>>In Standard RuneQuest, you cannot be a Shaman and a Priest or Sorcerer. In
>>Gloranthan RuenQuest you can. Trolls are Shamans and Priests of Kyger Litor,
>>in fact Mistress Race Trolls can be Shamans, Priests and Sorcerers of Arkat.
>>Waha Shamans are Priests and so on. Most Shamanic Priesthoods allow their
>>priests to join associate cults and become initiates or Priests of those
>>cults. Queens of Bagog can be Shamans and Rune Lords, so a Shaman can be many
>>different things.
>
> The Horned Man cult of unaligned shamanism is dead IMHO -- a God Learner
>fake. No culture worships him.
I think the mainstream RQ3 concept of shamanism has diverged from the original RQ2 version. The current model tends to define Character Classes [let's be controversial ;) ] very precisely because it was developed by or for ruleplayers and powergamers. [ Ie lots of detail on sorcery, which took all the mystery & fun out of it. ]
I always figured the reason RQ2 shamen / priests / sorcerers couldn't cross class boundaries was because it took them so long to master the art of seeing the world in a particular way, and thus incidentally learn to manipulate its energies; and they then had enormous responsibilities to their clans etc; that there was simply no time left to study an alien philosophy. Why would a mystical, spiritual shaman wish to learn the harsh, monomaniacal fanaticism of Faith of an Atheist / Monotheist sorcerer or the rigid heirarchies of many cults? A shaman sees the world, surely, as a balance between many spirits... Having bent your brain into one mould how can you snap it into another? A bit like saying, 'Well, that's my PhD in Nuclear Physics... now, let's spend 12 years becoming a medium and advance both subjects with research whilst I'm at it.'
... the point I'm getting at is, if you want to think of a shaman as a certain character class with specific skills then fine, why not let him / her / it be a priest or whatever. But my personal taste is for shamen who attain their powers only through realising an inner potential which they can only attain through humility and a social instinct which allows them to understand people (a bit like Illumination).
>For example, here are the following major
>shamanistic cultures:
>
>Troll (Kyger Litor, Daka Fal, Gorakiki, Aranea)
>Aldryami (Shannasse, Gardener)
>Praxian (Waha, Daka Fal)
>Orlanthi (Kolat)
>Baboon(Granfather Baboon)
>Pentan Horse Nomads (various sun/storm spirits)
>Chaos (Thed, Bagog, Malia, Bad Man)
>Pamaltelan (Pamalt)
>
> In brackets are the gods that give them their shamanic powers. Personally
>I'd want to know where the hell the horned man comes from? Virtually all of
>these cults allow you to join another cult, and usually allow you to hold
>the position of priest in the shaman cult -- thus giving you access to
>powerful Divine Magic. I'd allow members of these cult to join various other
>cults depending upon their relation to the shaman cult -- the idea that a
>shaman should be refused is, IMHO, an artifical game mechanic.
(But where would your shaman find the time to join others?)
The cults you mention tend to be primitive ones where the distinction between deity and ancestor spirit is blurred, and shamanism is not too far removed from the priestly viewpoint. I can't imagine a natureoriented shamanistic viewpoint meshing well with a harsh Yelmic view of the world.
The 'horned man' is, I think, something like a collective unconcious
which a shaman percieves as a personified entity on his / her
final journey to become a shaman. They invariably meet the Bad Man
on this journey and have to overcome them, ie their own dark side,
before understanding themselves and awakening their fetch.
- --
Paul Honigmann
End of Glorantha Digest V3 #111
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
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