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Ancestor Worship


deBorn

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Hi all!

While waiting for the books to arrive, I'm gathering ideas for future games.

One player would like to play one of the descendant of a famous family whose founder was a child of Yinkin. The lineage worships the founder, but they're not initiate of Yinkin. As I understand my player's wishes, he's more interested in a spiritual approach than a theist one.

How will you handle this? Something derivated from Daka Fal Ancestor Worship? Or...

Looking forward to reading your insights.

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I am not sure if the Orlanthi canonically practice this kind of ancestor worship (they do interact with their ancestors as a collective and part of their theistic pantheon and sacrifice to them but I don't know any evidence of orlanthi "Daka Fal" shamans)

But they do acknowledge him under the name of Darhudan so using the Daka Fal RQ:G cult would probably be completely fine.

30 minutes ago, boztakang said:

Daka Fal is the default path for this. I'd definitely re-skin it as specific to the ancestor worshipped, but the cult details should be similar.
IE: When the character says "I worship [ancestor]!" a god learner would nod knowingly and write down Daka Fal.

(and welcome!)

That Yinkini ancestor sounds more like a specific ancestor than a source of ancestor worship shamanism (again if practiced among Orlanthi probably Daka Fal too), so probably the focus of the player tradition but without a need to repurpose the cult to a specific ancestor.

If limited to only one ancestor then I think the ancestor spirit would be a more standard spirit cult providing magic related to what the ancestor was famous for rather than a cult about summoning any of your ancestors like the Daka Fal cult.

Lot of very minor cults are like that and tend to have shamans instead of priests.

So a question to ask to your player is if he wants a cult to be like his ancestor or a cult to summon ancestors.

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For me, Ancestor Worship means the worship of the deceased members of your clan.

Worshipping Yinkin as a Founder of the clan might be something else entirely.

I'd give the Clan a Yinkin Wyter that represents the link to the clan, also give the clan a cult of Yinkin the Founder, perhaps giving one or two Runespells from Yinkin, or even different Runespells indicating the powers the clan gets from having Yinkin as a founder. So, your clan might have the spell of Catseye, for example. 

However, if you want a Spirit Cult, then Yinkin the Founder would make sense as well.

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36 minutes ago, soltakss said:

For me, Ancestor Worship means the worship of the deceased members of your clan.

Worshipping Yinkin as a Founder of the clan might be something else entirely.

I'd give the Clan a Yinkin Wyter that represents the link to the clan, also give the clan a cult of Yinkin the Founder, perhaps giving one or two Runespells from Yinkin, or even different Runespells indicating the powers the clan gets from having Yinkin as a founder. So, your clan might have the spell of Catseye, for example. 

However, if you want a Spirit Cult, then Yinkin the Founder would make sense as well.

Yeah, lot of orlanthi wyters are like that and a child of yinkin would certainly take the form of a shadowcat.

IMO, the cult of Yinkin would probably be just a lot more common in such a clan, with maybe a subcult specific to the clan?

Yinkin is a God though so he wouldn't be a spirit cult himself. (A child of his worshipped separately would be though, if maybe only for the sake of almost certainly not having a big enough cult to be worshipped like a God)

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2 minutes ago, Tarumath said:

Yinkin is a God though so he wouldn't be a spirit cult himself. (A child of his worshipped separately would be though, if maybe only for the sake of almost certainly not having a big enough cult to be worshipped like a God)

A lot of gods are worshipped as Spirit Cults, Little Brother in Prax is Orlanth, Iron Man in Prax is Humakt, their cultists use Spirit Cults with shamans as Priests but worship the same deities.

A child of Yinkin would be worshipped as a local sub-cult of Yinkin, in my opinion, which is probably what happens in the clan.

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Thank you for your insights.

Talking with the player, he clarified his position. He wanted to play a shaman associated to the cult of Yinkin. I wouldn't allow this, as I understand the core book, either rune magic benefits, or shamanism benefits (and taboos).

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1 hour ago, deBorn said:

Thank you for your insights.

Talking with the player, he clarified his position. He wanted to play a shaman associated to the cult of Yinkin. I wouldn't allow this, as I understand the core book, either rune magic benefits, or shamanism benefits (and taboos).

If your player's really gung-ho on it, I reckon a clan could have both Yinkin and Daka Fal (as Ancestors) worship. YGMV, after all. Perhaps the adventurer is an assistant shaman, doing shaman-ey things, and also an initiate of the clan's main Yinkin cult? Particularly if the founder's spirit is the center of a local spirit cult. My understanding is that basically everyone now has Rune magic to some degree (even sorcerers).

One of the joys (and frustrations) of Glorantha is that it provides more wiggle spots than clean answers.

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On 10/1/2018 at 7:26 AM, deBorn said:

Talking with the player, he clarified his position. He wanted to play a shaman associated to the cult of Yinkin. I wouldn't allow this, as I understand the core book, either rune magic benefits, or shamanism benefits (and taboos).

I'd allow it, personally, but your game/your rules.

 

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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1 minute ago, deBorn said:

You two mean you will allow a shaman character to access Rune magic?

Access to rune magic from spirit cults or cults with shamanic associations, while keeping the different pantheons apart.

Oakfed magic: yes, available to shamans.

Grazer shamans may have selective magic from Yelm Kargzant.

A shaman officiating for Daka Fal will get access to the Ancestor Worship rune magic.

Cults without shaman positions shouldn't be very accepting of shamans.

I wouldn't give a Daka Fal shaman associated to Yinkin access to any but the one associate spell, because of the conflict with the other children of Fralar. Odayla might grant quite a few more if the shaman is primarily working inside that cult.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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1 hour ago, deBorn said:

You two mean you will allow a shaman character to access Rune magic?

Yes of course.

In RQ2/3 days, a Shaman could contact a deity directly and bargain for Runemagic, as a personal favour.

Spirit Cults are set up by a Shaman to worship/honour a Spirit or Minor Deity. They grant a subset of the deity's spells to the worshippers, including the Shaman.

Shamans in Shamanic cults are the leaders in place of Priests and get Runemagic.

One way of modelling a Shaman with a specific Tradition is by allowing the Shaman to become an Associate Priest of the cults in the Tradition. So, a Shaman in the Praxian Tradition might be able to become an Associate Priest of Waha, Oakfed, Ronance and other deities. I'd list which deities are part of that Tradition and allow Shamans in that Tradition to become Associate Priests. Each Tradition would have its own deities, though, so a Waha Tradition might have different deities to the oasis Folk Tradition or the Water Folk Tradition, or the Pavic Survivors Tradition. Some might overlap, so a Shaman of the Waha Tradition might become an associate deity of, say, Zola Fel, which is also part of the Water Folk Tradition, so he might be able to use that to hop over to the Water Folk Tradition and become an Associate Priest of River Horse or Frog Woman.

If your player wants to be a Shaman then I would have no problem in him having a Traditon that includes Yinkin and then becoming an Associate Priest of Yinkin.

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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