daskindt

42 minutes ago, Queegueg said:

I asked the question on Runequest core rule questions thread, and got the following response from Jason Durall:

As per the chart, the defender's weapon takes the damage rolled and the excess goes to the defender. In this case, "twice the damage it would normally" is a clumsy way of saying it takes critical damage. 

That might be the intent, but that is clearly not “twice the damage it would take normally.” I understood that the chart was the intent, but it confused my players reading the incorrect text version. It needs to be corrected.

Sorry to necro this thread, but the inconsistency in still present in the rules and came up in our session today while trying to get a group of players new to RQ familiar with the combat rules.

There are two very different rules describing how much damage is done when a Critical Attack meets a regular Parry.

Chart on Pg. 199

Quote

Defender’s parrying weapon HP reduced by the damage rolled. Any excess damage goes to adjacent hit location, with no armor protection.

Pg. 200

Quote

Parrying a Critical Hit
Though the target’s armor does not subtract any damage from a critical hit, a successful parry from a weapon or shield blocks the amount of damage it normally would. However, a weapon that parries a critical hit takes twice the damage it would take normally. If the attacking weapon is a long-hafted weapon or an impaling weapon, the parrying weapon takes no damage.
A shield that parries a critical hit receives twice as much damage as normal, and any unabsorbed damage strikes the parrying adventurer.

Since a weapon normally takes 1 HP against an attack that overwhelms its HP, this would mean a Critical Hit just does 2 HP. That is clearly not the intent of the chart on pg. 199.

The chart seems to be the intended rule, but the inconsistencies between the chart and the fuller rules descriptions is extremely frustrating.

Our Humakti successfully parried against a critical attack from a battle axe doing 22 damage ((1d8+2)x2 + 1d6). His broadsword has 12 HP.

One version has his broadsword being almost completely destroyed, dropping to -10 HP. The other version has it dropping by 2 HP down to 10 HP. Quite a discrepancy.

Thanks. I’ve been meaning to search for more info on this.

1 hour ago, Oracle said:

Does it? As far as I can say, subcults in HeroQuest provide Feats specific for this subcult. In RQG this is reflected by special Rune Spells provided by the subcult only. So it is not just the additional POW sacrifice, which raises the player character's Rune Point pool ...

Or do I miss something else?

Once you sacrifice a point of POW to the second aspect of a cult, like Adventerous and Thunderous, you add a new special Rune spell from the previously restricted aspect, you increase your original Rune Pool by 1, and you now continue to use the Rune Pool of the default cult but you can now learn all the special magics of the subcult too. There’s no longer any meaningful difference between the two. You can freely learn whichever magics from both aspects.

The subcults are another aspect of RQG that I’m finding far less interesting than HeroQuest.

As an example, the distinction between Adventerous and Thunderous is barely relevant. As has been pointed out, once initiated to either, a single additional point of POW opens both aspect fully. It doesn’t feel like a meaningful decision. Subcults for the Thunderous Brothers or herocults like Ulanin get even more disappointing. HeroQuest handles the many varied subcults in far more interesting ways.

I was recently wondering if there’s a condensed or less formal version of the Greeting. Is there?

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Control is a spirit spell. A pretty useless one for people unable to discorporate or otherwise initiate spirit combat, except for this one use to keep a bound spirit or other entitiy in the enchantment or crystal after it performed its service.

I’m thinking of Command (Cult Spirit), which I imagine would work for specific spirits depending on your cult. But yes, Control (entity) would be another option and Sorcery has its spells as well.

10 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with how easy it is to get a bound spirit that casts Healing on you on demand, as well as being able to draw on its MPs and cast its spells yourself.

I was recently trying to figure out how this works. I’m pretty sure that there’s a passage that says the spirit must be commanded with a Rune Spell to get repeated use. Otherwise you can use the spirit once and then it is released and you’d have an empty binding enchantment.

RQG pg 249 (emphasis mine):

Quote

Some entities have knowledge or abilities which the wielder can use while it is bound within an item. However, many entities are not very effective when so trapped and must be released to be useful (e.g., wraiths, healing spirits, elementals, etc.). Without the use of a control spell, an entity can be released from an item to perform one function, and then it is free. If a control spell is used before the entity is released, then it can be commanded to perform many actions and return to the binding item. Control spells automatically work against creatures while they are bound in items.

Not sure which entities must be released to function.

3 hours ago, Ian Cooper said:

Peter has what I intended, but YGMV.

Yep. Thanks!

My guess was a crocodile, but I had missed the references in the Sartar Companion.

24 minutes ago, soltakss said:

You can use the stats for wingless Dragons or Crocodiles,  either would work.

Yeah. I think I’ll use the stats for the giant croc in the RQG Beastiary.

27 minutes ago, metcalph said:

 

Thanks!

I don’t look in the Sartar Companion enough.

Hey folks,

One of the episodes in The Eleven Lights involves the party encountering Orlanthi rebels battling against a 20 ft river dragon. What is a river dragon?

Is this just an alligator or crocodile and being called a “dragon” in Glorantha?

@Ian Cooper?

Quote

As they break through the tree line, the PCs see four men and women fighting a large river dragon. The creature has its jaws around one of the four and is thrashing him about. The others stick the river dragon with spears, trying to get it to release its hold on their companion, before it can retreat into the water.
The river dragon is a huge beast, twenty feet long and weighing some 2000 lbs. Rostakus and his patrol join the fight against the river monster. Such a large group is able to force the River Dragon to release its victim and slink back into the water. The prize in such a contest for the PCs is to survive without injury and perhaps acquit themselves well.

27 minutes ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

@Jeff @Jason Durall We’ve put the damage rules through their paces and have found them to be difficult to settle on a consistent reading ( we’ve really tried ). Could you please help confirm what the intention is?

We suspect an example may be incorrect? 

Is damage to all hit locations capped at x2, or is that just intended as a limit for limbs? It reads like it’s just intended for limbs but the example above muddies the water. 

I’ve strongly suspected this example is just wrong. Harmast should have taken 9 damage and have 1 hit point remaining.

I like the cult secrets from Hero Wars as inspiration for HeroQuest abilities.

1 hour ago, Ian Cooper said:

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.

 

I’ve been going back to Thunder Rebels and Storm Tribe more and more lately. I’d forgotten how blown away I was by the release of these books. I consider them easily amongst the finest supplements ever released for a roleplaying game. Production values might be low, but the ideas contained within their pages are world shattering. They dive so deeply into a complex of cults for the Orlanthi people and how that all impacts the culture. Hero Wars was so refreshing in the ways it reimagined Glorantha free of the mechanical constraints of RuneQuest.

I’m certainly interested in emphasizing the many subcults and variants of the various deities and embracing the confusion and contradictions. I think the HQ cult writeups a very good, but then I find little nuggets of gold in Thunder Rebels and Storm Tribe that were edited out and I mourn that they didn’t make it in the more recent cult writeups.

On 1/21/2019 at 5:59 AM, Ian Cooper said:

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)

I think I love you.

Was not expecting Derrida and Lacan.

1 hour ago, davecake said:

In my game, all these minor Thunder Brothers and aspects of Orlanth are all valid and exist, but may be represented in game rules variously as:

• a different name for a particular status within the Orlanth cult
• a minor sub-cult that provides a small variation on the standard powers
• the part of the cult that provides the connection with an Associated cult
• the source of a particular notable spell, and every person that knows that spell is part of that 'sub-cult'

And there isn't necessarily consistency, either. Orlanthi culture has no central control, and has much regional variation, and there myths are understood as poetic and magical, not a single rigid canonical understanding. 

So Helamakt might be used to describe:

• a warrior that is also an acolyte of Orlanth Thunderous
• A variation of Orlanth Thunderous that allows a warrior acolyte to gain access to eg the Lightning spell
• Heler as a warrior in Orlanths warband, so any Orlanthi warrior who gets the Rain spell from Heler. 

Similarly, Hedkoranth is both the source of the Thunderstone spell, and in some places may be an alternative to Destor who gets Thunderstone in place of Woad. 

I’m trying to decide how to represent Ulanin the Rider’s subcult within RQG for the Red Cow campaign.

6 hours ago, womble said:

I've used a pot load of RQ3isms in my RQG game. For my money, many, even most of the reversions to RQ2 are retrograde steps. The steps away from RQ2 (Passions/Runes, RP, mostly) are what I've kept. 

I was introduced to RQ3 and never played RQ2, so I’m not nostalgic about it. I also find most of the reversions from RQ3 to be to the detriment of the game. Passions and Rune Magic changes are welcome, but almost everything that was changed back to RQ2 is for the worse imo.

I get that you’re changing the Elmal and Yelmalio stories for RQG, but it’s not like the current confusion is simply the result of some “overly broad description“ limited to S:KoH. There’s multiple sources that paint very different versions of Elmal and Yelmalio that are incompatible with your new take.

For example, from the Far Place article in Wyrms Footnotes, vol 15, page 41:

Quote

During these troubled years [around 1460], raids from the Indigo Mountain trolls and Cliffhome grew in frequency and the Aldachuri took increasingly desperate steps to defend themselves from the Darkness and Chaos. A delegation was sent to find allies against the trolls and they returned from the north with the Golden Spearman. They took the god with them the next time they fought the trolls. The lowland god destroyed the trolls with a brilliant sunspear from the heavens. The Aldachuri gave the Golden Spearman a shrine in the Elmal Temple and offered the god regular sacrifices as one of many defenders of the tribe. . . .

Yelmalio
In the mid-1500s, Lunar magicians proved to the tribal priests that the Golden Spearman was a son of Emperor Yelm and an enemy of Orlanth. Rather than abandon the Golden Spearman, many Elmali rebelled against their traditional leaders, weakening the Far Place tribes while they were under great pressure from King Phargentes of Tarsh.
It was Tarkalor of Sartar who ended the strife, by promising the disgruntled Elmali they could have their own lands, and the chance to make their own rules, if they would help him in his task against Darkness. They did, and were rewarded with the Sun Dome Temple in south Sartar. Their leader, Monrogh Lantern, revealed that the god of the Sun Dome Temple was neither Yelm nor Elmal, but the wounded body of the sun limping across the sky, Yelmalio. The god had served Arinsor Clearmind, a famous lord among the dragonfriends and had been kept pure in the wilds of Prax. Yelmalio was now embraced by the disgruntled Elmali at the Sun Dome Temple. The Elmali at Aldachur recognized the Golden Spearman as Yelmalio, although those at Ironspike rejected this and kept to their ancestral traditions.

There’s no acceptance or acknowledgement that Elmal and Yelmalio are the same god. We’re told quite clearly that Yelmalio is “neither Yelm nor Elmal.”

There’s also no love between the Orlanthi and Yelmalio. Yelmalio is named an “enemy of Orlanth.”

The Elmali adopt Yelmalio for magical power, but also, and perhaps primarily, because they are disgruntled. They’re rejecting their Orlanthi leaders and rejecting their role as loyal thanes.

I get confused with the new version of events because almost every detailed account of Elmal and Yelmalio written in the past couple decades is wholly incompatible with the version of the story being developed for RQG.

I loved your development blogs for RQG. It would be fascinating to see a detailed blog about why you’ve chosen to so dramatically change the story of Elmal and Yelmalio after so much effort was spent since King of Sartar was published in 1992 to create a fully formed place and mythology for Elmal within Glorantha.

19 hours ago, Joerg said:

How do Orlanth Dragonfriend and Orlanth Dragonslayer reconcile? They are two separate forms of the same deity, incompatible subcults. The god manifested in his respective heroes (Obduran and Ingolf for Dragonfriend, Alakoring for Dragonslayer). For a while, Orlanth tread both paths at the same time.

Folks love to bring up Orlanth and his subcults. So let’s talk about them for a minute. Orlanth Adventerous and Orlanth Thunderous are both Orlanth and both accepted and foundational elements of Orlanthi society. But even though both subcults are the same god, they are treated differently. They have different religious hierarchies, emphasize different cult skills, have different magics available to them, especially different Rune magics, lead different rituals, and play different roles in Orlanthi culture. Because they have different myths and different roles, they grant different magics, and they’re worshipped in different ways. Even though pretty much everyone acknowledges they’re both Orlanth.

What about Elmal and Yelmalio? Let’s not try to address the question of whether or not Elmal and Yelmalio are the same. Actually, let’s just put the debate aside and assume for the sake of the argument that in the great mystery they are actually the same entity (again, let’s ignore all the previous evidence against them being the same god).

Even though we’ve accepted this, the two subcults aren’t worshipped the same. Their followers don’t emulate the same myths. They don’t have the same religious structures. They don’t have the same religious associations. Each is associated with different magics. They don’t represent the same celestial entity. They don’t even share the same Runes in that Elmal is depicted as having access to the Fire Rune. Their followers don’t play the same roles in their respective societies. And at least the Elmali don’t believe that they are a subcult of Yelmalio.

So why should they have the same cult format? Orlanth Adventerous and Thunderous have very different aspects to their cults, especially the Rune Magic, and everyone believes they’re the different ways of worshipping the same entity. Elmal and Yelmalio are not believed to the be same by everyone and they have very different cults and have been depicted with different magics, but the new RQG materials keeps proposing that they can basically be treated as the same. The document in progress has a adopted a couple minor differences, but still proposes they’re basically the same and can be treated as such. Why? Historically the two cults have felt very different even if they have overlapping realms of influence. Treating Elmal as a lesser carbon copy of Yelmalio completely erases the rich differences between the two cults. Would you propose Orlanth Adventerous and Thunderous could be treated as carbon copies of one another with a point or two of different magics? I hope not.

21 hours ago, Joerg said:

Elmal rejects his vengeful and hateful brother(s). Like Shargash. Which is a sentiment most Yelmalios share, I suspect. And yes, at the same time another aspect, Antirius, does his utmost to keep the Fire Tribe together and bound to its former principles. Against the resistance of Shargash and presumably others as well.

What do the Orlanthi think about Shargash and Antirius? How do they figure in Elmal’s myths?

I’m pretty sure the answer to those questions is that they don’t. So while a God Learner or worshipper of Yelmalio might try to make those associations, they have no impact on how the Orlanthi experience Elmal in their lives from day to day.

21 hours ago, Joerg said:

Antirius finds himself in the role of the humble (if high) servant of others, too, even while granting the imperial authority.

 

Again, the question isn’t can the readers of the game setting, or God Learners find connections and similarities between these beings. The question is, when the Orlanthi look at the Sun in the sky and worship Elmal in thanks, do they do so in the same way that Yelmalions worship? The answer, from previous depictions of the cults, is no. The vast majority of Orlanthi around the time of Monrogh’s revelation don’t know anything about Antirius.

21 hours ago, Joerg said:

There are intermediate forms, such as in Orlanthi clans which have Yelmalio as one of their minor or even major deities. The Tarshite clans around Goldedge or the Alda-chur clans and the Dinacoli are like that, and never were Elmali like the Heortland-descended Runegate clans or others which lost some of their Elmali population to Monrogh's new slave overlord state of Vanntar in the middle 1500s.

The source material is certainly not clear on this. The idea of independent clans following Yelmalio seems to be a relic of the time before the initial revelation of Elmal. After his revelation, Elmal seemed to replace Yelmalio in that role. There are several references to Elmal’s cult begin present in Tarsh without the influence of the Heortlings. We’re told the Dolutha for example worship Elmal and that they came to Dragon Pass from the north, not as part of the Heortling migration.

Quote

The Dolutha are proud of being the oldest of the Cinsina clans. When the other clans of the Cinsina were still preparing to leave in Heortland or the North March, their ancestors had already settled along the banks of the Creek. They are immensely proud of their status as ‘first and oldest.’ The Dolutha descend from the Ferfal Alliance: a triaty of horse-riding clans from Saird to the north of Dragon Pass who drove the Grazer clans from the grasslands along the Creek.

The Ferfalings bloodline of the Dolutha clan has a long tradition of worshipping Elmal the loyal thane. The influence of Elmal has set the Dolutha apart from the other clans of the Cinsina for generations. They have had Elmal chieftains throughout their history. The fine horses that the clan raises along the Creek are the envy of their neighbors and often the target of raids.

We’re told Elmal was worshipped in Tarsh too and that those clans and tribes converted to the new Yelmalio cult. The Elmali of the Iron Spike were from Tarsh and not Heortlings and maintained the worship of Elmal rather than converting to Yelmalio.

22 hours ago, Joerg said:

Constant harrassment, unfair treatment when it comes to ruling the clan, permanently being cast into the enemy roles in the clan heroquests, which doesn't really help gain personal advancement from those (unlike their ritual opponents, the Orlanthi). Then comes Monrogh with the promise "you all will be lords, and bondaged Kitori will work your fields under your supervision."

Sounds pretty convincing to me, in contrast.

This is basically what I presented as the real cause of the #3 response the Orlanthi followers of Elmal might have to The Yelmalions when they come seeking converts. It’s a polictical frustration about feeling abused and overlooked. But it requires a severing of the ties the Elmal has to Orlanth which are central to the way in which Elmal’s cult is worshiped, which is to say it doesn’t present a smooth transition, but rather a total rejection of the society in which they were raised and lived. Hence, the need to move to a new homeland in Vaantar.

27 minutes ago, Jeff said:

As an aside, you can fit almost the entire Heortling Elmal story in the above paragraph.

But how does someone that believes the Heortling Orlanthi myths reconcile the depiction of Elmal’s path away from the Fire Tribe with the Yelmalio myths?

Elmal rejects the Fire Tribe. After he is healed he sees the failures of stagnation of the Fire Tribe and Yelm’s court. He seeks out a better way and his brothers jealousy try to steal his light. Elmal learns humility and learns to serve others.

While you can say that Yelmalio endured and fought against many enemies in the darkness while Orlanth undertook the Lightbringers’ Quest, that version of the story is missing all the specific details of Elmal’s story. It’s missing Elmal’s growth from arrogant and prideful son of the Emperor into the loyal thane of the Orlanthi.

Yelmalio stopped being a complete enemy to Orlanth and fought against common foes is not nearly the same thing as Elmal’s journey and growth in the Heortling myths.

What convinces the Orlanthi to reevaluate their myths and replace them with versions where Yelmalio isn’t a loyal thane? What convinces them to leave Orlanthi society and customs behind?

28 minutes ago, Grievous said:

I dig these, though the third raises some questions. What/who was the Elmal that was worshipped? Some false construct spun by Orlanth? Sounds almost chaotic. How does one arrive at this idea?

And that's really what I would really like to undertstand better in this whole Elmal-Yelmalio debacle. How exactly did the conversion started by Monrogh happen and what were the explanations and mythic concepts that made it possible? As things stand, it seems to me that most people would have gone with something similar 1 or 2 from the above list, but instead Monrogh's message seems to have been very compelling, but we don't get any real information on this, so I'm left without a very key piece to understand how this went down in Sartar and thus how it would look now.

These are good questions. I’ve never been very convinced that many people were would choose #3, but we’re told in the various sources that most (or all in the earliest versions) followers of Elmal joined Monrogh (sometime around 1550) and that the Elmal cult is in decline. I think we’re missing a compelling mythic story that explains how folks were convinced that Elmal and Yelmalio could possibly the same god. The myths and attitudes are very divergent.

The most compelling versions of the story are already contained in the Orlanthi’s Elmal myths, where Elmal was lesser when he served the Fire Tribe and became greater when he changed his ways and joined the Storm Tribe. The Orlanthi myths could easily lead to the belief that the two are different gods (brothers) or that Elmal is the evolution of Yelmalio. Elmal is Yelmalio after he became a much better person (from an Orlanthi perspective). I don’t know what the compelling myth is that convinces the Elmali that Yelmalio was the better version.

We are told that many Elmali were being influenced by the lowland solar cults and were basically in rebellion against their Orlanthi leaders. They sought out more power from foreign solar gods so that they could use the magical power against their foes.

Really, this is Elmal’s temptation in the myth Elmal Guards the Stead. The Teller of Lies tries to convince Elmal that he is the rightful ruler of the people and that he, not Orlanth, should rule the Storm Tribe. Elmal resists the temptation and rejects Teller of Lies.

Quote

The next day, Teller of Lies returned, disguised as a blind oracle known to the Storm Tribe. “Elmal, Elmal,” it wailed, “Your master, Orlanth, is as good as slain, defeated in the land of the dead.” And it showed Elmal an image of his king, trapped in a pit and unable to escape. “You must take his place as King of the Storm Tribe,” Teller of Lies told him, “for Orlanth’s day is done. Without a king, your beloved tribe will wither and die.” Some of Orlanth’s people believed the false oracle and flocked to Elmal’s side, offering him a crown.

This show of devotion moved Elmal so that he smiled, and his smile blinded some of the people. When he saw this, he said, “This ora- cle is false. I would not be loyal to Orlanth if I believed him so eas- ily defeated. If some of you wish to call me a king, I will lead you. But this does not mean that I take Orlanth’s place, for Orlanth will be my king when he returns.” Again Teller of Lies had to slink away, its powers useless in the face of Elmal’s great loyalty.

So really, the whole Monrogh-Yelmalio cult looks very much like the temptation from Teller of Lies. Orlanth is unworthy of your loyalty and you should rule yourselves. It looks very much like Monrogh and most of the Elmali failed this test and succumbed to the Teller of Lies.

This is pretty much what we’re told the Elmal cult believes about Yelmalio’s cult. Those that stayed faithful to Elmal and rejected the Yelmalio cult are staying true to the Orlanthi myths and the story of Elmal Guards the Stead.

So it occurs to me that that Orlanthi have several ways in which they might respond to Monrogh and his followers when the Yelmalio missionaries show up and start trying to persuade followers of Elmal to join the cult of New Elmal, AKA Yelmalio. When challenged with the revelation that Elmal is just a mask of Yelmalio the Orlanthi have a couple answers already built into their myths about Elmal.

What will the Sun Priests tell the rest of the Storm Tribe when Yelmalio claims to be the true face of Elmal?

Is Elmal Yelmalio?

1) No. Elmal is not Yelmalio.

Elmal left the Fire Tribe after he was healed by Chalana Arroy and he realized he wasn’t a very nice person and his tribe weren’t very nice people. Elmal’s brothers were angry that Elmal left the Fire Tribe and were jealous that Elmal possessed the most brilliant light of all of them. Yelmalio was the greatest of those little jealous brothers. That Yelmalio’s followers claim that Elmal is just a mask of Yelmalio is a manifestation of that anger and jealously and fueled by the Teller of Lies (see: Chaos, see: Nysalor-Gbaji).

2) Yes. Elmal is Yelmalio.

Elmal left the Fire Tribe after he was healed by Chalana Arroy. He wasn’t a very nice person and used to be called Yelmalio. His tribe weren’t very nice people. Chalana Arroy healed Yelmalio’s broken body and broken spirit and restored his lost power after his defeat(s) at the hands of his enemies. Yelmalio was no longer Yelmalio and now became Elmal. A wiser, nicer, and all around more chill fellow. This brought Elmal to Orlanth who proved worthy of Elmal’s service. Now Elmal uses his strength and brilliance to serve and protect others. In the process, he proved himself worthy to carry the burden of the Sun Disk across the sky. That now Yelmalio’s followers claim that Elmal is just a mask of Yelmalio is a manifestation of that anger and jealously and fueled by the Teller of Lies (see: Chaos, see: Nysalor-Gbaji). They worship the broken and unworthy Yelmalio before he was healed by Chalana Arroy. Our Elmal is the true version of what became of Elmal and a much nicer person.

3) Yes. Elmal is Yelmalio.

Elmal is Yelmalio. Enemy of Orlanth and Son of Yelm. We have been lied to and Orlanth has abused our loyalty and service. Orlanth is unworthy of our loyalty. Yelmalio, the Cold Sun, survived without the aid of Chalana Arroy. Yelmalio is greater than the Storm Tribe and does not need them. We should make our own rules and follow our own ways. No follower of Orlanth is fit to rule us.

2 hours ago, Jeff said:

If you are going to authoritatively say that a god possesses a given spell, yes. If you are going to say you think that a god should possess a spell, no. David quite authoritatively said, "For example: Elmal is able to use the spirit magic spells of Fire Arrow and Fire Blade. Elmal has the spells Shield from Orlanth, and Command Horse from Redalda. He is also associated with Pole Star, under the Orlanthi name Rigsdal, and receives the spell Star Sight." etc.

Now maybe David intended to say, "For example, let's say that Elmal is able to use..." But as it is, a reader can very easily assume that is what the rules have said. Which they largely don't (although Elmal does get Shield from Orlanth).

Jeff

The full text of his comments seemed fairly clear that he was making a recommendation as to how you could fix the passage you shared to make it feel more compatible with previous material published about Elmal.

14 hours ago, davecake said:

 I really appreciate that this excerpt has evolved significantly from earlier drafts. It still has a fair bit of the retconned 'Elmal non est hoc' flavour, but much less. 

I think it demonstrates, though, that the issues of publishing format and retconning the nature, history and powers of Elmal are quite separate. Elmal in that excerpt is still quite different from the God presented in S:KoH, Coming Storm and 11 Lights, such as removing the deep horse/Redalda connection, and it is hard to reconcile the history presented in Six Ages with Elmal being a regional Kethaelan variation. A few sentences could fix most of the game information to be compatible with those sources, and effectively remove 90% of the retcon issues. 

For example: Elmal is able to use the spirit magic spells of Fire Arrow and Fire Blade. Elmal has the spells Shield from Orlanth, and Command Horse from Redalda. He is also associated with Pole Star, under the Orlanthi name Rigsdal, and receives the spell Star Sight. Elmal is not associated with Yelm. Their worshippers generally do not receive gifts and geases. The warriors of the cult generally fight with spears and bows, but as Orlanthi warriors, they do not generally fight in a phalanx, and they tend to be light cavalry and strongly associated with the raising of horses. There is a tradition in a small number of clans that allows Elmal warriors to become chiefs or thanes — this is similar to becoming a Thane of the Orlanth Rex cult, and uses similar Orlanthi tribal rites, but Elmal initiates do not get access to the Command Priests spell. 

 

The final second paragraph is not intended to be an authoritative declaration of what the RQG materials say, but advocating for what they might say to create less disruption with the version of Elmal most recently presented in HeroQuest.

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

Please re-write this paragraph - "In the youth of Prince Tarkalor, the Sartarite ..."

The revelation was in the last decade of Prince (or King) Saronil. The process sort of ended in Tarkalor's reign, and all of it was in his lifetime and with him in the critical places, but not in his reign.

I’ve been trying to get someone to pin down official dates for Tarkalor’s vision and then the battle finally driving the Kitori out of Vaantar, but no one seems willing or able to provide dates from existing texts. I haven’t seen more definitive dates than it started sometime around 1550 and Vaantar was granted to Monrogh’s Yelmalions in 1579.