Leingod

4 hours ago, Ynneadwraith said:

Thed is a victim. Thed also perpetrated evil things. These things are not mutually exclusive.

Plus it reflects a truth about the world, as all the best myths do. The Cycle of Abuse, where the victim of abuse becomes the perpetrator of it, is a real and studied phenomenon, and both Ragnaglar and Thed are perhaps the Orlanthi noticing this cycle and trying to explain it, but also to "Other" it, to make it something foreign and inimical, with an external cause that doesn't force them to reflect on themselves as much.

12 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

“Dad” is firing blanks — a rumble made by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing?

Yelm wished that was all it was.

On 11/15/2023 at 1:57 PM, mfbrandi said:

I wonder why it is always pitched that way. We could have said that before Umath, you were OK if you lived under the earth, deep in the sea, or on the other side of the sky, but that otherwise you were screwed — no place for the bats, the deer, and so on. Air’s separating sky and earth could have been pitched as a great act of altruism (Shu is a god of peace). Has Orlanth — the wet, fiery, blustering, thieving murderer — “infected” Umath (who wanted to be more like Entekos)? Have the Orlanthi made air into storm, the better to suit their own culture? Or … ? 😉

If there's any truth to that, it'll be the other way around: Orlanth's distinguishing feature from his brothers within Orlanthi myth is his facility with bringing about transformative change, rather than purely destructive change. It's attributed, at least in part, to his maternal heritage; one of his many names is Orlanth Larnsting, framing him as heir to his grandparent (a grandparent twice over in some ways, if you accept the story that it was Larnste who taught Aether and Gata how to bring Umath about).

In that dynamic, Orlanth is the one who tempers the unruly powers of the Storm, not the one who "corrupts" it (and in any case if it was any of Umath's sons who did that it would have been Vadrus, who led the Storm gods and their followers before Orlanth came into his own).

15 hours ago, bronze said:

It seems only the air gods are gaining power from others. 

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

IMG there weren't any tangible elemental manifestations left for Storm so they are all copied or stolen from the ancestral pantheons. This is the esoteric secret of Four Magic Weapons and in the background of the Hero Wars antagonism with Moon.

Air's power is to whisper the rain and trick the lightning, steal death and seduce earth.

It goes all the way back to the beginning; Air is the only element born out of the mingling of two others, rather than rising out of the one before it in a generative cycle. It is, in some ways, the bastard child of the elements. There was no place in the world accorded to Air, so space had to be made between Earth and Sky to fit it. The often-violent struggles of Umath and his sons in the God War are all, ultimately, echos of that first struggle, of Air trying to find a place for itself in a world that refuses to give it one as it had the ones that came before.

As a result, many of what we consider innate powers of Air are really things that this or that god of Air claimed through their struggles in the Gods War. Lightning, rain, snow, etc., were all things this or that son of Umath took and mastered and made a part of themselves.

4 hours ago, jajagappa said:

As they have multiple titles, which are effectively names, why not?

And given that a deity can appear in whatever form they wish to manifest in, possibly with a distinct personality with that form, why would that manifestation not convey how they wish to be known to whoever they appear to?

Orlanth's myths even have him explicitly giving himself a new name when he invents something new or does something for the first time, like calling himself "Varanorlanth" when he lived in the wild and "Desemborth" when he stole something. And don't even get me started on the weird thing the Earth goddesses have going on with names and identities.

The gods treat names and faces the way mortals do with clothes: You wear whatever you've got that's appropriate for the occasion. What does the volcano god care if he's answering to Lodril or Veskarthan? If your worship is pleasing to him, he'll wear either set of clothes just as gladly.

14 hours ago, ZedAlpha said:

y'know I'm actually having a conversation with a possible player right now who's super dissatisfied about all bugs just being Goraikki's kids

Well, depending on what's meant by "bugs," it can be a little more complicated than that in Gloranthan canon. To really get into the weeds of the divine mythology, the child of all "Beasts of Darkness" is called Sokazub, a child of Dame Darkness (i.e. the Primal Darkness), perhaps by Hikym/Mikyh (though I think I've also seen Hikym/Mikyh be listed as fathering Sokazub's kids, but either way works).

Sokazub was the mother of Kropa (ancestress of all arthropods), Molokka (ancestress of mollusks), and Swems (ancestress of worms). Kropa's children were Gorakiki and Aranea (who I would personally say is probably the ancestress of all arachnids, not just spiders, and the focus on spiders when she's brought up is just due to the importance of Arachne Solara in particular). If you want, you could easily add other branches on this family tree; maybe a much-reduced sister to Gorakiki and Aranea to represent the order Xiphosura, who lost all her children in the Great Darkness except for one lone holdout - the horseshoe crab - as just one example.

3 hours ago, g33k said:

It's worth noting that horses are Fire/Sky ungulates (the others AFAIK/IIRC are all Earth (except are hippo's Water?)), so there's Gloranthan precedent to break out specific creatures from within a larger Earthly clade, and give them different mythological foundation(s) & Runic association(s).

Mythologically, that's because horses started out as hippogriffs, with the horse goddess losing her wings, claws, etc. in the Gods War.

The general rule of thumb, IIRC, is that Invertebrates = Darkness, Fish = Water, Reptiles = Earth, Birds = Fire/Sky, Mammals = Air, but in the latter case it's been muddled somewhat by the frequent marriage of Storm gods to Earth goddesses. Most herd animals thus have some elements of a gendered Air/Earth split, at least among the Orlanthi. Storm Bull, Orlanth is associated with rams (and notably "Orlanth the Youth" is basically Voriof, a shepherd), Ragnaglar was a goat, the Harandings were boar people, etc.

It's also a little odd, to me, that the Aldryami are generally portrayed as overall indifferent to animal life, despite the critical role so many different animals play in a forest ecosystem, and how many of them have strong effects on the health of the trees the Aldryami spend their lives tending and protecting. I wonder if that's maybe a reflection of Glorantha's age as a setting, that it was made before many of us really interalized just how interconnected and interdependent something like a forest is, instead imagining the trees as existing somehow independently of all the myriad things that live and die around them.

You'd also kind of expect their Great Darkness story to be as much about them fighting off (or more rarely, finding compromises with) invasive species of animals, fungi, even other plants, as fighting stuff like humans, trolls, and dwarfs.

4 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

bats (Moon, presumably)

Bats are historically associated with Darkness, the Moon association is a recent thing from the Lunar Empire as far as I can tell. And being mammals, I'd posit they were born from a union of Darkness and Air beast-gods, in the same way that air-breathing aquatic life are specifically noted as coming from a union of Air and Water beast-gods.

On 7/23/2023 at 1:19 PM, jajagappa said:

Curious little bit of trivia: the Red Goddess, Jannisor, and Sheng were all born on the same day... While Jannisor was uniting the Orlanthi and defeating the Red Emperor, it was thought that he was the Red Goddess' Shadow. That turned out not to be the case. 

Or it was potentially the case until he failed, at which point the mantle fell to another.

2 hours ago, John Biles said:

Anstad?

Annstad of Dunstop, Fazzur's younger son who became one of Argrath's main allies as King of Tarsh after Mularik Iron-Eye. At the Battle of Dwernapple in 1638 he and Jar-Eel fell in love and quit the field (which was part of what allowed Argrath to score a great victory there). We don't know what becomes of him after that, just that he's recorded as dying 5 years after that.

I don't really credit the idea that it was a calculated move on her part to remove Annstad, though, for two reasons. First is that Jar-Eel was winning the fight when it happened; if her goal was to kill Annstad, nothing was stopping her from just doing it right there on the field. He'd lost all his men and she had a whole host of terrors to back her up to finish him off. Second, Annstad lived for at least 5 years after the battle, so if her plan was to get him out of the way, she sure took her sweet time of it after throwing away a chance to do it right then and there.

On 6/22/2023 at 8:18 AM, JonL said:

What did "Ginna Jar" steal from the underworld while Orlanth & Yelm were posturing? Only the Lanbrili know.

I mean, if Lanbril was any one of the Lightbringers, surely he'd be Flesh Man?

So far from the demo, there is literally nothing about this I'm not excited for and/or happy about except that becoming Rams apparently cost us our goats. The goat-loving advisors were always my favorite, and I'm quite fond of goats myself.

On 5/17/2023 at 5:57 AM, DrGoth said:

But all of that shows that the Yelmic religion has changed (and isn't that what the Red Goddess does?). The Lunar religion has attacked its very foundations and it will likely never be the same again. And I have to say I'm in favour of anything that undermines the Yelmic smug, and very limited, view of the world.

Thing is, as @Eff said before, "Dara Happan intellectuals can reconcile just about anything." They're a lot like the imperial Chinese literati that way, in that they can contrive some tortured interpretation by which any novelty or innovation we want to or have to support is really an ancient thing that has merely been brought back after all these years to bring us back to the original purity of ancient times. No matter how much Dara Happan religion changes, they'll never admit to it, and they'll always find some way of proving that it was actually something ancient that was just hidden from them (which is probably a big part of why they were able to accept the Red Goddess at all; once she proved that she was always there, there was nothing further to discuss).

Part of it was doubtless that the Telmoris' Sartarite neighbors all hate them with a passion - not without good reason, frankly. Their tolerance for the Royal House of Sartar's patronage of the Telmori was likely never more than grudging, and this enmity allowed the Lunars - particularly Jomes Hostralos - to befriend many of the northern Sartarite tribes by becoming their allies against the Telmori. Many people victimized by the Telmori would see little reason to support the pro-Telmori Kallyr over the guys who were helping them get their own back against the hated Chaos-tainted wolf-men, after all.

For Argrath to secure his frankly tenuous position in that (fairly important) region, then, he has a choice to make. Does he renew the Prince of Sartar's alliance with the Telmori like Kallyr did (or wanted to), doubtlessly angering all of their neighbors and perhaps driving at least some of them to neutrality or even siding against Argrath in favor of the Lunars? Or does he give the Sartarites what they want, buying their loyalty with Telmori blood?

To Argrath, the correct answer likely seemed obvious, even if he might have considered it distasteful (I personally don't tend to see Argrath as willfully cruel or just entirely callous, but rather driven to do whatever it takes to bring down the Red Moon, like Arkat was with Nysalor).

I mean, it always seemed pretty clear-cut to me. Babeester Gor is explicitly a goddess of vengeance, and doesn’t basically every story about vengeance show how easy it is for it to get out of hand and harm the innocent?

Vengeance is cosmologically necessary in Glorantha, that doesn’t make it good and certainly doesn’t make it infallible. Babeester would be quite unique among the deities of Glorantha if her judgment was always on point!

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

Elmal has no Hill of Gold Myth. Orlanth should have recognized his own loyal thane, and Elmal wouldn't have fought against Orlanth to whom he had sworn fealty.  Yelmalio is clearly a different deity.  We also know this to be true because Yelmalio was only invented recently by Monrogh.  Some old people in 1625 will remember a world before Yelmalio even existed. 

Elmal’s “Hill of Gold” is “Elmal Guards the Stead.” Elmal’s spear and shield end up with Orlanth; he gave them willingly and received Orlanth’s shield and regency over the Storm Tribe, sure, but that’s just a change in context. He faces three wicked foes and each leaves him broken and bleeding; the foes are different and he actually won those fights, yes, but the important part is the “left bleeding and broken but gets back up” part. One foe targets his virtue rather than his body; that virtue is loyalty rather than chastity, but nonetheless. 

These are all contextual changes, well within the scope of regional and cultural variations in worship. Relationships, motivations, and so on often differ even within a single group’s myths, much less between different ones.

On 2/5/2023 at 6:34 PM, jajagappa said:

Blackmoor is either Kolmhy or Kangharl depending on which source you believe (see genealogy which was either in Glorantha Sourcebook or the Gamemaster Source pack).

Pretty sure “Blackmoor” has been referred to as Kangharl in several places, so unless there’s WoG to the contrary I’m assuming that’s the one.

As for his siblings, I’m guessing they’re “blank” for now, so we can do as we’d like with them, including just ignore them.

On a very tangential note, I’ve a headcanon regarding Kallai Rockbuster that his epithet isn’t referring to martial prowess, but farming prowess. My reasoning is that Barntar is noted to have plowed solid rock when the dwarves turned his fields to stone.

7 hours ago, AlHazred said:

Not a Sartarite, but if King Glyptus the Good of Elkoi is any indication, having a Lunar wife is not immediately fatal, or even fatal in the short term. It does appear to be a sign of corruption in court, though...

A sign of increasing Lunar power and control, at least. Which can be much the same thing, depending on who exactly is in charge. Heartlanders working in the provinces seem to have a bad track record with this sort of thing, if Sartar and Prax are any way to judge.

On 2/4/2023 at 6:42 PM, Erol of Backford said:

So we know Temertain had a Lunar wife, Estal Donge, who cried as his body was cremated in 1625. She cried but must have been tears of joy as she must have cheated on him weekly from what I have read?

Pretty sure Temertain and Estal Donge were never formally married. And just because she was unfaithful doesn’t mean she had no feelings for him at all; if nothing else, he was the only reason she enjoyed such power and influence, so with him gone she’s in deep trouble.

18 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

We like to go on about Lodril as an agricultural deity, but I suspect that his remit is wider. For the farmers, he is responsible for canal irrigation, right? One suspects also agricultural tools. But he built the Gods Wall and invented the cylinder seal, IIRC. So Lodril and family should do for crafting and engineering when no other cult seems right.

If he is not mentioned much, it is because he is disdained by Orlanthi as an embarrassing “foreigner” and rival whose innovations were “not invented here.”

Lodril is basically the god of all the hard, thankless work the Pelorian peasants have to do so the Yelmic nobility can sit in their high chairs being all suitably majestic. Lodril's "Ten Sons and Servants" are effectively representatives of these laborers, given their own special names to set certain professions apart. Coopers, carpenters, bricklayers, foremen, etc. These are all connected to either Lodril or one of his many children... in Peloria. The Heortlings have adopted some of his children, i.e. the Lowfires, but they tend to worship the god himself as a volcano god if they do at all (most don't). He's a foreign god, and most of what he does they've got their own gods for.

Anyway, most crafts have their own cult or subcult somewhere; it's just likely to be pretty obscure to us players because most of our characters aren't carpenters, and even the ones who are probably aren't getting a lot of chances to go in-depth about it during adventures.

For example, older material tells us that the Orlanthi god of woodworking is Orstan the Carpenter, a son of Durev and Orane (who themselves have pretty much entirely been subsumed into Orlanth and Ernalda, and essentially just represent those two in the aspect of the humble-but-prosperous freemen of a clan). Orstan is almost certainly found as a sub-cult of Orlanth, because most minor Orlanthi godlings like him are these days. Other crafts are likely similar, being at most a small subcult of either Orlanth or Ernalda, but more likely just a name associated with them, with a few standout exceptions like redsmiths.

Something I only just realized with regards to this. Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes has, in its detailed write-up of the Orlmarth clan, a certain Orlgard Kenstrelsson serving as the lawspeaker. Said write-up is as follows:

Quote

Lawspeaker: Orlgard Korlmarsson (Wgy) is an elderly thane from a rival bloodline of the chief ’s. He is wise and discerning, and knows every legal procedure and tactic. He was never a warrior and knows little about fighting (but much about dying as his father, brother and two sons all died fighting the Empire), but his advice to farmers is relied on by the more prudent carls of the clan.

In the non-Venharl genealogy, Maniski's father is given as Orlgard, and this Orlgard had two sons who were killed by the Lunars, which would be a good match for the father and uncle that Argrath lost to the Lunars. Might this be Argrath's paternal grandfather? Granted, it conflicts with the Karandoli origin thing, but frankly I've given up on understanding any of that.

On an unrelated note, I'd guess this Orlgard is the son of Korlmar Kentventsson, King of the Colymar from 1552-1558. For his bloodline to be called out as a rival that of the sitting Orlmarth chieftain (which has produced two notable and well-regarded kings in living memory), such a pedigree would be no stretch.

On 12/20/2022 at 11:15 AM, jo77yroger said:

My question is: Can we belong in both clans ? Our parents, family are all in the Ernaldori clan. If not, do we have to remove our Ernaldori tattoos ?
Is it possible to have our new clan join Colymar even if the territory is not close to Colymar (Like Alaska belongs to the US 🙂) ?

In order:

1. No, you can't be a member of more than one clan. People leave their birth clan and join a new one quite frequently; one of the partners is a marriage will always do so, after all. This is considered a good and necessary thing, as it creates and strengthens ties between clans and brings new blood into clans. Your characters will always have those ties of kinship to the clan of their birth, and their family there will always be family, but the Ernaldori are no longer their clan.

2. You probably don't remove the Ernaldori tattoos. I imagine people who marry or adopt into a new clan tend to keep their old tattoos, perhaps with some added marker to indicate that this is their birth clan, and with the new tattoo of their new clan added on. The point of the tattoos is to tell people who you are and where you're from, after all, and being born in the Ernaldori is an important part of who these characters are.

3. You can certainly do so, but the question is: Can the Colymar actually project power as far as wherever your clan is based? If not, your clan is at the mercy of neighboring tribes, a very precarious position. Not least because those neighbors may well feel snubbed at the decision to swear allegiance to a distant tribe rather than one of their own. Membership in a tribe is transactional; member clans make promises of mutual defense and aid, diplomatic and trade ties, etc. If you're too far from the Colymar Tribe to actually receive any of that, then while your loyalty to the tribe of your birth will be quite touching and worthy of respect in the minds of some, it'll also cause you no shortage of trouble in the short term.

7 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

I would say that a large part of what you bring back would be claimed by

 

1) the community supporting you

2) the most appropriate cult (even if not supporting you)

3) the (tribe or clan, kingdom if more centralized) leaders (even if not supporting you)

4) the bloodline of the "bringer"

5) then the family

 

of course it depends on the power of the item (more powerful it is, more claimed it would be) , if a ceremonial item was "given" by some party and what are the ties between the heroquestors and the different "claimers"

Pretty sure that the family will consider that the bringer is the temporal owner but the item should stay in the family (from where are the heirloom !)

but upper and upper in the hierarchy of the claimer, the bringer would have less and less opportunity to own it and will be rewarded in other ways (land, weapon, teaching, position opportunity,  etc..) However with or without bargain the bringer may obtain the use of the item for a while

 

but that's for players who are in a social game (at least partially), if players are more in a pure adventure game (any loot is my loot) who get the item get the ownership so mgf

 

This all assumes that something like the Lawstaff can just be used by any rando who forces you to hand it off to them. But given how you get it, that really feels just plain wrong. Ask you to use it for them, absolutely. But if you went on the Heroquest to prove yourself rightful wielder of the Lawstaff, it’s yours, not property of whoever you happen to report to. It’s proof of YOUR ability to invoke and enforce Orlanth’s justice, not theirs.

On 9/19/2022 at 7:42 PM, svensson said:

But aren't you looking for inherent powers, not just item abilities? Or is the goal of the Heroquest to acquire a legendary item?

Sometimes it’s both; an item you get in the Heroquest becomes the source or focus of the power it gives you. The Lawstaff Quest gives you the Lawstaff, whose powers you use, but only you can use it, because you’re the one who earned it. At least, that’s how it worked in the HeroQuest system, which in fairness doesn’t draw a hard line between items and abilities mechanically.

On 12/1/2022 at 4:38 AM, Darius West said:

I think the Scissortongue epithet just means she can cut you to ribbons with her wit and quick retorts.

Also she runs a guild of people involved in making clothes.