Tatterdemalion Fox

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.)

The first station is the fall from a great height; all the better if you can be pushed. You will not land on your feet; this is a failure of being not-Alynx. The second station is being licked back to life by Yinkin, him and all his children, just as he saved Orlanth. The chill of the grave is the chill of the frost, and his warm tongue may be a salve to both. The third station is to return to the ordinary life that you once identified as yours. You must destroy as much of it as your clan will let you get away with. This is not who I am, your Alynx-soul howls. I am outside your roles and rites, I am Yinkin’s child. Then all will know you for who you are and who you are not; you will be the cat-who-is-woman, and the cats will recognize you as family. (Source: Burton, Tim; The Crimson Bat Returns, 1992.)

Downplaying the severity of her defeat at the hands of Kyger Litor was a deliberate choice, yeah. I envision her serving three real functions in contemporary Glorantha: - Being a HeroQuest hazard that occasionally wanders into your myth, like meeting Black Arkat’s wardens or Maran Gor dancing with her children. (And the risk of meeting her rises sharply if you’re trying to deal with Broos through mystic means, though maybe a fast-talking servant of Issaries might be able to convince her that their priorities are aligned re: screwing over the Broos.) - A just-so story about why those awful Broos are the way they are, and a central antagonistic figure in their own initiation rites. (Every young Broo has to try to convince Mom to accept them, and not a one ever has. But what if one managed? Maybe there are Broo Heroes who have the legendary Make Peace Gift or the Eat Bread Gift.) - An explanation for a rash of ill luck among a clan. Maybe one of Thed’s evil glances fell our way! Time to break out the marred eye talismans and wave the horns until the shaman thinks she’s been driven off, just like you do when you think Mallia’s been sharing her gifts.

A few weeks ago, I was participating in a Glorantha discussion on RPG.net, and the topic briefly turned to how to handle Broo in games. I tossed out four paragraphs of an alternate take on Thed (and, thus, the Broo) that happened to strike me as an exercise in YGWV. But Thed refused to let me go, and I’ve been rolling the imagery and implications around in my head since. So I share it here. […] - A mosaic in honor of one of the Grain Goddesses. She holds a sheaf of wheat with impossibly bright purple heads, constructed from chips of amethyst. Her hair is dark and straight, her neck is hidden by copper rings, her smile is regal and haughty, and she has a cow’s tufted tail. The Queen of Heaven holds a circlet of copper above her head, and a smiling white-haired woman holds the train of her dress. At her feet, silver flowers bloom, each one delicate and eight-blossomed. Her free hand makes a mudra of benediction. On either side, the other Grain Goddesses show her honor by lifting their own sheaves to her. The people who made this died long before Time began, and its secrets are lost. - A charcoal sketch, done as a character study by a thoughtful scribe. The foreground figure is a barefoot woman, her feet and hem caked in bloody mud. Charms and trinkets dangle from her bruised wrists and her tufted tail. Her dark hair hangs limply on her shoulders. Her eyes have been deliberately scuffed out by the artist, creating the illusion of holes dug in yielding earth. She clutches a swaddled child to her chest, fingers cruelly digging into the cloth. One small, chubby, six-fingered hand pokes out of the wrapping, already sporting a fine coat of fur. Behind her are shadowy onlookers, and the distinctive form of an Alynx. Scrawled underneath: “His head, Thunderer. Your brother’s head is my weregild.” The familiarity with Sartarite depictions combined with a shocking willingness to portray the taboo suggests the artist was a Lunar-educated scribe from Dragon Pass. - A sacrificial tapestry unearthed from the bogs north of Runegate. Earth Witch sits enthroned in the center, wearing her neglected robes and her enveloping headdress of bones and horns; her dark hair is long and unkempt, and her tufted tail coils in her lap. She makes a mudra of malediction with one hand, invoked against the bestial Broos which throng on the margins of the scene, begging for her blessings. Behind her stands a horned silhouette, which the artist has refused to detail; it rests one wrongly-shaped hand on her shoulder. “WE ARE NOT YOUR CHILDREN, BROOMOTHER,” is woven beneath her feet. “TURN YOUR DOOMS AWAY FROM US.” Witch Eyes, ritually gouged, peer out all along the border, entwined within the purple briars. […] The Runes of Thed Broomother are Earth, Life and Chaos. Her grain is lost, for it withered into briars and weeds under the weight of her curses. She hates her children as much as they yearn for her, and she levied the Three Dooms of Thed against them: to gain no sustenance from the good earth, to know no marriage but with beasts, and to know no peace with the world. This is why they make crops wilt and the earth barren, making no buildings and no good crafts. (Their father showed them how to eat meat and flay skin.) This is why they do unspeakable things with the beasts of the field. (Their father gifted them his insatiable hungers.) This is why they honor no peace. (Their father taught them: violence is always right.) These Dooms she sealed with the name that was before names, the dark before the dark; the name swelled fruitful within her, and Mallia lifted her legs again to ease the passage, as she did with the Broos. (This is why they revere the Midwife and her gifts, especially White Death-of-Pain.) Thed’s Last Child, whose name is an unclean thing, was the price of her vengeance and its instrument. Meeting Thed in the Godtime is very perilous. She does not recognize those who interrupt her mourning as anything but her faithless and hateful peers, and she has nothing to offer but curses for them. It would be better for you to die than to bring her curses back to your clan, for they are tainted by Chaos. Pregnant women, proud and bright-eyed men, and new parents are particularly at risk. The magic of the Mother of Trolls can overcome her, for they fought in the Greater Darkness, and there Thed was chastened. But among the Orlanthi, the ways of Wise Grandmother Serdrodosa are the surest defense against Earth Witch. Serdrodosa was Thed’s handmaiden and teacher until Thed dismissed her at the advice of envious Mallia. Wise Grandmother never taught another student everything she knew, but she still teaches wise women how to trick Thed, how to make good things out of bad, how to fight Mallia, how to speak to sleeping Ernalda, and how to find that which is lost. Thed is gaunt, and her arms are covered in bruises and open sores. You will know her by her lament, which blights the earth and births thorns and choking weeds. You will know her by her heavy crown of broken goat horns, and by her lashing tufted tail. You will know her by her hidden face, shadowed by her lank hair and her veil of bones. You will know her by the flash of fire in her eyes, only visible for a moment, when she levies doom upon those unfortunate enough to cross her path. For this reason, the Eye of Thed is a terrible symbol, and you must deface it wherever you find it, and if someone curses you with her eye, you must make the sign of Storm Bull’s horns— or, better, wear a horn charm against your skin. […] Influences: - Arianrhod (gives birth to unwanted children, lays three terrible dooms on them that systematically remove any chance at a normal life, and is treated badly by the protagonists) - Lilith (punished for refusing sex, becomes a wicked thing known to prey on newborn children, and is known as a symbol of dangerous women) - The Evil Eye (supernatural malevolence passed on through the eye, which is warded away by apotropaic talismans and gestures, particularly the corna; turned on its side, a yonic symbol) - Maleficent (“Serdrodosa and the Spindle, or, She is not Dead but Sleeping”) - Mara, from the Belgariad (famous for dangerous, explosive lamentation and sorrow, which makes her very perilous to meet, as interruption makes her prone to lashing out) - Orlanthi stereotypes about Women (cold, scheming, spiritually potent, holds a grudge forever) - Ernalda (or, rather, what Ernalda could be if she grew to hate mankind, and withdrew all of her treasures from their care; they would be like wild Broo, nothing more) Why is she missing the Spirit Rune? Because I think she’s more interesting as a dark Earth archetype, a figure of twisted fertility, capable of withholding all of the things that make life good (and, in the process, demonstrating the power and importance of Ernalda), and this whole thing started with “what if she was a Grain Goddess, and now because of Ragnaglar her grain is lost?” She’s still got some shamanistic ties, though, especially in her rivalry with Serdrodosa. Note that I have glossed over Kyger Litor’s Flaying of Thed, which was originally used to explain why she was a Spirit; I felt it was important to keep that victory for Trollmomma, but the imagery of Thed’s debased earthly physicality is too dear to me now. Wait, isn’t Serdrodosa the Earth Witch? Well, yes, canonically Serdrodosa is the Earth Witch who taught folks how to worship Ernalda in the Great Darkness and helped Eiritha give birth in the Paps. I realized this at the eleventh hour, but I think I was able to build on that realization; I like the title far too much for this version of Thed to take it back from her. Besides, I like the implicit clan dynamic of “OUR brave and clever wise woman who keeps babies safe, THEIR chaos-dabbling witch who probably made our cows dry up.” My brother has instead suggested naming Thed the Briar Witch to avoid the issue entirely, a suggestion which I’m still considering. Doesn’t she get back with Ragnaglar? If she did, only as part of a ritual to birth the Devil— you should be thinking of Morgause seducing Arthur in order to birth Mordred (who is tainted by the circumstances of his birth and grows to destroy his father). But it’s entirely possible that Raggy is just “the father of the Devil” in that he was the one who caused Thed’s descent into invoking Chaos. Why change Thed at all? Because she’s a vital part of the Orlanthi concept of how evil was released into the cosmos, and Nick Brooke’s pointed out how her story may shed light on Argrath White Bull, and from a literary standpoint Greg was doing interesting things with the prevalence of sexual assault in mythology— but the thought of telling my friends at the gaming table a story about a sexual assault victim who gets back with her abuser, “willingly submits” to further abuse, and then gets flayed alive as comeuppance makes my stomach turn. On top of that, the only way to make her relevant in play is through the Broo themselves, because she’s an otherwise powerless spirit, and changing the Broo to the No Earth People was another one of my design goals (highlighting the importance of the Earth Pantheon in the process). […] I’d love feedback, sure, but since this is a forum, I’d also love to hear how you’ve handled Thed in your games. Was I wrong about her limited applications? Has she contributed to memorable stories at your table? Have you remixed her in different ways?

Ever seen Doctor Who? The Doctor lives, the Doctor dies, the Doctor lives again, he's the same person with the same memories but he's got a different appearance and a different personality each time. Sometimes, his next appearance even shows up beforehand: Colin Baker made an appearance in the show before he became the Sixth Doctor, and so did Peter Capaldi with the Twelfth. Now, if the Doctor died, and for a while there was a race between companions to see who would be the next Doctor, and then one succeeded and the mantle of the Doctor descended upon them, making them the core of the next Doctor, well, then it'd be just like the Red Emperor, wouldn't it?