Some Notes on Dormal
Dormal is the Saint Anthony of sailors. He’s worshiped not just by whoever does the Opening Ritual but by the whole crew. Given that the Rightarm Islands provides the bulk of the crews in the Holy Country (like some sort of ancient Plymouth). I imagine that there are at least 3300 sailors in the Rightarm Islands (and remember Glorantha has no need that sailors are mostly male) – let’s assume that on any trireme about 20 people are sailors, 10 are marines, and 170 are rowers. So if the Holy Country has 100 triremes (Athens maintained 300 during the Peloponnesian War), that means at least 2000 Dormal initiates, just on those ships. I would assume that trireme sailors are actually a minority of the sailors in the Holy Country – and Dormal’s numbers quickly add up. In comparison, the city-state of Venice at its peak had about 36,000 sailors – these numbers suggest that the Holy Country has at least 15,000 Dormal initiates in total.
One more thing about Dormal, his initiation rites are performed on a ship beyond the sight of land. The initiate is presented to the gods of the sea for acceptance. As a result, the initiates of Dormal really do view themselves as the Men of the Sea – folk who can exist on the open seas.
Worldwide, there’s probably something around 100,000 Dormal initiates, with 15% in the Holy Country, 35% in Pamaltela (Fonrit, Maslo, and Umathela), 10% in the West, 15% in the East Isles, and 25% other.