Sir_Godspeed

2 hours ago, Jeff said:

And it doesn't hurt that by initiating into the Seven Mothers (or other Lunar cults) you became a citizen of the Lunar Empire, and not merely a subject. You become part of the Lunar ummah which transcends tribe and city. 

 

Does this confer any specific legal rights or privileges? (like being freed from serfdom or getting rights to appeal to certain courts or something to do with taxation or tithe) Or is it more a case of convention and case by case? (ie. Lunar authorities are likely to see you as somewhat reliable and preferable to deal with and to hand work or responsibility to, etc., non-Lunar authorities within the Empire are more likely to not hinder you as much to avoid getting in trouble)

13 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

Also LM sages would need paper of course, lots of it?

Not necessarily, they can work with clay tablets, papyrus and animal-derived parchment. This is what makes paper special by default in Glorantha.

20 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

When dwarves are made is it like an assembly line with parts, are they actually bionic, totally and do they use repair spells? Are dwarves truly alive as far as humans and Elves think on it, do the breathe, grown and get old? Are their cells dying and reproducing, do they have DNA and of course what color is their blood either when oxidized or not? Do they and or other Gloranthians bleed red? There was a note that Lanstarings, IIRC bled blue or purple?

If they are actually organic or their are organics in their systems are they not heretical themselves?

I don't think ANYONE in Glorantha have DNA, to be honest.

We can still get the stereotyped "jolly hill barbarian collective feasting"-feel with wine, of course - Greek symposia with their massiv krater tubs of watered wine where people take turns getting their cup in is pretty raucous and lively.

43 minutes ago, Malin said:

Also, the Lodrili as a beer-drinking culture makes so much sense...

I bet they take a page from the Sumerians and pay their day-laborers in literal jugs of beer. And someone trying to impose a tax on brewing has caused more than one revolt.

Lots of pork and fowl, I'd reckon.

3 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

There is at least one precedent for calling a town “Ramona” (in California):

• The first post office was called Nuevo. The town took the name Ramona in 1886, when a land speculation syndicate, headed by Milton Santee, “organized the Santa Maria Land & Water Company and acquired 3,200 acres (13 km²) for a townsite in the Santa Maria Valley and named it Ramona” after Helen Hunt Jackson's recent novel Ramona, which had stirred a nationwide interest in a romanticized vision of Southern California.

In at least some of these cases, the towns will have been named after women — for example, Charlotte, North Carolina. Weirder to call a child “Innsbruck,” “Bognor Regis,” or “Kingston upon Hull”, no?

I mean,  we HAVE people called Rome and London nowadays. 

Jeff has previously mentioned here that Peloria is beer country, while Kethaela is a wine region. This annoyed some who have long imagined the haughty Dara Happans sipping red while the Sartarites toast in ale, but it DOES make sense when you let it sink in. 

No idea if hops are involved. AFAIK premodern beer can basically range from slightly sour water to basically liquid bread (and consumed like a meal).

2 hours ago, Ian_W said:

Almost by definition, the disaster to trade networks that was the Closing could not create Sea Peoples, because the sea was, well, Closed (and remained Closed until Dormal figured a work-around).

 

The end of the Second Age that was the Closing saw a bunch of Land Peoples become especially desperate and willing to do what they could with a red sword ... which presumably contributed to the mess at the end of the Second Age.

The Wolf Pirates are, if anything, the result of the BOOM in sea trade, and a realization of the potential wealth on foreign shores. 

2 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Along with the original question, who originally acknowledged Kargan Tor as a god? Which civilization(s) interacted with him and his mythology? Where does he come from? Did he preexist the Celestial Court power rune pantheon passed down to us?

The Dara Happans considered "Athletics" to be one of the Glorantay pantheon, which could be a guise of Kargan Tor. Either History of the Heortling Peoples or maybe some Malkioni source mentions Kargan Tor holding contests of physical feats, so that tracks. 

33 minutes ago, Ynneadwraith said:

Or, their empire already existed and someone post-hoc edited a portion of mythic history into existence to describe how it became (mythology adores its just so stories).

Debating Gloranthan pre-history is doubly complicated because it's a past that's editable from the present.

While I agree that heroquesting and grand mythical "reeducation" can retroactively change mythological "past", I am wary of applying it liberally because then nothing means anything - you know? 

In the case of the Entekosiad, I genuinly think the simplest approach is to take it at face value and assume that the LATER golden age societies tried to overwrite the worldviews of EARLIER Green Age societies, rather than a more convoluted story about how someone in Time heroquested to rewrite Green Age myths to delegitimize contemporary societies that drew their legitimacy from Golden Age myths. If that makes sense. There's also that even OTHER Dara Happans question the narrative put forth in Glorious Reascent of Yelm, for example. 

Regarding Dara Happan claims to universality: God Learners equated Yelm or Murharzarm with Govmeranen, right? Do we know if there's any validity to that aside from mythical equivalencies - were there any gigantic polity we could recognizably identify as a state that covered at least the entire upper-right half of Glorantha, from Peloria to Vithela? Or is it merely a way of saying "these societies were all primarily sun-worshipping."

30 minutes ago, Ynneadwraith said:

This.

My interpretation of mythology in Glorantha is that it's a little on the lovecraftian side. Not in terms of tentacles and fish-hybrids (though it's not necessarily averse to those), but in terms of it being the interpretation of events by mortals that simply aren't equipped to comprehend what they're seeing. This is not entirely dissimilar to how real-world polytheism works. Unknowable phenomena like the sun moving across the sky gets interpreted as a dude riding a chariot that's on fire.

Whether these unknowable phenomena are actually 'people' is the dividing line between sorcery and theistic worship, as far as I see it. The evidence we can see suggests that they are, but considering they're people who can be 'edited' (Heroquesting generally, and Godlearnerism overtly), and have been for centuries, who knows what actually happened.

Not that it's not fun to try and unpick. Just that we should be wary of drawing too confident conclusions. We don't even know if there even is one single story of what happened, or whether that's a consequence of Godlearner (or even Theyalan or Dara Happan) monomythism/syncretism, combining multiple completely unrelated stories into one single coherent one.

Oh, don't worry, Joerg is DEFINITELY aware of this, it's a fun topic to get into, even if there obviously aren't any solid conclusions to make of it.

This is a bit of an aside the discussion, and isn't likely to sway anyone's opinion either way - but it's worth thinking about how the current Orlanthi pantheon and mythos was also quite heavily influenced by contact with Peloria and Dara Happa under the Council and Bright Empire. There appears to have been a wholesale synthesis going on, where Rebellus Terminus was identified with Orlanth, and the Bad Emperor was identified with Yelm - but that's probably just scratching the surface. There's also the possibility that the entire Lightbringer mythos was altered during this period, going from the quest to revive Ernalda, to becoming the quest for Orlanth and Yelm to make up. But this latter point is completely conspiratorial (even if I think it's neat.) 

Of course, this isn't really a case of a Pelorian polity imposing its doctrines on its subjects, so doesn't really count - but it's one of those examples of how Pelorian ideas have spread.

2 hours ago, David Scott said:

We know that Kargan Tor deserted his post and allowed the invasion of the Spike by Chaos (Prosopaedia 75). None of the Celestial Court, except Uleria survived the destruction of the Spike, they were all transformed or devolved in some way. In Lightbringers (page 101), we know that Eurmal found the Great Divider which is clearly (to me) is the remainder of Kargan Tor. Eurmal kills Grandfather Mortal, the effect being that the road to hell opens. This witnessed by Humakt (in Mythology this story doesn't involve Eurmal at all, other than he facilitates the use of Death), who takes the Great Divider and forges it into the True Sword, which is now Death itself. So the Great Divider becomes the "new toy" Death. As to what shape the Great Divider, was before it became the True Sword, we'll never know.

Headcanon: he ended up dividing himself to create something new. Philosophers argue whether this was a result of the increased volatility and destructive conflicts in the cosmos getting out of balance, or if it was simply in his nature and therefore and inevitable end result.

In some ways the core issue in the OP's question has been somewhat answered and resolved - and I think it's sorta undeniable that yeah, the imperial claims of the Dara Happan elite are somewhat exaggerated, and well, I must admit that I thought that was kinda the point. It's a bit tongue-in-cheek, with the most pompous and chauvinist culture being kind of a tossing ball between various powers and very much having its glory in the distant past. Their dogmatic claims to cultural constancy being all but fabricated, their claims to divinely ordained paramountcy being political propaganda, and so forth. That's one of the undercurrents I got from reading GRoY and then going on to read Fortunate Succession, at least. Adding the Entekosiad to that forms a trilogy of thoroughly deconstructing the Dara Happan mytho-political legitimacy project.

I don't think this is ALL there is, as others have noted, the hegemon claims of Dara Happa DO have merit, but the overall point is that they're not all they're cracked up to be, and that's poetically ironic, in a way. It's a fun yarn to unwind, one of those "riddles" baked into Glorantha that fans and hobbyists can discover and pat themselves on the back.

This leads me into wondering if another version of Glorantha where Peloria wasn't landlocked would have yielded a different worldbuilding where Pelorian empires spread different, and their culture was more readily visible - much like Malkionism is today. Often, worldbuilding is iterative and once you've locked yourself into one track you just kinda have to work with it. Peloria is landlocked, so that's just kinda the world we got, one where the big imperial culture is also kind of a global backwater. Weird, but maybe not completely unprecedented - China has *shades* of that through history. 

The OP is operating from impression garnered from the Guide to Glorantha, and I'm not sure we've done them a service by bringing up deep esoterica to counter that impression. I think their complaint isn't just one relating to WORLDBUILDING, but maybe more pertinently PRESENTATION, and what publishers want readers to immediately parse when they see introductory material.  

On 1/9/2024 at 3:06 AM, g33k said:

Don't forget Water!  The Oslir (and several other rivers (and their deities)) are central to the life (and worship) of a great many "Pelorians."

Really, I see "Peloria" as much more of a geographic than a cultural term.

This is my own impression as well. The Guide to Glorantha obviously wants to ease readers into the world, and so make grand simplifications - this is fair and good. But in all honesty, I think presenting Peloria as a singular cultural category is more of a simplification than doing the same for the Orlanthi. 

The lightbringer-pantheon Orlanthi draws on God Time elements, of course, but I tend to think of it more as a creation of Dawn Era survivors rather than a continuation of older tradition. This is cool and interesting, but I think it can be deceptively easy to ignore. Modern day Orlanthi are part of a cultural expansion and synthesis that took centuries to spread out across most of western and central Genertela, sometimes interacting with surviving Storm-worshipping communities, but just as often, or maybe more often, converting groups of people that really didn't have much or any history as God Time storm worshippers. They were aided in this by having EXCEPTIONALLY EXCELLENT relations with the dominant Elder Races at the time. 

Peloria, however, appears to me to be more a case of God Time survivor communities taking up again their previous traditions (with some very major exceptions, such as the Solar Horse Nomads) and this creates a case where their overall cultural forms, their myths, and so forth are more divergent. Zarkosites and Pelandans and Weeders are all more culturally divergent from each other than, say, Heortlanders from Jonatings. They're more akin to the difference between Heortlanders or Sartarites and Yggites. Maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but you get my point.

To make a comparison, Orlanthi are like a language family branching out over time where a number of features are preserves that signals that they are related. Pelorian cultures are more like unrelated languages that interact so often that they form a loose sprachbund. 

This is why I'm a bit skeptical of discussing Pelorian culture as something conceptually unified that CAN be exported. 

What we have are language, material culture, certain gods, governmental forms. And this we do have some evidence of, I believe. From what I recall, Pelorian Orlanthi use Pelorian or even Dara Happan styles of pottery and dress - but as prestige goods. And they may title themselves with lowlander titles. Religious conversions seems to be the contentio of this thread, and ironically it's also a contention in-universe also, lol.

Notably, ethnic conversion is NOT something really applicable here, because Pelorian cultures don't really conceive of its spread in this way, this that makes sense. The Weeders and Doblianders and Pelandans were not turned into Dara Happans, or some generic "Pelorian", and so neither will happen to conquered Pelorian Orlanthi or Pentan Redlanders or Janubian colonists. Localized identities often seem to stay in place, but with expectations to submit to the overall authority of imperial institutions, and Yelm-derived religious rites. 

The closest we get to a common Pelorian self-understood identity seems to be "Lodrilite"(?) Which appears to be a generic term for Pelorian farming and village communities worshipping Lodril and Oria or some equivalent. I'm not sure, but at this point I am more or less guessing that this is an exonym used by aristocrats to refer to widely diverse groups. Are Manimati, Dasenites and Henjarli peasants all "Lodrilites"? Again, if so, this is probably as close we'll ever get to any kind of unified Pelorian group identity. 

Lastly, one thing I wanted to add is just the general reminder that Peloria is HUGE. It's MASSIVE compared to what is sometimes presented as its geopolitical rival in Kethaela and upland Kerofinela. And of course, depending on how you draw the borders, Kerofinela isn't so much its own region as its a saddle straddling both southern Peloria and northern Kethaela (which explains why "the Pelorians have never controlled all of Peloria" - it's not an innately a 100% Solar region to begin with.)

Apologies for the rambling response, this touched on some thoughts of my own I haven't had any opportunity to put into paper.

8 hours ago, Darius West said:

I've read both in different places.  The synthesis being that the basement of the Castle of Lead is in the Underworld.

Glorantha is a world of mystic realism, so I don't think we need to, like, determine at which sublevel the Castle of Lead crosses over into the Underworld. Keep it vague, keep it contradictory - and solve stuff at the table, I suppose. At the very least, it seems clear that the Castles of Lead are more than mere physical constructions.

8 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I'd picture it sort of like Faerie and our world - it's sort of just around the corner, perhaps behind that tree, or shadow, but when you get there, it's just a bit farther away. Except when the worship ceremonies occur and Belintar happens to visit all the Earth temples simultaneously (because he's a god, just like Ernalda, so he can), then the worlds overlap enough and the inn that overlaps with the Gods World Inn just happens to have Vogarth, or the Jolly Fat Man, or the Trickster visiting that day.... 

So, it's not really that the gods traipsed around Kethaela, but that Kethaela and the Gods World overlapped sufficiently at times that you might interact with a god outside of the temples/worship ceremonies (i.e. you just happened to be more on the Gods World side that day).

This is fine, because it means this scenario can then be applied elsewhere for similar results if we want/need it to, as I was working towards above. I know Kethaela had Belintar as the catalyst, but as I said, I have no problem tweaking the cosmology a little bit so that, for example, a high holy day or Sacred Time can act as the catalyst.

On 12/27/2023 at 4:39 PM, Darius West said:

That is a really good point.  You're right.  On reflection, I don't think they would. 

At best they may have a "Before Time" story within their Grey Age mythology about the Gods coming to visit, but at best the current situation would only include a servant of the deity coming to visit and report back.  While the Divine Stranger may have been a motivation for hospitality in Earth mythologies, it really doesn't fit the Gloranthan paradigm.  Well spotted Bohemond.

I dunno man. Partly I like the trope so much I'd like to make special accommodations for it, but also partly I think the Compromise could include these visits if it's already part of their pre-existing actions and patterns - especially around Sacred Time or Holy Days. 

I don't think of it as complete incarnation or physical manifestation, more like a mini-heroquest visiting YOU, as it were.

I mean, gods traipsed around Kethaela during Belintar's time and that was a-ok.

Just trying to jog the creative faculties here.

Kinda always assumed it was a reference to Native American headdresses, and kinda also assumed that it was one of those things where early on the Grazelanders were probably inspired by Great Plains Indians. Then as time goes on, they were developed more into their own thing. No idea if this is true.

Goats are primarily browsers, aren't they? Could she hypothetically have been a "grain goddess" of leaves and shoots for the goats? Quite the stretch, I acknowledge.

I really like OP's reinterpretation. Adding new perspectives is always cool, and this is a fascinating idea. 

This made me briefly consider the idea that there was a "Ragnaglari" perspective where Ragnaglar and Thed were the REAL King and Queen of the world/Storm Tribe until everything went to shit. Or some enterprising Chaos cultist invent this as a scenario, a bit like the bad guys from Elder Scrolls Oblivion.

2 hours ago, Yazurkial said:

The ard plow (aka the scratch plow) can be handled by a couple oxen, rather than an 8-ox team.

That's the Barntar Plow, right? I believe that plow is contrasted to a "heavier" Pelorian plow, which might be closer to what you're looking for. 

I also recall something about a carl/freeman in Sartar/Heortland being more or less defined by owning a set of oxen who can plow a full field's worth. Not sure if that's two or four or what.

19 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Plus Slon is a great choice for monsters. It reeks of Burroughs' Land that Time Forgot and People that Time Forgot.

Pushing the idea further: a lightning-breathing draconic being could be a leftover freak experiment of the EWF, maybe someone trying to achieve draconic status with a shortcut but it going even more wrong than usually.

Could there be some on Itlanmorango (aka Monster Island) in the East Isles as well? 

And the Pamaltelan plains has notable chaos monsters wandering in from the Nargan on the semi-regular, iirc.

21 hours ago, ZedAlpha said:

OKAY. So. The campaign is probably pivoting to Lancer, the mech combat anime-as-hell RPG, for a number of reasons

But we did get at least two and a half sessions (not counting character creation) done! Lemme find my notes and I can tell y'all how it went.

Reach Heaven By Violence.

Others have already mentioned Tawar, but in this guise, the Bull God of some kind of pastoral barbarians (Hsunchen-adjacent proto-Orlanthi of the God time) made a HUGE impact on Fronela and western Peloria.