Sir_Godspeed

Thankfully, we have the option of chalking this up to the God Learners not really understanding their botany and preferring simpler, totemic schemata for their precious theories over the more chaotic, mixed and decidedly complex reality of elvenkind.

That's my stance, at least.

Woops, did a mispost while abut to edit my above post. Ignore this.

13 hours ago, davecake said:

Most of the Veldang are wretched slave and have very little good magic at all. If you want them to have good magic (usually meaning they are part of a secret illegal rebel cult), they can have all sorts of mysterious things, probably Invisibility as a blue moon power for example. 

Maybe do something cool like have these slave rebel cultists have invisbility during high tides, maybe, if you want to add something time-sensitive to the plot.

Joerg pretty much summarized what we know about Harono, but I thought I'd add that our main source of Harono - Esrolia: Land of the 10k Goddesses - also lists several instances of Elmal being listed as the god of the sun.

In one myth, as Ernalda starts the hearthfire next to her dead (but still speaking) mother Asrelia in a (supposedly) vain attempt to heat her, Veskarthan takes over fire-keeping duties, and then Elmal and his daughter (my assumption is that she's Theya and/or Voria) leave the tent together - ie. the Dawn of Time.

Elmal is also noted as having a section devoted to him at Ezel (the most sacred Earth Temple complex/city in Esrolia) - he is stated to be one of the "Beloved", a title that can apply to a number of male gods who are seen as lovers/protectors/companions of the Earth Goddess (not entirely clear whether this is Imarja, Esrola, Ernalda or whoever... might not even matter). (Addendum: women use the title for certain male gods, men use it for certain goddesses). This section is written in such a way that it comes off as being "contemporary" (ie. third age at some point), as no historical context is given, it's merely a tour of the facility.

He is also referenced in the section on the temple of the Noble Brothers, ie. the group of male gods who are seen as good boys who will protect the Goddess and Her people. One of the Noble Brothers is called Kestinelmal, which is explained as "Son of Elmal", and his particular type of warriors is explained as being horsemen. This is explicitly from the First Age.

In a later story, the Queen of Nochet lures Sun Dome Templars into what they believe will be a night of love-making, only to murder them, at the behest of the Grandmothers. The text then goes on to state the Grandmothers do not want Tharkantus (explicitly stated to be the Second Age name of Yelmalio) in Esrolia, as Elma is the "rightful holder of the Sun Power", and the text goes on to state that the Grandmothers have frequently backed "[Elmal's] warriors' claim" against "foreign interlopers", making it sound theological rather than military, although as mentioned above, it's a Second Age story.

So yeah... Complicated as usual, those suns. As you might be able to tell, I have just recently read Esrolia.

(Sorry for derailing the thread, feel free to cut off or just move back to the main topic.)

EDIT: Added "Elmal is" to  "the 'rightful holder of the Sun Power'", the previous phrasing made it sound like Tharkantus/Yelmalio was the rightful one, which is definitely not correct. My bad.

1 hour ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Well Halamalao is identified with Yelmalio by aldryami 

Yes, when speaking with Yelmalio-worshipping neighbors, it seems.

One wonders what an Aldryami would tell a Harono-worshipping Esrolian, or Ehilm-worshipping Ralian or whatnot.

I just find it strange that one would assume that the Aldryami would worship the Cold Sun of Winter and not the Life-Giving Hot/Full Sun. Sure, Yelmalio did the plant-folk a solid when he kept the sleeping forests safe during the Darkness alongside High King Elf and the waking Green Elves - but ultimately it's the Full Sun (ie. Yelm and his cognates) who makes plants blossom and grow, as a constitutent part of Grower.

I agree - he's the Patriarch, the Father, and he's got his Wife. If we go beyond ReAscent, he even has multiple wives, as well as concubines. I'm not sure if "emanated" is ever used in relation to him begetting children, though it definitely is when speaking of the higher heaven gods like Dayzatar or Aether (iirc.).

 

I'm going to assume these are still worshipped separately in various contexts and by various people since that's usually the way things go in Glorantha.

On 8/22/2019 at 9:04 AM, Jeff said:

1. He was "chosen" by Ygg. That probably means that the priests of Ygg all recognised him as the incarnation of Vadrus and backed him strongly. They continue to do so as long as he continues to bring destruction and war to the world.

Wait whaaaaaat?

EDIT: Seems weird that they would consider him the incarnation of a god everyone agrees is completely gone. Unless, of course, the Vadrudi branch of Storm peoples (Yggites, Valindings, etc.) disagree, and believe that there is something left of Vadrus to actually incarnate.

5 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

a hierarchy that teaches that, for example, the Sun's death and fall into the underworld was due to its hubris pretending to be a God, and it is now correctly enslaved to the Invisible God for its sins.

Interestingly enough, this belief of the sun falling in hubris and coming back as a being rightly bound to the will of its true master is a belief the Fonritans share with the Doraddi to the south. If my memory serves correctly, the non-Veldang Fonritans are supposedly descended from northwards-migrating Doraddi sometime during or prior to the Dawn Age. This means that this idea of the sun as enslaved (or at least bound) is actually an ancestral belief, which existed prior to the whole Garangordist holy-slavery regime. 

Anyway, sorry for the sidetrack. What I wonder is what form Fonritan theist cults take - priests are slaves of their own gods, right? In Heortling culture, high-ranking worshippers gain powers by acting in stead of their gods through rituals and so forth - so does this mean that a Fnoritan slave-priest can act in its master's stead, ritually? Or is the worshipper(Rune Lord, for example)-deity relationship in Fonrit different from how we see it in theist Central Genertela?
 

As a fairly new member, and one that is absolutely green to rpg and tabletop forums in general, I've enjoyed my time here immensely. There's been a few occasions where discussions have heated up, and it can be uncomfortable, but from what I can tell they tend to pass fairly quickly. I've also had one or two bad days where I've come with crass or sarcastic remarks, and while I've rightly apologized for that, I also hope it's one of those things that're seen as a part of life - water under the bridge and all that.

I've been active on internet forums since my early teens, and have generally had the fortune of being mostly on positive ones. I'm not sure what exact cases are being referred to in this thread (and I hope I'm not one of the in-rushing barbaric hordes), but so far at least, I see virtually only positively engaged and enthusiastic people. Even when people are frustrated, it tends to be more "I want to get into this more, but I've met a wall", and less "This is dumb, I dislike it". Granted, I don't know how representative the Glorantha lore/background forum might be in the grand scope of things.

Anyway, thanks for keeping this site running, and hope things work out!

Phwoah, a lot to read through, and not my personal forte, so please forgive me if this has been brought up already, but I was of the impression that clerical celibacy (iirc, a quirk unique to Christanity among the Abrahamic religions, unless you count some of the more obscure and largely disappeared sects) had less to do with ritual purity in resisting temptation (although I am sure the Church Fathers said it was in some of their epistles) and more to do with preventing individual priests and congregational leaders prioritizing the continued wealth of their own family lineage over that of the Church. A married man of god effectively has two masters: his family and his god. In order to properly ensure viability and stability of church assets, it was necessary to cut one of those masters out of the picture. 

Whether something like this works in Glorantha I can't say. There are certainly other reasons to remain celibate, less institutional and more ritual or spiritual reasons.

Ah, comic sans to give a comic sense. 


Cheers, mate, here's to a thousand more!

Biggus Di-err, I mean, Macus.

I'd imagine something like goes on in the Shan Shan of Kralorela as well, if the Yak Hsunchen are anything like the Pralori (or indeed the RW).

I'm definitely saving this image for future reference though.

Sorry, no help from me - but I was just thinking that with the new Imperator Rome grand strategy game from Paradox, a Gloranthan mod would fit nicely. The engine doesn't have the ability to simulate all of the magic and monsters, but the overall feel is similar. (Or for a more reliable and tested engine, one might go with Europa Universalis instead).

Basically, the whole "animal-people" or "people with animal-traits" or whatever you call it is a bit of a confusing mess. (EDIT: partly intentionally and partly simply due to successive design visions building up over the years, I'd imagine).

I guess you can argue that what marks Hsunchen is that they show abilities of transformation between human and totemic animal, whereas beastfolk appear by default as either somewhere in the middle of, or as a mix of human and animal, not necessarily having any totemic spirit or transformative abilities. This is complicated by creatures like the Wind Children (which are humanoids with wings and are strongly associated with Storm/Air) who are apparently their own things, and the Keets (humanoid birds, mostly waterfowl, iirc) who are also considered their own things. And then you get the various minor groups that Joerg mentioned that muddle the terrain even further.

So yeah, who knows what's going on. Anyway, it's not like the border between humans and animals is some fundamentally solid barrier in Glorantha, so there are lots of different ways it might've been crossed/avoided.

Did she completely outlaw slavery, or was there just a series of celebratory manumissions? I forget how extensive it was.

How do they translate Roman currency values to USD?

Every group has their own perspective on how the world works, and you'll get different answers depending on who you ask. Myths are used to justify and explain why things are the way they are, not physics or other scientific disciplines. This applies to both nature and to societies. Multiple different versions of a myth can be true, depending on who you ask. This might sound confusing at first, but it is the fundamental reason for why different peoples are in conflicts with each other, or are in rivalries. 

There are few overarching, abstract moral ideologies here, but rather different peoples who believe different myths and accordingly act differently. Sometimes they disagree vehemently. People will reenact or retell these myths several times during their lifetime or even during a year, and during those times they will feel a part of them. These myths are tied to peoples and places, and tie communities together, and so allegiances, friendships and rivalries are usually personal and cultural, not philosophically abstract, ie. lawful evil versus chaotic good and the like. 

Myths hold magical insight and power, they are both sacred stories for why things are the way they are, and sources of magic or other secrets that characters can use to help their communities grow or stay safe - or to fight enemies. In these myths there are powerful beings, like gods and heroes, and by acting out their deeds in retellings or reenactments, mortals can tap into their powers and abilities. This also means they often become more like these gods in worldview, personality or morality, so very old conflicts can be reproduced over a very long time if sacred myths pit different peoples against each other.

There are other ways to get powers as well, and other ways to view myths, but that's a story for another time.

-------

I tried to boil the essence, the nitty-gritty of how a Gloranthan mindset and world works, although it has a theistic (and I guess maybe animistic) slant. There are texts more or less like this in the Guide and Sourcebook as well, but I dropped all specific names and made it as generic as possible. Might be some unnecessary repetition here - but something like this is what I would tell someone I know if I ever wanted them to be able to get into a Gloranthan mindset.

6 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

What happens to metals that get enchanted or inflicted with a Chaos rune? What's a Chaos metal like?*

I know there's no independent Chaos metal because that's not how Chaos works, I mean: if Chaos infected a mine so thoroughly while they were there they smelted, idk, copper into a weapon, then wielded it, could there be truly foul weaponry?

I imagine a festering mine would clear up with some minimal spiritual work once the Chaos was removed, but in the meantime?

* do not attempt with Iron

Sounds like a fun adventure hook. (I am unfortunately all out of likes for today)

Well... sunlight literally makes plants grow... The orb might be asexual, but the rays might not be.

9 hours ago, lordabdul said:

Is it me or does it look like the Lunars effectively appropriated a bunch of goddesses from previous cultures, declared those goddesses as different faces of the same moon goddess, and that's how they got more people to join their ranks?

That is very much a contention against the Lunars, I believe, where the disagreement is over whether Sedenya is the reincarnation/restitution of numerous iterations of THE moon goddess, or whether she is - to be blunt about it - a Frankenstein's monster of a stitched-together deity.

Speculation: Electrum as a unification of silver and gold shows/symbolizes the connection between the Moons and the Suns as celestial bodies that exude light and may or may not serve as the patron of a Celestial society (the Solar decapolis in Peloria, possibly other polities elsewhere in Glorantha, who knows).

Of course, this might hinge a bit on Yelorna being a lunar (small-l) deity, which she is not, soehh... Back to scratch? (EDIT: Also, the current LUnar deity, Sedenya, claims the Middle Air as her domain, not anywhere in the Sky, so that's another point against this idea).

A bit of a tangent, but doesn't the Guide say something about the Otherworlds and the Underworld really all being part of the same thing? I don't have my copy with me lately.

Also, the idea of a setting based on the Gloranthan Underworld(s) sounds awesome, will check out.

Honestly, I feel super-bad for the Uz. They just wanted to gnosh giblets back home in Wonderhome and wuzn't bothering none. Then kablam. Bloody surfacer godlings and their squabbles!

14 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

This is really good. Or Aether spilled in the absence of copper just leaves tin deposits behind. 

Great alchemical thread. I knew a guy once who ran tests on captive dwarves (their cell door was unlocked but opened out, so he hung a big sign PULL TO EXIT over it and they never escaped) to figure out how their chow works. One group got genuine dwarf chow taken out of the can and slopped on a plate. The other group got tasty steak tartare on a similar plate. Final group got sawdust and some kind of nasty food-adjacent paste poured back in the can. 

They went for the canned paste every time and felt healthy and relatively cheerful afterward. Apparently something about the tin makes chow more satisfying, as though it catalyzes the nutrients. Like germinating or sprouting what would otherwise be inert material. I guess that's just how tin works. Rub it up against dead earth and you get brass and happy dwarves. But oh how they cried to get steak tartare unless it spent a little time in that can.

Heh, like Mostali pasteurizaton. Mosteulization. Hm. Will develop terminology further. Linguistic innovation submitted to Gold Caste representative for subsector D-5.