Qizilbashwoman

Well, to be fair, names aren't everything! The Kingdom of Night was a banner of tolerance, like the original Unity Council, providing safety and protection to those who joined. It was voluntary and fought Chaos.

Wait, but shamans have the Man rune because they are masters of it, not because they are using their own form rune! This is hurting my brain. I'm about to ask a question that's might be a world of hurt: Is Murharzarm part of the myth-cycle that the God Learners decided was Grandfather Mortal? I ask because that's the Spirit Rune. Or was. Daka Fal was the first person to die, allegedly, but now shamans don't access his spirit rune anymore so

* Outside Esrolia, who are (ex)-Vingkotlings - all their adult men died so they made a new people. However, Esrolian society also lacks gendered depth. Esrolia said "fuck men and their dumb ideas", but maintained a rejiggered division of genders. They created a new matrilineal and matriarchal society, but they made a deal with the Only Old One, "Kimantor", the son of Argan Argar and Esrola, to take the place of the male Vingkotling as the king of the Esrolings. Basically, the Esrolian women replaced the ritual role of Orlanth's Air rune with the Darkness rune. Kimantor and his armies of Kitori (human and parahuman) and trolls replaced the missing Vingkotling men to raise the first generation of Esrolian men and train their warriors. If I remember correctly, the Esrolian military descended from this tradition are still called Kimantorings. Uz still live in Esrolia and its cities and rather than Issaries, the trade god of Esrolia is Argan Argar. This means that despite the rejection of Orlanth, the Esrolians at heart still only have warrior women like more orthodox Orlanthi do - Maran Gorites and other Earth Avengers - and men remain the warriors even if they are no longer the chieftains. when they bother to enforce it, we should clarify

I meant "as opposed to Lunar-inspired", which I think of as Jernotian, probably thanks to a certain potter's third daughter. Certainly Illumination isn't actually limited to any specific followers. You can be an Illuminate without any special learning or techniques from, like, say, Nysalor or Jernotix (as the kids these days say). Well, except that when Kyger Litor devoured Daysenarus incarnated in Palangio the Iron Vrok at the Battle of Night and Day in 379, it was Nysalor who broke out. It's an interesting moment, because it's an inverted echo of the Hill of Gold: the hero god is disarmed by a betrayer and direly wounded by the Cruel God. But the hero god on this day is Kyger Litor, whose Fertility rune is injured just as Antirius' Fire rune was injured on the Hill of Gold by [insert preferred Darkness deity]. I still think Yelmalio ain't the original and that Yelmalio-the-Weird-Ascetic is a creepy Nysalorean cult, but all of this is interesting.

I mean Prince Lukarius shot the Blue Sun down in Yelmite theology, and in the Darsenite account of the Green Age, the Moon's rule was usurped by Brightface, who the Queen had appointed war chieftain. When hostile theologies agree... I'm inclined to at least listen to what they're saying. Then we find the Moon appearing in a million demonised forms: a bat, a crone, a monster, etc.

to be fair she was pretty angry at her original divine form being sent to the Hells as a demon bat for "betraying" Yelm to the Rebel Gods, when in fact Yelm usurped her role as the Blue Sun in the Green Age and killed her and then enslaved all the women of Dara Happa... ...but your point about Chaos eating souls still stands.

Ok let's sort this tho: Little Yelm (which is what "Yelmalio" means) existed Elmal, Antirius are identified with the planet called after Lightfore, and with that deity. I know it's not canonical, but we see him in Six Ages in both forms: Elmal Sun Chieftain, son of Yelm, chief of the Pantheon to both the Chariot-riders and the Horse-Riders, and Little Yelm, the Pretender Sun who keeps the cities of the Dara Happans lit under the glaciers. But (this is crucial) The Sun Dome Yelmalio is specifically Daysenarus-Tharkantus-Yelmalio. Yelmalio was revealed (in the Third Age, natch) to be Tharkantus rekindled by the Prophet Before this, Yelmalio is just Elmal in Dara Happan - Yelm/Elm is from the Sun root EL gold, shining. It's an interesting thing because the Sun Dome Templars have a deeply contentious relationship with the Lunar Way, who are also (theoretically) Nysalorean. They actually rebelled against the Lunar Empire and the Goddess. The Templars are specifically Nysalorean and not driven by Lunar inspiration; they are theologically independent. (Also they really hate women, so the Lunar Way grinds their gears.) So Yelmalio existed, but the SDT Yelmalio, I'd argue, is not the same thing. It's a different ... uh. Well it's got the same skin but it's not the same meaning as the original Yelmalio. Below is Elmal lookin' rite sexy (I have no idea, I'm a lesbian, actually) and Little Yelm.

Yelmalio's origin is Nysalor... of course some Yelmalians are Illuminated, you've got them backwards. Yelmalio is Nysalor's "orthodox" entry into the Solar mythology

Tusk Riders are technically both trolls and humans, a result of a bizarre curse on an early Orlanthi named Arim for neglecting Ernalda. They're quite... unhinged but various troll nations actually keep ambassadorships to them at the Ivory Plinth because they love mercenary work and are unaffected by the sun. Kitori are also humans who have been trollified, although they are described as "not human, nor troll, but Kitori". The Sun Domers loooooooooooove to keep them as the lowest slaves (their children born into slavery, and kept naked and used as pack animals) almost more than they love to whip themselves and deny themselves sex and food. Ducks and Rinliddi are kin! Distant kin, as the Manimati weren't waterfowl.

Gern are nonhuman by definition. They aren't sentient; they are basically (deeply unsettling) cows. Most Agimori don't fall outside baseline human! Agimori are just people. Men-and-a-Half are unusual because they are giants but the Agimori in the West are just... dudes with dark skin and kinky hair.

Sartarites aren't exactly hillbillies; the Lunars just think that because they are dicks.

this is a terrible way to determine if someone is human, because stats are relative. inbreeding and Chaos features of the cult change them but don't remove their humanity. also, stats change based on gear and power levels, which ogres gain by eating people...

uhhh maybe you mean Agi. Agimori are people - they are one of the Praxian tribes, they include the Doraddi, they include half the Pygmies of Glorantha, and they also make up the population of one of the nations of the West, having arrived by boat to fight (apparently) Nysalor. And they represent the indigenous inhabitants of Pamaltela. Saying Pamaltelans are nonhuman would uhhh not be a good look. Also, the Blue Peoples are human even if they came fromfrom 1. the Moon or 2. the Blue Planet in the Green Age.

Remember that even in Gloranthan myth, hunting rabbits and eating grubs and fish is the major source of protein for the Green Age and for neolithic peeps. They mostly eat berries, roots, and plants. The powerful hunting gods (Odayla-equivalents) enable risky but heroic kills that require a lot of energy and material expense that create a rich larder of stored foods - think pemmican and fermented meats, basically. Even with the rule of cool, hunting deer is costly and annoying for people who have primitive bows and access to much easier souces of protein; assuming a dense population, such as a settled longhouse-style population the size of an Orlanthi tribe rather than about ten mobile people, is going to farm rabbits next to their yams. And the Lunar crops like maize, beans, and squash have 100% made it to the Balazarings by now (they made it to the isolated Hmong in the highlands of Cambodia and South China by like 1550 CE!). Hunting deer or large animals is hard work when you have shitty bows and thick underbrush. There's a reason the first domestic animal (not commensal, dogs are commensals) was the reindeer some time in the late Paleolithic; easier to acclimate them and learn to manage herds and cull for meat than to try to hunt them.

Ogres are humans with a chaos rune, that's the entire point of ogres. The entire point of it is cannibalism and incest to steal and intensify power of the bloodline - but it's a human bloodline, no matter how corrupt. The Red Cow clan introduction has an entire bit about this...

A klanth is a macuahuitl, a kind of heavy club inset with obsidian blades; obsidian has been tested by surgeons and scientists as being ridiculously sharper than razorblade and breakage in combat just makes a new, equally-sharp edge. So let's be clear that this weapon is not characteristic of the kind of tools we talk about when we're discussing lithic technologies used in the neolithic, where fragile obsidian would have been limited in use to more useful purposes. Much more common and dangerous to metal-wearers are spears and javelins, especially propelled by atlatls, which basically lengthen your arm and thus make your throw stronger and require almost no familiarity to use. And don't underestimate slings; slingers were an important part of ancient armies, as they were very mobile and incredibly accurate. One of the things that might be surprising is that in most neolithic societies we know of, warfare was absent; most conflict was homicide, typically of an intimate partner by a man if the society was loose hunter-gatherers. The organisation of band societies by women, either self-organised or by family, seems to have protected them from abuse as those leave more balanced homicides. Warfare in low-tech societies typically involves basketry shields enhanced with wood stavings, bodily decorations, spears, clubs, and stone axes; bows were lethal but less useful in combat than other weapons due to their low quality compared to things like composite bows. In areas like Papua-New Guinea, where neolithic technology paired with incredible crop yields, unbelievable population densities lead to very interesting social dynamics. Men's houses developed because men had to marry the daughters of their enemies, who they probably killed male family members of, so they didn't dare sleep alone with them. Homonormativity developed - researches found in many tribes a percentage of people depressed they could not express their heterosexual desires because it was socially impossible, and everyone else just had sex ritually with their spouse to have children and had same-sex partners the rest of the time and didn't really care. Children were raised bilingually by their parents. Constant warfare over territory and endless social struggle over the socialisation of children was intense - you had to make sure the children stayed loyal or else they'd defect and take territory with them! Trade was very important but you couldn't trust your neighbors, so you had to find routes past them to the NEXT tribes, so speaking many many languages was the norm.

the ancient enmity between Gbajitude and Arkatheit is one thing, but why would a Sheng Seleris fan hate Argrath? Sheng Seleris had been tortured in a Lunar Hell into madness, he hadn't escaped on his own. I fully believe he was still trapped by madness because he wasn't ready to return yet on his own. Unless you meant because of the Lunar Empire. Well, I can like the Lunar Empire's theory and hate its praxis. I certainly adore the Lunar birth but it went... bad. Mostly I think the corruption is due to the death of Monsoon at the hands of the Sultanate of Tork, after which he was clearly tied together with a lot of string and duct tape. The old Lunar guide was pretty explicit about this.

I mean, he only went bad after he was summoned from Hell by Argrath; before that he was an anti-Lunar hero. Indeed, Elamleata was a hero, as was another infamous daughter-wife: Hon Eel.

GBAJI! of course gbaji

Which Ralzakark becomes a Mask? I'm unclear on which Ralzakarks get ganked and by whom. Ralzakark the Unicorn gets killed by... someone, but before the ascent. I know Send Valu, daughter of one of the Ralzakarks and Seseine the Tempter, is a member of Mask Argenteus' retinue and that eventually leads somehow to Deneskerva ritually sacrificing him, I believe in an attempt to purge him of Chaos corruption, in 1628, but her plan must fail and a very unsuitable replacement chosen because we have no record of him. Eventually the son of Jar Eel and King Moirades of Tarsh, Phargentes the Younger, tries to reform the Empire in 1638, a decade later, over the New Moon Empire; he gets ganked eight years later and his replacement is killed by Argrath (all hail Argrath!) and his souls devoured by Sheng Seleris, who is then put down by Argrath as well because he's lost his mind entirely.

ok well, the text is ... let's just say it's MEGA gendered. the images are all of men, even the images of a whole group of Storm Bull initiands; the text speaks only of men and sons and fathering children; you could see how I could be confused. (Yinkin follows and has a woman pictured and both men and women mentioned in the text.)

I thought to become a Storm Bull cultist specifically required maleness. To become a Bully Boy you repeat the initiation night of the brothers Urox, Orlanth and Ragnaglar (Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes, p. 176😞 Also the description of the Storm Bull calls them "his sons"

How do you explain the Bisosae murder and dismemberment of Ivin Zora Ru the Corpse-Blue God Yar Gan, and their reassembly and resurrection of Him as Upelvi Dedi? Frankly this suggests a Chaos god (with a Water rune?) purged of it and restored (as a Rain rune god like Heler?). Lore questions: I've never quite grokked Bisos, is He Storm Bull? Are there any Eternal Battle deities that are for women?

now there's a story that needs telling