>Well, it seems clear that sacrificial (i.e. theist) worship of the
>Invisible God or his minions is not entirely useless, since at least some of
>the Stygians do that.
In the East Isles, they would call this the Avanapdur error in that the entity they contact is not the Ultimate God but can be the Devil (and when the East Islanders tried to worship Durapdur, they contacted something pretty close). Consequently I have no doubt that some cities in Safelster do this and are condemned as Gbajites by others but unfortunately the criteria for Gbajism is much wider as to dilute this condemnation.
Orlanthi-style devotion to the Ultimate God is not subject to this error (mainly because you are animistically worshipping a sorcerous entity) but it is subject to great risks. This is what I believe the wizards of Surantyr's Henotheistic Church do. They are Sufiesque magicians of great power that command obediance from the lesser gods and their worshippers. They have no need of Stygian Mysteries, hence the people of Otkorion are ordinary theists with correspondingly better magics and hence military might.
Nick Brooke:
>I tend to dislike this judgemental approach to Glorantha -- "Malkioni are
>Right, Stygians are Wrong".
No worse than "Lunars are Right, Orlanthi are Wrong" profounded by some...
>Better IMO to note the excellent variety of
>Theist magic which Stygians can access through their superior understanding
>of the nature of Glorantha ("their festering Heresy!"), which orthodox
>Malkioni have a 100% inability to use.
Their theistic magic is weaker than the ordinary barbarians whom they often have close (if unfortunate) contact with. Thus they also have to explain why the Barbarian magic is so much stronger (easily done with spiel about how their error prevents the Barbarians from knowing God).
Powered by hypermail