[HQ Ignorance] Some OOC lunar background

[Nic Hughes]

OK, please delete and move on if you are not interested but the last few 
days have revealed that I was assuming more people were familiar with 
Imperial Lunar Handbook 2 (ILH2) and its contents than is actually the 
case. I think a certain amount of rules-glitches and misunderstandings 
may have arisen from this. So I am going to quickly summarise a few bits 
that will help explain some of the things I have been posting.

Aalmon is a Novititiate - which is an equivalent rank in Lunar religions 
to Initiate, Practitioner or Adept in other religions and where lunar 
powers appear to be theist/spritist/sorcerous works pretty much the same.

He worships Erelia and Verelia. I'll not go into their mythology too 
much but some relevant bits are that they were known before the rise of 
the Red Moon but before their conversion to the Lunar religion were 
considered to be somehow associated with Nysalor/Gbaji and it was bad 
luck to worship them. On their conversion they saved Glamour from being 
conquered by one twin seducing the leader of the attacking army and the 
other eloquently converting much of his army to the lunar faith.

All worshippers join the religion in pairs - usually natural twins but 
not always. If a twin dies they might be replaced or the survivor might 
eventually abandon the religion.

As Aalmon is a Novititate he can improvise the listed feats within the 
affinities he knows. He is not the equivalent of a Devotee so he cannot 
improvise anything not listed.

Speaker to Barbarians has listed feats Captivate Crowd, Comprehend 
Barbaric Tongue, Impassioned Speach, Overcome with Lust, Sense Barbaric 
Sentiments. Some of these are limited to dealing with barbarians by 
their description, others are not.

The other affinity (Binary) is explicitly limited to working with the 
"twin" and cannot be used if the twin is dead, so not much point going 
into it now. He might just be able to use Sense Location of Twin to find 
his brother's grave should he need to but otherwise the affinity is 
currently useless.

Novitiates can gain two sorts of "spirit" (really Lunes acting like 
spirits) and use them in fetishes like a practitioner. Planet Spirit 
(Hide in Darkness, See in Darkness, Star Walking, Stay on Path) and 
Twinstar Spirits (Create Temporary Reality, Ignore Distractions, Reveal 
Secrets, Seduction). Aalmon previously had a weak Twinstar spirit whilst 
Baros had a powerful one, Aalmon now has a powerful Twinstar Spirit.

The cult has (unusually) 2 independent secrets both of which can be 
learned but Aalmon is not committed enough to learn secrets even if he 
had the ability ratings.

I find the magic given by a cult useful in judging what they consider 
desirable or acceptable behaviour, with two overlapping 
lustful/seductive magical powers available from the cult I don't think 
priests of Erelia and Verelia are in the habit of giving 
hell-and-brimstone sermons against lustful or seductive behaviour - it 
seems to be part of the example their gods set for worshippers to 
follow. Aalmon's behaviour in this direction is a genuine culture clash 
between the lunarised Arrolians and the more conservative monotheists he 
is currently dealing with, there is no reason why Aalmon would think 
that seduction or lust are particularly bad things.

There are two references to what counts as a barbarian in ILH2 that I am 
aware of. In the Erelia and Verelia cult the Eloquence with Barbarians 
secret is limited to "non-imperial subjects" whilst the Barbarian 
Affairs stream of the Imperial Lunar university covers "dealing with 
foreigners". I have always assumed from these that the lunars have a 
Roman-esque attitude to what counts as barbarian, ie anyone who does not 
share the roots of their own culture and language. Arrolians speak New 
Pelorian and worship lunar religions so are not barbarians, arguably 
some theist offshoots of celestial religions like Yelmalio might also 
not be barbarian.

Aalmon has just been "revealed" to also be a novitiate of the Minderkind 
School (i.e. I spent the HP on membership), this is not published in 
ILH2 but is in several sources as the primary Wizardry order of 
Riverjoin which is his home city. I will fill out the Grimoires/spells 
for this school as time goes by but I think they will be distant 
descendents of the lunar Makabeus order and will retain the Tome of 
Humility as one of their grimoires.

Aalmon is also illuminated. I'm not going to reproduce several pages of 
ILH2 on that here but basically this means he is alternately comforted 
by a mystical understanding of one-ness of everything or crushed by the 
sheer inhuman scale of it all. Certain events can trigger a crisis that 
shift him from one state to the other - fighting chaos creatures is one 
of those events. When crushed by the scale of everything illuminates 
still progress towards enlightenment but tend towards nihilistic 
attitudes and manifest personality flaws such as megalomania and/or 
sheer wierdness like a fear of drinking vessels. Aalmon is fixated on 
his status as a bastard and as a result of this derangement tends to act 
like a ...bastard. On the plus side certain issues and constraints that 
normally apply do not apply to illuminates, they seem to transcend 
otherworld limitations a bit so can resist otherworld-specific powers 
like Drain Essence or Blast Spirit and do not use (or need) the rules on 
concentrating magic. They also have a resistance to insanity other than 
that which is part of the package-deal of illumination. Overall it acts 
like a sort of mystical, ethical, bi-polar disorder.

Hopfully that will cut out a few misunderstandings so we can concentrate 
on the story.

Play on.

Nic