So, I'll be taking a stab at this. :)

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

Please use the standard nine Path skills from MH1. (. . .)

I hear that. However, I thought that a book titled GURPS Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic would be a stand-alone book, instead of it being tied to the specifics of Monster Hunters —for instance the magical interpretation of Kabbalah's Sephiroth.

Originally Posted by Monster Hunters 1, p. 32

Each Path governs one aspect of reality, and has two names – a common one and a lesser-used, Sephirotic one:

I can see reasons for keeping with the structure of Path of Body, Path of Chance, Path of Energy, Path of Mind, etc; my point is that the common names of Monster Hunters' Path skills are broad in comparison to the Sephirotic ones.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by demonsbane

I hear that. However, I thought that a book titled GURPS Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic would be a stand-alone book, instead of it being tied to the specifics of Monster Hunters —for instance the magical interpretation of Kabbalah's Sephiroth.



I can see reasons for keeping with the structure of Path of Body, Path of Chance, Path of Energy, Path of Mind, etc; my point is that the common names of Monster Hunters' Path skills are broad in comparison to the Sephirotic ones.

Well when someone writes up a Ritual they can use the common name. As for new paths RPK did reply it will support that. I expect a few alternates given or at least a nod towards how many is recommended as a min/max for a complete system. Though I like the system even with limited effects that cant cover everything.

However dening us the ability to create Rituals on new Paths makes sense as otherwise he could have hundreds of new paths submitted and not enough room for the Rituals.
A common complaint is not enough ready made examples, so more spells is desired.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Well when someone writes up a Ritual they can use the common name.

I had to go check MH1 again to see what people were talking about. I honestly didn't notice the hermetic names at all. I've never seen anyone use them, either. Sorry PK :)

So I sure hope using the common name isn't a problem, because I don't KNOW the others :P

[Figleaf23]

Is the intention here to canvass input only from those involved in playing Monster Hunters?

[PK]

Originally Posted by demonsbane

I can see reasons for keeping with the structure of Path of Body, Path of Chance, Path of Energy, Path of Mind, etc; my point is that the common names of Monster Hunters' Path skills are broad in comparison to the Sephirotic ones.

This should be made clear by the instructions and examples in the Word template file. Specifically, Path names are not mentioned explicitly when writing up a ritual. Only the spell effects are. So it doesn't matter what names you use in your game -- a Lesser Create Body effect is a Lesser Create Body effect, whether you refer to the Path used to do so as the "Path of Yesod" or the "Path of Body" or the "Path of Squares" (because you have your own cosmology in your setting based on geometry).