Nick Brooke wrote:
>
> It seems to me that the Misapplied Worship Rules were originally meant
> simply to prevent characters having access to more than one magic system,
> and that they do a good job of this. If my reading is right, then any one
> character can *only* perform one kind of worship (sacrifice, veneration,
> asceticism, or ecstatic worship): it costs twice as much to get any benefits
> from an entity to whom this is an alien worship pattern, and the powers you
> get are the same kind you're used to (i.e: affinities/feats for theists,
> grimoires/spells for sorcerers, traditions/spirits for animists).
Yes, you only get ONE ruleset. You can't do the others. If you start using the others, you have to join that magic set and leave your previous one. I thnk this is covered in the rules under Magic and changing systems.
> Mind you, HW p.167 says there are "theists who practice ecstatic worship in
> addition to sacrifice", which I don't pretend to understand. Maybe it's a
> loosely worded way of saying, "some theistic cultures include unusual
> individuals who practice ecstatic worship instead of sacrifice (e.g.
> Kolating shamans among the theistic Orlanthi; Jakaleeli shamans among the
> theistic Lunars)"? Let's hope so.
I think that it means that there are some supposed theists who practice animist magics. The Kolati are *accepted* shamen and spirit talkers in the normally Theistic Orlanthi way of life. I suspect that their clansmen help otu at ceremonies and get some benifits of their spiritual powers.
> Example Q: Greg Stafford, brought up as a Catholic (sorcerous,
> veneration), "changes his religion" in later life to become a
> practising Shaman (animist, ecstatic worship). Is he therefore
> performing Misapplied Veneration, paying three or four times the
> price for every ability he develops -- and these abilities come
> from venerating the spirits, which yields grimoires and spells but
> *not* a bona fide Shamanic Tradition with its associated spirits?
I think he'd have trouble with the Catholic Otherworld. I'm a Scientist myself. So I'd have a LOT of trouble in either. But lets wander quietly and calmly away from the RL.... or at least, try to avoid hairsplitting.
I think the person would have changedtheir belief cycle and started over again. No otherworld penalties for the new system but the old one might as well have never been -- or worse, would have a mad on for our apostate.
> Moreover, when he goes to the Other Side, is he crossing into a
> particularly dangerous "false node" on the Spirit Plane, which
> bona fide Spirits are doing their utmost to destroy?
IF he's changed systems, no. If he's just 'misapplied' then yes. A theist, even missapplied anismist worship, is still a theist. You have to make a complete break.
> Or is there some way he could have changed magic systems? If he
> were a HW character, what would be the cost (in hero points and
> lost abilities) of doing this? Is it at all common, or is Greg
> Stafford an exceptional -- nay, heroic! -- individual to have
> achieved this in the first place?
Yes, you can change magic systems. its rough to do though. Its called Illumination or enlightemment. Or being one of those wacky Lunars.
> Somewhere along the way (pre-publication), the Misapplied Worship rules seem
> to have become assimilated into a half-hearted One-True-World crusade, with
> the unfortunate result that if (say) Urox the Storm Bull can effectively be
> sacrificed to as a theistic entity by divine cultists in Sartar, he *can't*
> also receive ecstatic worship as a great spirit from the animist traditions
> of Prax, without the rules being visibly bent to allow this as a "very
> special case" (only allowable at the Block, or in the Eternal Battle, or
> when there's an R in the month...).
Um, more on that later. I don't know if there's a one true world, but I do think there's some bleed off between the two, convergent evolution as it were, of magical entities.
> Now, to me, this parallel worship by different cultures in different modes
> is no more problematical than having Elmal, Yelm and Yu-Kargzant (to name
> but three) all worshipped as the Sun God -- with Yu-Kargzant, a Great
> Spirit, receiving Correctly Applied Worship from his Animist Tradition, and
> having a bona fide residence on the Spirit Plane to boot. The literalism
> that has led to the Storm Bull/Urox confusion would surely have required the
> Yu-Kargzant Tradition to be classed as misapplied ecstatic worship of a god,
> yielding a double-cost tradition. (Or, if the Dara Happans are "wrong"...
> :-)
Or, they are what they are. The Animist perception of the great sun spirit and the theist preception of the Glorious Yelm.
> As Jonas and others say, perhaps the worst example is the way that Praxian
> Shamans, worshipping Praxian Spirits, in a Praxian manner, in Prax, should
> apparently get whacked by Misapplied Worship penalties. This is just plain
> silly. I cannot believe the rules on HW p.247 ("Sacrificing to Spirit
> Entities") are intended to cover the case where Praxians worship the Frog
> Woman (etc.). IMO this is what would happen if Heortling theists were to
> offer sacrifices to Thunder Bird, or Gagarth the Wild Hunter of Prax: they'd
> get affinities and feats similar to those of the spirits, only at double
> cost.
They'd get related affinities and feats at double cost, yes. At least, that's how I'd play it.
> BTW, how do you create a Misapplied Worshipper during character generation?
> Is it as simple as just dividing the standard ability values for every
> "misapplied" ability by two (or three, depending)?
You can do it by saying you do it.
There are a few examples in the text which can serve. I like the St. Tarurox (i think), the Sorcerous version of Storm Bull/ Urox. They are just plain wonky.
Jeff
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