Yelm made himself the perfect ruler for the age of perfection his actions (ending a more innocent period) created, until the consequences of those actions caught up with him. Yelm's period is called the Golden Age. It is the Age of (Godtime) Civilization, of ordered society creating something more than just the family community.
There are civilizations "contemporary" to Yelm's reign which may have earlier and definitely indepenently developed civilization - Genert's Garden, Pamalt's Fields, the Kingdom of Logic with its arts (writing, architecture, seafaring, ... and last not least sorcery) or Vith's mystical rightness in the East with more tolerance for the disruptive side inside its extent. There are civilizations that built on earlier ones, and there are many forgotten earlier civilizations. Entekosiad makes the claim tha Brighteye usurped the role of celestial overseer from a previous "White Queen" who may have been a cyclical goddess in a sophist way solving a problem with ill intent.
That's more of a cyclical pattern both in Godtime and in history. Any historical age begins with Orlanthi humans at the pinnacle of human civlization (although the collapse of the EWF blasted the center of Orlanthi civiilization and distributed it among the foes or neutrals to the Dragonfriends). They soon get into conflict with the Solar Empire and get beaten badly, in part by those of their number who ally with the Solars, but then strike back at the end of the Age. (The Second Age was a bit weird, but such trends are present.)
The Six Ages games fail to acknowledge (so far) that the best and brightest of the Horse Warlord emperors in Peloria was the Hyaloring Vuranoste, the third emperor using the Jenarong rites to pass the Ten Tests. Unfortunately his sons failed to provide a successor, instead using up their pure sun magic in the struggle tghat led to the Bridling of Kargzant biding their free-roaming horse-loving god to the Sunpath of the re-awalened fragment(s) of Yelm at Day and retracing it at night.
Plenty, usually in the second half of a historical Age.
Dawn Age: the Battle of Night and Day was followed by almost three generations of Palangio ruling over the Orlanthi (outside of Lokamayadon's direct followers who were his allies) in Dragon Pass, Maniria and Ralios, enslaving or starving the Heortlings at least as bad as the potato famine hit Ireland. Lokamaydon had usurped their magics.
Second/Imperial Age: The Orlanthi domination of Dara Happa lasted less than a generation before all Orlanthi control over the conquered lands of Dara Happa had been removed. The rich tribute from Dara Happa which was supposed to be shared with the trolls failed, and what had been intended as a fair share from that tribute to those who had contributed most in Dorastor became an onerous duty bleeding the Orlanthi white, which led to their fall-out with their former troll allies. That disunity was a solar triumph, too.
The dragonfriends were a new thing that took control first of the Orlanthi core lands and then of Dara Happa, but it was the Dara Happans who overthrew the Dragon Sun emperor, then joined forces with the Carmanians and willing non-Heortling Orlanthi to destroy the dragonfriends. Their success led to the EWF becoming as oppressive as Arkat's Command had been, and losing their way from the intended greater draconic conciousness they had envisioned. More Orlanthi joined the fight against the EWF, spearheaded by Alakoring, whose successors joined forces with the foes of the EWF and destroyed the Orlanthi core lands in Dragon Pass twice (the second time mere hours before being destroyed by the dragons in the Dragonkill War).
The Carmanians who came out on top after the Dragonkill disaster under the Bull Shahs and a revival of Spolite Darkness were overthrown by a Yelmic resurgence merging forces with the new Lunar Way. Then Sheng Seleris brought in a rivalling solar model - not to the advantage of the Orlanthi, even though the Kingdom of Tarsh was the leading force in pushing back Sheng's southern (Opili Nation, Praxian) allies, with a huge triumph at the Battle of Quintus Vale aided by the Lunarized Orlanthi of Sylila.
The Yelm cult dragged the Lunar Way into the philosphical trap of the Empire, hindering its mystical ascension in a way reminiscent to the distraction of the EWF for cheap trick advances. Tatius the Bright rose to become a Yelmic rather than Yelmalian Palangio until he was eaten by the Brown Dragon.
Sure. That's part of the historical cycle which starts with Orlanthi supremacy at the start of an age. The closure of the Second Age saw the Yelmalio cult (Orlanthi solars) in power everywhere south of Dara Happa proper, and the bull-Orlanthi influience Bull Shahs taking over Dara Happa, while south of Dragon Pass the Hendriki had acquired more than half of Esrolia, and after the 1042 forced incomplete ascension of the draconic leadership also the survivors in the ruined Pass region.
The Bright Empire did push Yelm into the role of the World Emperor even in Malkioni lands. The Monomyth inherits the Bright Empire doctrine that it was Yelm who was slain by Orlanth, making him universal and pushing out earlier notions like Ehilm from Jrusteli / God Learner monomythizing, Other than the elephant rather than bird imagery, Somash in Teshnos is imperial Yelm - possibly reinforced with Sheng Seleris's conquests and exchange of literate administrators betwee his various conquests.
Sheng Seleris ruling Peloria, Kralorela, Teshnos and almost conquering Vormain?
Sheng is an alternative Yelmic ruler to Moonson.
Also, the Solar Empire is the organizing structure in Teshnos and Vormain, and in a draconized way also in Kralorela.
The Orlanthi culture was dominant at the Dawn, with the Dara Happan revival under Jenaong and Vuranoste dragged down by the barbarism of other Horse Warlord emperors. Avivath was the prophet of Yelm who re-kindled the urban solar culture as dominant overseers, aided and abetted by the Second Council, and then all but taking over the God Project leading to a Bright Empire rather than the Mystical Storm Empire.
First, the dragonfriends beat the Traditionalist Orlanthi. Badly. The EWF conquest was not done by Storm Hill Barbarians, but by Solar Hill Barbarians become dragonfriends. While Obduran had demonstrated how Storm and Dragon could be united, his successor Isgangdrang took Storm away from the Orlanthi and transformed it into dragon power. Losing the mystical goal through his short cut fallacies, but still...
We don't really know the human identity of the EWF Dragon Sun emperor, but I bet he was not a Dragon Pass Orlanthi but someone from around Imther when he joined the dragonfriend mystics presumably when they still were persecuted by the Council of Orlanthland and their Yelmalian allies at Domanand (now Mirin's Cross).
Orlanthi tribalism ad disobedience is rather different from the structured society Yelmic rule encourages and enforces.
In 1984 RQ3 presented four levels of civilization - primitive, nomadic, barbarian and civilized. Respect for indigenous people has made two of these terms suspect. Still, Dara Happan views of the hill tribes uses the term barbarian from the in-world perspective.
As Dara Happans, their influence reached down into central Saird, past Sylila and Vanch.Yelmic administrators were spread by the Bright Empire, and are welcomed by the Solar hill barbarians worshipping the Cold Sun. There is a map of the Sun Dome temples on the Well of Daliath...
Half of Peloria has been Orlanthi since before the Great Flood.
The pastoralist hlll folk made their incursions down the Rockwood and Nidan ranges. The origin of the Yolp Mountains and the reign of Daxdarius fall into the period around the Great Flood.
It can be argued that the Orlanthi were subjects of these bodies - other than the Unity Council (which was not an empire, but the resulting Second Council became one), there were Orlanthi uprisings against each of these empires after initially being co-opted by these entities. The concept of Empire is alien to the tribal nature of the Orlanthi.
Orlanthi are raiders, but not administrators. The Dragon Emperor used draconized native administrators to maintain its hold on the empire, while the short Heortling occupation at the end of the Gbaji Wars attempted to do with their own administrators, and failed miserably. Both the Carmanians and Sheng Seleris used solar administrators for their conquests, as did the horse warlords at the Dawn. Without such solar administration, no long term occupation can be maintained, and longer terms of interregnum tend to lead to the rise of new dynasties (like e.g. Denesiod's).
The Pelorians are a varied group of cultures, and their homelands are the river valleys of the Pelorian bowl. Sure, they share their grain goddess with the uplands in the foothills of the Rockwoods, so by that definition their "homeland" is shared. But that is about as much cultural unity you can find for "the Pelorians" whether you include or exclude the Pelorian Orlanthi.
The Arcos Valley folk come in two major ethnicities - Rinliddic for the lower Arcos, Zarkozite goat hillfolk for the upper Arcos. They are two of the four non-Dara Happan ethnic groups traveling on Anaxial's Ark during the Great Flood. The Suvarian weeders are a third independent group of the same origin, even though they provided the last Anaxial-dynasty emperor Manimat.
The Dara Happan Empire in its full extent would rule over all the people whose ancestors debarked from Anaxial's Ark. The dry lands during the flood, including the Syliling and Vanchite hills, would be included as border marches inhabited by settlers descended from the Ark peoples, expanding Dara Happan culture and influence into Saird and Dara Ni (at the Dawn First Council lands under Troll or Heortling domination).
The (Heortling, plus a few other) Orlanthi were part of the Lifebringer/Lightbringer missionaries sent out to awaken those survivors of the Greater Darkness trapped in their PTSD even a century after the Dawn. Protected by the Shadowlords of Argan Argar (later the Kitori Shadowlords), they got into contact with the survival centers (Nochet, Obsidian Palace, Dragon's Eye, Korolstead and others) already before the Dawn.
(Those other Orlanthi included Vanchites, Sylilings and other minor non-Heortling Sairdites as well as Manirian Vathmai Entruli and Harandings and the Esrolvuli Grandmothers tribe of Ezel and Nochet.)
The Council lands included weeders like the Black Eel River Nogatendings and horticulturalist elf friends in Dara Ni who received the (apparently superior) Theyalan magic already before the Dawn.
(How Rune Magic may have worked in the Silver Age is an interesting conundrum - while Heort is said to have furthered Hantrafal's ways of rune cult sacrifice, what deities were there before the Dawn that would respond to such sacrifice?)
For the Third Age the prize might equally well go to the Pentans, the only group ever to rule over both Peloria, the Wastes and the Genertelan East. Orlanthi expansion by settlement was mainly a Godtime Late Golden/Storm Age phenomenon when warlike herders professing a kinship to their ungulate herds descended from the highlands and encroached on the lowlands, picking up transhumant pastoralist agriculture during their descent.
For the Imperial Age, the God Learners were unrivalled for world-wide imperial presence, sparing only Carmania, the EWF (Dara Happa included in either), the Errinoru jungles and the further East Isles. The biggest empire of the Dawn Age would have been the Bright Empire co-founded by Orlanthi but trampling on the majority of the Orlanthi (enough for many of them to align themselves with soulless Malkioni), with the Vithelan sphere empires a lot less expansive (Kralorela, Teshnos, Vormain, various East Isles) except for the Mokato Thalassocracy and a few warlike precedessor confederations suppressing the antigod empires.
That is at best semi-true. The Carmanians have the Yelm-lookalike higher god Idovanus, one of the Jernotian Seven Celestials, a god who got inflated by Carmanos the Prophet as an expression of the Invisible God. The Bull is just a dynastic ancestor deity for their Malkioni hererodoxy, much like the preceding Lion cult was.
There is the inheritance of the Spolites, a western Pelorian reaction to the Bright Empire exploring the dark side of illumination, at one time powerful in parts of Dara Happa, too, but crushed by Syranthir's mercenary refugees from God Learner-conquered Fronela.
The Carmanians (except for their ruling castes of mixed Pelandan and Western descent) are Pelorians, too. Eastern Carmania now is an integral part of the Lunar Heartlands, the Oronin and Doblian satrapies. Their culture contributed to the Lunar Way about as much as the Dara Happan culture or the Rinliddic variation on Dara Happa.
In terms of manpower, Argrath has the much smaller population base behind him. He never conquered Esrolia, only became its protector. Esrolian military was rarely useful in his struggles in the north, and played about as much a role in his campaigns as did Italian forces in the Carolingian fights against the Vikings. They provide a financial and logistical base, that I grant you, at least until they are hit by the Reforestation and the flooding.
One constant source of fighting power for Argrath are the excess young males out of Prax which come in waves as new Praxian boys get initiated into adulthood. The Praxians expand a lot under Argrath, establishing no-longer-quite Praxian pastoral overlordships in Orlanthi lands like they had done since their rewards for the participation in the victory of Argentium Thri'ile. Some of them may adopt a variant Orlanthi way over time, or they may adopt Solar ways - both happened in the Dawn Age, in Sylila and Kostaddi.
By this logic, the hispanic-speaking population of our planet are the supreme rulers. You are assuming an Orlanthi unity that never happens. Even with the magic of Orlanth Rex (a solar Ralian magic carried to the Heortlings by Alakoring?) Argrath has almost as many Orlanthi opponents that may become hesitant mercenary allies at best and open foes at worst.
Dara Happa offers direct fealty of the subjects to the Emperor. Orlanthi fealty is only to the immediate leader - a difference similar to the difference in centralist kingship between medieval France and the Holy Roman Empire.
Ralios is looking westward, fighting the Rokari kingdom of Tanisor as their evil emperor. Maniria is beset by the Reforestation and whatever bad news may emerge from Ramalia. Esrolia is nervously watching the seas, whether for Wolf Pirates or semi-uindead Waertagi returnees from Hell, as well as the Aldryami reclamation of agricultural lands for forestation. Admittedly that is a problem for the Pelorians, too, as for civilized Fronela and Ralios.
Much of Argrath's most populous Orlanthi territory is going to be flooded when the ice floe gnawed off Valind#s Glacier blocks the Maelstrom for a year.
While that is true, a lot of the Orlanthi religious influence has Malkioni or non-human overlords (Umathela, Fornoar, Safelster, Fronela, Carmania). A significant portion of the Orlanhi has solar- or Lunar-worshipping rulers, too.
Patently wrong. This honor goes to the Malkioni. The Tanisorans are basically Malkionized Ralians, conquered from the Bright Empire, and so are the Safelstrans (conquered by the Jrusteli after Arkat's companions received overlordships there). The Old Seshnegi assimilated the greater portion of the Pendali-ruled natives of that peninsula, plus the natives of the Tanier Valley. The Fornoari - Ehilm-worshipping Enerali who had accepted Lightbringer Ways - are now the main population of the "Kingdom of Seshnela". In Fronela, the Enjoreli bull people have been transformed into Hrestoli Malkioni, with a few bull-Orlanthi holding out on the fringes. The Janubian city states are the creation of the riverine Waertagi, as are the Sweet Sea and Poralistor river folk who fell to the Carmanians and then the Lunars.
Drowned Slontos and Jrustela as well as coastal Umathela has former Orlanthi more or less firmly Malkionized, with hardly any Brithini ancestry in either Slontos or surviving Umathela. (Jrustela actually had a good amount of Brithini and Fornoari ancestry, possibly 70%.)
Vadeli ways have been inherited by the Fonritians, one of the most populous human civilizations.
Teshnos and Kralorela managed to throw off the Malkioni influences, as did the Arbennan Doraddi of Jolar.
The God Learners spread the Theyalan mode of Rune Magic to Fonrit, Teshnos and possibly Kralorela. The Vithelan east may have a different variant. Errinoru probably brought some of the Theyalan aldryami mode to the jungles.
Argan Argar spread the Theyalan mode among the trolls, infusing Kyger Litor and Zorak Zoran, too. The Artmali survivors never quite acquired that, and apparently the Loper-riding Zaranistangi didn't either, or perhaps from their Arkati allies.
Peloria has (acquired) a need for imperial order, something the Orlanthi cannot provide. The horse warlords could, if only a less codified form than their urban precedessors (who failed to overcome the Greater Darkness on their own except possibly in Manimati dismembered exile or Alkothi hellspawn tyranny) and their successors who infused the Second Council with their ways, taking it away from the Orlanthi.
Ralian solar overlordship became the Nralarite Flamesword dynasty in Seshnela and Jrustela, but yielded Jrusteli emperorship to the more warlike descendants of Damol, Seshnegi pagans with maternal descent from Froalar who adopted Malkionism either in Silver Empire Seshnela or in the religious awakening of Abiding Book Jrustela).
The Lunar Empire resurges with the Eel-Ariash machinations, like Phargentes II Takenegi and Jar-eel apotheosizing as the new face of Sedenya, surpassing her current role as mere avatar of the Red Moon.
I don't see evidence for Argrath managing to conquer Dara Happa - at the height of his power in the north, he incites the dismemberment and fall-out of the Red Moon. IMO this is going to be co-opted by Jar-eel for her apotheosis, completing the Eel-Ariash scheme.
The Eel-Ariash might be the worst foe of imperial Dara Happa, although their scion Phargentes II wields it to its greatest extent - all the way to the Neliomi and Rozgali Seas.
His bureaucracy rules supreme.
Yelmalio does have his victories with the right (Theyalan) allies.
Creating at best a short Orlanthi interregnum. The EWF Dragon Sun was the longest lasting one, possibly tied with Shah Cartavar (whose son decided to become the Yelmic emperor). Cartavar was a Spolite-leaning bull shah ruling through Carmanos' Malkioni powers of kingship, not at all an Orlanthi.
The Orlanthi are one of the less important foes of the Dara Happans - unpleasant raiders at times, although the Ram Folk was soundly defeated and enslaved by Urvairinus after their destruction of Elempur, the city of archers. Their enslaved iron ram deity served as the strong point against the forces of the Glacier.
The Battle of Night And Day was won by Palangio, a Rinliddic Dara Happan stealing the barbarian sun god, subsequently enslaving or starving the Heortlings to the point that none of the Heortling tribes existed any more a century after the Gbaji Wars.
Karvanyar overthrowing the Dragon Sun Emperor, his three grandsons dividing Peloria into Dara Happa, Carmania and Saird jointly defeating the EWF, weakening it enough that the dragonewts pulled the plug, and then in 1042 the three allied kingdoms plundered Dragon Pass, and destroyed it in the week before getting eaten by the dragons in the Dragonkill 78 years later.
The (Solar-descended) Pentans (including descendants of survivors of Nivorah who disobeyed Manarlarvus and his dome project) had been made enemies through the genocidal pogromes following the battle of Argentium Thri'ile and were the greater threat to Urban Dara Happa, even though parts of urban Dara Happa allied with Sheng Seleris against Moonson.
Don't discount them .- their Dara Happan emperor exterminated all the anti-Lunar elements in the Yelm cult alongside Sheng Seleris. That downgrading of Yelm was a Pelorian inside job, and surgically careful to retain imperial authority derived from Yelm.
Why worship that illiterate brute under the slippered heels of his dominant faux-docile ruthless wife? He is a useful idiot creating mayhem where he is pointed at. The one thing he did on his own (successfully defending the sky realm against Chaos) allowed the surface world to get ravaged by Chaos, upon which he had to be tricked to accept more sensible advisors (LM, CA, Issaries, even Eurmal) to go and beg for the forgiveness of Yelm.
You worship Orlanth, you live in a world where fights between testosterone-drunk deities trample everything you own. You worship Yelm, and those bullies fight elsewhere most of the time.
Orlanthi infights are guaranteed, and it is rare that they can postpone those inevitable falling outs long enough to build something greater. The rise of the dragonfriends was a civil war that lasted almost 200 years before the EWF finally emerged from urban Orlanthland.
Orlanth doesn't provide an emperor who keeps the bad people out. Instead, he consorts with even worse bullies. Even the Crimson Bat is less disruptive to Pelorian life.
Southern Peloria has been Orlanthi since the Golden Age, since Murharzarm's reign. It was the fringes where bad things like Orlanthi or trolls happened.
Yamsur's descendant Hyalor acculturated some of these dry-during-the-Great-Flood tribes, giving rise to the horse warlords.
There is the deep cultural difference between wheat and barley agriculturalists vs. rice agriculturalists. The Dara Happans are rice agriculturalists, largely independent of Pelora the grain goddess. While they can administrate barley and grain farmers, those are only somewhat docile if they require irrigation for their crops. Those who don't spell trouble.
irrigation works are a unifying task, way beyond the road upkeep worship of the Sartarite toll-takers. Overseen by Yelm, accounted by Buserian, built by Lodril's get.
The vast majority of the Pelorian males worship Lodril, a fun manly god worthy of worship. He builds, he fights, he has lots of sex, with the blessing of his main wife, unlike Orlanth who has to choose most of his mistresses from his (part-time) male companions like Heler or Mastakos, possibly even Elmal, or who even becomes a woman at times (Vinga). Muich like Orlanth, Lodril leaves the heavy thinking to others, like Yelm, but when the result of such rationality hurts, he rebels, hard and effectively, toppling what oppresses his people. In his more reflective moments, Lodril becomes Turos or even KetTuros, the city-builder. When needing powerful primal magic, he becomes the naked painter of sacred symbols, or he erupts in hot lava.
Lodril is lord of part of the Underworld, providing something Orlanth can't. He has direct marital access to the vaults of Asrelia, unlike his son-in-law Orlanth who has to go through his wife, Lodril's daughter. That scheming woman keeps Orlanth on a leash most of the time, not that her father would reap any benefit from that, but Lodril has a multitude of children more grateful than Ernalda.
Peloria and especially lowland Peloria is the land of Lodril. Sure, Yelm gets to be the aloof emperor above who makes up rules that may be convenient to follow at times, and convenient to disregard at other times.
Yelm is extremely selective in allowing who may worship him directly. Except when it comes to nomadic horse riders, where every second or third ass in a saddle will be eligible, or as spawn of the daughters of the Red Emperor. You don't get to choose to initiate to Yelm, you get chosen by birthright.
