Pocharngo vs. Primal Chaos

[Ali the Helering]

9 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Too late for that!

Like many, I always assumed the ideas flowed from RuneQuest to Warhammer with things like goatmen but now that you've got me looking at it, I wonder if parts of Pocharngo came the other way. The earliest I can find him in print is the Gods box (1985) while when I consult the grogs I learn that Nurgle is extant by early 1983. The stray "old world" detail with Porcharngo is just idiosyncratic enough that it might be a comment on what Chaosium's former partners were doing with their more explicitly horror-comic-and-Moorcock material.

Someone with the drive to ponder a stack of White Dwarf could probably pinpoint the moment Pocharngo emerges. As for us, it's interesting how the Malkionite West as crapsack "medieval" game environment with "chaos" seeping through the cracks seems to emerge in response to that other one. I wonder if in some undocumented but tense Avalon Hill meeting someone demanded to "do it that way." We should ask Sandy. It would definitely clarify the arcane "two devils, one moral and one more cosmological" formula that emerges around this time. When Glorantha with its moral devil encountered Khorne and company, two visions of chaos contended.

Of course for us it's less interesting than where cosmic orphans like Pocharngo and Kajabor go once they arrive. Nowadays Kajabor sounds more like a dwarf concept (thermodynamic failure or for them, the ultimate evil) possibly attached to a word that looks like it could derive from Vithelan origin. Pocharngo, on the other hand, sometimes followed Jraktal The Tap onto the Pamaltelan mythological landscape. 

They make a good team, the ultimate failure of matter to remain organized and the force that drains energy from the cosmic system for personal gain. Makes me wonder if what we now call Porcharngo was originally a Vadelist invention for the exploitation of the south . . . they might have concocted an entire array of 4-5 "chaos gods" for that purpose, Seseine being an obvious idea. A Pamaltela occasionally troubled by slime, awful growths, mutation, charnjibbers and worse. The Chaos Feature Table is different, intellectual property of Chaosium. This is something more crude.

 

Would that be 'Blood for the Blood Sun' then? 

[scott-martin]

2 minutes ago, Ali the Helering said:

Would that be 'Blood for the Blood Sun' then? 

Too Awful To Even Think About so yeah, I think it must be true.

[g33k]

15 hours ago, Tcneseis said:

I like Pocharngo's cult striving towards perfection. Maybe you mean like alchemists? I'm not sure it is consistent with the deity though

...

This feels very Lunar to me.

I could see it as some sort of syncretist Lunar attempt at revising or co-opting or "taming" Pocharngo's very uncontrolled Chaos.

Edited August 3, 2019 by g33k
Hating the mobile-device editor!

[Ali the Helering]

2 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Too Awful To Even Think About so yeah, I think it must be true.

Of course, the Blood Rain does enable his cultists to grow khorne.... 👹

[scott-martin]

1 hour ago, Ali the Helering said:

Of course, the Blood Rain does enable his cultists to grow khorne.... 👹

IMG

[Joerg]

15 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Too late for that!

Like many, I always assumed the ideas flowed from RuneQuest to Warhammer with things like goatmen but now that you've got me looking at it, I wonder if parts of Pocharngo came the other way. The earliest I can find him in print is the Gods box (1985) while when I consult the grogs I learn that Nurgle is extant by early 1983. The stray "old world" detail with Porcharngo is just idiosyncratic enough that it might be a comment on what Chaosium's former partners were doing with their more explicitly horror-comic-and-Moorcock material.

Uz Lore (2nd ed version, of 1982) mentions Pocharngo as an enemy overcome by Bozkatang after having mutated previous victims.

[scott-martin]

6 hours ago, Joerg said:

Uz Lore (2nd ed version, of 1982) mentions Pocharngo as an enemy overcome by Bozkatang after having mutated previous victims.

Great point. I keep forgetting how seminal Uz Lore is but it also contains the dual devils and various exotic Moorcock-sounding entities like Arrquong so we're back to a pre-Warhammer origin or at least parallel development.

Is that the same slime event as Boztakang's Victory west of the Blue Moon Plateau? Looking at that map, the secondary invasion moving up from the vicinity of the Vadeli Kingdoms in the south seems to be Kajabor. In that model, Jraktal meets Pocharngo in the wreckage of the Great Victory when those two chaos gods fight each other. Also when ZZ pulverizes "Krjalk" here into millions of pieces, is this the troll story of the origin of gorp? Porchango becomes identified with the Gorpgod of Halikiv, one of the closest troll strongholds in the area.

 

[Qizilbashwoman]

On 8/3/2019 at 8:58 AM, Ali the Helering said:

By the power of Greyskull

this is unrelated entirely but boy howdy that reminded me to watch the new season of She-Ra, which dropped yesterday

[jajagappa]

2 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Is that the same slime event as Boztakang's Victory west of the Blue Moon Plateau?

I think it should as the Blue Moon Plateau seems to be Boztakang's stronghold (e.g. the later note on p.12 "Boztakang’s Blue Moon Army")

The "scattered" or "splattered" remains would likely form the chaos army that continued south, though I think the paths were much more varied than what suggested in the map on p.12.

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Is that the same slime event as Boztakang's Victory west of the Blue Moon Plateau? Looking at that map, the secondary invasion moving up from the vicinity of the Vadeli Kingdoms in the south seems to be Kajabor. In that model, Jraktal meets Pocharngo in the wreckage of the Great Victory when those two chaos gods fight each other.

The Eleven Troll Battles state that the Great Victory followed a battle between Kajabor and Wakboth. I always assumed that that battle had been the event that sent Kajabor into the Underworld, as there is no other claimant for slaying the Devil other than Storm Bull.

Kajabor's journey down may have taken a while, though.

IFWW should have coincided with the Ritual of the Net.

Boztakang is mentioned again for Winter Win (not shown on the map), which would be the other opportunity to have dispersed Pocharngo. Otherwise, assuming that the battle which saw the mutation of the Cave Trolls was one of these eleven battles, that army would have had to be afflicted at Stormfall.

Personally, I think that Kajabor and Pocharngo emerged from the Implosion of the Spike, and were not part of Wakboth's initial invasion from the North. Krarsht had already been present (Predark) and could have joined Wakboth's host for the Siege of the Castle of Lead, and Tien is a son of Wakboth, but most of the major Chaos deities not descended from Wakboth should have swarmed the world only after the Implosion of the Spike.

But then, Pocharngo might be the "child" of Larnste and Krarsht, and the Foulblood Forest his birthplace.

 

2 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Also when ZZ pulverizes "Krjalk" here into millions of pieces, is this the troll story of the origin of gorp? Porchango becomes identified with the Gorpgod of Halikiv, one of the closest troll strongholds in the area.

Krjalk appears to be one of the Wakbothi deities, with his branching off to Icebreak (aided by Zzabur).

But then, his Prosopaedia entry suggests otherwise: (https://www.glorantha.com/docs/krjalk/)

Quote

The gods of chaos crawled out from the howling void left behind after the destruction of the spike. Krjalk was one of them.

 

I do wonder about the relationship between Pelandan YarGan and the Theyalan-known Chaos entities.

[Qizilbashwoman]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

I do wonder about the relationship between Pelandan YarGan and the Theyalan-known Chaos entities.

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:

1. I've never quite grokked Bisos, is He Storm Bull?
2. Are there any Eternal Battle deities that are for women?

Edited August 4, 2019 by Qizilbashwoman

[Sir_Godspeed]

53 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Lore questions:

1. I've never quite grokked Bisos, is He Storm Bull?
2. Are there any Eternal Battle deities that are for women?

There are a good deal of Bull-themed deities that seem to come via the Janubia drainage basin up to Western Peloria (eg. Pelanda). Bisos appears to be one of these. Does that make him Storm Bull? Hard to say, I'd say he might be an.... "Uroxid". A relative or comes from the same pre-Time archetype as him, depending on your view of how the God Time worked.

I'm not sure if there are any canonical answers though, or how reliable those answers would be, given the sources.

[Joerg]

59 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

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?

In many ways as the local fight of the bull defender against the devil. Only here the bull is the attacker.

59 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Frankly this suggests a Chaos god (with a Water rune?) purged of it and restored (as a Rain rune god like Heler?).

Perhaps some parallel to Heler being released from the dragon (Enkoshons/Aroka). The detail that the rain deity needs to be put together after slaying the monster is distinctive.

 

59 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Lore questions:

1. I've never quite grokked Bisos, is He Storm Bull?

Yes - his fight against the regional devil is in many ways a reflection of Storm Bull's fight in Prax. But at the same time, this is fighting Daga.

 

59 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

1. Are there any Eternal Battle deities that are for women?

Storm Bull has no requirement of having a dick - being one is sufficient. A couple of berserk chicks are in the Griselda stories.

The Eternal Battle followed Earthfall, and most of the earth defenders would have been turned into the Copper Sands or worse there. There weren't many deities suitable for women left active in the world. Babeester stood guard over her sleeping mother (and aunts, I suppose), taking on all comers, but not leaving that post. Maran probably was with her sister.

Sun Daughter (the Praxian ur-Yelmalio) might qualify.

[Qizilbashwoman]

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

Storm Bull has no requirement of having a dick

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😞

Quote

The candidate is thrown into the Animal Pit and must tame the wild beasts and smash the carnivores as Urox did. He then mates with many goddesses, and his sons spread over the earth. He fights all comers, from his own kin to the awfulness of the Predark. Finally, he fights his own personal Devil, and learns of the need for the support of those who love him — his wives and battle companions.

Many Uroxi meet defeat at this last part of the quest, and those that do may never attempt to join the cult again. Some even die in their struggle with Wakboth. Wounds taken from this final battle become the Bullman’s initiation scars.

Also the description of the Storm Bull calls them "his sons"

Edited August 5, 2019 by Qizilbashwoman

[soltakss]

On 8/5/2019 at 3:12 AM, Qizilbashwoman said:

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😞

Not as far as I know. Storm Bull allows anyone to dedicate themselves to the fight against Chaos.

In Prax, most women follow Eiritha and are not warriors, but some can follow Storm Bull and crack broo heads.

The Initiation Ceremony for Storm Bull does not have a sexual element, I believe Storm Bull goes into the Pit of Animals and climbs out on the corpses of those he has trampled beneath his hooves and gored with his horns. A Woman can do that just as well as a man. You could call them Storm Cow rather than Storm Bull, but I wouldn't bother.

Even the Sex Pit of Ragnaglar is not gender-oriented, anyone can be driven mad by sexual desire, male or female.

[Qizilbashwoman]

5 hours ago, soltakss said:

Storm Bull allows anyone to dedicate themselves to the fight against Chaos.

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.)

Edited August 7, 2019 by Qizilbashwoman

[davecake]

I’ve agree with the idea that several Pamaltela chaos gods are a consequence of, and probably deliberately created by, acts of the Vadeli. They are famous for mass zombie creation from captured enemies, which explains Gark. Succubi are created by perverse sexual acts, such as incest and non-consensual sex, and I think once the Vadeli worked it out, they would ritually commit such acts in order to create succubi as demon servants (useful for infiltrating your enemies). Cheerily, with a smile, because that’s how the Vadeli roll. And that’s why there are so many succubi in Pamaltela. And while the Pocharngo cult whole body mutation thing doesn’t sound very Vadeli, the range of different Pocharngo spells for creating different minor chaos things, like Manlings and Crawling Hands and Fog Bugs etc sound like just the sort of thing a Vadeli magician would love. Plus, of course Jraktal the Tap. Quite how massive sorcerous ritual makes gods I’m not sure, just that it happens. 

And blaming almost everyone awful in Pamaltela ultimately on the Vadeli makes sense, as they are the worst people alive. Yeah, even ogres and broos are better - the Vadeli could be perfectly nice if they wanted to, they just don’t want to. 

Edited August 7, 2019 by davecake
DYAC

[Akhôrahil]

7 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

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.

I'm sure the overwhelming number of Storm Bull cultists are men, but this likely holds true for Humakt as well, where there's emphatically no gender restriction.

[Ali the Helering]

May I point out that males need not be the only ones tested by the Sex Pit. 

[Joerg]

8 hours ago, davecake said:

I’ve agree with the idea that several Pamaltela chaos gods are a consequence of, and probably deliberately created by, acts of the Vadeli. They are famous for mass zombie creation from captured enemies, which explains Gark.

Actually, they learned this in one of their defeats, Revealed Mythologies p.11:

Quote

[Vadel] and  his companions met an Energy Complex then, which had many smaller powers about it, its own great intelligence, courage, and a cruel streak. It took the energy right out of some of the  Vadeli,  in  return  for  that  which  had  been  sent  to Zzabur.  Those  poor  bodies  staggered  away,  mindlessly roaming around the world and scaring everyone afterwards.

I have no idea when or why this became a deity of its own.

 

8 hours ago, davecake said:

Succubi are created by perverse sexual acts, such as incest and non-consensual sex, and I think once the Vadeli worked it out, they would ritually commit such acts in order to create succubi as demon servants (useful for infiltrating your enemies). Cheerily, with a smile, because that’s how the Vadeli roll. And that’s why there are so many succubi in Pamaltela.

The denizens of the Sex Pit apparently would have been known even prior to the Vadeli conquest of Chir and Poto.

If incest creates succubi, then all first generation sacred ancestors will have produced many of these. The term "sister-wife" is fairly common in Gloranthan writings. I have seen one instance of daughter-wife, Elamle-ata.

 

8 hours ago, davecake said:

And while the Pocharngo cult whole body mutation thing doesn’t sound very Vadeli, the range of different Pocharngo spells for creating different minor chaos things, like Manlings and Crawling Hands and Fog Bugs etc sound like just the sort of thing a Vadeli magician would love. Plus, of course Jraktal the Tap. Quite how massive sorcerous ritual makes gods I’m not sure, just that it happens. 

I would expect that rather than creating new deities, these rituals enslaved and then twisted and tainted deities into new ones. The Vadeli pretty much wrote the book for Garangordos and his siblings, with possibly the difference that the Garangordites applied the magics to themselves rather than to enslaved deities.

 

8 hours ago, davecake said:

And blaming almost everyone awful in Pamaltela ultimately on the Vadeli makes sense, as they are the worst people alive. Yeah, even ogres and broos are better - the Vadeli could be perfectly nice if they wanted to, they just don’t want to. 

If that's what you want from your purely evil Vadeli, go ahead. Some games probably need all-out evil opposition, so let the Vadeli or Sheng Seleris serve as such.

 

IMO there is fun to be had with the deeply wronged Vadeli who got twisted from their revenge, too. The attack on the Tadeniti wasn't unprovoked - it was the consequence of Zzabur using Tadeniti magics to skin the Vadeli leaders for his books of magic. The Vadeli struck back against the creators of those magics. All the subsequent events are just mutual escalation of this.

It is Zzabur who causes the Spike to implode and the chaos rift to appear in the center of the world. (True, he was aided in this by other forces, including High King Elf and Wakboth.)

Nothing of this makes the Vadeli really likable. But it makes them somewhat relatable.

[Sir_Godspeed]

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

If incest creates succubi, then all first generation sacred ancestors will have produced many of these. The term "sister-wife" is fairly common in Gloranthan writings. I have seen one instance of daughter-wife, Elamle-ata.

 

I'm guessing different rules for different kinds of entities, perhaps even societies. If we go down this route, perhaps the most important thing is not the physical act itself, but that it is a sexual act of procreation considered deeply by wrong one or more of the parties involved. Also, we might say that some extra sorcerous ritual is involved or something, to explain why succubi aren't a staple of Genertela as well (afaik).

Edited August 7, 2019 by Sir_Godspeed

[Sir_Godspeed]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

IMO there is fun to be had with the deeply wronged Vadeli who got twisted from their revenge, too. The attack on the Tadeniti wasn't unprovoked - it was the consequence of Zzabur using Tadeniti magics to skin the Vadeli leaders for his books of magic. The Vadeli struck back against the creators of those magics. All the subsequent events are just mutual escalation of this.

It is Zzabur who causes the Spike to implode and the chaos rift to appear in the center of the world. (True, he was aided in this by other forces, including High King Elf and Wakboth.)

Nothing of this makes the Vadeli really likable. But it makes them somewhat relatable.

For a RW example of people who did absolutely horrifically monstrous things that at the same time many in this thread would probably find it hard to discount as complete monsters in and of themselves, just look to European colonialists and the transatlantic slave trade.

The difference, I suppose, is that the Europeans were preoccupied with justifying their acts with reference to their God, whereas Vadeli... don't? Or do the Vadeli believe in an Invisible God that they either are spiting, or perhaps worshipping in the "only real way"? If they really are the Anti-Brithini, then I suppose they don't really anthropomorphize the cosmos at all, and are only preoccupied with gaming the Laws. Which I suppose in itself can be used as a justification for why they are free to use other sapient beings as cattle and fuel - they aren't even capable of knowing how the world works, so why care?

[Ali the Helering]

12 hours ago, davecake said:

Succubi are created by perverse sexual acts, such as incest and non-consensual sex, and I think once the Vadeli worked it out, they would ritually commit such acts in order to create succubi as demon servants 

If the Vadeli are so evil, how could such an act be regarded by them as perverse?  If it wasn't, why would it produce a succubus?

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

If that's what you want from your purely evil Vadeli, go ahead. Some games probably need all-out evil opposition, so let the Vadeli or Sheng Seleris serve as such.

Some of us actually rather admire Sheng Seleris…..

[Qizilbashwoman]

1 hour ago, Ali the Helering said:

Some of us actually rather admire Sheng Seleris

I mean, he only went bad after he was summoned from Hell by Argrath; before that he was an anti-Lunar hero.

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

I have seen one instance of daughter-wife, Elamle-ata

Indeed, Elamleata was a hero, as was another infamous daughter-wife: Hon Eel.

[Joerg]

15 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Indeed, Elamleata was a hero, as was another infamous daughter-wife: Hon Eel.

The Red Emperor doesn't really count when the husband is a different mask from the father, IMO.

Naveria, on the other hand, ...