(snip) The costs of Belintar's infrastructure were very cheap. No huge armies
> maintained by the God-King to keep him in power and awe opponents, no
> rapacious allies that needed to be kept bought, etc.
/// I love the way you mix the Living God of a shadowy Holy Realm and hard
business, down-to-earth considerations. It's one of my favorite things about
Glorantha. There are magics and Gods and goodies aplenty but in the end, you
must never forget to get the crops in and pay your soldiers, God-King, Takenegi
or whomever you are !
> > > You know that there are multiple priesthoods of Belintar, each with
> different claims and rituals?
/// I did not. This is useful and interesting information. Plenty of ideas to
build a few Belintar cults : Belintor-Master-of-Darkness, Belintar the Learned,
Belintar Great Swimmer, etc. He is, like Orlanth, too big to be understood fully
by mortals - they need to focus on some aspect of his. Is that cool ?
> > We humble petitioners crave forgiveness for trying to set ourselves up as
> if above Belintar, we are merely acting in accordance with our own desires to
> serve the God-King's inheritance as we see it ! <grovels and bangs head seven
times on the floor, reciting the Seven
> Virtues of Six>
>
> That is exactly right! I strongly encourage folk who want to explore
> Belintar's Holy Country to approach it from within Glorantha.
/// Yes, except obviously the initiate speaking above is from a wayward sect.
The Living God-King does not encourage grovelling and humiliation. He wants us
to become better, to reach higher. He is a demanding God, and the only way to
fulfill these demands is in ourselves. Praise the Pharaoh (yeah, I'm from a sect
that has always called Him Pharaoh) ;-)
> There are lots of ad hoc offices created by Belintar. Sometimes Belintar
> appoints someone to stand in for him - and that person appears exactly
> identical to Belintar (although without the power or knowledge). He has many
> guards, strange magicians, and much much more.
/// So Belintar has proxies changes but remains the same. He feels a lot like
Takenegi. I wonder if there's a link between them. Why not ?
> Incidentally, the City of Wonders was unlike anything else in Kethaela.
> Before Belintar disappeared, it had an estimated population of some 50,000
> people, with temples to the each of the great elemental gods (Air, Darkness,
> Earth, Sky, and Water) and others as well as markets, docks, a theatre, zoo,
> and much much more.
/// In the first Book of Tentacles, Simon Bray wrote a beautiful story about
Wondercity. It's a living story, full of colors and smells and splendor. I like
to use it as background for my City of Wonders. It shows clearly the City cannot
be fully on this Plane. It's too... wonderful (ex there are two giant pillars of
water rising high in the sky, with whales swimming in them, to mark the harbors'
entrance).
/// There is also the story of when the wolf pirates (curse, spit) came to the
City of Wonders, by Phyllis Ann Karr. It's a more personal, intimate story about
an inner voyage but I like the Hall of Dreams.
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