Humakti and Zorak Zorani in the same group?

[dumuzid]

My group handled a version of this dilemma (recruiting a Zorak Zorani NPC to fight alongside a Humakti PC without them trying to kill each other) by having the Zorani swear an oath to my Argan Argar initiate to follow his orders, and abstain from making undead until the quest was complete.

e: in terms of extenuating circumstances, the ZZ initiate swore their oath in return for permission to participate in a Unity Battle against Chaotic undead.

Edited February 18, 2020 by dumuzid

[Glorion]

7 hours ago, Joerg said:

How so, and why, if I may ask?

Death is a shared power and an immensurable realm in the Underworld. Besides Humakt and Zorak Zoran, there is Shargash/Tolat as only one of many other masters of Death.

Zorak Zoran is a lot less of an enemy of Humakt than are Mal(l)ia, Ikadz, or Thanatar. In fact, he is an ally against each of these foes who pervert the power of Death, possibly least vs. Mallia.

Humakt is not really a chaos fighter, either - Humakti and Telmori respect each other as bringers of Death and Darkness. They are rivals, true.

As far as I am concerned, a Humakti will cooperate with Zorak Zorani or Telmori if his sworn leader or employer asks them to.

Also, both Humakt and Zorak Zoran share Arkat as a cult hero or subcult.

 

The rulership over the Middle Sky on the other hand cannot be shared as there is only one top position available. Yelm and Sedenya have arranged themselves through the Red Emperor as their shared avatar. There is no such possibility of jointly governing the Middle Sky between Moon and Storm within Gloranthan history or myth, yet.

The Hero Wars might transmute both Old Storm and Old Moon into something new which might unite those opposed forces, but right now these two religions (not just cults) are at loggerheads for domination of their core realm. Orlanth's great victory in the Chaos Wars was that he liberated the skies from Chaos - his only major achievement fighting against Chaos. There are a few minor victories of his, like the fight against the Lesser Kajabori where he aided Darkness, but otherwise, Orlanth's resume as a chaos fighter is about on par with Genert's - "will man up and stand in its way until almost completely destroyed."

 

That comparison is about as disturbingly wrong to me as it can get.

Humakt has his own personal foe, that later became chaotic - that's Vivamort, earlier on known as Nontraya. Storm Bulls sending in broos is about the same as Humakti sending in Vivamorti.

YGWV. Martin Laurie's Onslaught (look up the digest archives for his stories) would feel right at home among a bunch of Zorak Zorani as long as they refrain from raising the dead or parading their undead in his presence. So would any Lead Cross heroquester.

 

Why do you spell the cult "Humakht", btw?

 

That's not proven in any way.

The relevant quote from the Sourcebook p.120 (repeating the original statement in Wyrm's Footnotes):

Seem to have is the key phrase here. Hearsay or a guess, at best.

 

The Second Council were definitely not (yet) illuminated, at least not in the Nysalorean (Arkati) way that you are postulating here.

I've seen the spelling with the kh in various sources. Yes, Humakht is Illuminated, says so directly in the Glorantha Sourcebook. So is Uleria. As for Storm Bulls and broos, in the battle of Moonbroth Storm Bulls were fighting side by side with broos vs. the Lunars. Every discussion of Moonbroth ever has mentioned the broo contingent. Unless you think the Storm Bulls stayed home? Humakt sees Undeath as the special enemy of death, not chaos, so hates undeath cults, including ZZ, even more than he hates chaos, as you yourself noted. That he is Illuminated certainly has a lot to do with that. When Arkat went over from Humakt to Kyger Litor that was just an annoyance. When he then went over to ZZ that was something else. I suspect some Humakti were on Nysalor's side in the final battle. No account of that that I've seen mentions any Humakhti involvement in the final Arkat/Nysalor showdown. As for the Second Council, Illumination is Illumination, there is no difference between different sorts of Illlumination, as the Sourcebook explains. It's all in what you do with Illumination once you have it. It included many mutual cult enemies. If they were not all Illuminated this would not have worked.

 

[Lordabdul]

8 hours ago, Glorion said:

Yes, Humakht is Illuminated, says so directly in the Glorantha Sourcebook.

Do you have a reference for this? I'm not aware of that, and I can't find a mention of that in GS.

 

[metcalph]

1 minute ago, lordabdul said:

Do you have a reference for this? I'm not aware of that, and I can't find a mention of that in GS.

 

Quote

One god who lived at this time is said to be the last born
of the Young Gods. He was called Rashoran, and none
know his parentage. At first Rashoran went about calming
the frightened gods, teaching them to be unafraid. It is
said that of all the cosmos only he did not fear what he
did not know. He taught this knowledge to some of the
other gods; most of them succumbed to the Darkness
without a struggle after learning from Rashoran, though
a few seem to have been fortified, such as Humakt and
Uleria.

GS p120

 

[Glorion]

17 hours ago, Joerg said:

How so, and why, if I may ask?

Death is a shared power and an immensurable realm in the Underworld. Besides Humakt and Zorak Zoran, there is Shargash/Tolat as only one of many other masters of Death.

Zorak Zoran is a lot less of an enemy of Humakt than are Mal(l)ia, Ikadz, or Thanatar. In fact, he is an ally against each of these foes who pervert the power of Death, possibly least vs. Mallia.

Humakt is not really a chaos fighter, either - Humakti and Telmori respect each other as bringers of Death and Darkness. They are rivals, true.

As far as I am concerned, a Humakti will cooperate with Zorak Zorani or Telmori if his sworn leader or employer asks them to.

Also, both Humakt and Zorak Zoran share Arkat as a cult hero or subcult.

 

The rulership over the Middle Sky on the other hand cannot be shared as there is only one top position available. Yelm and Sedenya have arranged themselves through the Red Emperor as their shared avatar. There is no such possibility of jointly governing the Middle Sky between Moon and Storm within Gloranthan history or myth, yet.

The Hero Wars might transmute both Old Storm and Old Moon into something new which might unite those opposed forces, but right now these two religions (not just cults) are at loggerheads for domination of their core realm. Orlanth's great victory in the Chaos Wars was that he liberated the skies from Chaos - his only major achievement fighting against Chaos. There are a few minor victories of his, like the fight against the Lesser Kajabori where he aided Darkness, but otherwise, Orlanth's resume as a chaos fighter is about on par with Genert's - "will man up and stand in its way until almost completely destroyed."

 

That comparison is about as disturbingly wrong to me as it can get.

Humakt has his own personal foe, that later became chaotic - that's Vivamort, earlier on known as Nontraya. Storm Bulls sending in broos is about the same as Humakti sending in Vivamorti.

YGWV. Martin Laurie's Onslaught (look up the digest archives for his stories) would feel right at home among a bunch of Zorak Zorani as long as they refrain from raising the dead or parading their undead in his presence. So would any Lead Cross heroquester.

 

Why do you spell the cult "Humakht", btw?

 

That's not proven in any way.

The relevant quote from the Sourcebook p.120 (repeating the original statement in Wyrm's Footnotes):

Seem to have is the key phrase here. Hearsay or a guess, at best.

 

The Second Council were definitely not (yet) illuminated, at least not in the Nysalorean (Arkati) way that you are postulating here.

As to Humakht, which I thought, wrongly, to be the usual spelling, that's because it was and is the preferred spelling of Ray Turney, one of the original authors of Runequest, whose gaming group I have been in for almost 30 years now, my how time flies. It's used in "Fire and Sword," his version of RQ, better known as "Rayquest." It's available on the Net, but with his permission we switched to RQG last year, with me as GM now.

[Akhôrahil]

On 2/18/2020 at 2:32 PM, Joerg said:

Humakt has his own personal foe, that later became chaotic - that's Vivamort, earlier on known as Nontraya.

It's very interesting that Humakt and Ernalda share a Divine Enemy, and it feels like something fun could be done with that.

(It's also interesting that such a small-fry god in the grand scheme of things has such impressive special enemies!)

Edited February 19, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Lordabdul]

10 hours ago, Glorion said:

It's used in "Fire and Sword," his version of RQ

Interesting, I was not aware of this. Looks like a whole bunch of files are here on the forums (Ray's old website seems mostly broken). I'll take a look!

Regarding the OP and topic at hand, I think people on these forums often tend to treat Gloranthan cults a bit too much as a collection of fanatical people with completely rigid world views, when really they're all human beings, and human beings are complicated. If we only knew about Middle Earth from a few write-ups in a rulebook, and we read "elves and dwarves hate each other", we might also wonder how you can have both in a party without them trying to kill each other... in reality, probably 90% of all MERP groups had dwarves and elves because, first, they complement each other, and, second, it's fun to roleplay. The only reason we knew to do it is because the novels did it.

The Cults Compendium's "Cult Compatibility" chart differentiates between "enemy" and "hostile". Only "enemy" says that there's no compromise possible. Humakt only has Vivamort and Black Fang as enemy -- everybody else, including Chaos cults, are merely hostile or neutral (Mallia is merely hostile, and, shockingly enough, Thed is neutral!), so working along a Zorak Zorani seems definitely possible. Zorak Zoran is the more picky cult here: besides Chaos cults being enemy cults, ZZ also has enemies in Aldrya, Seven Mothers, and Yelm. So the more interesting question to me is what would happen if 2 players want to play one of those.

Edited February 19, 2020 by lordabdul

[EricW]

Arkat had Humakti and ZZ in the same group. I think say a quest to clean out a major nest of vampires would unite Humakt and ZZ, though you would expect a fair bit of friction, unless the leader was powerful and determined enough to keep everyone in line.

Lawrence of Arabia, at least the film version, stopped strife between hostile clans by personally executing one of his best friends, after his friend committed a vendetta murder. He united people who hated each other by providing irrefutable proof that he cared more about the quest than his personal needs.

[Akhôrahil]

I’m also thinking since we get “all war gods” in places like Charg or the KoW, they must be at least able to tolerate each other under at least some conditions.

[Sir_Godspeed]

11 hours ago, lordabdul said:

Zorak Zoran is the more picky cult here: besides Chaos cults being enemy cults, ZZ also has enemies in Aldrya, Seven Mothers, and Yelm. So the more interesting question to me is what would happen if 2 players want to play one of those.

I wonder when ZZ up and realized that he f**** hated the Seven Mothers. Seems a tad random - but others here might know a proper rationale.

[Lordabdul]

Given that it's a big ass table, we can't rule out that (1) I read the wrong line or (2) the authors typed the wrong letter.

[Qizilbashwoman]

2 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I wonder when ZZ up and realized that he f**** hated the Seven Mothers. Seems a tad random - but others here might know a proper rationale.

maybe it's because the troll shaman Mother from the Blue Moon ruins betrayed Jakaboom for minting a new non-troll god and this new Lunar deity is wrapped around the most powerful Solar cult in Genertela like mistletoe on a tree?

[EricW]

8 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Arkat was a once in all of History hero.  Arkat also left and joined a gazillion cults.  Doesn't mean that a typical PC can.

This is the exception that proves the rule.  If it requires an Arkat to bring Humakti and ZZ together, clearly, they very very rarely go together 

I think a pact not to kill each other until all the chaos worshipping vampires in the local nest have been staked and burned is plausible. 

[Sir_Godspeed]

The question on whether Humakt and some other gods are illuminated was raised earlier in this thread. 

Purely by coincidence, reading the Glorantha.com entry on Dog Fathers led me to finding this answer to that very question. 

https://www.glorantha.com/docs/humakti/