Clan healers

From: Paolo Guccione <teigupa_at_tss.tei.ericsson.se>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 17:06:15 +0100

First of all, WRT my previous posting on the subject, I remark that I had no intention to criticise Jeff Richard's approach to clan worship. I have always felt the current LB pantheon is not described as a barbarian pantheon should be. I was just worrying about the impact that this new "discovery" (correct ands necessary IMHO) could have on the gaming aspect. My, 75% of our current Gloranthan RPGs are based on this supposedly inadequate LB cult description. Luckily, my game does not suffer from this because it is set in civilized Safelster, all my LB initiates are civilized Henotheists and Humath/Humakt is associated to Orlanth :-). The worse for you, earth-scratching Manirian heretics!

Peter Metcalfe replies to Chris Lemens

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>> Suppose she [the healer] saves ten people a years from becoming too disabled (or >>dead) to work. Would a clan chief be willing to pay her room and board?

> The question is not whether it will be beneficial but whether he has
> the surplus to pay for full-time healer (let alone a Priestess!). At
> a clan level, the chief is going to have to kick some people out of
> his household (an aged parent perhaps?). It would be more economical
> for a farmer to practice the healing arts part-time (Ye Olde Wise
> Women) at the clan level.

OK about Ye Olde Wise Women, but what is their initiation status? They clearly belong to the Ernalda cult, but they should have a deeper knowledge of the Chalana way to effectively perform healing as effectively as the Ernalda priestess - otherwise there is no reason for the clan to have any Wise Woman at all. I think a "associate cult specialist" profile should be devised for such a character as the WW. I like this suggestion a lot - RW clans did have wise women. I recently watched a TV show about an australian aboriginal clan whose name I cannot remember (any aussie has more info on this?). It stated that the eldest members of the clan remnants, who were the keepers of the century-old rituals, dances and secrets, were called Initiates, a title that was not cheap to obtain. In such primitive societies when one is too old to perform heavy duty tasks he becomes an Elder and his new task is teaching the young and leading the rituals - a fundamental task. He is still valuable to the clan because of his knowledge. Replace the word "knowledge" with "knowledge and magic" and you have shifted from RW to Glorantha. But since in our Glorantha the Initiate status has another meaning, what is these clan elders' function, and what are they called? The TV show _did_ remark that these Initiates were specialized - each one had a specific area of interest: hunting, talking with the Dead, appeasing animal spirits, ritual dances...

			http://www.geco.it/~guccione

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