Techpriest

Honestly the source is more flavoring and what powers you have immediate access to. There’s many ways to be Illuminated and many who are Illuminated may not fully realize it, or the implications. A Storm Bull for instance who became Illuminated will no longer fear Chaos after a particularly sanity warping encounter or a Heroquest gone wrong, or lessons from a monk from the east. They might not realize they’re illuminated at first, but may figure it out later and seek out more knowledge. How they’re illuminated matters less than now being illuminated. Not all illuminates will react the same way or possess all the same abilities from the start. Think of Illumination as being able to see that the world isn’t as it seems. This knowledge can and does break people. You’re placed now on a path that has many twists and turns and crossroads to it, that others Illuminated before have walked. Some paths are clearer than others - Nysalorian Riddles, Draconic Mysticism, the Solar Monks of Dayzatar, Arkati Lessons, and God-Learner Academics - but your new Illuminate doesn’t need to conform to those at all to use or grow their abilities. Some paths give immediate revelations, like those following Arkat probably learning how to ignore cult restrictions, while others may take time for them (I doubt the Nysalorian Riddles immediately allows someone to spread more riddles without further study). Sure, in your Glorantha there can be different schools and specializations of Illumination which are mutually exclusive, but in general they’re all walking in the same direction. Illumination is a spectrum more than a single flaw. Some schools are going to have world views that make some illumination abilities just not viable to them or just never considered. Imagine if you will, a school of Illuminated Humakti. That school may provide a very limited way of looking at illumination but a very interesting one. Life and Death are not to them, absolutes, but part of a greater cycle. To understand Humakt, they must embrace Life, live it, enjoy it within his restrictions, and welcome Death when it comes. They gain the ability to embrace runic opposites, and specialize in this. It’s the only special power outside of removing that automatic fear of Chaos. They can teach this illumination to others - but only the master of this small sect of strange people from Ralios or perhaps Teshnos can do it. Otherwise, they’re all normal Humakti. Maybe when one of them starts wandering out of that sect they start finding out they have the ability to sense other Illuminates by pure chance. Maybe not. This is to me what makes Illumination a fun tool as a game master. Handle it how you want.

Even if they’re misleading and not fully correct they’re useful for play as it can show a viewpoint inside Glorantha and how that might end up working - the Kargzant and Antirius cults certainly have no love for one another and this document gives reasons why. It’s a great window into how Dara Happa sees the world, like how the Entekosiad is a great way to see the world of the Lunar Heartlands before the Red Goddess. There’s a lot you can do with this information and use in your game for inspiration for other documents and other works in Glorantha. You just have to keep in mind that a) it isn’t completely canonical and b) you need to keep the context of who wrote it and why it was written in mind. Herodotus for example, was openly saying much of his information from outside the Greek world is coming from second hand sources and he’s telling the best stories he’s heard most of the time even when he doesn’t think it’s true. These texts are not to mislead and distract you, they’re extra material that can be useful but is both not mandatory and not always correct about everything it talks about.

That's a whole different kettle of fish than this and completely out of the scope of this. I'm going to tackle that at some point, but Entekos is not an earth goddess like the other three, not even remotely close. In Carmania she's highly associated with Dendera, but they are not the same Goddess. Entekos is the goddess of the calm air, her runes are Air and Harmony. Dendara/Ernalda/La-Ungariant are all firmly Earth Goddesses, with runes of Earth. Regarding Yelmalio, I've put the links up where, by the statements of writers, of Jeff, of Greg, that yes, they're the same god, yes, it's different names, this is exactly how it works, that they're the same, that the GRoY is not some definitive text that explains everything.

My best guess for a cult of Yelmalio in Teshnos is as a cult that interacts mostly with the Elves. Yellow elves are associated with Yelmalio by the god learners and their only real population in Genertela is in Teshnos, where they're relatively a more common sight among the people. Somash as Yelmalio is possible, and wouldn't shock me, but he's more related to Yelm for sure. It'd be a minor cult and if the rest of the Solar pantheon is there (We have Dayzatar, Yelm, Shargash, the Lowfires and Lodril) probably unimportant and small compared to them. Still, if you argue as some do that Metsyla is a cult to Yelmalio, it might be that cult inside Teshnos. There's plenty to speculate on, but not much concrete information. Where are you even getting the Srvuali dieties bit? What other sources are there for the Horsefriend Sun? You're making the same mistake I talked about earlier in taking GRoY as completely without bias or an agenda. The 'Bridling' as a concept comes as far as I can tell, entirely from GRoY. Let me bring this up here. Sounds good right? Well, there's some problems. Because nowhere else do we see the "Oh he's regulated now." The other issue? This is at least 70+ years after the Dawn. So what to make of this? That somehow, Plentonius found a truth that everyone else in Glorantha has tossed out? That some star was wandering around then suddenly straightened out and nobody else mentioned it? Or that this "Bridling" is not what it seems? Here's my theory. This is the account of a Heroquest, specifically, the Hill of Gold. They failed. They ended up unable to stand against Orlanth on the hill, and in that defeat, lost magical strength against them. Plentonius is recounting, quite accurately, this early heroquest worship, and the consequences that happened. If you're talking about the event in 111 ST... So what's the context here? It's immediately after the death of Emperor Huradabba. It's at this time that Avivath stepped forward, as a high priest of Antirius (practically his avatar). Avivath used a Sunspear to kill Huradabba, proof of his connection to Yelm. Again, quoting: Reading between the lines, the Tower is the Sunspear - it's the first time someone from Dara Happa who isn't one of the Pure Horse People or the Horse Lords has done it. This starts the Anarchy Year. Back to what I quoted earlier. So, assassination, all that chaos, but hey, our god is back! We're about to have an Emperor properly again (they don't get that yet), yay! But what about this footnote? It tells us that everything here, about Antirius taming Kargzant and eclipsing him and riding him, all that, that's all either metaphor, or perspective. So Antirius replaced Kargzant? Then who was the sun BEFORE Yelm's return? Remember, this is after the Dawn and in Time, the Compromise is in effect! Replacing the Sun would be a big deal, everyone would notice. We don't have anything in any other vaguely authoritative source like the Guide about this. The reason for this all being in Plentonius, from the talk about Kargzant and about the Orlanthi Elmal, is to draw a line in the sand, a big circle around Dara Happa, where we have a splendid new Emperor who is the true heir of Yelm protected by the patron of emperors Yelmalio, and everyone else is a barbarian savage who don't understand the glory of the Sun which hadn't risen until the Emperor came back (Please ignore that it had risen and set for two centuries at this point, please ignore that nothing really changed in the sky, please ignore the horse lords talking to Yelm before we did). It's all there, and it's all pretty obviously stated. Lightfore = Yelmalio = Elmal = Antirius = Kargzant. This has been repeatedly stated by Greg and Jeff, again and again across the Well, across here, all that. Does this mean there are no other little suns? Of course not, it's just that they're all dead, like Yamsur, fallen in the Darkness. They don't have worshipers anymore. Yelmalio, the survivor, is the one worshiped because not only did he survive, he traveled, he made friends and allies, protected various peoples, and kept others alive. The 'Synthesis' is the same thing and same reason there's an Orlanth cult in the first place. It's people starting to piece together the deity's deeds. It's all right there, obviously stated, and yet people just keep insisting that this isn't the case.

Read the timeline. We don’t see Antirius again until well after the Dawn, with the start of trouble inside of the realm of the horse lords. So either Antirius somehow broke the compromise to bring back Yelm and replaced Kargzant, or there’s holes in the story here as presented in GRAY of Kargzant and Antirius as different beings. To the Dara Happan mindset, Yelm and Yelmalio (Antirius) are close to one another, you cannot have one without the other and you cannot honor Antirius without also honoring Yelm, as he’s the first heir of Yelm who established the succession. Antirius is the protector and patron of Emperors. So, if you’re saying the Emperor’s before are illegitimate, you’re also running into the quandary that they did the right things to become Emperor. Antirius gave the thumbs up. However, admitting this is unacceptable politically. Would you want to say that your chief god (Yelm) was properly contacted by the people you just overthrew and their emperors had legitimate claims through the rites to become Emperor? No! You’d downplay that and claim that they’re different and illegitimate rites. They were given by different gods! Totally! Funnily enough this makes the answer simple. “No, our Cold Sun is different. I refuse to elaborate further. I have already depicted you and the god of the Horse Lords, as the crying soyjack, and our Cold Sun and our Emperor as the Chad.” We see this all the time in real world mythology and storytelling, and in how scribes talk when justifying the violent overthrow of previous kings.

No, you’re still not getting it. The source is great, it’s full of tons of information, but taking it at face value is entirely the wrong way to look at it. You need to look at the context. This isn’t an authoritative outside voice talking here, this is an in universe, in Glorantha text. Perspective matters. When Greg was writing both the Entekosiad and the GRAY he was writing them from the perspectives of people in Glorantha. The GRAY is the text of a scribe of a new regime compiling mythology and doing so to justify the new regime, claiming for instance the return of Yelm came with the new emperor, not with the Dawn.

You're missing the point I'm making, which is that a) The Glorious Re-Ascent is the perspective of Dara Happa, and written soon after the ascent of Khordavu. This whole text is written from the Dara Happan perspective. b) These differences of perspective create different cults and cultic interpretations As for the Entekosiad, it is the Carmanian tradition. The Story of Lendarsh is, and I quote: This is the Carmanian claim on their lands and on their place in the world. It must be viewed as such, just like the GLorious Re-Ascent must be viewed as the Foundation of Dara Happa, not the absolute truth of everything. For further examples here right out of Jeff's mouth... here, here, and here. I suspect it won't

The mythological stories that pit them as enemies happen to occur in time. Let's get the timeline out. I'm using the Guide and the Glorious Re-Ascent of Yelm. >Antirius makes Emperors of Dara Happa >Antirius 'dies' >Shargash takes over, end of emperors of Dara Happa >Kargzant fights Shargash >Kargzant 'dies(?)' as does Shargash >Yelm comes back to life (Time Starts, Grey Age before the Dawn), Shargash and Kargzant return >Kargzant takes the people of Jenarong descended from the Starlight People and leads them back to Dara Happa >Kargzant's champion, Jenarong becomes is able to become the Emperor using the same Ten Tests of Antirius, takes over Dara Happa. >The Dawn >'The Bridling', which reads more like a failed hero quest than anything else >Antirius returns and replaces Kargzant, roughly 100 years after the dawn(*). This is the FIRST TIME Antirius is mentioned as hostile to Kargzant or replacing him, the first time he's active after the dawn >Another hundred years of anarchy finally culminating in the rise of Khordavu as he overthrows the Horse Lords after the battle of Argentium Thri'ile Kargzant never appears mentioned as a mythical enemy of Antirius during the God Time. He's called a rebel god exactly once, yes, but keep all this in mind: The Glorious Re-Ascent is also as much a political account as it is a historical and mythical one. It's a justification of the right of Emperor Khordavu to rule over Dara Happa, portraying him as the True Heir of Yelm through the actions of Antirius and of Yelm, calling the Horse Lords illegitimate (despite following the same path to Emperorship) and declaring them awful evil people, and so on. There's plenty of reasons for them to go and say "No, we're totally not following the same god, our god is better and took over their gods place!" *I want to note the Guide and the Glorious Re-Ascent differ in the dates by about 9 years or so for certain events, could be because Greg hadn't hammered down completely the timeline yet/editing.

Are they mythological enemies, or are their cults enemies due to history? The Cold Sun was worshiped one way by the people of Dara Happa. He's worshiped another way by the people who would become the Pentans. The future Pentans were able to use their horse magic and connection to Yu-Kargzant (Yelm) through the teachings of Kargzant to take the cities of Dara Happa over in the Grey Age, returning to where they'd first come from. Through Antirius, the Dara Happans were able to finally reach Yelm (Yu-Kargzant) themselves and rebel properly. They both took the same path to Yelm, through Kargzant/Antirius. Kargzant is Antirius is Elmal is Yelmalio. They all share a mythological context, they all share aspects, they all have different stories from different people across Genertela because that's how they experienced him. The Heortlings experienced him as a protector and a friend of Orlanth, the Sairdites as a guardian protector, the Elves as the last light who fought against the darkness and Chaos alongside the High King Elf, the Pentans as the one who guided them to where they came first from and taught them and protected them, the Dara Happans as an emperor who protected them and taught them how to live. That's all common experiences. The details of the stories of the cults, how they view this god and interact with him are different. But they're the same deity - otherwise, how was Montrogh able to walk the path as an Elmali that the Yelmalio follower did, or the Antirius follower? If they're different, then they're so close that the difference doesn't matter. It's the same with Orlanth. How a member of the Adventurous subcult interacts with Orlanth is different from that of Thunderous subcult members. Over time, the two cults have come together to give a more balanced understanding of Orlanth in central Genertela. Meanwhile, the cults of the Cold Sun has always been more scattered and less common - he's not a major god. It's scattered over a wide area of Genertela with geographic barriers, distance, and very different cultures following him. He's only the primary god of one of them. The rest? He's associated with other figures in other ways.

You're getting caught up in the 'The Cult is the God' idea and fallacy here. Consider this. Orlanth has two cults. Orlanth is worshiped as the great Storm God who brings wrath to his enemies and is the hero of stories and legends who strikes down his foes with lightning and gathers many weapons in his travels. That's Orlanth Adventurous. Plenty of cultures have this cult. This cult concretely gives magic we can see, and his followers value martial ability and the sword, and it is a warrior's cult. There is also the Orlanth that is the god of rains and thunder, the Stormbringer, the one who nurtures the crops and the earth, blesses harvests and the great bounty of the earth, loves the Earth Goddesses deeply and is master of the winds. That's Orlanth Thunderous. His cult values oration, dance, singing, and is not what most would consider a warrior cult. But both cults are worshiping the same god. What your logic here is says that Orlanth is not one deity, because we know that one of these cults is often found in places the other isn't. There is no one Orlanth, but a bunch of smaller Orlanths who are related deities but not the same. This is not the case. This has been stated plenty of times by Jeff in the well. Cults change over time. They might have been worshiped as not the same, had different names sometimes, different cults and traditions, sometimes considered by outsiders to be different deities even, or reject the other cult. They still worship the same god. This also gets into the thorny issue of 'Sub Cults'. Once you get enough worshipers in distinct enough locations, you get different names, traditions, cult rituals, prayers, magic, etc. etc. These are subcults. All cults start as these cults, then absorb other aspects and associated worship. For game purposes, and categorization, we get a 'main' cult, and sub cults for most dieties, but Orlanth's cult is more thematic in universe as an example of what I'm saying. Adventurous is a Subcult. Thunderous is a subcult. Rex is a subcult. These are all Orlanth cults, but not one of them is the Orlanth cult. Ask a Pentan, he'll say his version (Adventurous) is the main one who brings destruction and change and that guy praying for rain for his crops is a weirdo subversion of the West Wind King. Ask an Esrolian and they'll say 'Oh that's Ernalda's favorite boytoy' and wonder why there's some weird variation who don't do rain dances. But, as the God Learners and the cultists themselves discovered, they both walk the same path. Elmal and Yelmalio, Antirius and Kargzant, Khelmal and whatever his name is in Teshnos which I forget, all of them are the same god, viewed from different perspectives and needs, who had different interactions with that god in the God Time. Elmal and Yelmalio are broadly similar, but Elmal gets associated with the Sun more as he's a friendly Sky God you can worship without worshipping Yelm who's not the friendly one to Orlanth. Yelmalio is closer to Yelm, firmly his son and the protector of the people, a guardian god who looks over farmers and helps them fight off raiders and trolls. Antirius is the sponsor of the Emperor of Dara Happa, the one who gave the entire empire its laws and structure, and defended it from outsiders. Kargzant taught the horse riding people secrets of Yelm and how to survive in a hostile world, and rallied the forces of the Sky against their enemies. All these cults worship a deity that protected humans in the darkness, fought many foes, wasn't always victorious but never died for good despite losing some of their magic and power. There is a firm through line from cult to cult, aspects mirrored between one another. It's the same god. They might not all share the same rune spells or associations, but neither do Orlanth's cults. They might argue, they might deny this, but they're all worshiping the same divine figure, that Lesser Sun after Yelm died that kept the world alive.

Honestly, if you're looking for Cosmic Horror in space, you're looking at the cosmos themselves. There's plenty of stellar and interstellar phenomena that could be ungodly lethal to life as we know it, a natural disaster on the scale you simply cannot comprehend until you see it up close. The ticking horror doesn't need to be supernatural, it can be entirely natural phenomena. Your drive has given out and you're spiraling deeper and deeper into a gas giant, and then you impact something - another ship, stuck in the atmosphere and struggling to reach orbit itself. Now you're both sinking, but they obviously have a drive and you don't. Why is the ship still active? What sort of automatic threats exist? You need to escape, you need parts, but now what was perhaps months of slow orbital decay has accelerated drastically. Your salvation is right there, if you're willing to take the risks and the consequences. Some terrestrial planets have storms unlike anything here on earth, storms where the ground itself is going to kill you - silicate glass moving at hurricane speeds. You need to find shelter and fast, very fast. There's a dead civilization here. Dead, without a trace, without a sound, without the idea of a threat. The planet seems habitable enough. But the killer is still out there, lurking - the binary star system itself. A radiation burst that's coming soon by calculations you have and now you need to salvage what you can and get out, or whoever you're working for is going to repossess all your shit.

Historically, steppe peoples like the Scythians were more than capable of doing their own forging and metal working - Scythian gold work was very high quality. Just because they're steppe nomads doesn't mean they won't stay in an area for a while and mine easy to access resources, set up temporary forges, and so on. The amount of metal needed if they don't go heavy on the metal armor isn't actually that much. What do you need to work metal? A fire, tools, an anvil. A rock can be a decent enough anvil and the rest of the tools are movable by wagon easily enough. Remember, there's a whole god of the Solar pantheon dedicated to wagons, Lokarnos. He's also a trader god. As another note, the kopis was adopted by the Lunars partly because the Pentans were already using them - the Pentans have their own style of the weapon, which to me says that the Pentans are more than capable metal workers on their own.

I would say they do have access to gifts and geases. There’s no indication that they would not have them. Kargzant is the same god, just with different cultic associations, rites, and traditions.

1) They still can’t cast fire related magic. It’s the same god, the same restrictions still apply to him. 2) Being able to initiate into Orlanth is a major advantage of the Elmal Subcult. Elmal is the sun who accepts Orlanth’s dominion and helped him in the Darkness. While the relationship between Orlanth and Yelmalio/Elmal is a rivalry, being rivals doesn’t stop you from being on occasion, friends. Think Goku and Vegeta. 3) Elmal isn’t gone. He’s still alive and kicking as Yelmalio, the only difference would be how you value the purity of the god and how you see his relation to Orlanth. Heortling tradition and Mythology allows for Elmali to become chiefs and leaders. Sure, most might live in the sun dome county now and they may have some odd traditions and keep thralls, but they still speak your language and give Orlanth respect in their own way. Your local Elmali might not get along with them but they won’t kick them out of their shrines on holy days. The difference between Elmal and Yelmalio in the structure and tradition of their cults isn’t very big. Yelmalio, Antirius, and Kargzant all have much bigger divergences between one another, regarding their places in society and their importance to your average person.

It's mentioned that Yelmalio is still called Elmal by the Hyaloring clans. They have a bit of a tiff with the Sundomers, but that's not a surprise. I'm currently working on a write up for the various cults of Yelmalio/Cold Sun you might encounter across Genertela.