Clan Chiefs get their own magic as the 'priests' of the Orlanth Rex cult. This is related not to war, or to weather, but to leading.
Orlanthi society may indeed have once been more of a centralised theocracy. I think one of the reasons for the founding of the Orlanth Rex cult was to empower the clan chiefs with their own magic so that they were able to overrule the priests (note the Orlanth Rex spell, Command Priest).
>My Sartarite
>character is on the road to becoming a Wind Lord, but as soon as he does
>he'll have to start chanting poetry to practically everything he meets --
>including "Foul Chaos..." to Lunars, I suspect
Lunars are tolerant of Chaos, not necessarily chaotic. He only needs to chant to Lunars who are recognisably chaotic in some way (ie detect as chaos, worship the Bat or other chaos cults, he knows to have used chaotic magic like Chaos Gift). Unless he is a crazed fanatic, in which case he will be shot down like a rabid dog.
Yelm
Nick Effingham says
>The problem with the Dara Happan Yelmic cult is that I
>don't think people know how Dara Happan Magic works, it appears that it
>certainly origanted around Tribal Ceremony etc...
I think that Dara Happan divine magic works much the same as anyones, we just underestimate how much tribal ceremony etc. is involved in most Gloranthan magic. Remember, Gregs ideas of how much magic there is, how easy it is, etc. are very different to what you might assume from the RuneQuest rules - if we read Orlanthi fiction we might be thinking their magic worked differently too.
Peter thoughts on Yelm
>In particular, I think that it varies between City to City.
>For the second yelmic stage, some cities might not have a
>stage of Yelm the Archer (ie Sagittus) and replace it with
>Yelm the Rider (Hyalor). Others might use Hastatus instead.
I agree. As we have mentioned before, Yelm Sun Lords particularly get very little magic from the Yelm cult as written up. Assume that almost all Yelmites are also members of whatever associated cults are encouraged locally.
>I think that the Yelm the Youth stage is the same as joining
>your local city cult (ie Raiba, Alkor, Yuthu).
though Peter is well aware that this opinion is controversial.... Quite a few people disagree, myself included, think that Yelmmembership is restricted to a minority of city dwellers, basically only upper classes, and different to membership in the city cults. Everyone worships Yelm, but they do it as members of associated cults or as laity. You'll note that everyone agrees that most Pelorians worship Yelm in some way, its just that Peter thinks that 'worshipping Yelm' translates in rules terms to 'cult membership', whereas I think that being initiated into an associated cult counts as 'pantheon initiation', but membership in the Yelm cult directly is an upper class privelege.
Also, I don't think there is such a cult as Yuthu, though it was mentioned in some very old sources. Yuthuppa means Gods Ship, and is where Anaxial the Sailor landed his boat according to GRoY, and the city god of Yuthuppa is probably Anaxial (and his wife). Though I guess they might sometimes refer to him as Yuthu (meaning the God or Our God or similar) if you really want to rationalise this very old name into current ideas.
Peters ideas on what dominates where are pretty good, but I don't think we are talking about the subcults actually taking the place of the Yelmic status, but simply being associated with it - and the association in many places is customary rather than rigid. By which I mean to make clear a) there are many members of the associated cults that are not also members of the cult of Yelm. Peter thinks most people are in the Yelm cult, I think only the upper crust. So for him, its a non-issue - but I want to make it clear that you can have lots of archers that aren't in the Yelm cult. b) I think a Yelm the Warrior initiate may have some freedom to choose between which associated cult he is also associated with, rather than being constrained to whatever is the local choice. A member of Yelm the Warrior is expected to also be initiated into an associated warrior cult - but while Sagittus is the prefered god in Raibanth, Hastatus is a valid choice, particularly if you are serving in a Phalanx unit.
What form the Yelm cult takes in Glamour is an interesting one. I'm not sure I agree with Peter, but I'm not entirely sure I don't. I don't think we know enough about the relationship of Moonson to the Yelm cult to really say. He does have a cult that is worshipped in many places, though I thought of it as being less a cult of the nobility and more a cult of Lunar apparatchiks.
(hmmm - Sayings of Emperor Moonson in Little Red Books, anyone?)
Carmanian Humakti
Well, I'm going to yield to Lorens greater authority - and the incidental fact that I happen to agree with him has nothing to do with it ;-)
Cheers
David
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