> It's also religion-specific; I could be an initiate of both
> Orlanth and Issaries, but only observe the latter piously.
And you can be pious in a religion of which you are not an initiate.
Example: I run an initiate of Issaries and Ernalda. She's pretty pious in
both of these religions. But she also acknowledges that Orlanth is king
of the gods, and will be moderately pious towards him (when the party
have no idea which of two routes to take, rather than throwing dice, they
follow the wind). She also says a small prayer to Chalana Arroy when
casting Heal. She'll never be an initiate of either of these, but
respects them.
> Presumably, here the intended connotation is that Goldentongues are
> "Worldly", or not to put too fine a point on it, "Materialistic",
> rather than being "Impious" in their attitude to their own religion.
"Materialistic" is better. I suspect part of the problem is a hang-over
from certain aspects of Christianity, where poverty is seen as a virtue,
and there is only one religion to be Pious in. We end up with "Worldly"
as both the opposite of "Pious", and meaning "materialistic": these are
not the same!
> Suggested fix: dump Piety. Replace by two, clearly distinct things:
> o A religious observance Passion, Revere [God], say.
Yes. To go along with the skill of Religious Lore [God]. And some means
of measuring the strength of the link to that god: we seem to be heading
towards using the amount of POW "bound up" with that deity.
> o A different trait-pair, say, Worldly and Spiritual (for the
> sake of choosing a different name).
Sounds good. Measuring the level of ones interest in the spiritual as
opposed to physical aspects of life. I think we can separate it from the
Passion above with a bit of thought: someone with a high Revere Orlanth
but a low Spiritual might give cash (sheep?) to the temple on a regular
basis, but take part in very few rituals. High Spiritual, no Revere [God]
sounds like a shaman to me. Or a sorceror.
To cover the Issaries liking for personal wealth, perhaps we need to shift emphasis to the Selfish trait. This would seem to me to adequately describe the "sell his own grandmother" type of trader.
Jane Williams jane_at_williams.nildram.co.ukhttp://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~janewill/gloranth/index.shtml
Powered by hypermail