Sir_Godspeed

That's not really a secret: it's stated rather plainly in the various books I've read. The God Time/Plane was created as a separate realm where the gods could relive their myths eternally, and Time/the Mortal Plane was created as a realm where gods could only act indirectly in order to avoid another Gods War (iirc). Your comment could of course more specifically be that the events of the God Time are all constructed - and that would indeed be a pretty groundbreaking secret that would shake a lot of Gloranthans to the core (or be promptly ignored).

You're probably right. I should've been more precise in that I don't necessarily think the Nysaloreans would've called it sevening, but rather than the Lunars (or pre-Lunars) read Nysalorean texts or were initiated into Nysalorean rites and extrapolated their own thoughts from that. "Hey, if Nysalor is an emanation of Yelm, could that mean.... and could that be used to...?". My thoughts: 1. The myths are true. It's just that they weren't always the myths and truths we have now. This is the nature of "retconning" after all. 2. a) The God Time didn't have strict linear causality as we do now, but it did have narratives and a sense of sequentiality. It behaved differently from Time as we know it, however. 2. b) Plentonius' 100,000 year calendar is a religio-political construct, made to legitimize the new Dara Happan Khordavian dynasty. In fact, I'm inclined to argue that not even he necessarily believed it should be taken literally (although I might be wrong in this). The important point is the division of the different ages, their respective lengths compared to each other, and the progression from supreme virtue to the deepest vice, which the Dara Happans have been saved from by their new Emperor. A very good and succinct summary. I will say, however, that an assemblage from vertical qualities is still a possibility, and I don't necessarily see the argument that other deities have six parts too as being too big of an obstacle, as that might be a later interpretation which was extrapolated from this hypothetical Yelm-creation from six parts. It sort of hinges on how much we can trust stories of the God Time, and how much they are products of First Age scholars trying to make sense of their then-current situation by imposing some order onto their past (my thoughts go to various medieval scholars who produced histories and genealogies that they probably knew were factually untrue, but it legitimized their patron, or taught some moral lesson, and that was the goal moreso than literal factuality. I'm looking at you, Bede). Ultimately, at least some of this is going to be up to interpretation. I'm inclined to agree. Both because it makes sense, but also because it would be cool. Actually... for all I know it might actually be. This is one of those areas where I'm open to view Glorantha's social norms and its physical laws (insofar as such a thing exists) as being tied together in some sense. The moral and physical universe are intertwined, or rather, the physical universe is a moral one. This applies to the Dara Happans too, of course; for while they do not name Chaos directly or conceptualize it as its own thing, they do specify an instance of insubordination (a moral act) as the instigator of cosmic decay. Ultimately I don't quite know. The perspective that the Orlanthi are conflating Chaos with everything bad is appealing too, from an anthropological angle, but the perspective that the universe is inherently moral (albeit not "objectively" moral) is appealing from a mythological angle.

Well, I mean, Waha is Storm Bull's son, so it seems reasonably that if you can trace your ancestry to the son you could to the father. Or did you mean there was some incest or inbreeding going on?

I forgot to mention this, but I'm inclined to see the whole "Nysalor-is-an-aspect-of-Yelm"-thing as being the inspiration of the Lunar process of Sevening. Nysalorean mystics might've propagated a sevening-form of illumination before they were repressed and persecuted, arguing that Nysalor was Yelm's Seventh Portion, and when the Seven Mothers came around, they utilized this info for their own purposes, somehow.

It would be cool to have them used as examples of how Uz cultures enriched human ones in the Lesser Darkness, though. Heck, apiaries might even serve as an example of some long-lost cooperation between darkness beings and the Aldryami. Or, failing that, an example of a darkness being "converting" to something more solar and enriching the plants in a wholly new way. I can envision it now: a daughter of gorakiki, a goddess of bees, meets with Aldrya and makes a compact: supply her children with sustenance, and they will forever spread her seed, better than King Storm ever could.

I don't think anyone here seriously considers Aristotle's social philosophy to be a genuine ideal. It was more of a historical observation.

Really cool thread, and big ups to @Ian Cooper for the very impressive OP. I don't really have too much to say on the specifics of the premise. What I will say is that it was exciting to read textual confirmation from Greg himself for the belief I've formed (based on info from members here as well) during my stay on this forum that something fundamentally transformative happened during the early stages of the First Age during the interaction between the Theyalans and the Dara Happans, that effectively retconned the God Time according to the then-contemporary needs of people, and thus also casts doubt on the idea that the God Time can ever be known in any manner approaching "objective". The greatest flaw of the God Learners therefore was perhaps not that they tried to alter the deities of Glorantha to their liking, but rather that the failed to realize that others had already done this before, far more succesfully, and others could do it again, breaking their carefully-researched, but ultimately static models. The God Learners were trying to build a house of cards on top of a layer of play-dough. What I will add is that I believe we also have some evidence that Yelm is a syncretic deity from a different angle. This thread has mostly discussed Yelm as an attempty to reconcile the different sun deities around, however I think it's also pertinent to direct attention to the so-called "Portions of Yelm" (Ian Cooper did briefly mention it in a post, but it didn't get taken further, and Tindalos did touch on it as well, indirectly). To put the idea forward very simply: it seems to me as if the various portions of Yelm existed prior to Yelm being a deity, as opposed to the orthodox perspective of them being products of him disintegrating. It's tempting to therefore see Yelm as the ultimate representation of Imperial Unity: a deity formed from the various deities of the (conquered or otherwise subdued) Pelorian basin, much like the Empire itself. Yelm is the Empire, or at least symbolic of it. The evidence we have for this is scant and uneven, but we do for example have the presence of a Golden Age country with bird gods and avilry in modern Rinliddi, that appears to have functioned autonomously or even fully independently, long prior to Yelm's disintegration. In this perspective, it's possible that Vrimak, possibly a regional sun god and/or otherwise the patron deity of this region of bird-worshippers, was integrated into the concept of Yelm along with its country when it was integrated into the Empire. However, there are some issues with this perspective. For example, the portions of Yelm are of different provenances that can't simply be classified neatly together. It would have been very convenient if they were all city/region-patron gods, for example, but only some of them can be considered that. As far as I can tell, there is no specific region that has, purely as example, Bijiif as its main deity, either in modern times or from any reference to the Golden or Green Ages. It's possible to argue that Kazkurtum was "integrated" into Yelm after the Dawn, as a way of explaining Chaos and/or the various enemies of the Dara Happan Empire of the First Age (nomads, traitors, storm barbarians, etc.) and their predations on the empire in its weakened state only a little over a century ago. But I'm not sure if trying to explain each of the Portions of Yelm from purely idiosyncratic perspectives gives us any insight as to how Yelm was formed (if indeed he was), rather than just make us invent interesting backstories that make sense apart from each other. To summarize, when looking at how and why the Portions of Yelm could have been taken together to form Yelm, I am looking at commonalities that would have made them useful for this purpose. Maybe this is too narrow, but it feels more... "elegant" that way, with regards to worldbuilding if not exactly realistic religious syncretization. The questions we are left with, though are something along the lines of: If the portions of Yelm preceded Yelm as real, individual deities, 1) what were they like back then, and 2) why were they specifically chosen to make up him, 3) and how? 4) And was this done for the first time in Time as Khordavu unified Dara Happa, or Khorzanelm oversaw the Nysalor project, or was it a repetition of something that had been previously done as well? Secondly, there is the issue of the various Lodril-analogues in the Entekosiad. I don't want to too far into this, but based on that text, it seems very much like the Hot Earth existed before the Celestial Fire - or at the very least, long before there was a Sun Disk, and certainly before the Sun Disk was stationary. I'm not going to go too far into the story of Brightface, since it was covered earlier, but, well, I think the orthodox Dara Happan story of three (technically four, I guess) brothers - one of whom debased himself in the Earth and therefore lost all right to rule, while another brother stayed in perfect distance between aloofness and grossness to rule - is seriously suspect. In fact, not only that, but I'm seriously questioning whether some facet of the Hot Earth preceded Aether, or the Sky Dome in its entirety to begin with. Fire may have originally risen up rather than fall down. Lodril may be The One that Stayed Behind. But for political and religious reasons, the Dara Happans couldn't accept that. Too conspiratorial and out there? Maybe, but it's a notion worth considering, at least, imho. The God Learners seemed to believe that Sky/Fire came into being after Earth, although this might be them taking a Theyalan myth too literally, or applying alchemical principles to cosmology. (As a minor sidenote, a few people here have mentioned that Yelm become the second Emperor of the Universe/gloranthay/Cosmic Court after Aether (Primolt) - but do we know that? It seems a bit like we're taking the idea that Chief Sky God=Emperor for granted. As far as I can tell, none of Yelm's antecedents, were actually Emperors. There might be a difference in Theyalan and Pelorian viewpoints, though.)

Heck, with the new background for the Broo, they arguably even have a Storm-elemental background.

I suppose not, but you can reach very, very different conclusions, imho. As for Occlusion - This might be the Elder Scrolls series of video games influencing me with their version of enlightenment and "occlusion" - but I always interpreted it as a form of mystical solipsism. In Lunar mysticism, illumination is summarized through the phrase "We Are All Us". By contrast, I get the impression that occlusion could be summarized by the phrase "We Are All Me".

Except Mercantilist-Capitalist Europe from 1600s onwards, I suppose. Although that too is debatable.

It's possible they merged from Wonderhome independently of the Kyger Litor-kin (trolls and such), and popped up around the ruined remnants of Lodril's or Mostal's Mountain (the timeline and geography here is fuzzy to me, but hey) and therefore have a radically different self-understanding.

As I mentioned, given the "common descent" model a lot of the Gloranthan societies have, proving a descent from some important deity or other would probably be fairly easy (in theory, not necessarily in practice) for pretty much every member of the group. I could imagine someone starting off to "prove" they descended from a local tribal ancestor/culture hero, and then maybe heroquesting to explore more "prestigious" descents as they rise in power and become in need of more elevated heritage for political legitimacy. We also shouldn't underestimate the degree to which such quests probably can be manipulated, by for example acting in the place of a known descendant in a myth (a heroquester acting as, say, Barntar, to prove descent from Orlanth, even though they personally might not be so), or by utilizing lesser-known story variants that benefit them, or even the infamous (and contentious in RW) Heroquest-"retcon". Lastly, it's probably worth mentioning that many societies might not view descent as defined primarily by blood-descent, but by marriage status. For example, a woman's children are her husband's children, regardless of who actually impregnated her, and a heroquest might very well work on the same assumption. The whole runic image thing does smack a little of biological essentialism, but I think we do a disservice to the breadth and width of historical kinship systems by sticking to that very narrow substantialist (or "runist") descent-model. Additionally, in a number of cultures, the option of straight up getting adopted by a god during a ceremony or Heroquest is also very probably a possibility, and might be seen with even greater legitimacy than simple blood-relation if they are such inclined.

The Glorantha Sourcebook (which is heavily presented as a combination of Lhankorite documents based on God Learner theories) mention the goddess "Tholaina" (p.83-84) Tholaina is described as a daughter of Triolina (the goddess of and ancestress of all life in waters, allegedly) and Hykim (father of beasts). Her different descendants are ordered into elemental alignments based on her partners. Presumably this means something along the lines that water-worms came from a union with Swem, and arthropods with some masculine version of the darkness goddess of arthropods - or gender vice versa (gender might also be irrelevant, this probably happened early on in the God Time, or maybe in the beginning of the Lesser Darkness). Granted, these are God Learner schemas, so they're intentionally "too straightforward".

What about the Timinits?

Described by who? If it's a title given to him by Pelorians, either enemies or subjects, it could be a geographical allusion (he invaded from the east, after all). This might hold if it's a native Pentan title too, since he did come out of Kralorela at some point, the furthest continental east. My pure guess is somewhat conservative. I see him as being of Pure Horse lineage, and so effectively a noble among Pentans, with likely some shamanistic and leadership educatiion already before his first attempts at conquests, and some legitimacy to back up trying to get raiding bands together. This also plays into a Celestial ancestry. I didn't get to answer @Joerg's response earlier - but I should point that I'm not opposed to the idea of divine ancestry in itself in Glorantha, but I'm not hugely fond of a) immediate family bonds being thrown out as the most run-of-the-mill character history for every mover and shaker in Glorantha, and b) it being used as a before-the-fact explanation for why someone is a mover and shaker, rather than an after-the-fact justification for why they managed what others could not (if that makes sense). Glorantha, much like many RW mythologies, are arranged in such a manner that practically everyone is descended from gods, because gods are, effectively, the ancestors. Whether they are creators or literal forebears isn't hugely relevant, the point is that basically every Pentan tribesman and every Orlanthi cottar can trace their lineage back to the gods in a time when gods and mortals were not yet separated. Much like how in Christians all can trace their direct lineage back to Adam and & Eve, which were both personally created by God, or what have you. Just to be clear - this doesn't bother me. It's just the "His dad was a god/demigod, so therefore he's good at stuff" explanation is beginning to pop up a lot of places I'm looking in Glorantha, to the point where it sorta feels like the Lozenge's version of "A wizard did it". Ie. thematically sound, but just... kinda boring. Moving on - If Sheng is descended from the Pure Horse clans/caste of Pentans, then presumably his people were descended from pre-Darkness Dara Happans that went nomadic at some point, at which point he has a clear Solar lineage, or he was maybe descended from some of the Starlight Ancestors or somesuch. Either way he could probably claim some lofty Celestial ancestry.

My mind went to a fantasy novel I read once, where a character had the ability to project people's "true self" back at them, which was often a deeply uncomfortable situation for the more morally compromised individuals, as they were forced to experience themselves the way their victims etc. had before. I guess that's more of a Truth rune thing than Harmony, although you could make the argument that by aligning self-perception and perception by others, it is creating Harmony, and constitutes a form of healing, albeit a deeply uncomfortable one, even if only initially.

There's probably no pleasing everybody when it comes to animal sizes, as we've got different proportions in mind. It's a good thing these animals do vary in size, so even if people disagree with the illustrated individual's size, they can write it off as a particularly large/small specimen. Just my two cents.

Personally, as a part of a newer generation of Glorantha-enthusiasts, I'm primarily worried about obfuscation frustrating and driving away potential fans. I understand to some people here that is possibly kinda of a point, but I just think there should be a way to gradually introduce people to more and more contradictions and mysteries - as opposed to straight up printing a seemingly non-subjective statement in a book, then saying something completely different in a different book, pseudo-in-universe-unreliable-narrators notwithstanding.

I've argued here that Orlanth and Vadrus seem to have bled over into each other, mytho-narratively, like with the Dragonslaying and Heler/Helera/Blue Woman-story. It's possible that either Orlanth "stole" Vadrus's triumphs when the latter died to Chaos and became irrelevant, that they actually really did both perform such similar acts - or that "competing" for the "ownership" of such acts was a kind of competition for the "rightful" high-kingship of the Storm Peoples in the aftermath of Umath's death. But who knows. Then there's Entekos and her male storm servant, which might be a "neutered" form of Orlanth, or just a separate Air-entity endemic to Peloria/Pelanda. And of course the Western Eight Worlds, where (H)Umat is used, iirc. Is that simply a different name for Orlanth? A preservation of a concept of Umath? Or a mishmash of different Storm Patriarchs (Orlanth, Umath, Humakt perhaps even) - that while different from Kethaelan/Kerofinela concepts still seems to work from a practical point of view and seem consistent, runically? I guess what I'm getting down to is.... I'unno. Different interpretive models produce different answers.

When looking into the parentage of characters in shared fictional universes, I'm always a bit wary of what I like to call Skywalker-syndrome. That is, the tendency of wanting to link a lot of prominent characters together by family bonds because family bonds seem real, close and inherently dramatic to us. Star Wars had a good deal of this, hence my personal monicker - but you also see it in a lot of actual, real life mythology (the Romans linking Romulus and Remus to the Trojan royal house, for example, or choose from any of a number of bizarre nationalist myths, like the British being one of the Thirteen tribes of Israel, or the Greeks claiming the Persian descended from Perseus seemingly because of an incidental name similarity). Anyway, in my personal opinion - and I fully realize others don't feel this way - linking lots of prominent characters together that were hitherto not known to be so can make the world feel smaller, and in way, less inclusive. Frankly, I actually really like the idea that some nobody nomad on the Pentan steppe decided to straight up lay siege to a celestial body... and then did it (I realize that he probably was never a "nobody" - seems likely he was a tribal noble or somesuch, but you catch my point. At least avoiding the trope of having every single goddamn notable person being descended from a god or demigod). On the other hand, I understand that some people like the intricate family dramas this create - or they enjoy the theme of divine parentage shaping mortal history.

The llamas aren't browsers?

Haven't the point that Ostrich Riders do best as skirmishers been made like six or seven times now? Is there anything more to squeeze out of that?

I'm woefully under-read on Androgeus, pretty much the only thing I know is that it's a hermaphroditic (or sex-fluid?) Hero who is also supposedly distrusted by many. Any particular reason why the could be the parent of either or both of these nomad leaders?

This is a surprisingly good summation of a sustainable perspective on the Little Suns, imho.

Perhaps the Trolls' ability to easily digest a poisonous substance was to their detriment, since the ritualistic ingestion required some element of poison-interaction or activity? A minor, or trace amount, but still more than what the Troll digestive system would leave behind? Just a thought.