Religion, Satire, and MGF

[radmonger]

5 hours ago, hipsterinspace said:

I mean, those sorcerous perspectives still recognize the gods as in some sense real, they just don’t recognize them as being worthy of worship.

I think what that that depends on the sorceror. Most sorcery-users in the dragon pass area happily mix theism and sorcery, as in 'Lhankor Mhy, grant me the wisdom to understand how to cast this spell'.

Other's think the real parts of gods are merely the 'runic power nodes', whatever they are. Everything else is merely a socially-constructed obstacle to understanding that true nature of reality.

In the real world, it was Philip K Dick said:

Quote

Reality is that which, when you stop believing it, doesn't go away

Perhaps  some Jrustelan God Learner said something similar, likely at an ironically appropriate moment. Or maybe they went with the quote commonly attributed to Karl Rove

Quote

We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out

Many contemporary atheist sorcerors, like the pseudo-Brithini of God Forgot, hold a position between those extremes. Gods are real, as individuals with intelligence and agency, as evidenced by the way they strategically coordinated to destroy the God Learners. They are not worthy of worship _because_ doing so tells you nothing about their nature, even how to avoid their wrath[2]. Sorcery is the only magical route to understanding the world as it is, as opposed to rearranging it into the form you prefer.

[1] whatever they are

[2] Jrustela had large populations of devout theists, none of whom were given advance warning of what the gods were up to.

[Shiningbrow]

15 hours ago, Eff said:

Contemporary pagans and occultists often seem to feel the need to retroject their practices as continuous and antique, just like traditional religion's practitioners did. But to confuse  for  would be a mistake. 

Thanks for the presumption of my stance/position... 🙄

I shall emphasise the thing I take issue with ...

On 5/1/2023 at 7:13 PM, DrGoth said:

On 4/30/2023 at 10:43 PM, Eff said:

because nobody in Glorantha practices religion like anyone in the ancient world did.

Granted, DrG took it a bit out of context. It doesn't have the 'theism' specific element, and doesn't include your follow-up about shamanism or mysticism.... which is - largely - where I was coming from.

You made some very strong, very generalised statements regarding the practices of literally billions of people (real and fictional). And that's why I said it's not true.

It appears to me (given some of your specific references), that you were focussing your attention on only a small subset of those people and religious practices (i.e., central/western European). Or perhaps you were using very specific definitions when you were writing this.

You're obviously correct that no-one on Earth in the ancient days worshipped Orlanth or Ernalda (literally), but I'm taking the 'like' as an important word here.

In Glorantha, there are many ways to follow (or not) certain gods (or great spirits... or even minor spirits) which parallel some ancient (people/individuals) religious (and social) practices.

[Shiningbrow]

12 hours ago, hipsterinspace said:

13 hours ago, radmonger said:

Note that, for  sorcerors and mostali, neither is true. They hold that the visual stimuli theistic initiates experience while interacting with runic power nodes are purely hallucinations, containing no information the participant didn't already know. Some mostali[3], would perhaps reluctantly admit that using the human visual cortex in that way, rather than relying on logical reasoning alone, is surprisingly effective.

I mean, those sorcerous perspectives still recognize the gods as in some sense real, they just don’t recognize them as being worthy of worship. They’re fully willing to accept that theistic worshippers are seeing some portion of a truth, at least truth as they experience and draw on it, but that’s qualified by the fact that it’s only a part of a greater entity within a much, much bigger story (hence the monomyth). There’s a reason the God Learners could (and did) tap myths and otherwise twist and alter them to gain incredible power, and why the gods themselves broke the compromise to doom them.

And not even true for some sorcerers who are also theists - such as the current option to play a 'sorcerer' - a Lhankor Mhy initiate. I'm quite sure an LM initiate thinks LM is very worthy of worship, and their sorcerous abilities given to them ... by? ... LM are reason enough for that. LM gave them sorcery... pretty strong reason to see the merit in worship.

[hipsterinspace]

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

And not even true for some sorcerers who are also theists - such as the current option to play a 'sorcerer' - a Lhankor Mhy initiate. I'm quite sure an LM initiate thinks LM is very worthy of worship, and their sorcerous abilities given to them ... by? ... LM are reason enough for that. LM gave them sorcery... pretty strong reason to see the merit in worship.

When I say sorcerers and sorcerous perspective I mean Malkioni, Brithini, et al., the scope of “atheists” being referenced. Lhankorings have a broadly theistic perspective, and while they sometimes dabble in sorcery, they are scholars, and their sorcery is not fundamental to that role like it would be for a Zzaburi.

[Shiningbrow]

1 hour ago, hipsterinspace said:

When I say sorcerers and sorcerous perspective I mean Malkioni, Brithini, et al., the scope of “atheists” being referenced. Lhankorings have a broadly theistic perspective, and while they sometimes dabble in sorcery, they are scholars, and their sorcery is not fundamental to that role like it would be for a Zzaburi.

It's an unfortunate word - to have two distinct meanings. I prefer "Lhankoring magic".

What would you call a LM who focuses their studies on and devotes their life to learning all about sorcery? (bound to be a few in Esrolia)

[hipsterinspace]

16 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

It's an unfortunate word - to have two distinct meanings. I prefer "Lhankoring magic".

What would you call a LM who focuses their studies on and devotes their life to learning all about sorcery? (bound to be a few in Esrolia)

The RQG core book would refer to them as Philosophers. The Torvald Fragments—the source of Lhankoring sorcery—is still sorcery all the same, but is rather limited in scope to what is actually useful to a scholar. They may practice sorcery, even expand their knowledge of sorcery beyond Lhankor Mhy’s typical offerings, but they are ultimately still Lhankorings, scholars devoted to the Knowing God, not Zzaburi, actual professional sorcerers.

[g33k]

One thing I'd like to address, though:  the idea some have of Sacred Time & Heroquests as "visions" -- akin to media, that plays out before your eyes.

Information.  Data.

Something apart from you.

Not in my Glorantha -- YGMV.

Sure, sometimes it's that way.  A nice little Sacred Time that follows all the steps and gets everything right.  Lay members see the nice movie on their mental-TV, and go home reassured about getting a decent harvest, etc.  Initiates see more, see deeper.  Like an IMAX theater + surround-sound, showing a Director's Cut... with an uber-fan whispering commentary and revelations as they go along.  They go home uplifted, enlightened, joyful.

Rune-levels who are conducting the rituals?  They are identifying with the Gods... they are feeling the despair of the Great Darkness, the desperate hope of launching the LBQ, etc... even when it's just an "ordinary" Sacred Time.

Sometimes, it goes a bit further.  The Initiates get pulled-in... they look around and they are IN  Orlanth's Feasting-Hall, smelling the roast instead of temple-incense, feeling/hearing that rumbling voice all the way down to their gut.  No trace of the temple in their surrounds.  Their honored ancestors are feasting beside them... maybe giving advice, maybe asking about other descendants, etc.  They are changed... and they have no doubts as to the "reality" of their experiences.

[radmonger]

9 hours ago, g33k said:

They are changed... and they have no doubts as to the "reality" of their experiences.

The thing about that type of reality is that it literally is true that if they stop believing in it, it does go away. For example, if they disregard the moral precepts inherent to that experience to such a degree that they get kicked out of the cult, their Rune Magic becomes one use.

[DrGoth]

It might be my Glorantha varying, but I thought in Sacred Time rituals initiates did travel to the God's home.  Not sometimes, but every Sacred Time.  It's relatively safe. It is their God.  That reality of that experience is very important to the worshippers.

Lay members, not so much.  They have not been initiated into the mysteries.

[Squaredeal Sten]

8 hours ago, DrGoth said:

It might be my Glorantha varying, but I thought in Sacred Time rituals initiates did travel to the God's home.  Not sometimes, but every Sacred Time.  It's relatively safe. It is their God.  That reality of that experience is very important to the worshippers.....

Our Gloranthas do vary, probably because the presentations of Sacred Time have been ambiguous in that regard.  There is more than one essay on heroquesting in Arcane Lore.  I happen to like the second one, page 9.

As I understand it the usual Sacred Time worship ceremonies are " in - world heroquests." That is essentially passion plays with a magical overlay.  The participants and initiates probably do not travel to their gods' homes. But gods and spirits will manifest inside the sacred precinct..  g33k presents a great  description of this, above, and I will steal if from him in future.

"Now read page 11. *How Heroquesting works": "Crossing over" takes participants to the second level of heroquesting, which is less usual, and takes participants to the hero plane.  Which is still not to the gods' plane though they are in a mythic story, really in it, not just portraying it.  As I understand it the audience does not cross over with the questers.  

The third level, page 12, is  Other World Heroquesting.  This is where they cross over into the Gods World.  It says that pretty plainly.

At Sacred Time everyone is closer to the gods' world / time.  It is easier to cross over to the other side, but still not automatic.  Your in world heroquest may be bumped to the second level because the universe between your GM's ears wants to.

As I said. There is more than one essay.  We both await the promised heroquesting rules.  

 

Edited May 4, 2023 by Squaredeal Sten
Spelling / typing

[Squaredeal Sten]

On 4/30/2023 at 4:37 PM, g33k said:

......
Or if Lunars, the brutal cruelties and oppressions of the old Bull Shah's, the 7M's coming together & seeking lost/dead bits of ancient Moon deities, occult methods to summon and rejoin them.  They may even have quested with Sedenya to the Underworld, and beyond it to the very border of dissolution in the Void.

Etc...

It would be intriguing to have some model Lunar heroquests.  A book of those would probably sell well. 

Just saying.

It would probably be easier to write when the Lunar book of Cults of Runequest comes out.  But if you already have some ideas in mind and have already looked into the Lunars, why wait?

 

Edited May 4, 2023 by Squaredeal Sten
typing

[jajagappa]

2 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

It would be intriguing to have some model Lunar heroquests.  A book of those would probably sell well.

Some of those would derive from the solar and Pelorian myths described in GRoY and Entekosiad. You can also see some examples from a close reading of the Redline History in the Glorantha Sourcebook.

I think in order to sell well, though, you really need to tie them into a setting where they are relevant and scenarios where they come into play. I don't think a standalone set of heroquests will prove sufficient without context for use.

[moonwolf8]

A useful book for this topic is "How God Becomes Real" by T. M. Luhrmann.  I'm currently in chapter 4 How the Mind Matters in which the author compares charismatic Christians from San Francisco with charismatic Christians in Chennai, India and Accra, Ghana.  In San Francisco God manifests in a very personnel manner.  In game mechanics I would represent this as the PC's CHA vs INT.  In Chennai God manifests through relationships. In game mechanics I would represent this as the PC's WIZ vs Passions.  In Accra it seems that God's presence is felt in the body as power.  In game mechanics I would represent this as the PC's CON vs Runes.  In case that doesn't seem clear I do mean the PC own CHA vs their own INT etcetera.

Luhrmann writes about Wicca; Santeria; and Charismatic Christianity.  All of them are story based and follow the same pattern for making those stories real.  She calls this process Making Paracosms and devotes chapter 2 to describing the process.

So I may be completely misunderstanding the purpose of this thread but I'm guessing the goal is to understand/experience a Glorantha paracosm.  Elsewhere in this thread mention is made of the occult scene in the late 60's early 70's.  Ms. Luhrmann mentions reading Paul Huson's "Mastering Witchcraft" as part of her prep work in studying English witches.  So let's see if any of the bits and pieces of occult lore I've picked up over the decades is useful.

From "Power Within the Land" by R. J. Stewart we have guidelines for empowered visualization.  You will need a book of folklore or fairy tales such as "Great American Folklore" by Kemp P. Battle; "Favorite Folktales from Around the World" by Jane Yolen; or "The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales" by the Brothers Grimm.  If you were shopping in Books a Million and found a copy of "Persian Myths & Tales" from Flame Tree Publishing on the Bargain table and just had to buy a copy, here is a good place to put it to use.  Your group takes  turns reading stories from your chosen book of tales.  The rest of the group listens with their eyes closed imagining themselves as the protagonist in the story.  After each story listeners take a moment to take notes or make sketches of what they've seen in their imaginations.  Applying this to a game session I would suggest limiting yourselves to just three stories per night and holding off until after the game session before talking about your experiences while listening to the stories.  

Say for example that you have a gamemaster and five players using the quickstart rules and adventure for Runequest and it's five pre-generated characters.  The GM welcomes Greg Stafford to a night of stories and gaming.  The players welcome the respective deities of their player characters: Orlanth Adventurous; Ernalda; the Seven Mothers; Lhankor Mhy; and Issaries.  Greg Stafford serves as the founding shaman of the Glorantha tradition.  The GM and players then take turns reading stories from your chosen collection while the other members of the group listen with their eyes closed.  They takes notes and make sketches after each story.  Afterwards they play "The Broken Tower".  After the session ends if anyone remembers they can share their experiences listening to the stories told at the beginning of the game session.  The GM thanks Greg Stafford and the deities for their presence and hopes they enjoyed an evening of stories and gaming and asks that their dreams and coincidences be blessed, merry met, and merry part, and merry meet again.  The table is cleared and the players say good night.

In "Psionic Power" by Charles W. Cosimano the author describes an experiment in which a group of people sat around in a circle and tried to visualize a blue sphere over a piece of paper in the middle of the circle.  Adapting this for your use, take a 3 x 5 index card and draw a red circle with a white S and three white dots like the one that appears on the cover of the Runequest quickstart book.  Imagine a ball of energy forming over the card.  Offer the energy ball to Greg Stafford and the deities to snack on while the rest of you play.  Munchies are important during most; if not all, game sessions.

[Eff]

On 5/3/2023 at 1:32 AM, Shiningbrow said:

It appears to me (given some of your specific references), that you were focussing your attention on only a small subset of those people and religious practices (i.e., central/western European). Or perhaps you were using very specific definitions when you were writing this.

You're obviously correct that no-one on Earth in the ancient days worshipped Orlanth or Ernalda (literally), but I'm taking the 'like' as an important word here.

In Glorantha, there are many ways to follow (or not) certain gods (or great spirits... or even minor spirits) which parallel some ancient (people/individuals) religious (and social) practices.

Yes. To be quite specific, I am talking about the ways in which Gloranthan theistic worship is defined to primarily involve psychological sympathy with the deity being worshiped, which is most explicit in Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha (2018) where Runes define personality characteristics and also must be at a certain quantity to allow worship of a particular god in a particular cult, but which is also present in explicit form in Heroquest Glorantha (2015) and has implicit expression throughout previous texts through the notion of "heroforming". And that phenomenon is what separates Gloranthan religion from that of Classical Antiquity, from that of Mesopotamia and and the Levant in the Bronze Age, from that of Egypt's Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms, from that of Zhou, Warring States, Qin, and Han China, from that of Vedic India and of "Second Urbanization" India, from that of Classical Mayan civilization and that of Teotihuacan, insofar as we can know anything about the religions of those places and times.

Because the emphasis is on actions. The proper performance of rituals. The concepts of dharma and rta, of ma'at. When Inanna returns from the underworld, it is because of the proper performance of the actions of mourning by Ninshubur, and Dumuzid's failure to perform these actions is why he is taken to the underworld in Inanna's place (in the version that has entered pop culture). Gloranthans may engage in rituals similar on their surface to ones performed by people in historical antiquity. But so does a modern slaughterhouse, along a different axis. The ideological basis for these rituals matters, and for Gloranthans, the rituals are related to their psychological overlap with their god, which is entirely inconsistent with the archaeological and textual evidence in the real world, which is strongly suggestive of the idea that rituals were related to the distance between gods and people- they must be performed exactly because there is a substantial Otherness to the gods and we cannot communicate a need for flexibility reliably. 

[soltakss]

On 4/30/2023 at 7:50 PM, Squaredeal Sten said:

So what happens if the CA sees a small child about to be attacked by a large non-Chaotic predator?  I am not a pacifist, and would kill the wolf.  The CA would ideally keep hands off and concentrate on how moral it is to follow CA's example of non violence. 

A Chalana Arroy cultist would not hurt the wolf, if they followed the cult ideals. Instead they could put themselves in the way of the wolf, to allow the child to escape, or they could make a lot of noise to scare away the wolf, or call for help against the wolf. However, attacking the wolf in physical combat is not the way of the Chalana Arroy cult. Seven Mothers or Xiola Umbar cultists would happily attack the wolf, as they are different types of Healer.

Edited May 5, 2023 by soltakss

[Akhôrahil]

On 5/3/2023 at 1:14 AM, radmonger said:

Perhaps  some Jrustelan God Learner said something similar

"I reject your reality and substitute my own" must be something of the God-Learner motto.

[Akhôrahil]

21 hours ago, Eff said:

Yes. To be quite specific, I am talking about the ways in which Gloranthan theistic worship is defined to primarily involve psychological sympathy with the deity being worshiped, which is most explicit in Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha (2018) where Runes define personality characteristics and also must be at a certain quantity to allow worship of a particular god in a particular cult, but which is also present in explicit form in Heroquest Glorantha (2015) and has implicit expression throughout previous texts through the notion of "heroforming". And that phenomenon is what separates Gloranthan religion from that of Classical Antiquity, from that of Mesopotamia and and the Levant in the Bronze Age, from that of Egypt's Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms, from that of Zhou, Warring States, Qin, and Han China, from that of Vedic India and of "Second Urbanization" India, from that of Classical Mayan civilization and that of Teotihuacan, insofar as we can know anything about the religions of those places and times.

I agree with this. Another unusual aspect of Glorantha is that people tend to pick out a god as "their guy" - at the very least, there are no codified rules effects of sacrificing to Magasta for a safe sea journey if you're not an active worshiper, while it seems downright routine to make or owe lesser sacrifices in Ancient Greece - “Crito, we owe a rooster to Asclepius. Please, don't forget to pay the debt”, as Socrates is supposed to have said, or the Icelandic A Sprengisandi folk song where the singer, feeling pursued by elves and trolls, promises a horse sacrifice if he makes it back.

The Gloranthan style of worship might come closer to mystery cults of Antiquity, though? Mithras killed a sacred bull, so by doing that yourself you emulate Mithras. In the Attis cult, we get self-mutilation as emulation. You initiate into the mysteries, and they're designed to help shape your psychology and lead to mystical insights. They're about you, not merely about keeping the gods happy. 

I strongly recommend Bret Devereaux's four-parter on polytheism and how it's not even remotely like in RPGs, beginning here: https://acoup.blog/2019/10/25/collections-practical-polytheism-part-i-knowledge/

Quote

 

Let’s say you are the leader of a small country, surrounded by a bunch – let’s say five – large neighbor countries, which never, ever change. Each of these big neighbors has their own culture and customs. Do you decide which one is morally best and side with that one? That might be nice for your new ally, but it will be bad for you – isolated and opposed by your other larger neighbors. Picking a side might work if you were a big country, but you’re not; getting in the middle is likely to get you crushed.

No. You will need to maintain the friendship of all of the countries at once (the somewhat amusing term for this in actual foreign policy is ‘Finlandization‘ – the art of bowing to the east without mooning the west, in Kari Suomalainen’s words). And that means mastering their customs. When you go to County B, you will speak their language, you wear their customary dress, and if they expect visiting dignitaries to bow five times and then do a dance, well then you bow five times and do a dance. And if Country C expects you to give a speech instead, then you arrive with the speech, drafted and printed. You do these things because these countries are powerful and will destroy you if you do not humor whatever their strange customs happen to be.

(I should add that, over time, these customs won’t seem so strange anymore. Humans have a tendency to assume that whatever the customs – for instance, for diplomacy – are in our time, that this is just the right and normal way to do things. But diplomatic customs vary wildly by time and culture and are essentially arbitrary.)

Ah, but how will you know what kind of speech to write or what dance to do? Well, your country will learn by experience. You’ll have folks in your state department who were around the last time you visited County B, who can tell you what worked, and what didn’t. And if something works reliably, you should recreate that approach, exactly and without changing anything at all. Sure, there might be another method that works – maybe you dance a jig, but the small country on the other side of them dances the salsa, but why take the risk, why rock the boat? Stick with the proven method.

But whatever it is that these countries want, you need to do it. No matter how strange, how uncomfortable, how inconvenient, because they have the ability to absolutely ruin everything for you. So these displays of friendship or obedience – these rituals – must take place and they must be taken seriously and you must do them for all of these neighbors, without neglecting any (yes even that one you don’t like).

This is how these religions work. Not based on moral belief, but on practical knowledge

 

 

Edited May 5, 2023 by Akhôrahil

[Ormi Phengaria]

4 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

The Gloranthan style of worship might come closer to mystery cults of Antiquity, though? Mithras killed a sacred bull, so by doing that yourself you emulate Mithras. In the Attis cult, we get self-mutilation as emulation. You initiate into the mysteries, and they're designed to help shape your psychology and lead to mystical insights. They're about you, not merely about keeping the gods happy. 

"Mystery cults" themselves were likely not distinguishable from the broader milieu of belief and practice they were situated in; the concept itself is a reconstruction which was only even noticed because of its misalignment with what was known about public cult practices (the presumed mainstream "Hellenistic religion"). The earlier form of the concept emphasized their supposed foreignness as imported Asiatic religions as the reason for the observed separation, but they have since been shown to be mostly home-grown. The later form (though there is overlap between both) emphasizes the private, personal, and initiatory nature of these cults pretty much solely as an explication of Christianity's evangelizing success in the Roman Empire after the third century. It's been an long exercise in affirming the consequent.

I also question how coherent the idea of "psychological identification" with the divine actually is. When armies clash against one another, are they identifying with Ares, or is that just what Ares is? A soldier loots and destroys a home: is Ares in him, or the action, or the consequences? Is Ares post-hoc? It's a simple matter to say that someone given to wanton destruction and with a talent in violence is like Ares. I think that when we imagine a firm line being drawn between divinity and the world and its actors, we lead ourselves away from understanding the experience of someone who would name these powers as they saw them: War, Desire, Night, Sky, Earth, and so on.

Other counterexamples abound more further afield than the ancient Mediterranean. Just off of the top of my head, I know of tantric deity yoga, the concept of avatar (in the verbal meaning of descent rather than the acquired meaning of incarnation) and bhakti practices, daoist internal meditations into one's own "godscapes" and external spiritual journeys to immortals, and ruist saintly venerations. All of these involve emulation of divine power if not outright identification with it, often without much effort spent making that distinction.

Edited May 5, 2023 by Ormi Phengaria

[Shiningbrow]

On 5/5/2023 at 3:57 AM, Eff said:

Yes. To be quite specific, I am talking about the ways in which Gloranthan theistic worship is defined to primarily involve psychological sympathy with the deity being worshiped, which is most explicit in Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha (2018) where Runes define personality characteristics and also must be at a certain quantity to allow worship of a particular god in a particular cult, but which is also present in explicit form in Heroquest Glorantha (2015) and has implicit expression throughout previous texts through the notion of "heroforming". And that phenomenon is what separates Gloranthan religion from that of Classical Antiquity, from that of Mesopotamia and and the Levant in the Bronze Age, from that of Egypt's Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms, from that of Zhou, Warring States, Qin, and Han China, from that of Vedic India and of "Second Urbanization" India, from that of Classical Mayan civilization and that of Teotihuacan, insofar as we can know anything about the religions of those places and times.

Because the emphasis is on actions. The proper performance of rituals. The concepts of dharma and rta, of ma'at. When Inanna returns from the underworld, it is because of the proper performance of the actions of mourning by Ninshubur, and Dumuzid's failure to perform these actions is why he is taken to the underworld in Inanna's place (in the version that has entered pop culture). Gloranthans may engage in rituals similar on their surface to ones performed by people in historical antiquity. But so does a modern slaughterhouse, along a different axis. The ideological basis for these rituals matters, and for Gloranthans, the rituals are related to their psychological overlap with their god, which is entirely inconsistent with the archaeological and textual evidence in the real world, which is strongly suggestive of the idea that rituals were related to the distance between gods and people- they must be performed exactly because there is a substantial Otherness to the gods and we cannot communicate a need for flexibility reliably. 

You appear to be referring more specifically to those in Glorantha who have initiated into a cult.

Would you say the same for Lay Members? The generally much higher population percentage of those who just want to get on with their lives and let the gods and their adherents do what they want, but occasionally show up to a religious ceremony to remain on sufficiently good terms to be able to get some physical benefits from them (and, of course, those many that don't even bother with that).

And so, the Runes only relate to personality traits - and even that is merely a RQ useful construct. I, personally, don't see the relationship of the Runes when it comes to Lay Members. (Everyone in Glorantha has "Runic Affinities", regardless of their attitudes towards the specific, individual gods)

Edited May 6, 2023 by Shiningbrow

[DrGoth]

On 5/5/2023 at 8:21 PM, soltakss said:

A Chalana Arroy cultist would not hurt the wolf, if they followed the cult ideals. Instead they could put themselves in the way of the wolf, to allow the child to escape, or they could make a lot of noise to scare away the wolf, or call for help against the wolf. However, attacking the wolf in physical combat is not the way of the Chalana Arroy cult. Seven Mothers or Xiola Umbar cultists would happily attack the wolf, as they are different types of Healer.

Or put the wolf  to sleep. Pacifist healer soothing the savage beast and all. I was about to add befuddle. But befuddle talks about the subject using INT to overcome the effects. Does that mean the wolf couldn't shake it off or it couldn't be cast on it in the first place?  I'm guessing the former but...

[DrGoth]

3 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Would you say the same for Lay Members? The generally much higher population percentage of those who just want to get on with their lives and let the gods and their adherents do what they want

Err, what? I thought most adults in theistic lands were initiates.  Doesn't stop them being lay members of another cult.

[Squaredeal Sten]

52 minutes ago, DrGoth said:

Or put the wolf  to sleep. Pacifist healer soothing the savage beast and all. I was about to add befuddle. But befuddle talks about the subject using INT to overcome the effects. Does that mean the wolf couldn't shake it off or it couldn't be cast on it in the first place?  I'm guessing the former but...

I believe the dominant interpretation is that befuddle only works on beings with INTElligence.  

[Eff]

6 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

You appear to be referring more specifically to those in Glorantha who have initiated into a cult.

Would you say the same for Lay Members? The generally much higher population percentage of those who just want to get on with their lives and let the gods and their adherents do what they want, but occasionally show up to a religious ceremony to remain on sufficiently good terms to be able to get some physical benefits from them (and, of course, those many that don't even bother with that).

And so, the Runes only relate to personality traits - and even that is merely a RQ useful construct. I, personally, don't see the relationship of the Runes when it comes to Lay Members. (Everyone in Glorantha has "Runic Affinities", regardless of their attitudes towards the specific, individual gods)

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/a-few-rules-of-thumb/

So within the current incarnation of official Glorantha, the overwhelming majority of people are initiates to a single cult. That is how religion is intended to work in the setting now. That is what I am talking about.

[Shiningbrow]

6 minutes ago, Eff said:

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/a-few-rules-of-thumb/

So within the current incarnation of official Glorantha, the overwhelming majority of people are initiates to a single cult. That is how religion is intended to work in the setting now. That is what I am talking about.

Ah, I hadn't seen that (until tonight). But that's not surprising, given your link is only a couple of days old.

Another retconn... awesome 🙄

I think most of us on here remember when it quite loudly and proudly proclaimed (not all that long ago) that only about 20% of an adult population were cult Initiates, and the rest Lay Members... (except in Sartar  https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/cult-membership-in-sartar/).

 

Either way, it doesn't answer the question. Does your idea of religious practice in Glorantha also apply to Lay Members?

 

[Jeff]

9 minutes ago, Eff said:

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/a-few-rules-of-thumb/

So within the current incarnation of official Glorantha, the overwhelming majority of people are initiates to a single cult. That is how religion is intended to work in the setting now. That is what I am talking about.

Rather than look at this in the abstract, I recommend just taking a few examples to see how this works in practice. Take our average peasant in Darjiin. He's an initiate of Lodril (which has Oria, Oslira, Yelm, etc. as associated cults). He is a lay member of the Red Emperor, and likely the Seven Mothers as well. Maybe he is a lay member of SurEnslib as well (keep on the good side of those Bird Women!).

Or let's go to Esrolia, where our character is an initiate of Ernalda (which has a whole host of cults as associates). She's also a lay member of Dormal and Issaries (she sailed between Nochet and Handra Liv on several occasions).