Jape_Vicho

I didn't know that, but it really does make perfect mythological sense.

Most of the post is just rambling, I've posted a TL;DR at the end if you don't want to read the whole text. I've been thinking about the "religious/cult requirements" for the Orlanthi steadholders, in order to prepare for my not-yet-decided-where next campaign. It is known that orlanthi society is structured along the lines of the Orlanth-Ernalda relationship, using the also known principle of "If Above so Below". The typical orlanthi stead, thus, will follow some interpretation of this relationship, varying depending on the culture. This in reality is the case for most cultures; the other most known (macro)culture, the pelorians, don't differ that much, and their marriage represents the relationship between Lodril and Oria, whatever the names they have in their region (also a very powerful and self-agrandizing minority structures their marriage along the relationship between Yelm and Dendara, but as I'm talking about farmer families I will not touch on them). It would thus be logical that a typical orlanthi family is expected is expected to embody those ideals (again, as above, so below). Mechanically, this topic is touched in two publications that I know of. First, in the Gamemaster's Adventures for RQG, for an adventurer to become thane of Apple Lane and to aquire some of the lands associated with the title, the character needs to be initiated into Orlanth or an associated cult. Dorastor: Land of Doom handles it differently, as it requires that at least a PC be initiated into Orlanth (and not associated cults) in order for him/her to be able to become a Steadholder (meaning the proprietary of lot of farmland, also called a carl). In a way, it makes perfect sense, as I think that in the world, the main non material requirement to be a carl is to participate in the seasonal rituals of the clan that make up and maintain it's magic, for exemple, a festivity in Sea Season in which the women bless the grains and the men bless the plows (this is taken from ALM's Six Seasons in Sartar). In the case of Orlanthi society, this rituals are clearly an Orlanth-Ernalda business, and the reason why all clans have at least a shire to each of them. But despite about 7/10 of Orlanthi follow their traditional roles, meaning they are initiates of Orlanth or Ernalda, 3/10 don't, whether they be initiates of other lightbringers or other non-associated cults. Of course, being an Issariote does not ban you from Orlanth-Ernalda rituals, quite the opposite! You are encouraged to participate, but that does not mean you are initiated into the secrets of those gods, you are merely a lay member. If we follow the precedent of the GM's Adventures, any initiate of a LB cult, Ernalda or any of the Storm gods associated with Orlanth can be a carl without the need to burn a POW point, which is more lenient than the version of D:LoD, but it stills leaves out two of the most numerous cults in orlanthi lands, Yelmalio and Seven Mothers. According to recent Jeff's posts, Yelmalio and 7M are the third and fourth most popular cults in Sartar, and in total they may not be that numerous, each amounting to a ~2% of the Sartarites (this statistic does not count Vaantar, if you counted it the amount of Yelmalions in Sartar I think would get to around a 4% I think), but this number would be much greater in other orlanthi lands as the 7M cult in Tarsh is very powerful, as is Yelmalio's in Saird. Also Humakt is not that popular but still numerous and not associated with Orlanth's cult (or any other). Does that mean that followers of Yelmalio, 7M and Humakt can't own land and be Thanes or Carls? Or does it mean that they must also be initiated to Orlanth (or at least Barntar if they're just carls) in order to do so? I can see a humakti or even a yelmalion being also initiates to Orlanth but a 7Ms cultist in a land where the most "stormy" aspects of Orlanth have not been spressed as is the case for Sartar or Talastar.? That looks hard. How would you rule this? Would you make the PCs have to initiate into Orlanth or an AC in order for them to become Steadholders? In a purely mechanical sense, this looks pretty irrelevant, who cares about a point of POW? But I don't want my players to just invest an abstract point that their characters can't even know it exists and then completely forget about Orlanth and never learn its mysteries or participate in his rituals. TL;DR: in order for a person to be proprietary of a hide of land and the status of carl in orlanthi lands, it seems necessary to be initiate of Orlanth or at least an associated cult, depending on the source, but this leaves a good chunk of popular cults out of this system (mainly Yelmalio, 7M and Humakt). How would you rule it? Would you make the characters have to pass initiation to Orlanth/Barntar, spend a POW point and regularly participate in his worship?

The Umathelan Orlanthi are mainly from Maniria from the first and early second ages right? That region is not particularly known for its solar worship (very far from any Pelorian influences, it has never been built a Sun Dome there, and its hilly and forested terrain is bad for horsebreeding), and if they migrated before the First Revelation or right after the fall of the Bright Empire, they could have practiced no solar worship at all (even if they practiced, it would have been very marginal). But where they migrated to there are loads of Aldryami, and that means a lot of Halamalo worship. Umathelan Orlanthi clans are said to coexist and be allies (or friendly vassals) of the Aldryami, so my best guess is that they adopted Little Sun worship from them, both for its useful magics and as a elf-friend cult, and thus, their Yelmalio worship is very "Aldryamized". But of course I don't think there's any canonical mention of this, it's just an idea.

Now that I think of it, they're kind of like mirroring opposites, Zorak Zoran is an underworld deity that spends a lot of time on the surface (beating ppl up) and has control over fire and Shargash is a Sky deity that weirdly spends a lot of time and has a "locale" in the underworld. Sounds like material for a very cool heroquest.

I wonder if the yelmalions of Vaantar and Mo Baustra (or even further Sun Domes! What about the ones in the Janube and Ralios) do pilgrimages to the Hill of Gold, that could be a cool RQ pilgrimage adventure.

This is pretty interesting imo, and a very good way to show the differences between the Orlanthi and Pelorians, and to clear some minds on the Orlanthi religion (this is all my imagination so it's not canon but I think it fits and it's fun). First, Peloria is way colder than Dragon Pass and Kethaela, the cradle of Orlanthi civilization, so despite the love of hills of the Orlanthi, the cold is much more of a problem for the sun-worshipping pelorians than for the storm-worshippers. Second and even more important is how the two civs react to environmental hazards. A Pelorian village faced with a torrential rain that threatens to destroy their crops will call upon Yelm to smite the clouds and clear the sky, if faced with a hurricane they could call Yelm again or maybe Shargash, who even though dangerous, is a famed storm-killer, and if the winter cold of Valind is making them freeze, they can call upon Lodril to fight him and warm them with his heat. But the Orlanthi follow a completely different approach: if they are struck with torrential rain, they call upon Orlanth or Heler to tame the rain and make it bountiful, not destructive; if they are suffering a hurricane, they obviously resort to Orlanth magic in order to control it; if the winter is too cold, they buy Valind with sacrifices and rituals, so he takes his anger somewhere else (and they also worship Mahome through Ernalda, not through Lodril as the Pelorians usually do). Doing this, they have no need for Yelm, and the only solar deities they may get a use of are Yelmalio if they are facing terrible odds against enemies or if they are suffering attacks from Darkness creatures (but they could also choose the pacifist route and worship Argan Argar instead) and Rigsdal in order to gain knowledge of the stars and planets (and even this can be managed with some weird approach to Orlanth Thunderous). So, the Orlanthi recognize Yelm as the sun god, there's no way to deny that (even though some times they might have called him by a different name, but he is always the Sun Emperor), but they have no need for him, they have plenty Storm, Water and Earth magic to help them with all their problems.

Thanks for all the work, as always Jajagappa. I hope to put all this info to good use in a future campaign.

Thanks to the writer and the sharer, a very insightful read. I too have thoght that a campaign in Saird (well, the Lunar Provinces in general) would be very cool, especially bc a lot of my players are pro-lunars, but I have never tried bc I'm afraid of not being able to create a realistic and "close to the spirit of Glorantha" scenario due to my ignorance of the region's lore. If you are knowledgeable in the matter, could you point to some material that talks about the area or adventures, if there's any, or even share some extra tips that you learned while doing your own campaign?

1) RuneQuest Glorantha. 2) The current campaign started about 9 months ago but examination periods and other incidents have caused the lose of 3 months or more. 3) Late Earth Season 1625, the start indicated in the GameMaster's Screen Pack Campaign. 4) Colymar lands, and we have not ventured far, only Colymar and Malani tribal lands so far. 5) Two of them are two Colymar soblings, a warrior of Elmal and a healer of Chalana Arroy. Other is a Humakti Durulz orphan originally from the ducklands but mostly raised in Lismelder lands. The fourth is an Uzko from the Troll Woods. Recently we added a Pol-Joni shaman. 6) The Rulebook, Bestiary and GM's Screen Pack. Those are all must haves, and I recommend reading some commentaries on the adventures of the latter product in order to improve them. (For exemple, the ones from this blog https://monstersandmusings.blogspot.com/). 7) The best definition would be "episodic". 😎 (this is an 8 ) ) We're still at late 1625 so there hasn't been time for much change or events, but I have followed Nick Brooke's timeline and ideas regarding the Battle of the Queens. No other major change that I can remember. 9) I have pretty strong criticisms of my own work. I would describe it as "underwhelming" even though my players say otherwise. 10) I would recommend you to start with "underpowered" or "young" characters, meaning PCs that have just reached adukthood and thus have only 3 spirit magic spells and 1 RP, in my opinion this makes for a greater progression that the players would probably enjoy more, but you know your players best so you would know if they would enjoy it.

Same god, different yet similar cults. You are not alone, waves after waves of newcomers to Glorantha fall for the radiance of the Sun God of the Orlanthi, myself included (until I saw the Light of the Vision of Many Suns). I don't really know why he's so appealing but it's a fact he is. The writters had some problems fitting together all the Yelmalio-Elmal stuff, but apparently they have come up with the final solution; parts of it have been told here by Jeff and others but the final description of all this seems that will be in the upcoming Cults of Glorantha book. They behave somewhat differently yes, at least from the Yelmalions of the Sun Counties, which are the majority. They don't need to be as strict as the Yelmalions of the SC but their affinity definitely makes them somewhat disciplined. And no gifts and geases. He does not, his fire was stolen, just as Yelmalio's. Yet unlike the horse god of the Orlanthi, Yelmalio still has his light, come and bask in it, brother.

Oh so now I understand why so many people took to following Belintar once he landed on the Kethaelan shores...

Oh and I would consider adding a literal Chaos rune mark someplace on his body, maybe it only shows in combat, when he is enraged, nervous, or some other situation.

One of the scenarios of The Pegasus Plateau takes place there, precisely in the Woods of the Dead. "Gloomwillow's Hollow details the Woods of the Dead, a realm ruled by ghouls and worse." Also this thread contains a huge amount of good info and ideas about the Alone Confederarion.

He can always buy a wolf and try to pass for a Telmori, which are the most tolerated of the chaos-cursed entities in Sartar. You can maybe ask for a roll against the chaotic affinity in some situations that you think fit, and if he fails, he does something chaotic and pumps up his Chaos affinity by 1d10% or something like that.

I don't get this, the spirits of the dead Orlanthi distrust the Lightbringers? Why?