Women in Glorantha

[Bohemond]

I was thinking about Ernalda myths today and realized something that's bugged me about the way Ernalda has been treated since Hero Wars. Orlanth is (and has always been presented as) a god who learns and grows. He kills the Emperor and later realizes that was a bad idea, so he goes and fixes it. He doesn't know what to do, so he asks Ernalda and tells him. He gets low-key manipulated by Ernalda periodically (she gets him to form the Storm Tribe, for example). So his stories show him changing and becoming wiser over time. 

In contrast, Ernalda doesn't really seem to change and grow. She's just always wise. She accomplishes things, but never learns anything because she already knows it. So her myths are kinda boring. She never gets any character development. It's an example of the unrealistic expectations men often have about women. She doesn't offer any sort of model for women who are imperfect in any way. So she's sort of the grown-up in a relationship with a kind of Storm Tribe bro that she needs to drag into maturity. 

If Orlanth and Ernalda are equals, shouldn't he occasionally be playing the role of guide and teacher for her? Shouldn't she have problems she needs to puzzle out? 

[HeartQuintessence]

10 hours ago, Bohemond said:

I was thinking about Ernalda myths today and realized something that's bugged me about the way Ernalda has been treated since Hero Wars. Orlanth is (and has always been presented as) a god who learns and grows. He kills the Emperor and later realizes that was a bad idea, so he goes and fixes it. He doesn't know what to do, so he asks Ernalda and tells him. He gets low-key manipulated by Ernalda periodically (she gets him to form the Storm Tribe, for example). So his stories show him changing and becoming wiser over time. 

In contrast, Ernalda doesn't really seem to change and grow. She's just always wise. She accomplishes things, but never learns anything because she already knows it. So her myths are kinda boring. She never gets any character development. It's an example of the unrealistic expectations men often have about women. She doesn't offer any sort of model for women who are imperfect in any way. So she's sort of the grown-up in a relationship with a kind of Storm Tribe bro that she needs to drag into maturity. 

If Orlanth and Ernalda are equals, shouldn't he occasionally be playing the role of guide and teacher for her? Shouldn't she have problems she needs to puzzle out? 

Great points. Maybe it's the whole, wise earth goddess trope at work?

[Grievous]

Yeah, the Earth is pretty solid and dependable. The Storm is fickle and ever-changing. So it does kinda make sense. I sort of see the point made, though.

[dumuzid]

It'd be interesting to see more myths from Ernalda's perspective, that give her more dynamism.  There is an arc to be illustrated in her journey: 1)the maiden earth goddess 2)becomes a concubine in the court of the chaste Solar emperor, 3) contrives her own liberation with the help of her storm-god lover, and 4) ascends to become a queen in her own right with many husbands and many more children, till 5) finally she dies in the Greater Darkness, and descends into the Underworld to participate in the Great Compromise.

Part of the issue with her seeming static is that most of the Ernaldan myths we have are still written from an Orlanthi perspective.  They focus mostly on points 3-5 of that arc, and most heavily on 3-4.  If we had more Esrolian sources, or even just a wider spread of Orlanthi sources, we might see more of the process where Ernalda gains all that wisdom.  Years ago I wrote a myth set during point 2, where Ernalda was the figure who guided Orlanth, Shargash, Engizi and the Waertagi to put aside their differences and join forces against a monstrous typhoon created by their conflict, but even that was still written from (Vara)Orlanth's perspective.  I think there's a myth cycle to be had in the story of how Ernalda was one of the first to notice the widening cracks in Yelm's imperium and started making moves towards creating a successor regime/pantheon before she even met Orlanth.

[Richard S.]

Possibly we don't have as many myths about Ernalda growing up because by the time Orlanth got to get she was already done with that. Sure, she probably did go through growth and learning, but by the time she joined the storm tribe she was a mature woman already. There's also possibly a point to be made that her learning was easier and not as turbulent as Orlanth's, since she actually had the support of her family while Orlanth basically had to figure everything out himself.

[scott-martin]

53 minutes ago, dumuzid said:

There is an arc to be illustrated in her journey: 1)the maiden earth goddess 2)becomes a concubine in the court of the chaste Solar emperor, 3) contrives her own liberation with the help of her storm-god lover, and 4) ascends to become a queen in her own right with many husbands and many more children, till 5) finally she dies in the Greater Darkness, and descends into the Underworld to participate in the Great Compromise.

Love this. I think she's clearly made mistakes but until the publishing made room to demonstrate her triumphs focusing on them would not have been productive. But the day is coming when the goddess complex passes the Bechdel Test . . . female spiritualities lined up on multiple sides, conflicting views, social war in Tarsh, social war in Esrolia. Many Earths. Ultimately a good day but maybe some will feel nostalgic for the solidarity that preceded it and few hands will be easily cleaned.

[Akhôrahil]

16 hours ago, Bohemond said:

I was thinking about Ernalda myths today and realized something that's bugged me about the way Ernalda has been treated since Hero Wars. Orlanth is (and has always been presented as) a god who learns and grows. He kills the Emperor and later realizes that was a bad idea, so he goes and fixes it. He doesn't know what to do, so he asks Ernalda and tells him. He gets low-key manipulated by Ernalda periodically (she gets him to form the Storm Tribe, for example). So his stories show him changing and becoming wiser over time. 

In contrast, Ernalda doesn't really seem to change and grow. She's just always wise. She accomplishes things, but never learns anything because she already knows it. So her myths are kinda boring. She never gets any character development. It's an example of the unrealistic expectations men often have about women. She doesn't offer any sort of model for women who are imperfect in any way. So she's sort of the grown-up in a relationship with a kind of Storm Tribe bro that she needs to drag into maturity.

Although to an extent, Ernalda's personal development is externalized into the Voria/Ernalda/Asrelia triad. No, they're not the same gods exactly, but not in any way that really matters, and one day, Ernalda will have Asrelia's spot in the triad.

[Sir_Godspeed]

There's a bit of crossing of wires, I think. We're not only dealing with masculinity and feminity, and representing those in equally dynamic and interesting manners - but of course the elemental stereotypes of Air and Earth act as an intersectioning category. And Earth is, generally, a lot more reliable, stolid and unchanging. 

Or, well, Ernalda's type of Earth is. If she had been causing earthquakes only to learn that it harms her children, or something, we could have made an arc pretty dramatically. Instead we have to kinda mine the "spiritual earth" of community and cooperation and that Ernalda represents. Giving her moments where she's naive and overconfident and learns the necessity of negotiating and compromise, or trickery are probably doable. Giving her other cases where she needs to learn a craft or skill are also doable. But this stuff is generally pre-Orlanth. Even possible pre-Yelm. 

The Esrolia books has some stories of her, like the one with Asrelia and Ernalda waking up the world again after the Darkness, iirc. But the issue here is that Esrolia is presented as a culture that seeks to marginalize the Storm-influences over Ernalda, so it's pretty much mostly Earth-Earth relations that are explored, with some Earth-Water and Earth-Sky in there as well. 

 

 

[Sir_Godspeed]

5 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Although to an extent, Ernalda's personal development is externalized into the Voria/Ernalda/Asrelia triad. No, they're not the same gods exactly, but not in any way that really matters, and one day, Ernalda will have Asrelia's spot in the triad.

That's an issue too. Ernalda is almost by definition the woman in the prime of her life. Mature and confident, curious, but experienced.

[Grievous]

2 hours ago, dumuzid said:

It'd be interesting to see more myths from Ernalda's perspective, that give her more dynamism.  There is an arc to be illustrated in her journey: 1)the maiden earth goddess 2)becomes a concubine in the court of the chaste Solar emperor, 3) contrives her own liberation with the help of her storm-god lover, and 4) ascends to become a queen in her own right with many husbands and many more children, till 5) finally she dies in the Greater Darkness, and descends into the Underworld to participate in the Great Compromise.

Part of the issue with her seeming static is that most of the Ernaldan myths we have are still written from an Orlanthi perspective.  They focus mostly on points 3-5 of that arc, and most heavily on 3-4.  If we had more Esrolian sources, or even just a wider spread of Orlanthi sources, we might see more of the process where Ernalda gains all that wisdom.  Years ago I wrote a myth set during point 2, where Ernalda was the figure who guided Orlanth, Shargash, Engizi and the Waertagi to put aside their differences and join forces against a monstrous typhoon created by their conflict, but even that was still written from (Vara)Orlanth's perspective.  I think there's a myth cycle to be had in the story of how Ernalda was one of the first to notice the widening cracks in Yelm's imperium and started making moves towards creating a successor regime/pantheon before she even met Orlanth.

Yeah, there's that and then of course the whole classic maiden-mother-crone triad.

[jajagappa]

9 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Or, well, Ernalda's type of Earth is. If she had been causing earthquakes only to learn that it harms her children, or something, we could have made an arc pretty dramatically.

But that should be part of the arc! It's the arc that separates (at least in our minds) Ernalda from Maran Gor; or Ernalda from Esrola; or Dendara from Gorgorma.

Surely Ernalda stomped her foot in anger during the Green Age and it cracked the earth, caused the pots to fall down and break, perhaps even crushed a favored mortal race! Distraught at what she did, she took that anger out of herself and put it in her sister. Perhaps even swore an oath to never become so angry again (or at least to never display such anger in "public" - perhaps Eurmal was there and laughed at her and told her she was just like him!).

Edited January 31, 2020 by jajagappa

[Bohemond]

I'm thinking about this because I'm working on making sure that female players in my eventual Sartar LARP campaign have quests that they can do that are as interesting as the one the male PCs get. But a lot of Ernalda's myths as published as things like "There was a problem. Ernalda taught the people how to do X. And that solved the problem." So, Ernalda saves Esrola by teaching people to do the Flax Dance, Goose Dance, and Sacrifice Dance. That's not a very dynamic myth to work with, compared to something like Orlanth Forms the Storm Tribe. It is -different- from Orlanth's quests, but teaching people isn't dramatically that interesting, so it's harder to figure out a way to make that fun for a PC to have to do. Not impossible, but harder. Its also perhaps a bit dramatically less interesting to have a character who gets other people to do things for her than just confronting a problem directly. 

 

[jajagappa]

9 hours ago, Bohemond said:

Ernalda saves Esrola by teaching people to do the Flax Dance, Goose Dance, and Sacrifice Dance. That's not a very dynamic myth to work with, compared to something like Orlanth Forms the Storm Tribe. It is -different- from Orlanth's quests, but teaching people isn't dramatically that interesting, so it's harder to figure out a way to make that fun for a PC to have to do.

You can't teach what you haven't learned or experienced! Surely each of these dances had a quest involved with challenges to overcome.  The dances themselves might well be symbolic representations of the quest if you know how to feel the movements and experiences implied within them.

[jajagappa]

9 hours ago, Bohemond said:

Its also perhaps a bit dramatically less interesting to have a character who gets other people to do things for her

Doesn't Orlanth do that implicitly in the Lightbringer's Quest? Not that he doesn't do things, but much of the Underworld trek is Issaries knowing the path to take, LM knowing where to turn, CA providing healing, ...

[Bohemond]

57 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

You can't teach what you haven't learned or experienced! Surely each of these dances had a quest involved with challenges to overcome.  The dances themselves might well be symbolic representations of the quest if you know how to feel the movements and experiences implied within them.

(I'm kinda thinking out loud here--trying to figure out why it's so much harder to make these myths into something interesting to game with. I don't really have an argument I'm making so much as just trying to make sense of the problem.)

That myth presents the dances as something Ernalda either knows or invents--they're central to her worship. This is what I mean about the problem of Ernalda's myths. Orlanth's myths involve him going off and learning what he needs in order to do something. Ernalda's just involve her intrinsic knowledge or essence, which is something that is nearly impossible to dramatize in a LARPing situation. If we say that the deeper story is her learning how to do those dances, we've just sort of pushed the problem down a level--we need myths about her learning those dances, which renders the myth of saving Esrola a sort of meta-quest--a quest you can't do until you do other quests. 

Western culture has a strong tendency to present women as a sort of 'home base' for men, from which men go out and have adventures, and then they return home to their woman. Think about all the songs in which a man declares a woman to be his home, or where the man sings about 'moving on' or so on. The woman never has to learn to be a man's home--she just is. And I think that's a big part of the problem with how the stories of Ernalda have been framed. She's Orlanth's home base and the myths give almost no consideration to what the woman's challenges in serving as a home base are. 

Maybe it all starts with the Odyssey--Penelope is the home base to which Odyssey is trying to get back, and she's just there faithfully waiting for him. Her challenge--keeping those damn suitors from marrying her--doesn't really work for Ernalda, since she's presented as simply the most powerful goddess around. Wouldn't she just tell unwanted suitors to piss off? Greek myth does present a woman leaving home--Helen of Troy--but with the exception of one of Sappho's poems, virtually all of Greek literature presents what Helen did as a terrible thing done by a terrible woman.

So a big piece of the problem here is that Western culture simply doesn't give us the mythic building blocks to tell these stories about women, and as the framework for Gloranthan myth got laid out, it doesn't leave a lot of room for Ernalda to develop. As @dumuzid has pointed out, most of the myths we have are from stages 3-5 of her life (and really mostly stages 4-5). Ernalda's chance to grow is in the Green Age, when there aren't a lot of options for conflict because Death and Chaos haven't entered the world yet. That seems to leave us with stories in which Ernalda encounters a problem and just has to puzzle it out because the world is so young no one knows anything yet. And the Green Age is framed as being incredibly hard and dangerous to quest to because its formlessness makes it hard for humans to wrap their heads around. 

Again, sorry that this is sort of a jumble of thoughts instead of a clear point to make. 

[Joerg]

16 minutes ago, Bohemond said:

Ernalda's chance to grow is in the Green Age, when there aren't a lot of options for conflict because Death and Chaos haven't entered the world yet. That seems to leave us with stories in which Ernalda encounters a problem and just has to puzzle it out because the world is so young no one knows anything yet. And the Green Age is framed as being incredibly hard and dangerous to quest to because its formlessness makes it hard for humans to wrap their heads around.

Not according to the Heortling mythology which has Umath and Asrelia as designated couple.

Umath is born a bit less than halfway into the Golden Age (according to the Dara Happans YS 40,000, which makes Gata's pregancy 25,000 years YS), and Asrelia was the nubile parthenogenic daughter of the Earth. Ernalda may have been born some time nearby, in the role of the maiden learning those dances.

Entekos must have risen around that era, too. Twin sister or even portion of Umath. What follows is the marriage contest, with Dendara winning and various contenders among the concubines and other palace women. Presumably including Ernalda.

Then we have the eight plus two Planetary Sons / nine City Orbs (adding Raibamus to the eight lesser suns). And Murharzarm appears, too.

On the other end, Umath gets around and begets the first of his sons. Kolat,  Storm Bull, Vadrus. Possibly Humakt. Orlanth has all the signs of a late child, and may be in the same age group (though not generation) as Valind, Daga and the rest of Vadrus's spawn.

By 50,000 YS, Murharzarm has overseen the taming of Oslira, and becomes Emperor through the Ten Tests.

By 70,000 YS, Orlanth had been born, and Umath invaded the Sky, only to crash into the northern Pillar, and then being dismembered by the underworld god that took the place of the southern planetary son.

 

Anyway, Young Ernalda would have had her experiences with those three dances as her (possibly forced) coming of age process, possibly before becoming the concubine of the Evil Emperor, possibly as a survival strategy when becoming a concubine despite really being the Maiden. That gives enough drama and a setting that might be worth exploring a less than perfect young earth goddess making her mistakes and unwise decisions.

[Sir_Godspeed]

25 minutes ago, Bohemond said:

Western culture has a strong tendency to present women as a sort of 'home base' for men, from which men go out and have adventures, and then they return home to their woman. Think about all the songs in which a man declares a woman to be his home, or where the man sings about 'moving on' or so on. The woman never has to learn to be a man's home--she just is. And I think that's a big part of the problem with how the stories of Ernalda have been framed. She's Orlanth's home base and the myths give almost no consideration to what the woman's challenges in serving as a home base are. 

This isn't just a Western trope - I heartily recommend reading Sherry B. Ortner's "Is Female to Male as nature is to culture?" It was part of my introductory classes in anthropology, and while it's almost 50 years old and thus is not exactly cutting edge (and has been fairly criticized on a number of points) I think it still holds up very well, and serves to highlight a number of reasons why women - almost universally - get the worse deal, culturally. 

Here it is for free. It's 20-odd pages, but you don't need to read everything to get the point, and it's written it a fairly approachable language. 

http://radicalanthropologygroup.org/sites/default/files/pdf/class_text_049.pdf 

As a general point, an issue we have is that a lot of societies across the world tend to make a whole lot of hullabaloo of boys becoming men, often with ritualized education, changes in clothing styles, body art, performative feats, transitional ritual, and lots and lots of poets waxing lyrical over what it means to be a man in high-faluting terms - and the social groups often being divided and ordered by men and from a masculine perspective ("wife exchange", patrilineal clans, etc.), girls on the other hand just sorta... become women. Either gradually, or symbolized by getting their first periods. This is simplified, of course, but overall women tend to be associated more with natural, gradual and (imho) "low-key", constantly running processes, whereas men often get more of a spotlight in the extraordinary, the cultural/artificed. 

These tropes both apply and don't apply to the Orlanthi in different ways. Compared to a lot of RW cultures, Orlanthi women have a decent amount of social agency and (social and physical) mobility, but we still often see the tropes play out regardless, because, to put it bluntly, even if they're not Orlanthi tropes, they are our tropes. 

From a hegemonic masculine point of view, a lot of what defines women is kind of inexplicable: women naturally give birth by their own accord, they naturally produce milk through no refining process, they excrete blood regularly, they attend to the least cultured members of society (infants). Men do not really have any equivalent processes that define them (ejaculation comes somewhat close, but it much less explicit and causally obvious, if that makes sense). Moreover, women are often the ones who take the natural/raw ingredients and turn them into "culturized"/cooked food. This touches on the paradox here: the gender attributed with the most "natural" traits, is also the one who acts as a conduit from nature to culture. Raising children. Cooking food. This is pretty common: cultural stereotypes are almost always inconsistent, because, well, that's life. 

We also often see that women are more locked to a single place for most of their life, traveling less than their male counterparts. This can be attributed to immobility due to childcare or pregnancy, for safety, or for more explicity patriarchal reasons of social control (such as limiting her sexual or even economic independence), but the end result is often the same: in many cultures women are attributed less worldly knowledge, associated with the constant of home, and less of an awareness of large-scale political processes of organization (and according to some anthropologists: less of an interest in these subjects, as large scale clan politics might be largely irrelevant for their main concerns, and may even interfer with their personal relationships that run parallel and counter to formalized clan structures). This, coupled with them often spending a lot of time with young children, has in some cases meant that the stereotypical female speech and word choice is seen (by men, I should stress) as less refined and more "childish" than that of men. 

To put it bluntly, there is in a lot of cultures worldwide this notion (at least from the often-dominant perspective of men) that you have to MAKE men, but girls just sorta BECOME women.  

I should stress (and Ortner does too), that this is a generalized look at gender relations, meant to work in a cross-cultural perspective with the specific aim of pointing out the less privileged position of women. Any one specific culture is unlikely to have all of these points applicable to them. I should also add that she does a much better job at explaining this than me, and has more examples than me. 

So what does this mean? It means that we often have a narrative bias to seeing things that men do as a result of crafting, training, learning, failing, searching, innovating, etc., whereas things women do is often just presumed to... just be a thing they do. 

A female perspective - or even just a less male-biased perspective - would trade some of the "feminine mystique" and "naturalness" away for some explicated narrative processes. Allowing goddesses and mortal women alike to innovate, fail, search, and learn. I'm sure this all seems obvious in retrospect (or even just in general), but given how ingrained this is for so much of the world - into language, art, mythology, even politics and economics (women's domestic work is virtually never remunerated or even given a monetary value, even in the most theoretical calculations, because mothers and wives "just do" the motherly and wifely work. Their work is equally valueless and invaluable) it's something we kinda have to remind ourselves. 

Hopefuly this comment was of some value. I'm pretty sure I've suggested this article before - possibly in this very thread - and we are somewhat circling the topic here - but it's something worth exploring, imho. 

 

[Bohemond]

On 1/31/2020 at 8:54 AM, Sir_Godspeed said:

This isn't just a Western trope - I heartily recommend reading Sherry B. Ortner's "Is Female to Male as nature is to culture?" It was part of my introductory classes in anthropology, and while it's almost 50 years old and thus is not exactly cutting edge (and has been fairly criticized on a number of points) I think it still holds up very well, and serves to highlight a number of reasons why women - almost universally - get the worse deal, culturally. 

(Cutting out a lot of smart points...)

Quote

So what does this mean? It means that we often have a narrative bias to seeing things that men do as a result of crafting, training, learning, failing, searching, innovating, etc., whereas things women do is often just presumed to... just be a thing they do. 

A female perspective - or even just a less male-biased perspective - would trade some of the "feminine mystique" and "naturalness" away for some explicated narrative processes. Allowing goddesses and mortal women alike to innovate, fail, search, and learn. I'm sure this all seems obvious in retrospect (or even just in general), but given how ingrained this is for so much of the world - into language, art, mythology, even politics and economics (women's domestic work is virtually never remunerated or even given a monetary value, even in the most theoretical calculations, because mothers and wives "just do" the motherly and wifely work. Their work is equally valueless and invaluable) it's something we kinda have to remind ourselves. 

Hopefuly this comment was of some value. I'm pretty sure I've suggested this article before - possibly in this very thread - and we are somewhat circling the topic here - but it's something worth exploring, imho. 

 

I think you've hit the nail on the head. A lot of Gloranthan myths fall into this pattern simply because it's the patterns we have for telling mythic stories, and this stuff shapes our thought processes so deeply it's hard to see around it when we want to come up with myths. One reason I like Moana so much is it's basically a heroquest with a female protagonist and a female 'villain' who needs to be defeated not through force but through a recognition of the harm that's been done to her. To me, that strikes me as a very Ernaldan story. I just need to figure out who it's told about. 

Edited February 2, 2020 by Bohemond

[French Desperate WindChild]

Ernalda description seems to me too close of women description by a lot of men (sorry @Sir_Godspeed maybe I paraphrase you, but without social lore ) maybe less now than a century ago, but still a lot.

the good wife :

• managing children
• houseworking
• farming
• waiting at home before healing her husband after the hunt / battle

the bad woman :

• mocking young and innocent men
• seducing and manipulating man to obtain what she wants always in the shadow (or how to start as one of emperor concubine to THE king wife, or how to get back her father from Moon Hell)
• cheat on her husband

I would prefer to transfert Babeester Gor (for example) as a subcult of Ernalda than a separate goddess. Ernalda adventurous, Ernalda the thief, Ernalda the free woman, etc... would give a less real world perspective. Except Dendara (juste the good wife part ) and Ernalda-like (Esrola...), the other goddesses are more interesting, not seen just like the good-foil of male. It is sad that the "main" human goddess give me this feeling (but I may be alone with this feeling ?)

 

[HeartQuintessence]

Interesting.

I do think Ernalda should be more like Orlanthi in that reguard she does play the part of "archetypical good wife" and that is her lot in life

[g33k]

Lots of good Ernaldan "home and hearth" types find, in a crisis, that they can henna-up and go Vingan.

Ernalda becomes Orlanth!   😮

There is always another way ...

 

[Qizilbashwoman]

3 minutes ago, g33k said:

Lots of good Ernaldan "home and hearth" types find, in a crisis, that they can henna-up and go Vingan.

Ernalda becomes Orlanth!   😮

There is always another way ...

Now there's a YGWV I can get behind

[g33k]

On 2/3/2020 at 10:13 AM, Qizilbashwoman said:

Now there's a YGWV I can get behind

<points at Ernaldan's actually becoming Orlanthi>

What is this "V" you are speaking of?  This is RAW canon!

   };-D>

 

Edited February 4, 2020 by g33k
typo

[Squaredeal Sten]

On 12/21/2019 at 2:32 PM, Qizilbashwoman said:

 

 

The Stafford works are good if you want to really go mythological: several of the more complete books are about Theyalans, such as the two books about the Heortlings and the book about Esrolia, although Esrolia is admittedly weird from the perspective of "let's play RQ:G!" because it is a matriarchy and a Greek-style city-state, ...

The book about Esrolia is pretty thin from a character background point of view.  So it's a rich field for the invention of more Gloranthan background.  But it seems to me that Stafford wanted room in his world for very different societies.  Look at the trolls, how's that for different?     And part of the charm of Glorantha is that the players find adventures  where two or more of those societies touch.

So re. women in Glorantha -  there is room for any status you want to play in, certainly somewhere but actually most places.

But getting down to particular cults:  From my original RQ GM,  who seemed to have studied Glorantha pretty well,  i understand the cult figure as an archetype. A cult initiate's goal is to become a better (fill in cult name here).

And Ernalda is an archetypical historical/real world Bronze Age earth goddess.  They were very popular in their time too.  Which is not surprising given that Bronze Age folks were mostly farmers, so being a priest of a goddess of grain looks like a pretty good gig if you are set to go into the religion business.

But that doesn't mean there is no room for other female archetypes, nor that the whole world is patriarchal.

 

 

Edited February 3, 2020 by Squaredeal Sten
more thoughts

[Leingod]

Resurrecting this thread due to my re-reading of HeroQuest Glorantha, in which there's a brief mention in the write-up of the Ernalda cult of her own specific virtues (as it had been brought up before in this thread that Orlanth has his six virtues, which are oft-recounted, but most sources on Ernalda don't give her any equivalent that might help roleplay as one of her followers). It lists four: Harmony, Filial Piety, Prudence, and Compassion. So she does have some key virtues you can use to enrich roleplay by giving heroines (or nandan heroes) the chance to display them or to put them in conflict, it's just that they seem to be a bit harder to find. As for what I think those might look like:

Compassion is a very easy one, both to give a character chances to display and to put in conflict with other values and virtues. In a lot of ways there's some overlap with how you'd portray a myth or plot thread about Compassion and how you'd do the same with Chalanna Arroy, except that Ernalda can make as well as mend. This would also be your best bet for stories in the vein of Orlanth making friends out of enemies, where rather than beating an enemy Ernalda saves them in some way, or where she shows mercy or compassion to someone earlier who comes to her aid later Androcles' Lion style (and in fact that comparison brings me to mind of the Strength card in tarot, which traditionally depicts a woman who has tamed or subdued a lion).

Prudence is where Ernalda's signature indirect approach and understated cunning come in. This is where Ernaldans are expected to be manipulative and calculating, choosing protectors and husbands to do the dirty work and making them think it was their idea, or just outwitting opposition rather than trying to face it head-on. It would be easy to make this conflict with Compassion, where there's a temptation to sacrifice someone or something else, either for the greater good or just personal gain. There's also the issue that sometimes the fastest and easiest route to your destination is, in fact, the straight line, but sometimes looking for the "prudent" solution all the time blinds you to that simple fact. This one is interesting to me, in that it's probably a fairly common trap for an Ernaldan who's very clever can fall into in the same way that an Orlanthi who's very brave might, where too much of one strength becomes a weakness, and perfectly reversed at that: Many young, brave Orlanthi often need to learn that violence is not always the best option and not every problem is a nail he can hammer down, while many a young and clever Ernaldan needs to learn that sometimes she needs to stop looking for "another way" and just hammer in the damn nails already.

Filial Piety is a little bit harder to work with, I feel, in that doing your familial duty as an Ernaldan tends to mean not going on adventures, staying at home and helping your community like everyone else. So there's the obvious potential to make this virtue conflict with other virtues and duties that require you to leave your parents and elders behind, but Chinese myth and Confucian literature is replete with examples of how a hero can triumph or make grand sacrifices for their parents and elders.

Harmony is kind of hard for me to define, personally. I assume, given this is a list of personal virtues a devout follower of Ernalda will try to display and emulate, that this refers to inner/personal harmony, which is... difficult to nail down. Is that just displaying harmony by being patient and such? Is it keeping calm in dangerous or high-stakes situations and making decisions dispassionately? In either case, how does one put this virtue in conflict with others or give it a downside, or even just have someone display it in a way that's actually interesting or impressive? I'll leave this for other people to define if they'd like to.