Sir_Godspeed

In the Sourcebook, in the section about the Runes, the Truth Rune is said to be have been used by "The Grey Ones" to protect them during the creation of Glorantha/the Cosmos. Who are the Grey Ones? Is it a synonym for the Cosmic Court/Glorantay, or a other/equivalent group drawn from some specific mythos, or just an obscure allusion for text flavour?

There's something I've been thinking about for a while - in the Guide, I got the impression that "Hyaloring" was the term used by the Theyalans, whereas "Hyalorong" was the term they used for themselves (a cognate ending to Jenarong, although one is a group, the other an individual, possibly extended to a dynasty). What was the decision to go with the "Germanic-sounding" -ing ending?

Thanks! I only bloody knew it!

Currently reading the Lunar Redline History of the Sourcebook, and it mentions Jarst and Garsting, the lands between the Jord Mountains/Hungry Plateau, and the Elf Sea (more or less). They never really go into detail about who these people are, their history, culture, military, etc., except to mention that Lunar women marry their rulers and merge Lunar cults with local ones at some point (I believe during the Lunar Restoration after the Celestial Empire). Since I know next to nothing about these places, I had a quick google, and pretty much the only substantive thing I could find, aside from raw numbers (I sadly don't have the Guide on me these days), is that I believe Garsting is apparently considered a "Zarkosite land". Now, this seems to put them together with a number other peoples speculated to be Zarkosites or descended from them, like the Votanki (I know some people disagree with this, but I'm just mentioning it due to it being a recurring identification), as well as, apparently, the Gamatae (which I don't find all too helpful, since the Gamatae seem to be descended from just about every culture in pre-Time Peloria with access to anything resembling a horse, although I could be wrong). It might also connect them to, unless I'm mistaken, to those guys with the giant blue goat and those with the lion-pelts in Six Ages. Garsting also apparently has a town with a earthen pyramid-tomb in it, which is worshipped, but is not related to any of the people there, which could mean that the current population replaced an earlier one, or who knows. Jarst does not seem to have any links to pre-Time cultures that I could find, it's only mentioned that they were ruled by the Opili during Sheng's Celestial Empire. Now, going further, I found some info that Jarst and Garsting were, supposedly, something known as "Blank Lands", which from what I gather are areas in Glorantha that are deliberately kept blank or vague so as to give GMs and players the ability to freely make up stuff there themselves. Apparently Balazar was once such an area too, for a while after Griffin Mountain/Island got made "generic". There's a lot of franchise-history here that I'm not too versed in, but my question is - is there still a policy of leaving some areas "blank" from official sources? Will we ever get more substantive info on Jarst and Garsting?

I suppose the Alkothi's hang for body-modification might also explain why the First Council forces saw them as non-human demons and distinct from the other Pelorians/Dara Happans. (Although I still prefer the idea that there was something additional going on with Alkoth connecting to the Underworld and celestial-humans and underworld-beings mixing in there during the Darkness somehow - but that's just my own wishful thinking.)

Holy crap, that Shargash is terrifying. Not only in a monstrous sense, but there is genuinely something creepy, uncomfortable about him. Kudos to the artists. The artwork in the Glorantha Sourcebook make him out to look more like a traditional "savage" berserker (which (I like too - hence the need of an Emperor and all that), but this version looks positively malevolent.

Getting some serious "We Are Venom"-vibes from that.

Huh, an Earth origin, who would've known. I assumed they were some kind of Celestial temple-guardians or vengeance spirits. Got the latter part right, at least.

Ah, see, there's yer problem, see? Gotsta get yerself wunna them there subaltern mythical perspectives, I reckon.

That's what makes the comic such a mixed blessing. The fact that it's not getting updated means that there is new Glorantha-stuff getting produced by Chaosium, which is great - but I have a very special fondness for the comic since it was my gateway drug into Glorantha (and a very approachable one at that)

So more of an Angry Man's Orlanth, then? Seems to be a few of those guys floating about.

Sorry, I realize I followed up on a tangent. Although I will add something at least somewhat relevant: the thing about Orlanthi individually initiating to specific deities at a higher rate probably doesn't just derive from social functions, but it seems to be a cultural feature of Theyalan-associated cultures in general, including, for example, Trolls. Not sure if it applies to Aldryami though (it obviously doesn't apply to Mostali and Dragonewts, who're largely non-theistic, though the Mostali at least have their caste-based sorceries which might serve roughly analogously). For whatever reason, the Pelorian family of cultures seem to have less of this trend of individual-entry into cults. Maybe it's the larger, city-state societies, maybe it's the increased degree of social stratification and hierarchy, or maybe it's some other, possibly mythic reason. (There are probably exceptions, for example among women in Darjiin or something, but that's the general trend as far as I know.) Just to be clear - I didn't mean to imply that Veskarthan was a subcult of Lodril. Gods runically associated, yes, but clearly completely different as social and cultic phenomena. I would assume the Ten Sons, as you say, are a lowland Pelorian thing, and I'd too be somewhat surprised if Veskarthan has any "sons" in that sense. I'm still somewhat hesitant to say that all of Lodril and/or Turos' magics must be elementally derived though. Seems somewhat at odds with his daily-life role as the quintessential common man, farmer and/or village headman.

What about his Ten Sons? Are they treated as subcults, or just aspects of the Lodril Cult? They're clearly modeled around the "common man's work", a bit like a combination of Barntar and Durev. Also, what about the regional equivalencies - Turos and Gerendetho? Gerendetho seems more hunting-focused, while Turos has much less for an elemental Fire-focus in his myths and more of a general power/masculinity focus (there's even KetTuros as a god of urban organization/protection). I'll admit, from my first readings on Lodril in a specifically Pelorian context, there didn't seem to be much of a Fire-focus at all. It was a lot more written about him working the soil, getting drunk, and being the village headman. With all this explicit elementalism, are we sure we're not letting the God Learners and Caladra/Veskarthan influence Pelorian Lodril here?

Whoooh... After a few days properly sitting down to read through this thread (I had to stop following it after page 3, as it went a bit too fast and a bit too deep for me) I'm finally through, and boy-howdy was it a doozy! I'm honestly not sure how I feel about the whole thing. Food for thought, I suppose, but I'm positively stuffed. Great job all around, though.

Just some simple questions - but I'm reading the Sourcebook more thoroughly now, and I've read that the God Learners thought these to be the same, right? Before and after assuming control of a part of the Underworld and guiding/judging the dead? The Praxians worship him (I assume, he's a part of their pantheon at any rate), and say that he came in the Gray Age to separate the living from the dead. Do the Orlanthi/Heortlings have any similar stories, or did other entities perform that task? (Orlanth, Issaries, Ernalda). Is Daka Fal the Judge of the Dead in Orlanthi mythology as well? Does he have an (expressed as opposed to implied) relation to Ty Kora Tek? Is he considered an ancestor, or is the identification between Grandfather Mortal and Daka Fal considered obscure by most modern Orlanthi? According to the Sourcebook, Grandfather Mortal, after he was killed, became a king in the Underworld. I'm guessing this is partially to explain why Trolls (Man-Rune Darkness beings) exist. Is this just a God Learner synthetic theory, or is a belief that trolls also have? Do they consider him an ancestor, or mate of Kyger Litor? Why couldn't he join them in their passage up from Wonderhome when the Sun fell and scorched it lifeless? I understand he was "dead", but there were already ghosts abound. Did he choose to stay? Cheers.

Not really. The God-Learners drew on a lot of sources, sure, but their goal was to set up an ultimate, objectively true framework and cosmic narrative, by diving into the essence of existence. Postmodernists actively oppose such notions. Vehemently.

Not to derail the conversation, but I think this is a bit of a misrepresentation of Levi-Strauss. His structuralist analysis of language and myth was not opposed to metaphors or metonymy, but rather was to a large degree dependent on them. LS would probably use "he was a snake" to explain how someone is called a snake because they have a RELATION (this is the key to his analyses, iirc) to something else that is similar to the relation a snake also has to something in ITS habitat. In this case, probably involving venom or ambush or so forth. The snake is venomous to another organism. The person behaves in a way that can be considered to be venomous (a metaphor in itself) to someone they interact with. Similar relation creates an interchangeability of actors. I'm not a structuralist, by the way - and I agree with your overall synopsis (it's quite an inspired one), bur LS's "fall from grace", as it were, has more to do with a post-modern realization that any one interpretive perspective becomes too rigid and too self-affirming when applied to real-life cases, and often misses important factors that can be picked up through different analytical lenses/approaches. If all you use is structuralism, all you're going to see is structuralism, as it were. It's the flaw of a lot of schools of thought. To bring it back to Glorantha, I'm even tempted to say that the Hero Wars are eminently post-modern, in the general sense (as opposed to specific movements often labeled post-modernisms), since every approach, every thesis is essentially mashed together to see if it'll stick.

Uh oh... I See The Red Moon Rising

I don't know how relevant this is - but from what I can tell, the Seas that invaded the land and sky in the Golden and Storm ages are often referred to as dragons, and often consistently depicted as ones. It's something I've been thinking about a good deal, and I'm wondering if, for example, there are certain entities in Glorantha that can be counted as both dragons and not-dragons depending on the perspective? Ironically, a True Dragon or Ancestral Dragon is exactly the kind of being that would probably be able to transcend such categories, including draconicness, and/or jump rope with it at a whim. I suppose it would explain why there are so many gods that "conveniently" turn out to have a "secret" draconic side. Of course, there's always the possibility that various cultures just called them "dragons" because they looked/acted superficially similar.

I think Manu makes a valid point that there might be a conceptual difference between warriors (man-vs-man) and, well, for lack of a better term, "rangers" (man-vs-animal). When thinking about it, I could imagine a version of Storm Bull would make sense, or possibly Orlanth in a Ram-espect (basically a more militant/adult version of Voriof, his son, and the god of both male youth and shepherds). Both of these are derived from animals where the males are known to protect their herds from predators or engage in fights with rivals. It's not quite a perfect analogy, of course, but I think it's a better fit than Humakt, which always struck as a bit more... militarily conventional. Maybe I'm wrong. I suppose Barntar might actually serve this purpose as well. Sure, he's the Plow God, but with things being as they are in Pamaltela, I wouldn't entirely see his ability to deal with (big herbivore) animals be extended from breaking them in to the yoke to chase them off. He can also be more or less freely paired with/subsumed by the "Orlanth-as-Ram" idea above.

There was this thread in another forum on this site that partially went into how one could make elves (or rather, a human Aldrya-worshipper) "weird" without them becoming entirely incomprehensible. I made the below comment as a bit of a ramble/thinking-out-loud about how a plant-person might hold quite different values regarding life, the preservation of it and so forth, partially informed by their RW-ish biology, but also by specifically Gloranthan myths about plants. I mention it, because it's also relevant to the whole "cannibal"-thing. I would argue, personally, that the Aldryami of a forest are far more "mentally collectivist" than the humans of a clan or city or have you, and that this comes with consequences in the sense of more acting "for the good of the forest", as opposed to holding individual ambitions (although I wouldn't discount the latter entirely, because individual interests/perspectives clashing is still a really good way to create stories). The dead do not need their bodies. The living do. The Forest does. They will be mulched. The superfluous Aldryami-seeds which were planted when things were looking better, but which are now possibly a burden on the nutrient-cycle will be mulched in an act of vegetative infanticide, because this is for the best of the Forest. A rivaling Forest, and its ecosystem, will be mulched, conquered, transformed, etc., whether by violence or by vegetative invasion, or spirit fusion or what have you. The method doesn't really matter - what matters is protecting or expanding the Forest. Spirits will find new bodies, or join with Aldrya, the cycle goes on, as is natural. The Forest, which is essentially both Mother, Ancestor, Deity and City all in one, endures. Humans like to pinpoint specific individual elves or trees as the "kings" or "elders" or "hearts" of the forest, but this is a gross simplification, and possibly one that the elves deliberately create. Ultimately, there is the Forest. Just my speculative perspective. I know not all of this matches a hundred percent with published lore, but I'm going out on a limb with some possible Elf-perspectives on this.

Just a quick sidenote - is it true what I've heard that most of the Black Horse Troop riders end up as food/victims of their own infernal horse after a while? I think I remember reading that somewhere, as a sort of "terrible price" for being a rider or something. Might be fan material.

Makes sense. That being said, I suspect a RW culture would probably remove the horns entirely, as many cattle breeders have, as they don't really contribute much. Then again, they might've kept them if, say, removing the horns disrupted the mating process or something. In Glorantha, I suspect the rationale for keeping them would just be "that's how it's always been", followed by "something something myths".

That is also stated in the Glorantha Sourcebook. The book is a bit vague about who holds what beliefs though, and I don't have it with me right now, so I can't tell whether it's specifically a Pelorian belief or otherwise. I believe it just says "some believe" and that's it.

I wonder how the sable riders avoid getting poked by their mounts' horns if they rear their heads.