Creating New Keywords II

[Shreyas Sampat]

Trailing off this thread...

I'm having a really icky time figuring out, and coming up with new, animist traditions; several reads of the animism chapter have started to clear up questions on his the magic works once you have it, but really haven't helped me with the structure of a tradition.  Can someone help me out?  I'm in the process of starting up a non-Gloranthan game, and one of my players wants to have a shamanistic character, so it rather behooves me to design a tradition with him.

[doubtofbuddha]

Well I am more than willing to help, but you will need to be slightly more specific.

Do you have any ideas for the sort of tradition you want?

A description of the traditions you want to make will allow me to help you through the creation proccess.

[Shreyas Sampat]

Thanks!

Here's what I know about the character -
We're riffing of the Tarsh homeland keyword, and one of the players was like, "I want to be deposed royalty and worship the Bad Old Religion, which isn't really bad, it's just defamed by our Lunar oppressors."
Which I thought was cool.

So, he's thinking of putting that together with some African mythology, particularly San folklore as Tad Williams depicts it in the Otherland series.  I'm not well-versed in those books myself, but apparently a major figure is Grandfather Mantis, an embodiment of wisdom and possibly a creator figure.

Significant points in the character's concept include his gardener (who is currently the vessel for a spirit, part of the character's magic) and the idea of Shape Flesh Like Clay (a charm he wants.)

While I think Shape Flesh Like Clay is an awesome, though gruesome, power, I'm having a really hard time depicting a spirit that would have such an ability.

[buserian]

Hi,

Here's how I would suggest you proceed.

First, DON'T get stuck on the "what is this spirit like, why does he have this ability?" MANY spirits in Glorantha are Creator types, who descended into the world from the Sky, or came up from the Underworld, and created people or shaped the landscape. The importance of an entity being a spirit is how it responds to worship.

So, worry about creating an entire religious "pantheon", not individual spirits. And yes, a tradition IS the equivalent of a theist pantheon. Although many are much less diverse in terms of number of majestic spirits, that is still what you have to look at.

Second, make up the basic religious and mythical structure before worrying about individual spirits, at least in the basic framework. That is, figure out who the great spirit is, and what its basic mythos is. Then, decide what the basic tradition spirits are -- ancestor spirits? sun spirits? earth spirits? (From what you say, Ancestor Spirits and Earth Spirits seem like good basic tradition spirits to me.)

Next, work out the core practices -- the practices that are integral to the tradition, so integral that every worshipper must belong to at least one of them.

Some traditions have only a single core practice, others have one for men and one for women. But some, especially ones in animism-dominated lands, might have several. I can imagine, for example, that the Doraddi of Pamaltela have at least four core practices, possibly more.

Now, YOUR tradition might have only one core practice now, since it is the Bad Old Religion, but maybe it used to have more. You should at least decide if this is the case.

Then, and only then, think about the core practice that your player's hero is going to belong to. What are the kinds of spirits it might give him?

You also need to think about how the core practice is structured. For example, the Yu-Kargzant core practice of the Grazer Tradition is very age-oriented, and actually contains four majestic spirits that are worshipped cumulatively as the worshipper advances through the age groups. Is your core practice like that? (Knowing your tradition will help you answr this question.) If so, the majestic spirit that "empowers" the tradition as a whole is not important right now, only the "subservient" spirits that are actually worshipped. (The main spirit will ultimately determine the practice secret, but usually wouldn't provide spirits, based on the examples we have.) If this is so, figure out who and what the included spirits are, and how worshippers move through the cult -- by age? by accomplishments? by monetary contributions?

If your core practice is not intended to allow worshippers to move through spirits, but you like the idea of several core spirits, make several core practices.

Finally, you can sketch out at least the basics of any helper practices that your hero might be able to belong to.

For example, your core practice might actually be a healing one, and the Shape Flesh Like Clay ability be provided by a helper practice that was intended originally for healing, but now (in the Bad Old Religion) is used to harm the enemy. Maybe the core spirit wouldn't allow this, but the helper spirit will.

Hope this helps.

buserian