First off, in the smithy thread, Daniel Fahey noted:
> I don't believe in travelling smiths. Why would a metal worker travel? How
> would a metal worker carry all that equipment and hundreds of pounds of
metal
> around?
Depending on how metal-rich your Glorantha is, you might be able to sort of reverse the equation; rather than smiths travelling around with lots of metals, they instead move from metal source to metal source as they are "discovered" or "exploited". A slightly different tack might be to make a distinction between unworked metals and pre-worked metals, if you feel that's necessary to justify a class of travelling smiths; a village or clan (thinking Orlanthi for the moment) might find a cache of unworked metals and put out the word that they need an expert/magical smith. This might be seen as a bit of an insult to the local horseshoe- and nail-maker, but if metals are really the "bones of the gods" (or even if they're just _perceived_ to be such), then magical and ritual requirements might justify the existence of travelling "magician" smiths. In addition, AFAIK Bronze and Iron Age forges and metalworking techniques were very different from "modern" ones; admittedly furnaces, kilns and forges weren't portable, but they were often constructed _at the site_, and sometimes were rebuilt wholly or partially after each task. IMO what marks the smith as special is his or her _knowledge_, not his or her _equipment_.
On a completely different topic, David Cake writes:
>But does worship imply initiation? I think everyone agrees that
>worship implies initiation into something, but if the bulk of the
>population is initiated into an associated cult of Yelm, does that count as
>worship?....[snip].... Simply put - what counts as worship? We can include
in that
>question what do we need to maintain a temple, what is an associated
>initiate expected to do, what exactly does 'initiation into a pantheon'
>mean in terms of cult rituals, and how does the concept mean in terms of
>our old concept of an initiate?...[etc.]
Good questions and speculations, IMO. Some quick (if longish) comments. First off, it actually seems to me that there should really be two general types of cults, “open” cults and “initiated” cults. Belonging to an “open” cult would mostly be contingent on being an accepted member of the temple’s community (clan, tribe, village, city) in good standing -- making a distinction between "participation" and "initiation", if you will. If you are born a farmer in an Orlanthi village, it seems to me that you would participate in the worship of the broader form of Orlanth and/or Barntar pretty much automatically upon becoming an adult member of the community. A young girl in such a village would presumably be an automatic "worshipper" of Voria, until passing the threshold into adulthood, at which time presumably she would join in the festivities dedicated to Ernalda.
While priests might dedicate themselves exclusively to the cult of a single deity, most members of a community would seemingly be expected to participate in ceremonies dedicated to a whole host of divinities; this seems to have been the case, frex, in ancient Greece and Rome, and I think Egypt. For the average member of a general community, a general _calendar_ of religious and cultic activity seems to have been more important than the pursuit of a specific cultic path, so in thinking of the concept of "pantheon initiation", perhaps I could suggest the notion of establishing both communal religious calendars -- a series of expected/required festivals and rituals in which communities participate (and similar to the Garhound festival and the river heroquest in _SC_, it might be possible to set up a calendar of events which have specific consequences for a community depending on the "success" of each ritual event) -- and a "lifeline" calendar -- a series of festivals and rituals for the individual, as they go through cultural thresholds such as adulthood and marriage -- rather than individual cult write-ups. What would be needed there, instead, would be descriptions of how one becomes a priest/lord/acolyte of a god, how one "dedicates" oneself to a specific cultic path (though I suppose this risks reducing the priesthood to a profession, though that might not be all bad). In addition, there could be prayers, sacrifices, and rituals available to just about anyone (of variable efficacy) -- e.g., the prayer/sacrifice to Issaries before a journey? -- and those that required the participation of an actual priest/ess.
(Another way of looking at it, though, might be to in effect describe a community's agglomeration of deities as one _big_ cult, with subcults of each _individual_ deity available for interested parties; sort of experimenting with something like that for the KoW, haven't decide whether it works yet).
OTOH, there do seem to be cults or subcults in which the concept of "initiation", in the sense of exposure to a special set of rituals or knowledge, seems appropriate. Initiated cults would seem to have tiers of power and socioreligious duties, following a “ladder” of initiation and revelation; essentially, they could be considered “mystery cults”, with Secret Cult Lore (a la Michael's suggestion, I think) available to those who have satisfied the requirements for indoctrination into the higher levels of the cult’s organization. Cults as variable as Orlanth Rex, the Orlanthi Weapon subcults and other warriors-only cults, Yelm Imperator, and Krarsht could all fall into this category -- in this category I would include cults or divinities which a) require some sort of _special_ knowledge or achievement in order for membership, and b) to some extent seem more aimed at the _individual_, rather than the community at large.
As a final note, it also seems to me that the current cult structure also makes it very difficult to incorporate propitiatory sacrifices and rituals; ancient Greek and Roman religious calendars had any number of appeasement and/or binding festivals and rituals, frex, aimed at dangerous divinities. The thread on Malia from a little while back strikes me as a good example of this problem; calendrical or even non-calendrical offerings to appease or bind Malia (or "Corn Spirits", or Bad Ice Storms, or the gods of invading nomads, or whatever) seem to make sense for a community, but at the moment it's impossible to describe such a thing without making folks actually "join" the cult in question, which IMO is _not_ the same thing.
I will fully admit I haven't given much thought to what this would all mean for divine magic, but then again I kind of lean toward a RunePower sort of thing anyway. Just some thoughts, feel free to ignore.
Mark
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