jeffjerwin

My game is currently set in 1450 when there was a Dara Happan pretender ('On Horse', of course). So my perspective is, it seems, anachronistic. I still wonder who the Seleran pretender was. Though it would seem that the Empire may have substantially reinforced its claims to be the heir of Yelm after 1461. Traitor families would have been rooted out.

Nandan is now an Heortling gender as far as I understand. Most Nandans initiate to 'female cults' (a Nandan could become an initiate of Babeester Gor, for example).

My non-canon speculation: From all this I'd expect Raibanth to be socially stratified to the Nth degree (everyone, down to the street-sweepers, knows how many generations separate them from the Sun or an Emperor), with a fair bit of pointless fighting over 'giving the wall' (in the 16th century in England, bravos would try to intimidate their lessers into stepping out of their way - 'out of the sunlight' in the case of Raibanth - and stab people who didn't make way. A cruel, inward-looking place, with its tensions intensified because of the obvious presence in the sky of a more dominant philosophy. The Lunar Way is viewed privately as a dangerous innovation by the City Fathers, but they can't oppose it outright. Every generation, more and more people are lost to it. Yuthuppa is a very organized place. People know their places, but it's much less unidirectional as in Raibanth. Castes are organized by work rather than by descent per se. The Yuthuppan census is a yearly thing. The ruling class are distracted intellectuals and engineers, not haughty Yelmites. There are a lot of students from elsewhere in the Empire, generally behaving either studiously or badly as the case may be. While Raibanth probably has street lighting by night, Yuthuppa forbids it - it interferes with star gazing. The greater social cohesion (compared to clan cohesion in Raibanth) helps to allay the night-time danger of burglary and theft.

It could be worse. In Irish legend, a geas is a fatal taboo, one, which broken, invariably triggers the death of the subject.

In the RW world Intelligence is partly a matter of early education and 'nurture' (including diet and 'practice') as much (or more) as it is inheritance. I would give Wizard caste characters a solid bonus to their INT roll if we started with caste in character generation.

How well do durulz get along with giant beavers, Stewart? (Speaking of damp construction projects)

I touched on this my research for a forthcoming book, but placed the events in 536 to 538. You will note that Chretien makes the events of the Lancelot/Chevalier au Charette and (its apparent sequel) Yvain overlap.

May be relevant that Palangio Iron-Vrok was from Rinliddi. Perhaps something could be extrapolated? He certainly was a militant fellow and a general, and his way of doing warfare might have influenced his own people (or been influenced by them)...

The Crown Test of Leika Ballista was a hero quest of sorts into Snakepipe Caverns, according to Wyrm's Footnotes.

This is one of the primary reason why I think she was rooted in a transformation of Orogeria-Norian, rather than being from the start a martial deity.

There are detailed non canon maps of the Culbrea out there too: Check out the non-canon Lismelder maps on this page if you want a lot of detail... https://glorantha.fandom.com/wiki/Lismelder_Tribe

There's the whole question of the Lhankor Mhy library and whether Loon or Dream Island was connected to the guy. After all that was where he consummated his relationship with Elasa. There is thus a pre-Belintar stratum of sacredness to waterfowl, mystical truth, and dreams. I suspect Loons are illuminated Keets, of course.

Didn't she, though? That's where the Blue Moon comes from. Of course, the trouble with Moon goddesses is that they appear to be different entities, but it seems they are cyclical aspects of a single one instead (and in the art in the Sourcebook we see the White Planet depicted as a daughter of Yelm, the first Moon, but having already shed her modesty). Though multiple moons can exist at the same time too (like the many little Suns). In any case, the white moon is a daughter of Yelm, at least in DH, and in fact is the primary depiction of a singular daughter, which kinda makes me wonder if Yelorna's relationship is to one of the Little Suns (as a star goddess, rather than a moon). The DHs seem to have tried to identify her with Ourania, but the dutiful star daughter and Yelorna are hardly a good match. Still, the Nysalorean equation is presumably = Norian [Orengaria] + Osara + Ourania = Yelorna. I think the locale for this god making must be the same as that of Yelmalio, that is Imther, Saird, and Holay. As I brought up before, that with Yelmalio being a regimental god, that she was planned as a sister and counterpart to face the Earth Magic of Kerofinela, which cannot be faced by men. Osara's Vinga-like rebelliousness was replaced with austerity and militarization; Ourania's pacifism with militancy, and Orengaria-Norian's feral vagrancy with discipline and group ethos. Before this synthesis none of these gods had the Death Rune, but that's the consequence of adding it, I suppose. On the question of Yelorna in Ralios, I think it likely she was found in Karia, which is now a wasteland. We may note also the connection of unicorns to that fellow in Dorastor. Also, the Aggari region of Orenair is the linguistic descendant of Urengeri.

OK, some further notes (which alter some details): The map of Dara Happa from 100,201 to 103,215 in the Fortunate Succession (p.7) reveals that the land around Elempur was called Urengeri. This, again, refers to the bow god(dess) which means that Orogeria derives from a land goddess of the region surrounding it - presently Holay. Holy, notably, is part of the Ernalda-worshipping portion of Peloria, though this is probably a consequence of the appearance of the Rams (pre-Vingkotlings) in the Lesser Darkness. This is the environment of Six Ages, and Orogeria/Urengeri[a] would have been a goddess of the ancestors of the Hyalorings. As such we may identify the proto-Yelorna as a daughter of Nyalda, the Hyaloring Earth goddess, and probably a daughter of Elmal, their Sun god (rather than Yelm directly). This means she is almost certainly identical to Osara (in part), the Flame sister, goddess of female warriors and daughter of Elmal. She was the innovator who introduces female leadership and fighters to the tribe, after the destruction of Elempur. Her siblings are Verlaro the Fool, Samnal the Wheel, and Zarlen the Bright Tailed, who is her half-brother on her father's side. Zarlen is clearly connected to the fox and raccoon gods of the tribes to the north, & he also befriended a bear. Note that unlike Yotelap or Yurmalio, Zarlen is not (yet) a traitor. Unlike Yelorna, Osara offers 'Firearrow' (making her an archer goddess) but Yelorna's star-magic that supplants this is rooted in the yet to come Greater Darkness and the Pre-dawn. She is also notable for not having descendants, from which we can infer that Yelorna's virginity came from Osara.

Erlenda is the consort of Erlendus, who is identified as the seducer aspect of Orlanth, the 'Handsome Grinner' of the HQ book for Pavis. But Yelorna/Sun Daughter would seem to be the daughter of the Emperor Sun. This Emperor Sun, however, could easily be Reladivus/?Kargzant (a horse god) of Nivorah rather than the more distant Yuthuppan Sun. Note also that Alaramsur/Yamsur is a riding god; her 'brother'. He is slain in very early legend by Orlanth, so it's apparent that he was avenging to elopement of Ernalda/Erlenda with the Ram God. The Ram God in the same Pavic ritual is closely connected with Valind, who is the original 'cruel god' of the Hill of Gold. This leads to the possibility that Vadrus/Valind/Ram's 'covering' of Reladiva/Erlanda, the fertile earth is the act that also slays the Sun, and leads to his son's death seeking her rescue... which proto-Yelorna witnesses. Inora would thus be snow-covered Earth, the child of Erlenda and the Ram-god... She even has the -oria, -ora suffix of Yelor[n]a, who might be her sister. Not sure.

These notes relate to my attempt to create a mythos for my own game. As such I make a few leaps that out of creative necessity. Yelorna is Sky Huntress and sister of Lightfore and Yamsur. Enemy of Zorak Zoran [Orak]. She is the starbringer, which was also an action of Ulurda the Blue Fox, aka Orogeria, the Moon/Sky Huntress. Her mother is said to be Ernalda (who is the Pelorian Erlanda). She is in fact a synthetic deity of the Nysalorian period. Yelorna has a relationship or connection to Ourania, who, however, is a more pacifistic deity, though they share a celestial portfolio. Ourania is the daughter of Dayzatar, and has no mother. The associations of Yelorna with Earth are significant enough to question whether they are properly identical. However we may compare the repeating generations of goddesses who are also partly identical in the Earth tribe. She witnessed the death of Yamsur at the hands of Zorak Zoran. Her riding affinity suggests a connection to Kargzant or to Gamara, the steed of Yamsur/Lightfore. = Verithurusa, Sight-portion of Sedenya? White Moon. Rausa is another ‘daughter of Yelm’, daughter of Yelm and the Styx. Compare Redaylda, ‘red-haired horse-loving daughter of Orlanth and Ernalda’. As the virgin daughter of Ernalda, she overlaps with the pacifistic Voria, but she has Babeester Gor’s labrys axe. Her other weapon is the Meteor Bow, which corresponds to the bow and name of Orogeria. The unicorn women insist that Yelorna is a daughter of Ernalda, the primary Earth goddess of the region (hence her rebellion), though Verithurusa, who may be her Pelorian counterpart, is the child of Entekos or Dendara. Like the various Lightfores at the Hill of Gold, Yelorna fights Zorak Zoran [alias Orak, the Hell-wind, etc.]. During Arkat’s Stygian Empire her cult was suppressed; ‘exterminated everywhere west of the Rockwoods’. [Drastic: Prax, p.48] I suspect the hostility (though not usually violent) of the Praxian Yelornans to the Lunar syncretic pantheon is partly rooted in the attempt of the missionaries to merge Yelorna with Orogeria (which was stymied by the virginity dogma among the unicorn riders). Ironically, of course, Yelorna is herself a Nysalorian innovation. The phoneme Yel- corresponds to Yelm, Yelem, or Ehilm, meaning ‘bright, sun’. –Orna may be connected to the Theyalan [V]Oria, which signifies a girl, or a fertile land. The name means Sun Daughter (see below). Compare Denegeria, the daughter (of Dendara), who is similar to Voria. She was kidnapped by the Dark God and rescued by Idojartus the Lightbringer = ~ the Imtherian Lagavar, who is the son of Pole Star and the Dancer. The phenomenon of worshipping a youth/girl aspect of a larger divinity corresponds to the worship of Orlanth Adventurous among the Heortlings; it does not invalidate the later history of this goddess. The Ritual of Purity, in addition, would not exist without a mythical basis: i.e., Yelorna’s antecedent Orogeria’s lover. Presumably the intent is to sever the Yelorna/Orogeria cult from the male consort figure. If this is Orlantio or Lodril there are probably sociopolitical reasons for this. I also suspect that the assignment of martial aspects to the hunting goddess derives from the desire to create elite military formations. The later obliteration of Yelorna from southern Peloria was probably mythically aided by altering the heroquest of her confrontation with ZZ and recovery of her brother’s weapons, by introducing a modification where she is herself slain by ZZ. *Khelnorian might be the Imtherian name for Yelorna (which would have existed only during the First Age). See Norian, below. In modern Imther, it is Khelmal who recovers the torch and shield of Heliakal, not a Yelorna figure. The Vanchite Yelorna figure may be a daughter of Heliakal/Reladivus (the Sun of Nivorah, who may be = Kargzant) and Reladiva. (Reladiva, in fact may be the prototype of the Earth-mother of Yelorna). Her rebellion against her dead father is in becoming a warrior, and against her (remarried) mother is in remaining a virgin. [At Elampur, the Sun-god was Elmal] Note that Terarir [including the site of Nivorah and what became Vanch] was ruled by the promiscuous queen Erilindia in the First Age, who appears to have been the sometime consort of Lokomayadon. Her name is clearly connected to Erlendia, ‘the sexual monster of the south’. This was in the First Age the core territory of the Earth cult where it overlapped into Dara Happa. Sun Daughter is the Praxian Lightfore and overlaps with both Yelorna and the Pelorian Little Suns. She survived the death of Yamsur (who, as Alaramsur was the enemy of the Holayan Orlanthi at the Hill of Gold). Sun Daughter is worshipped by Praxians, who also reject the Pentan Kargzant or Yu-Kargzant as the sun, in part because of his horse-nature. She is the sun that rose when [Yelm] died. She was once the Pole Star and made Polaris her successor to take her circular path. The composite Sun Daughter-Yelornan cult was one of the syncretic creations of the Nysalorian Bright Empire. [see Drastic: Prax] Her path from the Pole Star is similar to the plunge of Verithurusa/Zaytenera across the sky dome after Umath invades the heavens, though this is much earlier, and corresponds to the movement of Yamsur into Genert’s Garden. This may indicate an earlier expulsion of the feminine soul from the six-souled Dara Happan Brightface. We may reconstruct Sun Daughter retrieving the fallen weapons of Yamsur from his Grave (the Hill of Gold/Earthfall). Verithurusa is the Celestial Wanderer, the White Planet, Jernedeus, Jernotia, and the Full Half Moon. She was reincarnated [via Lesilla, ‘descending blue moon’, Gerra, Rashorana] as Orogeria/Ulurda after she died/lost her virginity and passed into the Underworld. Compare ‘–Rausa’ who is also a daughter of the Sun. She founded Mernita, which was destroyed by the Emperor Lukarius, son of Lesilla, her next incarnation. This land was not drowned during the Flood and is taken to be the Blue Moon Plateau and its surrounds. She was a rebel against her father, because of her curiosity. Her first lover, who transformed her into Lesilla, the first Blue Moon, is unnamed, but has certain similarities to the Imtherian Orlantio and the Pelorian Lodril. The child of Verithurusa is ‘Little Jewel’, a star god, and the child of Orlantio and Chalana is said to be the Dawn. The Verithurusa to come is the daughter and transformation of Zaytenara. The panoply of Verithurusa consists of a (curved) dagger and a mirror. Verithurusa as Zaytenera is associated with Jarst and Garsting, where the Yelorna cult survived the downfall of the Bright Empire. [Drastic: Prax] Verithurusa is the moon passing into the West where it enters the Underworld at Mount Jernotius (the Dara Happan boundary of the western horizon); she emerges after her full cycle as Zaytenera in Jarsting or the mountains beyond. Orogeriais the tamer of the Sky Bear [note that Odayla is the son of Velhara, the Lady of the Wild, in Dragon Pass rather than her companion]. ‘She released the stars’ (GS, p.148), an action essentially identical with Yelorna’s. She lived upon the Earth and is the Lady of the Wilds, the Keeper of Life and Death. She is the Crescent-Come Moon. She protected Ulurda, the vixen, when her lover stalked and cornered her, but could not protect Ulurdum. Ulurda is in fact part of her, her beast soul. She rose into the sky after the destruction of Kazkurtum, the Shadow of the Sun, who is the embodiment of the Greater Darkness. Orogeria is best known from Arir and Darsen, where she remains the hunting goddess and is separate from Lunar ritual. Some thereabouts have a similar anger at the Lunars for ‘taking her’ as the Yelornans do concerning ‘silver’. Orogeria becomes Natha, the Half-Moon, after she enters the Underworld. Orogeria and Ulurda belong to the Pre-Dawn, the ebb of the Darkness before the Rising of the Lesser Sun. The panoply of Orogeria is the self-bow. The name Orogeria is obviously related to the (male) divinity Urengerum, the Archer or bow god, found on the Gods Wall. This indicates her name probably simply means ‘archer’ and may be an epithet (compare the shape of a crescent moon). Norian is the Imtherian Lady of the Wild. The name element –Oria- is here present. She was the foster mother of Gordio/Gordaval, that is, Foundchild. Ulurda,the blue vixen (Ul- = ‘blue’, -urda, ‘mover’ (fem.)). Mate of Ulurdum. Associated, possibly erroneously, with Uleria, the blue goddess of love. Curiously the Praxian Lodril is called Baba Ulodra. This name is very suggestive of Ulurdum, the earth-digging male fox god, as being a form of Lodril, but may be a coincidence – Baba Ulodra was brought to Prax by the Agamori. However we may also note that the ‘Big Guy’ who mated with Veruthurusa might be Lodril, who is a cult of sexual initiation throughout Peloria. Lodril, moreover, is the god of hearthfires and furnaces and thus corresponds to the fire-bringing Trickster, which is clearly linked to the fox-god with his burning tail. Compare the Teshnan Calyz the Firebringer. Tunoral the raccoon is the masked follower of Heliakal who takes the sacred mask from the dead Sun, though Khelmal takes the shield and torch. The similarities between raccoon gods (particularly before they are masked) and foxes are probably meaningful. In Vanch, the fox Yotelap is Heliakal [Lightfore’s] shadow/other and betrays him, but he cannot be really distinguished from the beast soul as well. This corresponds to the Imtherian Yurmalio, who is the betrayer of Khelmal [Lightfore]. I believe that here the original beast-servant god has been differentiated so that the unmasked proto-Tunoral is excused from his misdeed so that he is excused (being the savior of Vanch). In other words, the dog, fox, raccoon god is a single being, wearing different guises. (Compare Kazkurtum, the Shadow of Yelm, who may be identical to the Black Sun, and/or Shargash and/or Zorak Zoran). The red fox Yotelep/Yurmalio, unlike the blue fox, however, signifies the burning and fire powers of the Little Sun that betrayed him against Zorak Zoran, and were consumed by the troll god. The white planet is said to have Mahaqata, the Bat, as her shadow, which flew into the face of the Sun so that the Rebel could slay him. There may be a mythical connection between the fox goddess and the bat (viz. flying foxes). The blue fox, however, is chromatically similar to the White Fox which serves Inora, also a participant in the Hill of Gold story. From a shamanistic standpoint, the fox may be the untrustworthy fetch. Note the pairing of Orogeria with her beast-shadow, Ulurda, the ‘blue mover’, a quasi-Lunar celestial great spirit. It was Ulurda who entered the body of Teelo Norri so the goddess could be born. After all, the shadow is the seventh part of a soul which is the hardest to destroy or kill, and often lingers on the surface. Hence when the dead goddesses were drawn out of the Underworld by the Seven Mothers, they were aided by locating her Shadow. In the synthetic Sun Daughter myth I think [as developed in the Bright Empire], Orogeria/Yelorna retrieves the bow, spear, and shield, confronting or converting the shadow of her brother that guards his grave = the Zorak Zoran of the Yelorna myth. The resurrected body of the brother becomes Tharkantus, the corpse-god of the Cold Sun.

There is a map in Wyrm's Footprints which shows northern Sartar (similar to the map that was in Trollpak) and seems to show major steads, but not their names. Also there was a (non-canon?) of eastern Far Point that is very detailed in Zin Letters (#4? I think).

It was in the original Cthulhu Companion. I think it might have come from Different Worlds, but I no longer own all of those. 😕

Yes, as Perceval's holy foolishness is hardly suitable...

True, but the ones after Gawaine were better grounded in reality. I find the Lanzelet version of the character an interesting pre-prose Lancelot counterpoint; that one's neither chaste nor faithful...

As I recall Chalana Arroy has a story about kinstrife, which indicates that the shared grief and memory is the punishment and atonement of Kinstrife. Here we go: https://kingofdragonpass.fandom.com/wiki/Chalana_Arroy_Heals_the_Scars

There are quite a few women who have heard many stories about Gawaine. I mean, he has quite the fan club in the literature, even outside of KAP. Lancelot too, but he's also famous for his Chastity, which is a bit of a downer, unless you're Elaine of Astolat and have no sense.

Of course there are a plentitude of names for the god we call Orlanth in the Dragon Pass region. (kind of like the Olympian Zeus in our world) The standard form has become Orlanth, but possibly if Erlandus is older, it suggests a form indicating (ambiguously) the consort of Ernalda. Certainly during the First Age the Nysaloreans would have amalgamated the Rebel God concept with him, and we know there are significant problems with the Umath story as it now exists. 'Tarumath' (High Umath) seems linked to this: to subordinate the God of Kero Fin they naturally gravitate toward resurrecting his faceless father (note that Orlanth never really knew him: I suspect the old Manirian version was 'he was the son of the Wind and the World Mountain'). Now the King of the Gods is indubitably connected to Anatyr-Elmal; and the whole importance of that myth was the reconciliation of Storm and Sky. But the friendship between them (historically created by the Beren-Redalda marriage) required a plausible and resonant story of how they were enemies before. Thus the Hyalorians 'realize' that the minion of Valind at the Hill of Gold was his rival, later to become his friend. Note that in Six Ages there is no Orlanth at the Hill of Gold, only a nameless troll god, possibly the maimer of Hippoi/Gamari. The combat at the Hill is both not yet happened and already and presently occurring, making it still undefined. Also in Six Ages the solar god at the Hill of God is not Elmal. He may be another son of the Sun.

A Lunar (rules and magic) sourcebook.

I'm not feeling so well so I'll cop to a few mistakes and explain a few other choices, but only in brief. first, the Arcane Lore summary is mainly of interest because of the importance of Chaos in the standard heroquest depicted here, though there are other details I'll have to think about. Most non gamest write-ups do not mention Chaos. Chaos would seem to belong to the Greater Darkness, which seems better assigned to after the events of the story. I conflated the mare goddess with the land goddess, probably from a remembrance of Elmal. Mistaken, but not really critical to my reading. Nealda in Imther is of course relevant mainly to Yelmalio and Orlanth's rivalry, which is a continuation of the struggle between the Emperor and the Rebel. But if Orlanth is a development (as I was going with) of the post-Beren period, then prior to the appearance of the Rams the more obvious captor is Valind, who actually covers the Earth with his frozen body. An intermediate step would be depicting Orlantio or his precursor as a separate lover of Inora or brother and thus jealous opponent of the snow-melting falling sun. The fox problem - yes, I spend a lot of time working on fox entities - is that Ulurda, the blue mover, is a goddess from Sylila and Naveria and (presumably) Rist, not far away, who is connected with the freeing of the stars from the Sky Bear, whom she befriends/tames (again, storm is accompanied by a trickster fox). Perhaps the (male) Yurmalio/Yotelep can be identified with her dead or missing consort (Ulurdum). Also, there's the whole aspect of the Moon as the child/mother/sister of the Sun, and thus his Other in the Dara Happan sense of woman as man's Other, besides the whole eclipse language of a 'shadow on the sun' which is most obvious among the Blue Moon entities. It is the Blue Bat that distracts Yelm so he can be slain by the Rebel; it is the Fox that betrays and distracts Lightfore so he can be disarmed. While it is reasonable to say that a Wind/Storm god is a fundamental part of the story, clearly that would be Valind, not so much Orlanth/Orlantio, as the main antagonist. Has anyone else noticed that there are places named for Lightfore's enemies just north of Vanch? Orlentos and Zeranos...? Perhaps there is where those gods were worshipped... Also Zorak Zoran isn't fundamentally a troll god as I see it - he's a god of storm-darkness and fear-frenzy (sky bear as terror bringer) -in my prototype, so as he coalesces in the post-Dawn he takes over much of Valind's 'cruel god' role. The shape of the Hill of Gold is discernible as a volcanic or basalt plug in the picture of it in the Glorantha Sourcebook.