Supporting new shrines/temples

[Scorus]

How many hides would be needed to support a new shrine in a town/village? How many for a new small temple? What are the necessities, besides construction?

[Akhôrahil]

Maintaining a Holy Site - which is one step below a shrine - costs 25-200L per season. Presumably something like double this for a Shrine?

Otherwise, the best way to do this is probably to go with the number of worshipers required on p. 284, and assume that a combination of their tithes and some of them working as cottars is what’s required for maintenance.

[Akhôrahil]

Another way is to deconstruct the numbers from p. 406, where a combined Orlanth & Ernalda temple has 80 hides worked by cottars, and land dues combined with tithes nets the combined temples 4500 L yearly. The temple itself probably costs a bit less than this, as this is the entire Public Sector budget that also supports the Chief, thanes, housecarls, and so on.

At a rough estimate, a small temple in itself, with five or six priests, costs maybe 1500 L per year to maintain using these standards? This also seems to make sense with the Site numbers, as long as you go by the low numbers. Maybe site is 150 L per year, Shrine 300 L per year (including one God-Talker) and a Small Temple is 1500 L per year, including a head priest and five other priest? This seems to make sense to me.

The 1500 L would then have to be collected from a combination of land dues and tithes (if purely from land dues, just under 40 hides, but it will never be purely from land dues).

Edited October 18, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Scorus]

3 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Maintaining a Holy Site - which is one step below a shrine - costs 25-200L per season. Presumably something like double this for a Shrine?

Otherwise, the best way to do this is probably to go with the number of worshipers required on p. 284, and assume that a combination of their tithes and some of them working as cottars is what’s required for maintenance.

Thanks for these numbers. The reason I asked is that the published sources don't seem consistent. The Ulerian Temple and Temple to All Dieties in Apple Lane are each supported by only 5 hides, so 200L/year on average. But a holy site costs 125-1000L/year?! I don't deny that is possible, but I have no context as to why that is the case.

A recently resurrected noble PC wants to establish a Chalana Arroy shrine as his 'payment' for their services. He is able to build the structure and is working to find a God-Talker or Priest to maintain the shrine and accompanying one-room hospital, but we are not sure how much land/cattle he needs to gift for it's annual upkeep. Is it twice as much as the 125-1000L holy site cost or half as much as the 200L temple cost, for instance?

[Eff]

1 hour ago, Scorus said:

Thanks for these numbers. The reason I asked is that the published sources don't seem consistent. The Ulerian Temple and Temple to All Dieties in Apple Lane are each supported by only 5 hides, so 200L/year on average. But a holy site costs 125-1000L/year?! I don't deny that is possible, but I have no context as to why that is the case.

A recently resurrected noble PC wants to establish a Chalana Arroy shrine as his 'payment' for their services. He is able to build the structure and is working to find a God-Talker or Priest to maintain the shrine and accompanying one-room hospital, but we are not sure how much land/cattle he needs to gift for it's annual upkeep. Is it twice as much as the 125-1000L holy site cost or half as much as the 200L temple cost, for instance?

Bear in mind that the amount of land necessary to support a temple is dependent on how often that temple is in use, since a great proportion of that land's income is used to provide for sacrifices and rituals, and will also be dependent on the extent to which that temple is commercialized. A clan temple is not very commercialized and is in constant use, so it requires maybe 1500 lunars per year in agricultural income to support its direct operations, while a temple to Uleria or the Temple to All Deities, which are highly commercialized and/or in infrequent use, require substantially less agricultural income to support them. 

So the basic question here is, is this shrine intended to be a perpetual charity clinic, or is it intended to operate like a conventional Chalana Arroy shrine does? My quick-and-dirty solution would be that a 5-hide gift would work for the former, and a 2.5-hide gift would work for the latter. Or you could double these, perhaps, to 10 hides and 5 hides. 

A more general-purpose solution would probably require classifying particular temples based on how commercially they operate, how often their services are in demand, etc. and then working out the necessary incomes for support. 

[Lordabdul]

I would probably approach the problem differently... I would ask the players what they want to do...

1. They want to build a shrine... sure, I come up with a cost for building it, like maybe paying a sculptor to make a nice statue or bas-relief or something.
2. They want to have somebody tend to the lands around it... sure, I look up the basic income of a farmer and come up with a cost for that. Use the known numbers for how much of the land's product goes to these people vs to the players.
3. They want to protect the shrine with some warding and bound spirits. If they do it themselves, the cost will be their time, their sacrifices and offerings and ritual components... if they hire a shaman, I look up the shaman's basic income, take into account the type of spirit or protection duration/strength they want, and come up with a cost.
4. They want to organize some regular seasonal feast where they invite folks from around the tula... sure, I throw in a bit of expenses if they pay some kids to go advertise it. I figure out the cost of the feast, and make them do some rolls to figure out how much of a mess the guests make, how much they offer back to the shrine, how many volunteer to help, etc.
5. They're slowly upgrading the shrine to a temple with a first building... we already have an ongoing thread on building costs somewhere around here. But again I start with the mason and carpenter basic incomes, multiply that by how long I imagine it would take to build, and then multiply by 4 or 5 to account for building materials. As I mentioned in that other thread, the players could get involved themselves by traveling along wood/stone shipments to protect them from raids, by negotiating better deals, by looking for the mason's lost son in exchange for his pro-bono service, etc.
6. Now that they have a small temple, they want to have some guards around their lands... sure, I look up the basic income of a Humakti soldier or Babeester Gorite or whoever they want to hire, modulate it for the skill level they want.

....so, basically, instead of asking myself "how much does it cost to maintain a shrine" (and getting a very vague answer with a very large bracket of prices), I get the players involved, go about it incrementally, and make a story out of it. And of course, if they try to cut corners (like not spending money on warding or a guardian spirit), I make sure they regret it later  

Edited October 19, 2020 by lordabdul

[Nick Brooke]

8 hours ago, Scorus said:

How many hides would be needed to support a new shrine in a town/village? How many for a new small temple? What are the necessities, besides construction?

Very quick and dirty answer (for a fast and loose game like mine) - your players are committing to pay a Rune Priest's standard of living, and can leave the details of what that gets spent on up to the Priest. (They'll be getting tithe income from their flock to contribute to support, construction, rituals, feasts, 'advertising,' etc.). If you're into Bronze Age building techniques, though, knock yourself out!

[Akhôrahil]

10 hours ago, Scorus said:

Thanks for these numbers. The reason I asked is that the published sources don't seem consistent. The Ulerian Temple and Temple to All Dieties in Apple Lane are each supported by only 5 hides, so 200L/year on average. 

You can probably argue that the Uleria temple has a... what should we call it...  ”independent revenue stream”?

This income-from-services might work for a CA temple that provides a lot of healing services as well, and is likely a significant part of the income for Humakti temples. An Issaries temple might have no land but a ton of tithing from wealthy merchants. And so on.

Edited October 19, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[French Desperate WindChild]

there are two things : cost and revenues :

cost :

How many full time equivalent priest you need to manage your site ?

I would say if you need less than 1FTE (aka a dedicated person to manage the site) I would say 50% of a priest needs (p403 : noble =  200*0.5 = 100L / year) just because you need to keep the site in a good way

If more than 1 FTE, use exactly the coeff :

you need 1 priest and 3 initiates* ? => 1.3 * 200 = 260 L.

1 priest, 3 gold talkers* and 10 initiates* : 1 + 3*0.5 + 10 * 0.1 = 3.5 * 200 = 700 L

etc...

that's all for religious business, if you need more,  mercenary guards (like a warrior paid to maintain secular security, not sacred security), artists, carpenter, ... use the cost of each activity

 

revenues

Once you know the cost, you need to understand how you can pay that (remember that "pay" is not only money, it can be meat , cloths, services, ...) I see four ways :

- the local taxes(only for Ernald - or equivalent and Orlanth - or equivalent - and / or city god) see page 407

- the initiates tithes (so how many followers are able to pay, and how much they can pay)

- the lands

- the services provided by the temple (Uleria and Lhankor Mhy provides obious services but any religion can provide services, and not for free. Chalana for example could heal for "free" but expects that the "customer" take a part of her time to clean/help the temple or things like that)

And then you know if the site is viable ( cost = revenue), a rich place ( cost < revenu), a poor place (cost > revenue) or absolutly not viable (cost >> revenue)

 

 

* how I consider initiates :

I use the cost of a noble standard of living as base (p403) 200L as it is the priest's category

I know that all initiates are not "noble" but I assume for simplicity. The religious activity is important for them so they use their best for their god so everyone is considered as a priest (the wall are temple wall, not farmer's house wall, the light are from nice torch, etc...)

I consider Initiate for all purposes (could be guard , like bab's, could be healer, like CA's, could be administrator, etc...) sacred. If you need workers for secular perspective, use the worker activity payement (mercenary for example)

For example:  Ernalda temple wants guards. The priest can request :

- sacred guards (babeester gor): I use the FTE priest system : they need sacred clothes, blessings, etc...

- patrols outside the sacred area (orlanth, yelmalio, what you want): I use mercenary salary system

[Squaredeal Sten]

So then, to partly answer the original question,  the minimum hides to support a shrine are zero, because it doesn't need to have full time staff.  Not even necessarily a god-talker, though that appears to be the norm ("Usually staffed only by a god-talker").

This does indicate a couple of questions that come up in my mind, see below:

 God-talker appears to be a non-salaried ? but may have a stipend in kind? volunteer position, "although they are provided with food and board by the temple, they typically must maintain another occupation" (RQG p.278).  A God-talker position is also evidently open to initiates as well as to priests. 

Anyway, a site needs someone with income to pay for its maintenance, so will never have an endowment of land.  The incentive for maintaining it is that the maintainer can replenish rune points there, unlike the other cult members [lay and initiates] who can worship there and only sacrifice magic points.  I suppose the other cult members' incentive for doing so is that they have worship obligations and it may be convenient to them.  But it only takes 10 initiates worshiping there to have a site. 

The "shrine" of Issaries in Apple Lane would appear to be a site then. No one in particular is in charge of it.  

There appears to be some wiggle room regarding land or other endowments for shrines, the step above sites,  because if they are staffed by a god-talker, the god-talker has room and board paid, but typically will work a job. 

So Question #1:  From whom does that god-talker collect the room and board?  I can see the room being a house adjacent to the shrine, but how about the board?  Do you think sacrifices will be frequent enough to live on?  With 75 lay members, who can replenish rune points there.

Question #2: Can a mere initiate perform a Worship ritual, rather than Worship being a function reserved for priests?  It appears to me the answer is yes -  because if an initiate can be a god-talker and run a shrine, and people can  replenish rune points there, then someone is leading and performing that worship that is required to replenish the rune points (p.271).  also, (p.278) "A god-talker can replenish rune points be leading Sacred time and holy-day sacrifices,..."

Your thoughts?

Edited October 22, 2020 by Squaredeal Sten
repharsing in para. 4