> >referring to their family. (Or perhaps you can PAY for your entrance;
> >then you can bury all those Aunt Scrooge Asrelia priestesses with
> >lots of gold and gems and stuff).
>
> This does seem quite logical for the Asrelia cult. Do they let their
> poorer sisters and cousins in as well?
Depends if they paid their mortgages... It might depend on their
personality.
I once heard a Swedish equivalent of a Holy Roller defend the
constant demands from his church of large monetary gifts from their
members with "All gold and silver originally belonged to the Lord,
and we want to give it back to Him through His church." If you change
the sex of the deity referred to I think you have a typical statement
of an Asrelian cultist.
In case anyone think I'm painting the Asrelians as too stingy and says the Bountiful Earth godess ought to be generous, consider the fact that She gives us poor mortal access to _her_ land, and for a _very_ small fee (compare the amount of food sacrificed with the amount eaten by men and animals).
As I consider the idea of the Cycle important to such a cthonic culture, I am somewhat at a loss to why these people hang around with TKT after death instead of simply being recycled as they bodies are - I have this strange idea that you quickly are reborn unless you have a mummy. However, there are some ideas here:
1,TKT is greedy and grasping, just like Asrelia. However, she wants spiritual wealth, not material. Thus, while the denizens of the Halls mill around in Silence, TKT learn all they have learned during life. Yes, this makes divinations to her useful, but remember, she doesn't give up that knowledge freely. No way. I suppose other souls can have caught snippets of almost any knowledge down there as well, which means you can use Summon Dead like they did in ancient RW: for general divination purposes.
2. Due to the God's War (brought about by the irresponsible male gods, and not brought to an end until the Earth herself fixed things) the World isn't as fertile as it once was. War, plague and famine also takes a greater toll. Thus there is a surplus of souls waiting to be reborn, and the Halls are the equivalent of queing for a ticket, passport or government approval. Boring, long and uneventful.
3. People learn something or get better by spending their afterlife in the Halls before they reincarnate. This, however, imply some kind of upward spiral of reincarnating souls, which I'm not sure if I like for the Esrolians.
"The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea, in a beautiful pea-green boat..."
>From "The Owl and the Pussycat" by Edward Lear
Erik Sieurin
bv9521_at_utb.hb.se
Bodagatan 39, 2 tr
50742 Boras
Sweden
033/141731
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