> >Waha, Eiritha and Storm Bull are not gods anymore? (the website still
>says
> >they are).
>
> They're still deities. If god means anything that is worshipped
> through theistic methods, then they are not gods. But then this
> means that the Invisible God is not a God either.
They are not Godplane deities. Waha & Eritha & Storm Bull are Spiritplane
deities - great spirits. The IG is a Sorcery Plane deity.
They do not offer Affinities & Feats, they offer Spirit traditions (IG
provides Grimoires).
They are not worshipped with sacrifice, but with ecstatic worship (IG is
venerated)
They might all still be called "Gods" by people that don't know any better, or in the local lingo, whatever it might be.
Praxians are "pure" animists.
>As far as I know, they are pure animists. According to Greg's
>notes when he was developing this terminology (or what I
>understand about them), there is no problem with animistic
>cultures worshipping gods (and this is what the Orlanthi do).
This idea was rejected during the writing - Orlanthi are not "ex-animists" of any stripe. However, the Storm religion does recognize various spirits and has specialists (Spirit Talkers) to deal with them (Kolat comes to mind, but there are other spirits out there).
>> The "Holy Person, Sacred Chief, Family Head" are the way to do it
>> IMO. The Khan of the entire tribe has the ability to summon the
>> tribal founder yet he is not a shaman.
>Sounds like a 'Great Secret' if ever I heard one... Am I right in
>assuming every tribe/deity combination will be a separate Tradition?
>eg Bison Rider Waha Tradition, Ostrich Rider Eiritha Tradition, Rhino
>Rider Storm Bull Tradition, etc.?
**Danger - Hard hat area - Danger** **Under Contrsuction** Possibly, though it is more likley that there is the Waha tradition (Male stuff) and Eiritha tradition (Female stuff). Tribe and clan spirits are dealt with in secondary (or even tertiary). traditions. If I'm the (male) shaman of the Three-bone Rhino Tribe, I'd know the Waha tradition, the Rhino tradition and the Three-bone tradition (It may be that the Three-bone tradition supercedes and includes the Rhino tradition). This is different from your model in that a person could divorce all tribal ties and just be a "Waha Shaman" or "Eiritha Shaman" with no other affiliation. It also means that a person *could* possibly learn more than one Tribal tradition (Rhino *and* Impala). I have this niggling feeling that learning all five major traditions would do something like resurrect Waha, but this is 'way out there. It might also need the other lesser tribal traditions...
>I was under the impression
>Animists learned to find & use spirits according to the Traditions
>they learned, so wouldn't it be the same thing, with many common
>spirits accessable to each Tradition?
The Waha and Eiritha traditions would have access to all those Nomad God spirits as part of their tradition (well, to discrete sets of them - the Earth spirits & Spirits of the Paps would be Eiritha Tradition, the combat-types would be Waha, etc.). Tribal (or even Clan) traditions might have special relationships with a spirit or set of spirits. "The Three Bone tribe is friends with Dew Maid, but hate Raven" -type stuff.
>This doesn't quite fit with the descriptions of mixed/misapplied
>worship in the Narrator book. If Storm Bull is an entity on the
>GodPlane then any non-theistic worship is misapplied.
Storm Bull is a Spirit. Urox is a God. They *may* be manifestations of a "transcendent Storm Bull" (behind the Eternal Battle), but in normal every-day life they are two seperate beings, and are worshipped in different ways.
>One thing about them being two different entities that bothers me is the
>bit in KoS(?) where a Praxian SB shows up in Boldhome for the annual
>Urox HHD thingy. If Urox and SB weren't the same thing, why did he
>travel to Boldhome? And why did the Sartarites let it happen? I could
>understand the Lunars trying to mythically annoy both the Uroxi and the
>Storm Bullies, especially after Starbrow's Rebellion.
Orgwaha Blue Llama is mentioned twice in KoS:
He is pretty definitely a shaman (KoS23): "Argrath led the attack through the breach, and Orgwaha Blue Llama summoned twenty special spirits to guard the hero."
and then he shows up for the HHD (KoS147): "The high holy day of Storm Bull had always been celebrated in Boldhome. This year the general populace were worried, for no member of that cult had been seen since the rebellion. At the last moment Orgwaha showed up, having come all the way from Prax following his religious impulse. He was a member of the blue llama riders clan, and rode upon one of those great beasts. Temertain asked him to lead, and he agreed. But the ceremony went wrong, and as Orgwaha was chanting from his cliff far over the crowd, Temertain was ambushed by chaos things. His household defended valiantly, but all were slain. Temertain himself was saved only by the intercession of Estal, the Lunar woman. After that, Temertain relied upon the Lunars to protect him effectively."
"following his religious impulses" - who can say what the gods (or spirits)
intend for us? He got told "go" and he went.
Why did the Sartarites allow it? I'd say it was a case of "any port in a
storm"- they didn't have an Uroxi to lead the ceremony, are worried about
it, and then this guy who worships a being that they know is similar shows
up.
The ceremony is a failure - it doesn't say *why*, but you might conclude
that having a shaman trying to lead theistic worship might do that, or that
trying to get the crowd to ecstatically worship a God would do that....
RR
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