fairly spurious concept of MGF in the first place?
> largely technical argument about what obstetric magics ought (or ought not) to
> be available through the various Earth Goddess cults.
Oh well. I think the point isn't _what_ it should be, but is there any? I think the only reason we got down to exemplary cases is because of Martin's sarcastic citation of Breathe Amniotic Fluid, with the implication that the process was a cakewalk, and no magic whatsoever was the indicated procedure, doctor.
> (The ability to abstract the "obvious" but unwritten magical powers of
> various cults in this way is IMHO one of the best things about
> RunePower; I understand rules lawyers hate it).
<smirk> I'm a fan of RP myself, and have also advocated it as a convenience for these out-of-play details, but I assure you Rules Laywers seem to be pretty split on the issue; would that we could determine a good rule by which card-carrying rules-fetishists would be convenient, but seems unlikely. (I understand that RP-haters understand that powergamers love it.)
If there's a consensus about RP, it seems to be moving in favour of some sort of modification which requires (some sort of) spell learning, in additional to the "pool", somewhat complicating matters. But I would still endorse somewhat more ad hoc uses, such as the above, particularly for the notoriously neglected out-of-combat stuff.
> Presumably nobody out there is so mechanistically-minded as to actually
> kill off a favourite female PC or NPC as a result of a random roll
> during childbirth
Apart from one G. Stafford? (See Pendragon III, p112, Childbirth Table results 11 and 12.) If GtG is as Pendragon-flavoured as we've been led to expect, one would expect this sort of thing to put in an appearance, so if this is used for _any_ PC or NPC, such a mechanism is perfectly usable.
> When we are debating the Gloranthan experience of birth, or the customs
> surrounding it in various cultures, I'm far more interested [...]
See Digest Unwritten Rule #6, Nick: don't ask for a discussion, start one.
On the (first) Hrestoli church:
> They knew, of course, about the primordial
> Creator, but assumed (wrongly, to modern Malkioni eyes) that the Prophet
> Malkion's Laws had been vouchsafed to him, either by the Creator Himself
> intruding into the world (this belief would now be heretical in any major
> modern sect) [or not]
Hang about. The modern Malkioni believe that the Invisible God _is_ the Creator, so if IGly revelation of the Law is the orthodoxy, how is this heterodox? Seems more like a different gloss (famous last theologian's words). One could say the actions of the Creator are ipso facto Creation, and that believe in a Second Creation would be heretical, but it's okay if he has his Invisible God (invisible) hat on, instead, but that sounds rather thin.
> The Jrusteli [...] determined that the remote Creator and their transcendent
> Invisible God were one and the same; that Malkion's prophetic revelations
> had been from the Invisible God; that the other, lesser gods were demonic
> beings to be enslaved or controlled through the superior power of Divine Law.
I think I pretty much buy Nick's theory here. I'd say (and would anticipate Nick intends) that The Invisible God wasn't made up from whole (invisible) cloth, but was the culmination of a number of (possibly quite divergent) cults of the Creator, Malkion, and others, which were already exhibiting tendencies towards monotheism and transcendentalism. At any rate, the term "Invisible God" is certainly hokey enough to be of GLish origin... Co-opting the old Hebraic concept, it may be that the True Name was deemed too holy to utter -- which would be convenient while merging several different sects, each with their own, different, True Names.
I suppose it could be argued that Nick is putting forward this view since it rather facilitates (what I gather is) his picture of the Carmanians as a group of "Malkioni" who were polytheists of very long standing. (Rather than say, getting to Peloria, and their religion springing up as a sort of Invisble Sun cult, merging Malkioni and Pelorian beliefs, as I have (periodically, at least) suspected.) Or maybe this is just another reason why it makes sense... What about the Sygians? Does their form of worship _predate_ "orthodox" Malkionism?"
Alex.
Powered by hypermail