First of all, thanks for your kind answer on Imperial Citizenship, Mark. It straightened out a few question marks.
My next questions concern the deities and religions as presented in the Homelands spread.
*I realize that they are simply samples of deities, and that they
should not be seen as representative of an area's actual religious
life. But still, I was a bit surprised that a few of the important,
dominant deities from GIHW were lacking. Why was Oria, Oslira,
Entekos, Dendara, and Lodril left out? I thought they were important
deities with 100.000+ worshippers in the Empire?
*Once upon a time, pantheons of deities covered more than one
geographic area. That doesn't seem to be the case any more. Shall I
take it for granted that every small geographic area of central
Genertela has it's own pantheon? Thus we get: the Tarsh pantheon, the
Holay pantheon, the Sylila pantheon, the Dara Happa pantheon, the
Pelanda pantheon, the Birin pantheon, etc…
*Somehow I have no problem understanding that basic sustenance
deities are different in every area, but I was a bit surprised to see
that specialized deities like the trade deity, the scholar deity, and
the healer deity also changed with every Homeland. Aren't these
spheres of influence were deities of the Lunar/Dara Happan elite have
made more progress? I expected to see a lot more mentioning of
Etyries, Irrippi Ontor, Buserian, Deezola, and Erissa.
*Maybe it's not of importance in actual gameplay for most people, but
when I narrate/GM I'm immensely assisted by general figures and
tables presenting population, structures, etc. I always liked the
tables in Cults of Prax and Troll Gods, showing cult membership for
tribes and areas. Is it even possible to produce such tables for the
Lunar Empire? Maybe it could be put online as a deep source? (For
Dragon Pass and the Heortlings at least I got some rudimentary
figures: Orlanth & Ernalda 85%, 14 major cults of Sartar share 14%,
the rest of the small cults share the last %…)
*The deities as presented in ILH1 give me the impression that their
is little difference in "power level" between an apotheosized
human/deity active since Time began and deities doing their great
acts in Godtime. (One small example: Kastokus with affinities Command
Host, Hoozar, Kastokus Combat; Cafoldur the Lancer with affinities
Cavalry, Combat, Horsecare; and Shargash with affinites Berserker,
Combat, Destruction seem quite equal to me…) Is this intentional, and
why? Is the old notion from Runequest times that deities have
different power levels abandoned?
I realize that some of these questions easily can waken flame wars and heated debates on the nature of gods, godlearnerism, etc. If there's any risk of such thing, please let one or two of these questions fade into nothingness. I'm just very curious of the evercontinuing fragmentation of Glorantha's god world. Variation is very cool, but I think their is a limit somewhere how many deities and aspects and subcults the newcomer is able to swallow/handle.
All the best,
Patrik Sandberg
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