> > >In the case of a woman who is a participant in the mainstream
> > >mothers' religion for her culture I think the preparation starts
>from
> > >the first ritual she attends as an adult and intensifies from the
> > >point where she becomes pregnant.
> >
> > Are you suggesting that almost every woman in every culture
>participates in
> > one of these?
>
>It does seem to be a common pattern, off the top of my head I would
>say it was true of the Heortling, Darra Happan, Bison People, Grazer
>and Esrolian (of course) homelands in the basic book.
You kinda missed my point. A better way to phrase my question is, does the character in question have to be an initiat or devotee of these goddesses, or can they just be worshippers of the religion overall which includes one of these? More to the point, are you saying that they'd have a relationship as a part of such a keyword, or one taken with a free slot to the people involved with the mother goddess. Or, again maybe more clearly, is the relationship in question Member of Temple of Ernalda? More pointedly, lets say that I have a female character who is an initiate of Skovara, and I take my free relationships as Member of Temple of Skovara, and Knows Members of Temple of Vinga. Since I've not taken a relationship with the mother goddess, the character would have no bonus with childbirth? Or does my Member of Village count or something?
What I'm getting at overall is whether or not women intending to marry would "automatically" chose to focus on the mother goddess, or whether they get such a focus automatically as a member of the culture with a mother goddess. Given reproductive drive, I'd think that the majority of women would be members of the mother goddesses temples if this was beneficial to birthing (don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it's a female's place to bring children into the world, this just seems to be the viewpoints of many Gloranthan cultures - less than actual Earth cultures of a similar era, but the bias is there, nonetheless).
>A devout woman would have a closer relationship to her goddess/great
>spirit/saint. Of course you could use Piety if you choose but I see
>that as a personality trait seperate from the relationship to the
>diety - if a person converted to a different god they may well still
>be pious but would be starting again from scratch in building a
>relationship to the new deity.
Good point, but a quick clarification - relationship with the deity, or relationship with the people who worship the deity? You seem to have flip-flopped above.
Note, I'm not challenging you on any of this, I agree with all of it that I understand. I just want to get a better understanding of what you're proposing. Religions are complicated. You have the following kinds of Abilities:
Piety (which is overall for the religion, no?)
Know Myths of Religion
Know Myths of Diety
Relationship to Deity
Relationship to Cult (essentially, often Temple, whatever)
Seems to me that you could probably count on many of these things. Not to mention magic.
Mike
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