What, the Celtic Thread of Life, and Grasping Beasts? The others must have shamelessly copied 'em -- sue those cultures at once! ;-) I wasn't aware of this, can you give a few pointers?
> (Of course, it being Glorantha, distillation probably creates the
> environment for the alcohol spirits to flourish.)
Or if you listen to the scaremongers, involves Summon Tanien.
> True piety would probably be measured by having the Five Virtues of Orlanth
> (for which you'll be able to refer to the PenDragon Pass rules, to be
> published in Enclosure).
I think that was the whole thrust of the original point -- does it make any sense to have a _separate_ Pious trait, over and above the religious virtues? BTW, aren't you one short? ;-) At one of the earlier cons, someone (Andrew-whose-surname-I-forget) described Truthfulness as the Seventh Virtue of Orlanth -- and no, he hadn't miscounted...
One possible Save would be to say that Piousness is a sort of catch-all virtue for all the minute observances that aren't worth bothering about individually. If I eat eggs every day (scrambled!), accompanied by a defiant gesture to the Celestial Order, fart prodigiously, and always use the correct dodgy poetry in a meeting ritual, then perhaps I count as Pious, even if my courage, wisdom, generosity and justice are all abysmally mediocre.
> The tribe of Prax must manage by gathering as clans (there's no true
> cohesive Bison Tribe that would all gather).
This parenthical point is true, but I think for certain religious purposes at least, they do band together into bigger-than-a-single-clan groupings. Didn't some old sources describe a Bison Nation, divided into tribes, divided into clans? Something like that may be true, though the "tribes" are more likely to be matters of temporary convenience, for religious, milirary, or some transitory political purpose, rather than long-standing formalised groupings, a la Orlanthi tribes.
Cheers,
Alex.
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