Marriages and more quibbles, piety

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From: Jane Williams (janewill@mail.nildram.co.uk)
Date: Thu 26 Jun 1997 - 22:42:39 EEST

Carl Fink underestimtes the power of love (or something):
>> Now, marry one of the Red Goddesses Daughters off onto Orlanth and/or
>> into Orlanth's pantheon ... I think Jar-Eel'd get on quite well with
>> Sartar's mythic family, myself.
>Yes, she might get on with his mythic family, as opposed to his actual
>family WHO SHE PERSONALLY MASSACRED. She did her best to *exterminate*
>the House of Sartar, but you think she could easily marry into it?

Well, she did end up falling in love with/being seduced by Annstad of
Dunstop, who was Argrath's Fertility Bringer. Sounds to me like the
marriage idea worked the other way, and Argrath added insult to injury by
delegating the job. I don't know much about Annstad myself: could he have
been a distant Sartar relative?

And another quibble - there seem to be a surprising number of people out
there who take the Argrath Saga literally.

From: Richard Melvin <rmelvin@radm.demon.co.uk>
>For an example, see the Argrath's summoning of the dragon in the middle of
>the lunar ritual in KoS.

It wasn't Argrath's summoning. Even CHDP (the ever-so-slightly biased)
doesn't try to claim he was present. Minaryth Purple was there, Orlaront
Dragonfriend was there, Jandetin the Avenger was there, the FHQ was
involved somehow. And people who reacted fast afterwards included Kallyr
and Moirades of Tarsh: though I think Moirades was a case of good
intelligence rather than being involved, myself, and I have no evidence
that Kallyr was directly involved. (Believe me, I've looked). *If*
Argrath was there, his actions were so embarrassing that Denseros doesn't
dare mention them: maybe he was on the Lunar side? Or ran away screaming?

Rantmode off...

The piety trait has been confusing people. Me included, I might add.
Until I remembered a line from back when I was running a PBM. A PC and an
NPC are discussing what initiation and adulthood will be like. The PC
has a very low Piety score. He says:
"I've better things to think about than that. The gods leave us alone and
we leave them alone: that's the Great Compromise, right?"
Wrong... as the NPC points out. The PC goes on to consider the
advantages of the various cults (he's a city-born Pavisite, BTW). He
slightly resents being forced to do what some god tells him, but sees the
political necessity of joining a power-group.

OK, so this is an extreme position: and the player would have learnt
better as time went on.

A very pious person would be the one who insists on sacrificing a coin to
Issaries before every journey - including the ten yards to the pub. He
goes to temple not just every holy day, not just every Godday, but EVERY
day. He does extra temple duties because he wants to, not because he'll get
more spells.

Now, if my interpretation is correct, can anyone tell me why in at least
one of the standard lists of traits for each deity, Issaries initiates
are said to be non-pious? How do they ever get any priests?

And finally (?), Alex has been confusing me even more. (Easily done, I
know).
>Jane Williams, clearly a _Grand_ Master (Mistress?) of Ecky Thump,
If that was an accusation of being a Northerner, it's way off target. I
enjoy good food even when it comes from barbarians with strange accents.

and in response to my puzzled query, confuses me more:
>> > If one makes initiate DI reusable [...]
>> Did you mean having divine *magic* reuseable?
>D'oh. Yes, sorry, 2LA confusion, cum Freudian typo. I meant "RM".
?? 2LA ?
?? "RM" ?

Jane Williams jane@williams.nildram.co.uk
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~janewill/gloranth/index.shtml

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