> A final point - geez, 3 cults of obnoxious out of control PCs
> (Eurmal, Humakht and Storm Bull?)
BB Gor. Maran Gor. Even, at times, unbelievably, Vingans whose love of life have been twisted by the raw power of their vengeance vow. Other dark manifestations of Ernalda and the Thunder Brothers. Orlanth's raw and elemental Storm power.
All part of the sacred order. All part of Solara's web, woven at the Dawn. All holy energies.
To quote from a recent discussion, Glorantha is a fantasy setting, not an iron age recreation. Too much agonising about the sociology and demography of cults and characters in the areas out of direct game play is to ignore Glorantha's role as a GENRE construction, especially as a high-lo fantasy/sword and sorcery/archetypal playground. The realistic background helps to ground PC actions in social reality, to emphasise the difficult decisions that face us on the path to herodom, to help us see and take responsibility for the consequences of our actions (or not), to deal with them (or not), and to learn from our mistakes (or not).
Primarily however, Glorantha is a collective myth woven around stories, stories about heroes. It's a genre creation for telling genre stories, our own stories. The cults reflect not sociological entities but the energies and forces of our psyche and of our roleplaying group, some creative, some destructive, all real. Soul stuff. Human stuff. Orlanth and Ernalda and Elmal and Vinga and Babeester and Eurmal and Urox all.
Every humakti is different because each of us is different. There are effortless and enlightened philosophers, death-at-a-glance jihadi, noble weaponthanes, struggling-to-still-be-normal warriors who feel life slipping away slowly but inexorably, shit-scared seekers and frenzied, terror-stricken psychotics. (And sometimes we can find all of these in a single character).
If, in my own games, I emphasise the Otherness and fear that surround humakti, you can be sure that even in my Glorantha there's another cult or clan just down the trail that lives and experiences Humakt in a completely different way. In playing humakti, we place ourselves in the situation dictated by the cult outline, and interpret those guidelines with a mixture of exaggeration, compensation, aesthetics and humour, balanced against our need to entertain and be entertained, by what we've tried before, and by the overall dynamic and direction of our group. There's no interpretation that is less proper or correct, just those that vary more from the statistical norm of GAG. YG(MV,WV,MV).
Glorantha is also btw, to give proper balance to the above, also a great place to roll a few dice and bash some broo while putting on silly voices and consuming copious amounts of salt and sugar, cunning disguised as pizza and coke. Even, so I'm told, (shiver) warm beer...
John
nysalor_at_... John HughesQuestlines: http://home.iprimus.com.au/pipnjim/questlines/
No one laughs at a MASTER OF QUACK-FU!!
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