Non-Beastrider Praxians... do any worship Waha, Eiritha... hold to the Covenant?

[g33k]

Agimori were created by Lodril, I think... do they basically remain (religiously) Lodrili?
And of course the Basmoli are Basmol's folk... but without Basmol, and Waha Basmol-Slayer is a foe.
Baboons perform Ancestor-worship & follow Daka Fal's ways, possibly worshiping the Monkey King demigod(?), but occasionally one will adopt human practices (tho not necessarily the "Praxian Tradition" (though presumably a few of those occasional human-ways adopters do... leading to the charming idea of a Beast-Rider Baboon)).

IIRC the Cannibal-Cult claims to follow the Survival Covenant (and other Praxians disagree, considering it a perverted & blasphemous practice).

IIRC the Oasis folk mostly do not.

I'd expect the hunt-centric folk would offer (at least some) worship of Eiritha, as "Mother of Prey" ... not identical practices to the Beast Riders, but Peaceful-Cutting, returning tails, and with many other overlaps & commonalities (that any God-Learner would immediately recognize as viable for a Goddess Switch  👹  ) ... Waha seems less-likely, though.

Other ideas, etc...?

Edited April 4 by g33k

[Kloster]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

Agimori were created by Lodril, I think... do they basically remain (religiously) Lodrili?

According to 'River of Cradles', Prax's Agimori were selected by Lodril, but worship mainly Foundchild. They only marginally (around 5% iirc) worship Lodril, but only alongside Foundchild. That means they can be Lodrili, but mainly aren't.

1 hour ago, g33k said:

And of course the Basmoli are Basmol's folk... but without Basmol, and Waha Basmol-Slayer is a foe.

Basmoli were in Prax before the covenant, so should live alongside it, but I agree with you, very few will worship Waha.

1 hour ago, g33k said:

Baboons perform Ancestor-worship & follow Daka Fal's ways, possibly worshiping the Monkey King demigod(?), but occasionally one will adopt human practices (tho not necessarily the "Praxian Tradition" (though presumably a few of those occasional human-ways adopters do... leading to the charming idea of a Beast-Rider Baboon)).

IIRC, Baboons worship Grandfather Baboon (equated to Daka Fal) and live inside the covenant. Some will probably worship Waha. They don't have a totem animal.

1 hour ago, g33k said:

IIRC the Cannibal-Cult claims to follow the Survival Covenant (and other Praxians disagree, considering it a perverted & blasphemous practice).

I don't know.

1 hour ago, g33k said:

IIRC the Oasis folk mostly do not.

According to 'River of Cradles (iirc), they worship Orlanth, Ernalda,spirit cults and local heroes.

1 hour ago, g33k said:

I'd expect the hunt-centric folk would offer (at least some) worship of Eiritha, as "Mother of Prey" ... not identical practices to the Beast Riders, but Peaceful-Cutting, returning tails, and with many other overlaps & commonalities (that any God-Learner would immediately recognize as viable for a Goddess Switch  👹  ) ... Waha seems less-likely, though.

Agreed.

[Darius West]

Waha is restricted to male members of Animal Nomad tribes.  Morokanths are the strangest Waha worshippers.  Nobody else gets in.  

There is probably a modified form of Waha worship that is practiced by Butchers and Leatherworkers in Sartarite society, but they are limited to learning Peaceful Cut.

[David Scott]

3 hours ago, g33k said:

Agimori were created by Lodril, I think... do they basically remain (religiously) Lodrili?

Please re-read the Men-and-a-half section of the RQ Bestiary (pages 48-51), you'll see heir main god is Foundchild,

3 hours ago, g33k said:

And of course the Basmoli are Basmol's folk... but without Basmol,

The Basmoli hsunchen of Prax, worship Basmol. Lions are extinct in Prax, so unlike the Telmori, they have no lion companions.

3 hours ago, g33k said:

and Waha Basmol-Slayer is a foe.

Tada skinned Basmol, not Waha. 

3 hours ago, g33k said:

Baboons perform Ancestor-worship & follow Daka Fal's ways, possibly worshiping the Monkey King demigod(?), but occasionally one will adopt human practices (tho not necessarily the "Praxian Tradition" (though presumably a few of those occasional human-ways adopters do... leading to the charming idea of a Beast-Rider Baboon)).

Baboons worship Grandfather Baboon (a mask of Daka Fal). The Monkey King is a spirit cult.

3 hours ago, g33k said:

IIRC the Cannibal-Cult claims to follow the Survival Covenant (and other Praxians disagree, considering it a perverted & blasphemous practice).

The Cannibal Cult doesn't follow the Survival Covenant as they eat sentient creatures.

3 hours ago, g33k said:

IIRC the Oasis folk mostly do not.

Mostly Ernalda.

3 hours ago, g33k said:

I'd expect the hunt-centric folk would offer (at least some) worship of Eiritha, as "Mother of Prey" ... not identical practices to the Beast Riders, but Peaceful-Cutting, returning tails, and with many other overlaps & commonalities (that any God-Learner would immediately recognize as viable for a Goddess Switch  👹  ) ... Waha seems less-likely, though.

Eiritha is specifically the mother of herd animals - and is mostly concerned with their care and breeding. Waha show the way of how to live in the wastelands (a culture hero), but there are other who show how to too.

[radmonger]

2 hours ago, David Scott said:

The Cannibal Cult doesn't follow the Survival Covenant as they eat sentient creatures.

Well, the things they eat start off as sentient, and end up as dead. But I suspect there may be a magical intermediate step which, in their minds, makes it ok. Almost everyone else disagrees.

This could even be a reenactment of the survival covenant between two initiates. This decides who is Eater and who is Eaten.

Of course, even if this is sometimes true, other times they are just ogres with a cover story.

 

[Nick Brooke]

2 hours ago, David Scott said:

Baboons worship Grandfather Baboon (a mask of Daka Fal).

Risible misinformation: we fling poo in your general direction. Daka Fal is, of course, a mask worn by Grandfather Baboon: ask any baboon! All human religion was learned from baboons in the Dark.

[svensson]

Morocanth are of the Covenant. The Agimori and Baboons are accepted Lesser Tribes, but are not of the Covenant. The Pol Joni are neither accepted nor part of the Covenant.

[svensson]

1 hour ago, Nick Brooke said:

Risible misinformation: we fling poo in your general direction. Daka Fal is, of course, a mask worn by Grandfather Baboon: ask any baboon! All human religion was learned from baboons in the Dark.

I'm hearing a Russian accent in there for some reason....

'All religion vaz inwented by Babsboonz in Mother Rushah!' 😆

[Ynneadwraith]

On 4/4/2024 at 12:08 PM, radmonger said:

This could even be a reenactment of the survival covenant between two initiates. This decides who is Eater and who is Eaten.

Now this I like! Loads of narrative potential there.

A contest of some sort which our characters must succeed at or be demoted to 'Eaten' status and be fair game for any cannibals around (hell, fair game to any non-cannibals either). A hunt, or a contest of arms (or dance), or a riddle/contest of wit etc. All in some quasi-godtime/heroquest situation.

What if they lose, but survive the encounter anyway? Surely they'd need to regain their 'Eater' status somehow, all the while trying to avoid getting mistaken for herdmen.

Ooh! There's the kernel of an excellent 'Sympathy for the Morokanth' story arc here (possible higher-level Waha Vision Quest too):

• Start some foreshadowing earlier by exposing the players to some 'cheating morokanth' prejudice from among the Praxians they encounter. It would be good if it's initiates of Waha (but not anyone advanced in the cult) who are spearheading it. Give just enough of a hint that the Waha rabblerousers might be right.
• The players awake to masked people bundling them out of bed and tying them to trees. Cannibals! They paint the players' chests with a strange rune, partway between the symbols for Man and Beast. It seems they'll be eaten alive!
• The cannibals, rather politely it must be said, inform the players that they have been chosen for one of their hunts. The players' bonds are cut free, and they're told to run.
• The chase starts in the real-world across the wastes of Prax, but the further you run the more desolate the environs become. You pass more and more emaciated people and animals littering the parched ground. Your stomach cramps as if you haven't eaten in weeks. Behind you, the cannibals have been joined by starving animals and spirits of all varieties, loping and lurching in pursuit.
• You stumble, and when you pick yourselves up you find that you're compatriots have abandoned you. They have joined the cannibals and everyone is now chasing you alone! With each step you take you become more emaciated, but so do your pursuers. The entire situation just gets more and more desperate, and it's clear there's no escape.
• Eventually, they corner you at a fork in the canyon. Behind you are the cannibals and death through dismemberment. In the left fork stands the dessicated skeletal form of Daga, clutching its arms around the people you hold dear. In the right fork stands a horned gambler in Praxian garb, rolling dice around in a set of cups, static arcing between them. Clearly, there's only one viable option.
• The horned Praxian halts the cannibals, who say they have a potential solution to their predicament that will make sure everyone gets fed (they're looking as desperate as you are), if only the horned Praxian could adjudicate. Your stomach aches so badly you jump at the chance, almost forgetting the danger you were running from in the first place.
• Here, you can play a game of Liar's Dice with your players (an old Peruvian gambling game, also sold under the name Perudo (it's a fun game to play anyway!). They'll play against you, the GM, as the cannibals. Whoever wins the game becomes an Eater, and whoever loses becomes an Eaten. The cannibals and the famine-spirits salivate, and to your horror you find yourself salivating too. Play up the threat that if an individual player loses, they could be Eaten (building on the visions earlier of their compatriots becoming cannibals themselves).
• Play the first few rounds straight (maybe til someone has 3 dice left or something). The players will hopefully start playing against each other as the game is meant to be played. Then, you're going to cheat. When a player loses dice, instead of removing them from the board, steal them and put them under the cannibals' cup. Don't let the players do this back. This should skew it enough that the cannibals will win (unless the players bend the rules as well, say by giving all of their remaining dice to one person).
• Only after the game has concluded does the horned Praxian inform them that all they had to do was beat the cannibals, not each other.

If they lose:

• The runes on their chest twist and contort from the hybrid Man/Beast rune to pure Beast, as the horned Praxian's face contorts into the visage of one of the cannibals' masks. Thunder rolls through the heavens and a fine squall starts, marking the encroaching boundary of Time. Here, briefly, the players feel their magic surge back and can do something to stop themselves getting eaten.
• However, past that, people start treating them like Herdmen. They can speak to each other, but not to other sentients.
• From here, they'll need to go find a Waha Khan (who will be able to communicate with them). They can help explain what has happened, along with potentially confessing the shameful mystery at the heart of the Waha cult (humans cheated, Waha permitted it), and that they need to go find the Morokanth to find out how they won anyway.
• Finding the Morokanth should be perilous as the majority of them will treat them like an escaped herdman, apart from their Waha Khans.
• I probably haven't worked through the next story beats properly yet, but something along the lines of finding the cannibals again (or the cannibals finding them) and derailing their dinner to re-enact the liar's dice game. This time, using the advice of the Morokanth, the players should work together and confer with each other about who has what dice. This should be enough to handily beat the cannibals, though if it elongates the game too long you could stop cheating as the cannibals (this would need playtesting to get the balance right).
• After they win, a number of things could happen. Either the cannibals are driven off in fear (possibly to become reoccurring villains if you like). The morokanth could sweep in and herdman-ise them (bringing opportunities to play up some sympathy with the cannibals if you so desire).
• Your characters gain a deeper understanding of Waha, the Survival Covenant and the origins of Prax. Perhaps you could give them access to Waha's Alter Creature spell, or Fix/Release Intelligence (I'm not up to date on my magics). This would be a good Heroquest to gain access to that spell TBH.

If they win first time round:

• Not sure how to play this best. If you want to continue down the same path you could have the horned Praxian's face contort into the visage of one of the cannibals' masks at this point and refuse to accept their victory, though you'd need to alter the way the rest of the quest goes. Perhaps it leans more into shaming the Waha Khan for outright cheating than finding out how to win from the morokanth.
• Or you could do something neat like everyone else treating them like cheaters just like the morokanth (even though they won fair and square), with the herdman-ised cannibals dutifully following them around like an albatross around their necks. The quest then becomes more about restoring the cannibals' intelligence maybe, I don't know.

[mfbrandi]

2 hours ago, Ynneadwraith said:

A contest of some sort which our characters must succeed at or be demoted to “Eaten” status

• The men and animals of Prax agreed to choose lots to see who would eat, and who would be eaten.
  — Elizabeth A. Wolcott, Men and Morokanth (Wyrm’s Footnotes #9, p. 10)

Isn’t the point of the Survival Covenant that it was supposed to amount to the toss of a fair coin? Something an impartial third party could do on your behalf. No skill, no reckoning of odds, and no bluffing required — not really a contest. So the humans cannot fall back on “we were just better at the game than the four-legs”, and the morokanth cannot say “the humans have more of the skills required to win this game, so the selection of which game to play was unfair”.

The humans didn’t cheat at a game of skill (and/or bluff), they rigged a lottery — or Waha did it for them — and either the morokanth cheated right back or were allowed to be the one four-legs victor to remind the humans of the favour their god had done them.

On the other hand, having the players cheat at a game within a game sounds like an excellent idea. 😉

[Ynneadwraith]

55 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

The toss of a fair coin? Something an impartial...

Sounds exactly like something the victors of a rigged contest would would say 😉

To be fair, I do prefer the idea that it's drawing lots. Perhaps that is the true tale, and the idea of the contest is a quirk of the cannibal cult's mythology (easier to justify their eating of someone if they've beaten them 'fair and square' at a game of skill).

To square that you could have the Waha Khan you find act a little confused at the myth featuring a contest rather than the drawing of lots, but still acting cagey about the cheating part, indicating that there's something more to dig at there.

To be fair, having the cannibals and the morokanth believe it was a contest, and the other tribes believe it was lots adds just the sort of mystery and variability I enjoy in a good myth.

Edited April 5 by Ynneadwraith

[Jeff]

Just to put this all into some sort of perspective, here's a breakdown of how many independents there are: 

Pol-Joni	Unicorn	Bolo Lizard	Rhino	Basmoli	Hungry Cannibals	Baboons	Agimori	Zebra	Ostrich	Other
10000	500	2500	17500	6500	1000	10000	5000	5000	1000	1000

You can see that the main groups are the Rhino, Pol-Joni, and Baboons. Other includes any as yet unknown groups.