Yinkin Shadowcats god, where is it's animal part

[PhilHibbs]

Aldrya shamans are a sort of priest, and can go on to become Gardeners.

[Zozotroll]

And they make such lovely salads!

[Pheres]

I have taken the time to well understand (i hope) all what you have said there. Now i am asking myself few more things.

I have notice that spirits and gods are both living in the spirit world (according to a lot of things in the RQG book, as spirit encounter table in the spirit world). Spirits and gods seem to be of the same nature, but with differences. The most important difference, as i understand it, between gods and spirits is that spirits seem to be free, but gods are living in the "time of gods" (perhaps not the good words), due to the end of the lightbringers quest.

But it seems that a spirit can become a god, if he is worshipped by a sufficient number of people (as i understand it). I am thinking that when a spirit become a god he is also tied to the god's time. Or perhaps a spirit never could become a god? (In this case what is preventing some powerfull spirits to become as powerfull as some gods and take their stance?)

But what exactly is allowing a spirit to become a god?

Does a god turn back to spirit state, without been tied to god's time?

If spirits and gods are so closed in nature, why all gods can't be venerated by shamans, but only priests? (turning a litlle back to the previous discussion there! )

Thanks

Edited August 4, 2018 by Pheres

[g33k]

Personally, I find the best framework to be that the Shaman/Spirit interaction has some explicitly transactional & bargaining elements:  I will perform THIS quest to be taught THAT spell; I will do THESE rituals to avoid THOSE curses; etc.

Worshippers always worship, even when they aren't explicitly requesting or receiving anything specific.

I think some Spirits COULD be Gods... if they preferred that style of interacting with their followers.  But they don't.

I suppose there may be some wannabe-gods that simply cannot sustain worshippers' devotion, though (a) I don't know of any, canonically; & (b) I don't know if my own conceptual framework on this fits well with the designers' conceptual framework.

Also, I think you are correct to note that (mostly) God's are limited by the Compromise of Time, and that Spirits (mostly) are not -- or that the Gods support the Chaos-binding web that is Time, but Spirits do not

This may be another motivation for an entity to prefer one state over another.

Edited August 4, 2018 by g33k

[Pheres]

21 minutes ago, g33k said:

Also, I think you are correct to note that (mostly) God's are limited by the Compromise of Time, and that Spirits (mostly) are not -- or that the Gods support the Chaos-binding web that is Time, but Spirits do not

This may be another motivation for an entity to prefer one state over another.

I completely aggree with that. Spirits can changed from their own, but gods can not... So it could be better to stay a spirit!

[soltakss]

A lor of answers about Glorantha begin with "It depends" ...

It depends on how you believe that Spirits and Gods behave.

Some people think that Spirits and Gods come from different places. There was a theory of the Three Planes that collided to create Glorantha, a theory that I am not at all fond of, by the way. If you believe this then Spirits are Spirits and Gods are Gods and there is no bridge between them.

Personally, I think that there is no intrinsic difference between a Spirit and a God. None. However, there are differences in how people interact with them.

A group of people can attempt to worship a minor Spirit shamanically, which means that the link to the Spirit is through a Shaman. The Shaman leads a ceremony to contact the Spirit at a sacred place and the worshippers get a benefit from making a Pact of some kind with the Spirit. This gives the worshippers access to one, or maybe two, powers/skills/spells granted by the Spirit. They can only really regain Runespells at that sacred place and can only gain the Runespells gained through the Shaman. A Shaman can also access a Deity in the same manner, normally at a sacred place, so the Shaman creates a link to the Deity and worshippers can get access to very limited spells from the deity, again probably one or two spells. So, there is a place in the Stormwalk Mountains where a boulder is sacred to Storm Bull (He urinated on the boulder once and it shines as if wet if it rained the previous week), a shaman can contact Storm Bull here and any worshippers can access one or two Divine Spells, probably Face Chaos and another spell. There is no temple here and no permanent shrine, but every season the Shaman and worshippers can congregate there and worship Storm Bull.

Someone can access a Deity, or Hero, by contacting the Deity/hero and offering to worship. Depending on how important the Deity/Hero is, the answer might be "No, go and join my cult like everyone else" or it might be "Yes, yes, please become a Priest or God talker and worship me". The worshipper can then become a God Talker, and eventually a Priest, by sacrificing a point of POW, or whatever the current mechanism is, and setting up a Shrine at that place. The Shrine would probably only grant one Runespell, as the deity would still be weak there. As the god Talker attracts more and more worshippers, the Shrine becomes more and more empowered, gaining power as it gains regular worshippers. As it gains power it becomes a stronger contact point and grants more Runespells. As it grants more Runespells, it gains more worshippers. More buildings are put up and it becomes a Minor Temple. Eventually, cultists of friendly cultists set up small shrines to their Deities and this atracts even more worshippers, so it becomes a Major Temple. It is unlikely to become a Great Temple unless it attacts a lot of worshippers, but it is possible. An Adventurer could find a long-lost shrine to a water deity and could sacrifice to that deity, re-establishing the shrine. That deity might provide a Runespell that keeps gorps at bay, repelling them, very useful in the nearby marsh, so the shrine might attract more and more worshippers as above. This would be a permanent shrine, not a temporary one.

Now, for me, the important thing is that exactly the same thing could happen with both Deities. A Storm Bull cultists could encounter Storm Bull's Boulder and could decide to set up a permanent Storm Bull shrine there and establish a temple there. A Shaman could find the old Gorpbane shrine and could contact Gorpbane and gain Repel Gorp as a Runespell. It doesn't matter that one is a Deity and the other is a Spirit. The important thing is that both can be contacted and both have a way of being worshipped.

Shamans in Prax can contact Orlanth and gain Runespells from him Shamanically. Yelmic families can worship their ancestors using a Divine Cult that really worships Daka Fal. 

Of course, that is my own interpretation and I have been wrong many times in the past ...

Edited August 5, 2018 by soltakss

[Tindalos]

I would question if a lot of spirits have much in the way of free will as we understand it. Even the least entities of the spirit plane are bound in their ways (which may be why they seek to possess mortals, to gain that freedom. Although they impose their own restrictions in the form of taboos)

 

Some material on this subject can be found in the Unfinished Work "Arcane Lore."

It certainly is arcane though, and from the Hero Wars/HeroQuest 1 period, so it uses a lot of terms no longer used. (Great Spirits, etc)

[g33k]

3 hours ago, Pheres said:

I completely aggree with that. Spirits can changed from their own, but gods can not... So it could be better to stay a spirit!

As Obi-wan might say:  "... from a certain point of view!"

Gods can & do change, but it usually takes a rift in the Compromise to do so, a Choas-incursion.

Recalling that Time was the great Chaos-halting work that saved Glorantha before, I can imagine some Spirits having an "Oh shit!" moment when they realize that Chaos is coming for all.of Glorantha -- including them -- and they are locked-out of the greatest Chaos-stopping bulwark ever created.

[Pheres]

11 hours ago, soltakss said:

A lor of answers about Glorantha begin with "It depends" ...

It depends on how you believe that Spirits and Gods behave.

....

It doesn;t matter that one is a Deity and the other is a Spirit. The important thing is that both can be contacted and both have a way of being worshipped.

Shamans in Prax can contact Orlanth and gain Runespells from him Shamanically. Yelmic families can worship their ancestors using a Divine Cult that really worships Daka Fal. 

Of course, that is my own interpretation and I have been wrong many times in the past ...

I am liking all your post. Like other posts i have seen elsewhere, it put to front the fact that our Glorantha game depend on our point of view and must be a compromise between game master and players point of view, according on what allow the rules.

My personal point of view is only becoming from the last edition materials (RQG), and some lesser reading from RQ 2 materials. I am waiting for all new materials.

In a lot comments (in all threads), i can read that there are a lot of differents thoughts about Glorantha things (differences between gods and spirits, how shamanism is working, etc...). But i think that we have to find our own Glorantha, according to what we think and what can be fun (It's also an idea that is written regularly in posts).

My feeling is that there is no Absolute Truth about some glorantha things so you have to make your own.

[Julian Lord]

On 8/4/2018 at 7:28 AM, Pheres said:

But it seems that a spirit can become a god, if he is worshipped by a sufficient number of people (as i understand it)

That's sort of been debunked a few times over the years, but really the oldest explanation of why that can't happen is the Great Compromise, which prevents change in entities from outside the middle world.

Bad things happen if you break the Compromise, as the God Learners learned to their disadvantage ...

[Tindalos]

33 minutes ago, Julian Lord said:

That's sort of been debunked a few times over the years, but really the oldest explanation of why that can't happen is the Great Compromise, which prevents change in entities from outside the middle world.

Bad things happen if you break the Compromise, as the God Learners learned to their disadvantage ...

I'm not so sure.

RQ:G mentions that true cults can emerge from spirit cults (377)

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Julian Lord said:

That's sort of been debunked a few times over the years, but really the oldest explanation of why that can't happen is the Great Compromise, which prevents change in entities from outside the middle world.

So when the God of the Silver Feet was murdered by Prince Snodal and his co-conspirators, the Compromise was broken?

And how did that feat leave Issaries unimpaired outside of Fronela? Was this just the local godling rather than the greater god?

 

The Compromise was broken at the Birth of Nysalor not by the birth of Osentalka but by the sun stopping in the sky, counter-acting the flow of Time.

It was broken (first) at the Battle of Night and Day by the manifestation of Daysenerus in Palangio (before the manifestation of the Black Eater). 

The Only Old One summoning the Black Serpent to defend the Obsidian Palace against Belintar, while not succeeding in its purpose, doesn't register as breaking the Compromise, or does it?

 

Monrogh's revelation of Yelmalio did not break the Compromise in any way. He elevated a forgotten and at the time extremely minor cult among the Heortlings from less than a spirit cult to a fully fledged divine cult again.

 

1 hour ago, Julian Lord said:

Bad things happen if you break the Compromise, as the God Learners learned to their disadvantage ...

Bad things happen when others break the Compromise, as the Heortlings learned at the Battle of Night and Day.

Forming the Cult of Caladra and Aurelion did not break the Compromise, and it did raise worship of Aurelion from a minor spirit cult (at most, possibly at Meetplace in Slontos, as the Seshnegi of northern Jrustela weren't really theist worshipers at the time of their settling) to a full divine cult (or at least half of one).

Orlanthi heroes re-introducing a magical or divine beast to the ecology of Dragon Pass is another such example, whether the songbird returned by Moirades, the aurochs returned by Argrath or the leopard introduced by Enjeem.

Re-awakening Tada or Genert won't be breaking the Compromise, unless Genert is manifested in the Middle World (no need to do that, really). Tada always was a demigod who was part of the Middle World.

[Julian Lord]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Forming the Cult of Caladra and Aurelion did not break the Compromise, and it did raise worship of Aurelion from a minor spirit cult

Really ?

Worse, the God Learners disrupted his very worship by their cult of Caladra and Aurelion.
In 1050, Veskarthan erupted in rage and fury. The focus of the devastation was directed towards Slontos and the God Learners, but the kickback shook all of Kethaela. Human life was nearly extinguished in Caladraland except for a few pious families who took shelter in the Solung Plateau. A ten-foot-tall wave of earth passed through Esrolia, knocking down almost everything, followed by a smaller ripple. The resulting ash cloud blotted out the Sun for the rest of the year and the subsequent famines brought all of western Kethaela low. (Guide vol. 1 p. 237)

[Julian Lord]

2 hours ago, Tindalos said:

RQ:G mentions that true cults can emerge from spirit cults (377)

Does it suggest that those are divine Rune Cults ?

[Tindalos]

That's the implication since spirit cults are similar to smaller rune cults devoted to a spirit.

If it wasn't a rune cult, it would be strange that developing into a true cult would result in a loss of rune magic.

[Joerg]

2 minutes ago, Julian Lord said:

Really ?

Worse, the God Learners disrupted his very worship by their cult of Caladra and Aurelion.
In 1050, Veskarthan erupted in rage and fury. The focus of the devastation was directed towards Slontos and the God Learners, but the kickback shook all of Kethaela. Human life was nearly extinguished in Caladraland except for a few pious families who took shelter in the Solung Plateau. A ten-foot-tall wave of earth passed through Esrolia, knocking down almost everything, followed by a smaller ripple. The resulting ash cloud blotted out the Sun for the rest of the year and the subsequent famines brought all of western Kethaela low. (Guide vol. 1 p. 237)

Yeah. Old Veskarthan was enraged, and he sent a ripple which helped Slontos roll over.

There was no breach of the Compromise, though. Volcanic blasts are a known side effect of worshipping volcano deities, whether local ones or the almighty big one. The number of survivors was exceptionally low, but population would rebuild to previous size within 10 generations or so.

Nor did the cult of Caladra and Aurelion disappear (at least not from Caladraland, Slontos and Jrustela might be a different subject, although the cult write-up does mention the Manirian site in the present tense). It apppears to have always been strongest around Low Temple and the western parts of the volcanic chain anyway.

 

 

[PhilHibbs]

2 hours ago, Tindalos said:

That's the implication since spirit cults are similar to smaller rune cults devoted to a spirit.

If it wasn't a rune cult, it would be strange that developing into a true cult would result in a loss of rune magic.

A spirit cult can be a true cult with rune magic, like Black Fang Brotherhood or Oakfed, without being a divine rune cult. I think page 277 is referring to growing from a single shrine to a local spirit into this kind of "true" cult. Rune magic is not lost, I don't know where that idea comes from.

[Tindalos]

17 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

A spirit cult can be a true cult with rune magic, like Black Fang Brotherhood or Oakfed, without being a divine rune cult. I think page 277 is referring to growing from a single shrine to a local spirit into this kind of "true" cult. Rune magic is not lost, I don't know where that idea comes from.

I was meaning that in the instance of a spirit cult becoming a True Cult, if it wasn't a rune cult it wouldn't be likely to have Rune Magic.

[PhilHibbs]

1 minute ago, Tindalos said:

I was meaning that in the instance of a spirit cult becoming a True Cult, if it wasn't a rune cult it wouldn't be likely to have Rune Magic.

Black Fang Brotherhood and Oakfed have Rune Magic, yet they are spirit cults. The idea that only "Rune Cults" get rune magic is taking the title too literally.

[Tindalos]

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Black Fang Brotherhood and Oakfed have Rune Magic, yet they are spirit cults. The idea that only "Rune Cults" get rune magic is taking the title too literally.

Sorry, that wasn't my intention.

The point that spirit cults get rune magic was something I was referring to. Since if there was a non-rune cult "true cult" they probably wouldn't have rune magic. (For example, a sorcery cult that wasn't mixed like LM)

Of course, that would likely still involve a change in entity status.

[Julian Lord]

7 hours ago, Tindalos said:

That's the implication since spirit cults are similar to smaller rune cults devoted to a spirit.

If it wasn't a rune cult, it would be strange that developing into a true cult would result in a loss of rune magic.

I asked if they were divine Rune cults.

It is my understanding that in RQ:G all cults are Rune cults ...

[Tindalos]

1 hour ago, Julian Lord said:

I asked if they were divine Rune cults.

It is my understanding that in RQ:G all cults are Rune cults ...

Which raises the question of what's different about spirit cults, especially as Rune Cults are described as existing for tribal ancestors and wood nymphs.

As for divine or not, I don't believe RQ:G is based around the four worlds system. Given page 269 mentions "powerful spirits who have not made the jump to godhood." I think in RQ:G, spirit vs god is a matter more of power than of origin.

For example the Thunder Brothers in the RQ Bestiary (185) are mentioned as ranging from cult spirit level to gods in the own right.

[jajagappa]

15 minutes ago, Tindalos said:

Given page 269 mentions "powerful spirits who have not made the jump to godhood." I think in RQ:G, spirit vs god is a matter more of power than of origin.

There's likely a rough transition from where the cult leaders are shaman-priests who interact directly with the spirit and the spirit gifts followers with spirit magic, to those where the initiate can 'act like'/'emulate' the spirit's deeper powers (i.e. gain/invoke rune magic).  The more worshippers the spirit has, the more likely it can grant god-like powers.  But even then, not all do, or some may provide both types of interactions.

[Tindalos]

3 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

There's likely a rough transition from where the cult leaders are shaman-priests who interact directly with the spirit and the spirit gifts followers with spirit magic, to those where the initiate can 'act like'/'emulate' the spirit's deeper powers (i.e. gain/invoke rune magic).  The more worshippers the spirit has, the more likely it can grant god-like powers.  But even then, not all do, or some may provide both types of interactions.

This is covered on page 377 and following of the RQ:G corebook.

[Julian Lord]

7 hours ago, Tindalos said:

Which raises the question of what's different about spirit cults, especially as Rune Cults are described as existing for tribal ancestors and wood nymphs.

As for divine or not, I don't believe RQ:G is based around the four worlds system. Given page 269 mentions "powerful spirits who have not made the jump to godhood." I think in RQ:G, spirit vs god is a matter more of power than of origin.

For example the Thunder Brothers in the RQ Bestiary (185) are mentioned as ranging from cult spirit level to gods in the own right.

OK thanks