Correct. You need to have some other ability to augment before you can use your affinity to augment it. You need to improvise a feat to do "unnatural" things.
Frex, a Gerendetho initiate is in the middle of a rocky plain with no food. He has no ability to "Survive without Food". He can't use his "Goat" affinity to augment because there is nothing *to* augment. But he *can* improvise the "Eat Anything" feat do do what would otherwise be impossible.
> Would it be right in saying that there would be some small magical
> bending of normality when the affinity is used?
Yes, it's magic. It might not have the Grand Effects of a devotee calling on the feats of his god, but there should be some noticible "magical effect" when used. A small wind following your runner and holding him up, an extra sheen to a sword when combat magic is used, etc.
> Devotees can improvise feats from his god's myths (at a modifier)
> but initiates can only improvise feats from the published list?
Not just the published list, but the narrator has to approve it. The published lists are not exclusive, they are inclusive. We (the authors) don't want to write extensive "spell lists", so we give 4-6 examples and let you extrapolate from those.
> Affinities augment in ways that are suggested by the feats. So my
> raider can't augment his 'sneak past wyter' ability with his Raiding
> affinity because we know Finovan didn't do that himself. What if we
> didn't know that Finovan didn't do that?
*I* see not reason that Finovan can't do concealment magic - he has two feats (hide animal tracks, silence animal) in the Raiding affinity that are concealment related. Just because Jeff's Glorantha has him not hiding, there's no reason he can't do it in your Glorantha. I'd sure want to sneak into an enemy tula rather than walking up and ringing the doorbell!
Roderick
It is by my order and for the good of the state that the bearer of this has
done what he has done.
- Richelieu
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