They certainly are important, but the ILH homeland spreads were in no way made to be all inclusive. Future suppliments will cover these areas in more detail. A subcult of Lodril is mentioned in the DH section under the farmer category. The categories used are adventurer ones but a boatman or river pirate would be in Oria, but you'll not there is no boatman or pirate category in the homelands spread? Dendera is the obedient wife and is not really good adventurer fodder. She will be in the DH book however, as will Oria and all her subcults (these are largely written and have been for a couple of years).
>*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…
There are cults in the Empire that are universal. For example, Tarnils is a
very widespread war god, however it is taken as read that wherever there are
lunars, there is Tarnils and as 10% of the population are lunars in any one
region, you will always have Tarnils. <BUT NOT ALL WARRIORS ARE TARNILS>.
>From my perspective, it would be both rather dull and a bit unfair to the
local cultures to not have local war gods represented. Hence we have
Cafoldur in Sylila, Kastokus, Yarandros, Ingkot etc. These areas have a
history that is not Dara Happan or lunar. As for war gods in DH, there are
TEN major war gods sanctioned by the Yelm cult and many more minor ones. The
stuff in the homelands spreads is simply the tip of the iceberg.
>*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?
Sure, you could replace the trade deity with Etyries in EVERY homeland where there is a lunar percentage of the population. But this is implicit in the very basis of the lunar faith and need not be repeated in the ILH on every homeland page. Rather we wanted to show in the very limited space available that the homeland regions have their own cultures and groups. Likewise Lokarnos could be put in any of the trade positions from Darjiin to Carmania, wherever there has been a DH presence historically.
>I expected to see a lot more mentioning of Etyries, Irrippi Ontor, Buserian,
Deezola, >and Erissa.
Why? Why repeat the same cult every time in every homeland when we can take it as read that the lunar cults are spread throughout the lunar population and likewise the DH cults, Carmanian cults etc? When you look at the homelands and decide that as a Glamour citizen you want to play a Carmanian, you would use the Carmanian list to pick your cults from not the Lunar or DHan!
>*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 %…)
Hmm, they can be worked out from the population splits. Take for example the Imperial census in Silver Shadow. The percentage splits there are indicative of culture and religion. To show ALL the dieties a DH might worship would require a book (funny that, we are working on one!) and the same applies for all the other cultures. Seen as it is unlikely that we are to have a Naverian ILH in the near future, such odd cultural groups can be explored by the narrator without much fear of being gregged.
>*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…)
Shargash is a greater deity. He has four aspects and a gizillion subcults of each aspect. Each of those subcults is as potent as Cafoldur or even Kastokus. Cafoldur is weaker as a deity than Kastokus as he is far less widespread, in fact only seriously worshipped in Cafol and the horse rearing areas around that city. Kastokus has several subcults, whereas Cafol does not. Although this isn't in the ILH, t'is a fact. The problem you are having is that you are taking the ILH as being definitive instead of introductive. It is a _very_ quick overview of the Empire. We have a lot more information on the Empire we couldn't fit in but will show up in later books.
>Is this intentional, and why? Is the old notion from Runequest times that
deities have
>different power levels abandoned?
Hell no. Its a function of how many aspects, subcults etc. Are they a greater deity. Shargash yes, Kastokus no. Kastokus is a god, Cafoldur a minor one.
> 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.
Which is why ILH is an intro to the Empire and later books will add more depth. If you want to stop at the ILH 1 you can, if you want more, you can read more.
Good questions Patrik, also thanks for your review, very glad you liked the ILH. Martin Laurie
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