Only female ducks can become BBG friends.
Needless to say, BBG friends favor axes for weapons.
Unlike human BBG worshipers, BBG friends don't have any duty to protect
Ernalda.
Ceremonies related with the friendship between ducks and BBG are performed
in the fertility day.
Lesser friends
Lesser friends can learn the next spells one-use: Ax Trance, Great Parry,
Slash, Berserker, Command Small Gnome, Slash.
They are treated as initiates of BBG and they can apply for formal
initiation if they fulfill the normal requirements.
Ax Friends (BBG Best friends)
A lesser friend has a chance of POW on 1D100 of becoming an ax friend for
each live duck she hatches. (If she hatched twice she would have 2*POW and
so on).
Ax friends can learn BBG's Special Divine Magic like a priest.
If they fulfill the requirements, they are considered acolytes of BBG
without needing to apply for it.
Friendship for Death
This is the narration made by an human BBG priestess of the Friendship for
Death ritual performed by a duck ax friend (recorded by a Lankhor Mhy
Priest):
"I had been friends of Quelna Brokenfeather an ax friend of my goddess
since my youth. It was no surprise when the little hag invited me to assist
her
in becoming the friend for death of my gor master.
"Two days before the ritual I joined her duck band in the margins of the
Creek. I noticed that some ducks, specially the youngest,
were not happy with me joining the party. Soon that feeling was gone. That
night Quelna disappeared. Next morning me, two lesser friends of the Holy
Babeester Gor, and about ten other ducks - friends of other gods - embarked
on a raft, descended the Creek and entered the Upland Marsh. We traveled
all day and I noticed they felt
more comfortable when I was inside the tent they had in the center of the
raft. I decided to stay there. We spent the night traveling and just before
Yelm rose in the sky, we landed on a flat island covered with bushes. That
morning - or should I say, mOrning - I saw Quelna again for the last time
before the ceremony.
"I think that my friend spent those days preparing herself to the shamanic
rituals.
"At dusk the ducks started to assemble in a ground that had been prepared
to this effect. There were more than 150 ducks. I couldn't see my friend.
The ducks formed several circumferences with the most important ducks (Best
friends and priests) near the center, and the lowest in the outskirts. I
myself was in the first rank facing the shamans across me in the other side
of the circle. Only the shamans myself and some more individuals near me
were sited. Most ducks were standing and started to sing, clapping their
ands hitting the land with their feet. I noticed that some student shamans
directed their performance.
"Finally some spirits appeared in the open space in the middle of the
circle.
"I recognized the discorporate spirits of the shamans and some other
spirits
of which I don't know where they came from (1). At a certain point one of
the ducks near me advanced to the center of the circle. For a moment the
chanting stopped. Then the spirit of a shaman appeared forcing a spirit
into the center. That spirit had to fight the duck there. Eventually
the duck won the fight and the spirit was released. Every duck rejoiced
with the favorable outcome. Several hours were spent in such rituals.
"It was near mOrning that the ceremony attained the climax. The focus was
my friend. She had to reenact the mythical encounter between BBG and the
ducks.
First, a Gostbran priest lited a fire and magically enanced-it. It
represented Yelm.
Next, a duck entered the circle from my left. It was an Eurmali friend. He
represented this god. For some time the eurmali mimed Yelm and told jokes
about this god. The ducks laughed a lot.
Next, one of the leading shamans summoned a spirit: the spirit of
Drulkazan. That moment a duck came from behind me only to be
possessed by the spirit: it was Quelna.
The eurmali friend took an interest in Quelna and they played for a while.
That's when the Gustbran enanced fire started to grow, almost embracing and
burning them alive. I could almost touch the tension and anguish of the
ducks surrounding the circle. Eventually the fire decreased again. Quelna
went away from the center to a place where stood a Blade friend. He
represented Humakt one of the other Drulkazan friends.
"Next some ducks entered with some large fans and started doing wind
against the fire, reduccing it to a ashes. All that time
Quelna and the Blade were playing a training duel.
"When Yelm 'died' all the ducks started yelling and mourning. Some of them,
disguised as dead people, entered the circle and just walked randomly. At
that
point Quelna started conducting them to the place across me where stood the
shamans. The student shamans received the 'dead' and 'buried' them.
"Now the outcome of the ceremony was arriving: only Quelna possessed by
Drulkazan remained in the
center of the circle. She started to clasp and shout in a low tone, her
expression showing great pain and suffering. Her belly was bumping. She
fel to the ground, her legs opened in my direction.
"Her sufferings started to upset me. I was tense and slowly felt the gor
growing within me. And then something extraordinary happened: it was not my
gor anymore. It was BBG's, not mine, taking control of me. My goddess was
present and I was her fetch. Me, myself possessed by Babeester Gor !
"BBG slowly started to walk in the direction of her duck friend. She hold
my ax in her hands. When she was not more then for or five feet away from
the poor creature she stopped. The goddess and the druluz stared at each
other breathing at the same pace, thinking the same thoughts. Slowly the
goddess raised her ax with both her hands, high above her head.
"Next, she let the ax come down at lightning speed, opening the belly of
Quelna and
liberating her spirit from the bondage to the mundane world. I
saw that spirit coming out of the dead body like a child comes out of his
mother's body. My goddess hold my friend in her hands and they went down to
the earth below. I was left bent and half unconscious in the middle of 200
ducks, in body or in spirit, that danced, shouted, singed, and
manifested their joy in any possible way."
(1) Note from the LM priest: those can be the spirits of shamans from other duck bands that joined in the ritual. It seems that this is common to happen in druluz' shamanic rituals. It reinforces the bonds between different duck bands.
NOTICE TO ROLE PLAYERS
The material in Duck Mini Pack has never been tested. If you think it is
worthy enough to deserve a go, you are on your own. Don't blame me for the
unexpected results.
Sergio Mascarenhas
End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #106
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