Temple Density

[Bergguy]

As part of my runequest campaign I've been working on building a random town generator. I'm curious as to what the density of temples is like in dragon pass. I've been going off of the town sizes found in Guide to Glorantha village (<500), town (300-1000), small city (500 - 6000), large city (6000 - 25000), metropolis (25 000 +)

Do villages usually only have shrines? If so, to how many gods? 

Would a town only support one minor temple? How many shrines could be found? 

In small cities, do we start to see major temples? If so how many? Are there minor temples as well?

In large cities how many temples would there be?

I understand a lot of this is down to personal taste and "My Glorantha Will Vary", but I'm curious how other folks, who have spent more time exploring Glorantha,  may have handled this at their game table.

What I have so far... 

Village (1D3 shrines)

Town (50% chance of minor temple) (1d6 shrines)

Small City (1D3 -1 major temple) (1D3 minor temples) (at this point other shrines exist to cover the other worship needs of the community)

Large city (50% chance of temple complex) (1D3 major temples) (1D6 minor temples)  

[Psullie]

The temple sizes provided on p284 would give you a good indication. For example a village would only have about 1-3 sites (not shrines), a larger village may have a shrine if there is a dominant cult. Shared facilities would be common in most areas. 

[Akhôrahil]

I believe a typical clan will have three minor temples - Orlanth, Ernalda, and clan specific. These will commonly be in the clan center, likely to be a larger village.

[Joerg]

If you are taking King of Dragon Pass as your model, the number of temples in a clan is a measure of the clan's wealth. Although, with the forming of the city confederations, the major temples at least for fringe deities are likely to have moved into those cities over the past century.

A clan is almost by definition a minor temple to Orlanth and Ernalda, with possibly a shared holy site, or a few holy sites under control of the temple (like the hilltop for storm rites and the cave for earth rites).

 

[Bergguy]

Perfect! I'm finding this information helpful. It's giving me a rough idea about the scale a town needs to be to support a temple. 

[Nick Brooke]

This is the article you need:

How Many Humakti?, by Greg Stafford.

[Scorus]

My reading of the RQG rules has fewer than you indicate above. Villages might have a site or two, but not all. Small towns, such as the average clan seat, would have 2-4 shrines. A large town might have a temple (that also contains associated shrines) and most cities would. Major temples are very rare, occasionally in cities (Jonstown Library), but more often located at holy sites (Clearwine Earth Temple). Cities such as Nochet, Glamour, Pavis would be the only ones with multiple major temples.

This was a surprise to me based on my playing KoDP (though my reaction was that it must be one of many things I was doing wrong in KoDP). I prefer more shrines, myself. But it is going to depend on the number of rune levels and overall worshippers in an area, so if you are randomly determining these things then you could extrapolate from that.

[Scorus]

11 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

This is the article you need:

How Many Humakti?, by Greg Stafford.

Wow, what a fantastic breakdown! My 15 Humakti in Hiording is probably too many, though the majority are from the clan's Durulz population. Is the 180,000 Sartar population pre or post Great Winter?

[Nick Brooke]

3 minutes ago, Scorus said:

Is the 180,000 Sartar population pre or post Great Winter?

Pre.

[Bergguy]

Woah! That is a cool article. I had no idea that so few of the population were initiated into minor cults!