Re: Re: 7 Mothers?

From: Kevin Blackburn <kevin_at_...>
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 20:44:13 +0100


In article <5.0.2.1.2.20010717191456.00a43370_at_...>, Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_...> writes
>Kevin Blackburn:
>
>> >Secondly the number of lunar initiates in the provincial population
>> >is small. 5% is my impression (as opposed to 2% in the Heartlands).
>> >Initiates are generally wealthy layabouts, political agitators, jaded
>> >hedonists, bootlicking toadies etc. rather than being your average
>> >hard-working citizen struggling in through day-job (although there
>> >are some lunars in the last category).
>
>>If that's right it opens a whole new reason for hating Lunar converts -
>>they are a bunch of slackers who don't try hard enough to need the edge
>>given by a focused deity.
>
>They are no more slackers than your average landed gentry (I'm
>not saying your parallel is wrong, I'm just placing it within a
>social context).

Just to prove that I can't stick to a single theme - Sartar doesn't feel like it much in the way of "landed gentry" in the style of, say 18th Century English Landed Gentry - that all the leaders have full time jobs leading and carrying out the ritual requirements of their position. Tarsh, I grant you, might start seeing this class (and indeed, has many more Seven Mothers members, which might even be taken as proving your point).

>>In somewhere like Prax I'd count it as a
>>reason for exiling someone in its own right. It also seems to rather
>>focus the missionary efforts on such slackers.
>
>But we weren't talking about Prax, we were talking about the
>relationship between the average provincial citizen (who live
>in places like Tarsh) and the lunars.

I was just failing to stick to the theme, and musing about one place the Lunars would have particular problems with this sort of offering.

> Secondly the missionaries
>do not set out to convert "slackers" but anybody who listens
>to their message. Being recognized by the Examiners as a Lunar
>confers a privileged position within the Empire (the Select*) of
>which a benefit can be said to live the life of a slacker.

There is that, of course. A legal and tax edge might offset the loss of the magical edge bought on by two out of three affinities that serve philosophical rather than immediately practical purposes.

>From a modern viewpoint, I know my argument of focusing on the value of
affinities to the worshipper is crass, but I feel that Thunder Rebels and Storm Tribe describe eminently practical religions (well, bar Eurmal) for a good reason.
>

[snip]

-- 
Kevin Blackburn                         Kevin_at_...

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