Pelorian initiation in RQ

[Joerg]

Taking this over from the Vinga thread, as it really has left that topic:

 

9 hours ago, Eff said:

Well, there's some overlap because Heortlings have a fairly homogeneous sense of what masculinity and femininity entail. "Everyone" is normally initiating to Orlanth/Vinga or Ernalda/Nandan because all the dimensions of masculine ideals are from Orlanth and all the dimensions of feminine ideals are from Ernalda, with Vinga and Nandan as extensions of those ideals. (This is one of the most entertaining aspects of Orlanthi- everyone is expected to be a worker and a fighter and a leader, all within the scope of a society which has substantial divisions of labor! No wonder they accept Trickster, Disorder is a chronic aspect of life.)

The Theyalan way of initiating most of the population into rune cults appears to be the extreme end of Glorantha's interaction with the Other Side, and not the average. (The Praxians for instance have a huge number of Daka Fal worshipers who don't really count as Rune Cult initiates.)

RQ2 created a different expectation, and the presentation in RQG doesn't paddle back that much (introducing the existence of Malkioni in Dragon Pass in the rules).

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I would say that, and this is somewhere between IMO and IMG, the big defining cult of adulthood for Dara Happa is actually probably the city god/city goddess. Of course, these deities don't have the same kind of scope/Rune magic as Orlanth or Ernalda do, so specialized cults are the order of the day in accordance with your social class and social circumstances. 

The old Cult of Yelm write-up reprinted in Cult Compendium has the Yelm the Youth initiatory stage which establishes an "initiate link" but grants no rune magic and hardly any spirit magic. Basically this creates a one-direction exchange of magic between the ruling deity and a vast swath of the population. How Dara Happan. But then, I am deeply biased against the Cult of Yelm, and have been so since my earliest encounter.

This construct is found in one other cult in older editions of RQ - Aldrya's Children of the Forest.

 

Both these subcults may just be outsized and greedy versions of the wyter in Orlanthi cults (a construct that was only explained in RQ terms in RQG). The wyter rules make the POW sacrifice optional and voluntary. These two cults demand it.

I am not entirely clear about the extent of Yelm the Youth membership in Dara Happa (or the Grazelands). To me it sounds like a magical tribute that was imposed by the horse warlords to the entire (male) subject population,  a tradition happily taken over by all successor dynasties, including the Sun Dragon and the Red Emperor. It is a pretty sweet deal for the Emperor (the chief priest of this wyter), after all.

 

8 hours ago, g33k said:

There's a bunch of countryside deities, too!

Starting with Lodril, a deity almost as important in the cities as in rural communities. (In the rural communities, the leadership role is added beyond that of the foreman.)

There is a whole bunch of variations on Lodril, and there are a bunch of female deities attracting male worshipers, too - the enslibs, quite a few nurturers (minor grain and beasts goddesses), the rivers...

There are a number of Yelm-variant and/or Son of Yelm male deities worshiped in both urban and rural Peloria, with the currently favorite son/aspect conflated into the main Yelm cult (e.g. Kargzant for the horse warlord period up to Eusibus, who took Shargash in that role, followed by Antirius for Khordavu and variants of Yelm afterwards (e.g. Yelm-Arraz) with the extreme exception of the Sun Dragon during the EWF. Important subservient cults are Buserian the bureaucrat and Enverinus the supervisor of sacrifice, perhaps more present in the cities but (too) present in the countryside, too.

Non-Lodril- or Yelm-variant male deities are rarer.

Like I said above, I am not sure whether all these Dara Happan yokels compulsively initiate to Yelm the Youth, but it would make a sense for the Dara Happan scheme to compel the entire population to support the emperor/imperial wyter.

 

The entirety of female worship in Dara Happa is weirdly left hanging in relation to the (yelmic) Emperor. Almost left out.

But then, Pelorian female mysteries are mysterious. There are things going on here, hinted at in Entekosiad, that put the entire Dara Happan surface culture into question - something the Lunar religion has done successfully while keeping the surface culture in place.

But then, the Lunar Way seems to have usurped the Darsenite substratum in pretty much the same way that Brightface Yelm did in the first half of the Golden Age (as per Plentonic dating, and yes, contradicting the earliest of Plentonius' dates).

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And I think those various deities (of city and country) form the majority of Dara Happan worship.  I expect these deities may be approached more like the laity do in Sartar, a bit more gently, with the newly-initiated-adults doing some exploration and experimentation, meditation, counseling with religious figures, etc etc etc.

Pelorians are described as opportunistic theists - switching their focal sacrifice to a different deity if the one they emphasized before fails to deliver. This is hard on the holy people who made the full monte POW commitment to that previous deity to get the Rune Magic (and wyter blessings) for that community, but easy on the barely committed masses. So yes, this is at its heart mass lay worship, gaining its magical oomph from the material wealth sacrifice in addition to layman MP gifts.

 

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And of course many never DO pursue Initiation!  Sartar's high proportion of Initiates (with Rune Magic) is part of what makes them unusual.

Already the Praxians with about a third of their population following the Daka Fal way without any Rune Cult initiation at all have a significantly lower rate of Rune Magic-wielding initiates. (How common are the Daka Fal rune spells in their adherents? Ancestor worship works well with only the mediators wielding that rune magic, and other than Heal Wound, few of these have everyday purpose. Warding is nice to have, though.

 

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But the automatic "you're in this one" is the Dara Happan Imperial identity with Yelm the Emperor.  Boys, I expect, move straight into Yelm upon becoming men; girls into Dendara.

Does Dendara have this automatic "join me" function that Yelm the Youth offers? Is she important to families without a Yelmic patriarch (one beyond Yelm the Youth, including sons of Yelm)?

For the rider cultures, definitely yes, although I find it hard to compare La-Ungariant to the pliable and largely innocent wife of the sedentary emperor. (Yes, she is a mother, but it is like a series of virgin births out of the blue... I don't see Dendara having much of a pregnancy magic vibe, relying on Oria for the nasty business of midwifing.)

 

8 hours ago, Eff said:

Well, I mentally classify countryside people as Lodrilli/Weeders and only the city folk are fully Dara Happans! I think this probably deserves a full topic in the Glorantha forum though, where I can expound on my theories of Dara Happan religious life, haha. 

There is more to rural Dara Happa than weeders and Lodrili dry farming. Each of the satrapies with a population the size of Esrolia is several the area of Esrolia, with grasslands in between. (Not unlike Tanisor...) Civilization mainly extends along the rivers and canals (that double as source for irrigation, as the road network of Dara Happa appears to be negligible.

Remember that conestoga raft in the first episode that was aired of Firefly? Replace the horses with oxen - possibly trudging along on a muddy path on the side of the canal, and you might have a typical Dara Happan transport.

Rainfall in the Pelorian basin is poor. The area around Lake Aral might be a good comparison, both before and after the lake dried up. The Kalikos quests are in the process of drying the region up, they just haven't gone very far, yet.

So there is plenty of space for sparse steppe, populated by antelopes and available to horse riders. Only they outstayed their welcome.

Even cities in the middle of bogs and weeds have no problem to keep horse herds some distance away.

Where there is game, there may be hunters. Probably fire-farming part of the steppe. Much like the brothers of the log.

You might argue that there is Lodril (by another name) the hunter. Maybe that's the case, maybe the Earth Walkers like Gerendetho are remnants of the complementary culture of the ancient Darsenite female mysteries, maybe they are even more primeval (like e.g. Doblian's Arakang king bear).

 

But yes, @Eff, do expound. Here if you want to tie in RQ rules aspects, over on the Glorantha forums if explicitely not.

Edited December 8, 2019 by Joerg
embarrassing typo in the subject

[Eff]

So when I tried to organize my thoughts on Pelorian religion, it quickly began to spiral out of control. For the moment, some thoughts:

I interpret Pelorian life as centered around the polis (or, going by the featherwork in Six Ages, perhaps the altepetl of Mesoamerica is a stricter analogy, but that's quibbling) and the region. The poleis generally share the common Yelmic religion, the regions outside the direct control of the Poleis generally maintain their own customary religions like the worship of SurEnSlib, Vrimak, Gerendetho, etc.

We also know that Weeders and Mudders had to be officially declared human beings by the Red Emperor Artifex, and that sources consistently distinguish between Dara Happans and "Lodrilli" even if, like Argrathssaga, they have clearly very little idea about Pelorian life as such. So to this extent, I define Dara Happans as the people who are permanent residents of the city, and "Lodrilli" as the people of the various countrysides, and then of course additional groups like the wetlands Weeders and Mudders, Arirans, and so forth. 

I think that you can divide the idealized DH social order into three groups of people- the diviners or star-seers, (associated with Dayzatar), the workers (associated with Lodril), and the nobles (associated with Yelm). But we know for sure that Dayzatar's priesthood is tiny compared to followers of Buserian, (and potentially Polaris and Ourania), who are the devolved gods of his particular role in the universe. And we also know that Lodril's "ten sons" are the gods of the basic working tasks of DH society. And so it is not too far to suggest that in the cities Lodril priests are rare compared to the cults of his ten sons. And in turn, I think that the direct Yelm cult, as opposed to the devolved gods, is fairly rare. Yelm Imperator or Yelm Justicemaker is probably a face of the god that is only ever approached by the heads of outright noble families, and instead you have assorted devolved entities (like Arraz) which the majority of the DH noble men actually worship in their day-to-day lives, appropriate with the particular job they're doing. But the thing which binds the polis together is the city-god and city-goddess (except in Glamour and other Lunar-founded cities, which I suspect have one divinity which fills both roles). 

I suspect this can be mirrored for women's religion- Dendara and Oria are supreme entities that most people only approach through "subcults" or specific emanations, which are largely unattested or consist of single names/figures on the Gods Wall. 

In the countryside, Lodril fills the role of Yelm, in being the source of justice and order in the universe, shading over to Pelanda where he becomes one of the High Gods in his guise of Turos, and Yelm/Brightface is a subsidiary deity. And then the regional deities provide the same kind of social structure as the city-god and city-goddess. 

As people go through their lives, they pass through the various subcults, and so it's expected that older people will eventually understand their deity enough to initiate fully. 

What exactly does this mean in RQ terms? It's fairly conventional, I'm afraid- my thought is that most people are initiates only in subcults, in rules language, and so only have a handful of highly specific spells that are almost useless outside a narrow context. So if we were making conventional Dara Happans or Darjiini or whatever, I would suggest writing out a "Yelm" cult, a "Lodril" cult, a "Dendara" cult, etc. with a full panoply of Rune Magic, and then giving NPCs a single Rune spell and common Rune magic and possibly fewer Rune points (since, after all, they are expected to move between subcults) and the vast majority of their magic is thus beyond the scope of normal gameplay. The city-gods I would hold as "lay member"-focused cults, with a handful of priests who have dedicated city-magic that mostly takes the form of such exciting spells as Discern Zoning Violation. 

I would also suggest that these subcults generally do not have full priests, and they're reliant on priests of the parent deities for most religious ceremonies (the parent deities do grant full access to their magic) and this in turn forces a reliance on the paterfamilias and materfamilias in that it's older people, at the head of the family (or at the head of the patron family) who have this ability to lead worship. Beyond that, I don't really have much in RQ terms, just a lot of breathless speculation/inventive effort that's deeply unorganized as it falls out onto the keyboard. 

 

EDIT: My immediate motivational thoughts for this were as follows: Sartarites need to remain the "Kingdom of Heroes", and as such they should have access to a more potent form of magic than many of their neighboring cultures, but rendering it as initiation/non-initiation seems inaccurate on first glance, as it produces the idea that it's rare for people to directly draw upon the divine for magic and the majority of people in Glorantha practice spiritism (this also guides my thoughts on Malkioni magic and sorcery). And for DH, it helps reinforce the hierarchical nature of society to have it be such that the lofty gods can only be approached by lofty people (this is entirely a cultural effect; witness Avivath) and so ordinary people need to approach the gods through their ordinary children and servants, who are the equivalent of RQ/HQ subcults. And in turn, these specialized subcults are ones people are expected to move through frequently. The overall effort is to create something reminiscent of the religion of classical antiquity but with the broody oppressiveness of Old Dara Happa looming to provide a contrast to the freewheeling Lunars. 

Edited December 8, 2019 by Eff
Adding intent and background.

[Runeblogger]

So far AFAIK the official take was that most Pelorians were just lay members.

So, do you mean that Dara Happans are initiates of subcults and they are not allowed to draw magic from the general cult they belong to, only from their particular subcult, right? Interesting. 🤔

It reminds me of how cults worked with the Hero Wars books, where Orlanthi didn't worship Orlanth, but only a particular subcult of the god.

Then, proper Lunars are also a "Kingdom of Heroes" meaning they worship directly a big goddess or god?

[Eff]

4 minutes ago, Runeblogger said:

So far AFAIK the official take was that most Pelorians were just lay members.

So, do you mean that Dara Happans are initiates of subcults and they are not allowed to draw magic from the general cult they belong to, only from their particular subcult, right? Interesting. 🤔

It reminds me of how cults worked with the Hero Wars books, where Orlanthi didn't worship Orlanth, but only a particular subcult of the god.

Then, proper Lunars are also a "Kingdom of Heroes" meaning they worship directly a big goddess or god?

Well, my thoughts on the Lunars are as follows: 

• The Seven Mothers have specific cults that seem almost bureaucratic in nature, as does Etyries and presumably Valare Addi, Kana Poor, Hwarin Dalthippa, etc. 
• We know from the Guide that there are "culturally Lunar" people, who presumably are raising their children in a Lunar fashion.
• The Sedenya cult proper is only open to those who have been Illuminated, or to those who have been Sevened, depending on the source. (I would go with Sevening being necessary for advancing beyond basic initiate status, just to keep the cult theoretically within RQ playability). 
• There does not really appear to be a Rufelza/Red Moon cult as such, and if it exists, it probably has an extremely limited membership, perhaps solely Crater Makers and Moonboat operators. 
• There are seven different Masks of Sedenya just sitting there...

So my thought is that "culturally Lunar" people, instead of their kids being "members" of the Yelm Youth or Young Dendara Adventures cults, instead progress through the Verithurusa-Lesilla-Gerra cycle as part of their lives. If they become Illuminated, or if they wish to seek Illumination, there is the Rashorana cult, which operates the various official schools of Illumination. And then beyond that, there's the Orogeria/Ulurda cult, the Natha cult, and the Zaytenera cult, which are all gods you would normally be initiating into the cults of after being sufficiently Illuminated but which are also drawn upon indirectly. And then there are Lunar citydivinities, which were actually what got me on this thought process- why is Glamour almost entirely culturally Lunar? Because being a citizen of Glamour means participating in the worship of the goddess Glamour and doing so continually exposes you to the Lunar Way and forces you to think in Lunar terms. 

But with that said, the majority of Lunars are also members of the same "subcult" model I've laid out for Pelorians as a whole. (I also suspect the Issaries, Lhankor Mhy, and Chalana Arroy/Erissa cults are similarly segmented in Peloria). You're still performing those labors, so unless you're a bureaucrat of some kind or able to support yourself as a mystic or sorcerer...

(The main inspiration for this is monasticism in South Asia and to a lesser extent in East Asia- the ideal of Lunar society is to become Illuminated and then Sevened, but this seems inconsistent with a large culturally Lunar population- "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" is a good title but experiencing kensho while changing an oil filter is not a good idea for getting that filter changed. So Illuminates are an ideal that most people pursue once they're "retired". Player characters, of course, are maniacs who do go straight for opening their third eye to Sedenya's light.) 

[g33k]

6 hours ago, Joerg said:

... Does Dendara have this automatic "join me" function that Yelm the Youth offers? Is she important to families without a Yelmic patriarch (one beyond Yelm the Youth, including sons of Yelm)?  ...

I'm looking at the question socially, culturally, rather than from the religious/metaphysical cultic POV, and "theorycrafting" (rather than explicitly citing canon) from the single basic fact (which IS in canon) that adult male nobles of Dara Happa all worship Yelm.

For those boys who just WILL be Yelm-worshiping nobility -- no real choice or question in the matter -- joining Yelm straightaway seems like the only likely course.

• It differentiates from the teeming masses
• It's a display of purity and commitment
• It circumvents opportunities to experiment or dabble (that might cause "embarrassing" devotions elseDeity)

Since "everyone knows" the lads will join Yelm's cult, all the reasons other groups have for not doing so... just don't apply.

# # #

Turning to Dendara, then... I look for an essentially identical cultural expectation.  Because of her emphasis on "doing the right thing," on fulfilling the right roles, in the right way, it's probably even stronger in the female enculturation than in the male.  The girls of the nobility will of course be joining Dendara!  And of course they'd never consider anything else!  Moving out of girlhood is identical to joining Dendara (or maybe (just an idle thought) there's even an earlier path to jointure, a pre-Dendaran "children's cult" that allows moving from being a dutiful child to being a dutiful woman?  There is that whole "Legion of Infants" business with Jar-Eel...).

Where I suspect Dendara worship differs, is that I think there's a strongly subversive element of Sedenya worship in the women of the Dara Happan nobility.  I think some (and I'm VERY unclear how many!) Dendara worshipers become Red Goddess worshipers (possibly without ever Initiating into any of the Seven Mothers).  Sometimes this is an open thing, but I expect that sometimes (especially for married/affianced women) it's kept secret:  the feminist Lunars rule the patriarchal/misogynist Solars, and the Solars are busily trying not to notice or acknowledge this humiliating truth; when one of Dendara's "good girls" Initiates to that ultimate Bad Girl -- Sedenya -- it's particularly hard for them to maintain the self-deception.  If the Yelm-worshiper is Illuminated, I expect this becomes a non-issue (or rather, the issue becomes more a PR/social one, than a cultic/metaphysical one).

Yelm-worshipers becoming Sedenya-worshipers is ALSO a thing, of course; but IMHO it's a less problematic thing:  it's rulership-to-rulership, and both Cults have strong traditions of Illumination (which to non-Illuminates often just appears as "dude, that's weird!" but provides some traditional context of the weirdness being, oddly enough, a normal thing:  a known, recognizable, and acceptable thing.)

 

[Eff]

Just now, g33k said:

I'm looking at the question socially, culturally, rather than from the religious/metaphysical cultic POV, and "theorycrafting" (rather than explicitly citing canon) from the single basic fact (which IS in canon) that adult male nobles of Dara Happa all worship Yelm.

For those boys who just WILL be Yelm-worshiping nobility -- no real choice or question in the matter -- joining Yelm straightaway seems like the only likely course.

• It differentiates from the teeming masses
• It's a display of purity and commitment
• It circumvents opportunities to experiment or dabble (that might cause "embarrassing" devotions elseDeity)

Since "everyone knows" the lads will join Yelm's cult, all the reasons other groups have for not doing so... just don't apply.

# # #

Turning to Dendara, then... I look for an essentially identical cultural expectation.  Because of her emphasis on "doing the right thing," on fulfilling the right roles, in the right way, it's probably even stronger in the female enculturation than in the male.  The girls of the nobility will of course be joining Dendara!  And of course they'd never consider anything else!  Moving out of girlhood is identical to joining Dendara (or maybe (just an idle thought) there's even an earlier path to jointure, a pre-Dendaran "children's cult" that allows moving from being a dutiful child to being a dutiful woman?  There is that whole "Legion of Infants" business with Jar-Eel...).

Where I suspect Dendara worship differs, is that I think there's a strongly subversive element of Sedenya worship in the women of the Dara Happan nobility.  I think some (and I'm VERY unclear how many!) Dendara worshipers become Red Goddess worshipers (possibly without ever Initiating into any of the Seven Mothers).  Sometimes this is an open thing, but I expect that sometimes (especially for married/affianced women) it's kept secret:  the feminist Lunars rule the patriarchal/misogynist Solars, and the Solars are busily trying not to notice or acknowledge this humiliating truth; when one of Dendara's "good girls" Initiates to that ultimate Bad Girl -- Sedenya -- it's particularly hard for them to maintain the self-deception.  If the Yelm-worshiper is Illuminated, I expect this becomes a non-issue (or rather, the issue becomes more a PR/social one, than a cultic/metaphysical one).

Yelm-worshipers becoming Sedenya-worshipers is ALSO a thing, of course; but IMHO it's a less problematic thing:  it's rulership-to-rulership, and both Cults have strong traditions of Illumination (which to non-Illuminates often just appears as "dude, that's weird!" but provides some traditional context of the weirdness being, oddly enough, a normal thing:  a known, recognizable, and acceptable thing.)

 

Well, the Entekosiad proves ("proves") that Dendara (and Entekos) are manifestations of Sedenya, so I definitely don't think you need to join an openly Lunar cult to be a Lunar Dendaran. 

I disagree that the Yelm-to-Sedenya pathway is less problematic, though. I think that there's an obvious reason why Sedenya's Masks are all feminine, even when the the associated deity is normally noted as masculine (Verithurus, Zayteneras) or is otherwise noted as genderfluid (Rashoran), and this would mean that Dendara-to-Sedenya is femininity to femininity and Yelm-to-Sedenya is going to involve masculinity to femininity and thus a severe case of Gender Exploration (and the turmoil this causes is thus a step on the way to opening the third eye for Illumination).

(In turn, this is probably why the Lunar Way stalls out in Tarsh initially and makes very little headway except as a political accommodation in Sartar and points south- this "mechanism for illumination" is only really effective in a Pelorian context with strongly opposed genders and in an Orlanthi perspective where gender is less firmly oppositional, a different mechanism is needed. Hon-Eel provided that for Tarsh. It's a shame that those pesky Hero Wars keep dragging Jar-Eel's attentions away from developing a new revelation for Sartar and Heortland...) 

[g33k]

41 minutes ago, Eff said:

Well, the Entekosiad proves ("proves") that Dendara (and Entekos) are manifestations of Sedenya, so I definitely don't think you need to join an openly Lunar cult to be a Lunar Dendaran...

Indeed not!  And I wasn't trying to deny that "Lunarization" is a real thing in many Dara Happan cults, including (and very specifically, for this discussion) Dendara.

I'm asserting, however, that Sedenya provides women a pathway to growth that "Lunar Dendara" does not... and that it's (at least potentially) a pretty subversive thing, from a Solar perspective.  And hence, sometimes a private matter, or even something covert, amongst (some of) the Dara Happan nobility.

 

41 minutes ago, Eff said:

... I disagree that the Yelm-to-Sedenya pathway is less problematic, though. I think that there's an obvious reason why Sedenya's Masks are all feminine, even when the the associated deity is normally noted as masculine (Verithurus, Zayteneras) or is otherwise noted as genderfluid (Rashoran), and this would mean that Dendara-to-Sedenya is femininity to femininity and Yelm-to-Sedenya is going to involve masculinity to femininity and thus a severe case of Gender Exploration (and the turmoil this causes is thus a step on the way to opening the third eye for Illumination) ...

You aren't wrong; but the point I'm making -- or at least, trying to make (sorry for being unclear) -- is a different one.

I'm explicitly avoiding religious & metaphysical implications, and looking strictly at the socio-cultural & political:  Yelm worshipers know of Illumination, know that "oddities" result.  This gives a context that Dara Happans can accept (when a Yelm-worshiping noble does something as weird as Sedenya-worship (wtf dude!)).  Also, the cultural norm of the ruling class isn't violated by worship of a non-ruling deity, another (imho critical) element.

This is a purely social/cultural/political analysis.  It's a flimsy thing, really, in a mytho-magical world like Glorantha!  It's wallpaper covering broken supporting walls.  But... it's all the Solar Way has to cling to!

You're right:  there's a HUGE metaphysical problem waiting in the wings!  Essentially-feminine Sedenya has conquered and rules over the masculine patriarchal Dara Happan nobility.  Solar purity is polluted by the Lunar embrace-of-all -- explicitly even including Chaos! -- and by Lunar cycles ascending over Solar singularity, and... it's hard to find anything (other than the grossly material question of "rulership") that they have in common!

The Solar Way is working really, really hard to ignore these problems.  The "problems" are really ONE thing, and it isn't going away, no matter how hard they ignore it.

But at least the wallpaper is intact!

edit:  dragging it back to Initiation -- I expect both Yelm and Dendara have straight-to-Sedenya paths, not passing through Initiating to the Seven Mothers

Edited December 8, 2019 by g33k

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

I'm looking at the question socially, culturally, rather than from the religious/metaphysical cultic POV, and "theorycrafting" (rather than explicitly citing canon) from the single basic fact (which IS in canon) that adult male nobles of Dara Happa all worship Yelm.

For those boys who just WILL be Yelm-worshiping nobility -- no real choice or question in the matter -- joining Yelm straightaway seems like the only likely course.

• It differentiates from the teeming masses
• It's a display of purity and commitment
• It circumvents opportunities to experiment or dabble (that might cause "embarrassing" devotions elseDeity)

Since "everyone knows" the lads will join Yelm's cult, all the reasons other groups have for not doing so... just don't apply.

There are high nobility Yelmies (eligible for Yelm the Emperor), and there are lowly Yelmies (not necessarily street sweepers, but e.g. the lower Yelmic priesthood (Enverinus), or of other portions of Yelm, or sons of Yelm, who may upgrade into low level Yelm worship and possibly pass that promotion on to their offspring, too.

Or there might be compulsory emperor worship on the lowest initiatory level for all male adult citizens of the Heartlands of any somewhat self-determined level. After all, everybody worships the Emperor. (Yelm as the emperor's wyter...)

The Third Council of the EWF imposed something like this on all its subjects, including the conquered territories like Balazar or Dara Happa. Belintar was accused of a similar crime against Orlanthi individual choice (not up to the level of demanding initiation, but demanding a magic sacrifice from the citizens of the Sixths).

 

1 hour ago, g33k said:

# # #

Turning to Dendara, then... I look for an essentially identical cultural expectation.  Because of her emphasis on "doing the right thing," on fulfilling the right roles, in the right way, it's probably even stronger in the female enculturation than in the male.  The girls of the nobility will of course be joining Dendara! 

That's of course a pre-Lunar expectation. Or, under Lunar dominion, limited to the ultra-traditionalist families of Dara Happa, not like the Assiday moon-accepting ultra-traditionalists.

1 hour ago, g33k said:

And of course they'd never consider anything else!  Moving out of girlhood is identical to joining Dendara (or maybe (just an idle thought) there's even an earlier path to jointure, a pre-Dendaran "children's cult" that allows moving from being a dutiful child to being a dutiful woman? 

Dendara the Bride? Adult, but not yet magical? Magic unlocked only upon marriage or attaining priesthood?

1 hour ago, g33k said:

There is that whole "Legion of Infants" business with Jar-Eel...).

That "Legion of Infants" scheme was a magic to weaponize the innocence of toothless babies against the magic of the Syndic's Ban. No idea which chaotic genius came up with this, but it worked and led the moonboats to the lost Arrolian territories.

 

1 hour ago, g33k said:

Where I suspect Dendara worship differs, is that I think there's a strongly subversive element of Sedenya worship in the women of the Dara Happan nobility.  I think some (and I'm VERY unclear how many!) Dendara worshipers become Red Goddess worshipers (possibly without ever Initiating into any of the Seven Mothers). 

There are other celestial forms of the Goddess to choose from, rather than the Seven Mothers. Although Zaytenara is dangerously identical to the object of the White Moon movement...

1 hour ago, g33k said:

Sometimes this is an open thing, but I expect that sometimes (especially for married/affianced women) it's kept secret:  the feminist Lunars rule the patriarchal/misogynist Solars, and the Solars are busily trying not to notice or acknowledge this humiliating truth; when one of Dendara's "good girls" Initiates to that ultimate Bad Girl -- Sedenya -- it's particularly hard for them to maintain the self-deception.  If the Yelm-worshiper is Illuminated, I expect this becomes a non-issue (or rather, the issue becomes more a PR/social one, than a cultic/metaphysical one).

I am not quite sure. The Assiday family did accept Lunar brides, but I am far from certain that it allows Lunar daughters. Neither Euglyptus nor Tatius feel like giving their sisters or daughters much choice other than to bear heirs to other families.

 

1 hour ago, g33k said:

Yelm-worshipers becoming Sedenya-worshipers is ALSO a thing, of course; but IMHO it's a less problematic thing:  it's rulership-to-rulership, and both Cults have strong traditions of Illumination (which to non-Illuminates often just appears as "dude, that's weird!" but provides some traditional context of the weirdness being, oddly enough, a normal thing:  a known, recognizable, and acceptable thing.)

Still, there are past episodes where other such combinations were en vogue for a time, and then became demonized, as in the Karvanyar reforms ("Yelm is not ...") or the reactions to Spolite Umbarism (a form of illumination deemed harmful to the Dara Happan Empire).

 

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Eff said:

Well, the Entekosiad proves ("proves") that Dendara (and Entekos) are manifestations of Sedenya, so I definitely don't think you need to join an openly Lunar cult to be a Lunar Dendaran. 

The introductory text claims the opposite, but the text collection doesn't seem to be conclusive to the contrary.

In the story of Daxdarius usurping a seat on Mt Jernotius as a High God, JagaNatha replaces Dendara as one of the High Gods. (p.37), but that may just be another cyclical change.

 

1 hour ago, Eff said:

I disagree that the Yelm-to-Sedenya pathway is less problematic, though. I think that there's an obvious reason why Sedenya's Masks are all feminine, even when the the associated deity is normally noted as masculine (Verithurus, Zayteneras) or is otherwise noted as genderfluid (Rashoran), and this would mean that Dendara-to-Sedenya is femininity to femininity and Yelm-to-Sedenya is going to involve masculinity to femininity and thus a severe case of Gender Exploration (and the turmoil this causes is thus a step on the way to opening the third eye for Illumination).

Verithurus is another name for Jernedeus, the Dara Happan spelling for the gender-fluid Jernotius. Zayteneras as an emanation of Dayzatar might be agender.

The pathway from Yelm to Sedenya leads via the Emperor. Having an emperor is a good thing by definition. Having a Lunar Emperor thus is a good thing. Being Lunar having a Lunar Emperor cannot be a bad thing.

 

1 hour ago, Eff said:

(In turn, this is probably why the Lunar Way stalls out in Tarsh initially and makes very little headway except as a political accommodation in Sartar and points south- this "mechanism for illumination" is only really effective in a Pelorian context with strongly opposed genders and in an Orlanthi perspective where gender is less firmly oppositional, a different mechanism is needed. Hon-Eel provided that for Tarsh. It's a shame that those pesky Hero Wars keep dragging Jar-Eel's attentions away from developing a new revelation for Sartar and Heortland...) 

Illumination and the deeper mysteries of Imarja are a thing in Earth-worshiping Esrolia, and Tarsh is often seen as a remote addendum to Ezel, a reservate for the Dark aspects of Earth (Maran and Ana Gor) you don't want nearby. Babeester has her holy place on top of Shadow Plateau...

Hon-eel's teachings do finally find fertile soil in Sartar under Argrath. Too bad that these insights are turned against the manifestations of the Goddess, but then Argrath may be the necessary tool for ascension.

 

[Eff]

4 minutes ago, Joerg said:

The introductory text claims the opposite, but the text collection doesn't seem to be conclusive to the contrary.

In the story of Daxdarius usurping a seat on Mt Jernotius as a High God, JagaNatha replaces Dendara as one of the High Gods. (p.37), but that may just be another cyclical change.

The introductory text has Valare claim that Teelo Imara is Entekos personified, and the revelation she develops is that it's the opposite: Entekos is an emanation of the Great Sedenya (and thus the mystery of Dendara/Entekos is satisfied for Valare Addi: she has proven they are both really the same being as emanations of Sedenya, which is unfortunately not quite useful for most people..) 

[Joerg]

Quote

Listeners be warned!
In Her blessed Presence, I said She was Entekos,
and held my truth against Her Truth.
I was wrong, but instead of Death
She laid this Quest upon me. For myself and Her,
I have undertaken and fulfilled Her words.

p.4

[Sir_Godspeed]

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

That "Legion of Infants" scheme was a magic to weaponize the innocence of toothless babies against the magic of the Syndic's Ban. No idea which chaotic genius came up with this, but it worked and led the moonboats to the lost Arrolian territories.

 

Oh my god, Hideo Kojima stole this for Death Stranding! 😄 

3 hours ago, Eff said:

The introductory text has Valare claim that Teelo Imara is Entekos personified, and the revelation she develops is that it's the opposite: Entekos is an emanation of the Great Sedenya (and thus the mystery of Dendara/Entekos is satisfied for Valare Addi: she has proven they are both really the same being as emanations of Sedenya, which is unfortunately not quite useful for most people..) 

Valare's initial claim that Entekos was Sedenya was punished by Sedenya with blindness, and so rejected. The book is (ostensibly) about establishing that Dendara and Entekos are the same, as some kind of penance-work. The end of it is left a bit unclear. I can't personally recall any Sedenyan identification with either as the book progresses, but I admit the overarching thread of the Entekosiad leaves my brain a bit numb, so I'll defer to others. 

10 hours ago, Eff said:

So when I tried to organize my thoughts on Pelorian religion, it quickly began to spiral out of control.

Thank god! It wouldn't have been appropriate for this forum otherwise!

[Sir_Godspeed]

Going back to game-focused chat - what is the situation of the non-Tripolis cities of north-central/riverine ("Dara Happan") Peloria? Do we see cultural Dara Happans there, do we see Yelmic nobility, do we see cultural forms mainly based on Dara Happan traditions? 

Whenever we discuss Dara Happa I feel like my mind laser-focuses in on the Tripolis, but the scope cannot be this narrow, culturally, politically and religiously. 

Also: Are Dara Hapan full-citizens synonymous with the nobility, or do they make up two different classes?

[Runeblogger]

8 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Going back to game-focused chat - what is the situation o

Also: Are Dara Hapan full-citizens synonymous with the nobility, or do they make up two different classes?

This is explored in "Red Sun Rising", a HeroQuest campaign by d101 Games set in a Lunar Dara Happan city. I wonder if anyone has tried to play it using RuneQuest, and what they did with initiation. 

https://d101games.com/product/gloranthan-adventures-2-red-sun-rising/

And then there's also "Dara Happa Stirs" set in the Second Age, for Mongoose's RQII.

Edited December 9, 2019 by Runeblogger

[Eff]

1 hour ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Going back to game-focused chat - what is the situation of the non-Tripolis cities of north-central/riverine ("Dara Happan") Peloria? Do we see cultural Dara Happans there, do we see Yelmic nobility, do we see cultural forms mainly based on Dara Happan traditions? 

Whenever we discuss Dara Happa I feel like my mind laser-focuses in on the Tripolis, but the scope cannot be this narrow, culturally, politically and religiously. 

Also: Are Dara Hapan full-citizens synonymous with the nobility, or do they make up two different classes?

Unfortunately I had a computer glitch before checking this all the way, but the vast majority of urban  Dara Happans live in the Tripolis, Elz Ast, and a handful of colony cities, it seems according to the Guide. The exception being Kostaddi, where the entire population is culturally Dara Happan. So I think that the Oslira valley itself is culturally Dara Happan to the hilt but that this vanishes very quickly outside those river banks.

[alakoring]

On 12/8/2019 at 6:35 AM, Eff said:

going by the featherwork in Six Ages, perhaps the altepetl of Mesoamerica is a stricter analogy

Not going by the Seven Families of the Riders?

[Eff]

18 minutes ago, alakoring said:

Not going by the Seven Families of the Riders?

Well, the painting in question is so striking that it's the first thing that comes to mind, lol.