Your scheduled Initiation pedantry,

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From: Alex Ferguson (alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk)
Date: Mon 25 Apr 1994 - 00:48:21 EEST

Joerg:
> Alex e.g. in X-RQ-ID: 3702

<shoots self again, to be on the safe side>

> Associate worship is ok with me if there is one overpowering deity and
> a bunch of associates, as seems to be the case with Pamalt. It fails to
> work when the side cuts develop a dynamic of their own, and a character
> who rightfully would worship both aspects because of his position in
> the world is punished rules-wise by having to spend double amount of
> time and income.

Twice the gain, twice the pain, say I. If two deities are worshipped together in an area a great deal, I think you have a point. Some local hack would be likely to `fix' this, I think. But if someone is doing this for purely personal predilictions, more fool him.

> The system breaks down in societies which demand specialisation, i.e. urban
> societies.

Why? I don't see this is the case at all. More specialised roles surely implies more specialised worship, not more general worship.

> > I'm not sure how far this is true in Glorantha, apart
> > from Gods which are effectively unreachable by worship.

> Neither is Arachne Solara directly worshipped (her only priestess I ever
> encountered in sources was Deezola).

Arachne Solara is in the `unreachable' category, I believe.

> > My own suspicion would be that
> > they're not as heavily Malkionised as this: the Henotheistic Church
> > doubtless has something not unlike this structure. (To wit, having
> > theistic entities as Saints.)

> They somewhat categorize their saints; Barntar is a divine saint, Harmast
> Barefoot is a mere saint.

My own hunch about Heortland would have the Malkion and theist aspects of worship a bit more separate than this. The Malkioni influence is fairly recent, and likely to be most evident in the upper echelons. (Cf. Norman Britain.) Hence, I'd guess the peasntry would worship Barntar _qua_ Barntar, Orlanth, Ernalda, with only token Western influences, while the nobility (and social climbers) would consider them saints, or ignore them.

> a regular Orlanth (Adventurous) initiate

Hmm. Another candidate for the Americanisation Test, Inquisitor. }B-)

> [...] who was ministered as well by the Aeolian
> priesthood. Even the son of the Sun Dome Templar took part, although he
> completed his Yelmalio initiation with a pilgrimage to the Sartar Sun
> Dome temple to receive his gift and geasa.

> All these are somehow associates of the Church.

Perhaps this is sorta more "theist-flavoured" than the "usual" henothesist religions of Ralios. Do you invisage this distinction, too, or do you see Heortland and the other "Stygians" as being similar?

> You become associate initiate member of the church either by joining as
> a youth, but not taking any patron saint/deity, with a _very_ limited choice
> of low sorcery and special divine spells, or by being an intiate in one
> of the theistic cults included as saints, see above.

Right. Isn't this what we were calling Low Initiation, before? Sounds like it. (Mind you, your term is not without logic.)

> Hmm. The ordinary Sartarite will come from a clan which worships one or
> two preferred deities of the Orlanth Array directly, and the rest as
> associates.

I think most worship more than two, and even if not, it's still a significantly different circumstance than a henotheistic situation, where for _everyone_ the IG is by the fundemental tenet of the religion the prime figure.

> [...] the Vantaros and Tovtaros tribes of the
> Alda-churi seem to have disposed of Orlanth as a positive figure in
> their myths and have Yelmalio as their main male deity (according to my
> impression from David Hall's article in the RQ-Con booklet).

My understanding is that this is something that the leadership (Ironfist and cronies) is trying to impose, not necessarily the situation on the ground.

> > I still wanna know why everyone is so convinced one can't become an adult
> > without becoming (some kind of) religious initiation.

Joerg quotes lots off stuff we've raked over before, much of which I'd previously quoted myself, and none of which actually supports his case. His emphasis deleted, and mine added. (Dirty trick, I know. <g>)

> RQ3 DeLuxe, Magic Book, p.23
> "In regions where gods are worshiped, every _responsible or respectable_
> adult will be an initiate of a religion."
> RQ3 DeLuxe, Magic Book, p.24
> "In communities practicing religions, it is a _traditional sign_ of
> adulthood to become an initiate of the appropriate religion or cult"
> KoS p.245
> "Initiates in any cult of the pantheon are the next level. This
> includes _almost_ every Orlanthi adult."
> KoS p.251
> "He [the _chieftain_] must be initiated to the clan secrets of Orlanth"

> KoS p.239
> "Children become adults after a formal initiation ceremony"
> This is to the Clan Secrets, including one's ancestors, and _is_
> religious in nature, although not necessarily cultic.

Sez who? What do we mean by `religious', anyway? I think you're all too hung up on some subconscious reflex association of the form, "Ah, it says "Initiation" here, therefore we gotta sack a pointa POW to, err, something."

> > I dislike the idea of Voriof simply being
> > a `generic stage' deity: I'm sure he has a distinct cult of his own. After
> > all, Voria does, albeit a non-standard and wimpy one.

> I agree with this. There surely are a lot of Cottar adult initiates of
> Voriof in his shepherd aspect. There might be as well an aspect
> "Orlanth the Youth", possibly closely linked to the Yinkin cult, but
> that's not documented anywhere, so I chose "Voriof" to describe the
> boys who had their communion but not their initiation.

I'm mildly confused, are we speaking of things Aeolian, or (say) Sartarite here? Insert, respectively, acquiescence or blustering rebuttal according to your answer.

> >> 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.

> > I disagree, vehemently, vociferously, and I've-gone-over-my-reasons-for-
> > doing-so-ly.

> Why? <innocently>

Why would someone be considered a "Voriof initiate", when they don't worship Voriof, and they're not an initiate in any previously known sense? What is the need for such a status, other than a (spurious, in my view) analogy with the structure of (say) the Yelm cult? What do we "need" Low Initiation for anyway, other than filling the requirement (which I don't think is at all absolute) for Adults to be Initiates, which is in any case inapplicable here as we're speaking of non-Adults?

Surely any Orlanthi would call this person an "Apprentice [bone|red]smith", or an "Apprentice to Gustbran", or some other such comparatively non-God Learnerish term?

> How many sheep do you expect to be kept within a town of little over
> 200 houses, say the size of Runegate, or Jaransbyrig (my campaign
> setting)?

Why do you ask this? Whadya mean? I'm not for a moment suggesting every teenage boy is a full-time shepherd.

> Jaransbyrig is too small to have its own city god,

Oh? I'm inclined to think all settlements, however small, can have a communal spirit of some kind.

> so this option as low initiation status remains out.

Perhaps our essential disagreement is that you're looking for a handy theistic peg to hang the idea of "Low Initiation" on, while I'm trying to stamp it out, ruthlessly. ;-/ And aren't you using the term Low Initiation in a confusingly different way again?

> Voriof seems to be the logical solution, even if it leads to the
> situation descrbed above.

I don't think I follow your drift. Are you suggesting that because Voriof "must" be worshipped, and there are too few people who'd be full-time shepherds, adolescents would be "co-opted" to make up the numbers?

> This reminds me of a question I have concerning moons in/over
> Glorantha: in what way are they different from planets?

Probably very little. Perhaps mainly whether they are associated with "Lunar" cult, which is circular-sounding logic, I confess.

> The reason I
> ask is that I have seen a source which titles the Southpath planets
> Tolat and Artia (or at least similar-sounding names) as moons.

Very weird. In terran terms, they are the text-book examples of planets, moreso than the Sunpath ones. (ie, they "wander" from the path of the sun.)

> Third
> Age Glorantha offers two moons with virtually nothing in common which
> tells them apart from planets.

Perhaps in Glorantha, "planets" are things with follow the route of the sun, and "moons" are other objects with visible disks. Hence, "Southpath planets" are borderline between being planets, and `not-planets', to wit, moons.

> While I'm stargazing: In GRoY Dendara is mentioned as a planetary
> deity, along with the various sons of Yelm and other worthies (like
> Lokarnos).

I'm guessing the Pelorian "Lokarnos" planet is the Theyalan "Mastakos." Dendara left me confused too, I have to admit.

> Does Yelm draw a whole bunch of minor planets along on his path across the
> sky, obscured by his fiery presence?

Seemingly there were only three at the Dawn. But which? I dunno.

Astronomically,
Alex.
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