Faith

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From: Mike Strong (mstrong@cix.compulink.co.uk)
Date: Thu 14 Oct 1993 - 18:57:54 EET

In-Reply-To: <9310140615.AA12803@glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM>

Colin Watson (on Cults)
>I never accept cult write-ups as Truth; rather they are what the
>religion would have you believe. Maybe 90% truth and 10% wishful
>thinking

In principle I tend to agree with this, but would go further; I don't think there is even 90% truth in the mythos and history of a cult. If there were to be 90% truth then you lose an important element of cult membership, that of *faith*. And cults that are based on a simple (or complex) set of beliefs are much more interesting both from a referees point of view, and from a players.

(on resurrection)
>...it should be in the domain of Death gods (I don't see resurrection
as healing, I see it as power over Death,[])...

Trouble is that this 'inversion' argument leads to the possibility of Chalana Arroy having, say, Sever Spirit - which does not seem right at all to me. I'm not keen on resurrection myself, and keep it's use (very) limited in my campaigns. Even in circumstances in which the players have ready access to a CA with re-usable resurrection (which certainly is not always going to be the case), the CA ought to be reluctant to use the spell. Why? Well, because the spirit of the dead character has gone to join his/her god, and nobody really wants to interfere with that unless *absolutely* necessary. Player characters need to fear death (or, in the case of Humakti, respect it) and too much resurrection spoils this. To be honest, the same is true of healing. If a there is too much of it about, players will be less reluctant to get involved in fights simply because they know that they can get healed afterwards. The answer is to maintain a balance and this is, in the end, what the GM is for.

Mike

Mike

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