By the normal (RQish) usage of the terms, shrines can indeed be permanent, and temples are different only in "size". But yes, you're correct in your interpretation of RQ3 -- trans.: yours is the same as mine ;-) -- Sanctify is close, but no crosier.
> According to the rulebook, a temple is "a conjugation of the God Plane...
> and the mundane plane..." and it "transmits mortals' prayers to the deity
> and divine messages to the priests". That's got to be more than just a
> Sanctify!
In game terms, yes, it would be, but it's pretty much a matter of degree; if there were a permanent Ritual Enchanment called Consecrate (say), with the same mechanic as Sanctify, and Stackable Up The Wazoo, then you'd have the basic elements required for a shrine or temple. I'd guess this ought to be a pretty time-consuming and POW-expensive thing to do, from the ground up, which'd partly explain the lack of rules to do it. But I'm sure there is almost precisely that in Any Likely Actual Glorantha, or at least something which would be abstractable as such, on a game-mechanical level.
In practice, I think temples arise through one, or a combination, of three basic processes:
Pre-existing (for whichever reason -- I won't get into that) sacred sites. For example, the amount of magical effort required to turn Wintertop or the Block into suitables temples was likely relatively modest, and if they somehow became desanctified, would be equally readily reestablished. Similarly, if you abseiled down the Hellcrack somewhat, I'm sure you'd find setting up a temple to Subere rather easy, at least if you're the sort of person who could reasonably contemplate doing such a thing.
Accretion of worshippers. Suppose you start by conducting occassional ceremonies on a temporarily sanctified piece of ground, or similarly, with, say, a regimental standard or other "altar prop". By the very act of repeatedly doing so, drawing in more co-religionists, sacking for and regaining spells, etc, you're necessarily strengthening and establishing the nature of the link. By the same sort of process, a shrine would be about to "evolve" into (in game terms) a larger temple, without necessarily having to add a conservatory, ask for Godplane planning permission, and clear the upgrade with head office.
Acts of political will. If you want a Seven Mothers temple in downtown Boldhome, with no natural place to put it, and no established congregation, then you can just send in Magical Flunkies A - H, each armed with Consecrate XXXIV, and establish a hotline to the Godplane by Force de Major. Less Mythically Resonant than methods A) and B), but I bet it works just as well. Also, if one imbues this option with any degree of game-world colour, I suspect it starts to look like a more-or-less contrived example of the other methods; one would examine the mythic connections of a location, and find parallels with the appropriate religion; or one performs lots of Stationary Pilgrimages and Heavy Duty Magic there, to establsh the site by the Worship route, in a suitably expedited fashion. Of course, it only stays consecrated if it maintains a suitable congregation, or at worst, if Flunkies A - H stay on hand full-time to maintain it by each praying for ten...
Establishing a sub-/Hero/Associated cult is just a special case of any or all the of the above, I think, with a significant head start in each instance. Mechanistically, that is -- the social and cultural aspects are doubless much more complex, not to say more interesting.
BTW -- doesn't one of the published RQ3 scenarios allude to the temple startup process? (SPH?)
Hope some of this helps,
Alex.
End of Glorantha Digest V4 #272
WWW at http://rider.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/Rolegame/glorantha.faq.html
Powered by hypermail