dumuzid

Interesting. Deezola of the Seven Mothers might be a good patroness for such a character too. For turning humans into beasts, I suggest looking at the Alter Creature spell.

Red is the only color trolls can see, and it makes them uncomfortable and aggressive. Children marked 'naughty' on the Lead List get only lumps of enlo dung, not toys and treats

All the Torkani children wait year-round for Waterday, Harmony Week, Dark Season, when each clan's highest Argan Argar initiate dons a goosefeather cloak and rides a twelve-trollkin sleigh between the steads through the night, bringing gifts for the little ones in exchange for mead and cookies.

Now I'm imagining troll sledges pulled by lashed-together teams of trollkin

In working out Pavis-area campaign materials I've come to suspect that the Zola Fel has its own tradition of illumination, and the Cleansed One is its bodhisattva, for lack of a better term.

The headwaters of the Zola Fel River are called the Leaping Place Falls. Those heights are the place where Zola Fel, a crusading river of the Sea's invasion of the Land in the Storm Age, witnessed the destruction of the Spike and felt the call of great Magasta to assail the void opened at the heart of the world. Zola Fel retraced the path of his conquests of the Land to rejoin the deep currents of the Ocean and take part in Magasta's victory over Chaos. This much is fairly common knowledge in the lands along his modern banks. The particulars of this journey have never been explored in canon, to my knowledge. Well, I run a RQG game set in Pavis after the Liberation, and I love a good road trip--so I set my players the task of retracing Zola Fel's march back to Magasta in a this-world heroquest. The short myth I developed to guide their interaction with the Otherworlds on that journey follows: --- Zola Fel's Three Contests In his return journey to the Ocean from the Leaping Place, Zola Fel was confronted by dilemmas and challenges that expanded his understanding of the conflict between Existence and Chaos, and his role within it. The sites of each of these trials became a bog along his flow. Other bogs formed along the Zola Fel before and after the Dawn, but these three are of special significance to the river's cult as places where he gained special insight into the struggle with Chaos. 1) The New Bog - The Realization Place. Here Zola Fel witnessed refugees of the wasting of Genert's Garden huddled on broken hills, besieged by hordes of Chaos monsters. The bedraggled baboons, humans and Morokanth sheltering there had been Zola Fel's enemies in his invasion of the Land, but the Battle of Earthfall and many other evils had since slain most of their gods and destroyed their once-great civilization. Zola Fel found he could conjure no animosity towards the land-dwellers in their extremity, despite their old antagonism. In the face of Chaos, he realized that old enemies must become allies. He shifted his course to swamp and drown the monster horde, strangling their leaders and devouring their evil spirits. He recognized that many peoples played a role in Magasta's fight and deserved his help. The surviving refugees were among the first Riverfolk of Zola Fel. Those who chose to leave the River's protection brought word of his deeds to the newly arrived Star Khans. 2) The Great Bog - The Recognition Place. Here Zola Fel came upon a place where Storm Bull, Zorak Zoran, and their raging sons battled Chaos. The Storm Bull was Zola Fel's chief surviving antagonist from his invasion of the Land with great Genert fallen, and much ill-will remained between them. The insights of the Realization Place still flowed powerfully within the river though, and he chose to put them into practice in spite of old grudges. Zola Fel swept out to aid the Storm and Darkness gods, soothing hurts and exhaustion with his waters, stymieing and swallowing the monsters with his flow. Zola Fel's currents soaked the churned earth of the battlefield, washing the worst of the Chaos blood away, and the Storm Bull recognized him as an ally in the Eternal Battle, if not a true friend. 3) The South Bog - The Determining Place. Here Zola Fel confronted his last great obstacle on the march to the Ocean: he faced the Chaos god Ompalam, who sought to trap and bind Zola Fel into the fabric of his own dark empire, which could then extend further up the river's flow. Ompalam goes only where humans bring him, and he was brought to the mouth of Zola Fel by ships of the Empire of Chir, a seafaring realm of the Vadeli immortals. The Vadeli raised a colony beside Zola Fel's estuary, and swelled its population with slaving raids into the interior. Many who wandered the wastes having not yet learned of Waha's Covenant or received the teachings of the Star Khans were set upon by the Red Vadeli and dragged in chains to their city, where Brown Vadeli overseers directed their labor according to the designs of the Yellow and Blue castes. Ompalam's servants sought to pool Zola Fel's flow behind the Iron Locks of the Cruel Canal, but the river called upon insights and allies won in his journey. Storm Bull bellowed, his friend Zorak Zoran stamped his feet and swung his club, the Star Khans led the first of Waha's people to steal back the Vadeli's slaves. Unlooked for, great Flintnail of the True Mostali arrived with a troop of his sons and bent his deep wisdom to undermining the works of the Vadeli. Weakened by the labors and violence of these powers, the Iron Locks were finally sundered by the full, unleashed torrent of Zola Fel, who burst through the designs of Ompalam and cast the great iron gates of the Locks into the Ocean as rusting fragments. Those freed from Vadeli domination joined the Riverfolk or the Beast Riders, and the alliance of necessity between those peoples sustained them in the long, cruel war against the monsters and demons of Chaos to come. Zola Fel, his flow freed of obstruction from the Leaping Place to the Ocean, rushed out into the deep currents to join Magasta's ultimately victorious struggle with the void. --- Though there was potential here for a closer alliance between Storm Bull and Zola Fel, relations between the Storm and River peoples were forever stained by the digging of the Good Canal, and the harsh labors to which Waha put Zola Fel's sister river. The River has never quite forgiven Waha's people for the disfigurement of his kin, and despises the Beast Riders' modern practice of slavery. There can be cooperation between the River and Beast peoples, but little deep trust within Time. The Iron Locks were utterly destroyed, but the myth is quiet on the ultimate fate of the Vadeli colony. No surface ruins remain, but certain fragmentary Second Age texts housed in the New Pavis Knowledge Temple suggest that it now lies at the foundations of the much later God Learner colony, Feroda.

We Are All Us

I've been thinking a little about Valind's Glacier lately, because I've been thinking plenty about the Sea of Fire at the other end of the lozenge. Pamalt, the ruling god of the Sea of Fire (as far as I know), made his Agi to populate the far south in spite of the heat. Given the other ways these realms seem to mirror each other, a race of ice immortals like human-scale hollri, created to people and defend the glacial lands before the trolls arrived, doesn't seem so far-fetched. This is my feeling--and another way I think Valind's Glacier mirrors the Sea of Fire. Sail far enough into the Sea and there's not even steaming water under your vessel, just an Otherworld of fire; given the way the Glacier also extends beyond the Lozenge and into Sramak, I would guess it functions the same way.

Ah wow, I was way off, kept looking much too far north.

I'm having trouble locating Jokotu, City of the Free, in the Argan Argar Atlas maps of Fonrit. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

That adds Tarkala the Lover, Argrath's Esrolian snake priestess companion, to the list of Ernaldan heroines then.

For now, mostly just the material benefits from being some of the White Bull's favored apprentices: free skill training from White Bull Society trainers, Argrath paying to give them improved POW gain rolls, that sort of thing. He also hooked each of them up with a fine Praxian mount (the duck rides a bolo lizard). At this stage they're more warlocks-in-training, not the real deal yet. They did learn some unique magic during today's session though. Their mission is to support the White Bull assault on Corflu by finding magic to neutralize the Watchdog of Corflu. Today the Cleansed One, the Zola Fel's hero or demigod, taught them a magical ceremony that they can use to wash away the Lunar 'programming' that directs the Watchdog's actions, rendering it inert. The duck, a CHA 20 assistant shaman trained in Nochet, leads the ceremony in song. The group's Sable Rider martial leader sings in harmony with her. The group's Pavis Mostali combat engineer pronounces words of power in resonance with the song. The group's White Moon-affiliated Tarshite sorcerer uses Lunar rites to invoke the tidal power of the Blue Moon. The rites are directed through a wooden idol of Zola Fel, prepared and tended by the group's Green Aldryama wood-shaper. If everybody hits their marks they'll erase the Watchdog's Moon-affinity, wash away its Lunar programming, and render it both inert and malleable. The White Bull Society's assault on Corflu hinges on their disabling the construct; Argrath tasked this warlock band with traveling the entire length of the Zola Fel, from the Leaping Place to his estuary, specifically to learn this magic from the Cleansed One while re-enacting Zola Fel's original march back to the sea in the Great Darkness. They'll gain more magic if they can defeat the Lunars at Corflu and actually reach the ocean shore--dealing with the strategic issue and further empowering his followers with the same stroke, just as Argrath intended.

It's usually described as Yelm's 'disintegration.' Elements of him that were previously combined into a cohesive whole are divided and disperse. You've got Bijiif, the Dead Sun, who leads the first dead gods of the Solar Court down into the underworld (and drives Kyger Litor and her trolls out of there). You've got Basko, Yelm's Shadow, who's found by the emerging trolls and worshipped into one of the primary gods of the Kingdom of Ignorance. You've got Antirius (which I believe is the original Dara Happan understanding of Yelmalio), who hovered over Yelm's Footstool as the sun of Dara Happa during the Storm and Darkness ages but grew dimmer and lower as the world sickened and died; and others, Dara Happans believed the soul had six parts before the Red Goddess revealed a seventh. Best source on all this is The Glorious ReAscent of Yelm.

Queen Samastina of Nochet is a big one.

The duck player character has become the undisputed mascot of my players' group of Eaglebrown Warlocks.

Well, there's no time in the Gods Realm, so in a sense he was already corrupted when he was thrown in, but let's impose a little Time anyway for the sake of our mortal sensibilities. The 'they' in that sentence are elder gods of the non-Storm elements, Orlanth's 'uncles' if you consider Umath a sibling to Yelm, Gata and the other elder elemental deities. No, they were not punishing Ragnaglar directly for his later crimes; the implication is that Ragnaglar later forces himself on Thed because of his time in the Sex pit.

"The Initiation of Orlanth" starts on p. 34 of the Book of Heortling Mythology. The "Other Brother" referred to there is Ragnaglar.

Esrolia: Land of 10,000 Goddesses includes a description of the wedding between Queen Norinel of Nochet and the Only Old One, which could at least offer insights to the Ernaldan elements of a wedding.

J. Campbell's work has been around long enough that there are jokes about his theories written into the setting. My favorite is Glorantha's own 'Hero with a Thousand Faces,' Ezkankekko. Every society in central Genertela has a story about a tall, dark stranger of their own species inviting them into a league of mutual support and defense with the other surviving peoples of the Greater Darkness? It's all one hero, but he could shapeshift!

The game I run is following a group of Eaglebrown Warlocks traveling down the Zola Fel. Their journey is a this-world heroquest intended to support the White Bull's campaign to seize Corflu. Two of the warlocks engaged "Judge" Dahak, the weird, infamous sorcerer of Old Pavis, in debate during an encounter along the river, and came away from the meeting with their first % points of Illumination. I ran the encounter in the spirit of the sort of confrontations with demons and fierce enemy gods would-be Lunar illuminates are supposed to face in the process of Sevening, abetted by the great Change power of the quest they're embarked on and the draconic power underpinning the Corflu campaign. Though Argrath has set set events in motion, the powers directly facilitating this moment of cosmic awareness are the Zola Fel (who in my Glorantha at least had elements of draconic awareness even before the EWF came during Pavis's heyday); by extension the Cleansed One, the purified broo hero or demigod of the river; and Pamalt, who was present in the form of an Agimori shaman-priest who mediated the warlocks' exchange with Dahak. In line with the discussion of expanding mysticism as a force and practice in the setting I'm toying with the idea of developing a Pamaltelan strand of mystic illumination for my campaign based philosophically around the Necklace of Pamalt and Right Footpath. According to Revealed Mythology, the Necklace is the network of friendly gods and spirits Pamalt made by his good deeds and example. Pamalt is distinguished among the gods by being the most upright chieftain, "His reputation is spotless and his justice is flawless. For those reasons, he attracts many other great and heroic individuals to his tripod and staff. His closest advisors are present in his Necklace[...]" Revealed Mythologies p.41 The Right Footpath is the Pamaltelan 'proper way of life,' "In addition to organizing the living materials and principles of the peoples, it preaches tolerance of strangers, many methods to dispel violence, and a tradition of ease and pleasure in the environment." RM p.64. As a mystical tradition, I see the Necklace of Pamalt as a sort of charismatic bridge between animism and theism. Spiritually and functionally, I see the tradition operating as an effort to form new Necklaces within Time in the same fashion as Pamalt--by behaving honorably and setting a good example. Through just and upright behavior an illuminate aspires to achieve Pamalt's position of oneness and connectivity with all elements and realities. Mechanically, I could see a Pamaltelan illuminate learning to earn rune spells from the cults of their allies to store in their CHA, or the power to call on the rune points of their allies to stack their spells.

I've never heard of a baboon undergoing the troll adoption rites, but as-written there's nothing saying Kyger Litor won't adopt a baboon who passes her tests. Argan Argar has always made a point of welcoming non-uz to the altar, and Zorak Zoran is entirely indiscriminate, well-known for having non-uz worshipers. I don't see a Xiola Umbar temple turning away a baboon who sincerely wanted to become a healer and otherwise met their requirements, either. A Zorak Zoran baboon berserker is probably terrifying now that I give it a moment's thought.

This makes me consider Lanbril's relationship with Argan Argar--because really, doesn't the thievery god necessarily have something to do with the god of shadow and Equal Exchanges? Particularly since Argan Argar priests were the de facto kings of Esrolia from before the Dawn through Belintar's conquest (excepting Palangio's interregnum), presiding over one of the natural centers of Lanbril worship in Genertela. In line with the idea that the Lanbril cult has characteristics of ancestor worship, I could see Lanbril of Nochet being thought of as one of Argan Argar's children with Esrola in the Storm Age, a thief-hero of God Time Nochet become a minor deity, whose own descendants (literal and adopted) persist in the shadows and unsavory corners of the great city. I could see a practical, if informal, relationship between the Argan Argar and Lanbril cults where the Lanbril thieves were permitted to operate with limited scrutiny by the Shadowlords, who are well-equipped to thwart thieves with Darksense and the Safe rune spell, on the condition of cutting the Argan Argar temple in on a share of the loot on appropriate holy days, and performing some sanctioned thievery on behalf of the Shadowlords to correct imbalances and discrepancies in the Equal Exchange. This could've made Arkat's Dark Empire a major vector for the spread of organized Lanbril crime families in the late First/early Second ages, facilitating as it did commerce and migration between Esrolia and Ralios, both human and troll. Given all of the above, I have a sudden suspicion that a version of the Lanbril cult is probably alive and well among the trollkin of Esrolia and the Shadow Plateau.

Is there a connection between the Genertelan baboons and the intelligent gigantopithecus apes of northern Pamaltela?

Well now we're getting into the mythic background of the Praxian baboons, when they had a sophisticated urban civilization in Genert's Garden. A baboon might find precedents for all sorts of occupations and cult affiliations if a Daka Fal shaman were able to look back far enough to see lives lived in the Monkey City, which are now the Monkey Ruins of Prax.

IMG one of the senior initiates at the Pavis Knowledge Temple is a baboon. another is a griffon