jeffjerwin

The Torkani live near some sacred areas belonging to Asrelia. You could adapt Asrelian heroquests like the Vanak Spear... There's also significant overlap into the Maboder lands now taken over by the Telmori and the Wulflanders - for which the Coming Storm campaign is pretty in depth.

A great deal of info on the Alone region is in Zin Letters #3 (plus a lovely map) and of course at https://myth-o-logic.org/glorantha/.

Kyger Litor is probably worshipped as Deloradella by the Torkani, like among their Kitori ancestors. 

In fact, there's possibly a masked cult among the Torkani mirroring the Shadowlords. 

There's always the old trading caravan to Crabtown adventure, to start things off.

29 minutes ago, Joerg said:

"Don't decay" is an illusion, however. Maintaining a library is a constant battle against mold, vermin, and other forms of rot. Copying tattered volumes to keep the knowledge accessible probably is 80% of a Great Library's activity.

Also another reason why Yinkin is a friendly cult to Lhankor Mhy. Rats love vellum (and cockroaches paper).

You may find my old thread useful: 

On 24 January 2019 at 1:47 AM, Joerg said:

Then are Tolat and Annilla twins with different fathers? (Not unheard of in myth, e.g. Llew Llaw Gyffes and his elder brother by a sea demon.)

That might make sense, but may be unnecessary. Note the overlap between Entekos, 'mother of moons' and Dendara in the Entekosiad... and the fact that Verithurusa, the white moon, is right there as Tolat's sister in the Sourcebook. Verithurusa is transformed or reincarnated as the Blue Moon when she is trapped in the Underworld and gives birth. (White Moon = childhood; Red Moon = adolescent/young woman; Blue Moon = mother; Black Moon = crone).

54 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

My latest question, for the next sketch, is: What are Daxdarius' Runes? As a war god, I'd assume Death and ?

Truth and Mastery? He usurped power in Pelanda and took slaves.

13 minutes ago, Leingod said:

Mind explaining how? I'd be interested to know.

Beren and Redalda are mortals. Their story becomes stories about the gods, that is Elmal and Reydalda. The mortal world casts a shadow on the divine. Hence the Emperors and kings of Dara Happan cities and states and the Rider and Wheel chieftains are not merely representing their god (whichever Sun it is) but actively altering and influencing the god in whose name they rule... Every city and every culture has its own Sun, which is in part a representation of what they think is an ideal ruler or Earth-consort. Making 'Yelm' in the First Age in a sense created the synthetic history of pre-Dawn Dara Happa. But these emperors and hence the Suns they were were not really ruling a unified realm. It only appears that way because of the triumph of Raibanth and the rewriting of myth.

2 hours ago, Ferretz said:

I see. Well, the story isn't really affected by the description in the book, but I was curious if there were any specific reasons why the writers had changed it. Other cities in the campaign isn't described as fictive, as far as I can remember.

I'll go for a more historically accurate Nairobi.   

A more historical Nairobi is extensively described in the MoN Companion, as well as the details on how the game city differs. However, I suspect the original reason was that the authors of that section had only sparse information on the city as it was in the 1920s and 'winged it'. It's hard to describe how much more difficult such research was without the internet.

Entekosiad is pretty much about the struggle of archaic Earth matriarchy and communities versus Solar patriarchy and violence. But the sense one gets from it is that there were suns and moons and night and day before the advent of Brightface the Emperor - as Joerg says.

Not every little sun is the child of Yelm or Aether, and there has always been a Sun Daughter, who may have once been the Moon-White Sun, and the death and regeneration of the Sun is a process of ritual sacrifice and death and birth. Every day the sun dies in the embrace of the West and is birthed in the East. It is hubris (or a lie) for the Sun to shirk death, and hubris to claim he (or she) has no mother.

The Yelm which does not move cannot lovingly die in the ritual bath of the Western Ocean, and cannot be born. The trouble with Gbaji is that obscures such things. This is despite the fact that Rashoran[a] is also an aspect of the cyclical White Moon-Sun, the god/dess of being Yes and No.

Illusion is more truthful than Law, and here Antirius' justice, of having 'codes' and 'laws' breaks down. The Entekosiad makes clear that decisions were temporary, judgments are contextual, and everyone gets a say in the wide circle. Yet Antirius is born out of the weaving woman, or out of the part of the ancient goddess that is Dendara, or Entekos, the Mother of Moons. There is a constant return: the boy is given authority to fight and aid the women, but he refuses to relinquish it. He fights his brothers for it, claims he was king all along. The crown of the Red City, of the incestuous tyrant, is part of the panoply of the Emperor. He rises up and seizes his mother and his sister, and calls them wives.

Every night the moon rose and refuted the Sun. She is older and eclipses Him. So she was torn apart. Here she is again. One of her suns, Sons, Antirius, is bound in the Emperor; another Kargzant, is the Sun of the Morning. Yelm pretends she is not there. Of course it is he who is not there. Being Rashorana, she can see through him, there is no dazzling the Mother/Sister. 

With the Compromise, of course, the Cycle seems abeyant. But this is temporary. There are always new Gods, who step into the names and stories and shadows of older ones. The warrior beats his mother. Death comes for the Emperor. We may not be able to be spirits again for good, but we can be for a little while. The thing about spirits, and sons, and mothers, is that there are always many of them, and there being only one of anything is pretty silly and unsustainable. The Red King has a substantial human component, as do the ordinary women who are what they later called Gods. The word god doesn't come up in the Entekosiad. There are other, more specific, and more general terms.

There has long been a loophole in the Compromise that made ancestors Gods. The divine lords of Dara Happa are earthly because their souls are made of people. 'Now he is with the Sun' is close to 'Now he is the Sun'. One of the secrets of Orlanth is that he is in every breath. One of the secrets of Yelm is that he is light. They used to be Breath and Light and that was sufficient. Glorantha is a world where myths are real. But it is also a world where they are simply stories.

N.B. I think Six Ages illustrates this rather well.

On 10 February 2019 at 12:06 PM, Bohemond said:

How do Sartarites greet each other in casual circumstances? Obviously for formal moments (like when a stranger shows up at your door), there’s the Greeting Ritual. But what do you do when your run into a close friend at the market? 

Do they shake hands? Clasp forearms? Fist bump? 

And what do they say? Obviously it could something mundane like “good to see you” but are there more evocative greetings, like “Good winds, brother” or “strong breath”? 

Do women use different greetings than men, and if so, what?

A loud shout would seem to be religiously appropriate. Orlanthi are boisterous. 

Edit: for an amusing problem to experience when sneaking around, one could run into a kinsman or friend. "Jarolar!!!! I thought you were on the run!"

1 hour ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I assume he meant Nandan instead of Barntar.


The issue here is whether the Orlanthi consider "doing [gendered] work" as separate from "being [gender]". That's definitely not a given.

Nandan is the god of women's work for Nandans (women with a male appearance). This includes cooking, hearth-keeping, childcare, woman-only earth rituals, weaving, and so forth. (Weirdly, brewing seems to be a male activity, though brew-wifes are what I think of).

This is entirely separate from homosexuality, note. A Nandan can marry a man, or be the consort of a woman. The important distinction is that a Nandan will have an Earth rune, not an Air rune, as their primary elemental rune. Vingans have an Air rune if they are 'confirmed Vingans' is always how I saw it.

It's my contention that Geo was a Nandan, and that the 'Bouncer' is the spirit of a Nandan Babeester Gor hero.

However... you can certainly do gendered work that doesn't belong to your apparent gender. But if you are drawn to it and enjoy it because of your runes and your disposition - you will be categorised as Nandan, Vingan, or Heler (the latter when everyone is confused about your mix of interests).

'She Who Waits' was equated with Ernalda by the Hon-eel tradition in Tarsh, if I'm remembering correctly.

23 hours ago, Joerg said:

This would date the Second Age appearance of the Devil to 635, roughly the appearance of the Abiding Book,

This makes sense to me.

This is what Greg wrote in The Middle Sea Empire, p.42: 

"They used the Abiding Book as a source, a “cosmic grimoire,” and cast great magic that did bad things. They did not know it but the entity that had led them there was Gbaji, the Deceiver. It led many, including some of the greatest and most powerful people among them, to do evil and to worship Malkioneran, revealed later to be the Devil."

20 hours ago, Joerg said:

The ur-Theyalan culture is really a hodge-podge of different cultures stessing their common attributes (including the Elder Races of Dragon Pass). Kethaela has six distinct human cultures (if you count the Kitori as human) on an area of maybe three Heartland satrapies.

Many hill barbarians have but a rudimentary culture. Local costume is dictated by way of life, climate and habitat. Farming with ox-drawn plows, herding cattle and sheep, raiding neighbors.. . so you say that the Old Irish, the Thracians and Vedic India were the same culture? It takes a dedicated linguist to make out the similarities of elements of their language. The Neolithic Revolution was a radical change similar to the Theyalan missionaries.

However there are major similarities between Vedic religion and Old Irish, at least for two people so distant.

Or simply an Esrolian worshipper of Orlanth Adventurous, who is also a thief god (particularly in Nochet)... Also Yinkin can be a thief god.

18 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Love it. "Behind you!"

Although some see a dragon, some of us need our prescription checked and see a Feathered Horse (queen or common).

And... what's the difference? Horse had claws and feathers and so forth, kind of like a number of dragon images... And the Feathered Horse (Mare) rules... Dragon Pass.

Below is an image from a Scythian Horse blanket: a horned, winged horse (the article says it is a bull, but the build is all wrong for that). 

Edit: the dragon throne of the emperor is part of the same category of sovereignty-bestowing seats as a winged horse. It is the vehicle, or as they call it in Sanskrit, the Vahana of the Emperor. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vahana)

11 hours ago, Joerg said:

IMO the implication is that even an emperor who is anti-EWF and a notorious dragonslayer still has this dragon part he has to live with. It requires Illumination or draconic Enlightenment to deal with these opposites and draw strength from the contradiction.

There is something more going on here, though. Both when Orlanth leaves his pit at his initiation and at his final confrontation with the evil emperor, he is followed by a dragon he doesn't seem to notice. The Yuthuppan star seers did document that rising dragon behind the rebel.

From the 13th Age in Glorantha book, p.305. A dragon is behind the lovers and the Emperor.

Note the connections between the EWF and the Puppeteers, implicit in their use of EWF ruins...

As an addendum, what if the EWF was right? What if Orlanth is the son of the Mover of Heavens and he is born in Dragon Pass, next to the Dragon Nest for a reason...? What if the Alakoring movement wiped out a real and potent aspect of their own god?

I think Argrath may have asked these questions...

Sh'hakarzeel the Mover of Heavens = which Dragon?

He is also the Bad Emperor, though in this aspect he is the step-father rather than the husband of the lover: he gains rule by mating with Kero Fin, Orlanth's mother. In as much as mythically, tyrannicide is patricide... this is pretty much the same thing.

Or is he the draconic part of Umath rather than the Tyrant per se? Consider that he 'moves the heavens' - i.e., the dome, which is precisely what Umath did. Though mythically speaking Umath is the Other of the Emperor, born, I think, from the movement of Brightface into the middle of the sky...

9 hours ago, soltakss said:

All kind of Chaos like to eat Elves.

Strictly, according to the rules, Elves are vegetarian cannibals, so Elves like to eat Elves. Personally, I treat that as Elves eat plants and are plants themselves, but you never know.

When Elf forests go to war with each other, do they mulch and devour the enemy? That's rather unsettling.

4 hours ago, Ian Cooper said:

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

and Harshax... and ?

It's always followed, however, by a irruption of Chaos.

17 hours ago, Joerg said:

And that's the stagnant age that Umath rebelled against, to re-instate the cyclic nature of Godtime...

But then, maybe it is the conflation of the Emperor (who always is present above, in his city and/or palace high up) and the sun which causes these problems.

Could 'Yelm' or his antecedent have actually sought the identification with the Emperor as part of an attempt, Nysalorean or God-time, to obtain sovereignty over the Cosmos?

The GL myth has it that the Emperor (not explicitly Yelm) is created by the Cosmic Court as part of their ordering against the threat of the Predark. This god-creation has similar properties to the making of Nysalor himself.

As a corollary, the fact that the mythic pre-murder Yelm is static and never reaches the ground, yet the pre-Yelmic Red King did plunge into the western horizon in Naverian myth suggests to me that the static-Suns-stoppish Yelm at the apex of the universe is the aberration, not the cycling Sun that enters the Underworld. Indeed, the interpolation of an eternal day into the old cycle of day and night (Xentha already existed at the time of Yelm's murder, after all) may be the first 'breaking' of the Cosmos, the source of the friction and wrongness that led to everything else.

3 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

As this thread touches on, Yelm might have an origin in somewhat more overt, intentional subversion of preceding hierarchies (this raises the question whether this applies to all Sun deities in general, or whether this is a peculiar Pelorian phenomenon - compare and contrast with Yamsur, Elmal, Vrimak, Ehilm, etc.).

Elmal's leadership functions (and Antirius') seem more consensual than Yelm's. They can be prayed to for 'justice', after all... Also Elmal becomes a Storm God-in-law by marriage, which is pretty much a peaceable arrangement, and guards the hearth as a 'duty' not as a 'privilege and right' as I think Yelm might put it.

I think Yelm/the Emperor's basic mythic role is as a male god of sovereignty and glory, and his subordination of Ernalda and Dendara is a direct repudiation of the rule-bestowing nature of the Earth: it is he that claims land not by mingling and mating with the ground, but by hovering cleanly above her. His sons/kinsmen are not so arrogant (even Kargzant has his mare-goddess, who clearly hid sovereignty powers).

3 hours ago, soltakss said:

Without Chaos, Storm Bull loses much of his reasons for being.

He becomes a bull god, which is still pretty crucial to cattle cultures; otherwise Eiritha will be awfully lonely and more exposed against danger in general. But, no, he's not as fundamentally impressive, and despite his bellowing, would be subordinate to the cow goddess in relevance to everyday life.

3 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

This raises questions about the Red King and/or Vantestos. Could they be solar entities? Did the Protectors of Darsen-Naveria always have to be solar in nature? (I genuinely have no idea).

The Red King is ceremoniously drowned by his wife/daughter, the White Moon, and is laid to rest beyond a Western Mountain... Just sayin'