Re: Thundermills was Windmills

From: rmv1_at_...
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 13:00:50 -0000

[Ian Cooper responds to Orlanth Allfather and the Miller subcult.]
> Creativity is often founded in the interplay of ideas, so in
> a positive, not flaming, spirit I'll continue to put forward a
> different position to see if we cannot inspire each other or
> provide alternatives for anyone who wishes to see windmills in
> the their games.

Of course! That's the point of this list. As you said, YMMV.

> My Thunderous suggestion comes from a number of factors
> a: The Wind Temple. The Wind Temple is shown on the Dragon Pass
> map as a windmill. Stylistic it may be, but the image was
> sufficient to inspire us on this windmill thread. And TR makes
> that a Thunderous cult centre. Therefore in a leap of one small
> piece of evidence to a whole I assume that windmills are
> particulalry sacred to Orlanth Thunderous.
That's a good point. I'll come back to it after the next two.

> b: Thunderous is said to be worshipped by farmers as well as
> warriors - but there does not seem to be a suitable subcult for
> farmers. We could assume we need to use an Allfather subcult
> with Thunderous aspect. In which case mills could be the sacred
> to: Orstan the Carpenter, or a new Allfather cult - Hiorl the
> Preparer(?) when worshipped with the Thunderous aspect
> (explaining their rarity). Or we need to create new Thunderous
> subcults for those farmboys. One of which is: Hiorl the Grinding
> Wind(?). Or we need to add it to an existing one, showing that the
> martial side of the subcult is not everything...
I believe that farmers worship OT in an opposite way to how they 'worship' Malia. (The opposite of propitiary worship? Agitational??) I would have no problem seeing a Hiorl the Miller worshipper honoring OT as his aspect, using the new rules of mixing aspects and subcults. Alternatively, I could see a Hiorl the Grinding Wind follower with Allfather as his aspect. One of the reasons I placed it into OA is the affinities; I don't see the OT affinities as being particularly useful for a farmer. In any case, the 'Occupational Cults' section of TR lists cults that are supposed to be worshipped by 80% of the men; I don't have it in front of me, but I believe most if not all of them are Allfather subcults.

> c: And the Hedkoranth suggestion came from following the logic of
> thunderstones. Showing why Hedkoranth grinds corn could be tricky,
> but IMO sometimes better stuff comes from being challenged to
> explain the tricky. I thought I would have a stab (drawing on
> Bryan's myth outline).

I like the 'thunderstone' analogy, it just seems to me to be stretching the concept behind its powers to include the fertility aspects of the mill...

I'd also like to point out that the actual milling of grains will only take place immediately after the harvest in Earth Season. The mill will pay for itself in three or four years but it is still a huge expense for the clan to bear; why should it go unused during the other seasons? I can easily see the mill as an OT cult center most of the time, maybe even its primary use. I just think the Miller should be Allfather.

Roland