Considering that an Orlanthi would almost certainly recognize the runes associated with Vinga and Urox, and probably those of Argan Argar, it’s entertaining to note the way the three strangers both answered the question, and didn’t answer it at all.
Obviously this scene is for those readers not Gloranthan experts, or even familiar with the runes.
In reality, of course, he should not be accepting applicants without his (J’s) associates vouching for them, but I expect that tradecraft in the Bronze Age wasn’t very sophisticated; I mean, the Trojans fell for an obvious Trojan Horse 🙂
I seem to recall Orlanthi love their greeting rituals — is this maybe a ritualized “I don’t trust you guys right off the bat” way of having them identify themselves to him, even tho he would obviously recognize the runes?
Orlanthi are very, very serious about Hospitality. Mind you, this is just a guy and his associates in a pub, it’s not like you are trying to enter the clan’s tula or something. But yes, in this case it’s probably a shortened Greeting ritual just to establish who’s who, even it might be obvious.
“ummm – Air – which would be the same as yours. This one here on my hand here is Mastery… which is also the same as yours. And lastly, I have Motion… which is ALSO the same as yours…. Hmmm, guys – this dude ain’t too bright, perhaps we should be moving along…”.
(as against ‘The Bull”… “Ask me again, and I’ll punch you in the face! Meh – I think I’ll just punch you in the face anyway”.)
I think that everyone is forgetting just how highly-charged the political atmosphere in Pavis is in 1521 ST.
The Lunars and their sympathizers out-and-out own the town, and all Orlanthi [much less Sartarites] are having to keep their heads down.
The Lunars first closed the Orlanth temple, then reopened it with imported pet High Priest Storm Voice Faltikus the Good, who everyone thinks might be Illuminated.
Then you got the Lunar Administration bureaucrat types who are actually *taxing* adventurers into the Big Rubble, of all things! And expect you to keep a piece of paper with your name and cult on it on your person at all times! And let’s not forget Gim-gim the Grim, head of Lunar intelligence and brother to the governor.
And just to keep things interesting you have the Pavis City factions, some of whom welcomed the Lunars and their Chaos Whore with open arms. Their skullduggery versus each other didn’t even pause, much less stop after the Lunar conquest… The Ingilli Fisherfolk [who also control the lifeblood of the city in the Zola Fel River] feud with Old Pavisites [who have been in the City since the Second Age], who spat with the Sartar Pavisites [newcomers, having been on the Plains of Prax less than 50 years], who get into it with the City Cult, not to mention the Sun Domers and their weird ideas, and so on ad-nauseum.
So if *I* were a Rune Lord of a suppressed cult in such an environment, I wouldn’t care *what* your marks said. I’d want to know who you are and what you’re doing in town and I’d probably want my local Humakti around with some Rune magic to make sure you’re telling the truth.
Nobody ever went broke being just a bit more paranoid than need’s be in Pavis.
Only if your priest happens to be a worshipper of Orlanth and tosses the lightning himself, rolling “head” for the hit location if you play RQ.
There are numerous penalties for slacking or lesser infringements of cult rules – covered in the Spirits of Reprisal section of the cult write-ups – and then there is apostasy (or excommunication for making the people in the cult angry enough with you that they cut you out), which calls up heavy caliber reprisals, and possibly bounties.
Lying about your cult membership or anything else is a major infringement for truth cults – but that is a small subset of the possible cults, mainly Lhankor Mhy, Humakt and Yelmalio. Illuminated truth cults may tolerate some slack there.
But then, truth cultists are notorious for giving true but misleading information. A Lhankor Mhy initiate participating in the rites of other cults as a lay member may truthfully claim “I sacrifice to Eiritha, Oakfed and the spirits of the Zebra tribe” when traveling with Desert Trackers and participating in their rites. Even if it was only a few MP (RQ3 speak for temporal POW sacrifice) on very few occasions. Beware of introductions like “You may call me …” which is an absolutely true statement without revealing the speaker’s name, and acceptable even to all but the most bigoted Humakti. If you yourself are doing so, choose an obscure dialect that you assume your opposite will understand only broadly, but not able to discern grammatical sophistries. If challenged to translate to the dialect of your opposite, do so with minimalistic grammar and atrocious vocabulary so that your opposition won’t understand you any better.
Claiming initiation to a cult that you don’t belong to for attending a ritual of that cult is a major offense to that cult and its deity. If you are caught while surrounded by “fellow” cultists, it will be their wrath that you will suffer. On the other hand, spirits of reprisal from this cult will have a hard time targeting you, as they do so using the link between deity and initiate. Claiming to do so in the absence of genuine worshippers of that cult would require some preexisting magic of that deity in order to harm you directly, but again, the cult may put out a warrant on you. Of course, if you are unlucky while pretending to be connected to a cult you don’t belong to, using correct enough regalia and rituals _might_ make your claims true, and if that cult and your own (ones, in case of multiple initiation) aren’t compatible, spirits of reprisal from either may argue for the privilege of hitting you first.
So, when Conan (played by Schwarzenegger) approached the congregation of Thulsa Doom wearing an initiate’s cowl, was he lying about his cult membership? Or was he simply misleading the cult guards? Similar scenes can happen in Glorantha without there being lots of fried head hair. Few cults are exclusive of all other worship. Propitiation of enemies is not regarded as apostasy in most cases, though there are notable exceptions.
Vinga and Urox I am familiar with, but I don’t know this Dark Trader. Who is he?
That would be Argan Argar who might also be described as the patron deity of friendly interaction between trolls and humans.
http://www.glorantha.com/docs/argan-argar/
Considering that an Orlanthi would almost certainly recognize the runes associated with Vinga and Urox, and probably those of Argan Argar, it’s entertaining to note the way the three strangers both answered the question, and didn’t answer it at all.
Obviously this scene is for those readers not Gloranthan experts, or even familiar with the runes.
In reality, of course, he should not be accepting applicants without his (J’s) associates vouching for them, but I expect that tradecraft in the Bronze Age wasn’t very sophisticated; I mean, the Trojans fell for an obvious Trojan Horse 🙂
I seem to recall Orlanthi love their greeting rituals — is this maybe a ritualized “I don’t trust you guys right off the bat” way of having them identify themselves to him, even tho he would obviously recognize the runes?
Orlanthi are very, very serious about Hospitality. Mind you, this is just a guy and his associates in a pub, it’s not like you are trying to enter the clan’s tula or something. But yes, in this case it’s probably a shortened Greeting ritual just to establish who’s who, even it might be obvious.
My favourite is the Uroxi! I hope he doesn’t die horribly soon…
There’s so many Swedish children’s books references here. Vinga, and Urox. I wonder…
“ummm – Air – which would be the same as yours. This one here on my hand here is Mastery… which is also the same as yours. And lastly, I have Motion… which is ALSO the same as yours…. Hmmm, guys – this dude ain’t too bright, perhaps we should be moving along…”.
(as against ‘The Bull”… “Ask me again, and I’ll punch you in the face! Meh – I think I’ll just punch you in the face anyway”.)
I think that everyone is forgetting just how highly-charged the political atmosphere in Pavis is in 1521 ST.
The Lunars and their sympathizers out-and-out own the town, and all Orlanthi [much less Sartarites] are having to keep their heads down.
The Lunars first closed the Orlanth temple, then reopened it with imported pet High Priest Storm Voice Faltikus the Good, who everyone thinks might be Illuminated.
Then you got the Lunar Administration bureaucrat types who are actually *taxing* adventurers into the Big Rubble, of all things! And expect you to keep a piece of paper with your name and cult on it on your person at all times! And let’s not forget Gim-gim the Grim, head of Lunar intelligence and brother to the governor.
And just to keep things interesting you have the Pavis City factions, some of whom welcomed the Lunars and their Chaos Whore with open arms. Their skullduggery versus each other didn’t even pause, much less stop after the Lunar conquest… The Ingilli Fisherfolk [who also control the lifeblood of the city in the Zola Fel River] feud with Old Pavisites [who have been in the City since the Second Age], who spat with the Sartar Pavisites [newcomers, having been on the Plains of Prax less than 50 years], who get into it with the City Cult, not to mention the Sun Domers and their weird ideas, and so on ad-nauseum.
So if *I* were a Rune Lord of a suppressed cult in such an environment, I wouldn’t care *what* your marks said. I’d want to know who you are and what you’re doing in town and I’d probably want my local Humakti around with some Rune magic to make sure you’re telling the truth.
Nobody ever went broke being just a bit more paranoid than need’s be in Pavis.
Well this is Glorantha, lying about to belonging to a cult invokes the wrath of the gods yes? Like actual ligtning-in-the-head wrath!
Only if your priest happens to be a worshipper of Orlanth and tosses the lightning himself, rolling “head” for the hit location if you play RQ.
There are numerous penalties for slacking or lesser infringements of cult rules – covered in the Spirits of Reprisal section of the cult write-ups – and then there is apostasy (or excommunication for making the people in the cult angry enough with you that they cut you out), which calls up heavy caliber reprisals, and possibly bounties.
Lying about your cult membership or anything else is a major infringement for truth cults – but that is a small subset of the possible cults, mainly Lhankor Mhy, Humakt and Yelmalio. Illuminated truth cults may tolerate some slack there.
But then, truth cultists are notorious for giving true but misleading information. A Lhankor Mhy initiate participating in the rites of other cults as a lay member may truthfully claim “I sacrifice to Eiritha, Oakfed and the spirits of the Zebra tribe” when traveling with Desert Trackers and participating in their rites. Even if it was only a few MP (RQ3 speak for temporal POW sacrifice) on very few occasions. Beware of introductions like “You may call me …” which is an absolutely true statement without revealing the speaker’s name, and acceptable even to all but the most bigoted Humakti. If you yourself are doing so, choose an obscure dialect that you assume your opposite will understand only broadly, but not able to discern grammatical sophistries. If challenged to translate to the dialect of your opposite, do so with minimalistic grammar and atrocious vocabulary so that your opposition won’t understand you any better.
Claiming initiation to a cult that you don’t belong to for attending a ritual of that cult is a major offense to that cult and its deity. If you are caught while surrounded by “fellow” cultists, it will be their wrath that you will suffer. On the other hand, spirits of reprisal from this cult will have a hard time targeting you, as they do so using the link between deity and initiate. Claiming to do so in the absence of genuine worshippers of that cult would require some preexisting magic of that deity in order to harm you directly, but again, the cult may put out a warrant on you. Of course, if you are unlucky while pretending to be connected to a cult you don’t belong to, using correct enough regalia and rituals _might_ make your claims true, and if that cult and your own (ones, in case of multiple initiation) aren’t compatible, spirits of reprisal from either may argue for the privilege of hitting you first.
So, when Conan (played by Schwarzenegger) approached the congregation of Thulsa Doom wearing an initiate’s cowl, was he lying about his cult membership? Or was he simply misleading the cult guards? Similar scenes can happen in Glorantha without there being lots of fried head hair. Few cults are exclusive of all other worship. Propitiation of enemies is not regarded as apostasy in most cases, though there are notable exceptions.