Generic Fantasy Cults

[Jujitsudave]

Didn't know that. I'll have to check thst out.

 

[carandol]

If you don't have myths then you don't have a religion, as far as I am concerned.

I suppose you could argue that if the gods are real and demonstrably active in the world, then stories about them aren't myths but facts! You still have to have stories about the gods though, otherwise you'll never know quite what it is that annoys the Lightning God enough to smite you, and in a world of real gods, that's just as important as knowing that wearing a sword within the city walls carries the death penalty.

 

[languagegeek]

I know I may be asking a lot from folks, but is it at all possible to leave the posts about what you think would sell

Sorry, I made my post in the wrong thread, I intended it to be elsewhere. BTW, nice stuff on your CV.

On topic: I'm working on stuff for neolithic spirit/divine cults. I'd be happy to post those with or without myths when they've been playtested. They'd be useful for early agriculturalists/hunter/gatherers which tend to be on the fringes of vanilla fantasy worlds.

 

[Radioactive Ape Colin]

So, in THIS thread, folks were asking for a generic fantasy setting for MRQ2, basically something more vanilla and along D&D lines than is currently available.

Have you read the generic cult description from Avalon Hill's RQ3 Rulebook? They've got the kind of thing you want, albeit in RQ3 format. It wouldn't take a lot of work to convert them to MRQII.

Given that it takes me all of a couple of minutes to type up a brand new generic entry, and that it'd take me as much time to convert and type up the old AH RQ material (even if I still owned it, which I don't), I'll stick with what I'm doing.

Colin

 

[Radioactive Ape Colin]

I can always include the Myths as optional sections within each entry; that way everyone is happy and can use or ignore them as they see fit. So, if someone has a couple of myths they'd like to add to the Deity of the Sea, please, go for it.

I can see myths being a problem for generic cults, as it starts to pin the cult down to specifics. And if you keep the myth too general, it could become bland and pointless. Worth a try though.

Hence them being optional. The point here is to provide a generic baseline, almost a template if you will, that the GM can then easily tweak and flavour to suit without having to create from wholecloth. So, ultimately it doesn't matter one tiny iota if they're a bit bland; that's kind of the point.

Colin

 

[Radioactive Ape Colin]

Me too. But make a list of the gods. No myths is fine by me. I hate glorantha.

Myths for religions are definitely not Glorantha-specific.

If you don't have myths then you don't have a religion, as far as I am concerned.

I believe (and I may just be going out on a limb here) that the objection is more against myths insofar as they relate to heroquesting and mythic resonance, not the concept that religions have myths (which is kind of a no-brainer). Ultimately, those kind of real world myths are flavour the GM adds when they tweak the generic templates/baselines we're creating, though as I stated before, adding some possible myths (inc. resonance) to each as utterly optional sections is certainly a possibility.

Colin

 

[Radioactive Ape Colin]

On topic: I'm working on stuff for neolithic spirit/divine cults. I'd be happy to post those with or without myths when they've been playtested. They'd be useful for early agriculturalists/hunter/gatherers which tend to be on the fringes of vanilla fantasy worlds.

That sounds like it'd be a wonderful addition, thank you, and I'm sure lots of folks would appreciate it. The more folks pitching in, sharing examples and material, etc. the better, imo.

Colin

 

[Deleriad]

Giving this a go

Generic RQII Fantasy Religions
Common skills: All religions have Lore & Pact for their deity as skills.

Common spells: Behold, Blessing, Consecrate, Dismiss Magic, Excommunicate, Extension, Soul Sight

Status: possible 1 to 5 classes of Deity with cults from world-spanning (Great) to just a few strange loners (insignificant).
Starting with a biggy - this would be the Sun God in a world where the Sun is worshipped in many places in many forms. One of the greatest of the great.

Sun God

Status: Greatest of the Great. Worshipped where ever the sun shines he represents the highest ideal, the noblest aims, worthiest actions and fairest words. In many worlds he sacrificed himself to hold off the forces of darkness and his return marked the triumph of light.

Runes: Fire, Law, Mastery

Skills: Art (Poetry), Courtesy, Culture (Own), Evaluate, Influence, Lore (Law, Regional), Oratory, Perception, Ride, Teaching

Combat Styles: Bow, Spear, Shield, Javelin

Common Magic Spells: Detect Gold, Firearrow, Fireblade, Glamour, Light, Speedart, Warmth

Divine Spells: All common spells plus Clear Skies, Dismiss Elemental, Elemental Summoning, Gleam, Heal Wound, Shield, Sunspear, True Spear

----More options
If you wanted to be really ambitious you could 'build' classes of cults with the greatest offering the most to their followers. So something like a Sun God would probably offer the greatest range of skills & Spells.

I also reckon on a generic level you want to be pretty generous with skills and spells.

 

[sdavies2720]

Giving this a go

Generic RQII Fantasy Religions
Common skills: All religions have Lore & Pact for their deity as skills.

Common spells: Behold, Blessing, Consecrate, Dismiss Magic, Excommunicate, Extension, Soul Sight

Status: possible 1 to 5 classes of Deity with cults from world-spanning (Great) to just a few strange loners (insignificant).
Starting with a biggy - this would be the Sun God in a world where the Sun is worshipped in many places in many forms. One of the greatest of the great.

Sun God
...
Divine Spells: All common spells plus Clear Skies, Dismiss Elemental, Elemental Summoning, Gleam, Heal Wound, Shield, Sunspear, True Spear

Nice. I think this is useful for folks putting cults together. For myself, I probably wouldn't put in the elemental spells (Dismiss and Summon) and instead give some power against the undead.

 

[Radioactive Ape Colin]

Giving this a go
Sun God (snippage)

Thank you so much for getting involved. Many hands make light work and all that; this is exactly the sort of involvement I was hoping would occur.

Colin

 

[Radioactive Ape Colin]

One more tonight:

Deity of Knowledge
Learning, the acquisition, recording, and sharing of lore, these are things held as sacred to the cult of [Deity of Knowledge]. Staunchly neutral insofar as knowledge can be a tool towards good or evil, or simply a pure pursuit in itself, [Deity of Knowledge] only cares that information is acquired, learned, recorded, and shared with any who seek it. Only lies, falsifications, and other obfuscations or ruinations of knowledge, truth, and the mind are truly despised.

While some devotees of the cult dedicate themselves to scribing and studying, locked away in warrens of books and scrolls, others set forth into the world to investigate, observe, catalogue, validate, and expand the wealth of information the cult possesses.

Runes
Communication, Truth

Magic
Common Magic: Abacus, Babel, Bearing Witness, Extinguish, Understanding

Divine Magic: Behold, Blessing (any cult skill), Heal Mind, Mindlink

Cult Skills
The cult offers training in the following skills. Pact is required as one of the five skills for joining and advancing within the cult: Culture (any), Insight, Language (any), Lore (any), Pact, Perception, Persistence.

 

[soltakss]

Have you read the generic cult description from Avalon Hill's RQ3 Rulebook? They've got the kind of thing you want, albeit in RQ3 format. It wouldn't take a lot of work to convert them to MRQII.

Given that it takes me all of a couple of minutes to type up a brand new generic entry, and that it'd take me as much time to convert and type up the old AH RQ material (even if I still owned it, which I don't), I'll stick with what I'm doing.

What you're doing is fine, but they might give you some ideas.

For what it's worth, the generic cults for RQ3 are:
Agricultural Goddess
Earth Goddess
Hunting God
Moon Goddess
Night Goddess
Ruling Deity
Sea God
Storm God
Sun God
Trickster
Underworld God
War God

I'd also add the following:
Healing Deity
River Deity
Sky God
Trading Deity

I'm sure that there could be many others.

 

[Radioactive Ape Colin]

For what it's worth, the generic cults for RQ3 are:
Agricultural Goddess
Earth Goddess
Hunting God
Moon Goddess
Night Goddess
Ruling Deity
Sea God
Storm God
Sun God
Trickster
Underworld God
War God

I'd also add the following:
Healing Deity
River Deity
Sky God
Trading Deity

I'm sure that there could be many others.

Thanks for the list, mate, much appreciated.

Colin

 

[simonh]

If you don't have myths then you don't have a religion, as far as I am concerned.

I suppose you could argue that if the gods are real and demonstrably active in the world, then stories about them aren't myths but facts!

This is one of the key insights that so many, many people new to Glorantha or RQ in general miss. People in the ancient world didn't think their religious myths were made up fantasies, and nor do people in Glorantha. RQ works from the perspective that these myths are true insights into the nature of the world.

I wrote a series of posts to the Glorantha Digest on this years ago, explaining what a myth is, how it's different from history, and why mythic knowledge gives magical powers. I'll see if I can edit them into a proper article. Don't know where to put it though.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Deleriad]

This is one of the key insights that so many, many people new to Glorantha or RQ in general miss. People in the ancient world didn't think their religious myths were made up fantasies, and nor do people in Glorantha. RQ works from the perspective that these myths are true insights into the nature of the world.

It is indeed only the modern use of the word that implies "untrue." A myth is simply an account of activities that, usually, take place either before history or took part between humans and deities, spirits and so on. Technically speaking, the Old testament contains various written down myths and legends.

Next time someone uses the phrase "urban myth" in your presence, slap them. Such things are not myths and often not urban either. Contemporary Legend is a better term.

 

[cthulhudarren]

I strongly agree with using myths for cults in generic fantasy worlds. I also do not want to use Glorantha, but think the way cults work is pretty golden.

I mentioned elsewhere how I'd like to develop the whole Norse pantheon for MRQ2. I think the cool insight from RQ is to use the myths and myth-questing to raise up in the ranks of the cult. Otherwise you have players just giving gold to raise their cult rank, or going on a mission to clear out the old monastery, etc etc. This is too much like vanilla D&D. In order to give the cults real depth, I love the idea of having to go through the ceremony of reliving the myth. Only then does the god open up more power for the cultist.

 

[Deleriad]

Another one:

Underworld God
The keeper of the dead; the psychopomp; the undeceived.

Status: Great

Runes: Death, Fate, Truth

Skills: Craft (Corpse Preparation), Evaluate, Insight, Lore (Underworld), Perception, Persistence, Stealth

Combat Styles: Scythe (or mythically appropriate weapon)

Common Magic Spells: Abacus, Bandit’s Cloak, Bearing Witness, Countermagic, Demoralise, Detect (Lie, Life), Extinguish, Fate, Hand of Death, Second Sight, Spirit Bane

Divine Spells: All common plus Absorption, Exorcism, Fear, Sever Spirit, Soul Sight, Spirit Block, True (Scythe – or appropriate)

 

[simonh]

I found that old post from the Glorantha Digest I mentioned. Here's an extract with a few minor edits. It was in response to a question about the relationship between history and myth.

---

Myth isn't something that happened long ago in history, it's something that is happening all around you all the time in Glorantha. Every day the sun sets, that's Yelm dying right there in front of your eyes. Forget thousands of years ago, it's happening NOW! That's why heroquesting isn't time travel, it doesn't need to be. You want to go see Orlanth? - There he is in that storm, right over there.

There is no single objectively true, historical myth. Myth is _not_ history, it is much more like allegory. Imagine you are a new human being, with no history or significant culture, looking at the world with new eyes. You see that the sun is high in the sky, and it's light warms and illuminates the world. It's very powerful, and important, like an emperor who's power radiates out across the kingdom. You breathe air, and it is vital to life. There are also violent and dangerous storms that can kill, yet they also bring the life-sustaining rains. You observe all these
things and you understand that the natural processes of the world make your life possible, and so you make stories about these important things. The sun setting every night is like death, the sun rising in the morning is like corn growing in the spring. You see connections and meaning in the world.

To a Gloranthan, or even many religious believers in our world these are not coincidental, they are real correspondences that tell us things about the world. In Glorantha, the things these correspondences tell Gloranthans about the world are true. The sun setting at night really is connected to death, and the sun being 'reborn' in the spring really is somehow related to the new life of golden corn rising in the spring. But the real fundamental nature of these correspondences – the magical links that make magic work - are beyond full mortal comprehension. To understand the true secret nature of the gods is to be a god. Myth is a simplified, symbolic model of these magical connections that is comprehensible to mortals, and which they have discovered. It is not literal, material truth, but it is representative of the truth in a symbolic, magical way and so has magical power. Perhaps the world of myth is a reflection of the real world, or perhaps the real world is a shadow of myth, but they know that the connections are real.

Of course this means that different myths, that still both correspond to the way the world works, can vary from each other and yet still give magical power. The Dara Happans don't need rain because their crops are watered by the floods of the river Oslir, so to them storm is a dangerous terror that is only destructive. To the Orlanthi, storm is the motivating essence of the winds that bring rain and life to their crops and the grass for their sheep. Both beliefs are perfectly objectively true in context, and therefore are magically true as well, in context.

 

[Radioactive Ape Colin]

I strongly agree with using myths for cults in generic fantasy worlds. I also do not want to use Glorantha, but think the way cults work is pretty golden.

I mentioned elsewhere how I'd like to develop the whole Norse pantheon for MRQ2. I think the cool insight from RQ is to use the myths and myth-questing to raise up in the ranks of the cult. Otherwise you have players just giving gold to raise their cult rank, or going on a mission to clear out the old monastery, etc etc. This is too much like vanilla D&D. In order to give the cults real depth, I love the idea of having to go through the ceremony of reliving the myth. Only then does the god open up more power for the cultist.

Start posting myths for the various deities submitted thus far then, mate. This is a group effort. Sitting on the sidelines saying, "This is too D&D, it needs to be more." is fine and dandy, but actions speak louder than words.

Colin

 

[Radioactive Ape Colin]

Another one:

Underworld God
The keeper of the dead; the psychopomp; the undeceived.

Status: Great

Runes: Death, Fate, Truth

Skills: Craft (Corpse Preparation), Evaluate, Insight, Lore (Underworld), Perception, Persistence, Stealth

Combat Styles: Scythe (or mythically appropriate weapon)

Common Magic Spells: Abacus, Bandit’s Cloak, Bearing Witness, Countermagic, Demoralise, Detect (Lie, Life), Extinguish, Fate, Hand of Death, Second Sight, Spirit Bane

Divine Spells: All common plus Absorption, Exorcism, Fear, Sever Spirit, Soul Sight, Spirit Block, True (Scythe – or appropriate)

Nice work, mate. Any objections if I reformat them and add a bit more flavour text when doing the final pdf, so all the entries follow the same approach?

Colin