From: Alex Ferguson (alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk)
Date: Wed 29 Jun 1994 - 22:37:17 EEST
Devin Cutler quibbles with my maintenance of the "Past seven days, no
ressurrection rule (of thumb):
> "But not from Glorantha. In any case, RQ3 uses a different mechanism with
> much the same upshot. 7D3 loss to each of four characteristics will
> generally ruin your whole week, really."
> Hmmm, how do you determine this...that is, what was dropped in RQ3 but not
> from Glorantha?
For example, Greg's continuing espousal of the Theyalan belief that the path to the Courts of Silence (in Hell) takes seven days to walk. I can't give you a general solution to the problem, but can only caution not to take things with "Alternate Earth" stamped all over them as definitive references for the One True Glorantha.
> In any case, in RQ3, one usually cannot survive even 5 days dead.
Close enough. The exact figure was irrelevant to what we were discussing. (Or if anything, "shorter" is "better" for what I was arguing.)
> "Probably partially true, but in many cases the Spirit of Reprisal will be
> summonned/invoked by a high priest, rather than dreaming it up all by itself,
> or doing so under direct orders from God HQ."
> I could actually see it happening both ways.
I could have sworn I just said that.
> "So if I perform the rituals correctly, I am, by definition, devout? This
> merely leaves the question of how hard it is in practice to be Cynically
> Devout."
> Maybe a better way to phrase this (so as to reflect what I am saying) is that
> if I am devout, I will perform the rituals correctly, not vice versa.
This doesn't preclude _not_ being devout, then, and still performing them correctly. Please check the direction of that implication arrow carefully.
> Scott writes about the availability of Resurrection.
> [...] Add a Teelo Norri Priestess in Pavis
> to take care of Lunars and you're up to 8-9.
Deezola is the source of the Lunars' healing, not Teelo Norri. CA is still their only source of reusable resurrection, though.
> Regarding how many Resurrections that Priestess would have, if a Chalanna
> Arroy Priestess is ordained at age 30, then she will get to make 6 POW gain
> rolls (5 seasonal and 1 Sacred Time) per year. Assume she makes 2 of them.
Why would we assume this, if one follows the RQ2 pattern of priests having ~18m POW? This would mean less than one POW per year. At this rate of sacrifice, you'll be lucky to _be_ a High Healer at 30.
> This means that if she expends only half of her POW on Resurrections
"Only" half of her POW? What about all the other "easy magical healing" she's supposed to be doing?
> I would hate to think of how
> many such spells an old 60-70 year old Priestess would have, but it would
> probably number around 20!!!!
At 1/2 of her spells, and 1 POW per year, 5 uses at age 60.
You said it.
> I would love to see this reduced, so that death doesn't become a joke.
Even though it was all caused by Eurmal?
> In any case, I wonder if your analysis of 1% of the population being Healers
> and only 3% of those Healers being Priestesses stacks up with what has been
> presented.
I agree. The 3% is conspicuously high.
> However, I note that it may be that your death rate for Gloranthans is a bit
> low...what with the current state of instant Spirit Magic healing and easily
> curable diseases.
And chaos, spirits of disease, and everyone chibbing everyone else up to limber up for the Hero Wars? I don't think Gloranthan disease is exactly "easily" healable: note that characteristic loss to disease (or otherwise) can obly be healed with one-use rune magic. And death by characteristic loss is not reversable.
Colin Watson:
> >> Even in the event of success; if *any* other Humakti priests found out about
> >> it, these "new worshippers" would be excommunicated so fast it would make
> >> their heads spin clean orf. And they would be right back at square one.
> >I disagree with this particular bit: one should only be able to excomm.,
> >or sic spirits of reprisal on, cultists from the same "hierarchy".
> Indeed, but the way I see it, these chaps *are* effectively in the same
> hierarchy.
As the people who initiated them, perhaps, depending on how variant a route they ended up following on their initiation path. But not of other temples, as you originally suggested, I don't believe, since each temple has it's own High Priest, and no real overlying power structures.
> My view is: because the Cacodaemonists learned the rituals by rote from
> the priest it is effectively as if he had initiated them himself and therefore
> he knows full-well how to excommunicate them.
Agree. But they just killed him, no? (And ate him in secret, I shouldn't wonder.)
> And so would any other priest who worships Humakt in the same way.
Disagree. What's "the same way", in any case?
> Hence a priest from one area may be incapable of Excommunicating
> an initiate from another area.
To say the least. In my view, it should only be possible on a per-temple basis, or at the most, by those who form part of a cultic super-structure, should one exist.
Alex.
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