metcalph

Les Érudits de l'Origine du Monde.

A possibility is to invert the relationship. Thus instead of Knowers or Learners of God, you could have Known to God (implying someone powerful enough to be worthy of God's attention)* *Linguistic device shamelessly stolen from Amadeus. .

I think there would be a Lightbringers Quest. The God Learners knew of it and incorporated it into their Monomyth. It's just that in Umathela, the local humans were all killed before it finished.

They would have access to some Issaries magic although I was thinking of marketplace judges rather than travelling merchants and by important magics, I was thinking of wielding the God's power while in a state of divine unity. I think it most likely that to learn trade sorcery (or knowledge sorcery in the case of LM), one approaches the Oracle for guidance - the Oracle then gives him a cryptic verse or two (the quality of which is dependent on how much was paid) which the worshipper then tries to reason which comes under Learning New Magic (RQG p389-391)

The Middle Sea Empire talks about the Emanationalists (p38) who seek to purify the Gods and Spirits into unity with the Invisible God. They were popular in Pamaltela so my thinking is what if some of the traditional Orlanthi cults are actually purified cults? The possibilities are Issaries and Lhankor Mhy. Lhankor Mhy: There's a few subtle details about Lhankor in Pamaltela. There is a Lhankoring Temple in Fonrit that dates back to the God Learner period (Abbakar Guide p555). There's the Ocean of Gems in Kallima which is sacred to both the Malkioni and Orlanthi (Araget Guide p629) and there's possibly the Lord of the World's Knowledge. Issaries: the basis for this is the Cults of Prax p61 in which the trade of the Middle Sea Empire is implied to be led by worshippers of Issaries Rather than simply convert the rune magic to sorcery spells, I think their worshippers use sorcery to achieve mental unity with the God. Most of the time, they are used for making judgments and divinations. The periods of unity are biref and they are never called upon to do any important magic although they may have done so in the God Learner period.

I see you are still throwing around the no evidence schtick (it being about a week since you last tried it). I am not going to bother rebutting it because it's off-topic, ultimately irrelevant and when you are worked up like this, you waste people's time with your distortions of what was said and other bad debating practices. "Surprising" being the word Joerg throws around when he can't think of a convincing rebuttal. As it is, your statement has an huge presumption about Umathela that I have no need to make and thus does not arise (namely why would the Umathelan Colaition bother preserving ethnic differences among the lower castes after four centuries).

The Guide for the most part uses standardised names. Worlath is mentioned on p622 indicating or suggesting that Orlanth is known to the Umathelans as Worlath. Other variations exist - Baraku and Coalot (Guide p640). We only have the names of two others (Ehilm and Humct) and the remainder are unknown. So even though Issaries, Lhankor Mhy etc might be known by different names, we don't know what they are. Orlanth is Worlath. The description of Worlath as a False God is a Malkioni view as one who does not acknowledge the Invisible God. even though the Malkioni might label Orlanth/Worlath false, he is not so according to his worshippers.

One of the things that I really liked about RuneQuest: Glorantha is the Cult of Yelm. It's not *the* cult of Yelm as worshipped in Dara Happa but Kargzant yet everybody around the Grazers calls it Yelm. So I think it is with Ehlm, Worlath, Humct and others. Even though they have God Learner names, they are not God Learner Gods but the Gods that were worshipped in Storm Age Umathela. The Gods of Genertela are simply not part of the mythic landscape and accordingly have next to no influence in Umathela. I've referred to the gods with God Learner names because even the elves use the God Learner names (Humct Garlo Guide p633). If you want to use the Orlanthi names as much of the Guide does, then that wouldn't be an error but the Gods would be different to those of Dragon Pass. EHILM. Everybody seems happy with the idea of this being the Elvish Sun God. Although Halamalao is mentioned in the Sartar Compnanion p217, I find the description of Sun Follower (SC p115) to be more interesting. He identifies his god with Yelmalio, Elmal and Yelm and cannot understand the human distinction between them. Hence I think that the Elf Sun God is a composite of whatever solar gods are worshipped in the area perceived through their alien elf sesnes. In the days before Monrogh, the Sun God of the Elves in and around Dragon Pass looked more like Elmal; afterwards it looked like Yelmalio. The sun gods of other elvish woods will look different. Hence the Umathelan Ehilm will look very similar to the Aldryami sun god but it's really the other way around. There's some argument for the Elf Sun God of Vralos to have some Fonritan characteristics (Guide p553) and for the Sun God of south Enkloso to have Uz characteristics. WORLATH The strongest influence for Worlath would be the Sacred Mountains (Guide p621). Since the Guide elsewhere (p296) mentions the possibility of the difference in Sacred Mountains accounting for the difference in regional variation in Orlanthi cults, I don't see much possibility of the Umathelan Orlanth being a Manirian copy. I believe the Orlanthi have a strong relationship with the Aldryami, not because the Aldryami conquered them and imposed the woodland judgments but because in the Storm Age, the Orlanthi and the Aldryami had a similarly close relationship. The relationship looks imposed and unequal because the Orlanthi have forgotten it but the Elves are being patient.

Nobody knows. He may have: Simply eaten the flesh of his enemies in the way that other Orlanthi took heads. Been an Ogre. Had an unfortunate journey and been reduced to eating the corpses of his dead companions to survive.

I would say that the Slontans are Malkioni, not Helerings but more importantly you are just wasting time with this sort of remark. The culture of the Orlanthi is not to be found in what they might have heard before their supposed ancestors left Maniria but in the following influences: 1) The extinct Storm worshipping culture of mythical Umathela (Baraku, Desero etc). Forget Maniria - this is what is important. 2) The God Learners 3) the Elves. Secondary influences would be: 1) The Vadeli 2) The Fonritans 3) the Cult of Silence. Focus on these influences and not waffle at length about whether Ehilm is a Ralian sun god (Who cares?) or whether the Elves might have heard of Baraku (I would have thought the mentions in the Guide that he was known to the Armali to be quite sufficient). If I had to hazard a guess as to the origin of the Orlanthi, I would observe that they could have just as easily been the farmers and warriors of the Umathelan Coalition who were directed to sacrifice to the Gods at the direction of their wizards. The False Gods caused them to reject their Malkioni customs and take up Orlanthi one. That explains the remarkable lack of ethnic differences (as opposed to cultural differences) between the Orlanthi and the Malki Six centuries is not "over a millennium" and more importantly I've never denied Aldryami influence. This is just dire. If I am a God Learner, I do not think in terms of "gaining heroquest powers", nor would I restrict myself to testing exchangability theories (whatever that is supposed to be). The God Learners basically RULED Umathela for four centuries - no way would they restrict themselves to "meddling". The few described instances of God Learner meddling that occur in the Guide are places where they did not rule. I would point out how wrong this was but I fail to see its actual relevance to the subject matter.

I'm no great fan of attempts to infer the practices of the Orlanthi from their supposed Manirian heritage or what they might have heard then. The theory for widespread transportation of the Orlanthi from Maniria is quite weak and there's very little signs of Orlanth worship in Jrustela, an important waypoint in their journey. Nor can I see a good reason why the Waertagi would have been transporting Orlanthi instead of the Slontans with whom they would have have greater kinship. The religious practice of the Orlanthi would be better understood I feel as being part of the God Learners who were their rulers for four centuries.

I'm not seeing the Eurmal component myself. Baraku is closer to Vadrus or Storm Bull in his capacity for violence. While people may think they are the same god, their worshippers would resist any attempt at identification for the same reason that Elmal or Yelmalio would - they simply don't like each other. I don't see Baraku as as a life stage for the Umathelan Orlanthi in worshipping Orlanth. He's a parallel worship of Orlanth but with his own myths, strengths, associated cults and enemies. Most of the Umathelans would acknowledge Worlath but as you get closer to Fonritan lands, you will find gangs of Baraku worshippers here and there.

My opinion from the few details in the Guide: Orlanth exists in two forms: Worlath (which is closer to the classical cult) and Baraku (which is a Fonritan version worshipped by Bandits). Humakt is known as Humct (based on Humct Garlo and the RQ3 Gods of Glorantha). The Sun is known as Ehilm but might be closer to Elmal (Just as RQG calls the Grazer Kargzent "Yelm"). Eurmal would be known as Jogrampur whose worshippers believe they are following an ancient mystical cult from the Eastern Isles. In truth, they have Illusion spells and no mysticism.

It depends on the definition of seperate god you chose. At one level, Elmal and Little Yelm (Antirius) are different gods from different areas. Elmal is the solar god of the Vingkotlings who defected from the Fire Tribe worshipped by their ancestors. Little Yelm is the God of the Dara Happans. Yet at another level, they are the same god: the Sun God in Winter. Both nations receive different magics from him depending on their needs and there are similarities between them. Arkat and Harmast developed the basis of experimental heroquesting in the Gbaji Wars when they saw similar patterns. According to the second definition, Yelmalio can be seen as Elmal under another name. This identity is not automatically obvious which is why Elmali can deny that he is Yelmalio with no retirbution from their god.

The best reference is in Borderlands and the Oakfed mention is: In one of the Tales, there was a development of that idea in which the Lunar Magicians summoned up Lodril who then said "Oakfed! I am your father!!" causing Oakfed to meltdown and burn his shamans (or something to that effect). That however doesn't sound quite right to me as battlefield summonings of the Gods isn't the Lunar thing - summoning a volcano or massive sunspear, yes, but a direct physical manifestations, no.

The Sedalpists are undefined in many matters so what you are thinking is perfectly compatible.

CHA as written in RQG seems to operate like Mana in the polynesian sense as opposed to the received RPG sense. Half-Trolls and Great Trolls are not just ugly they are also somewhat lacking in spiritual presence., Hence I don't think lowering the CHA limit to species max will work. Another possibility to handle the CHA requirement is to create a shadow-CHA or Infamy, which is a statistic that reflects all the really bad things you have done. Thus to qualify for Rune Lord, certain gods accept a Infamy of 18 for acceptance as a rune lord.

Judging by the HQ rules, 90% in one or more spells possible.

I would organize the merchants into Houses, each with it's own preferred style of magics. Looking at RQG, learning spirit magic is taught by people who know the spell (as opposed to the rules in Gods of Glorantha where you had to do spirit combat) but the person has to be a Rune Master and the person required about a week. So I suggest that a benefit of successfully completing Sedalpist meditation (as opposed to practising it) would be to confer the ability to teach spirit spells. A feature of the Sedalpists is that they split themselves into subcastes (Guide p623). My understanding of such societies in the RW is that these subcastes are actually clans labelled as subcastes to make them look more impressive in certain circles (We Sedalpists are so civilised we have no clans!). Likewise the sentence "Caste Distinctions are maintained [...]" suggests a less than fundamental acceptance of Caste is in play here. Hence I would have the House as being a collection of Commoner Caste clans, each with a firmly defined demarcation of duties. In practice, the demarcation is ignored until somebody gets caught and it goes to court - then a fine is handed out and a required period of absolution. Heading the House is the Noble clan, whose members are legally adopted as adults from the best and brightest of the lower clans.

One thing you could do is to make the Sedalpist wizards caste being one of renunciates. Every Sedalpist upon reaching adulthood is sent to the local Sedalpist commune to live a chaste lifestyle and mediate for a couple of years. Most simply learn the rudiments of their faith and flunk sorcery before heading out into the world again. A few, or rather the Sedalpist wizards caste proper are those who have succeeded in their meditations and elect to remain within the caste rather than return to the outside world. I think Sandy's version of the Sedalpists was actually Chaosium's thinking on them once, although as you note it is difficult to reconcile that with the politics of Umathela.

Since they accept Self-Defence, the answer is probably yes. Although some of the more pacifistic Sedalpists much feel the need to let it be known they are protected by such magics to avoid people casting lethal magic at them. Dominate spells are perfectly fine. It's only when you use the Dominated person or creature that the moral questions arise. Most Sedalpists would say that any deaths caused by the Dominated is the problem for the Dominator.

Sorry that should have been p387-388 of the RuneQuest Glorantha book.

"Exploring jargon" at arcane length is a waste of time when what was being asked for were RQ rules in an RQ forum. I don't see these so-called loopholes allowing the Sedapists to have combat wizards. All that it suggests when required to go to war, they strongly prefer to get others to do it for them. How this can be morphed into having a specialist order of wizards doing cleaver magics to kill people indirectly is beyond me. A difference in interpretation about how to practice Sedalpist philosophy is not a "doctrinal difference". Nothing is said about permission being required to eat fish, only that many of the Sedalpists who abstain from eating meat, most of whom still eat fish and some go further (the sentence can be interpreted differently as to who most refers to). A doctrinal difference requires a legalistic mindset which is at odds with the Sedalpist description as being "notably tolerant of different viewpoints" (Guide p621). Except that Tortica is not ruled by the Sedalpists.

The God Learners treated them as the same. Everybody else thinks there might be something to it but are unwilling to say so because they saw what happened to the God Learners. (Where's Kalwoan from?)

Joerg, I really wasn't interested in what the point of the Seven Steps was all about. I presented it as an example as something that was easy to understand. Talking and distinguishing between Mind/Intellect/Thought whatever is just a sequence of words of the order of which could be totally jumbled up and nobody would be any wiser. Map it on places on the God Time and other people *understand*. You could have explained your philosophy in the paragraph above without going into an in-depth analysis of comparative mysticism. "The Sedalpist do not need rules for mysticism because the mystical awareness they seek confirms them in the Good Life" is the type of answer that the OP was seeking. Whether I agreed with it or not is neither here or there, what matters is what the OP wants. Because I do see a Soldier Caste, but no Men-of-All who might be the other group which might have access to Sorcery as personal magic. I feel you blur the issue between magic that a caste might be expected to use as part of his job and magic pursued as a private devotion or study. The RQG rules make it clear that the Malkioni commoners use spirit magic for the most part. That doesn't mean they can't study sorcery if they wanted to. Hence I don't see the point of forbidding other castes from using sorcery. Except the Sedalpists are non-violent whereas the Rokari are not. And I doubt the Sedalpist would be impressed by the argument while violence against another sentient is bad (Guide p634), magical spells against them are perfectly okay. The attitude of the Arolanit Talars arises because their philosophy is strictly rules-bound. The Sedalpists are not rules-bound and their philosophy is a reaction in part against the oppressive brutality of the Fonritans. Somehow saying the Fonritans are oppressively brutal which is bad but we are subtlely brutal which is permissable comes across as too cyncial for the Sedalpists.