> > The main grip I have about introducing misapplied worship is
> > that it creates more headaches than it solves.
>But is this a gripe about the misapplied worship rules more than the actual
>"in Glorantha" religious practices, isn't it?
No. It's the unnecessary attempts to turn an ordinary religion into something radically different.
>I really cannot see how the citadels would be able to maintain a
>separate culture from the animist Balazaring hunters.
IMO they do so with the same difficulty that the Theistic Orlanthi maintain animist Kolati. The key thing is the Votanki traditions are no good for living in a city while the Theistic traditions are useless for living in the wilds. Turning Yelmalio into a misapplied religion does nothing to alter this.
Oliver Bernuetz:
>I don't dispute the fact that Balazar didn't come
>alone. However I don't agree that he brought a whole crowd of colonizers
>though. I agree that your position makes the introduction of those things a
>less dramatic change. I believe that when Balazar came most of his
>followers were young bachelors who followed him out of personal loyalty.
Even if his supporters were young batchelors following out of personal loyalty, they would have still acted as colonists when they settled down in Balazar.
>A valid point however in the Balazaring case the body of followers
>drawn from was only a small percentage of the Votankiland population
>rather than a big part of the main culture like in Prax so the impact
>could have been much more severe.
It could have been. OTOH I just don't see Balazar as having the infrastructure to take away most of his able bodied men with him even if they wanted to.
> >The Sun Domers in Prax seem to live well by Yelmalio.
>In Prax though there's always been evidence that the Sun County bunch
>worship other deities who are part of the Solar Pantheon, Lokarnos,
>Dendara for two examples. Yes Yemalio's the top deity but he's got
>lots of other deities backing him up.
Lokarnos and Dendara aren't prominent deities in Sun County. Lokarnos is only worshipped by traders (1%) and Dendara's worshippers comes from the Pelorian expatriate community which is of recent origin. Yelmalio's main supporter is Ernalda (worshiped by 90%) of the women.
>I'm not happy with Entra as described on the web site because originally
>as Mralota she was said to have been stolen from the dragons by Balazar.
>If swine were brought in by colonists wouldn't they have had their own
>swine deity?
The Pelorian swine goddess is VergEnari. However there's some weird pelandan connection about her and it might have been unacceptable to Balazar. Goats would have been more practical as there's a goat goddess, Uryarda, who is worshipped by the Kostaddi, a related people to the Votanki. Why they weren't taken is a good question and one I don't have an answer for.
>However the king of Dykene Skilfil Heartpiercer is
>said to have hero quested for the ability to raise the giant hawks so he
>could easily have encountered an aspect of Mereran on the Spirit Plane and
>gained the ability.
Mereran is a goddess (she's mentioned in Anaxial's Roster p33) and be found on the god plane, not the spirit plane.
>I agree that it creates headaches however I think your colonization approach
>creates the following problems instead.
>1) Instead of having the citadel dwellers being an offshoot of the Votanki,
>sharing common beliefs, forms of worship, etc. they're now aliens living in
>Balazar.
The same could be said for Balazar yet the locals accepted him. In any case, the Votanki do have a mythology of contacts with and acceptance of city-dwelling sun worshippers. They provided the zarkosite troops (savage slingers) for the Emperors of Dara Happa. Balazar's presence is a particularly benign form as he doesn't enslave them as the Dara Happans did.
If you really want the Votanki to be the same "culture" as the Balazarings, then a solution might be to make the Votanki theists instead of animists and interpret any reference to 'spirits' as daimones (although there still would be shamans among them as there are among the Orlanthi). Some support for this is in the sources as their leonine patron, Durbaddath, (now worshipped only in Carmania) is a god. But this kind of reeks of the same clunkiness that I was gripping about before in the misapplied worship solution so I'm iffy about it.
>3) Why do the citadel dwellers speak the same language as the hearths? I
>can't see either group changing their language as a result of colonization.
The citadel dwellers originally spoke firespeech (Dara Happan). I can only assume that they took up the local tongue to speak with their women and gave up speaking the old tongue in much the same way as the English Normans gave up speaking french as a first language.
>5) In some ways it diminishes Balazar's accomplishments. Instead of coming
>in and uniting the people and trying to better their lot he just brought in
>his colonists and built the citadels. He's gone from Balazar the builder
>and benefiter to Balazar the conqueror and imposer.
Since Balazar's unification vanished with him, I really don't see him as a uniter. And colonization need not come about as a result of conquest - Balazar was there to fight trolls and the Votanki would have appreciated him for that.
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