dumuzid

Thank you for making these points, I shall address them in order. I appreciate your argument, and here are my counters. First, from a source I hadn't seen when I made my big post about Eurmal, The Book of Drastic Resolutions: Darkness, (p. 80, from Heroes of the Night). What I'd like to direct your attention to is the last sentence there: "Shortly after his birth his father (Argan Argar) left the Hurtplace (Surface) forever, and Ezkankekko took the position he is best known for, the second and final ruler of the Kingdom of Night." This is a detail I haven't seen stated outright anywhere else, but it introduces the idea that Ezkankekko was ruler of the Shadow Plateau in his own right from near the start of the Greater Darkness. This is particularly interesting when considered in reference to the Norinel and Kimantor and Battle of Nochet Esrolian myths, set later in the Greater Darkness. From N&K, in Esrolia: Land of 10,000 Goddesses: (p. 30) Kimantor/Ezkankekko/OOO showed up to his wedding to Norinel dressed as a lord in what becomes the uniform of his Shadowlords and, most importantly surrounded by his uz followers. N&K goes on to describe Kimantor's defense of Nochet in three wars against the demons of Chaos, each time supported by a larger and larger band of uz warriors and heroes. The reasons that probably inspired Kimantor to seek this alliance are not not hard to find, if we page on to the Battle of Nochet myth: (Esrolia p. 32) The Diligent Workers are wild strains of bean, root and fruit tree that need little light to grow. More to the point they're plants, not fungi: trolls' ancient friendship with the fungal Black Elves and their goddess Vee Morala would not have helped them to grow these things, which the humans of Nochet seem to have grown in sufficient volume to keep both the humans and uz alive. We have already seen evidence that the Shadow Plateau trolls recall a time of starvation during the Greater darkness, when Ezkankekko allowed them to devour some of his substance to survive: (TBoHM p. 134, right column) but in the myth of N&K, just after the section I quoted earlier, we have this: (Esrolia p. 30) "They were all fed, because Kimantor had a bucket from which he could pour as much porridge as he wanted, as long as he was true to all oaths taken." A never-ending porridge bucket sounds like a wonder left behind by Esrola, but that caveat at the end of its description implies a condition before its bounty could be used in full. This could be a reference to how Kimantor allowed himself to be 'sapped' to provide for his uz followers, or it could be describing magic inherited from his mother that could only be used as long as there was someone to give it to, as in there was someone to share Esrola's bounty with. Finally, near the climax of the Battle of Nochet myth we have the flight from Nochet to Akez Lodarak. This is how that's described: (Esrolia p. 32) The humans and uz of Nochet had to sneak and fight their way up to Akez Lodarak, which apparently lay abandoned. There's no long stay in safety, though: the paragraph that follows what I quoted above is the beginning of the Unity Battle. There's no mention of a visit by the Lifebringers, no grim tale of visitors murdering one of Kimantor and Norinel's sons. The Palace of Black Glass is probably not a place the Nochet refugees could've survived in long term, unless the managed to restart their low-light agriculture within its walls. It was the place Kimantor and Norinel led their people to take shelter in when all hope of defending Nochet successfully failed, and was only a successful shelter because the bounty of Nochet, even in the Greater Darkness, created a surplus of supplies they could carry into the fortress. Based on these findings and those discussed in my previous big post, here is my proposed chronology for Akez Lodarak, from the end of the Gods War through the Silver Age: 1) Argan Argar forces Lodril to raise Akez Lodarak; AA and Esrola rule Kethaela together. 2) The Darkness deepens; Esrola dies and Argan Argar departs--Ernalda dies around the same time; Ezkankekko takes his father's throne in Akez Lodarak, but claims authority over only the Shadow Plateau uz. Some time not long after, Orlanth leaves on the Lifebringers Quest. 3) Ezkankekko and an unnamed goddess or demigoddess rule Akez Lodarak and raise a son; in their long descent through the Underworld the Lifebringers find sanctuary in the Palace basements, and are invited up for hospitality; Eurmal's Betrayal occurs, and the Lifebringers are cast back out into the . 4) Alone, bereft, and grieving, Ezkankekko and his uz slowly starve behind the walls of Akez Lodarak as Chaos monsters fill the tunnels and crawl the surface, until he sacrifices some of his power to sustain them. The renewed uz clear the tunnels, and allow communication with the outside world. 5) Kimantor first allies his nearest neighbors, the surviving Grandmothers of Nochet, to secure a sustainable food source for his uz in exchange for his protection of the city. There is some indication of a migration of trolls out of the Shadow Plateau to Nochet itself, as well. Marriage with Norinel enables the revival of Esrolian fertility magic that benefits both humans and uz. As told in N&K, the temporary political marriage between Norinel and Kimantor blossoms into love and a long-term relationship, and several children are born from it who go on to found great--but entirely human, mortal--families of Nochet. 6) After many wars, Kimantor finally calls for the evacuation of Nochet in the face of overwhelming chaotic hordes. His uz and Norinel's humans retake an abandoned Akez Lodarak, and Lord Victory Nightbrother begins the the missions that gather the Unity Army for the Battle of Nochet. 7) After the Unity Battle drives Chaos from Dragon Pass and Kethaela, Kimantor and Norinel lead their human followers and descendants down off the Shadow Plateau to refound Nochet. Argan Argar and Esrola are among the gods who emerge from the Ritual of the Great Compromise to help bring the Dawn before receding into the Gods Realm. Ezkankekko begins discussions with his allies in the Unity Army to formalize their cooperation into a Unity Council... I agree with all this. In the light (or shadow) of Eurmal's betrayal, Varzor Kitor and the Kitori seem like an effort by Ezkankekko to replace his lost child and all his lost promise. Varzor was Ezkankekko's most favored student, his chief envoy to humans, even appointed the Unity Council's first general, the Lord Demon of Death, in their first war with the Shadzorings of Alkoth. It highlights the sorrow behind one of Ezkankekko's acts, too: after the Tax Revolt, he released the Kitori from his service for good. Maybe he lost his faith in humans. I haven't found any evidence one way or the other on how many children Desdel had, or when, but the fact that they exist rather point against Desdel being Eurmal's victim, don't they? If Desdel's children were human, then it doesn't matter whether Eurmal killed him or not--his father's power didn't pass to Desdel by inheritance. Once again I'd argue that this points to Ezkankekko sacrificing the part of himself that made his power heritable to sustain his uz followers during the starving times. Didn't matter whether he remarried and had other kids later in the Darkness, it was no longer in him to make a divine dynasty. Ah, this we can resolve fairly easily. (Esrolia, p. 8 ) There was no ambiguity over the identity of Kimantor in Dawn Age Nochet. He was Ezkankekko, the Only Old One, the Unity Hero, Father of the City. Their professional army received its orders direct from Akez Lodarak for almost 600 years after the dawn. Thank you again for raising your questions and counter-proposals! I have enjoyed addressing them tremendously, and would welcome more! Though I think I have made a solid case here, with the available materials. As mentioned at the end of my last big post, the next big one will be about how these discussions have informed my RuneQuest: Glorantha game. Or, How Ublagsh Waged the Unity Battle of the Smoking Ruin.

I think I just got the mythic paradigm Belintar was using to fight Ezkankekko. And honestly, given what he did after, I'm kind of kicking myself for not seeing this earlier. Letting my pro-troll biases get in the way I think. Looking at it this way, I've got to reckon that Belintar waged a Unity Battle against Ezkankekko, and won. That's some extremely bold heroquesting.

Thank you for these points, particularly the bit about there probably not being a published, detailed account of Belintar's conquest. Does anyone know who the "ancient allies" were that the Guide describes Belintar winning with his heroquests? I'm aware of Desdel though. He and Delgara were just the first of many human children Kimantor and Norinel had while she lived. Desdel's is one of those prominent Founder families of Nochet at the Dawn begun by Norinel's children with Kimantor, they have the hereditary duty of maintaining the Kimantor temple in Nochet. Desdel and Delargara were born after Ezkankekko settled in Nochet with his troll followers, they would've been part of the exodus to Azek Lodarak before the Unity Battle--and to be a Founder, Desdel (or his children) must have made it back to Nochet after the Unity Battle to participate in the re-founding of the city. There's no mention anywhere in Esrolia, in the very detailed version of the Battle of Nochet Unity Battle myth, of Desdel being seduced and murdered by Eurmal--and, well, Desdel's specific line certainly continued into Time, right up to the present day. More to the point, there's no indication that Desdel, Delgara or even Norinel were demigods--Norinel was certainly a hero(ine) in life, and is worshiped as the Mother of the City in modern Nochet; but Desdel's descendants, though they've inherited priestly duties and priveleges, are in no way described as superhuman or divine in themselves. I'm not convinced Desdel was Eurmal's victim.

My group handled a version of this dilemma (recruiting a Zorak Zorani NPC to fight alongside a Humakti PC without them trying to kill each other) by having the Zorani swear an oath to my Argan Argar initiate to follow his orders, and abstain from making undead until the quest was complete. e: in terms of extenuating circumstances, the ZZ initiate swore their oath in return for permission to participate in a Unity Battle against Chaotic undead.

Before I get into the meat of the tale I have to tell, I'd like to open with a request. I'm looking into sources for Belintar's conquest of the Holy Country. History of the Heortling Peoples describes the events from the Heortling perspective, and so is mostly concerned with how the Kethaelan Orlanthi faired in the conquest (poorly). Esrolia: Land of 10,000 Goddesses gives the cute explanation that 'the story of Belintar's conquest is too well-known for us to bother giving an account here' when it reaches the relevant point in its chronology. The description of Belintar's conquest in the write-up of the Holy Country in Guide to Glorantha Vol. 1 is the most detailed I've found, but even it deals with the whole five-year magical, multidimensional war in the space of a paragraph, plus some art and asides elsewhere. So, open question: does anyone know of a more detailed source on Belintar's war to depose the Only Old One and create the Holy Country? Especially anything on the level of the detailed (if incomplete) account of the Machine War in Heortling Peoples. I'd appreciate anything that can help me better understand how Belintar proved the Only Old One's senescence to his former allies. Thanks in advance. Now, without much further ado, a sad tale. I've broken it into parts, via spoiler tags, to present less of a wall of text: How Eurmal Doomed the Only Old One

What about Ezkankekko's runes? And by the same token, is there a change between what he had in life and the runes for his respective troll and human cults (i.e. Kimantor in Nochet)?

The friendship between Argan Argar and Issaries is one thing I've found zero sources on thus far, other than bald statements that Argan Argari are welcome among Issaries cultists and vice versa, and would love to hear more about. You're entirely right, I took for granted that Hardros was a Kethaelan Orlanthi, and then conflated them with other Heortish peoples. One area of the setting I'm definitely weak on is the particulars of Orlanthi history and geography. Can you expand on the Slontan invasion? It'd be interesting if Ezkankekko failed to support the Heortlings against that Western/Middle Sea Empire encroachment, but did help organize the Unity Battle to defeat Zistor in the same broad historical period. And that Arkati Hendriking Shadowlord, any further details you can recall about that would be great.

Thank you, Jeff. Since you're here, and you're already addressing an element of the question, maybe you can illuminate something up for me? The Guide to Glorantha gives Argan Argar's runes as Darkness, Communication, Mastery; RQ:G gives them as Darkness and Harmony. I assumed this difference was a matter of making RQ:G a more playable game, by making the set of player-usable runes more uniform and dualistic--Isarries loses his Communication rune in the translation to RQ:G as well, after all. I haven't made a detailed cross-reference, but it looks like Orlanth's cult is the only one in the RQ:G core that kept its Mastery rune. I'd love to hear more about the design process of how the theistic rune affinities were translated into the current game edition, and what the shift from Darkness+Communication+Mastery to Darkness+Harmony means for your interpretation of Argan Argar. I hadn't heard Greg's original take on the Mastery rune before. I like it, and I think it reinforces the themes of Argan Argar myth I've been writing about in this thread. Having played an Orlanth Adventurous initiate in RQ:G I agree in the most strenuous terms that Orlanth is the god of Storm heroes--but I think there's an equal argument to be made that Argan Argar is the god of Darkness heroes. Per the short list of Darkness gods in the write-ups of major pantheons from the Guide, he's the only named Darkness god with the Mastery rune at all. There's vastly more written myth for Orlanth than there is for Argan Argar, but what exists sketches a myth cycle that strongly resemble's Orlanth's. Both are the sons of single mothers: Umath is slain while Orlanth was just a boy; Argan Argar's father is unknown (or slain as well, if he was Yelm). For Orlanth, his initiation and his father's death begin a period of adventuring and wandering, as he learns about the world and tests himself against it: a whole sub-cult's worth of myth cycles about Orlanth learning through action and reflection, exploring outwards from Kero Fin in the increasingly tumultuous Later Golden Age, all culminating in his contest with the Emperor. We have almost no myths of Argan Argar from the comparable mythic space, but a little imagination sketches a similar set of stories: Argan Argar undergoes the Uz initiation of exposure to sunlight, explores the increasingly tumultuous world of the Storm Age under the cover of his mother Xentha, learns as he goes--but learns different lessons than Orlanth. Argan Argar's wandering phase ends much like Orlanth's, in a confrontation with Fire and a wedding with Earth, but their different lessons as wanderers lead to different outcomes: that Argan Argar defeats his Solar foe without destroying them is probably the starkest difference. The Storm Tribe that Orlanth forms with Ernalda's guidance takes in the honorable cast-offs of other tribes but it's a fundamentally less cosmopolitan society than the Kingdom of Night, which was based from the start on the union of two different species--Esrola's humans and Argan Argar's Uz. Different paths to adulthood, different paths within adulthood, similar essential story: of how a human, or a troll, can achieve the necessary self-mastery to be worthy of leading others. Trace both gods' stories further and more similarities, and differences, make themselves apparent. The two gods rule their different realms, in relative peace according to the Book of Heortling Mythology--both had more to fear from Chaos and Fire than each other. Eventually, the winter comes to both kings: in the deeps of the Greater Darkness, Esrola and Ernalda both withdraw to the Underworld as the Earth dies. We know what Orlanth did after that: he gathered his companions for the Life/Lightbringers' Quest. We don't have a comparable myth for Argan Argar that I've seen, but I'd argue that once again Orlanth and Argan Argar enter parallel, but different, phases. Orlanth Lightbringer is essentially a psychopomp, a bridge and guide between the living and dead worlds, who restores the world by returning making peace with Yelm and returning with Ernalda. Well, Argan Argar was not a Light/Lifebringer, though presumably he took part in the Compromise. The Palace of Black Glass does appear in the Lightbringers cycle, but we'll get to that later. One thing that is very well known about the Palace, one of the few definite details that has come down through Belintar's reign that I've read, is the basement staircase that leads all the way to Hell. This still exists in Glorantha as the Tarpit, though since Ezkankekko's defeat by the Pharaoh it's filled with boiling tar. I think there's a further expression of the Argan Argar cult that's lain dormant since Belintar's conquest: Argan Argar the psychopomp, the hoary ancient who stands on the shadowed side of the threshold. One of the great lessons Argan Argar teaches is to understand darkness rather than fear it, and I can think of no better way for Argan Argar to end his mythic cycle than as the familiar face who helps the dead let go of their fear of the unknown and pass on to Wonderhome. I think there is probably a myth about the Funeral Procession of Esrola: that when her moment came Argan Argar took her hand, and walked with her from her throne atop the Shadow Plateau down the staircase into the Underworld. I see this expression of Argan Argar as waiting just past the gate to the Underworld, conversant with both sides but apart from the world of the living, easing transition and communication between. Taken as a whole, Argan Argar can inform the full progression of a harmonious troll hero's life: 1) wanderer-negotiator through 2)warleader, arbitrator, ruler, ending in 3) abdication for the next generation, elder advisor, death-guide. I'm afraid I can't entirely agree. In most cases the Only Old One does not seem to have extracted oaths of obedience, but per Esrolia: Land of a Thousand Goddesses (2008), p. 25, The obedience of the Esrolian Grandmothers extended to accepting Ezkankekko's command of their professional army, the Kimantorings, who began as Ezkankekko's household guard in the Darkness. Accepting that the Esrolians are a special case as the people of his mother, the Only Old One generally offered protection and friendship in exchange for tribute and acknowledgment. This is key. In the evil times that followed Gbaji, when the Orlanthi of Kethaela renounced the Equal Exchange, it was acknowledgment that ceased first. The men and women who became the Ruling Ring of Orlanthland ceased to acknowledge that the exchange went two ways. They called the old mutual pacts taxes, and they called the betrayal and murder of ancient friends a war to make men free. Their Great Living Hero, Hardros Hardslaughter, freed the Hendriki indeed: freed them from the friendship of the Uz, and from the counsel that might have guided his people away from the hubris, ruin and exploitative folly of the EWF. As has usually proven the case, the Esrolian grandmothers were wiser. They never renounced the friendship of Argan Argar. Even when the Hendriki revolt cut off contact between Nochet and the Plateau they continued to support the Kimantorings and worship at the shrines of Esrola's son. They remained within the Shadowlands, which themselves survived the Imperial Age through negotiation with the EWF and the God Learners, and under that protection they outlasted the empires. Yes, this describes the Twisting, the time after Arkat's departure when the Orlanthi, among others, grew discontented with the Equal Exchange and broke their side of the old agreements. This is a curious, troubling phenomenon, because it was not the first time the pacts were broken--but in earlier ages, there were different consequences. From the Book of Heortling Mythology (2010), p. 128: In the Silver Age, and before the Bright Empire occupied Kethaela after the Dawn, when one side or another reneged on the Equal Exchange it was oathbreaking in every sense of the term, with the normal social and supernatural consequences. When the Hendriki rose against the Shadowlands their own guardians should've punished them, but didn't. This is a mystery. A Hendriki would probably say that the oaths no longer obtained because the trolls asked more than they were due--but if that were the case, the Uz would've been set upon by their own oath guardians. Which is not what happened. Instead, and in contrast to the multi-year, multi-dimensional conflict waged between Ezkankekko and Belintar centuries later, Hardros was able to penetrate a fortress that even Belintar could not enter short of destroying it, and slew a demigod who even Heort looked up to as 'the most powerful' among the peoples gathered to fight the Unity Battle. When Ezkankekko returned he simply released the Hendriki from their obligations, freeing them to find their ruin in theocracy and draconic mysticism. Centuries later Belintar came, and as Jeff says he fought Ezkankekko and proved his worth to the powers who had formerly been part of the Equal Exchange. The Only Old One was not what he was; he fought, he failed, he was sent to Wonderhome for keeps and the Palace blasted into a desert's worth of black sand. I've got a theory as to why all that happened. Folks, Eurmal did it. It's part of the most devious twist of Argan Argar (and now Ezkankekko) myth I've yet found, and could be a common thread between the Lightbringer's Quest, the Breaking of the Unity Council, the Tax Revolt, and the final overthrow of the Shadowlands by Belintar. But as this post is already running quite long i'll cap it here.

Thank you for making these points. I'll address them in order. If we're to use (filthy Malkionist) logic to figure this stuff out, we should adhere to Occam's (or Zzabur's) Razor, no? Reject less likely theories in favor of more likely ones? Well. Re: the Mastery rune, we already have a source for that for Orlanth that has nothing to do with Yelm. Orlanth is the offpsring of Umath and Kero Fin; I have not seen a source for Umath's specific runes, but per HeroQuest: Glorantha, Kero Fin's are Earth and Mastery. Most ruler-type gods have the Mastery rune, and the genealogy that would give it to Orlanth is well established. Argan Argar and Orlanth are certainly peers, and were allies in the Darkness, but their sharing the rune does not necessarily mean they share a lineage. Re: the spear, it's true that Orlanth is depicted in art and story as wielding a spear, but usually in conjunction with his other weapons: the sword, the shield, the lightning bolt. Orlanth Is a war god in a general sense, but the weapons his myths tie him to most closely are the sword (wielded to slay Yelm), and the lightning itself. By contrast, Argan Argar is deeply and specifically tied to the spear, the weapon he gained mastery of in his conquest of Lodril/Veskarthan. There are many places where the bronze spearhead (again, specifically bronze, rather than the more commonly troll-associated lead) is the chief symbol of Argan Argar. Argan Argar is associated with the spear in the same way that Orlanth is associated with the lightning, it's his core martial expression. Just like Yelmalio, whose preferred weapon is even more specifically the two-handed sarissa pike. Re: atmospheric authority, I don't concede that this analogy is quite squared up. Argan Argar doesn't manage the sky at all. His mother, Xentha, is the night, and no male Uz would presume to think he knows his mother's interests in her home better than she. He is the god of surface darkness, not the darkness up in the sky dome. Darkness upon the earth. The AA cult believes that part of their afterlife is to dance across the surface each evening, unfurling darkness over the land--they don't dance across the sky, or through the middle air. When Xentha spreads across the sky it makes Argan Argar's kingdom broader and deeper than at any other time, but even at the height of noon there'll be places in shadow. In a way, that cycle tells the story of the Uz on the surface: retreating to fastnesses when they must, flooding across the surface world when conditions are right. Re: where Argan Argar's cult is strongest, well, it's waxed and waned with the ages of Time, but the heart of the cult is in the old Holy Country, what used to be called the Kingdom of Night, which the God Learners called the Shadowlands. Those lands include those of the Hendriki, Orlanthi who trace their histories back to Heort and the Greater Darkness, but they include several others as well: Esrolia, volcanic Caladraland, and the Westerners of God Forgot among them. The presence of agents of Argan Argar among these peoples has a straightforward explanation, a logical explanation, based on both myth and history: all the areas that began the Dawn with a strong AA presence were ones brought together for the Unity Battle, and then bound together into the First Unity Council, by Ezkankekko, the Only Old One, Argan Argar's son by Esrola. For those unfamiliar: To the final points: yes, AA is the chief god of exchanges between trolls and others on the surface, but calling him a 'merchant' god misses a key point of what those exchanges mean to the trolls. A merchant in the Issaries sense is out to make a deal in their favor, to make a profit; this is not the goal of Argan Argar negotiation. What Argan Argar seeks instead is a term that occurs again and again in writings about the cult: the Equal Exchange. These agreements go back to the Lesser Darkness, when Argan Argar (and later Ezkankekko) made their first deals with non-Uz. The idea behind the Equal Exchange was that the humans, elves, etc. would leave offerings for the trolls, who in turn taught them secrets to survive the Darkness and defended them against its inimical forces, at a value equal to what they asked of the non-Uz. The Equal Exchange gained new names as Time went on, like the Shadow Tribute, and humans forgot, or ceased to value, what the Uz gave back to them. In the early second age the Orlanthi who went on to found the EWF revolted against Ezkankekko in a war they called the Tax Slaughter. The Orlanthi hero Hardros Hardslaughter led a raid into the Palace of Black Glass and slew Ezkankekko; when the Only Old One returned from the Underworld, Hardros made him release the Hendriki from the old mutual pacts. The rest of the Shadowlands survived the Imperial Age, right up until Belintar, the man who became the Pharaoh of the Holy Country, washed up and started a new war against the Only Old One. This one did not end until the Palace of Black Glass was annihilated, and the Only Old One killed by Belintar in a way that prevented him from returning from the Underworld. Belintar gave the Uz a place in his Holy Country, but he took their primacy in the former Shadowlands. The Argan Argar cult, which once had a physical heart and high temple in the Palace of Black Glass, remained strong in the Holy Country but lost its temporal seat and much of its temporal backing. After the fall of the Only Old One, Argan Argar's cult became a distributed, migratory organization; the version portrayed in Gloranthan materials about the 1600s is an Argan Argar cult that has languished in this reduced state for around five hundred years. With the death of Belintar and the disintegration of his Holy Country, there is an opportunity for the Uz and those who remember the Kingdom of Night fondly (as many parts of the Holy Country still do) to reassert themselves under that banner in the midst of the Hero Wars. Under those conditions older, more straightforwardly martial or regal expressions of the Argan Argar cult, currently latent or only half-manifest in the cult's reduced circumstances, could return to the fore, just as Yelmalio's Sun Dome Templars re-emerged as recently as the 1500s. Finally: the Uz lost a world, once--and regained it in the end, through the Great Compromise. In losing their first world they gained the Surface: they spread their queendoms and empires over it, defended it against Chaos, and surrendered their claim on it only with the Compromise, in which they agreed to share custody of the surface with the other races in exchange for their gods' and ancestors' return to Wonderhome. As for never finding beauty, I'm not sure what you mean. They found many beautiful things on the surface, despite the trials and pains of the Hurtplace. They found the stars and the night sky, they found a world of fine things to eat, they found other people and learned they could be other than food; through his marriage to Esrola, Argan Argar proved that they could even find love. For modern Uz, within Time, the surface is as much their world as it is humans'. It is more their world than humans' for the twelve hours Xentha rules the sky dome. As for power, go tell the Seshnelans about the end of Uz power, and they'll tell you about the battle Uz Eats Wizards. Belintar destroyed the organization called the Shadowlands, but now he's gone too, and his City of Wonders with him--but the Shadow Plateau remains. Though many humans have forgotten the debts they owe the Uz, the coming Hero Wars promise plenty of darkness. Wherever the darkness stretches you'll find Uz; whenever humans peer into that darkness, seek to master their fear and understand it, they'll find Argan Argar waiting to share his secrets--for an Equal Exchange, of course.

Okay, there seems to be some lingering confusion here. First, I'll post a rehosted version of the God Learner map of the Late Golden Age, since my original link seems to be broken: By far the closest ocean shoreline to Kero Fin in this era is the White Sea. There is no Middle Sea south of Kero Fin in that era, because the Middle Sea is the void in the Block created by the destruction of the Spike, which kicks off the Greater Darkness, which is a few major cosmic movements later in the God Time. Though if I had to assign extremely specific geography to this story, I'd say it happened a bit west of the edge of the White Sea, at what was then probably the easternmost Sog City on the north shore of the Block. That leaves room for a fun 'Orlanth Sails to Umath's Crater' myth, as part of a wider 'Voyages of Orlanth Adventurous' myth cycle. As for why Orlanthi would have a story set far from Kero Fin, well, this is the Late Golden Age. In this period Orlanth is a wandering hero, an adventurer, he doesn't settle down into a stead of his own until he kills Yelm and absconds with Ernalda from the Imperial Court. This is the time when he rambled across the world meeting strange people and doing great deeds. This is not a story told by people currently living in the Far North about an alien god coming to their land and mucking about, it's a story told by Theyalans about Orlanth going to a far-off place they barely know, meeting strange people, befriending some and fighting others. It is specifically, in-setting, a story sung by a Colymar warrior-shaman from Boldhome with strong Harmony affinity, who never met a Fronelan, and absolutely associates the Red Planet, Jagrekriand, with Yelm's Solar pantheon. There are no Fronelans involved in the creation of this story, and no Fronelans involved in the action of the story. The shoreline this story happens to take place on doesn't even matter for the themes of the myth. It could've happened on any shore of the block in this period. Orlanth could and did ramble as he pleased, from one end of the Block to the other, and even beyond; the Waertagi set up shop all over. This could've happened on any coast of the Block, I did not assign a specific coast when I wrote it because those specifics simply don't matter for the story. It's not a myth about any one place, as befits a story of Wandering Orlanth, it's about activities and relationships: travelling, fighting, making friends. It opens with Orlanth's back to whatever's going on inland, focused on the seacoast, the city and the siege. Whatever's specifically behind him is lost in a haze, deliberately so, to not distract the listener (or the heroquester) from the real meat of the story. As for Furkoosh, the Bad Storm, well, the point of him isn't that he's a storm. He, or it, is just what a zzaburi might call the natural manifestation of the forces unleashed by the combined power of three contending pantheons and the Waertagi's own sorcery, given a malignant impetus by the Chaos that began filtering into Yelm's imperial cosmos with Umath's eruption through the sky dome earlier in the Golden Age. This isn't a myth about how Orlanth deals with a rebellious storm as such, there's plenty of stories about Vadrus and his sons to cover those themes. It's a story about how, and whether, Orlanth can put aside his differences with former enemies, even radically foreign ones, to clean up a mess he helped create. As told in the temple of Orlanth Adventurous at Boldhome, it's meant to be a warning: Orlanth eventually does the right thing, he works together with Engizi and Jagrekriand to defeat the chaos storm, and agrees to peace once it's vanquished, but only because he's already pretty beaten down, not because he reached any new understanding. If he had learned the lesson Ernalda seems to be learning here, that war between the gods could lead to something worse, he might've acted differently elsewhere in the God Time. The initiates at Boldhome listening to this tale are meant to be nodding along by the end, as the priest instructing them underlines the lesson that victory without introspection can lead to future defeats. As always, your Glorantha can and should vary. This is just a story I wrote for a game that ended over a year ago. I hope all this text has dispelled some confusion though.

These are fair points. However, per the Guide to Glorantha, Yelm and Argan Argar do share one rune: the Mastery rune. This, to me, is key. Yelm and AA are both 'ruler'-gods, the Solar Emperor and the Night King--and though it probably wouldn't matter much to trolls, being able to prove to peoples of the surface that he had an inherited right to rule in addition to having power, followers and a good argument, could be important for the later stages of AA's story, when he's pulling together the peoples of the Greater Darkness to resist Chaos. I also like that it strengthens the parallels between Argan Argar and Yelmalio: they're already both spear fighters born with the fall of Yelm, whose goal is to give mortals the means to survive in the Darkness--but where Yelmalio taught exclusivity, purity and tradition, Argan Argar taught people to survive by mingling, changing and working out new arrangements. AA is the god of figuring out how to deal with a new world by adapting to it, Yelmalio teaches his followers to cling to the old world no matter how much the present changes--and we can see how those approaches served them and their followers as the Darkness wore on. Making them bastard half-brothers heightens the contrast between them in a way I find poetic--which is the best meat for further tales, like a reconciliation in what becomes the Great Compromise. It also has an Arthurian flavor that appeals to me on a personal level. I think what Argan Argar gains from this paternity is legitimacy, as ruler of the surface world under the his mother Night. The other Solar gods would be horrified or disgusted, proclaim him a bastard, resist--but as we know, they failed. Yelmalio lost his fire at the Hill of Gold, Lodril was forced to raise the Shadow Plateau and build the Palace of Black Glass. As far as I know there's no detailed treatment of the chaining of Lodril, certainly not from the troll perspective, but I think it could be framed as a sort of "sword in the stone," moment. What treatments I've seen of the binding of Lodril describe him as raging unleashed after Yelm dies, carving his kingdom on and beneath the earth, siring his sons on every goddess he gets a chance to and generally being a big burly volcano king. Yet Argan Argar overthrows him, disarms him, takes his place as Esrola's husband--how does a relative stripling like AA take on a mighty old power like Lodril and win so completely, without taking the awful scars many gods suffer in similar confrontations during the Gods War? I think it makes most sense if Argan Argar didn't need to fight Lodril--he simply proved in the course of their conflict, by the laws of inheritance Lodril was bound to observe, and by the real merits Lodril was inclined to respect, that Argan Argar was by rights his ruler under Darkness. As always, YGMV, and these are just my fan speculations, but I really like the idea of the struggle between Lordril and AA ending not because Lodril is overpowered, but because Argan Argar convinces Lodril that he is in the wrong. I know this changes the usually understood cause and effect--the general line is that AA gained his Suppress Lodril powers after defeating him and taking his spear. My idea supposes that AA had authority over Lodril to begin with, wielded it, and took Lodril's weapon as a sign of his surrender. Then AA has him raise the Plateau and the Palace, and marches him down into the basement to become the place's furnace, converting the wild volcano into the civilized hearth, to provide warmth for Esrola despite the dead sun. (As an aside, I like the phrase "under Darkness," as a ritual cant phrase for the AA cult, like 'amen' or 'selah' IRL.) Finally, re: ZZ, AA and Xiolah Umbar all witnessing Yelm as a baby--yeah, I recall that one, the story of how Zorak Zoran was the first troll to play with fire. For those unfamiliar, the story is that those three gods came upon the the baby Yelm wrapped in his swaddling clothes in the womb of primal darkness. Though the other two drew back, Zorak Zoran tugged Yelm's wrappings aside enough to look at what was beneath--and so knew the pain and fear of Light and Fire first among trolls, though he coveted it ever afterwards, and stole the power of flame from Yelmalio etc. That's one of those situations where the Gods Realm shows its disregard for time as such, because all sources and myths I've found agree that Argan Argar was not himself born from Xentha until after the trolls swarmed the surface, after Yelm's death. The same book that describes this ZZ myth also describes AA as Xentha's 'first child on the surface'. It's anachronistic, because time is something imposed on the Gods Realm retroactively and imperfectly. A God Learner or zzaburi would say all my talk of paternities and legitimacy is just a personification of the sorcerous formula to conquer Fire with Darkness, and hell, they could probably prove themselves correct--though a theist could do the same, in the reverse.

That's fair, and a simple thing to remove from the possible rewards for play groups that want to keep a hard line on this distinction. Lhankor Mhy's cult does have has access to sorcery as of RQ:G though, and the main power of the myth is in bringing together discordant forces, mostly foreign to each other. I thought I was a fun Aeolianist option to give theists on the quest the opportunity to learn foreign magic, but as always, YGMV--and that's a good thing. These are all good points, and I shall address them in order. 1) To clarify something that seems to underlie your other points: no, this is not the Sog City of Fronela. This Sog City is leveled by the end of the story after all, the Waertagi all pack into their completed dragon-ship and sail east. No, one of the things that inspired this story was learning that the Waertagi told outsiders all their shore residences were called Sog City, that there were Sog Cities scattered across the coasts of the world going back well into the God Time. If I had to assign this story specific geography, based on God Learner maps of the Late Golden Age, I'd say the ruins of this Sog City probably lie under Valind's Glacier now, assuming they exist at all within Time. The 'shores of Prax' are a long way from even existing at this point in the cosmic cycle--the place where the Middle Sea would be in modern Glorantha is still filled by the Spike and its surrounding landmass. 2) Engizi is no mere personified river to the Orlanthi of Dragon Pass, from whose perspective this story is told: in Heortling myth he's the Skyriver Titan, a great warlord of the Water Tribe who led their invasions of the Sky in the Lesser Darkness, until he died defeating the poisonous spear-god Korang the Slayer in Dragon Pass and his body became the mighty Creakstream. This is before all that though, when Engizi wasn't a river at all but one of the most belligerent of Ocean's currents, growing in ambition as other Water gods wear the first rivers and bays into the shores of the Earth. 3) This story is told from the perspective of Theyalan-speaking Orlanthi; so Jagrekriand rather than Shargash, and no mention at all of Alkoth--in the myth, the Orlanthi seem to think Jagrekriand and his demons descended from his red planet in the sky, as they'd expect from a Fire god, rather than riding up out of the Underworld from beneath his city, as would be depicted by Pelorians, who know rather more than they care to about Alkoth. 4) The Orlanthi know Vadrus too; that's not what this seems to be. The Furkoosh entity in the story isn't personified, the way Vadrus or Valind or Ygg would be in Orlanthi myth; it's more like a titanic, raging, Chaos-infected elemental than a deity, something that can only exist thanks to the disorders begun by Umath's rebellion. Really, it's a warning against conflagrations like the Gods War and the Hero Wars. The lesson is that when all the greatest champions of the opposing powers gather together and battle each other, the forces unleashed can take on a life of their own and threaten the ruin of everyone involved. That Ernalda seems to recognize this while Orlanth, Engizi and Jagrekriand still only agree to peace at the end because everyone involved is so tired and battered, is part of that tragic flavor the late Golden Age has. For clarity, a God Learner map of the age:

Discussion in the Women in Glorantha thread reminded me of something I wrote for my first RuneQuest campaign a few years ago. I honestly don't remember what it was in-game that prompted me to write it, but I recall quite well the real-world situation that inspired it. It was early autumn, and my area was caught under a mass of rainstorms with no end in sight. The weather just settled down over the region and hunkered, pouring rain straight down. Every declivity in the land flooded, rivers broke their banks, and though I honestly like a rainstorm conditions really did start to wear on me as they stretched on and on. I was playing an Orlanthi shaman in RQ:G at the time, and the real-world conditions got me thinking about what a 'bad storm,' in the evil, wicked or false sense of the term, might mean to an Orlanthi. I also simply like Shargash (whom I call by the proper Theyalan name, Jagrekriand, in the text), and the Waertagi, and wanted to write a story where Orlanth interacts with both. Finally, I wanted to explore a part of Ernalda's life that is rarely touched upon in detail by Orlanthi myth, her time at Yelm's court as one of his underappreciated concubines. The format of the myth itself and its prefacing text are based on an old write-up of the Hill of Gold that my group used earlier in the campaign. Though originally composed for a RQ:G game, it is mechanically agnostic. Now, without further ado,

that was certainly my experience, when I played one

It'd be interesting to see more myths from Ernalda's perspective, that give her more dynamism. There is an arc to be illustrated in her journey: 1)the maiden earth goddess 2)becomes a concubine in the court of the chaste Solar emperor, 3) contrives her own liberation with the help of her storm-god lover, and 4) ascends to become a queen in her own right with many husbands and many more children, till 5) finally she dies in the Greater Darkness, and descends into the Underworld to participate in the Great Compromise. Part of the issue with her seeming static is that most of the Ernaldan myths we have are still written from an Orlanthi perspective. They focus mostly on points 3-5 of that arc, and most heavily on 3-4. If we had more Esrolian sources, or even just a wider spread of Orlanthi sources, we might see more of the process where Ernalda gains all that wisdom. Years ago I wrote a myth set during point 2, where Ernalda was the figure who guided Orlanth, Shargash, Engizi and the Waertagi to put aside their differences and join forces against a monstrous typhoon created by their conflict, but even that was still written from (Vara)Orlanth's perspective. I think there's a myth cycle to be had in the story of how Ernalda was one of the first to notice the widening cracks in Yelm's imperium and started making moves towards creating a successor regime/pantheon before she even met Orlanth.

One element of AA myth that I haven't found any direct references to is his paternity. It's not particularly surprising that this isn't stated clearly in treatments of Argan Argar's cult, since trolls don't tend to place much importance in the identities of their fathers, but it's a connection I'd like to track down for the purposes of myth-writing (and subsequent in-game heroquesting). The sources I've found are silent on the matter though. This lovely genealogy of darkness deities doesn't include Xentha at all, though I'd guess she's a devolution of Nakala, the Primal Dark, or Dame Darkness, the slightly more personified Darkness goddess of the Celestial Court. This question was brought into sharper relief for me by @Sir_Godspeed's mention in the Blood Sun thread of the bit in the Glorious ReAscent of Yelm when he's choosing a wife, where the Griffin goddess claims to already have given him a child. Has anyone ever read a myth or reference to Argan Argar's paternity? As with plenty of Darkness gods, it's certainly possible that there is no father, but I've got to admit, I like the idea of Yelm fathering a secret child with Xentha on a lot of levels.

Do you recall where this story appears? What references I've read to Basko from a Dara Happan perspective tend to describe him along the lines of the Emperor's Other/Kazkurtum: he's the one black spot behind Yelm, the one place he can't see (a framing that should be familiar from the sections in The Fortunate Succession about the Red Emperor and Sheng)--and, personified, he's a bumpkin dressed in tattered peasant's garb, with a goofy floppy hat and disgraceful manners, the opposite of Yelm in every way. The idea of Basko being 'freed' by Yelm's disintegration dovetails nicely with the Uz story of finding a discarded Sky god of Darkness when they fled to the surface and empowering him with their worship. The myth of the Black Sun's Glory battle against Chaos, where the Uz and Chaos monsters fought in ordered ranks, takes on a new resonance in the context of Basko claiming his place as the Solar Emperor of the Darkness and acting accordingly. This is how The Fortunate Succession describes 'the enthronement of Kazkurtum': Which definitely reads to me like after the demise of Manimat (or the Manimat Dynasty, as the Darjiini tell it), Basko led his Uz to conquer and rule the Solar Empire. 'Sterilizing the lands' sounds an awful lot like what an Uz kingdom in Peloria would do to the landscape without the mitigating, harmonizing influence of Argan Argar (compare how the Dara Happans remember this time, and how the Esrolians recall the same general period in the Lesser Darkness), and Uz are quite comfortable in urban settings that seem to humans like anarchic ruin, i.e. the Uz went about cheerfully in the wrecked, depopulated Dara Happan cities, after eating everything worth eating in the surrounding countryside. From a few paragraphs later, this quote would seem to prove a connection in the Dara Happan context between the Empty Emperor/Kazkurtum/The Emperor's Other and the Uz.

Well, one RQG session later and my group has successfully performed a heroquest of Argan Argar Arms the Trollkin. There are spoilers for The Smoking Ruin below, read with caution. @g33k, your prediction more or less came to fruition. - - - We used the version of the myth @boztakang posted upthread. The participants were my Argan Argari from the Shadow Plateau; a Humakti sword-thane; and an Ernaldan noble who took on the role of Esrola; and ten trollkin with some combat experience, one of them a value, no other helpers. Our entryway to the Gods Realm was At first we were confused; we didn't start in the Palace of Black Glass when we entered the God Time, and the Humakti was gone. Argan Argar had to put a whole mess of trollkin in some semblance of order, mostly by banging his spear on his shield and shout-clicking at them in Darktongue, before he and Esrola encountered Hiiya, daughter of Humakt. We were more confused, since this seemed to be off-script; she pleaded with us to help her, and since Argan Argar helps anyone who sincerely asks, he agreed--but she wanted help desperately, her people were besieged by the armies of Fire, and though we had lots of trollkin they were completely unprepared. Argan Argar and Esrola had to roll Worship to keep the quest from getting pulled off-track, but they managed to pull it on to the next station. This was the bartering for equipment for the trollkin. Ernalda tried to Fast-talk Issaries; we got good wargear for the trollkin, but he got the better end of the deal. Of course that stuff was too heavy for the trollkin to even train in, so Argan Argar looked to his cousin, Gorakkiki the mother of insects. She offered to clothe the trollkin in the shed chitin of her own children, if Argan Argar could help her secure a forest to feed them. He taught Gorakiki one of his songs of power, to shape and spread shadows in advance of Gorakiki's insects, to let them feast without fear of the elves, and she obliged him with chitin armor--that the trollkin proceeded to eat offscreen, of course. And then we found out what became of the Humakti: when we entered the God Time they fell through Earth and Darkness, till they found themselves chained in a dark pit, though they still had their sword. The trollkin having been thrown down into the dark at some point, they approached the chained god and started to poke it with sticks. Instead of their sticks burning, though, the trollkin were attacked back by Humakt, who rolled a Special Success and so declared that each expertly aimed stab was meant to cut without killing. Through that sort of demonstration, and then through actual teaching, Humakt began to teach the trollkin swordplay--to spread Death wherever they went, as Humakt put it. Eventually, Argan Argar sent a menial down into the basements of the Palace of Black Glass, hoping to recover the bones and ragged clothes oft he trollkin he threw down there, who must've died long before--but the servant returned stabbed and slashed, claiming to have been set upon by trollkin with swords. This caught Argan Argar's attention. He made an offer to a student of his uncle Zong, the great troll hunter, to capture the trollkin and bring them up for inspection, but the hunter fared no better than the menial, and Argan Argar's glee only grew. So Argan Argar made an offer to Yinkin, the shadowcat-god who'd been lazing around the front stoop of the Palace of Black Glass lately, promising them a pickled sun-bird from the palace larder for each trollkin they dragged alive from the basements. The shadowcat could evade the trollkin; he approached his former kin Humakt there in the darkness, and they had a tense conversation before Yinkin grabbed a trollkin by the scruff of their scrawny neck and brought it up to face Argan Argar. He questioned the trollkin, and used them to summon the rest of the sword-trollkin up from the basement. Argan Argar made them the classic offer: a bolg a week to serve him, two bolgs a week to serve his special friends, and gave the toughest, meanest, smartest trollkin a black badge to show they were in charge. The quest resolved, and the questers found themselves on the real-world side of the again. The trollkin emerged with an instinctual loyalty to the Humakti, who they were now willing to follow as a warleader, and 50% Broadsword. Which was great, because we only did all this because we were . Now, in addition to our scant other forces, we had about sixty trollkin who were suddenly competent, relatively disciplined swordstrolls. And then, when the fighting came, the Humakti critted her Death rune augment and a battle rapidly turned into an overwhelming victory. My Argan Argari led the trollkin in a post-battle feast of man- and beast-flesh. When the fighting was done, my Argan Argari worked out a new understanding between the newly dangerous trollkin and local Orlanthi humans, effectively adding the trollkin to their militia at the standard rate: two bolgs per week per trollkin. He marked a place for exchange between the humans and trollkin on the border between their settlements, and did some legwork after the adventure to ensure human Argan Argar and Xiola Umbar missionaries would arrive before long to help keep the new arrangement going long-term. All in all, a fine Argan Argari adventure.

Uz beliefs on their afterlife vary by cult, same as humans, but they tend to share a theme or goal of returning the worshipers' souls to Darkness. Most Uz cults believe their souls simply return to the Underworld, which the Uz call Wonderhome, to dwell with one or another Darkness gods. Argan Argar's cult believes they join his mother Xentha, the goddess of night, and process across the surface world each evening bringing night's Darkness.

I played a shaman's assistant who initiated into full shamanhood during play in a RQG campaign. An Orlanthi who was initiated in to the Orlanth Adventurous cult, followed the Kolati spirit tradition, and towards the end he set up a spirit cult to an entity the players found in their travels. His fetch was an alynx. The big difference between assistants and full shamans is the degree of agency a shaman has in and versus the spirit world. An assistant can fight spirits and negotiate with them to a limited degree, but a full shaman's ability to bind spirits to their person or possessions by sacrificing POW is a huge deal, and vastly increases the magical power a shaman can draw upon as they acquire more and more sworn or conquered spirits. Always-on Spirit Sight, tremendous spirit combat damage, the ability to fully navigate and maneuver in the spirit world through lore and dances. One of the old Stafford Library tomes, Arcane Lore, describes shamanism as a process of integration: integrating the shaman into the spirit world, integrating spirits into the shaman themselves, gaining power to manipulate the world by becoming more a part of it, by letting it become more a part of you, and that's borne out in the rules pretty powerfully from my (limited, anecdotal) experience. All of which is just discussing the experience of the shaman themselves, without even touching the way the transition from assistant to the real deal changes how you relate to your society.

Without getting into other aspects of the question, among the roll of great Uz battles against Chaos in Troll Lore is a fight named "Black Sun's Glory." According to the trolls, some of them found Basko when they rose to the surface at the start of the Lesser Darkness, and added him to their pantheon. Their Black Sun led them to defeat a chaos army in a battle where both trolls and chaos monsters formed up into orderly ranked and fought a set-piece battle, the first such chaos monsters are known to have fought. No idea whether Basko and Sekever are the same, but according to Troll Lore at least Basko is probably not chaotic.

Rankest God Learnerism! Kargzant is the only true sun!

So in my reading today I came across a detail in History of the Heortling Peoples I'd not seen stated in quite this way before: I'd read before that Ezkankekko was a founding member of the Unity Council, that there was always a troll appointed by Ez on the Council until the trolls withdrew from it on account of the Nysalor/Gbaji project. What I'd never encountered before was an account of the early First Age that puts Ezkankekko and the uz of the Shadowlands in such a prominent, active position in the organization. The section above goes on to describe how, before resolving to declare the first war after the Dawn against the horselords of Dara Happa, the councilors took the idea to Ezkankekko, and only formed their war council when he consented. It sets up the Only Old One as something like the president of the unity council, or the chieftain of the ring in Orlanthi terms, which is not a way I'd ever read sources talk about the uz role in the Unity Council before. Playing an uzko in The Smoking Ruin material has involved running into a lot of debris and wreckage from past uz involvement in Dragon Pass, and one of the main things it's gotten me to pick up on as someone reading and researching this setting is the succession of blows that's been dealt to trolls' place in Dragon Pass and central Genertela by Nysalor/Gbaji, the Orlanthi Tax Revolt, and finally Belintar. I get the feeling there's a really rich seam of stories to be had from the idea of a Unity- or Darkness-themed series of quests to undo the damage the Pharaoh did to the uz in Esrolia, and reassert the old Shadowlands in the vacuum that's bound to be created by the convulsions of the Hero Wars.

So, the game that prompted me to get into Argan Argar stuff met today, and without getting into the details my character may be in a position to perform a heroquest of The Arming of the Trollkin. He got a blessing before setting out on the current quest from the local Argan Argar and Xiola Umbar cultists towards interacting with trollkin, and now he's got three other things too: 1) Fairly dire need 2) Easy physical access to the direct Godtime 3) a local population of wild trollkin A Humakti and Ernaldan are the most likely fellow questers, with some other potential helpers, but he'll probably be the only actual Argan Argar cultist involved. The goal of the quest would be to crash train the wild trollkin into disciplined fighters--you know, by trollkin standards--with the side goals of hopefully arming them with Lesser Darkness weapons from the God Time Shadowlands and empowering the individual questers for a looming martial/magical confrontation. Does anyone have suggestions for me playing, or my referee running, an Argan Argar Arms the Trollkin heroquest in a campaign of RQ:G?

It's when the elephants get together before battle to stomp and trumpet up a whole mess of spirit magic that you've really got to worry though