Babeester Gor and celibacy

[Akhôrahil]

By the way, Storm Tribe seems to support the notion that you can't really be a part-timer in BG:

"Worshippers must become initiates for a one-year trial period, during which aptitudes and attitudes are tested. Afterwards, the worshipper must become a devotee or leave the cult."

(Devotee means 60% of time and earnings to the cult, so way above RQs 10% for Inititiates.)

Edited September 5, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Arcadiagt5]

I have to admit that I'm still seeing a disconnect between “Babeester Gor are raving fanatic vengeance hounds all the time” and “Babeester Gor are the standing, and permanent, guard units for all Earth temples & protectors of the Earth priestesses”. 

[French Desperate WindChild]

8 minutes ago, Arcadiagt5 said:

I have to admit that I'm still seeing a disconnect between “Babeester Gor are raving fanatic vengeance hounds all the time” and “Babeester Gor are the standing, and permanent, guard units for all Earth temples & protectors of the Earth priestesses”. 

I just learned (maybe it s wrong) than berserkers (irl) where also king guards. As a king, will I give my protection to people able to eat their shields on battle field ?

I think it is the same, they are always fanatics, but sometimes in bloodrage, sometimes not, sometimes tracking, sometimes standing.

[MOB]

20 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

I strongly agree, and I would let PCs transfer their Rune Points when they make a "natural" transition, like Ernalda to Asrelia, anyone to Humakt or Chalana Arroy following the Relife Sickness, that kind of thing. Maybe Ernalda to Vinga or Babeester Gor if it's a natural progression (I would imagine BG is the first inition choice of very few people, and rather triggered by events). Otherwise, it doesn't make sense for anyone to switch - there's such a big sunk cost in Rune Points in older cults.

 

20 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

Humakt to Yanafal Tarnils... 😈

 

Whoah... that needs to go in @scott-martin's Your Dumbest Theory thread. You no doubt get by now that I'm saying this as a compliment. 

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, Arcadiagt5 said:

I have to admit that I'm still seeing a disconnect between “Babeester Gor are raving fanatic vengeance hounds all the time” and “Babeester Gor are the standing, and permanent, guard units for all Earth temples & protectors of the Earth priestesses”. 

Interestingly, so did HW, basically splitting those duties up between Babeester Gor as blood-crazed avenger and Erantha Gor (IIRC) picking up much of the temple guardianship. This is part of how it took Babeester Gor to the absolute extremes, resulting in characters that couldn't reasonably be part of a party of adventurers.

RQ Babeester Gor is very toned down from the HW version, downright cuddly in comparison.

Edited September 5, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[David Scott]

1 hour ago, Arcadiagt5 said:

I have to admit that I'm still seeing a disconnect between “Babeester Gor are raving fanatic vengeance hounds all the time” and “Babeester Gor are the standing, and permanent, guard units for all Earth temples & protectors of the Earth priestesses”. 

This the danger of stereotyping, where individuals in RPGs are two dimensional without any other visage, or just a bland archetype. It like saying accountants are unemotional number obsessives with no personality - watch the film, the Accountant. Fortunately most storytelling always likes to develop these people into real personalities with a back story, strength's and weakness, and motivations.

Babester Gor in RQG sums up how they work:

Quote

Her axe-wielding warrior women are the sacred guardians of the temples of Ernalda and other earth goddesses. They defend temples and hunt down kinslayers, oathbreakers, and other vile criminals whose actions have harmed the temple they guard.

Most of the time they are temple guardians, but if you do something bad against the temple you are in trouble. They are the earth temple police.

[Akhôrahil]

Oh, Storm Tribe had a great tidbit, by the way: Babeester Gor is often called "Ura — the Pleasant One". Shades of the Euminides, the "Kindly Ones", because do you really want to offend them?

[Jeff]

Although I am sure everyone knows this, Storm Tribe is not particularly canonical or even influential on the RuneQuest line. It was not a source for the Cults Book (in fact, I deliberately did not even look at it, preferring to rely directly on Greg's notes and our discussions), and I do not encourage it as a reference for those writing for us.

You can do with it as you want, but I want to be clear that it is not a foundation for any new published material going forward.

[Arcadiagt5]

34 minutes ago, David Scott said:

This the danger of stereotyping, where individuals in RPGs are two dimensional without any other visage, or just a bland archetype. It like saying accountants are unemotional number obsessives with no personality - watch the film, the Accountant. Fortunately most storytelling always likes to develop these people into real personalities with a back story, strength's and weakness, and motivations.

Babester Gor in RQG sums up how they work:

Most of the time they are temple guardians, but if you do something bad against the temple you are in trouble. They are the earth temple police.

That's mostly how I see them too. It's just that a lot of the discussion above felt disconnected from this view to me.

24 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Although I am sure everyone knows this, Storm Tribe is not particularly canonical or even influential on the RuneQuest line. It was not a source for the Cults Book (in fact, I deliberately did not even look at it, preferring to rely directly on Greg's notes and our discussions), and I do not encourage it as a reference for those writing for us.

You can do with it as you want, but I want to be clear that it is not a foundation for any new published material going forward.

Good to know. In view of the above discussions, this probably explains/supports the more nuanced view of a Babeester Gor as part of the social order of the Earth pantheon.

[Roko Joko]

Yeah, it's a little weird.  Your job as a temple guard is to prevent anything from needing to be avenged in the first place, not wait until it happens and then act.

You could say the myths are about vengeance whereas the social role of the cultists is to be guards, though.  They don't have to be perfectly identical.  If someone crosses the line and trespasses, I think a guard could still mythically identify them as the right kind of enemy.

[David Scott]

3 hours ago, Jeff said:

Storm Tribe is not particularly canonical or even influential on the RuneQuest line

Adding to what Jeff said, while I find some of Storm Tribe interesting, it did come out in 2001. Using Babester Gor as an example cult, it was updated for the Sartar companion in 2010, then RQ Glorantha in 2018. Even by 2009 the cults had returned to their pre-HW forms, loosing their complex structure and moved back to simpler forms. Glorantha keeps moving on and is updated to reflect this. While the mythology in the HW era books is great, its cult complexity isn't at all helpful to newcomers to Glorantha. The Sartar Companion writeup is much better, and will be completely superseded by the upcoming cults book.

[Eff]

12 hours ago, Arcadiagt5 said:

I have to admit that I'm still seeing a disconnect between “Babeester Gor are raving fanatic vengeance hounds all the time” and “Babeester Gor are the standing, and permanent, guard units for all Earth temples & protectors of the Earth priestesses”. 

I mean, my interpretation of the HW/HQ1 Babeester Gor cult is that the cultists are divinely sanctioned serial killers, which at least is more consistent- when they're not being psychologically driven to murder, they can do things like stand guard or even take up hobbies. 

[Thaz]

10 hours ago, Eff said:

I mean, my interpretation of the HW/HQ1 Babeester Gor cult is that the cultists are divinely sanctioned serial killers, which at least is more consistent- when they're not being psychologically driven to murder, they can do things like stand guard or even take up hobbies. 

Yeah. I had a player recently who rolled up a BG and wanted a bit more detail on the cult than is currently out there. HW version made her eyes bleed and we all agreed it was not for using

 RQG. I'm looking forward to the Cults book being released.  I'm sure that once on the trail of a bad person BG and implacable and scary as all get out, but their day job is stopping the bad people from doing bad things in the first place. 

[AndreJarosch]

Storm Tribe credits page doen´t give clear credits as to who the author of the Babs Cult was...

[soltakss]

There are too many good points to quote.

For me, Babeester Gor represents the difference between a normal worshipper and a fanatic.

Most Babeester Gor cultists are happy to work as Temple Guards or to guard grain caravans. Sometimes they go off to hunt down raiders, bandits and so on. They are part of the Maiden/Mother/Crone trilogies of Voria/Ernalda/Asrelia or babeester Gor/Maran Gor/Ty Kora Tek. In fact, many Babeester Gori take a time in that cult and then join Ernalda to become mothers, putting down their axes.

However, some are fanatics. They revel in the myth about being born from Ernalda's wound when Zorak Zoran chopped into her. They talk about chasing Zorak Zoran away, or killing the Healers of Healer Valley, of hunting down and mutilating rapists and despoilers of the earth, of hanging severed genitalia, hands and heads from their axes, of ritual scarification to make them look even scarier. 

There was a throwaway comment in one of the Wyrms Footnotes articles, I think, that Babeester Gor took lovers, for hers was too dreadful a path to take alone. I really liked that idea. It also said that Maran Gor was a virgin goddess and expected the same from her followers, as their path was too dreadful to be shared, or something like that.

So, don't let anyone tell you the "right way" to play a Babeester Gor cultist. Play them however you want to. Sometimes as a temple guardian, sometimes as a defender of the earth, sometimes as a warrioress, sometimes as a seeker of vengeance, sometimes as a death-wielding berserker or a mutilator of the fallen. If you don't like the bloodthirsty parts then don't use them. If you see a big disconnect between the Guard aspect and the Avenger aspect then treat them as two different subcults, in the same way that Orlanth has Adventurous/Thunderous/Lightbringer. 

[g33k]

5 hours ago, soltakss said:

...

So, don't let anyone tell you the "right way" to play a Babeester Gor cultist. Play them however you want to. Sometimes as a temple guardian, sometimes as a defender of the earth, sometimes as a warrioress, sometimes as a seeker of vengeance, sometimes as a death-wielding berserker or a mutilator of the fallen. If you don't like the bloodthirsty parts then don't use them. If you see a big disconnect between the Guard aspect and the Avenger aspect then treat them as two different subcults, in the same way that Orlanth has Adventurous/Thunderous/Lightbringer. 

I play that there's room for *ALL* of these within the core cult.  I don't see the need to subcult them out; but I'm not opposed to it if Chaosium (or a player at my table) wants to go that way.

However, I found Jeff's entry from the Prosopedia to be far too one-sidedly bloodthirsty & berserk... I still recall (not so very long ago) when a relatively-new member of this board was driven off (dunno if they left RQ entirely, or just BRPC) by how one-sidedly bloody/berzerk the B.Gor portrayal was (his wife, IIRC, wanted to play a B.Gori, but needed some support & detail, and he came here in part to find that).

Edited September 6, 2020 by g33k

[Bill the barbarian]

On 9/6/2020 at 4:02 AM, Thaz said:

 RQG. I'm looking forward to the Cults book being released.  I'm sure that once on the trail of a bad person BG and implacable and scary as all get out, but their day job is stopping the bad people from doing bad things in the first place. 

I played a BG in Melisande’s Hand, and I played her cold and methodical in her dealings in this wonderful adventure, but I will not say more to prevent spoilers!

I do not think I played her incorrectly but I see a lot of folk by the postings here, seem to indicate I should haver been death incarnate. Seems to me it was the results that mattered.

Edited September 7, 2020 by Bill the barbarian

[Rob Darvall]

13 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

I played a BG in Melisande’s Hand, and I played her cold and methodical in her dealings in this wonderful adventure, but I will not say more to prevent spoilers! I

do not think I played her incorrectly but I see a lot of folk by the postings here, seem to indicate I should haver been death incarnate. Seems to me it was the results that mattered.

I'm enjoying my niece's characterisation.

Much as you did she plays cold & methodical. Right up until she coldly & methodically releases death incarnate. But that's a religious thing. She doesn't do it on a whim. Eating peoples' livers is reserved for those moments when the cosmic order is in danger.

Her character has an outstandingly high intimidate skill.

Edited September 7, 2020 by Rob Darvall

[Jeff]

14 hours ago, g33k said:

I play that there's room for *ALL* of these within the core cult.  I don't see the need to subcult them out; but I'm not opposed to it if Chaosium (or a player at my table) wants to go that way.

However, I found Jeff's entry from the Prosopedia to be far too one-sidedly bloodthirsty & berserk... I still recall (not so very long ago) when a relatively-new member of this board was driven off (dunno if they left RQ entirely, or just BRPC) by how one-sidedly bloody/berzerk the B.Gor portrayal was (his wife, IIRC, wanted to play a B.Gori, but needed some support & detail, and he came here in part to find that).

She is a merciless and cruel Death goddess. And has been since she first appeared. The Prosopaedia entry is largely unchanged since 1985 and is consistent with Greg's edited version of Sandy and Steve's original descriptions of the cult.

[PhilHibbs]

On 9/6/2020 at 7:49 PM, g33k said:

I play that there's room for *ALL* of these within the core cult...

However, I found Jeff's entry from the Prosopedia to be far too one-sidedly bloodthirsty & berserk... 

I can see how someone might not click just how awful BG is from the RQG entry. "Avenging daughter, sounds cool, I'll play one of those!" *Reads a bit more* "Errr... maybe this isn't for me after all..."

Unrelated, I wonder why "Hate (Oathbreakers)" is the Rune Lord BG passion. I can think of plenty other things I'd rank higher on the BG hate list.

Edited September 8, 2020 by PhilHibbs

[David Scott]

30 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

I can see how someone might not click just how awful BG is from the RQG entry. "Avenging daughter, sounds cool, I'll play one of those!" *Reads a bit more* "Errr... maybe this isn't for me after all..."

There's always the cover of HeroQuest Glorantha that features Babeester Gor, complete with penis necklace and skirt of hands, or the pic on page 289 of RQG.

 

[French Desperate WindChild]

14 minutes ago, David Scott said:

There's always the cover of HeroQuest Glorantha that features Babeester Gor, complete with penis necklace and skirt of hands, or the pic on page 289 of RQG.

yes and here we're seeing the "guard" aspect. I don't want to see the "avenger" one, it should be a call of cthulhu experience

[davecake]

On 9/3/2020 at 6:46 PM, French Desperate WindChild said:

rare are people who are able to love for a long time someone wearing more and more bones, skulls, morbid scarifications

I take it you don’t know many goths 😁

[Rodney Dangerduck]

The penis necklace would kill the mood for me.  Just saying...

[Ian Absentia]

9 hours ago, David Scott said:

There's always the cover of HeroQuest Glorantha that features Babeester Gor, complete with penis necklace and skirt of hands...

Hunh.  You'd think the hands-to-wangs ratio would be higher.  You know, like, closer to 2-to-1.  As such, I'd assumed those were fingers around her neck, apologist that I am.

!i!

Edited September 8, 2020 by Ian Absentia