Orlanth Lightbringer from Joerg Baumgartner on 1997-04-22 (Glorantha Digest Vol 04)

From: Joerg Baumgartner <joe_at_toppoint.de>
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 97 19:14 MET DST

Steve Martin
>Finally, I think that the cult of Orlanth Lightbringer is actually
>completely unknown in the cities, and is found in the more rural areas,
>because I think that this is the cult which is found _including_ those
>deities as parts of Orlanth.

I tend to side with Alex on this issue: while in rural areas the specialists are less frequent, and there is demand for their spells, the cities are the places where neither traditions (Thunderous) nor warleaders (Adventurous?) are that important. If you see Thunderous as Orlanth the Magician, that might have some influence in urban regions, but apart from his Teleports, there is little to make him interesting to urbanites. Adventurous probably is a favourite of the semi-adults on their nightly forays, but fails to serve the needs of the married townsman IMO. The Lightbringer with his cool connections - including the (Theyalan) city-god, just another subcult, taking the Flesh Man or Ginna Jar part of the cult - seems to work better.

Maniria has a couple of Orlanthi cities, those in Heortland and Volsaxi Valley, Sartar, and northern Esrolia, as well as those in Ditali, Longsi and Solanthi lands. Granted, there are strong influences of other cults in any of these, but the "city god" should play about the same part as the wyter in the rural clans. (That makes the city god Ginna Jar, in the Lightbringer concept...)

Or how do we get initiates of the city cult of say Jansholm? (Unless you are content with a purely Aeolian Church solution, which even I am not.)

>Thus, a Minor Temple to Orlanth Lightbringer would get the Orlanth spells
>_and_ the associate spells, even though normally all it could get was
>Orlanth's spells until you found a Major or Great Temple. These spells
>might be the ones normally available from the associates, or might be
>ones more appropriate to the LBQuest, I haven't looked at it closely
>enough to have an opinion.

So what spells are available at the city temple to Orlanth in Karse, according to your model?

(I am using the Midkemia-Press Karse, which has a temple to the Ruling God - not Belintar, but the King of Gods, most likely Orlanth - and another one of the "old race" (IMG anybody Kethaelan not Heortling: Esrolites and Islanders). In my Aeolian-heavy picture of Heortland the temple has a section for (St.) Orlanth Breath of Creator (etc.) as well as the "city god" shrine and the Lightbringer stuff. The Goddess temple is heavily Esrolian, with Esrola even worshipped by the Islander-stock fishermen, thus a couple of unusual sea-related shrines around that of Choralinthor Earthson.)