Hyborian said:Derketo's description Conan RPG says :
"Benefits of Worship: Spells, Orgies."
I cannot find any other mention of Orgies in this chapter. I guess there are special rules concerning Orgies (as for the other Benefits of Worships). Does anyone know where I can find them?
Hyborian said:Derketo's description Conan RPG says :
"Benefits of Worship: Spells, Orgies."
I cannot find any other mention of Orgies in this chapter. I guess there are special rules concerning Orgies (as for the other Benefits of Worships). Does anyone know where I can find them?
I read that some polytheist (ancient) religions had prostitutes in their temples (love deity). This is also in some current cultures mariage and adultery have important meaning.Orkin said:If they are indeed of a sacred nature, then one could expect them to be limited to initiates. And guarded at the gate.
It might be interesting to see what would happen when a group of out-of-town yokels tried to join in uninvited.
argo said:Isn't participating in an orgy its own reward? :twisted:
Hyborian said:So I wasn't looking for rules to act out out an orgy. I just wanted to know the effect of Derketo's orgies in game terms (if any).
argo said:Hope that helps.
H.W.F. Saggs in "The Babylonians" states: "Monogomy was based on social and not moral considerations, for no stigma attached to resort to temple prostitutes.." The same source also mentions an aspect of Ishtar as nymphomanic, satisfying 120 lovers without difficulty. However, the Babylonians also had laws against adultery - I'm afraid you can't pin that one on the Christian Church, remember Jesus stopped the stoning of the "woman taken in adultery".The King said:Orgy can't be considered as a easily as a derivative way of decadence and corruption. Prostitution was as common in ancient time as it is now (and also existed in ancient Israël, not as a necessary evil but as a need for unmarried male) but was more than tolerated.
It must be told that sex wasn't taboo in that time. It is the Christian church who introduced the notion of guilt for having sex when you aren't married.
Can then participation to an orgy be called a corrupted act?
Human sacrifice wasn't as common and it was of course considered as an evil act (murder). Some cultures used it in religion as a propitiatory way to satisfy some fearful deity. This was the case for the native people of South and Central America of course but also for some Middle-Eastern (earth) deities where blood was used to "nurture" (spiritually) the earth and prevent bad harvest. I even believe that Ishtar was one of them.
Oh dear, here we go again...The King said:I know that adultery was/is a crime in most societies that had social laws just because marriage is a social as well as an administrative act.
However the relation with the sexual pleasure is a typical Christian problem because the sons of Adam and Eva were born from a sin.
In most polytheist mythos, all gods are copulating with each other, be it between a brother and a sister or a daughter and a father. The realms of the gods was of course sacred and forbidden to mortals but they view the matter differently: the Greek, among others, had no shame to create naked statue where phallus played an important role and most ancients culture presented their love/earth/mother goddess with big breasts and a disproportionnated vulva/vagina something inconcevable in the Christian Church.
There was only one temple and there were certainly no prostitute in there. These were probably in "special houses" or in their own as the Marie-Magdalena in the new testament.Pharoah Kromium said:... Interesting that the temples of Yahweh featured devotees, whose role is translated as "prostitute" in the Authorised Version, up 'til the 7th C BC - any connection with the time spent in the Babylonian Captivity?.
Britain is known for its mixture of Celtic myths in Christianism. This is the only way the Celts would accept the new religion because druids were so powerful (before Caesar eradicated most of them).I'm afraid there are several examples of vulvae decorating churches in Britain, most notably at Kilpeck, they are known as Sheela-na-gigs.
The druids were extirpated over a hundred years after the death of Caesar and Christianity arrived as one of numerous Eastern cults practiced by Roman and Romano-British inhabitants. If Arthur existed he was probably a Christian, though he upset the Church. Christianity was all but removed by the Angles and Saxons but re-introduced by Irish (Celtic) Christians and missionaries from Catholic Europe. The Celtic form of Christianity was weakened at the Synod of Whitby and Roman Catholicism prevailed. The carvings at churches such as Kilpeck are from some 600 years later still.The King said:There was only one temple and there were certainly no prostitute in there.Pharoah Kromium said:... Interesting that the temples of Yahweh featured devotees, whose role is translated as "prostitute" in the Authorised Version, up 'til the 7th C BC - any connection with the time spent in the Babylonian Captivity?.
Britain is known for its mixture of Celtic myths in Christianism. This is the only way the Celts would accept the new religion because druids were so powerful (before Caesar eradicated most of them).O.K. Here goes:
In Assyrian marriage contracts men were forbidden to take another wife from their home area but were allowed a "qadishtu-woman". The verb for take is the same as marry so it is thought that a "temporary marriage" (for money) took place (a practice still found as "temporary marriage" (mut'a) in Shia Islam.) The Hebrew philological equivalent of qadishtu is qadeshah (Deuteronomy 23:17) where it is translated as "whore" (Authorised Version) or "cult prostitute" in the Revised Standard Version, alongside the male counterpart qadesh. These practices were forbidden in Israel but 2 Kings 23:7 shows that that there were cult male prostitutes associated with the temple of Yahweh up to the late 7th C B.C. and alongside them women in the service of a godess. These things were disapproved of by the prophetic movement but before Judaism reached it's more or less final form it's clear that women played a sexual role in worship. I am not talking of "the" Temple established by Soloman.
I'm afraid there are several examples of vulvae decorating churches in Britain, most notably at Kilpeck, they are known as Sheela-na-gigs.
King Arthur's tales is full of Celtic details and the holy grail is thought to be probably a representation of the cauldron of plenty.
BTW isn't Sheela-na-gigs the name of the mother-godess that becomes Shub-Niggurath under the pen of Lovecraft?