Grievous

15 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Yes, refers to their "type" - which identified whether they were among the 5 Great Houses of Nochet, among either type of other Pre-Dawn House (i.e. at the Nochet Compact, but their path to survival through the Great Darkness varied), or among the Post-Dawn Houses. The intent I had with the last three was to leave them largely undefined so that a GM could use them in whatever fashion they felt relevant (i.e. not included explicitly in scenarios, background, etc. other than their location on the map and whatever text exists on them from the Esrolia book, which is all "deep" background).

Ah right, that makes sense, thanks!

8 hours ago, jajagappa said:

If you look over carefully, you'll find all the Nochet enfranchised houses (there are 20) on the Nochet map here: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/publishers/to-sort-categorise/nochet-city-of-queens/

But to save your eyesight, this is the list of them.

What's the significance of the colors on that table? Seems to refer to type, but Post Dawn differs from that..

3 hours ago, davecake said:

 

My error. I was thinking of the Dolutha, who of course are Cinsina. I don't think the Dinacoli seem to have a lot of Yelmalio worshippers though. 
 

Except that the clan history has them coming from the north as well, over the Creek. So they're still an issue that sticks out.

"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."
- Coming Storm 

Now they could be a northern group that has done a heroquested Elmalian Resurgence into olden Six Ages times from being Yelmalio worshippers in the north (which would also be a reason why they were hostile to the Yelmalian Dinacoli who drove them south)... but I mean, the whole Elmal-Yelmalion complexity is closing in on singularity here.. Alternatively you can just search and replace Elmal into Yelmalio in Coming Storm to reach some canon parity.

2 hours ago, dumuzid said:

It'd be interesting to see more myths from Ernalda's perspective, that give her more dynamism.  There is an arc to be illustrated in her journey: 1)the maiden earth goddess 2)becomes a concubine in the court of the chaste Solar emperor, 3) contrives her own liberation with the help of her storm-god lover, and 4) ascends to become a queen in her own right with many husbands and many more children, till 5) finally she dies in the Greater Darkness, and descends into the Underworld to participate in the Great Compromise.

Part of the issue with her seeming static is that most of the Ernaldan myths we have are still written from an Orlanthi perspective.  They focus mostly on points 3-5 of that arc, and most heavily on 3-4.  If we had more Esrolian sources, or even just a wider spread of Orlanthi sources, we might see more of the process where Ernalda gains all that wisdom.  Years ago I wrote a myth set during point 2, where Ernalda was the figure who guided Orlanth, Shargash, Engizi and the Waertagi to put aside their differences and join forces against a monstrous typhoon created by their conflict, but even that was still written from (Vara)Orlanth's perspective.  I think there's a myth cycle to be had in the story of how Ernalda was one of the first to notice the widening cracks in Yelm's imperium and started making moves towards creating a successor regime/pantheon before she even met Orlanth.

Yeah, there's that and then of course the whole classic maiden-mother-crone triad.

Yeah, the Earth is pretty solid and dependable. The Storm is fickle and ever-changing. So it does kinda make sense. I sort of see the point made, though.

6 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Thanks.

Do you have references for this? 

What I've read only slightly suggests an Orlanthi beginning (from the south). But like a lot of the history, the *specifics* are left out (same with RW history).

References to which parts? That's me incorporating (or attempting to incorporate) Six Ages lore into what I know about the Triarchy.

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

Also, if you look up the Vantaros clan, one thing that comes across loud and clear is that they have banned Elmal worship.  Now if there was no Elmal worship that wouldn't be necessary would it?  Clearly there was Elmal worship that Harvar felt he needed to suppress.  I think the Tarshites didn't have many Yelmalio worshippers in their ranks at all, and the ones who did exist were subsumed into Elmal worship voluntarily for want of a shrine.  Monrogh's schism only happened 44 years ago for Sartarites, and it was likely a Lunar plot to sow disunity in the Kingdom.

What I find curious is how did the Tarshites come to worship Elmal at all? They arrived with knowledge of Yelmalio, but they didn't settle in areas where the sourthern Elmal was an influence. There must have been some proselytizing of some type going on to make that switch happen. Or more generally, why did Yelmalio mostly disappear in northern Dragon Pass (or well, did he)?

This is relevant also to the issue concerning the Dinacoli - and really the Coming Storm/Eleven Lights more generally. Which also raises the question whether I should retcon some of the Elmali present in the the Coming Storm/11 Lights into Yelmalions for my Glorantha to be more in line what is current RQG canon. But I wonder how does tribal worship of Yelmalio even look outside of Vanntar? It at least feels like it'd quite easily be more pro-Lunar. 

Also, what exactly is the reasoning behind Elmal worshippers giving the Sartarites trouble (before Monrogh's reformation)? I find that somewhat vague, but curious! Any ideas?

3 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Can someone point me in the right direction for information about the Hyalorings in Colymar? Something with more detail than Adventurers, the Guide, and a bit on a couple of websites.

My thinking is - the Enhyli, Narri and (now) Taralang follow a line from Hyalor horsebreaker, who follows Yu-Kargzant (aka Yelm) as the Pure Horse People. Many got wiped out, and after moving became the Grazelanders.

It would make sense for the Hyaloring Triaty to have come from the Grazelanders, from a geographical perspective... However, they could also have come from the north or east... Albeit a rather long journey.

Either way, if they do actually follow Hyalor's line cleanly, they should be worshipping an aspect of Yelm, not Yelmalio.

Unless.....

Uhh well we don't know exactly, but.. the Hyaloring Triarchy came from the south, but how they got there is unclear. Nothing points to them being Pure Horse People though. They look like distant descendants of Hyalorings and Vingkotlings, ie. likely Berenethelli. So they'd have worshipped Elmal from the start and not have been subject to the curse laid on the distant Elmal worshippers (he was doomed to be forgotten in Peloria). How they'd end up in Heortland or thereabouts is a mystery, but right now a lot of this specific history is that. Equally, how Elmal worship changes as it is taken up by the Berenethelli.. and how exactly it stops among the Hyalorings.. yeah, these are questions that have no answers right now. 

That kinda leaves room for a counter-reformation, btw. A remembering of Elmal's original role. There's some Heroquesting to be done. Think of the arguments we can have on the Internet when that happens - Elmal subsuming Yelmalio (who has subsumed Elmal). Can't wait. However, it does seem like a potential campaign idea centered on the Hyaloring Triarchy, with heavy experimental Heroquesting waiting to be done...

4 hours ago, metcalph said:

The Hyalorings of Nivorah are horse-riders (cf Fortunate Succession p85 where Vuranostum is listed as a Horse Emperor).  The Chariot Emperors come from what is now the Elf Sea, up the Arcos River and into Dara Happa from the north (Jenarong and his offspring are depicted as chariot riders).  

Six Ages has them both likely originally coming from Nivorah, though. The horse-riders and chariot folks will have gotten spread out since, and have come back from those spread out places..

I can definitely see how we go from this Elmal to Yelmalio. It's a form of the god that has forgotten parts of his core myths and Monrogh re-revealed them. Now I just need to understand how we go from the earlier Elmal (as seen in Six Ages) to Yelmalio. I mean sure, Elmal is cursed to be forgotten, but we've only seen a small part of how that will play out... Even as we go forward, seemingly towards a simpler interpretation, it seems Glorantha plays its tricks on us and Elmal will continue to elude us!

8 minutes ago, Videopete said:

Just got to the section on the actual list of units on the Forces available... no idea what the Magic Factor, Melee or Missile Factor means. That said I know that Jareel could just destroy the Red Emperor according to the book.

Those stats refer to the old White Bear & Red Moon / Dragon pass board games. My horse for a republication, btw!

16 hours ago, Joerg said:

Ian Cooper had to "dumb down" his original cast of 120 NPCs to a barely manageable cast of 60

That'd make a sweet downloadable product (and/or for JC). Family trees would make me extra happy too. JUS' SAYIN'. 🤪

10 hours ago, Joerg said:

Not really. In HQG or WF 15 (IIRC) there are the various types of Orlanthi (like Hendriki, Light Orlanthi, Axe Orlanthi) listed. When your players create a clan, they choose which of these they belong to. KoDP didn't know or make use of these terms, and neither did the HQ version of it. (HQ1, IIRC)

It would be very interesting to see a canonical mapping of answers to the clan questionnaire to the different types of Orlanthi, in as much as such exists as a trend.

Also something funny going on with the lineage of Thinala-Pala-Treya, who are all listed Orlmarth in various places (which doesn't really make sense).

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

P.42

Daravala Chan, Niece of Erannina Chan

That would make 35 year-old Darvala also a niece of 29 year-old Ereneva Chan. Eraninna is 35 years old, too...

Should this have been "Niece of Beneva Chan"?

P.45

The illustration shows Eraninna Chan (mirrored from her appearance in the Adventure Book - with the axe in her right hand here) rather than Ereneva Chan (whose portrait I would have expected here).

Daravala is also listed as second cousin to of Erenava (p. 57), but this doesn't work out either...

Also, Ereneva should be Taraling, not Ernaldori? Daravala's clan affiliation is up in the air, too, really.

Yeah, can't wait for the Cults Book to open up some views into the Pelorian mind.

The thing with grokking the Solar-Lunar connection is that it does feel a little like squeezing a square peg in a round hole. So, the Sun rules everything, but uhh we're subservient to the Lunars? I don't see the problem of integrating the Lunars into the Solar worldview in its totality (it wouldn't be difficult to see Sedenya presenting an odd and even greatly influential Illuminated cult in the orbit of the Sun, offering freedoms and viewpoints previously unavailable), but what I see as the pre-eminence of the Moon seems difficult to reconcile. Sure, the Emperor is both a Yelmic Emperor and the Red Emperor, uniting the two strands. I'm even down with that, but Sedenya still seems oddly triumphant in comparison to Yelm otherwise. So, I do struggle with this a bit as well. 

2 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Not sure what to make of all this though. Are you saying hello and by the way the idea of playing the game you paid for as you wish, well it sucks... I am sure that is not what you mean, so again welcome.

I kinda appreciate the snark, but clearly that's not what he was saying: indeed, he was saying that idea (of playing the game you paid for as you wish) is pretty much implied in being a member of the hobby. Anyway. I actually agree with the poster's sentiment and have usually, if not actually disliked, somewhat shrugged at the YGWV stuff. I still want a consistent Glorantha and I don't think the quest for that should be sneered at. But yeah all in all it's a fairly minor point in my musings, but just saying I empathize with the concerns raised by datreus.

14 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Rich people donate large sums of money to various churches and charities but it doesn't generate any sort of loyalty between them and those organisations.

That's a very ... optimistic way of looking at how that usually works.

12 hours ago, Eff said:

Secondly, there's not really any sense that the Lunars want to replace any gods beyond possibly Orlanth (certainly they suppress Orlanth's worship, but their rhetoric is about healing and calming him, not about eliminating him). 

I could see Orlanth in the Red Goddess' pantheon and mythology relegated to mostly a bandit god, venerated by outcasts and renegades, a king of nothing but his band, who occasionally (with the Goddess' indirect or direct guidance) takes his rebellion against tyrants and authority figures who have lost their righteousness (ultimately as judged by Sedenya, of course). His natural ill-manned oafishness thus sometimes helps to restore things to a better order. Sedenya can't entirely fix the bandit god, but she can ensure that his contribution to the cosmos finds it's right course.

15 hours ago, Eff said:

It's my firm belief/firmly part of my Glorantha that the traditionalist Ernalda priestess attitude towards the Lunar Way can be summed up as: "If Sedenya thinks she's so important she can marry Ernalda too."

Well, maybe the Red Emperor as the phallos of the Red Goddess could indeed ritually be made to do that!

Yeah, it took a while to get to the phases and the whole emphasis on cycles, which I feel is pretty key to the Red Goddess.

In another thread there were some thoughts about how it's a bit of a shame that the Moon mythology has sort of been superimposed on the Solar pantheon. I've thought about this too and had that tact for a bit, but I actually think a focus on the Goddess' cyclical nature also allows her mythology/religion to mesh very nicely with the Solars. Faced with crazy, illuminated priestesses of the Red Goddess, who emphasize the ebbs and flows of the world, even the Solar pantheon's priests struggle to put in a counter-argument: the Sun quite clearly sets at night and rises at dawn. On a macro-mythological level perhaps Yelm itself is more of a title that has passed between divinities and this is something the priestesses will not find puzzling, instead they will see it as revealing a fundamental truth embodies by their goddess. So, together the two viewpoints can come to agree that there is one greater truth that is revealed through the many phases of the world.

And if the Red Goddess can integrate even the seemingly monolithic Solars, she can certainly integrate other pantheons. We are all Us. The differences between cultures and pantheons can often be seen through an emphasis in cycles which explain the apparent differences. An illuminated understanding of the principles that underlie various cycles and how change occurs can become a glue that binds, rather than walls that separate.

On 11/18/2019 at 9:09 PM, Joerg said:

The Red Emperor in Fronela is Phargentes. And his claim to be Moonson is almost as good as Takenegi's, and much better than any of the previous masks. Like Takenegi, the mortal Phargentes takes on Egi upon his ascension to the throne. Probably including his own father.

Gah if there is one thing that I find confounding it is the Red Emperor business... I haven't really found a source that truly explains this beyond leaving it very cryptic and quite inaccessible in regards to using it at the table. I mean, I get that the original Red Emperor got ganked by Sheng and thus needs to incarnate via the Masks. However, the Mask business doesn't seem to be working exactly, but I can't fathom how exactly.. perhaps the Masks retain too much of their original personalities? And how the heck do the Egi still fit in?

They were probably followers of Indlas Somer coming for the tanning lotion.

12 hours ago, Joerg said:

The Pseudocosmic Egg found inside Feldichi ruins in Dorastor was the instrumental component to bring a new god into the world - a piece of primal Creation waiting to be made alive.

In the end, the new deity turned out to be a continuation of Rashoran after it lost its moment of perfection.

Rashoran but with a dash of chaos? The Pseudocosmic Egg sounds like it must've had a chaotic component/core, but I haven't really heard of much musing about that(?). Perhaps the Red Goddess' dip into chaos was the "pseudocosmic egg" that she needed to perform her resurrection into Time. Hmm, just thinking out loud here..

14 hours ago, Ufnal said:

Or is it just a mystery that a mortal mind cannot comprehend so I should stop trying?

I don't think you should stop trying - there is art in the striving, but a definitive answer may continue to elude you.

I think the truth of the matter often appears paradoxical. Trying to resolve that tension (for example by imposing a one true objective explanation) will take you away from a proper understanding and appreciation of Glorantha. I would even say that it's quite psychedelic (if that experience is familiar), in that it it utterly fractal in nature and also that it tends to morph and shift as you look at it. That's not to say that it's entirely subjective and there is objectivity to it. The Lunars might say it is cyclical instead, that it appears different at different times because it follows a pattern that may not be entirely obvious to a non-illuminated observer.