>Minor quibbles: A, But my Gloranthans have ALWAYS revered the whole
>pantheon. They have ALWAYS made sacrifices to Issaries before making
>a long journey, or prayed to Heler to "stop this damn rain". They
>didn't get any mystical insights of practical value (ie, spells) or
>exploitable special social relations with the cult leaders (ie,
>ransom, skill training), but they still worshipped most of the
>deities at some time.
Sacrifices should always have some effect, even if it's minor and unnoticed. If people didn't sacrifice to Issaries before a journey, they would be assailed by one-legged duck brigands, desorientation and all sorts of things that make a journey worse MORE OFTEN than if they did sacrifice to Issaries. This would go largely unnoticed, even if you get the feeling that the sacrifice made things better.
I think that all ceremonies involving MPs and sacrifices should be efficacious in some way, because magic is natural and ubiquitous in Glorantha. Of course, the larger and more powerful the ceremony the more noticeable the effect will be. Spells and ritual spells are traditional, tried-and-true magic, but these too had to be newfangled and experimental at some time.
Special training and social relations comes with the character's WORTHINESS - - if he'sn't WORTHY he'll be treated like anybody else.
>B, But isn't there still "cults", special initiation into cults
>beyond the pantheon initiation, wherein you learn the deeper secrets
>of a certain god? (Just wanna check - I don't know more about the
>"pantheon initiation" than that it has been "yessed" by Greg.)
I don't know more than you, Erik, but i run the initiation bit like this (for the moment):
The first initiation opens up the person's mind to the mytho-magical otherworld, forging a bond, enabling him to draw magic from it (when he learns how to do it). The more POWerful the bond, the more magic can be channeled through it.
To learn how to draw specific spells from the Otherworld, the person has to mini-quest for it and mystically understand how to use the power. This requires deeper, specific initiation into a piece of myth, but there is (usually) no POW-sacrifice involved. This means that warriors and farmers will more likely learn different spells as they initiate into different pieces of myth. Persons will have one or more patron dieties which they 'specialize' in, because these dieties represent what they do for a living.
Some spells can come in clusters if they are part of the same myth-piece or myth-cycle, like Orlanth's weather-spells, but some can be quested for independently, like the 4 Weapons spells (even if they too can be learned together as a cluster).
If you 'specialize' in greater god like Orlanth, you will propable not have learned all his spells, and you will have learned/quested for some spells that belong to other gods but still are part of Orlanth's mythcycle (spells provided by associate gods frex). I don't think there is an actual limit to have many spells a person can have access to, though.
The tricky bit is the reusable magic of priests and lords. This could possibly represent the re-forging of the bond to the otherworld, making it qualitatively deeper than the first bond. Even if the person is not of this elevated status, he could quest to get some of his spells reusable.
I don't think there are 'cults' tied to one specific god. More likely you have the Farmer Cult with worship of Orlanth, Ernalda and Barntar and spirits like Heler and Grain Goddess, and knowledge of spells tied to farming, instead of two or three separate cults with added subcults.
The makeup of the local temples and their myths and ceremonies defines what the 'cults' are and how they work. Shrines and small temples may be tied to single gods, but i don't think the bigger ones are single god only.
In a sense all usual single-god cults are in a way a cluster of separate subcults. No-one knows all the spells. Orlanth has lots of spells, especially when taking the associate spells in account. But the godi will propably not know the martial or lightbringer ones - he will be satisfied with the community rituals and farmer spells. Male godi will propably gravitate towards the Orlanth myths and female godi towards the Ernaldan.
Patron dieties replace the single-god cults, and thus a warrior poet doesn't have to initiated into the cults of Humakt, Orlanth and Issaries and sacrifice POW to each to gain access to their magic. This warrior poet will have quested for some of Humakt's, Orlanth's and Issaries' magic (if he was deemed worthy by those with the know-how). This person could have quested for and learned, say, Truesword, reusable Shield, Command amd Summon Sylph and Skaldvoice. If he had a divine magic pool of, say, 8 POW, he could cast any combination of the spells above up to 8 points during a year, except the points used for casting Shield, which could be prayed back.
The big difficulty for any wanna-be is to get the chance to quest for and learn the spells. If you are know as a habitual liar, you will never be deemed worthy to learn spells that belong to Humakt. If you'r'n't a noble you can't learn Orlanth Rex spells.
If the person doesn't know a certain spell exists (maybe it's privileged knowledge) he won't even realize he can quest for it. If no-one in the entire tribe knows of it, it simply isn't available for anyone in the tribe.
All of the above is pretty experimental and not very playtested, so i haven't any definite game-mechanics yet. But i think there are some advantages with my ideas (assuming you like RunePower and such stuff). The big disadvantage with my system is of course that systematic generalization is nigh impossible, even if some general tendencies can be observed - like spells being occupationally clustered: crafters know (mostly) crafting magic, warriors know (mostly) martial magic and farmers know (mostly) farming magic, but as this isn't the Other Game there is never any clear-cut categories, and most farmers know a bit of crafting or martial magic and some know bits of both crafting and martial magic. But a farmer who has no interest in travelling and trading won't know any Issaries magic.
Anyway, use, abuse or ignore the above at will. I will gladly engage in discussions about these ideas, either privately or on the digest.
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