Divine Punishment

[Aurelius]

I've been thinking of different ways to think about cult retribution, and I'd like to ask how people in here think about it? 

A bit of a framework to underline the complexity of the question. 😃

First, everything can be done in a minimalist or maximalist way, as in moral philosophy or legal theory. When reaching to extreme, minimalism means that if you satisfy the letter of the law; whereas a maximalist approach says that these rules are principles which you should obey maximally, often implying that you should also obey the spirit of the rule as well.

Humakti can get geasas against retreating from battle and using poison. A maximalist could argue that this demonstrates that Humakt finds retreating and poison distasteful, and therefore all good Humakti should refrain from them even if geasa sanctions only hit the few. A minimalist would say that these restrictions only apply to specific cult members who have them, and others are free to do hit-and-run attacks with poison darts. As Humakt does not have any (listed) restrictions against doing so, a moral minimalist could argue that Humakti are free to assassinate each other with poison as far as the God and the Cult are concerned, while a maximalist might say that all Humakti should treat each other as allies and lend help as they clearly are on the same side.

(EDIT: Humakt's Spirit of Reprisal lists "assassinating a benefactor or participating in a massacre of innocents" as grave crimes against Humakt, invalidating the example above, and suggesting at least some maximalism.)

So then we have multiple levels of cult punishment. 

Direct Divine Retribution -- God directly doing something against the offender. I don't think this happens almost ever in Glorantha, as Gods outside Time are unable to do such actions (at least without someone invoking divine interveniton), and the few Gods inside Time don't really want to spend time on that. Humakt, perhaps, intervenes directly, as Humakt's Spirit of Reprisal "is Humakt himself".

Spirits of Reprisal Acting On Their Own -- No-one telling on the (un-illuminated) Yanafali who sheathed his scimitar without drawing blood, but Spirits knowing this and acting on their own volition. 

Spirits of Reprisal Being Sent After Violator -- Maybe someone else needs to direct the Spirits of Reprisal, perhaps with Command Cult Spirit, or more vaguely with rituals. This could be local and cultural, a Sartarite Lankoring burning secret records to avoid them ending up in Lunar hands might be given a pass, although that is a direct violation of Sage's duties. This sending could be explicit "Go after Minaryth who burned the papers!" or implicit and cultural "This week we pray you to go after all paper-burners".

Worldly Retribution -- The cult acting against the violator, legally or extra-legally. An illuminated Uroxi, having ended up a half-bull broo from Chaos Gifts trying to replenish Rune Points at a big ceremony would probably face this. 

Emulation Problems -- This is actually not punishment at all, but at some point a violator might simply be unable to emulate the god in a way that allows him to use the magic or perform rituals and heroquests. An illuminated Yanafali-Humakti could still not use Yanafali magic to make a straight blade into a True Sword: It is not forbidden, it is impossible. (?)

So... I guess... what I'm asking is ... that how you all in general think about how these levels of cult punishment work, and where between the absurdities of minimalism and maximalism your cults operate on those levels? Do you think there are a lot of cult rules not covered in Cults of Runequest books, or do you consider them exhaustive? 

When "Storm Voices must answer a legitimate Lightbringers Summons or lose all Rune points and other benefits of their god", what exactly happens and how? This is particularly relevant with Lunar deserters in Sartar, as some suggested characters are ... is it forbidden, and on which levels, for a Seven Mothers Priestess to rebel against the Empire and kill fellow members of the cult with the powers given by the cult? A minimalist reading of Yanafal Tarnils requires the Scimitar to be at the forefront of every battle in which their regiment participates; a maximalist reading says that Yanafali deserters lose their superpowers because desertion is even worse than retreat. Can you bribe your priest with cows before he sends The Brain Flayer after you? 

Disclaimer: Of course The GM Decides is how it really works. But as a GM, my decision much depends on how I interpret the problem in the above framework. For instance, who evaluates whether a Lightbringers summon is 'legitimate'? (And my MGF is so simulationist I prefer to adjudicate based on a detailed understanding!)

Edited June 4 by Aurelius

[Aurelius]

"Who evaluates whether a Lightbringers summon is 'legitimate'"?

Some options: 

1. Personified monomythical Orlanth himself. (oh nooo.. please not this) 
2. Personified Orlanth as seen in local rituals, cultures and practices. (...or this)
3. The Storm Voice himself, his conscience robbing him of his divine powers.
4. The summoning Lightbringer doing an unhappy ritual after having been rejected.
5. Some other (high) priest of Orlanth, based on a magical or bureaucratic complaint from an unhappy summoning Lightbringer.
6. Spirits of Reprisal, always there to keep you in line.
7. No-one, but the priest cannot emulate anymore so he loses the Rune Points.

[Malin]

I deal with it in two ways (my glorantha, not saying these are general rules):

1) I would suppose this would get close to a minimalist approach but with a dash of personal guilt put in. Someone who knowingly breaks cult strictures (and still remains somewhat close to temple areas or other sites of powerwill attracts cult spirits of retribution naturally. I see at least some of them as sniffing out guilt and knowng wrongdoings. This is the reason why some illuminates can sidestep this whole thing, they understand that everything is relative. Of course, this also means that people who break rules for what they see as good reasons (let's say a Sage who burned papers to keep them from Lunars) will still attract retribution (they know it is wrong, even for a good cause) but might attract the mildest of the spirits. Accepting your punishment is part of trying to remain in the cult after all. This also means that you can outrun the judgment of more local gods, by traveling far from their temples and sites of powers. Like outrunning the wrath of Sea Gods by going far inland. Pray they don't follow.

This is milder but similar to taboos and geases. The onus is on the individual and their beliefs.

This is ALSO not a free-for-all if the player says that they are not feeling any guilt, because if they have any loyalty or devotion related to their cult and god, they do. Otherwise, I'd remove that passion. At that point they might start getting in trouble replenishing runepoints, probably starting with a hefty negative modifier until they ask for forgiveness, eventually being cut off entirely if they persist.

2) This is a cult thing. Priests send spirits of retribution after people who break the rules, and this can absolutely be maximalist in their interpretations. An illuminate would not be safe here, but their "clear conscience" would let them cast command cult spirit and tell them to go away because they did nothing wrong. This, like divination, can and is often used politically, there is no greater tool than to condemn someone as a blasphemer after all. This means that if things are done in secret, people can get away with it if they can justify it in a more minimalist approach. This is technically not against the rules, just the spirit of them...

I play the gods as distant and trapped in time, but people's feelings are present and strong.

Edited June 4 by Malin

[mfbrandi]

30 minutes ago, Malin said:

[A] Sage who burned papers to keep them from Lunars will still attract retribution … but might attract the mildest of the spirits.

Hmm … maybe what the gods/spirits consider to be a serious infraction should not track our own moral reasoning°, else the GM is turned into the morality police. Twist the logic of the cult rules to keep the story interesting — forget ‘morality.’

Interesting doesn’t mean TPK, of course. But the occasional ‘I wouldn’t have thought the gods would have been bothered about that — our penance is to go where and fetch what? Oi!’ might be welcome. Gods are weird, alien, and troublesome, no?

Maybe. 😉

——————————————————————————————
° … and should not track the gods’ self-interest either. ‘Worshipper, you saved me using forbidden magic. I’d start running if I were you.’

[Aurelius]

4 hours ago, Malin said:

1) I would suppose this would get close to a minimalist approach but with a dash of personal guilt put in. Someone who knowingly breaks cult strictures (and still remains somewhat close to temple areas or other sites of powerwill attracts cult spirits of retribution naturally. I see at least some of them as sniffing out guilt and knowng wrongdoings.

I prospectively like the Spirit of Reprisal ability to smell guilt as an underlying logic! 

I was thinking of the Sweepers and Keepers of Nochet, and that both factions feel a bit tricky for me if one wants to use Chalana Arroy worshippers as player-characters, or even as NPC:s accompanying PC:s to dangeorus places. "An initiate must take an oath never to ... needlessly cause pain to any living thing" is extremely hard to keep. Would be at least a tiny bit less impossible if only the violations the Initiate notices would count... 

4 hours ago, Malin said:

2) This is a cult thing. Priests send spirits of retribution after people who break the rules, and this can absolutely be maximalist in their interpretations. An illuminate would not be safe here, but their "clear conscience" would let them cast command cult spirit and tell them to go away because they did nothing wrong. This, like divination, can and is often used politically, there is no greater tool than to condemn someone as a blasphemer after all. This means that if things are done in secret, people can get away with it if they can justify it in a more minimalist approach. This is technically not against the rules, just the spirit of them...

I'm also tentatively on the "worshippers are sometimes maximalist" school. If even the invisible gods of Planet Earth can inspire zealotry, extremism and ultra-orthodoxy, then I think it's logical that the magical and mysterious gods of Glorantha do that as well.

But if Spirits of Retribution could smell guilt, then they would probably also refuse to attack worshippers who didn't smell guilty, so Illuminates would be safe. Then again, that would also prevent malicious Illuminates from sending those spirits after legit worshippers.. 

4 hours ago, Malin said:

I play the gods as distant and trapped in time, but people's feelings are present and strong.

Same, I was surprised to read Humakt being his own Spirit of Reprisal. I guess my Glorantha interpretation of that would be that he would appear in dreams or something. 

 

[John Biles]

My take on the Metaphysics:

The community you are part of determines how minimalist or maximalist the laws are and what sets off spirits of retribution.  Your personal ideas are irrelevant, unless you are illuminated and then spirits of reprisal cannot sense your sins.

Spirits sense crimes and initiate retribution, though Priests can use their Rune magics to call up and send Spirits of Retribution, possibly for bad reasons.

The Gods can send spirits of retribution but this normally only happens if a Priest asks for it.  However, if you encounter a God in the Heroplane, they may notice you enough to get even.

1 hour ago, Aurelius said:

I was thinking of the Sweepers and Keepers of Nochet, and that both factions feel a bit tricky for me if one wants to use Chalana Arroy worshippers as player-characters, or even as NPC:s accompanying PC:s to dangeorus places. "An initiate must take an oath never to ... needlessly cause pain to any living thing" is extremely hard to keep. Would be at least a tiny bit less impossible if only the violations the Initiate notices would count...

But if Spirits of Retribution could smell guilt, then they would probably also refuse to attack worshippers who didn't smell guilty, so Illuminates would be safe. Then again, that would also prevent malicious Illuminates from sending those spirits after legit worshippers.. 

Same, I was surprised to read Humakt being his own Spirit of Reprisal. I guess my Glorantha interpretation of that would be that he would appear in dreams or something. 

 

Illuminates are safe because their illumination means the spirits can't sense any crimes done.  The illuminate is a tiny 'there is no such thing as crimes' zone.

As for Chalanna Arroy - They have to avoid physical pain and physical damage, not emotional.  That's my take on it.  That creates big complications, but it's not impossible.

 

[Malin]

15 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Hmm … maybe what the gods/spirits consider to be a serious infraction should not track our own moral reasoning°, else the GM is turned into the morality police. Twist the logic of the cult rules to keep the story interesting — forget ‘morality.’

Huh, I feel what I do is the opposite of that? The GM is the one that controls the gods and spirits, and their reading of the rules, thus, if we go fully on that, the GM is the morality police (following the cult script). The way I do it, I leave much of it in the hands of the Player; it is their reading of their character's actions that are the central part. But then again, I think it must depend on the play style of the table. The two groups I play with are very interested in being true to their culture and digging into things like that. They take responsibility for their own character's actions. I've never needed to be the "GM who keeps their players on the straight and narrow and makes sure they don't powergame and stay in character for their cult." So I think this part in particular is very personal style.

 

10 hours ago, Aurelius said:

"An initiate must take an oath never to ... needlessly cause pain to any living thing" is extremely hard to keep. Would be at least a tiny bit less impossible if only the violations the Initiate notices would count... 

For me, needlessly does a lot of the heavy lifting here. Will an operation cause the patient pain? Well, the pain is not needless then. Does the healer need to travel somewhere to help people? Then it is not needless pain to accidentally step on bugs. Of course the tricky thing for any Chalana Arroy cultist is where that line is drawn. Like with the sweeper. If stepping on a bug could be avoided by having people sweep the ground you walk on, then the pain you'd cause by stepping on a bug might be seen as needless. While others might argue that the people doing the sweeping would better serve people by helping them in other ways.

Chalana Arroy for me, is about healing and avoiding harm. One might argue that to read her strictures too literally would do more to withhold her gifts from the world by causing people to become stationary hermits than accepting that every being who lives and breathes in the world will also, on occasion, harm another being just by existing. After all, a plant is also a living thing, and yet the healers both eat them and use them as medicine. So looking at the intention is the important part. The healer needs to eat, and has judged killing a plant is a lesser sacrifice than killing an animal. The healer needs herbs to help people, thus harvesting them is not needless. Nor is cutting a tree for firewood for the winter. However, killing plants for fun or because they are in your way, would be needless. Better to brush the branches aside than break them.

We don't have any Chalana Arroy player characters in my games, but we do have two regularly occurring NPC's (including the future wife of a player). Both of them are very different people. One is borderline heretical by virtue of her spoiled noble upbringing. I specifically recall her slapping a man, and when he expressed shock that a healer would do such a thing she just asked "Oh did I hurt you?" Which of course he could not admit to, seeing as she was a tiny weak woman and he was a big macho man. Thus, did she really cause him pain? Let me tell you, that was a close one...

The other is basically an Arroin army medic who got into a huge argument with a PC who wanted to help another NPC they just met who had a leg that had been broken and then healed crooked. In order to fix it, it needed to be rebroken, and the healer refused on the grounds that the leg worked; it was just wonky and slow. To rebreak it would cause needless pain, and deplete his resources by healing the break fast (since they were on the road). They finally came to a compromise where the PC would do the breaking under the healer's instruction, and another PC would use his runepoints to heal the break afterward. It was a really cool scene.

I always try to remember "Maximum Game Fun." If a rule looks like it would make a cult unplayable or even unusable in the game world, then I am probably reading that rule too strictly.

Edited June 5 by Malin

[Aurelius]

1 hour ago, Malin said:

For me, needlessly does a lot of the heavy lifting here. Will an operation cause the patient pain? Well, the pain is not needless then. Does the healer need to travel somewhere to help people? Then it is not needless pain to accidentally step on bugs. Of course the tricky thing for any Chalana Arroy cultist is where that line is drawn. Like with the sweeper. If stepping on a bug could be avoided by having people sweep the ground you walk on, then the pain you'd cause by stepping on a bug might be seen as needless. 

Also, who polices the need. If I accompany a Storm Bull delegation going to smite some Chaos, they probably won't wait for me to sweep my way all the way down the Snakepipe Hollow. So I'm likely to stomp some non-chaotic ants on the road...

To be honest I love those ideas in the Lightbringers book, but they are also a bit much for playability. If I had to make a 2nd edition of it, I'd add optional gifts and geasas for that kind of worshippers to set them apart. The standard High Healer can run around on a battlefield, but there's also this monastic variety that really cannot.

1 hour ago, Malin said:

I specifically recall her slapping a man, and when he expressed shock that a healer would do such a thing she just asked "Oh did I hurt you?" Which of course he could not admit to, seeing as she was a tiny weak woman and he was a big macho man. Thus, did she really cause him pain? Let me tell you, that was a close one...

This I love. ❤️ And this kind of play is why I'm trying to get a bit deeper understanding on how people think. 

Also, to figure out the differences between cults and gods. For Humakt and Yanafal Tarnils, maybe Honor is an underlying principle, whereas for Orlanth it's not just Honor but also all sorts of pacts and alliances as well.

Orlanth perhaps allows his Storm Voices to use violence against Lightbringer followers in a fair battle, while still requiring them to offer aid when presented with legitimate summons. Two clans can be in a long bloody feud, until one of them is attacked by chaos and demands help from their sworn enemies. Sometimes minimalism can be fun because it creates weird emergence. 

[Malin]

1 hour ago, Aurelius said:

To be honest I love those ideas in the Lightbringers book, but they are also a bit much for playability.

I always tend to treat the official/main versions of cults as only one dominant sect/path. For example, the Babeester Gor conflicted quite hard with how we had always played them/earlier versions, so I simply decided that the way it is described in the Earth Goddesses is how things are in Esrolia. Since we have not gone there yet, it will be an interesting experience for our Babeester Gor player to see her sisters follow slightly different traditions. For me, that's the kind of diversity that makes Glorantha alive.

And that is not even considering the whole "fusing of regional gods/traditions into greater deities" that the God Learners were up to. To me, large, primal deities like Orlanth, Ernalda, and yes, Chalana Arroy consists of a great number of local traditions, leading to slightly varying ways of worship everywhere.

[Aurelius]

1 hour ago, Malin said:

I always tend to treat the official/main versions of cults as only one dominant sect/path. For example, the Babeester Gor conflicted quite hard with how we had always played them/earlier versions, so I simply decided that the way it is described in the Earth Goddesses is how things are in Esrolia. Since we have not gone there yet, it will be an interesting experience for our Babeester Gor player to see her sisters follow slightly different traditions. For me, that's the kind of diversity that makes Glorantha alive.

And that is not even considering the whole "fusing of regional gods/traditions into greater deities" that the God Learners were up to. To me, large, primal deities like Orlanth, Ernalda, and yes, Chalana Arroy consists of a great number of local traditions, leading to slightly varying ways of worship everywhere.

And that kinda gets back to the full circle. When your more liberal Chalana Arroy healers visit Nochet, they might be up for a very unpleasant surprises if the local Spirits of Reprisal check their sandal soles for squeezed bugs. 

That would be far from MGF for me, but maintaining world integrity is also very important for me. So... basically I'm trying to navigate answers that would be logical, but also intriguingly incongruent.

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Aurelius said:

And that kinda gets back to the full circle. When your more liberal Chalana Arroy healers visit Nochet, they might be up for a very unpleasant surprises if the local Spirits of Reprisal check their sandal soles for squeezed bugs. 

That would be far from MGF for me, but maintaining world integrity is also very important for me. So... basically I'm trying to navigate answers that would be logical, but also intriguingly incongruent.

Getting framed/imprisoned/punished for something the party was completely innocent or at least unaware of (this time) is a pretty standard occurrance at the start of a scenario. A sudden onslaught of heterodox spirits of reprisal to force the party onto a quest would be just another variant of getting to do a prison break without equipment or similar.

[radmonger]

In my campaign notes/house rules, I have:

The clan wyter is responsible for detecting and enforcing any behavior taboos or restrictions described in the cult write-up. It knows what the community knows, and what the priest and deity tell it. So a secret successfully kept from the clan, and not revealed during worship, may stay a secret. 

Every clan, warband, guild or urban temple has its own wyter, literally formed from the thoughts and prayers of that community. So each will involve slightly different takes on the underlying facts of geography, economics and mythology.

Note that you wouldn't normally be subject to those different restrictions as a visitor or guest. You have to actually choose to join the community.

 

 

Edited June 5 by radmonger

[French Desperate WindChild]

There are a lot of questions to manage the issues :

 

As a GM,

- why did the player decide to play this way (if the character is "guilty") ? that's important, because the decision is not the same if it is because ignorance, good roleplay, toxic roleplay (yes it exists, right ?) or accident?

- How will react the player, and the full table to my "divine" decision (but not only divine in fact) ?

- How can I use divine retribution as a good story telling ?

 

and these three questions are, for me, more important than the following, but the next questions allow me to build something I hope consistent

 

Now let's talk about gloranthan people... Before all, how a god can know is something that may differ from one table to another. "My" gods are sentient. They are aware of what happens in the mundane world. They "understand" time. However the compromise complicates everything.They are aware because they "see" through their initiates and their "divine domain" (Orlanth knows more what happen in air than what happen in a dark cave). So somewhere they are myopic. They know that what their initiates "send" (voluntary or not, like verbal and no verbal communication irl) should be accepted cautiously. But that's their main source of information. They have few choices.

 

Then my gloranthan questions.

The accusation:

Is there a real (or believed) offense ?

If no who and why is (are) the accuser (s ) ?

If yes, who is (are) the accuser (s) ?

To whom the accuser(s) did complain ? To the god only (that's more or less automatic if the accusers believe their accusation ) ? To the community ? To the (potential) offender ? And why not all the community, if not ?)

Note that accuser may be the offender, the god, a witness, anyone...

The god:

How does the god react ? Is it significant or has the god more important thing to do ?

What is the personality of the god ? Fair ? Perverse ? Violent ? Wise ?

When will it react ? As soon as possible ? One time, and it is done ? During seasons ?
 

The community :

How the community know (if it does) the offense ? From the offender ? From their priests ? From the curse (well all the babies have a beard, we have a problem Houston)

Does the community know the offender or is there a witch hunt ? or maybe some opportunity to accuse an opponent ? (that may be good opportunity of role play . Will the guilty pc let the crowd accuse an innocent ?)

How the community will react ? With solidarity with the accused or with hate ? Is the trouble important enough to risk the community itself ?

 

of couse a community does not react as a whole, you may see several behaviors and play with them.

 

The retribution :

the god is less accessible ? spells are less efficient ? less long ? harder to obtain ? The environement is more hostile ? Herd offer less milk, harvest is bad, wild beasts are more agressive ?  The volcano is "on fire" ? Spirits come to disturb the life ? Some infamous marks on your face ?

Who will suffer ? The offender only (real or not, remember the god is myopic) ? their family ? fellows ? Blood line ? Clan ? ....

How other communities will react ? Ridicule may kill... The loss may be important (politic, wealth, ...)
 

What about the community retribution ? will it ban the offender ? kill them ? be supportive ? comtemptuous ? ...

 

Close the debt :

How can the god be calmed down ?

Some dangerous quest ? big sacrifice ? Oaths ? Offender's ban / death ?

 

So as you see, that's not really a model, more hooks to build a scenario (if the offense is important of course, if not some magic or skill penalty and that's done)

[mfbrandi]

On 6/5/2024 at 7:27 AM, Malin said:

I leave much of it in the hands of the Player; it is their reading of their character's actions that are the central part.

The cop in the head … nasty! (And the clock strikes thirteen.)

On 6/5/2024 at 7:27 AM, Malin said:

to read her strictures too literally would do more to withhold her gifts from the world by causing people to become stationary hermits

CA is Little Miss Double Harmony, and the harmony gods include a rum bunch: Ompalam (+ Fate & Chaos); Ikadz (+ Death); Gark (+ Chaos & Undeath); Danfive Xaron (+ Moon & Death). Harmony sometimes goes with binding and removal from freedom and the main current of life. CA is supposed to be a Life god, but she is not a god of fertility and exuberant abundance. I reckon she is Gark in drag, near as dammit. Harmony is not straightforwardly a good thing in Glorantha, and I think we should expect behaviour from CA that’s weird and perverse (from a non-CA standpoint). The price you pay for resurrection is dealing with religious extremists (not the lay worshippers, but the high-ups with the powerful magic) … or not, to taste.

On 6/5/2024 at 7:27 AM, Malin said:

After all, a plant is also a living thing, and yet the healers both eat them and use them as medicine.

Some CAs do the bug-sweeping and non-inhaling thing, right? Think about the Jain diet in its most renunciate form: you don’t eat just any plant food, you restrict yourself to plant products that don’t involve killing the plant — onions and root vegetables are out. (It is more complicated than that. I am not an expert.) Degrees of observance will vary (and some CA “logic” will be questionable).

[John Biles]

12 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

The cop in the head … nasty! (And the clock strikes thirteen.)

CA is Little Miss Double Harmony, and the harmony gods include a rum bunch: Ompalam (+ Fate & Chaos); Ikadz (+ Death); Gark (+ Chaos & Undeath); Danfive Xaron (+ Moon & Death). Harmony sometimes goes with binding and removal from freedom and the main current of life. CA is supposed to be a Life god, but she is not a god of fertility and exuberant abundance. I reckon she is Gark in drag, near as dammit. Harmony is not straightforwardly a good thing in Glorantha, and I think we should expect behaviour from CA that’s weird and perverse (from a non-CA standpoint). The price you pay for resurrection is dealing with religious extremists (not the lay worshippers, but the high-ups with the powerful magic) … or not, to taste.

 

Harmony is basically the 'Lawful' rune and Law can be horrible.  (And Disorder is the rebel rune.)

It's the 'put the society ahead of your own interest' rune. 

Which is why the Superhero of the Harmony rune is a blood-soaked killer.  (Jar-Eel)

That being said, calling her Gark in Drag is extremely inaccurate.  She hates death and wants things to live, not to become zombies.  Or to be slaves.  But she's so opposed to violence in a violent world that it can render a CA pretty impotent to fix various problems.

 

 

[Aurelius]

14 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Some CAs do the bug-sweeping and non-inhaling thing, right? Think about the Jain diet in its most renunciate form: you don’t eat just any plant food, you restrict yourself to plant products that don’t involve killing the plant — onions and root vegetables are out. (It is more complicated than that. I am not an expert.) Degrees of observance will vary (and some CA “logic” will be questionable).

But this again circles back to the original post about the sources of the doctrine. 

I guess there is a bit of a contradiction, to me, between Runequest sourcebooks and Glorantha.

Runequest is an old-school simulationist system which comes with built-in teeth to punish what French Desperate Windchild above calls "toxic roleplay", and as such the language on breaking your cult obligations is uncompromising and litigious -- reminds me of the AD&D Paladins doing evil deeds even. 

But Glorantha is vague, messy, contradictory, conflicting, inexact and culture-dependent. 

In this thread I'm trying to get opinions, and figure out for myself, how to navigate the difference.

If Humakt is about honor, either it means that his existence as an actual living god establishes some commonalities to all Humakti in Glorantha concerning what is honorable -- but Greg wouldn't think like this. Instead, Humakti are different, local, cultural and contextual, so how do we figure out the differences.

Problem is that the RQ language is so extremely strict that if it is all literal truth, then as a player, or as a character, you don't want to dabble with it. And that strictness, and that objectiveness is pretty far from what I consider MGF. 

(Funny thing, I don't think Glorantha Runequest players need to be policed much against "bad roleplaying". With rare exceptions, such as gift geasas, I don't think the point of those rules is even to "balance" the system with tradeoffs, but to establish cultures and customs. As such the overemphasis on litigiousness, sanctions and Spirits of Reprisal is a bit of an artifact from the olden days when grognards were young. This might be a rare Glorantha thing I think HeroQuestWorlds did better than RQ?) 

[Malin]

26 minutes ago, Aurelius said:

(Funny thing, I don't think Glorantha Runequest players need to be policed much against "bad roleplaying". With rare exceptions, such as gift geasas, I don't think the point of those rules is even to "balance" the system with tradeoffs, but to establish cultures and customs. As such the overemphasis on litigiousness, sanctions and Spirits of Reprisal is a bit of an artifact from the olden days when grognards were young. This might be a rare Glorantha thing I think HeroQuestWorlds did better than RQ?) 

100% this!

[radmonger]

31 minutes ago, Aurelius said:

If Humakt is about honor, either it means that his existence as an actual living god establishes some commonalities to all Humakti in Glorantha concerning what is honorable -- but Greg wouldn't think like this. Instead, Humakti are different, local, cultural and contextual, so how do we figure out the differences.

If are a shaman,you might have what might be called a spiritual relationship with a deity, using the word pretty literally. And of course if you are a sorceror, you are a materialist and it is a runic power node.

But Rune Cults are communal worship, so community opinion matters. This manifests as a community wyter. This is the guardian spirit of the community, the gatekeeper to all cult magic, and the enforcer of all community rules.

When you walk the path of a hero, you need to move beyond that and form a personal relationship with the deity beyond the wyter. He will tell you personally what is honorable, which may not be what the community, and so wyter, thinks. And then maybe you disagree, as Yanafal Tranils notably did.

Either way, there is a story there. In one story, you reform the community, bring it closer to what the deity thinks is right. In the other, you found a new community, who's rules are what you think is right.

 

Edited June 7 by radmonger

[mfbrandi]

12 minutes ago, Aurelius said:

Runequest is an old-school simulationist system … But Glorantha is vague, messy, contradictory, conflicting, inexact and culture-dependent. 

Fair enough. Sorry for the drift.

My answer — FWIW (which is probably not much) — is that the writers of RQ rules probably think (I may be maligning them) that they understand how Glorantha works and that the RQ rules tell us how Glorantha works but that that is a mistake. Wargames are very much at the simulation end of the hobby, but they do not pretend to tell us how IRL earth works (they are not physics sims, for example) — they are abstract and distorted and give just enough detail that (if the design is good) the person with the better grasp of tactics and/or strategy has the edge.

IMHO, you don’t need a grand unified theory of divine punishment/spirits of reprisal. As a GM, you will have your reasons, different in each case, and these don’t have to add up to clear evidence that enables the characters to grasp how this aspect of their world works (and it may work differently for different cults/gods, but no one needs to know). Nor do the GM and players have to be able to figure it out. I don’t think the inscrutability of divine punishment in itself is undermining of MGF. Let it not make sense, but don’t be too hard on the players, using divine wrath as a go-to excuse.

Or burn this “advice” with tongs and disdain, as it surely deserves. Got to run — the FRPG Furies are after me …

[mfbrandi]

35 minutes ago, Aurelius said:

As such the overemphasis on litigiousness, sanctions and Spirits of Reprisal is a bit of an artifact from the olden days when grognards were young.

On the other hand, back in the day, the fronts of Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror had:

• May Arachne Solara bless and protect this book.

… but at the front of The Lunar Way, we have:

• It is absolutely forbidden to misuse, desecrate, falsify, or steal the wisdom of this book … However, if there are those who disobey, I vow by the Red Moon that, having unleashed the fierce punishment of Yara Aranis, their heads will split into one hundred pieces and their souls devoured for eternal torment!

… and in the modern Prosopaedia:

• May Maran Gor blast and wither your genitals
  May Babeester Gor remove your limbs
  And may Arachne Solara devour your soul

… so the tone toward the players these days seems more punitive and litigious than when I were a young whippersnapper.

[Jens]

8 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

back in the day

Eurmal had yet to invent Z-Library back in 1979. Or is that Lanbril?

[mfbrandi]

2 hours ago, Jens said:

Eurmal had yet to invent Z-Library back in 1979. Or is that Lanbril?

Irippi Ontor, Thanatar, Krarsht, … ?

[French Desperate WindChild]

On 6/7/2024 at 10:32 AM, Aurelius said:

then as a player, or as a character, you don't want to dabble with it. And that strictness, and that objectiveness is pretty far from what I consider MGF. 

I m not so sure

Of course except a very character, gloranthan don’t want to break the rules of their community. That’s the fact with any community you want to be part of it, to be recognized by your peers. Those who dream about something else are outlaws, adventurers or heroes 

but for a player ? It depends on the intent: 

playing a character who had to face a dilemma and decided to break some rule/law/oath to save something more important, somewhere who sacrificed a part of themselves for something / someone else ( rq : player decision and/or passion vs passion roll) and now pay the price (curse, outlawry, divine penalty…) is the real nature of a hero imo. I prefer to play this kind of character(more than saving the princess and get back the treasure of the dragon in all cases) 

so I don’t read the rules as « you, player, must do this and not that »

i read the rules as  « you, gm, when you play a standard npc / community / god, must do this and not that » and « you, player, if you decide to break the rules, you may face some issues. No gain (breaking laws) without pain »