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'Promotions' in Orlanth's Cult for Vinga Rune Levels


svensson

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Has anyone wondered if Vinga Red Ladies ever become Storm Voices in Orlanth?

Queen Leika of the Colymar is her clan's Orlanth Rex [Regina?] priestess by dint of her election as queen, but I don't believe I've ever seen reference to a female Orlanth Thunderous priestess.

What do you guys think?

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Vinga = Orlanth Adventurous = Wind Lord.

Orlanth Thunderous = Storm Voice.

Vingans could in theory become Rune Lord-Priests as long as they meet both requirements, per page 281. I suspect it's a lot of effort to be both.

Women can be Storm Voices, but are not Vingans. They get the special Rune spell as Vinga is an associate cult of Thunderous. Or they could join Adventurous as a subcult, then join Vinga...

The only example we have of a female Orlanth Thunderous member is the God-talker Kareena, in the RQ Screen Pack Adventure book. (God-talkers have the same requirements as Storm Voices)

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23 hours ago, svensson said:

but I don't believe I've ever seen reference to a female Orlanth Thunderous priestess.

Apple lane:

Kareena God-talker of Orlanth Thunderous. Female, age 55. Hiording clan. (adventure book p66)

as gold-talkers have the same restriction than priest in Orlanth cult, you've got a reference 😉

 

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Slightly off-topic, but I fail to see any practical difference between the four being "sub-cults" of Orlanth and all of them just being the same cult, Orlanth.  Say I'm in Orlanth Adventurous and I want to learn Thunderbolt (a Thunderous spell)

  1. (sub-cult)     I sacrifice one POW, and learn the spell.  Joining Thunderous.
  2. (same-cult)  I sacrifice one POW, and learn the spell.

Yes, I guess there's a tiny bit of role-play effect, and a GM might restrict a PC from joining Orlanth Rex.  But, the practical effect is identical.  Am I missing something?

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28 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Slightly off-topic, but I fail to see any practical difference between the four being "sub-cults" of Orlanth and all of them just being the same cult, Orlanth.  Say I'm in Orlanth Adventurous and I want to learn Thunderbolt (a Thunderous spell)

  1. (sub-cult)     I sacrifice one POW, and learn the spell.  Joining Thunderous.
  2. (same-cult)  I sacrifice one POW, and learn the spell.

Yes, I guess there's a tiny bit of role-play effect, and a GM might restrict a PC from joining Orlanth Rex.  But, the practical effect is identical.  Am I missing something?

I manage it like that (for a subcult, for a rank in a cult, for another cult) :

a) you must fit all the requirements from the rules books

b) you must "prove" that you deserve to be accepted (for example you may have friends or loyalties who support you, you may have passions others have seen conforting your request, you have some success aligned with your target, get some blessing from the god, etc...)

 it should (in my opinion) be storytelling first, then stats requirement. At least one adventure session, something like that.

But if you play it in a different way, with only stats requirement, that is exactly what you said

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15 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Slightly off-topic, but I fail to see any practical difference between the four being "sub-cults" of Orlanth and all of them just being the same cult, Orlanth.  Say I'm in Orlanth Adventurous and I want to learn Thunderbolt (a Thunderous spell)

  1. (sub-cult)     I sacrifice one POW, and learn the spell.  Joining Thunderous.
  2. (same-cult)  I sacrifice one POW, and learn the spell.

Yes, I guess there's a tiny bit of role-play effect, and a GM might restrict a PC from joining Orlanth Rex.  But, the practical effect is identical.  Am I missing something?

I don't think there's much practical effect. I suspect that the initial intent was to play with Dumezil's trifunctional hypothesis of Proto-Indo-European society, with Orlanth Rex as the sovereignty function, Orlanth Adventurous as the military/force function, and Orlanth Thunderous as the productive function. For Dumezil, of course, the sovereignty function was split between a juridical side and a mystical side, and while there are nascent examples of this with Orlanth Lightbringer or Orlanth Dragonwise/draconic Orlanth as the "mystical sovereign", they are not particularly articulated.

(Dumezil's examples from Norse mythology were that Odin was the mystical sovereign, Tyr the juridical sovereign, Thor the military/force, and Freyr or Njord the producer/fecund.)

Now, what does it say that Vinga is purely associated with the use of force but not productivity or sovereignty? Probably that Vinga was called "Vinga Adventuress" by some people. 😆

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17 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

I manage it like that (for a subcult, for a rank in a cult, for another cult) :

a) you must fit all the requirements from the rules books

b) you must "prove" that you deserve to be accepted (for example you may have friends or loyalties who support you, you may have passions others have seen conforting your request, you have some success aligned with your target, get some blessing from the god, etc...)

 it should (in my opinion) be storytelling first, then stats requirement. At least one adventure session, something like that.

But if you play it in a different way, with only stats requirement, that is exactly what you said

it's the practical effects, I think, that we need to remember have consequences: the Yelm worship we see in the current Glorantha publication of RQG is not the Yelm subcult of Dara Happa, and it matters

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21 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Yes, I guess there's a tiny bit of role-play effect, and a GM might restrict a PC from joining Orlanth Rex.  But, the practical effect is identical.  Am I missing something?

No - any effects are in-game roleplaying ones, such as that now you have two temple hierarchies that get to boss you around and not just one. There are also the minimal requirements for entry, and that you have to go to a temple of the other subcult (which should be trivial in Sartar).

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27 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

I guess I don't understand subcults - in the sense here of "Orlanth Rex" v. "Orlanth Adventurous" - too well. If you were a Vingan and became King, how does that work?

Same as if you're vanilla Adventurous and become king, I would assume - you initiate into / become priest of Orlanth Rex as part of being elevated into kingship. This is in addition to your previous subcult. 

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7 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

I guess I don't understand subcults - in the sense here of "Orlanth Rex" v. "Orlanth Adventurous" - too well. If you were a Vingan and became King, how does that work?

Rather similar to becoming the "chief priest of a wyter". The King is the head of the Orlanth Rex cult, which may have a few more members like e.g. the City Rex office holders.

You cannot have an Orlanthi kingdom without some sort of wyter, which may be regarded as an Orlanth Rex cult spirit allied to the office holder. Crown tests and coronations establish that link, and the access to the Rex subcult special magics.

Rex and Lightbringer aren't regular subcults (or aspects) like Adventurous and Thunderous are. They are bigger than the HQ1 concept of Rune Spells as Storm Brother subcults which has been reduced to useful "chrome" for pedants and/or heroquesting but little more in practice even in HQ2/HQG and presumably any (hopefully) forthcoming official word on Questworlds Glorantha.

Vinga is a portion of Orlanth Adventurous that receives an extra feat/rune soell (and possibly some easy to acquire heroquesting boons like "run across treetops" or "one mile javelin" as found in Storm Tribe/Thunder Rebels) which has a biological and/or gender prerequisite.

There are many things in Thunder Rebels and Storm Tribe which can be used for scenarios and heroquests by authors and GMs willing to dive deep into obscure lore. For some of us, that is considered a fun activity. The Book of Heortling Mythology in the Stafford Library is a bit of a salvage effort to bring these into the HQ2 era. The upcoming Cults Book with its "back to RQ2" approach of keeping Gloranthan publications light to medium in mythological depth is unlikely to pick any such stuff up.

 

For details about which rune point pool these spells might be coming from, ask on the RuneQuest side of the forum, or hope that the Cults books will answer this question "next year".

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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The good question then… can a man join the vingan subcult ?

day after day I see Vinga (the one worshipped in a subcult of Orlanth ) just as a named thunder brother/sister who did some great deed and then is able to provide one specific spell.

nothing to do with gender or other thing. No restrictions about gender, sex and sexuality. Really nothing  except one… 

the only gendered role then is that an Orlanth worshipper (vinga subcult or not, any gender,any sex ) can become leader of a sartarite community and then has the « man » position when the « woman » position if for a worshipper of Ernalda . Of course is the community is based on a Orlanth+Ernalda leadership

 

It seems to me simple, without any irl issue

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On 9/3/2022 at 11:40 PM, Qizilbashwoman said:

I guess I don't understand subcults - in the sense here of "Orlanth Rex" v. "Orlanth Adventurous" - too well. I

I think that's because the word is used for what, in terms of game mechanic, are two different things. Subcult is clearly a game mechanics term, but some people have a tendency to answer straightforward questions about it with Gloranthan mysticism [1].

One meaning is a 'full' subcult like Orlanth Thunderous, which is a package of spells and cult ranks that any given temple either does or doesn't have. Smaller temples generally can't support all available packages, and so have to pick one or the other. So you can talk about having a temple to Orlanth Thunderous, because it is is a temple that is missing the Adventurous package, and vice versa. But both are still clearly temples to Orlanth. Worshippers can freely switch from one to another, and sufficiently large temples support all available packages. While It's an obvious speculation that the setup is a result of merging myths and cults, if so those cults have been merged. So that is only relevant in play if you were to heroquest to try and split them again.

The other type of subcult is one that works the same way as an associated cult; a temple may or mat not have a shrine which teaches one spell. Unlike with subcults,  initiates generally can't transparently switch to membership of a temple to the associated deity. 

In the case of this second type of subcult, there isn't such a temple to possibly switch to; the deity is not independently worshipped. So the question as to whether you could switch or not is unanswerable. It is probably unfortunate, and I suspect a hangover from HQ rules, that that means it get referred to by the same term as the other type of subcult. It would probably be simpler to just change associated cult to associated deity, with a reminder that not every deity has a cult.

By the rules, Vinga is a subcult in the latter sense[2]. There is no a separate cult hierarchy, no rune levels, and not really a distinct membership. 

[1] IMHO cult is too. No Gloranthan would talk about the cult of Orlanth', unless possibly they were a Lunar tasked with wiping it out.

[2] Unless the rumors of an explicitly Vingan temple in Esrolia are true, in which case Vinga really is an associated deity.

 

 

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37 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

P.77:

"All-female" would imply that they cannot.

My inner Eurmali lawspeaker just bursts to ask:

"Does this prove that people of Vingan gender need to profess female gender when applying for Vingan cult membership?"

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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1 hour ago, Joerg said:

My inner Eurmali lawspeaker just bursts to ask:

"Does this prove that people of Vingan gender need to profess female gender when applying for Vingan cult membership?"

Clearly, people of vingan gender are ineligible for membership in Vinga Adventurous.

Wait, no, I've gone wrong somewhere.

(In our Glorantha, the overall resolution to this is twofold: that gendered cult restrictions are mere generalities -- the "Orlanthi all" -- and that non-binary identities can fulfill either binary role dependent on context, anyhow. A man who sincerely feels the call to Vinga Adventurous will join, and surely will have an interesting story to tell.)

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2 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

P.77:

"All-female" would imply that they cannot.

1 minute ago, Aiun said:

Clearly, people of vingan gender are ineligible for membership in Vinga Adventurous.

Wait, no, I've gone wrong somewhere.

(In our Glorantha, the overall resolution to this is twofold: that gendered cult restrictions are mere generalities -- the "Orlanthi all" -- and that non-binary identities can fulfill either binary role dependent on context, anyhow. A man who sincerely feels the call to Vinga Adventurous will join, and surely will have an interesting story to tell.)

Yeah, my "imply" statement is not a statement of absolute certainty.

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7 hours ago, Joerg said:

My inner Eurmali lawspeaker just bursts to ask:

"Does this prove that people of Vingan gender need to profess female gender when applying for Vingan cult membership?"

My in-game response would be to have the senior Vingan present beat the Eurmali for being a troublemaker. Question settled.

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for me all of this is too disturbing (not sure of the word, i m looking for something respectfull).

I don't say anything about our world, in our societies, with our knowledges, our values, our religions and philosopies.

I'm just focusing on glorantha where we can find these two gods the father and the mother, the king and the queen, etc... Orlanth, designed as the god of men with its equivalent, Ernalda, designed as the goddess of women

Even if I have no words for the other genders and sexs in the next sentences, I have it in mind too but it is already complex to manage only the M+F point.

 

in this cult of Orlanth (rqg version), anyone (man or not) is welcomed. But there is a society, a subcult, in the cult who is woman only.

 

saying everyone can join any Orlanth subcult is fine for me.

There is a logic of role, you want to be a warrior, adventurer, speaking with the wind, flying, etc... join Orlanth, don't care you are not a man and Orlanth is about a man (after all a god is able to do a lot of things, even sex and gender things)

 

saying men can join any subcult except vinga, and women can join vinga subcult only is fine for me.

There is a logic of "backdoor": Orlanth is for men, but, for those women who want to join, there is a specific path.

 

saying some Orlanth subcult are for everyone, some are dedicated to men and some are dedicated to women is fine

The logic is a mix of all: Orlanth is a god of men, but a part of its domain is for everyone, the men secrets are in the specific men subcults and the women discovered some wind's women path they teach in the specific women subcult to use the "wind powers of men"

 

but

saying anyone can join Orlanth, but only women can join Vinga subcult...

What could be the logic (again, gloranthan only) ? I don't see it. Except.. Orlanth is a woman, and use a mask of man. She evaded the sun court with Ernalda her lover and took the power of Umath, now dead. That would explain why Eurmal is accepted in Orlanth society... Doing this kind of work needs some help...

 

Is there any other option ? why a cult of men could accept anyone but reject men from a specific subcult ?

it is a true question, I m not doing any politic, just I m looking for a reason of a Vinga exclusive* in a Orlanth inclusive* cult (* not sure of the words too but you see my point I hope)

 

Edited by French Desperate WindChild
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Not all genders are essential - by which I mean, some of the time the gender of a deity is not of critical importance. So there are plenty of cults and subcults that are mostly male or female because the deity is identified as being male or female, but it's not vital to the story all the time so it isn't a show-stopper or a barrier to overcome.

Sometimes, it is important to the deity or subcult.

Orlanth is in an interesting position, it's a big melting pot cult of many roles. Some of what he does is gender-specific, some is not. I use "he" because most of the time Orlanth is male.

7 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Is there any other option ? why a cult of men could accept anyone but reject men from a specific subcult?

Vinga's story is one of a woman breaking a social norm and becoming a warrior, a woman in "a man's cult", so it makes sense for women to follow that path, but it would be unusual for a man to follow it.

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1 minute ago, PhilHibbs said:

Vinga's story is one of a woman breaking a social norm and becoming a warrior, a woman in "a man's cult", so it makes sense for women to follow that path, but it would be unusual for a man to follow it.

I agree in the case of the other subcults are for men. But in the case of women can join any subcult, without being initiate of vinga (aka apple lane god talker), what does this subcult ?

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