>From: "Roderick and Ellen Robertson" <rjremr_at_...>
>
>That's still a "social" problem, (where the social contract is between you
>&
>your dieties, not you & other humans).
So...you're saying that dieties do not have hard and fast rules about who they'll allow you to worship in addition to themselves? That it's negotiable? Under certain circumstances? Not in a crass way, but if the worshipper feels that they're not doing their diety a disservice by worshipping a god outside of the religion, and the god agrees (perhaps because the being worshipped in question isn't otherwise very objectionable), then everything is OK?
>Is the definition of religion important in terms of what beings will give
>power to what worshippers?
>
>To me, but not so stated not in the rules.
Right, I know that. But I just wanted to get a clear picture of your interpretation. (I'm starting to think it's not very different from mine).
>As people have pointed out, there is Solar Ernaldan worship, as well as the
>Tarshite version of Ernalda as She Who Waits. Remember that Ernalda is a
>Great Goddess in her own right, and is not restrained just because the
>heortlings claim she is married to Orlanth. Orlanth and the Moon have a
>ancient and implacable feud. Ernalda is not part of it.
Well, perhaps she's not restrained. But it's a two way street. That is, not only does Ernalda have to feel that it's OK for somebody to worship the Seven Sisters, but the Seven Sisters have to feel it's OK. Now, given that Ernalda may actually embody one of the Seven Sisters in some way, that's not at all farfetched, I'd agree. And I'm seeing that Ernalda is a pretty conciliatory goddess, and perhaps widely worshipped.
But that means that the definition of religion that you use above makes for some odd boundaries on religions. I mean, by the religion definition (I don't know if the goddesses are too disparate to accept each other's worship within the religion) you could worship both Vinga, and Ernalda. And you can, by this definition apparently worship the Seven Sisters and Ernalda. But I'll bet that Vinga wouldn't allow one to worship both her and the Seven Sisters.
I don't know if this is an accurate example or not. But I think that one can probably come up with such cases. What this means is that for the worshipper of Vinga, that the religion is "Shaped" differently by this definition than it is for the Ernalda worshipper. That is, religion in this sense must apply to the diety in question, not to the pantheon as a whole.
Is that accurate? Basically is there a Storm Pantheon which one can point at and say, this is the group of dieties which, if you worship a diety outside this group, they will not allow you to obtain their powers as well? If religion and pantheon are synonymous, then it would seem that the Seven Sisters being worshipped with Ernalda then creates an exception (I'm assuming that this has nothing to do with the fact that the Seven Sisters are Common Magic - if that's the case, then please let me know that - let's assume they're specialized for this argument). If religion as worship boundaries is based solely on individual dieties selecting their own boundaries for worship, then pantheons are just gross groups that tend to associate with each other.
That is, Challana Arroy will withdraw here powers if you worship Humakt, right? So you can't say that a pantheon is that group in which you can worship any two dieties successfully. And if Ernalda and Vinga have different boundaries some of which stretch outside of the pantheon, then the pantheon itself really doesn't pose any firm limits in any way. Just tendencies.
Which is fine with me if that is how it is - I pretty much play it that way, anyhow. The "overlaps" of diety association then easily explain the mixing of the Storm Pantheon and Earth Pantheon, without having to have two Ernaldas or some such. And the case of the Seven Sisters.
So, what I'm thinking is that we have two levels:
Does that sound right? Or do I still have it all mixed up?
Mike
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