This is somewhere between a bug and a really irritating feature:
You know the omens that say "raid before being raided" and "learn a blessing
of Uralda"? Apparently, if you don't raid in your first action in Sea
Season and some stinking Tusk Riders or <spit> Horse Spawn raid you in Sea
Season, Humakt is Displeased. So if your food stocks are low, you have to
take a risk of starvation or risk being raided and losing the ability to
sacrifice magic for war for 2 years. To make matters worse, his pompous
godtalker tells you that Humakt is the god of oaths, and we broke our oath
to him to raid before bieng raided. Which of course isn't true--an omen
isn't an oath.
Uralda is just as muddled. I sacrificied 14 cattle in my first action and
learned some of the mysteries of "Uralda's Blessing." Isn't that learning
one of her blessings? Don't play word games with me and say "Uralda's
Blessing" isn't a "blessing". Admittedly, the penalty for not learning one
of U's blessings is just not being able to sacrifice for herd magic, which
ain't that bad. Not as bad as no war magic for 2 years, anyhow.
--M