Re: Re: Animism: multiple traditions?

From: Mike Holmes <homeydont_at_...>
Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 09:23:16 -0500


>From: "Roderick and Ellen Robertson" <rjremr_at_...>

>My preference is "no, they can't" Add YGWV to all my remarks, of course).

Well, apparently not just your preference, but mechanically described in the rules, as well.

>You can be a member of the Storm Tribe and be an intiate of Destor and be a
>practitioner of Kolat and an initiate of Torvald the Alchemist (since
>that's
>the closest the Storm tribe has to Sorcery); but not an initiate of Destor
>and a practitioner of Waha and a orderly of St. Gerlant (because those
>three
>are in seperate Religions).

OK, slow up a minute. Kolatings are animists. So, what you're saying is that here we have an example of a religion that spans magic types? That is, I was under the impression that worship of Kolat made one an animist, and, therefore, it was a separate religion. Related to the storm pantheon, no doubt (similar to how the earth pantheon is related to the storm pantheon, maybe), but I really thought it was separate.

Now, given that the Lunars manage to do this sort of combining with aplomb, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that there are other exceptions to the idea of a single religion spanning otherworld sources (in another way Teshnos is another tip off). But, again, it seemed to me that generally you were in a religion that was all theist, or all animist, etc.

In fact, if one is not an intiate, or practitioner of Kolat, but just a communal worshipper of the Storm Pantheon, then they'd normally get just the Storm Pantheon addition to the Heortling keyword, right? Well, how does that work with the Kolat practice? Is there, again, no core practice, or does kolat become a core practice? Does the spiritist then have access to five tradition spirits? Basically, do they get an additional "religion keyword" as a spiritist, or does the Storm Pantheon one go away? Or do they just do without a spiritist keyword?

Or am I looking at it backwards? Is the fact that they're in the same religion some sort of overall grouping? That is, they're treated as separate religions for the purposes of enumeration, but not in terms of the sorts of restrictions that typically prevent one from from participating at a high level in more than one religion?

>A single religion, if practiced at the 10% level, won't make an impression
>on the worshipper as to whether it's Theist or Animist or Sorcerous. It's
>"my religion". It's the way my people worship. We don't really care if it's
>to a God or Spirit or Saint, and we don't care if its Sacrifice or Ecstatsy
>or Veneration. We do what our leaders tell us and that's it. It's *their*
>lookout as to what rituals they make us do.

I get that. I think that's non-controversial for everyone at this point. Basically, if you're not invested beyond that point in any of the religions that you're in, you don't have enough of an investment to worry about whether or not they conflict. Principally - certain combinations would always be problematic, of course.

> > I think that's offensive to the people who do have more than one
>religious
> > belief. Like myself. I'm a Catholic Zen Tao Sufi syncretist. No, really.
> > Probably only at the worshipper level, but...
>
>I'm not sure how serious you are, so I'm not going to touch it.

And that's best.

>Can religions accrete gods from elsewhere? Absolutely. In the Real World
>Greek pantheon Apollo and Artemis were additions, as were Dionysus and
>others. Teh Romans accreted gods wholesale. Even a number of Christian
>saints (or at least, until the Vatican demoted them) were accreted from
>other pre-christian peoples (St. Nicholas, St. Brigid). In Glorantha the
>Storm tribe Married the Earth Tribe, and adopted several other gods (Elmal,
>Heler, etc). But accreting gods (or saints or spirits) onto your pantheon
>is
>*not* the same as "worshipping two religions".

But that's distinctly not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Romans who worshipped the Roman pantheon by day, and who were in the hip new Christian cult by night. Or the Saxons who amalgamated their faiths in their pagan gods with Christianity. Yes, at some point this is a single amalgam religion. But somebody started it. And for those individuals who first started syncretizing the two, it was a matter of having faith in parts of two religions.

Yes, for the indivudual this becomes a single coherent (well, perhaps not, but that's the goal) belief system that makes these all make sense together. But that still doesn't change the fact that the beliefs come from two different organizations with whom the individual will have relationships. That is, for practical purposes of enumeration, he's in two religions, despite only having, potentially, one belief system.

Again, the "reality" of Glorantha is that the gods will only allow magic for one or another religion - even if you're a sorcerer, and in another religion, apparently you can't have magic there, because that religion will have problems with the fact that you have magic in another. Which is internally consistent - I have no problem with that. Remember, I was just confused about the rules.

>Could there be a place where two distinct and seperate religions are
>worshipped concurrently? Possibly, though why isn't it just one religion?
>Example: The Storm Tribe is composed of two major and several minor
>groupings of gods: Storm and Earth, with Elmal and Heler and Kolat and a
>few
>others thrown in. Yet the "Storm Tribe" is considered a single religion.
>Why
>would your theoretical "two religion" place not have fused the two? Earth
>and Storm did so, as have the Lunar-Solars.

Well, we're assuming that it has not yet become a single religion. That there's this one character, and he's caught somehow between two belief systems, and instead of rejecting either out of hand, he's trying to find a way to make them both work. Keep in mind that there are powerful forces that can cause this. Say you've got one parent in one religion, and another parent in another. You respect both parents, and they each respect the other's religions (if not believing in them). What do you as an individual do? Yes, a lot of people just break one way or another. But others, not wanting to think of either parent as "wrong" will try to find a way to make both religions work for them.

And in many cases it does. And, yes, this is what leads to new mixed religions when the person in question has enough faith to get others to see their POV. But it has to start with some individual. And in most of these cases, I think new religions do not form. The individual is content to merely believe what they believe without prosletyzing (often because to do so would be problematic).

>Holding two disparate
>and possibly contradictory sets of "How we live" isn't something people do
>easily.

Did I suggest this was easy? I'm not even suggesting it's common. Just that it seems plausible to me that it might happen occasionally. Especially as an interim state. That is, I think that people in this situation often eventually do decide on one of the other, because it is difficult, or they can't rectify some contradiction. But that doesn't mean it can't happen temporarily.

In Glorantha, apparently any such conflict prevents you from getting magic. Which, as I've said, I have no problem with.

>Just as a for-instance, where do you go when you die if you worhsip
>one religion that says "To paradise to cavoit with houris and the founatins
>run with wine" and the other says "Nowhere, you disapate into Nothingness"?
>In Glorantha this is a very important question!

And a matter of faith. That is, even if one sees this otherworld in weekly ceremonies, there is room for doubt, I think.

I think your argument has been funny this way. To paraphrase.

Rory: 99.99% of people in the *real world* are in one religion.

Mike: Except for the many cases where they aren't.

Rory: Well, we're not talking about the *real world* here, we're talking about Glorantha, where the gods are more present.

Well, fine, let's think about what gods showing up would do. Yeah, I think that showy magic (as opposed to RW miracles) would tend to make faith stronger for the moment it was seen. But what, then, do I think when I see the magic of another religion made manifest before me? Well, I try to wrap my world view around it. I say, "That Grazer says he's summoning horse spirits, but I know that the's just dealing with demons." Fine. But there has to be some doubt. I mean, the Grazer seems to be so honest about what he's saying. And his whole tribe feels the same. What if it is we who are being decieved by evil spirits...

Sure, most people are close-minded enough that they just shove that aside and remember what they've been told, demons, demons, demons. But I can't believe that some individuals, under the right circumstances, don't question their faiths some. And for those who live with people who believe other things for a long time...well, the reason that the Heortling believes in the Storm Pantheon is because he was raised by others who believe. It's exposure that mostly determines our belief systems. Expose someone to another system for long enough, and questioning faith becomes automatic, in my experience. For some. Even some who would otherwise be described as devout.

>As stated in another message, I'd be *very* leery of allowing it. Prior to
>the last few decades, this wouldn't even have been an issue in western
>countries. You wouldn't *be* a Catholic Zen Tao Sufi syncretist. You'd be
>Catholic. Period. And if you wanted to add on those other things, you'd be
>given the hairy eyeball by your priest.

Uh, as it happens I am given the hairy eyeball by my priest. In fact, I've been denied service by the church as it happens. Much to my devout mother's chagrin when I couldn't get my children baptized in the church. So I think I do know what I'm talking about. But, again, we weren't going to touch that.

In any case, you're going to tell me that the Romans didn't have rebellious kids? Or that there aren't any in Glorantha? Everybody always believes what their parents tell them to believe?

The point is that somehow it seems like we're being told that a player should avoid conflict with their characters. They shouldn't be allowed to consider doing something like this because it's not "normal." But who wants to play "normal?" I sure don't. I want my character to be about conflict, and discovering belief, and about changing the world through the hero wars. That's what the game was sold to me on the strength of, and what I think the system does best as it happens. What are all of those rules about becoming a member of a new religion about if not to be used?

This is drama of a sort never before playable in a RPG. I mean, how cool is it that you can have a character who has the sorts of convictions of a Martin Luther? In how many other games do the rules actually give you ways to really change the world? Not relying on GM artifice to put the character in a place where he can simply be a lynchpin, but where his beliefs are what start the changes rolling? There's not one game like that, but this one.

More generally, I can't see how a system set up to be so incredibly dramatic constantly has people saying that they should have their characters avoid that drama. Yes, we need to know what's normal, as Greg says, so that we can know what's extraordinary. So I have no problem with laying out what's normal. But the idea that the "Heroes" that the players play must be normal is so alien to what it seems to me that the game supports that it always shocks me when someone suggests that this is a bad idea.

I don't want to presume to know the motives behind this, but it smacks to me of worry about power-gaming. That is, the notion that players, if they know that the option is theoretically open, will all pile on to as many religions as they can, based soley on the Kewl powez that the religion will give them. Well, for one, we've just said that you can't do this according to the rules - no powerz for you if you combine. So there should be no worry there on that account.

More importantly, however, one should consider that not all players are out to power up their character. For me, what's interesting is not so much what powers the character gets, but what that means in terms of their own belief systems. Where their story will go, given their beliefs? From this POV, the subject matter is not only non-problematic, but in fact, neccessary to having good play occur. Not that one has to do nothing but address this specific issue, or any other specific issue, but that one needs their characters to have issues.

Now, if you're saying this so that the narrator out this with the powergamers will understand that they're opening a pandora's box if they do this sort of thing - fine, I hope everyone takes heed. But the person who started this line of questioning, Jane, certainly doesn't need to be told that it's problematic because it's not normal. She's with me in wanting non-normal, conflicted characters.

Sorry for the rant, but I've seen this attitude a lot, and it gets me. Yes, tell us what's normal, rare, unusual. But then don't be surprised if saying something is unusual only makes it more interesting to some people to play. Consider that the audience, here at least, is comprised of talented narrators who understand the "risks" involved.

Mike



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