<<Why do you think a CA initiate must lose her membership of Ernalda? I
thought the general idea was that all members of an "Orlanthi" clan are
initates of either Orlanth or Ernalda depending on their gender, with
mebership of additional cults being common. I can see that a male CA initiate
might have to leave Orlanth (or pick an Orlanth sub-cult?), as the combat
requirements for Orlanth initiates might been seen as conflicting with CA
vows. But Ernalda? Where's the conflict?>>
This is certainly how I thought about things when doing the Torkani write-up. Now, admittedly, Torkani healers are XU, not CA, which gives them a rather different outlook, but I don't see the difference as too great. I calculated there as being 50 XU initiates among the 9000-strong Torkani tribe. But most of those are initiates - even though the '10% of time and money' is a game mechanic, I think it indicates that initiates don't have to spend most of their time working for the temple. They don't spend the other 90% of the time adventuring, of course - they spend it down on the farm helping the community in other ways.
The priestesses are an exception, and work full time at the XU temple (the Torkani only have the one - judging from KoS, the same is typical with CA in other tribes). But at the very most there would be three of them in the tribe, and probably less.
So the way I see it, Torkani XU cultists are also Ernalda cultists; they're just people with extra skills above the norm, rather than people dedicating themselves to a completely different path. But acquiring the extra skills requires extra commitment, and extra cult restrictions, which is why most people don't bother.
<<The only loss of abilities I can see is due to the CA vows. Less fighting
ability than the norm (though self-defence is allowed), vegetarian diet (would
this be a problem?), needing to keep those white robes clean. This may be
difficult for the Healer, but hardly poses much of a burden for the rest of
the clan.>>
IIRC, CA followers aren't allowed to fight at all, they can only run away, or send their opponent to sleep. This would be difficult for an Orlanth initiate, certainly! It's less of a problem for XU cultists (although among the Torkani very few of those are male) because IMO they're allowed to kick the crap out of you provided they don't *start* the fight.They also aren't vegetarians, and only wear white robes under a black chasuble, which may help a little :-)
When I wrote my Torkani material, I only had three cults be exclusive, and demand that you give up Orlanth or Ernalda membership. Humakt is the main one, as this represents the severing of kin ties. The other two are the very minor (among Torkani) cults of Eurmal and Zorak Zoran - members of both of which are rightly regarded with suspicion by everyone else.
Forward the glorious Red Army!
Trotsky
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