Re: RuneQuest Daily, Wed, 13 Jul 1994, part 2

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From: DevinC@aol.com
Date: Wed 13 Jul 1994 - 22:02:29 EEST


Devin Cutler here:

Joerg writes:

"I like the overall description of this, but I doubt that this is what
happens to the worshippers as a mass"

Why not? If Orlanth is omnipresent enough to DI several places simultaneously or to caretake the winds all over Glorantha, then certainly he can send a tiny piece of his admittedly awesome essence into ALL of the worshippers at the HHD ceremonies. I imagine the contact times for each worshipper need to be long, perhaps it would feel merely as if a cool breeze had blown through the bodies of each worshipper.

"Worshippers gain POW on HHDs? Wasn't it just the officiating priest who
channels the vast amount of life force to the deity?"

In the Worship (Deity) Divine Magic description, it clearly states that Initiates of a cult who worship at HHD ceremonies where a Priest casts Worship (Deity) and successfully makes his ceremony roll, then ALL of the Initiates gain a POW gain roll.

"Rather the willingness of the worshipper to give up some of her excess
life force (aka MP) to give to the deity."

No, I meant the devoutness. If Lhankor Mhy can read minds unbidden (via his magicks), then certainly a god who has been invited into a worshipper's body, mind, and soul by that selfsame worshipper can do same, especially with matters that relate directly to that god.

"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."

No, I say the worshipper must invite the god into himself and open up himself entirely to the god (it is almost a test of trust, since the worshipper is allowing himself to be possessed by the god and anything could happen to him). The god will not give the worshipper any benefits until this act of opening is completed.

"Nice and colourful, but even if true, does not contain any mind police,
except for very favoured worshippers."

Why not? It seems, given the lack of "official" material on this subject, that either viewpoint is valid.

"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."

And this really hearkens back to that basic of all questions: Do worshippers create the deity? I say no...you say yes.

"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."

Then this approach depends upon one's interpretation regarding how much personality rubs off, and what exactly is included in personality.

"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."

I would imagine that the god first picks up emotions. Yes, almost every worshipper will have the awe and fear you describe. But if the god senses too much fear, he will investigate further. Or if he senses resistance or defiance.

"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..."

This would seem to be a hindrance for the cult, not a useful ritual. Your description makes it seem that these cleansing rituals would take someone who is tr ying to betray the cult and wash them of their betraying thoughts for a short while (during the ritual), and then the effct would wear off (after the person has passed through the ritual and is now trusted by the cult). In this case, there is all the more reason for the cult to NOT perform the cleansing ritual, which seems more like a masking ritual.

Or did I completely misunderstand your intentions (always a possibility with me ;-)? )

"Except devoutness consists of the purely mechanical feeding
considerations I detailed above, in that case okayed."

Nope. By devotedness, I mean the devotedness we have discussed off line.

"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..."

Except often times a party CAN encamp and rest for a while. Also, keep in mind that RQ3 has the silly effect of speeding up disease shake-off rolls as the disease becomes more severe. Thus, for a terminal or acute disease, you really aren't going to have to lie still for that long in order to throw the thing off (maybe from 5 minutes to an hour). Doesn't sound like too much of a problem to me. The most dangerous disease in this case is the one that lasts a day....too long to lie around still in a dangerous area, but too short to get to a CA temple.

"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?"

Of course time lost is time wasted. But two seasons is still no big deal, especially if you play in a cohesive group where the other players are willing to wait for that character to tend his ailments. Also, no big deal in campaigns that span many years at a go.

"And some characteristics aren't trainable; brain fever is a special terror."

Yup, Brain fever is alone the only disease my players fear. (oh, and the Plague from CoT, which can only be thrown off with a Con x1%).

"I rule that the recipient has to let the spirit access him unhindered,
else the spirit isn't obligated to teach its spell."

This is what I rule too.

"The rules say that initiates of the cult gain cheaper access to the
spells. While I agree with the AiG designers that access to the powerful spells is too cheap in RQ3, the possibility to buy spells from other cults than one's own has been in the rules already in 1984, in the
"DeLuxe" edition."

Please point this out exaclty for my reference. I have looked for it everywhere. RQ3 only gives rules for approaching a shaman to learn spirit magic. Otherwise, it says nothign about learning cult spirit magicks, and GoG ONLY states that one can get spirit magicks from one's cult or associated cults.

"Which means that only the caster of the control spell (which is needed to
make the spirit attack in the first place) can learn the spell. So to learn the spell from an unaligned spirit you'd need to cast Control Spell Spirit upon it. In my most benevolent days, I only allowed the summoner to try and control a spirit summoned by him with a control spell, and only one chance, as soon as the summoning is completed and the mental link to the summoned entity still exists."

I have rules that Control Spell Spirit can control the Spell Spirit to do anything, including combat and thereby teach anyone the Control caster desires. Also, I allow the Controller to cast the spell until the Summoned Spirit regains its senses (by rolling POW x1% as per the Summoning RQ3 rules).

"(Once I had a runaway shaman aprentice turned thief in my campaign who
tried to access spirit magic exactly this way. The rest of the party was quite busy to find exorcists...)"

But Spell Spirits cannot possess. I believe it says this in the Creatures Section under psiirts (I am at work and do not have my RQ stuff handy).

"So the spell spirit conveying the spirit spell Summon Spell Spirit has
to be learned this cheating way as well? Or did the shrine's attendant start to worship the spell spirit in order to make it more willing to serve the cult? In this case, you get a fully fledged spirit cult attached to the shrine, and to learn the spell you'd have to sacrifice 1 POW for initiation. Attractive enough for worshippers who have no alternative, I'd expect, but more costly than the regular way of going to a non-hostile temple and paying too much."

The cheating way, of course :-)

"The expellation of disease spirits can be done with a compliment of
healing spirits. Since the disease spirit is embodied, the healing spirits can take turns to soften it up."

Or just use spirit-affecting magicks.

"Getting to the CA priestess through the wilderness is the trick. And the
healing spirit must be rested, the Spirit Block must be ready, "

Yes, there are always mitigating factors. But I like there to be a bit of risk AFTER the party makes it to the CA temple. I don't like the "OK, we made it to the CA temple, everything is automatically better" routine.

"One paragraph lower the penalty for not staying in bed (a bad idea in a
broo infected ruin, IMO) is detailed."

See my paragraph earlier for lying in bed.

"When you travel to the temple, you wear your best outfit, at least on the
last stage of the trip when you present the damned gift to the priesthood. This is a lot different from cowboying..."

Indeed, so about 1/2km outside of town, you tie up your cow and change in the bushes, and then lead your cow triumphantly into town. Better yet, one of your children leads the cow into town, with you walking ahead of it in your finery, perhaps even riding on a mule or pony.

Alex writes:

"Doesn't seem to have much to do with Performing the Ritual, for one thing."

You're right, the performance of the ritual (the dances and chants and all of the other mechanistic gew-gaws) serve only to elevate the gathering into contact with the deity being worshipped. It is sort of a summon deity spell.

"Essentially, you're arguing that gods do, and can know their worshippers
minds, but not invasively, it just happens to be compulsory. "

Compulsory to getting something in return from the god...yes!

" This is at

least against the spirit of what we've been told about about the general lack of such knowledge. I can't actually think of a "mechanism" which does this sort of thing, off the top of my head; Mindlink and possession by spirits don't work on a subconcious level, at least."

I seem to remember an old WF that stated that gods do know the minds of their Runelevel worshippers. I think it may have been in the same issue that spoke of DI and Divination.

In any case, Truespeak and Mindread certainly approach or exceed this ability.

"I agree with (the part of) your statement about the ritual entering the
Godplane, but not that it'd constitute "possession" by the god in the sense you imply."

Difference in style, then.

"And if the god is Personally Present during the ritual, in a sentient,
conscious way, in Real Time, how does he fail to notice all the people thinking "Faltikus, the evilluminatedioussoundingbajiriddling bastard", Krogar elbowing him of of the way in the middle of the ceremony, etc, even if he's not able to sense his Naughtily Collaborating Thoughts directly? Is this consistent with the "true" rumour that Illumination is not a Chaotic deception, but a genuine revelation about the nature of Glorantha?"

I doubt a god would listen to the whinings of his worshippers viz a viz other worshippers. Otherwise, we get a situation wherein a group of ambitious priests who want to overthrow the high priest merely think bad thoughts about him during HHD. I would imagine the god only reads thoughts concerning devotion to him by that worshipper.

In any case, what is to stop a god from punishing an Illuminate when, during Divination, the High Priest voices his suspicions to the god?

"I don't see what's ambiguous about it. It's not specific as to what the
"real" Deezola cult is like, though. (Nor was CoP, of course.)"

Well, CoP gives the subcult of Deezola Reusable Resurrection. GoG does not specifically say one way or the other. This seems to bring forth an ambiguity.

"I think the problem is rather that there's no clear _incentive_ for him to
have a high POW. If it were, for example, necessary in order to officiate at ceremonies, as vaguely implied by RQ2, problem solved. That this wouldn't allow him quite the same rate of POW gain through adventuring as RQ2 doesn't bother me overmuch."

I would also like to see incentives for keeping POW high. But I would also like to see a mechanism for gaining POW that is not dependent upon current POW level.

"RQ2ism. Everyone's chance in RQ3 is the same. ("That really sucks too",
says Devin.)"

Yep, I looked this up yesterday and realized that I have been erroneously holding over the Priests get +4 POW gain chance from RQ2.

"I certainly haven't. Why so? I'd have thought the reverse, since for
other cults the Sacred Time is then an additional worship ceremony."

Normal Cult Priest gets one POW gain roll at seasonal HD and one at HHD. Most cults have a seasonal HD which IS the HHD, meaning 5 POW gain rolls per year (or do you count ST as a season?).

ST cults get 5 seasonal HD AND their separate ST HHD.

"Note that you should count not just those _in_ Pavis, but any initiates in
the "catchment area". That is, anyone who worships there on the Holy Days. If there aren't about 100 CA initiates in the area of Pavis county and nearby Prax, they're in rather bad shape. (Certainly by RQ3 temple size rules.)"

True, but there would be other CA Rune Levels out there as well.

"Bigger deal if it's an untrainable stat, at least. (INT, SIZ. POW is going
to be unpleasant even if Restore Health is (otherwise) available.) And your argument is specific to the CONx5% type of disease, and ignores more severe strains, and spirits of disease."

Haven't seen a disease that affects Size. Have you one in your campaign? Post it.

Yes, Brain Fever is an unholy terror.

Loren writes:

"1. If the god of the cult puts a little piece of itself into *every*
initiate *every* time there's a worship ceremony and learns *everything* that the initiate has thought and done, then what else can the gods be doing? They aren't omnipresent and omniscient. That's YHWH's trick."

How do they do all of those DI's? How does Orlanth manage every wind or zephyr? The question is not that I think Orlanth is absolutely Omni anything, but that he is powerful enough to send pieces of himself (or maybe even helping spirits, windfists, flintslingers, etc.) to the ceremonies. After all, the fact that ALL worshippers can gain POW on HHD means something is happening on a wide scale.

"2. Divination isn't free from error. Far from it. But if the gods
actually understood what people actually thought to the extent that this implies then they'd never have any trouble making themselves clear to their oracles... let alone make mistakes about worshippers. "

I can't believe that when the priest of Orlanth asks: "Oh Orlanth, was there a storm in Carmania last Windsday?"

That Orlanth has ANY trouble figuring out what the priest is asking. Mistaken Divinations are completely the fault of the priest in interpreting the answer, not the god's fault in understanding the question.

"3. Free Will is pretty important in our world, in the games we play in
Glorantha, and I think it's important in Glorantha too. If initiates give up their ability to make mistakes, act evil, and keep secrets then they lose their Free Will. According to Greg, the only entities in Glorantha that have definitely lost their Free Will are the gods, *not* their worshippers."

Where is free will lost? Did anyone force these people to worship a deity to whom they could not be devout. They had a pot pourri of gods to worship and made a free choice. If they don't want the god mucking around in their body and soul, they simply become an atheist, a sorceror, a shaman, or they don't sac for Divine Magic. My system is merely a free exchange. The worshipper says "I want...."
 the god says " I want ......".

Also, I would imagine that the god can only sense large betrayals and undevotedness. The god wouldn't sense, even less give a crud about, someone not lighting the proper candle on Godday night, or even not tithing his full 10%. On the other hand, a Cacodemon worshipper trying to pass off as an Orlanthi and trying to partake in the HHD ceremonies or gain Divine Magic is going to have problems.

"That's three reasons why you should reject Devin's theology for your
own Glorantha."

That's three reason why you should not reject my theology for your own Glorantha.

Regards,

Devin Cutler
devinc@aol.com

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