Can men follow Babeester Gor?

[Darius West]

9 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

There's a proper term for neutered men.  And it isn't "woman".

Maybe I'm being overly literal, but, IMO, they don't qualify by RAW.

Remember these ideas are not our contemporary prejudice, but drawn from a bronze age prejudice.  For a male to lose his member is to render him female.  It was a simpler time and people were stupid then.  So stupid that some people would volunteer to have their genitals mutilated so they could join a cult in fact.

[svensson]

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

Remember these ideas are not our contemporary prejudice, but drawn from a bronze age prejudice.  For a male to lose his member is to render him female.  It was a simpler time and people were stupid then.  So stupid that some people would volunteer to have their genitals mutilated so they could join a cult in fact.

First off, the word everyone is looking for is 'eunuch' or 'gelded'.

People were not 'stupid back then'. Society had not progressed to the point of complete acceptance of those whose sexuality was not mainstream. Social progress is just that: PROGRESS. Just because a society has not progressed to the point gender fluidity and the Alphabet Mafia does not mean that they are cruel, or unjust, or stupid. Just as their government is more primitive or their technology is more primitive, their society is not as advanced as ours is trying to be. Holding a culture accountable for strides and growth that it has not had a chance to make yet is like allowing a 10 year old to sign a binding legal contract today. The child can't be held liable for the contract because they don't have the maturity to understand the full ramifications of such a thing.

Another thing to remember is that Glorantha is a primal environment much like our own Bronze Age was. In Glorantha, the Male and Female Imperatives actually have the mystical power ascribed to them by our ancestral worship of Frey/Freya, Bel /Ishtar, Osiris /Isis, etc. Then you get into 'who is the child of who' when speaking of inheritance, lineage, rights, and a host of other issues. Non-mainstream gender roles or identities are made allowance for, but the mainstream expectations of the words 'family', 'inheritance', 'lineage', and so forth still hold sway.

[Darius West]

1 hour ago, svensson said:

People were not 'stupid back then'.

I am merely paraphrasing from the famous quote "The past is a foreign country, and the people who live there are *&%$ing idiots."😉 WSS?

1 hour ago, svensson said:

People were not 'stupid back then'. Society had not progressed to the point of complete acceptance of those whose sexuality was not mainstream. Social progress is just that: PROGRESS. Just because a society has not progressed to the point gender fluidity and the Alphabet Mafia does not mean that they are cruel, or unjust, or stupid. Just as their government is more primitive or their technology is more primitive, their society is not as advanced as ours is trying to be. Holding a culture accountable for strides and growth that it has not had a chance to make yet is like allowing a 10 year old to sign a binding legal contract today. The child can't be held liable for the contract because they don't have the maturity to understand the full ramifications of such a thing.

Actually when it comes to such issues and how people in the past regarded them, if viewed across ALL human societies we really don't know what the prevailing attitudes were.  What we can be certain of is that in a great many Classical societies where women were regarded as chattel that men who were bereft of their willies were legally regarded as women.  This likely had a religious basis as male initiation into Goddess cults such as Cybele required castration. 

As for ten y/o being legally able to form contracts, our whole notion of childhood is a 19th century cultural artifact originating in Germany with the creation of Kindergartens.  People tend to forget that generations used to be 15 year turn-overs, not the 25 years we assume today due to increased life expectancy.  A child was considered a conscious thinking individual by their 7th birthday in many cultures, and ten was the same as the teens, given the lower life expectancy.  Back then taking your Bar or Bat Mitzvah really meant Adulthood.

1 hour ago, svensson said:

Another thing to remember is that Glorantha is a primal environment much like our own Bronze Age was. In Glorantha, the Male and Female Imperatives actually have the mystical power ascribed to them by our ancestral worship of Frey/Freya, Bel /Ishtar, Osiris /Isis, etc. Then you get into 'who is the child of who' when speaking of inheritance, lineage, rights, and a host of other issues. Non-mainstream gender roles or identities are made allowance for, but the mainstream expectations of the words 'family', 'inheritance', 'lineage', and so forth still hold sway.

And being such a primal environment, what better way of offering your service to a goddess of bloody vengeance than by offering up your own severed cock?

[JRE]

Mythically Babeester Gor is the Avenger of the Earth, created to destroy anyone that spoils the Earth or steals her secrets. It is possible a male could be so attuned to the cause of the Earth that he could assume that mantle.

However, her cult really is oriented to defend other earth temples and to punish anyone who offends women, which will be overwhelmingly male. So the way the cult manifests in Glorantha I would expect there is a physical examination (which could be passed by trickery or raw magic, though not easy in a temple) and anyone with the wrong equipment will be sent to Maran Gor for processing / sacrifice, if the examining priestess is not so angry that she solves the matter with her own axe. I would expect the result is death first, as castration first would make her similar to her sister.

A male hero could become an Avenger of the Earth and possibly be accepted by Babeester Gor through heroquests, but IMG he could never do it through her cult. And I expect he may not need to sacrifice his virility, as that is not what matters to the goddess. It may be unfair, but the long list of offences by males makes the cult highly biased, and they do not care about fairness or justice, just vengeance.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

5 hours ago, JRE said:

punish anyone who offends women, which will be overwhelmingly male

Why does everybody assume that kinslayers, oathbreakers and violators of Earth temples will be overwhelmingly male?

This is Glorantha.  Rape, the classic evil real world violation of women, is extremely rare in Glorantha - it's not even mentioned in the Babs Gor cult description.  This is a very good thing.

Common enemies of Ernalda, at least in scenarios, are darkness / trolls, and Mallia. 

1. Trolls are matriarchal.
2. Mallia is female.  
3. As for rape: Who is the god of broos?  A goddess, Thed.

 

[Eff]

8 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Why does everybody assume that kinslayers, oathbreakers and violators of Earth temples will be overwhelmingly male?

This is Glorantha.  Rape, the classic evil real world violation of women, is extremely rare in Glorantha - it's not even mentioned in the Babs Gor cult description.  This is a very good thing.

Common enemies of Ernalda, at least in scenarios, are darkness / trolls, and Mallia. 

1. Trolls are matriarchal.
2. Mallia is female.  
3. As for rape: Who is the god of broos?  A goddess, Thed.

 

Babeester Gor inspires great terror even outside of Glorantha, it would seem! 

That being said, I think the (implicit or explicit) assumption is that because the Earth is women's province, transgressors against it would necessarily be men. This is of course silly in a variety of ways- is the Earth women's province? Why aren't they the farmers? Why don't women break oaths to the Earth or violate the sacredness of Earth temples when they would have far more of those than men given the gender dynamics of the Ernalda cult? How do people of the other four genders, a bare minimum of two of which cannot be defined as binary trans people, fit into this schema of betrayal and transgression? And so on. But of course if we question whether there's a battle of the genders going on, we have to question the gender restriction of the cult and question whether Babeester has any other face than the stern or brutal one. 

[Ormi Phengaria]

9 hours ago, svensson said:

Just because a society has not progressed to the point gender fluidity and the Alphabet Mafia does not mean that they are cruel, or unjust, or stupid.

Astounding post, but also, weren't the Phoenicians the original Alphabet Mafia?

[svensson]

8 hours ago, Darius West said:

I am merely paraphrasing from the famous quote "The past is a foreign country, and the people who live there are *&%$ing idiots."😉 WSS?

Actually when it comes to such issues and how people in the past regarded them, if viewed across ALL human societies we really don't know what the prevailing attitudes were.  What we can be certain of is that in a great many Classical societies where women were regarded as chattel that men who were bereft of their willies were legally regarded as women.  This likely had a religious basis as male initiation into Goddess cults such as Cybele required castration. 

As for ten y/o being legally able to form contracts, our whole notion of childhood is a 19th century cultural artifact originating in Germany with the creation of Kindergartens.  People tend to forget that generations used to be 15 year turn-overs, not the 25 years we assume today due to increased life expectancy.  A child was considered a conscious thinking individual by their 7th birthday in many cultures, and ten was the same as the teens, given the lower life expectancy.  Back then taking your Bar or Bat Mitzvah really meant Adulthood.

And being such a primal environment, what better way of offering your service to a goddess of bloody vengeance than by offering up your own severed cock?

Gonna respond by paragraph here. Hope it isn't confusing.

1. I knew the quote, but had forgotten it. +1 Internet to Darius 😁

2. We have solid historical information about societal attitudes [laws, military regulations, letters, graffiti]  going all the way back to the Roman Empire. Less so in the East, where many laws were couched in allegory or euphemism, but still a good foundation of information going back to Han China and to Heian Japan. And we know precisely what the attitudes are in Glorantha as Greg imagined it. YOUR Glorantha will vary, of course.

3. The 'ten year old with a binding contract' comment was meant in a modern context, but I do see your point.

4. Excellent point, but I still like the 'experience the world /Mundane Plane from a woman's viewpoint' aspect. YGMV, I guess.

[svensson]

41 minutes ago, Ormi Phengaria said:

Astounding post, but also, weren't the Phoenicians the original Alphabet Mafia?

What is so 'astounding' about it?

I'm an amateur historian. As such, I've trained myself to NOT cherry pick information that supports an argument for this or against that, but to look at the historical record as a whole and try to perceive societal trends. That record includes laws, newspapers, letters and diaries, and every other form of written record. Ask any cultural anthropologist or sociologist, and they'll tell you that social progress is a spectrum of achievement just like technological advancement is. There is a good deal of step one leading to step two leading to step three. And then there are the outliers where step three leads to step seven.

Using a modern example, gay rights in the US was encouraged by the allowance of gay marriage, but I was VERY surprised when BOTH the Chief of Staff of the US Army AND the Chief of Naval Operations of the Navy asked Congress to pass a law allowing homosexuals to serve in the military without let, bar, or hindrance. AND that Congress not only did so, but did so on the first try. And they did this in wartime, while troops were active engaged in combat. This was the moral and ethical equivalent of Pres. Truman's Executive Order 9981 which desegregated the military. I honest to God didn't think they [either the military establishment or Congress] would go so far so quickly. I'm glad they did, and it was about time, but I admit to being very surprised.

As for the Phoenicians, well you got me. They propagated their alphabet from Britain to India. Nice comment.

[soltakss]

On 7/20/2022 at 10:12 PM, Jeff said:

Very much non canonical.

But still fun, which, to me, is what's important.

 

[hipsterinspace]

  

On 7/21/2022 at 8:53 PM, svensson said:

I think I like @Rob Darvall's explanation of 'experiencing the Mundane Plane as a woman' for those who are drawn to Babeester Gor. And I think that applies to most, if not all, the other cults with gender restrictions [Ernalda, Vinga, Yelorna, etc.].

[...]

For those who identify as alternate gender identifiers, if you're looking for a war cult Humakt doesn't care who or what you are provided you're not Chaotic or Undead. If you want to play the 'gender bender' role, there are a bunch of trickster cults or other cults that don't have specific gender rules.

Experiential womanhood can be a difficult enough thing to quantify in our world, let alone a world where magic of all sorts is omnipresent, material reality is mutable through the manifested power of gods and spirits, and ritually recognized gender-variance. If you're defining experiential womanhood solely through a reductive and biologically deterministic account, that both denies the fundamentally social reality of womanhood and seems like a flattening of the diversity Glorantha offers, especially for player characters who often follow the inherently transgressive and norm-breaking path of heroes. In that sense, relegating those people who exist outside of the Orlanthi all to a singular "other" bin subverts the mythic and social diversity of the setting in a way that is ultimately unsatisfying to my reading, but every Glorantha varies. In my reading, these definitions can be expansive, and the power of heroquesting assures that expansiveness is rarely limited.

10 hours ago, svensson said:

I'm an amateur historian. As such, I've trained myself to NOT cherry pick information that supports an argument for this or against that, but to look at the historical record as a whole and try to perceive societal trends. That record includes laws, newspapers, letters and diaries, and every other form of written record. Ask any cultural anthropologist or sociologist, and they'll tell you that social progress is a spectrum of achievement just like technological advancement is. There is a good deal of step one leading to step two leading to step three. And then there are the outliers where step three leads to step seven.

Professional historians, anthropologists, and sociologists are trained to avoid whiggish, eurocentric, and presentist perspectives: history and culture aren't a linear teleological progression towards a nebulous ideal. The ancient world was a pretty terrible place in a lot of ways, but it's relevant to note that many of those societies were far more diverse (if not always fully accepting) in terms of gender and sexuality than those Victorians who codified many of the tropes about the ancient world. This goes doubly when you break outside of the western fixations of pop history: gender variance is not a novel thing and was long tied to certain shamanic traditions. It would be pollyannaish to presume any of these cultures had modern sensibilities, but flattening them into a teleological line is a mistake. While most historical societies weren't nearly as tolerant as the Orlanthi, if we actually want to understand how those societies operated (or how the Orlanthi might), it's important not to project our biases and social constructions directly onto those societies and let the social realities of their cultural and ritual roles speak more clearly for themselves.

[Dragon]

There is always the possibility that a woman Babeester Gor initiate or Axe Sister found a certain black elf-made potion in some loot and decided to test it by drinking it. Or maybe the local Eurmali had one and convinced the Gor to down it in a drinking contest. Said Babeester Gor may now be male.

Would he be kicked out? I suspect that person would try heartily to find more black elves who would prepare another potion. That may be a grand adventure.

I haven't seen a canon RQG Mee Vorala cult write up yet. I am only extrapolating from earlier editions such potions still exist. They do in my Glorantha.

So my answer to the original question is Yes. Possible, but extremely rare and a story by itself.

[Rob Darvall]

9 hours ago, hipsterinspace said:

If you're defining experiential womanhood solely through a reductive and biologically deterministic account, that both denies the fundamentally social reality of womanhood

Why is this your go to? It completely misses the point I'm making.
Babeester Gor (IMG) will not accept anyone who is not a woman. Ergo if you are accepted you are a woman.
"They have to have experienced the world as a woman enough, and in the 'right' ways, that BG notices them AND that they can hear her." addresses the social construction of womanhood. Which consists of experiencing the world as a woman. If that is not the case what other way is there to socially construct a role? The whole argument turns on "lived experience". Which means that it's NOT simple. Catherine Mcgregor's lived experience being very different from Natalie Wynn's, and both from Germain Greer's.

Not only that, it addresses the necessity of having experiences that would incline the initiand to "hear the call" and the Goddess to notice. Which in a game about myth strikes me as being somewhat important.
What about that is reductive and biologically deterministic?

[Rob Darvall]

18 minutes ago, Dragon said:

There is always the possibility that a woman Babeester Gor initiate or Axe Sister found a certain black elf-made potion in some loot and decided to test it by drinking it. Or maybe the local Eurmali had one and convinced the Gor to down it in a drinking contest. Said Babeester Gor may now be male.

Would he be kicked out? I suspect that person would try heartily to find more black elves who would prepare another potion. That may be a grand adventure.

I haven't seen a canon RQG Mee Vorala cult write up yet. I am only extrapolating from earlier editions such potions still exist. They do in my Glorantha.

So my answer to the original question is Yes. Possible, but extremely rare and a story by itself.

In my game they'd not be kicked out. BG would test them to find out if they were still a woman in spite of the unfortunate genitalia. Part of the test may be finding a way to recover, or it may be a requirement for another proof of womanhood. 
The latter I see as involving lots of entanglement with Ernaldans and, given the cause, Aldrya. All good adventure/heroquest fodder. 

[Dragon]

8 minutes ago, Rob Darvall said:

In my game they'd not be kicked out. BG would test them to find out if they were still a woman in spite of the unfortunate genitalia. Part of the test may be finding a way to recover, or it may be a requirement for another proof of womanhood. 
The latter I see as involving lots of entanglement with Ernaldans and, given the cause, Aldrya. All good adventure/heroquest fodder. 

Indeed.

Though I hadn't thought about the Aldrya angle, given "Voralans are not true Aldryami, because they are descended from Mee Vorala rather than Aldrya." But Ernalda and thus Babeester Gor is closer to Aldrya than to Mee Vorala. The local Ernalda Priestess may not recognize the difference, so the PC may be sent to the Aldryami first. Only to learn the elves simply tell them they cannot help except to point them to known voralan locations. e.g. after a week of proving yourself worthy to talk with the Aldryami shaman, she laughs and tells you she has nothing to do with that, go X cave and talk with the voralans. And the shaman can't even give you an introduction letter that would be meaningful. I like it.

[soltakss]

1 hour ago, Rob Darvall said:

Why is this your go to? It completely misses the point I'm making.
Babeester Gor (IMG) will not accept anyone who is not a woman. Ergo if you are accepted you are a woman.

That would be my take on it.

The tricky bit is getting accepted, i.e. proving that you are a woman.

 

[hipsterinspace]

On 7/23/2022 at 11:30 AM, Rob Darvall said:

Why is this your go to? It completely misses the point I'm making.
Babeester Gor (IMG) will not accept anyone who is not a woman. Ergo if you are accepted you are a woman.

[…]

Not only that, it addresses the necessity of having experiences that would incline the initiand to "hear the call" and the Goddess to notice. Which in a game about myth strikes me as being somewhat important.
What about that is reductive and biologically deterministic?

I was addressing a concurrence with your post that did seem to be implying certain ideas with the wording, I agree with you 100%. The social construction of gender, combined with the omnipresent magic of the setting, and the socially and ritually recognized paths codified by Heort’s laws make those definitions fundamentally inclusive, which in my view is both good and far more interesting. Whether someone is a woman by accident of birth or otherwise, it shouldn’t and doesn’t matter in such a world, and I was trying to make that clear. Too many people in our world use narrow notions of experiential gender, especially gendered childhood socialization, to gatekeep and invalidate the experiences of people like me, so I apologize if I seemed a bit quick on the draw.

On 7/23/2022 at 11:13 AM, Dragon said:

There is always the possibility that a woman Babeester Gor initiate or Axe Sister found a certain black elf-made potion in some loot and decided to test it by drinking it. Or maybe the local Eurmali had one and convinced the Gor to down it in a drinking contest. Said Babeester Gor may now be male.

Perhaps she is now nandani, a different path to womanhood, but I don’t think that so fundamentally changes her sense of self. She may be eager to return back to her original form, perhaps it is somewhat traumatic for her to be in a body that feels alien to her, but I don’t think she (or her goddess) would suddenly understand herself as not a woman. Perhaps there would be others in her cult who have faced a similar trial before, maybe she would need to seek out the priestesses of Maran Gor or a powerful worshipper of Heler.

Edited July 24, 2022 by hipsterinspace

[Rob Darvall]

6 hours ago, Dragon said:

Indeed.

Though I hadn't thought about the Aldrya angle, given "Voralans are not true Aldryami, because they are descended from Mee Vorala rather than Aldrya." But Ernalda and thus Babeester Gor is closer to Aldrya than to Mee Vorala. The local Ernalda Priestess may not recognize the difference, so the PC may be sent to the Aldryami first. Only to learn the elves simply tell them they cannot help except to point them to known voralan locations. e.g. after a week of proving yourself worthy to talk with the Aldryami shaman, she laughs and tells you she has nothing to do with that, go X cave and talk with the voralans. And the shaman can't even give you an introduction letter that would be meaningful. I like it.

Hey, at least you now know where Voralans live.
AND there's an adventure where a combat monster has to solve most of the problems with talking. [cue evil GM chuckle]

[Rob Darvall]

4 hours ago, hipsterinspace said:

Perhaps she is now nandani,

 

5 hours ago, soltakss said:

The tricky bit is getting accepted, i.e. proving that you are a woman.

I think being accepted/not expelled proves you're sufficiently a woman for Babeester Gor's purposes.
"Convincing the Examiners" may be a different story. Axe Sisters believing that they're the goddesses current spirit of retribution might take some persuading. And hey, the goddess never said the tests would be easy.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

On 7/23/2022 at 10:50 AM, hipsterinspace said:

Whether someone is a woman by accident of birth or otherwise, it shouldn’t and doesn’t matter in such a world,

Are you arguing that cult restrictions based on sex or gender can be basically ignored, especially by PCs?  Since they have agency, and also magic or gender flexibility?

I'm not against this concept, and of course YGMV, but I'm not sure that it is the designers' intent.  Otherwise, I think they'd write "Only women can join", or, for Waha, "Must be a male tribal member", in a more flexible or inclusive manner.

[hipsterinspace]

57 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Are you arguing that cult restrictions based on sex or gender can be basically ignored, especially by PCs?  Since they have agency, and also magic or gender flexibility?

I'm not against this concept, and of course YGMV, but I'm not sure that it is the designers' intent.  Otherwise, I think they'd write "Only women can join", or, for Waha, "Must be a male tribal member", in a more flexible or inclusive manner.

If the designers wanted to narrowly define gender through anatomical determinism there wouldn't be six genders explicitly set out under Heort's laws. Praxians don't use Heort's laws, but gender variance might be somewhat common among certain shamanic traditions including Waha.

[JRE]

IMG the deities are frozen in the no time, and cannot change themselves, they can change only through mortal heroes, sometimes their worshippers, often their enemies, as most of the worshippers will be reinforcing their image of the deity rather than changing it.

Glorantha is a magic place. In the God time probably you just needed to wish it and with a little magic you could change your sex, which meant that gender was not a significant concern.

That means that the basic response from the deity to sex and gender will be from the god time, unless someone heroquested succesfully to change it, and the current to change it back did not succeed. That is why I consider gender is something the deities do not really understand, as it is a social construct developed in time.

Cults however work in time and in a society, so they will adapt the standards of the society to their own requirements, and the society will change them too. For instance, IMG Vinga is a created deity, heroquested by many women that wanted to join Orlanth and share his magic. That is why her place in the mythology is a bit sketchy, as she is a human addition. A succesful one, as now women can join Orlanth directly but still many will still join Vinga for the sisterhood she brings.

Changing your sex is feasible in Glorantha, even if the process is different than in our world. Some cultures will have it easier as they have traditions along that way. Changing your gender may actualy be harder in certain cultures, and trivial in others. 

As I said above I believe the restrictions are divine in nature, and focused in sex rather than gender. But the implementation is cultic, which gives space for individual differences and local conflict.

Another example of women heroquesting to break a sex limitation would be Lhankor Mhy. Through effort, and surely some rules lawyering, a heroine turned the limitation from only males to only bearded individuals, and from there to acceptance that a fake beard was enough.

I still consider that BG only cares how your character presents in the Godplane, though for me that is more than just gender. However her Cult will have their own limitations before you even get the chance to join the goddess, and those limitations will depend on the priestesses, the influence of the associated Earth temple, and the local preference. IMG, that means sex is the basic deciding factor, though it can be trumped by other factors. If the elder Axe sister was born a man and still managed to become a sister, the temple will be more open to that kind of candidates, though I propose they still will have to heroquest to appear as a woman in the God plane. But at least you have someone that knows the path.

Changing your birth sex is a heroquest. Depending on your culture, your religion and your family it may be a hard one or a relatively easy one. It may require different magics. But it is always a heroquest.

 

[Scotty]

Please try and keep this thread on topic - Can men follow Babeester Gor?

[Darius West]

On 7/25/2022 at 6:27 PM, Scotty said:

Can men follow Babeester Gor?

To this point I would like to make a bit of a caveat.  I think that men can follow an otherwise all-female cult as laymembers and vice-versa unless the cult write-up specifically forbids it.  

Lay membership is extremely important to small communities, as it can help maintain shrines where there aren't enough initiates to make up the numbers, but you can pad them out by putting in laity.  Of course this may not sit well with the people who now have to pay this fresh tithe, but that is where generous council members and chieftains will foot the bill to keep the cult going, and the laity just turn up to the service and spend their MP.

So, if nothing else, it is very likely that men can join BG as lay members.

[French Desperate WindChild]

5 hours ago, Darius West said:

To this point I would like to make a bit of a caveat.  I think that men can follow an otherwise all-female cult as laymembers and vice-versa unless the cult write-up specifically forbids it.  

Lay membership is extremely important to small communities, as it can help maintain shrines where there aren't enough initiates to make up the numbers, but you can pad them out by putting in laity.  Of course this may not sit well with the people who now have to pay this fresh tithe, but that is where generous council members and chieftains will foot the bill to keep the cult going, and the laity just turn up to the service and spend their MP.

So, if nothing else, it is very likely that men can join BG as lay members.

I fully agree. the key point is here, initiate does'nt mean wroshipper, initiate means accepted by the god(dess) and the cult in a inner circle, where initiate may find secrets and powers.