Ian Cooper

Not everyone is a fan of them, but I like Thunder Rebels a lot. It was clearly bronze age, with its funerary rituals, storms etc. and influenced by a range of European cultures. And i think there was something to the more complex religion of Orlanth and Ernalda. I think that it went a little too far in some places, and that 'housewife magic' was an idea that should have been stepped back from, but it has more that I like than dislike.

So, it feels to me that at some point in the HW/HQ Greg felt that some of the RQ deities such as Orlanth and Ernalda, or Lodril and Dayzatar were not approached directly but through sub-cults that emphasized a smaller set of myths, virtues and powers. Some part of me suspects that this reflected a changing perspective that the Orlanth cult as we knew it in RQ, and these other major gods, were actually amalgam deities who combined the stories of a lot of God's War deities. So the **cult** of Orlanth combined stories of Vingkot, Barntar etc. as well as Orlanth. This made gods like the Lightbringers and Humakt much more 'specialist' and potentially 'borrowed' from cultures that the Orlanthi contacted. The problem was that the plethora of cults were a little bit in conflict with a more storytelling game like HQG. So we ended up broadly defined affinities and sub-cults, with these gods unique features probably best represented as feats you can learn, which involving heroforming that particular sub-cult god as opposed to Orlanth. I think this change was mostly better. Perhaps along the way what was lost is the idea that the Orlanth cult involves the worship of a whole host of heroes, small gods, etc that form part of the cult and are a perfect place for you to be creative. So Helamakt would be a sub-cult, probably with some specific feats you can learn if you join the sub-cult and heroform him. Learning The Sivin Feat would certainly help elf-haters 🙂 I think there was potentially a "baby and the bath water" problem with a number of new ideas: sub-cults, three worlds, common religions where some interesting ideas were expressed that may bear re-visiting in a 'softer' way.

On your first point, I suggest you have at the deconsructionists over LS's guilt of innocence on that score, not me 🙂 But I agree that the Hero Wars is essentially a post-modernist conflict. Though we may be digging a little deep for some tastes on this.

BTW, I think he used in-world texts a lot, over giving a God Learner account, in his later writings, precisely because he was rejecting the God Learner view. Yes, the hints of some ur-story are there, but I think he was focused on how the 'jouissance' of the text allowed him to take the same ur-text and create wildly different belief systems, and in that I think there is a lot of joy (and after all that is what jouissance implies).

BTW, IMO the 'RuneQuest Sight' is an in-joke, it refers to the God Learners as being a bit like RuneQuest players, who want to 'measure' the world. After all, RuneQuest didn't have much of an in-game meaning at the time, other than to become a rune level. I suspect the God Learner's secret is far closer to: "Language is a system of differences without positive terms", that is words are made up of a signifier (a sound or symbol) and a meaning, but that there is no correspondence between the two. There is nothing essentially cat-like about cat. This observation by the linguist Saussure, went on to be used by the structuralist movement who believed that much in the field of human sciences could be analyzed as a 'system of differences without positive terms'. So the story "Orlanth kills Yelm, the world falls apart, Orlanth seeks out Yelm, Orlanth offers Yelm judgement, the world is reborn" is just "The Rebel defeats the Tyrant, things falls apart, the Rebel seeks out the Tyrant, The Rebel offers the Tyrant judgement, the world is made better" and we can replace the Tyrant with any god who rules without the 'will of the people' etc. Big exponents of this theory are folks like Claude Levi-Strauss and Joseph Campbell. I think these are the God Learners, folks who explain myth in a structuralist fashion. Greg has often said that Glorantha's ages reflect his. The First Age is his naive youth where he discovered myth, the Second Age when he read a lot of books that purported to explain them, and the third where he realized that it's not that easy. I would suggest the God Learners were defeated by the equivalent of Derrida and Lacan, the 'jouissance' of myth (in language the tendency of language to have syntagmatic and paradigmatic associations - the fact that we use metaphors such as 'he was a snake' break down the structuralist view). Nowadays, Levi-Strauss and Campbell are pretty much 'dead old white guy" theorists in the study of myth. To act as a God Learner, to use the RuneQuest sight, is to see myth as a "system of differences without positive terms" . The monomyth derives from 'truths' but it is shorn of local understanding, of those 'pardigmatic and syntagmatic' associations. Elmal and Antirius may fulfill similar structural myths in this story, but all they other associations they have mean that a structuralist interpretation breaks down. I think, for my part, Glorantha is a story over the ages of how structuralism fails to capture the essence of myth. It's not really an 'in-game' secret, it is an out of game one. YMMV. (For interest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Lévi-Strauss#The_structuralist_approach_to_myth)

The Compromise in which the world was returned to life in a new spring, marked by the sun-disk which showed the passage of Time, and which was born aloft by Elmal, the torchbearer.

I believe it was the Lifebringer's Quest and you can find it in the Book of Heortling Mythology (?). Orlanth goes in search of Ernalda, and she takes on a 'Arachne Solara' role, weaving the new shape of post-Compromise reality, resurrecting those that died in the God's War, and creating Time. The Emperor is mentioned as one of the dead, but he is not who Orlanth sets out to recover. In Greg's unpublished "Ten Women Well Loved", Harmast participates in the Lifebringer's Rites in the Sacred Time, to remake he world, not the Lightbringer's rites.

OK so let's look at who Lightfore is: This is post the ‘death of Yelm’ and destruction of the Spik. The implication is that Lightfore is ‘missing’ during the God’s War. Now this statement is somewhat confusing, but it partially refers to the star Antirius replacing Kargzant, or being renamed. But that star is Lightfore right? Well, perhaps not, Lightfore ’rides’ Kargzant and does not replace him. This surely refers to the earlier myth of the ’Sons of Vuranostum. In essence the same story, Orlanth and Lightfore overcome Kargzant. I suspect that this is a Hyaloring myth, but it would seem to be an important moment for any Orlanthi rider cults, such as Elmal. In essence Lightfore seems to conquer Kargzant and then ride him, and the horse and rider cannot be told apart any more. Again we see the myth of Lightfore as a horsebreaker who chains Kargzant into submission. and then the two stars cannot be told apart. That would explain how the planet Lightfore could be both Lightfore and Kargzant, it is horse and rider!! So Lighfore’s movement through the constellations records the mythology of Yelm and via that the seasons. In a sense this is the annual time in contrast to daily time. Daily time is Light and Dark but annual time is perhaps more important to the Compromise as Life waxes and wanes in Summer and Winter. Now GRoY notes this as Antirius the “Little Sun”, but also offers that Antirius is Yelm’s consciousness i.e. is a part of Yelm. It also somewhat confusingly suggests that Antirius descended into hell, just as Bijif did. I won’t repeat the whole myth of the Young God here but it appears he [So this Sun God falls to the Dragon/River that invades the heavens, not the Rebel, and resurrects himself, rather than being resurrected by Orlanth. So is this the original mythology of Kargzant? It is worth perhaps noting that Greg put Elmal and Orlanth’s confrontation at a river. Is this the point at which the mythologies were tied - the sun god falling into the river? Of course if the river is Styx, this can be a metaphorical crossing into death, but no Orlanth killing the Emperor here. This one is an outlier and a hole in the theory though: Arraz/Lightfore? Is Lightfore simply a title for the current dominant sun. Was that once Arraz? Was Arraz the Emperor before Yelm? What does all this even imply? Answers on a Gloranthan postcard... A theory Lightfore’s mythology is given by Lightfore’s passage through the constellations. Now that mythology is wrapped around Yelm, the god of the sun disk, but it appears to belong to a different god. Lightfore is said to chain Kargzant when the star becomes Lightfore. Most likely this is the myth of the domestication of the Horse. Kargzant, the nomad sun god is here symbolic of the horse and Lightfore's chaining of him, probably of gaining the horse. But if Kargzant is the nomad horse god, then this is a story told from the Hyaloring point of view, perhaps. The Hyalorings 'conquer' the nomad's horses. Lightfore becomes one with Kargzant, the rider and the horse. But it seems more than this, the rider cult's mythologies merge here too, Kargzant and Lightfore. A structuralist reading could also have this as the ‘foreigner’s wedding', we welcome Elmal into the house by marriage to the Horse Loving Daughter (Redaylda, or is she Beren's wife, or is that much the same, marriage of hero over god). Maybe Lightfore is the old sun, gone from the world, before the sun disk of the dawn, of time, rises. This might make sense as the sunpath is created by Lightfore. So that might imply why the sun gods Anitirus, Kargant etc. become associated with him and Yelm with the sun disk. Now, as we understand it, the horse conquering sun fits Elmal better than Antirius, but we don't know enough of Antirius's myths, and Orlanth is said to bear Antirius as a weapon when he conquers the horse. But having conquered the nomad sun, the sun horse, Kargzant. the mythology of the rider and horse seem to merge. So whoever Elmal and Antirius were, becoming a rider does seem to change them. And what of Yelm, how does he acquire Kargzant's mythology. He gains it when folks begin to worship the sun disk and not the sun bearer at the dawn (who was the old sun) in the First age. But this would definitely back the idea that Yelm comes into existence with time, and the sun disk does not exist before that, Yelm’s mythology a composite of Kargzant, Antirius and others Is this Yelmalio? An opinion goes that Yelmalio is Lightfore. Well Yelmalio is the god of the winter sun, and the testing that Lightfore receives could be the testing that the Young God bears in the desert. But he does not face the serpent/dragon and he is the sun in winter, not a sun for all seasons. And the cult of the spearmen of the Golden Dome does not seem to a rider's cult, the cult of those that tamed the horse and brought horse warfare (over chariot?) So is Yelmalio just a truncated portion of the cult, the god just in Winter, a part of the sun, but not all of it, less than Elmal, Kargzant or Antirius who are the whole?

I don't think we revived him, and if so that was probably a "lucky roll' game thing over any attempt to express a secret. I am pretty sure that he dies at the Dragonrise and doesn't come back.

Many suns 😉

My assumption is that a sun disk which crosses the sky on a track between Dawn and Dusk only exists post-Time, where it reflects both the fact that the sun-disk must spend time in the underworld and surface world as part of the Compromise and also because it marks the passage of time. At the dawn, myths seem to see the local cultures favourite sun god as bearer, shepherd, carrier etc. of this sun disk. Later, this sun disk becomes identified in the Bright Empire with Yelm. Of course, as we post the event, it is tough to know if the 'bearer' was a re-write to account for the identification of Yelm later, or the belief at the dawn. I think it is clear though that post the Compromise, the sun is a different sun to that known before. [There is a complexity with the impliction that the people don't know the Dawn has happened until the Theyaleans tell them that, but I am less sure what that means, yet] Prior to the Compromise I would expect the situation in all of the heavens was static in the Golden Age, and then constantly changing, but with no long-lasting 'pattern' in the Storm Age and darkness. Another question of course is 'who is Lightfore?' I think that is more problematic than who is the sun-disk, because, as @Joerg, I think, points out, Lightfore is identified as a 'title' a lot. I'm not sure that I buy the identification of Elmal with Lightfore, because Elmal is the bearer of the Sun Disk, not a Little Sun. I'm not actually sure I buy Antirius or Kargzant as Lightfore either.

Agreed, that is kind of the topic of the next thread I was thinking of posting. For the Orlanthi the Sun and the Emperor are two distinct things I think, until the Bright Empire where he becomes associated with Yelm, the sun disk. I do not think that the essential Gloranthan conflict is sun vs. storm, but tyrant vs. rebel. The cycle seems to repeat in every age: Empire emerges, promises good new life for all at the price of allowing the leadership to become gods; rebel emerges to free people from the tyranny of these new gods. Nysalor/Arkat; EWF/Alakoring; Red Moon/Argrath

Indeed, the other thread might value your insight too, as how to this relates to who Yelm is.

Yeah, that is a good objection, not thought of that point. It does make it less likely that there is a Tarumath-Yelm equivalence here.

Indeed, although ironically Harmast ensures the survival of Yelm to some extant by granting him significant collateral worship in every Sacred Time. Perhaps it would have been better for Tarumath if a Bright Empire ritual had folded him in...

The Sun Swirl of course might really be this: In the beginning there is a Fire Rune, the One, and it devolves by mixing with power and condition runes into many celestial gods and goddesses, the Many. At the Compromise there is one Sun Disk created, to mark the passage of time. Initially, the Many are associated with the Sun Disk (Elmal carries the torch, Kargzant bears it on his back) but are not the Sun Disk, but its bearer. Later as cultures meet each other they try to reconcile their differences about who is the bearer of the Sun Disk. Nysalor allows them to separate the Sun Disk, can call it Yelm, from the Many, the bearers of the Sun Disk. (On the God's Wall the 'sun disk' is possibly separate from the sun god) There are parallels here with all the other elements that seem to have this decay from pure element to mixed with power and condition runes. Now what is interesting is what happens after that. And I think that depends on whether you are part of the Bright Empire. IMO the Heortlings that resist the Bright Empire continue to worship Elmal as the bearer, but the supporters of the Bright Empire worship Yelmalio. The nomads worship Kargzant as the bearer, because they are outside the Bright Empire. In Dara Happan they seem to stop worshiping Antirius directly, and instead absorb him into the Yelm cult. Now, when the Bright Empire falls, we have previously suggested that Yelmalio goes with it, as Yelm does according to GRoY. Associated with Illumination and Nysalor too much. Gone but not forgotten, these cults do re-emerge in the second age, shorn of Nysalorian trappings (but those Yelmalio retirement towers seem an obvious folk-memory), and in third age where Yelmgatha may well bring Nysalorian influence back to Yelm. (Monrogh btw would seem to be bringing Nysalorian influence back to Yelmalio). Of course, Yelm is not a commoner's god, and Yelmalio seems to be associated with his Sun Dome temples so for most people this is not a significant change. Note that I think there are interesting parallels between Yelm, which is a cult of divine leadership according to GRoY in the Bright Empire and what we might surmise about Tarumath, which also seemed to make its leaders divine (Loko Moko) but whereas Tarumath does not seem to survive, Yelm does. That of course would make Yelm one of the Amalgam deities, but my essential proposition is that he is.

I think we are at the risk of just restating positions here. I don't have anything much to add outside what I have already offered. YGWV and all that.

See The Many and the One, or has there always been a Yelm thread:

King of Sartar does not say that Yelmalio and Elmal are the same god. It says the opposite. The reason for asking for quotes is that people are making bold statements, such as Yelmalio is Elmal and we need to see some textual evidence for that. It is not the understanding of the last 25 years for many. King of Sartar has Yelmalio as the solution to the conflict between the Elmal cult and a resurgent cult of Yelm. Why was Yelm resurgent in this period? Because Yelmgatha returned the cult to prominence by becoming Emperor of Dara Happa by passing the Ten Tests. He was a Lunar heroquester and a revived Yelm cult began spreading after years in which it was 'underground' (Golden Dragon of EWF era and Carmanian Empire replacement with Idovanus). The vision of Many Suns is a re-discovery of the Nyslorian perspective of the Bright Empire which says there can be many sun gods, not just one. See the other thread for the evidence from GRoY, FS, and KoS for that. I appreciate that this debate is becoming academic, but otherwise how do we discuss the actual situation as we have previously had it presented?

Can you provide a quote in which he changes his mind on this? Because I don't think he did, so I am afraid you need some evidence to back your argument that post-2007 he declared that Elmal and Yelmalio were the same god. Otherwise, it's just your opinion.

Yes, Greg was very clear that Elmal and Yelmalio are different gods. Elmal is not Lightfore, he is the Sun. KoS was very clear, that Elmal is the Sun for the Heortlings. Yelmalio http://glorantha.temppeli.org/digest/gd4/1997.06/3711.html Yes. > (Yelm?) No. > or is he Yelmalio (who is someone like Yelm-Amongst-The-Hills). He's not Yelmalio. That's a different god. See http://www.glorantha.com/greg/q-and-a/yelmalio.html > Is Elmal the chunk of the Sun that stayed in the world during the Darkness? If you are a Heortling, then you know Elmal is Orlanth's loyal thane, the god who stayed behind when Orlanth went to the Land of the Dead. When Orlanth and Ernalda came out, at the eastern gate, they threw a torch to Elmal, who then carried it to the western gate, went through the Underworld and came out the east. Ever since he has travelled the Path of the Torch each day. So they call him the Sun, in some common translations. No chunk of anything. He's the Sun. and not in mailing list sources King of Sartar, p.40 and But wait, you might say Orlanth kills the sun, so he kills Elmal!! And then goes into the underworld to recover him, surely this is problematic for the Elmali? No, the Elmali version of this myth is that Orlanth and Elmal fight and Elmal is rescued by Orlanth (I suggest that Greg had thought this through) Structurally, and thus from a God Learner point of view, that is the same myth. Storm fights Sun, Sun and Storm suffer from conflict outcome, Storm rescues Sun, Storm and Sun reach agreement to live together. The GL can equate those two myths. The conflict in the First Age is over "Who is the Sun?", not "Who is Lightfore?". It is possible that there is a secondary spin-off where a deposed Antirius and Elmal get associated with Lightfore, but that is the error, not the identification with the sun. When Orlanth goes on his Lifebringer's Quest he reconciles with his enemy the Emperor. The conflict is Tyrant and Rebel, not Sun and Storm, but this is really for my other thread about Lifebringers and the Emperor, I just don't have time to start that. Now RQG is entitled to YGWV on this, to have a cosmology in which Elmal is Yelmalio. But it's not what Greg wrote in his background works, and he was clear about that when asked, above.

I think the issue has become confused for sure. This was my understanding. Elmal is the sun god for the Heortlings, where the sun is a loyal thane to Orlanth. Yelm is the sun god for the Heortlings where the sun is an overbearing Emperor. Orlanth fights and then makes friends with Elmal, and murders the Emperor to liberate the universe, but then he brings the Emperor back at the Great Compromise to save the world from Chaos. The fact he can do both is part of the essential non-causal mystery of the Godtime. Yelmalio is Lightfore and a different god. I think that is fairly straightforward if you accept soft polytheism. (A complexity is that, in-world, some have tried to equate Antirius, and Elmal with Yelmalio. I suggest that Greg left clues that is a mistake. But you can ignore this, and just go with the results). But, that is not the RQG position, and I want to make that clear, so as to avoid confusion. It's YGWV. The RQG position has Elmal and Yelmalio as the same god. I will leave it to others to explain how to rationalize that with the extant myths in KoS etc. of Elmal as the sun etc. as I don't want to misspeak for their position.

We are discussing Plentonius on the 'other thread'.

The real question is this. Do you prefer 'hard polytheism' which says: there is only one sun god, and variations are just regional misunderstandings of the same god, or 'soft polytheism' in which there can be multiple sun gods worshiped by different cultures, all of which are true. RQ tended towards hard polytheism, but starting in the 90s Greg's writings favored soft polytheism and things like KoDP and HQG reflected that. So the argument is really, can you have Elmal, Antirius, Kargzant, Yelm etc all as the 'sun' or must one of them really be the sun, with the others just local variations. Personally, I prefer the soft polytheistic version because I believe that the Hero Wars is about people heroquesting to prove their version of the 'truth'. But other folks are going to favor the simplicity of hard polytheism. I'd like there to be room for gamers to enjoy both options, not just be limited to one. Although it might not help you GM to have soft polytheism, others do prefer that. Live and let live etc. But for now, it appears that soft polytheism is YGWV in the RQG line. So you can ignore it, unless it interests you to investigate it.

He does, but it is not necessarily identified as Yelm at that point, but the Emperor, and is later associated with 'Yelm'. I have a follow up on that, about the Lifebringer's Quest and the Emperor.