From: Loren J. Miller (MILLERL@wharton.upenn.edu)
Date: Thu 21 Oct 1993 - 15:22:44 EET
I'm speaking theoretically here, and basing my opinions on religious
history rather than the RQ rules, so don't bash me for making rules
errors.
Remember that Humakti are RQ's answer to Paladins from the D&D game, and the Gloranthan analogue to Templars and Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights, oh my. They are warriors devoted to honorable death for the opponent and themself, and they don't have any sense of humor. There weren't all that many Templars and Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights in our own Middle Ages. There shouldn't be that many Humakti. So Geoff Gunnar's <1% number sounds good to me.
Let's think further on it.
If Humakti are that rare, how can they get enough bodies together to consecrate ground and hold a worship service? The answer is simple. They don't have to. They just use the local Orlanthi temple, which has a shrine to Humakt somewhere, even if it is only the sword that the statue of Orlanth is holding. Let's draw an analogy with the Templars. They were a holy order of knights with their own priesthood, however they could go and pray at any Christian church. If they had divine magic they could recover it at any christian church. As with the Templars, Humakti will not be able to find dedicated temples in many places, but they can use shrines in any temple of a ruling deity that will accept Humakt into its pantheon.
In fact, it would be easiest if Humakt were just a subcult of Orlanth so that Orlanthi could receive Humakt's gifts (and pay his prices) if their need was great. Too bad Humakt cut his blood ties so that is impossible. However, Minlister and Yinkin and Eurmal and Lhankor Mhy and Chalana Arroy and Ginna Jar and Flesh Man and many of Orlanth's other friends would work best as subcults. At least, some of them would.
This is where I get into trouble with the all-or-nothing way that cults work in RQ. Earthly polytheists will worship any god who can satisfy their needs, and they're not monogamous at all. They worship the grain god in the spring and at harvest, the god of fire when the coals go out, the god of storms when they're sailing, the god of plagues when they are sick, etc etc etc. The problem is that RQ cults aren't polytheistic, they're monotheistic. Initiates, who comprise the vast majority of the adult population, may only worship one god each.
We have one really good earthly example of a people who would only worship a single god, and who denied worship to any others. The israelites were a warlike people who worshipped Yahweh, a volcano god, and conquered many of their neighbors. When they conquered their neighbors Yahweh would absorb some of the characteristics of their neighbors' tribal gods, and so he absorbed Adonai and Elohim and a number of other gods. In fact, many of these other names remain in the Pentateuch. Anyway, the israelites were one of few earthly tribes to insist that their own god was the *only* god worth worshipping, and it was no coincidence that they were extremely warlike. After all, every battle, every act of violence against an outsider, was a holy act, an act of worship because it asserted their god's primacy.
I would think that the RQ cult structure would produce just such a situation. Every initiate would see initiates of other cults as enemies because they do not acknowledge the primacy of the only god that matters. Every cult would encourage attacks against every other cult as a way of increasing the power of their own god, and also as a way of keeping the minds of cultists on the superiority of their beliefs.
We know the history of violence in the Mideast, with Jew and Christian and Moslem, all monotheist cultures, in a boiling pot. Imagine a world with not three, not ten, but hundreds of mutually exclusive monotheistic religions. It would destroy itself. Under the RQ cult rules Glorantha is just such a world.
In my opinion, instead of the present cult system RQ should have religions based on broad pantheons, which are capable of addressing *all* the needs of worshippers. People would be initiates in the religion, and it would satisfy all their spiritual needs and most of their physical ones. Individual cults would be for fanatics, much like orders that follow one christian saint or another. But anybody could ask for the blessing of one of the gods in a religion, with no requirement to join a restrictive cult.
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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