What is the proportion of Initiates among a population?

[Akhôrahil]

12 minutes ago, Joerg said:

While a rune spell's duration is ongoing, the rune points cannot be regained. This is stated explicitely for Extension, but applies to all rune spells.

Please quote this rule. It's been suggested in rules threads, but it's not (yet) a rule.

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The ritual must be cast during the first season of pregnancy.

Thanks, missed that bit. Virtually everyone will still get the 1p-casting, though. 

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Unless we see a return of Mindlink, I would rule that the rune points for any single Bless Crops need to come from a single source.

I completely agree, but this doesn't matter. If a typical 30-year old woman has 6 Rune Points and is an Ernaldan, that means the fields will get blessed for +120%.

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That unusually holy woman will probably get serious political problems if she would deprieve all the other households from her blessings.

My point is that even if it's just 1% of the population that has this, it's enough to thoroughly Bless everyone's fields (let's say it's cast as +60% for 10 hides, cast five times yearly, and each hide supports ten people, then a single Ernaldan with 12 Rune points could bless the crops for 500 people). And character creation rules suggest 6-12 Rune points is as common as dirt.  

Edited December 27, 2019 by Akhôrahil

[scott-martin]

16 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

My point is that even if it's just 1% of the population that has this, it's enough to thoroughly Bless everyone's fields (let's say it's cast as +60% for 10 hides, cast five times yearly, and each hide supports ten people, then a single Ernaldan with 12 Rune points could bless the crops for 500 people). And character creation rules suggest 6-12 Rune points is as common as dirt.  

I like the logic emerging here. Two observations: that 12-point holy woman is also going to be drawn into more rarefied spiritual adventures whether she wants them or not, and for every 12-point holy woman in one place there's a witch a few valleys away to depress local outcomes and normalize life across the lozenge. I suspect the gods will bring these factors into opposition and burn the points. On the other hand, the abundance or famine are themselves the opposition showing where the points get spent: plump babies glorify one goddess and insult another; sick ones tip the score the opposite way.

As for Pelorian wyter-based systems, I don't know enough about their fertility complex in general. Let's find out!

[Joerg]

8 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

I completely agree, but this doesn't matter. If a typical 30-year old woman has 6 Rune Points as is an Ernaldan, that means the fields will get blessed for +100%.

The typical adult Ernaldan as per Adventure Book has 3 rune points. E.g. Arndala, p.105

The high priestess of Ernalda in Clearwine (a major temple to Ernalda) has 12 rune points. (p.26)

 

8 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

My point is that even if it's just 1% of the population that has this, it's enough to thoroughly Bless everyone's fields (let's say it's cast as +60% for 10 hides, cast five times yearly, and each hide supports ten people, then a single Ernaldan with 12p of Rune Magic could bless the crops for 500 people). And character creation rules suggest 6-12 Rune points is as common as dirt.  

Where did you get the idea that you could bless a crop five times in a year?

I would expect the ritual to take place at the time of sowing. If you allow summer grains and winter grains, that's two occasions a year to cast the ritual.

An Ernaldan with 12 rune points will be an important person in the local temple.

YGWV

[Akhôrahil]

1 minute ago, scott-martin said:

I like the logic emerging here. Two observations: that 12-point holy woman is also going to be drawn into more rarefied spiritual adventures whether she wants them or not, and for every 12-point holy woman in one place there's a witch a few valleys away to depress local outcomes and normalize life across the lozenge. I suspect the gods will bring these factors into opposition and burn the points. On the other hand, the abundance or famine are themselves the opposition showing where the points get spent: plump babies glorify one goddess and insult another; sick ones tip the score the opposite way.

This is also why it's so important to know what the distribution of Rune points look like. It's incredibly important whether it's one in 20 or one in 500 that has 12 Rune Points. I would imagine that plenty of senior priests have their full allotment of Rune Points in their cult, perhaps 15-18.

[Akhôrahil]

6 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Where did you get the idea that you could bless a crop five times in a year?

1: Because you can, as long as it's different fields. Nothing in the rules stop you from doing it in Dark Season. By the rules, you bless the field, and then you get the bonus next harvest. You can expect to regain all your rune points in a season and also in Sacred Time (add minor holy day worship as required if you need a filler-up), so you can blast away your full set of Rune points maybe six times yearly.

2: And if we (sensibly) say that no, no field blessings in Dark or Storm Season, this makes only a moderate impact on the numbers.

Edited December 27, 2019 by Akhôrahil

[Akhôrahil]

36 minutes ago, Joerg said:

The typical adult Ernaldan as per Adventure Book has 3 rune points. E.g. Arndala, p.105

The high priestess of Ernalda in Clearwine (a major temple to Ernalda) has 12 rune points. (p.26)

Thanks, this is the kind of numbers I was looking for. 12 Rune points seems very low for one of the more important priestesses in Sartar, though! I would have expected 18 or so. If you compare against the amount of Rune spells for priests in older material, they have even higher (which doesn't really work any longer due to Cha limit). For instance, a high priest of Etyries of a moderate trade mission in Dorastor has 37 or so points of Rune Magic (although Spell Trading might be involved there).

Edited December 27, 2019 by Akhôrahil

[Corvantir]

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

I don't see lay members in HQG learning affinities from the cults. Gaining them as heroquest rewards is a different proposal.

It is possible (even advisable) in HQG to use your personal runes as the basic abilities from which to take breakouts (my owl in the example above was one such, and a sword ability may be broken out of a storm rune affinity if you wish). RQG allows Runic Inspiration only as an augment, similar to how HQ1 treated an initiate's affinities.

Yes, hence my point. In HQG, a character can buy powers as Standalone Abilities or as Rune Breakout Abilities. Being limited specific abilities, they can be used directly, and not only as Augments, whatever your cult status. I have just realized that you even don't need to be a Lay Member to buy such powers. But I imagine that most players would link such powers to the deities they "communally" worship or some events of mythic importance met while playing the game.

 

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

Observing your cult holy days basically means going to your temple and participation in the worship rites (renewing your rune points). That aspect is pretty much identical in both these systems.

HQG doesn't specify the time requirements for rune levels as a percentage, instead it says "all consuming".

All consuming faith and devotion, this is how I see it. To my eyes, giving one's time to the god or to serve the god does not necessarily mean attending a ceremony or being at the temple. Isn't the simple act of worshipping your god a time consecrated to him? For an Issaries initiate, shouldn't saying a prayer at a crossroad or simply sending his wares in a blessed market be counted as time consecrated to one's god?

In HQG, a huge difference with RQ is that you don't need to "refill" your powers, be them Magic or Rune Points. IMO, the rules attached to spells and other powers alter our vision of them. The rules of HQG are so different from those of RQG that they can easily provide a different visions on many point. MGV (My Glorantha Varies).  

[Corvantir]

3 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

This is also why it's so important to know what the distribution of Rune points look like. It's incredibly important whether it's one in 20 or one in 500 that has 12 Rune Points. I would imagine that plenty of senior priests have their full allotment of Rune Points in their cult, perhaps 15-18.

In HQG, this is more or less amounting to: what is the proportion of Initiates?   😁

[Sir_Godspeed]

I've been skimming through the last couple of pages as they pertain mostly to ruleswise stuff. One thing I feel is perhaps is important is this: unlike players, ordinary folks are a) unlikely to have teleologic knowledge of which rune spells are available, do what, etc., and b) are decidedly less munchkinny.

I think a GREAT deal of deeply "suboptimal builds" have to be factored in.

Edited December 28, 2019 by Sir_Godspeed

[g33k]

44 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I've been skimming through the last couple of pages as they pertain mostly to ruleswise stuff. One thing I feel is perhaps is important is this: unlike players, ordinary folks are a) unlikely to have teleologic knowledge of which rune spells are available, do what, etc., and b) are decidedly less munchkinny.

I think a GREAT deal of deeply "suboptimal builds" have to be factored in.

Also that the criteria for a working farmer or weaver (as to the "optimal" choice of Rune spells) may vary rather sharply from the criteria of an adventurer...

[g33k]

10 hours ago, scott-martin said:

This opens a seductive heroquest door. IF the wyter and the wyter priest are receptive, what's stopping fairly sedentary people from transferring worship obligations from the god to the community itself? The priest needs to maintain the spells the wyter casts on behalf of its members but as long as Reprisal is avoided all points should be "reusable" up to the spirit's POW reservoir.

Don't like your priest? Stay home and pray with family. In time religious affiliations may drift.

I think this speaks to the Wyter being in some regard, part of the extended pantheon of the culture... in Sartar, some spirit related to one of the Lightbringers.

Possibly even passing some Worship up the food-chain!

Edited December 28, 2019 by g33k
F'ing autocorrect

[g33k]

8 hours ago, scott-martin said:

... for every 12-point holy woman in one place there's a witch a few valleys away to depress local outcomes and normalize life across the lozenge ...

I suspect this is LESS true in some places, MORE true in others.

For example, life is ALREADY hard in Prax:  they need the Survival Covenant just to scrape by.  I suspect a witch nearby gets found and dealt with very swiftly.

For another example, I suspect the absurdly-high number of Initiates in Sartar means that the local number of Witch/etc (malevolent summoner/curser/caster types) is relatively low.

In some other places (e.g. Pent, or Hsunchen lands) such witches may be a bit more common.

[Lordabdul]

I was lurking around the Well of Daliah and I found this page -- I don't know if it's been mentioned in this thread already? The first couple answers relate to the OP, and Jason describes an Orlanthi society where most people are just lay members, actually.

In other news, it was a slow afternoon, so I had fun making a thing (which I posted in the RQ forum since it deals with Rune Points). Feel free to tweak and play with the numbers, but I think you'll find that you need to be careful with your Rune Points, even with a low rate of lay members in your clan.

Edited December 28, 2019 by lordabdul

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, lordabdul said:

I was lurking around the Well of Daliah and I found this page -- I don't know if it's been mentioned in this thread already? The first couple answers relate to the OP, and Jason describes an Orlanthi society where most people are just lay members, actually.

I saw that, and it doesn’t make any sense. First, it goes against everything we know about Heortling society. Second, it makes some absurd linguistic acrobatics to say that people initiated into a cult are mostly not initiates.

I disregard it completely.

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

I saw that, and it doesn’t make any sense. First, it goes against everything we know about Heortling society. Second, it makes some absurd linguistic acrobatics to say that people initiated into a cult are mostly not initiates.

I disregard it completely.

Most of the worshipers in a cult aren't initiates. That's true for Orlanth and Ernalda, cultists of each of whom are associates of the other and visit each others' rites, along with all the other associate cults. Even if the turnout is slightly lower for the associate cults than it is for your own rites, those associates will usually be in the majority.

Practically everybody worships their ancestors, although the cult of Daka Fal is written like a jealous organisation "What, you sacrificed POW to a deity? Sure, we'll contact you in your afterlife, but we won't let you sacrifice POW with us or call up an ancestor to guide you." That's one of the weirdest ruling in all of the Gloranthan cult structures.

I wonder how much Glorantha has the Cult of the Invisible Friend for children, and what entities actually server here. Is this the remaining realm of Tylenea?

[Darius West]

21 hours ago, Corvantir said:

May be am I getting it wrong but HeroQuest: Glorantha (HQG) seems to be some kind of middle ground. First, as I wrote it earlier, it seems to me that HQG Lay Member status is somehow between RQ Lay Member and Initiate statuses. HQG Lay Members can actually buy some reusable Rune magic.  Initiate status in HQG is also somewhere between RQ Initiate and Rune Priest statuses as an Initiate has access to the equivalent of "reusable" Rune Magic through the Rune Affinities he shares with his God.

Moreover in HQG, the rules don't ask you to go to a temple in order to recover your Rune Points. You can use your Rune Magic as long as you respect your cult restrictions, the cult holy days and as long as your acts don't offend your God.

I would like to thank you all for your valuable input, I have a better vision of what it is to be an Initiate and of the proportion of Initiates one can find in different parts of the world. That's very helpful.   👍

LIke most things HQ, it is over-powered when compared to RQ2 & RQG.  No laymember can call on rune magic at all in RQ, as that requires full initiation. Lay members sometimes gain access to cut price spirit magic though.  On the other hand, there isn't enough to differentiate spirit magic from rune magic mechanics-wise in HQ anyhow, so the whole issue matters a lot less.  

While there are no rules for it in HQ or RQ, one might opt for a system like in the KoDP computer game, where a tribe's support for a temple can activate certain year-long blessings that affect a specific class of people within the tribe when they are working specifically for the tribe's benefit.  The mechanics of it are probably based on unattached allied spirits from the temple in question zooming in to provide support on the Tula or some-such.  Season to taste. 

I certainly think that RQ in general would benefit from a better mechanic for a 7 cow sacrifice than the rules presently allow for.  I would suggest a multiplier effect wherein if you sacrifice 7 cattle, you get a x3 multiplier on any POW sacrificed for divine magic i.e. 1 POW Sacrificed=3 Divine magic points due to synergising with the spirits of the sacrifice.  Considering how much cows cost, a 7 cow sacrifice would be a considerable expense to any player character. 

Edited December 28, 2019 by Darius West

[Sir_Godspeed]

6 hours ago, Joerg said:

Most of the worshipers in a cult aren't initiates. That's true for Orlanth and Ernalda, cultists of each of whom are associates of the other and visit each others' rites, along with all the other associate cults. Even if the turnout is slightly lower for the associate cults than it is for your own rites, those associates will usually be in the majority.

 

But we do agree on the basic fact that when an Orlanthi *initiates* to adulthood (a cultural prerequisite for adulthood) they also do genuinelly *initiate* to a cult, right? 

In this respect, an adult Orlanthi is *by definition* an initiate to some cult or other. Most commonly Orlanth or Ernalda, as well as a minority of other "specialist"/"niche" cults. Right?

If most adult Orlanthi are then initiates of Orlanth or Ernalda, they then would presumably become lay members of most of the other cults they interact with on a regular/semi-regular basis - ie. Issaries, Ty Kora Tek, Elmal, etc. Right?

I know this was discussed a few pages back, but it feels like this is circling around.

[Qizilbashwoman]

37 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

But we do agree on the basic fact that when an Orlanthi *initiates* to adulthood (a cultural prerequisite for adulthood) they also do genuinelly *initiate* to a cult, right? 

In this respect, an adult Orlanthi is *by definition* an initiate to some cult or other. Most commonly Orlanth or Ernalda, as well as a minority of other "specialist"/"niche" cults. Right?

If most adult Orlanthi are then initiates of Orlanth or Ernalda, they then would presumably become lay members of most of the other cults they interact with on a regular/semi-regular basis - ie. Issaries, Ty Kora Tek, Elmal, etc. Right?

I know this was discussed a few pages back, but it feels like this is circling around.

The rules correction was speaking about all of Glorantha, but they basically said "how many Initiates there are in Theyalan societies is up to the DM". I think this is weird given that they already said most people have about 1 Rune point and one spell, because adventurers are unusual.

To date, the assumption has always been: Theyalans all Initiate as part of their initiation rites: first their runes are revealed in their adulthood rites and then they actually Initiate. 6/7ths choose either Ernalda or Orlanth (subcults included); the last seventh is other deities.

This is not true of other societies. We get varying reports about Peloria, for example, where low-caste people don't get to do anything but show up for sacred days and throw magic points at the god. It seems to vary by city and time period. The Darjiini seem to have focused on shamanism and spirit cults - Sur Enslib has a chief shaman, not priests.

The Lunar Way seems to encourage everyone (read: the poors and the savage) to Initiate into the Seven Mothers.

But we just don't know about other places.

 

[Akhôrahil]

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

Most of the worshipers in a cult aren't initiates. That's true for Orlanth and Ernalda, cultists of each of whom are associates of the other and visit each others' rites, along with all the other associate cults. Even if the turnout is slightly lower for the associate cults than it is for your own rites, those associates will usually be in the majority.

That's true, but they're still predominantly (perhaps even overwhelmingly) initiated into some cult.

[Corvantir]

1 hour ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

But we do agree on the basic fact that when an Orlanthi *initiates* to adulthood (a cultural prerequisite for adulthood) they also do genuinelly *initiate* to a cult, right?

I am still doubtful about that and genuinely don't know from where this assumption is coming, I have always considered initiation to adulthood as different from initiation to a god, even among Theyalans. It seems that the more I read about Glorantha, the less I know.

[Oracle]

37 minutes ago, Corvantir said:

I am still doubtful about that and genuinely don't know from where this assumption is coming, I have always considered initiation to adulthood as different from initiation to a god, even among Theyalans. It seems that the more I read about Glorantha, the less I know.

I've seen it the same way always. Using examples from Christianity 'cult' (which I know best 😉) :

• Confirmation/Communion ritual (or even Baptism) is your initiation into adulthood. You are now allowed to participate in cult related ceremonies (like the Eucharist ceremony), but you are not yet introduced into the deeper secrets of your religion/cult. This is the equivalent of being a lay member of that cult. You are allowed now to use magic (ok, that's beyond the real world example, but anyway ...)
• you become a member of a monastery, or of a religious order, or you start visiting a seminary for being trained to become a priest means, that you will be initiated into the deeper secrets of your religion/cult. This is the equivalent of being an Initiate of that cult. You are now much more capable in using theistic magic.

[Akhôrahil]

51 minutes ago, Oracle said:

I've seen it the same way always. Using examples from Christianity 'cult' (which I know best 😉) :

It really doesn't map - priests are more like Zzaburite Wizards than anything else, and there is not an Initiate status at all. 

[Qizilbashwoman]

5 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

It really doesn't map - priests are more like Zzaburite Wizards than anything else, and there is not an Initiate status at all. 

counterpoint bar/bas mitsve, your initiation makes you a full Initiate

[Akhôrahil]

10 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

counterpoint bar/bas mitsve, your initiation makes you a full Initiate

And in Lutheranism, everyone's a priest. 🙂

[scott-martin]

1 minute ago, Akhôrahil said:

And in Lutheranism, everyone's a priest. 🙂

Mormon boys too, although it gets complicated. I still think that in Orlanth country most of the transmission of divine power happens at the hearth level. Dad IMG is the highest ranking Orlanth initiate [sic] in the household and celebrates the Orlanth rites. Mom is the highest ranking Ernalda. In many ways Orlanth is simply The Dad God and Ernalda is simply the Mom. Everything else is local color. Children, livestock, servants and weirdos circulate around the edges.

If there's a problem they can't handle the smart thing to do is ask an elder or a specialist. In the Ernalda system this means going up the generational chain to the grandmother goddesses. Since Orlanth has no father who can be contacted, you have to find somebody wiser in Orlanth than you.

(Still mulling the great stuff on local distribution of beneficial and malign big magic people.)