maintaining worship

        My recent thoughts about the problem of maintaining worship for small cults is that it is not necessarily the number of initiates that maintain a temple. This is really a rules issue, but also of general Gloranthan interest.

        I am now convinced that it is not the number of initiates that is the important factor for maintaining temples, etc. But I am not quite sure what does happen to maintain the smaller cults.

        For some cults it may be that they have a large number of lay members, and a few lay members are equivalent to an initiate in terms of support. This would partly explain the power of Issaries or Etyries - they have a large number of lay members (anyone who wants the laymember discount) and so temples are maintained. The converse might be true for some cults, though, with a hard core of fanatic initiates maintaining a temple size that would normally need many more through fanatic dedication
(ie maximum MP sacrifice and over the top ceremonies).

        For some cults I have the idea that associated cults are acknowledged in worship - so small cults with very powerful associations
(ie any lightbringer) might be able to maintain a much larger temple than
its number of initiates would imply. This explains lots of things. Why the Yelm cult is so tough with a small number of initiates (all those Lodrili channelling them MPs). How cults of very limited appeal (like Babeester Gor) might still have power. This idea does not contradict with the last one - it might be that all initiates of associated cults count as lay members, for example.

        A variation on the above is that it might work only at certain times. All the Orlanthi contribute their MPs to Issaries at the big market festival, and all the Issaries worshippers have a Great Temple for that week - but in the off season they might be back to a shrine. This alternative seems to be one that works well for play purposes - it means the small cults still get to have a variety of spells (which helps MGF in my view) but still have a penalty for being in a small cult.

        To tie it all back to Davids question, perhaps Gustbrans holy day is widely celebrated among the Orlanthi, everyone counting as a lay member for the day, giving the Gustbran smith a chance to regain his spells.

        Cheers

                David





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