Religion and Homeland

[Mike Holmes]

Brand, I agree completely that the Lunar Way is something of an exception, but I think that this exception is important. That is, it says that there is no absolute need to have only one Specialized Religion Keyword. This is what I'm looking for, more or less, that it's OK to have religions that subsume other religions.

But here's the question. Can a person who worships the Lunar Way, have Specialized Magic Keywords from more than one sub-religion. If the Solar Pantheon is one of the sub-religions (and it sounds like it is), can one be an initiate of some aspect of Yelm, and also an initiate of Sylilan Odayla? A practitioner of one of the SurEnslib practices, and Jakaleel (just where does "From Dark" hail from anyhow)?

Actually more importantly, can one be a practitioner of Jakaleel, and an intiate of Yelm (no matter the likely rarity of such a combination)? That is, outside of particular social barriers in-game, or the spirits or gods objecting on grounds of philosophical problems, is there a game limit that represents this just being too much of a stretch.

Because, again what I'm worried about is the usefulness of concentration as a rule. If, in fact, you can only be a member of one "religion within a religion" in the Lunar Way, then pretty much you're automatically limited to only one otherworld. It's only if one is allowed to take on cults, practices and schools from more than one religion that the concentration limit applies.

James, I've seen Martin's write up of Kolat, and I like it. It's just that it contratdicts what other of the authors have said in terms of specifics. Actually, since they both said that the write-ups that they were giving were actually sorta provisional, I'm sure that the actual Kolat will be different from both.

But again, I'm more worried about the general issue than the specific case. If, indeed Kolat is a different religion (defined here as requiring a different religion keyword) that's just accepted by the Heortling people, then that's cool, because it gives us our first example of two separate religions living side-by-side in a single culture.

It still doesn't answer the question, however, of whether or not one can theoretically be a member of some Kolating practice, and an initiate of Destor. Basically, are they then both under some Heortling "super-religion" that allows both in theory? Or are they separate enough that one can only be in one or the other, period. Again, if the latter, then concentration is back to being a null issue for Heortlings. Only if one can theoretically do both is there a real dilemma to concentration.


I think that it's interesting that Brand used the Rome comparison. I'm putting together yet another game in Shadow World, and it's going to be in the city of Kaitaine, which has some similarities to Rome. So much so, that this is how I actually described the religion situation there to one of the players. How I want it to work is very much a pick-and-choose smorgasboard of cults. Many, many religions will be represented, and I'd like for these people, at least and if nobody else anywhere, to have a real choice when it comes to concentration.

Let's define some terms here before we go on.

Religion - a tradition, pantheon, or church.
Sect - a specialized magic cult, practice, liturgical order, order, or school.
Power - this is the being of a Sect from which the magic comes.
Macro Religion - all of the religions that belong under one umbrella.

It seems to me that the Power of a Sect is who determines whether or not somebody can be a member. Even if one assumes that these beings are somehow imaginary or created by the belief of the individuals, that's irrelevant, they act as beings with a will in that they can deny individuals the use of their magic (although the One God doesn't bother to do so apparently). So the question becomes a cosmological one. At what point will a Power say that belonging to another Sect bars you from admission?

We can assume that if one belongs to an enemy Religion, or even an enemy Sect in the same religion (Humakt to Ernalda), that one will be barred. No surprises there. And it seems likely that one would be barred if one belongs to another Macro Religion in any capacity. But even this leads to some possible contradictions.

Consider, if both the religions of Prax and the religions of the Grazers have been found by the Lunars to be OK within the Lunar Way, the problem becomes that I'm sure that the Majestic Horses spirits and the Grazer spirits do not get along together, at least not to allow one to be in a practice from one, and a practice from another (or do they - I'd love to stand corrected here). So the only way to make this non-contradictory is to say that even within the Lunar Way, people can't be in more than one sub-religion's Sects. Otherwise you have it where the same gods are OKing it in one case, but not in another. Or is this the specific effect that Sedenya has on how gods see their followers inside the Glowline?

Basically if I have it work in Kaitaine that one can worship from an assortment of Powers from different religions forming a huge Macro religion, I don't have Sedenya to make it right. Do I need such a being to make such an exception, or some other explanation? If not, the implication would be that the gods would behave anywhere as they do in Kaitaine, potentially, and that they'd allow inter-religious affiliation.

Or...or is it OK to give gods double standards? Can they operate one way in one place, and another in another?

Summarized here are the questions:
1. Can one gain magic keywords from Sects that do not belong in one's religion in any way?
2. Can one gain magic keywords from Sects that belong to your macro religion, but to different religions inside that overall macro religion?
3. Can one gain magic keywords from the same religion if they have different otherworld origins? For questions 1 and 2, does otherworld make a difference?

In all of these cases, let's assume that these are all difficult things to do to some extent. So let's not belabor how rare one case or another is, the question is it ever possible that a god would allow it? Or, at the very least, if you need a test, is it common enough that the question of whether or not to concentrate is impacted by the potential opportunities that doing so represents.

I mean if I'm required somehow to tell the players that it's so vanishingly rare for something like this to happen that they should not think of attempting such, then it is moot. But given the clause that says that PCs are special folks, is it every really the case that they can't have these opportunities? If so, where does it make sense to draw the line?

In the end, this all goes to how one should enumerate these things. If, in fact, the people of a single culture can and do have multiple religions, then there needs to be a way to list the options. What I've been doing is to give the cultural keyword, and then list the associated religions. This is much like how common magic religions are listed, but includes more than one specialized magic religion listing for each homeland where they're found to exist. I like this presentation, personally.

To make this effective, however, I think that I'm going to have to make some notations about each religion. First, I think that most if not all cultures will have a "primary" specialized religion - this is what I think the current homeland listings are. If I list more than one, I'll simply have to give a note on how common or uncommon each is (I might actually use a percentage breakdown, being the numbers guy I am). Second, there has to be a note about which belong to the primary macro religion. That is, it seems that there are two possibilities with additional religions. They are either closely enough associated with the primary religion that one is generally allowed by the Powers of the Sects of one to join with the Sects of the other and vice versa, or they are not. If they are, they are part of the macro religion, if not, then they are "outsider" religions that some of the culture happen to worship.

BTW, a classic example of an "Outsider" religion would be a dark cult of some sort. In Glorantha, for example, there's the cult that entails being an ogre (can't remember the name of the Power in question). This is obviously part of some religion that's not acceptable to the rest of the populace - in this extreme example, they're hunted down and killed. I'm not sure you have to list this sort of enemy religion as one that's part of the culture. Cults this small seem to be aberrations. But it shows what an outsider cult might be like.

Some of these can co-exist, however. Outsider doesn't have to mean something that's rejected, technically just a religion that the Powers of the primary macro religion won't allow the worship of if one wants to be in the Sects of the primary macro religion.

Does that make sense? The problem with the current one-specialized-religion-per-homeland approach is that I'm sure that there are religions that are missing. Kolat is the best example that I can think of. It wouldn't be listed elsewhere, except, perhaps as some very local keyword for some camp where Kolat is worshipped. Which would have the same cultural keyword anyhow as elsewhere. So why not reference the religion as what it is, part of the heortling cultural landscape, no matter how small?

So, to sum up, the original problem here came about with a culture in my game called the Rhiani. They're a horse tribe that lives on an arid plain, and listed as worshipping primarily around a god of strength named Cay. But as soon as we started playing, people started asking about other options.

In fact it seemed that nobody wanted to be in this religion particularly (the Clan Chieftain was a communal worshipper of the pantheon, but...). Several players wanted to be into animism. And who can blame them, says I, the culture almost demands some animism. What's a horseplain tribal society without an animist tradition? So we created the Swift Stallion Tradition. Another wanted to be a mystic waterfinder. Fine, we created that way. Yet others wanted to be in dark cults, so we came up with two of them locally. Then there were the people of the one and only city of the Rhiani - I thought it would be odd for them to follow the same animism, but I'd written up a shaman in the city. So I came up with another tradition that worships the spirits of the river upon which the city lies.

Before it was done, we had no less than what seemed to be six separately operating religions. Now I had to start thinking of how these things existed side-by-side. There's this general cosmological rule in Shadow World that the spirits began as servants of the gods (this is somewhat akin to the Gloranthan time where everything was everything). So they're not automatically inimical to each other. They have grown apart over time however, such that the spirits operate independently of the gods. Thus the theists see the animists as worshipping the remnants of an experiment gone awry, and the animists see the theists as worshipping beings that are too distant to really have an impact on the world anymore.

So they have their differences, but they don't automatically disavow each other. Thus, I ruled that the theists of Cay saw the spirits of the Swift Stallion Tradition as being OK, but just a sorta "minor" way of worshipping, while the animists see the theists as missing out on the spirit landscape and worshipping a being that, though he may have delivered the spirtits long ago has largely abandoned the people to their own devices.

The two animist traditions I did say were in opposition to each other to some extent, actually, and that, generally the river tradition represented what I've termed an "outsider" religion above. The mystic religion was one of those minor cults that has tenets that simply don't offend many Powers, and so was acceptable to all.

I even came up with ways to account for the dark cults as part of the macro religion. I said that they represented counter-cultural pressure valves that Cay allowed in order that the people have outlets for certain of their passions (he otherwise being a very strict god). With my new way of accounting for these things, this makes these "outsider" religions, and not part of the macro religion. Instead the culture allows these things to exist for the social reasons listed, and Cay doesn't like it (which is, of course, cool as it provides a source of potential conflict).

So the listing would now look something like:
Specialized Religions
Rhiani Religion (Macro)
- Cay Pantheon
- Swift Stallion Tradition
- Waterfinder Mysticism
Daluj River Spirit Tradition
Klysus Pantheon (Akalatan Cult)
Inis Cult


Here's something else I've wanted to discuss. Kolat, according to Stephen is part of, what is it, the Seven Winds Tradition? Something like that. Is it really always neccessary to have the overall religious framework of a form of worship include more than one Power? That is, can a character just worship a cult, and not the rest of the beings in the pantheon? Or does such worship, itself, form a new religion all it's own?

For example that Ogre diety? Is he really part of an overall pantheon? More importantly, even if he is, do his followers really worship the rest of the pantheon? Or just him? Or, given that there are likely smaller beings associated with that diety, do people worship all of these beings together as their own religion?

Inis and Klysus (and his son Akalatan) are all members of the Red Moon Pantheon in Shadow World. But they're a fractious bunch of gods who seem most days just as ready to fight with each other as with any other gods. So do their worshippers even bother with the rest of the pantheon for the most part? How do I enumerate this if the answer is no?

I have an answer that I've been using, but I'd like to hear what others think.

Mike

[Brand_Robins]

Can a person who worships the Lunar Way, have Specialized Magic Keywords from more than one sub-religion.

It isn't clear. However, I don't think so. I think you can have a Lunar magic keyword and a homeland magic keyword – but I don't think you can have two different homeland magic keywords. Being a Lunar lets you be Lunar and Solar, or Lunar and Bear Cult, but not Bear Cult and Solar.

Though I could be wrong. Or it could simply be that the Empire hasn't gotten to that point yet, as people are still getting used to this whole "We are All Us" thing. Give 'em another millennia and maybe that will be doable.

Or...or is it OK to give gods double standards? Can they operate one way in one place, and another in another?

They did in the real world. Which is to say, Shiva Rudra in the Aryan Gangetic basin was not worshiped the same way or seen as having the same attributes as Kamesvara Shiva in the Tamil South. The idea that gods have to be internally and externally consistent is a post-Hellenic and mostly monotheistic idea.

Not that the idea that gods aren't consistent at all is particularly helpful, as its back to "what the hell is the rule" – but there isn't any law saying that all gods have to be the same to all people, and plenty of anecdotal evidence that says they don't.

1. Can one gain magic keywords from Sects that do not belong in one's religion in any way?

In the Gloranthan context, I'd say no. In other settings where you have wizard-thieves who gank magic from other types of practitioners it may be doable, but I'd think even then it would generally be stealing one feat or secret, not taking on a whole keyword.

2. Can one gain magic keywords from Sects that belong to your macro religion, but to different religions inside that overall macro religion?

So far as we've seen, no. You can gain keywords from the macroreligion and from one of the sects inside, but not from two different sects inside.

There are oddities here, however, as Odaylans (for example) can get kolating help to make Beast Charms that are an important part of their magic and which act as one ability fetishes. (Of course this was under Hero Wars rules, things may change in HQ.) So those two different sects within the macro religion can work together to share power in some way. Even there, however, it isn't a full keyword share – it's just an ability to do a bit of joint magic despite different Otherworlds.

3. Can one gain magic keywords from the same religion if they have different otherworld origins? For questions 1 and 2, does otherworld make a difference?

That one is hard. As mentioned, Odaylans can (with kolating help) gain fetishes that they can use fully without disrupting their devotion to a theist god. However, they don't seem able to gain kolating keywords. The big question would, I think, be Lunars. One could conceivably be an initiate of Natha and a practitioner of Kotori – it never says you can't, but it never says specifically that you can either.

My gut sort of leans towards letting it happen for Lunars, due to the Red Moon's power. But even then I suspect that concentration would be difficult or impossible. You can get power from two different places, but you can't concentrate on either (much less both) or you spoil the soup.

If so, where does it make sense to draw the line?

I don't know – where the resistance level says so? It may be possible to make up a contest for these things. We already have contests to become members of congregations and such, so if we extend the principle we could have a similar contest to be accepted by the Power into the new sect/religion. How hard it is would, I have to assume, be based on how opposed and/or different the sect/religions are. Joining another Lunar cult may not be hard, but joining a Lunar cult, then a Solar cult, and then a Darjinni cult may be a heroic maneuver. You can do it, but only if you can beat the 10w4 resistance....

Which would have the same cultural keyword anyhow as elsewhere. So why not reference the religion as what it is, part of the heortling cultural landscape, no matter how small?

I tend to agree. I'd list the main SR, as it's the Orlanthi all, and then have the others in a sidebar or somesuch. They do exist, and are PCable, but putting them to one side shows that they are not the cultural default.

Thus the theists see the animists as worshipping the remnants of an experiment gone awry, and the animists see the theists as worshipping beings that are too distant to really have an impact on the world anymore.

That makes sense, especially in the kolating way – the different sects are part of an uber-religion for cultural reasons. They believe their gods are related, even though they've become different over time, and thus see each other as part of the same tradition. It's like in Norse myth if the Aesir were Gods and the Vanir were Spirits – come the time of the Vikings they're part of the same religion, but their traditions follow different paths.

That is, can a character just worship a cult, and not the rest of the beings in the pantheon? Or does such worship, itself, form a new religion all it's own?

That, I think, is going to have to be a cultural thing. To go back to Hinduism as an example, there are many Hindu sects that accept all of the gods, some that accept some of them, and some that accept only one. There have, historically, been radical Vishnivites who claimed that all other gods were only incarnations of Vishnu, and thus worshiping them was missing the point. For those guys Vishnu is the only god, or at least the only god worth worshiping, in their pantheon – despite the fact they're demonstrably Hindu. OTOH, in Catholicisim it really isn't generally acceptable to worship one saint and not worship God. (Though even there we have some historical examples of people doing it – its just that the Church ended up booting them.)

[Bankuei]

Hi Mike,

Or...or is it OK to give gods double standards? Can they operate one way in one place, and another in another?

If this is a canon question- just think of what Greg would say :)  Of course, it seems to me that it seems to be a major point of Glorantha, that the gods work in all kinds of different ways, and a good deal of it has to do with the worshippers' interpretations, as much as whatever is really going on.  Just think of all the interpretations of the Arkat/Gbaji stuff and there you go.

If, in fact, the people of a single culture can and do have multiple religions, then there needs to be a way to list the options. What I've been doing is to give the cultural keyword, and then list the associated religions. This is much like how common magic religions are listed, but includes more than one specialized magic religion listing for each homeland where they're found to exist. I like this presentation, personally.

This is pretty much how I'd run a long term, mixed peoples, HQ game.  Looking at a variety of real world examples, it seems that people mix religion freely around the globe, and it is rare for people to practice anything "pure".  Even in places where monotheism "rules" you still have mixtures from older practices (sand divination, evil eye in the Mideast, indigenous & african traditions in South America, witchcraft in Russia, etc.).

If we're going to follow the real world as an example, typically religions co-habiting a similar area go through a few phases...

1) Isolationist
Differing religions are markedly different, and a person involved in one is NOT involed in the others.  This usually is because one or more of the religions is not native to the area and the outsiders keep to themselves, are shunned, etc.  Few religions stay this way, except with the help of an insular culture and identity to back it up.  Judaism and religions associated with ethnic identities often hold this position.

2) Friendly awareness
People know of one and of the other.  Occassionally you'll find people who have switched from one to the other, or are involved in both(rarely).  In tolerant areas, this would include Judaism and Atheism.

3) Mixture of subcults
Offshoots spring up which apply more and more of the other religions' customs and practices.  Ones that mesh well with the home religion, are generally popular(everyone loves festivals and feasts), and/or serve to promote the cult leaders' new views.  Check out some of the cults in Korea or Japan.

4) Free Mixing
Subcults become a regular viable option, people may be involved freely with many of the mixed religions, blurring between whose practices are whose begins to happen in the eyes of the laypeople.  Indonesia and a good deal of southeast asia is a prime example of this in action.

5) Complete meshing/subsumption
It becomes impossible for the average layperson to determine what has what origins, and the religions are merged.  Often a popular one will subsume a less popular one.  Check out faith healers in S. America, Christmas/Easter/Halloween in Christianity, african diaspora traditions in the carribeans & S. America, etc.

Although I personally wouldn't take the time and effort of putting all these categories into my religion keywords, I'd probably pull a real world reference to clarify things for my players...  

Chris

[Mike Holmes]

More good thoughts, guys.

Actually when I put someting like this to Greg he said no, that the gods are not created by the people, so the beliefs of the people do not make the gods one way or another. Basically, if there are two beliefs about a god, then one of those beliefs is incorrect. Hence misapplied worship. So, in fact if the gods have a double standard, it's because the gods have a double standard, and not because there are real world examples of where this sort of worship occurs. That is, if the Gloranthan standard applied to the real world (and I think Greg would say that it doesn't, actually), then one side or another is worshipping the god incorrectly. I think the notion is that the gods are generally not wishy-washy on things like this.

And I'd agree with him and disagree with the assertion that there was ever a time when the gods were more relative. Cultures may have been such that interpretations varied more between place to place, but that doesn't mean that the people felt that their interpretations were relative. Each culture always claims to have the "correct" version of the god in question. The only question is whether or not the gods are real. In Glorantha, apparently they are.

Now, why the gods allow themselves to be worshipped incorrectly in Glorantha, and then why you'd want to have a rule that said that the gods do not allow worshippers in one place to have syncretic worship but do in others, I'm not sure. It seems that if they made their will known to their worshippers in their regular worship communions, that misapplied worship would not happen. Or, that if heroquests or something had made the worship of the one group "right" that it wouldn't be misapplied worship any more.

So I don't know what to do with this one.

To go to the specific cosmology of Shadow World, which is the world I have to deal with, Terry does actually comment on this somewhat. He says that the gods are to some extent ineffably alien to humans. So they do, in fact, do some things that do not precisely make sense to humans. Including allowing themselves to be worshipped in various ways in various places for instance. Indeed it seems that to some extent the idea is that the gods are themselves formed by how people worship them (which I see as supporting the idea of heroquesting to change cosmological fact). Just enough to allow for whatever sort of ambiguity I want to throw in there.

So, basically, it's a pretty maleable setting from the POV of gods. I could apply the double standard, and probably get away with it. But from what you've said, Brand, it sounds like there's no Gloranthan case where a character is explicitly allowed to have specialized magic keywords from more than one religion, even amongst those in a macro-religion. Though you can mix between religion and macro-religion?

Just to look at that quickly, could you clarify something you've said? You say that a character can be Lunar and Solar, for instance, a macro with an associated regular religion. The implication here is that you can, in fact, gain magic from specialized keywords in each of these religions. That is, the macro-religion that subsumes the regular religion in this case also has specialized magic keywords. Which is interesting. Basically the only time that we have this occuring is in the odd case of the Lunar religion. Other macro-religions, it sounds like, don't have this case. So, if we assume that it's an oddity of the Lunar religion, then we can assume that the general case is that nobody can have magic from more than one religion.

In which case you have consistency everywhere, with the exception of the odd special case that doesn't apply to anywhere but Glorantha neccessarily. Again, it could just be some effect of Sedenya.

This makes for an easy ruling, but a depressing one. Very rimply, each specialized religion could be solely one otherworld, and the limit can be that you can only learn from one religion at a time. Simple, but again it means that Concentration is pretty meaningless. I mean let's look at the supposed exceptions. The Lunar Way itself may be some sort of big exception, so we'll look elsewhere. The Teshnan religion is common magic. By one interpretation, the Kolatings are a separate religion (if, perhaps, part of a macro-religion that includes it with a theist one).


Even Mr. Robertson can be read to be talking about macro religions, and not individual religions when he talks about them all being some mix of otherworlds. This is, then, consistent with the book's statement that specialized religions are entirely involved with one otherworld.

I find myself in an odd position. I want the more RuneQuest-ish ability for characters to accumulate magic from a variety of sources. Both because I think it's fun, and because it would create conflict, I think. And because it saves concentration from death by irrelevance. But I'm faced with an apparent opinion that it's simply not realistic for a person to really be dedicated to two religions at once, even if both are considered acceptable by a single culture, at least not to the point where a Power looking at your psyche would allow you to join their Sect if one still believed in another from another religion.

Which opinion I understand as well.

I see a few solutions to this dilemma, but each has problems:

1. I can say that in my world, the gods aren't as choosy, and people dabble in multiple religions on occasion. At least within a culture's macro-religion, if not outside of the macro-religion as well. So in this case, the Rhiani might be able to learn an animist practice from the Swift Stallion Tradition, and be initiated to Cay as well. In which case, the character has a real incentive not to concentrate.
2. I can say that there are more religions written up like the Lunar Way, with all sorts of sects from different otherworlds, so that there's always some possible sect from a different otherworld in the religion that you're giving up access to if you concentrate. This assumes that you can get magic from more than one otherworld in the Lunar Way, of course. For all I know, this is might not even be meant to be allowed at all.
3. I can just say that you can't get specialized magic from more than one otherworld, and then either ignore that Concentration is broken, or just drop the concentration rule.

Note that with any of these "rules" the idea is to be able to tell a player what's possible and what's not. It'll always be caveated with "but you can heroquest to change it." It's just that this possibility is not alone enough to save concentration. In fact I'd probably allow a proper heroquest to void the concentration rules somehow.

1 has the problem that it might not be believable. That is, players going off to get more magic from other religions can only be doing it if they're playing in Pawn stance. At the very best they're doing something so extrememly rare that the attempt alone might smack of Pawn stance.

2 has the problem that none of the religions are written up that way, and their enumeration is them problematic. That is, what sort of religion magic keyword is the base? If it's one sort, then what happens to the "root" of the other sects?

3 has the problem that I like the idea of getting magic from more than one otherworld, and I like the concentration trade-off as long as it's got some real teeth. If it's just "don't take any common magic that's not the right type so you don't lose anything concentrating" that's really weak. Again, I might as well chuck the rule and assume that everyone concentrates.

What's somewhat ironic is that given that I'm playing in another world that's not Glorantha, you'd think that I could just chuck the otherworld distinctions altogether. But if you've played Rolemaster, you know that they're pretty much already there, in fact named similarly (well, no animism realm per se, and a mentalism one instead, but you get the drift). So I'd really like to keep that if at all possible. Again, I like the trade-off. I don't want players having the advantages of multiple sorts of magic without having to sacrifice something else (easy progression in this case).

I guess I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too?

Chris, I like your stages of mixture. As usual, the changes to the religion coming from the people must be the result of heroquests. Because why would the gods themselves change over time to mix like this?

Mike

[Brand_Robins]

And I'd agree with him and disagree with the assertion that there was ever a time when the gods were more relative. Cultures may have been such that interpretations varied more between place to place, but that doesn't mean that the people felt that their interpretations were relative. Each culture always claims to have the "correct" version of the god in question.

That's true about 95% of the time. There have been, historically, real world groups that had greater and lesser degrees of relativism about their own and other gods, ranging from a "Yes, but" to a "I'm okay, you're okay" and even a "I'm sure we're both right, we just don't know how yet." However, those times are distinctly in the minority and normally within the focus of the same umbrella religion. (So within Hinduism, for example, but not so much between Hinduism and Islam – though a few people did try it there, it never caught on much without becoming a new religion all its own.)

Anyway, that's off topic.

It seems that if they made their will known to their worshippers in their regular worship communions, that misapplied worship would not happen. Or, that if heroquests or something had made the worship of the one group "right" that it wouldn't be misapplied worship any more.

In addition to your "gods are alien, who knows why the hell they do what they do" point, there is another point to be considered – that the gods may not make it known to their worshipers. It may not be worth the time, they may worry about losing them (think about how many misapplied saints cults would go out of business if the montheists found out that they were really worshiping pagan gods...), or they may try to tell them only to have their voice mangled in the translation to mortal minds. Really, paradigmatics have to play a part here, right?

Now so far as heroquesting to make it right goes, that's the kind of stuff that blows up the world. Which means that it is good meat for stories, and so is something we really should think about. Does Heroquesting give people the ability to rewrite the gods themselves? We know the Godlearners did things like that before they went boom....

However at this point I find my Glorantha fu too weak to go further about the difficulties, dangers, and possible examples of these things happening.

In which case you have consistency everywhere, with the exception of the odd special case that doesn't apply to anywhere but Glorantha neccessarily. Again, it could just be some effect of Sedenya.

I have a feeling this is right. There is also an oddity around the Lunars in that while there are writeups for Lunar cults (the much cited Natha, for example) there is no Lunar Religion Keyword that I can find. There is an Imperial Citizen homeland, there are cult writeups, but there is no SR type write up of the Lunar Religion in either the MRB or the ILH. So....

I find myself in an odd position. I want the more RuneQuest-ish ability for characters to accumulate magic from a variety of sources. Both because I think it's fun, and because it would create conflict, I think. And because it saves concentration from death by irrelevance.

If you want to change the way the otherworlds interact in your setting, I don't think it will kill the game. Glorantha has a very particular (and peculiar) way of dealing with different types of magic that I do not find intrinsic to the game or the workings of magic in other settings. I know I've never used it in any non-Gloranthan game other than yours, and have never felt the lack of it.

I also have to wonder if concentration isn't a way to look at it to give it some shape. If you don't concentrate you can learn multiple magics from different religions. You have taken a bit from this people, a bit from that, which is likely to piss people off and shows a certain Hermeticism to the ideas of how magic works (by force rather than by devotion) – but it could work. However, you can't use them actively because you cannot have that level of mastery without giving yourself over to the type.

So one can be a member of a Mithras mystery cult and have learned the blessings of Isis while worshiping Zeus, and have magics and obligations from all of those religions – but unless you focus on one you get no ability to toss lightning bolts. Concentration thus becomes a symbol of devotion and exclusion for the sake of narrower but higher power that has tangible in world manifestations in what religions you can and cannot join and who you can and cannot learn magic from.

Again, I like the trade-off. I don't want players having the advantages of multiple sorts of magic without having to sacrifice something else (easy progression in this case).

In that case it may be that you either need to let the in-world mythology define which they can and cannot join (or at least which require heroic effort to join and which are easy), or use something like concentration to determine where you can and can't put your power.

In the end I don't think there are any easy answers, as HeroQuest does a lot of work to make its magic resemble the ideas of the ancients about the religious and magical reality of the world – which means that it's all a tangled mess.

Which, BTW, includes a possible answer to questions like this:

Because why would the gods themselves change over time to mix like this?

Because the gods didn't change. They live in god time, and were always what they always will be. Or, because they always were like that, but it took mortal minds time to come to understand it. Many real world religions have changed their stances on any number of issues, including something of the nature of their gods, and have had to contend with the issue of why their god would change and how their old prophets could have not had it all picture perfect. Read modern Christian interpretation of  Isaiah or Ezekiel for examples of this "God hasn't changed, but our understanding of the universe has changed in a way that lets us understand him differently" thought.

[Bankuei]

Hi Mike,

Chris, I like your stages of mixture. As usual, the changes to the religion coming from the people must be the result of heroquests. Because why would the gods themselves change over time to mix like this?

I was simply laying out an arbitrary set of stages for real world examples.  Glorantha-wise, you can follow that people heroquested to make the gods like this, because it was what they believed.  If I intentionally/unintentionally happen on a heroquest to do something that mixes two religions- the heroquest itself is a form of "proof" of that belief.  

To take a plausible Gloranthan example- if two cultures cohabit an area, and both religious practices involve a heroquest to bless the crops on the same day, odds are decent that the heroquesters from both groups might meet each other on the other side.  What if they unite, because their causes are similar?  Then both heroquests change to meet the new conditions.  Both groups come back successful, and they tell their people, "Hey, you know the Red Cow guys over the hill?  Turns out our Black Snake spirit is her brother!  We never knew!  Imagine what this means for all of our stories!"  Everybody is wowed by the tale, and experimenting more towards that, slowly shift their belief system and entire religion around that idea.

But, that's my take on it.  If we're talking non-Gloranthan situations, it could either be- people alter the gods based on their belief, misapplied worship, etc.  You'd have to figure out the setting based reasons for any alterations for whatever game world you'd be playing in specificially.

Chris

[joshua neff]

I have a feeling this is right. There is also an oddity around the Lunars in that while there are writeups for Lunar cults (the much cited Natha, for example) there is no Lunar Religion Keyword that I can find. There is an Imperial Citizen homeland, there are cult writeups, but there is no SR type write up of the Lunar Religion in either the MRB or the ILH. So....

Check the Tarsh homeland in the main rulebook.

[Donald]

BTW, the point about the term Nation is well taken, and perhaps Empire is a better one. But, basically, I meant geo-political unit. Sartar is theoretically a Kingdom, and within it there are likely many cultures and religions. There's no Sartar Keyword, but there is a Tarsh Keyword, and that's also kingdom if I'm not mistaken. The point being that there is some overlap between what you can assume about what a Keyword represents. Heortling is most definitely cultural - a culture that exists geographically in Sartar, Heortland, Tarsh, etc. But Tarsh, to be a culture, would maybe more properly be "Lunarized Tarshite" or somesuch (or "Those Candy-Assed Surrender Monkies from the North" to the Heortlings).

I'd agree that the Tarsh homeland in HQ should more properly described as Lunarized Tarsh. ILH1 has a Lunar Provinces homeland which includes Tarsh. I'd be inclinded to split it down further into Tarsh Lowlanders, Tarsh Highlanders and Tarsh Exiles based on the Unspoken Word publications because there are differences but it depends on how much detail you want to go into.

I bet there's a Sun County keyword floating around somewhere, which if true would suggest that it's the cultural homogeneity that matters.

I believe there are people arguing about the Sartar Sun County keyword and how it differs from the keyword for Sun County in the River of Cradles.

Actually more importantly, can one be a practitioner of Jakaleel, and an intiate of Yelm (no matter the likely rarity of such a combination)? That is, outside of particular social barriers in-game, or the spirits or gods objecting on grounds of philosophical problems, is there a game limit that represents this just being too much of a stretch.

There are two answers to this question - as far as the game rules are concerned - yes you can. As far as Gloranthan canon goes - it is so rare as to be almost unknown, the social and magical barriers are that great. The only example I can think of is the Red Goddess herself who appears as a saint to the Carmenians, a wife of Yelm to the Dara Happens and a great spirit to the Char-Un. And it took her several experimental heroquests to achieve that.

Because, again what I'm worried about is the usefulness of concentration as a rule.

Basically concentration restricts your use of common magic, you're restricted to magic your god knows about and accepts. So a theist loses any common magic charms and can't use any charms they are given by someone else. Again it's very related to Gloranthan magic although there is a metagame element of balancing the lower cost of boosting your specialised magic with restrictions on what magic you can use.

At what point will a Power say that belonging to another Sect bars you from admission?

That depends on which Power is involved, and the mortal members of the sect tend to be more strict than the actual Power. Furthermore individuals can change the attitude of the Power by heroquesting to prove their point.

Summarized here are the questions:
1. Can one gain magic keywords from Sects that do not belong in one's religion in any way?
2. Can one gain magic keywords from Sects that belong to your macro religion, but to different religions inside that overall macro religion?
3. Can one gain magic keywords from the same religion if they have different otherworld origins? For questions 1 and 2, does otherworld make a difference?

In general I would answer no to all these, at least partically because of a discussion I saw which indicated you don't get any new keywords in play. The keyword is intended as a means of generating characters quickly - in play you buy each affinity, spirit or whatever with HPs. While I can see changing religion might justify a new keyword I would certainly rule that anything outside the confines of the sect had to be bought that way and the player would also have to justify it in the context of the game.

[Brand_Robins]

Check the Tarsh homeland in the main rulebook.

Right! Damn that was a dumb oversight on my part.

Still, I do find it minorly odd that the Lunar Keyword is the SR for Tarsh, but not for any of the people in the established Lunar Empire. Missionary fervor, I suppose.

[James Holloway]

Because, again what I'm worried about is the usefulness of concentration as a rule. If, in fact, you can only be a member of one "religion within a religion" in the Lunar Way, then pretty much you're automatically limited to only one otherworld. It's only if one is allowed to take on cults, practices and schools from more than one religion that the concentration limit applies.

Yeah, which is why concentration is kind of a gimme. What concentration really does is prevent you from using common magic of types not supported by your particular thing -- so a Heortling who concentrates will lose all his Flesh Man talents (which, of course, is why Heortling players seldom take any Flesh Man talents). Additionally, some religions include magic of multiple types -- Seven Mothers Church is the obvious one, but also, IIRC, Uz religions? I'm not sure how concentration changes this.

As for whether you can be an Initiate of Destor and a Kolating, my immediate response is to say no. That might not be true of the Lunar shamanic practices or traditions, though.

Check out p. 155 of the rulebook, where joining a church forces Hazeel to "give up all [his] other magic." Mind you, he's talking about learning spells. No one mentions Mr. Puma losing his magic when he joins a church as a congregation member, though.

[James Holloway]

Just to look at that quickly, could you clarify something you've said? You say that a character can be Lunar and Solar, for instance, a macro with an associated regular religion. The implication here is that you can, in fact, gain magic from specialized keywords in each of these religions. That is, the macro-religion that subsumes the regular religion in this case also has specialized magic keywords. Which is interesting. Basically the only time that we have this occuring is in the odd case of the Lunar religion. Other macro-religions, it sounds like, don't have this case. So, if we assume that it's an oddity of the Lunar religion, then we can assume that the general case is that nobody can have magic from more than one religion.

I think that's right -- the Lunar religion bootjacked the existing Dara Happan Solar pantheon and set up this big umbrella religion over it and other northern religions. Solar religion was trundling along fine before the Red Goddess came along. Eventually, this will probably be resolved -- like in the way the Yanafal Tarnils cult is shoehorning worshippers of traditional Dara Happan wargods out of leadership posts in the army.

This makes for an easy ruling, but a depressing one. Very rimply, each specialized religion could be solely one otherworld, and the limit can be that you can only learn from one religion at a time. Simple, but again it means that Concentration is pretty meaningless.

I don't know how you can read the wishy-washy explanation of "why doesn't everyone concentrate their magic" on p. 108 and see concentration as anything but next to meaningless.

However, there are exceptions, as always. Take a look at Urox, for example: the Heortling god Urox and the Praxian spirit Storm Bull are the same entity, and anyone dumb enough to visit Urox's Eternal Battle and hard enough to survive can learn magic from a different Otherworld. Of course, you have to be a Devotee and learn Urox's Secret, but you can do it if you like.

[Mike Holmes]

Wow, lots to cover today.

It looks like people's opinions are that concentration is, a somebody said, a gimme. I won't rant about why that's disapointing, instead I'm going to try to fix it for my game. Let's see, I have a world that has a very long history, and one in which macro-religions are likely very mixed. And in which I have a built in excuse for why it is that the magic types don't conflict as much.

To go over that, again:
1. Nobody worships a monotheist god. They do use essence, however, so basically all of these people are sorcerers (using the Gloranthan term). Yes, some Powers might see such as impinging on their rights to give out supernatural abilities, and as such may prohibit the use of essence by their users. But, many macro-religions will include a general OK for use of such magics, and so essence can often be known by somebody, and it's not an impediment to getting into other religious groups.
2. The spirits come from the gods in this setting, so there's a basic notion that they can work with each other. Again, some macro-religions will not allow this for whatever reason, but in many places there's no essential conflict between these sorts of beings. As such, as long as they're in a relaed mythology, one can know both kinds of magic.

So, basically where a particular macro-religion places it's restrictions on what magic is available will vary based on what the gods and spirits agree is OK.

Anyhow, I don't think that any of this bends the HQ rules way out of shape (in fact, this whole thread is really brought about by a lack of clarity on these issues). So what I get are three benefits:
1. It matches the canon of my world better - characters are supposed to be able to cross "realms" of power.
2. Concentration is back in as something to really consider, which again matches canon, as being "multi-realm" has a cost to it in the canon.
3. I get in the ability of characters to have more sorts of abilities, potentially.

Mechanically its all very "clean." Each religion is defined as (likely) a single otherworld sort, and has everything it needs from the ground up, including a religion keyword. One can have more than one religion, as long as they're both in the same macro-religion - meaning that the Powers of the sects tend to be OK with the worship of the Powers of the Sects of all of the other religions.


For Glorantha, I think that I agree that the strict ruling is what's intended, or at least what works mechanically - only one religion at a time.

Other random notes:
*As for "gaining Keywords" I admit that I put that sorta incorrectly. I meant abilities from other magic keywords. That said, another topic entirely, if you use the Saga system (which I do) there are some adjustments to some of these meaning that one has to look at.

*Everyone should read the article on "Natural Magic" if you haven't already. It's an important (mostly official, IIRC) adjustment to the magic system of HQ. http://www.glorantha.com/support/natural_magic.html What this means is that Mr. Puma's abilities are "natural magic" and so never go away under any circumstances. Now whether or not a particular Power would say no to a Puma person because of his natural magic abilities is another question.

*The Lunar Way being listed in Tarsh is just evidence of the "modularity" of religion keywords. It's there because they needed to get it into the main book. They already had the Heortling religion in that section, so why reiterate it for Tarsh? Otherwise they probably would have put in the Storm Pantheon in Tarsh, and the Lunar Way in the Dara Happan homeland keyword instead. Just a matter of saving space sorta. And it happens to match what's likely pedominant the way they have it. So you just list one religion per homeland, and assume that people will mix and match homelands and religions where appropriate. I think.

*Splitting up Tarsh into it's constituent parts is something that I actually use as an example in my "Improvising Keyword" article. http://www.glorantha.com/support/na_keywords.html The point is that I think that one should always be adjusting keywords. What I'm looking for here in this thread is discussion of how to do this with respect to religion keywords.

*It's interesting to see the example of the Red Goddess as multi-world, because I have a character who's a Carmanian Adept currently. So this is yet another reason why this all interests me. I'm trying to understand what he believes with regard to other religions. I think I have it right now as this: Sedenya is a prophet (saint) who tells that all of the religions of the Lunar Way are all just somehow aspects of the One God, and therefore acceptable to him. Which is all internally consistent from the Carmanian side of things (though I wonder how it plays from the Yelmic POV). The question, however, is whether or not a member of the order of Saint Henshelek, another wizardry Sect in the Lunar Way, would teach Henshelek's Grimoires to my Carmanian, and whether or not my Carmanian would even ask to learn them (or worry that he'd become apostate if he did). Given the hands-off attitude of the One God, I think it's at the very least technically possible for an Adept to learn the magic from any grimoire (or one could never be a sorcerer). In this case, the question is a social one.

*Donald, you say that the people of a Sect will be more cautious than the will of their Power in handing out memberships. Why would this be? Generally there seems to be an opinion that people don't know their god well, or that understanding evolves over time. But I think this is a very "real world" sort of observation. That is, I believe that the Powers of Glorantha are supposed to be very real and very involved. As such, I'm not understanding how they get so misunderstood. If we regularly have rituatls to open up the otherworld, and commune with the diety, and if they're not relativisitic, then why the problems?

*If anyone reads me as saying that I don't care about in-game rationales for how this stuff all happens, please be disabused of this notion. Once again, I understand that these things might be hard, rare, even "near impossible." I'm not worried about that. I'm only worried about what makes sense to have as hard metagame rule restrictions. Should players even consider some of these things? Or not? In play I'll be working as GM to ensure that it's all appropriately difficult or whatever.

*Just to be pedantic, Chris, the heroquesters don't have to do the blessing on the same day. Being a timeless place, as I understand it, the people in question are likely to come across each other even if they do it on very different days. But, yes, I think that this must be how this sort of change occurs, with heroquesting.

*Brand, so the gods lie to people who believe in them incorrectly in order to keep them? Well, the problem here is that the particular incorrect belief had to start somewhere. At some point Aeol or whoever had to "discover" the "reality" of the Saints of the church he formed. The real question is why he was wrong to start with. Wouldn't the Heortling gods have said, "Hold on there, bucko, we're not beholden to your one god; we're gods ourselves, not Saints!" And if they did, why did Aeol ignore them? "Nope, I've seen the truth, and y'all are Saints!" despite being objectively incorrect to the tune of -20.

*There is the question of 'Power Specific Concentration', that being where one concentrates not on an otherworld, but on a specific Power (discussed somewhere else than the MRB). This is almost more problematic, because it points out how non-Power specific normal concentration is. Concentration to me is almost occupational, much less about worshiping any specific entity. I like it as a rule, because I think that the different forms of worship are pretty different, and hard to learn without focusing on them. This is what i'd like concentration to be about. As it happens, power specific concentration does allow one to be concentrated and have magic from different otherworlds (as does the other exception, Self-Rock Teaching).

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

Following up with a second post, rather than editing the first, there's still the hairy problem with "single cult religions."

Brand, what you're saying seems to be that some cultures do worship this way. I think that it's reasonable to assume, too. The question with regard to HQ enumeration, is whether or not they have a specialized religion keyword. That is, you say that the "Vishnu Only" cults in question were "demonstrably Hindu." So would they share the Hindu religion keyword with other Hindu's? It seems to me that the problem here is that the religion keyword ususally serves largely to give a "Worship Pantheon" ability. If these cultists really don't do that, they shouldn't have such, correct? That is, it seems to me like they could get away with having nothing but the abilities that are listed under the Sect.

Now this all gets back to the "relative diety" problem. If those in the general religion are worshipping Vishnu and getting abilities from him and from other dieties, and the "Vishnu Only" people are getting abilities from Vishnu, then one of the following must be true:
1. Vishnu plays different ways for different people. He basically lies about his nature, or allows himself to be misunderstood by somebody.
2. There are two or more Vishnu's. Is the Orlanth of the Storm Pantheon the same Orlanth of the Earth Pantheon? Ernalda? They seem very different.
3. The gods are not objective, but set by the beliefs of the people who hold the beliefs that they do.

Is the reality here one of those "unknowable" things? If so, what do we do on the character sheets? I'm OK with the metaphysics being ineffable internally, but not with not knowing how to enumerate things in game terms. Right now, what I'm left with is Powers acting in irreconcilable ways, and enumerating them as such, and then leaving the question of why they do so as an unanswered in-game question (the gods are odd). The other option would be to decide how the Power is, in an in-game objective way, and then force all of the religions to match that.

Or is there a third option that I'm missing?

So it seems to me that some Powers are, in fact, worshipped by some as religions unto themselves - nobody is telling me otherwise. I think that you still have to have a religion keyword for such a being, if for no other reason that some people will be base level worshippers of the being, and that the characters should get the magic from that base level even if higher. That is, if we're talking a diety here, there could still be communal worshippers, and even those that advanced to Initiate would still have the ability to call on their deity for divine intervention. (Hmm. In fact, I'd be tempted to allow the communal worshippers of a "one diety religion" to use the 10W3 resistance that devotees do for divine intervention.) Other than that, I'd think that the religion keyword doesn't have much of anything that the specialized magic keyword will have.

One thing that I've done is to sort of expand the pantheons of some of the dieties worshipped this way. I think that as long as I'm going to have to accept the "unkown relativity" of Powers that this is OK to do. That is, basically, a Power can be in one religion as a simple member of a panethon or such, but in another they are the head of their own pantheon (Um, somewhat like the Orlanth as pertains to the Storm Pantheon and Earth Pantheon, actually, again).

The only problem with all of this is that a specific Power may need to be written up several times. I mean this really multiplies the total number of keywords that are potentially available. I was sorta hoping to avoid that and to modular, but I don't think it's going to work.

Mike

[Bryan_T]

Two unrelated points that I want to respond to.

First of all, that concentration is a gimme.  I suspect that most heroes in Glorantha would concentrate eventually, because that is way things work in Glorantha, great magical power comes from focussed sources.  The rules support that pretty well too with the increased cost to improve.

But I'm not sure at all that it is a gimme for starting heroes.  The non-concentration cost does not affect your starting magic score, but may cut out useful common magic.  Further, it will probably limit you from learning other common magic.  Two HP to gain another useful augment at +2 is not horrible, cheaper than the three HP to get a new skill up to 15, even assuming in game justification.

In the particular case of theist initiates, 3HP per +1 in affinities, for something that you will only normally use to augment at first, isn't all that attractive anyway.  Normally more appealing, I think, to raise skills, personality traits, and relationships.  Not that affiinities won't be raised if you are concentrated, as a long term investment, or due to piety reasons.

I guess for me as a player, having common magic that helps me with say healing and combat, when my main magic does neither, is pretty appealing.  So for me at least, concentrating right at the start is not a gimme.

Second, Mike said:

At some point Aeol or whoever had to "discover" the "reality" of the Saints of the church he formed. The real question is why he was wrong to start with. Wouldn't the Heortling gods have said, "Hold on there, bucko, we're not beholden to your one god; we're gods ourselves, not Saints!" And if they did, why did Aeol ignore them? "

Well, I wasn't there personally, but I can spectulate :)  He was a wizard of great skill and power.  Either inspiration came to him, or he went exploring--either way he was looking for the source of hte power of the storms.  He found a node that provided these powers, and which resonated with a certain ethic.  He wrote instructions for others on how to behave and worship to draw power from that node.  Note that nodes don't talk.  he was never in the God world, from his point of view, he never interacted with gods, he and his followers only know nodes on the saint plane  (One wizardly order that will hopefully be in ILH2 has an interesting story about finding its node, then later finding out where that power really came from).

He doesn't have the omniscient view to know that this node is strange, he's probably at most experienced one other node before.  Others who come to explore his discoveries may never have experienced any other nodes--but hey, they found related nodes on the sain plane!  See, there is a lot to this approach!  They probably almost never meet other practioners or wizards with identical spells, and if they did they would probably not openly share notes on how hard they had to work to learn this ability.  And even if they get an inkling, the KNOW they have the right approach to the world, that is what belief is about.  You can't belong to the Aeol church by worshipping some other being, or by being a theist, so you do it this way or you don't do it at all.

--Bryan

[Brand_Robins]

Brand, so the gods lie to people who believe in them incorrectly in order to keep them? Well, the problem here is that the particular incorrect belief had to start somewhere. At some point Aeol or whoever had to "discover" the "reality" of the Saints of the church he formed. The real question is why he was wrong to start with. Wouldn't the Heortling gods have said, "Hold on there, bucko, we're not beholden to your one god; we're gods ourselves, not Saints!" And if they did, why did Aeol ignore them? "Nope, I've seen the truth, and y'all are Saints!" despite being objectively incorrect to the tune of -20.

Because I very much doubt it happened that way.

First, though, the gods lying was more tongue in cheek than anything else. I meant it more as a casual and funny way to explain how divine motives and human perceptions may not always meet up. So I'll now let that failed joke die a horrid death, and move on to the real point.

In just about any religion you will get "through a glass darkly" statements* indicating that we do not, as humans, know the full measure of the divine. Really, how do Christians deal with the fact that God ordered the Jews to live by one law, and the Christians to live by another – or that he changed the laws in the middle there? Does God change? Was God just messing with Moses?

Whenever you get into the philosophy of religion you end up coming up against a nearly Kantian level divide between the real as is and the real as perceived. Kantians compare it to a bunch of people who have never seen an elephant going into a dark tent and groping about at a part of the elephant, then all of them coming back out and trying to figure out what the elephant looks like by comparing notes. They may get parts of it right, but they'll get parts of it wrong, and miss the whole of the thing every time.**

Dealing with gods in Glorantha is much the same. Sure, the gods of Glorantha are real – so is the elephant. Sure, they can talk to you – the elephant can trumpet. Certainly they give you powers – um, the metaphor doesn't quite hold here. The point, however, is that the true nature of a god is a big thing that exists in the dark to most of humanity, and so when they go in and get a feel or hear a few words, they try to make sense of it as best they can. Sometimes they get pretty close, mostly due to great men and repeated, close contact with the god.

However, we are told point blank in some of the material that the true forms of the greatest gods are more than most (any?) humans can deal with on a personal level or understand at anything more than the widest of philosophical levels. That's the reason that most great gods have aspects, because humans have to be able to break them down that way in order to be able to interact with them on any level that is meaningful to the human individual.

When you think of it that way it starts to make more sense. The gods, in some times and some places, accept that humanity does not understand them fully because humanity cannot understand them fully. If the greatest of gods goes down to the priest and reveals the full truth of himself to the priest we don't get a priest who comes out and says, "Oh wow guys, we were so wrong – they're actually theist gods!" You get a priest who probably goes mad, possibly dies, and certainly misinterprets what is going on and comes out the next day saying, "GLORIOUS IS OUR LORD WHO IS THE THUNDER, WE MUST CONQUER THE HEATHENS FOR THEY HAVE STOLEN HIS TRUE NAME AND HIDE IT FROM US IN THEIR FOUL SHRINES!"

Gods can communicate with humanity, but only at a couple removes – only through the glass darkly. The reason that gods are willing to deal with different forms of worship in different places is because they know that the humans in those places aren't yet ready to get it "right" and need more time, more contact, and more context before they can understand.  

As for the -20, well, how many people will be able to tell the difficulty of communicating across otherworlds apart from the difficulty of encountering an entirely new and/or forgotten face of god? When you hit bricks in the dark you don't know if it's a house or a wall.

I'm OK with the metaphysics being ineffable internally, but not with not knowing how to enumerate things in game terms.

A very sensible way to look at it, I think.

Right now, what I'm left with is Powers acting in irreconcilable ways, and enumerating them as such, and then leaving the question of why they do so as an unanswered in-game question (the gods are odd). The other option would be to decide how the Power is, in an in-game objective way, and then force all of the religions to match that.

The second way is certainly easier. It won't, however, generate religions that have the complexity and depth of real life religions. Not that such is a bad thing, because very few RPGers I know actually want to deal with messes like the Council of Nicea and how it changed the nature of God. You also can still have lots of inter-religious strife, as people try to force their ways on each other with an objective god behind them. (What does it mean when your god says Yes and mine says No – do we have to kill each other?)

The first way, however, may have some strength if you rephrase it to be "We do not now know why the gods do this/allow this. We have ideas, we have partial doctrine, but we are still on this side of the glass. With time, however, we can figure it out/find out more about god/Heroquest to get the information/make god change to fit us."

Thus rather than the contradictions between cults being simply something we cannot understand, it becomes motivation for people to look into it, to mess about with the nature of reality, and to define what the truth is for themselves – and to get into all sorts of trouble doing it. It also still allows for the conflicts of the other solution, and so will result in more story potential overall.



* "For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."

** I also have to say that one of the reasons we're having the conversation is because of our Western post-enlightenment ideas about objectivity, knowledge, and the nature of truth. There is a very real way in which we're stumbling about trying to explain things because we're using the fully wrong set of tools to do it. To many of the ancients questions like "Why does your Vishnu say this and my Vishnu say that" or "Why does Zeus not kick Nuada's ass?" wouldn't make sense, or even occur to them. It's really our scientific rational secular humanist minds stumbling about trying to understand people with a radically different paradigm. We assume that all God has to do is up and say, "This me, here I am, Uncle God, thank you mam!" and we'll get it because the nature of things is knowable through explination and observation. That, however, isn't the way that things have historically worked, nor the way that faith learning works even in the eyes of modern religions.