Issaries

From: Michael Raaterova <michael.raaterova.7033_at_student.uu.se>
Date: Tue, 7 Jan 1997 11:59:43 +0100


Peter Metcalfe:
>>Not all traders are initiates of Issaries, and Bargain is a skill special
>>to Issaries.
>
>*snort* I find this very difficult to believe. I would ascribe
>the lack of a bargain skill in the RQIII trader previous experience
>to a simple snafu between RQIII being written up to be generic and
>Bargain being a skill than exists in the Gloranthan Universe.

My answer to Jane was overly dogmatic, because she said she didn't want to reinvent the wheel. Personally, if i used RQ's skill system at all, i would agree with you. Bargain should be a common Communication skill.

Philip Hibbs:
>I heard somewhere that cults with Rune Lord and Rune Priest ranks are cults
>which have been amalgamated (presumably by GLs) from two other cults, and the
>two ranks are remnants of the separate hierarchies...

Which would mean that all RQ2 cults are God Learner amalgamations. My understanding of the difference between RL and RP is that the rune lord lead the cult's mundane business while the rune priest took care of the spiritual needs. Luckily, RQ3 has made that distinction mostly obsolete. I have difficulties imagining that the mundane/spiritual dualism would be so widespread in a magic-rich world.

In a cult i imagine that the mundane business of a temple is taken care of by the lower echelons of the hierarchy; initiates overseen by acolytes or a single priest. The spiritual stuff, myth, magics and mysteries, is the backbone of the cult and is thus taken care of by the bigwigs.

>... However, it has been
>suggested that Issaries is very much a GL construct, Tradetalk and Spell
>Trading
>are just too good to be true - like the Babel Fish! This suggests to me that
>Issaries should have both ranks.

No wonder that the cult of Issaries has nifty magics, since Issaries was one of the two most important gods of the God Learners (Lhankor being the other). Stephen Martin suggested that the Goldentongue subcult is the Rune Lord equivalent, which would be OK with me, if i wanted to keep the artificial distinction.

>... After all, merchants frequently have to defent
>themselves from bandits.

Yes. That's why they hire mercenaries.

Nick
>> One wonders why a mostly non-fighting cult of a non-martial deity would
>> have a cult weapon at all.

>Answer: combined effects of Steve ("Sword Sage") Perrin and RQ2. Probably
>deliberately stripped out in the conversion to RQ3, but no harm keeping it
>on.

I don't have problems with martial sages and traders. I think Indiana Jones (Indigo Jomes) is the perfect example of that. But it isn't a function of non-fighting cults to train warriors. My problems rest with institutionalized martial ranks in such cults, which is just plain silly, especially when they have the same status as the priests.

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