I always assumed it was a female name due to the ending... but no proof.
> ------------------------------
> Peter Metcalfe:
> > I think this is the wrong way to treat henotheist magicians. Their
> > magicians will concentrate on one form or the other with Clergy and
> > Sorcerers of the Invisible God and his Saints, and Priests of Orlanth
>
> Hrm. You mean you get both, distinctly, inside a single tradition?
> (Or that in different henotheist sects you get one or the other?)
It sounds a lot like denominational Christian splits... Everyone thinks they are right and they argue with anyone who thinks different, but few it is easier to avoid the others than to fight with them.
> > Greg reckons it is very difficult to reconcile theistic and sorcerous
> > magic (unlike Theism/Shamanism that the Orlanthi do).
Progressing from shamanic to deist practices is a very straightforward process of seeking greater personal reward by focusing your worship on the larger spirits that control the magics which apply to daily life. What I find very interesting are the various 'ancestor' cults were a shaman acts as priest. As the cult grew from a spirit cult, more spells became available, and soon there can be a separate priesthood such as the river cults. After that, the shamans are phased out, assuming the countryside becomes peaceful enough.
For sorcery to get a foothold in a culture, there has to be enough acceptance of strangeness to say 'live and let live', and shamanism has to already be actively shunned as too primitive for normal people. For sorcery to take over the running of churches, sorcery would have to be very commonplace already, so that there is a much weaker distinction of 'us vs. them'. I see a long transition period where sorcerers are 'that other church', but 'they're not welcome here'.
Bob Stancliff
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