As a newbie who hasn’t been able to get the comics - just the BE book, I have a few questions about the setting & I think this is the right place to ask them. If I’m wrong - sorry! Please redirect me!
1-What’s the Mundus Humanitas Church stand on aliens & sex & psychologists? Do the priest marry, have sex? All-male priesthood/ cotars? Are the Cyreans any different (besides their views on the Church)?
2-Is the Machine church (before the MH took over), still active, or pretty much destroyed?
3-What happens when a Vaylen jumps to a non-sentient being?
4-What happens if a PC falls ill? Are there any rules for this or is it pretty much a GM ruling (length of illness, severity, etc.)?
All Cotars are male, chaste and celibate. The church recognizes that the Cotar-Fomas (priest who leads the church’s military on a planet) has a foot in both the world of religion and the world of flesh. He, therefore, is permitted to have sex but not to marry. Women are allowed to serve in the military and as Mystes.
The Cyreans are very similar. However, the world you and your players build can absolutely be a world in which a sect of the Mundus or the Cyreans have altered some of these prescriptions.
2-Is the Machine church (before the MH took over), still active, or pretty much destroyed?
The Church of the Machine is pretty much destroyed. However, a remnant could certainly have survived on the world you guys create.
3-What happens when a Vaylen jumps to a non-sentient being?
The Vaylen loses its sentience as long as it stays in the beast. These are basically Shudren.
4-What happens if a PC falls ill? Are there any rules for this or is it pretty much a GM ruling (length of illness, severity, etc.)?
Generally, something like Diseased would be a trait. It stays with a character until voted off by the group. But that’s as close as we come to rules for illness.
…So, the MH Church is pretty much like certain “real woild” churches… What’s their position on Aliens? Can Aliens become adepts/priests/cotars? What about psychologists? Only posts in th Inquistion?
Is there any description/details on the Machine Church? We have a Karsan world, so I thought that a Machine Cult could be believable there.
Well, obviously Vaylen can become Cotars… Rather more literally than I think you meant. Kerrn and Mukhadish? I’m not sure. I’d be inclined to say that it’s not an issue. Kerrn have their own beliefs and Mukhadish don’t seem to have much need for them. I’d say it’s very unlikely that either is formally welcomed into the Mundus Humanitas, but that there may be Kerrn with (heretical or orthodox) Ahmilahk-based beliefs.
There’s nothing in the rules prohibiting Psychologists from taking Cotar, Archcotare, or any other church lifepath, as far as I’ve seen.
These are also questions you should be addressing during world-burning. Maybe your Mundus Humanitas establishment on your world has a different take on these matters.
While there is nothing in the rules that prohibits the bright mark trait and church lifepaths, I seem to remember that outside of the League people with the mark are feared and are hunted down or inducted into the ranks of the inquisition. However as Devin said, the exact nature of your planet should be figured out during world burning.
Here’s some stuff about the Church of the Divine Machine from Chris Moeller’s Iron Empires Archive website (a primary source!).
[FONT=Verdana]Don’t worry about defining any more until you do World Burning! The above should get you started and you can make up more details about the Divine Machine with your players.
Thanks droog
GGDD
(PS: See what an epithet does? I thought the CDM was a technocratic cult (technofetichists) akin to “Dune”'s Machine veneration which sparked the Butlerian Jihad)… Yet, it’s completely different & deeper…)