Tell Me About Invisible Orlanth

[dumuzid]

The hottest new religious movement sweeping the Western Reaches of the Lunar Empire is pretty mysterious.  From what I can find in the Guide, it was elevated from a local phenomenon to a growing mass movement by one Saranko, brother to the Hierophant of Carmania and the Satrap of Spol, son of Yolanela the Taloned Countess.  The Hierophant, Brostangian Archmoor, has resisted calls from the other magi to condemn the cult as a heresy as of ~1618 ST.  The cult is spreading amongst both the common people and high nobility of the Reaches, including Kaufan Destrino the Castle Builder, Satrap of Bindle, who's deliberately spreading the cult among his followers and subjects as part of his project to fortify his realm against the emergence of the barbarian bull-riders of Charg from the Syndic's Ban.  The cult's center is the small city of Ajaak, which is surrounded by mysterious, cyclopean walls of unknown origin.  The priests in Ajaak claim that 'their god was enlightened and conquered the Invisible God,' (GtG p. 325).  When interfaith tensions flare in the Western Reaches the priests of Invisible Orlanth make themselves scarce.  This is the sum of what my research has turned up.

What's going on here?  Is this some sort of Aeolianist movement springing up in Carmania?  How does it interface with the cults of the Red Goddess, with their own affinities for the invisible?  Where is it going as the Hero Wars start to kick off?  Most importantly: are there any published sources on this subject outside of the GtG?  I turn to the tribe for answers.

 

[EricW]

I always understood "Invisible Orlanth" to be Orlanth as the invisible god, a sorcerous Orlanth cult. 

There was a thread discussing Invisible Orlanth here.

Of course sorcery might not always be an advantage. An "Invisible Orlanth" worshipper who starts wielding sorcery in Sartar, where everyone knows sorcery is an evil magic wielded by Lunars, soulless god learners and illuminates, might receive a hostile reaction - especially if there are any Orlanth shaman tradition types around.

Edited October 26, 2022 by EricW

[metcalph]

 I assume the cult is from Otkorion (the Chariot of Lightning) by the way of Galastar.

For the most part it would be a conventional Orlanthi cult.  How its sorcery works is a Big Question.  Perhaps its Rune Lords use Malkioni techniques to acquire henosis with Orlanth and get additional magic from that?  Or if it has Wizards, they would be adept in Storm Magics?

Greg at one point was thinking the whole thing was a big con but that's not a palatable solution.

 

[mfbrandi]

6 hours ago, metcalph said:

Greg at one point was thinking the whole thing was a big con but that's not a palatable solution.

Interesting: why not palatable?

Atheist sorcerers are a goer, right? And they can spin any story they like to go with their “cult”.

Or have I misunderstood you?

[metcalph]

6 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Interesting: why not palatable?

Atheist sorcerers are a goer, right? And they can spin any story they like to go with their “cult”.

Except the origin of the cult is a "simple local phenomenon" (Guide p324) which kinda rules out the creation by atheistic sorcerers (and its far from clear that the cult even has any).

6 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Or have I misunderstood you?

Stories about how so-and-so supernatural beings are frauds perpetrated by criminals for real estate shenanigans have been used far too often on Scooby-Doo.

[Jeff]

2 hours ago, metcalph said:

Except the origin of the cult is a "simple local phenomenon" (Guide p324) which kinda rules out the creation by atheistic sorcerers (and its far from clear that the cult even has any).

Stories about how so-and-so supernatural beings are frauds perpetrated by criminals for real estate shenanigans have been used far too often on Scooby-Doo.

It is not a con. 

[JRE]

I also got the impression when reading Genertela, Crucible of the Hero Wars, that indeed it was a kind of fraud. But it fits very well with the Chariot of Lightning and the fact that this one is allied with Lankst and its success shows it is the real deal. Almost all the material from Genertela is repeated in the Guide.

The Chariot of Lightning revelations were in 1605, so there is enough time for that idea to reach the Western Reaches, and get mixed up with the local Idovanus / Invisible God theology. However the remaining is mostly Dumb theory territory.

I would expect it is popular among the traditional Carmanians, mainly as opposition to the Lunar way, which may be a good reason for the Hierophant of Carmania to be tolerant of the cult, as well as the machinations of Yolanela the taloned countess. It is presented as a deity for Carmanians, rather than Pelorians, who are mostly Lodrilites anyway. That would make it mostly a Hazar (landed) and Romanak (unlanded) soldier cult, as Kaufan intended, but the Invisible moniker could make it also popular among the viziers, as they are the only ones allowed to worship Idovanus / The Invisible God. Carmanoi have always had a strong ancestor worship, so they do not seem good candidates, unless some of them can claim descent from Orlanth.

The recent successes of Orlanthi against the Empire in 1622-1630 may have spread the cult even more, and that would culminate in the Western Reaches leaving the Empire at the low point of 1630, pushed by the Invisible Orlanth cult. Subsequently I would expect conflict with the militant expansion of Loskalm, defeat or at least stalemate and a return to the Empire during the succesful campaigns of Emperor Phargentes against Loskalm.

I suspect part of the success of Phargentes lies in understanding and making peace with Orlanth and most Orlanthi, which is why Argrath becomes desperate enough to prove he is even more the Orlanthi hero by undertaking the LBQ and bringing back the Moon's worst enemy.

[mfbrandi]

34 minutes ago, JRE said:

Carmanoi have always had a strong ancestor worship, so they do not seem good candidates, unless some of them can claim descent from Orlanth.

Someone must have claimed that all air breathers are “children of Orlanth”.

[scott-martin]

Parts of the Genertela box feel a little scamlike to sophisticated modern readers because they tried so hard to create plots that connect new regions into the central Dragon Pass conflict (the "core game") that the results feel somewhere between ingenuous and inauthentic. It's a trap, a naked adventure seed for the GM to crunch down on when the players ask what's interesting to our characters over on this map over here. We're wise to that tempting maguffin now, won't get fooled again until we take a peek below the text and digest what's really going on.

I think Invisible Orlanth on one side of the empire and Storm Pent on the other appear a little too convenient as ways to broaden the storm-centered storyline far from Dragon Pass and provide a sense that the spiritual conflict is at least continental in scope, more "epic." Bracketing the empire with natural antagonists Sartar-aligned characters can discover and enlist as allies created a natural gasp in those George Lucas days . . . when the glowline reaches to the horizon, the place to look for hope is just over the horizon. Now that feels too easy. Too strident in a major key. There must be a twist.

But we also know today that there is a persistent strand of pagan air spirituality in the West for modern visionaries to draw on as they look for solutions to their own problems. It's been repressed but one of the closest things to a law we have in Glorantha (maybe even The Law itself) says that the repressed always returns transformed. Attach it to the right elements within the establishment and you get a charismatic revolutionary movement to play with . . . MGF!

Of course those attachments within the establishment come at a cost. People in power are going to want to use the new movement to solve their own problems. The Yolanelas of the world will try to dig their nails into your thing and render it harmless to themselves and dangerous (or at least distracting) to their rivals. Maybe they even helped create it but I'm sentimental enough to think it won't be so easy to control. They won't exactly get what they want and the genie is out of the bottle in the west now.

The question Yolanela really should have been asking is whether Invisible Orlanth has a wife. I think she wouldn't have minded being his mom (sons are easy to control) but don't think that's really on the table right now.

 

[scott-martin]

16 hours ago, dumuzid said:

What's going on here?  Is this some sort of Aeolianist movement springing up in Carmania?  How does it interface with the cults of the Red Goddess, with their own affinities for the invisible?  Where is it going as the Hero Wars start to kick off?  Most importantly: are there any published sources on this subject outside of the GtG?  I turn to the tribe for answers.

A. The return of the repressed.
B. IMG yes, what we call aeolianism is a substrate across much of the "malkioni belt," surviving in different forms and transmutations.
C. Largely antagonistic right now (competing revelations) but the future is unwritten, things can change. There may also be an Invisible Moon spreading from the Janube side to complicate things.
D. Lunar Civil War. People seem to like that motif.
E. Not that I can remember. I would, however, plug the story of Damol in the Guide as a folkloric precedent that informs how Invisible Orlanth intellectuals understand their thing.

[g33k]

1 hour ago, JRE said:

I also got the impression when reading Genertela, Crucible of the Hero Wars, that indeed it was a kind of fraud ...

n.b. it's entirely possible that someone may by using razzle-dazzle & showmanship, luring people in with "con-artist" methods, winking and nodding and promising you the moon as soon as you give just a little bit more...

And yet still, withal, not being exactly a "con" in that they are more-or-less genuinely offering you something, and it is more-or-less the as-described thing.


(I've had this happen in RL, where an offer just screamed "this is a scam," showing a bunch of red flags... and  when I investigated, I found it legit.  The wtf is strong with those ones...) 

[mfbrandi]

51 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

The question Yolanela really should have been asking is whether Invisible Orlanth has a wife.

Visible Orlanth — whose megalomaniacal/Pac-Man tendencies we have noted before — had been watching Highlander and Terminator films and doing some study of the Hebrew Bible and beat-up old skiffy paperbacks to get a handle on the evolution of monotheism. Then after taking a page out of Arkat’s book and a big bhong hit, he heroquested back to the beginning of everything and became the Invisible God. If in doubt, retcon the universe so that you are the reality underlying it.

So Old Yahweh and Visible Orlanth — back when they were modest storm gods — may have had wives and fellow gods and even have taken advice every now and then, but New Improved Tetragrammaton (“washes whiter than white”) and Invisible Orlanth married? No, not a chance. Who would they marry, themselves?

How do I know this? I found this very drunk, very blue guy in an alleyway, and this was the tale his sock puppets were telling each other. So it must be true … right?

[Jeff]

1 minute ago, scott-martin said:

A. The return of the repressed.
B. IMG yes, what we call aeolianism is a substrate across much of the "malkioni belt," surviving in different forms and transmutations.
C. Largely antagonistic right now (competing revelations) but the future is unwritten, things can change. There may also be an Invisible Moon spreading from the Janube side to complicate things.
D. Lunar Civil War. People seem to like that motif.
E. Not that I can remember. I would, however, plug the story of Damol in the Guide as a folkloric precedent that informs how Invisible Orlanth intellectuals understand their thing.

A few thoughts here.

Orlanth had a significant mythological presence in the old Carmanian Empire, going back at least to the times of Survilstar Dragonslayer and his Orlanthi allies. Orlanth's brothers Humakt and Storm Bull are important War Gods (even if they are rarely called by those names). And Orlanth is the enemy of the Red Goddess.

The West Reaches has been part of the Lunar Empire for  three and half centuries. However, it never became part of the Heartlands and maintained a strong identity. Although New Pelorian is the lingua franca, Carmanian is still spoken and written by the educated. A historical analogy could be Hungary under the Habsburgs. In the Sixth and Seventh Wanes frustration and resentment of the increasingly "Dara Happan" imperial aristocracy grew. 

That frustration and resentment has fuelled the rise of the cult of the Invisible Orlanth. Orlanth the Great Rebel was enlightened by and then submitted to the Invisible God. Although many viziers demand that the Hierophant proclaim the cult a heresy, the Heirophant has refused to do so despite provocation from his half-brother. Who knows how much of this is a devious scheme from the Taloned Countess?

The Lunar Empire itself is in a long-brewing religious and financial crisis that has already erupted with the White Moon Movement and the Voor-Ash invasion, but will explode following the defeat at the Red Emperor, his leading heroes, and the Lunar Army at the Battle of Bagnot.

[scott-martin]

9 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Orlanth the Great Rebel

Think of the explosive liberation theology we get to play with when the older cousins of the modern penitent cult finally declare victory, the smelliest + most prodigal of the burtae has thought hard about his transgressions + finally found his way back home. There might even be factors of Rightness at play here, let the viziers tremble for a SIGN will come in the west + all the old obligations literally melt into Middle Air, the rocks + stones themselves may start to sing!

[Eff]

3 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Parts of the Genertela box feel a little scamlike to sophisticated modern readers because they tried so hard to create plots that connect new regions into the central Dragon Pass conflict (the "core game") that the results feel somewhere between ingenuous and inauthentic. It's a trap, a naked adventure seed for the GM to crunch down on when the players ask what's interesting to our characters over on this map over here. We're wise to that tempting maguffin now, won't get fooled again until we take a peek below the text and digest what's really going on.

I think Invisible Orlanth on one side of the empire and Storm Pent on the other appear a little too convenient as ways to broaden the storm-centered storyline far from Dragon Pass and provide a sense that the spiritual conflict is at least continental in scope, more "epic." Bracketing the empire with natural antagonists Sartar-aligned characters can discover and enlist as allies created a natural gasp in those George Lucas days . . . 

 

Encountering Invisible Orlanth in the Guide, outside of its proper context, I came to an entirely opposite conclusion, that here was something that threw the few acres of hill country and its conflicts into a different light. After all, I reasoned, if Invisible Orlanth is debatably acceptable in Carmania, which to me clearly seemed one of the ideological centers of the Lunar way in modern Glorantha, and regular Orlanth is noted as a common cult in the same section, then clearly we have a region where the supposed eternal opposition between Red Goddess and Orlanth didn't exist, or was present in some fashion that didn't mean constant violence.

That sort of naive accommodationism is now, if not dead, at the very least firmly staked to its coffin, of course. That was back when you could believe that the Lunar Provinces weren't essentially under perpetual military occupation and ready to explode all over again in an orgy of bloodshed at any major setback! As things stand now, Invisible Orlanth is mostly interesting because of the storm-god genealogy for Malkion/the primordial Malkioni. The "aeolian" tendency. 

At the time I had such naivete, I also failed to grasp the other side of this coin- Invisible Orlanth and Storm Pentans as potentially radical democratizing forces in their cultural context, and thus as inevitably "frauds" in the sense that they offer the potential of liberation. Thus, they are consequences of the Lunar Way, and possibly even "adjuncts" to it, and so inevitably Chaotic in some fashion. It's no wonder that Charg is just full of obvious Storm Bulls and yet treated with such terrible premonitions- even the "opposition" are still Chaos-tainted by their belief in dangerously emancipatory nonsense! 

[Nick Brooke]

3 hours ago, scott-martin said:

D. Lunar Civil War. People seem to like that motif.

Ahem. The word is unpersons. “Unpersons seem to like that motif.” 

I confidently assert, with impeccable lexicographical backing,  that no actual persons in our divinely-ordered Empire like the prospect of a Lunar Civil War. By definition.

[Nick Brooke]

On the one hand, Invisible God.

On the other hand, Invisible Spear.

Do what any good Carmanian would do: reach a point of balance, and understand.

[AlHazred]

Invisible Orlanth is the result of a particularly ambitious priest (Monrogh 2.0?) demonstrating mythically that Orlanth and the Invisible God are the same god.

Edited October 26, 2022 by AlHazred

[scott-martin]

1 hour ago, Eff said:

if Invisible Orlanth is debatably acceptable in Carmania, which to me clearly seemed one of the ideological centers of the Lunar way in modern Glorantha, and regular Orlanth is noted as a common cult in the same section, then clearly we have a region where the supposed eternal opposition between Red Goddess and Orlanth didn't exist, or was present in some fashion that didn't mean constant violence.

I think the local oppositions here still point to that larger synthesis but the route ends up being a little more circuitous . . . which ultimately glorifies the goddess in her cycle, right? We just have to go all the way around.

On one hand, the purely lunar authorities in the west are not recorded as caring one way or the other about Invisible Orlanth. The fact that this not explicitly Palamtales' problem gives you the accommodation you're looking for. The people with their eyes on the south are the ones interested in forcing that mythic conflict but they do not speak for the whole of the lunar way or even the empire.

However, Invisible Orlanth is explicitly a problem for the hierophant, who tacitly maintains his office through an accommodation of his own with the imperial apparatus but ultimately derives it from the Old Carmanian system. The pattern of detail situates this as an Old Carmanian problem, essentially a local theological dispute. It's among the Idovanoids and Irensavalists. The sorcerers are the ones who care. Haggling over whether or not there's room for Invisible Orlanth in their world happens around the game table. The players get to get involved. Sourcebook writing success!

Regular Orlanth may have come in with the bulls but I don't currently think so because they show up in the list of engaged "foreigners" at Castle Blue and separate from the Charg delegation besides. I wouldn't be surprised to discover that these people arrived from the farther west (or southwest, around Brolia) sometime after moonrise and before the Ban, in much the way that many of the modern lunar influences reflect immigration in the early wanes and not so much real mass "conversion" from the existing Carmanian accommodation with preexisting local forces. 

That last point is I think a decisive factor in negotiating between the West's role as a storehouse of lunar civilization during the Celestial Empire period and Yolanela and her spawn's ambivalent role nowadays. The boys we know about have been almost conveniently placed to each embody a different relationship with the heartland: one is so involved in the imperial court that he's completely absent, another runs what's left of the old aristocratic lineage worship and a third is the bratty one who brings us together today. The way Saranko's entry is written, it's no wonder people assume that he came to Invisible Orlanth cynically and may yet not be a true believer. Maybe it gets away from him. It's classic plot-seed-heavy sourcebook writing, do what you want with it.

Reading between the lines, Yolanela herself evidently once had wider ambitions but they did not go well, forcing her to focus on the Spolite demesnes as a consolation of sorts. The gossip around her may be libel about an authentically saintly Mother Theresa type but then again, the land is teeming with "dark viziers" in her dubious employ. 

Now we are no longer rolegamers from 1985 and can explore different things. Lunar theology can be as radical and revolutionary as we want it to be. The looming horror is that the historical Warlord of Charg had a duty to eradicate everything he identified as "chaos" and there's little hope that they've changed too much in their isolation. And yet miracles like the Kingdom of Valmark have happened to give the faithful a place to go. Plot seeds are distributed for all players to exploit. The motivated simply have to be uh "clever." We have to give players a reason to care about the splendor of the red goddess' achievement.

[mfbrandi]

3 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

Do what any good Carmanian would do: reach a point of balance, and understand.

Quote

Carmanians have a complex dualistic religion that centers on the conflict between Idovanus the Wise Lord and Ganesatarus the Evil One. Its founding principle is the obligation on all worshipers to reach an appropriate, informed balance between “light” and “dark” actions. The main principles are to “maintain life” (by doing one’s social duties, marrying, raising children, and upholding the truth) and “combat evil” (by worshiping Idovanus and his servants, and opposing the forces of deception and evil). GtG, pp. 322–324

So the Carmanians are Zoroastrians with a twist, right? Idovanus = Ahura Mazda/Ohrmazd, the “Wise Lord”. Ganesatarus = Angra Mainyu/Ahriman, the “Destructive Spirit”. I mean, we even have Magi.

Now it is said that Idovanus is just another name for the Invisible God. But the Invisible God is the One — the Creator — and is preceded by the Zero, the Unknowable (GoG, Cults Book, p. 6). So the Invisible God creates everything, but the Invisible God does not create the Zero, because (a) the One is created from the Zero & (b) the Zero doesn’t need to be created because it is nothing. The Zero, the Unknowable is — of course — Chaos, and this sits well with the Zoroastrian parallel: Ahriman has always been around, breaks into the universe, and kills the archetypal man and the primeval bull. You have to have a bit of Chaos-on-bull action, right?

But if Ganesatarus–Ahriman seems to embody Chaos, is s/he not also a good fit for Storm, the disorderly bringer of death and enemy of the lord of creation? I know Storm gods always bleat on about not being Chaotic, but they do seem to allow that their actions let Chaos into the universe. So are we back to Rebellus Terminus versus the Emperor, again?

“But what has all this wittering to do with Invisible Orlanth?” I am glad you asked. We have two accounts of Invisible Orlanth: the Guide (p. 325) says “Invisible Orlanth, whose priests tell a tale of how their god was enlightened and conquered the Invisible God”, but Jeff says, “Orlanth the Great Rebel was enlightened by and then submitted to the Invisible God.” So who really won the fight? Isn’t this “Arkat fought Nysalor and Gbaji lost” all over again? If the Moon stands for balance, then the Lunar answer is that if either Arkat or Nysalor won, then Gbaji won — the only way for Gbaji to lose is if Light & Dark, Law & Chaos, Sun & Storm, Asha & Druj, Washington & Moscow, … Being & Nothingness are spinning in perfect balance. Surely, that is the teaching of the Invisible Orlanth cult: neither Ohrmazd nor Ahriman, but international socialism.

So, Carmanian religion: the quote from the Guide above says that worshippers should balance light and dark actions, but then it seems to cite only “light” actions: maintain life and combat evil. That is not really giving the Devil his due, is it? But with Invisible Orlanth, they can get back to their religious roots and ensure that they are dominated neither by the Solar “Lunar” empire nor by that Stormy rabble from Charg — and as always, good luck deciding which of those threats to Carmania is really the chaotic one.

As for Yolanela, the Taloned Countess, who couldn’t admire her? Clearly, she is Siân Phillips — who played Livia (in I, Claudius), Boudicca (in Warrior Queen),  … and Princess Plethora (in The Leopard in Autumn).

 

Edited October 26, 2022 by mfbrandi
removed two words

[Darius West]

22 hours ago, EricW said:

Of course sorcery might not always be an advantage. An "Invisible Orlanth" worshipper who starts wielding sorcery in Sartar, where everyone knows sorcery is an evil magic wielded by Lunars, soulless god learners and illuminates, might receive a hostile reaction - especially if there are any Orlanth shaman tradition types around.

I suspect that Argrath and the Sartar Magical Union will change people's perspective on sorcery.  It's only bad when the enemy is doing it to you.  When your sorcerers are doing it to the enemy... not so bad.

[Nick Brooke]

3 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

So the Carmanians are Zoroastrians with a twist, right? Idovanus = Ahura Mazda/Ohrmazd, the “Wise Lord”. Ganesatarus = Angra Mainyu/Ahriman, the “Destructive Spirit”. I mean, we even have Magi.

Yeah, that’s how I wrote them. Structurally, I used Persian chrome for Carmanians because it gave us:

1) a very different feel for a monotheistic(ish) chivalrous(ish) society than we saw in the “modern” mediæval Malkioni West (Jeff’s bathwater incident was still decades in the future when I wrote this stuff): I was exploring how far pre-GL Malkionism could deviate from the modern mainstream, playing with Manichaeans and dualism, etc..

2) an initially ancient-world model (“Persians”) that could interact with “Greeks,” “Romans,” “Babylonians,” “Byzantines,” “Ottomans” etc. (that is, the then-common analogies for various Pelorian cultures) in ways that make sense and have some historical and literary depth; again, this is before the Glorious ReAscent inspired the faux-archaic “Babylonian Lunar” mistake that blighted the Hero Wars / HeroQuest era.

3) a neat twist on the Arkat vs. Nysalor, truth in Darkness vs. deceiving Light angle to the Gbaji Wars, which preyed on loose words used by Greg in the Zero Wane History (you’ll find them on a re-read: look for Truth, Light and Darkness, then make them core) to give them more depth and significance.

My scrappy old notes from the Before the Moon era are here; the stuff in ILH-1 and the Guide was derived from them by Greg Stafford and others.

[Darius West]

When running RQ3 I envisaged Invisible Orlanth as a far more recent eventuality.

There were always regional ties to the Orlanth Pantheon due to Castle Blue, but since the Lunar victory at the Battle of Castle Blue, that power has diminished.  Instead of referencing ancient ties to the indigenous religion of Carmania, Invisible Orlanth started as a slave cult.  Conquered Orlanthi, sold as slaves, were maintaining their worship in secret.  This was also being done with the covert connivance of their Noble Carmanian owners, as Orlanthi terrorists could be of immense value in Dart Competitions.

In turn, subjected to a very alien Carmanian worldview, and in order to keep an emergent secret slave army under control, a new hybrid Orlanth/Idovanus cult emerged, pointing out that "you can see through air, ergo, it is invisible, ergo Orlanth is invisible for He is air, ergo Orlanth=Idovanus/Makan."  It is a rudimentary theology at best, but fit for slaves whose only contact with its "mysteries" will likely be receiving some sorcery spells being cast upon them.

This also became the training ground for another Orlanthi mystery however... the Orlanth Murderous subcult of teleporting assassins. MGDV.

Later in the Hero Wars, the Orlanthi diaspora in Carmania have been exploited for their martial prowess and become part of a Mamluk-style slave cavalry employed by the ever treacherous Carmanian nobles, and become cataphracts armed with spears of lightning, after the fashion of the emergent Aeolian Knights who are the "Shock Cavalry" of their society.

I still see little need to gild the lily with a huge exegesis on how Invisible Orlanth has "always been a thing" in Carmania.  It seems incredibly "tacked on", and I am still inclined to treat it like a diaspora slave cult, similar to Voodoo or Early Christianity, that may yet awaken some sleeping local powers of Orlanth long dormant in the region. It just seems like a better fit to me.  Invisible Orlanthi slaves would benefit from "Rightness" caste magic, and would become a tool of intrigue for their masters.  After all, at the end of the day, they're still killing Lunars right?

Edited October 27, 2022 by Darius West

[Nick Brooke]

I agree with Darius: this “Invisible Orlanth Cult” is something new. It may have roots - what doesn’t? - but even so it’s a strange and unpredictable bloom. “There’s always something new coming out of Peloria,” as the God Learners might have said.

[EricW]

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

I suspect that Argrath and the Sartar Magical Union will change people's perspective on sorcery.  It's only bad when the enemy is doing it to you.  When your sorcerers are doing it to the enemy... not so bad.

Argrath lit the flame of Sartar, and won victories, so Orlanth clearly approves of his dragon and sorcery weirdness.

Not sure if anyone else gets a pass, unless they are well known as an Argrath associate. “Do you want to raise another dragon? Idi*t leave the high magic to those what understands wot they are doin!”