Chalana Arroy question

[Khamulcalle]

Is there men who is worshipping her or is it just females?

 

[Loz]

Men can be lay-members but not initiates or higher.

However there's a tradition in Glorantha of people finding ways around the gender restrictions of some cults: Vinga for female Orlanthi; Dandan the Birthing Man for Ernalda to name but two. So there's nothing to stop you from having some obscure sect that have uncovered Chalana Arroy's masculine side (through heroquesting, say) and establishing a way of worshiping her. Him. It.

Edit: in a Griffin Mountain campaign I ran a few years ago, a male character successfully became an Ernalda initiate. He then started to become a woman when he made a Pact with the goddess. It always reminded me of Stan/Loretta from 'Life of Brian'.

 

[Ultor]

I've always allowed men to join the subcult of her son, Arroin, which teaches healing skills and some healing spells but nowhere near as much as CA herself.

I can't remember if this is official from Cults of Prax-era Glorantha, or whether I just made it up years ago.

 

[Khamulcalle]

Ah, okay, thanks... I'll see what I will do about it...

 

[Moonstruck]

The Arroin sub cult is the simplest way. To let males join Chalana Arroy. If you want it to be a female only cult.

Rune Lord of Chalana Arroy = Healer of Arroin

Warning!

A Healer of Arroin. Makes a dangerous Hero Quester. As they attract the emptiness of Chaos to them. When trying to heal Chaos, his magic powers will break!

Do not play a Healer of Arroin in a Chaos heavy game, unless you like pain.

 

[Khamulcalle]

Damn, haha! I thought PhilHibbs would answere this in a heartbeat hehe....

 

[simonh]

Damn, haha! I thought PhilHibbs would answere this in a heartbeat hehe....

I think he's still in shock from the Wayfarer announcement.

There's plenty of info on Arroin on glorantha.com in the Chalana Arroy page.

My take on the mythology is that Arroin's egoistic, classically male confrontational approach to Chaos was his undoing. Notionally only women can truly comprehend the deep mysteries of growth and life that underlie healing and the crucial metaphysical role Chaos plays in them, hence Chalana Arroy's neutrality regarding Chaos.

The Arroin subcult's abilities are all specialist healing skills, with no special healing magic although I'm sure they do teach all the commonly available healing spells. In other words an Arroin cultist can be totally loaded up with tons of healing spells, just not the super-duper Chalana Arroy ones.

All this might actually give an Arroin cultists an advantage in many circumstances. His specialist healing skills are usable at any time, as often as he likes, and not depletable like magic powers. Also his skills and admittedly more basic spells aren't dependent on maintaining mystical purity, neutrality and strict vows.

Game mechanically, Arroin cultists would focus on the First Aid and Healing skills.n Fortunately the Healing skill writeup provides a decent starting point for what a specialist healer can do. You might also consider making some healing heroic abilities available.

Personaly I wouldn't go with the 'masculine side of Chalana Arroy' option to give a man full-on CA powers. Healing is fundamentally a feminine power and the way for a man to tap into it would instead be to discover and emphasize his feminine nature, as all human beings have both male and female sides to some degree. As I see it e.g. Vinga isn't the female side of Orlanth (though of course he does have one), so much as a way for women to emphasize their masculine tendencies and thereby participate in masculine activities. So it is with Arroin, in the other direction, but in both cases you're swimming against the tide.

More generally on gender roles, I don't think the fact that people of the 'wrong' gender pursuing a gender defined role have a hard time of it is bad. It's good that men can be healers and that the Arroin subcult exists for them, but I also think it's good that they aren't just men dressed up as women and getting all the same kewl powerz exactly as if they were women. Likewise for Vingans. The limitations and obstacles these characters face allow us to explore why certain roles are gendered and what that means. Also while these characters face limitations in some ways, they can also use their gender to bring something to their role that 'correctly' gendered characters can't.

I think there's tons of mileage in an Arroin healer character, and as a GM I'd fall over backwards to make this a viable and interesting character for one of my players to have.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Khamulcalle]

Thank you very much Simon, class act of you, thanks! Is Phil your brother? If so say hi from me, and tell him I think it sucks too...I am getting to re-learning about Glorantha (played RQ alot back in ealry -80's)

...and I really liked what Mongoose had done with it (even if they should go after someone who CAN draw and make illustrations, and someone who loves to make maps hehehe)


...wayfarer :shock:

 

[simonh]

Yep, I'm Phil's brother. I show up here every now and then.

I didn't get as invested in MRQ as Phil, though I have probably picked up about a third of the books, maybe more. The system wasn't quite to my taste as I prefer a lightweight version of more traditional BRP mechanics, but I can completely understand why so many people like it. Compared to previous phases in the life of the RQ franchise they did a good job of regularly putting out product, too.

Simon Hibbs