>He'll need to be part of the "congregation" of the Liturgist to recieve it
>(yes, you can have a congregation of 1), which means that he has to
>participate in some sort of worship service. A warped orlanthi willing to
>ask for such a blessing would have a stain on his soul
This seems entirely fair to me. So far, so good....
>*Blessings* are something a person wants, and is good for him or her. They
>are usually cast on the congregation (or the congregation's fields or herds
>or ship or weapons or...)
>
>*Curses* are another thing entirely. Unless there is a *really* tweaked
>reason, a curse is never cast on the congregation, it is cast on the
>congregation's enemies and does bad things to them.
>
>There is a vast difference between participating in a ceremony (of whatever
>magic type) to recieve benefits, and being on the recieving end of hostile
>magic.
I'm not so sure about this -- the "process" is essentially the same. If blessings cannot (rather than should not) be cast outside the congregation, why should curses? The benefit of the congregation, in my opinion, would be the extra power it would give the liturgist (to overcome multiple target penalties, get a better result, etc.)
Wulf Corbett says:
>restriction is not, I believe, 'you can't have the blessing because it
>won't work', but rather 'you can't have the blessing because you are a
>foul unholy barbarian and I hate you'... Otherwise, curses become
>useless...
This seems more to the point; it's not like an Orlanthi couldn't sneak into a worship service, but the process of doing so would contaminate him and piss off the congregation (maybe screw up their worship). It is probably not worth the trouble.... I suspect a liturgist who knowingly casts blessings on the dubious likes on some syncratic Orlanthi would also begin to suffer for his backsliding -- minuses on grimoire skills, etc. (and, perhaps, get visits from the highers-up). This makes the prohibition ritual and social, rather than game mechanical.
Peter Larsen
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