...to which I would like to add come comments about the...
> ORLANTHI: Need a love potion? Try Uleria. A curse? Eurmal. A
> headache powder? Chalana Arroy...
> Most of the Orlanthi cults are
> fairly mercenary, if you hadn't noticed. Uleria, Argan Argar,
> Chalana Arroy, Lhankor Mhy, and Issaries all justify their
> existence by providing services to non-cultists.
>
Which is great if you can find their representatives, ie. in and
around large towns.
But in your typical village of Troll's Bottom, out in the sticks, there are only about 100 people, with maybe one priest of Orlanth and one of Ernalda. No other "official" magicians. So if someone wants a love potion, or a curse, or something similar, he can either pray at the shrine to Uleria, etc. (if it exists), wait for a wandering priest to come by (by which time his love has married another and his headache gone), go to the city (which is several days trek through rough country and full of furriners besides), or go the Wise Woman of the Woods and get her to do it. She might not have the power of a specialised priest, but she's here, now, and it'll probably work. He'll go the Wise Woman every time.
Apply this argument to things other than magic. What if a resident of Troll's Bottom wants a new cooking pot? Is he going to travel to the city to get it from the specialist pot-maker? Or wait for a 3EB smith to come round? Or go to old Henre next door who'll knock him up something workable? He'll go to Henre: the pot won't be as good as one from the city or 3EB, but it'll do its job, and it'll do it now. If he lives in the city, of course he'll get his pots from the 3EB pot-maker and nowhere else. Outside the city, he doesn't have that choice.
And this ignores all the other petty magics that happen all the time and need to be done by someone: the hunter's prayers to Odayla, the prayer to Lodril when the fire is built and the hundreds of other little rites that keep the spirits happy, all outside formal cult structures. These arguments are pretty much the same as in Digest v2.n311, made more eloquently there than here.
My vote is for independents, at least out in the sticks. They will continue to be in my Glorantha.
Neil.
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