I thought I'd bring this up here. I was going to post it to the rules list, but I'm thinking it's really more speculative than the rules currently cover. Though I might try it out there at some point as well.

Each homeland keyword has an associated specialized religion keyword - or in the case of Teshnos a well laid out common magic religion. You get this keyword at the level of your homeland. The point being that these seem rather intentionally separated out. The question is why. If, in fact, a character from a homeland can only have the listed religion keyword, and the religion keyword must have the level of the homeland keyword, then why not just make it one single keyword?

The answer I keep coming up with is because not everyone from a particular homeland follows the same religion. The book even gives an example, of sorts saying that some Heortlings worship dieties from the Earth Pantheon (the text says something like "This is unsusual, but accepted.")

The thing is - I've never once seen any example of a character that didn't have his homeland's religion, nor have I ever heard anyone mention this.


So, question the first, is the separation of homeland and religion supposed to imply that they're, for lack of a better word, modular? Or is the separation for some other reason? Does the Heortling clause mentioned, mean that the character in question would have the Earth Pantheon religion keyword, or would they have the Storm Pantheon Keyword, and be in a cult that's otherwise listed in the Earth Pantheon?

This is an important distinction. Generally the notion is that one can only know magic from their own religion. So the question would be can a Heortling initiate of some Earth Pantheon diety then initiate in a cult from the Storm Pantheon? Put another way, does the diety in question exist in separate forms in both pantheons, or is the diety shared?

The next question, then, is whether or not this particular example is something that can happen elsewhere, or if it's just a special case with Heortlings and Esrolians?

In any case, I'm envisioning people who live in a particular homeland, but who worship an entirely different religion, to be something like a minority subculture. The example I keep thinking of from real world history is that of the Jews who lived amongst other populaces in, say, Catholic Spain (before the Inquisition, for argument's sake). I'm assuming that they'd get the Spain Homeland, and Judaism as their religion.

Now, this is actually pretty common in the real world. Next question is how common it is in Glorantha? More dear to my heart would be ideas of how common it would be in non-Glorantha fantasy worlds. Basically, given a Gloranthan magic as presented in HQ, what's likely in terms of religions existing side by side in the same homeland?


On a somewhat related note, it's clear that many, if not most, specialized magic religions are "mixed" in terms of otherworld. But as presented, the Lunar religion as our primary example, has a theist basic religion keyword (or so it seems to me, correct me if I'm wrong), and then all manner of cults, practices, schools, etc. What this seems to me to say is that the people of the religion can call for divine intervention from the dieties in the pantheon, but that they do not generally get the other benefits of the other associated base level magic keywords. That is, they don't get tradition charms, and they don't get blessings from liturgists.

Or do they? That's my question. Is it possible in a specialized magic religion that provides more than one sort of magic keyword, one that has liturgists, for example in addition to initiates, for the low level worshipper to gain the benefits that these higher level people provide? I mean are there liturgists in the lunar religion at all? If so, to whom do they provide their blessings?

Or is it that you have to choose one of the basic keyword types in a religion like this, representing the basic worship that you do? Can I be a spiritist in the lunar way? I can be a Jakaleel Practitioner who can make charms - are there any tradition spirits to make tradition charms from? Is there a "core practice" in this case?

Or is it simply no, there are no liturgists, and the practitioners cannot make tradition charms because there is no "core practice" from which they come? I sense that this must be the case, or there are a lot of problems to overcome.

One of the reasons that I'm so interested in all of this is that concentration often does not seem like it has a downside. That is, if I'm in a religion with nothing but theist cults comprising it, and hence I would not be allowed to join up with anything but theist cults without dropping the religion, then what do I lose by concentrating? The theoretical talents that I as a player was smart enough not to take for common magic, but instead replaced with feats?

The point is that for concentration to be any kind of trade-off, there has to be a possibility of getting magic from more than one otherworld in the religion. Now this is often the case. Reading the religions more closely, and learning more about them, I find more and more that the religions tend to be mixed. Even the Heortlings - seemingly very theistic, have Kolat, and presumably an associated practice. Not in the HQ book, but canonical Glorantha, I'm given to understand.

But then I'm also told that it would be quite unusual for the kolatings to teach an initiate anything about their ways. Not that it's outright imposible, but that it would be very odd. So, what gives? Are these in the same religion? Is it just a Heortling thing in this case that makes it rare? Let's look at the Lunars where their spiritism isn't so marginalized. What's the case there? Are their animist practices loathe to teach the initiates of the cults of the Lunar way as well?

If it's true in the Lunar Way that there's this Inter-world rivalry, intra-religion, then I'd assume that the idea is that it's everywhere. Perhaps the spirits just don't like the idea of people who worship gods, even if they're putatively in the same religion? I'm curious about the rationale.

What I'm sorta hankering for is a less strict ruling about these things. I mean, yes, any priest of any diety is even going to look a tad more at any initiate of another diety before initiating him. I suspect that's true. But is it really that much more of a problem than this just because they're in a spirit practice? The way I play it, I rule that something in the same religion is the same religion. And the sideways glances between types of magic using folks are not a tremendous barrier to crossing between two types.

There's even a worse problem here in some ways. Obviously devotees are restricted from joining up with any other religious element, and Shamans seem to be similarly restricted. But if you read it one way, all practitioners must belong to a core practice. Well, to what core practice do the Jakaleel Witches belong to? If one assumes that the practice itself is also the core practice (which I've seen suggested) then does that mean that there are tradition spirits available from it? Or is this requirement suspended in the case of mixed religions?

I've even seen arguments that initates can't cross over for some reason. Which would leave us, again, without the ability to use magic from more than one otherworld with the exception of common magic. Is concentration really only about not having common magic from another otherworld? Maybe more interestingly, are the rest of the rules really intent on not letting PCs have magic from more than one of the specialized otherworlds? That seems sad if so. I mean, I could see the argument for it in some ways, but it just doesn't seem very fun.

Anyway, obviously I've been playing a tad openly with these things, in theory, in my games. In fact, due to a mistake in understanding, I actually have as many as six different religions in one homeland in one game we're playing. The question with these is how I should have them each treat each other. I mean I'm tempted to say that they're all part of a larger religion. That is, instead of having only one "base-level" keyword for the religion, I was allowing players to select from many, and develop up from there.

This has some substantial advantages in terms of clarity. The animists all had a core tradition to belong to, and tradition sprits, for example.

Does this seem extreme? Too much mixing? I've been accused of sorta D&Ding things by doing this sort of thing. I have to admit that I do it because I want the players to have a range of selctions to take magic from, and to give concentration "teeth." But I think I handle it pretty well in terms of requirements and such.

Anyhow, should I call these separate religions living in the same place? One thing that really struck me is that this actually can work more or less. I mean, looking at the resultant culture seemed actually rather more realistic than those in Glorantha that seem to have only one religion. It occurs to me that, perhaps the Gloranthan cultures do have many religions in their cultures, but they're just not listed. Which brings me back full circle to the top again. Do Gloranthan cultures have more religions than the primary one listed or not?

If I do go this way in my game, however, saying that the religions are exclusive from each other (as opposed to saying that they're all part of a larger religion), then I'm going to have to mix my religions up some, or I'm back to having concentration mean very little.

As you can see, this is a very complex topic, full of twists and turns. I'd appreciate any feedback anyone has on the subject.

Mike

Hi Mike,

I love the way you demand to dig deep on anything and everything :)

The thing is - I've never once seen any example of a character that didn't have his homeland's religion, nor have I ever heard anyone mention this.

So, question the first, is the separation of homeland and religion supposed to imply that they're, for lack of a better word, modular? Or is the separation for some other reason?

Also it is worth looking at Tarsh. The Specilized Religion there is, of course, Lunar Religion, but we're told that there are renegades who still follow the old ways and refuse to take up the Moon.

The Unspoken Word's website's summary of Tarsh says the following:

Orlanth and the more evident storm deities may have been suppressed, but this is still essentially an Orlanthi culture, albeit with heavy earth-cult overtones.

Orlanth’s worship is proscribed, although how tightly this is enforced varies wildly. Most of his subcults survive, treated as independent deities. The attributes of kingship are now held by the (royally-sponsored) Cult of Alakoring Rex.

Ernalda, though, is respected as both the sister of Maran Gor and also, since HonEel’s interpretation of the Tarshite land rites, “She Who Waits” within the Lunar pantheon. All the earth deities are worshipped, with an interesting conflict existing between the “official” (and rather less bloodthirsty) Maran Gor cult and the Exiles.

There is a clear process of assimilation at work, with attempts being made to find acceptable roles even for the most inconvenient deities. Not only, for example, do Babeester Gor’s axe-maidens guard earth temples, they also act as executioners, with heinous criminals being sacrificed to fertilise the fields. Indeed, it is worth noting that Tarshite religion is a fairly bloody affair in general -- live sacrifice is quite common.

Over a century of imperial contact and missionary work has also brought new deities. The Provincial Church of the Seven Mothers is strong here, its local members burning with the fire of the newly-converted.

There is also a rich pantheon of local and city gods, half-way between village wyters and hero-cults, and fulfilling something of the role of each.

Hello,

Actually, the way we played, it was about as likely to encounter a Lunar Heortling as an Orlanthi one, once the characters got north of Shadow Plateau. Visual indicators were often deceptive, as any number of clothes, tools, and so on had crossed the cultures in both ways. Our characters being from the hinterlands of Heortland made them rather curiosities, from many NPCs point of view, because they were so solidly Heortling Orlanthi in their details of dress and practice.

So yeah, a character with Heortling as homeland and any one of a dozen Lunar religious practices as magic/religion, was a common thing. That's always been my ideal character if I ever get a chance to play.

Best,
Ron

I think you really hit on two topics, one being the issue of homeland keyword versus common religion key word, the other being about what members of mixed religions can do. In this post I’m going to give my views just on the former topic.

There are really three circles here, being geographical region, culture, and common religion. Occasionally they will be identical in scope (Teshnos is a bit like this). More often they overlap to some degree, but not totally. Your question really addressed culture versus common magic religion, so I’ll ignore the geography circle, but just remember that while a land and a culture may share a name, that does not mean that culture is only found in that land or that everyone in that land is from that culture. For example, really Tarsh probably hold three to four major cultures: the exiles, “old” Tarsh (partially assimilated), “New” Tarsh (heavily assimilated), and lunar immigrants.

A feature of Glorantha that may not be unique but which is not common to all fantasy worlds is that it almost fell apart in the past. Almost every culture traces its descent from a small group who followed the lead of some cultural hero to survive the Darkness, and just as importantly, it is by repeating those rites that the world continues to exist! This may not be emphasized in the base rule book, but “everyone knows” that if they don’t do their sacred time rites, the Darkness will return and the world will die for real. This tends to create strong ties between culture and religion, as to reject the religion can be seen as deliberate villainy, an abandonment of responsibilities. In other worlds, this tie is probably not as strong.

However even in Glorantha there are exceptions. In fact right in the core rules one is presented, although not as clearly as it could be. Esvular (spelling? I almost always spell this wrong…) actually has three very different common religions within it:
1. No-god. By definition a common magic only religion. (some day I hope to play one of these guys!)
2. God-Forgot. Personally I think this should double as a common religion and a specialized magic key word. As the former you can choose five of the abilities and augment with them. As the former, in the Teshnan manner, you would take all ten abilities, could use them actively, but forego all other magic.
3. The Aeolian Church. The Esvular homeland does not give the common magic religion part of the church, although I’m sure it exists, and it obviously would NOT be No-God or God-Forgot. Probably something like the “The Little Saints” in Seshnela, a mix of talents handed down since time immemorial and things picked up from the local supernatural beings. But the Aeolian Church specialized magic keyword almost totally dominates this common magic religion, as it is the only specialized magic key word recognized, and pretty much everyone within the common magic religion also belongs to the specialized magic keyword, if only as a lay worshipper.

So yes, a cultural key word can have more than one common religion key word possible within it.

If you prefer, you could treat each common magic religion as having a distinct culture, then blend the two. In that case you would have three Esvulari cultural key words, one of No-God aetheists, one for God-Forgot agnostics, and one for Aeolian believers. In each case then you could just have culture and magic blended into one word. It would remove one layer of keywords, but would require more cultural keywords—most with minimal differences—to be written.

Regards;

Bryan

The second point in Mike's article was comparing the statements about most religions being mixed, with the presentation of one specialized magic system per common magic system.

First I want to clarify how I understand things, which may not match how others (possibly even the authors) understand things. My understanding of most common religions is that “belonging” is often pretty vague. There is no cost (0 HP to join a common religion without establishing a relationship to it), no real added benefits beyond perhaps access to common magic, and no real cost to so belonging. In other words, for most people having the heortling common magic religion or the Seshnelan common magic religion or whatever is much the way in the modern world that many westerners would say they are “Christian” even if they never go to church and are dubious about most aspects of the religion. But still you know a charm to keep vampires away (wearing a cross around your neck), a way to curse your enemies (“god damn you!”), observe in some way the principle holy days (even if it is with easter bunnies, halloween costumes, and santa claus), and know the basics of the mythology.

At that level you do not get tradition charms, can’t call for divine intervention, and don’t get liturgical blessings (and can’t pray for a miracle). You may have access to common magic known within that religion. In some places there might be a real structure at this level (as with the God-Forgot folks or Imarja), in others it may be more a matter of just understanding the mind set and listening to the common stories.

The next step is to take a specialized magic key word. That is to say, become a communal worshipper, a spiritist, or a lay worshipper. There is not a rules reason why you could not in fact become more than one of these, so long as you are willing to pay the cost of joining each and make the investment in time and resources into each of them, as each takes 10% of those.

There are three reasons that joining at this level might be unlikely, however. First of all, sometimes the authorities of these religions don’t approve of it. Secondly most people go with the “normal” one unless they are called to a different one. Finally each presents a different way of viewing the world, even if part of the same religion, and few people are comfortable for long absorbing and supporting two different world views. A fourth, gloranthan, factor is that although all mortals are mixed beings, most have a predominant theistic soul, animist spirit, or essence, so they tend to have a natural calling or attunement towards one of the three systems (why, for example, some heortlings become kolati, even if it means being socially marginalized and belonging to a very limited religion).

If you did belong to two or three specialized magic key words at this level, you could do some combination of asking for divine intervention, wear tradition charms, and get liturgical blessings.

At higher levels of commitment, I think the biggest barrier to multiple specializations might be acceptance and time. That is, they may not let you be a liturgist at The Church of the Iron Penitance if you are also known to spend much of your time being flagellated as part of your role as a practioner in the ecstatic rites of the Penitant Whip Tradition. Even being a spiritist of the Penitent Whip is apt to carry a whiff of unseemly conduct that is apt to make it difficult to become a liturgist—obviously you have some weird habits and could corrupt the congregation!

Of course, of such improbabilities are player-heroes made! (See Mike Dawson’s sig file for Greg Stafford’s own comment on this sort of thing).

In short, I think it is possible, but rare.

Of course, certain religions will make this rarer than others. Under the red moon, where there are well established and reasonably accepted animist and adept portions of the religion, I would think this is a good deal more common than amongst say the Grazers, where they really only have one specialized magic keyword readily available.

--Bryan

The canon on a lot of the Lunar stuff is hidden away in the ILH1.
There it's clear that the homelands are more social and cultural entities than geographical locations - there are people from the Dara Happen homeland in all the satrapies but they are a minority in most.
Each of those homelands has a religion associated with it and nearly all of them are of one type, so Rinliddi generally worship the theistic Vrimak pantheon while Carmenians generally worship the monothestic Carmenian pantheon. It would be a strange person who worshipped both but not impossible.
Throughout the empire there are also people who worship the Lunar pantheon which includes theists (Yanafal Tarnils), monotheists (Makabaeus) and animists (Jakaleel). Again it is unusual to follow more than one of these but it is not impossible. This bit isn't covered in ILH, details of the Lunar pantheon will be in a subsequent volume, so I've had to extrapolate from other publications.
Finally there's the Seven Mothers Church which is a combination of the main Lunar deities including both theists and animists which means worshippers can get both feats, talents and feats. This is potentially very powerful magic as I discovered when I started writing up an NPC, not so much for the individual things but the possibilities in combination.

Though I quote Chris first below, I've incorporated my responses to everyone in this post.

Bankuei wrote: I love the way you demand to dig deep on anything and everything :)

The first is the concerns about Lunar missionaries, and of course, Lunarized Sartites. That would indicate that there's likely to be Heortlings with some Lunar religion keywords running about, probably a few Lunars who adopted a fair amount of Heortling ways(minus Orlanth, of course) while colonizing their lands, etc. Of course, these are all suggested by the setting, and not directly shown as examples in the book.

The second is the examples of Mr. Puma looking for a new religion to follow. Likewise, this also suggests that the complexity of seeking "truth", like in real life, isn't an easy, cut and dried affair.

It would be a strange person who worshipped both but not impossible.

If you're of the opinion that the book is saying- "Find contradictions, play with them and make them a source of theme to run with", then it's a pretty strong support.

I also have a few quotes from Greg from the mailing list which support the latter idea, and I can dig those out later today or tomorrow if you'd like.

Of course, none of these stand as official answers- so you are probably best off contacting Greg or whomever you deem "authoritive" enough to give you an official answer :)

And, as far as the Lunars go- my understanding is that the two big benefits of the Goddess are being able to utilize all 3 types of magic and being at "full power" while within the boundaries of the glowline.

Following my post above with a second...

Bryan_T wrote: The second point in Mike's article was comparing the statements about most religions being mixed, with the presentation of one specialized magic system per common magic system.

In other words, for most people having the heortling common magic religion or the Seshnelan common magic religion or whatever is much the way in the modern world that many westerners would say they are “Christian” even if they never go to church and are dubious about most aspects of the religion.

At that level you do not get tradition charms, can’t call for divine intervention, and don’t get liturgical blessings (and can’t pray for a miracle). You may have access to common magic known within that religion. In some places there might be a real structure at this level (as with the God-Forgot folks or Imarja), in others it may be more a matter of just understanding the mind set and listening to the common stories.

The next step is to take a specialized magic key word. That is to say, become a communal worshipper, a spiritist, or a lay worshipper. There is not a rules reason why you could not in fact become more than one of these, so long as you are willing to pay the cost of joining each and make the investment in time and resources into each of them, as each takes 10% of those.

Secondly most people go with the “normal” one unless they are called to a different one.

If you did belong to two or three specialized magic key words at this level, you could do some combination of asking for divine intervention, wear tradition charms, and get liturgical blessings.

At higher levels of commitment, I think the biggest barrier to multiple specializations might be acceptance and time.

Of course, of such improbabilities are player-heroes made! (See Mike Dawson’s sig file for Greg Stafford’s own comment on this sort of thing).

Of course, certain religions will make this rarer than others. Under the red moon, where there are well established and reasonably accepted animist and adept portions of the religion, I would think this is a good deal more common than amongst say the Grazers, where they really only have one specialized magic keyword readily available.

A couple of thoughts:

Put another way, should the Jew in Spain get Spain and Judaism, or Toledo Ghetto as their Homeland keyword? As Bryan points out, is the homeland really about geography, or about culture?

Donald makes a good observation that ILH does give breakdowns of the "cultures" extant in each "country" for lack of a better word (Satrapies there). But this actually argues in favor of no religious mixing in cultures as these cultures are actually ethnically based… So are we saying that religion is locked to culture? Perhaps that they're for these purposes synonymous? Nope, we're back to Tarsh with it's heortlings that we know worship more than one religion.

What Greg has strongly suggested is that almost nobody, certainly not any culture of people, worship more than one religion. Or, rather, if they did, that would actually all be one religion.

So my point here is that I don't think that CM Religions say much about SM Religions in terms of what might exist side by side in a homeland, and how they co-exist. I'd agree that they lend themselves to the idea that more than one religion exists. But I don't think that they say much about whether or not this creates a cultural divide.

So what I see is basically this: each character gets one and only one specialized religion keywords. They may also be able to get additional Common Magic Religion Keywords…They can then also take one or more (one to start) specialized magic keywords from that religion.

Where the Specialized Religion Keyword is of one specific type (Theism, Animism or Wizardry), the associated specialized magic keywords can be from any of the otherworlds, and it doesn't matter that your religion keyword is, say, Theist, you can still get into Animist Practices.

Looking at the Kolating example, the way I've had it explained to me is that it'll be something like the Jackaleel practice in the Lunar Way. That is, you still start with a theist communal worshipper keyword, but you then take Kolating Practice as a magic keyword.

Wow, well said guys.

I like your approach, Brand, of more or less allowing the player to dictate how the keywords are assembled (actually collaboration with the GM who may have some good ideas, too, about how to handle it, or alternatives), and deriving meaning from that. Because I agree that these things are just too maleable from culture to culture and religion to religion to make any really hard and fast assumptions. I think that's the problem that I was having to start. The solution isn't really very comforting, however, because there's no simply rules to follow here.

The Teshnan religion is actually problematic here, because it's actually a common magic religion. Yep, I missed this until recently, but it's not a specialized magic religion at all. Apparently they don't have one per se. Yes this does raise some big questions about what the cults mean. I believe Josh Neff recently got some clarification on this matter, and I'd like to hear from him on it. That said, he's working on a project right now, and might not be available for a while. Anyone else who followed that thread on the rules list would be encouraged to divulge what they learned about it. Worst case, I'll go look it up myself, and see what they came up with.

But I think that saying that the Teshnans have an overall religion keyword is not saying that they all belong to one tight religion. I think a keyword can, and in this case does, indicate the sort of loose federation of cults that one did find in India. The other obvious option is to treat each and every cult like just another common magic religion.

As for the Lunars, I think I've messed up with my example. Because, in fact, there is the "From Dark Tradition" of which Jackaleel is a practice. That is, there is a tradition one can join. I think, in fact that one can be a member of the Lunar Way, and potentially a starting member of the Lunar Way as well. That said, I think that the problem here is with my overall knowledge of this stuff since I don't own a damn copy of ILH. For those who do, can a person who is in the From Dark Tradition also be a member of the Lunar Way? Or does Lunar Way replace the religion keyword in this case? I've only played a Darjiini, and my reading of the SurEnslib Tradition is that it's not actually part of the Lunar Way, the Darjiini being in somewhat a state of rebellion if only philosophically. Am I wrong there, too?

Overall, does the Lunar Way include "religions within religions" or not? Just to get terms pedantic here, a tradition, a pantheon, or a church is a specialized magic religion. So saying that there are animist traditions within a religion seems to be saying that there's a religion inside of a religion. (In the case of Kolatings as we described them, Brand, that would be a Kolating Practice inside of the Storm Pantheon; I'm pretty sure you meant something like that - also see below).

So maybe it is that one can have multiple religion keywords if they're all part of some "Super-Religion" that allows them together. I'm not sure. I'd be overjoyed to find this was the case, however. Because, again, I think it allows the sort of modularity that I think makes the game more versatile, and allows for the Concentration conundrum to actually have some teeth.

In fact...I'm tempted to allow characters to be in cults from more than one religion. I got lambasted the last time I proposed this, the idea being decried as "D&Dish" or the like (ironic because it's actually more RQish if anything). But, especially as a result of Hero Quests, I think it should be possible. After all, the whole Lunar Way is the syncretization of several religions as a result of a massive heroquest to raise the red moon. Probably not a common thing, but I can see allowing it with the right background concepts behind it.


Donald, it may well be that Kolat represents an entirely different religion. That would certainly simplify the case. But, that isn't what was indicated to me here: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/HeroQuest-rules/message/19695
Actually the ruling that Rory gives is interesting. Apparently the "base" keyword isn't really "moded" to one of the otherworlds, but allows all of the advantages related to all of the entities in each otherworld. So if the religion includes worship of gods and spirits, then you can call for divine aid, and get Tradition Charms in theory (with the caveat that the character should really be stated as knowing these other esoteric parts of the religion in some way - Rory suggests a relationship to somebody who is in that branch, which makes sense).

He later somewhat contradicts this by saying that the theoretical Kolating Practice is then also the Core Practice, and might not have tradition Spirits (later that it's not a full "birth to death" tradition).

Hmm. Now that I think about that, I think that clarification was made here that "religion" in this context did refer to some "super-religion" meaning "all of the beliefs that the Heortlings share - which was somehow greater than all of the parts of the religion. Basically that, as implied above, there can be full Traditions and Pantheons potentially within an entire "tradition." (I wish I'd referenced that post earlier).

On the subject of Urox, I'll raise you Sword Man, who is just Humakt in disguise. This I'm not really concerned about, because we know that it's actually a different religion. Sword Man is listed as part of the Praxian Tradition, and we know that the Esvulari misapplied worship of the Storm Pantheon is the Church Of Aeol. The real question about the Zebra Riders is whether or not they can really be considered culturally Sartartite (Heortling Keyword).

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).

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Or does Lunar Way replace the religion keyword in this case? I've only played a Darjiini, and my reading of the SurEnslib Tradition is that it's not actually part of the Lunar Way, the Darjiini being in somewhat a state of rebellion if only philosophically. Am I wrong there, too?

Mike Holmes wrote: I've only played a Darjiini, and my reading of the SurEnslib Tradition is that it's not actually part of the Lunar Way, the Darjiini being in somewhat a state of rebellion if only philosophically. Am I wrong there, too?

Hmm. Now that I think about that, I think that clarification was made here that "religion" in this context did refer to some "super-religion" meaning "all of the beliefs that the Heortlings share - which was somehow greater than all of the parts of the religion. Basically that, as implied above, there can be full Traditions and Pantheons potentially within an entire "tradition." (I wish I'd referenced that post earlier).

About Kolatings and whether or not they're members of the Storm Pantheon Specialized Religion: I'd vote no. http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=10467&start=15 suggests that Kolat is a Tradition by itself.

Additionally, not being a member of the Storm Tribe religion fits a couple of things we know about Kolatings and the Storm Tribe.

1) Kolatings live very much on the outskirts of societies. Although granted a special status in law, Kolating shamans are wandering outcasts, given food or gifts in exchange for their services but not really part of the community -- or so, at least, implies King of Dragon Pass.

2) There are almost no communal worshippers in the Storm Pantheon religion. "Orlanthi All" Heortlings initiate on reaching adulthood. So communal worshippers who aren't also Initiates or higher are probably only children and people who can't afford the time commitment -- beggars, stickpickers, and so on. This might include Kolatings, but I think not.

Now, is Kolat as a spirit part of the Storm Pantheon in the mythological sense? Yes, absolutely. Orlanth's brother and all that. But I think that Kolatings don't need to take the Storm Pantheon religion.

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

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

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

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?

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

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?

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 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?

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, 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.

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

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.

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 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 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.

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).

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

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?

Brand_Robins wrote: 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….

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

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.

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

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?

joshua neff wrote: Check the Tarsh homeland in the main rulebook.

Mike Holmes wrote:
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.

Mike Holmes wrote:


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.

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.

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

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

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? "

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.

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.

Mike Holmes wrote: (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

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

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?

Bryan_T wrote: 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Mike Holmes wrote:
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.

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

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

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

James Holloway wrote:
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.

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.

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?

contracycle wrote:

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.

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

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

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?

I was going to edit my previous post to add this point about conversion:

most people have Worship Orlanthcarl or whatever at 17. That's an OK rating, but it's not super great. Their god-talkers will tend to have much higher ratings. But it's the Orlanthi god-talkers who get chopped down first by the Lunars or by ambitious non-Orlanthi.

So most people, just like today, aren't very religious. They know that religion can help them do magic, but theistic magic is kind of a long run for a short slide. To really get the good stuff, you have to spend most of your life in worship, and that's costly. For most people, although they know the gods are real, it's much less important to them than living a peaceful life. But it also takes a certain amount of effort to change people from their traditions, particularly in a society where almost all males worship Orlanth.

Which is why the religious question in Sartar is so vexed: a small, highly-motivated group can change a lot.

I've had this discussion with you before, Gasreth, and I think that we're just not going to see eye to eye on it - I agree with Donald's points. I think that HQ might be broken for you, because of this, but it's just not for others. And not because we're sticking our heads in the sand. It's a fantasy world, and we can buy whatever conventions about it we want to buy. What breaks your suspension of disbelief just doesn't break anyone else's.

Actually I so think that this topic is far enough removed from what I wanted to discuss in this thread that I think it should have it's own thread. I don't have any of the problems you have with understanding how it's supposed to work, I have one little problem with one little game mechanic for the players (and the vast majority of the thread was not about that, but about how culture relates to religions in terms of keyword mechanisms). I don't have a problem with any of the in-game propositions.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote:

Actually I so think that this topic is far enough removed from what I wanted to discuss in this thread that I think it should have it's own thread.

Mike Holmes wrote:
Actually I so think that this topic is far enough removed from what I wanted to discuss in this thread that I think it should have it's own thread.

I don't have any of the problems you have with understanding how it's supposed to work,

I have one little problem with one little game mechanic for the players (and the vast majority of the thread was not about that, but about how culture relates to religions in terms of keyword mechanisms). I don't have a problem with any of the in-game propositions.

I've said twice in this thread (at least, may be more), that I don't have any problem with the idea of the people of Glorantha having to suffer through "mysteries." That end of it all works for me. What I don't get is why one would want to make some part of this cosmology spill over to the metagame mechanisms. Basically, the problem that I have with misapplied worship is that it makes Esvulari characters less powerful than non-Esvulari characters, which would make players less likely to play them. It's unbalanced.

All of the other argument about the in-game nature was to show why I didn't see an absolute need for a mechanism to represent the misapplied worship. That if it's a mystery in-game that you certainly don't have to represent that metagame.

James, "close your head?" Not sure what you're getting at. If you want to pursue this line of discussion, start another thread and do so. You don't need my thread to do that.

None of what you two are discussing has any impact that I can see on how to represent cases of mixed cultures/religions. That is, if I go with James, which I do, then I'm right back where I started. If I go with Gareth...I dunno, I guess I'd have to not play HQ.

If either of you can explain how the subject applies to the mechanics, then I might be interesting in continuing the discussion in this thread.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote:
James, "close your head?" Not sure what you're getting at. If you want to pursue this line of discussion, start another thread and do so. You don't need my thread to do that.

Mike Holmes wrote: Basically, the problem that I have with misapplied worship is that it makes Esvulari characters less powerful than non-Esvulari characters, which would make players less likely to play them. It's unbalanced.

There seems to have been a post to this thread that got lost in the hack attack. If you posted recently to the thread, check to see that your last post is still there.

Thanks,
Mike

This whole Misapplied Worship and Concentration thing still bugs me.

As you said Mike, mechanically it just seems to not work right.

I have considered making the otherworlds -10 for unconcentrated people, and 0 for concentrated in their own otherworld, -20 for concentrated in an alien one. Assuming your group HeroQuests a lot, that at least gives some teeth to that.

But since you can apparantly concentrate to either an otherworld or a power, I'm not sure what that's supposed to be. (Add the fact that Theism concentration also gets that bonus of halving their improvisational penalties.)

And yeah, Misapplied worship bugs the hell out of me. I sort of understand it, but since the world CAN be changed by HeroQuesting according to canon, I don't understand why it exists.

lightcastle wrote: I have considered making the otherworlds -10 for unconcentrated people, and 0 for concentrated in their own otherworld, -20 for concentrated in an alien one. Assuming your group HeroQuests a lot, that at least gives some teeth to that.

But since you can apparantly concentrate to either an otherworld or a power, I'm not sure what that's supposed to be.

(Add the fact that Theism concentration also gets that bonus of halving their improvisational penalties.)

And yeah, Misapplied worship bugs the hell out of me. I sort of understand it, but since the world CAN be changed by HeroQuesting according to canon, I don't understand why it exists.

Quote:
(Add the fact that Theism concentration also gets that bonus of halving their improvisational penalties.)
Not sure what you're getting at here.

lightcastle wrote:

Quote:
(Add the fact that Theism concentration also gets that bonus of halving their improvisational penalties.)
Not sure what you're getting at here.

Improvising feats from affinities is a -10 modifier. It goes down to -5 for concentrated theists. As far as I can tell, there is no equivalent in Animism or Wizardry.

I hadn't remembered that. I was bringing it up just in the way that it seems weird and mechanically inconsistent. (Concentration.) That it gived some bonuses to Theism only seemed to add to that in my view. I had forgotten the animisim thing.