Sir_Godspeed

The penance aspect, as well as the mutual-recognition aspect seems to be ignored a lot when the myth is used as a story-device. I mean, did Argrath do beg Sheng Seleris for forgiveness and they agreed to acknowledge each other as natural parts of the Cosmos? Without that, as you said, what we're left with is essentially just a ressurection spell, and that seems like it's doing a disservice to the comprehensive mythic importance of the myth.

I think it's more or less somewhat implicit (or perhaps explicit, even) that the Theyalan model of individualized (and by-choice) Cultic membership in a semi-henotheist structure (acknowledgment of many gods, a preference for a specific pantheon, and an active worship or membership limited a smaller part of that pantheon except when through communal celebrations) is a "diagnostic trait", as it were, of that culture, as well as closely associated ones that probably intermingled a lot with it (eg. the Beast Riders of Prax). By that implication, we're left with sort of presuming that the way theism is ordered in other cultures varies from that. Exactly how - which is what I think you're getting at - is hard to say. Peloria does have cults, but they mostly seem to be a function of profession, regional origin, or civil status more than anything, and the more active religious participation is more of a nobility thing. Maybe I'm wrong. It's definitely a simplification. The Lunars seem to actually bring about a more Theyalan-style model, with their various cults, but maybe this is a wrong impression. We might also see cultures where theistic worship is almost completely left in the hands of ritual specialists, and the general populace only participates indirectly as helpers, but do not maintain personal bonds with the gods. The East Isles may be like this, to an extent. Pre-Time Theism is a whole other can of worms. It's possible that the current model was perhaps present in the Darkness, and even the Storm Age (Six Ages indicate that, at least) as the gods were already somewhat removed, but back in the Golden and Green Ages, things were probably quite different. I'm going to borrow from Marcel Mauss, the author of the anthropological classic "The Gift", where he analyses the concept of reciprocity, and apply that to this situation: I think it's quite possible that the theistic sacrifice in Glorantha evolved from a previous Gods Age practice of mutual gift-giving between deities. As the Gods War progressed, the line between more and less powerful entities became clearer, and the gift-giving took on a more asymmetric structure, until at some point (possibly in the Darkness or Dawn Age) it became what we know as sacrifices. This is purely speculation - but it does somewhat mirror a possible RW evolution (ie. the logic behind social interaction between humans was extrapolated to social interaction between human society and the natural and supernatural world).

Is there an appreciable difference to an animist?

Good grief - 2500m of iron.... That has to be be more iron than there is in the rest of Glorantha combined. O.o

Are all Heortlings patrilocal?

In the real world, Animism is usually a term applied to belief systems where pretty much everything is considered have an imbued living essence, and possibly an identity and will (hence the "ani-", ie. "animate"). This distinguishes itself somewhat from more "classical" views of theism where this kind of stuff is mostly limited to a fewer number of more powerful and socially relevant entities, and where much else is considered either inert or subservient. In reality, there isn't really a clear distinction between these two. Greek and Roman belief systems frequently imbued places and natural processes with sapience and will, and Amazonian animist shamans may refer to particularly powerful and important entities that for all practical purposes are akin to what we would call gods. It's a sliding scale. Still, that's how I'd look the difference: Gods World: The world is an arena in which powerful sapient entities act. Spirit World: The world is in itself a powerful, and (arguably) sapient entity. And so is every part of it as well.

Interesting sword placement. Is this based on some historical reference?

True. However there is an argument to make that Nysaor wasn't actually a new deity (doesn't the Lunars believe that in some capacity?) I do think it would be thematically interesting if the Seven Mothers drew on both Nysalorean processes (combination to create a deity) and the Lightbringer quest (ressurecting a deity) to perform their quest. It just feels like there's enough Lightbringer Quests-undertakings thrown about in Glorantha for it to become a bit of a predictable plot point at this stage (Yelm, arguably Ernalda, Arkat, Talor, Sheng Seleris, and who knows what more). Adding some supressed Pelorian mystical(?) tradition would mix that up, imho. But that's just my gut feel.

The way I understand it, the way marriage is defined among the Orlanthi, the clan is the smallest relevant unit for exogamy. A marriage is a transactional contract between two clans. To them, marriage within a clan would not only not really be legally possible (mentioned above), but would also have some of the same stigma to them as incest does to us. It's... icky. I've previously argued that there are probably ways to get around this, such as asking a member of another clan (possibly a relative) to act as a foster-parent or something for one of the partners in a hypothethical case where two members of the same clan want to marry. But that's purely speculative, and would still be very unorthodox.

We've previously speculated that they also based the ritual off of what created Osentalka in Dorastor - is this supported by the higher ups, or?

Pastoralism is herding, and so is quite dynamic and is often (but not always) migratory. On the topic of hooves as emblematic of the meeting of storm and earth - that's not a bad shout, actually. Maybe there's some mythical secret in there somewhere. I suspect some sort of Sky creature had hooves before (maybe some kind of Lammassu-thing), but maybe some kind of Sky-heritage got re-tooled or what have you. Umath is a Burtae, after all.

The type of rock around Boldhome is quite different from what I imagined in my mind. Much less alpine, and more like.... I don't know... Meteora in Greece, maybe?

I can't help but think there is something incredibly interesting and perhaps mythically potent in here, since time and time again the Storm peoples pop up with some ungulate (usually horned) herd mammal or other. Is it all just Storm Bull's fruit that gets spread arund, or is there something more going on? I guess I'm just poking at the tapestry to see if a good yarn can be spun from it.

It's no secret that the most prominent Storm Peoples out there are closely associated with pastoralism, and with ungulate herd mammals. They're obviously not the only ones associated with it, but there seems to be some kind of special connection there. We sometimes also see carnivores associated with Storm people (ie. Yinkin), but this association seem a lot less universal and a lot less characteristic. Secondly, it's also said that mammals appear to be a more recent addition to Glorantha, with the fauna prior to them, in the Green and Golden Age mostly being made up of reptilian and feathered animals, which are more or less associated with Earth and Sky, respectively (kinda, it's more complicated than that). So, I guess what I'm wondering is: what role did Umath's separation of Earth and Sky play in the emergence of mammals. Where they contemporary? Was there a direct causal link? Why do mammals appear to be on the Gods Wall then? Do the Storm People and Mammals share ancestry? Is there a particular reason why Storm People tend to overwhelmingly tend toward herding rather than hunter-gatherer cultures, for example, even pre-Time? (or is this a false impression caused by potential Storm hunter-gatherers being overshadowed by their more famous "horde" relatives?) Is there a more fundamental connection going on here? I know I've brought this up earlier, but that was a part of a larger, wider look into Storm People in general. What I'm looking into here is hopefully specific enough to be different. Urox is a bull. Orlanth is often a Ram. Ragnaglar possibly a Billy Goat. Vadrus may have been a horned animal that's no longer extant (perhaps an Ordeed or something even fiercer?). In each case, of course, the relevant deities are often not just the animal itself, but also the tamer of them, the keeper and herder of them. Such dual roles are common. And this is not bringing in the Animal Mothers. Once again the themes of Air-Earth combination is brought out. Anyway, I'll stop before I keep rambling on too much.

Hauberk Jon is said to be the wyter of Jonstown - is it possible that there can be a bit of an overlap between ancestors and wyters? Ie. not all wyters are ancestors, and not all ancestors are wyters, but both CAN BE the other?

In a patrilineal and patrilocal clan (one where descent is counted through male descent and where wives are brought in from other clans, and sisters are married off to other clans) there isn't a huge amount of ambiguity with who the ancestors are, no inbreeding needed. The same goes for a matrlineal and matrilocal clan, of course. Where it gets sorta ambiguous is in other kinds of descent reckonings, such as ambilineal (a person can choose which parent they emphasize in their ancestry) or bilateral (both parents' lineages are equally important) descent. As you rightly point out, most kinship trees are heavily modified, however, and often in the RW they usually end up becoming a kind of "legal fiction" after a while. I suspect the Orlanthi work a bit similarly. That's not to say that they don't value blood-relations, but at the end of the day, descent and ancestry are first and foremost matters of law and mutual recognition as opposed to some intrinsic essence.

A lot of roleplaying universes struggle with trying to implement both voluntary and involuntary/cursed animal shapeshifting. It can sometimes get quite awkward and feel like a double-up of very similar tropes.

That's fine, but my point was that they were unlikely to be a part of an already existing... maybe "feud" is the incorrect word, since that's a term for an inter-clan conflict, but rather I meant an intra-clan... cleavage. If you will.

This sounds like the kind of person you'd like as a tiebreaker, too. Someone from a minor lineage, whose political interests aren't overly entangled in established feuds, for example.

I hope you don't stare yourself too blind on the details.

I don't really know too much about it - but could this be true from an Elmali cultic outlook? It would definitely be wrong from an Earth Goddess view, and probably from a mainstream Theyalan view as well. "Honored Mistress" or "Great Lady" or something along those lines wuld perhaps be more fitting. "O Bountiful One" might also be fitting, if you elevate the allegorical above the myth-as-gods-acting-like-people aspect of it.

I think its a good synthesis of various Eurasian steppe cultures. Or maybe it's modelled of one particular one, I'm not knowledgeable enough to tell the difference, I'll admit.

I think it's rather that there is an ideal number of triceratopses a clan can reasonably support. Let's say 3. More than that and they need more food than the clan can feasably clear and cultivate easily, or something. And the Triceratops plowman/handler might be some kind of ritual specialist in his (or her?) own right, meaning that it's not something you can just train someone to do in a couple of seasons. So there's a bottleneck, maybe.

Or maybe the ability to do so is part of an ancient pact with her, and requires fairly sizeable sacrifices (not that keeping triceratopses in itself wouldn't potentially be prohibitively costly).

This is a very nice tripartite section of trials - but I feel like the two last ones don't quite stand up to the quality of the first. In the first one, we get an impressions of how she resisted the threat (by showing how deep her roots go) - but in the second and third, this concrete, vivid example is replaced by more generic statements about life force or somesuch. I think it would improve the flow to include a concrete example for each. It increases the "educational" value of the story, and helps get the powers of the Goddess across for the listeners.