scott-martin

This is one of the great points of this thread. Storm guys marry the land to bring rain to crops. There's a tradition of fire guys marrying the river . . . even Zola Fel has this. There are also the persistent rumors of Ernalda's original husband the water god who may or may not be Flamal to the West of modern Esrola. However by that point the elemental genders are so primitive that easy classifications break down, ironically opening up "sub rune" special cases. "Storm" may really only be an especially successful sub rune of Sky or even a subtle reinvention of Water . . . Umath as Blue Sky, as it were. Every "Kolate" in the archaic sources is male. While Greg plays around with (and often bends) the latinate suffixes, only the early Likitae and generic Tilntae reliably take the final "-a." This is important to people who want to create space between Earth (Likita), Fertility (Tilnta) and the female condition. There were at least two types of mothers at the beginning and if not all of them were earths, maybe not all earths are necessarily born to be wives. Uleria herself is a blue goddess, right? Mother or bride of Umath? Both? Remember when "Lodril" was one of the great gods of Pamaltela? The Men And A Half apparently remember something like that but who knows how their religion has developed in the north. I'd flip this a tiny bit: only differentiations that matter to devotees are anything but academic and hypothetical. When it becomes important to say which strands of solar culture Yelm "is not," then people do the analytic work and isolate as many unessential accretions to the Yelm complex that need their own names and functions so we can focus on the one god at the center of the sky. Otherwise, we don't sweat it so much and the same force animates falcons and horses, healers and archers alike. It's true of all the gods. Every Gloranthan god either has devotees here or not. The Celestial Court is always subject to negotiation. The live ones are receptive to a kind of conversation . . . they talk back.

I like it. The astounding thing there is the analogue to the invention of yajna . . . Genner as last corner of the earth square = first sparks of Heat Rune = the erection of the vertical axis. Then as the fumes rise the priest feeds something like an exterior sun. (Traces of this survive in Pamaltela.) RM says only "Genner devised the practice of sacrifice and tricked humans into sacrificing to him, thereby making him the first pagan being." But of course the blue man often lies. Come to think of it, I wonder how intimately the tale of "Genner" (as opposed to our Lodril) is a Bright Empire program. By the time it gets to the West, the riddlers with their new sun already control the narrative.

The good news is any SAN loss experienced is from elsewhere in that post. Revealed Mythologies says Genner taught the mortals of the northern corner the "do ut des" sacrificial economy. I don't believe the text hints at him as sacrificer as well as recipient, but then again, he is the dying god so his self-sacrifice (utuma) is an interesting angle to conjure with.

Love it. Looking back Moori's people have always had an oddly euphemistic relationship to the Spear. I might even try to find them the apparently paradoxical Heat (Fire Minus Light) and Shade (Dark Minus Cold). While I don't want to embarrass more conventional uz perspectives by stepping on their mysteries, I've always suspected this is Very Important in the search for Pamalt and why the southern corner really diverges. Also anything with troll boats is excellent.

Oh yeah, you were mining that seam in the [mumble] decade. I knew there had to be prior art. Loved it then, worth taking another swing now. But in terms of where Heat (Without Light) Rune comes from, that would be the place. In terms of the theogony Heat would naturally be where Sky starts to divide from the endless Earths before it. Ga-Lo may be the place.

"That's about the size, where you put your eyes." Anything that explains why the oldest Brithini are so little works for me.

The world was smaller before so many mountains and oceans! Away from the deep sources right now but Lodrilela has been in the air for at least a quarter century now. Here's the trickster a couple decades back.

Don't blame me or Greg's vagaries, blame Slontos. And also the Guide.

Slontan context, Slontan forms: Lodrilela, Ernaldela. But given present company, it's also worth noting that some texts hint at what to us would have been impossible cultural transmission across "north and south" Lodril/Oria zones before the mountains made it complicated.

I'd like to lobby anew for primordial Jrustela as the historical Spike. When self-identified Ernaldists from Slontos came to that land, mythically it was like they were coming home. Or if a little more finesse is required, it was like they were closing the gap created when mythic Ernaldela drowned, leaving us with a people in search of a land and a land devoid of human people. I didn't notice any drag on coherence but the scheduling did seem oddly "stone age sleep cycle" for you. Hope all is well. In general I think elemental sub runes are artifacts of the initial isolation of each elemental process. When a community was composed of fire people, fine distinctions (the "narcissism of small differences") were how we could tell each other apart: one person was bright but cold, another hot but dim, a third in the happy sweet spot at the center of our society blessed with both qualities in abundance. Then as people get pushed to the margins or come in, we encounter true difference and develop a sense of other elements, at which point the sub runes fade from prominence. This is especially important within time as "pantheons" are constructed from historically separated components. I was just looking at how the ouori (and by implication, the waertagi) don't start out acknowledging Magasta (Water Of Water) but instead have a Valind analogue (maybe Cold of Air depending on how you split the hair) in that role. But as the pieces are introduced back to one another we get these irregularities where people insist on statements like "Yelmalio is not a Fire god" or "Argan Argar is not a Dark god, totally different thing." In childhood I thought that since Sea is always doubled (two wavy lines) it contains its own segmentation. Water is its own cycle. However this is a little esoteric. I forget, do people break down Ca-ladra as Ca-lodra? The prefix may be some kind of honorific or other qualifier as we approach primordial Lodrilela, which may not have been in the north at all, really.

Does Pamaltelan astronomy tell us anything crucial about the Dendara? That stuff is fairly opaque but also provides a non-Yelmic perspective on her planetary personage and maybe other aspects.

Cutting through the process of how we discovered some of the Deep Sources that inform the Lunar Way, I think many observers would conclude that absorbing the imperial system was a wrong turn for what would otherwise could have become a liberation movement with truly cosmic potential. Some anti-imperial currents can still be found and may be among the ultimate winners of the Hero Wars. We just don't see them yet because the sun is literally in the way. But it couldn't really have gone otherwise. For one thing, while the imperial system reflects a kind of insanity grafted onto the spiritual system . . . madness is inherent to the moon ("cold hearted orb / that rules the night") and within Time we have to accept the waning phases with the wax. And realistically, Pink Floyd was huge when Greg was noodling around with proto-Peloria, so the sun must, after all, be eclipsed by (conjunct) the moon, at least for a little while. Like I said up thread, exciting to ponder how to end the dialogue between the sun and the moon. I am not a fan of the solar complex myself so have a strong bias. I like what you do here. When Storm was forced to choose between Night and Day, all the parts that weren't Loko chose the Kingdom of Night and ultimately we have the world we have. I don't think any Light Storm or Sky Storm people survive but the Hero Wars are full of surprises. Maybe whatever is going on in Pent contains some elements of High Storm survival / reborn. It would be cool.

I have my thoughts but they don't matter. Your quest is what will count with her. I will say though that rain in Peloria and rain where she comes from may follow very different dynamics, for what that might be worth. Where she is from might not even have the same elements that rule modern Central Genertela, to follow your Six Gender Structure.

Who else better to find out who she really is? Put it all together and she rises.

She was Earth Light in RQ3. Keep questing until she fits.

I feel the well-meaning concern but the patient is in endlessly better condition than it was in '85-'92, '94-'07 and then '09-'17. Let's see how well it walks the ward before we start betting on the next relapse. Maybe the Fourth Age of Runequest will be the charm. As for the volume of new material, sometimes volunteering to feed the pipeline helps. This is not a serenely passive aggressive "do it yourself" but simply the way Glorantha has always worked. Greg came up with this so we would teach him new things about this dumb old lozenge. Stepping up to the challenge is how we all grow faster. The Jonstown Compendium structures it. It's okay. The only risk is the same as everything else: a lot of effort seems to go nowhere, but at least we took the shot. (Yes, The Green Book of Kanthor is still on my long-term calendar but will probably be published in heaven. So it goes! Someone faster can beat me to the punch.)

Someone could either go back and play out the Jannisor's War era or contemplate a Lunar Civil War to come. A lot of work but probably very rewarding..

Yeah, "woman" and "female" have different connotations in the homosocial unicorn empire. And since even male CA can be called "sisters" or "white ladies" with no misgender it gets especially complicated with his illuminated healers. As the Book of Drastic Resolutions says, "the brothers of wakboth are women, the aspirants to chaos are men."

There are two sides of this question: what did the proto-olodo bring with them and how did what they found there change them? I'm resisting the urge to do original research here so have ripped out a lot of footnotes (no beard LARP) but my strongest window for the transplantation period is right before the doom of the coastal civilization circa 85-100 ST. If so, the archaic sources suggest that they were a barbarian belt people who would have recognized the name "Ernalda" as the goddess who married a local storm. ("Orlanth" comes to the party a little later.) They had boats and fishing. If they had a choice, they would have brought pigs. Once they got there they would have adapted as much of their agriculture as possible to the new religious landscape. Timinits would have helped, filling in for absent elves. I suspect the mysterious dreo are actually persistent dwarves, complicating the waertagi intent in transporting massive human populations toward Slon. Whether they acknowledged a god under the mountain back on the mainland, they definitely acquire one here. This god may evolve toward the lines we see in historic Caladra and become "husband protector" (submerging the storm they bring with them) or not. Local "Ernalda" would also contrast to the way that goddess develops on the mainland, so when their distant descendants see Nochet with Caladra looming on the horizon there's a strong sense of recombinant deja vu and an urge to experiment.

Puts a different slither on the cult role Ylream was bred to play, don't it . . . a decent enough experiment for a few centuries but in the end the mythic south is still different.

Hot stuff! I think a lot of material was rolled together on the mission to the west, which as you point out should have huge religious significance for those looking to emulate the storm. (And this in itself opens up further questions about how LBQ becomes associated with Westfaring before being suppressed and revived.) Ironically, much of the pre-Council religious landscape of this region was forcefully resettled/converted and the sites no longer exist so the only traces we have now are part of what we consider the modern Orlanth complex. Slontan Trickster forms (Orlmarl / Eurlanth), for example. Maybe the primeval pig goddess who might or might not have had a magic necklace. Aspects of Moon and Sea. All kinds of wonderful and exotic lore that doesn't play a central role in the central Genertelan sky/storm conflict. All of that would have come back through Esrolia of course.

We don't know a lot about what she was doing in the imperial era. It's almost like those records have been deliberately misplaced. The "E" in EWF could stand in for just about Everything.

There is a lot going on here to reward questing! All I know is that when I see "naga" or "nagi" I usually strike the "n" to translate to our modern understanding of Glorantha. Pamaltela emerges remarkably early (roughly as fast as Kralorela, only a few years after the West) but at that stage Greg is more interested in figuring out the tribulations of the Artmalites. Even so, we have "nagitori" and "nagimori" from almost the beginning. In terms of theories to adopt it's interesting that Pamalt is sometimes depicted as a serpent giant. I originally wanted the "naga" to be the earth race that becomes the "serpent mothers" or likiti but they interact as separate groups so if there is a direct relationship it's more complicated. "South" may be the place where the primal snake nation was more successful and remained "naga" (keeping horns, for example, maybe wings) whereas in the Genertan disaster that particular spirit people faded from the landscape. Of course people rarely think of Pamalt in these terms in the modern travelogues. Maybe they should but this is a secret. The Pamalt complex is weird. It's also possible that Therophis got a source garbled or failed to translate the term. I think some have pointed at the pelmre (super old in the texts along with the jelmre and "hular") as an overlooked southern reptile nation too young to help. The informant is also silent on the Artmalites. Snake people are cool. There were even miniatures.

In archaic drafts the Naga are a race of humans roughly interchangeable with the people we call the "Agimori" today. When Greg pivoted away from the direct South Asian reference the word changed. Its recurrence here is an enigma. We can all adopt theories.

[Julie Brown reluctantly cut but we need to hide everyone else's shame] Exactly! The obscenity of whether / how many broo are "female" is probably the underside of this, like the way both a cheerful baubo and awful phallic mother are both "gorgons." Which reminds me two things I wanted to wedge in there. First, all of this is probably part of how Androgeus functions to unravel the world. Gender as compromise means transgressing the opposition liberates whatever is tied up in those secret knots. Second, I am rarely happy with Man rune so maybe it's time someone quested hot and heavy into that to figure out how its gender works, where to find Woman rune(s), etc. A basic stick person could be anyone, no sword or hourglass Fertility figure. Maybe the addi is also a drawing stick, which in turn becomes the tattoo needle. Only in some societies does the stick person become dudes only. I naturally see the mark of zzabur all over that.