Agreed. My recollection is that these cults were always close to the borderline between a divine cult and a shamanic practice (Thed did for Broos what Kyger Litor did for Trolls), but over time they made the subtle shift from being most like a divine cult (at a time when shamanic practices were not well defined officially), to being most like a shamanic practice.
Canon or not, in my Glorantha both would probably practice mixed worship. Their religious leaders would have a mix of spirit magic and divine spells. Shamans and their followers would gain some limited access to divine spells through belonging to Spirit Cults ('Helper Practices' in MRQ 1?), entering into limited pacts with demigods (and limited aspects of larger gods?). This isn't misapplied worship-- it is simply that they didn't put as much in to the worship of that god/spirit (because they deal with/worship many others too), so they can't get as much back.
That and the gods/demigods they follow aren't "three rune" enitities anyway, so haven't that much to give. Thed is probably a two-rune entity (and in many ways a defeated one at that), and Bagog might scrape into the same bracket (just). Nor are individual communities of worshippers that large-- for example, it is hard to imagine a group of Broo being large and organised enough to put together a Heroquest equivalent to a full Lightbringers' Quest (as discussed in a thread some months ago).
To me it suits these races' cultures for its followers to practice crude, flexible but limited, mixed worship-- for the same reasons that it suits many human (and non-chaotic) Wenelian tribes to do likewise.
Richard Hayes
--- On Tue, 9/3/10, Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_5HKHaVhEustUqgIt7hDg9DMA6EapjtQPlT4a30kf3NYkzKFF_ztCFYNeB6XzDw6Y4WUb0asrrSx__XNNx6cA7Kc2hsU.yahoo.invalid> wrote:
From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_5HKHaVhEustUqgIt7hDg9DMA6EapjtQPlT4a30kf3NYkzKFF_ztCFYNeB6XzDw6Y4WUb0asrrSx__XNNx6cA7Kc2hsU.yahoo.invalid>
Subject: Re: Chaos in HQ2
To: WorldofGlorantha_at_yahoogroups.com
Date: Tuesday, 9 March, 2010, 19:06
On 3/10/2010 5:09 AM, Richard Hayes wrote:
> Digressing from Matthew's posting, I remember that in the first
> version of MRQ (and Hero Wars before that?), formerly divine cults
> like Thed and Bagog had become shamanic practices.
Thed and Bagog had shamans as far back as Gods of Glorantha.
--Peter Metcalfe
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