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How many lay member / initiates in Glorantha?


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23 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Vinga and Adventurous are basically the same and Rex is not really playable, so...

The 'Allfather' aspect as we called it more broadly in Ye Olden Days is a tad more niche than the others, but potentially playable in some games.  At the scale of the usual RQ campaign, granted not very.

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On 1/22/2021 at 6:25 AM, Akhôrahil said:

Around half is usually a good rule of thumb.

The normal demographics are skewed in 1625 in Sartar. The Great Winter affected elders more than younger people (in many cases by choice), many adults perished in various battles, and after the Great Winter couples were encouraged to have children to begin replenishing the clans, so there are a lot more infants and toddlers than usual. If you go with the canon, then the harvest problems after Kallyr's failed heroquest and Argrath's wars will continue to have an effect.

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7 hours ago, Alex said:

The 'Allfather' aspect as we called it more broadly in Ye Olden Days is a tad more niche than the others, but potentially playable in some games.  At the scale of the usual RQ campaign, granted not very.

Allfather was not very Rex - it was Everyman Orlanth, really. Rex is limited to top political positions that PCs are fairly unlikely to sit on (even if for no other reason than lack of time).

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12 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Allfather was not very Rex - it was Everyman Orlanth, really. Rex is limited to top political positions that PCs are fairly unlikely to sit on (even if for no other reason than lack of time).

I was too lazy to look out my copy of Thunder Rebels (and given that all mentions of it are mentioned with vituperation and declarations of Anathema to Canon, poorly motivated). But even if one draws the 'leadership' aspect fairly narrowly, it goes beyond Rex per se -- the most common form is going to be The-Chief-Subcult-Formerly-Known-As-That-Term-We-Mustn't-Use-Any-More.

As for whether such positions are playable or not, as I say it depends on the scale and scope of one's game.  Those are small fry compared to the characters you're playing in the average Gloranthan freeform!  I personally won't get out of bed for being less than a duke or a tribal king, these days.  Never mind the Sartar High Council game of even longer-ago yore.

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2 hours ago, Alex said:

I was too lazy to look out my copy of Thunder Rebels (and given that all mentions of it are mentioned with vituperation and declarations of Anathema to Canon, poorly motivated). But even if one draws the 'leadership' aspect fairly narrowly, it goes beyond Rex per se -- the most common form is going to be The-Chief-Subcult-Formerly-Known-As-That-Term-We-Mustn't-Use-Any-More.

Perhaps the hierarchy you are pointing out here is what has become "Anathema to Canon". At least some of the subcults in the Hero Wars material are "the deity as a spell". You learn the rune spell "Flight", and you joint the subcult of Vanganth. You learn "Lightning" and you join Yavor Lightning, aka Lightning Boy. Hero Wars gives you the skeletons of myths that apply to these feats.

Both RQG and HW put severe limits on how much you can emulate your deity. Both games also mention ways to transcend these limits through your character's narrative. The rules for RQG heroquesting are apparently still under development. Hero Wars and HQ 1 offered a formalized hierarchy of resistances to overcome to do so, HQ2 and its follow-ups HQG and QuestWorlds did away with fixed value resistances and made those narrative, and always relative to your current character ability.

 

The relative meanings of "initiate", "subcult", "devotee", "rune level" may vary between the game systems.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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17 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Rex is limited to top political positions that PCs are fairly unlikely to sit on (even if for no other reason than lack of time).

Except when they become lay members as part of their status - see the Adventure book page 86. There's enough info in the book to show how Rex works.

Orlanth Rex is very straightforward:

  • Lay members - people that hold leadership positions in their clan must typically become lay members.
  • Initiate - appointed to a tribal or city council (temporary until they leave their post)
  • Initiate - Tribal King - becomes High Priest of the tribal Orlanth cult.

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57 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Except when they become lay members as part of their status - see the Adventure book page 86.

Sure, but lay membership is uninteristing when it comes to magic and tends to have a limited impact on PCs. The game barely bothers to track which cults you're a lay member of (even if it has a social impact in the case of Rex).

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41 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Sure, but lay membership is uninteristing when it comes to magic and tends to have a limited impact on PCs. The game barely bothers to track which cults you're a lay member of (even if it has a social impact in the case of Rex).

It's the hook for the adventurers to meet and mix with the important people. It's a roleplaying opportunity not a rules opportunity.

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1 hour ago, David Scott said:

Except when they become lay members as part of their status - see the Adventure book page 86. There's enough info in the book to show how Rex works.

Orlanth Rex is very straightforward:

  • Lay members - people that hold leadership positions in their clan must typically become lay members.
  • Initiate - appointed to a tribal or city council (temporary until they leave their post)
  • Initiate - Tribal King - becomes High Priest of the tribal Orlanth cult.

The second entry is very interesting for areas where the Orlanth Rex model coexists with seemingly incompatible cults. Does this mean that a Trader Prince in Maniria would need their zzaburi to be initiated into the Orlanth Rex cult to appoint them to any position of authority in the city? 

Though a Lunar through and through, she is also a human being.

"I just read an article in The Economist by a guy who was riding around with the Sartar rebels, I mean Taliban," -Greg Stafford, January 7th, 2010

Eight Arms and the Mask

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1 minute ago, Eff said:

Does this mean that a Trader Prince in Maniria would need their zzaburi to be initiated into the Orlanth Rex cult to appoint them to any position of authority in the city? 

But does Orlanth Rex exist in Maniria?  I think it came from Ralios with Alakoring into Peloria, so common across the southern kingdoms, and then into Dragon Pass.  I don't recall it working its way into Maniria though.

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1 minute ago, Eff said:

The second entry is very interesting for areas where the Orlanth Rex model coexists with seemingly incompatible cults. Does this mean that a Trader Prince in Maniria would need their zzaburi to be initiated into the Orlanth Rex cult to appoint them to any position of authority in the city? 

No. Clearly not. Orlanth Rex is is a subcult of Orlanth. If you're not an orlanth initiate you can't join.

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1 minute ago, jajagappa said:

But does Orlanth Rex exist in Maniria?  I think it came from Ralios with Alakoring into Peloria, so common across the southern kingdoms, and then into Dragon Pass.  I don't recall it working its way into Maniria though.

Yes, according to current info: Orlanth Rex is a special subcult of Orlanth which is only found in Dragon Pass, Kethaela, Peloria, Ralios, and Maniria.

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On 1/20/2021 at 1:02 AM, Brootse said:

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.

In many ways this is the nub of the argument, isn't it?  Thanks to Brooste we have some quotes.

FWIW my take on the matter is that in the theist world, everyone belongs to a Pantheon.  In your average settlement, you would be hard put to find a full congregation for a minor temple, but if everyone is effectively a lay member of each cult, then the entire clan can maintain multiple temples and become magically powerful.

"But wait!" I hear you cry, "What about all the lay member tithes that would accrue?".  Well it is very simple.  As everyone will be initiated into one of the cults or another, the tithes become a symbolic bucket of pennies that gets passed from temple to temple as the various holy days arrive during the year.    Paid once and then ultimately distributed at Sacred Time between all cults.  This is the only way a single clan could maintain more than a single deity's temple.  I suspect it is the only way to economically reconcile the facts we face.  In this way, each member of the clan can advance in one or more cults as an initiate, despite there not being enough lay members to support their cult.

It is also worth pointing out that the vast majority of people who are lay members only are in fact children.  Kids will contribute to their clans economically to the best of their ability, but by serving as lay members, they also gain an understanding of the religions and their mysteries, so they can decide who they should ultimately try to initiate with upon their adulthood.

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