>From: "Roderick and Ellen Robertson" <rjremr_at_...>
>
> > But since the religion is predominantly
> > theist, instead the "baseline" keyword for the religion is "Communal
> > Worshipper of the Storm Pantheon."
>
>Right. However, the final form of the writeup isn't done yet, Greg and I
>are
>still wrangling some things, so I don't want to get too specific just yet.
>Also a lot of this is my own personal beliefs, and not (yet) part of the
>rules. Just keep these caveats in mind throughout all my answers...
I gotcha. I'm only trying to establish the basics of how it should work generally, not any specifics of a particular religion. Heck, you could write in any exception you wanted. I'm just wondering what the "baseline" way to handle mixing in religions is.
> > Here's the real question. Can heortlings with the Communal Worshipper of
>the
> > Storm Pantheon take the five free charms that the Kolating spiritist
> > (theoretical though he might be) would normally get?
>
>It's *very* much story dependent. I'd require that he have a relationship
>with someone that can make those charms for him. Basically, that he be part
>of a "Spirit-Born" family, and we assume Dad or Uncle Kari made them for
>him. A typical heortling (say, Orlathi All Heortlings) wouldn't have access
>to someone like that.
Ah, but the animist part of the tradition does have tradition spirits likely? When it comes down to it, there's really no difference between a practice spirit in a charm and a tradition spirit in a charm, except for the fact that spiritists are supposed to get the five tradition charms. But, from what you're saying here, the character is mechanically and magically "entitled" to these charms, they're just not likely to get them because of social reasons.
> >Almost more
> > importantly, do they know each others myths?
>
>Yes - as much as any communal member knows myths. (Remember that one of the
>Heortling 28 Holy days, Good Winds Day, is dedicated to Kolat). They know
>that Kolat is a Son of Umath, so brother to Orlanth. They know that he is a
>spirit, not a god (and thus, "kinda wierd, you know", but he's at the same
>level of wierdness as, say, Heler from the enemy Water tribe or Elmal from
>the enemy Fire tribe). He fought the Monster Shaman Karjaken, and saved the
>Storm tribe from defeat at the hands of Spirits, etc. But they certainly
>have no knowledge of "cult secret information", just like they have no clue
>about what goes on in Humakt's Hall, or the Weaving Chamber, or any other
>"inner ceremonies".
Of course. Just what a 17 in "Know Myths" will getcha.
> > Generally, when a mix occurs, is there a full "tree" for each sort of
>magic,
> > or do the odd branches spread out from a single basic worship?
>
>I don't think we can get *too* general here, and have to look at each
>religion as it comes up.
No doubt. But I'm looking for a guideline for when these things have not been specified as to how to apply them. That is, we know that there are these Kolating folks that are nominally in the Heortling religion. The question becomes what, if any, impact does that have on the Heortling character? And we've discovered that it means a few things at least...
>[Modifier] Theist is fine for me, except that all religions are [Modified]
>[Religion]s, making the modifier an extra bit of verbage put on everything.
>You go from the Almost Pure-Theist Heortlings to the Really Mixed Teshnans.
>But trying to nail down where on the line you should put [Modifier] is a
>fool's game :-). I *certainly* don't want to see rules on what to call the
>modifier for a religion: "If there are at least 1/3, but no more than 1/2
>spirits in the pantheon, then you should call it Ani-Theist" AGGH!
Gah, no. Certainly not.
But most important is the question of what the basic religion keyword represents in terms of abilities for the starting character. That is, does it give you the ability to call on gods for divine aid, or 5 tradition spirits? That's key. My point is saying "Baseline Theist" means that unless the player says otherwise, the assumption is that the "Worshipper of Storm Pantheon" religion keyword that comes with the Heortling keyword allows praying for divine aid, and not 5 tradition charms. As opposed to some other religon which might be mixed otherwise, and be "Baseline Wizardry" allowing blessings from the local liturgist.
> > Does this sound right to you? Or have I missed it again? In any case,
>this
> > all sounds like a lot of fun. The mixed religions seem like they would
>give
> > you a lot of options for complex character belief.
>
>Sure, at least as long as you don't go all 30%er (or 60%er) and get tied
>down to a particular entity.
Are you sure about that?
If it's allowed in theory for a communal worshipper Heortling to have Kolating tradition spirits (however unusual), then why couldn't an initiate of Destor do the same? Concentration would, of course, preclude this as would any sort of keyword that required concentration. But why 30%ing?
But here's the thing (and I think what's really been bugging me all along about the whole mixing thing). If it's not possible for an initiate or similar to get animist magic, then what's the impediment against concentration? The touted line for why one might not concentrate is so that you maintain your ability to spread out to the other realms of magic. But if it's turns out that that only means that you can't take any common magic outside of your selected realm, if you're already precluded from taking any abilities at all outside of your realm, then that's almost no limitation at all. Why not instead just have one set of costs, and just say that people at higher than the intro levels just had to take all their common magic from the "right" realm?
Mike
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