From: Joerg Baumgartner (joe@sartar.toppoint.de)
Date: Sun 10 Apr 1994 - 17:02:41 EEST
Alex "Sorry, this time no epithet" Ferguson in X-RQ-ID: 3560
>> People stressing the (IMHO tenuous) landbound Viking parallel for the >> Orlanthi might use the "Men without Gods" section from RQ Vikings for >> non-initiates
> No, I'm not suggesting this. However, I think it would not be unknown
> for people to have undergone the `tribal'/`cultural' initiation, a la
> Apple Lane, Adulthood Initiation of _KoS_, whatever, without yet having
> joined a cult, for the simple reason not everyone due to be thusly initiated
> will be able to qualify for their intended cult. Such people would be
> Adults and full members of the clan for most purposes, but may not be
> allowed to marry, or perhaps not to vote, and will certainly have their
> parents telling them to get a Life/Cult at regular intervals.
> The other likely alternative is that Adulthood Initiation is postponed in
> these cases.
Well, just yesterday I played out the adulthood plus general religious initiation rite of my Aeolian Heortland characters.
> True. But while most people will simply join their parents' cult, some
> won't. What if your parents are Issaries and Ernalda initiates, say,
> and you want to join Orlanth. Not unreasonable, but if you are forced to
> take clan initiation and cult initiation together, at fifteen or so, you'll
> almost certainly flub.
For Aeolian Heortland (the Hendriki) I loan heavily from several sources.
One of these is Raymond Feist's Midkemia (I happen to read the revised edition of Magician: Apprentice right now, get it and read it), which has a Midsummer adulthood rite called the Choosing. At the age of 13, the boys of a town (not including the rural population!) is "handed around" among the crafts and trades and aquire a basic notion of what the single careers and crafts consist of. Simultaneously, the craft (and trade) masters get the opportunity to pick out those boys possessing talent (in addition to those who come into a trade by hereditary means).
Boys who aren't chosen will become adults, but not full citizens. Those who seek a trade not available at their home may cut their family ties and try to get an apprenticeship elsewhere. Boys choosing to become sailors become citizens of their captain's home port.
The whole ceremony is (now) described very detailed, and helped me to come up with my own version, tailored to my campaign needs.
>>> What happens if he fails? >>> Does he get bounced out of the clan, have to wait until the next lot of >>> clan initiations, and try the whole thing again, or simply wait a year, >>> and retry joining the cult (or even try joining another in the meantime)? >> Were it Prax, the denied candidate would have to join either the Pol Joni>> or the Gagarthi. In Sartar, she could always stick to one of the minor >> cults, like Geo.
> My point is that if failure in trying to join a cult, very likely in some
> circumstances, means immediate expulsion for the clan or tribe, this is
> a much more serious consequence. Normally with cults you can try again
> later, and don't suffer deleterious results in the meantime in any case.
I almost faced this development yesterday, when one of the players utterly failed in the preliminary tests. Luckily I had decided that part of the ceremony would be a ritual reenactment of a common legend, and in this he excelled.
The ceremony was conducted on Clay/Fertility/Fire, the High Holy Day of the Invisible God, and extended through the night and into the next morning. The whole setup was a country fair as well as a religious ceremony, and the preliminary tests were a source of great amusement, like passing a 10 m plank over which 8 sacks filled with sand or worse were swung.
Some of the tests were miniature reenactments, like the fight between a Yelmalio candidate and an Orlanth (knighthood) candidate on two planks over the raging mill canal. (The Yelmalio fell into the water, and was saved by the Orlanthi, so the Orlanth and Elmal myth was satisfied...)
The day after the adulthood initiation the young men are members of the Aeolian Church. They may have chosen a patron Saint/Deity and even been tested in the appropriate skills, but they don't belong to that patron's subcult until they have undergone the specific rites of this cult on the appropriate holy day. They are adults, nonetheless.
Following RQ Companion, I assume that most farmers will choose Barntar as patron deity/saint. (In the following I will write "Saint" only, but the Aeolians differentiate between divine Saints and human Saints. The most powerful human Saints will have been apotheosized, and have become divine in their own right.) Members of the Thegn class will default for one of the aspects (sons) of Orlanth as patron Saint, but are more likely to go for a specialized Saint than the farmer Ceorls or Cottars. Thegns aspiring to Cnihthood are likely candidates for e.g. St. Humakt or St. Arkat Humaktsson.
Cottars might even stick with Voriof, being no full members of Hendriki society for lack of plowland.
>>> (Presumably initiation into Voria or Voriof `doesn't count', at least.)
>> That is what the "pantheon initiation" faction means by low initiate state.
> I don't think it is: their idea was that Low Initiation would qualify one
> for adulthood.
You're right, not as I said it. A Voriof initiate would be a boy who has reached the age of school-boy, and is receiving tasks vital to the community, although not difficult, like keeping the sheep. This stage of Low initiation is not restricted to one deity only, though, and a crafter's proto-apprentice would be considered a "Voriof initiate" as expression of his age group in the pantheon, even if already an advanced lay member of Gustbran. The Voriof initiation doesn't count for adulthood, but allows minor partaking in religious ceremonies, more so than a visiting participant of a foreign religion could.
> I don't mean Ancestor worship, I mean `hereditary' worship. "I come from
> a long line of Lhankor Mhy Sages. You want to become a Sun-Domer? Never
> darken my door again, ex-son." One might be excluded from a particular
> bloodline without losing membership of the clan, and without being debarred
> from (the possibility of) being an Adult. I doubt this is very common,
> however.
"But, father, it is the Light of Knowledge and Truth I have found there!" <g>
(And: Why "darken"? A Sun-Domer shines!)
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de
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