>From: "Roderick and Ellen Robertson" <rjremr_at_...>
>He's basically got a "Communal" relationship to Kolat.
Yeah, this is interesting. Theoretically, the character is at the Spiritist level, which parallels the Communal. But since the religion is predominantly theist, instead the "baseline" keyword for the religion is "Communal Worshipper of the Storm Pantheon."
Would it be possible for the odd Heortling to have "Kolating Spiritist" as the religion portion of his homeland keyword? Or are the only folks who are interested at all at that level the ones that proceed on to become practitioners. I'm thinking, for example, the son of a shaman who hasn't yet decided if he's going to follow in his father's footsteps, and has only been inculcated to the spiritist level?
In this case it seems like he would have that same theoretical "communal" relationship to the storm pantheon. Or does the religion keyword assume a baseline that covers everyone?
Here's the real question. Can heortlings with the Communal Worshipper of the Storm Pantheon take the five free charms that the Kolating spiritist (theoretical though he might be) would normally get? Or does the Kolating Spiritist get to invoke their diety against 10W9 for divine aid? Almost more importantly, do they know each others myths?
Or is this theoretical "communal" level of worship of Kolat just important in terms of "rights" to participate in getting charms from a practitioner, for example? Does the "spiritist" level for Kolatings just not exist? That is, does one move on from being a communal worshipper of the storm pantheon, to being a practitioner of the Kolating practice? So there's no Core Practice from which to get tradition charms? Or is the core practice a "normal" practice in the sense that it has practice spirits in it only and not tradition spirits (I think you said something like this in the last discussion)?
Generally, when a mix occurs, is there a full "tree" for each sort of magic, or do the odd branches spread out from a single basic worship?
>I semi-ranted to Greg (and he agreed) about the use of the word "religion"
>in HQ, since they way it is used is as a *solidly* theist/animist/sorcerous
>thing, but no religion is that way; they are all mixed (some more than
>others - look at teshnos) I'd *like* to use the words "Theist", "Animist"
>"Sorcerist"(?!?) to refer *only* to those people who have concentrated
>their
>magic to a particular Otherworld, and not refer to a "Theist Religion" per
>se.
Yeah, that would have been a lot clearer (would have avoided many of the misunderstandings that I had with things previously). I think, however, that it might be safe to say something like "Predominantly Theist" for a religion like that of the Heortlings, no? In fact, depending on the answer to the question above, it might be important to have some sort of statement like this. For example, if you really can only take the Storm Pantheon Communal Worshipper with the Heortling keyword (indicating that the Kolating "tradition" charms are not generally available except to those who dedicate to that portion of the religion), then I think it's safe to say that the Heortling relilgion is, culturally, essentially theist, with an animist branch or something. "Baseline Theist"?
Here's possibly a better question. Not having the book in front of me, what's the Teshnan standard religion keyword? Communal Worshipper of the Teshnan Pantheon or something? If so, a reading of this that makes sense to me is that one starts with the ability to call on any of the theistic dieties for divine aid, probably at 10w9, and the same with the other beings but at a penalty for misapplied worship. The Myths covers all of the beings, but, for example, would cover spirits as an improvised "Know Spirits" again with the misapplied worship penalties. Then, if a player wants his character to be a practitioner of one of the spirits listed, he skips "spiritist" and just becomes a practitioner of that practice. So, again, no tradition charms for him, but he retains his ability to call on the gods of the pantheon for divine intervention.
Does this sound right to you? Or have I missed it again? In any case, this all sounds like a lot of fun. The mixed religions seem like they would give you a lot of options for complex character belief.
Mike
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