Dinosaurs ... Dragon(ewt)s? Maran Gor?

[g33k]

Pretty much what it says on the tin.

We got these "dinosaur" thingee's in Glorantha.

On the one hand, we know that dino's are "devolved" or "degenerate" dragonewts.  Dragons summoned dino's by the hundreds to the Dragonkill, used them to break the formations of soldiers, etc.  Pretty much "Dino's come from (and are subject to) Dragon(ewt)s" and DONE.

On the other hand, we have Maran Gor, the Earth Shaker, the Mother of Quakebeasts.  She created them.  They obey her.  DONE.

 

Now, I am ... hrmm... I am pretty sure that Maran Gor is neither Dragon nor 'newt.  And that they don't particularly honor or revere her.

 

Is this just One Of Those Things?  Or is there some Deep Mystery -- or obvious d'oh -- that I'm tripping over as I post, but haven't yet painfully hit the ground with my already-tender face?

 

[Qizilbashwoman]

There's two kinds of dinosaurs: one kind is "natural", and the largest are associated with the Shakers, and the other kind are failed dragonewts who have hit an evolutionary dead end and lost their Person-rune equivalent.

Edited January 6, 2020 by Qizilbashwoman

[Jeff]

Both are true. Dinosaurs developed from degenerate dragonewts. And Maran Gor loves them and they are her animals (her sister prefers snakes). 

[Sir_Godspeed]

11 hours ago, Jeff said:

Both are true. Dinosaurs developed from degenerate dragonewts. And Maran Gor loves them and they are her animals (her sister prefers snakes). 

I believe I raised this same issue in some other thread. Partly this was because, as someone who first entered Glorantha through material associated with the Guide, I was given the Dragonnewt material first, so it stuck for me. When I asked about the seeming conflict however, most older member seem to lean towards the Maran Gor story. I assume that one was what they were first exposed to. 

Since then then I've more or less made peace with what Jeff says here. Both are true. The God Time is weird like that. (And they might not even be mutually exclusive).

[jajagappa]

2 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

When I asked about the seeming conflict however, most older member seem to lean towards the Maran Gor story. I assume that one was what they were first exposed to. 

Both are old stories going back to WBRM if I recall correctly.  No dinosaurs were included in the initial RQ2 release, but they did appear in Griffin Mountain and Borderlands.

From Borderlands for instance, this is the entry for Hadrosaurs: "These huge reptilian creatures were born of immature dragon eggs, and so never matured into dragons. They are not exactly the dinosaurs of the Cenozoic, but the main difference is in their origin. They are intelligent and good magicians, but also unsuited for physical combat."

No origin story was included in Griffin Mountain though.

There was definitely mention of Maran Gor spawning the dinosaurs in the old RQ Companion p.8: "Maran Gor eventually spawned many of the great earth-shaking reptiles — the dinosaurs."

There were probably references in Wyrms Footnotes as well.

[Qizilbashwoman]

19 hours ago, Jeff said:

Both are true. Dinosaurs developed from degenerate dragonewts. And Maran Gor loves them and they are her animals (her sister prefers snakes). 

This might be true but in my Glorantha I like to have "real" dinos otherwise there are none native to Pamaltela. Langamul, Amuron, Nomura.

[Jeff]

1 hour ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

This might be true but in my Glorantha I like to have "real" dinos otherwise there are none native to Pamaltela. Langamul, Amuron, Nomura.

There used to be dragonewts in Pamaltela. Now degenerate dinosaurs, slarges, and lacerdons are all that survived.

[hanataka]

3 hours ago, Jeff said:

There used to be dragonewts in Pamaltela. Now degenerate dinosaurs, slarges, and lacerdons are all that survived.

Who are the ”lacerdons” ?
Are they the same as lascerdans who were exterminated、 or some related?

[Sir_Godspeed]

 

5 hours ago, hanataka said:

Who are the ”lacerdons” ?
Are they the same as lascerdans who were exterminated、 or some related?

I assume Jeff just made a typo.

[hanataka]

9 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I assume Jeff just made a typo.

I thought so at first. But, lascerdans did not survive now at far as I know.
If they are surviving, that is wounderful news.

[Sir_Godspeed]

1 hour ago, hanataka said:

I thought so at first. But, lascerdans did not survive now at far as I know.
If they are surviving, that is wounderful news.

Possible, but it's also possible Jeff was talking generally abut Time since the Dawn or something.

Honestly, I'm kind of surprised that this seems to be the first time I've gotten a connection between Dragonewts and Slarges & Lascerdans confirmed.

[Darius West]

On 1/6/2020 at 4:17 PM, g33k said:

Is this just One Of Those Things?  Or is there some Deep Mystery -- or obvious d'oh -- that I'm tripping over as I post, but haven't yet painfully hit the ground with my already-tender face?

This is a very deep rabbit-hole indeed.  It is intimately involved in a great many threads within Glorantha.  Firstly, and most obviously, dinosaurs are the result of aberrations from the Dragon path.  But here's the rub... so are humans and all other life-forms according to the Dragonewts.  The original heretics are Hykim and Mikyh, who were dragons who dabbled in mating and shape-changing.  This created (amongst other things) the Hsunchen cultures, of whom the Dragon Hsunchen are the most important.  So a wayward and gluttonous dragonewt might become a brachiosaur, or a pigheaded and aggressive dragonewt might become a triceratops, while a magic obsessed dragonewt might become a maiasaur etc.  The thing is, the dinosaurs have the capacity to breed, while only the Inhuman King (Queen?) among the dragonewts can breed normally.  Now the offspring of the dinosaurs will breed true with dinosaurs of their own kind and become a species.  Hykim and Mikyh are the children of Earth and a Dragon, btw.  From a dragonewt perspective, this is all part of Ouroboros educating Orxilli in the dragon way.  This was part of what the EWF was utilizing to link humans to the dragon path. Of course the EWF were also major employers of dinosaurs as shock forces.

[davecake]

What became of the dragons and dragonnewts of Pamaltela is a mystery, they simply aren’t mentioned, I didn’t even know there used to be dragonnewts until Jeff mentioned it in this thread. 
I have a few theories about dragons. 
One theory is the absence of dragons and the proliferation of greater hydrae is not a coincidence, that when a dragon falls to chaos a greater hydra results. 
Another theory is that just as so much of Pamaltela appears to be evolving backwards, that means that in Pamaltela instead of dinosaurs resulting from dragonnewts devolution, dinosaurs may turn into dragonnewts - and eventually dragons. 
Of course there are the slarges. I personally think that is a different mystery, though. The origin myth of the slarges doesn’t explain the alternating generations. For greater/lesser slarges - that might be another mystery story, something that happened to them long afterwards that we don’t know anything about. Slarges have some connection to dinosaurs, if only that they herd them. 

[Manu]

I also like the idea of Pamaltela was evolving backwards. But I think it is backwards 'from an Earth point of view', meaning that there is more and more prehistorical life forms (and also dinosaures). Because from a Gloranthan perspective, there is no 'history' or 'Carboniferous age'. There is no 'evolution', just Myth.

 

But if what Jeff says is true (Dinosaures comes also from Dragonewts in Pamaltela), it means that we could find ruins of dragonewts if we look well enough. Did the Artmali (tried to) erase all signs and myth of the Dragonewts in Pamaltela? And why?

Edited January 8, 2020 by Manu
Typo

[Sir_Godspeed]

12 hours ago, Darius West said:

This is a very deep rabbit-hole indeed.  It is intimately involved in a great many threads within Glorantha.  Firstly, and most obviously, dinosaurs are the result of aberrations from the Dragon path.  But here's the rub... so are humans and all other life-forms according to the Dragonewts.  The original heretics are Hykim and Mikyh, who were dragons who dabbled in mating and shape-changing.  This created (amongst other things) the Hsunchen cultures, of whom the Dragon Hsunchen are the most important.  So a wayward and gluttonous dragonewt might become a brachiosaur, or a pigheaded and aggressive dragonewt might become a triceratops, while a magic obsessed dragonewt might become a maiasaur etc.  The thing is, the dinosaurs have the capacity to breed, while only the Inhuman King (Queen?) among the dragonewts can breed normally.  Now the offspring of the dinosaurs will breed true with dinosaurs of their own kind and become a species.  Hykim and Mikyh are the children of Earth and a Dragon, btw.  From a dragonewt perspective, this is all part of Ouroboros educating Orxilli in the dragon way.  This was part of what the EWF was utilizing to link humans to the dragon path. Of course the EWF were also major employers of dinosaurs as shock forces.

It might also explain why the EWF was involved in creating Beastmen in Remakerela/Stitched Zoo - possibly some obscure project to reverse-engineer some draconic something-or-other by messing with the beast lineages. 

Arguably the Hsunchen themselves do that, although more spiritually and less literally, through the various Serpent groups we see in God Time and Dawn Age Ralios. Serpent might be an allegory for dragon (or just an acceptable substitute), and therefore act as a unifying trait or bridge between Beast lineages (useful for organizing against invading non-Beast people). But these thoughts have been covered in the Hykimi thread so it's probably better left there.

Edited January 8, 2020 by Sir_Godspeed

[jajagappa]

For Sandy Petersen's perspective on the subject, check out the Maran Gor figure turntable for the upcoming Gods War 2 Kickstarter:

Maran Gor figure

[Sir_Godspeed]

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

For Sandy Petersen's perspective on the subject, check out the Maran Gor figure turntable for the upcoming Gods War 2 Kickstarter:

Maran Gor figure

That's uh, certainly something. Damn. I can tell from the other models that Sandy is going his own path when it comes to visual design (at least with some of these new ones), so it's obviously still up to interpretation (but then isn't it always so with gods) but she quite a lot more bestial than I'd expected. 

Also obligatory:

ABSOLUTE UNIT.

[Qizilbashwoman]

Xiola Umbar going full Artemis of Ephesus

[Jeff]

8 hours ago, jajagappa said:

For Sandy Petersen's perspective on the subject, check out the Maran Gor figure turntable for the upcoming Gods War 2 Kickstarter:

Maran Gor figure

Yeah, Sandy's vision is Sandy's. There are several gods that Sandy is taking a different vision of than in Chaosium - but as we say, surely someone in Glorantha views her that way.

[soltakss]

On 1/6/2020 at 5:17 AM, g33k said:

On the one hand, we know that dino's are "devolved" or "degenerate" dragonewts.  Dragons summoned dino's by the hundreds to the Dragonkill, used them to break the formations of soldiers, etc.  Pretty much "Dino's come from (and are subject to) Dragon(ewt)s" and DONE.

On the other hand, we have Maran Gor, the Earth Shaker, the Mother of Quakebeasts.  She created them.  They obey her.  DONE.

Some dinosaurs are degenerate Dragonewts, but not all.

Some dinosaurs are descended from Maran Gor, but not all.

Some dinosaurs are descended from immature or broken dragon eggs, but not all.

Dinosaurs have a varied descent, but similar types of dinosaur can breed with each other regardless of whether they are descended from a rogue dragonewt, from Maran Gor or from a bad dragon egg. After all, a brontosaurus is a brontosaurus is a brontosaurus.

[AndreJarosch]

21 hours ago, jajagappa said:

For Sandy Petersen's perspective on the subject, check out the Maran Gor figure turntable for the upcoming Gods War 2 Kickstarter:

Maran Gor figure

IMHO Sandys THE GODS WAR has to attract all kind of boadgamers, and doesn´t has to be gloranthan correct to do so. 
If it attracts new players, which will make it from THE GODS WAR to RUNEQUEST (or HEROQUEST), then this non-canon optics were worth it. 

[Ali the Helering]

Given Sandy's history with respect to Glorantha and its inventor, I would be very hesitant in suggesting that his views were incorrect. 

[Sir_Godspeed]

45 minutes ago, Ali the Helering said:

Given Sandy's history with respect to Glorantha and its inventor, I would be very hesitant in suggesting that his views were incorrect. 

I think there is room for more than one vision of Glorantha, even between licencees/rights-holders. Some of these lean a bit more to stylized fantasy, and imho that's fine.

On another note, it's interesting seeing Malkion in full armor and mentioned as a battle saint. Certainly not how I've ever thought about the Prophet, but he does look cool! (Also cool to see Xemela get the spotlight, despite me knowing very little except the references to Hrestol's saga Joerg keeps dropping every now and then).

[AndreasDavour]

Arkat campaigned for years against Gbaji, and killed and dismembered his corpse. Let the Deceiver lie dead. "Canon" is the great Deceiver. All hail Arkat!

...just don't make such a fuss, it's just about having fun.

[Jeff]

12 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

Given Sandy's history with respect to Glorantha and its inventor, I would be very hesitant in suggesting that his views were incorrect. 

Sometimes they are. But I am thrilled with the approach he has taken to Gods War 2 which has to balance Gloranthan grognards, with being an appealing boardgames for the broader audience.