You (the players) can pick anything you like (with troupe approval) to be the Org. Lore for a Mystery Cult. But in character, only organisations with a relevant mystical bent are appropriate. Which doesn't mean just generically "mystical"; but the Org. Lore has to be already be about the content of the Mystery in question.
When you pick Org. Lore: Order of Hermes as a Mystery Cult Lore you are saying that the Order of Hermes has all along been a Mystery Cult imparting the specific Mystery you are talking about. It is just that no-one realised it, or that those who did know (Bonisagus, for example, perhaps) forgot to pass that key bit of knowledge on. The initiate doesn't do anything to the existing body of knowledge represented by the Org. Lore: Order of Hermes Ability, she just discovers how to use it (or bits of it).
Yes, exactly right. As long as the ritual/myth/history of the organisation is related "enough" to the actual Mystery in question. Whether this is true or not is purely a troupe decision. In RAW Org. Lore: Order of Hermes is not a Mystery Cult Lore, because the Order of Hermes is not a Mystery Cult, but sure, in-play your characters could discover that it was (if the troupe wanted them to).
Yes cults can create new scripts through experimentation or steal scripts from other cults and adapt them to their own philosophy. The Children of Hermes from TMRE pg 125 is another example.
I think it's pretty clear from the first chapter of TMRE that that sort of mysticism was stripped from the order proper. Maybe that's just my interpretation.
Mmm I think it should be a skill in it's own right. After all Magic Lore is a distinctly different skill from the Organization Lores for "Magic" groups. Also the Church has it's own rules for religious pilgrimages and initiation like events.
My main point there is that it doesn't say "Mystery Cults" - rather, it says "any organization with a mystic style". I certainly agree that other Mystery Cults qualify - but it leaves the possibility open for other groups that also deal with mysticism, but aren't Mystery Cults. Such as, for example, the Order of Hermes, or the Catholic Church. Or Sahirs, or other Hedge traditions, etc., as long as the base of 'ancient knowledge' is compatable. (Which for Fortunata, would probably only be the Order - or maybe Learned Magicians, actually.)
Well, I certainly agree that it was minimized - but if it was completely pulled out, you wouldn't have things like Wizard's Communion. (ie, LITERALLY the ritual from the Cult of Mercury that still works, albeit slightly modified for the Hermetic framework.
And again - if the historical, pagan elements really were pulled out of Hermetic magic, then Holy Magic wouldn't be so difficult - so it seems that, from the Divine sense, they haven't been pulled out enough for God.
Ah - sorry, a bit of a mistype there: I usually use Divine Lore for that. To me, "Dominion Lore" is "the lore of the history, rites, and people that runs the Dominion - ie, the Church" - Although I suppose Catholic Church Lore might be more technically appropriate.
OK - that last line: "but the Org. Lore has to be already be about the content of the Mystery in question" - because in LoH, pg. 49 (in the paragraph previous to the one I just quoted), it says the following:
(emphasis added.) Because what you describe above seems to be an actual Cult: ie, something set up to teach an Initiate mysteries about the topic in question. You seem to be defining a Cult as something that can teach mysteries - and as such, is set up with the appropriate rituals, and mythology, and so on.
But according to LoH, the Org Lore doesn't have to be a Mystery Cult - just one that has a "mystic style". Or to throw it back at you: what type of Organizational Lore would work that would NOT be a Mystery Cult? Because according to the book, they exist.
Because the only example I can think of that fits that criteria is Fortunata's "Principles Lore" itself - and if that's what's being referred to, then that entire section is Really, REally REALLY poorly written, in a weird sort of circular fashion: "Here's a Cult Lore that isn't a cult lore, and you don't need to use a cult lore to use it! Except the only non-cult cult lore that you actually can integrate with this is the one you're reading right now. So you can only use this Lore with this Lore."
Instead, the only thing I can think of that DOES fit the critera in any way that makes sense is what you call "generically mystic" - ie, an Org lore that contains a similar foundation of Greek/Roman ancient knowledge. (To expand Fortunata's lore: when you find it, it actually comes with a copy of the original texts she used. The flavor text says that in reading through her scripts, you actually read through a copy of the original source material, and use that, as well as the process she derieved, to understand the Scripts.)
The issue I would have is not in the creation of the cult, but in making it open membership. It would seem to me that the organization lore is going to spin wildly out of control in that kind of situation when you have several hundred people signing up without going through any kind of proper initiation procedure.
Yes I believe they would. All Hermetic Magic normalized to the point that it is learn-able without resorting to mystical symbolism. It's exactly what TMRE pg 5 is talking about.
Just because it is called a ritual doesn't mean that it has the same mystical symbolism of a Mystery Lore. That symbolism was excised from the Order's magic by Bonisagus when he invented Hermetic Theory. See I believe that to a Hermetic Magus standard Hermetic Magic has no mystical style. It's magical, it's got all kinds of magical style. But it uses "Real" at least to the gameworld sympathies not allegories to work it's magic.
And again an issue directly addressed on TMRE pg 5. Bonissagus even stripped "pious prayer from the workings of Magic" So for me it makes sense Holy Magi have to relearn basic Hermetic Magic. Becuase of what Boni did not what he didn't do.
Well the central philosophies of a Cult Lore are apparently contained in even a score of 1. It's only when you try to study from a score of zero that you are devising your own cult. In story terms Fortunata spent time devoting herself to her Principles to increase her mystical insight. In Game terms she spent season's practicing her ability to increase it's score. I can understand how some cults' might philosophy might not be amendable to self study (i.e. couldn't be practiced in that manner) But Fortunata's Lore was clearly built on such a principle.
It's also interesting that she created a Intiation for Piussant (Cult Lore) which in theory makes the character a natuaral at understanding or at least following her philosophies.
Yes, well while I don't have the book, my point is this:
If you don't have control over who is in the organization, then the actual lore for the organization will differ from the lore you designed to start the organization.
I mean for example, you might start out with a program of sane limited government, but then you wind up with libertarians going overboard and wanting to dismantle everything, and tea party factions wanting to bring in state religion and... just for a real world example. Other people will want to jump on board and take leadership without necessarily having understanding...
But this isn't a personal philosophy or a world-view that is open to interpretation, it's a tradition.
Not necessarily, and if so only over many generations.
Such "Darwinian" (de-)evolution from the original is not guaranteed. If the tradition is oral and sloppy, then it's more likely - if codified and/or rigorously trained and enforced, far less so.
More, if it deviates too far, you could have a failure to initiate.
For a more accurate Real World parallel, look at any Religion. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism - each with 100's of sects, sometimes diametrically and violently opposed to each other - they are not "the same" any more except in some ancient sense. and it for some it has taken many generations to deviate to this point. And at the point that any deviation is deemed too extreme, excommunication is the usual reaction (in one form or another, not always the catholic sense).
So, to continue the parallel, when the Protestant movement broke off from the Catholic church, it took quite a long time from the first rumblings to final schism, and the two became quite literal enemies, in large part because of the Catholic codification. But when any new church branches out today off of the Protestant-ish movement, they can arise almost spur-of-the-moment and go with a blessing, in large part because of less codification and enforcement of "tradition".
That was kind of my point.
And realistically any cult will drift divergently over time. Sometimes they just become two separate cults, and both still work. The problem, as I said, is that if it is truly open membership then this will happen far more quickly, to the point of guaranteed implosion. It could easily become a situation where everybody claims to be part of the cult, there are lots of books on the cult lore, and lots of debate over which ones are the 'true' path. Inevitably everyone winds up inventing their own path, giving rise to hundreds of different mystery cults... the problem is it takes a game rules approach "why not just have a cult anyone can join" without any thought to the real world results.
Caveat to this- I am responding to this cult as I have seen it presented in this thread. I do not have this book and there may be aspects to this mystery cult which I am not aware of.
How many mystery cults are there extant? How long is "a generation" for a living mystery cult, the time from one generation and the next? And how much would those diverge in that time? And how many generations do you think it would take to reach the point where it actually splits into 2, or the current version is distinctly changed from the original?
Multiply those together, and you have something on the order of the life of the Order - and not 100's of different mystery cults, but a few more than you started with.
Why would this happen at all, much less be "inevitable"?
Why would anyone feel the need to write a book beyond the core gospel, much less change or dispute it?
(Unless the cult is full of Tytaloi. :mrgreen: )
I think you're envisioning a modern cult, with dozens of chapters each with dozens of followers, and more clamouring all the time. Do the math - this ain't that.
Well let see, if you use wicca as an example counting only traditions which started fro Gerald Gardner who began publicizing it in 1947, by the 1960s there were more traditions than you could shake a stick at, including Buckland wicca, Alexandrian, radical faerie, dianic, blue star, Odyssian, Frost, Tantric, and numerous others.
So, about 1/2 of a generation. Now whether or not you believe wicca to have existed prior to that as Gardner claimed, or for how long, the fact is there were far more tightly controlled secret societies, even some today such as the PTO, masons, and rosicrutions, which have existed well over a century as coherent groups.
I don't like the idea that it is so easy to steal Parma, and it takes just one ExMisc who goes off into the hinterlands to teach all the hedge wizards. Sure, he gets Marched 50 years later, when the Order finally makes its way into central Asia, but the damage has already been done.
OTOH, I do love the idea of Initiation as a central organizing principle. To a mundane, for example, a seven year apprenticeship to a master blacksmith involves learning and practice. A magus knows better: The apprentice is initiating various virtues and flaws, following a traditional script with a high sympathetic bonus. (Another advantage of this approach is that it becomes easy to justify any differences between the benefits gained from a Hermetic apprenticeship with all 15 years lumped together versus seasonal tracking: The apprenticeship is an initiation, with different benefits. So pick what works for your saga!)
