>Just my two cents here, but I would likely allow her relationship
>Initiative of Skovara (we're talking about an Ernalda subcult here)
>and her Bless Mothers affinity to be used.
Oops, and here I was trying to come up with a female divinity that wasn't mother related. :-)
>I'd be reluctant to let you use your relationship with the
>Temple of Vinga as an augment.
Of course not. So I got that one correct for the example.
> > Given reproductive drive, I'd think that the majority of women
>would be
> > members of the mother goddesses temples if this was beneficial to
>birthing.
>
>And for the Orlanthi, this is true. Most (85%) women are Ernaldans.
I supposed I should just have asked that.
What I was trying to get at was a systematic way of determining whether or not birth would affect choice of divinity or not, given the mechanics. That is, are Orlanthi woman 85% Ernaldans because of the birth benefits, or are those benefits available to all? Get my drift? What I'm saying is that it seems to me that if we use the mechanics suggestes that benefits mostly accrue from having a relationship to the appropriate members of the religion, that this then must explain the reason why 85% of women are Ernaldan. The benefits are just potentially to great to ignore.
Now, if the Ernaldans attended to everyone in the culture, relationship or no, then one would not have to join to get the benefits, and the 85% would have to be because of something else (just attractive to women in general or something).
Make sense? If, indeed women have to be members to get the bonuses, then I think that makes the Ernaldan cult very powerful in some ways. Capable of influencing things in a very potent way. Don't do what the cult wants, and your wife has a much greater chance to die, and you'll have less progeny. That's hard to ignore. Imagine that hospitals could turn you away just because you didn't have a relationship with them. You'd work hard to set up that relationship.
Interesting.
Mike
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