I'd tend to disagree here. Both from an "old hand" point of view - People who had RQ characters that were Issaries merchants or Humakt warriors, for example wanted that information sooner rather than later, and from a "newcomer" point of view - how can you establish the setting material if you are missing one of the elemental building blocks. If these cults exist and have a sizeable representation then it would be odd if they were completly ignored in all the early setting material
> > to analog cultures here if this is the sort of information you
> > desire. I am not sure that there is a huge demand to know what a
> > farmer's common tools are. Which RPGs do you suggest have this
> > level of detail? Any particular supplements you think handle this
> > better.
>
> Well, Harn has some very good material culture stuff, as does L5R,
> although its exposition is a bit broken (they don't relate two arms
> of the economy, but they do discuss each arm).
Ha! You must be joking. L5R completly ignores the whole question of Economy in a way at least an order of magnitude beyond any other RPG. The only place it is even mentioned at all is the "joke" preface to "Way of the Kolat" (MGtR).
> In fact L5R is quite interesting in this regard because it pays so
> little attention to the actual religious beliefs of people;
...to the extent that playing a "religious character" becomes quite a challenge... L5R Religion is a hodge-podge of Confucianism, Buddhism and Shinto, with no real explanation of why they are mixed together, or who deals with which function.
> but it discusses that culture
> anyway through its objects -
the "Archeology" Approach. Hmm, here's an object, now lets find an excuse for fitting it in to the culture. The problem is that it leaves you with a lot of unanswered questions and no way to extrapolate. We know that performing a Tea Ceremony will allow you to recover void points, but we don't know why - Is it the Tea, the Ceremony, both, neither. Hero Wars works the other way around - We know that in myth, peacekeepers covered weapons with rugs to prevent bloodshed, so now we know why Ernaldans throw rugs over fueding Orlanthi's swords to defuse a brawl...
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