> 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.
[and similarly for every other big cult]
>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).
The mechanics that I generally use are that initiates of associated cults (using the term in the loose sense of 'another cult that likes yours and allows their initiates to worship your god', rather than the stricter 'our cults swap spells' sense) are able to join in worship, though they may not count as full initiates, and may often only do so on the High Holy Days. Closely associated cults may also hold joint worship services that count as services for all of them.
Two examples from the Orlanth pantheon.
The Orlanthi all think that actually worshipping a moneygrubber like
Issaries full time would be kind of strange, but they all acknowledge him.
So when Issaries has his big high holy day (which is, of course, a big
market festival, that many people might travel some distance to get too
anyway), they are all quite happy to join in the worship service to
Issaries. So your average Issaries Goldentongue Priest might have difficulty
learning lesser known spells (and maintaining even a shrine) if he had to
rely on the Issaries initiates he knows, but on the day of great market (and
probably the week following), when several hundred Orlanthi intiates have
praised Issaries, he has the services of a major or great temple.
In Sartar there are ceremonies that ceremonies that praise the Lightbringers. This counts as a worship service for any of the Lightbringer cults, and all Lightbringer initiates that join in, get benefits of all the involved initiates, rather than just those of their cults.
In this way, cults with small numbers of initiates can survive quite happily, providing they hold joint worship with dominant cults and are approved of by them.
You still do get the pilgrimage to the temple on important days, though - to form a Great temple usually requires gathering initiates from far and wide, and I am sure the priests are very keen to encourage great temples when they can.
All of this sort of gets you de facto pantheon initiation (and makes the smaller cults (like Issaries, CA, LM...) worth the trouble.
As to what the rules should be now that Greg has smiled upon
initiation into a pantheon at adulthood, I have no idea.
Cheers
David
Computing Officer |"Our machines are disturbingly lively,
Arts Faculty UWA |and we ourselves frighteningly inert."
davidc_at_cs.uwa.edu.au | -Donna Haraway
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