FlamingCatOfDeath

Of course existing is better than not but if he was not murdered he might still be an eternal being that generates power, a much better state than his current one where he is reliant on his worshippers feeding him magic points and POW to maintain himself.

His murders aftermath has made him destined to be devoured by entropy so I don’t think he views his current situation as an improvement

I think that, in a roundabout way, the latter comment provides the answer to the former comments question. They are the academics who are so attached to their paradigm that they refused to abandon, or even significantly revise it when faced with significant contradictory evidence. They are Einstein refusing to accept quantum mechanics but with much higher stakes at a much grander scale. When Ernalda and Dendera refused to admit identity with each other they didn’t seriously consider that their model of the nature of the gods might be significantly flawed, instead they preformed the goddess swap to prove the interchangeability of earth goddesses with the same runic association and similar domains. When the godsworld started changing outside of heroquests the dominant faction ignored it and “dealt with” the faction that wanted to address the problem. They treated the gods like they are the Cosmic Court when one of the defining feature of the CC is that they were mechanistic and they died because of it. If the gods were like the CC the lords of terror would have won.

I don’t know of any cases of pre-Wakboth non-awful Chaos that has survived, but this appears to be true of the the two and a half cases of post Wakboth chaos (The Red Goddess, Nysalor and Arket respectively) How is this qualitatively different than the stuff non chaotic cults do? Every cult uses its cult’s allies on its enemies, such as the war trees of the Aldryami and the Founding Ancestors of the Praxins, most simply don’t have options as powerful as the Cult of the Red Goddess. The Telmori and the Puppeteer Troupe are unambiguously evil? Then why did Sartar embrace them when he could have easily excluded these forces from his kingdom? I find it hard to believe that one of Belintar’s best students would fail to notice the inner nature of such things.

This makes sense from an institutional interests point of view. If their parents can’t provide for them they are likely to turn to crime or begging whereas if the seven mothers get them they will be trained to be useful to the lunar empire. (And hopefully personally loyal to the person who runs the orphanage)

Divorce is hard because of all the paperwork, legal implications, and the fights over property. Having the prenup is built into the marriage contract simplifies things. In the real world their have been societies where divorced was easy, take Ibn Battuta found a new wife every place he stopped and then divorced them when he continued his journeys.

How easy (Orlanthi divorce) it is probably depends on the type of marriage, the terms of the marriage contract, how magically potent the parties are, and what the political considerations are. When we are talk about “easiness” I am thinking about a combination of how severe the consequences are and how difficult it is to initiate. I would think that in most cases it would be fairly easy to initiate the act but consequences would vary along a pretty large spectrum.

Sure there is. The better way of living is the one that results in a higher quality of life for the average adherent. There is significant evidence of widespread malnutrition in most of the population of preindustrial agricultural societies while there are strong evidence that the average hunter gatherer suffered from less malnutrition. As such the quality of life of most hunter gathers was higher and therefor their way of living is better. I don’t see how criminality is inherently better or worse than activity the society deems legal. If the expected quality of life of someone who engages in a illegal activity is higher than that of those who do not than it is rational to engage in such behavior. They are free of the oppression of the aristocracy and they tend to be less vulnerable to individual crops/plants failing to grow. while it is flawed l think that sapiens: a brief history of humankind does a good job of describing the consequences of the transition to agriculture on the average individual.

The Awakened animals used as companions are almost always created via ritual (as described in W&E) and as such the answer to this is not really all that variable. The primary question is whether the animal was a preexisting companion, the ritual was the start of the relationship, or the awakened animals original companion died and they chose you as their new companion (they must be bonded to someone or they will gradually die) (Dragon passes peculiarities around shadowcats make preexisting companion or adoption the only viable answers to this question for awakened shadowcats)

Marriage involves oaths. Breaking oaths has actual consequences. So long as the oaths are kept everything is fine. Different cultures and kinds of marriages have different oaths which allow for different things. Even if both parties are ok with it if it is against the specific oaths sworn there will be consequences. It’s an offense against the oath keeper(s) to break the oaths not just your partner. All of this applies to non-marriage oaths. Their is a focus on marriage because it is one of the most common kinds of oath based relationships.

On the topic of roleplaying later, can an awakened alynx join the cult of Orlanth? It would seem especially appropriate for the companions of rune levels of Orlanth.

That is also my impression, but it is important to note that this creates a situation a where a not insignificant number of older individuals are free of the constraints occasionally. I would imagine that it would not be that unusual for such individuals to sleep around with the young adult crowd a bit before remarrying. I think one of the reasons they find it better to tolerate Uleria than not is because the spirits of retribution, in my understanding, don’t register sex with Ulerian temple prostitutes as adultury. It would look bad for them to crack down when their god so clearly tolerates it.

I thought that a big part of Orlanthi society is that marriage isn’t necessarily for life, in addition to year marriages I have the impression that divorce is fairly frequent. Don’t men who’s marriage ends (be it through death, divorce, or expiration) return to the “you can sleep around” rules until they get remarried?

Wait I’m confused how are they especially restricted? Do you mean in the sense that they chose their partner, so it is up to GM fiat?

I’m a bit confused, this does not mention the steps involved in the Initiation of Orlanth so do they not perform pit based initiation, having substituted a safer way, or am I misunderstanding the article?