David Cake writes:
Glorantha will be the richer if we have several types
of Humakti, several types of Vingan, etc trying to
co-exist in a cult that ultimately has room for all.
Donald Oddy:
Agreed, but I'd go further. Different communities may
resolve the same conflict differently because they
don't communicate with each other enough to realise
they are different. So the Humakti temple in Boldhome
may be very different from the one in Smithstone. In
the bigger cults like Orlanth that will probably
express itself in different subcults being popular but
with smaller cults it's far more individualistic.
I think what is very likely to happen is that where you have a single, senior-level leader, you'll inevitably get much of his or her personal biases worked into the local teachings. She may 'forget' to teach the Vinga-got-pregnant myth, because she's personally a prude, and so on. The effect will be less in the commonest cults, because there'll be so many more initiates or members, but even then, I agree that there will be regionalism.
So, there's plenty of scope for playing up what interests you about a particular god. I also can see more interest for players, too, as it's usually automatically assumed that if you share a cult with some new-met stranger (maybe this is our game only, but I suspect it's pretty common), you share a large common ground. However, real world examples tend to show that friendly relations deteriorate whenever there are even minor doctrinal differences between two related groups.
Alison
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