Civilized spirits

[troy812]

That's no problem. The Middle Sea Empire is a cosmopolitan realm that welcomes those of all faiths and spirit traditions freely so that their beliefs can be studied for future plundering and manip... uh, for future partnership and increase in understanding. And, of course, for proselytising.

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[Loz]

The Middle Sea Empire is a cosmopolitan realm that welcomes those of all faiths and spirit traditions freely

Yep, its an Equal Opportunities Believer.

Some beliefs being more right than others, of course, and every single one explained (read: trashed) within the monomyth.

[kintire]

Easy for you to say, I just had a very angry Thor come round...seems I'd forgot to return his lawn mower...talk about a temper

You have to cut him some slack: lawnmowers are a bit of a Thor point.

i don't know much about Glorantha, but I do know that ancient Celtic religions were more closely in keeping with Animism than worship of particular gods. Although they did have gods (Oghma comes to mind) their druids, if I'm not wrong, seemed to be interested in nature spirits and placating them rather than adherense to deity based religion.

We know very little about Celtic religion, to the point that some people don't believe that there was a single pan-Celtic relgion (in fact, there are some scholars who don't believe there were Celts). As far as we can tell, they worshipped gods in much the same way as their neighbours.

Druids were the Celtic scholarly class. They did everything scholarly: History, astronomy, poetry, law, theology, magic: the whole lot (though an individual Druid would probably not do all of it). Some may have been Nature priests, although we have little or no evidence for that.

Many Celts, bear in mind, were reletively civilised urbanites: they weren't all savages by any means.

You can equally ascribe the rise and success of monotheism to its convenience for large scale autocracy.

I have two problems with this: first, that doesn't account for the nations that have practiced large scale autocracy and Polytheism very conveniently: Egypt, Persia, China, etc etc. Second, you are talking as if "Polytheism" and "Monotheism" are schools of thought with many shared characteristics. Persian polytheism had almost exactly nothing in common with, say Viking polytheism except they had more than one god: Christianity/Islam/Judaism have almost nothing in common with Aten or Sol Invictus other than that there is just one (or at least one clearly supreme and the others barely qualifying). Its like talking about "Paganism" as if its a religion. Paganism, and Polythieism/Monotheism, are types of religion each of which contain many examples that have nothing to do with each other at all.

[kintire]

Some beliefs being more right than others, of course, and every single one explained (read: trashed) within the monomyth.

http://www.despair.com/compromise.html

[Mikko Leho]

A few examples of real world shamanic traditions that existed alongside Christianity:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benandanti

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krsnik

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A1ltos

[Simulacrum]

You can equally ascribe the rise and success of monotheism to its convenience for large scale autocracy.

I have two problems with this: first, that doesn't account for the nations that have practiced large scale autocracy and Polytheism very conveniently: Egypt, Persia, China, etc etc. Second, you are talking as if "Polytheism" and "Monotheism" are schools of thought with many shared characteristics. Persian polytheism had almost exactly nothing in common with, say Viking polytheism except they had more than one god: Christianity/Islam/Judaism have almost nothing in common with Aten or Sol Invictus other than that there is just one (or at least one clearly supreme and the others barely qualifying). Its like talking about "Paganism" as if its a religion. Paganism, and Polythieism/Monotheism, are types of religion each of which contain many examples that have nothing to do with each other at all.

These are all fair observations, but the point was the assertion (not mine) that Monotheism as opposed to any other kind of religion is a natural or necessary development for complex societies, and I think we'd agree it is not and there are plenty of examples to prove it. On the other hand there are many examples that a complex state will often attempt to monopolise or at least harness religion in order to exert greater control, stimulate loyalty and impose conformity. This could mean anything from selecting a single deity and ascribing it a pre-eminence (or even denying the existence of other deities), to making sure you have control of the key cult centres and oracles, to interesting things like Roman evocatio where you summon someone else's god out of their city and rehouse it in yours amongst your domestic gods. And of course the reverse is true - certain cults and religions will attach themselves to the rulers to further their own ends.

[PhilHibbs]

Bringing this thread up to date, the character is from Jrustela, and is a member of a shamanic practice that has been manipulated and revised by God Learner experimentation. The end game is, as with most God Learner manipulations, to produce a cult with a grimorie that can achieve everything that the shamans can do. (They've evidently already done this with divine cults such as Gark and Ompalam.) In the mean time, the myths of the cult have been smoothed out and brought into a more modern and progressive ethical framework. This hasn't had much impact in game yet, apart from the fact that the character is more free to wander off adventuring than the average shaman. I'm thinking they had a bit of a graduate recruitment scheme going on and have taken on a few too many new shamans - combined with the loss of Fonrit, they've got a few people "on the bench".