Sir_Godspeed

I'd like to think we also have "low-art" kind of theatre/stage entertainment (actual stage optional). Skit-like things, poetic improv duels, singsong gatherings, possibly even something resembling stand-up (but probably more over-the-top and jester-like). Displaying weird talents.

Many religious ceremonies in Glorantha are effectively "theatrical" with the main focus being a number of people acting in specific roles according to a pre-set "script" while the larger body of people present watch them, although there is a lot of "audience participation" in this.

In the case of purely "secular" (in this case basically meaning non-worship) theatrical entertainment, I would guess that the Lunar Empire has something like that in its urban areas, and I wouldn't surprise if Esrolia had too. Wandering troupes living off temporary hospitality and local-bigwig-patronage seems like a doable thing too.

On 12/25/2021 at 10:16 AM, metcalph said:

Avanpdur is Illusion rather than Chaos and his worship was why the Eastern Isles were spared the ravages of chaos during the Gods War.

 

Isn't this pretty mainstream belief, or did I miss something? I definitely read it like that, at least. 

On 12/25/2021 at 10:16 AM, metcalph said:

The most common worshippers of Arkat the Devil are travelling bands of Ralian monster-fights often called Witchers.

 

Spare a coin for them!

On 12/25/2021 at 2:53 AM, dumuzid said:

The personal god of Sheng Seleris, Jolaty, and the ruling god of Fonrit, Ompalam the Chaos god of slavery, are the same thing.

On 12/25/2021 at 10:16 AM, metcalph said:

Jolaty is Yelmalio.

 

Hmm... both intriguing thoughts. 

I hope you all are finding some joy or contentment at this time of year, despite the hardships. I wish you all a very Peaceful Yule.

On 12/20/2021 at 1:36 AM, John Biles said:

The history of Glorantha is not real-world history which is dead and gone and can't be changed.

Every GM has every right to have Argath step on a rake and accidentally kill himself whenever it's convenient.

Sure. Just do it. I don't see the point in going on and on about it.

Complaining about Argrath seems a bit like complaining about how Alexander the Great is a Mary Sue or whatever.

I like that there are individuals out there that just straight out disregard the "rules" of the setting (ie. are just exceptional in the sense that the come off as exceptions). It adds a sense of wonder even after you start grokking what typically goes and doesn't go in a setting. Plus, it kinda displays a lofty goal for long-term RPers: "Something like this could be you, down the line." Not so much for the brute power, but more for putting your mark and impact on the setting.

Iunno, she's cool.

6 hours ago, Leingod said:

Honestly it's kind of weird for me in the context that most peoples of Glorantha (as in the real world in ancient times) engage in some form of ancestor worship alongside the worship of gods, you usually don't have people choosing one or the other and one being hostile to the other. Like, if you're Orlanthi your ancestors all probably worshiped Orlanth too, so it just feels a little odd to me that the entity you worship your ancestors through is actually hostile to Orlanth and the shamans of said entity are as well as a general rule. I'd expect more just total neutrality/indifference to the gods at worst, personally.

Yeah, this whole conflict always seemed needlessly contrived to me, or a Gloranthan fixe idèe.

What if the bat is a holdover from the (putative) pre-Brightface takeover. The Green Age, when the sky had a day-night cycle? It was already present when Yelm (or even Aether) usurped the sky from the White Queen. And then it was marginalized until the Storm Age. 

Wild speculation, just for fun.

37 minutes ago, EricW said:

I wondered how Wind Children were treated by the EWF? If they stuck to old ways they might have been seen by EWF leaders as rebel sympathisers. If they embraced Draconic Orlanth they might have had contact with Fire / Sky powers - Draconic Orlanth comes close in a sense to being a reconciliation between air and sky, which might have been very appealing to winged Orlanthi. 

 

Well, the plausible, albeit somewhat underwhelming answer might just be that the EWF didn't care, and did not have any cause to care. 

(Not so) wild theory: just like humans kinda got absorbed into the different elemental pantheons and are more or less changed for it over the course of the God Time, it's very possible that birds also experienced something similar. 

For Storm in particular, it seems to have a practice of basically adopting or absorbing anything and everything it can get its gusts on. Maybe it's a side effect of being the late-coming element. 2 late 2 create, in time to... uh, convert.

4 hours ago, g33k said:

Is there ... anything Viking/Norse about the Wind Children??!?

 

The only thing that comes to mind is that several Norse gods could and did shapeshift into birds.

So is it a case of someone else moving in and basically "reviving" the Dorastor name with a slightly different or expanded territory, but not really having any direct continuity with it? The Tanisoran nobles reviving the name of Seshnela comes to mind, though this is obviously very different.

I'm going off memory here, so some of it might be faulty:

Wind Children live on mountaintops or along cliffsides around sacred storm peaks, so there's a good deal of them around dragon pass as well as in the Shan Shan. Probably some other places, but those are the biggies.

Religiously they are Storm Worshippers. Probably moreso than the human Orlanthi, who in comparison have a very syncretized religion. My impression is that they're a lot closer to the primordial storm/air identity than human storm worshippers are. 

I'm not entire certain about the general cultural aspects, but I'm fairly certain they are hunter-gatherers, although they might trade for certain items. 

I'm gonna make an educated guess and say that they are likely magically very powerful, even if they don't build empires or anything like that.

Does anyone have any info on the Beastmen of Old Seshnela?

Aren't Rune Affinities also to a degree "discovered" during Initiation?

If this were the RW, I'd argue that birthday celebrations would be rare, as very high infant mortality might work against viewing the birth as the most significant moment in a person's life. A later date, like a naming day, could be considered the moment where a mere infant gets bestowed with social personhood, and perhaps achieve spiritual identity (becoming bestowed with a soul, if you will.) There's a few cultures that come to mind that behave like this in the RW.

HOWEVER, infant mortality is lower in Glorantha than the RW, and the Orlanthi at least, appear to do a lot of spiritual work (Runic affinities, making forecasts, etc.) during a child's birth or around there, so a birth-day might be more significant to them.

This might be controversial, but I think Gloranthan Christmas/Yule is just Sacred Time. They're obviously vastly different in terms of content, but in terms of being "the big one" out of the year's holidays, and at the tail end of the year, they thematically fit together. And not to offend anyone's religious sensibilities or to leave out the secular or non-Christian meanings of the midwinter holidays, but Jesus in Christianity has an, uh, "Lightbringer-y" vibe, even if his actual Lightbringer-y Quest took place during Easter and not Christmas (pah, details!)

Wild headcanon: Glorantha's Santa would be Grandfather Mortal who once during the year gets to be alive again, and gives out gifts to all his mortal descendants, before returning to the Underworld.

Given the fairly communal nature of Orlanthi, it's possible that they instead celebrate an age-group's initiation day or something. 

But, well, anything's possible. Calendars are well-developed in Glorantha, and highly reliable (as is writing, moreso than in the RW historically) so it wouldn't be too hard to keep tabs of people's birthday or nameing day, for example.

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

They are, in my Glorantha.

 

To spin this further:

Fungi came into being after Death was brought into the Middle World, and Flamal was killed. Flamal descended to the Underworld, where he coupled with a Darkness deity, and produced fungi: the Darkness plant that primarily survives by eating dead matter.

I know there's a dozen ways to pull this apart, but narratively I think it's satisfying.

On 11/25/2021 at 11:07 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

Yelm and Orlanth are brothers

According to Jeff, there are indeed places in Glorantha where this is the general belief.

I really wish they'd just make fungus "Darkness plants" and end it there. Not Aldryami, but certainly Flamali. No need to bring bloody cellular biology into this.

On 11/15/2021 at 10:12 AM, soltakss said:

Forcing the items to leave "the other way" might be possible through magic, but would be painful for the Trickster.

 

In other words, perfect.

This was the source that made Glorantha understandable and inviting for me, so I'd second this as well!

There's a lot of variables working here. Celestial objects were starting to move around at least* as early as Umath's careening through the Sky, and that's not only pre-Time, that's pre-Storm Age too. By the time of the Storm Age, the sky was turning blue, the stars had come out, and various planets seem to have gotten their current trajectory (I think?) so what Plentonius' reference means depends on when it is supposedly set. 

Or, well, it depends on what purpose Plentonius has for slandering it as well, of course., but that goes without saying. 

Working with Dara Happan ideas of suns and what they meant in the Golden Age, it seems plausible that Plentonius was referring to an object of celestial light that was "supposed" to be stationary above one of the city-states, but then wasn't. I don't recall if the cities are supposed to still have those things by the time he described Sedenya, so I can't comment further.


(*There's the possibility of a cyclical Sky during the Green Age as well, but I don't think that's terribly relevant to Plentonius.)