From: Joerg Baumgartner (joe@sartar.toppoint.de)
Date: Tue 12 Jul 1994 - 17:31:07 EEST
Devin Cutler in X-RQ-ID: 5106
brings the topic to a critical point of Gloranthan roleplaying: what
happens in worship ceremonies? How must we picture them? How does a GM
describe to his players what happens?
The only printed informations about worship ceremonies we have are from
Time to expand these, isn't it?
Alex:
> "You've yet to explain how, or why, this should be the case, though. What
> element of a ritual might be _impossible_ for the non-devout (however
> defined) to perform correctly?"
I like the overall description of this, but I doubt that this is what happens to the worshippers as a mass. Not even the initiates attending. The officiating priest might experience something like this, or the chosen impersonification of the Avatar (I still think that this is what Rune lords do; priests handle the magical energy flow from the worshippers to the deity, rather than impersonate it except in blessings. If an avatar or a piece of one is embodied in an individual, this will perform the tasks demanding active participation of the deity.
> In other words, during a high holy day, when worshippers gain POW, they
> gain such from coming in direct contact with their deity, who enters them
> body and soul.
Worshippers gain POW on HHDs? Wasn't it just the officiating priest who channels the vast amount of life force to the deity?
> It is at this time that a god can determine the devoutness of
> the worshippers.
Rather the willingness of the worshipper to give up some of her excess life force (aka MP) to give to the deity.
> Such a view does not violate the Compromise, since the
> worshippers have invited the god into themselves, but it does mean that the
> worshippers must be devout or the god will find out.
The worshipper must be willing to go along with the ritual, and to give up most of her excess life force to the deity. No more, no less. If being devout consists of this, and this alone, ok, they need to be 100% devout.
> Same sort of thing happens when a worshipper sacrifices for Divine Magic. The
> worshipper calls out to the god, invites him into his soul, the god places
> the appropriate spell "into" the worshipper's soul (or modifies the
> worshipper's soul such that the spell may be cast). It is even possible that
> some of the POW sacrificed to gain Divine Magic is not lost ot the god, but
> merely represents the god's altering of a portion of the worshippers' soul
> into a mimic of the god's essence, such that a Divine Magic spell may be
> cast.
Nice and colourful, but even if true, does not contain any mind police, except for very favoured worshippers.
I picture the deities as a quite pragmatic lot when it comes to deal with their worshippers. Of utmost importance to them is to receive more magic/life force in the deal than they deal out. It is nice if they stand behind the religion full mind and heart, but as long as they feed the deity, they remain acceptable. A deity is only as strong as the supporting mundane forces. In case of the greater deities, natural forces come in as well.
Life force is never pure when generated, personality always rubs off with the MP. As long as the personality attached to the life force isn't tainted, the life force remains acceptable. (Thanks, Paul, for this concept.)
Illuminates might be able to produce untainted life force. Opinions?
No. Intentions, never. Emotions, maybe. Mainly awe, or fear of the dangers of Godplane, or worry from troubles in daily life, which may be specified voluntarily, but needn't be specified in order to participate.
And one preliminary step in important rituals will be the ritual cleansing of the participants - in Orlanthi ceremonies very minor variations of either the Baths of Nelat or the Flame of Ehilm, like having to pass through a burning doorframe erected outside the sanctified area, or to ritually wet your brow with water from some special container.
These ceremonial preparations also clear the mind of the worshipper, they are an important magical ritual which makes it possible for the initiates to participate in the real part of the worship ceremony.
One side effect of these rituals is to put people into the right frame of mind; they are similar in nature to Demoralize or Fanaticism in that they produce a state of mind not naturally attainable.
Once in this state of mind, it is hard to be anything but devout...
> Illuminates are altered enough to mask or hide
> their true intentions. Some excpetional characters may have also been able to
> do so. 99.99999% of Gloranthans do not have the mindset or willpower to hide
> themselves from their god.
I'll grant you an Orlanthi all (i.e. 85%), but not your 7.0 pure worshippers. Except devoutness consists of the purely mechanical feeding considerations I detailed above, in that case okayed.
> "The average number of points lost to a contracted stat-zapping disease is
> 1+100/(CON*N), where N is the "tenacity" fudge-factor. Thus is depends
> entirely on the fortitude of the character on the one hand, and the
> maliciousness of the ref on the other. A tenacity-1 disease will handily
> kill off a CON 10, <affected stat> 10 character more often than not."
> Is this system from RQAiG? As I have stated before, I do not yet have RQAiG,
> so I must restrict my observations of Glorantha (as must 99% of those who
> play RQ) to RQ2 and RQ3.
No, it is straight RQ3. CON*5 you get for lying in bed, with a nurse caring for all your needs. Most diseases are contracted in the outskirts, where CON*3 is granted if you're moved around in anything less comfortable than a sedan chair or left lying in your sleeping roll without a tent. Characters defending themselves sink to CON*2, and if they are wounded in the process, to CON*1. Rather bleak chances for someone in Vulture Country exposed to one of Muriah's minion...
> "But my point was that whatever stats you do lose needs a one-use spell to
> be healed back. And if after a few untreated exposures, you can easily
> get yourself dead, and unresurrectable."
Two seasons you could have sed for survival skills, or for Rune level training. Half a year of your life's experience annihilated. How does this sound?
And some characteristics aren't trainable; brain fever is a special terror.
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Fri 10 Oct 2003 - 01:35:50 EEST