Harn and Magic World

A thread about using RQ6 for Harn provoked my own long and tedious take on using Magic World for a non-canonical version of the island of Harn, the nearby continent of Lythia, and its planet Kethira. (Please don't ask me to do all the accent marks.)

Submitted for your amusement, then:

Magic:

• Sorcery is the only known form of magic. Most people fear it. Wise and long-lived sorcerers avoid attention, and pass their secrets on to only a few well-chosen apprentices.
  
• Shamans and hedge wizards know a few traditional sorcery spells, passed from master to apprentice.
  
• The Shek P'var (or simply Sorcerers' Guild) is a secretive organization that studies and practices sorcery more systematically. They police their own members somewhat to make sure nobody breaks security or starts messing with angels and demons (which are religion's domain, and too powerful/scary to deal with.)
  
• Highest on the power scale, sorcerers of Shadow freely summon and bind demons, and sorcerers of Light call upon and negotiate with angels. It's up to the GM whether demons are the angels of hostile gods and vice-versa (as in standard HarnWorld), or whether Light and Shadow are independent forces with their own distinct minions.
  

Religion:

• Unlike HarnMaster Religion, there's no set list of prayers or miracles. Priests have a single Knowledge skill regarding the myths and rites of their god, which covers the mundane aspects of temple offerings, funeral services, etc.
  
• Priests of a religion also track an Allegiance score for their god. This score goes up when the priest spreads the god's name or ministers to lay members of the religion or sect, much like Piety.
  
• When a priest requests a miracle, the GM rolls secretly against Allegiance. The GM adjusts the effective Allegiance score upward if the miracle serves the god's interests and modified downward for selfish requests, trivial requests, repeated requests, or blatant interventions. (Gods like plausible deniability.) If the roll is successful, the GM arranges the minimum necessary circumstances to grant the request, and subtracts points from the Allegiance score based on how much heavy lifting the god had to do.
  
• Religions of Harn officially condemn all forms of sorcery, although priests (esp. of Agrik and Morgath) sometimes practice it secret. Even sorcerers of Light are considered blasphemous for commanding servants of the gods / beings from other planes.
  

Psionics: Psychic Powers from the Big Gold Book, maybe with additions/alterations. Most folks find psychic powers as scary as sorcery, particularly telepathic and precognitive talents.

Two or All Three Powers: It's theoretically possible to know sorcery, serve a god, and awaken psychic talents, but extremely unlikely. Besides the sheer improbability, the character needs time and study to maser just one supernatural field. A priest practicing sorcery would face social stigma or physical harm if discovered, and a mob of angry peasants doesn't care about the differences between Light sorcery, Shadow sorcery, minor spells, and psionics.

My own attemts at a BRP-Hârn adaptation led me to drop the convocations for the Shek-Pvar as well. For flavor, I would avoid mixing angels and demons into Pvarism, because I prefer reserving divine and semi-divine entities for clerics, but this is nothing more than my own opinion.

Do I understand correctly that religious magic consists solely of Divine Interventions, with no Invocations (aka spells) per se? Also, do you track Allegiances for specific deities in addition to Magic World's Shadow/Balance/Light scheme, or do you replace the Allegiances entirely? Or, do you classify the ten deities under the three basic Allegiances?

Lastly, how do you determine if a character has psionic talents? And do you play with latent powers, or does the PC start with his talents already active?

Caveat: I haven't playtested ANY of these ideas at all; I just scribbled them down one sleepless night. Nevertheless, here's more of what I was thinking.

Do I understand correctly that religious magic consists solely of Divine Interventions, with no Invocations (aka spells) per se?

For simplicity, that's the way I was leaning. I since discovered FATE of Harn, which provides another way of handling invocations.

Also, do you track Allegiances for specific deities in addition to Magic World's Shadow/Balance/Light scheme, or do you replace the Allegiances entirely? Or, do you classify the ten deities under the three basic Allegiances?

Priests and devout believers would have ONE Allegiance to their god, in addition to their regular ones. It might be the basis for the FATE-like stunts I mention above, or the analogue of Piety for a port of HarnMaster Religion.

I was thinking of keeping Light/Balance/Shadow too, but I can see arguments either for dropping them or tying each deity to Light, Shadow, or potentially Balance. (Morgath, Naveah, and Agrik would be Shadow, Larani, Peoni, Save-K'nor, and Siem Light, and Halea, Ilvir, and Sarajin Balance.) Really, though, Light and Shadow are almost orthogonal to the morality of the Harnic gods, so you could view Light and Shadow as alien powers unrelated to any god, except for Morgath if you regard Shadow = Bukrai.

Lastly, how do you determine if a character has psionic talents? And do you play with latent powers, or does the PC start with his talents already active?

That I really hadn't thought through. The two options I prefer is a) the player chooses one of mundanity, Psionics, Religion, or Sorcery, or Psychic Abilities only emerge during play after a triggering event, on a POW x 1% chance (or larger depending on the event). Once active, I'd use the standard BRP rules.

I'd be inclined to ignore "latent" powers; a character either has a Psychic Ability, even at 7%, or doesn't. If I wanted to introduce latent powers I'd port HarnMaster Psionics to BRP.

However, I do like the idea of Psionic Episodes. Maybe if a psychic consciously tries his ability and fails, the GM secretly rolls against the ability score and causes a Psionic Episode if the secret test fails. Other events might trigger an Episode or full activation, but only if the secret test succeeds. Thus inexperienced psychics get a lot of false positives or lose control of their abilities easily, while experienced psychics are open to all sorts of influences. The life of a psychic is fraught with peril. (Then again, so is being a pawn of the gods or a student of arcane forces.)