Stealing the Mysteries?

[Nyarlathotep]

I've been playing around with a few ideas for my game, and i was wondering if anyone thought it were possible to go off and "steal" the mysteries of a particular Hyborian religion.

The primary offenders that i can see doing this would be:

"Ye independent sorceror who just wants to pay lip service."

Or

"Ye olde Member of the Black Ring who wants an edge."

Obviously, i doubt they could go "a-raiding" into the Mitran or Ibis cults. Perhaps something more like Gita in Argos would be to their liking.

But that kind of brings up the nature of the Mysteries themselves. Are they powered by the self-belief of the adherent?

Or are they more like pieces of well-guarded arcane knowledge?

 

[Teriudin]

I view them as having some sort of "Faith Training" - knowledge gained through deeper understanding of the finer details of that cult and deity.

My opinion, you can't "Steal" this knowledge. An example from our world: An adherent to a religion with a sacred text, say islam or christianity, can recite or recall verses of that sacred text to help them get through adversity or some such. An non-practitioner can have equal "knowledge' of said sacred text, but the reciting of a verse of scripture doesn't give that deeper feeling that a true believer has, and would likely not turn to that knowledge as often as a true believe would.

Of course, that's purely my example and others can probably come up with good reasons why this doesn't work.

I think it really is up to you and your group.

 

[Stygian Devout]

Don't forget the caveat that one has to retain purity in regards to the religion to retain the benefits of the mystery. For Stygian religions (and let's face it, they have the best mysteries) this means wearing only white linen and shaving all body hair.

Suck.