I didn't think Propriatry worship was about intimidating evil spirits (though I suppose it could be), but about "bribing" them to look elsewhere. If we show them sufficient respect in the annual rituals then they (probably) won't bother us in the coming year. If we don't then they will drop by to remind us of their power, and we will need to placate or fight them once they are here, which will (probably) be more costly. Of course sometimes our foes will enter into a deal with these evil spirits and persuade them to attack us even though we honoured them in our annual rituals.
(so if we successfully propriate Malia then we won't suffer from major illnesses, unless we are raided by Broo, whose relationship with her will cause her to forget (or at least overlook) our lesser relationship).
> Instead, what they do is ask for the blessings of the good spirits > in advance.
This would work too. Rather than pay Malia her protection money, we encourage health spirits to inhabit the area around our home, making it harder for her disease spirits to attack us
> My initial thought was that you have to ask for the
> great spirit to assist some activity that the worshipper carries
> out. (So, it kind of works like an augment.) I don't think that it
> works to say, "Oh Eiritha, make our herds expand this year."
Why not? Covert possession of our cows by fertility spirits sounds a reasonable solution....
> But it might work to say, "Oh, Eiritha, help our women know when
> our cows are sickly." This kind of makes sense to me because
> animism relies on a personal relationship between spirit and
> person. [...snip...]
> How is the great spirit manifesting? Does she send her helper
> spirits out to the worshipper? If so, they need bodies and no one
> has prepared charms or anything.
>
Why not? If we were planning to ask the Eiritha for a spirit to help us recognise disease then surely we would have thought ahead to prepare a charm or fetish to house it?
> So, my final thought was that the rituals make worshippers more
> suitable to great spirits. We all know that spirits are picky.
This sounds reasonable too. If you are going to have a relationship with the great spirit then it needs to recognise you as someone that it is worth entering into a relationship with...
> After all, taboos are mainly about not doing the things that offend
> the spirits. So, maybe these rituals give you a little Lingering
> Benefit in your interactions with the spirits of the tradition. But > the problem with that is one of game balance: if you got a +9
> Lingering Benefit most years from making sure you got the annual
> ritual right, that just seems over the top.
Treat it the other way around (rather like having the tools for a skill you posess). An animist who failed to participate in the appropriate annual rites is treated with suspicion by the spirits of the tradition and suffers as penalty in all their dealings with such spirits, until such time as they can perform suitable restitution. (which of course can tie back to the propriation of evil spirits that we started with. If we honoured Malia in the annual rites then we can interact with any disease spirits we encounter "as normal" in the coming year. If we didn't then we are starting out at a penalty - If disease becomes a major problem for us we will need to placate (or defeat) Malia to mitigate this .
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