An Aspect of Orlanth is a major grouping of Subcults with related features. Orlanth Adventurous is Orlanth as a young man - fighting, loving, traveling. Once he met Ernalda, he kept some of his old ways, but became Orlanth AllFather- the social aspect of Orlanth. Orlanth Thunderous is Orlanth taking over the the Primal Storm job from his dad, Umath.
What we did rules-wise with the Aspects and Subcults was to split up the affinities: An Aspect gives two affinities shared by all the subcults under it. A subcult provides one affinity, but may *also* provide aditional Feats for affinities from the aspect. A Subcult is a specific focus of an Aspect, and is usually (much more than Orlanthi All) worshipped as a single entity -"Destor Adventurous", "Helamakt Thunderous". All people who worship through the Adventurous aspect gain Movement and Combat as part of the "package". Allfather provides "Allfather" and "Making", Thunderous provides "Storm" and "Wind". They then get the one affinity from their subcult, for a total of three Affinities, plus (,maybe) some bonus feats in one of the "aspect" affinities.
You *can* worship a subcult through an aspect that isn't the "normal" one - If you really want to have a Weather-Controlling Farmer, you could worship "Orlanthcarl Thunderous". Instead of Allfather, Making and Farming as your affinities, you'd get Wind, Storm and Farming. This sort of worship is probably seen as "kinda strange", and is usually on a Clan level, rather than an individual one ("The Greyrock clan has always worshipped Vanganth Thunderous - they enjoy creating storms and flying in them"), but an individual may feel the "Call of the God" in strange ways - this is a recognized fact among the heortlings.
> 1) Minar decides that he wants to be an initiate of the Orlanth
> Adventurous subcult of Ormalaya the Hunter, giving him the Affinities
> of Hunting and Movement. Does he also get the Orlanth Adventurous
> Affinities of Combat and Movement? Or does he become an initiate of
> both the aspect and the subcult? Would his Movement affinities be
> combined?
Minar gets Movement, Combat and Hunting as affinities. That "Movement" affinity under Ormalayla isn't an Affinity, it's extra feats in OA's "Movement" affinity. There is slight typograhical clue: The hunting Affinity has Parentheses around it's feats, while the Movement one lists "Movement feats:". If you have OA's Movement affinity (and are a Devotee, of course), then Ormalayla has a couple bonus Movement feats for you. If you are Ormalayla Thunderous, you don't get the Movement feats of Ormalayla as part of an affinity. (You can probably pick them up as Stand-alone feats though.)
> 2) Minar's brother Morgan decides to initiate to Niskis the Lover,
> which provides the Affinities of Sensuality and Movement, and Finovan
> the Raider, which provides Raiding and Combat. Both are subcults of
> Orlanth Adventurous; are they considered to be members of Orlanth
> Adventurous, too?
Yes. Note that Niskiss provides "Sensuality" as his affinity, Finovan has "Raiding". the Combat and Movement lines are additional feats to Orlanth Adv.'s Movement and Combat affinities.
> 3) Their brother Magan decides to join the OA subcult of Vanganth the
> Flyer, with Flight and Movement affinities, and also the Orlanth
> Thunderous subcult of Daylanus the Conquering Wind, which provides the
> Affinities of Fight Elements and Wind. What is his relationship to OA
> and OT? Does he receive any of their affinities?
It depends - he has to chose an aspect *first* - let's say Adventurous,
because you listed it first.
>From his Aspect he'd get OA's Combat & Movement,
Vanganth's Flight plus the additional feat in Movement
Daylanus' Fight elements but *not* Wind (he could pick up those individual
feats, though)
He *could* go for dual initiation to Adventurous & Thunderous, or Initiation/Devotion. In that case he *would* pick up the Aspect affinities of Thundrous. If he is a Dual-Initiate, he'd pick up only the Affinities, not the feats, of both aspects and both subcults. If he's a Devotee of Adventurous/Initiate of Thunderous he'd pick up the Affinities & Feats of Vanganth + Adventurous, but only the Affinities of Daylanus + Thunderous.
> 4) Minaryth, the father of Minar, Magan, and Morgan, is a Devotee of
> Helamakt the Fighting Storm, an OT subcult. He has the Combat and
> Storm affinities; does he also get Storm and Wind through OT? Is he
> considered an Initiate of OT, or is his status with that cult something
> else?
He is a Devotee of "Helemakt Thunderous" - he gets affinties & feats for Combat, Wind, Storm.
> 5) Minaryth's brother Miran is a Devotee of Orlanth Adventurous, but
> doesn't belong to any particular subcult. Is this uncommon, or is it
> discouraged?
Normal practice is to worship a Subcult "through" an aspect, picking up three affinities. You may worship *just* an aspect (getting only two affinties), or *just* a subcult (only getting one affinity) but it is very uncommon, (more than orlanthi "all" worship the Aspect+Subcult way). whtehr it is actively discouraged - I don't think there is more than a "why can't you make up your mind?" attached to it, because the Orlanthi recognize that a person can be called by a god in strange ways.
> Thanks in advance for any insights. Sorry if I'm retreading old
> territory.
No problem.
RR
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