>>St Michael (who isn't one of the apostles - might he be an angel?)
>Archangel. The one with the flaming sword. Guarding the gates of Eden. Yep,
>that's me.
Well _my_ namesake guards the _Pearly_Gates_ with...with...a bunch of keys.
_And_ he has Free Will!
pbbbtt!
>I'm a devotee of Primal Coffee myself and also a sworn enemy of the swedish
>organisation Christians Against Coffee (it actually exists).
Good grief! What's their attitude to tea and soft drinks?
>>I see Genert as more of a local manifestation of Ernaldan/Earth fertility
>>than a true elemental power.
>Genert was/is the king of Genertela.
According to the God Learners, he was. I think that this position was largely a desire to prove a reverse parallel (ancient digest debate referred to here) with respect to Pamalt.
I don't think the Green Age Cthonic Culture that had its origins in Genert's Garden was _ruled_ by Genert or that the inhabitants of remote areas like Peloria even knew who Genert was. KoS mentions him only thrice despite his supposed importance and none in the context of his being the Earth King. This is despite Vingkot, a prominent Orlanthi of the Gods War, was married to a daughter of Tada who was one of Genert's vassals. The Pelorians do not remember Genert although I suppose one of the many Earth Walkers (like Gerendetho) was actually related to Genert.
>He is not an elemental power, but the
>sovereign of the land. One of his many powers obviously included fertility.
>'Local' in this case means the whole of the Northern Continent, neh?
Depends. I strongly suspect the Kralori hated him while he was still alive and erected the Shan Shan Mountains during the reign of Thalurzni to keep him out. After all, Genert was a Giant opposed to the Draconic Principles. So I suspect the Kralori had their own fertility secrets during those days and snubbed Genert. I don't doubt that some Earth Secrets of Peloria are similar to the Secrets of the Oasis People and of the Orlanthi due to common ancestry. Genert's sphere of influence seems to stop at the borders of what is now the wasteland.
>BTW, wasn't Ernalda on of his daughters? If that is the case, shouldn't
>Ernalda be a manifestation of Genertan fertility?
Ernalda appears to be the manifestation of _Manirian_ fertility. Nick has pointed out that her mother, Asrelia, is similar in name to the land goddess, Esrola, which is suspicious. Personally, I feel they are one cult split up into two ways and then reintegrated back into the same society but occupying different niches. Asrelia looks strongly trollish in origin for me to wonder if she was Esrola worshipped by the Only Old One and his trolls.
Mark Smylie:
>I guess these are
>essentially traditional Theistic cults, teaching spirit/battle magic and
>divine magic as appropriate, which follows the G:GCotHW form which states
>that warriors receive spells as per Barbarian Initiates.
I've given some thought about this and it has wider implications than the KoW. Strictly, there is supposed to be a sharply defined barrier between the use of sorcery and the use of spirit magic. But if we look at the other magical traditions, we see that there is some mixing of the traditions, frex Shamanism and Theistic cults in Prax. So I feel that there should be some cults which are on the borderline between the Theism of Dragon Pass and the Lunar Empire and the Humanism of the West.
The distinction between Saintly Blessings and Divine Magic is easy enough to handle. A devotee of St Worlath could expend one point of POW for Worlath to smite the unbeliever with a Thunderbolt whereas a worshipper of Paslac could sacrifice for a divine spell that doubles the effect of a piece of armour or shield.
The distinction between spirit magic and sorcery is much more interesting. IMO knowing some spirit magic is akin to having a bit too many drinks at the pub producing that dissociated feeling. Knowing Sorcery would be like having consumed coffee (or tea), you are free of the mildly distracting influences of the spirit world and feel only power course through your veins. This is because one is controlling the interaction between the spirit world and the self.
Thus as a society becomes more sophisticated, the more its magical theorists desire to get rid of the spiritual clutter surrounding their low magics and purify it. This means normally means that the Western Tradition of Sorcery is imported and adopted as they are the heirs of the Kingdom of Logic's work in minmizing the impact of the Otherworldly Influences on the Self. The Kralori had a similar tradition which has been hybridized with the Western tradtion since the days of the False Dragons. Only the Lunars defy this trend with their decadent acceptance of estiastic inebriation IMO.
I think it is possible for people to improve their chance of casting spirit magic (independantly of increasing POW) but because the interaction with the spirit world is so strong (a RW parallel - try controlling the sensation of pain after you have jammed your finger in a door). The Lunars have sidestepped this with their Lunar Sorcery mainly because the practitioners are illuminated. It may be possible for a magican who has been controlling his usage of spirit magic to become illuminated.
Conversely, I feel that sorcerous spells can be learned as a variable spell (like Treat Wounds 3) and have been done so in the past. This has fallen out of favour in the Stronglands of the West as the God Learners perfected the Arts of Sorcery and spread the knowlege almost everywhere. In the West, only the Modern Hrestoli are reinventing the concept of variable sorcerous spells due to Siglat the Stupid's prohibition on peasants learning intensity. In the more backward regions, like the Hinterlands of Safelster, people because of poverty and ill education have less of a chance to master the sorcerous arts and find it more useful to learn variable sorcerous spells (thus having to improve one skill instead of two at a cost of reduced flexibility).
On the other hand you could use the estiastic inebriation concept to say a spirit magican suffers undue influence from the spells that he knows. Frex, one who knows fanaticism will be quick to anger whereas one who knows mobility will feel mentally alert. Spirit Spells which have opposite effects: befuddle and comprehension will merely cancel each others influence out, although the brain power used is expended in trying to keep its shit straight. To the westerner's eyes, the Lunars and the Orlanthi appear vulgar creatures, spaced in seventeen different ways. In such a case the KoW would be better off as hardline spirit magic users, hyped up on their battle magic.
All IMO.
>This raises the mild problem of their well-described Tapping;...this
>raises the odd image of each Sect having to drag around huge numbers
>of serfs with them which they tap immediately before battle...and
>there would be little productive point in Tapping the serfs immediately
>upon their enslavement, as the mps or fatigue pts would simply dissipate
>in ten minutes.
The tapping is not done for the reasons you suggest. The main aim of the tapping is to keep the serfs dull and lifeless. The bonus of getting FP or MP from the serf is merely a shortlived thrill akin to hitting someone in the kneecaps with a baseball bat and hearing the bones breaking. A KoW warrior skilled in high sorcery could grab several serfs and tap them for some arcane spell but this is a rarer occurence than the rounds of the intelligence and vitality tax.
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