This was pretty much what I was thinking. Most Chiefs would be initiates or devotees of some other aspect with Dar added on as an extra cult. A devotee of Dar might be seen as being excessively ambitious. Of course, in Tarsh, things are different, cause they're all weird 'n stuff....
>> People who want to be LEADERS include the Pharaoh, the Heads of the
>>EWF, the King in Tarsh, etc.
>
>This spunds like a good and sensible Orlanthi attitude (and I'm sure
>all the Orlanthi who *do* want to be leaders (Argrath?) ensure that,
>like Ceaser and Richard III in their eponymous Shakespear plays, they
>are offered the job and have to be coerced into accepting ;)
Yeah, there's plenty of room for stage-managed "spontaneous acclaim." "Why look! All those children with flowers, begging me to be King.... How strange and yet heart-warming.... How can I say 'no?'"
>Personally I'm tempted to assume Dar is more like a Hero Cult than a
>standard sub-cult
There's certainly something a little odd about Dar. It's an Orlanth subcult, yet we know women (I assume not specifically Vingans) can join (TR, 200). I wonder if worshippers of other gods can? I mean, Elmal and Ernalda have their own leadership magic (and Ernaldans can apparently worship Dar), and Vingans have access to Dar, but surely there are clans with Chiefs who worship Heler, Humakt, maybe Issaries or Barntar... What do they do about leadership magic? Are they just bad at it?
Peter Larsen
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