Last year I had the pleasure to run a few adventures in Seshnela. While that campaign unfortunately died to the great demon of scheduling, I ended up with a few pages of notes on my Glorantha's western lands that I've been working on expanding since. Starting off, we have some thoughts on how the cult of the Invisible God intersects with Rune and spirit cults, what that means for the personal magic available to Malkioni, and how that affects characters hailing from the area.
A few disclaimers first. One, this is going to be very heavily focused on Seshnela/Tanisor, bleeding over some into Ralios, and the Rokari school. Secondly, because I try to keep my Glorantha fairly close to what I think Chaosium's is (aided by the fact that mine only rarely gets played in), a lot of this will probably sound pretty familiar to anyone who's been following development posts on Facebook or the Well of Daliath.
The Cult of the Invisible God
The Prime Mover is the unifying thread between all forms of Malkionism. It is, apparently, impassive and unresponsive, but it receives worship nonetheless as the creator of the world. The first major split in Malkionism is based on this: how do we worship the Invisible God? Do we initiate to it directly, sacrificing POW and getting nothing in return, or do we initiate to lesser, more useful beings and only worship the Invisible God as a lay member? The former option is the one preferred by the Rokari and New Hrestoli schools. The latter is the defining feature of the Henotheist sects.
Initiating to the Invisible God is more or less the same as any other cult. You spend some time as a lay member, are judged on your worthiness by the priests (the zzaburi in this case), and then are allowed to sacrifice a point of POW to establish a connection with the god. In a Rune or spirit cult, this would grant you the ability to wield a fraction of your god's power and make you subject to the god's spirits of reprisal. The Invisible God, however, in return for a fraction of your soul, gives... nothing. No runic power, no spirit messengers, no divine aid. Just the zzabur intoning the last words of the spell and the talar informing your of your caste assignment, then your new caste brothers leading you away to learn your duties and join in the festivities to welcome a new dronar, horali, or talar (the zzaburi probably just put their initiates right back to work; no rest for the wicked!).
The Rokari and New Hrestoli are content with this. They see spiritual significance in the act, regardless of what the worshiper gains, and know that it is the Right Thing. The Henotheists, on the other hand, logically think that there's more useful things to be spending your hard-earned POW on in a world of active gods and Rune magic. Ralians and Manirians instead initiate to their traditional Rune cults, especially the Lightbringers, and stay as lay members of the Invisible God, sacrificing MP to it on holy days but otherwise focusing on more immediate powers. They still may keep to caste restrictions, and even have a ceremony for the assigning of castes, but sacrificing POW to the Invisible God is a thing for holy men (or those trying to curry favor with the Seshnegi dogs *spit*).
There is, of course, a small disclaimer to be made. The Invisible God, of course, gives nothing. Initiation to it, however, can give something more than just a pat on the back and a list of things not to do. That POW goes somewhere, and there is a link that can be identified by spells like Soul Sight. If something exists, a sorcerer has probably tried to make a spell with it (Zzabur's rule 3.4), and so there are many sorcery spells designed to specifically affect initiates of the Invisible God. Most of these are relics of lost Brithos, with all the power (and inane specificity) that implies.
This is also where caste restrictions, that most famous tenet of the Malkioni, come into the picture. While there is no divine authority behind them, unlike the laws of many other cults, there is magical significance in that many of the Brithini spells mentioned above require both a connection to the Invisible God and perfect adherence to the law in order to function. If someone has ever broken a law, many of the most important protections and blessings will be unable to affect them, leaving them more vulnerable and possibly even a danger to their community. This can be mended in an intensive ritual called the Return to Rightness, but it's still a powerful incentive to keep following the laws of Malkion. Admittidly I haven't really figured out the mechanical effects of these community blessings, but I think a lot of them are probably sorcerous counterparts to the various "bless" Rune spells: Bless Crops, Bless Home, Bless Champion, etc. They probably have much more pretentious names though.
As an aside, I don't use caste magic in my Glorantha. Maybe there is some truth to Theoblanc's claims of an extended life through righteousness, but I think that any immediate mechanical effect that's not the result of a sorcery spell (i.e. the result of human action) is counter to the whole point of Malkionism. The RIGHTNESS characteristic is also absent, though this is because I've replaced it with a somewhat more severe law-abiding/law-breaking binary. Hopefully we'll get the full rules on both of those things soon though, then I can make a proper judgement on whether I'll use them.
Rune and Spirit Cults in Seshnela
The Rokari distrust gods. This holds true for all levels of society, and isn't just some ideal parroted by the zzaburi and talars. Even the lowest dronar dung-hauler can tell you in great detail of how the Erasanchula broke the world in their lust for power, and even now enslave men to continue their pointless battles. Moreover, everyone knows that the God Learners tried to work with and use the gods themselves, and how that turned out for them, and how in the time between the fall of the Old Kingdom and the rise of the New, rapacious Erasanchula-serving hordes of Ralios plundered and defiled the remnants of Seshnela.
However, there are many things in Glorantha that are not gods, or are at least only very weak ones; weak enough to be approached and bargained with from a more equal footing. Spirits, ancestors, and mortal heroes are the focus of the Seshnegi "common religion", providing magical aid that the zzaburi can't or won't. Though the magic they provide is naturally quite limited, they also ask very little in return save for worship, and if a cult fails its worshipers it's relatively harmless to switch to worshiping another one, or even to join multiple at once.
Most of these cults are closely allied to or synonymous with Seshnegi sub-caste communities: dronar guilds, horali warrior societies, and talar houses; in fact in many cases the focus of the cult is the guardian wyter of the community. Not every member of the group will be an initiate, but everyone will be at least a lay member and learn whatever spirit magic the cult knows. For those who do initiate, the cult usually provides only one to two special Rune spells and no common spells. Priests hardly ever receive allied spirits or much in the way of temple support, being in many ways more like god-talkers.
Rokari Character Magic
So how does all of this apply to actual game play? Mostly, it just means that initiates of the Invisible God don't start with any Rune magic, at least for free. At the gamemaster's discretion these characters can have joined a spirit cult before play and learned some of its Rune magic, but this will cost POW exactly as if it was done in play. Rokari characters still start with the standard 5 points of spirit magic, but the player and gamemaster should work together to decide what spells the character may have had access to in their caste and profession.
New Hrestoli characters are similar, but things are complicated by their puritanical idealism and wider availability of sorcery. Off the top of my head, they'd start with reduced or no spirit magic, and only have access to Rune magic from Ascended Master cults. If a character has met the requirements for being a Man-of-All (no clue what those would be exactly) they can start with some sorcery. Of course some "barbarian magic" has entered the kingdom in the years since the end of the ban, so the above can probably be waived in some cases. I don't know Fronela enough to say much more though.
Closing
There's a lot I'd like to write about that I didn't get to here, but I'm going to put a stopper in it before I start rambling too much. I think in my next post I'll give some examples of "little cults" and characters to go with them, but I hope I've laid out the broad strokes of what my west looks like clearly enough. Thank you to anyone who stopped by to read this.
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