>I said:
>>you don't need high-powered magical abilities to "achieve" monkhood,
>>which you _do_ need in order to be a functioning wizard
>Peter Metcalfe says:
>>This is getting too close to the RW for my view which was the point
>>of my objection. I wanted something more gloranthified.
> Huh? [Puzzlement] Magic is valuable in Glorantha. 'Tis a
>useful resource that no surviving Gloranthan society could afford to
>entirely tuck away idly. The Rokari caste system means of necessity
>that a number of people not particularly talented magically are
>forced into being "wizards".
Practical magic, that is. I suspect that there are the malkioni world has its spiritualists and mystics, who may potentially control some quite powerful magic, but not in a reliable and practical way. They are probably to be found in monasteries.
There are the practical skilled magicians, the equivalent of the Jesuits, and there are the penitent spiritualists, the Franciscans.
I apologise for the Christian metaphor, but I do not know enough about Islam, and anyway I'm reading The Name of the Rose, so monks spring to mind.
> If you want such
>folks to be the top of the scale and most important ethically and
>morally, that's fine with me.
>
Well certainly some monks might be considered the most ethical by some. Of course, their more pragmatic brothers might curse their name at times. Religious argument is not confined to the heretics, it also rages between the various parts of the Church.
> I have even instituted a
>geas the effect of which is to force the Humakti's spirit to remain a
>ghost after death, instead of getting to continue to his afterlife.
>
Is there a specified gift? Or does it depend on what you elect to continue doing? I want to have something available in my game roughly similar to what the Household of Death did, quote ".... they invoked the aid of Humakt to gain heroic powers in trade for terrible geas and taboos", which doesn't sound like the standard gifts and geases.
> Second: I don't think the Malkioni believe they have the
>Revealed Word of God in the way you seem to use the phrase. I don't,
>in fact, believe that the Malkioni are born-again Christians in the
>least, nor do I think that they are medieval Catholics. They haven't
>had a universally acceptable prophet since Hrestol, sixteen centuries
>ago, and I believe that the "intelligentsia" of Malkionism realize
>that their attempts to create a social structure based on Hrestol's
>teachings are at best imperfect, though obviously _my_ interpretation
>is better than the damn _insert bad guys here_ theories.
I concur with Sandy. The Church is more divided upon itself than even the medieval Catholic church. Unlike the medieval Church, which directed most of its Crusades outwards, and only a few inwards, I feel the Malkioni reverse the situation. Educated Malkioni will almost certainly be aware of the many points of view within the Church, at least as much as educated Europeans where and probably much more. I do not think that any necessarily believe that they are completely right, but that the others guys are guilty of serious, and probably Solace threatening, errors.
>I'm sure the
>Malkioni are just as adept at compromise and fitting available
>theories into self-serving dogma as were all of us at How the West
>Was Won.
>
And that too!
> I think that the Malkioni are intellectually far more
>sophisticated than 14th-century Europeans.
>
Possibly. I am sure that Malkioni theology is something that actually requires years and years of study to truly master - which interestingly is something that most sorcerers can little afford. We probably have just found something for the monks to do!
They are probably less sophisticated than Europeans in some ways. The reliance on magic, the work required to learn theology, and possibly its association with Mostali may all make them a little backward in science, for example, though it is also possible that the idea of sorcery as 'natural law' and an active alchemical tradition might make them ahead instead.
Cheers
Dave Cake
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