Ian Cooper:
> I hesitiate to step back into this one, because it seems to
> degenerate into flames and misquoting too rapidly. I suspect that
> individuals need to decide what works for their Glorantha.
I'm happy enough with that; but there is much in this thread that seeks to "interpret" TR, RiG, etc, or elucidate "how Glorantha works", and come to that very little in the way of "here's how I run it in my campaign, for [blah] reason", or indeed much that would even _come up_ in normal play, AFAICS...
> To be a devotee requires you focusing your attention on the god, not
> on the mundane. To be a devotee requires you to sacrifice something
> to the god, to give it up. The extra time is lost to you, and given
> to the god, that is the notion of sacrifice. Sure in times of trouble
> or hardship the god may cut you some slack, but the sacrifice is
> fundamental.
I think you're entirely wrong to equate "sacrifice" with "economic cost". You seem to be essentially saying that you don't much mind what they do with their 60% of the time (or the 'extra' 30%, if you prefer), as long as it isn't "economically productive", thus the clan has to bear a "cost" equal to 0.3 or 0.6 of a "person".
> otherwise we are venerating instead.
Liturgists don't have time commitments? I think this is misunderstanding the distinction entirely. (Though then again, isn't that a cultural hazard at times in Glorantha, such as for example "living in Ralios"?) To "para-quote" (no books in front of me, sorry) "the core sacrifice is the self". This is, however, getting very non-rules. (This thread seems to be doing a Grand Tour of the lists, unfortunately; I hereby give up trying to re-steer it...)
> Alex Ferguson pointed out me that if this were true, he as a warband
> leader would rather have more initiates and less devotees because the
> devotees are only marginally better in game terms but are less
> available. My response would be 1:) as Greg would say 'Gloranthans
> don't know the numbers'
Not even the number of weaponthanes? While counting past 20 might be a secret of the Knowing God, for small quantities fingers and toes generally suffice. If your 20 weaponthane devotees only turn up 40% of the time (or only 40% of them at any given time, or some permutation) when there's weaponthane "work" to be done (as the carls would say, I'm using the term "work" loosely), you'd tend to notice this, I feel.
> 2:) Yes, that is my point, a devotee is a burden. That is why TR says:
>
> "To be able to spend so much time at worship, a person must have some
> outside source of support or income. This level of support is
> typically given by a clan to its thanes and god-talkers."
There's "support", and there's "net economic passenger". These seem to be very different to me.
> IMG devotion requires sacrifice, not just doing your job. As I have
> said before Glorantha has deites for most jobs, if all that were
> required was to do your job, devotion would not be a sacrifice.
I'm not aware of having claimed that devotion is equivalent to just doing your job; in fact I've clearly maintained the reverse. What I find unlikely is that it's _incompatible_ with doing your 'job' (i.e. this notion of Barntar devotees too busy with "devotee stuff" to plow a field, Starkval guys unable to be weaponthanes, etc).
> IMG nothng is free, everything comes at a price. TANSTAFL (There
> Ain't No Such Thing As a Free Lunch). To think otherwise is to be a
> God Learner.
No, merely a fully paid up Heinlein Skeptic. What the heck has God Learning to do with this topic, other than in the sense that just as all discussions of politics ultimately degenerate to accusations of fascism, all Gloranthan threads come down to "you dirty rotten GL, you"?
Cheers,
Alex.
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