Akhôrahil

I think part of what’s scary about Gagarthi (besides a horse charging at you from the air), is the feeling of ”there but for the grace of Orlanth go I”. This isn’t dreadful alien concepts like The Red Goddess or Chaos horrors (but I repeat myself), but what’s just a couple of steps away from your own culture.

Nuances of banditry is going to matter for some stuff I’m doing with the Skanthi. Might include Valindings as well (it’s cold up against the Rockwoods), that seem to be halfway to Gagarthi but still on the tolerable side for Orlanth-worshipers (Valind is considered dishonorable and cowardly, but he’s still one of the Thunder Brothers, and Valindings would probably say they’re smart and pragmatic instead and can’t afford that nonsense).

I read the Wild Hunt as a major reason why you need a psychopomp. Or, going back to the the thread title, one thing Gagarth will offer you is the opportunity to be a perpetrator rather than a victim in the Underworld.

The whole Wild Hunt thing is straight out of Germanic mythology as well. And Gagarth strikes me as an excellent Kingdom of War or Charg deity (maybe even Brolia), as he's something of a poor man's Vadrus. I could see even good people feeling forced to make propitiatory sacrifices to Gagarth if the pressure from local bandits or supernatural forces becomes too great - I'm sure the Wild Hunt will pass you by if you do the right sacrifices and obeisances... usually. Or that you could enter an uneven relationship with the outlaws. From there, it might be a slippery slope...

I love the naive interpretation the Orlanthi have, that before Sky and Earth were separated, they pushed against each other so that people could hardly move, and that this explains why things were so static.

This is also a little like Urain - battle fury and berserking are time-honored traditions, but it’s also possible to go overboard with it. I like the notion that there’s a grey area where it’s still possible to come back.

Raiding for women and raising the kids as Gagarthi (or well, that’s probably how they end up anyway in a Gagarthi settlement - no active indoctrination necessary). The squalor and thoughtless brutality of such a place could be a good horror encounter, especially if you feel the PCs are a bit too loose with their honor and you want to show them where this kind of thing might lead.

I also had the thought that many Gagarthi might be recruited in desperate straits. Let’s say you’ve just been outlawed, and you’re starving in the wild by being hunted by people bent on vengeance and possibly even Spirits of Reprisal. Now a Gagarthi shows up (might have Divined for you for just this kind of thing), and offer you food and a safe place to stay as long as you do what you’re goddamned told and initiate to Gagarth. You may or may not survive the spirits of reprisal, but what are you going to do?

Oh, I like this! At some point, your worship starts to go to Gagarth instead, and then maybe someone realizes this and the people find they’re alright with it (and also low on options). It sometimes seems like the Storm Gods were originally mostly like Vadrus, but then (apart from him) found some niche and behaviour that made them more palatable.

Sure, but then an Orlanth subcult won’t be much help? If you’re beyond the pale for Orlanth, that’s when you go to another god.

Not sure that you need anything beyond Orlanth Adventurous? Being an outlaw, a bandit, and a thief is fine by Orlanth as long as you’re not being egregiously awful about it.

If said bandits had also become devil worshipers or something. I mean, they don’t usually have their own religion?

Nothing. That's the whole point!

No known Bilini king has died of old age. 🙂 I really like the passage in Lords of Terror (crucial source, IMO better than Cults) that there's initially tension when Hahlgrim arrives at Fort Hazard as he killed Renekot's dad, but then he pays oversize wergild and they become pals. In my campaign, I plan to have this as when Hahlgrim wants to pick up local Dorastor guides like oh, I don't know, the PCs?

Famously, Hakon the Swimmer accidentally summoned Hahlgrim, who proceded to kill him (making Hakon the first out of two Kings of the Bilini that Hahlgrim killed).

There's even a HQ adventure about introducing Orlanth worship to some Vendref. It's understandable why you wouldn't want your slaves (or if you're nice, serfs) to worship a powerful martial god who says no-one can make you do anything.

We’re getting good numbers for this with Jeff’s FB clans postings. The Hiordings have 7 Priests and 5 God-Talkers in a population of 800 (and it looks like no Rune Lord). The Varmandi have 2 priest (one of them reasonably a Rune Lord as it’s an Orlanth Adventurous temple) and 6 God-Talkers in a population of 450. So it looks like a few percent (3-4%) of adults are Rune Level, and that it depends on the cults whether you have any Rune Lords at all.

If you want to rob your actual kinfolk (so your bloodline?), Orlanth is a bad idea, this is true, but the overwhelming majority of available victims aren't kin (and if you're outlawed, you're no longer in the old community). I don't think Orlanth sends spirit of retribution for general dishonorable combat and robbery though (he does for specific things like violation of hospitality and kinstrife). I'm absolutely positive there are plenty of Orlanthi robbers and bandits - Orlanth doesn't oppose taking other people's stuff as long as they're sufficiently "other" (and the bar for "sufficient" is pretty low). So the question is why (and who) Gagarth attracts. It's not that I can't see the possibility for sufficiently sociopathic people - it's more how you can maintain whole outlaw communities, especially as you'll get slammed with Orlanth Spirits of Retribution just for the cult change. (I might make up some kind of rite to at least avoid this if you switch to Gagarth.)

True, but you run into Gagarthi in King of Dragon Pass, and they're enough of a force to be reckoned with in the Far Point for Harvar Ironfist to enlist them, and so on - they seem to be something of a small mainstay in Orlanthi lands.

Doesn't seem like you would have to leave Orlanth for that. 🙂 (And unlike 7M, I doubt Gagarth protects you from Spirits of Reprisal, so you might need a stronger reason than precise intonation. 🙂 )

I'm trying to understand what would cause people to turn to Gagarth. You're not booted from the Cult of Orlanth (or Storm Bull) just because you're made an outlaw, and they don't particularly oppose raiding and banditry either. Orlanth might prefer honorable behavior, but I don't think you get hit by Spirits of Retribution or anything just because you're lax in that regard? You have to be pretty bad before Orlanth intervenes directly against you. The difference between a War Clan and a bandit gang must surely be one merely of degree? One explanation would be that Gagarth offers superior magic for outlaws, but while this might work under HeroQuest, I'd be hard-pressed to believe it happens under RQ (I'm sure Windwalking can be put to good use, but compared to the full battery of Orlanth spells?). Another might be for exceptionally bitter people who reject the Storm Tribe, or for psychopaths that want their god to approve of their awfulness, but can this really make up enough people? So basically, why not stay in Orlanth/Storm Bull even after getting outlawed (Orlanth Adventurous in particular), and join up with other Orlanthi outlaws to form a bandit gang? There has to be some reason, whether it's push (Orlanth opposes you) or pull (Gagarth offers you something good enough).

In my Glorantha, I tend to apply the reasoning that while there are many more tools available, there are also a lot more problems to handle, so that a lot of stuff just evens out. Glorantha still has infant mortality and people dying from diseases, despite magics that are considerably better than modern hospital care (at least as modeled in RQ). Various blessings and magics improve some things, but malign magics equally causes problems. Problems with infestation might even extend to minor spirits accumulating over time!

For one thing, they grow increasingly infested with pests over time, until at one point the best you can do is burn the place down and build a new one.

Good way to show the difference between her and Argrath.

The GM will have to decide what "defensive" means - it could be just "non-offensive" in which case a lot of spells will work, or it could mean literally defensive, in which case Charisma wouldn't count. I would probably say "non-offensive".