> > 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...
But the point about Great Gods is that everybody normally worships one of their aspects and only rare people worship the Great God. Disciplehood can't be about worshipping the Great God directly because Humakt does have disciples yet only has one aspect.
> > 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.
One who has learned the secret of an aspect to 1W2 can go on to learn the God's Great Secret (HW:RiG p167).
>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...)
I do think disciples to great gods are ruled out because a probable criterion to becoming a disciple is learning the god's secret to a certain level. That's a real barrier to the prospective great gods disciple.
> > 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.
I don't think so. Heroforming is a secret (HW:NB p50) and thus for a hero cult to teach the secret of heroforming as well as its standard secret strikes against the uniqueness of the secret.
>My "best guess" is that a disciple is someone who is, in effect "Hero
>Forming" a bona fide deity rather than a "worshipped hero"
Minor gods can also be heroformed (HW:NB p50).
> > 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,
No, that is not what I meant. "I don't think every god's cult [can have disciples]" means that I believe in a metaphysical limitation on which cults may have disciples that is dependant on the god rather than the cultist.
--Peter Metcalfe
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