> My only point is that there is a difference between saying that my
> religion is better than my neighbour's and saying that my religion is
> the only true religion. And that is what rubs me the wrong way about
> the Malkioni.
It's what rubs me the wrong way about those Orlanthi barbarians. We tolerant Lunars are prepared to accept even Orlanth into our cosmology in order to heal the world of the wounds caused by Orlanth and his kin; they accuse us of worshipping Foul Chaos Monstrosities from Beyond. They aren't claiming to have "the only true religion", but they are denying that there is any truth, love or beauty in the harmonious perfection of our Lunar Way. Which is why Death's too good for them.
> There is a Dara Happan Heresy known as the Umbarites (which was a
> home grown version of Spolitism). No prizes for guessing the chief
> goddess of the Umbarites.
The Spolites, too, may have valued the comfort and security of knowing you are part of the Darkness. I'm not sure yet just what the Spolite Way was (apart, of course, from including Evil Black Witchery, Nysalorian Amorality, Bull-shaped Braziers, and Oppressive Gloom).
But it struck me that one of the things Nysalor taught people was how to overcome the limitations of their own belief systems: teaching Orlanthi that Stable Order has a place, Yelmites of the necessity of Change, and Malkioni to value something other than Pure Logic.
Maybe the Spolites, a Nysalorian Heresy, learned how to use Nysalor's methods to overcome other peoples' belief systems. (This fits well with the story of the Carmanian March, which was post-Spolite but possibly used similar techniques to screw the Dara Happans on the mythical plane).
A crude example: the Dara Happans know that they are Light, and we (therefore) cast ourselves as Darkness. They know they are Few, and we (therefore) say we're the Many. Then, as the Many can overcome a Few, while Light descends into Darkness, we've use their own myths to screw them up.
> Personally I think the Hills of Gold is a Holy Grail type contest for
> the Orb of the Eye with many gods and heroes questing for it. Only
> during the Great Darkness, it was a lot grimmer and nobody succeeded
> for a long time...
One thing I thought at RQCon Down Under is that the "Hill of Gold" might be a ritual ziggurat, and the contest there between the various gods an attempt to make a new Emperor in the Great Darkness, where nobody passes the Ten Tests (but where Antirius and Elmal and Orlanth and Yelmalio and Inora and Zorak Zoran and Old Uncle Tom Cobbley all compete and lose).
One problem with this is that Emperor-making really should be done at Raibanth. I suggested this to Greg, and he thought the Hill of Gold attempt might have been made when the Dara Happans had sealed off the Empire within the Dome of Manarlavus the Roofer: when the old ritual sites weren't accessible for those locked outside, who (shut away from the Anaxial Emperor, and maybe unaware that he existed, but knowing the Dara Happan rites and ways) wanted to make one for themselves.
While I'm talking about the Dome, here's another thought:
Manarlavus built a Physical Dome to contain everything good within his Empire. It was limited by the mundanity of its structure, and eventually fell. We can still see its foundations in Peloria to this day.
Yara Aranis raised a Spiritual Dome to contain everything good within our Empire. This dome, called the "Glowline" where its edge touches the ground, is maintained and expanded by the worship of the Goddess of the Reaching Moon, and grows wider still and wider as the benevolent empire increases its span and wins new converts to the Lunar Way. It is vastly larger than the old Physical Dome of the Roofer.
When the Transformation comes, we will dwell within the Mystical Dome of the White Moon. We cannot know how this will appear: some say it will be coterminous with the Sky Dome, and include all of Glorantha within it, while others would go further yet. We cannot say if it will be visible or invisible, but it will surely transcend the physical and spiritual reality of the previous two Domes, and give yet greater blessings to those fortunate enough to dwell within its protection.
> In Glorantha, is the important element of support "material" or "spiritual"
> in nature. In other words, is it the ability of a community to materially
> support a priest, or the amount of magic points sacrificed each week by the
> community, the important aspect of whether or not a priest can exist in the
> community.
I suspect it's a bit of both. On the spiritual side, a priest with fewer than 100 initiates might not have a large enough congregation to guarantee contact with his deity. On the material side, most communities won't be able to support that many priests, or to spend a significant amount of their time devoting themselves to spiritual things.
Note, though, that some priestly figures (or at least divine-magic-using Godi types) may be able to draw magical support from a community which wants to have such folk around. For example, it's hard to believe that all the smiths in Sartar congregate annually into groups of 100+ worshippers in order to obtain Gustbran's Rune magic. More likely that they somehow "fit in to" the socio-mythical framework of belief, so that a settlement with a smith supports him by giving him a place within their community, and he can contact the deity enough to obtain a Rune spell from this social support. Likewise for Rainmakers, etc.
I *don't* have mechanics for this yet, and I *don't* think that it should replace pilgrimages to temples on Holy Days (which gives us a lot of Potential Game Fun). But some of the Orlanthi tribal cults seem unlikely to have a mass following anywhere: given initiations to the pantheon as a whole, it's likely they draw part of their mythic connection from the general worship activities of the community.
We know there's at least two degrees of citizenship (as the Carmanians are "Citizen Foreigners"): given the pre-existing complex structure of Dara Happan social classes (cf. The Fortunate Succession), this should comes as no surprise.
Citizenship is probably hereditary, and may (as in Carmania) be conferred on whole ethnic groups, or be part of the standard perks of enlisting in the Lunar Army, becoming a Moon Lord of the Seven Mothers, etc.). It certainly ought to be *very* hard to lose, and a valuable prize to attain.
I've borrowed from the Romans the idea that citizens have the right of making an appeal to the Red Emperor in certain circumstances; my Yolanela story makes it clear that Citizen Foreigners do *not* have this right.
End of Glorantha Digest V2 #400
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
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