Re: Anamists in Dragon Pass

From: donald_at_...
Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 13:58:59 GMT


In message <BAY110-F19B07BA6AE088CFD648A0DA8A60_at_...> "Mike Holmes" writes:

>From what I've read about it here, apparently whole families are
>Kolatings - this is how the tradition is passed on? Anyhow, I think
>that there's room for a bit more than just Spirit Talkers. But, yeah,
>I'd think it'd largely be based on the occupations those families
>tended to follow. So perhaps they exist on the fringes by doing their
>own hunting, for example? Or in one clan, the Kolatings are the
>merchant family?

Since Heortlings don't restrict occupations to particular families I don't see Kolatings following specialist occupations like merchant. On the other hand nearly every Heortling does at least some of their own food production whether it's hunting, fishing, growing vegetables or whatever. So a Kolating is likely to have a vegetable garden, a pig and a few hens and supplement that with hunting and fishing. They supplement that livelyhood by exchanging gifts from their specialism (spirit charms) with more conventional families. I bet there's many a daughter been told off for coming home with a love charm - "You don't need that sort of thing if you'd follow Ernalda's ways properly".

>But to give you a better idea, in theory, since Kolat is part of
>the Storm Pantheon religion overall, not only could a Kolating
>practitioner gain spirits from other traditions or from independent
>practices, but he could also join a theistic cult. Now, I'm
>frequently reminded that, while this is possible technically due to
>Kolat not being an enemy, it's unlikely or non-existent in Glorantha,
>since the people who might teach you how to worship in a theistic
>cult would be at the very least leery of teaching a Kolating what
>they know. They might be outright apalled that some spirit worshipper
>would even ask. And even the spirits and dieties in question
>might have reservations about it.

This is what makes many occupations problematic for Kolatings, the occupation follows cult membership and there aren't enough Kolatings to make a sufficent community to specialise among themselves. So a Kolating merchant would have to be both a Kolating and an Issaries worshipper.

>But all of this merely makes it extremely problematic, and not
>outright impossible. For a character who was deemed to have a very
>pure desire to worship both, by both the people involved, and the
>supernatural beings involved, it might possibly happen.

Certainly possible as an exceptional character but definitely something to be played out in game. About the only mechanic that really restricts this is time - a practitioner spends at least 20% of their time and initiation into a theistic cult requires a further 30%. One or both of those activities must help the individual earn a living or they'll starve to death waiting for enlightenment.

-- 
Donald Oddy
http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/

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