Re: Disciples/runelords and Hero Formers

From: Tim Ellis <tim_at_...>
Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2001 13:48:53 -0000

>>Hard to say until we know more about what a disciple is.... (do you
>>mean a devotee to Orlanth the Great God here?)

>
> Doesn't really matter whether it's a devotee or an initiate.
> I just used initiate as a catchall for one who worships the
> great god rather than an aspect.
>

Ahh, I was confused by your using a term that has a specific meaning in the rules to mean something else. An initiate of a Great God is no different to the initiate of any other God, whereas a Devotee of a Great God is, in that they have a cap on raising affinities, and have a secret that effectively takes them out of the game. A disciple of any God is presumably more powerful than an Initiate - I assumed you meant that the same reasons that capped a Devotee of a great god would likewise limit the disciple such that they were functuionally equivalent to a devotee...

>>If a Disciple is
>>one "trying to become" the god by acting like them, and a Devotee to
>>a Great God becomes subsumed by them on learning the secret, the end
>>result is as close to the same as makes no odds, but presumably 
>>being a disciple is more than just learning the Cult secret....

>
> But what would be the magical advantages of being a disciple of
> Humakt then if disciplehood merely confers the ability to learn
> the magic of all the god's aspects?

I don't know, but I don't see how you got there from what I said? I don't know what a disciple is, and said nothing about aspects...

> The only thing I can think
> of might be the ability to join subcults and learn their secrets
> without limit (as opposed to the single secret rule on page 166
> of HW:RiG). But that falls apart if a devotee of Orlanth
> Adventurous, say, can learn the secret of a subcult (on the
> grounds that it's a lower magnitude than the god's secrets)
> in addition to the secret of Orlanth Adventurous.
>

Yes it would, but what leads you to believe that is the case? I don't recall anything that suggests a devotee to Orlanth the Great God can learn the secrets of Orlanth Adventurous et al on the grounds that they are a lower order of magnitude, which would be the logical conclusion of such a rule. If this were to be a/the benefit of a disciple, it would make disciples of Great Gods potentially extremely powerful, (providing they can avoid the Great God's secret that is...)

> >Hero-cult - Hero Former
>
> A hero former is merely an initiate of a hero cult who knows
> the secret of heroforming the hero. Some subcults teach
> heroforming [Vogarth the Big/Strong Man] as their cult secret,
> others [Vanganth] do not.
>

I think it is at least theoretically possible to Hero Form any hero cult, although some cults may have lost (or not yet discovered) the appropriate methods/rituals/routes through the Hero Plane to do so.

My "best guess" is that a disciple is someone who is, in effect "Hero Forming" a bona fide deity rather than a "worshipped hero"

>>God's Cult - Disciple

>
> Most cults do not have disciples and so I don't think every god's
> cult can.
>

Which means, of course that any cult *Could* have a disciple, but only if there was someone who was willing and able to identify themselves that strongly with the god. This doesn't actually mean that most cults *do* have disciples - It's not the sort of thing you wake up one morning and decide to do before tea...