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How many lay member / initiates in Glorantha?


Beorne

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10 hours ago, John Biles said:

The rulebook also explicitly says nearly every adult (in the lands the rules cover, anyway) is an iniitiate.

I asked about this in the first Q&A thread:

Q: Page 269 in the RQG book: “Most who belong to a cult are lay members, without any authority or position within the cult.”

Page 73 in the RQG book: “Nearly every adult is initiated into the cult of a specific deity.”

Which is it?

A: You’re confusing being initiated into a cult with being an initiate of that cult. Most everyone in the world is a member of one cult or another, a lay member. Only a small number take the test sacrifice a point of POW and gain a Rune point, and still fewer go on to become Rune Masters or God-talkers within that cult. 

I agree that the word choice on page 73 is confusing. A clearer version might be “Nearly every adult is a member of the cult of a specific deity.” 

For the purposes of player character adventurers, all are considered to be initiates, so the sentence on page 73 applies specifically to them.

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1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

IIRC, Jeff gave us the numbers that will be in some future publication (Sartar set?), and I think (but don't quote me!) it was something like 60-70% initiates (out of adult population) in the Dragon Pass area. Which makes sense to me. 

Wish I could find that post again.

"Not most", "60-70%", or "nearly every adult" -- Our Glorantha Has Rarely Been So Varied!

But the Q&A disposes of that last (albeit rather generously to their own frankly poor wording -- initiated non-initiates? -- and rather unkindly to the hapless reader).  The first two are actually rather compatible, if you apply the reading I suggested earlier:  Sartar is noticeably initiatier than average.  So the "not most" is lozengeally true in general, but the "60-70%" is true specifically for "hardcore Orlanthi" types.

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39 minutes ago, Alex said:

"Not most", "60-70%", or "nearly every adult" -- Our Glorantha Has Rarely Been So Varied!

But the Q&A disposes of that last (albeit rather generously to their own frankly poor wording -- initiated non-initiates? -- and rather unkindly to the hapless reader).  The first two are actually rather compatible, if you apply the reading I suggested earlier:  Sartar is noticeably initiatier than average.  So the "not most" is lozengeally true in general, but the "60-70%" is true specifically for "hardcore Orlanthi" types.

Yeah, the meaning of initiate is someone who has been initiated.

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Yeah, the books are all over the place on this one. Most anyone conversant in English will define "someone that has been initiated into a cult" as being an Initiate of a cult!

If few are initiated, then why are all the NPCs in the RQG publications initiates? In GA, Vareena, the 21 year old waitress in the small village of Apple Lane, is an initiate. Her father the livery man is an initiate. Arnalda the tenant farmer is an initiate. Her 16 year old daughter is an initiate. All of the Varmandi herders are initiates. I'm not seeing a named, human lay member in any of GA, Pegasus Plateau, or Smoking Ruin.

The cults themselves seem to back up the fact that initiation is not common by charging 20L to become an initiate, the equivalent of a year's salary for most people. All the people listed in the last paragraph are among the poorest professions and yet 100% of them are initiates.

Could Jeff just come here and answer this one? It really does make a difference in our games whether 30% or 100% of adults have rune magic!

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15 minutes ago, Scorus said:

If few are initiated, then why are all the NPCs in the RQG publications initiates? In GA, Vareena, the 21 year old waitress in the small village of Apple Lane, is an initiate. Her father the livery man is an initiate. Arnalda the tenant farmer is an initiate. Her 16 year old daughter is an initiate. All of the Varmandi herders are initiates. I'm not seeing a named, human lay member in any of GA, Pegasus Plateau, or Smoking Ruin.

Speaking of, it's probably fair to conclude from published adventures that typical initiates have 3 Rune Points, possibly 2 if they're new or a bit crap.

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37 minutes ago, Scorus said:

Yeah, the books are all over the place on this one. Most anyone conversant in English will define "someone that has been initiated into a cult" as being an Initiate of a cult!

If few are initiated, then why are all the NPCs in the RQG publications initiates? In GA, Vareena, the 21 year old waitress in the small village of Apple Lane, is an initiate. Her father the livery man is an initiate. Arnalda the tenant farmer is an initiate. Her 16 year old daughter is an initiate. All of the Varmandi herders are initiates. I'm not seeing a named, human lay member in any of GA, Pegasus Plateau, or Smoking Ruin.

The cults themselves seem to back up the fact that initiation is not common by charging 20L to become an initiate, the equivalent of a year's salary for most people. All the people listed in the last paragraph are among the poorest professions and yet 100% of them are initiates.

Could Jeff just come here and answer this one? It really does make a difference in our games whether 30% or 100% of adults have rune magic!

My guess is that it's for game balance reasons.

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  The history of presentiting Gloranthan gender in publications was a bit weird in the nineties and naughties, starting with the introduction (and eager adoption) of Vinga in King of Sartar (as opposed to Elmal, whose appearance caused heated arguments and a major defection of old-style Yelmalio-friends), and Hero Wars presented quite adamant standards on male and female cults and roles, acknowledging exceptions but re-defining and over-defining those. Some debates brought sexual preferences into that gender discussion, and things went downward from that, in something of a reprise of the Elmal fall-out. (The more recent "Where's Elmal" debate reminded my of the blood spilled around 1994...)

Thunder Rebels appears to have been a bit too true to the sources of our ancient world when it came to gender (almost equalling sex) roles. The vision of the (too) many Earths (and Storms) or at least more names than even hard-core Glorantha afficionados could tell apart did make playing Orlanth cultists quite diverse and more interesting, but the Allfather and Allmother aspects (while mythically sensible) made Ernalda quite domestic and very much non-adventuring.

Nothing against a minor form of an Earth Healer in the Ernalda cult, but as a dedicated, exclusive cult? Hands up, who had such a character (even as side-kick or NPC) in their game?

 

But let's take a look at a slightly earlier history of Glorantha publication for RQ3, in the middle and late eighties:

7 hours ago, David Scott said:

And to emphasise, further back too. The full cult writeup of Ernalda (Book 5 of RQ3, 1984), had no restrictions on the gender of Ernalda initiates. Only women could be priests, but Gods of Glorantha introduced Acolytes who could be men, RQG call them Godtalkers.

Actually, the Ernalda cult write-up in Book 5 of RQ3 De Luxe already gave us the rules for acolytes, inside the paragraphs titled rune priestess of Ernalda. To me, this suggests that by 1984 already the full set of the rune owner cults was pretty far advanced in writing before the decision to make Gods of Glorantha into something closer to the Red Book of Magic than Cults of Prax was made.

I wonder what exactly caused the delays between the publication of the rules and the Gloranthan supplements. And whether Monster Colliseum was originally meant to be set in one of the metropolises of Glorantha, and which. I still think that all it needs is an extra booklet on Lunar Dart Competitions and a tale of two houses to kick off an urban Lunar campaign.

 

But that's another thing that probably weirded a couple of people who came into contact with Glorantha via RQ3 out - why give Ernalda and Dendara as the sample cults, with few incentives to be used for adventuring characters?

Ok, the rpg industry wasn't ready to hint at fertility rites with nudity and congress in those years. Not for the US market, which apparently is the lion share for the English language market (despite my impression that the British, Irish and Australian scene was at least as active). The French RQ3 went for a lot more risque depictions - not sure whether aimed at a more mature or at a rather more immature audience, but with aesthetics similar to the adult French comic books, and the Japanese editions oriented their imagery on contemporary manga art.

Still, RQ3 Ernalda (and even more so Dendara) were "the good wife" cults rather than adventuring material. 

And attaching Barntar and Lodril as warriors and plowmen might have helped a bit.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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53 minutes ago, Joerg said:

The French RQ3 went for a lot more risque depictions - not sure whether aimed at a more mature or at a rather more immature audience, but with aesthetics similar to the adult French comic books,

Completely true. The cover by Hubert de Lartigue, and the illos by Guillaume Sorel, Thierry Monter and Alain Gassner were frankly adult. At time of printing, most french RQ players were quite old (25 to 35). The youngster played Stormbringer (with same artists), and some pics were interesting, to say the least. I remember having read on the RQ mailing list a post by an avid australian RQ player that wanted to have it, just because it was the prettiest RQ version to time (his comment was that french RQ players were very lucky). An avid US chaosium collector told us he 'can't read French so I can't say I've done more than look at all of the cool art they did for the books, which is mostly different from the art used in the US, UK, etc.'. Of course, the look and feel is not canon anymore, but it is still nice.

For those who want to know what can mean 'more adult', I refer you to P 2 and 3 of Tatou #9 (Oriflam in house mag).

Edited by Kloster
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8 hours ago, David Scott said:

And to emphasise, further back too. The full cult writeup of Ernalda (Book 5 of RQ3, 1984), had no restrictions on the gender of Ernalda initiates. Only women could be priests, but Gods of Glorantha introduced Acolytes who could be men, RQG call them Godtalkers.

IIRC, Acolytes were in the rules (at least in the Deluxe box), along with Ernalda cult. By the way, Oriflam's french edition replaced Ernalda's cult by Orlanth.

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5 hours ago, Scorus said:

Waitresses must be much more aggressive in your game.

Possibly more about making PCs special.

I have no problems believing 10-30% of Orlanthi population might be too disinterested, too non-spiritual to qualify, or just too poor, to initiate. But I do think the archetypical carl is an initiate.

While questionable as canon, wasn’t basically everyone in old scenarios an initiate? It just didn’t matter much, without reusable rune magic.

Edited by Akhôrahil
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On 1/19/2021 at 9:12 PM, Joerg said:

Thunder Rebels appears to have been a bit too true to the sources of our ancient world when it came to gender (almost equalling sex) roles. The vision of the (too) many Earths (and Storms) or at least more names than even hard-core Glorantha afficionados could tell apart did make playing Orlanth cultists quite diverse and more interesting, but the Allfather and Allmother aspects (while mythically sensible) made Ernalda quite domestic and very much non-adventuring.

Nothing against a minor form of an Earth Healer in the Ernalda cult, but as a dedicated, exclusive cult? Hands up, who had such a character (even as side-kick or NPC) in their game?

Personally I liked the names (mostly, though they did seem like Theyalan Scrabble, especially some of the extremes of near-duplication) and the specificity, but the problem was indeed the exclusivity.  If we'd kept the subcults as descriptions, but tweaked the rules so that characters could 'specialise' to different degrees to a particular subcult, or mix-and-match within a deity or aspect's cult-at-large, that would have been much better.  (Or indeed beyond -- it might be uncommon for the Orlanthi, but for the theistic world in general there's surely a certain amount of worship (and obtaining magic) across the breadth of a greater god, or indeed dare I say a whole pantheon.)

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58 minutes ago, Alex said:

Personally I liked the names (mostly, though they did seem like Theyalan Scrabble, especially some of the extremes of near-duplication) and the specificity, but the problem was indeed the exclusivity.  If we'd kept the subcults as descriptions, but tweaked the rules so that characters could 'specialise' to different degrees to a particular subcult, or mix-and-match within a deity or aspect's cult-at-large, that would have been much better.  (Or indeed beyond -- it might be uncommon for the Orlanthi, but for the theistic world in general there's surely a certain amount of worship (and obtaining magic) across the breadth of a greater god, or indeed dare I say a whole pantheon.)

Meanwhile, I find RQG:s subcults a bit weaksauce - pick up as many as you like without even any cost to it. Gotta catch 'em all?

(Hopefully, the Cults book will introduce complications or costs to doing this.)

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53 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Meanwhile, I find RQG:s subcults a bit weaksauce - pick up as many as you like without even any cost to it. Gotta catch 'em all?

(Hopefully, the Cults book will introduce complications or costs to doing this.)

Surprised that's the case, must go read those rules!  But I guess if nothing else, the player is giving the GM a One Man, Two Guvnors type of stick to beat them with.  Though not in a James Corden type of way -- that would be cruel and unusual.

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52 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Meanwhile, I find RQG:s subcults a bit weaksauce - pick up as many as you like without even any cost to it. Gotta catch 'em all?

You need to find a temple that has the subcult first. Not all minor temples have them. You need to join: pass three of the cult skills and favoured Passions and pay a point of POW.

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Just now, David Scott said:

You need to find a temple that has the subcult first. Not all minor temples have them. You need to join: pass three of the cult skills and favoured Passions and pay a point of POW.

I do like the aspect where you may have to seek out another temple or shrine - this supports pilgrimages - but  neither the point of POW (which increases Rune Points anyway) nor passing a few skill checks that you can prepare for and are likely within your cultic skill set anyway should be a big issue.

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14 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Meanwhile, I find RQG:s subcults a bit weaksauce - pick up as many as you like without even any cost to it. Gotta catch 'em all?

(Hopefully, the Cults book will introduce complications or costs to doing this.)

I mean, if you initiate to a lot different subcults then that's gonna be a lot of possibly conflicting duties and obligations. Even if they don't conflict, you're gonna have a much larger time commitment than someone in only one or two. Also there's a point to be made that there aren't really that many subcults in RQG; Golden Bow and the two Orlanths are the only ones I recall off the top of my head, nothing like the sprawling mass that we got from HW (in fact, most of those can probably be considered to be individual Rune spells - you pray to a specific name or son or servant or whatever specifically to get each spell).

Edited by Richard S.
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Not sure if this will shed much light on the issue, but I ran the numbers for Pavis County as described in P:GtA and got roughly 56% of the population as initiates. I think that's probably a good amount if we assume that the Sartarites, like the ones back home, have high initiation rates, and among everyone else it's a little scarcer.

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1 minute ago, Richard S. said:

Not sure if this will shed much light on the issue, but I ran the numbers for Pavis County as described in P:GtA and got roughly 56% of the population as initiates. I think that's probably a good amount if we assume that the Sartarites, like the ones back home, have high initiation rates, and among everyone else it's a little scarcer.

Hey Richard, 56%, is that all the adults? Or would that be 56% of the adults?

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

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4 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Hey Richard, 56%, is that all the adults? Or would that be 56% of the adults?

56% of the total population of Pavis County, so actually yeah that's a good point. I'd forgotten about kids, though I don't know how much of the population they'd be. In any case that means that significantly more of the adult population is going to be initiated than just 56%.

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3 hours ago, Richard S. said:

I mean, if you initiate to a lot different subcults then that's gonna be a lot of possibly conflicting duties and obligations. Even if they don't conflict, you're gonna have a much larger time commitment than someone in only one or two. 

Only informally and to the extent the GM can remember it and push it on you - they don't add any rules-based time or money related costs the way Cult initiations do. I think it would make sense if they did.

3 hours ago, Richard S. said:

Also there's a point to be made that there aren't really that many subcults in RQG; Golden Bow and the two Orlanths are the only ones I recall off the top of my head

True, but I expect bunches more in the Cults book.

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5 hours ago, Richard S. said:

56% of the total population of Pavis County, so actually yeah that's a good point. I'd forgotten about kids, though I don't know how much of the population they'd be. In any case that means that significantly more of the adult population is going to be initiated than just 56%.

How many multiple initiations would be in those numbers? Broosta is one known character with multiple cult memberships. The cult of Pavis may be a secondary cult to quite a few Pavisites.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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5 hours ago, Richard S. said:

I mean, if you initiate to a lot different subcults then that's gonna be a lot of possibly conflicting duties and obligations. Even if they don't conflict, you're gonna have a much larger time commitment than someone in only one or two.

IIRC, membership to numerous subcults does not increase your time commitment, nor your tithes, because those are by cult, not by subcult.

5 hours ago, Richard S. said:

Also there's a point to be made that there aren't really that many subcults in RQG; Golden Bow and the two Orlanths are the only ones I recall off the top of my head, nothing like the sprawling mass that we got from HW (in fact, most of those can probably be considered to be individual Rune spells - you pray to a specific name or son or servant or whatever specifically to get each spell).

IIRC, Orlanth has 4 (Adventurous, Thunderous, Rex and Vinga), but true for the other points.

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