> In some of the texts I have researched Fonritan Magic is
> of several types, the core religions are Animistic entities
> being worshipped in a misapplied sacrificial way,
Pamaltelan spirits or their Garangordite counterparts as gods.
Peter:
> This feels wrong to me. Misapplied worship should not be a
> core of a viable religion as its wrongness makes it inefficient
> - worshippers won't be able to learn secrets for example -
The percentage of worshippers who actually learn secrets is very low, and even religions using a misapplied type of magic will eventually have heroes whose admittedly lesser secrets will be available to the devotees. To me, this is what happened in Fonrit. The Garangordites may act as heroes in this regard.
> yet the Fonritans are supposed to have been one of the few
> peoples to have resisted the God Learners to some degree.
Perhaps they did so because they did not go for the greater magic, but for the concentration of lots of magic in their leaders.
> Misapplied worship should be reserved for cults at the religious
> fringe - they are worshipping it in the wrong way because the
> prevailing orthodoxy will kick their heads in if they do it
> right (or whatever reason).
At one point, Greg said something about wishing that he had presented all religions as "misapplied" and then granting the greater efficiency as a bonus to the pure forms rather than presenting the misapplication as negative modifier. IMG there are lots of reasons why certain groups will combine misapplications and pure form magics in order to gain other benefits.
In case of Fonrit, the sheer number of people inhabiting rather limited stretches of land might be a reason why animistic worship could be as unefficient as misapplied theist worship - not enough spirit allies (or whichever form Doraddic animism takes now, I'm still more than slightly puzzled about their POV towards helper spirits) available for everyone, and even less for the leaders.
> Even though the structure of the Fonritan Pantheon is based on
> the Pamaltelan origin myth, the core entities the Fonritans
> worship are not Pamaltelan Great Spirits but actual Gods.
The core entities are the Garangordites - heroes who portrayed these Great Spirits in a theist manner. IMO this leads to their cults being inferior to practitioners of the real thing. The Fonritians have displayed superior magics towards the Thinokans and the Artmali of the land. They managed to stand off the God Learners for long enough, but they failed to defend against the purer Doraddic magics of Kemparana, for instance.
What makes their way of magic worthwile IMO is the channeling of power from slave to master. Within this system the lowest tiers of slaves don't have any magic to speak of, but the masters gain from this trade.
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