scott-martin

16 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

he's apparently acted as priest of sorts

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.

13 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Am I going insane or is there some mention somewhere of Genert "inventing" theism in that he is credited with performing the first sacrifice or something? A Great Spirit practising theism isn't too farfetched, since we've got Vith, a Great God who practices mysticism (and is hardly the only one).

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.

31 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

There's also Darkness without Cold in Pamaltela, the rune of the Muri (sweaty trolls) via their patron mother god, Moorgarki. I believe hoon do as well, being degenerate Muri without the Person rune.

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. 

22 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Caladra may be Ga-Lodril.

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.

Just now, Qizilbashwoman said:

literally the world was significantly larger, but there were fewer mountains and zero oceans, and also a lot of happy people interested in exploring. Even the Vadeli weren't monsters yet.

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

1 minute ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

it refers to the Artmali Kingdom, interesting

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.

2 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Where does Lodrilela appear in a text? This is a strange form and breaks Greg's apparent self-formed rule about names

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

Just now, Qizilbashwoman said:

It's Lodrilia, not *Lodrilela

 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.

4 minutes ago, Joerg said:

The Sourcebook (p3, 6) gives Ernalda the lands of Maniria and Saird and Genert's Garden, plus all the drowned places towards the Spike. Ralia's land is separate, even though the Green Goddess of Ralios is Ernalda in all but name. Pelora is separate, too.

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. 

11 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Thanks, and sorry for being not as enlightening. I dozed off before sending that...

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.

5 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Dark Dendara

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.

5 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

There's been a lot that's been said, but going back a bit I want to say that I agree with the general sentiment that putting the Lunar superstrata on top of Solar cultures and putting them up against Storm cultures creates - from an aesthetic, marketing, and "optics" perspective - is a bit of a mess.

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.

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

The Heortlings and their allies (and the Esrolians as allies of the Only Old One) kept a closed front, but so did the Talastari on the opposite side.

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.

1 minute ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

I thought she was connected to Water like Oslira. After all, her holy day with Entekos is a rainmaking ceremony and Entekos "the Right Air God" is not a Water deity but probably Umath's eldest child, Serenha, the Calm Middle Air, not exactly what you associate with rainmaking.

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.

7 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

i'm dissatisfied with her being Earth only because the story of the Rebel Gods is of the Earth goddess rebelling and leaving. I'd be happier if she was some other kind of elemental deity.

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

3 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

... earth?

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.)

2 minutes ago, None said:

I know that, I meant as a direct alteration of the setting before character creation or a campain even begins. Noy as the act of characters within the story. Although Hero Questing to force Dara Happa and the Lunar Empire apart is an interesting idea.

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..

15 minutes ago, Joerg said:

There are Chalana Arroy broo healers among Ralzakark's castrati followers, alongside with the Humakti.

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." 

4 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

What do we know about life and gods in Jrustela before the weird Malkioni got there? I have Middle Sea Empires but it's just about the weird Pilgrim-analogues.

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.

2 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

As is Genert... Glorantha Sourcebook:

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. 

25 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

the Empire of Wyrm's Friends wasn't based on ERNALDA having a hidden dragon soul instead.

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.

1 minute ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Wow. Did not expect that. So the "South" being spoken of here is not specifically Pamaltela, or is it a throwback to maybe when the southern lands hadn't quite been differentiated yet or something?

I wouldn't exactly mind seeing stereotypical naga (lower body snake people) around in the tropical rainforest regions of eastern Pamaltela or East Isles, although I'll admit I'd imagine them more as chaos beings akin to Genertelan Scorpionfolk than an "orderly" race.

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. 

26 minutes ago, GianniVacca said:

I have been looking for a description of the Naga, but couldn't find any in any of my various RQ/HQ books. Did I miss anything?

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]

10 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

broo detected

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.

5 hours ago, Bohemond said:

did want this baby to take after its mother or its father?

As usual, astounding.

1 hour ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Both wars suck, but this isn't the Green Age. There's treaties to be made and alliances to be forged with spirits. The future requires wisdom and boldness:

The parallel to the gendering of the Praxian Covenant is super interesting. Instead of the vague and cheerful "e pluribus unum" of IFWW success in a broken world requires specialization. Some are eaters. Some are eaten. Some are Eiritha. Some are the Bull. Those who arbitrate the distinctions are Daka and their visible portion is Waha. Maybe that's the model for the Kerofinelan hierogamy where two forces meet and one becomes "male" and the other "female." Authorities on the prehistory of Pairing Stone probably know a lot more about what happens when gender systems that evolved independently encounter each other. 

Meanwhile most of us spend a lot of time as barntar types even as adults, more like undifferentiated DH drones or hapless oasis people. Some become parents. Some become fighters or magic-users and those roles get gendered too. Waha teaches weapons and Eiritha teaches magic. People who know weapons are the "sons" and people who know magic are "daughters." The masculine is Death and the feminine is Fertility, more or less. There are special people who follow different routes to differentiation. There are also more intense forms, as when the Bull is too butch for normal people to even deal with. 

Depending on the specific historical expression of the compact a lot of this often gets mapped across elemental lines. The "earth" people mostly became girls and the "storm" people mostly take the boy pronoun. The "sky" dynamics are a little more esoteric given the vertical fixation there. "Water" is fluid. Expand into the complexities. When "earth" girls are an easy fit, the uppity earth is literally "moon." Storm and sun have their own dynamic. Dark is like a cremaster movie. 

Tapestries are magic only slower. Run it as a ritual enchantment, keep feeding points into it despite all obstacles + distractions and the weavework will start to move.