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What is the proportion of Initiates among a population?


Corvantir

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5 hours 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? 

Many appear to emerge into a limbo. Some of these adults join spirit societies instead. Others are lay worshipers of a speciality cult they intend to initiate to (which may have to wait until the next tribal rites to that deity in order to get a big enough concregation.

I wonder whether the Daka Fal Cult has genuine initiates.

5 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

In this respect, an adult Orlanthi is *by definition* an initiate to some cult or other.

Yes for an Orlanthi all.

5 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Most commonly Orlanth or Ernalda, as well as a minority of other "specialist"/"niche" cults. Right?

Right. I don't have exact numbers on this.

It appears that wyters don't usually have initiates or similar.

5 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

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?

Right. And all those Orlanthi who don't follow a rune deity's cult are potential Lay worshipers of these cults, too.

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Many appear to emerge into a limbo. Some of these adults join spirit societies instead. Others are lay worshipers of a speciality cult they intend to initiate to (which may have to wait until the next tribal rites to that deity in order to get a big enough concregation.

I wonder whether the Daka Fal Cult has genuine initiates.

Yes for an Orlanthi all.

Right. I don't have exact numbers on this.

It appears that wyters don't usually have initiates or similar.

Right. And all those Orlanthi who don't follow a rune deity's cult are potential Lay worshipers of these cults, too.

Thanks. Until given specific, explicit statements otherwise, this is how I'll model most Theyalan cultures in my Glorantha.

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2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

what is a City God except an elevated wyter?

A god/goddess. Maybe less so in Sartar, but in the Lunar Empire we've got the examples of the Tripolis gods Alkor (aka Shargash), Raiba, and Yuthu, as well as Glamour (1st inspiration of Moonson), and Jillaro (the Conquering Daughter). Likely similar in Esrolia too.

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30 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

A god/goddess. Maybe less so in Sartar, but in the Lunar Empire we've got the examples of the Tripolis gods Alkor (aka Shargash), Raiba, and Yuthu, as well as Glamour (1st inspiration of Moonson), and Jillaro (the Conquering Daughter). Likely similar in Esrolia too.

Can wyters apotheosize into true deities?

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11 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Also, what is a City God except an elevated wyter?

I sort of expected a response like this (perhaps more on the line of "but Pavis").

The initiation to city gods has been a problem that has haunted my RuneQuest since I started to use RQ in Glorantha. And the various forms of commitments to a deity.

When I had the opportunity to get responses from Greg on this topic - usually in open forums or on panels at Tentacles conventions, or with a small cluster of similar fan-boys and the occasional female Glorantha-über-nerd mixed in - Greg emphasized the nature of a person's "spiritual organ" which is shaped during Orlanthi initiation to create the uplink to sacrifice and worship, whereas a sorcerer creates a different organ tied into the abstractly structured source of the sorcery spells, and a shaman develops a fetch, or at least something similar to that.

Magical worship is supposed to channel magical energies (expressed as MP in RQG) to go predominantly through this major organ.

The (uncomfortable and little helpful) idea of "misapplied worship" which surfaced in the Hero Wars era soured considerations of this.

The combination of these different magics has been on my Gloranthan agenda practically from the onset of my activity in the world. The Stygian college of magic was the only known form of henotheist Malkionism when I started researching how to have this in RuneQuest, and all it did was to present a special sorcery spell for RQ3 sorcery. Evidently, that wasn't all that there was to it, so there was a space where I had no reports of others going before me.

I keep coming back to the "Junior Initiate" state that Yelm the Youth/Rider (Cults Compendium p.246) offers in RQ3. These are basically lay members of the cult with an initiate's worth of uplink for their sacrificing, thanks to the point of POW they sacrifice upon joining.  RQG doesn't mention that one point sacrifice.

Places with a demigod emperor (Dara Happa/Lunar Empire, Kralorela, Belintar's Holy Country) may have something like this as their adulthood initiation. And Malkioni might have an equivalent for their Worship Invisible God to benefit the chain of veneration fully.

 

I picked up the Hero Wars basic rules book yesterday (to look up its version of Ethilrist) and re-acquainted me shortly with the importance of Malkioni veneration - similar to lay member worship, expending magical energies (MP or "temporary POW" in RuneQuest) as part of their listening to sermons by the officiating wizards or liturgists (basically people delegated to read from the scripture, possibly of the zzabur caste even though not necessarily sorcerers).

Theyalan (Hantrafal-style) worship and sacrifice apparently is channeled through the wyter, and the participants in the worship of initiate level or greater receive a POW increase check if they succeed in their worship roll. RQG even creates an equivalence of material sacrifice or sacrifice of living entities as percentage bonus to the roll along with the bonus from magic point donation, describing the personal effect of the donation of such a sacrifice or a votive figure in the temple may have.

Most Malkioni henotheists don't sacrifice living beings (animals, people) in their rites, although (an older take on) the Aeolians sacrifice beast-shaped baked goods in lieu of animal sacrifice.

9 hours ago, jajagappa said:

A god/goddess. Maybe less so in Sartar, but in the Lunar Empire we've got the examples of the Tripolis gods Alkor (aka Shargash), Raiba, and Yuthu, as well as Glamour (1st inspiration of Moonson), and Jillaro (the Conquering Daughter). Likely similar in Esrolia too.

But then, a wyter usually is a divine entity (or spirit entity) to begin with, and the community might be described as a spirit cult in terms of its localized influence.

 

8 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Can wyters apotheosize into true deities?

They already are beings of that class, so how can they ascend?

But then, becoming a wyter makes them corporeal, so maybe they get another chance to pass over into the Godworld with their greater power base.

 

5 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

err... these don't seem to be deities that do anything, they do seem to be wyters. Alkor is called "Shargash's son".

They are big enough to be minor gods of their pantheon, and well connected ones to boot. Raiba(mus) initiated at least two dynasties of Dara Happan emperors, Jenarong's and Denesiod's.

Alkor can be understood as an aspect of Shargash - IMO he is the original Planetary Son of the southern city, green of color, but his transformation/rebirth as/fusion with an underworld deity after the initial crash with Umath changed him to red.

The dismemberment of Umath is probably as momentous in the Golden Age as is Umath's (and his twin's Entekos/Serenha's) birth in the first place.

(But then, Umath may be seen as an aspect of Vogmaradan or Ganesatarus, and Entekos may have earlier, non-celestial aspects, too.)

 

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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41 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Magical worship is supposed to channel magical energies (expressed as MP in RQG) to go predominantly through this major organ.

The (uncomfortable and little helpful) idea of "misapplied worship" which surfaced in the Hero Wars era soured considerations of this.

Perhaps HW/HQ should best be understood in the manner that you have three or four such spiritual organs (not sure whether Mysticism should be counted),  developed to different extents, and you should ideally use the right one for the right object of worship?

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13 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Perhaps HW/HQ should best be understood in the manner that you have three or four such spiritual organs (not sure whether Mysticism should be counted),  developed to different extents, and you should ideally use the right one for the right object of worship?

At that time, Greg was fairly adamant on the "different otherworlds" dogma, so no - you went with one organ, and while you could use it to interact with entities of a different nature, you only could do that at a penalty.

I'll freely admit that I am glad to see the entire "misapplied worship" rules baggage gone, but the concept of having just one Otherworld uplink and that you had to choose whether to use Apple, Android or some other cell phone OS makes a certain amount of sense, as meta-rules go.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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4 hours ago, Joerg said:

I'll freely admit that I am glad to see the entire "misapplied worship" rules baggage gone, but the concept of having just one Otherworld uplink and that you had to choose whether to use Apple, Android or some other cell phone OS makes a certain amount of sense, as meta-rules go.

Yeah, but wait until the contract becomes due, and them roaming charges...woohoo!

Edited by Bill the barbarian

... remember, with a TARDIS, one is never late for breakfast!

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