Arkati Shamanism?

[Akhôrahil]

Arkat is surely associated primarily with sorcery, but are there any shamanistic practices within any of the Arkat cults? 

Also, which Sartar Magical Union practices are shamanistic?

(Trying to come up with fun and unusual stuff for the PC group's teacher-less Assistant Shaman.)   

[Christoph Kohring]

Sadly we can't ask the Arkati-Shaman-Trickster himself anymore. 😥

[Sir_Godspeed]

49 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Arkat is surely associated primarily with sorcery, but are there any shamanistic practices within any of the Arkat cults? 

Also, which Sartar Magical Union practices are shamanistic?

(Trying to come up with fun and unusual stuff for the PC group's teacher-less Assistant Shaman.)   

Trolls have a good deal or mixed theism and shamanism, don't they? I guess Arkat Kingtroll would be the most plausible angle of approach.

[Akhôrahil]

1 minute ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Trolls have a good deal or mixed theism and shamanism, don't they? I guess Arkat Kingtroll would be the most plausible angle of approach.

They absolutely do, but isn't Arkat Kingtroll specifically their access to sorcery?

[Akhôrahil]

I think shamans were really poorly served with cults in the RQ:G book. With an Orlanthi character, the player went "So Daka Fal is the only option?" and I had to say "Yeah".

The Cults book can't come soon enough - Horned Man and spirit cults are desperately needed!

[Sir_Godspeed]

16 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

They absolutely do, but isn't Arkat Kingtroll specifically their access to sorcery?

I wouldn't know about how the rules are set up, but I guess that makes sense.

Wouldn't it be possible to do some clever combining and syncretism, though?

[davecake]

18 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Arkat is surely associated primarily with sorcery, but are there any shamanistic practices within any of the Arkat cults? 

I think troll worship of Arkat allows combining Kygor Litor practices with sorcery. I think this requires Arkati Illumination at least if it includes Kygor Litor shamanism. But I think there are a vanishingly small number in that category in the Dragon Pass region - Guhan or Halikiv maybe a different story. 

I think there are shamanic Illumination traditions, but they are mostly far away from Dragon Pass. Pamaltela, or Fronela. 

[davecake]

18 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Also, which Sartar Magical Union practices are shamanistic?

I don't think any are exclusively shamanistic. The SMU innovatively combines multiple magical forms. But units that almost certainly have a significant amount of shamanism involved include the Eaglebrown Warlocks, whose wyter is the Thunderbird a major Praxian Spirit, and the Snakepipe Dancers, who probably include lots of Earth Witch shamanic women. 

 

[Qizilbashwoman]

7 hours ago, davecake said:

I think there are shamanic Illumination traditions, but they are mostly far away from Dragon Pass.

@David Scott might know if there's Illumination in 🌚🌝 Lunar shaman traditions, which are definitely all over Prax. There's three separate Lunar traditions in Prax alone: Jakaleeli, Lunar Deer and the Loonies.

Snakepipe Dancers are Argrathi draconic shamans.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Qizilbashwoman

[Akhôrahil]

11 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

@David Scott might know if there's Illumination in 🌚🌝 Lunar shaman traditions, which are definitely all over Prax. There's three separate Lunar traditions in Prax alone: Jakaleeli, Lunar Deer and the Loonies.

And The Red School of Masks. 

Unfortunately, the PCs are in Talastar instead and are thoroughly anti-Lunar. 🙂

Edited September 12, 2019 by Akhôrahil

[Akhôrahil]

I just realized I have absolutely no idea how to represent Warlock Draconic Shamanism in the rules of the game. Guess we'd better wait for the GM book and the Cults book there?

[davecake]

Just now, Qizilbashwoman said:

might know if there's Illumination in 🌚🌝 Lunar shaman traditions, which are definitely all over Prax. There's three separate Lunar traditions in Prax alone: Jakaleeli, Lunar Deer and the Loonies.

Lunar Deer I've always seen as more of a spirit cult rather than a shamanic tradition. 

But that still leaves two, yes - Jakaleel the Witch (whose priesthood are shamans, and have both Lunes and Ghosts, plus at least small Darkness elementals as well) and the Red School of Masks (the Loonies).

I think of the Red School as a bit more ad hoc, the Empire grabbing every spirit magician it can find who might have useful information about the Praxian landscape. A lot of them are probably Sable tribe shamans of various kinds and they are summoning both Lunar spirits and native Praxian Lunar connected spirit cults (like the Silver  Deer) known to the Sables . 

When they say that 'many who seek to join are driven made by the experience' that sounds to me like they are trying to put them on an express route to Illumination. 

And Sable Tribe Shamans, though they probably become shamans through Waha or Daka Fal rites, can still join Lunar connected Spirit Cults. 

 

[Qizilbashwoman]

39 minutes ago, davecake said:

Lunar Deer I've always seen as more of a spirit cult rather than a shamanic tradition. 

But that still leaves two, yes - Jakaleel the Witch (whose priesthood are shamans, and have both Lunes and Ghosts, plus at least small Darkness elementals as well) and the Red School of Masks (the Loonies).

I think of the Red School as a bit more ad hoc, the Empire grabbing every spirit magician it can find who might have useful information about the Praxian landscape. A lot of them are probably Sable tribe shamans of various kinds and they are summoning both Lunar spirits and native Praxian Lunar connected spirit cults (like the Silver  Deer) known to the Sables . 

When they say that 'many who seek to join are driven made by the experience' that sounds to me like they are trying to put them on an express route to Illumination. 

And Sable Tribe Shamans, though they probably become shamans through Waha or Daka Fal rites, can still join Lunar connected Spirit Cults. 

David Scott posted this about a year ago... google "Praxian Tradition" for the whole thread, it's enlightening. It shows who can participate/assist in other shaman traditions and the three "ages" of Praxian religion.

Jakaleel has like three or four shamanic traditions (Blue Moon Darkness, etc.) but I think only one is really used outside specialists, which is the bog-standard one you describe.

He was clear about the Twin Stars (Lunar Deer) being Lunar and ALWAYS being Lunar. Before being converted, they had just the regular Moon rune - the Moon rune isn't limited to the Lunar Empire, it's been around since runes existed. Now that they are initiates, they are officially Full Half Moon (Verithurusa, Teelo Norri, Etyries; Fire & Motion runes).

The Loonies are absolutely about super extreme attempts to force Illumination like starvation and self-torture, massive hallucinogen overdoses, hideously offkilter heroquests, and other frankly not very wise techniques that generally lead to actual madness instead.

The last two are considered native Praxian and can work with willing non-Lunar shamans.

[davecake]

1 hour ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

David Scott posted this about a year ago... google "Praxian Tradition" for the whole thread, it's enlightening. It shows who can participate/assist in other shaman traditions and the three "ages" of Praxian religion.

Yes, paid close attention to that thread, and it's great work (and that chart is actually an AMAZING bit of information design). But some of that seems to have changed since then - Jeff has, as he does, changed a lot of his opinions. 

For example I do not think Eiritha is presented as having a shaman path anymore (essentially, the nomad gods have gone back to how they were presented in RQ 3). 

1 hour ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Jakaleel has like three or four shamanic traditions (Blue Moon Darkness, etc.) but I think only one is really used outside specialists, which is the bog-standard one you describe.

I think this is much more likely to be (both in RQG and Glorantha IMO) a single shamanic cult/pathway/Spirit Society, but that has a bunch of Associated Cults/commonly associated spirit cults/known interesting spirits (and these distinctions are mostly rules ones). So there is one way to lead you to get a Fetch via Jakaleels tradition, but plenty of other options to explore on the side. And I think that is generally how most (though not all) shamans operate - you don't get a giant buffet of rune magic powers like a major theist cult, but there is plenty else you can order of the menu or construct yourself from ingredients. 

As an aside, I think we have about three different sets of terminology at least here - HQG, RQG, David's - and is does get confusing because shamanism and divine magic are much more clearly distinct in HQ than they are in RQG, but the distinction here is between traditions that have a path to shamanism or not - in HQG terms, include a Spirit Society. There are lots of cults around that can be approached as s spirit cult, and so shamans join and get cool stuff for them and their communities/friends, but don't offer a path to becoming a shaman. Oakfed is a good example. And all three of those white cross bars in that diagram are spirit cults tat are in that category - Many Friends, Hidden Paths, The Other Leaders. I think Jakaleel is mostly well integrated into the Lunar religion that it is more useful to them to just grab magic as an Associated Cult rather than a Spirit Cult (in game terms, in Gloranthan terms just go along to worship ceremonies of her fellow Lunar gods rather mess around with establishing a independent connection on the spirit plane) but there probably are some Spirit Cults/Traditions that it is worth them investigating (generally ones that go outside the Lunar traditions) 

1 hour ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

He was clear about the Twin Stars (Lunar Deer) being Lunar and ALWAYS being Lunar. Before being converted, they had just the regular Moon rune - the Moon rune isn't limited to the Lunar Empire, it's been around since runes existed.

I absolutely agree on the whole Twin Stars always having been Lunar thing. It is a key point in Dara Happan history (why Jannisor's Rebellion failed)

. But I differ from David in that I think they probably don't have their own indepenent shamanic path - I think they are a Tradition/Spirit Cult the way the other celestial powers are in Prax, and not a Spirit Society/Shamanic cult. So I think  the Sable shamans are mostly Waha or Daka Fal, they've just favoured the Twin Stars. But I haven't heard David's argument otherwise, and we don't have a recent Prax book to answer it for us. 

1 hour ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

The Loonies are absolutely about super extreme attempts to force Illumination like starvation and self-torture, massive hallucinogen overdoses, hideously offkilter heroquests, and other frankly not very wise techniques that generally lead to actual madness instead.

Sounds about right, all of those techniques sound like things they might try. And while I think they have created a shamanic pathway, a lot of what they do past that point is improvised and not very standardised - they are trying to quickly Illuminate a lot of them, and their goal is to eventually bash them into something resembling a Lunar College of Magic combat unit (though in practice much more hybrid like most SMU units)

The Lunars are enthusiastic mystics, but also terribly bad ones. 

[Qizilbashwoman]

6 hours ago, davecake said:

I do not think Eiritha is presented as having a shaman path anymore

... so only men can shamanise now? what the hell, i reject, they were always similar but parallel paths. why go back to RQ3 when RQ2 is better here?

seriously, there were more Eirithan shamans than Wahan, what the helllll

Edited September 12, 2019 by Qizilbashwoman

[g33k]

10 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

... so only men can shamanise now? what the hell, i reject, they were always similar but parallel paths. why go back to RQ3 when RQ2 is better here?

seriously, there were more Eirithan shamans than Wahan, what the helllll

Agreed that Waha and Eiritha should both have shamanic paths.

OTOH ...

Even if the "official" word is no, YGWV ... and even in canon, there's still Earth Witch (who could be a path to Eiritha as well as to Ernalda).

 

[jajagappa]

12 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

... so only men can shamanise now? what the hell, i reject, they were always similar but parallel paths. why go back to RQ3 when RQ2 is better here?

seriously, there were more Eirithan shamans than Wahan, what the helllll

Eiritha did not have shamans in RQ2. She doesn't preclude them per se, but they were not explicitly part of her cult.

[Jeff]

On 9/11/2019 at 2:56 PM, Akhôrahil said:

I think shamans were really poorly served with cults in the RQ:G book. With an Orlanthi character, the player went "So Daka Fal is the only option?" and I had to say "Yeah".

The Cults book can't come soon enough - Horned Man and spirit cults are desperately needed!

Nor were there Eiritha shamans in RQ3. I think this is a case of people misremembering the cults.

In Dragon Pass the main routes to being a shaman are Daka Fal, Waha, and Yelm (if you are a Grazelander). 

[David Scott]

Most of this is covered in the upcoming Gods book. I'm involved with it so any changes are not in isolation to my previous praxian work.

19 hours ago, davecake said:

For example I do not think Eiritha is presented as having a shaman path anymore (essentially, the nomad gods have gone back to how they were presented in RQ 3). 

The chart has changed, but remains basically the same. For Eiritha, just change Paps societies to subservient cults, change shaman path today be shamans. Spirit cults can also be subservient to gods.

14 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

... so only men can shamanise now? what the hell, i reject, they were always similar but parallel paths.

Please note that the Cults of Glorantha book is not out yet so the full picture isn't available. In the Eiritha cult writeup there is no restriction on Initiates, Herd Sisters or Herd Priestesses being shaman. This is deliberate.

Now realise that Helpwoman is the Praxian name for Earth Witch. Earth Witch is the shaman path. Earth Witch was Eiritha's midwife, she reached deep into the Earth into the Goddess's Dream and pulled Waha from Eiritha into the world to save it. She still does this every year as part of Waha's High Holy day when heroquesting khans return from Eiritha's Womb after being buried at the sacred birth spot for a year and a day (you need to have an Earth Witch as an ally to do this!) 

21 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Jakaleel has like three or four shamanic traditions (Blue Moon Darkness, etc.) but I think only one is really used outside specialists, which is the bog-standard one you describe.

Jakaleel is a single cult / society which has other societies as associated / sub cults.

21 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

He was clear about the Twin Stars (Lunar Deer) being Lunar and ALWAYS being Lunar.

The Twin Stars are in RQG a spirit cult and so can have their own shamans. Lunar Deer is an alternate name for sable antelope, Silver Deer are a native Praxian spirit:

Quote

Silver Deer. This elusive magical animal is known for its swiftness and has never been caught by Foundchild (although he tries every year). During the Lunar advance into Prax, an Orogerian hunter saw the Silver Deer and began her hunt. During a salaseh she understood the Deer was Purendi, and as a son of the moon would be distracted by her hunting call and so he was hers. This Movement spirit, provides charms that relate to running and evasion. The taboo of these charms is to wear the horns of the Silver Deer. Woman who have a silver deer charm may join the Orogerian society (crescent come) and become hunters.

In RQG terms it's a local spirit or at a stretch a spirit cult that provides either the spirit magic - Movement or a single rune spell.

22 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

The Loonies are absolutely about super extreme attempts to force Illumination like starvation and self-torture, massive hallucinogen overdoses, hideously offkilter heroquests, and other frankly not very wise techniques that generally lead to actual madness instead.

The loonies aka The Red School of Masks:

Quote

One of the newest spirit societies in the Wastelands. Attracting shamans, madmen, and other petty magicians who found their magical ways synergizing with those of the Red Moon. Bolstered by the teachings of its newly arrived followers, the resulting spirit society became greater than the sum of its parts. It is now a powerful school bridging the worlds between the Praxian and Lunar traditions. Called the Loonies for their strange rites, many who are attracted to these new ways are driven mad by the experience. They are based at Moonbroth.

The society doesn't exist in Prax in 1627. The major lunar teaching elements got eaten at the Dragonrise, the Praxian elements are either dead or subsumed into other secret societies. The really mad ones are roaming the Wastes with a cloud of lost moon and Praxian spirits [story hook] or dead [boring], but most joined Argrath and are now part of the White Bull society / entourage. Please bear in mind that there were likely only ever about 30 of them.

[soltakss]

On 9/11/2019 at 1:01 PM, Akhôrahil said:

Arkat is surely associated primarily with sorcery, but are there any shamanistic practices within any of the Arkat cults? 

I think there are.

For me, the Troll Arkati cults are normal troll cults worshipping Arkat, but with a close link to another cult and a link to Sorcery.

So, Arkat Kingtroll is basically Arkat the Kaarg, Zorakarkat is Arkat the Zorak Zoran and Black Arkat is Arkat the Dark. A worshipper of Zorakarkat would have Zorak Zorani and Sorcery magic, a worshipper of Arkat Kingtroll might have some Kyger Litor magic and Sorcery and a worshipper of Black Arkat might have darkness Magic, control over Darkness creatures and Sorcery.

Arkat Kingtroll and Black Arkat should have shamanistic practices. Priestesses of Arkat Kingtroll would be normal Kyger Litor Priestesses (Shamans in RQ3 but I haven't seen the RQG version) with Sorcery. Black Arkat worshippers might have Shamans who can access Subere, Xentha and the other Darkness Powers, as well as Sorcery tied to Darkness.

One of the problems with Arkat is how much Sorcery does he get? In theory, an Arkati can learn any Sorcery spell, but in reality, how many are available through the Arkati cults? Do different Arkat Cults teach different Sorcery spells? 

[Qizilbashwoman]

22 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Do different Arkat Cults teach different Sorcery spells

There's the House of Black Arkat in Nochet, did they get a write-up ever? That's explicitly a school of sorcery right in the heart of an uz-friendly city.

[Jeff]

44 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

There's the House of Black Arkat in Nochet, did they get a write-up ever? That's explicitly a school of sorcery right in the heart of an uz-friendly city.

The House of Black Arkat is in Arkat's Hold in Esrolia, not Nochet.

[Qizilbashwoman]

40 minutes ago, Jeff said:

The House of Black Arkat is in Arkat's Hold in Esrolia, not Nochet.

My bad, I was running off some memory. I'm guessing maybe... GtG?

Did they get a write-up?

[davecake]

Black Arkat in HQG was linked to Argan Argar and the Nightcult, but that is the (smaller) one in the Troll Woods, not the one in Arkats Hold. 

[davecake]

David, thank you for that. The information about Helpwoman was very useful.