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jeffjerwin

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Everything posted by jeffjerwin

  1. Dave is definitely correct, or the game I play with my 7 year old daughter would be pretty much impossible.
  2. Here is a link to my notes: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nnjgquzx8rgsybm/Timeline pf the Greater Darkness.pdf?dl=0
  3. Yup. But confronting and transcending it to be specific. Consider the Orlanthi initiation rite.
  4. I've been meditating on the Sword and Helm saga, as a result of my campaign taking place in the 1610s in Volsaxiland (Broyan is a major NPC). I've been a lurker for years. First thing to get out of the way: MGDV (My Glorantha Does Vary). I'm OK with that. My initial thought, from being very well read in mythology, is that Broyan's doom is connected to the Sword and Helm possibly being cursed. I also suspected that the reason no one took up the mantle of Vingkot was because it was also dangerous. Now a ways back I read theories about it being connected to the Westfaring. However, we know from the account on Heort in the Book of Heortling Mythology (BoHM forthwith) that Heort's grandfather Darntor witnessed Orlanth leaving the World - by which I suspect he was "at" Luathela and saw Orlanth enter the Gates of Dusk. (By "at" I mean he may have been in a supportive hero quest, which is how I imagine pre-Time questing worked - one was drawn into one's Gods struggles on a spiritual level by being a devotee in the moment, roughly, that they happened, though "happened" is an approximate term before Arachne Solara birthed Time). Now the Sword and Helm War is specifically placed in that account in the previous generation, which tends to suggest that if Rastagar summoned the fyrd for his god it was in support of one of the battles en route, not in Luathela. Two specific battles stand out: Orlanth's loss of Mastakos his chariot in battle with Shargash/Jargekriand, and his alliance with the Uz in Ralios, an event I suspect that lines up (despite the chronological problems with this) with Hate Kills Everything, a battle between Uz and Kajabor near Hrelar Amali... which is called out in Mastakos' scouting report to Orlanth as a station on the route to the West. The former seems marginally more likely if the deuterocanonical In Wintertop's Shadow is any guide: there the Maranite sacrificial regime dates to the destruction of the Vingkotlings in a raid and counter-raid against the Fire Tribe/Dara Happans. There is another reason, which is that I think that Lastralgor and Rastagar are simply variants of the same legend. (Compare the phonetic similarity of L- and R-). It's also interesting to note that the use of the term Orlanth Desertus for Orlanth Victorious in Heort's story for the spot where the Quest began suggests that only devotees, like poor Darntor, believed that Orlanth still existed before the time of I Fought We Won. OK... deep breath... My inspiration, given the account in the Esrolia book that states that Rastagar was ritually sacrificed (apparently along with Irillo) by the Grandmothers, is that Rastagar was not merely post-facto redefined as a sacral king, but that he was in fact really one, but that the Earth Cult substituted a Earth sacrifice (either in blood or by being buried alive) for the traditional Vingkotling sacrificial death: being burned alive (viz. the fate of Vingkot himself... his immolation while still alive seems to be a straightforward mythic justification for such a rite). This was a rectification of a nasty trick (in my Glorantha at least) that Rastagar played on his "warlord" and "wife". Now, the "wife" or "queen" I take to be Orane/Orana/Ana Gor, or her mortal representative, and the rationale for all this is the starvation of the people and the mass death of their menfolk. Rastagar and his Trickster (Eurmal/Elmal [1]) arranged things so the warlord stole the sword and helm, the manhood/Air Rune/Death & sovereignty/intellect/Mastery Rune, along with the wife/queen, whose mate was the target for the Immolation rite, so that he, rather than Rastagar, would be burned alive to release the life-giving royal essence. These were cloaked in ritual: after all Orlanth too stole both Sword and Sovereignty - one from his older brother (whose rights and connection to Air were thus violated, and who was made thereby sterile) and from the Evil Emperor. From the last he took willing Ernalda, or Oranedela, the Green Queen, too. So this warlord was acting as Orlanth, perhaps even as a proxy for Rastagar... In effect, Rastagar wanted to cheat death. But something else happened... That something contributed to two evident effects: the guardians of the chiefs/kings being those slain in the Shield and Helm conflict - an effect specifically paralleled by the Noble Brothers/year-kings of Nochet - and in at least one case, that of Darntor, the dead becoming hungry ghosts, inimical undead. Moreover the Garanvuli have barrows near Iliabervor and the Dekko Crevice, where one can walk all the way to Hell - which tends to speak to a Earth/Darkness death rite taking over when the Vingkotlings proper became extinct. As we can see from the wyter of the Red Bull, these spirits remain in the world rather than reaching Orlanth's stead, which serves to protect their literal or metaphorical descendants but also binds them in servitude. [1] Eurmal and Elmal are seemingly each other's Others; they seem to be quite similar to Kazkurtum and Antirius (viz. Elmal's by-name of Anatyr). Eurmal has the fire/disorder function while Elmal has the light/order function. By substituting Eurmal for Elmal, Rastagar could rework the rite as he wished... In my version of things, Orane, as the consort of Durev, the man of wood, that is, the natural object of an Immolation Rite and the counterpart of Flamal, whom, we may note, Eurmal murdered and burned at Hrelar Amali before he was rescued by Orlanth - at seeming the same "time" as all this was going on, was repossessed by the Burnt Man, the undead Durev in the form of Nontraya [Traya, Drya, Durev, etc. = tree, wood] who had been reanimated by Chaos and the absence of any separation between the Living and the Dead. After all, the God of Undeath believes he has some claim on Queen Earth... He is, of course, a perversion of the dormancy of vegetation in winter. It's my belief that the Orane/Earth Queen cult salvaged the profanation of the Immolation Rite by substituting a perhaps older chthonic ghost cult. This could protect the Living against the Pre-dark, given that Rastagar's actions strengthened Chaos and destroyed the Vingkotling succession. We can't know, of course, whether Irillo was the "warlord" (it's certainly possible) but I believe Broyan stepped into the "warlord's" role (note he's even described as a "warlord" of the Hendriki), so he could possess the lost Sword and Helm. This of course doomed him to a ritual death, but also vastly empowered him to defeat the Bat, since he was now effectively the ritual heir of Vingkot. It is that sacrificial role that would have allowed him to make peace between Esrolia and the Vingkotlings, because he was "stepping up to the plate" and rectifying things. I do think that Heort's Laws all were created to circumscribe practices common before the Silver Age. Human Sacrifice is a major part of the strictly delineated no-nos for Orlanth worship, so, somewhat perversely, I actually suspect it played a role in Vingkotling ritual. The fragments that persist, of course, are the funeral by cremation and the Flame of Sartar. The alteration of the Green Age interchangeability of mortals and beasts is of course a continuum that still has deviations after Time. The Law states only beasts may be burned for Orlanth, but what if one cannot tell the difference? Now, from Orlanth's "desertion" of his people the chief god was Elmal, not Orlanth. Elmal's material presence was as a steady light at the peak of Kero Fin. Interestingly, that light flared when Heort put his grandfather (who had become Ice, the fusion of Hunger/Darkness/Air) to rest. If Elmal, Cold Fire, is in fact the consuming, cold fire that burns away the sacred kings and returns them to Vingkot, this might make sense (as a Light which burns/Sunspear he is the inner Fire/Sky that exists beyond Air/Storm, much as Darkness/Hunger resides in the center of Earth). This would make sense also if Orlanth and Vingkot are essentially identical, for the absent God is also the dead, burned, ashen king, smoke in the breeze, and his surrender of rulership to Elmal is also the surrender of sovereignty back to Aether, even in a broken state. On the left hand, however, we have Eurmal, the other, who "steals" Fire, burns the wooden man, and shows the ordinary people how to eat (satisfy the Hunger he embodies) and stay warm. He is the gift that the profanation of the sacred flame provides: the cooking fire. His fire is not the fire of utter and pure dissolution, like Aether, or the Immolation Rite, but the fire that scorches away disease and preserves. It is interesting, of course, that Orlanth "finds" Eurmal at the same time that the Vingkotlings destroy themselves, but perhaps Heort's way is best: no king but elective kings. We best remember that the last of the Vingkotlings, Jardfor and Kogal, were cannibalistic shapeshifters. That, of course, is the ogre way. --- Now, speaking outside MG (My Glorantha) I admit I was thinking of course in part of Arthur, Lancelot/Mordred, and Guinevere, with whom this story has a lot in common. Thus the magic sword, thrust into the Rock/Earth, the "burning ritual" (I see the catastrophe around the Elmal-fire being equivalent to Lancelot's massacre of the defenders at Guinevere's own threatened burning), the step/foster son becoming the lover of the Queen with the uncertain blindness/tacit permission of the childless king, whose army has been destroyed fighting the Emperor of the World and seeking to restore the fertility of the Wasted Universe... This, at least, permits Rastagar/Lastralgor to have a certain noble tragedy. Perhaps his trick was sanctified by some earlier precedent, and Irillo/the warlord knew what was up, or the queen did. But if one did, the other may not have. Phew. Thoughts? I have a dozen or so pages of detailed notes if anyone's interested.
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