Yanafals is a many splendoured thing

From: David Cake <davidc_at_cyllene.uwa.edu.au>
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 17:38:24 +0800

Andrew Joelson
> Ther have been a lot of interesting comments on Yanafal; so I will
>add a little more. The peole who follow Yanafal via the Seven Mothers
>look more like Humakti than the one in the Red Army.

        First, I would just like to point out that there was some debate on this point, and Andrew and I obviously continue to disagree. I will first mention that in rules terms, the exact opposite is true. Worshipping Yanafal via the Seven Mothers cult description is at best one rune spell different to being a member of the Seven Mothers in general, while those who follow Yanafals in the Red Army are presumably following something like Nicks unpublished YT writeup, which is rather more Humakt like. For example, the Yanafals cult is the one with the geases, which Seven Mothers cultists can not take (or at least, they are nowhere mentioned in the cult description and I wouldn't let them take one).*

        Personally, I think that the Humakti who convert to the worship of YT do NOT join 'the Seven Mothers', but instead are typically professional soldiers of the Humakt cult who convert to the professional soldier cult of the Empire - which is the Red Armies YT cult, NOT the Seven Mothers YT adherents. The YT adherents within the Seven Mothers are still primarily religious functionaries, probably mostly army chaplains.

        Seven Mothers, is a cult of missionaries and so on. Why would a professional soldier (or wannabe) in the Humakt cult join a cult of missionaries? Instead, they join the same Yanafals cult that the Lunar officers are in.

        Now, the Seven Mothers cultists and the Sartarite Yanafali may have more in common with each other culturally than either has with the Heartlands Yanafali - but I still think the Lunar warrior cult is the same everywhere.

        Now, there is the issue that the Yanafali cult in the Heartland doesn't look much like what an Orlanthi Humakti would think of as Humakt, Andrew. I thoroughly agree with you there. But then again, bear in mind that Humakt in Ralios or Esrolia doesn't look much like what a Sartarite Humakti would think of as Humakt either. The differences are mostly cultural. Besides, one of the reasons that the barbarian warriors are introduced to the cult of Yanafals is to get them thinking like proper Lunar warriors.

        It may seem that I am mostly ranting about rules issues here (that what Andrew refers to as 'Seven Mothers' Yanafals has nothing to do with the Seven Mothers cult at all) but I think its more than that. For example, I think Yanafali geases are not something Seven Mothers cultists have - that would be following the path of one mother and discarding the ways of the other 6, as virtually all Yanafals geases would be contrary to the path of at least one of the other mothers.

        I thoroughly agree with Nick that it is practically impossible to be a Lunar Officer (or, indeed, in many Lunar regiments at all) without being at least a lay member of the cult of Yanafals Tarnils.

        Cheers

                David

• there is a third alternative, which is that there are THREE cults. There is the Seven Mothers cult, which has a Yanafals sub-cult, who work like the Seven Mothers cult a la GOG. There is the Red Army cult, which probably works like Nick says it does. And there is a third cult, which is just like Humakt only Lunar. Personally, I don't see why you would have three. Just imagine that they let some barbarians who used to be Humakti into the Red Army cult, and the third cult naturally emerges as a barbarian flavour.

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