hipsterinspace

The big exception to this rule the way I run it is associate spells, so because Storm Bull gets Shield from Orlanth as an associate, I would rule that it actually is the same power and can benefit from both rune pools. It’s limited by which spells are shared by which cults, but the tiny heroquest that is being enacted by the casting there is very clearly one god giving the other their aid.

Yeah, you can’t very easily have a broadly Oedipal myth against yourself.

Orlanth may be a reaction to Yelm, but Yelm’s shadow is well established, it is Kazkurtum, the empty emperor who reigns without justice. He is the part of Yelm who denies others when he already has enough to share, who jealously guards that which is not his to keep. The death of the sun was the clash of Yelm’s shadow, his jealousy, entitlement, and hubris, with Orlanth’s shadow, the disproportionate and impulsive violence of the storm. The lesson of the Lightbringer Quest is that both of those natures must both be reckoned with and overcome for the good of all, not just Yelm’s. In that sense, Orlanth isn’t his shadow, he is manifested with agency rather than as a part of Yelm’s unconscious, but his Other. While the confrontation with the Other certainly exists at the level of the subconscious, it is not the unrestrained id of the shadow, it is instead the structuring superego function.

They don’t specify that Orlanth or Zorak Zoran appear as the rivals by necessity in the Hill of Gold. The quester faces the “Selfish God” and the “Cruel God” before enduring an ordeal of cold and being set upon by chaos. The cool thing about how myths work is that they’re impressions rather than strict labels. People will of course assign labels, different cultures may have different figures cast in those mythic roles, but it’s still in the broad sense the same myth. In the case of “Elmal Guards the Stead”, perhaps the encounter with the Selfish God is overcome not by fighting and losing but by teaching him how to share, and doing so is how Elmal gains the Shield spell from Orlanth as an associate. Either way, in both quests the core lesson is that the questers must sacrifice more and more of themselves to endure despite knowing that they will fail again and again, that they will be broken by the ordeal but nonetheless refuse to give up.

Because Storm Bull actually gets Shield from Orlanth as an associate, that makes it a case where you could conceivably use the other cult's rune points to extend it. However, the same wouldn't be the case with Orlanth and his other brother Humakt, who has his own Shield spell. As for stacking, I generally run it so you can stack Shield freely, after all, it stacks with spirit magic like Protection. After 2 or 3 points it usually has significantly diminishing returns

It's still one of my favorite theories that the 7 Mothers' Quest was actually an extremely dangerous twist on the Lightbringer quest to bring back Nysalor.

I mean, if we’re going to the core of the fertility/life rune, Uleria is always there when something is born, always. That includes broo and scorpion men, elves and trolls, humans and animals. She is always there, and that is why she is and must be illuminated. Life is the force of creation, sometimes creation must take from something else to make something new. The issue with Mallia is that she does not destroy to create, she creates to destroy. Her disease spirits proliferate by sapping the life force of mortals and turning them into one if they succumb. That is a meaningful distinction, and one that isn’t universal among even death rune gods. Tolat is maybe the best example of the inverse, he is a god of destruction, but he also a god of slash-and-burn agriculture in Teshnos. He teaches that death creates life, but that is far from a constant. As for Yinkin, he is not just a killer, he’s also noted as a prolific seducer and the ancestor of many humans, not just domestic cats. Note that he doesn’t have the fertility rune either.

We know that the mother of all disease is Mallia, and that her runes are darkness and death (and for broo worshippers, chaos). She doesn’t bring life, she brings death and suffering. I don’t have a source on the mother of leopards, but we know father of lions, Basmol, also has the death rune, alongside beast.

I follow rules as written and don't allow chaining. In circumstances where a player is directly calling upon a passion I will allow them to augment with a skill, for example augmenting a roll of your loyalty to your tribe with orate to secure the support of your tribal ruler in an expedition.

Oasis Folk capoeira is a great idea.

Maybe I’m more lenient, but as a GM I tend to allow it, especially if a player can justify it. If this character is an Orlanthi, the Sword Dance is one of the ceremonial touchstones of their cult and society. Granted, Ernalda’s Flax Dance or Goose Dance might not be helpful in dodging blows, but sword dancing teaches some of the fundamentals of combat in a highly ritualized context and requires incredible athleticism, there are plenty of examples of it in our own world.

It’s still somewhat tricky, to differentiate on that basis alone. All man rune beings were also created by Mostal the Maker (also called Urtiam in Malkioni and Orlanthi sources), with the incorporation of Uleria (the Grower) in that process. Together their child was Grandfather Life who in death became Grandfather Mortal.

These all appear in the Red Book of Magic, so I would assume the Flintnail cult still uses and offers initiates access to this approach.

I was under the impression Aranea was a different entity, that she offers spider magic as a child of Kropa and sister of Gorakiki to her mostly troll followers, while Arachnae Solara is the primordial goddess Glorantha.

Esrolia very notably has the Grandmothers, often they are not the literal grandmother but the dominant elder woman within an Esrolian kinship group (House or Clan). The Esrolian entry of HeroQuest Voices gives a lot of interesting insight, and it makes sense given the Minoan and Mycenaean influence on Esrolia.

Again, this is already a thing, it’s called propitiation. It is not the same thing as initiation.

Initiation is forming a direct, personal connection with a deity. Categorically if you initiate, fully initiate, you are giving that deity a part of you to take a part of them. A cult is not the spells but rather a collection of secrets and rites that are proven to facilitate and renew that connection. Typically it requires a cult and priest to initiate someone, usually using a heroquest that shows them how to reach their god and take part in that god’s deeds (a rune spell). The exceptions seem to be shamans, who can form that direct connection in the spirit world and connect with the spirit presences of greater entities, and experimental heroquesters, who can go into the otherworld and find new paths and sometimes even new or forgotten entities. If you worship and sacrifice and get nothing except maybe protection from wrath, like others have said, that’s propitiation—still valid but very different from actual initiation.

Depending on the spirit’s provenance and level of power, I’d probably opt for an associate offering a single rune spell rather than a subcult for a spirit. One of the examples given on here of an associate spirit to a rune cult is Sun Hawk and Yelmalio in Prax, Sun Hawk provides the spell Clear Sight to Yelmalio as an associate. If the spirit providing the magic was at some point a mortal hero who worshipped Orlanth, a hero cult could eventually grow to be a more fully realized aspect/subcult, like Garundyer’s patronage of Siglolf Cloudcrusher in Ralios who offers Hailstones.

If Lorion is a mask of Heler, does he offer Heler initiates different magic and mythic paths in the form of his spirit cult?

Heler’s associates notably exclude Magasta and most of the other big aquatic powers, likely due to the separation from the sea, a significant mythological point. Heler’s only associate cult connections to the sea proper are Triolina and his child with her, King Undine. Ernalda, on the other hand, actually has both Orlanth and Magasta as associates, her husband protectors, and as a peacemaker is probably going to have a more useful role in reaching accommodation. Heler’s listed associates in the upcoming cults book write up that I have seen are Orlanth Thunderous, Grain Goddesses, King Undine, Triolina, and River Gods. Well, the places Heler is stated to be worshipped independently are headwaters (where the river begins and its cult is bound to be extant), and in Esrolia, where there are stated to be over 200k Orlanth Thunderous worshippers to Heler’s ~12k. In places where there’s hostility towards Orlanth, there’s still the river. Heler as subordinated to Orlanth Thunderous and various river cults is still the same Heler, it doesn’t seem like there’s much in the way of god-learning or name games taking place. Perhaps there are other parts of Heler that are not available to Orlanth or Engizi worshippers or whomever, but that seems at odds with the case being presented given that there’s no additional magic provided to an initiate of Heler as such. Perhaps there are other aspects that are unknown to the Orlanthi writ large, but that doesn’t make a case for why an independent cult is present.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around this. What advantage does an independent cult offer to an initiate that a subservient cult does not? Different associates? More myths and heroquests to draw power from? The (always contentious) justification that’s repeatedly been given for the mass exodus of Elmal worshippers in Sartar for the Sun Domes has been Yelmalio’s superior magical might and broader mythology. If this is the case, why would an independent (and significantly magically weaker than Elmal) cult of Heler exist anywhere? If it can be magically proven that Heler is an aspect/accessory to Orlanth Thunderous (or whatever river) to the extent that separate initiation and rune pools are unnecessary, and that those worshippers have access to significantly more (and more powerful) magic and mythology to draw on, what social or magical reality compels an independent cult to exist? Is the opposite true, does a Heler initiate gain access to the full complement of Orlanth Thunderous’s magic and/or a river god’s magic? I’d imagine not, but it would at least make it understandable.

This is directly contradicted by: Having all 3 special rune spells available. And not needing to be initiated into Heler as a cult or even a subcult to use them.

This post and this post, both from David, seem to directly contradict your assertion here. By this model Heler is so fully subsumed as an aspect/accessory that, provided there is a shrine in the temple, Orlanth Thunderous's initiates don't even have to initiate into a subcult to acquire all of Heler's special rune magic and cast it with their Orlanth rune point pool. At that point why would anyone bother with an independent Heler cult?

I don’t think balance is a really concern for me, having less magic in return for a more interesting character is perfectly fine by me, different cults have different niches. My big issue is that this seems to entirely obviate any niche for an independent cult to even exist. Jeff’s post here seems to imply that Orlanth Thunderous doesn’t get access to Flood (with Flight being an Orlanth cult spell already), which would make independent initiation into Heler provide at least something unique, but if Orlanth indeed gets Flood as well, it seems like there’s no reason for the cult to exist outside of highly specialized agricultural magic (that can incidentally also be done by the much more numerous and magically potent Orlanth cult).

I can understand that from a sort of magical division of labor perspective in a place as populous as Esrolia, but if someone can call upon all of both Heler and Orlanth Thunderous’s magic, it seems like that is going to completely discourage any independent initiation into the former. I suppose that’s an easy rationale for why the cult is so tiny, but in that case why does an independent cult exist at all? If Orlanth’s cult gets the full array of magic, it doesn’t seem like anything additional is gained by the community by having—or the individual worshipper in initiating into—Heler as an independent cult. Unless there are some unseen unique advantages from a different set of associate cults and their magic (medium water elementals and access to fireshield), an independent cult seems almost vestigial. At best there’s a social and maybe mythic advantage to it, but at the cost of a significant magical disadvantage.