Heortling Collectives for Common Magic

From: Joerg Baumgartner <joe_at_...>
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 12:36:16 +0100 (CET)

Peter Larsen
> Many of the clan rings call the outer ring "Thunder Brothers
> and Weaver Women" (or one or the other). I think the Thunder Brothers
> are the male deities of the Storm Tribe and worshipping them is part
> of being a good Orlanthi male. Some are deadly HtH fighers, some
> throw stones, some are sneaky, but they are all Brave, Strong, Proud,
> Generous, Hard Working, Stubborn, etc. The bulk of the most famous
> are warriors to some extent or other because, well, that's a big part
> of what the Storm Tribe is about, but they also do other things --
> they must be farmers and herders and hunters and fishers as well as
> warriors, because that's what most Orlanthi do, at least some of the
> time.In Thunder Rebels, were told that all men become part of the
> Thunder Brothers during regular worship (p. 207), so I don't think
> they are just warriors.

There is a group of male deities in Thunder Rebels that is all about (more or less) domestic work: Mahome's brothers, the Tamefire husbands of Ernalda's Weaver Women. From the story of Elmal's arrival, there are bound to be a couple of likewise unimportant Darkness Tribe people (and of course Sea Tribe and Earth Tribe males and females).

(Of the named Thunder Brothers, only a few are notably married - mostly those Allfather guys. And in most of these cases, you have to look up their wives in the Ernalda section of Thunder Rebels to learn about the marriage...)

> I'm also not really happy with a common religion that
> provides a bunch of combat feats for a couple of reasons:

> Combat is a big deal to the Orlanthi, but it's not the only thing. A
> common religion should serve the common needs of the people.

Much of this demand has been satiated not by common magic, but by introducing those Allfather subcults with those usefully broad domestic affinities.

Maybe the Heortlings are a special case in using less common magic than other peoples?

Alternatively, there might be a "Four Providers'" common magic pool to draw upon.

Specialist activities like barn-raising ought to have a specialist carpenter initiate leading a communal "service" rather than every adzeman enhancing himself.

> A couple of combat-related common magic feats might overshadow a
> character's combat-specific magic from his god, assuming the
> character concentrates on theism. That seems backwards. A fyrdman
> should almost always be weaker than a weaponthane who specializes in
> combat, after all.

While I agree in principle, two masteries in Common Magic ought to outshine a stripling's 17 in the affinities. Some people like Griselda are heavy duty Common Magic users. (Is there a rewritten Griselda for HeroQuest?)