That'd be because I don't _have_ the "FM". OK then, I revert to my "that might be what KoDP says" stance: this is _clearly_ wrong about the Ernalda quest, surely, unless the 'many' aspects of HW that have such a restriction is growing to 'non-Orlanthi all'. (Or HQ preconditions are in any event different from initiation ones, which would at least be arguable.)
> Remember that the quest includes
>
> : She made the secret sign to Ernalda. Ernalda noticed the sign, and
> from the greeting
> : Ernalda gave her, Uralda recognized Ernalda as her mother.
>
> To me this is a woman's mystery, and shows why only women can be initiates.
Or simply a Uraldan mystery, come to that.
> I believe most Heortling herders (whether of cows or sheep) are
> initiates of Orlanth. People don't worship deities just because they
> offer cool magic -- especially because most deities will give some of
> their cool magic merely for a sacrifice (or prayer).
Most (male) Heortling _anythings_ worship Orlanth, so that's a bit of a non-point. By this logic, you could construct a 'why women aren't allowed be initiates of Humakt' argument, and be just as convincing.
Perhaps the crux of this is simply, what is Uralda the goddess _of_, precisely? The epithet 'animal mother' might imply that she's associated much more strongly with cows rather than bulls (or it might not
This whole gender (a)symmetry thing in Orlanthi culture is a bit of a open-ended source of confusion, IMO. Greg has compared both Vinga and Barntar, and Vinga and Nandan, as being 'equivalents', as suits his rhetorical purpose that day of the week: the former would be a lot nearer the mark, methinks. You're not entirely excluded from, nor do you have to completely gender-role-reverse to take part in, the majority of the gender roles 'by custom' associated with a particular gender, only the irreducible core, the essense of that sex. For me, herd-tending magic is a considerable distance from that core of women's secrets, so I find total gender-exclusivity unintuitive in the extreme.
These bunfights have happened before, though, over enough different cases that I'm sure people are just bursting to put hatfuls of gender requirements on cults described in Thunder Rebels, so I'm braced for the worst already (one can only hope).
Slán leat,
Alex.
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