radmonger

The association of fertility with earth is just a relic of the mostali clay caste, whose reproductive technicians were essential in bringing population numbers up in the earliest years after the dawn.

Some praxians hold that the original emperor that orlanth (or maybe umath) killed was actually Genert, not Yelm. Ernalda being married to Yelm makes no sense; he already has a wife. and if she was juts a servant girl in yelm's palace, how does she get to be queen of the gods? This provides mythic justification for why they periodically stage full scale invasions of dragon pass, rather than merely raiding. Argrath taps into this belief to a degree few Sartarites realize, until it is too late.

When Argrath kills Uleria along with all the other gods, people don't stop having babies. They just don't have access to  Ulerian rune magic. So unwanted pregnancies, death in childbirth and so on come to factor into social structures in more or less the way they historically did in the iron age. As Jeff says, cult precedes culture. The magic provided by the relation between man and deity forms part of the material base on which the cultural superstructure rests.

21 minutes ago, Eff said:

And on the other hand, you were faced with the problem that the Chaosium (the fountain and not the corporate entity) is also the one thing that prevents Glorantha from freezing into perpetual stasis, and that Chaos would seem to be essential to the universe.

in the guide to glorantha, that line is prefixed with 'what no sane gloranthan understands'. So those who do understand it are, by induction, insane. So just represents the perspective of the more philosophically inclined chaos cultist.

Of course they could be right, and storm bull and friends could be wrong.

Or there is always the mostali perspective, which can be paraphrased as something like  'warp core ' and 'warp core breach' may share a lot of syllables and some underlying mathematics, but they should not be treated as the same.

3 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

i do really think it is going to be worlds different to be an Ulerian priest in Esrolia versus pre-Lunar Dara Happa, or Solar Dara Happa versus Pentans.

Absolutely. Not least because i think it was the lunars who, via Etyries, introduced the concept of personal spending money to Dara Happa. Before that it was more a matter of the emperor, or his delegate, paying the Ulerian temple in wheels to hold a festival on a certain date each year. With admission restricted to whatever clan, regiment or guild had won his favor.

Such festivals were basically city-based versions of the traditional Lodrili fertility festivals; an opportunity to meet, dance and drink with other people with the same plan. Ulerian initiates made up the numbers, and got the party started, but there was nothing transactional going on.

Actual sex workers in anything like the modern sense are more likely to be initiates of Issaries or Etyries. The exchange of money for services is the thing that would need magical support.

Just now, Akhôrahil said:

I can see the argument for mercs, but not for your regular honorable sword-using Orlanth-initiated warrior.

This brings up the distinction between cities and clans. In a rural orlanthi clan, every farmer who owns a weapon is at least a lay member, and usually an initiate, of Orlanth at the clan temple. When they train in the clan militia, they are doing so in the context of the clan, and so the cult governing  what is going on is Orlanth. This applies even if their trainer happens to be a Humakti, Yelmalian or whatever; religiously they are taking on the role of one of Orlanth's kin. And for training in sword, you want to get that form Humakt. So even if the trainer is a Vingan or whatever, they are taking on the role of Orlanth's sword champion. 

The exceptions are those clans where Orlanth is not Ernalda's husband-protector, e.g. the Telmori. But I don't think rural Telmori use swords.

in a city, which i think is the default assumption of the RQ:G rules, cults are often more discrete organisations resembling professional guilds. A healer and their caravan guard brother go along to different temples, and never share the secrets they learn there.

Which means for a farmer living in or near a city, there is always a tension that comes form living between two worlds. You probably don't routinely need weapons training and magic so much. But it will still be available at the Orlanth temple you are initiated to. Even if you find that doesn't quite meet your needs, that's the tradition.

During the occupation, the Lunars shut that down, in favor of a stricter division between Humakt and Barntar temples. While you will deny it later, at the time you maybe didn't really mind all that much

26 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Half price sword and dagger training is enough! But they also train Battle, Craft (Bronze), First Aid, Meditate, Orate, Ride, and Scan for half-price too.

Essentially a Humakt temple is the de-facto mercenary guild. You pay your copper and say a few respectful words. In return you get to use the training facilities. You get to hang out in the bar where you hear the rumors of who is hiring, and which jobs you would be wise to turn down.

There are probably some places outside dragon pass where it has completely lost its religious roots and functions as a purely secular organisation. Such places are naturally rife with spirits cults and secret societies.

21 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I don't get this... especially since most duels aren't to the death. There would be nothing wrong with a non-public duel.

Humakti champions are typically supported by the community, who will want to get some entertainment out of their tax dollars. So certainly the default will be public duels, with holding them in private being a rare exception that would need to be agreed by both parties.

Duel to first blood, or first fall, is still perfectly capable of ending in death. if that happens, failing to have arranged obviously neutral witnesses would be extremely suspicious behavior that would likely attract the attention of other Humakti. After all, Humakti sometimes treat a duel as a valid form of divination. Did they do it? Fight and find out.

In OrlanthI clan territories, the lawspeakers love to get involved in duels, and will be able to quote the details of 5 different sets of dueling rules, and 8 cases of precedents for exceptions to each.

In more civilized lands, especially Esrolia, the humakti duel is more or less explicitly a form of public entertainment, with any other reason for fighting being secondary. Often two popular champions who everyone wants to see fight will manufacture an excuse to do so. In a somewhat mocking reference to the rural habit of cattle raiding, this is known as a 'beef'.

3 hours ago, Soccercalle said:

So Argrath becomes a kinslayer if he kills the leading Telmori? Or is it kinslaying only if it is in the same clan?

Do Telmori even have a specific rule about kinslaying? Wild wolves do sometimes kill other wolves. if not, gives another excuse for the Orlanthi to hate them.

Also, to what extent does the Humakti severance of clan ties count to avoid kinstrife? Say a humkati in a mercenary regiment ends on opposite side of a battle to their second cousin. Is that going to get them in mythical trouble?

Humakti magic is excellent for killing Telmori, and mostly useless to Telmori themselves for any other purpose. A wolf can't hold a sword.  So why is it that cult attracts 10% of the population?

2 hours ago, metcalph said:

Humakt's holy days are Windsday in Storm Season, Waterday in Sea Season, Fireday in Fire Season, Clayday in Earth and Freezeday in Dark Season.  Since Full Moon falls on Wilday in Prax and Dragon Pass, I'm not seeing the problem for the Telmori werewolf.

Those are the dates on which the poor guy must either not show up, break the prohibition on participating in an non-friendly cult worship ceremony, convince the temple hierarchy the other cult is actually friendly, be illuminated, or find some other excuse. Maybe they do a special purification heroquest each time, or something?

Maybe neither are grounds for immediate expulsion, but i can't see that kind of intentional and repetitive flouting of the rules lasting long. Two cults that don't allow each others initiates to remain initiates are not compatible. You can join, but that is going to mean leaving the other sooner rather than later.

Naturally YGMV, and YG may actually be RQ2's G. But that is what RQ;G rules say.

14 hours ago, Joerg said:

This spell should be banned from Humakti duels (alongside Sever Spirit) as it basically means a victory for the duelist able to pour the most magic points into the spell.

Sword trance is only broken if it gets to reduce the opponents parry chance.  I think the 'official' fix to that spell is that multiplicative modifiers don't cause parry chance reduction. But that then gets tangled in a mess of which modifiers apply in which sequence.

Honestly it is much simpler to just drop the special-case rule about skills over 100%. Maybe it was necessary to reduce combat length of a no-magic duel between fully armored western knights. But for anything in Dragon Pass, 6, or even 9, points of armor is not going to delay first blood by much. Using a great sword (2d8 + db) against an opponent without iron armour, almost all unparried hits will get though. And any special will break most things you can parry with, and quite likely get through armor afterwards. You don't even really need Truesword, unless you want to actually kill your opponent.

The standard opening to a Humakti duel, assuming no-precast magic and only cult magic, is both sides face each other pumping up their sword trance. One or the other decides enough is enough, and declares an attack. That first strike will has a ~30% chance of winning the fight right there. However, if it is parried, the one who put more into sword trance will have the long term advantage. This is generally considered the prestigious way to win, and gives the best boasting rights.

Casting enough points of shield to not take a wound from a greatsword attack is considered extravagant and perhaps cowardly, but can be effective. However, it becomes likely that some associate of the one you defeated wants to repeat the challenge, and this time they will use Truesword.

7 hours ago, metcalph said:

Cite for this?  It's not in the RuneQuest Glorantha rulebook.

RQ;G p 274 unlike lay members, who have free association with other cults, initiates must partake only in rituals of their own cult and of associated and friendly cults.

RQ;G p 275; [initiates] must observe the cult holy days and sacrifice 2 magic points during cult worship rituals.

So not participating in worship ceremonies is in effect stricter than not joining.  Unless you are saying initiation doesn't necessarily count  as a ceremony, so someone could perhaps join for a season before the inevitable conflict between the two incompatible cults became irreconcilable?

The 'compatible cults' condition presumably excludes hostile and enemy cults, but neutral cults are ambiguous, hence my assumption about that requiring special permission. Certainly, I don't see how humakt, whose core myth is 'sever relationships with your kin if they become too problematic' is going to routinely make an exception for Telmor. it seems to me that myth is the core reason Humakt is so disproportionately popular there.

The 'tithe to two temples' condition also implies access to two temples, which is what the rural telmori are likely to lack. The royal guard would be able to meet that condition, assuming there is a Telmor temnples in boldhome.

1 hour ago, hipsterinspace said:

Sora Goodseller, for example, is a cultist of both Issaries and Yelmalio.

i would count that as an individual exception. Neutral means dual membership is permitted under exceptional circumstances; if that permission becomes routine, it is hard to argue that the relationship remains neutral.

The telmori cult breakdown on well of daliath has

• 01-63 Telmor
• 64-74 Seven Mothers
• 75-85 Humakt (about 500)
• 86-88 Issaries
• 89-90 CA
• 91-00 Other

That is far too many Humakti to all be individual exceptions, or to have no path of advancement to Rune Level.

In fact, as i understand it, the reasons the numbers add up to 100, is because all of those are, as a matter of routine, exclusive options at the initiate level. The rare exceptions are rare enough to not trouble the statistics. Unlike city-dwellers, rural Telmori simply don't have a variety of temples they can choose to visit several of in parallel. The second nearest temple to where they live may well be a full days travel away. And they are very likely not going to be welcome if they did show up.

Also, being a travelling Issaries trader wouldn't be realistically possible if they involuntarily transformed.

15 minutes ago, metcalph said:

Since even street thugs in New Pavis know that Broos can worship Humakt, a Telmori worshipping him is not a problem. 

That is an entirely different question to whether a broo can become initiated to both Humakt and Thed. The humakti broo in dorastor:land of doom (p82) are explicitly not. They _are_ illuminated though, without which i suspect shier chaotic nature would prevent them from maintain their geases. This is why they are considered a novel and dangerous threat.

The seven mothers Telmori maybe have something similar going on?

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/sartar-telmori/

5 minutes ago, hipsterinspace said:

They can, however, join the cult of Humakt as an initiate of Telmor, just as they can join Issaries, Chalana Arroy, and Seven Mothers. The cults are neutral which just means they need to secure permission from both cults to join, not that they can’t be initiated as a Telmori.

And that would normally mean leaving the Telmor cult, as they can no longer participate in Telmori worship ceremonies, regain wolfbrother magic, and so on. At best you leave on friendly terms and don't get formally exiled, or suffer from the spirit of reprisal. 

The only way round this is if the Telmori Humakti are actually worshipping a local variant, who is actually friendly to Telmor, and so would routinely grant permission for joint worship.  But personally I prefer the interpreation where Humakt is true to his nature.

6 hours ago, Runeblogger said:

a Telmori humakti is an initiate of both Telmor and Humakt

To quote RQ;G: an initiate may partake only of rituals in their own cult, or its associated and friendly cults. Humakt, of course, has no associated or friendly cults.

The bestiary entry on wolf brothers says anyone born to Telmori parents is automatically initiated. So the documented existence of Terlmori Humakti would appear to be in contradiction with one or the other.

I would resolve this by having the Telmori work like how i understand other rural clans to work, where you go through the adulthood initiation ordeal, and that reveals who your patron god is. Normally this will be one of the gods maintained by a shrine at the clan temple. Humakt is, following Sartar's reforms, such a god. This provides a non-chaotic initiation route, mythically severing the relationship with chaos while still remaining physically a part of the community.

This works in reverse, in that a foundling of Telmori parentage brought up in an orlanthi clan will likely at least get the option of following Telmor. Many clans would count that as failing the ordeal, and exiling or just outright killing the unfortunate kid, as they would an ogre.

Note that I don't think Telmori, as a clan, worship Ernalda, or any other earthmother goddess, so they only have one clan temple, to Telmor.

Telmori-clan Humakti perform a similar role that Orlanth-clan Humakti do; they guard, rather than partake in, the clan ceremonies. They quite likely require a formal payment for doing so.

Sartar was smart enough to realise that only a cult of dedicated badasses with magical weapon magic could thrive in Telmori society. Pairing that with selecting the most experienced and skilled Telmor-cultists to leave the clan and form your own personal bodyguard went a long way towards making the Telmori a tribe like any other. You raid them, they raid you back, life goes on.

Argrath, of course, breaks this balance, as he breaks everything he touches. The Telmori as a tribe, prompted by the lunbars, turn fully to chaos. some of the Telmori humakti turn against them, fully ritually severing their relationship with their wolf-brothers. They wear their skin as a cloak, and become a board game counter.

This all greatly increases the level of chaos magic going on, ultimately leading to Argrath's creation/summoning of the Monster Empire.

2 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

For our Glorantha, I'm going with "them" (the Telmori) aren't chaotic.

I wouldn't say they are chaotic as individuals.

It is just that the practice of their traditional tribal religion has been corrupted by an external curse, such that those who practice it suffer chaotic effects. I don't think that Telmori who become, say, Humakti transform on wildsday.

Soul sight on a typical telmori werewolf would show they are infected by chaos, not inherently chaotic.

9 hours ago, Dr. Devici said:

But then, what about Sartar? He was the Orlanth Rex of an entire kingdom, and he happily made peace with the Telmori, made them a full tribe, and even married them into his bloodline, but then drew the line at initiating them into Orlanth? Why?

Because if they became Orlanthi, they would not be Telmori, and we would be asking 'why did Sartar genocide the Telmori?'

Having them able to become Sartarite without converting is why Sartar is a nation, and not just an Orlanthi tribal confederation. This is a new thing, as the various fully-assimilated tribes and clans with a hint of deer or whatever magic show. Argrath considered this novelty to be a mistake, and reverted it.

This is why he is unambiguously the villain of the setting, the final boss the players can only defeat in the last act.

It's lore is just a bit out of date, not being updated since Zistor was destroyed at the end of the second age.

19 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Definitely not canon for the Aeolians. But what is different for them is that beside nobles and priests (wizards), there is only one commoner class (warriors and workers grouped together).

For my Malkioni, the question is not whether caste mobility happens; it is whether it is considered a good thing.

Most social ills can be framed as a matter of caste violation. Banditry is warriors taking on the roles of lords. Killing the innocent is treating a non-warrior as a warrior. Dabbling in wizardry, rather than being tutored from birth (or perhaps before) is fraud. Trying to find the isolated examples where a caste violation is morally ok is a fool's game best left to the Hrestoli idealists.

Aeolians classify Orlanth as wizard caste (zzaburi). So it is perfectly righteous for him to instruct anyone in magic. This means rune priest is not a strictly hereditary role, as it is Orlanth doing the teaching. The priest is merely a functionary. 

The fact that Orlanth freely mixes the teaching of warrior and farmer magic is ok, as those aren't actually, despite what some foreigners believe,  distinct castes. You can tell this by the fact that Orlanth does this and maintains righteousness. Of course, he does retain strict adherence to the hereditary principle for the noble caste, as governed by the Orlanth Rex subcult. Temertain would hardly have been Prince of Sartar otherwise...

With farming, war and sovereignty magic handled by orlanth rune priests, the relatively few Aeolian zzaburi sorcerors are free to dedicate themselves to the role of alchemists, tutors, and advisors to nobles.

Most Praxian beast riders have a trinary gender role system, waha/eiritha/shaman. i think all the fanzine writeups of the ostrich riders have put yelmalio in the waha role. 

What if that is wrong? Yelmalio is at root a god of birds, horses being a degenerate forms of birds who have lost their wings. The Orlanthi at least code horses as feminine, via Redalda, Elmal's wife. The Yelornans ride unicorns, a slightly less degenerate form of bird, retaining some of hippogriff's natural weapons.

Similarly, ostriches retain hippogriff's wings, but have lost the power of flight. But retained his ability to deliver a killing blow to an armored human.

Unlike the yelornans, the ostrich riders do have men in the clan, who follow Waha. They do the leading, hunting, guarding and crafting, with the most prestigious craft being butchering. The women are riders, herders and raiders.

Those who don't fit into either gender role are not part of the corresponding wyter community, and so have to find their own way as a shaman.

So the cult of yelmalio is the cult of Waha's wife. Naturally they code that as feminine.

7 hours ago, Darius West said:

Fireball?  Fireblade perhaps... I've never heard any reference to a fireball spell anywhere in RQ anything.

That's the point; fireball is the spell that doesn't exist because Elmal doesn't have fire magic. His cult merely doesn't forbid learning fire spirit or summoning magic. This is because they historically didn't have access to the deeper secrets of the hill of gold that explain why this is so.

The sun in the regions he is worshipped is basically never hot enough to literally set things on fire. Without hill of gold, you are left with the conclusion that the regions where this does happen are stronger, more magically potent, better than you. So you are never going to beat them, so might as well pay tribute.

This neatly parallels the way orlanthi regard Pelorian gods of the mild breeze that ruffles your hair a bit.

6 hours ago, Darius West said:

The tension between the backwoods Elmal worshippers and the interloper Yelmalios of Far Point trying to shut down and absorb their cult prior to the Hero Wars adds an extra level of interest to the regional conflict for games set in Far Point.  

How exactly do you propose having that conflict happen if Yelmalio and Elmal are clearly distinct deities, and so, in RQ:G, function according to RQ:G rules? The ones where anyone leaving a cult loses reusable access to their cult rune magic, and get attacked by spirits of reprisal? 

As I understand the history, Harvar and the lunar-allied Yelmalians tried to take control of the region from the more numerous orlanthi. Once they controlled the temples, they should have had a monopoly on night-fighting magic, and so the ability to raid and burn any clan. Which earns Harvar his epithet, Ironfist.

If Elmal was not Yelmalio, that would be the end of the story, and Harvar would rule Farpoint to this day.

However, in glorantha as written, there were dissident Yelmalians who sided with the Orlanthi. Some of them just hated Harvar, some had married into clans they had become loyal to . Those dissidents cited the myth of Elmal the loyal thane, and did not suffer from spirits of reprisal for doing so. They worshipped at Elmalthane shrines within backwoods Orlanth temples, and so regained their night-fighting  magic.

They may or may not have set up their own Elmal temples, which may or may not have been destroyed by Harvar; i don't know the history at a more detailed level than this outline. if they had, while they existed, they would have worked. This would allow the Yelmalian rebels to recover their numbers, which were no doubt depleted by lunar assassins.

After the dragonrise, the Sun Dome Temples are once again back to being a neutral potential ally instead of an agent of the Emperor,. So the reason for the resurgence of Elmal goes away. Though it may have left remnants, and would likely recur in similar circumstances.

This was all possible because Elmal is Yelmalio, at least at the level that matter to the RQ;G ruiles. If you are using a different game system, you are free to be more ambiguous with your metaphysics.

But just remember this is stuff that non-illuminates fight and die for, take absolutely seriously, and are never bored by arguing about. 

2 hours ago, SDLeary said:

So it appears as if the Orlanthi (note the collective here) believe that Elmal is the Sun God, and that Yelmalio is a different god.

Orlanthi do 'believe' that, in the sense of general background mythology that they are perhaps able to recite, but not going to do much about. The thing about Orlanthi is that they are members of the cult of Orlanth, and so not Elmal, or Yelmalio. So they don't get any magic from that background belief, except perhaps as much as they might from any other thunder brother. So at most an Orlanth temple may  have a shrine to Orlanth's thane Elmal. Lacking any good reason to change, they still use that name, just like most English speakers use Florence rather than Firenze.

The point is that Elmalians, meaning those actually initiated at a temple still following the Elmal 'subcult' of Yelmalio, mostly know better, for the reasons, and with the exceptions, discussed above. And even they quite likely use the name Elmal when talking to orlanthi, for the same reasons some Italians will use Florence when talking to english people. 

This is all more or less localised to Dragon pass and heortland: independant Elmali temples were never that widespread. The map of sun dome temples has been posted here recently, and only one or two are in the region where they would ever have been Elmali-run . The others were  Khelmal or whatever, and so Monrogh had nothing to do with them. 

Everywhere else used to just sometimes have shrines to elmal the loyal thane in their orlanth clan temple. Those that did, generally still do.

32 minutes ago, Scotty said:

These terms have been around since RuneQuest 2.

My point exactly. The spells and cults in rq;g haven't all been around since then. And some of them were not written on that basis, and so don't really fit within it.

It's hard enough to code a website in fortran 77, impossible to get others to understand why you think that's a good idea.

39 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Gods can be subservient cults

As i said, it can be confusing even to Chaosium staffers. Jeff has stated in these forums that magic accessed from an odayla shrine in an orlanth temple does not stack with the same spell accessed via an Odayla temple. And then there is language in rq;g that suggests the situation may be different between Odayla and Yinkin.

This is what caused me to conclude that rune magic is best thought of as being accessed via cults, not gods. I then read Hepheromes statement of magic at the start of the Red Book which seems to confirm that. This massively simplifies applying the rules, and means metaphysics never comes up mid-combat.

3 minutes ago, Ali the Helering said:

No, but Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, even Cornwall have separatist movements.  You cannot discount generational memories.  As one Ulsterman said to me "We learn our hatred on our grandmothers' knee."

Granted: I said it was a thing that could happen. It is just currently (1625) it seems like it is on the same scale as:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acting_Witan_of_Mercia

https://independentmercia.org/

The real point is that geographically, mercia, cornwall and wales are all part of the same island, and so it is possible for them to have, or not have, that kind of conflict. If Mercia was instead located somewhere near Moldova then the nature of any possible conflict would be entirely different.

The same would be true if Elmal and Yelmalio were deeply mythically and magically distinct. Which is what them being different top level RQ;G cults would imply. if they were, they couldn't have had the kind of conflict that canonical sources state they did.

Then again, maybe your players are up for the kind of heroquesting that could maybe lead to:

7 hours ago, Darius West said:

If Elmal is like Yelmalio, but with his fire powers intact because they didn't bleed out on the Hill of Gold, then Yelmalio is inferior to Elmal in most situations.

Well yes. but here you are thinking as a consumer of cult magic, when the relevant decisions get made by the producers of cult magic; the rune levels and wyters.

it appears the entity worshipped by the Elmal cult has minimal fire powers. So making those available to initiates is disproportionately hard work, with not particularly impressive results. No Elmal writeup I've ever seen has a fireball rune spell; it's more you get a discount on buying the firearrow spirit spell. 

The thing is, fire magic isn't even particulaly useful to the Elmali within wider Orlanthi society. They don't practice slash-and-burn agriculture. Raiders burning down steads would be against Orlanth's laws in a way that merely stabbing their defenders with a spear isn't. Other cults handle smithing, baking, pottery and so on. Light magic is better for signalling and visibility at night than a fire. You end up with 'we keep this sacred flame burning because it is a sacred flame'.

Everyone no doubt gave a collective sigh of relief when Monrogh told them 'we can stop pretending, and just let it go out'.

That didn't end all conflict, but it is no longer an active source of political tension by 1625, any more than the UK is troubled by a Mercian separatist movement. Doesn't mean the players can't start a fight over the issue, but they won't really find one ongoing.

i do suspect one issue is that the RQ cult writeup format has a single top-level entry. So the mere layout implicitly says that Elmal is a subcult of Yelmalio.  Wheras it is really more that Elmal and Yelmalio are two competing cults with differently-wrong interpretations of the same underlying mysteries. 

41 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

The issue is actually stacking. It has been stated before the Rune spells from different Rune Pools do not stack.

i have to admit i have always run it as extension is stacked with the spell cast. But the wording does say instead it is 'simultaneously cast', not 'stacked', and states that's a special exception to the general rule about not being able to cast two spells at once.

i think i'll probably continue to run it as stacked, if only to avoid the possibility of someone casting a 16 point shield with a 20 year duration....

2 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

 

Why weren't the parts of Nysalor thrown into the void? There are a few entrances to the void documented on Glorantha IIRC.

Presumably for the same reason no-one tries to drown a water elemental, or throw a salamander into a volcano.

Worst case is it works, and you realize you were wrong as to which out of Nysalor and Arkat was Gbaji .