Misapplied Yelmalio

From: Greg Stafford <greg_at_glorantha.com>
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 13:01:26 -0800

At 05:26 PM 2/21/2001 -0800, you wrote:
These are all great ideas.
I think that some of everything said is true, and that it could be presented as a really good example of what mixed worship really is. I am sure that this is a mixture of animist and theist practices in ways that defy the rules to define. Animist dancing with prayers to Thankartus, a black pig sacrificed with Dara happan sun and earth rites, a prayer to Great Father Balazar, the entrails read and given to the Great God, Eating Dog (because it's done on Windsday and because of the omens that the unters brought to us), done at the Dawn and invoking the sun in the name of Votank, Yelmalio, Big Yelm, Thankartus, and so on, all done around a giant statue that is treated by the god talkers as if they were giant fetishes.

They don't know, by the way, that they are using misapplied worship. Who would tell them? It works, it was the way of the grandfathers and founders.

I almost wish that we'd called it Mixed Worship and made it the standard type of religion everywhere in the world, and made everything cost x2HP. All the Other Sides would have the same resistance. No bookeeping. Then later we could have revealed the wonderful world of the "pure worship" of the cults that practiced that at all.

However, having mashed most arguments that one or the other is right, I wonder if the participants can thrn their collaboration to something like a list of really cool ways that the mixtures have created scenario hooks for a game.

BTW, with this misapplied worship people could still maintain their native Animist traditions (perhaps with some negative modifiers, but they don't know that). Thus they could maintain relations with their Ancestors. Just as, I am sure, certain gods residing in the countryside are dealt with by this method, that one or whatever has been established. - --------
Greg Stafford
Issaries, Inc. 900 Murmansk St., Suite 5; Oakland, CA 94607 Phone: (510) 452 1648 Fax: (510) 302 0385 Publisher of Hero Wars, Roleplaying in Glorantha See our site at: <www.glorantha.com>

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