The utility of the Seven Mothers cult?

[Ynneadwraith]

17 minutes ago, Joerg said:

The cult of the individual as the center of the world doesn't seem to have been a good survival strategy. It may have been common with those who were as gods to their communities, though.

Interesting observation, considering that the advances in modern technology essentially allow 80% of us to live like elites used to.

Though I do think there is still a trap there. Our degrees of individualism (especially in the West) is still far, far higher than I suspect the vast majority of pre-historic God-Kings were. Even at that level, there was still a conceptualisation that they were 'first servant of the gods' or 'living representative of the god, and thus bound by the responsibilities that god had to the community'.

Hark me arguing for heavy community-mindedness just after arguing for individualism! I suppose my stance is that these cultures conceptualised themselves as far more communal than we do (especially ones like Bronze Age god-kings, or neolithic EEF cultures with those communal barrow-tombs), though not so communal that there weren't individual interests at play. Stalinism is the parallel I draw most often.

26 minutes ago, Joerg said:

I think that Odysseus was convinced that his interests were those of his (Ithakan) community

Now that is a trap if ever I saw one...

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, Ali the Helering said:

the vast majority of us on this forum view the supernatural through a lens conditioned by ‘popular’ Judaeo-Christianity, simply by virtue of our countries of origin.

Or through the lens of British empiricism, we cannot see — or even conceive — the supernatural, at all?

[Ali the Helering]

11 hours ago, Ynneadwraith said:

Part of the reason I think it's this and not Judaeo-Christianity that's distorting things in this instance is that Judaeo-Christianity very much developed from the Sumerian and Akkadian religious traditions.

Unless of course that was rather your point, that we view all sorts of things through a Judaeo-Christian lens (translation of ancient texts included).

Unfortunately I think you have missed my point - if you tweak the wording then you change the meaning.

The tradition we come to think of as Judaism is related to, but not developed from, Sumer and Akkad, in much the same way that the Aesatru tradition is related to, but not developed from, Frankish and Burgundian.

Modernism is an outworking of Reformation Protestantism, and is not separable from the Judaeo-Christian tradition, I am afraid🙂🙃😇  

[Eff]

Going back to the ostensible subject of this thread, what would it say about a society that its divine community is one that's effectively disarmed by relation to its social context? That's the question which lies behind questions about Seven Mothers as a cult, which really come down to questions about what Gloranthan societies look like and whether it is sensible for a society to have a relative position of so-and-so with this neighbor and suchlike with that neighbor given its expressed magical abilities and defined historical trends.

For example, if the adoption of the Lunar religion led to a resilient and strong state that was able to unify a fractious Peloria, and part of that religion is the opening up of new magical methods, then does it really make sense for that religion to produce adherents who are, by the available measures, significantly worse off than they would have been before the Lunars, bereft of the magic that other Gloranthan societies enjoy?

Edited May 20 by Eff

[John Biles]

I think focusing on Rune Magic means missing something important - Every single Spirit magic spell is available to worshipers to learn and Spirit Magic is usable far more often than Rune Magic.

Repair, by itself, would be *incredibly useful* for ordinary people.  Humakt, Issaries, and Yelmalio do teach it, but the vast majority of cults in the core book do not. 

And you can learn any Spirit magic and use it every day.

Rune Magic is big and rich, but also basically, even a runelord or runepriest is ever going to chunk 5+ runespells in one day unless it's some huge battle.

Also, the ability to summon not just Elementals, but the *same* elemental with Rune Magic is nothing to sneeze at.  Imagine forging over a fire elemental. 

And healing too.

Still, I think easy access, if expensive, to every kind of spirit magic has to be a big deal.

Anywhere that isn't overrun with Shamans, anyway.

[Eff]

5 minutes ago, John Biles said:

I think focusing on Rune Magic means missing something important - Every single Spirit magic spell is available to worshipers to learn and Spirit Magic is usable far more often than Rune Magic.

Repair, by itself, would be *incredibly useful* for ordinary people.  Humakt, Issaries, and Yelmalio do teach it, but the vast majority of cults in the core book do not. 

And you can learn any Spirit magic and use it every day.

Rune Magic is big and rich, but also basically, even a runelord or runepriest is ever going to chunk 5+ runespells in one day unless it's some huge battle.

Also, the ability to summon not just Elementals, but the *same* elemental with Rune Magic is nothing to sneeze at.  Imagine forging over a fire elemental. 

And healing too.

Still, I think easy access, if expensive, to every kind of spirit magic has to be a big deal.

Anywhere that isn't overrun with Shamans, anyway.

That's because runespells, divine affinities, divine feats, are explicitly representations of things the god(s) of the cult did mythologically, the defining events that explain why they're important and why we, the people of the religion, offer worship to them. There's a clear definition of what these things mean there, whereas the little magic called spirit magic in RQ3 (and thus RQG) and battle magic in RQ2 is not so connected. 

[Ynneadwraith]

11 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

Modernism is an outworking of Reformation Protestantism, and is not separable from the Judaeo-Christian tradition, I am afraid🙂🙃😇  

I'm with you, but I do think they are slightly separate processes stemming from the same root. In my understanding, the Judaeo-Christian reform* primarily sought to supplant existing clan and tribal concepts of community with a religious one. I very much see it as an extension of the tradition born in the fertile crescent of building a community around serving a deity as opposed to familial relationships.

The fact that this (eventually) broadly backfired and ended up stripping people of their sense of community (deracinating them) without necessarily planting religion as a substitute community was far from a given. Its causes were mutlifaceted (including such other factors as the impact of the Industrial Revolution, among others).

So, no, I don't think it's wholly separable. But I do think they're separable enough to warrant calling attention to both as factors to be wary of when interpreting the actions of ancient peoples that shared neither. The way I interpreted the terms was:

• Judaeo-Christian tradition = theological conceptualisation of the world based on Judaeo-Christian cosmology. For example, things like a dualistic division of deities into wholly good and evil, conceptualising the underworld as a place where sinners are punished etc. I suppose you could lump in structural things here if you wanted too, like having a canon of accepted beliefs (others being deemed as wrong or heretical), or having a defined 'church' as a parallel society/political structure.
• Modernity = the breakdown of the conceptualisation of 'the community' as the base unit of society, and the rise of individualism. Game of Thrones is a good example of this being projected backwards in time.

I suppose another connected term to be wary of is empiricism. The concept that true knowledge comes only from observation. The idea that the default state of a person is to be sceptical of something unless they have personally observed the thing in question. That belief is not a valid source of truth.

All of these things have their roots (or are a root of) Reformation Protestantism, as you say, but are different enough phenomena to warrant individual examination.

*here I'm mainly talking about the one I know best, the largely Catholic reform in Western Europe

 

11 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

Unfortunately I think you have missed my point - if you tweak the wording then you change the meaning.

The only word I tweaked was 'goddess' to 'God', and the pronouns from 'she' to 'he'. The rest of the meaning of the text (that someone has fallen out of the graces of a deity for reasons they cannot fathom) remains wholly intact.

Unless I have misinterpreted the meaning of the word 'goddess' in this context, and it's intended meaning is something closer to 'community' rather than 'deity that holds sway over me'. That's certainly possible, but not something I picked up on!

[Ynneadwraith]

11 hours ago, Eff said:

Going back to the ostensible subject of this thread, what would it say about a society that its divine community is one that's effectively disarmed by relation to its social context? That's the question which lies behind questions about Seven Mothers as a cult, which really come down to questions about what Gloranthan societies look like and whether it is sensible for a society to have a relative position of so-and-so with this neighbor and suchlike with that neighbor given its expressed magical abilities and defined historical trends.

For example, if the adoption of the Lunar religion led to a resilient and strong state that was able to unify a fractious Peloria, and part of that religion is the opening up of new magical methods, then does it really make sense for that religion to produce adherents who are, by the available measures, significantly worse off than they would have been before the Lunars, bereft of the magic that other Gloranthan societies enjoy?

Interesting points!

I'd maybe suggest it's something to do with the building of legitimacy. I don't get the impression that the micro-states of Peloria were republics, so the regular citizenry don't seem to get much of a say in who's leading them. There's revolts I suppose, but they're extreme measures for extreme circumstances.

Meanwhile, the elites do have something to gain through conversion to the Lunar Way and the legitimacy that brings (what with the sodding great orb-goddess floating above them). That conversion then percolates down through the rest of the population, because it's less risky to take the slightly less useful magic than it is to get on the wrong side of the Lunar authorities (and the Lunar's don't seem to be all that keen on religious pluralism).

Might this suggest, then, that the Lunar religion is one that is primarily beneficial to the elite (and thus the benefit to the non-elite to conversion is in not getting persecuted by that more powerful elite).

I don't know, just my interpretation.

Another one could be that the general disarming of the population is actually a net benefit to everyone involved. See the gun crime statistics between the US and Europe as an example. The lunar population see their disarming as a positive thing, because they're less likely to get thunderbolted during a random bar brawl than their windy cousins. Deadly violence is for those whose role is designated as the dealers of deadly violence (e.g. soldiers).

[radmonger]

14 minutes ago, Ynneadwraith said:

Might this suggest, then, that the Lunar religion is one that is primarily beneficial to the elite (and thus the benefit to the non-elite to conversion is in not getting persecuted by that more powerful elite).

I'd say so much 'elite' in the sense of rulers and nobles, as 'urban citizens'. The city-dwellers of Furthest have a baseline cult of 7M, with professional specializations.  Those of Boldhome have Orlanth + Ernalda.

7M is the clear winner here; what benefit do generalist deities of murder and agriculture really offer to someone living in a city? In particular, compared to Boldhome, you don't start with a sex-based split; all the specialist cults are associated to 7M, rather than half to Orlanth and half to Ernalda. Orlanthi vingans will be expected  to train in the militia, and end up with a mythically complicated relation to fertility and marriage. Not every female scribe or merchant will want that.

Just not having to wear a fake beard is enough to explain much.

[Eff]

1 hour ago, Ynneadwraith said:

 

Another one could be that the general disarming of the population is actually a net benefit to everyone involved. See the gun crime statistics between the US and Europe as an example. The lunar population see their disarming as a positive thing, because they're less likely to get thunderbolted during a random bar brawl than their windy cousins. Deadly violence is for those whose role is designated as the dealers of deadly violence (e.g. soldiers).

I don't mean interpersonal violence there. I mean that the productive capacity of a Gloranthan polity to compete on the Gloranthan international political stage would, based on the majority of statements throughout Gloranthan texts, be related to the magic that is available for that polity. 

So what does Lunar religion add which not only makes the Lunars resilient, but makes the exclusive and sole worship of the Seven Mothers, who within the current texts are effectively the sole Lunar religious cult with much numerical presence, something which can displace the worship of traditional deities and their traditional magic? Because the Lunars also don't ban the worship of said traditional gods. 

I think the underlying answer for me, personally, is "The RQG model of religion doesn't work if you treat the magic that flows from Gloranthan religion as part of a social context", but I think that thinking about these questions is valuable for considering what you might add or revise for playing games in Glorantha. I had an epiphany about the pre-Guide Malkioni which made their societies immediately comprehensible to me in this analytical framework, and now I have a much better sense of how I would play a game using them.

[Ynneadwraith]

13 minutes ago, Eff said:

related to the magic that is available for that polity. 

I would say 'related to, but not solely dependent on, the magic available for that polity. Magic is incredibly useful, but you can also just bonk someone over the head with a really big stick and achieve a similar end result as a thunderbolt (the recipient is now dead). For me, things like 'societal cohesion' and 'reduced deaths through infighting' are tangible things that could let a comparatively magic-poor* culture punch above its mythic weight.

That's more where I was going with that one.

So my answer to the question of "what does Lunar religion add which...makes the exclusive and sole worship of the Seven Mothers...something which can displace the worship of traditional deities?" would be 'other social factors'.

*I wouldn't necessarily say that the Lunar empire is magic-poor, but more magic-concentrated-in-the-upper-echelons, but from a regular citizen's perspective that might not be any different.

I suppose you could hypothesise that they have a different, more God-Learner-like philosophy for producing magical potency. Rather than having a large number of less powerful magical forces (the Orlanthi model), they have a largely demilitarised general population but a more specialised magical/military branch. That might allow them to undertake all sorts of weird God-Learnery experimental heroquests that make up for the general magical deficit.

[Eff]

8 minutes ago, Ynneadwraith said:

I would say 'related to, but not solely dependent on, the magic available for that polity. Magic is incredibly useful, but you can also just bonk someone over the head with a really big stick and achieve a similar end result as a thunderbolt (the recipient is now dead). For me, things like 'societal cohesion' and 'reduced deaths through infighting' are tangible things that could let a comparatively magic-poor* culture punch above its mythic weight.

That's more where I was going with that one.

So my answer to the question of "what does Lunar religion add which...makes the exclusive and sole worship of the Seven Mothers...something which can displace the worship of traditional deities?" would be 'other social factors'.

*I wouldn't necessarily say that the Lunar empire is magic-poor, but more magic-concentrated-in-the-upper-echelons, but from a regular citizen's perspective that might not be any different.

I suppose you could hypothesise that they have a different, more God-Learner-like philosophy for producing magical potency. Rather than having a large number of less powerful magical forces (the Orlanthi model), they have a largely demilitarised general population but a more specialised magical/military branch. That might allow them to undertake all sorts of weird God-Learnery experimental heroquests that make up for the general magical deficit.

I think that this is neglecting the capacity of Gloranthan magic as a major contributor to economic production. A magic-poor society in this context would be worse at growing food, worse at manufacturing goods, worse at managing contagious sicknesses, and more locked up with economic friction due to worse transportation and storage capabilities for their economic output. 

That is, being magic-poor would seem to make a Gloranthan society materially impoverished as well. So we are stuck with the problem that the Lunars can support a professional army with a number of specialist magicians while having a magical order which would seem to not extract labor and POW, but rather permanently reduce both and deliberately waste it. And to me, that seems very difficult to believe.

 

[Ynneadwraith]

That is a solid point!

[radmonger]

5 minutes ago, Eff said:

I think that this is neglecting the capacity of Gloranthan magic as a major contributor to economic production. A magic-poor society in this context would be worse at growing food, worse at manufacturing goods, worse at managing contagious sicknesses, and more locked up with economic friction due to worse transportation and storage capabilities for their economic output. 

This is true, Which is why the lunar empire, and Tarsh in particular, was able to  directly conquer relatively magically-poor Sartar and Prax. But was fought off by Esrolia.

The Lunar motto is 'we are all us', but could as easily be 'we are all associated cults'.  They are better at growing food, better at manufacturing goods, and have better healers than anywhere outside their peer competitors (Nochet and Loskalm in general, and Pent in military matters). Because the Lunar religion, including illumination, means that everyone can follow their ideal specialist cult without hitting a mythical brick wall of hostility and taboo.

Sartar is crippled by the loss of Storm-based fertility (i.e. Ragnaglar)  to chaos. Which means 50% of the population can't contribute directly to agricultural productivity, and have to find workaround like herding cattle, or worse. Which as everyone knows results in 10% of the calories per hectare of a primarily-vegetarian diet. And, as not everyone knows, calories in is magic points out.

Nochet does have something similar, in that almost everyone either is Ernalda's daughter or husband. And of course Argrath later builds a state on the territory of Sartar that integrates everything into a single state religion.

 

 

[Ynneadwraith]

This might fit better in 'Your Dumbest Theories', but here goes.

What if the Gods of Glorantha don't actually provide boons to those who worship them? What if their relationship is exploitative?

So, Heler doesn't provide excess rain because people ask her for it. Heler withholds rain from everyone who doesn't. By positioning themselves under the mythic shadow of the Red Moon, Heler doesn't dare force them into tribute, and they receive the regular amount of rain they would expect without Heler's interference in the process (because the Lunar Gods haven't declared a monopoly on rain yet).

I don't particularly like that explanation, but I expect someone a little further down the Marxist scale than I might...

2 hours ago, radmonger said:

Sartar is crippled by the loss of Storm-based fertility (i.e. Ragnaglar)  to chaos. Which means 50% of the population can't contribute directly to agricultural productivity, and have to find workaround like herding cattle, or worse. Which as everyone knows results in 10% of the calories per hectare of a primarily-vegetarian diet. And, as not everyone knows, calories in is magic points out.

This explanation I like. That the Lunars can compete because their peer competitors are all mythically (and thus materially) crippled in differing (but roughly equal) ways. If that feels a little convenient, then you could rationalise it that this is as good as anyone's got*, and anyone who is more mythically crippled has either been absorbed by those more capable, or exists as marginalised peoples on the fringes of the more powerful states.

The last time anyone genuinely solved their various mythic flaws they got too big headed and were wiped off the face of the lozenge.

*Glorantha is a post-apocalyptic world after all. The World Machine is thoroughly broken.

[scott-martin]

6 hours ago, radmonger said:

what benefit do generalist deities of murder and agriculture really offer to someone living in a city? In particular, compared to Boldhome, you don't start with a sex-based split

IMG this is the revelation 7M has to communicate to the urban millions: the old gods of murder and agriculture and things like that are best understood as metaphors . . . useful stories that you need to reinterpret or have a priest interpret for you before they can inform your life. Within 7M you can be a queen and a soldier and a witch and a prisoner and a sage and an innocent and anything else depending on the phase of the week and what your circumstances need from you that day. All of the stories of the mothers are models but it's up to the initiate to apply them in the service of your goals in the larger world. They're literally only a finger pointing to the real mystery, which is whoever She Who Waits happens to be when you finish cleaning your mirror and understand who is in there looking back at you.

This is of course very different from conventional LBQ readings where you work to identify with one of the participants and the Ginna Jar is always going to be somebody else, often identified with the person or community out there outside yourself you are trying to help. Within LBQ you perform the old gods. Within 7M the "old gods" are one step farther removed and instead you ponder the mostly mortal acts of the magic people who previously worked with various old gods and eventually embraced a new form of consciousness. Now we in the teeming lunar cities spend most of our time negotiating more secular, civil or profane problems like politics and identity, leaning into the transcendental Sedenya experience when that world hits a limit. 

Sedenya provides Madness, relief from profane identity and a way to reshuffle the hand you dealt your self. 

This extends to the gender performance mysteries that in previous eras were elevated to being the entirety of the religion: mom and dad magic. In the modern empire, your sexuality is as sacred or as mundane as you need it to be. Same as most things.

Edited May 21 by scott-martin
easy suzanne vega reference

[Ali the Helering]

7 hours ago, Ynneadwraith said:

I'm with you, but I do think they are slightly separate processes stemming from the same root. In my understanding, the Judaeo-Christian reform* primarily sought to supplant existing clan and tribal concepts of community with a religious one. I very much see it as an extension of the tradition born in the fertile crescent of building a community around serving a deity as opposed to familial relationships.

I would more type it as the emergence of a new socio-economic system in central and northern Europe, supplanting a religious system based around peasant and priest with a secular one based around artisan and merchant!  There you go😀

However, I think we have strayed far enough....

[John Biles]

11 hours ago, Eff said:

I think that this is neglecting the capacity of Gloranthan magic as a major contributor to economic production. A magic-poor society in this context would be worse at growing food, worse at manufacturing goods, worse at managing contagious sicknesses, and more locked up with economic friction due to worse transportation and storage capabilities for their economic output. 

That is, being magic-poor would seem to make a Gloranthan society materially impoverished as well. So we are stuck with the problem that the Lunars can support a professional army with a number of specialist magicians while having a magical order which would seem to not extract labor and POW, but rather permanently reduce both and deliberately waste it. And to me, that seems very difficult to believe.

 

I feel like the access to *every single Spirit spell* is an area where the Seven Mothers Cult is going to provide a big bonus economically.  Rune Magic is powerful, but even Runelords and Rune Priests don't get to use it as much as you can use Spirit Magic in a day.

(Especially as I assume there are likely to be more Spirit Magics that do mundane things and that the rulebook listing is just 'things player characters would find useful')

 

[Eff]

1 hour ago, John Biles said:

I feel like the access to *every single Spirit spell* is an area where the Seven Mothers Cult is going to provide a big bonus economically.  Rune Magic is powerful, but even Runelords and Rune Priests don't get to use it as much as you can use Spirit Magic in a day.

(Especially as I assume there are likely to be more Spirit Magics that do mundane things and that the rulebook listing is just 'things player characters would find useful')

 

They have access to it at double cost, and I really, really don't find it plausible to treat RQG spirit magic as an expression of the material productive power of the gods of a cult, otherwise Daka Fal and Waha would be the centers of proto-industrial civilizations with their even greater access to spirit magic than 7M through the integration of shamanism.

[Malin]

I think one of the things that we need to consider as well is that the Seven Mothers are never the sole/first cult in a place, it's a civilizing/unifying/missionary movement draped over what land gods and goddesses were there before. So in a Yelm/Dendara/Lodril setting, they would provide freedom of strictures and stifling class/gender norms while the base structure of life/agriculture would still draw on the power of the older gods as it had always done. I suspect that the seven mothers always were the most successful in places where they could add something the earlier gods didn't have, not replacing them, but giving an outlet for people wishing to go further. Freedom. In places were there was less of a need of that, like the Darjini swamps, or Sartar, they would always have an uphill struggle, attractive mostly to those who wished to become proper members of the empire. Looking at what numbers were shared on the Well of Daliath, the seven mothers never were the majority cult in most places, with many being lay members.

As for less agricultural success, I can imagine that might be one of the reasons why Hon Eel made her heroquest and brought back maize, a proper Lunar crop, giving great bounty if the proper rituals are made.

And, one final thought. In a way, the Seven Mothers are like many other specialized gods for things like sailing, hunting, etc. They are very useful for cultures whose life revolve around the concept, and since the Seven Mothers are the concept of the Lunar Empire and mortals becoming gods, it is a bigger specialization than most. But, it is still a specialization, not a core world-concept like Ernalda or Yelm.

Edited May 22 by Malin

[Orlanthatemyhamster]

On 1/22/2024 at 9:37 PM, Broadsmile said:

Is this just a case of the game focusing on cool battle powers rather than the more mundanely useful stuff?

-Antipu Antipus. confused citizen

Yep.

Edited May 22 by Orlanthatemyhamster

[Orlanthatemyhamster]

On 1/22/2024 at 11:23 PM, metcalph said:

In addition, the Seven Mothers can serve as a stepping stone to more demanding cults.  Take for example Irrippi Ontor.  The requirements to become an initiate are pretty high. But join the Seven Mothers and you can study towards becoming a fully fledged Red Sage while not being so tied to the desk. 

Of course we you do make it via such a route, you might have to put up with snobbery about getting your degree from the Empire's equivalent of the University of American Samoa. 

 

So unlike Mr Orlanthi or Miss Ernalda, you have to join two cults to have some real benefit in your day to day life?
Seems like a bum deal to me. Twice as poor.

 

[Memestream]

I interpret the Seven Mothers as giving an absolutely invaluable resource in the form of copium. TRG takes on difficult existential questions that nobody else does. Without her presence bringing attention to them, that might not be so relevant, but after the ideas have been introduced, they are hard to ignore. 

A (figurative or literal) slave outside of Lunar society will loathe their bondage, and even when thoroughly dispirited will secretly wish for their master's demise.

A (figurative or literal) slave within Lunar society very well might be able to hold on to such resentment, but it will exist amidst a contending series of memes concerning how their slavery is beneficial to their soul, and might even represent a form of liberation that can't be experienced by those who are more materially comfortable. There are numerous real world religious ideas which make this argument and I've seen people tolerate(and even embrace) extreme misery on account of their exposure toward them, myself included. In Gloranthan terms though, the cult of Danfive Xaron makes clear that suffering leads to redemption and empowerment. You may not make it (or even "get it") this life, but don't worry it's just a matter of time, you'll come around eventually.

That's a very pernicious idea that's super hard to shake off even for a strong willed person, because it exists in the twilight of infinite regress "God is in the gaps" type thinking. There's also a constant incentive to relent, because doing so immediately transforms your senseless mundane suffering at the hands of the fate rune into your own personal embodiment of, and identification with, a being of very considerable clout and substance.

In arguably less sinister terms, TRG is also willing to meet people where they are at, and the only deity I know of within Glorantha that even so much as suggests that the mortal condition is as meaningful as the immortal condition. Again, this probably isn't something that would bother a typical Gloranthan who had never heard such a weird idea before. Likewise, I doubt it's as commonly persuasive to those who are substantially enfranchised by other deities(but illumination is a helluva drug). However, to the fence sitters and the lay people, I can see it being another one of those things that would hang around in the back of their mind for a really long time, and problematize their devotion to other deities as a result.

Meeting people where they are doesn't just manifest on that weird esoteric level though, the Seven Mothers come in a lot of different flavors to suit all tastes. If you're hard headed and like fighting, Yanafal Tarnils has you covered. Are you just naively helpful? Teelo Norri would like to help you out with that, and on it goes.

You *could* worship another God, but then you would miss out on all the fringe benefits like citizenship, in-network temple providers, etc.

 

But mostly copium.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

On 5/20/2024 at 7:30 PM, John Biles said:

Every single Spirit magic spell is available to worshipers to learn and Spirit Magic is usable far more often than Rune Magic.

It depends on how strict your GMs are on allowing purchase of spell matrices, learning spirit magic from shamen, and learning spirit magic from other cults.  We have been pretty loosey-goosey on this, which, in retrospect, I regret.

Also depends on access to MP storage.

[Memestream]

Chasing a tangent here, but I have feelings about Homer.

On 5/20/2024 at 4:37 AM, Ynneadwraith said:

For instance, by the time we get to our written Greek mythologies we do get individual actors petitioning individual gods for personal boons. I'm not sure I'd prescribe Odysseus a single shred of community spirit over his own self-interest. I suppose that's what you meant by 'depending on local culture'.

I mean, it depends on who is telling the story. Obviously the Romans were not such huge fans of Odysseus and seemed to consider him as exemplary of the shortcomings of Greek virtue. In the context of the narrative presented within the Odyssey though, Odysseus' rulership of Ithaka seems to be directly correlated with the well-being of the community in an almost 1 to 1 measure. I even feel tempted to say this goes beyond correlation and into broader theme, and that Odysseus as he relates to Ithaka is (at least in very substantial part) a further extension of Homer's perspective on the nuanced costs of warfare. Ithaka suffers in Odysseus' absence because his character, even with its many faults, was quite literally the status quo that held together the order of the island itself.

The culture of the time exalted war as virtuous, and thus the virtuous were called to war, leaving only the unvirtuous in their wake. You might point out that Odysseus himself tried to dodge the draft, but consider that he was unable to do so because he wouldn't run his son over with a plough. Not only does this establish that Odysseus at least had a granule of thought for a context beyond himself, this implies that those who dodged the draft did run their son(s) over with a plough, even if only figuratively. The suitors were necessarily people of inferior moral fiber who either didn't fulfill obligations or otherwise lacked the impetus necessary for virtuous social function which would result in them being obliged to begin with. Consequently, they cannot be linchpins that hold a society together, instead being nothing other than a mob of parasites who despoil and take. Odysseus' shifty antics only make this point louder in my mind, because even somebody as self-interested as he was would have enough social awareness to become involved.

On 5/20/2024 at 5:49 AM, Ynneadwraith said:

I think that Odysseus was convinced that his interests were those of his (Ithakan) community

They were. If not literally, at least literarily. That's not to say he was the best that could be, but he was the best that could be had. His idea of community wasn't as sophisticated as later interpretations, but he possessed the core virtue of fidelity and reciprocity which is necessary for community to function, which is no mean feat for someone as powerful as he was.