Religion and Homeland

[James Holloway]

(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

Well, specific deities appear in multiple keywords in HQ, too. Daxdarius the War Bear (ILH1 p. 35) and Daxdarius the General (ILH1 p. 39) are probably the same deity -- they even share two affinities. They're also from right next to each other, one in Doblian and one in Pelanda.

Different aspects of Orlanth appearing in different pantheons is hardly a problem considering that within the Storm Pantheon dozens of different Orlanth subcults are worshipped -- so you would just say that Orlanthdovar and Durev and Orlanthcarl and so on are worshipped in Esrolia (and maybe even by the vendref of the grazelands? Or are they forbidden to worship Orlanth?), but not Orlanth Rex or Orlanthanandrin or whoever.

So, yeah, "a specific power may need to be written up several times" is the way Gloranthat went with it. Thunder Rebels devotes 18 pages (wee little digest pages) to detailing different Ernalda subcults.

The good news is that the subcults aren't very different from each other: they differ from their main aspect in only one Affinity and a couple of Feats.

The easiest way out of this is to say that there exists, somewhere, this great big entity called Orlanth, and that he embodies, generally speaking, three main characteristics: ruler-ness, warrior-ness, and wind-ness. And people worship these according to their own myths and whatever, because the warrior totality of the Storm God is just too big for them to grasp -- or if they did, they'd be total badasses.

That covers the role of Orlanth in the Earth Pantheon nicely; an Esrolian male Orlanth worshipper who worshipped Orstan the Carpenter could change his worship to something a little more ass-whupping with no problem at all, just like a "proper" Orlanthi from Dragon Pass. He'd just a) have to find someone to initiate him, and b) even if he did get his cousin from Sartar to do it, avoid being ostracized for fucking with the social order. But rules-wise, easy peasy.

The question of Orlanthi deities appearing in Esvulari religion is a tough one. On the face of it, only a bonehead would play an Esvulari initiate of anyone other than Dormal or the other non-misapplied saints. I think it may just be that the Esvulari, who have a history of being distrustful of religion in general, just kind of suck at magic.

But as to why Orlanth didn't appear to the guy in a cloud and say "I am not a saint, dummy"... Orlanth doesn't generally do that sort of thing, or he'd be up in Moonson's face right now saying "let my people go!" And the last guy he can appear to give wise advice to is some guy who doesn't even believe in him correctly.

And, once again, there's a social aspect. "Oh no, your red-hatted awesomeness, we worship the Invisible God, not "Orlanth." There will be no need to crush us under your mighty heel."

[Donald]

*As for "gaining Keywords" I admit that I put that sorta incorrectly. I meant abilities from other magic keywords.

Then my answer changes, aquiring individual feats, spells or spirits is a major part of what heros do. They can search for them on the hero plane and either trade for them or steal them from other heros. They can find someone on the mundane plane to teach them or in the case of spells steal a grimoire. They can even think up a cool idea and do a HQ to try and get it. The easiest way is to find someone on the mundane plane to teach them but all are possible to heroic mortals.

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.

The best indication of how to do this is in the subcults published in TR and ST. Basically the subcult gets two affinities from the main god and then a third from the subcult. If you want another subcult describe the affinity and how it relates to the main god you've chosen. There are also hero cults which just have a single affinity - again decide what you want and write up a story to justify it.

*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).

I'm pretty sure that the missionaries of the Red Goddess don't tell the same story to everyone - more likely they tell the story which is most likely to convince. Reconciling these stories is either a Lunar Mystery you will understand when you've progressed far enough or proof the whole Lunar religion is a con.

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.

The Lunar Colleges of Magic encourage this sort of thing unlike many religious and magical groups so yes it's a social issue.

*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?

Because the priestly hierarchy don't full understand their Power and the Power doesn't fully understand mortals. To illustrate - Lhankor Mhy priests all wear beards. When the first woman was accepted there was a problem - she couldn't grow a beard. Now did someone ask the god what to do? or did they just come up with the idea of artificial beards and see if that was acceptable? If they did ask, how did the god reply? "Yes" or "I always wear a beard" or something even more obscure? And if someone else asks at a later stage do they get the same answer?

[Mike Holmes]

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.

No, see from what I understand you're never cut off from "useful common magic." If you concentrate, yes, you can only take common magic of that particular sort. But, if I understand it correctly, you can take any ability as any sort of common magic. Again, if you like the Flesh Man talents, but are even thinking you might concentrate later in some Orlanthi cult, then you can take all of the Flesh Man talents as Feats. That's not saying that you're getting the magic from Flesh Man, but that players are allowed under the rules for common magic to make up whatever ability they want that fits the common magic mold, and make it whatever sort of common magic they want. They simply don't have to take common magic from the listed sources in the book for that homeland, they can take anything they want. So the only reason for a player who wants a particular common magic ability to actually be a Flesh Man talent would be color. The mechanics suggest that one never take Flesh Man, and instead that one should take any common magic one wants as Feats. Then there's absolutely no impediment to the character concentrating in theism.

In any case, this all assumes that the narrator allows both common magic and specialized magic keywords for starting characters, which they might not. If they don't allow it, then concentration becomes completely and totally irrelevant, with the exeption of a character who starts out with common magic, and then picks up a specialized magic keyword in play. And, again, if the player plans at all, that's irelevant too.

Yes, I suppose a canny player looking to make concentration an interesting in-game choice could intentionally take the "wrong" sort of common magic and not concentrate to start. But what I'm looking for is for it to always be an interesting choice, and not a gimme under any circumstances.

As far as how Aeol found the saints of his religion, it wasn't on the Saint plane. Because Orlanth and the rest never were there. See, they -20 indicates that, in fact what's happening is that they're using veneration rites to open up the god plane. So they see the god plane through different lenses (symbolic sight), and force what's there to operate incorrectly. They find Orlanth there, and determine that he's a Saint. They operate as if there are nodes, but there are none. Instead they're incorrectly summoning the theistic powers of Orlanth. Somewhere along the line Orlanth never bothers to tell them that they're using the wrong method to get his magic.

Brand, as for your point, I'd like to kid myself at least that I have the "non-western" tools it takes to understand stuff like this. As I've said, I don't really have all that much a problem with it in terms of it being an in-game mystery. Hell, I was raised Catholic, and am therefore able to wrap my head around the holy trinity. So I have no problem with that sort of thing. Again, it's the enumeration.

The -20 thing really does bug me. See, if it were there for what you say it's there for, I'd have no problem with it. That is, if indeed it was a "getting to know your Powers" period that the -20 represented, then I'd be all for it. But, in fact, there are other mysteries that do not entail the -20. And there's no indication that the -20 ever goes away. No, it's not "getting to know" you Power, it's "You're doing it wrong, and it'll always be wrong." If at some point the -20 could go away, or you could get similar penalites for worshipping a new form of Orlanth in another thesitic society, then it would make sense. But the rule is saying that it's not a mystery, Orlanth is a god, and the poor Aeolings will never know better until they convert to worshipping the storm pantheon.

It's precisely because the rules treat these mysteries with modern western analysis that I find them so odd. In a world where you can alter the metaphysics of things to say that you can't have two aspects of a being that are from different otherworlds seems to be making one detail "hard" while all the others remain maleable. Basically we have this dichotomy of positions in the rules that are somewhat ireconcilable.

I now agree that the better way to look at it is to go with the "mysteries all over" method. But, for me, that means eliminating the -20 for "misapplied worship" and at most replacing it with a "getting to know your Power" penalty that's applied on case by case basis.

It's not as easy to do the "relativistic" Powers approach, but I agree that it's superior for various reasons. James, you're completely correct, and I actually slapped myself on the head after my last post thinking, "Wait, even Orlanth has many aspects, what's a few extra foreign ones." Basically I came to the same conclusion that you did. One of the things that was attracting me to the non-relativistic Powers method was that it's a lot easier to enumerate everything. For example, I have these twin gods Kieron and Jaysek who are constantly popping up in different incarnations, including as a single two-faced god. I was thinking that if I could only say that they had one single form each and that all of the variations were just somehow incorrect, that it would be much easier to write these guys up. And with the setting as it is, I could probably get away with that (the gods are actually sorta just aliens from another dimension in Shadow World). But it's just not as fun.

So I'm going with the more work, more fun version.

Then my answer changes, aquiring individual feats, spells or spirits is a major part of what heros do. They can search for them on the hero plane and either trade for them or steal them from other heros. They can find someone on the mundane plane to teach them or in the case of spells steal a grimoire. They can even think up a cool idea and do a HQ to try and get it. The easiest way is to find someone on the mundane plane to teach them but all are possible to heroic mortals.

Well, see, I think the rules imply that they can't do these things. That's what everyone's been getting at. If you're an initiate of an Orlanthi cult, and you steal a grimoire, you still can't learn the spells from it, because your diety will cut you off. That's the implication. It's an impious thing to do to learn magic from another source, is the argument, because you necessarily have to worship another being in order to get the abilities to work. You can't just pick up a new charm and have it work for you, you have to get to know the spirit first. And your Power doesn't like this if the Power in question is outside of the religion. Yes, an initiate can expressly initiate to other dieties in his own religion. Because, by definition, his diety is not adverse to those beings. But you can't get a feat from a diety without either initiating or the diety being a sub-cult of your diety. You can't "steal" a feat, because only the diety can give it to you, and they know if you're pious or not.

This was all laid out very expressly by Greg in response to a post that I had about this sort of thing. http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/HeroQuest-rules/message/19378
Then Rory followed up with: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/HeroQuest-rules/message/19419

The point was that you can only be in one religion at a time. Common Magic Religions not counting here, due to their "minor" nature. So while you can get common magic from anywhere, you can only get specialized magic from one religion. Specialized Magic, I've been given to understand, is gaining power from the otherworld in question by opening up a channel to the Power in question, and it doesn't work unless the Power feels that the person on the other end is pious. Since it's a tenet of all religions (with the possible exception of the Lunar Way) that all other religions are not the "right way," having enough belief in the other Powers in question for them to deliver the magic in question is unpious and thus they will not deliver.

The best I can get out of them is that the rules as written perhaps don't prevent these things, that "religion" as Rory interperets it means what we've been calling macro-religions here, and that under rare circumstances that you can have specialized magic from more than one otherworld as long as the biengs are all part of one "way." But even that seems contentious, given that we've never ever seen an example of it. When Kolat is officially published, or if we assume that Stephen's write up is accurate and that it is considered to be part of the same macro-religion, then we have our first example of this. The Lunar Way, again, being the indeterminate exception. Other than that, we're told to "make up" what we need here.

BTW, it was somewhere in all of that rigamrole that it was revealed that the problems of the Lunar Way are because it's really it's own otherworld that it's tapped into. Which means we can't use it as an example.

Now, heroquests... I don't know. Yes they're supposed to allow you to change the rules. But I think that what happens in most cases is that the ability would be co-opted as one of your Power's abilities. That is, your god isn't going to accept it if you pop out of the hero plane, and now have some fetish. He's going to demand that you not worship that spirit, and the spirit will do likewise. Instead, I think that the power in question would become part of the diety instead, so that it's now the diety who's giving you the new matching feat. So the heroquest would be something like proving that it wasn't this one spirit who healed somebody of their broken heart, but Ernalda who did, and thus the Heal Broken Heart Feat is hers. That would work for sure.

BTW, I want to mention something interesting. The One God does not restrict anyone from using the essence - hence sorcerers are possible. What this means is that theoretically anyone can use spells. But practically speaking, if you have magic from another religion, that means that you can only learn spells if you drop the magic from that religion. So the same problem exists that you can't actually learn from more than one otherworld (unless we rule that, in fact, you can cross otherworlds within the bounds of macro-religions).


Donald, I'm not talking about how to adjust Specialized Magic Keywords. I have no problem with that. What we've been talking about is religion keywords, the ones that are attached to the homeland keywords.

I'm pretty sure that the missionaries of the Red Goddess don't tell the same story to everyone - more likely they tell the story which is most likely to convince. Reconciling these stories is either a Lunar Mystery you will understand when you've progressed far enough or proof the whole Lunar religion is a con.

Well, I hope it's a mystery for my character's sake. I'd hate to think that he's been duped. I'm sure that folks ask, "So, does everyone in the Lunar Way believe as you have taught us that the One God is above all, and that all the beings of the Lunar Way are just aspects?" What's the answer? "No, they do no believe that, but the Goddess, um I mean prophet, makes all beliefs one."

It seems to me to be a particularly problematic proposition for the Carmanians, because I think that the other religions all accept that Sedenya is at an apex "above" the spirits and dieties of the other religions. Even the Cerise Church apparently sees Sedenya as a direct manifestation of the One God, IIRC. So don't the Carmanians have this sense of superiority that only they know the one being that's above all others in the Lunar religion?

That said, I got the idea of the Carmanian religion from stuff like this: http://www.etyries.com/sects/carmanian.htm

So I may have it wrong in some way.

Thanks for reminding me about the Lunar Colleges and how they deal with magic. That does seem to support the idea that the different wizardry religions inside the Lunar Way would trade spells.


Anyhow, thanks again everyone. I think we're making some interesting headway here.

Mike

[Brand_Robins]

Brand, as for your point, I'd like to kid myself at least that I have the "non-western" tools it takes to understand stuff like this. As I've said, I don't really have all that much a problem with it in terms of it being an in-game mystery. Hell, I was raised Catholic, and am therefore able to wrap my head around the holy trinity. So I have no problem with that sort of thing. Again, it's the enumeration.

Yea, you're probably right. I was overly judgmental. The point isn't that we can't get it theoretically, it's that it becomes really hard to enumerate it in game terms in ways that support it. We're trying to mix two streams, and like the Ghostbusters it may be bad.

Now, as to misapplied worship*, the -20 is something that exists, we know about that. There is one thing in Glorantha that is (for the current time, at least) unavoidable and objectively true – there are three (at least) separate otherworlds that are alien landscapes to each other. They aren't just places where people of different religions think their gods live, they are actual sources and origins for the powers. In fact, they cross religious borders. It doesn't matter if your god is Lunar, Teshnite, or Orlanthi – if they're a theistic god they all come from the same otherworld. It also doesn't matter if your gods somehow ended up in the same pantheon but one is a god and one a spirit – they come from different otherworlds and are fundamentally different beings.

Draped across that fact we have the more diffuse ideas of religion and worship, which are done much more like the confusing and mired faiths of the real world. However, there is a degree to which the confusion doesn't hold up from an out-of-game mechanics/metaphysics perspective – because we know damn full well that these things do not go together. It's easy enough to say "well in this example we have something that is like that example in reality," but in reality we don't have the three otherworlds (or at least do not have factual knowledge of their existence). So when we come to misapplied worship we do hit a big bump, and one that is a bit hazy and shaky.

So how do we resolve this? Well, I don't know that I can. I'm not a Glorantha expert so I'm SOL on that front. As far as your game goes, however, there may be some options. One might be that there is not a base -20 otherworlds penalty, until you concentrate. The otherworlds are there, and are different, but they are also not so all invasive and alien as those of Glorantha (from how I understand it). So people who do not concentrate can get magic from different sources and use it without penalty, because they are simply using the forces already present in the world around them (something like common magic in Glorantha, but more flavored). People who concentrate, however, devote themselves to one particular otherworld, to the point at which dealing with forces that fall outside its rules becomes more difficult. Under a paradigm like that common people may worship lots of things without knowing what they are (or caring), but the savants and masters know the different forms, and argue and wrangle over them.


*I've always hated misapplied worship. Back when I was first reading the book, before I got all steeped in Glorantha lore, it made my lip curl back. Now that I know Glorantha a little better it makes sense, and fits, but I still have an instinctive bad reaction to it.

[Mike Holmes]

Well, I think my solution is going to be ignoring the -20.

Again, the way I see it, if you can have multiple Orlanths, why can't one of them be a spirit Orlanth. Especially if his own darn brother is a spirit? Yes, if in fact you actually were misworshipping across otherworld borders, then I'd apply the penalty. That makes sense. But if the heroquesters have managed to make a spirit version of an otherwise theist god, then there's no problem, right?

I guess that's what I've been getting at. I'd prefer it to be like Donald's idea, that Aeol found a version of Orlanth on the Saint plane. But the original material says that just can't be the case. Or at least it's not the case with the Aeolings. They've found Orlanth and gang, but they found him using the wrong tools, and that hasn't created an actual Saint Orlanth (or whatever the church calls him).

So, sure, I'll apply modifiers when I think there's something "unresolved" in terms of getting a religion straight. But I'm just not going to assume that there's only one sort of a particular Power, and that it can't hop otherworlds. Pretty simple. In fact, unless a player asks for that sort of problem in his religion, I think that I'll assume that every religion has been established correctly.

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

A little of the history of Aeol, just because (from the HW notes on the Glorantha site):

A tribe of barbarians living in the forests around Aladis made another effort to destroy the good peoples. They summoned Raging Thunder to cast snarling lightning upon their foes. Aeol prayed to Malkion for guidance and help, then personally confronted the great wind. Malkion protected Aeol while the two beings confronted each other. They turned the world around and each set their uttermost Truth against each other. Naturally the Truth of the One God prevailed, and the terrible storm became just a person, who served Aeol thereafter as a personal servant. Aeol proved that the foreign gods were just humans who had obtained great powers, and that God had a greater truth and Solace.

Then he proved the tremendous power of God. Aeol showed the people that, within his own grimoire, were the sacrifices that he (and thus they too) would make to the men who claimed to be gods. Aeol replaced all blood sacrifices with offerings of bread shaped like animals. Aeol summoned the revealed men to come to the altar and they did, and they accepted the sacrifice, and they agreed to be Great Allies of the Church and grant feats to their followers who made the sacrifices. Only Great Thunder did not receive this, because he had already accepted the veneration of Malkion and become human.

So Aeol goes on a big Heroquest to face Orlanth, and wins, and makes him into a man who "had already accepted the veneration of Malkion and become human." IOW, he made a Saint out of Orlanth. Except that he didn't. Because, apparently, this is the one thing you can't change. So, instead, Orlanth remained a god, and Aeol was fooled about him changing.

I'm almost convinced by the example, and then again not.

Mike

[contracycle]

Indeed.  Because the essence of that exchange lies in the Truth that was allegedly contested.  Malkion proved that Orlanth was just a man.  But in the Orlanthi version, Orlanth will no doubt "prove" just the opposite.

This is why I completely fail to understand how lunar conversion works - a fact not at all aided by the suggestion above that Lunar missionaries simply find "whatever story works" - because that implies they don't know or actually believe anything themselves.  In ohter words, they don;t actually convert, or preach - they are more like itinerant con-artists if that is the sum of analysis of the their actions.  Worse, anything that Lunars can prove Orlanthi can counter-prove, so how anyone ever becomes convinced to change religions at all is unknown.

And yet as you have already discussed in this lengthy thread, its strongly implied that religions are not merely a case of local cultural conditioning - the gods are claimed to actually exist in Glorantha, actually perform magic, actually give insights to their worshippers.

I don't find this situation at all satisfying.

[Mike Holmes]

Well, I don't have quite the problem with any of this that you have, Gareth. But we've been over this back and forth a lot.

Again, I don't have a problem with the mysteries, or with people rationalizing the mysteries - I think it's quite within the realm of human experience and behavior to do so. And if you want your character to be "smarter," and not fall for these godly shennanegins, then you can do that in Glorantha as well. See the God Learners.

It's having a mechanical structure placed over it that's supposed to inform our metagame knowledge of how these things work that I find problematic. I simply don't see the advantages of denoting when a culture is specifically wrong about how to worship a particular god.

Actually the worst part about it, from my perspective is a simple game balance problem. I really don't see players wanting to play a character who is charged double the metagame cost for abilities for something that's supposedly an in-game problem, and having to suffer a -20 on many of their activities. I mean it's just not fun. It's making the Esvulari into a culture of NPCs.

Mike

[Donald]

Then my answer changes, aquiring individual feats, spells or spirits is a major part of what heros do. They can search for them on the hero plane and either trade for them or steal them from other heros. They can find someone on the mundane plane to teach them or in the case of spells steal a grimoire. They can even think up a cool idea and do a HQ to try and get it. The easiest way is to find someone on the mundane plane to teach them but all are possible to heroic mortals.

Well, see, I think the rules imply that they can't do these things. That's what everyone's been getting at. If you're an initiate of an Orlanthi cult, and you steal a grimoire, you still can't learn the spells from it, because your diety will cut you off. That's the implication.

Which is an issue of the characters relationship with their god, not a rules issue. Orlanth regards sorcerers as evil, and possibly chaotic, so denies his magic to anyone who uses spells. The Red Goddess clearly does not as Seven Mothers initiates and devotees obtain both spirits and feats from the cult. I have no doubt that a 7M hero could get a Lunar sorcercer to teach him a spell with a good enough reason and there would be no adverse effect.

Actually gaining magic in defiance of your deity is also possible, extremely difficult but still possible - the only described example is Arkat who started out as a Malkoni, became a troll and then founded his own monotheistic religion.

But you can't get a feat from a diety without either initiating or the diety being a sub-cult of your diety. You can't "steal" a feat, because only the diety can give it to you, and they know if you're pious or not.

Yes you can, you do it by creating a HQ in which the deity you worship steals the feat from the other deity. Or challenges them to a gambling game and wins, or any other way the PC thinks would work. Depending on the level of HQ attempted this will work just for yourself, your community or possibly for the whole of Glorantha. The classic example is Zorak Zoran taking Yelmalio's fire powers at the Hill of Gold. If an individual Zorani doesn't win in that HQ he doesn't get the power of fire.

Donald, I'm not talking about how to adjust Specialized Magic Keywords. I have no problem with that. What we've been talking about is religion keywords, the ones that are attached to the homeland keywords.

I'm completely misunderstanding something here. What do you see as the difference between "Specialised Magic" and "Religion" keywords? As far as I can see they are the same thing, they are attached to a particular homeland for convenience and to illustrate the most common magic/religion practiced there.

That said, I got the idea of the Carmanian religion from stuff like this: <http://www.etyries.com/sects/carmanian.htm>
So I may have it wrong in some way.

Most of that is pre-HW so I was hoping referring to ILH1 would clarify the issue but it makes things worse. The Carmenian pantheon is a theistic one headed by Idovanous but with an associated wizardry school which doesn't allow wizards to use theistic magic nor theists to use spells. Again the restriction could be a social constraint rather than a complete incompatibility.

This is why I completely fail to understand how lunar conversion works - a fact not at all aided by the suggestion above that Lunar missionaries simply find "whatever story works" - because that implies they don't know or actually believe anything themselves. In ohter words, they don;t actually convert, or preach - they are more like itinerant con-artists if that is the sum of analysis of the their actions. Worse, anything that Lunars can prove Orlanthi can counter-prove, so how anyone ever becomes convinced to change religions at all is unknown.

I was possibly a bit flippant in my description here. The Seven Mothers missionaries are made up of people who believe all sorts of different explanations and the head sends those missionaries who they believe will be most likely to convince the people they are targetting. So most of the missionaries in Sartar are from Tarsh and explain things in terms of replacing the disruptive outlaw Orlanth with more civilised gods. "You're a farmer, why not worship Barntar rather than Orlanthcarl? if you do Ernalda HonEel will show you how to grow maize".

An Orlanthi will respond that HonEel is a foreign goddess disguised as Ernalda and while Barntar is a good god he's far too inclined to accept the oppressive rule of the evil emperor (Yelm).

Who wins this argument is what the hero wars are all about. Individuals will be convinced by all sorts of reasons just as the are in the real world. Both arguments can be proved by HQing but to do so on a scale which would convince large numbers of people is not something that can easily be done.

As far as the issue of misapplied worship goes, I didn't like it much when HW came out, was hardly convinced when I heard the explanation although I could understand it in relation to Glorantha and would still prefer a better way of modelling it. I certainly wouldn't consider transferring it to another world unless there was a very good reason to do so.

[contracycle]

Again, I don't have a problem with the mysteries, or with people rationalizing the mysteries - I think it's quite within the realm of human experience and behavior to do so. And if you want your character to be "smarter," and not fall for these godly shennanegins, then you can do that in Glorantha as well. See the God Learners.

Thats a non-starter for several reasons.  Firstly, becuase fgiven the emphasis on religion in Glorantha, it would have been stupid of me tyo buy this if I have no interest in the topic.  Second, becuase people reoutinely perform real god-given magic in this world, so there are no "shenanigins" rerally, and thirdly becuase the God Learners were allegedly destroyed for that very arrogance.

It's having a mechanical structure placed over it that's supposed to inform our metagame knowledge of how these things work that I find problematic. I simply don't see the advantages of denoting when a culture is specifically wrong about how to worship a particular god.

Well I agree, thats my point - the mechanical structure does not in fact align with what is going on.  I actually like the idea of misapplied worship in principle - its a fuirther way to manipualte things, which I always like - but this implies ceertain facts about the game world that, as you have discussed, are themselves contradicted elsewhere.

And further, given the centrality of religious conflict in the Dragonpass region, one might have expected that more effrot would have been placed into how this actually works.

[James Holloway]

Worse, anything that Lunars can prove Orlanthi can counter-prove, so how anyone ever becomes convinced to change religions at all is unknown.

I just wanted to point out that the Lunars aren't trying to suggest that Orlanth doesn't exist; they're merely trying to say that he is bad. No one in the 7M or the Lunar religion in general denies the existence of Orlanth, just as no Orlanthi deny the existence of the Red Moon -- they can see it with their own eyes. The conflict is about whether the Orlanthi virtues of individuality and spontaneity are better or worse than the Lunar values of cooperation and inclusiveness or, if you like, whether barbarism is better than civilization.

How people are convinced to change religions is pretty straightforward -- there are a lot of benefits to changing. Among these are "the Lunar army doesn't kill you and burn your house down," "the Lunar Empire helps you out with bullying and dominating your neighbors," and "you can escape some of of the restrictions of Orlanthi culture."

[contracycle]

How people are convinced to change religions is pretty straightforward -- there are a lot of benefits to changing. Among these are "the Lunar army doesn't kill you and burn your house down," "the Lunar Empire helps you out with bullying and dominating your neighbors," and "you can escape some of of the restrictions of Orlanthi culture."

Yes but we have plenty of examples in real religion of people being willing to die for their beliefs.  Are you then saying that there is no such thing as martyrdom in Glorantha, and that all belief is materialistically opportunist?  That in fact nobody actually believes in Orlanth, but that all Orlanthi just go along pretending to do so for social acceptance?

Nonetheless, even if it were true, that still does not explain why the kind of magic I get from Orlanth changes.  Even if I agreed with the argument that Orlanth is bad - [although in fact I cannot agree with that, as I can always use my faith in Orlanth to prove that he is good] - then why would the nature of the magic provided by Orlanth change?  And yet it does, becuase while the Orlanth cults in the Lunar tradition are thematically similar to the Orlanth cults proper, they are not identical.

So, I still don't understand how conversion happens.  Every person can use their personal magic to prove that their beliefs are true.  Conversion is impossible under that premise, and meaningless if it is dropped.

[James Holloway]

Yes but we have plenty of examples in real religion of people being willing to die for their beliefs.

And plenty of examples in Dragon Pass, too; an entire guerilla war is being fought by people willing to die for their beliefs. Likewise, in the real world there are lots of examples of people converting for social or economic or whatever reasons.

while the Orlanth cults in the Lunar tradition are thematically similar to the Orlanth cults proper, they are not identical.

The Lunars do not permit the worship of Orlanth in any of his subcults, do they? Or are you talking about Doburdun? They permit the worship of other deities which are considered members of the Storm Pantheon by the Heortlings, but these deities are also worshipped in other places.

You keep saying that people can use their magic to prove their beliefs are true, but I'm not sure what you mean by this. Both the religion of the Orlanthi and the religion of the Red Moon are true. There really is a Red Goddess, and there really is an Orlanth. The question is: which of these truths is better?

But by now I'm getting well off topic, and I suspect from your previous posts that I'm not going to convince you on this point.

[contracycle]

But by now I'm getting well off topic, and I suspect from your previous posts that I'm not going to convince you on this point.

None of this is off topic, it all bears directly on the question of homelands and religion.  Having read this thread from beginning to end, it seems to me that Mike is travelling exactly the same path of (non) discovery that I traversed.

And plenty of examples in Dragon Pass, too; an entire guerilla war is being fought by people willing to die for their beliefs. Likewise, in the real world there are lots of examples of people converting for social or economic or whatever reasons.  

Yes thats true, but its inexplicable: because according to this present argument, your "beliefes" are not in fact beliefs but aesthetic or economic preferences.  Its difficult to imagine someone fighting to the death over something so trivial.

And its certainly true that in the real world there are socio-economic conversions, but of course in the real world people do not routinely perform magic given by their gods; a greater degree of uncertainty is understandable.  In  Glorantha, the gods are a daily reality and bronze is the very bones of the gods.  Thus they are not comparable at all.

The Lunars do not permit the worship of Orlanth in any of his subcults, do they? Or are you talking about Doburdun? They permit the worship of other deities which are considered members of the Storm Pantheon by the Heortlings, but these deities are also worshipped in other places.

Well you tell me - as I undrestand the argument recently advanced above, Doburdun IS Orlanth just operating under another name in a different pantheon.

You keep saying that people can use their magic to prove their beliefs are true, but I'm not sure what you mean by this. Both the religion of the Orlanthi and the religion of the Red Moon are true. There really is a Red Goddess, and there really is an Orlanth. The question is: which of these truths is better?

Well, by the performance of their god-given magic, as I understand it.  That was roughly the answer given on the yahoo group.  You see its not just the case the the Lunar Religion and the Orlanthi religion are true, they are allegedly ALL true, and provably so, despite their clear contradictions.  If there Really Is and Orlanth, then Doburden MUST BE Orlanth in person, and so must the Orlanth saint in the Malkioni religion.  Which brings us back to the question of misaplied worship et al.

Further, is the questions of which of these truths is "better", how is "better" judged?  That does not sound like any kind of religious belief, but rather more comparative shopping.  If religion in Glorantha is so unemotional and opportunistic, then why are people dying for it, as discussed at the top of this post?

[James Holloway]

Yes thats true, but its inexplicable: because according to this present argument, your "beliefes" are not in fact beliefs but aesthetic or economic preferences.  Its difficult to imagine someone fighting to the death over something so trivial.

Way of life isn't trivial; feelings aren't trivial; relationships aren't trivial. Devotees of Orlanth have an intense personal relationship with their god; that relationship is worth fighting for.

Well you tell me - as I undrestand the argument recently advanced above, Doburdun IS Orlanth just operating under another name in a different pantheon.

Doburdun is like Orlanth, in that he has some of the same attributes, but he's different from Orlanth in a lot of ways -- he has no leadership magic, and he's subservient to Yelm. He's close enough to Orlanth that people who tend to think that, say, all storm gods are expressions of the Wind Rune or whatever, might say "well, you call him Orlanth, we call him Doburdun, but basically it's the same thing." Whether or not this person is lying depends on what exactly you mean by "basically."

 If there Really Is and Orlanth, then Doburden MUST BE Orlanth in person.

Why? They're similar; need they be the same? Is Elmal the same as Yelmalio? Maybe at some fundamental level they're the same, in that they are both sun gods (or storm gods, or whatever), but they clearly have different personalities and goals.

The Aeolian church is a bit odd, all right; Worlath clearly "is" Orlanth in some sense. In fact, the Aeolians acknowledge this. They think that Orlanth, the pagan god, somehow "became" Worlath.

There is no religion in Glorantha (that I know of; once we get outside central Genertela I start to fade) based on the idea that the beliefs of another religion are factually incorrect.

Further, is the questions of which of these truths is "better", how is "better" judged?  That does not sound like any kind of religious belief, but rather more comparative shopping.  If religion in Glorantha is so unemotional and opportunistic, then why are people dying for it, as discussed at the top of this post?

People compare things in an emotional way all the time: 19th-century abolitionists believed that freedom was better than slavery, Hitler believed that Aryans were better than Jews, some Orlanthi believe that freedom is better than order. They make value judgements; they are hardly "unemotional" about it.