Sir_Godspeed

Ah, sorry, I totally missed the rather obvious (at least in hindsight) meaning.

OOO?

As I understood Ian's hypothesis/interpretation, the idea was that the Emperor of Golden age Dara Happa was never Yelm, but Murharzam, and that his solar disk god was Antirius. In the Bright Empire of Time, these were effectively synthesized, together with others probably, into Yelm as we know him. I could be wrong, but that's how I read it.

I didn't say that Dormal was a Hrestoli? I was just wondering how a seemingly (poly)theistic cult and ritual has been integrated into monotheistic/atheistic societies and belief systems. Thanks for the info, though.

How do Orthdox, monotheistic Malkioni like the Rokari, and I guess the Hrestoli deal with Dormal's cult? Not to mention the atheist Brithini of Arolanit (to the extent that they have their own sailors at all)?

True - but on a more fundamental level I meant that their definition of Little Sun differs because their definition of *SUN* seems to differ. The Red Planet becomes a sun in this equation, which it doesn't really do elsewhere. Granted, GRoY refers to the celestial body above Mernita as a "sun" as well, although its used as one of the origins for Sedenya, and its corpse becomes known as the Blue Moon Plateau, so there is some precedent for the definition of sun to vary.

Yup, that's why I edited my comment to be different. Although it's never stated in-game, I believe.

Six Ages is set during the glacial era of the Storm Age, and explicitly references Yelm by name and says that he was murdered by Orlanth. Six Ages also has a number of "little suns", however this also includes gods like Shargash, so it operates with a different idea of what constitutes a Little Sun than what some other published material does. Six Ages also "reveals" that Elmal is not a native Orlanthi deity, but rather the "exiled" sun god of Verapur, the southern city of the Decapolis. As the Verapurans (the Hyalorings and Samnali) chose to ride out rather than join the other Dara Happans in the ice dome, they received threats from imperial emissaries that Elmal would be stricken from imperial records and would be forgotten. They defied this curse, and through the course of the game, one ending (the "good" one) is essentally that the Hyalorings partially join with the Vingkotlings and cross-pollinate the worship of Elmal - thus ensuring his worship up until the modern era in Time. Now, I'll be the first to say that while I actually really like the views presented by Six Ages, I can also see it being only one possible take on the Storm Age. EDIT: Six Ages also pretty explicitly separates Elmal from "Little Yelm" (almost certainly Yelmalio from a Hyaloring perspective, albeit before the events of The Hill of Gold), and *possibly* Antirius? There's a "Cold Sun" called Yonesh, which might be Antirius. Alternatively, Antirius is beneath the ice dome, and Yonesh is someone else entirely (EDIT: Apparently this is the more likely answer). Kargzant is never mentioned, as far as I know.

It's the impression I'm getting. It would be interesting to see if the Pelorians had an equivalent of the Orlanthi/Ernaldan initiation rite, or the Lightbringer myth cycle, or something akin to that. The closest I can see, personally, are the ideas of the Muster and the Regalia - where subjects of the Emperor deliver specific, mythically significant units for war, and mythically significant artifacts after a new Emperor passes the Ten Tests. However, from the literature I've seen, it seems these myths/practices are mostly significant from the perspective of the Tripolis.

After reading the responses, I'm beginning to narrow in on what my issue is. Basically, it appears to me to be a mainly representational and textual/narrative issue: most of the other cultures in Glorantha are issued a fairly easy to follow set of signifiers, either in terms of ways of living, mythology, aesthetics or what have you. Whether this is accurate on a deeper, more detailed and microscopic level isn't necessarily the issue here. Pelorians, in my impression, are not really given such signifiers, which in my opinion, makes the *so-called* Pelorian culture group appear mostly as a hodge-podge of unrelated cultures and societies whose main claim to relatedness is political authority more than anything else, and which makes "mentally" navigating the various regions and cultures there feel a bit like a game of cultural mad libs.

In the Heortling Mythology book, there is a goddess called Enferalda, which apparently is Ernalda in the aspect of being a war companion to Orlanth.

Plot twist: He, Zzabur was both Gbaji and the Hero of the Second Age.

Oh shush, you. You know what I mean - back when they were still around. While I agree with your assesment, this way of reckoning isn't that unusual in the RW either. Ancient Greek city states measured time by referring to different reigning rulers in each city (making for incredibly complex comparisons *between* cities), and many hunter-gatherer and pastoral cultures will also use similar terms, though probably not quite as formalized as the Hyalorings. There's also the the concept of Age Segments, which you find some some Nilotic cultures, Amerindian ones, as well as Australian Aborigines. Every (f.ex.) twelve years or so, a new Segment will be announced, and everyone born within that time will be considered part of the same "generation" if you will. There may be a preset number of these age segments, which makes them cyclical. If there are, say, twelve age segments, then this means a single cycle covers 144 years - giving it impressive accuracy for an oral and mnemotic time reckoning. Well, Plentonius was, and we all know he screwed up in other places, so it's quite possible that the Dara Happan obsession with (linear) timekeeping is a new thing. After all, why be preoccupied with keeping time in the perfect, static Golden Age?

The Omaseg made me think of the Uncolings. How many other "shaggy deer" that live in cold areas and eat mosses and lichen are there to choose from, aside from fantasy animals? Very interesting stuff. It's cool to see these groups otherwise only known in historical snippets represented during their heyday.

That's too bad. Hope it'll be better soon!

Definitely an improvement, imho.

Okay, so bear with me. Orlanthi are a very large group, and cover a very large area in Genertela, as well as Umathela. And yet, they seem to have certain common cultural and religious signifiers. They *tend* to combine the worship of a storm king with an earth queen, they tend to organize in extended clans with relatively unstable higher levels of organizations, ie. tribes, kingdoms, etc., and they tend to have numerous cults and subcults that people enter into based on individual or familial preference or tradition. So basically, even if there is a good deal of variation, there are also a fairly decent amount of commonalities between them. Part of this might be because their culture, such as it is, is fairly young, many large populations being post-Dawn converts rather than ancient "natively" Orlanthi from the Storm Age. When we move to the Pelorians, however, we find a "culture" (always an iffy term, but that is how it's used in the Guide) that covers a smaller area, and has a smaller total population - and seems wildly disparate in practices. If Esrolia represents a significant departure from mainstream Orlanthi practices, then pretty much every other Pelorian subculture seems to be a significant deviation. Pelanda, Darjiin, the Stork river people along Oslira, Alkoth, Rinliddi, Darsen, etc. etc. Frankly, the only "cultural" commonality I can see is that they mostly seem to acknowledge some version of the Sun as a supreme ruler, but not even that is prevalent everywhere. There doesn't seem to be any really unifiying "theme" the way the Orlanthi, or Malkioni, or Kralorelans or Fonritans have, and it's kind of frustrating at times. We're *told* that Lodril and Oria is widely worshipped everywhere in the Pelorian bowl, but I can't think of all that many examples that actually *show* it, aside from some small examples from commoner life within the Dara Happan Tripolis itself. The unifying factor, to me at least, seems far more of a political one, in that many of the Pelorian nations at various points were under the Dara Happan Empire or one of its successors. I can also imagine that it's the age - Pelorian cultures have antecedents that seems significantly older that the Orlanthi as we know them today (though not necessarily Storm People as a whole), and so may have diverged over a much longer time period. You can also argue that they lacked any equivalent of the Lightbringer missionaries unifying them with common rites and beliefs in the Dawn (unless you count specifically acknowledging a Dara Happan emperor). Lastly, I'm wondering if this is also due to a textual bias: writers on Peloria have tended to focus on the region's diversity rather than emphasizing or showcasing its commonalities for flavor reasons. In other words, yeah, sure, there are the Heron Goddess of and Racoon God and all that, but those are mainly regional patrons, and most people widely worship Lodril and Oria as well, and acknowledge Yelm as the supreme sun, we just don't mention it because it's kind of a given. Problem is, as a reader, that's not really the impression I'm getting, and it makes the idea of a Pelorian "culture group" sound kind of hollow and contrived. There is a sub-question to this about what it means, thematically from a worldbuilding perspective, that Alkoth is one of three cities that makes up the Dara Happan tripolis, yet its culture and practices seem so utterly deviant from the other two cities, that any treatise on "Dara Happan culture" feels like it only really applies to Raibanth and Yuthuppa. Is this, once again, a result of writers exaggerating Alkoth's eccentricities in order for it to feel more interesting? Are Alkothi commoners pretty much like those in Rai+Yu, but largely ignored in favor of a more elite-centric perspective? This is more or less some thoughts I've had in my mind for a while, and some frustrations I have as a reader and consumer. If someone introduced a new group to me and says "They're Doraddi" or "They're Orlanthi" I feel like I kind of know what I'm in for. But when someone says "They're Pelorians", it feels like it tells me jack all, maybe aside from geographical location. Any thoughts on this? Just as a bit of disclaimer: I am aware that these other cultures also do have an enormous amount of variety, and that to a considerable extent, their "thematic" unity is a result of simplifying things. I am more wondering why not I get the same impression of Pelorians. Additionally, I am of course also fully aware that realistically, there's going to be a lot of cultural variety going around. This isn't a question of reallism.

If I remember correctly, the Dara Happans tend to add -us or -um to a lot of Pelandan words as well. EDIT: It might be the other way around for Vuranoste-Vuranostum though. The Grazers might've lost or reduced those suffixes, much like happened in the real world with the Romance languages (Latium-Lazio).

That's something that I've found interesting - Flamal apparently killed Stone with an axe. That scenario seems so backwards in terms of tool implementation that I can't help but think that there must be some deeper symbolism to it.

The unicorn's face does seem to have some of that Renaissance oddness, as if they were struggling to apply human facial principles to an animal - if that makes any sense. Beyond that, is the mine an erect one, or is it lying over the neck away from the viewer? Kudos for including the cloven hooves and the goatee. Without them Unicorns often just look exactly like horses with a horn.

After a quick google search, that appears to be one of the Sons of Lodril. He is depicted on the God's Wall. He carries a thresher (tool for beating the grain seeds from grass), and a bucket or basket.

I know Ergesh and Votank are confused with each other by Plentonius, and the wiki says Ergesh is considered the father of Votank. Furthermore, they are both said to be descendants of the kingdom of Zarkos - which fits with their location, as well as the modern groups in the Arcos river valley and Jarsting & Garst who also herd goats (although IF the Votanki are Zarkosites, then they have deviated quite far from their distant relative). Either way, my main point is to say that I don't think these groups descended from Nivoran commoners, but rather come from whatever city lay in Zarkos. Unfortunately, I can't quite pinpoint which one that would be. Senthoros is an option, as it is rumored to have lain on the mountains that were on top of the Hungry Plateau, before they were sheared off. Another possibility is Abgammon, which is said to have been a city in Kostaddi. While this would leave them on the wrong side of the mountains, the Kostaddi are specifically noted for being goat herders in the Golden Age. A third option is that these peoples were always predominantly rural. Yes, the Riskesting Empire, I believe. Led by the Bright Eagle Lords Although it should be noted that, for one, the Storm Age was *very* long, in terms of actual historical developments (in other words, a whole lot more of recorded events occured in the Storm Age than in the Golden or Green Ages, when everything seemed a bit... vague), and from what I can tell, the Rinliddi (aka Kestinliddi, or Riskestings, etc.) had several empires or states at various points, and the exact chronology relative to the rest of Peloria seems... iffy.

The whole "person of Culture X won't use item Y because it is associated with element Z" is one of those parts of Gloranthan mentality which I don't like. It just feels like the kind of thing that would be so high-concept that really only zealots stuck by it. Is your average Yelmalian hoplite joe the kind of person who would stop bringing a waterskin if someone told him that it was associated with the Water Rune? Eh. Let 'em have short sword and daggers, I say. I mean, hell, Tolat has a sword, so this whole elemental puritanism seems more holey than swiss cheese, imho.

I'd say your player's rationale makes perfect sense. And it can be supported with in-game lore too. The area your PCs will be adventuring in, Dragon Pass and Holy Country are noted for their ancient magical heritage, and so the idea that there might be some rumour of a specific spell in some old temple or ruin, or library, or even in the memory of a local spirit - and that she was pointed that way by, say, some document back in Ralios - seems good enough for me.

Revealed Mythologies deals to a large extend with the importance of dreams and illusions in the Eastern Isles. Not only is there Avanapdur's Transitory Empire, which was revealed to be a dream, an illusion, a lie, but everyone who bought into it disappeared with it, and even islands did. The end of that empire is, as far as I understand, the closest we get to the Theyalan "Dawning" myth and beginning of Time - with Vithela/Eastern Isles having a chronology that overall kinda defies the Theyalan-GL version of things. There is also a lengthy section on the Goddess of Dreams, sought by a keet traveler. I struggled grokking that part, but it seems to be that her devotees consider her dreams to be good and non-delusional, actively contrasted to other dream-entities.