daskindt

As someone that has been quite vocal about being disappointed in the change of direction on Elmal in the RQG materials (and on social media and these forums), I’d like to say that I’ve never been bothered by the idea that Yelmalio and Elmal are believed to be the same entity my many people. That’s fine and a lovely belief. It may even be true (for whatever truth is worth in a fictional world setting). I have absolutely no problem with that. Where I have a problem that frustrates me greatly is when we’re told that the Heortling Orlanthi believe this version of the story. This flies directly in the face of 25+ years of mythmaking surrounding Elmal. Whatever the actual nature of the relationship between Elmal and Yelmalio, we’ve been told that the Orlanthi believe Elmal and Yelamalio are two separate entities. Here are some of the beliefs that we’ve previously been told the Orlanthi hold regarding Elmal and Yelmalio that we’re now being told are false or wrong. We’re told that the Orlanthi don’t actually hold these views, not that they hold these views but are ultimately mistaken. There’s even views expressed from the viewpoint of Yelmalio worshippers that the new material seems to now be discrediting. 1) Elmal is the Orlanthi Sun God (Glorantha Sourcebook, pg 100). 1a) “Elmal is the Sun that rises in the morning and descends into the Underworld in the evening. It still shines upon the world because Elmal is constant and enduring.” (S:KoH, pg 151). 2) The Orlanthi name Lightfore as Yelmalio, a separate celestial entity (Glorantha Sourcebook, pg 102). 2a) Yelmalio is “A foreign God of the Winter Sun” (Book of Heortling Mythology, pg 167). 3) Monrogh and his followers betrayed Elmal when they followed Yelmalio: ”What the Sartarites think: The Sun Domers are a strange cult who betrayed Elmal for the Cold Sun. They speak our language and know our ways, but their own customs are strange. They ape the ways of the foreign Dara Happans and offer sacrifices to Yelm and the Fire Tribe. However, they were the good friends and allies of King Tarkalor and can be trusted to keep their word, for good or for ill.” (S:KoH, pg 255) 4) Yelmalio’s cult and the Teller of Lies: “Initiates should always be loyal to the chosen leaders; Elmal’s priests teach that internal dissent is the work of the Teller of Lies, criticizing the Yelmalio cult as an example of just such a deception.” (S:KoH, pg 153) 5) Orlanthi and the Many Suns: “The Many Suns The Orlanthi acknowledge that multiple gods are associated with the Sun, among them: Elmal, Yelmalio, Yelm the Emperor, and Yu- Kargzant of the Grazers. Each of these are Sun gods and yet each are different gods. And yet, there is only one Sun in the sky. The paradox of the Many Suns has often been a source of conflict and strife in Orlanthi history, most recently between the cults of Elmal and Yelmalio.” (S:KoH, pg 154) 6) Yelmalio’s cult is hostile to outsiders and Orlanthi: ”The cult wields little influence outside of its own members. Cult members are often accused of treachery by their Orlanth-worshipping neighbors. Members of the cult return the world’s distrust, for they tend to regard outsiders as unclean.” (P:GtA, pg 380) 7) Yelmalio vs Elmal: ”Yelmalio is friendly towards most Fire and Sky deities, although his cult stands outside most Fire and Sky religions. However, as a result of their intertwined history, the cults of Yelmalio and Elmal are mutually suspicious of each other.” (P:GtA, pg 381) These are some of the Orlanthi beliefs about Elmal and Yelmalio that the setting material has been supporting for the past several decades. These beliefs might all be false. Maybe Monrogh and his followers are truly enlightened and know the truth. The Red Goddess is correct. Illumination is the way. Orlanth is an obsolete barbarian god. But that’s not what we’ve been told that the Orlanthi believe. It would be one thing if we were still being given the Orlanthi perspective, even if the game acknowledged that the Orlanthi are wrong about Elmal. But we’re instead being told that the Orlanthi never actually believed these things that we’ve been told for decades are a vital part of their culture and mythology. Elmal appears all over in the Heortling myths. He’s part of the Orlanthi Sacred Calendar when they celebrate Victorious Sun Day. Survival Day is honored by all Orlanthi during Sacred Time. Elmal has stories and myths and celebrations that were presented as vital parts of Orlanthi culture that are now being ignored or erased. Previously, we were told that Elmal and Yelmalio only shared a single seasonal holy day (in Dark Season), but now were given a calendar that only presents Yelmalio. It doesn’t mention Elmal anywhere. We’re told that Elmal is just a subcult of Yelmalio whose worship is functionally identical. But the cults have been treated as distinct and different. Elmal has the Fire Rune while Yelmalio has the Light Rune. Yelmalio has Gifts and Geases. Elmal does not. Their structure and beliefs and practices are wildly different. They’re fundamentally opposed in their relationship with Orlanth. Anyway, I’m happy to see complicated relationships in the cultures and mythologies of Glorantha. The new attitude towards Elmal though seems to be trying to stamp out several decades of beautiful myths and stories and cultural details though. There’s a lot of previously written material that has to be ignored, erased, or deemed wrong in order to pave the way for the new material. And again, it isn’t that we’re getting in world stories that contradict each other, but rather we’re being told that entire attitudes and beliefs previously attributed to people, particularly the Orlanthi, were simply in error and are no longer that case. That’s a frustrating problem for me.

Did I say that Jeff said that? I don’t believe that I did. Perhaps you can show me where I asserted that? It certainly isn’t in the quote by me that you were responding to. I said that we’re told in several sources (Guide to Glorantha, Glorantha Sourcebook, Heortling Myths, and Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes, for examples) that the Orlanthi call the Sun Disk Elmal. Glorantha Sourcebook, pg. 100: According to Jeff: Now, there are several other places on these forums and on Facebook where Jeff has stated that previously published materials about Elmal are wrong and made it very clear that the new materials are changing much of the material about Elmal and the Orlanthi’s views on Yelmalio. So I don’t really think there’s any room to say that there isn’t a retcon going on. I’m trying very hard not to rehash those discussions though. Jeff is in charge of RuneQuest and Glorantha and can choose to alter whatever he likes. I find his choices on Elmal vs Yelmalio very disappointing though. I’m sure there are plenty of people that were disappointed when Elmal was retconned into Glorantha’s mythology more than a quarter of a century ago at the expense of Yelmalio, but now it’s those of us that find Elmal to be an important and interesting part of Orlanthi culture that have cause to be disappointed.

This retcon is extremely irritating with all the excellent work that has been put into Elmal’s mythology over the last couple decades. We’re told across multiple sources (and recent ones at that) that the Orlanthi call the Sun Disk Elmal. We’re also told the Orlanthi know about Yelmalio and identify him with Lightfore as a distinctly different celestial and mythological entity from Elmal. Now suddenly the Orlanthi are all back to calling the Sun Disk Yelm and Elmal and Yelmalio are the same god. It’s one thing to say that followers of Yelmalio believe them to be the same entity and that they believe the Orlanthi are confused and mistaken. It’s quite another thing to just pretend that the Orlanthi don’t believe there is a difference.

I was curious if your suggestions had continued to evolve as the new edition with the latest art direction became publicly available. I appreciate having your suggestions and the visual reference. Would it be possible to have your visual reference in higher resolution though? I lose a ton of detail when I try to zoom in for closer inspection. There are some obvious units, but some of them it’s not immediately apparent what forces they’re meant to represent.

Necro warning: How up to date is this guide now with the new edition released?

GM Dashboard sounds lovely.

Nice!

So because Dullblade is undesirable they made it even worse?

Yeah. I’ll certainly have the two spells directly counteract each other’s effects. Also, I think it makes more sense to apply the bonus/penalty to each attack after the attacks are split.

From the Bladesharp description: The bolded part makes no sense to me. I would expect the damage and chance to hit would both counter each other on a 1 to 1 basis.

What I don’t understand is why does Dullblade cancel Bladesharp bonus damage, but the percentages don’t cancel? Why? What happens to the penalty percentage from Dullblade then?

Elmal Elmal Elmal

Heal (Spirit Magic) is a variable spell and must be learned at a specific level (Heal 1/2/3/4/5/6). The maximum it can heal with a single use is equal to its rating. You can recast it, but each cast will require more Magic Points and an additional POW roll. You may need the healing to happen quickly or you may not want to make numerous rolls. Heal Wound (Rune Magic) is learned with a single Rune Point. You cast it for 1 RP and then convert as many Magic Points into healing as you need. It happens on SR1 and you can heal as much damage to the target as you have Magic Points to spend. This gets you extremely powerful healing, extremely fast, and with a single roll against your associated Rune.

The example is still incorrect or inconsistent with how critical damage is defined elsewhere. From Page 203 of the 2nd Printing PDF:

Should be. I just received my corrected dice in the past week.

We used point buy for our new campaign. I hate random character generation. I ended up giving each player 98 points to buy their characteristics. I used the 92+3 method as a baseline, but I also charged a little extra for stats approaching max, so I gave the 3 extra points to account for that altered cost. For the 3D6 stats, they paid 1 point per point in a stat up to 15. They paid 2 points for each point from 16-18. So 16/17/18 cost 17/19/21 points. For the 2D6+6 stats, they paid 1 point per point in a stat up to 16. They paid 2 points for each point from 17-18. So 17/18 cost 18/20 points. Modifiers from Runes and/or Homelands came after. We ended up with very similar characteristics as the pregen characters in the book. Most of the pregens are within a point or two of the point buy system we used. They was some min/max-ing, but not an excessive amount. I’m sure part of that was all the players are new to RuneQuest and Glorantha. The Skill Modifiers certainly contribute to point thresholds and some points of attributes being more valuable than others. I’d prefer a system much more like RQ3 where each point can help or hurt the modifier.

Your list was a great starting point. Here’s the timeline I’m working on specifically for my upcoming Red Cow campaign. I’m ignoring many events from the official Family History and trying to work in more localized events. When dealing with big events, the Coming Storm provides some nice details for how the Red Cow were involved. Coming Storm / Eleven Lights Family History Notes Your History 1618-Present Day 1617–Silk Breeches Feud 1616– 1615–Tormakt’s Farm Massacre Parent’s History 1614–Broodi stops the Red Cow Tribute / Telmori clash at Pine Stand 1613–Kallyr’s Rebellion—Garralor Hendriksson keeps the Cinsina out of the rebellion 1611–Bloody Sword Tribute Raids/Black Paws wife killed—Lunar government raises taxes and bans the worship of Orlanth 1607–Wolf Hunt 1606–Torkan’s Vale massacre—Telmori slaughter the Maboder Tribe—Black Moon Massacre 1605–Farandar avenges Eoric’s Stead 1602–Orkarl leads Red Cow against Lunars (Runegate/Caroman/Boldhome) Grand Parent’s History 1601–Grandparents Retire If Still Alive 1597-Adventurer Born By This Year 1596–Burning of Eoric’s Stead ????—Ferry Feud—Aid the Sazdorf Trolls 1582–Battle of Grizzly Peak—Led by Orkarl 1575-79–Kangharl Moon-Hater led the Cinsina to fight in Tarsh 1575-Parents Born By This Year 1574-1577–Gannara the Lowfire fails to weave peace with the Dinacoli—Green Ale Feud 1573-Tarkalor’s War—Daylanor leads Red Cow to aid in defeat of the Kitori ????—Orkarl’s Bull Riders defeat the Emerald Sword Raid 1563–Jarosar Hothead’s Road—Feud with the Dolutha 1554-Grandparents Born By This Year

I still can’t figure out if Crits ignore armor and do max special damage or if they ignore armor and just do rolled special damage.

Weird. It’s almost like Jeff ‘18 should carefully read some of the stuff that Jeff ‘09-‘12 wrote. S:KoH, pg. 254:

I feel like I just read some dates. Maybe in the history of the Cinsina and the Red Cow. I’ll look.

1560 is listed in the GtG as the date that Tarkalor defeated the Kitori, but that doesn’t agree with some other accounts. It does match the end of Kitori taxation according to S:KoH. 1565-1569 is Jarosar’s rule. It is stated in KoS that the strife with the “Elmali” was still in full force as they refused to come to Jarosar’s aid. This would seem to indicate Tarkalor’s alliance/reconciliation with the Yelmalions must come later. 1569 is when Tarkalor becomes Prince of Sartar. Several accounts seem to indicate the war-campaign against the Kitori that culminated in the Yelmalions being granted Sun Dome County took place while Tarkalor was Prince of Sartar. He’s been feuding with the Kitori and Monrogh has had his Yelmalio revelation earlier, but Tarkalor does not turn his father’s enemy into his ally against the Kitori until his reign. 1579 is the year listed in several sources that Tarkalor officially awards Vaantar to the Yelmalio cult. Of course, these dates can all be called into question in other places. There’s a genealogical chart of the Sartar bloodline that alters the dates of rule for almost all the Princes of Sartar. S:KoH, pg. 222: (1520-1552) Saronil (1552-1557) Jarolar (1557-1561) Jarosar (1561-1582) Tarkalor Those dates for the rulers of Sartar would help with the timeframe for Tarkalor’s many deeds as Prince and King, but it’s contradicted in numerous other places, including the very next page in S:KoH, pg 223:

More indications that the final defeat of the Kitori is later: Colymar History in GM Screen Adventure Book, pg. 10: Pg. 11: ‘77-‘82 seems to push the date back too far (later than even the dates for when the Red Cow chief aided Tarkalor), but the paragraph above seems to indicate that Kenstral aided Tarkalor against the Kitori after he became king of the Colymar as they were actively fighting against Tarkalor prior to that. This would coincide with the official designation of Vaantar as belonging to the Yelmalio cult in 1579, but significant action in the campaign definitely seems to occur much later than 1550 when he feud began. Maybe Jeff can clarify the dates a bit and specify some of the phases of the campaign against the Kitori.

Love the information on the Kitori. In the interest of narrowing down the date though, the Coming Storm dates Tarkalor’s campaign later, based upon the history of the Red Cow chieftains. Coming Storm, pg. 49: Jarosar rules from 1565-1569. This seems to place the arrival of the Yelmalio cult in the Red Cow’s neighborhood after building the road, so definitely later than 1565, but likely before 1569 (not to suggest Monrogh’s vision was this late, just that the organized cult hadn’t reached the Red Cow). It also places the campaign against the Kitori after 1569 since it says Daylanor and the Red Cow joined King Tarkalor (does it really mean King and not Prince? I don’t think so, since Tarkalor is not King of Dragon Pass until 1575, after Daylanor is no longer chief of the Red Cow). If these dates are correct, the actual campaign against the Kitori would have to fall sometime between 1569 and 1573. Which seems to conflict quite a bit. Maybe King Tarkalor doesn’t mean he was ruling Sartar at the time, just acknowledging that the history is talking about the future King and not another Tarkalor. Still, if Daylanor was chief and lead the Red Cow on the campaign, it would need to fall after 1563. The text really seems to apply that it was entirely after Jarosar‘s rule though, which ended in 1569.

Before diving into the Making Gods essay, I want to make a few points that I think are relevant to discussing the essay in the context of the emerging mythology of Glorantha. These are things that seem important to me as a consumer of the Glorantha myths, primarily through RuneQuest, then Hero Wars, then HeroQuest, and now back to RuneQuest: Glorantha. I am by no means an expert and I have not had a hand behind the scenes as a contributor in the creation of these stories. I’m trying to explain why I’m confused by some of the choices made based upon my readings as a consumer of the Glorantha stories. 1) King of Sartar, first published in 1992, is definitely one of the critical sources I’ve gone back to again and again to try and better understand the Elmal vs Yelmalio debate. As far as I’m aware (and I could certainly be mistaken), King of Sartar was the first time information about Elmal was officially published. Prior to that, there was no Elmal officially recognized in the materials available on Glorantha, or at the very least there was nothing about Elmal in RuneQuest. Only Yelmalio. So this is probably one of the most important documents contextually for the current controversy. But I think it’s important to recognize it was published in 1992 before Elmal had any official presence in the myths of Glorantha and that significant work has be done over the next 26 years to elaborate and clarify the role of Elmal in Glorantha. King of Sartar is a world document. It is most assuredly not a game or systems document. But it has to grapple with how Glorantha is/was portrayed in game systems. RuneQuest at the time of its publishing. Later, it had to be in dialog with Hero Wars and HeroQuest. In light of that, my impression is that part of the goal of the Making Gods essay was to officially include the Elmal mythology into the world of Glorantha while at the same time limiting it’s impact upon the published version of the myths and stories in RuneQuest. Why haven’t we heard of Elmal? Why doesn’t anyone worship Elmal in the published RuneQuest sourcebooks? How can the Orlanthi have all these important myths about Elmal but we only have Yelmalio in RuneQuest? How did Monrogh discover Yelmalio while he was actively being worshipped in Sun Dome County in Prax and other places? It’s my impression that the Making Gods essay is an attempt to resolve those concerns while still introducing a significant new deity and collection of myths to Glorantha. It’s a bit of Greg trying to have it both ways. Elmal suddenly exists (and has always existed retroactively), but his newly established presence doesn’t require any actual changes to published RuneQuest sourcebooks because his cult has been fully subsumed into Yelmalio by the early 1600s. (Although it was obviously massively controversial in relation to the Sun County supplement also published in ‘92.) I’d be happy to be better illuminated on the topic however. 2) Making Gods is an essay within Jalk’s Book which is introduced in a metatextual note from Greg Stafford as a framing device. This is a popular convention in fantasy documents that places the author into the narrative as if analyzing real documents from this fictional world. The character of “Greg” actually calls the accuracy of the essay into question in the introduction to Jalk’s Book. King of Sartar, pg. 167 (emphasis mine): This immediately casts the Making Gods essay, the first essay in the book following this introduction, as “wild speculations” and it should be read and evaluated against other sources and comments in this light. As a reader, I’m now forewarned that the narrators/writers of the various essays may very well be unreliable. In world documents should always be read with awareness of the reliability of the narrator/storyteller, but Greg has drawn extra attention to that point when setting up the coming essays. And notably, the version of the account in Making Gods frequently differs from other accounts in other sources. 3) Making Gods does not specify a lot of details. When was this document composed? Who was Hilliam Wants West? When and how did the Eyetooth clan aquire the antesmia statue? What exactly is the antesmia statue? Who was their tribal king? Why were they rebelling? Why were the Elmali enemies of Tarkalor’s father? When did this occur? How was Monrogh connected to them? When exactly did Monrogh have his Peculiar vision? Was the Peculiar vision at his initiation the same as his quest that brought back Yelmalio? Or was the Peculiar vision prophetic and his actual quest took place later? The verifiable truth of these events are all in doubt considering Greg’s warning and the lack of details in Hilliam Wants West’s account. Why for example does HWW not know some fundamental details about when the events actually took place? King of Sartar, pg. 169 This seems like an event that should have a fairly defined date that a scribe would be able to record if they were a contemporary of Tarkalor and Monrogh, but none of the events have concrete dates. Is the event referenced from the previous paragraph when the Eyetooth clan began to worship the statue or the event(s) described later in the paragraph when Tarkalor uses the rebelling Elmali against his Kitori enemies? The scribe doesn’t even know if Prince Saronil was alive or dead when the event, whichever event it was, occurred. He describes the event in broad strokes and then doubles back to give some specific details on Monrogh. For example, he started by talking about the Elmali and then by the end of a paragraph he’s suddenly talking about Yelmalio who he had not previously mentioned. So when he goes back to discuss Monrogh and Yelmalio, we don’t really know when the various aspects of Monrogh’s vision and accomplishments took place. King of Sartar, pg. 169 Why exactly again are the Elmali the enemies of his father? When did Tarkalor’s feud take place? Previously HWW doesn’t even know if Saronil was alive or dead during the event. Most accounts place Saronil’s death in 1550 (although the genealogy chart on pg. 32 places his death in 1552). This certainly seems like it can be interpreted as the conflict was resolved by giving the disgruntled Elmali their own homeland after they performed a service for Tarkalor. The emphasis here is on how Tarkalor turned a previous enemy and liability into an asset to solve two problems. To me, this puts the end of strife on Tarkalor’s clever action not upon the revelation of Monrogh. Without Tarkalor’s action, Monrogh’s Yelmalio revelation would have continued to cause strife in Sartar. Getting into the specifics of Monrogh: What truth was Monrogh actually seeking? He got an answer, but the real meaning of his answer can change a lot depending on what the question was. Was he seeking a new truth of the Sun God? Or was he searching for a Sun god that would allow him to sway and convince the Elmali to fully abandon their traditional ways? King of Sartar, pg. 169 This actually doesn’t say anything about Elmal being a mask of Yelmalio. It indicates Monrogh brought a deity known among the elves and introduced him among humans. Sure this could be interpreted as Elmal is a mask of Yelmalio, and some other references point to that. But many other subsequent references indicate that it’s a new god “neither Yelm or Elmal.” This certainly doesn’t seem to give a definitive answer, even if we assume the scribe is reliable. 4) One thing this account does specify is that Yelmalio’s cult replaced Elmal’s cult. In this version of the story, it seems as if Yelmalio completely replaces Elmal as “the rest” of his worshipers joined the new cult. Perhaps it merely refers to Sartar and the Quivini tribes though. Again, the scribe is not entirely specific. In terms of how this impacts gaming in Glorantha with Runequest, this makes sense historically in that it explains why there are no Elmali in RuneQuest supplements, but this interpretation doesn’t hold when we consider other documents released following King of Sartar. Further, the cult spreads, with the assistance of the Lunar empire who imports it into Tarsh. This detail seems to imply that Yelmalio moved to Tarsh quite late, definitely after 1550, but since it seems to imply Tarkalor solved the conflict before the Lunars began to spread the new cult, this would place the spread of Yelmalio in Tarsh in 1579, or later, when Vaantar was officially awarded to the Yelmalio cult. It seems like this detail differs from other accounts I’ve seen folks providing indicating Yelmalio was a presence in Tarsh significantly earlier than that, but again I’m unclear. King of Sartar, pg. 169 This seems to indicate that the Lunars introduced the Yelmalio cult to Tarsh, but the timeline here again doesn’t seem to match up with the later sources about how Yelmalio was worshipped and when his worship came to Tarsh. Again, differing accounts make for a more complex and interesting fictional world, but it undermines the authority and accuracy of any one particular account. In summary, Making Gods is a fascinating document as an in world document covering one perspective on a controversial topic, but it raises far more questions than it answers. It seems impossible to draw any answers from the document without reading it in dialog with many other documents, both in world and out, that discuss Elmal and Yelmalio. When examined against other documents, there are significant differences that make me reluctant to invest too much authority in this one single document.

The relationship didn’t sour. It started sour. The Yelmalio revelation was causing strife in Tarsh and Sartar. The Elmal-Yelmalions were in revolt and were enemies of Tarkalor’s father and betrayed Jarosar Jarosil. Tarkalor saw a way to use his father’s enemies to defeat the Kitori. He awarded them Vaantar and moved them out of Sartar to bring an end to the conflict they were causing with the traditional Elmali. It doesn’t make sense for Tarkalor to construct them a temple in Boldhome when he’s trying to end the conflict with the traditional Elmali. Honoring them in the heart of Sartar would have made things worse. This is based on published documents though. Again, if Jeff is retconning the published sources there’s really no point in arguing because he can change anything that conflicts with the new version of events.