Tatterdemalion Fox

I was wondering when you’d show up! Welcome! I’d invite you to feast, but it is a dishonorable thing to make a man break his geasa. Instead, since you have more resources and experience than I do, let me ask: where do you think the association with Thed and goats came from, from a Doylist standpoint? It’s nowhere in evidence in Nomad Gods, and BoHM saves all of its goat imagery for Ragnaglar and Eurmal, but it’s a very popular fandom association despite that.

There was, there was not. When First Son was born, the Mother tossed him out the door and shut it after. First Son was strong, so he did not die. But soon he knew what Hunger was, so he stood on his legs and beat on the door. Mother, I’m hungry. Mother, give me my food. Mother, give me my house. And the door opened, and her hand came out, all sharp nails, and it went down his throat. She tore the Square Thing out of him then. Then she made her horn sign against him and shut the door after. And all the weeds around him drooped and died, and the ground under him became wet and bad for stacking. It was all shit, was what it was. But soon First Son became hungry for herd, so he took his strong hands and beat on the door. Mother, I’m hungry. Mother, give me my brothers. Mother, give me my friends. And the door opened, and her hand came out, all sharp nails, and it went down his throat. She tore the Three Line Thing out of him then. Then she made her horn sign against him and shut the door after. And First Son looked around at the shit, and he realized that it was all shit, was what it was. So for lack of anything to do, he sat in the shit and beat himself until he ached. Then he realized how very hungry he was, so he rammed his head against the door. Mother, I’m hungry! Mother, I want my wife! Mother, I want to fuck! And the door opened, and her hand came out, all sharp nails, and it went down his throat. She tore the Two Triangle Thing out of him then. Then she made her horn sign against him and shut the door after. Then First Son knew he was fucked. So he pissed on her door, to mark his return, and went out into the world of shit to find everything he was hungry for. But it was all shit, was what it was. He felt what was missing like stones in his stomach. (But before he left, a window opened, and a little round white face appeared there, and smiled. She spat on him, and told him it was her best of gifts. And it was.) In the Dark Places, the winds swept down upon First Son, and there were riding people singing on them; and instead of running away, First Son roared and screamed and stamped. He tore one riding person down and broke its back; he tore another down and broke its skull; he tore a third down and spat on it until its insides all came out, shit and blood and all. And that was the first time First Son laughed. Then he heard laughter back, and the chief of the riding people came down off his wind, and lifted his helmet with the goat horns high. This wind king demanded an account from First Son, who could fight so well and had the best of gifts to kill with. My mother she gave me no food or house. My mother she gave me no brother or friend. My mother she gave me no wife to fuck. She took my Three Things from me, with her nails all sharp, and did the horn sign against me. Fight for me against my enemies, then. Your bitch mother thinks she’s taken everything from you, but she doesn’t know the Skinning Song, or the Goatherder Song, or the Law of Victory. And as payment for fighting in his wars, Father Of Us gave First Son a herd of goats, and First Son was hungry no more. But Father Of Us taught First Brother the Betrayal Song, too, for singing against his enemies. Why was he surprised when we met Hole In The World? He taught us the Betrayal Song, after all, and the Skinning Song, too— And we were so happy that Mother had given us a brother, after all.

Allow me to clarify my own position on what is and is not in BoDR: Chaos. The last time that I heard the myth of Thed attempting to rape Orlanth, several months ago, I did what research I could to try to find its provenance. The end of the rabbit hole that I came to back then, somewhere in this forum, pointed towards BoDR as the source, and I had to content myself with that, seeing as that BoDR is effectively a dead link for me, inaccessible. I apologize for being indignant concerning that specifically, although my point as to the accessibility of the myth may yet still stand. We'll see. When I say that this is characteristic of the way you talk about Glorantha, please understand it as a compliment. This attempt to map out a theory of the Broo is, by turns, methodical and cynical, and I mean that as a compliment as well. A grounded cause-and-effect rooted in a magical biology that cannot be sustained when the world changes, misunderstood by the Heortlings who only go so far back as the accusation in the throne room to understand why their world is haunted by ravenous monsters looking to preserve, through atavistic instinct, their almost-forgotten golden age. These are good thoughts, worth rumination. And I thank you for the compliment. This I can see as a very controversial play performed in Boldhome after the Storm Bull cult has been all but exterminated in Sartar. Is it a resurfacing truth long suppressed by Uroxian orthodoxy and the threat of retaliation? Or is it an attempt to convince the rebellious Sartarites that the Storm Bullies were, in fact, worshiping a liar and a brute, and therefore should not be inconveniently mourned? So too, it leaves the motives of the Unholy Trio ambiguous, perfect for post-performance discussion. Are there circumstances in which the invocation of Chaos might morally be justified, o Heortlings? And if you will cry over Ragnaglar, who you have so often hated and spat upon, who else might you be willing to reconsider? They say the Seven Mothers' is open all night long, if you want to continue the conversation...

If that is not the case, I would be very interested in seeing this myth sourced.

I do not appreciate nitpicking about a myth which is from the out-of-print zine The Book of Drastic Resolutions: Chaos (1995), itself a supplement to the out-of-print book Lords of Terror (1994), particularly when that nitpicking is used as a dodge. Do you have anything to say about the quoted paragraph and what it means? One thing which endeared me to Greg Stafford and convinced me that we had similar appreciation of mythology was his insistence that mythology is better understood through the oral storytelling tradition than through the literary tradition. It sharply highlights the ways in which passing on mythology (as, say, in an Orlanthi youth’s initiation) is an artistic expression in and of itself. The stories that a given storyteller chooses to recount, the details they include, and the parallels that they make are all part of this artistic expression. Mythology, as with many things that are concerned with conveying meaning about the numinous and the universal, is serious business, and we must pay attention to these meanings. When you tell me this story, are you listening to what you are saying? Today, in modern times, we experience a vast diversity of peoples and cultures who have gathered here, drawn by the wealth, peace, and well-being of our land. Each brings their own stories and tales of the ancient days. Many are lies, however. Many are inappropriate for most of us. So, we must choose carefully if we wish to progress spiritually and obtain our eternal bliss among the gods and ancestors. I was not speaking about Orlanth. The way you keep reorienting to him, by reflex, is telling— as is my own and opposite reflex. What does it tell us, do you think? This is Ragnaglari hermeneutics. I make the sign of the Horns against it.

Now, I am sure that some of you have said to yourselves: “Tatters, you ignorant elura, grain goddesses are intimately connected to the geography of Genertela! You can’t just make up one that’s been lost without ripple effect changes all across Genertela! Send that Thed right back to herding goats where she belongs.” And firstly? That’s fluffy tail discrimination, and Ura willing you will all be punished for your crimes. But secondly, I don’t have an answer for that. I’ve got three. Answer 1: Thedela is underneath the Rozgali Sea. This is the painless slots-right-into-the-canon option, and it's got a sense of narrative to it, too. Events that Thed herself helped instigate mean that everything that used to be hers is tir-far-thóinn, land under wave. I can envision Broo idly picking through pottery shards and stones washed up on the shores of Prax, perhaps keeping them as charms or incorporating them into fetishes. Answer 2: there is a perfectly good wasteland right next to Dragon Pass, isn’t there? Thed’s first appearance in the canon was in Nomad Gods, wasn’t it? Maybe when Tada went out to fight Ragnaglar, there was something personal on the line, having watched the purple-headed grain die out all along the Zola Fel, or worse, become a thick tangle of briars and swampland. We can only speculate on what creatures died out without their preferred food being available. This is a spicy enough option, but we can go deeper. Answer 3: The Battle of Earthfall was very personal for Wakboth. Coming home always is.

And the name of that demigod? Armin Tamzarian. But when Orlanth sought to destroy it, Wakboth parried, and with a single stab he cut Orlanth into forty-eight pieces. Any lesser god would have gone into all forty-nine. But as it was, Orlanth was barely able to blow out of there. Even so, if this Orlanth was involved in the Lifebringer’s Quest, we can respect the classic “imposter lives up to their lie” narrative.

And you improve on this immeasurably with one sentence. Stolen, eaten, incorporated as a mytheme.

Sometimes you will find the Nameless Brother during an initiation, or something that has his face, at any rate. Down in the Pit, or in Orlanth’s hall, there he will find you, and he will offer you instruction. He is handsome, and he is well-shaped, and his eyes and hair are wonderfully dark. He wears woad and honors won in battle. Like men you might know, he is funny and easy to like; like men you might know, it is impossible to ignore that he would hurt you without blinking, if you gave him any reason to. He knows how to say things that sound familiar, but that is a trick, too; if you listen to him, he will teach you the Storm-Opens-Earth charm, or the Goatherder Song, or the Law of Victory, or the I Hungered I Ate secret. These are things you cannot forget once you know them, and which only the best men can overcome. Trick him if you can, get your back to a wall and your arms over your face if you cannot. Do you think Heort never knew pain? But pain fades. (And if you were to ask him about Thed, he might shrug, and smile, and say: turns out she wasn’t too good for me, after all.) Sometimes you find him on the road to the Devil, instead. There is no safe way past that we know. Some of you will do as he asks, like Storm Bull did, out of disgust or fury or pity, and your hands will be stained. Others of you will remember Orlanth’s Laws, and tell him that Kinstrife is no small thing. But he will goad you cruelly, he will call Chaos down on your head, he will beg for the world to drown under the weight of nothing, and his voice will break as he screams for you to come back. You will remember what was done to him, afterwards, when you try to sleep. Then the Star Heart will flicker within you, and you will remember why we all fight the Predark. […] There was, there was not. When the woman we are speaking about came to the camp called Gagarth, she was wearing the necklace named Seseine. Her breast was smeared with saffron, and her hair was garlanded with flowers from her father’s house. Copper anklets were on her feet and fine gems were her bracelets. As I said, she wore the necklace named Seseine. So she was, and she threw herself at the feet of the Nameless Brother. From her came forth a torrent of words: that ever since he had shown her his Storm-Opens-Earth charm, she had been overcome with yearning both day and night— that she had been tricked by false friends into testifying against him before the Law Staff— that she had sent them away, and kept only Little Poison Tongue as her thrall— that she was his thrall by way of enchantment, and that she would be his prize both day and night, if only he would have her. And she brought with her gifts, too: the feast that Little Poison Tongue had prepared, and fine furs stitched into mantles, and a dragon which danced in the winds to be his herald, and the doll named Rush Urn, and five copper boxes, each with their keys. So the Nameless Brother gorged himself upon that feast, and the best of the meat he kept for himself. As he did this, she danced in the center of the camp, and she sang praise to the King of Gagarth, and her feet were bare on the earth. The light that glittered off the necklace named Seseine could be seen in all directions then, and he could see nothing else. So he withdrew into his tent to show her his magic again, to do what they could do with each other. Only, they began as before, with him on top, but when he grew weary, she climbed on top of him. The flowers fell from her hair, which was the curtain of their bed in the camp called Gagarth, and she spoke this spell over him: Before heaven, Before earth, Before the waters, Before the dark, Nothing moved on nothing, Nothing entered into nothing. Before the gods, Before the runes, Before me, Before you, Nothing moved on nothing, Nothing entered into nothing. Look into my hand. What, do you not know that Death is in Life? And he saw that Death was hidden inside of Life, then. And he would have killed her, then, only that the food he had eaten turned into a trick inside him. And he rolled over and voided himself, then. This is called Earth-Smothers-Storm. Then the woman we are speaking about emerged from the tent, and Little Poison Tongue was squatting over the coals. They departed together to the little square house that had been prepared. The Nameless Brother followed after them with a howling gale, only, Great Bubar barred the way and would not let him pass. And in her father’s country, the woman we are speaking about rubbed ocher onto her belly and spoke this spell over it: Before heaven, Before earth, Before the waters, Before the dark, Nothing moved on nothing, Nothing entered into nothing. Before the gods, Before the runes, Before me, Before you, Nothing moved on nothing, Nothing entered into nothing. Look into my hand. What, do you not know that Death is in Life?

I see being oblique has gotten the both of us nowhere; apologies. You say I am repeating something I have said before. I shall say it again. Shall I say it again? Your foundational text for how we are to handle the problem of Thed in Glorantha is 1995's The Book of Drastic Resolutions: Chaos. This zine was comprised of material that did not make it into Avalon Hill's Lords of Terror, as edited and published by Stephen Martin, who was in charge of developing and designing LoT. The Book of Drastic Resolutions: Chaos has not been reprinted, is not available digitally, and the myth you have quoted from it does not appear in 2009's Book of Heortling Mythology or either the first or second edition of King of Sartar, which are still available for purchase and are among the most extensive sources we possess for the corpus of Heortling mythology. In fact, it appears nowhere but The Book of Drastic Resolutions itself, and though it is material that was intended for LoT, that book (which friends tell me is one of the likely origin points for a more monstrous depiction of Thed) is in turn no longer considered canon, either. Now, I happily thumb my nose at the Official RuneQuest Canon, myself, but your origin point for the myth of Thed-Rapes-Orlanth is a zine that is out of print, for a book that is out of print, neither of which can be of any use at all to those who do not have them as they construct their own Gloranthas. (One of the benefits of falling in love with a constructed mythology is that it is easier to source the origin of certain motifs and interpretations.) To incorporate them is a deliberate choice: one of nostalgia, or because you feel that it adds to your Glorantha, or because of the rush of gnosis. But it is still a deliberate choice! Everything that we are doing here is, after all. Because this place called Glorantha always provides room for choice to everyone. We all share several major incidents that create the basis of the world. And you can fill in the gaps with your own pieces of stories. It’s that kind of game. (Again, here, I italicize as literary invocation; I am not yelling at you quite yet.) To prioritize this myth, Thed-Rapes-Orlanth, over what is written elsewhere is a deliberate choice. I am not interested in the reasons for the choice, and shall not openly speculate. But I am interested in the consequences. The myth of Thed is very troubling material, one of the thorny knots sitting at the heart of Glorantha. Our hero-god, our man-god, the thunderer he, our ancestor he, Orlanth he, finds himself trapped between his laws as king and the needs of his people, and his attempt at a solution fails, and the victim becomes a victimizer; a seed of evil grows from that failure, in more ways than one. This myth tells us about how the Heortlings see the world, and allow us to extrapolate into cultural taboos, cultural interpretations, and to wrestle with what is right and what is wrong, and whether the gods themselves can be wrong in their judgment. You know: mythology. Thed-Rapes-Orlanth flattens this into a binary. As you yourself say: Thed is not a victim. She is an evil bitch, a scheming whore, and for attempting to rape someone, her punishment was to be raped in turn. Then she dared to demand recompense for her punishment, and so brought that evil into the world! (Presumably, before this, it was something that could only be done by evil women or heroic bulls.) And that, I think, is perversely comforting; a balm to an inflamed conscience. God is in his heaven. Everything is normal on Earth. Bad things happen to bad people! Orlanth did not fail because he was inadequate; he was the victim of a crisis actor, a professional narcissist, a lying slut. I suspect that whoever authored this myth while writing LoT did not think through the implications. Nevertheless, I wish it had never been written, or had at least been left on the cutting floor as part of the editing process. When I said it was unworthy of us, I meant that it is unworthy of us. As members of the tribe, as storytellers taking our turns before the fire. So I reject it. As a fragment from something that I cannot read and which is not considered part of either Chaosium’s canon or my own, I reject it. As a fact that we must patiently work our way around and through while discussing one of the more complex parts of Heortling myth, I reject it. As the turgid cudgel of Storm Bull, I reject it. Let us find new ways to talk about Ernalda’s daughter, or Eiritha’s daughter, or Genert’s child; Ragnaglar’s victim, Ragnaglar’s abuser; spirit or goddess or ancestor; -2 +3 *; student of Rashorana, murderer of Rashorana, mother of the Devil; submissive to rape, or so we are told, everywhere but where she is allowed to speak to us directly.

An excellent post in total — thank you for the video link, particularly — but this is what sparked the most thought on this end. There is an interesting tension in Gloranthan writing between the idea that it is a world that works as the world of our Bronze Age was believed to work, and the traces laid underneath that suggest otherwise. The tantalizing hints that the Great Darkness was actually a mythologized form of our own Year Without A Summer writ large; that Yelm himself is a composite figure made at the Sunstop in order to further Dara Happa’s imperial ambitions, later stitched into Theyalan mythology; that perhaps the Lightbringer’s Quest did not exist until Harmast laid out the way, quest by quest; that Orlanth himself is nothing more than the stories around Vingkot writ large enough to stretch across the sky, binding lesser gods and traditions to himself as plunder; that everything we have received about the Hero Wars is built upon centuries of mythic accretion, and that we can see that process in real time as the Red Goddess builds herself a pantheon. But I cannot take the final step. I am in love with the numinous; I want to believe that if we try to treat the gods as nothing more than the echoes of human belief, that we shall discover to our dismay that the powers and principalities of the world are not so easily dismissed. It is a mistake to too easily humanize them, but perhaps it is also a mistake to think of them as nothing more than what we have made of them— at least, for as long as we are telling the story. Setting aside, of course, that none of this is real, and that all are mired within māyā— gods, men, spirits, Broo and players alike. I think that the invocation of Hant, Heort and Hara is the best way to open a session of storytelling in this tradition, but we could just as easily use there was, there was not. So, to return to the topic at hand, here we have Thed in all of her masks! Lift the first, and behind it is the question: what was her first myth, the reason that she is remembered by the Heortlings? Lift that, and behind it: is Thed simply a just-so story for the existence of the Broo, one that has had meaning attached to it by other storytellers, given awful life inside the Hero Plane by cultural inertia and expectation, or did the myths emerge from a real root of action? Lift another, and the question emerges: does a genealogical chart tell us anything about the gods outside of what it tells us about the beliefs of the genealogist? And underneath that mask: what did Greg mean when he wrote about Thed, and what figures was he invoking? And underneath that mask: what do we mean when we talk about Thed in the stories that we are telling together, without him to advise us except through what he has left us, and what figures are we invoking? And underneath that mask is watching a friend break down into tears over a professor’s off-color jokes about the Sabine women, unable to stop seeing herself among them. For my own part, at least. (Perhaps I should resurrect the thread I made about Thed a few months back; it appears I still feel very strongly about her.) Guilty as charged. And again, guilty as charged.

Or as much as Heler is a sheep themselves, or Ernalda a sow (or a serpent), or Odayla a bear. And we cannot forget that Orlanth himself has a cat-shadow. What a shameless menagerie! Perhaps what has happened is that these primitive hill barbarians first deified the animals that gave shape to their incurious lives, and only later managed to connect these powers to the Erasanchula. Or perhaps they are atavistic memories of ancient heroes, and it was said of them, “this man, he was like a ram— this woman, she was like a serpent.” But we must not allow that any of these pagan deities have an animal nature in any degree without descent from the appropriate figure, or else the underpinnings of our great genealogy will be undone, and then what of our project and ultimate aim? Then come, let us crown him with horns! Let us commit the beautiful sin of giving him signs and signifiers! I have here a plurality of bodies to pass on to Cwim, too, should we please. Yes, I agree that makes for the most compelling narrative, and would be the way I tell the story. Yet it is not stated definitively, and I cannot state in confidence that no one has ever told it otherwise. It is in the gaps that interpretation blooms. When I spoke with a Helering, they indicated that the gods embraced in giddy joy at being alive, and there is a wonderful secret in that, too. Though what precisely the secret was seems to have slipped my memory; they offered to teach me River-shapes-the-Bed afterwards, and that— well. I would give at least one arm to be able to tell this sort of story. The very thought is like lightning! Alternatively: try asking the Axe Daughter what she believes, and explore from there! The gods are the gods, which as a statement is a shining golden ring. It is a shame that we must approach Glorantha through the medium of text, which implies fixity. If we were more familiar with oral storytelling, and its patterns, perhaps it would be simpler to understand the inconsistencies and ambiguities as intentional, and to appreciate the artistry implicit in how we each tell this set of stories in turn, sharing motifs and names and shapes, each turning it to our own purposes— But I have been reading about the Haida storytellers recently, which colors my thoughts on this myth cycle we share together. Ron Edwards, I believe. A very helpful read when I started exploring my own Thedogony. Not all stories are good; not everything that has been written about Glorantha is worth keeping when we tell it again, tonight and tomorrow and the day after that. This, for example. Oh, it certainly has value as a story that is told about Thed, but it is one that tells us much more about the person who falls over himself to say that Thed deserved everything she got for being an evil scheming whore. To willingly trap yourself inside this story, just because once it was written down in a place that is lost to us now, is unworthy of us. So, no. We do not all know this.

But that’s the thing, right? (Apologies for the tangent in advance.) As far as I can tell in my own studies, the linking of Thed to goats is tautological: the Broo are often caprine, Thed is the Mother of the Broo, Thed is linked to goats. But children have two parents, and Rag’s the one who’s repeatedly called a goat in the Book of Heortling Mythology. (As well as Eurmal, but that’s another digression entirely.) Certainly, she gives birth to the Black Goat, but Wakboth had two parents, too (insofar as something like him can have anything). Similarly, in the same source it is at one point said that Ragnaglar “raped one of Ernalda’s daughters,” then came back to claim Thed; the language is ambiguous as to whether this was Thed, so let us take it or leave it as it lies. This leaves Thed herself as a lacuna: born of a game about spirits, incorporated into the death of the world to be reborn, and a struggling single mother these days, to boot. For if she is not the goat goddess, what else are we to do with her, standing accusatory before Orlanth’s throne? Crimes against the sacrosanct, perhaps. To circle back around to the serious: wherever she has come from, and wherever she is going, it cannot be denied that a familial tie to Ernalda, in some degree, accentuates the familial drama of the Storm Age, and casts Ragnaglar and Thed as the shadows of Orlanth and Ernalda, showing us what our Great Gods are not. For Orlanth knows that real men take no for an answer, and Ernalda loves her children, and they held each other’s hands, not in the formal manner by the wrists, but instead holding in what we call the two grip, that’s used in flirting.

It makes thematic sense for her to be a relative of Ernalda; Ragnaglar and Thed show us what the marriage of Orlanth and Ernalda is not. But take what I say with a grain of salt; I speak the gospel of “Thed was a grain goddess once, and Raggy’s the one with all the goat associations.”

If you’re drawing from the Rig Veda, Dyaus Piter is closer to Umath, friend. He is more a force of nature than a personified god, and his importance largely comes from his progeny. Notably, he is the father of Indra: storm god, bearer of the vajra, king of heaven, and master of the cattle raid. There’s a reason people keep saying “yeah, Orlanth takes a lot of cues from Indra.” I find that the central question of Egyptian mythology, broadly, is “who is to rule?” It is interested both in the role of the sacred king and the struggles for the throne. Is it moral to depose a king whose senility is inviting disaster, particularly for your own gain? Is it right to unleash a punishment that you yourself struggle to control onto disrespectful and impious subjects? Do we follow a usurper who claims he is overthrowing his brother’s illegitimate dynasty, or an unproven boy born of a dead king? (Lhankor Mhy is enriched when you notice his parallels with Thoth, whose cleverness and skill are heroic despite never being martial or even the protagonist. And Babeester Gor drinks wine and blood and is the punishment of the gods against a world that has failed them, much like Sekhmet.) Unrelated to the above: I have found paths to Chalana Arroy and the Lunar Way through the contemplation of Guanyin.

Set does have some interesting parallels to Orlanth, particularly when understood holistically. He was the god of the Red Land, after all— the desert, contrasted against the fertile Black Land of the Nile Delta. I wonder if Dara Happans might think of Orlanth as the God of the High Mountains. He was also the god of foreigners, that is, people who were not from the Black Land, the rich river delta, the heart of civilization. However, while Set did dismember his brother Osiris and scatter those parts, his most important role was as Ra’s defender in the Underworld each night. The one time he did not join the honor guard, the (Chaotic) serpent Apep devoured the sun, and only Set was able to cut the sun out of Apep’s belly. While this protective role is likely assigned to Shargash in traditional Yelm-worship, one might see the seed of an interesting hill country heresy here. Yes, he is a usurper whose illegitimate attempt to seize power must be opposed, but he is also a necessary counterbalance against the forces which wish to destroy the world completely…

Until the Boldhome book drops, your best bet is probably cracking open King of Sartar, which contains a pre-Rise description of the city.

Logically, I figured out that this meant having the khans working together to call up Waha, but in my heart, I’m still envisioning Pavis fighting half a dozen Wahas off like Gustav Vigeland’s “Man Attacked By Babies.” Edit: the Inverse Waha Law states that the threat level of Wahas is inversely proportionate to their numbers…

The first step is to walk like Waha until Waha walks like you, is it not? (The second step is to be in concord that, yes, kicking ass and taking names is one of Waha’s dance steps.) Looked at another way, one of the prices of being Waha is the risk of being Waha. It’s not just you that the half-elf is mending, not the way that the story will remember it.

I’m glad you agree. I personally am fine with presenting Elmal as having “bled out his heat” while defending the last people; the archetype, and the twist on Yelmalio it represents, is more important than the fire. The secret of being the GM is that you absolutely do get to RP this, just through the lens of the Glorantha that you present to the players. Your take on Sartarite sun-worship might matter immensely to the tale you choose to tell. (According to the now non-canon Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes, Elmali can only be men, though women can worship him through Redaylda. I think there’s space to explore Heortling gender roles there. To stand guard is an inherently Air-gendered action; to care for the horses, Earth-gendered.) The Yelmalio image I keep circling back to in my own writing is the idea of Yelmalio tearing his red cloak into strips atop the Hill of Gold to use as fuel for a watch fire. That’s sacrificial imagery I’d use for Yelmalions: give up whatever it takes to carry out your duty.

IMG, you might be a Yelmalion if: - you’re from the western lowlands, the cities, and especially from among the Alda-churi - you think the important thing about Many Suns is One Sun - you are awed by the wealth of the Sun Dome and the way its masters can focus on higher matters while their thralls deal with the constant labor of food production and lifestyle maintenance - you know that the Sun Dome Sun does not fuck, and it’s probably women’s fault for preferring bad boys - you know that horses are a solar animal, but your place is with your feet planted on the earth, which you have been given dominion over - you know that you are the future, the sun ascendant, an invincible phalanx of pikes working in unison, a hierarchy which leaves no room for tumult or doubt - you think of yourself as a soldier and define yourself by duty to that role Conversely, you might be an Elmali if: - you’re from the mountain clans or from the eastern horse clans - you think the important thing about One Sun is Many Suns - you think that the Sun Rider is a practical god who expects you to put in a hard day’s work and who treasures gifts and honors over baroque iconography and hoarded wealth - you know that the Sun Rider definitely fucks, and will happily talk about Elmal, Redaylda and Vinga taking comfort in each other during their long vigil in the Great Darkness (once the children have gone to bed, mind you) - you know that the Sun Rider rides a damn horse (in more ways than one) - you know that you are a defender of tradition, of your people, of the hope that even enemies can reconcile, and that like the Sun Rider you will refuse to turn your face away from what you know is right - you think of yourself as a watchman and define yourself by duty to your people It’s a High Church / Low Church split. The Yelmalions have the wealth, the glamour, the soldier’s credo, and the theocratic state bordering Sartar; the Elmali have tradition, stubbornness, deep roots in more rural communities, and an equestrian tradition. During the Lunar Occupation, the Yelmalion (day)star is on the rise, and the Sun Dome’s leadership is investing heavily in the belief that they are the future of the region. Afterwards, there will be an Elmali resurgence in Sartar, the Sun Dome will be scrambling to pivot to the changing power structures in the region, and the future is unwritten. Of course, this is all a product of my own biases when approaching Glorantha: a lack of nostalgia for the classic Prax materials, interest in loyalist Sartarite play, interest in presenting a religious schism, a view of the Yelmalions of Sartar’s Sun Dome as a largely unsympathetic faction with multiple antagonist flags (fighting against a dynasty that helped establish their power in the region within living memory, a brutal faith-justified thrall plantation system, the establishing of a temple-based identity for adherents over clan and tribal concerns, and an undercurrent of misogyny pitted against traditional Ernalda worship), and the gut feeling that Elmali valuing traditional faith to the Loyal Thane are compelling character archetypes for clan-based games - and so shouldn’t be told “your faith is strictly, theologically, factually inferior to the Yelmalio cult.” Cast them as underdogs, but without making players feel like they’re idiots for chasing the archetype.

It could be a matter of more mundane politics: enemies of whoever benefits from the ritual, seeing an opportunity to deny their opponents the blessing of the Good Green Earth. And yes, of course, they’ll do their best not to offend Ernalda herself, perhaps even going so far as to don straw coats and wooden masks: after all, everyone knows that Chaos or the Undead might oppose Ernalda, and that scapegoat identity can be shucked after the ritual is disrupted. Some ritual purification, and surely Ernalda would never connect them to that unfortunate business…

A couple of tweaks that might make the issue more palatable (likely not for OP, but for those reading who are convinced of OP’s position and are willing to embrace heretical strains of YGWV): Emphasize the melting pot of the Lunar Provinces. (The Imther book does an amazing job of this.) Make them a fluid frontier land where storm and sun meet in myriad forms, which have been under Dara Happan control at various times, and imply that eastern Fronela is similar. Heck, sprinkle in a few lands which have been dominated by Dara Happa for ages. You can even change the character of the Lunar Provinces completely, making them a primarily Solar region; Tarsh is the major one that I would argue absolutely must stay primarily Orlanthi prior to its Lunar conquest for the Dragon Pass conflict to maintain its unique character. Play up the glory of the Tripolis, which once comprised the three greatest cities in the world, shining metropolises whose relevance is only now beginning to wane in comparison to Glamour and Nochet. Speak of Alkoth in hushed tones: the city of the dead, the city of the invincible phalanx, the city never overcome at its own walls. Sing of the glories of Raibanth, seat of the Emperors, and how the victorious Carmanians thought they had entered paradise when they beheld its splendor. Whisper of the high towers of Yuthuppa, only recently outmatched by the Lunar Road, and the depths of its archives, and the secrets it has kept for three ages of the world. The Dara Happans are the city-builders, and even their ruins are grand. For the love of Orlanth, treat the Argrathsaga as a vision of things that may yet come to pass, fearful prophecy and prediction, to be changed in the warp and weft of the Hero Wars. Question the destiny of Argrath White Bull, the fate of Jar-Eel the Razoress, and the Doom of Glorantha. (This is easier now, when the long-awaited Boldhome Campaign is still long-awaited, but I think it’s still vital for contemporary Gloranthan play. Trying to stick to a deliberately confused and subjective “future timeline” is a recipe for disaster, but it’s a great cauldron of inspiration.) Imply that the “Orlanthi” cultures, particularly in the west, have grown far strange from what Dragon Pass would recognize. Let a hundred flowers blossom! The solar-influenced Imtheri are just scratching the surface; the Raliosi may still worship the Darkness far more directly, and the West in general is defined by the interplay of Malkionism and theism. Or just insert a period between the fall of the EWF and the Dragonkill War where the victorious Dara Happans seized control of Dragon Pass, which gives them a historical casus belli for invading Sartar in the Third Age.

Whoever said it was giant? Perhaps the Goddess is just very good at balancing (yet another Lunar miracle!). (I checked Lives, and I’d forgotten the hummingbird souls and the butterfly spirits, but the size of the hummingbird is never specified.)

The Three-and-One Path: A horde of Broo has swept out of Dorastor into Tarsh, where they have... encamped? The Seven Mothers cult is overjoyed to see that Ralzakark the Broo King has come to challenge the King of Tarsh to a series of magically potent contests, clearly proof of how the Lunar Way is saving these poor, benighted creatures. What could be better than a few games between Imperial allies? Except, concerningly, Broo emissaries are also being sent to the Feathered Horse Queen. Except, concerningly, the Broo seem to be praying and offering up sacrifices to Ralzakark's victory. Except, concerningly, you know the story of How Orlanth Married Ernalda just as well as the Lord of Dorastor does. Ralzakark is walking the Hero Path, and while his motives might be benign - for he claims privately that this is the only way to begin to break the curses that lie upon the Broo, to gain the blessing of the Earth from Sor-ann-Ator - the risk of the Nameless Brother being conflated with mighty Orlanth in a kingdom-sized Hero Quest is too great. All of Kerofinela might be as cursed and blasted as Dorastor if he is victorious (at least, according to the clan shamans). So go and stop him from losing the Three Contests and winning the Last, or one of the Chaos Tribe might yet become... King of Dragon Pass! That way lies a path into the mysteries of the Three Bean Circus. This suggests terrible things about the tribes of Imther. Who knows what horrors lurk inside those cheeses? (I will admit that the Death of Rashoran is something I have not yet integrated into this myth structure, except in the sense that the Trio are all Occluded; behold the barren, hedonistic nihilism of the Nameless Brother and the Lost Daughter's embrace of Chaos to achieve her ends, no matter the price. I know the secret that That One discovered at the bottom of the pit: it is named I Deserve This, and This Makes Me More Of A Man, and Storm-Opens-Earth.) This is, I suppose, another way to collapse the uncomfortable waveform: to double down on She Deserved It, to introduce more punitive sexual humiliation through violence into the myth cycle (at the hooves of Storm Bull, a player-available deity, rather than by the god who saw the secret of sex-is-power at the bottom of the pit), to embrace the myth of How Uz Make Drums, and to implicitly approve of it all. Perhaps this is a variant from Saird, which has had some cultural cross-pollination with Dara Happa up the river, which understands well how the weakness of women facilitated the existence of evil. (And, yes, at the Watsonian level, Thed has the Spirit Rune in Baseline Glorantha because she was flayed by Kyger Litor; I admitted as such. At the Doylist level, is there a compelling argument for keeping that association, if one is willing to view Glorantha as an invitation to engage in mythopoeia alongside Stafford? I doubt she has often been used as a shamanic antagonist. What does Thed-as-Spirit say as part of the narrative, and is what it says worth carrying forward at my table? I think there's something interesting to her being defeated at the hands of Kyger Litor, and what that might say about trolls and women, but the Crimson Bat was flayed, too; before then it was the Bat-with-its-Skin.)