Me>> Yelm the Youth is a mark of urban adulthood. In practice, think of
>> the fee as a coming of age tax. Look at the benefits - he's officially
>> a citizen.
>This argument would seem to depend on citizenship in Dara Happan cities
>being widely available, which doesn't really feel appropriate for the
>social systems under study IMG.
I should clarify and say I'm speaking of urban _citizens_ here. I really don't know for certain the proportion of Dekdari (half-citizens) to full citizens. I suspect the Dekdari are in a large minority (perhaps even up to 50%) and some of them are moderately wealthy. Despite this, I do not believe that citizenship is confined to the upper urban class.
Me>> If Yelm was worshipped by only a small minority, then some other
>> god will displace him and _be_ the definer of the social order.
>Not necessarily. The social order is adequately defined by having all the
>other gods acknowledge their willing or unwilling subjection to Yelm. The
>argument is tantamount to saying that the nobility cannot define the shape
>of society because they are outnumbered by the other social classes. But
>in terms of wealth and power, they do: because they receive (willy-nilly)
>the support of the whole of society.
The chief problem I have here is that I don't know of any RW social system which has a closed nobility which was defined by exclusive worship of a ruling god and the masses worshipping a cluster of gods who are subject to the ruling god. Even in India, the Vedas were open to all save the untouchables. The closest RW parallel to the Yelm Cult that I can find is the patricians of Rome dominating the Priesthood. Yet there even there the Plebs could worship Jupiter.
To say that Yelm is the ruling god via magic or because all the Other Gods acknowlege Yelm is missing the point (not that you have made this argument). The Nobles must have some *backup* to enforce their will in case of a social crisis. If the not-yelm worshippers revolted over some social issue (ie the question of debt law relating to not-Yelmics), then the nobles cannot handle the crisis on their own. To survive, they must either compromise or call in the army. But if the army is composed of not-Yelmics, then the nobility is *screwed*. If they don't compromise, they will be overthrown and some other god will rule yet if they do compromise what's to stop Yelm from being opened up?
Yet we know that the social order has been roughly the same despite the numerous catastrophes over the years. Therefore the social order must be more robust than the nobles-only Yelm Cult model would imply. Having most urban commoners partake in some rites of the Yelm Cult would give Dara Happan Society that robustness IMO.
Nils Weinander:
>>If Yelm was worshipped by only a small minority, then some other
>>god will displaced him and _be_ the definer of the social order.
>No, the other god won't, because Yelm's majesty and rulership
>reflects on the cult. Look what happened to Basko when he tried
>to challenge Yelm.
Yelm once ruled the whole world (or large parts of it for the pedantic). Yet a number of these places have turned to the worship of other gods despite Yelm's majesty and rulership. Some of these places have changed worship after the Dawn (Storm Pentans, Saird, Dorastor etc). Thus I do not believe that Yelm's Cult has survived in Dara Happa without having some larger worship base than the nobility.
>But this was all in my disclaimer: if the gods created men and
>influence their cults my theory is possible. If men created the
>gods and the cult influences the deity then you are right.
My arguement was intended to be independant of the nature of gods and men.
End of Glorantha Digest V3 #49
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
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