Aeolian Church misunderstandings

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From: Joerg Baumgartner (joe@sartar.toppoint.de)
Date: Wed 18 May 1994 - 22:23:38 EEST


Alex, X-RQ-ID: 4044

> Me and Joerg, unusually enough:

>> Not in the God Learner sense of "theistic".

Now it's my time to say: Why do you argue, I agreed.

>> Yet wizardry is tied firmly to the religion of the Invisible God.  

> Wizardry is sorcery with a funny hat, to anyone else but the Westerners.
> There is no objective way. or even one most people agree on, to tell the
> difference between a sorceror and a wizard.

The RQ:AiG set of spells did change this to some degree: There are a number of ritual spells useful only for religious purposes, called Banishment (a funeral rite), Blessing (e.g. at weddings etc.) and its reversed (which needn't be by The Power Of The Invisible God, but can be), and Solace, a spell for the dying moment of the caster, preparing his way to Solace. I doubt these work for any but true followers of the IG, so there you are.

> "Wizardry" is really only
> well-defined to mean "sorcery [in the RQ sense] which we approve of".
> Even "follows the commandments of the IG" is something which is open to
> interpretation, manipulation, and downright fraud, and isn't much like
> the (enforcible) requirements to belong to theistic cults.

I'd say that the requirements of the Rokari church are as easily enforcible as those of say Chalana Arroy. Or do you mean that the spells don't become one-use? Neither does cult spirit magic, and I find this a rules nit anyway.

>> From my understanding, the spells granted from a deity to associates >> always covers one imortant aspect of the deity.

> Not necessarily: more specifically, it's the use of the most "use" to
> that associate. The "most important" spell is likely to be one taught
> at (ordinary shrines).

Like all those useless Cloud Call shrines dotting Sartar?

Note that I proposed this as kind of a meta-rule for designing associate magic. Of the various spells reflecting the aspects the associate cult is granted one of the most useful, agreed.

>> Call it heroquesting for an ability, if this sounds more RuneQuesty to you.

> No, it doesn't. At the moment, it could be argued "heroquest" is a polite
> term for "no-one knows how this works". Anyway, making things sound
> "RuneQuesty" isn't something I'd advocate at all costs.

I have a "working" system, mainly by ignoring any rule change, but by changing the world aspects. I think any attempt to quantify heroquest effects will end up with a non-Arkati, God Learner view of the participants, and be detrimental.

>> (Sartar is sorcery-user friendly: look at Apple Lane. The TEB smith >> family lives without fear of pogromes.)

> What makes you think anyone knows they are sorcerors? I presume most
> people thing they worship "the gopd of the Third Eye Blue cult". I think
> most Sartarites would be very unhappy with Aeolians they happen to bump into,
> chucking around sorcery willy-nill, and saying wildly heretical things
> about _their_ god in the same breath as stuff about this ficticious
> deity the Westerners worship. Note the same could be said for Invisible
> Orlanth worship...

What is heretical in saying that Orlanth is supreme King of Gods, and has the most noble ancestry of all Elements? These guys speak a bit funnily about the deities, using some outlandish (western) prefix for the cults. Remember Asterix in Britain? Separated by a common language...

I doubt the average Gloranthan will notice the difference between a somewhat outlandish casting of a spirit spell and a sorcery spell.

[Irish "St. Brigid"]
> I don't know about "quick", but at any rate, the result was a form of
> worship quite different from, and entirely incompatible with, the worship
> of the original pagan "pantheon". If this has happened in Heortland,
> I suspect you'd find the remaining "conversative" Orlanthi, and their
> similarly-inclined neighbours, much less happy about the whole process
> than you seem to envisage.

The Aeolians are far more off-Malkioni than off-Theyalan. This is, their Malkionism is far more compromised than Irish Christianity ever was.

I hope to scare the living daylight out of the other bishops at HtWWW with my Theyalan convictions, and expect a quite fiery end if I can't rally the Stygians. (Provided the delay of my official participation form can be excused with my troubles to round up the currency :-( )

> This is simply wrong, from the point of view of "modern" Christainity: ask
> your friendly neighbourhood Roman Catholic if he thinks St. Christopher is
> a god, in any sense.

I have little personal experience with catholicism, but I bow to the inside knowledge of Greg Stafford, who has been quoted to say it was a polytheistic religion.

> Can we at least agree you're not using the "usual"
> sense of the word "saint"? As far as I can see, the Western Churches
> also use the term in its "usual" sense.

I don't use the usual, 20th century definition of Saint. Intentionally so. I try to use the Irish and Anglosaxon definition of Saints, as far as my knowledge permits. Ever compared St. Brennan to Manannan McLir?

> How the RQ rules defines deity isn't very relevant to how a particular
> socity does. And isn't the definition of "saint" we disagree on? If
> you're referring to the mortal saint/divine saint thing, recall it was
> you who made the original distinction...

The Western definitions for False Gods and Saints aren't too different. Mortal Saints are what you would call Cult Heroes in theist cults, Divine Saints are individuals who attained their divinity either in Godtime (Malkion, the Orlanthi deities) or through apotheosis in Time (Dormal, Arkat, Belintar).

At one point in the doctrine (Henk, will you please distribute it soon?) the Aeolians prove that Malkion was a Storm Deity, and that the whole of Malkionism is little more than a strange offshoot of Storm worship combined with the powers of the Kingdom of Logic, which are mirrored in the Holy Country. (I think this latter would date from c. 1340, when the Aeolians had finally come to terms with Belintar's rule.) --
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de

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