I'd be surprised if these Nysalor cults were entirely devoid of Illuminants, though equally, I'm sure nothing like every cult member would have ever achieved Illumination. Come to that, I'm sure that nothing like every member of the Kitori Arkat cult ever becomes Arkatishlypseudoparailluminated. (Sorry, blame Greg for the terminology turmoil.)
> I maintain that the secrets of Illumination as
> now understood were spotty and rare during the Second Age.
I'm sure this is true. The big difference between the Second Age and the Lunar (and the Golden) Empire is that the civil and religious authorities in the former time are hostile to it, and in the latter are friendly. Regardless of the precise mythic difficulty of contracting illuminated status, the freedom allowed the vectors and the absence of restrictions on incubation of the illination virus are enough to explain the vastly different pathologies in the different eras.
> [the Kralori]
> view the route of power as being from the worshipers to the gods. In
> other words, your membership in a cult strengthens the rulers of that
> cult and, indirectly, the gods themselves.
I rather like this, it seems to fit with the idea that Kralori thought inclines to see the god as mystical abstractions, rather than big guys sitting around on clouds. Perhaps the perceived difference between the "theistic" countryside and the "sorcerous/mystical" cities of the Kralori is a question of degree of inclination to this viewpoint; the townies see the abstraction as being greater, so the "megical effect" being created is even less anthropomorphised as a "god", and hence tends to look like sorcery to outsiders.
> Now, the Kralori don't actually think that if
> they stopped worshiping, say, Den Xi (Dendara), she would wither and
> die, but they _do_ think that their worship makes her more attentive
> to their province and lands.
Surely the logical conclusion is that they _do_ think she would be weakened if they stopped worshipping her? In fact, maybe they reckon this is the sort of thing that went wrong during the Darkness, providing a suitably Dire Warning.
Alex.
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