Thanks, everyone, it looks like we've got the mishmash of "yes, but..", "yes, sometimes", and "it depends" that I thought we had. Tendencies rather than absolutes. Fine.
Rob Davies, of all people, points out:
> For example, Kallyr
> Starbrow is an Initiate and I don't think my Devotee of Hedkoranth
> could tell her to go and fetch him another flaggon of mead or
> whatever. I'd like to see him try!!! ;^)
Well he's the wrong cult, for one thing, but it was Rob's game in WhiteWall where the players came as close as we're likely to see to doing just that :) Not based on religious ranking, either.
I think we've retrieved a reason for PCs to become Devotees even after the difference in what they can do better than initiates has been watered down so much from HW: as Darren said,
"Most devotees will have support of initiates or initiates as their followers at some point."
The "can order initiates around" factor may not be absolute, but it isn't zero, either.
And I suspect that if a strange Devotee turned up saying "Orlanth has given me a vision! We must go on a quest to...XXX immediately!" then the initiate leaders would take him seriously. Far more so than they would for an initiate trying the same thing. But he'd better be telling the truth about the vision, or Orlanth will be Very Upset.
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