Multiple cults

[Soccercalle]

I have a questions about being a member of different cults. I can understand being a lay member. I guess that most Orlanthi, at least the men, are lay members to Orlanth even if they are initiates of for example Lhankor Mhy.

But there sometimes seems to be cults for cities, guilds, occupations, regiments and even tribes. In the (excellent) "Six Seasons of Sartar" all adults are initiates of the clan.

I get that Glorantha is a magic world where Gods are important. But should for example one expect a person to join all available cults? Are a member of a guild seen as being an outsider if he is not an initiate of the guild? Is a city-dweller a "bad citizen" if he is not an initiate of the City and so on.

[DucksMustDie]

YGMV: I have allowed a character to initiate in 2 cults which must be allies, plus clan's & tribe's wyters, plus to be a lay member in as many cults as one wants

[Soccercalle]

3 minutes ago, DucksMustDie said:

YGMV: I have allowed a character to initiate in 2 cults which must be allies, plus clan's & tribe's wyters, plus to be a lay member in as many cults as one wants

Do you consider them initiates (as described in there rules) to the wyters or something else. I think that guilds and cities should be treated fore as "waters" than as full cults.

[French Desperate WindChild]

there are some rules limitations (time, money, power sacrifice). You can join another cult when you are able to manage its restrictions in addition to the others.

 

then there are social limitations (and society is played by GM , not only what it is said in the rules) and here it is up to you :

Will the priest of the new cult accept to share with you the god secrets knowing you will not be dedicated to the god ? What is your devotion if you are already devotee (not rank, just passion) to so many others gods ?

 

Same for the guilds...

will you be allowed to do your job if you don't join the guild ? impossible because the law ? with difficulties (no one will supply you ? no one will pay you ?, some thug attacks ? more taxes ?) or not ? What status must you have to ... work (laymember ? initiate ?) , to own the business (initiate ?)

In my gloratha (but our glorantha may vary) , it depends on the city and the business. When the business is important to the city , yes it is mandatory, when the business is exotic, you can do what you want. Note sometimes there may be two guilds/organizations for the same business (example in Pavis  lunar weapon masters and anti lunar weapon masters, of course before Argrath activities)

 

for the cities / clans,  I consider every one in the community is lay member (including some time, money and pow/mp sacrifice depending on the location)

Those who want to have any political role must be at least have an initiate status (1) except when the (sub)cult says you become initiate when you have already the role (2)

(1) become initiate of Pavis if you want to become a leader

(2) become the boss if you want to become Orlant rex initiate

Note that I consider that a wyter could be seen as a subcult (or something like that) of the local god leader (Orlanth among sartarite for example) but when the "wyter" is a god (like Pavis) then you must be initiated to Pavis directly

Edited January 7, 2022 by French Desperate WindChild

[DucksMustDie]

10 minutes ago, Soccercalle said:

Do you consider them initiates (as described in there rules) to the wyters or something else. I think that guilds and cities should be treated fore as "waters" than as full cults.

No I don't, I consider wyters a mandatory part in belonging to a community, they are less than gods and therefore not full fledged cults

[Darius West]

4 hours ago, Soccercalle said:

I get that Glorantha is a magic world where Gods are important. But should for example one expect a person to join all available cults? Are a member of a guild seen as being an outsider if he is not an initiate of the guild? Is a city-dweller a "bad citizen" if he is not an initiate of the City and so on.

This is a good question Soccercalle.  My take on it is this (YGWV)...

When you are growing up in Glorantha, as a kid, you are likely to be taken for education by various religious figures from your clan.  You will be told the stories of the various gods your clan favors and has representatives of, so that you will come to an understanding of which one you feel closest to and whose abilities and way of life you most want to emulate.  At the end of your childhood you are sent for your initiation into adulthood, and thereafter, your family will likely pay for you to join a cult as an initiate.  This of course attracts a 10% tithe to your cult if you want to regain your RP.  As a child you are effectively a lay member of every cult, but as you grow up, many of those lay memberships lapse.  

The simple fact is that no-one is a member of all cults, as then they could never have any wealth on which to live.  Join ten cults and suddenly you owe 100% of your income.  Consider that you already owe duties to your clan so that they can meet their requirements to the Tribe, and if you are in occupied Sartar you may well owe tribute to the Lunars and bribes and kick-backs too.

As to being a bad citizen if you don't belong to the City cult, well, the answer is to become a lay member, not an initiate.  This likely goes for most of the other deities in one's pantheon too.  It is possible and even likely that a clan chief will even pre-pay everyone's lay membership dues if they want a particular cult to grow in their clan, as this in turn will encourage more children to potentially initiate into the cult in coming years.

Guild membership is more nuanced I think.  Most guilds will likely have a patron deity, but much will depend on how secret their secret techniques are.  For example, a guild of ropemakers might follow Waha, or an Ernalda subcult, etc but the magic of neither deity is deeply concerned with the crafting of rope, so the issue is likely more one of lip service.  Now then consider Smithing and the Cult of Gustbran, and suddenly the secrets get deep and important, and membership becomes very important as it gives you access to becoming a really great smith as opposed to a talented dabbler.

I hope this helps.

Edited January 7, 2022 by Darius West

[Joerg]

Your character will have separate loyalty and devotion ratings for the different religious and social factions they are part of.

Tithing and time requirement for a city or clan cult are known as taxes, and the same for guild or warband duties and fees/necessary acquisitions and maintenance. Gifting a point of POW to a wyter as initiation might raise your RQG loyalty etc. rating by 10 percentiles, or may play out as branching out or raising an "initiate of" ability from the proper rune for a hero point in HQG (and whatever that mechanic may now be called in Questworlds).

It is possible to follow two or more major cults, as long as neither cult is vetoing that. Such full cult requirements will cut in your available funds for standard of living. At the same time, they may be payments for status in your community, counting towards money spent on maintaining your standard of living - I guess your GM / narrator will have to make a ruling how generous or fussy and niggardly he wants to be. Some GMs and game designers seem to have a problem with affluent or well-sponsored player characters, others may run with that and rejoice about the new source of quest-givers and plot-hooks and complications.

[Alex]

5 hours ago, Soccercalle said:

Do you consider them initiates (as described in there rules) to the wyters or something else. I think that guilds and cities should be treated fore as "waters" than as full cults.

City gods have been given "full" cult writeups in the past (Pavis, and the RQ3 generic "City God" template), so I'm going to give that question a decisive "maybe" answer. 🙂  The distinction is likely a somewhat fuzzy one in "real" Glorantha, and our game mechanics for this are necessarily approximations.  Who wants to do factional POW-point accounting, and the like?  But note that cults can always have non-standard requirements for, and benefits from, initiation.  You probably want to choose an approximation that seems to best serve the needs of your story and your table.  If they're part of the premise of a particular game, you don't want to apply game-mechanics taxes to choices you want the PCs to make, or to have already made.  For example RQG assumes that PCs start as initiates, which in theory must have cost them a point of POW.  But you don't get a "refund" if you don't, because it's intended to be part of the premise of the game.  (And also you don't want to open the can of worms of, "if I'd sacrificed an extra point of POW five years ago, what're the chances I'd have regained it by one of series of marginally easier gain rolls in the meantime, huh, huhhuh?")  So you certainly don't want to start "charging" PCs POW sacs to be parts of communities that are part of the backstory (especially as any such hypothetical sacrifices would have generally happened even longer ago.)

If you do regard them as cults, they obviously have unusually lax "cult compatibility" attitudes.  Clan "cults"/"wyters" are similar in that respect, only manifest in the form of 1,000 busybody relatives of yours, who'll certainly have -- and insist on sharing -- their opinions on such matters.  Do they have time commitments?  Of course, but they're indistinguishable from being a citizen in good standing/loyal clan member, in normal social terms.  Do they provide rune magic?  Maybe not.  And maybe they do, but that "blends into" being seen as a subcult of the local Orlanth and Ernalda temples for clans (as FDWC says), and similarly for cities, it might be a subcult of the local religions with sufficiently large temples, instead of or as well as being a distinct entity.  Do they provide other benefits like spirit magic and training?  WiIl vary widely from case to case.

The question obviously becomes more material if a PC has a "change of affiliation" in play.  They leave or get outlawed from their original clan and join another, or they drift off from their clan being their primary affiliation and become more of a city-burgher type.  But in Sartar in particular (which may or may not be a model for elsewhere) your associations "nest" -- your clan is a part of your tribe, is a part of your city (ring), is a part of the kingdom.  So rather than regarding those are separate "cults", you might want to see them as all essentially the same thing, and track the distinction with Passions.

Another what-happens-at-the-table distinction is how diverse the PCs are.  Are they all (highly unfashionably) from the same clan, so this functions as a group-binding thing?  Or are they from different clans, tribes, etc, so it's a point of difference -- added distinctive shtick for each character.

[Bren]

The Starter Set says,

Quote

Citizenship in the city of Jonstown is like clan membership. Eligibility extends to all members of tribes of the Jonstown Confederation who choose to live in the city, to priests of the temples, and to full members of a guild. Starter Set, Book 2, p 31, City Politics > Citizenship

We are also told that citizenship is not automatic. So while all members of the Orleving clan are automatically members of the Malani tribe and all members of the Malani tribe who live in Jonstown are eligible for citizenship, some Orlevings (most really) will not be citizens because they don't meet the various other requirements for citizenship.

[David Scott]

On 1/7/2022 at 10:21 AM, Soccercalle said:

Do you consider them initiates (as described in there rules) to the wyters or something else. I think that guilds and cities should be treated fore as "waters" than as full cults.

Wyters have a single priest (who need not even be a real priest) and no initiates. Those wishing to be part of the community and therefore benefit from the wyter must take the appropriate loyalty per page RQG 287 "Members of the community must take a Passion with that community (e.g., Loyalty (Clan), Loyalty (Tribe), etc.)."

So if an adventurer want's to benefit from the Jonstown Wyter, they need to take Loyalty (Jonstown). They need to offer at least seasonal magic points to it as well.

On 1/7/2022 at 9:57 AM, Soccercalle said:

Is a city-dweller a "bad citizen" if he is not an initiate of the City and so on.

So no. you just need a loyalty. If the city wyter is more complex, like pavis with a separate cult, you'd just be a lay member.

On 1/7/2022 at 9:57 AM, Soccercalle said:

But there sometimes seems to be cults for cities, guilds, occupations, regiments and even tribes. In the (excellent) "Six Seasons of Sartar" all adults are initiates of the clan.

Guilds are normal cults, just the city versions of cults: see these comments by Jeff:

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/5495-the-trail-of-lanbril/#comment-81142

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/4376-guilds/#comment-68175

Guild membership is defined by a loyalty. In Jonstown we see some guilds listed.

• Bakers Guild
• Butchers Guild. 
• Cloth and Leather Workers Guild
• Merchants Guild
• Parchment Makers Guild
• Potters Guild
• Redsmith Guild
• Stonecutters Guild

So the guild would have the equivalent of a wyter with the guild head being the priest. Guild members would be initiates or lay members of useful cults. Like Gustbran for the Redsmiths and Potters, Waha for butchers, Issaries for merchants, etc. The wyter in some circumstances might be the equivalent of a Hero Cult or spirit cult that is also part of a particular founding myth. (eg. Agban the knife was a Bison tribe herder who settled down in Jonstown after its founding and had the best cuts of meat in town. His spirit is now the wyter and teaches Peaceful Cut to anyone who aspires to be a butcher (max 25% inc. category modifier).)

So an adventurer who is an Orlanth Adventurous initiate member of the Malani tribe, could move to Jonstown. If they successfully become a citizen of the city, they could join the weapon masters guild by taking a loyalty (weapons masters guild) and teach weapon skills. They could also take Loyalty (Jonstown) (which is likely a prerequisite for citizenship). They are also likely a lay member of Humakt.