From: Loren J. Miller (MILLERL@wharton.upenn.edu)
Date: Tue 21 Sep 1993 - 08:10:04 EEST
I think that Faith is essentially a non-issue in Glorantha.
Firstly, I know of no pre-christian religions that emphasized faith for common worshippers. I think that glorantha hearkens back to pre-christian religion for most of its culture and would be surprised if christian concepts such as "grace" and "faith" and "original sin" played a big part in gloranthan religion. Maybe you can find reflections of these concepts in the west, with Solace (like grace), but they wouldn't be quite the same.
Faith could also refer to an unshakable conviction that one's own god or culture is superior to all others. This is pretty similar to the israelite mindset when their tribal volcano god Yahweh beat the other gods (various Baals) in the fire creation contest. While it's obvious that the Greydog clan is the greatest and most moral clan in the world, do we need to give pride of origin a name like "faith" and make all sorts of inferences about it?
Or, faith is pretty similar to confidence in one's unproven abilities. Something like this might have been taught to advanced initiates in earthly religions to build their confidence so they could work magic. You *do* need faith if you wish to exert your will on unseen forces, and that's the consensus on how magic works on earth. However, that's not quite how magic works in glorantha. In glorantha magic is tactile and apparent to all the senses, and everybody can learn to use it. So, I don't think faith is necessary in order to use magic in glorantha.
Polytheism isn't quite like gloranthan multi-monotheism. In polytheistic societies most people join as many cults as they want to and worship any or all of the gods as appropriate. At harvest time they worship the harvest god. In winter they worship the frost giants. Etc. Only fanatics and holy men/women sunder all their ties but one and pledge themselves to a single cult. In glorantha everybody joins a single cult and pledges themselves for the rest of their life to a single god. I recognise that the nature of cults in glorantha is largely a game construct rather than a reflection of "life in glorantha" (odd to think of a fictional setting that way) but somewhere you need to make a decision. Do the "cult rules" in RQ determine the way that cults work in glorantha, or do cults in glorantha work the same way that cults work(ed) on earth?
Hey! This is the same problem I have with the sorcery rules!
whoah,
+++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller internet: MILLERL@wharton.upenn.edu "Enough sound bites. Let's get to work." -- Ross Perot sound bite ---------------------
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