In the Keywords section of HW it says something along the lines of 'urban Dara Happans are not usually devotees of any one god'. This to me raises a few questions: 1. Is everyone in Glorantha at least an initiate of at least one god? Working on the presumption that the answer to #1 is 'no', my next question is: 2. Why not? It appears that there's no game benefit of not being an initiate. Is this simply an imperfection in how HW reflects Glorantha? Or is there really no benefit in Glorantha to just being a lay worshipper? To me, it seems that there should be some sort of 'lay worshipper' privileges - some minor but extremely broad magic that most people in a society have access to. This would reflect the RW household/common worship of the sort that you see in most pantheistic religions - where you say a prayer to the rain god if the crops are dry, pour a libation for the wine god when the new wine is opened, etc. My general suggestion would be that, in game terms, this would be reflected as a contest vs. the character's 'Worship (Pantheon)' attribute, with appropriate high improvisation modifiers. This would then allow access to the main attributes of the main gods of the pantheon. So, for example, a Lunar, say an initiate of Etyries, could, in the heat of battle, call on the aid of Yanafal Tarnils, even if he isn't an initiate of YT. If he wanted to augment his close combat, he could try for an augmentation at, say, -10 to -15 or so. Long term regular activities - like pouring libations from the new wine, etc - could be reflected as community rituals. The 'commitment level' would be a function of how dutifully all the members of the community follow the restrictions. What do you all think? Regards, Theo
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