Cult of Bagog

From: Kmnellist_at_aol.com
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2003 10:56:42 EDT


John Hughes on the HQ list:
(I'v e replied here due to excessive reference to the Second Oldest Glorantha Game)
<<The Bat was covered in Moon Rites, Bagog and the Broo Sister get passing mention in AR, but I've yet to uncover keywords or descriptions for any of the major Chaos cults. A check on Lokarnos didn't provide me with any hits>>

Coincidentally I was looking for the Cult of Bagog only yesterday (for no reason at all, no just out of interest, they are not going to be a villian in my game anytime soon, no siree bob). Some peculiar things struck me. One was the restriction on marriage - only those of a certain status are allowed to marry. Scorpion Men do not strike me as the marrying kind, not that they strike me as Cliff Richard either but I just couldn't picture Gagig Twobarb in a bridal gown, nor her groom in a morning suit with top hat. I decided to myself that this was a restriction on breeding as otherwise it just seemed silly. I always thought that only Queens laid eggs, but this must be wrong.

The second peculiar thing was the feeble result of Ceremonial devouring - skills to 25%! not worth bothering surely? It has better results for Initiation and so on so I thought it should be given a boost in a HQ write up.

The third was the time delay for the Ritual of Rebirth which didn't seem to serve much of a purpose.

For HeroQuest I would propose that the Bagog Tradition or Practice or whatever it is teaches some sort of Spirit Combat that takes place in the mundane world, when they eat the body of someone - in other words they get abilities and capture spirits by eating things, not by visiting the Otherworld. However, it suits me to have the gruesome rituals of the foes of my Heroes to be suitably unknown so I haven't yet done a wite up. Maybe when I've got Hero Quest

Finally, it seemed to me that the life and times of a Scorpion Clan could be made into some sort of card game where the objective is to become Queen by fighting, eating and otherwise aquiring other powers (cards) from other People.

I've thought the same (good card game) about the Cult of Thanatar as well, more along the lines of "Heads you win, mind you lose" or "Heads you lose, minds you also lose")

Keith

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