Uleria

From: Ian Thomson <arkat_at_primus.com.au>
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 14:17:12 +1100

I have only vaguely been following this thread, so apologies if I repeat, and I'll try and be succinct

I live in a city where prostitution is legal, as well as practiced obviously in an illegal fashion, and I also have a vague familiarity with the ecstatic rites of the sacred prostitutes (unfortunately only from books)

I'm trying to equate any of this to heortling culture

Uleria is firnly established in traditional official lore as having houses where people may go and 'worship the goddess of love' in the physical sense

Pavis has a temple, Apple Lane has a temple

They exist in heortling lands and are unlikely to be so hated that greatmobs of locals regularly try and burn them down. Lets face it, we would have heard about it - heortlings aren't exactly famous for being refined in their methods

so, these houses of love exist, and there must be a fair few if there;s one in Apple Lane, even if that one turns out to be an unusual exception

A fair few admittedly could mean only a couple of dozen in the whole of Sartar

Purpose and Perceptions:
well, since Uleria is one of the Celestial Court goddesses, she is likely regarded with the same wonder and puzzlement as Larnste

IE her worshippers are weird and practice ancient rites that no longer make sense in the world

the one advantage she has over Larnste in getting worshippers (other than not being restricted to 3 known sites) is that of sex (of course)

despite people's misgivings, many young men (and lesser numbers of older men, and probably women too - I don't know the set up with male Ulerians, but we know Heortling bi-sexuality exists) are drawn to the temples like moths to the flame

they know they are indirectly participating in ancient rites and involving themselves in religious practices outside the norm, but there have never been any clear direct unfavorable consequences of this

also, the Uleria temples likely can offer magic which aids the community (I mean surely more people will worship Uleria than will give propitiatory worship to Malia, and that exists!)

I won't conjecture as to what this might be at the moment, but these are my ideas:
- - Uleria Temples are viewed as the sites of ancient religious practices as
weird as Larnste
- - they will always be relatively popular, at least amongst single young males

• - they provide some kind of magic which is occasionally useful to the community
• - they are viewed with varying degrees of social tolerance depending on their locations
• - they accept lay worshippers of any kind (except chaotics)
• - they operate according to their own religious principals, which nobody else understands
• - Ulerian worshippers have magic that allows them to exert odd and alluring influence on people
• - nobody wants to mess with Ulerian magic. Hey even the Orlanthi Heroes don't want to risk the 'terrible' reprisals of impotence etc (only some Humakti would be immune to such fears, but since they worship the ancient Rune of Death and Uleria worships the ancient Rune of Life, likely there is a respect and tolerance between the cults, even though the details of their parallel existence is not understood by the average Humakti)
• ---------------------- (arkat_at_primus.com.au) Ian Thomson's Home E-mail, Melbourne, Australia. (Please CC all replies also to: ithomson_at_swin.edu.au )

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