> >I think [Yelmalio] would be worshipped theistically in Balazar. The
> >citadel inhabitants are theists.
>I don't agree that they're theists. I have a number of reasons why I
>disagree :
>1) Balazar was in charge for such a brief time (32 years and really
>he only became leader in 1087) that I don't think he could install
>wholesale change.
This is _if_ the citadel inhabitants are Votanki. But I don't assume that Balazar came in just with his three sons, I feel that he came in with a large following. The descendants of these followers are the Citadel people, not the Votanki. This makes the introduction of pigs, agriculture and citadels a less dramatic change as it's really a colonization of Votankiland, not a conversion.
>2) Again, I believe that all able bodied followers of Tharkantus
>were in the True Golden Horde and no one was left to keep the religion
>going in it's original fashion.
There's always a fair bit of hyperbole about the amount of men that were killed. In any case, the Yelmalio cult in Prax suffered a similar catastrophe yet we see from the list of the Counts that the first nomad was over two centuries later. So yes, the amount of men killed was disastrous but no, the priestly traditions carried on. Yes, the Sun Domers in Prax did get taken over by the nomads and suffered for it, but no, the Votanki haven't the muscle to do the same to the citadel folk.
>"The hunter chiefs who tended the children of Balazar raised each
>according to their own tribal interests, so the three sons were
>quarrelsome rather than cooperative."
I really read this as an ex-post-facto myth of why the Balazar's kids started slugging it out.
>3) Tharkantus isn't enough to base a society on. He's only a
>warrior/light/leadership god and there's no indication in any
>writings that the other entities the Balazarings worship are
>theistic in nature.
The Sun Domers in Prax seem to live well by Yelmalio. In any case Entra, the swine deity, that Balazar stole is a theistic entity. She is mentioned as a subcult of Esrola in Thunder Rebels p179 while Mereran, the patron of the Great Vrok Hawks, is from Theistic Rinliddi. Yes, there is little mention of the women's goddess in Griffin Mountain but that might be a relic of the pub-crawl ethos in the days when it was written.
>Thus I believe that he was changed into a animistic spirit and
>is offered improper worship.
The main grip I have about introducing misapplied worship is that it creates more headaches than it solves.
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