Andrew Joelson can hardly contain his incredulity at the Official Line
on Yanafal Tarnils:
> A priest of Yanafal Tar'nils would be much better suited to the role
> of chaplain/healer (any memebr of a war cult without gobs of healing magic is
> a fool).
Or more likely, a manifestation of life/death magical dualism, perhaps?
> He doesn't have time to learn squad/company tactics, he doesn't even
> have time to train is own personal combat skills!
This is certainly not true, other perhaps of a hypothetical RQ2 YT. These days skill restrictions are not imposed where they would be nonsensical (as they would here), and war cults typically have only one rune level rank, effectively a rune lord with reusable magic.
> 2) "Yanafal Tar'nils is an officer's cult." This statement struck me as
> ludicrous, and even the panel was divided on the subject. One panel member
> expressed the opinion that the cult was like the Mythraic cult of the Roman
> legions; army rank had little or nothing to do with cult standing.
I don't feel this is true, myself. Mithraic cult rank is more a matter of "depth" of initiation into the mysteries, and not a matter of priestly status or full-time commitment to the cult. It would be basically impossible to be a Scimitar, or a priest of anything other than the "official" regimental god, while serving in the army, say. There may be military-minded mystery cults in the empire, but I doubt YT is one of them.
> How can you deny membership in a cult of one of the Seven Mothers to 98%
> of the population of the Empire?
I'm not sure what is meant by this. Denied to non-army-members, or denied to non-death-crazed-maniacs?
> One of the panel members said, "If you want to join Yanafal Tar'nils,
> the first thing you do is buy a commission." What is this, a country club for
> wealthy Lunars?
What one has to recall is that pre-modern amries lack unified officer training facilities, so to some extent their recruits have to "selfcertificate" themselves. The odd military academy exists in the empire, but most would-be officers probably turn up with some local training and experience, a letter of introductions saying they are of good family, etc, and some spondulicks to back it up. Before the Empire, commissions were almost certainly a matter of heredity, so this is probably actually progress (of a sort).
Of course, to some extent it _is_ a country club for wealthy Lunars. What else does one do with those surplus-to-requirement sons? A fairly bracing one, however.
Nick Brooke, who thoughtfully provided a rod for his own back with
his original swipe, weighs in again:
> If the Lunar Empire has a wargod *and* an army, why on Earth should
> there be no connection between the two structures, of cult and state?
> The Empire makes War with its Army, no?
Of course, the Empire has more wargods than it knows what to do with, so this connection shouldn't be exaggerated. Rather than the Red Army having the sort of uniform, doctrinare structure of the Red Army (if you see what I mean), it must be recalled that a wide variety of cultural and religious traditions are encompassed by it. Something like the "army within an army" of the Waffen-SS, or the multiplicity of different rival allegedly elite units in some modern forces seems more likely. On the other hand, it makes sense that YT is the "official" army cult, and that at least some presence is maintained in all but the smallest military units.
At one extreme, all-YT regiments are likely to exist, representing units which are not just elite in military terms, but are also "politically reliable". Then you have the Marble Phalanx stle unit/cult, lunarised professional soldiers basically subordinate to the YT cult structures. Less elite units will not be as uniform, with a certain religious mix over and above the common worship of the esprit de corps, in a much less exacting sort of regi-cult than MP. This is even more true of semiregular provincial units. Some quite large units, on the other hand, as it were "come complete", notably some Dara Happan solar-worshipping troops. These are instead officered by Yelmic nobles and Polarisworshipping officers, reporting to the Lunar command structure at a relatively high level.
At a minimal level, the least Lunarised units are supplied with a token Lunar presence in the form of a junior officer, usually with some purported role such as liason or morale. These act rather like Political Officers, and are often regarded with suspicion by, for example, hard-core Solar units. Or again, think of Wehrmacht attitudes to SS officers.
Neil Robinson (NDROBINS_at_NDROBINS -- so good they addressed him twice?):
> The YT from the 7 Mother's cult is a small subsection of all Yanifal
> Tarnils worship.
Earlier discussion on the 7M subject seemed to largely think that there was no "Seven Mother's Yanafal subcult" as such, though it might not be too hard to transfer from one to the other. Of course, one can be a "Yanafal-minded" 7M guy, and get some fairly decent magic thereby, which is probably sufficient for many, if the full YT cult is unavailable to them.
> Most YT are just in the army, with the special cases in the 7M's
> cult being allowed more flexibility.
I'm sure this is statistically true, but I don't believe there is a prohibition of any sort on "civilians" joining the cult. In particular, I bet the aspect of the cult most heavily "marketed" in the provinces and borderlands is the Gently Recurved Humakt With Resurrection one, for the purposes of solicting turncoats^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hrecruits. Of course, the last thing one wants Back Home is a bunch of freebooting "Adventurer" types, so Heartland Yanafal temples there tend to look not unlike army recruiting stations (or barracks).
Sandy:
> I think that the Lunar
> army has many officers who are NOT Scimitars. And I also think that a
> large number of the rank and file infantry of the Red Army are YT
> initiates. I also think that there are many non-YT regiments in which
> the officers are YT, while the reverse is rarely the case.
This is probably all true. Officers could be rune ranks in any of the lunar war cults (there's Hwarin Dalthippa, Yara Aranis, and the whole Eel-clan), or the solar cults, or of some provincial cults. A reasonably large number will be "merely" acolytes or initiates in one or more of the above, while some hard-bitten types may pay no more than required lip-service to the official cults, simply remaining in their original cults, whatever they were.
Alex.
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