Re: Re: Social Cult Ranks or Devotees vs Initiates

From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_...>
Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2005 16:20:27 +1300

At 11:21 PM 1/6/05 +0000, you wrote:

>I would describe a Catholic priest as a devotee, just as monks and >nuns are.

I would have thought the closest gloranthan approximation was a liturgist.

As for the original question, some cults have initiates required to obey their superiors while others do not.

For the Orlanthi, the question is treated obliquely with "Karallan's plight" in KoS p249. Karallan gets conflicting orders from:

• his father
• the clan chief
• the clan high priestess
• the beserker
• the champion
• a thief
• an ancestor
• an Orlanth himself. He solves his troubles by deciding which people are his chosen leaders and resolving the conflicts among them. The High Priestess is the closest position to a devotee but it is a _formal_ social position and her orders only applicable to religious matters.

As for the devotees do not help the community as part of their devotion, I think the simplest position to just be plain wrong.  From Gods of Glorantha, we were told that:

         "The priests of some cults only ostensibly spend 30%,
         50%, or even 10% of their time on cult duties.  These
         priests belong to cults with special emphasis on certain
         temporal activities.  For instance, a Yelm Imperator is
         always a nobleman, and expected and required to rule
         his land and people wisely and carefully under the laws
         of Yelm.  A merchant priest of Issaries need only
         devote 50% of his time to cult duties.  But the rest of the
         time he is expected to operate a market or other mercantile
         organization, thus glorifying Issaries.  Priests in such cults
         still spend 90% of their time on cult duties - it is just that
         many of their "cult duties" are not ecclesiastical in nature.
                 GoG p22.

If one were to nuance the position by saying that devotees are more likely to be off obeying the wishes of their god than an initiate, then that would be closer to the truth.

--Peter Metcalfe

--Peter Metcalfe

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