From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer) To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest) Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily) Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Fri, 27 May 1994, part 1 Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM Content-Return: Prohibited Precedence: junk X-RQ-ID: Intro This is the RuneQuest Daily Bulletin, a mailing list on the subjects of Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's world of Glorantha. It is sent out once per day in digest format. More details on the RuneQuest Daily and Digest can be found after the last message in this digest. --------------------- From: isaac@twics.com Subject: What the Vicar Told Me... Reply to Jonas Message-ID: <0097F061.7F5240E0.47@tanuki.twics.com> Date: 26 May 94 11:51:42 GMT X-RQ-ID: 4187 Hi everyone, me clogging the airwaves again. Thanks to Boris and Sandy for the Black Wind and the Gloranthan thieves - this is the kind of stuff which many of us hunger for, I'm sure. I for one will be plugging selected bits into my campaign, with respect. :-) Jonas Schiott was kind enough to have a peek at the modest proposal I posted, and suggested having a rant about Ralios history and so on - which I'd be very keen on * pause for understatement to work its way through* Can we do this on the Digest? I'm a rank newcomer to this Mysterious Medium, and I'd hate to tread on people's toes with pages and pages of... Well, you get the idea. Help? On the off chance people don't mind, Jonas, I'll start the ball rolling. This is my campaign write-up for one of the henotheist churches in Safelster - I've called it "the Church in Estali". It's not meant to be _The_ definitive henotheist church - I'm not convinced that Surantyr's unitarian leanings don't have a political motivation... Also, it cribs massive huge chunks from the write-up of Malkionism in GoG - basically the points which I saw my henotheists and the Rokari having in common. Please let me know if anyone would like to see more in the same vein, otherwise Jonas and I can take this onto a private channel. Text follows... WHAT THE VICAR TOLD ME - A LOOK AT THE CHURCH IN ESTALI WHERE DID THE WORLD COME FROM? In the beginning, God created the world. He created every living thing, every tree and every bird, every cloud and every stone. And when He had created the world, He breathed life into it. And His Breath moved over the world, breathing life into every thing It touched. And from His Breath God created the Host of Angels to help Him tend His creation, and He assigned to them their proper duties and places in the world. That is why our priests speak of the Trinity of the Creator, Host, and Breath of God, and that is where the three corners of the First Rune of the Lord come from. WHERE DID I COME FROM? Your mother bore you into the world, and the Lord God breathed the life into your nostrils and into your breast. The Breath of God is called the Soul, and that is why we stop breathing when we die. WHY DO WE DIE? God brings us into the world for His Divine Purpose, which is not ours to know. Our bodies are of this world, and like all things in the world must perish. But our Souls are part of God. WHAT HAPPENS AFTER WE DIE? The Lord God breathed His message into the world through Malkion and Hrestol, His Prophets, to tell us of the Solace which awaits us with God after we die. WHY AM I HERE? You are here to obey the will of your Lords and your Priests, who speak with authority vested in them by God Himself. It is your responsibility to understand your place in God's great scheme, and to understand what is expected of you. HOW DO I DO MAGIC? God Himself showed us the way to pray for the holy powers which He gave the world. If you are worthy, our priests may teach you prayers to say to help you more in your life. God also showed us how we might pray to Him directly, or to His Angels, and plead for Intercession in our lives. But this is a task for priests and holy men, and not for the likes of you. I HAVE HEARD OF OTHER POWERS? CAN YOU TELL ME THE TRUTH ABOUT THEM? Other powers exist besides the Lord Our God and His Host of Angels, and foolish and ignorant people sometimes try to worship them. Some of them are simply misunderstandings of the nature of our Lord, such as when the infidel barbarians in the east personify the Breath of God and worship it as a separate god, calling it Worlath. Some of them are simply from ignorance and fear, such as when stupid primitives are overawed by the sun they see in the sky, and in their awe imagine it to be a god. And some are far more dangerous, the spirits and ghosts of evil people who would deny the Lord, or evil demons which ever lurk in the void before the world was formed and reach for the souls of men from the edges of creation. These lesser beings are creatures of evil and of darkness, and are a mortal danger to weak-willed men. To worship them risks perdition, and destruction of the soul. It is folly, ignorance, and blasphemy. ...ALDRYA? The Lady of the Forests is one of the Divine Host, and cares for the wild forests and lands beyond the walks of men. She is one of God's Angels, and serves His ineffable purpose, in turn being served by her people, the Elves. Her duties lie far from those of men; she should be respected, and feared, but never approached, for it is not given to us to know her ways. ...CHAOS? The forces of the void which existed before God created the world have been let into the world by evil men. Once already has God saved the world from destruction, and now Chaos is part of His once-pure creation.The demons and spirits of Chaos are still worshipped as gods by evil and twisted creatures worthy only of destruction. ...KYGER LITOR? Trolls are a race of creatures from the Darkness, whose ways are incomprehensible to the minds of men. Our priests tell us that even they, too, are creatures of the Lord, and that the Black Angel which the trolls call Kyger Litor is part of the Divine Host. But they are far from us, and alien to our ways. Saint Arkat is the holy man who bridged the gap between us and the men of Darkness, and for those of brave or questing heart,it is said that he does so still. ...LUNAR GODDESS? This distant religion is a good example of the folly which men may fall into if they stray from the path of God. The Lunars worship nothing more than an evil ghost grown fat and proud on the worship it receives. Like the belief in Gbaji, belief in this petty spirit will drive her worshippers into suffering, degradation,and death. ...MAGASTA? The distant ocean holds mysteries unfathomable by men. Those who live by it have personalized their fears and in their ignorance feed monstrous and malevolent entities who disguise themselves to make those fears real. ...MOSTAL? The Dwarfs have been called God's Caretakers, and indeed they labour to keep the world running according to God's unknowable plan. They are creatures of deep places, however, and have little to do with the lands of life and men. There are even those who say that the Dwarfs have never been touched by the Breath of God, and never heard Malkion's message of Solace. They should be respected, and perhaps also pitied. ...ORLANTH? Many are the ignorant and superstitious folk who fail to understand the true majesty of the Lord our God and his Tripartite Divine Nature. The hill- barbarians to the east are a good example; they deny the reality of the Lord God, and then in their absurdity continue to worship His Breath, which they personify and call Orlanth, or Worlath. ...PRIMITIVE SPIRITS? The ignorance of savages is proverbial. Study of the petty beings they worship shows why. At best these feeble spirits are minor in ability, of local importance, providing only pitiful magic. ...YELM? The shining orb of the sun has been an object of adoration since it rose into the sky. Primitive peoples seized upon the visible sun as the most obvious sign for the ruling power of their universe, and called it Yelm, or Ehilm. The heretics in Galin even declare that the sun is the third part of the Divine Trinity, and deny that the Breath of God exists at all. ...THE ANGELIC ORDERS? The Angelic Orders are for those devoted men and women who worship the Divine Host of the Lord. In the beginning, God created from His own Breath the Host of Angels to help Him tend His creation. Although the Host are many, we in the Church in Estali pay particular reverence to three who intercede most in the affairs of men. Those holy people who revere these Angels and devote their lives to their service belong to special orders within our Church known as the Angelic Orders. They take special vows, and the prayers they learn and the intercessions of the Angels are different from those we may make supplication for in the Church. But all is part of God's great and divine Being, and those who serve the Angels serve God, and do His bidding. ...THE LORD OF SWORDS? The Most Holy and Angelic Order of the Knights of the Swords has its headquarters in the bleak and barren Wintersmoor in the central highlands of our Archduchy, in the great temple-fortress we call the Castle of Swords. The Lord of Swords is a grim and valiant Angel, protector of the Church and Defender of God. Honour is like air to His followers, the Knights of the Swords, who dedicate themselves to making war for the sake of peace in our Church and lands, to dying so that you and I may live. You can see members of their Angelic Order wherever you travel; they are the elite of our army, and nearly all our militiamen are proud to count themselves in its congregation. Many of its most devout and most valiant worshippers dwell in the Castle of Swords, where they prepare themselves for the Lord's work, but many also travel the Archduchy on their Vigilant Errantry, righting wrongs and protecting the weak. ...THE GREAT GREEN LADY? The home of the Most Holy and Angelic Order of the Green Ladies lies in the verdant meadowlands of Lady's Green, along the lush eastern banks of the Estali River. The Great Green Lady is the revered and bountiful Angel who protects our crops and keeps hunger from our doors. She is the Friend of Farmers and Fields, and her Green Ladies form a sisterhood which spans every farming community in the land. Prayers to the Green Lady shower blessings on our farmers' crops, and ensure bounteous harvests. The Reverend Mothers of the Order conduct services at the Church in Lady's Green and in the Cathedral in Estali to pray that the Lord protect us all from the grim hand of famine. The Great Green Lady is also beloved as the protector of children and animals. Her Green Ladies are our midwives, and also say sooth on the ways to tend our livestock and follow nature's calendar. In Green Vale in the south of our lands, it is the Order of the Green Lady which consults most with the Aldryami of Tarinwood and the elven fortress at Woodhome. ...THE WHITE LADY? The nunnery known as the Jade Temple beyond Middlemarch Forest is the centre for the sisterhood of the Most Holy and Angelic Order of the White Ladies. The White Lady is the Angel of Mercy, charged by our Lord and God with protecting the weak and tending the sick and wounded. Members of Her Order can be found throughout Estali wherever people are suffering. They operate hospitals in Churches in most major towns, and there is often at least a novice of the order attached to the most modest chapel in the humblest village. The Jade Temple, as you know, is famous for its thermal waters, which the White Ladies tell us have miraculous healing properties for the faithful. Many earnest pilgrims make the journey up the White Horse River to the nunnery in the hope of a cure, or, if not, at least some ease from their sufferings in the gentle hands of the White Ladies. ***** Whew... That's it for now. Comments? Flames? Thunderous accusations? Thanks for reading. Kampai! Gary (Gary Newton / Isaac@twics.com)