From: Joerg Baumgartner (joe@sartar.toppoint.de)
Date: Tue 24 May 1994 - 22:20:52 EEST
Joerg to Alex in X-RQ-ID: 4104
Not on initiation, at least not as main theme.
> You appeared to be agreeing with faint damns. ("'s, GLism...)
Not intended.
> When did the IG become immanent? Since he isn't, how does he get to decide
> who's a true follower? If he were, how soon could we expect the first
> divinations to clear up minor details such as the Hrestol/Rokar split?
> (While I disagree with those that think having a manifest god handy
> eliminates theological and factional disputes, it might just keep it down
> to a dull roar, which the Malkioni could only envy.)
There is one good precedent for this attitude in the Orlanth cult: During the First Age Lokayamadon (sp? pronounciation?) was pro-Osentalka, Harmast was anti-, both were Orlanthi heroes. During the Second Age there were Ingolf Dragonfriend and Alakoring Dragonbreaker, both valid Orlanthi heroes. All of these were true followers (well, maybe Loayamadon wasn't).
It seems the universal divinity of Saints is true from the deities' point of view. <G>
I don't believe either that it is possible to look at someone's runes, not even for temple spirits. I liked the explanation why (some, per RQ3) illuminates are immune to spirits of reprisal: they don't feel the guilt the spirits need for homing in on the miscreant. Nothing divine in this.
> Only enforcable by mundane means, not divine ones.
After our fray about joining a religion, now one about leaving it? <g>
> If a theist commits
> a sacrilegious act, various consequences ensue, _without_ any human
> intervention. (To wit, becoming an Inactive initiate (which has more than
> just "rules nit" consequences, and/or spirits of reprisal.)
You become inactive already if you don't show up for the High Holy Day ceremony (unless you got leave, like that keeper of Greenbrass). The spirits of reprisal are summoned and sent by priests using Command Cult Spirit, as I understood it.
Like I said above, I have a more stringent view about the Compromise and its consequences.
> Excommunication
> needs human action, but will generally follow from the foregoing, and has
> tangible affects. ("My Son, why have you Gone Inactive, and why are those
> Flint Slingers banging away at your noggin? <zap> Consider yourself
> an ex-initiate.")
> If a Rokari flouts his religions strictures, nothing much happens, unless
> he's caught with his hand in the poor box, or some other part of his
> anatomy in a local peasant wench/sheep/chaos monster. Even then, it's
> a matter for the vagarities of human sanctions.
The Yelmalio village foreman in Gaumata's vision had not been visited by Monrogh, either.
> Where a manifest (deity|saint) is worshipped too, your kilometrage may
> clearly vary. ("No, really, I left the monks of St. Gerlant Flamesword
> for, errrr, personal reasons.")
> Cloud Call is a _spectacularly_ useful spell: not only is it the duty
> of every Orlanth priest to pray daily for rain ("Here, cloudy-cloudy!"),
> but also it might just make the difference to whether or not you can cast
> Thunderbolt.
Doesn't impress me. On a clear day I'd need 53 points of divine magic to cast one Thunderbolt. 53 Lightnings instead would incinerate anything, even a true dragon...
>> What is heretical in saying that Orlanth is supreme King of Gods, and >> has the most noble ancestry of all Elements?
> The juxtaposition, for one thing. The chances of taking two quite distinct
> theologies and combining them in a way acceptable to both is very slim
> ("either" would be a struggle); religious people tend to be touchy about
> these things, for some strange reason.
Only if they are made aware of the differences. Right now (1621), with the Lunars as common enemy, even the Kitori are "very good, very old pals we have lovedf for ages" in Sartar.
> This is more than a little too glib. You've given examples of characters
> who're essentially pure sorcerors, with a veneer of Theyalan "saint"
> worship, and then claimed that when sighted by Orlanth cultists, they
> rush together for a brotherly hug? Perhaps the ones you've mentioned
> aren't typical, or perhaps they just keep very quiet about the s*rc*ry...
I told you before: It is no sorcery, it is just another way of doing cult magic:
>> I doubt the average Gloranthan will notice the difference between a >> somewhat outlandish casting of a spirit spell and a sorcery spell.
> If the cult advertises the fact, and it is practically bound to in this
> case, given the explicit role of the IG in their theology, and the presence
> about Whitewall of twenty foot signs saying "Wizard's Guild, apply within",
> I think he might. I'd give him an INTx5% roll, perhaps.
The symbol of the church is the Air Rune in the Law triangle. It stands for the Compromise and its Creator. Some parts of the liturgy use Arkat's native language (Old Seshnegi). Do you speak it? Then how would you know that these parts speak about sorcery?
>> The Aeolians are far more off-Malkioni than off-Theyalan. This is, their >> Malkionism is far more compromised than Irish Christianity ever was.
> That the proposed religion oozes with sorcery, has the Invisible God
> as the first deity of its Trinity, and reduces every other deity in sight
> to the status of "saint" suggests to me that it's Malkionised enough to
> have the typical tribesman sharpening a stake or twelve.
What's worse: they live in cities, build roads, and can read! They must be God Learners!
> Okay, I exagerate: after all, the two religions aren't _particularly_
> hostile to each other, relatively speaking. However, they are a long
> way from being co-religionists, and have the added gulf of a different
> "mode" of worship to overcome.
This is what I doubt, and wanted to try out with my experiment to put a "Stygian" creed into fully fleshed out life.
>> 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.
> If Greg's an unbiased observer, I'm an enthusiastic proponent of
> pantheonistic initiation.
About as unbiased as you or me...
> At any rate, if there's ever been more than
> Three gods (more like two and a bit) in Christianity, there's been a strict
> pecking order, and the intent has been subversion, not incorporation.
You forget the Mother of God worship, which adds on a goddess.
> That some saints are pagan co-optees isn't in doubt. But how many
> Wotanists think Christianity is a great religion because of all the
> pagan trappings, not to say name, of Easter?
Quite a few did, and were impressed with all the reliquiars. Some were so impressed they decided to take them home with them (793, Lindisfarne).
Seriously, all the pagan t(r)appings of the Christian Church made the christanisation of the Germanic tribes so easy. (Well, they cut of a few thousand heads now and then...)
> Certainly the "true" saints of the West seem to be regarded very
> differently from gods, so I don't think you can entirely escape the
> "20th century" connotations I suggest.
"Malkion was an Air God. The Westerners call him Saint and Prophet. We call his family so, as well."
> I suspect that the Ralian Henotheistic Church doesn't use the term saint
> for "actual" deities, but that other Malkioni (heretical) cults, who
> consider the manifest deities less important, do.
First of all, I believe that there are a lot of henotheist churches, or at least sects (subcults), in Ralios. Some are Stygian, some are Cthonic, some are Aeolian, and some are Solar. A lot of these have animal saints replacing the old Hsunchen deities, IMO. They might look at Suranthir the Non-heretic as a common highest authority in their struggle against Tanisoran Rokari uniformism.
> Bit of a fine distinction, then. At any rate, what I was suggesting was
> that if a god receives active, fairly "traditional" worship in an area,
> having a bunch of Wizards swan along and downrate him to Saint Thingy
> isn't likely to cause them to whoop for joy.
Otkorion has both the seat of the Archbishop of the Henotheist Church and a Great Temple to Orlanth. Where is this religious war you seem to ask for in Hendrikland there in Ralios? I see peaceful and fruitful coexistence, not religious rivalry, between the Henotheists and the theists.
> Using the same term for obscure heroes
> and major deities doesn't really inspire confidence in claims that this
> _isn't_ a questioning of the importance of the latter, though.
Obscure heroes like Arkat and major deities like Minlister? Come on.
>> You go to Solace in Orlanth's Halls. Easy, isn't it?
> Facile, even. If you subscribe to this idea of cultic afterlife
> determinism, how does a religious life dominated by wizardry and tacking
> on active Orlanth worship as an optional extra "earn" you a place there?
> Much as you approve of "true" afterlives, I think this'd work better as
> a false one.
I didn't say you come to the good parts of it, automatically. Your lifetime actions define the actual place you inhabit in your afterlife.
Actually I am not quite sure that the mainstream Malkioni "earn" Solace. What do the experts think?
> Actually, I have very few objections to the Aeolian Church, apart from where
> you've put it.
I didn't put it there. I learned about its existence when I wrote my first Gloranthan scenario for Free INT 5 from someone who told me to ask Sandy Petersen, which I did, and then I just took the meagre info I had and built a cult write-up and all the other stuff which finally amounted to my ongoing campaign around it.
> BTW, where does the name come from?
I just disagreed (quite hotly) with David Hall about this. David says it comes from Saint Aeol, a companion of Arkat who founded the creed.
I say it comes from "Aeolian [...]. adj. 1. pertaining to Aeolus, or to the winds in general.", to quote Webster's. It's an adjective lent from Greek language, just as "cthonic" means pertaining to Earth, or "Stygian" pertaining to Darkness.
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de
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