Personalities of the Fire, Light and Heat Runes

[JonL]

On 11/19/2019 at 2:34 PM, M Helsdon said:

Her Runes are Fertility, Earth, Harmony

Those are her RQG character sheet runes. Her in-fiction  Runes in the Guide are Light and Harmony.

(See also: Stasis, Mastery, and Fire for her husband. )

 

[Sir_Godspeed]

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

But then, it doesn't appear like agriculture existed in Dara Happa prior to the coming of the Oslir as a consequence (among others) of Umath pushing his parents apart, lifting off the sky dome while pushing the earth cube into the sea.

 

This could be explained by having an interim between Umath splitting Earth and Sky and the waters invading. In that interim, swidden practice might've been useful.

On could perhaps also argue that early-mid Golden Age Decapolians were less urban then their modern descendants would like to believe, but at this point we're reaching into ancient mythic time, so either can be true for all we know.

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

HIs failure using military force is probably a case of "even Worf was beaten", but his wetlands marriage gives him that role afterwards.

 

But wasn't that marriage transferred to Alkor? Or am I thinking of Biselenslib?

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

HIs failure using military force is probably a case of "even Worf was beaten", but his wetlands marriage gives him that role afterwards.

 

Well, not really, it's a completely different name formed from a completely different root - and in all cases it refers to Shargash in his role as the General of Heaven. It might very well be that Shadzor a different aspect/part/subdeity of Shargash, but at this point I'm equally likely to think that once Shargash returned from Hell, the Vingkotlings did not even recognize him as Jagrekriand. I'm a bit unsure of whether any Dara Happans ever use the term "Shadzor", or "Shadzoring". It's possible that the Hyalorings in Six Ages do use the latter.

5 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Away from the deep sources right now but Lodrilela has been in the air for at least a quarter century now. Here's the trickster a couple decades back.

Am I going insane or is there some mention somewhere of Genert "inventing" theism in that he is credited with performing the first sacrifice or something? A Great Spirit practising theism isn't too farfetched, since we've got Vith, a Great God who practices mysticism (and is hardly the only one).
 

[scott-martin]

13 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Am I going insane or is there some mention somewhere of Genert "inventing" theism in that he is credited with performing the first sacrifice or something? A Great Spirit practising theism isn't too farfetched, since we've got Vith, a Great God who practices mysticism (and is hardly the only one).

The good news is any SAN loss experienced is from elsewhere in that post. Revealed Mythologies says Genner taught the mortals of the northern corner the "do ut des" sacrificial economy. I don't believe the text hints at him as sacrificer as well as recipient, but then again, he is the dying god so his self-sacrifice (utuma) is an interesting angle to conjure with.

Edited November 21, 2019 by scott-martin
sourcing

[Sir_Godspeed]

I meant first sacrifice as in "first to officiate a sacrifice". He might not have been the first, but he's apparently acted as priest of sorts, which is interesting.

[scott-martin]

16 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

he's apparently acted as priest of sorts

I like it. The astounding thing there is the analogue to the invention of yajna . . . Genner as last corner of the earth square = first sparks of Heat Rune = the erection of the vertical axis. Then as the fumes rise the priest feeds something like an exterior sun. (Traces of this survive in Pamaltela.)

RM says only "Genner devised the practice of sacrifice and tricked humans into sacrificing to him, thereby making him the first pagan being." But of course the blue man often lies.

Come to think of it, I wonder how intimately the tale of "Genner" (as opposed to our Lodril) is a Bright Empire program. By the time it gets to the West, the riddlers with their new sun already control the narrative.

 

 

Edited November 21, 2019 by scott-martin
stinger

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, scott-martin said:

I like it. The astounding thing there is the analogue to the invention of yajna . . . Genner as last corner of the earth square = first sparks of Heat Rune = the erection of the vertical axis.

The Gloranthan phallus pre--existed all the elements with the possible exception of Darkness, and it was called the Spike. Earth slid up the shaft to emerge from the Sea into dry space (according to Sea myths) like a pole dancer. She might have been already quite pregnant at the time, releasing Aether to provide something sitting on that dry side.

2 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Then as the fumes rise the priest feeds something like an exterior sun. (Traces of this survive in Pamaltela.)

Is fire necessary to deposit a sacrifice, or was the method of sacrifice the creation of hoards? Sowing the good stuff to reap way more of the same...

I think that Genert is the Sator, placing the seeds.

2 hours ago, scott-martin said:

RM says only "Genner devised the practice of sacrifice and tricked humans into sacrificing to him, thereby making him the first pagan being." But of course the blue man often lies.

Come to think of it, I wonder how intimately the tale of "Genner" (as opposed to our Lodril) is a Bright Empire program. By the time it gets to the West, the riddlers with their new sun already control the narrative.

No, the intrepid Kachasti/Kachisti on their Speaking Tour contacted the lands of Genner a lot earlier, and carried the tales they were told back to the blue man.

The appearance of King Drona in Fronela makes me wonder whether Froalar's exodus was just a repeat of the division between Drona(r) and Dromal, twin sons of Kala.

The arrival of Malkion the Founder can be dated in the Monomyth as post-Birth of Umath. Still already under the sun, but long before the Bright Empire of the Dawn Age.

[None]

23 hours ago, Eff said:

BiselEnslib is the city goddess of Alkoth, and also the goddess of rice in Dara Happa generally. She was the first wife of Shargash. She is known as the "long-legged goddess" and is identified with the figure at III-10 on the Gods Wall, who is a figure with a heron's head and bird legs wearing a short, plain sarong belted with a belt with Earth runes on it. 

That sounds more like an Earth goddess than a Water goddes to me, or did I misunderstand something? I know the water gods are pretty hostile to pretty much everything not in the water (possibly excluding Heler) and was curious if there were more (other than the occasional river godthat has adopted the people living along said god's river).

Speaking of water gods. Are their tendancy to non-gendered or hermaphrodite a result of genders not existing before the Green Age? The only thing I can think of that goeas against that idea are the darkness gods as they're defenitely gendered, but since they exist I've felt entirely certain.

 

18 hours ago, Joerg said:

Dendara is the sister of Oria, which gives her earth ancestry.

Much like Ernalda has been portrayed occasionally as the spiritual side of the earth, with Esrola as the physical aspects and Maran as the destructive ones. This Oria-Dendara relationship is similar, which makes the presentation of Dendara as an alternative to Ernalda in RQ3 somewhat sensible.

Maybe but I can't help but feel the setting doesn't need more Earth goddesses, especially not as a goddess of women, and it feels especially wrong to have what is essentially another face Ernalda (again) as the goddes of citizen/noble women in Dara Happa of all plasces.

Also this:

23 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Granted, that doesn't quite open the door for Dendara being a full-on Earth goddess, since ultimately this is a cult that needs to be accepted IN Dara Happan society, whatever kind of goddess she turns out to be.

Which I concider a very good point. Not to mention that Solar panthen to my knowledge don't (unlike the Storm pantheon) have a big thing about joining with the Earth patheon which make it even odder to have Dendara be an Earth goddes.

 

18 hours ago, Joerg said:

The goddess of the Hearthfire is Mahome, a lowfire daughter of Lodril/Veskarthan, and in Thunder Rebels an adoptive subcult of Ernalda.

By adoptive cult I assume you meanthit its main unction is to adopt women (possible ones that lack the earth rune?) from outside?

 

18 hours ago, Joerg said:

Orlanth and Lodril.

Really?

18 hours ago, Joerg said:

The greatest number of Yelm worshipers is among the horse nomads. In Dara Happa and neighboring lands, only the nobility initates to Yelm.

Wouldn't have expected that. At the same time I feel like I should have guessed what with Dara Happan stratification.

 

18 hours ago, Joerg said:

The Sourcebook (p3, 6) gives Ernalda the lands of Maniria and Saird and Genert's Garden, plus all the drowned places towards the Spike. Ralia's land is separate, even though the Green Goddess of Ralios is Ernalda in all but name. Pelora is separate, too.

I was under the impression that Ernalda had somehow managed to make all the other land goddesses into subservient or lesser extentions of herself (despite technically not being all earth land herself).

 

18 hours ago, Joerg said:

Entekos as the goddess of measuredly moving or still Air in the center of the storm isn't that weird, is it? The contradiction is there, and it is known - Brastalos is another manifestation of the Eye of the Hurricane, and so is Molanni.

So in that vein Dedara could potentially be the (sole? one of the few?) exeption to Air being violent, impulsive, wild and rebellious?

 

18 hours ago, Joerg said:

Quote

While we're on the subject, what about Kralorela's Halisayan? She's given the same description (i.e. the good wife) and runes as Dendara in Guide to Glorantha.

Definitely on the level of "an aspect of" or "another mask of", with added Kralori baggage (different names for the emperor in Kralorela, draconic features, mysticism....)

I actually vuagely remember them favourng the sun over the storm too.

 

18 hours ago, Joerg said:

On the whole, I don't think that elemental sub-runes have much to say in terms of temperament and personality beyond those of the parent elements.

Thanks for the run down on existing and your take on potential elemental sub-runers. Although I do wish they slanted the eleemtal personalities a bit but I can see why it would never have been given much thought.

 

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

The Gloranthan phallus pre--existed all the elements with the possible exception of Darkness, and it was called the Spike. Earth slid up the shaft to emerge from the Sea into dry space (according to Sea myths) like a pole dancer. She might have been already quite pregnant at the time, releasing Aether to provide something sitting on that dry side.

And the reason why the Ocean is so angry is beacuse Erath pushed it assodein the prossess, yes? To tell the truth, even though I understand wwhy (the ocean ad large bodies of water has often been seen as dangerous and capricious) I don't really like it.

It almost entirely removes the Water rune as a viable rune for humans from a theist perspective (although I think I've heard that the west conatins a lot of (atheist) water runed humans) and since the Darkness rune is so heavily slanted towards trolls that makes it feel like the humans are left solely with Earth, Storm and Sky/Fire.

Edited November 21, 2019 by None

[Eff]

8 minutes ago, None said:

That soiunds moere like an Earth goddess than a Water goddes to me, or did I misunderstand something? I know the water gods are pretty hostile to pretty much everything not in the water (possibly excluding Heler) and was curious if there were more (other than the occasional river godthat has adopted the people living along said god's river).

Speaking of water gods. Are their tendancy to non-gendered or hermaphrodite a result of genders not existing before the Green Age? The only thing I can think of that goeas against that idea are the darkness gods as they're defenitely gendered, but since they exist I've felt entirely certain.

I think Biselenslib is an earth goddess if she's firmly elemental, yeah. But she might be a water goddess because she's a wetland bird. 

That's a possible mythical interpretation, but (out of Glorantha) I think it's a metaphor for water being fluid and changeable. 

There are Staffordian statements about the gods being actually genderfluid or similar, although I couldn't cite them directly. So perhaps the tendency for Water deities to be fluid, hermaphroditic, etc. is a consequence of them being so alienated from the lives of land people that they're experienced more directly without the comforting filters of myth? But then of course we have Heler, who is certainly textually fluid while being firmly ensconced within land people's myths. 

[Sir_Godspeed]

5 minutes ago, None said:

Speaking of water gods. Are their tendancy to non-gendered or hermaphrodite a result of genders not existing before the Green Age? The only thing I can think of that goeas against that idea are the darkness gods as they're defenitely gendered, but since they exist I've felt entirely certain.

 

That does seem to be the general gist of it, yes. Or, rather, while genders may have existed, bi-sexual reproduction was not yet the norm, which is arguably also why many of the early Darkness deities seem to procreate through some kind of mitosis or budding or whatever.

Honestly, it's not like there's some mechanistic simplicity to this, but more like a general trend.

7 minutes ago, None said:

That soiunds moere like an Earth goddess than a Water goddes to me, or did I misunderstand something? I know the water gods are pretty hostile to pretty much everything not in the water (possibly excluding Heler) and was curious if there were more (other than the occasional river godthat has adopted the people living along said god's river).

 

The goddesses of the Ralian lakes are generally quite friendly, as is Choralinthor. There are some lost seas in the East Isles ("lost" as in they used to be more discrete but are now joined with the world ocean) that appear sympathetic in Revealed Mythologies. It seems in general that bodies of water had to be "pacified" though some means or other in order to become friendly/tolerant.

11 minutes ago, None said:

By adoptive cult I assume you meanthit its main unction is to adopt women (possible ones that lack the earth rune?) from outside?

 

No, in this case it means that the origin myth of Mahome describes how she left the Fire Tribe (ie. the Sky pantheon) to join the Storm Tribe, by following Ernalda from the palace after Orlanth killed Yelm. Elmal and Heler are other "adoptive" cults, in the sense that they are neither Storm/Air or Earth.

12 minutes ago, None said:

I was under the impression that Ernalda had somehow managed to make all the other land goddesses into subservient or lesser extentions of herself (despite technically not being all earth land herself).

 

It's.... complicated.
On the one hand, Ernalda can be seen as a universal, cosmic goddess of the spiritual powers of the Earth - while in others ways, she can be seen as the local Manirian (Kethaela, Kerofinela, etc.) goddess of those properties.

If you ask a Ralian, it's quite likely they'll explain why it is of course Ralia/The Green Lady who is the true cosmic goddess of the Earth. The question of whether this is just another name of Ernalda (or Esrola) is... difficult to ascertain. Certainly the Goddess Switch shows that these can't be messed with willy-nilly, but there is an underlying connection to them nonetheless.

I personally don't really consider Ernalda to be anymore of a "superior" Earth goddess than any of the others. The Heortlings certainly do, but then I'm not beholden to their biases.

17 minutes ago, None said:

So in that vein Dedara could potentially be the (sole? one of the few?) exeption to Air being violent, impulsive, wild and rebellious?

 

Possibly, yes - insofar as we connect her to Entekos, imho. She is joined by deities like Molanni (daughter of Vadrus and mother of Daga, the Famine God), and Serenha (Umath's daughter, who came into being in his wake - ie. the calmer, swirling air behind the stormwind. She is also seen as the mother of Kolat's wind spirit companions, which is a bit unusual, but that's myths for you), and Brastalos (possible daughter of Kolat or Orlanth, the goddess of the doldrums, ie. the large, windless areas over the open seas in the middle of the perpetual storm around the Homeward ocean - also married to Magasta, whose body is the whirlpool in the middle of the Homeward Ocean, around which the storm circles).

There is of course the potential for all of these "Still/Calm/Good Air" goddesses being the "same", in the sense that all those "Heat-in-Earth/Volcano" gods are all the "same" and all the "Land/Crop" goddesses are the "same". (And the question of what exactly that means, as mentioned above and which I realize I keep harping on about, is forever a conundrum - intentionally so.)
 

[None]

1 hour ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I personally don't really consider Ernalda to be anymore of a "superior" Earth goddess than any of the others. The Heortlings certainly do, but then I'm not beholden to their biases.

Yeah, that seems to be the best actually. Otherwhise your almost forced to belive that Ernalda literally rules the entirte world, only no one has understood it, and that seems a bit much for any of the gods really.

[Eff]

Well, I don't think Ernalda is an "earth" goddess while being an Earth goddess. 

That is, if you take a look at general Orlanthi mythology, you have two Earth triples, both following a maiden-mother-crone motif (and although that motif is largely illusion in the real world, Glorantha does make use of it), Voria -> Esrola -> Asrelia and Babeester Gor -> Maran Gor -> Ty Kora Tek. So where does Ernalda fit in to this scheme? Where's the younger Ernalda, where's the older Ernalda? 

If we look at the story of Orlanth's fight with the Evil Emperor, I think it might be best to interpret what we see as a magical duel. Orlanth pits his Motion, his Change, his power of Becoming, against the Emperor's Stasis, his power of Being. But since the two power runes involved are opposites, there's a stalemate. Orlanth can't win, the Emperor can't hand him a lasting defeat. It's only when Orlanth brings in another power, Death, that Orlanth is able to win. I would argue that this is Orlanth demonstrating Mastery, that he is showing that he can control forces outside of himself. (The myth of Orlanth and Ernalda's romance also has elements of this, but I'd have to do a closer reading to tease them out.) 

So what is Ernalda, in this? Ernalda appears to represent sovereignty here. Yelm holds Ernalda prisoner, and she can only be freed by his defeat, that is by Orlanth taking away Yelm's rulership of the universe. Ernalda is then freed, and Orlanth is in a position to become King of the Gods. But Ernalda can't actually belong to any one person. Yelm was a tyrant for thinking that, and Orlanth, too, fails to defend the universe from Predark/Chaos. It is only with the Ritual of the Net, embracing a plurality of sovereignty, that the universe can be defended successfully. 

One of the few Ernalda-centric myths we have is the one where she teaches humans the Flax Dance, Goose Dance, and how to sacrifice. This would, of course, posit her as a wielder of Death too, but this time back in the Green Age, as she separates humans and gods and tells them who sacrifices and who is sacrificed to. 

It's thus not really surprising that Ginna Jar is understood as either Ernalda's ghost or Glorantha's ghost or Arachne Solara. 

I think that to a very large extent Ernalda is like Sedenya (and the Esrolian Imarja is the equivalent of Sedenya's Taraltara) in that she's both a relatively minor goddess originally (Sedenya the Turner who helped slay Murharzarm, Ernalda the earth goddess of Saird? Wenelia?) and the sovereign power of the universe. If we were being Lunar about it, we would say that Esrola and Ty Kora Tek and all them are just her Masks that she uses to communicate different aspects of the Earth to others. 

So to that extent, perhaps "Heortling" is best translated as "person who sticks forks into electrical sockets to see what happens". Imagine offering sacrifice to this truly arcane and supreme goddess for your little hide of land, and expecting her to answer! And yet answer she does. 

 

EDIT: A charming yet unfortunately confusing possibility is to have "ernalda" be a generic title for Orlanthi goddesses- they're all the ernaldas. So Mahome is the Fire ernalda, Heler is the water Ernalda, etc. etc. In this case I'm drawing upon the genericization of "Asherah" from a goddess to a title in western Fertile Crescent mythology. 

Edited November 21, 2019 by Eff

[Sir_Godspeed]

10 minutes ago, Eff said:

we would say that Esrola and Ty Kora Tek and all them are just her Masks that she uses to communicate different aspects of the Earth to others. 

 

This sort of assumes that the entity named Ernalda is somehow the "true" face of Earth.

I think a better reading is simply to say that Ernalda, along with all the other Earth Goddesses are masks/instances/aspects/etc. of the overall Great Earth Goddess, like fingers on a hand, or the limbs on a body or what have you.

I also think that some of the divisions we see are somewhat arbitrary. Does Ernalda (spiritual powers of the Earth) need to be separate from Esrola (physical powers of fertile Earth) or Maran Gor (violent powers of the hard Earth)? No, I think these are mainly culturally/mythically produced historical particularities. If you go into other regions, this trinity might look different, and be a binity or unity or something entirely else.

This also means that the Maiden-Mother-Crone trinity can also look different, and while you put Esrolia in there, I've tended to put Ernalda in there, partly due to the sovereignty aspect (Asrelia is the former Earth Queen, after all), and Voria isn't necessarily an aspect of any physical Earth, but rather the virgin innocence that both people, animals and places can have - depending on how you look at it. Again, it's not that either is wrong or right, it's just that ultimately the answer you get depends on the question you ask. I've personally had somewhat of a fondness for the idea that Voria, Ernalda and Asrelia aren't so much different goddesses as they are the same goddess in her different age groups, or even that it's different goddesses going through the same roles ("There must always be an Ernalda") - but of course, as with the other trinities above, this differentiation is largely academic and hypothetical. They're fun to think about though.

I know there's a tradition of merging Ernalda (or insert you personal choice of generic-brand Earth Queen) with Glorantha/Arachne Solara, but there is of course the issue of elementalism. It feels a bit wrong to limit the representation of the entire cosmos to a specific element. Perhaps it's possible to amend this by saying that Glorantha/Arachne Solara is an entity whose qualities refract in a number of other protective/sovereignty deities... or maybe I'm making a problem where there is none. (I personally also would like to think that Glorantha the deity and the Invisible God and possibly the Cosmic Dragon have some things in common, due to them being arguable transcendental "supra-deities" that arguably represent the collective cosmos, but I digress).

 

[Eff]

1 minute ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

This sort of assumes that the entity named Ernalda is somehow the "true" face of Earth.

I think a better reading is simply to say that Ernalda, along with all the other Earth Goddesses are masks/instances/aspects/etc. of the overall Great Earth Goddess, like fingers on a hand, or the limbs on a body or what have you.

I also think that some of the divisions we see are somewhat arbitrary. Does Ernalda (spiritual powers of the Earth) need to be separate from Esrola (physical powers of fertile Earth) or Maran Gor (violent powers of the hard Earth)? No, I think these are mainly culturally/mythically produced historical particularities. If you go into other regions, this trinity might look different, and be a binity or unity or something entirely else.

This also means that the Maiden-Mother-Crone trinity can also look different, and while you put Esrolia in there, I've tended to put Ernalda in there, partly due to the sovereignty aspect (Asrelia is the former Earth Queen, after all), and Voria isn't necessarily an aspect of any physical Earth, but rather the virgin innocence that both people, animals and places can have - depending on how you look at it. Again, it's not that either is wrong or right, it's just that ultimately the answer you get depends on the question you ask. I've personally had somewhat of a fondness for the idea that Voria, Ernalda and Asrelia aren't so much different goddesses as they are the same goddess in her different age groups, or even that it's different goddesses going through the same roles ("There must always be an Ernalda") - but of course, as with the other trinities above, this differentiation is largely academic and hypothetical. They're fun to think about though.

I know there's a tradition of merging Ernalda (or insert you personal choice of generic-brand Earth Queen) with Glorantha/Arachne Solara, but there is of course the issue of elementalism. It feels a bit wrong to limit the representation of the entire cosmos to a specific element. Perhaps it's possible to amend this by saying that Glorantha/Arachne Solara is an entity whose qualities refract in a number of other protective/sovereignty deities... or maybe I'm making a problem where there is none. (I personally also would like to think that Glorantha the deity and the Invisible God and possibly the Cosmic Dragon have some things in common, due to them being arguable transcendental "supra-deities" that arguably represent the collective cosmos, but I digress).

 

I think my answer is that, IMO, "Ernalda" is the name the most familiar Orlanthi use for the Great Earth Goddess and it's convenience that causes us to use that name for the sake of communication. 

That said, if everything is made of everything and the pure beings are all gone, it's not incorrect to say that all the gods are manifestations of a particular primal power in varying degrees. It's just that it's only the Lunars who have hit upon this exciting conversational gambit so far.

[Joerg]

57 minutes ago, None said:

23 hours ago, Eff said:

BiselEnslib is the city goddess of Alkoth, and also the goddess of rice in Dara Happa generally. She was the first wife of Shargash. She is known as the "long-legged goddess" and is identified with the figure at III-10 on the Gods Wall, who is a figure with a heron's head and bird legs wearing a short, plain sarong belted with a belt with Earth runes on it. 

That sounds more like an Earth goddess than a Water goddes to me, or did I misunderstand something? I know the water gods are pretty hostile to pretty much everything not in the water (possibly excluding Heler) and was curious if there were more (other than the occasional river godthat has adopted the people living along said god's river).

Both Biselenslib and Surensliba are the goddesses of wetlands, amphibious terrain that embodies both Earth and Water. Neither are elemental goddesses, although both have sovereign claims to their bi-elemental territory.

Both are fertility goddesses and nourishers, and protectresses, if hungry and occasionally vengeful ones (see the Dorkath rites).

With their wading bird aspects, these goddesses are sky entities, too. What they aren't is deities of Darkness or Storm.

1 hour ago, None said:

Speaking of water gods. Are their tendancy to non-gendered or hermaphrodite a result of genders not existing before the Green Age? The only thing I can think of that goeas against that idea are the darkness gods as they're defenitely gendered, but since they exist I've felt entirely certain.

Sea brings an additional level of fluidity, while the first act of Darkness was to solidify reality. Darkness doesn't worry much about shape, but cares a lot about its roles.

I have no idea how gendered Himile and Dehore, the brothers of Subere, are. None of that primal trio offers much in terms of a family life.

Kyger Litor on the other hand is an entity of parthenogenic birthing, as is her daughter Korasting. The rest of her offspring mate normally, as per the rules of the Man Rune.

Seas multiply by mingling their essences and producing something new. Most birthing falls on Triolina and her offspring, and on Varchulanga in the Depths, but lots of procreation goes on between seas, rivers etc.

 

1 hour ago, None said:

Maybe but I can't help but feel the setting doesn't need more Earth goddesses, especially not as a goddess of women, and it feels especially wrong to have what is essentially another face Ernalda (again) as the godders of citizen/noble women in Dara Happa of all places.

Dendara has some complex/complicated mythology hidden between even more complex ancient mythology in the Entekosiad. Her main role is that of the celestial mother of the Planetary Sons (including the female or hermaphrodite ones). She ascended from below, other than her beloved husband, by attaining and maintaining purity.

I don't see her as wielding the powers of Earth, although she has a wide set of wifely powers that overlaps significantly with Ernalda's set of wifely attributes.

Wife and mother and comforter of the powerful, those are her attributes in Dara Happan urban nobility. With the mother role including the strife for the betterment of her sons, i.e. "soft" politicking.

 

1 hour ago, None said:

Also this:

23 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Granted, that doesn't quite open the door for Dendara being a full-on Earth goddess, since ultimately this is a cult that needs to be accepted IN Dara Happan society, whatever kind of goddess she turns out to be.

Which I concider a very good point. Not to mention that Solar panthen to my knowledge don't (unlike the Storm pantheon) have a big thing about joining with the Earth patheon which make it even odder to have Dendara be an Earth goddes.

Lodril is the typical male god of Dara Happa, and he is all about joining with the Earth, in sex or work. Yelm's roles is to stand above all that and to oversee it, and Dendara has risen to support him in that.

 

1 hour ago, None said:

By adoptive cult I assume you meanthit its main unction is to adopt women (possible ones that lack the earth rune?) from outside?

Ernalda subsumes a great many of lesser wifely deities. Thunder Rebels presented Mahome as an aspect of Ernalda the Housewife (Allmother), an over-emphasized role in the Hero Wars era, but still a real one. Hearthmistress is a very real role shared by Ernalda and Mahome, and it doesn't make sense rules-wise to have every hearthmistress initiate to both Ernalda and Mahome as per standard RQG rules, does it?

 

 

1 hour ago, None said:

 

19 hours ago, Joerg said:

Orlanth and Lodril.

Really?

Really. 6 out of 7 Orlanthi males worship Orlanth not because he is the Storm King, but because he is the everyman - warrior, farmer, leader of friends, and magician. There is no separate cult for Orlanthi nobility, only the Rex cult for kings that gives the King power over the priests of Orlanth. (Given that most of the Orlanthi aren't priests, that is a very limited authority, even though those priests hold  a lot of magical power.)

Lodril is both the normal worker (the Ten Sons and Servants) and the foreman.

In Pelanda, Turos is even the ruling god and the culture-giver, with Idovanus (their variation on Yelm) more in the role of a celestial advisor. Yelm is the top administrator, but anything productive or effective comes from Lodril (when he isn't slacking off).

Orlanth's idea of administration is to give precious metal broken from rings to proven companions and to receive their boasts as their application to do a task. For all the other stuff (other than sitting in judgement) he has a wife and a scribe.

The Judgement aspect is held by Yelm. The warrior aspect is weak in either Yelm or Lodril as per Dara Happan expression.

1 hour ago, None said:

19 hours ago, Joerg said:

The greatest number of Yelm worshipers is among the horse nomads. In Dara Happa and neighboring lands, only the nobility initates to Yelm.

Wouldn't have expected that. At the same time I feel like I should have guessed what with Dara Happan stratification.

The Guide section on Pelorian society says so quite explicitely. There appear to be two layers of Yelmic administrative families - highest nobility, and middling overseers and priests (the Enverinus priesthood) as a more pedestrian form of Yelm. Below that come the Buserian scribes.

 

1 hour ago, None said:

I was under the impression that Ernalda had somehow managed to make all the other land goddesses into subservient or lesser extentions of herself (despite technically not being all earth land herself).

Subservient - yes. She is the Queen of the Earth Cube, after all. Lesser extensions - yes and no. The land goddesses are not parthenogenic births like the major earth deities (Asrelia and TKT, Ernalda, Esrola and Maran, Babeester and (half of the time) Voria), but have the Earth King as their father. Ernalda's undiluted claim outweights theirs.

 

1 hour ago, None said:

So in that vein Dedara could potentially be the (sole? one of the few?) exeption to Air being violent, impulsive, wild and rebellious?

Entekos, not Dendara. Entekos is more than Dendara, even though they share a (celestial) body.

There are two male storm gods in the East who are exceptions, too - Kahar, who studied Stillness under Nenduren to win the hand of Harantara, and Veldru the defender storm who fights to hold off the World Hurricane.

There aren't that many named air goddesses in all of Glorantha. Vinga (aka female Orlanth), Brastalos (dauhter of Umath? - goddess of the doldrums in the eye of the World Hurricane), Iphara (Vadrus' daughter of the murder fog), Molanni (Vadrus' daughter of still air, mistress of the evil emperor and mother of Daga the demon of drought), Entekos (Pelorian goddess of the Middle Air), Keraun (Pamaltelan bringer of the monsoon).

 

1 hour ago, None said:

I actually vuagely remember them favourng the sun over the storm too.

Yes, the Kralori have little fondness towards storm (whose main manifestations are the "East Stng Wind" aka Storm Bull storm to their west and the "North Death Wind" from the winter wastes, aka Humakt).

The entire eastern civilization is Solar in nature, with variations in the details. Kralorela was solar before it became solar and draconic.

 

1 hour ago, None said:

And the reason why the Ocean is so angry is beacuse Erath pushed it aside in the prossess, yes?

Not quite, IMO.

The ocean myths (last published in Tales of the Reaching Moon #10 and The Missing Lands) have a name for the Earth Cube: Bab, the food goddess. The oceans welcomed its formation in their midst, and they took nourishment from all six surfaces of the cube while it remained submerged, creating layers of sediment/mother of pearl on it. Then Earth rose above the surface, and only five of their customary six sides of nourishment remained available. To rectify this, Sea pushed to recover that food. Hence rivers, tidal waves, and floods. Umath's birth helped, as did Heler's predicament of separation from the Ocean. Sky River Titan's self-sacrifice completed the cycle.

Basically, earth used to be the Ocean's treasure alone, and it isn't any more.

 

1 hour ago, None said:

It almost entirely removes the Water rune as a viable rune for humans from a theist perspective (although I think I've heard that the west conatins a lot of (atheist) water runed humans) and since the Darkness rune is so heavily slanted towards trolls that makes it feel like the humans are left solely with Earth, Storm and Sky/Fire.

The river gods and the coastal water entities have human worshipers who take most of their living out of the water, and the rice farmers have aquaculture or some "fishing" on the side, too. There is probably a dozen of different cultivars of rice in Glorantha - the Dara Happans alone know several kinds.

The Helerings were a great power of their own before they remained as powerful as part of the Vingkotlings, at least until the onset of the Greater Darkness. The Banthites were a naval culture that ran afoul of the Waertagi (another naval culture). The Diroti and Sofali suffered from predations of the Sky, leading to the extinction of the western two tribes of the Sofali (although the ancestress of the northwestern Sofali still fulfilled her pledge to pay back the favor of Orlanth fighting off the Seabird Army and saving her Diroti folk when she carried him to Luathela).

The Artmali had a naval culture. The surviving cultures in the East became great sailors out of necessity. The Safelstrans are worshipers of their lake goddess and the rivers, and profit greatly from that.

Peloria survives because of irrigation - without that, the Pelorian bowl would be a fairly dry steppe or (if the Aldryami get their way) a rather hardy forest (like Erigia used to be before the Char-un burned it down). Lodril is one of the part time husbands of the rivers. And it is because of irrigation that their culture has a need of overseers and bureaucrats in the first place.

 

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

That does seem to be the general gist of it, yes. Or, rather, while genders may have existed, bi-sexual reproduction was not yet the norm, which is arguably also why many of the early Darkness deities seem to procreate through some kind of mitosis or budding or whatever.

This isn't limited to the first two elements. The first generation of all the Srvuali (pure elemental pantheons) are special in their multiplication. Earth goddesses are parthenogenic, and Aether spawned the three sons Dayzatar, Arraz and Lodril and placed them beneath/inside his hemisphere. Umath is the odd elemental out in the Celestial Court, born from sex between two elements, first of the Burtae. (First in the sense of his importance and power rather than in the sense of being the prototype - look e.g. at Styx.)

2 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

No, in this case it means that the origin myth of Mahome describes how she left the Fire Tribe (ie. the Sky pantheon) to join the Storm Tribe, by following Ernalda from the palace after Orlanth killed Yelm. Elmal and Heler are other "adoptive" cults, in the sense that they are neither Storm/Air or Earth.

Unless this (nice) myth has been scrapped, Thunder Rebels names a dozen handmaidens of Ernalda and their Lowfire husbands (brothers of Mahome) that made up a good portion of the household Ernalda brought home from the court of the Evil Emperor.

 

2 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

If you ask a Ralian, it's quite likely they'll explain why it is of course Ralia/The Green Lady who is the true cosmic goddess of the Earth. The question of whether this is just another name of Ernalda (or Esrola) is... difficult to ascertain. Certainly the Goddess Switch shows that these can't be messed with willy-nilly, but there is an underlying connection to them nonetheless.

If you follow the empirical analysis performed by the God Learners, the land goddesses listed on page 3 of the Sourcebook are of a different quality than Ernalda (or her daughters/nieces serving as local aspects of the land).

 

2 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I personally don't really consider Ernalda to be anymore of a "superior" Earth goddess than any of the others. The Heortlings certainly do, but then I'm not beholden to their biases.

The God Learners appreciate her parthenogenic descent as superior to the fathered cousins like Seshna and Frona. Even though many of the Land Goddesses may qualify as Srvuali (Kero Fin for instance doesn't), Ernalda is from the pure self-replicating strain of Empress Earth.

 

26 minutes ago, Eff said:

I think my answer is that, IMO, "Ernalda" is the name the most familiar Orlanthi use for the Great Earth Goddess and it's convenience that causes us to use that name for the sake of communication. 

Ernalda is the only actively fertile goddess from the pure Srvuali strain from Empress Earth, the Erasanchula of Female Earth, in the God Learner monomyth terminology. That sets her apart.

Oria's and Dendara's ancestry is similar, but so full of names no God Learner ever had to parse that they haven't been covered systematically.

The God Learners and their classifications tend to go more and more wrong the more aboriginal the myths are they encounter. They failed to parse the Eastern pantheons, or mislabeled them (in Eest=Teshnos and Kralorela) base on their false but ideologically founded premises.

 

26 minutes ago, Eff said:

That said, if everything is made of everything and the pure beings are all gone, it's not incorrect to say that all the gods are manifestations of a particular primal power in varying degrees. It's just that it's only the Lunars who have hit upon this exciting conversational gambit so far.

This doesn't quite apply to the greater gods, though.

[scott-martin]

8 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Lodril is one of the part time husbands of the rivers.

This is one of the great points of this thread. Storm guys marry the land to bring rain to crops. There's a tradition of fire guys marrying the river . . . even Zola Fel has this.

There are also the persistent rumors of Ernalda's original husband the water god who may or may not be Flamal to the West of modern Esrola. However by that point the elemental genders are so primitive that easy classifications break down, ironically opening up "sub rune" special cases. "Storm" may really only be an especially successful sub rune of Sky or even a subtle reinvention of Water . . . Umath as Blue Sky, as it were.

Every "Kolate" in the archaic sources is male. While Greg plays around with (and often bends) the latinate suffixes, only the early Likitae and generic Tilntae reliably take the final "-a." This is important to people who want to create space between Earth (Likita), Fertility (Tilnta) and the female condition. There were at least two types of mothers at the beginning and if not all of them were earths, maybe not all earths are necessarily born to be wives. Uleria herself is a blue goddess, right? Mother or bride of Umath? Both?

Remember when "Lodril" was one of the great gods of Pamaltela? The Men And A Half apparently remember something like that but who knows how their religion has developed in the north.

49 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

this differentiation is largely academic and hypothetical

I'd flip this a tiny bit: only differentiations that matter to devotees are anything but academic and hypothetical. When it becomes important to say which strands of solar culture Yelm "is not," then people do the analytic work and isolate as many unessential accretions to the Yelm complex that need their own names and functions so we can focus on the one god at the center of the sky. Otherwise, we don't sweat it so much and the same force animates falcons and horses, healers and archers alike. It's true of all the gods. Every Gloranthan god either has devotees here or not. The Celestial Court is always subject to negotiation. The live ones are receptive to a kind of conversation . . . they talk back.

[Sir_Godspeed]

33 minutes ago, Joerg said:

If you follow the empirical analysis performed by the God Learners, the land goddesses listed on page 3 of the Sourcebook are of a different quality than Ernalda (or her daughters/nieces serving as local aspects of the land).

 

I mean, I get that - but I'm wary of how deliberately using the Orlanthi/Theyalan name Ernalda creates a false impression that it is literally the Heortling Orlanthi deity that is somehow more specialer and importanter than the conceptions of the same archetype (Earth Queen/Spiritual Earth Goddess) in other cultures.

As we've seen on this forum, it can lead to the misconception that Solar Pelorians and who knows else goes around believing that the Storm Barbarians to their south has some kind of divinely accepted dominion over the Earth through the marriage of their storm god to the earth queen, which I think is patently ridiculous. 

The Earth Queen/Spiritual Earth appears in almost every culture, I'd argue, but she is not by default the Orlanthi Ernalda, nor is it a given that the special relationship between her and the Storm King which is so crucial to the Orlanthi myth cycles has to play any significant role in other mythologies. 

I know that most of us here mostly use the Theyalan names for the purposes of simplicity and recognizeability, and that's fine, I'm just wary of reproducing Orlanthi ethnocentrism in discussions that are in effect about comparative mythology. It's like trying to discuss the relationship between Christianity and Islam, but then consistently referring to Muhammad as Mahomet, and seeing Islam ("Mahometism") as a Christian heresy, which early Medieval Christians genuinelly thought it was. (or replace this scenario with the opposite, only using Islamic terms for Christian concepts - you get the point). 

For example, IF (and this is purely a hypothetical one) it DOES turn out that Dendara is released in the Gods& Goddesses of Glorantha as an Earth&Harmony goddess, and she can be mapped onto Ernalda in the same way Oria can be mapped onto Esrola, then that shows that the entire idea of the Earth Queen "leaving" the Sun Court is just true for Orlanthi myths. For Pelorian/Dara Happan myths, she clearly never left at all, and has stayed faithfully by Yelm's side all along. 

Now apply this to Pamaltela, for example, where the principal candidate for an instance of the Earth Queen (or Earth Witch in this case), Aleshmara, has no particular association with Air/Storm, and her daughter Faranar (the other most likely candidate for the Pamaltelan instance of the Earth Queen, making Aleshmara something more like Asrelia, possibly) is married to Pamalt, a fellow Earth Sovereignty entity. 

I guess my overall point is this: prioritized usage of Orlanthi terminology in a cross-religious analysis should not be accompanied by prioritized belief of Orlanthi myths. This was one of the limitations/faults of the God Learners, and we do not need to repeat it.
 

[Qizilbashwoman]

1 hour ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

For Pelorian/Dara Happan myths, she clearly never left at all, and has stayed faithfully by Yelm's side all along.

Dara Happan myth says she left tho?

[Sir_Godspeed]

5 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Dara Happan myth says she left tho?

Which one?

[Qizilbashwoman]

Just now, Sir_Godspeed said:

Which one?

Plentonius' narrative of the God's Wall identifies the wife of Erlandus (Orlanth) as Erlanda, Mother of Kings.

Also the Glorious ReAscent says it was Muharzam as Yelm slain by Erlandus with Terminatus, while Fortunate Succession says it was Muharzam who was killed and it made Yelm sad. (GR also says Entekos was Umath's name and was taken by his daughter.)

[None]

23 hours ago, Joerg said:

Both Biselenslib and Surensliba are the goddesses of wetlands, amphibious terrain that embodies both Earth and Water. Neither are elemental goddesses, although both have sovereign claims to their bi-elemental territory.

Both are fertility goddesses and nourishers, and protectresses, if hungry and occasionally vengeful ones (see the Dorkath rites).

With their wading bird aspects, these goddesses are sky entities, too. What they aren't is deities of Darkness or Storm.

That makes them quite interesting actually. (Although I supose there are a lot of other gods like this too.)

23 hours ago, Joerg said:

I don't see her as wielding the powers of Earth, although she has a wide set of wifely powers that overlaps significantly with Ernalda's set of wifely attributes.

Neither which mean she has to have the Earth rune. The more I hear the more it seem like all women, and even moreso for the goddesses of Glorantha, either trace back to, or originated with, the Earth rune (and presumably the Green age.

Which, if not for the few land gods I've heard about, makes me wonder. Did men only first apear with hte Sky/Fire rune and the Gold age?

 

23 hours ago, Joerg said:

Wife and mother and comforter of the powerful, those are her attributes in Dara Happan urban nobility. With the mother role including the strife for the betterment of her sons, i.e. "soft" politicking.

Wich I admit is a role Ernalda could fit into easily but Changein Dendara into 'Ernalda pretending to be someone else' changes the behind the sceenes dynamic and 'truth' about Dara Happa significantly from if Dendara is her own goddess. As doeas changing her into 'pacified Ernalda' although in a different way.

Both also run the risk of giving presedence to the Orlanthi's view of the world and while simply making her Earth aspected without connecting her to Ernalda avoidse that risk it still has one of the above two consequenses, if not both, albeit to a lesser degree due to the Earth runes temprament.

 

23 hours ago, Joerg said:

Ernalda subsumes a great many of lesser wifely deities. Thunder Rebels presented Mahome as an aspect of Ernalda the Housewife (Allmother), an over-emphasized role in the Hero Wars era, but still a real one. Hearthmistress is a very real role shared by Ernalda and Mahome, and it doesn't make sense rules-wise to have every hearthmistress initiate to both Ernalda and Mahome as per standard RQG rules, does it?

I'm not sure I understand the question. The way you put it it seem like initiating into Mahome counts as beeing initated into Ernalda, only at a lesser degree compared to those initated direcly into Ernalda. I wondered of adoptive cult meant its main function was to adopt non-Orlanthi or non-Earth women into Ernalda.

 

22 hours ago, Joerg said:

The warrior aspect is weak in either Yelm or Lodril as per Dara Happan expression.

By which you mean? I'm sorry but your wording makes your meaning a little unclear.

 

22 hours ago, Joerg said:

There are two male storm gods in the East who are exceptions, too - Kahar, who studied Stillness under Nenduren to win the hand of Harantara, and Veldru the defender storm who fights to hold off the World Hurricane.

The way you put it arguments could be made that gods of the Still Air existed before the Storm rune. Making there be a reason why the Storm rune is called the Storm rune. It risks making their elemental affinity somewat sketchy though.

 

22 hours ago, Joerg said:

The entire eastern civilization is Solar in nature, with variations in the details. Kralorela was solar before it became solar and draconic.

Makes sense. I think I've noticed that Solar civilizations tend to favour men, order and hierarchy.

While Storm civilizations seemto be more unorganized and prone to improvize, with a 'I do what I want' and a 'rule of the strong' and they seem largely unconcerned with gender as a thing in and of itself.

The Earth civilizations seem to favour subtlety, manipulation and women. Up to the point where they call in the Gorites and the blood begins to flow. Unlike Solar civilizations they also seem more likely to make their affiliates want to serve them or feel indepted instead insteads of saying that it is their affiliates duty to serve and the right thing to do.

 

23 hours ago, Joerg said:

Basically, earth used to be the Ocean's treasure alone, and it isn't any more.

So could Glorantha be summed up as. 'Everyone wants the Earth except for Chaos who wants everything gone and maybe the Solars who sometime deny it?

 

23 hours ago, Joerg said:

The river gods and the coastal water entities have human worshipers who take most of their living out of the water, and the rice farmers have aquaculture or some "fishing" on the side, too. There is probably a dozen of different cultivars of rice in Glorantha - the Dara Happans alone know several kinds.

There still seem to be less of te m and they generally seem smaller than the other Elemental civilizations. Except maybe for Darkness who're' mainly only trolls and the Only Dark One?

 

21 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I mean, I get that - but I'm wary of how deliberately using the Orlanthi/Theyalan name Ernalda creates a false impression that it is literally the Heortling Orlanthi deity that is somehow more specialer and importanter than the conceptions of the same archetype (Earth Queen/Spiritual Earth Goddess) in other cultures.

As we've seen on this forum, it can lead to the misconception that Solar Pelorians and who knows else goes around believing that the Storm Barbarians to their south has some kind of divinely accepted dominion over the Earth through the marriage of their storm god to the earth queen, which I think is patently ridiculous. 

Then there's the issue that even if the Solar Pelorians don't belive that the seting itself imply the Orlanthi do because their Storm god married Glorantha's strongest/highest/most supreme Earth goddess to whom all other earth goddesses and land goddesses are ultimately (and mythically?) subserviernt to. In addition, due to that and a few other thing it appears like in the end, everyone is ultimately dependent upon said Earth goddess.

Something Orlanth can never clam since no one need to breath.

I suose Yelm could claim something similar bout the warmth of the sun but he seems to dedicated to his duty to seriously use that part as leverage. We also have the Great Darkness which, eh, neve mind. I think that period actually speaks in Yelms faour as him being a nessiity.

Darkness and Water I know too little about but the Oceans hostility and that you have to tame smaller bodies of water before the're useful imply that everyone alwayshave to work around Waters general unwillingness to co-operate.

[JonL]

1 hour ago, None said:

Wich I admit is a role Ernalda could fit into easily but Changein Dendara into 'Ernalda pretending to be someone else' changes the behind the sceenes dynamic and 'truth' about Dara Happa significantly from if Dendara is her own goddess. As doeas changing her into 'pacified Ernalda' although in a different way.

It also walks all over the Dendara ≈ Entekos semi-connection. I can't see a reason to go that direction while Oria is sitting right over there.

[JonL]

2 hours ago, None said:

On 11/21/2019 at 9:37 AM, Sir_Godspeed said:

I mean, I get that - but I'm wary of how deliberately using the Orlanthi/Theyalan name Ernalda creates a false impression that it is literally the Heortling Orlanthi deity that is somehow more specialer and importanter than the conceptions of the same archetype (Earth Queen/Spiritual Earth Goddess) in other cultures.

As we've seen on this forum, it can lead to the misconception that Solar Pelorians and who knows else goes around believing that the Storm Barbarians to their south has some kind of divinely accepted dominion over the Earth through the marriage of their storm god to the earth queen, which I think is patently ridiculous. 

Then there's the issue that even if the Solar Pelorians don't belive that the seting itself imply the Orlanthi do because their Storm god married Glorantha's strongest/highest/most supreme Earth goddess to whom all other earth goddesses and land goddesses are ultimately (and mythically?) subserviernt to. In addition, due to that and a few other thing it appears like in the end, everyone is ultimately dependent upon said Earth goddess.

The Orlanthi certainly believe that their gods are the best, sure. Who doesn't?

The Dara Happans don't place high value in Earth, they consider it beneath them. It's for Lodril & his people to be soiled with its dirty work and fecund drives, so to speak. From the DH perspective, that the Southern barbarians crow about their Rebel God's union with the Earth is just another sign of their uncouth nature. 

This is another reason why Dendara as an Earth Queen doesn't make much sense, in my view.    

[scott-martin]

17 minutes ago, JonL said:

The Dara Happans don't place high value in Earth, they consider it beneath them. It's for Lodril & his people to be soiled with its dirty work and fecund drives, so to speak. From the DH perspective, that the Southern barbarians crow about their Rebel God's union with the Earth is just another sign of their uncouth nature. 

I'm not even convinced they historically acknowledge Earth or any elemental power beyond the children of Aether.  No sovereign Earth, no Earth Queen position.

I do wonder when they forgot or suppressed that Dendara's forced "happy face" is actually an alternative D rune. The smile is later desperate apologetics.

[JonL]

34 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

I'm not even convinced they historically acknowledge Earth or any elemental power beyond the children of Aether.  No sovereign Earth, no Earth Queen position.

The Dara Happans know no sovereign power but Sky, but they know the others - even as they hold them subservient/inferior. Oria & Oslira both have a place in the Emperor's ordered world (though the latter sometimes must be forcibly reminded of hers), but are fit only for the lesser peoples (Lodrili, Weeders, etc) to worship.

Edited November 22, 2019 by JonL