Combining Worship Traditions

[Rasta]

I am running a new campaign and would like to get some suggestions. One player is wanting to play a Druid (I downloaded the Druid write-up from S&P).

It seems the Votanki of Balazar would be an appropriate fit to have a Druid cult. I want to make this cult fit into the Gloranthan setting. One thought I had was to combine the Druid Cult practises (which are Divine) with the native Vantaki practises (which are Animist/Shamanic). How would I go about combining the two traditions?

Alternatively, I could create a Druidic pantheon, drawing from existing cults who identify with the Runes: Plant, Beast, Fertility, and Law.

Any ideas or suggestions would be welcome.

 

[Rurik]

Steal heavily from Aldrya. Both Divine/Shamanistic magic with a heavy earth base.

Hell it could even BE human worship of Aldrya.

 

[Rasta]

Thanks for the input. That's a good idea.

Would it make more sence to divide the Priest and Shaman role as seen in the Uz pantheon, or to combine them into basically a Preist who has the capabilities of a Shaman?

 

[Halfbat]

I'd be tempted to provide for both, but only because of the sort of splits the real-world druids went. The lords could be the filidh lawgivers, priests perhaps equivalent to bairds, whilst the pure druid become shaman - but could well have the skills of either the other two or may well have gone through the other two.

There's more stuff up on the wiki relating to the S&P article, btw, including more complex chargen options. Try http://mrqwiki.com/wiki/index.php/Complete_Druid.

 

[Rasta]

I'd be tempted to provide for both, but only because of the sort of splits the real-world druids went. The lords could be the filidh lawgivers, priests perhaps equivalent to bairds, whilst the pure druid become shaman - but could well have the skills of either the other two or may well have gone through the other two.

There's more stuff up on the wiki relating to the S&P article, btw, including more complex chargen options. Try http://mrqwiki.com/wiki/index.php/Complete_Druid.

Cheers.

 

[Rurik]

I guess the first question is deciding what it means to be a Druid in Glorantha.

Halfbat's material is is all Rune Magic based I believe. Which is an interesting approach, Druids are in touch with the earth and the building blocks of Glorantha are the runes after all. You could use that material without much effort.

I suggested Aldrya as it is a mixed divine/spirit cult that is already earth based. If you follow that thought there are couple of approaches:

First, that they are in touch with the spirits that are in all things. This would make them a form of shaman essentially, so I would maybe keep the shaman and priest aspect separated as you suggest in your Uz analogy.

Second is that Druids worship either a rare/minor localised god or perhaps a different aspect of an existing god (such as human worship of an Aldrya aspect). I'd basically use this as a combined Divine/Spirit cult. The Priest would learn divine magic, but cult rune spells could be learned as spirit spells instead for example.

If you go with Aldrya I'd drop some of the speedart/coordination type stuff and throw in some spells from other earth cults.

 

[Rasta]

Thanks Rurik. Great ideas.