Robert
>Why on earth not?
Because we don't have the room. Each cult write up varies from 500-1000 words, to put in Oria, would mean putting in Oslira and Biselenslib etc. If we started putting in grain or earth goddesses, then we could easily add 7000 words to the cults section, which is already 1/3 of the book. We have around 70 cults before trimming, I could add around another 30 just off the top of my head.
One thing you have to consider, the Lunar Empire prides itself on creating new deities from its heroes. This has been its main HQing focus for centuries and due to the great hardships that the Empire has endured, there have _been_ many Lunar heroes. We are trying to put a few of them into the book, gods that are small but typically Lunar. For example, Valere Addi, the creater of Chronoportation, is in the book.
>I thought the whole point of Hero Wars was that it allowed us to play a
>wider range of social interactions than just killing things, but here we
>have two of the key cults of Dara Happa being excluded because they aren't
>likely cults for 'adventurers' (is Buserian?, or Ernalda? but they both make
>it into the HW book presumably on the grounds even that if you don't have
>PC's belonging to them you're going to encounter important NPC's who do).
That's exactly why they are in the HW book and that is why we include much smaller cults than Oria, on the grounds that they will be interesting to play and make excellent NPCs. If perhaps a GM wishes to play a village campaign of Pelorian farming, then they can, they just have to fill in the cult blanks and do a little research and make up a few details. However, the vast, vast majority of players would not.want to play this, and we have to cater to them.
>I don't have Enclosure in front of me but IIRC Oria is one of the largest
>and farthest-spread cults of the Lunar Empire and pretty central to rural
>life throughout most of Peloria.
You bet she is
>I'll admit Dayzatar mystics are highly unlikely to leave their ivory towers
>and interact with anyone, but even so the cult is surely of enough mythic
>importance to deserve a write-up of some sort - even if it's only in the
>ultra-short-form given to the Red Goddesses aspects in HW.
>And as for there not being enough space - we're not talking RQ3 or RQ2
>write-ups with a dozen deities to a book here - they only need one paragraph
>each!
Ah, here we are talking apples and oranges. Yes, there will be a listing, often with a full paragraph of detail, and main affinities, for almost every god and goddess we haven't done a cult write up for.
>A further question on SGU - will this cover illumination as this seems to
>have dropped completely from the HW Sedenya write-up - are direct
>worshippers of the Red Goddess still illuminated or has the whole concept
>been consigned to the memory hole?
Actually, if you check out the write up, Sedenyic philosophy mental skill is the key to illumination for some. There is also a mention of the dangers of illumination in the rules. This will be covered in SGU to a greater degree. Suffice to say the understanding of Lunar illumination has grown over the last few years, especially with Gregs (and many others) work on mysticism in other cultures of late.
As for direct worshippers of the Red Goddess being illuminates, that is in the hole, yes. The Red Goddess, or Rufelza, is actually the goddess aspect worshipped by the common man. The worship is led by illuminates to a degree but the vast mass follow her faithfully and form great mobs of fervent followers when times of crisis assail the Empire. The Emperor is head of this broad church and naturally only incites the mobs when some evil noble is plotting against his righteous rule. Basically he has the mob power of Robspierre while still being Louis XVI...:)
Martin Laurie
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