I thought this short essay, which was originally posted on the Gemstone message boards, was very well thought out and written, so am including it here for those interested in learning more about Mularos worship.
Category Role-Playing (4)
Topic The Gods of Elanthia (13)
By MOURNE from PLAY.NET (My evil twin...)
On Sep 7, 2002 at 08:40
Subject The Faces of Pain (5048)
To preface:
After wandering through the newly rebuilt Icemule Temple this evening (is it morning already?), my mind started going off on the different ways characters implement the worship of their chosen deity, and the different views one can have of that deity, and vatnot. So I wrote a short essay-ish piece to crystalize some thoughts for myself, and I thought, hey, more player-written speculation on arkati worship added to the pool is a good thing, right? Right. So here, feel free to comment and/or disagree with one person's roaming thoughts on a subject. I warn, this got a little long.
=The Faces of Pain: Aspects of Mularos Worship=
-A speculative essay on doctrinal fragmentation and the core aspects that tie a belief system together, as applied to Mularos worship, and as penned by Avidleigh Tir-na.-
Theory:
Some cringe from it at all costs, some test themselves against it, and some actively seek it out for themselves or inflict it on others; the sentient's dance with pain is ongoing, and rarely a solitary one. Be it emotional or physical, all creatures who can feel will likely feel pain at some point or another, and how they deal with it has been a source of curiosity for millenia.
Of particular interest is how the entity known as Mularos comes into this play. Mularos is reputed to feed off the pain of mortals, and suffer their pain as well, in the gathering of his power. He is said to take a twisted pleasure in the causing of pain, and is often depicted as reveling in acceptance of pain as well. One could point to the the power he receives from causing and/or experiencing pain as the source of his pleasure, rather than the act itself, but the truth is anyone's guess. What little we have gleaned merely points out that the pain he both gives and receives and the power he derives from it are all irrevocably intertwined.
By very nature, those with power affect those without, and will acquire a following of like-minded individuals. Godlike entities are no different in this respect. Each has their adherents, those that identify with them, honor them, revere them, adore them, and worship them. This one in particular gathers unto him those identify with, however they choose, the giving and receiving of pain. His followers range across the extremes, from the dominant to the submissive, the sadist to the masochist, and encompass all of the threads that bind these together. Both the reasons and the degrees of these behaviors are as numorous as the followers in question, but they all seem to share an abiding respect for pain.
For instance, one can examine the cults that rise and fall around the worship of Mularos. The more short-lived ones burn brightly and fanatically with their adoration of pain, before combusting spectacularly in an orgy of suicide or massacre(or both). (One can likely safely say that some of these merely use the name of Mularos to legitimize their activities to themselves, never really having any interest in their actions beyond the scope of their limited perceptions.)
On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have those who act without regard for self, but only for (their perceptions of) the benefit of Mularos. Theirs is a nigh-pure ascetic philosophy, and severe is their discipline in the pursuit of it. However, one could argue that both such philosophies, and all the ranges in between, serve the purposes of Mularos, both providing mortal suffering for the Lord of Pain to partake of: one unfocused, one more directed. Opinions differ wildly, of course, as to the efficacy of either method amongst the faithful(and not-so-faithful, at that).
The other major dichotomy one may view amongst followers of Mularos are the inclinations of the torturers and the tortured. While many span these practices, it is observed that yet more tend strongly to one side or the other; some are drawn more to the dealing of pain, and others more to the reception of it. Examples of such can be personified most easily in the professional paths of the sorceror and the empath; the one vocation is focused on torment, the other on the relief of it. These two schools, even at their most antipodal, remain far more at ease with each other than the schools of asceticism and sensualism, being that they interact with each other in a rather symbiotic relationship, but still often have their doctrinal disagreements.
Application:
The worship of Mularos is many-faceted, but one thing remains constant throughout these aspects: one's active relationship with pain. Many and varied are the expressions of this relationship, and the motivations of said relationship greater still by an order of magnitude, but central remains the focus on pain and its manifestation as the source from which Mularos draws his power.
Once the framework of one's relationship with pain is understood, the structure one builds upon it is far more likely to be internally(and externally) consistant, and a consistant structure with a strong foundation is a construct likely to be more easily conveyed, understood, respected and remembered.
-Avidleigh's player.