Unorthodox Orlanthi Sorcery

From: Julian Lord <julian.lord_at_hol.fr>
Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 01:06:02 +0200

> Joerg Baumgartner:

> Orlanthi don't like sorcerers. If there are Orlanthi who practice
> Western magics, and yet are accepted in their society, obviously they
> are no sorcerers, but wizards, or priest-magicians, or watchamacallit.
>

Hm. I'm fairly sure that there are sorcerors among the Orlanthi, but are they accepted in their society? Another kettle of fish ... If they're initiates of the CA cult, or similar, perhaps : ... grudgingly. The blanket answer: No.

Remember: there *are* worshippers of chaos divinities among the Orlanthi. (Krarsht, Mallia, ... ) Are they accepted by society?

> Jose Ramos about Orlanthi sorcerers:
> > And who would teach sorcery? Just wondering...
>
> The Aeolian Church of Heortland, perhaps through its less
> church-oriented disciples in Karse; the Carmanian cult of Invisible
> Orlanth for another corner of Glorantha, and in Orlanthi Ralios
> ... SNIP ... An Orlanthi relying on home sources only will have no
> opportunity unless the missionaries come into his lands.
>

All true, even the snipped bit, except IMO & IMG for the last one. I believe there are underground unaligned sorcerors in Orlanthi lands, who have some kind of marginal existence in orlanthi society.

    One thing that seems to have been inferred by other contributors to this thread: "sorcery" means "western sorcery". (Am I wrong?) Anyway, I don't think so.
The existence of orlanthi sorcerors (barring the few isolated cultural exceptions like Chalana Arroy, maybe Issaries, etc..?) hasn't been demonstrated. This doesn't prevent us from exploring the hypothesis that they might, or believing they did.

    If they did, though, I think that their magic would be different in many ways to humanist sorcery. It would *definitely* be more demanding, to address the Ian Welsh's monty haulism remark. In a nutshell, someone with theist beliefs would have difficulty with the abstract nature of sorcery, although he could, with great difficulty, and little cultural support, master the concepts. IMO.

    Making enemies of most of his friends, family, and neighbours, of course, with his evil heterodoxy ...

> OTOH, the Chalana Arroy sorcerers are nowhere stated to be Orlanthi.

    Well, the RoC cult write-ups are (supposedly) written with a Praxian POV in mind, so I suppose this is a valid quibble; but: Are there sorcerors among the Praxians?-- Yes, in the Chalana Arroy cult, etc... and we get back to square one.

> Arroin sorcerers using healing spells somehow are contrary to the
> idea of a spell-less healing, no? (I won't say that Arroin's healing
> is unmagical in nature - few things are in Glorantha - but the cult
> shouldn't have spells which work pronto.)

  Well, here's my position on this one:

1. Among the Aeolians (or other sorcery-using "Orlanthi") a theoretical St Arroin, or Stygian Arroin would likely have a martyr status similar to the one he has among the Orlanthi. His myth would be similar, and sorcery wouldn't be granted, as among mainstream Orlanthi no Rune magic is given.
2. Among the mainstream Orlanthi, IMG, Arroin gives no Rune Magic, and has no spell spirits at his command. Does this mean that his worshippers are forbidden access to magic from other sources? What magic would Arroin use to prevent them from doing so? He doesn't have any (Oaths, geasa, cult restrictions & similar are, I think, magic things), and neither, I should think, does he have any Spirit of Reprisal. IMG, Arroini *may* learn sorcery, *but* they're fairly bad at it when they do. (In Sandy's sorcery terms, they have great difficulty increasing their Presence, because Arroin doesn't have any magic. Their High Vow, for instance, might only give them one point of Presence.) They may also have trouble improving their magic, and in gaining access to the Arts. They may have only v. poor knowledge of spells.

   There would in any case be strong cultural prejudice against sorcery.

I had been quietly hoping that Duck Arroini had killed this thread ...

A sorcery-using Arroin cult is, IMO,
a) a Gloranthan likelihood, IMHO (see CA re: "can use sorcery";

        Arroin is a sub-cult of CA.)
b) optional.
c) munchkin material.

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