> How about an earth religion where the people venerate the grain
mother and cow mothers on a weekly basis, sacrifice to the dark earth
goddesses in bad times, and have ecstatic worship ceremonies for the
planting man and the harvest man? Seems pretty natural to me, anyway.
>
I think that is pretty much exactly what almost all Gloranthans do.
All (to at least Heortling levels of all) Gloranthans take part in
mixed religions. Even amongst those who take on specialized magic not
all will concentrate in it. (It is great to be a little better at
taking care of the cows, but when your child is sick, or you want to
impress your new sister-in-law, or your husband's eye seems to be
straying, or you need to drive off a horde of trollkin, are you going
to pass by the magics that will help you, just so you can be better at
cow magic? What sort of terrible mother are you anyway?)
In other words, the communal portion of the religion interacts with all sorts of beings, in various ways, and almost everyone takes part. And further most people will learn personal magic in all those different ways.
However it is almost unheard of for one person to have more than one source of specialized magic. It takes pretty major commitments of time. It would be something like being a game writer/editor and an expert on russian organized crime, and I can't imagine anyone quite that driven/crazed *waves to Mark, the exception that proves the rule* So if you have only one specialized magic, you'll generally do it all in one style--you give ecstatic worship to earth witch or sacrifice to Ernalda or pray to whoever, and you get magic appropriately.
What I was wondering about is if there are any entities that actually are given mixed worship by each worshipper. So with Helmal the Sun Horse we attend dignified community services at dawn, and dance and drink and sing at night, and so get blessings and spirits. It would be odd, perverse, and impractical....but not impossible :-0
Regards;
-Bryan
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