Thed – Divine Cult or Spirit Society?

[Erick Eckberg]

I’ll bet you guys have addressed this somewhere, but I can’t find it; My heroes are about to go up against a powerful band of broo. Is the worship of Thed a Theist Cult or a Spirit Society? I’m pretty sure Mallia is a Spirit Society. Also, if one or both are spirit societies, what greater Spirit Tradition do they belong to? Is there a Chaos Spirit Tradition? Thanks for your time and consideration (again).

[David Scott]

There clearly is a Chaos tradition, but that implies organisation of some form, and most chaos isn’t up to that. Some most of the Chaos traditions are going to be local and centred around a shaman.

In the Wastelands there are these two societies:

(spirit)(chaos) Thed. One of the rare Spirits of Chaos, Thed is the mother of the broos. After the cosmic battles during the Great Darkness most of the chaotic survivors in the world were reduced to a mean and worthless existence imprisoned forever on the physical plane. She is an example of the spiritual cesspools which once plagued the world. Only shamans willing to give themselves over to Chaos can worship her. Thed is a jealous goddess. and will only answer a summons made by a male, even among her children.
Thed provides charms that relate to Chaos (chaos) (typically corrupting) and of Spirit (spirit) (typically summoning and controlling Chaos spirits and creatures). The taboo of these charms is always to have a Chaos feature.

(death)(darkness) Mallia is an evil and all devouring creature, appearing as a giant, multi-armed, headless torso with a gaping maw where her belly should be. Her Chaos aspect (death)(darkness)(chaos) is worshipped in the Wastelands by the broos. They enjoy spreading her diseases as part of her wishes, and as thanks for their tireless work are immune to them. Mallia provides charms that relate to Death (death) (typically the mortal diseases), Darkness (darkness) (typically the common diseases), and Chaos (chaos) (typically corrupting). The taboo of these charms is always to carry a disease spirit.

Note that Mallia is not normally chaotic except when worshipped by chaos creatures.

[Erick Eckberg]

As always, David, you have shone the perfect amount of light on the subject for me. Much appreciated!

[Peter Metcalfe]

Thed has shamans and a spirit rune in prior RQ sources so would be a spirit society.

[Peter Metcalfe]

For the Chaos Spirit Tradition, I think Primal Chaos fills that role. It’s not a spirit nor a tradition but an innate part of every chaotic.

[Robin Mitra]

Quote:

Note that Mallia is not normally chaotic except when worshipped by chaos creatures.

Am I correct assuming that at least most Sartarites would be ignorant to this small detail?

And sorry for hijacking this thread, but what is a spirit helper/ally? It is mentioned in HQ2 and S:Companion but I can’t see the difference to a regular spirit in a charm.

[David Scott]

Quote:

Quote from Robin Mitra on December 8, 2013, 09:00

Quote:

Note that Mallia is not normally chaotic except when worshipped by chaos creatures.

Am I correct assuming that at least most Sartarites would be ignorant to this small detail?

No, but they’d view it from a different angle:

Horde of disease carrying broo = chaos

An outbreak of disease with no one available to heal it = can be propitiated. Mallia is not chaotic under this rare circumstance. I’d say it’s known, but no one really wants to do it.

[David Scott]

Quote:

Quote from Robin Mitra on December 8, 2013, 09:00

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And sorry for hijacking this thread, but what is a spirit helper/ally? It is mentioned in HQ2 and S:Companion but I can’t see the difference to a regular spirit in a charm.

A charm is just a spirit is a thing. It does one specific action and is broken out of a spirit society (but based on a rune):

Spirit 5W Pavic Tradition
Black Fang Spirit Society (disorder)
(death) Dagger of Death +1 (in a dagger) – taboo: never a single strike.

A spirit helper/ally is built using the sidekick rules in HeroQuest page 64:

Night Strangler
Spirit 13
Darkness 1W
[*]Manifest Darkness +1
Strangle 3W

With spirits, it’s alway useful to give them some skill that lets them manifest in the Middle World.

[Erick Eckberg]

Yeah, I know Sartarites would be ignorant of Chaos Spirit Traditions, but I’m a stickler for details… Now that we’ve switched strokes, does every Charm have a taboo associated with it? I mean, if you’re a Theist or a simple Spirit Worshipper who possesses a Charm and can only use it to augment mundane tasks, are you bound by a taboo? Also, it seems most of the stuff I’ve read assumes that when you join a Spirit Society (and can therefore use your Charms in an overtly magical manner) you will switch out your old Charms for new snazzier Spirit Society Charms. If you want to keep your old Charms, can you now produce more magical effects with them? Would a taboo then need to be determined, if not already there? The character creation process in Kingdom of Heroes allows you to take a Charm or two, but says nothing about taboos attached to them.

[Paul “Is A God Learner” Reilly]

Regarding non-chaotic disease cults:

When our game characters went to explore Caladraland, we found that the Caladralanders had worked out a rapprochement with certain disease spirits: they got to live in people’s bodies as guests and fight other diseases, like auxiliaries, if the immune system were legions or regular army. This worked very well for the Caladralanders and also was a great deterrent to invading armies – anyone who crossed the border without proper entry procedures (which were superficially similar to Jenner’s vaccination technique, though presented as a magical method to let the ‘friendly’ spirits into the body) would be subject to terrible infections.

Note that the old-timey, pre-God Learner culture had a view of disease like this: a disease is like a call to a special kind of spirit quest, you fight the disease, it fights you, you both might learn something, it was all very Mircea Eliade-ish.
(cf. http://www.allaboutheaven.org/observations/1809/127/mircea-eliade-and-the-sacred-disease-001629) A disease survivor who was weakened by the disease might be viewed as physically weak and magically or spiritually strong. Similarly a person who is aging and losing physical abilities might be viewed as moving along into the spirit world (from which some people return – reincarnation is well attested to there).

When the god Learners came, they had an unusually good interaction with Caladraland and one of the useful synergies was that they had a quite different view of disease as something to be cured. The different views led to godlearnerish investigations and eventually to open, frank dialogue between ‘intelligent disease spirits’ who were acting sort of like elders with ‘masks’ to help the slow, stupid macrobes (humans etc) learn about the spirit world. Eventually they realized neither microbes nor macrobes are ‘better’, we are all part of Glorantha with useful and important roles to play, at different scales, and they got to be recognized as Caladralander citizens with the same rights as humans, trolls, wyrms, whoever. (Other strange citizens include colonies of army ants and man-eating-plants and so on, they are quite against species-ism)

YGMV

[David Scott]

Quote:

Quote from Erick Eckberg on December 8, 2013, 15:28
Now that we’ve switched strokes, does every Charm have a taboo associated with it? I mean, if you’re a Theist or a simple Spirit Worshipper who possesses a Charm and can only use it to augment mundane tasks, are you bound by a taboo?

Spirit worshippers always must obey taboos or what ever “system” their tradition uses.

You don’t want bookkeeping to overwhelm your game. So simply – Theists have flaws, Spirit worshippers have taboos.

You can certainly:

add taboos to Theists, the taboo is at the value of their charm (not at their highest spirit value plus bonus)
add flaws to Spirit worshippers as per the standard flaw rules.

Personally I’d say don’t do it – keep it simple unless you want to do the following.

However in mixed religions such as the Praxian tradition, those rare Praxians with no spirit (rune) must have and obey taboos. However depending on how many charms they have will probably have few or no flaws.

Taboos and flaws are part of the same system in my mind. The rules are there to provide colour for players to role-play, and not be so restrictive that they hamper play.

Quote:

Also, it seems most of the stuff I’ve read assumes that when you join a Spirit Society (and can therefore use your Charms in an overtly magical manner) you will switch out your old Charms for new snazzier Spirit Society Charms. If you want to keep your old Charms, can you now produce more magical effects with them? Would a taboo then need to be determined, if not already there? The character creation process in Kingdom of Heroes allows you to take a Charm or two, but says nothing about taboos attached to them.

I don’t go for this switching out business (I’m hoping for a rules change). Your greater skills in dealing with the spirit allows more of its power to flow through. It can be controlled, commanded or told with greater effect what to do. Real world shamanism does not switch out spirit helpers. they are often there for life, you just get better at working with them.

Remember there is 19W limit on the power of charms, unless you join a spirit society. Sartarites unless Kolati, are theists.

[Harald Smith]

Quote:

Theists have flaws

I don’t think Flaws is the right term here. Flaws in HQ2 are personal qualities: personality traits, physical characteristics, relationships, etc.

Theists may have expected traits or attributes to embody or live up to, and some may be treated as flaws in dealing with other cults or cultures, but these are not just taboos by another name, nor are flaws restricted to theists. Perhaps theists could be said to have ‘duties’?

[boztakang]

I would say that Theists have an “Identity Crisis” rather than a flaw – they must act like their deity to embody their power. An animist is negotiating with an external entity, so a Troll shaman could have a light or fire spirit amongst her charms (with a suitably noxious taboo of course), but a priestess of Kyger Litor would have to overcome her own darkness rune or priestess rating to cast a similar Light spell, since she’d be acting against her own nature.

Things are slightly complicated for the Uz, since many priestesses are also shaman. But not all that much in practice, since negotiating with an obvious enemy spirit (rather than trying to destroy or escape it) would be nearly as out of character as trying to cast a light spell directly. A properly devout priestess just isn’t going to WANT that sort of charm.

[Robin Mitra]

Is it mandatory to have the spirit rune? Or would any other rune like Chaos do? I would think that not every tradition has the spirt rune.

[Roko Joko]

Quote:

Quote from David Scott on December 7, 2013, 23:11
two societies:
(spirit)(chaos) Thed.
(death)(darkness) Mallia

That’s interesting. What would you say is the general difference between a spirit society with the spirit rune, and a spirit society without the spirit rune?

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