Re: Inora/Whitey

From: Chris Lemens <chrislemens_at_...>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 18:15:05 -0700 (PDT)


Light Castle asks:
> OK, if your version is the case, how can
> any misapplied worship last for any length
> of time? The first time anyone makes a
> serious HQ to the otherworld, they will
> find out they are wrong.

I would not use the word "wrong". The reason that misapplied worship continues is that it is still effective enough to be useful. If it works, why do they care about whether an entity is a god or a spirit? If they need the magic an entity grants, they worship it in the way they know how.

Most people never HeroQuest to the God Plane or Spirit Plane, except to visit their god or spirit's home. So what happens outside it is totally irrelevant for them.

Finally, the only way for concentrated worshippers of one type (say, animists) to gain magic from another type of entity (say, a god) is misapplied worship to gain their own kind of magic (say, charms).

> From what I can see, misapplied worship is
> almost never a case of "we know she's not
> really a spirit, but we don't know any
> other way to worship". Misapplied worship
> seems to always describe the entity as
> being, in fact, believed to be something
> other than it is. (i.e. -- the Entire
> Aeolian Church).

Hmm. Maybe. I re-read the Aeolian Church online write-up again and also re-read the Church of St. Aeol from the HeroQuest book. It seems to me like the worshippers know that this is misapplied worship. It does not expressly say either way, so we are making inferences, but here's the stuff that makes me think they know.

The entities that Aeol fought were divinities. He found a way of worshipping them that made peace with them within the confines of Malkionism, by venerating them.

"Aeol was harassed by the local priests and their gods, but he revealed his way of worship. He showed that the gods could be venerated, and he promised that worshippers would also gained access to Solace and the Invisible God."

That says to me: These are gods, but you can venerate them as saints and still stay true to your religion, which is both heroic to discover and pragmatic to do.

The other interesting thing about saintly orders is that the commoner does not engage in direct veneration of the saints. So they could be as ignorant as you please about the "true" nature of the saint venerated by their order. (I have to say, I am a total ignoramus when it comes to wizardry and such, so if I misuse terms and misunderstand the rules, it's just cuz I'm stoopid.)

Chris Lemens

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