scott-martin

10 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

One benefit of the writing style, also used in Armies and Enemies, is that writing as though in-world, but thousands of years later, you can speculate, and have footnotes with all sorts of things in, you couldn't do if you were writing an objective text. There's some distinct editorial bias.

It's an achievement. Speaking for myself, anything I resent can always be scratched out as the anathemas of a rival heresiarch . . . but simply having this material on the table takes us closer to truth. There is something about the Enjoreli and those northern colonies (adopted by marriage if I recall) that I'll dig up when time permits. The persistence of AKEM within Sog is definitely a challenge.

And the shape and the power of the Voice rang out in strong low tones: tell them that God, whom you have called MLKN, is dead but the world continues. The old law that forbid these things of you has ended. Tell them to gather together and be nourished. This is what we do while we are waiting.

Next year in Malkonwal I hope to see you here.

11 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

I'm not sure when Theuz was founded, or when the other cities in Arolanit were. That's why I put a blanket name on the map.

Srotolin had me puzzled for a time, until I decided I couldn't resolve the usages of the name and included a footnote to note the possible confusions. I'm pretty much limited to published sources (books, online documents, other online sources by Jeff or Greg) and a very few other things. I'd love to peer in Chaosium's vaults... And seriously regret not backing the Guide Kickstarter to obtain the Roots books.

You're doing great things. Someone needs to do them! 

Looking more closely at that particular map series Theuz emerges by 100 and "Arolanit" first appears in a different map series that dates from after the devastation of Kaanilland (110+). The accompanying tribal map on that one has this as Utoni territory for what that's worth.

Arolanit is a lot of trouble for me because in my view uninterrupted Brithini tenure in the area is not supported beyond propaganda. The Srotolinae, likewise, are absent from the tribal era in the texts I have (sad to say the Roots are only the tip of a dangerous iceberg, you have exactly the documents you need) . . . they really only emerge in the disintegration of the Seshnegite Empire as a new political identity briefly distinct from the Dangk and the Galaninae. Who knows what the official truth is! Reading behind the lines of the Safelster In The First Age reference I'd suspect "Srotolin" is some concept or entity of the Bright Empire now lost to us but briefly recovered around the God Learner collapse.

For what it's worth the "Theuz" map is also fairly clear that the northern colonies are part of an immediate post-Dawn wave . . . only Neleswal and Frowal show up in 0 but the usual Fronelan suspects are there by 100. This has been superseded by the Guide maps but it's worth seeing where Greg's head was in this era. (These maps also have a vast but apparently shallow Lake of Nralar and a smaller Cup of Neleom much higher north in Enjorela. The lake is gone by 100 ST.)

1 hour ago, M Helsdon said:

https://www.glorantha.com/docs/safelster-in-the-first-age/

Nice catch!

Arolanit appears as such in early Dawn Age sketch maps (for your purposes it's good to note that Theuz is already extant) and the timeline of the Srotolinae is messy (pre-ST "long form" dating). If I were betting right now I'd say Srotolin was what the Bright Empire occupation called the territory "at the time" . . . but not its original name.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Places like Damolsket are clearly autochthonous cities

Just sort of bobbing along on this thread (great observations throughout but no time) . . . this one is worth teasing out in a little more detail because the House of Damol with its pagan divine lineage is really interesting.

If I could have just one document right now it would be an even quasi-canonical list of the colonies extant at the Dawn. We could conspire to build one. Ironically we know more about the pagan landscape now than we do about the enclaves, especially in the northwest. 
 

On 4/9/2020 at 4:37 PM, David Scott said:

The Palace grazings call.

You are making a Deep Wastes campaign extremely compelling. The endless sky, the rhythm of camp and the knotted "song lines," the web of random spirit encounters. If I didn't know better I'd think someone (probably Bruce Chatwin) slipped me a hyena . . . but doing the math, even if only 75% of the clans are beyond Zola Fel at any given time, there must be close to 7,000 Issaries Trackers out there living Biturian's dream. I wonder how fast a message can promulgate across "all" of them. 

We have the map down to the hex now. We can statistically find out. And beyond, the ancient East.

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

Interesting question there.... Tradetalk presumes Issaries.  Kitori merchants are Argan Argar. 

That is indeed a super interesting question. It strikes me I know nothing about what Trade was before it was Trade. 

4 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Engizi

Yeah, the best Belintar-era texts I have from this part of the world glorify sweet little Choralinthor as the favorite child of Esrola and so Engizi's sacrificial rush is what starts repairing the world. AA and his son aren't mentioned. All the people of the Bay love the sea and find their mirror in it. It unifies the realm as an OOO alternative.

But I don't know Choralinthor's high holy day offhand or triolini IFWW so can't say. Anyhow I suspect Belintar favored this side of the local mythic landscape for the obvious reasons you point out.

2 hours ago, dumuzid said:

Does anyone have any thoughts about what the Waterday high holy day would pertain to, or insight into sources on relationships between Argan Argar and Water deities I'm unaware of?

To piggyback @jajagappa some of the deep mysteries of this "tide-wracked" realm revolve around the primal marriage of Faralinthor. Argan Argar needs to interrupt that particular happy bond in order to father OOO. It's not hard to construct a central rite that starts with a night of obstacles and thwarted desire (water ascendent) and then at the pivot we encounter the earth, spending much of the second night establishing the new rule, negotiating Husband Protector relationships and all that good stuff. Ideally there's a birth or a revelation to symbolize OOO, even if it's just a black bean in the fish cakes or whatever.

Of course this isn't extremely relevant to all the peoples of the Mirrorsea but it might tell us something about the ancient priority of the husbands and how OOO achieves harmony with the water half of the realm as you note. One interesting thing that drops out of this is that the person who kills Faralinthor is usually "Umath" so once again we see an ambivalent doubling, Surface Dark and Primal Storm. Or Umath kills Faralinthor on the first sad night and Argan Argar emerges to console the desolate widow.

But all this is probably not the kind of thing the Belintar complex liked to leave around in its original state.

7 hours ago, Joerg said:

That's not how I understood the Illaro dynasty - IMO it is the king who is the sacrifice, although the king can survive the sacrifice by overcoming his magical executioner and providing that entity as a sacrifice. Illaro managed to do that twice. His successors didn't.

That is my understanding of their deal with the goddess. But shifting the blood algebra of the sacrifice will probably be tried at some point in the Tarsh Civil War if it hasn't opened up in the past. When you need shaker magic some people think of the kids.

6 minutes ago, coffeemancer said:

Kallyr is beyond them to save

One of my favorite lines in the canon these days, by the way, is that at the end of all things "Argrath called for the help of the stars. The Pole Star, who ruled all of the sky now, sent his favorite lover to help. This was the Starbrow." So even Kallyr is not off the table for esoteric games (see your most recent reply) if someone finds her interesting enough. Arguably something happens within the cultic landscape to raise the profile of her favorite mysteries to rulership of the argrathite sky. Players can participate.

26 minutes ago, Gallowglass said:

The super early Greg stuff?

Yeah. Tol/at is mentioned in both Snodalsaga and Jonatsaga as the underworld war god of the northwest. The fact that he becomes integrated into both bakanist and rathorist ancestral narratives points me toward a shared separate source . . . maybe the bull people, why not. People tell me they had room to roam from the proto-Kralorelan border so why not carry a moon all the way up from the islands?

I love the note on his sister. Sometimes people try to estrange them but bringing them back together may do great things. If I were doing a cold reading now I'd wonder if she was more actively antagonistic to the Empire so her sites were more carefully wiped. He lingered better around the fringes as cults like Vorthan. One way or another, it's interesting that he would have to be present inside KOW where all badasses are invited.

Unlikely to bring him in with the riddlers because the bull peoples seem to have successfully purged all nysalorite influences. Unless of course that's just what we're told. A red [moon] carried back to Carmania would be interesting as a 7M precursor. Do we know any Carmanian wargods who might apply?

2 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Yes, certainly. Yelm is (or was, perhaps) a role. There have been many different Yelms; Dayzatar was the first to mantle Yelm. There was even a female Yelm - Ourania mantled Yelm and it's narrated in the Entekosiad. Clearly a lot of things changed over time.

You came back super sassy. I love it.

Alkoth has to be brought into the Tripolis. Enough said. There are hints that he was allied with Kargzant first within Time.

As for Vorthan some texts have the pre-Jonatelan rathorings acknowledging a red [moon] god "Tol," but not much is said of him. The red god is ancient in the northwest, usually directly associated with the Naka/la. On the other hand, they also recognized various white goddesses so the Western Reaches are prime breeding ground for apocalyptic revivals.

Tolat-of-Trowjang may well have been recognized across the southern coast and then introduced to the northwest, creating complications and recognitions like this Vorthan fellow.

14 minutes ago, Jeff said:

There are SO MANY different "Greg Stafford originals."

They have a plan. Perhaps separately,

1 hour ago, Nick Brooke said:

How do we feel about this spelling, team? Quaintly retro, or a spurious affectation?

Wisconsin. Probably a reference to Genert's realm as once covered with plane trees. The "plains" inference is a backward folk etymology.

8 minutes ago, g33k said:

RQ needs a different cyberfuture.

I love it but aren't they already us? To quote the last of the dinosaurs in Italo Calvino, "I traveled through valleys and plains. I came to a station, caught the first tram and was lost in the crowd."

This is some badass stuff. 

Looking at the Halfbird again it looks more like a proto-gloranthan document roughly as old as Snodalsaga . . . I do not know how the dwarves fit in but they are all over this. 

Yellow Bear is a pretty big deal in the unpublished "Damiliolad" that revolves around the House Of Damol / Damil. Child of the Androgyne, lives in a place called "Pent," embedded in Blue Moon lore if I recall correctly. Active early Dawn Age. Might be a different Yellow Bear from the one who interacts with Jonat later. 

14 hours ago, Joerg said:

Sorry, but no - this book is a colection of the 2015 relevations, but this talk about the Dorastor map was held only in 2019.

I think you're both right. The lecture was 2015 but the book came out last year. And like the Land of Doom itself, there may be weird time loops and currents that look like paradoxes.

30 minutes ago, g33k said:

I think the budding Egypto-Gloranthologist would take   <Zola Fel & Prax>  and  <Oslir & DH>  as a pair:  If you cafefully pull elements from each one,  you end up with a pretty big part of Egypt. 

Tempting to imagine one of those budding Egypto-Gloranthologists growing up in Adari with sacred architecture on his mind and the magical resources to build. Map the right parts of Dara Happa on that river without a city, the city appears. This actually rehabilitates a lot of the fan "Egyptian Freemasonry" that has accumulated around his cult.

6 minutes ago, dumuzid said:

So what's up with Man Vill?  What's going on there?  There's probably something interesting to be said about the only human settlement of any significance on a direct line between Duck Point and the Shadow Plateau.

A lot of outpost-size settlements only show up in the side maps in the HeroQuest Dragon Pass: Land Of Thunder gazetteer and Greg's masters but are never described in print. I could be wrong but am thinking Apple Lane scale, a cluster of cottages. The name of course is a gag reference to the way everything else around here is ducky: Duck Point, Duck Ferry, Mallard Town, Man Vill [sic] where the freakish humans congregate. Maybe they adopt durulz clothes and other ways so are embarrassing to everyone. Now that you mention it, maybe some clever person will come up with a Jonstown scenario that plumbs the place's secrets.

The talar response is kind of funny without contradicting anything in this thread. Of course first you have to find an authentic talar.

20 minutes ago, dumuzid said:

Can you expand on this?  In another thread even, if it's not germane to this one.

Thread Drift is the way of our tribe but I'll try to keep these thoughts aligned with the larger topic of how the Jrustelite religious framework evolved in all its terminal complexity and splendor. 

I was recently reminded of the way the Aeolians argue that the Expulsion terminated in modern Kethaela, which shifts the usual map of the colonial diaspora a lot farther to the east than the conventional Neliomi-centric narrative suggests. There's a lot of coastline on that shifted map and much of it is gone now, lost in multiple disasters. But an unusual number of isolated enclaves and other sites survive here. Their interaction with the Empire is mysterious and complex. The imperial chauvinists would have embraced what they found there that reminded them of themselves and exploited everything else as "pagan ways" no matter where it came from. 

Now the Ingareens participated in the OOO coalition and as Entrulites and other lifebringer missions started opening up the coast they would have brought aeolianism with them to seed in receptive survivor communities. Most of these undoubtedly found their way into the empire and were more or less destroyed. A few, barely recognizable, linger as the regressive Ramalians and others. And then you have the "Erenplose" culture, which disappeared before the Gbaji Wars and had a secret pact with the sea gods. I suspect that these were the people the Waertagi ferried to Jrustela, but it could as easily have been any other now-lost Slontos people or combination of cultures. Until today I assumed they were a pagan pig people but now you guys highlighting that 500c. reference makes me wonder if they were something like Ingareens, an "aeolian" people more like "Seshnelans" than land goddess barbarians.

They definitely know their way around boats! Either way, once the Neliomi cities established contact with this part of the world magic could circulate. We know a bit about how various Seshnegite centers embraced or experimented with various "aeolian" forms, identifying with various sea gods or darkness entities or whatever, with the legendary fighting children of Damol taking it seriously enough to marry into the Kolat order. Aeol = wind. This is always fundamentally a storm syncretism.

Invisible Orlanth = storm Malkion.

And as we know, Malkion Aerlit is only a sea god on his mother's side. 

All of this is part of the Western religious vocabulary, often suppressed but sometimes open for expression. These are the Hero Wars.

People who inhabit truly "various" Gloranthas can take it from here. For me, for example, I am still not convinced that Old Trade is the historical "Brithos" that Hrestol's people left and he visited. That corner of the map is too static and too quiet to obey normal Gloranthan historical currents. Old Trade may originally have been something else while the historical "Brithos" may have been elsewhere. A lot depends on where the original Srvualela really was . . . some sources suggest the Homeward Ocean, others primeval Jrustela (as Magnetic Mountain south of Brithos), others Genert's Land and still others Gbaji's realm.

That's a complicated proposition but it gets me thinking of how Es-ruvula (s-ruvula) was allied with the waertagi by 150 ST and how (Old) Narilor in lost Wenelia was special to the waertagi, "the only place they would land" or perhaps do any land-based spawning they needed to do. All worth exploring as we hunt the original god of our fathers and maybe the mothers too.

2 minutes ago, dumuzid said:

Right, I forgot the Olodo weren't autochthonous to Jrustela, they arrived via Waertagi dragon-ship in the Dawn Age from Slontos for a number of causes.  Really shouldn't have surprised me that the author of "Beautiful Jrustela" downplayed their society.

Yeah, the real history behind the elementary textbooks is somewhere between profoundly ironic and sad. But maybe it has a happy ending if we can just resist the known conversational land mines long enough to have an authentic encounter with the god of the west, invisible or otherwise. The whole SW Genertelan coast is blooming with radical archaeological discoveries . . . tying into your other work.

3 minutes ago, dumuzid said:

The Olodo were Malkioni city-builders before the Seshnegi colonists arrived?  My impression from Middle Sea Empire was of non-urban animists or theists in the rugged interior of the island, whose culture was absorbed and mostly erased by the expanding colonists.

They built at least four of the original Thirteen Colonies and others now lost to the record so while imperial historians would scoff at mud huts and thatch I prefer to entertain the notion that they preserved the lost urban civilization of Slontos wiped out in the Dawn Age floods. Of course a few centuries of aggressive colonial hegemony will force the remnants off island, up into the highlands or into assimilation as you note. 

The alternative is a Seshnegite presence on the island over a century before the Nralarites, which is definitely a possible convolution but renders a lot of "Beautiful Jrustela" overly opaque. Or we just abandon the 500 date entirely.