Argan Argar Sources

[scott-martin]

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

Some bits that might be pieced together:

The seeds of much good blasphemy here as we pick through the wreckage of Kallyr's disasters. EDIT: In fact, I initially cut the list in the belief that this reply would be an extremely short placeholder while your points digest. Turns out I was wrong!

In particular the coincidence between the seven-day Theyalan week, the Ring's transit and the modern Lunar period is striking, as is the possibility that like the Streak (Orlanth is also a "blue" god) the Ring spends time spinning up the outside of the sky. The Streak's broken period. Find enough of those gates and something like Reaching Storm / Permanent Ring might become possible. Of course for that to even be an issue would require the theoreticians to tap "cyclical storm" forces in the first place, which is pretty advanced by our primitive terminal third age standards.

Separately and slow as always, I'm starting to wonder how much of an archaic Sky/Star ("High") pantheon flourished under the Bright Empire and where the scattered remnants survived. This might have been a central theme in the Fronelan occupation about which nearly nothing is known, for example. Whether a Bear participated in that or not, MGF. 

Umath is interesting because so much of his story revolves around getting it wrong the first time. Otherwise there would be no "second time" requiring so much superficial repetition. One way to read it is that someone tried to combine a mythic complex where the rebel failed with another where the rebel won. Obviously the failure is no longer relevant so he must be the precursor of the success we recognize today. High Storm people might have really explored this . . . after all, their god's name was tarUmath and not tarLanth. And of course the "brother" who drops out of this process is our friend Umat whom Arkat but not Harmast loved.

The geographical dispute over the true center of the world is probably baked into this "syncretic" interpretation. Take a myth where the sacred mountain was north and try to combine it with one where the "spike" was east and you are going to run into trouble unless the center is with you and moving, maybe in a kind of spiral when viewed from a certain arbitrary vantage. Just as star mysticism is odd among nominally storm people (star tribe descendants excepted of course), the sacred mountain is a strange and pregnant intrusion in the deep Orlanth mysteries. We all know that Larnste Mover, Soul Arranger Issariesfather, is the real mountain god. But some say Lodril.

Likewise the eyes of the Pole strike me as a theme dualistic illuminoids would have embroidered in documents waiting to be unearthed. Someone must have invested a lot of effort exploring the Dayzatar system and Pole is Dayzatar's emanation along with Ourania with her two weeping eyes. Dualism for me is an artifact of "Bright" illumination and its reactions and inversions (Spol) so whether you are on the left or the right eye path is probably very important to some people . . . battles of night and day. Ideally post-1625 lunar magic will reach for tools like these. If you reading this have ever thought the words "mary sue" in proximity to the Argrath you know where to reach me.

Edited June 6, 2020 by scott-martin
trying not to look as jerky as usual!

[Joerg]

  

2 hours ago, scott-martin said:

The Ring, on the other hand, starts in the West and spirals up and out.

Appears to spiral up and out. Guide p.651

Quote

Orlanth’s  Ring  has  a  unique  celestial trajectory, appearing just before midnight on Windsday at the star called Stormgate (which does not rotate with the Sky Dome), taking about an hour for all of the stars to appear. It travels upward for seven days and nights, and disappears  into  the  Pole  Star.

As I read this, it remains in the west, rising higher and higher while the sky dome rotates behind it, inscribing a spiral on the background if you add a sharpie. This would be pretty much a planetary movement, although in a direction opposite to the Sunpath and Southpath, and not tied to the starry background like the journey of the Boat planet (and, invisibly, the Blue Streak) which follows the constellations of the Celestial River.

As depicted on the map of the sky (p.645), it moves along the sky dome. That would mean it stays with the constellation which happens to be at Stormgate on Windsday, and just moves closer to Pole Star as the week passes. This would lead to a lot less encounters than possible with the Ring remaining in the West and the Sky Dome doing (almost) a full rotation a day underneath it.

The Copper Tablet shows a star-less sky and Umath spiralling upwards. If the sky dome rotated already, we have no way to observe that.

Either way, there are only 21 such routes, leading to a potential of that number of myths of the activities of the Ring or the Star Bear, as precession of the Sky Dome repeats exactly every year.

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:

the coincidence between the seven-day Theyalan week, the Ring's transit and the modern Lunar period is striking,

Tolat doubles that period again, sitting out Sacred Time absent from the Sky Dome (or emerging in biennially altering schedule). (That suggests that he rises between Freezeday nights in Disorder/Stasis Week and Godsday night in Harmony/Movement Week), pausing in the Underworld when Sacred Time starts.) He is said to be the twin of the Blue Moon.

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:

for that to even be an issue would require the theoreticians to tap "cyclical storm" forces in the first place,

The annual movement of the doldrums does describe a spiral onto the western surface world, with the Clearburst resetting the pattern. Is it possible that this movement is centered on the surface world equivalent of Stormgate?

 

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:

Just as star mysticism is odd among nominally storm people (star tribe descendants excepted of course),

Orlanth did conquer the sky, and did successfully defend it against the Chaos invasion of the Sky Terror during the Greater Darkness. (Unlike the Surface World, where he failed, spectacularly, at Stormfall.) It may not be his most important feat to the inhabitants of the foothills, but this victory over Chaos completes his set of victories over the other elements.

Star Heart mysticism as in exposure to Illumination/the Void and retaining sanity is what I think qualifies for the journey down the outside of the Sky Dome.

 

About the Pole Star: In Hrestol's Saga part 2 (Hrestol in Brithos), Sir Faralz describes the center of the sky as different from the rest of the Cloak of Night, a grey hole in the firmament, and he designates the nearby star as Eurmal's, naming that entity the Friend of Men and Firebringer/thief of Fire. He also points out the star of Malkion, which may map on Arraz or Ourania.

 

In a weak attempt to bring this back to the original topic: What kind of Star Lore does the Argan Argar cult bring to the trolls, or is it all his mother, Xentha?

Edited June 6, 2020 by Joerg

[Leingod]

22 minutes ago, Joerg said:

In a weak attempt to bring this back to the original topic: What kind of Star Lore does the Argan Argar cult bring to the trolls, or is it all his mother, Xentha?

Well, Argan Argar is the god of surface darkness, and all his conquests and journeys are done on the surface, not in the Sky World. So other than perhaps some myth where Argan Argar learns/teaches to read or reckon by the stars, probably not much. Which is probably the only kind of star lore most trolls are likely to concern themselves with, as Xentha herself is rarely worshiped directly and most trolls want nothing to do with the world of Sky.

[scott-martin]

Love it! And I take your point in terms of "apparent" spiraling. The Gate is fixed. The sky turns. Sky Lore is not my expertise so I am going to have to ponder many of the fine points.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

About the Pole Star: In Hrestol's Saga part 2 (Hrestol in Brithos), Sir Faralz describes the center of the sky as different from the rest of the Cloak of Night, a grey hole in the firmament, and he designates the nearby star as Eurmal's, naming that entity the Friend of Men and Firebringer/thief of Fire. He also points out the star of Malkion, which may map on Arraz or Ourania.

I'd forgotten about that bit. Couple things here before we find our way back to AA.

First, the Cloak of Night feels like the Desert to me, which would help us figure out which star is Eurmal Firebringer (interesting elemental attribution there) and then step back to Malkion. In that scenario, we're still in the western sky and so "Eurmal" can be one of the Ring. If not, what is its number? Likewise, Malkion's star might be Thasus 32, which opens up all kinds of convergences.

It's also interesting that the Guide mentions the descending Block wiping out at least one star in the return path. Does this indicate that a primary Spike was directly under the Desert, perhaps around what we now call Jrustela?
 
More broadly, a Dawn Age celestial role for "Malkion" suggests some avenues for Bright Empire integration into Western theology. Just as we know about a High Sun and a High Storm (one more successfully suppressed than the other) there might have been a High Law now lost. Or for that matter, High Law might have simply been the Bright Empire recension of one or more archaic Malkions, reinterpreting the rustic patriarchal figures as a cosmic principle. Naturally nobody will like this but me but my war on the blue man continues.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

What kind of Star Lore does the Argan Argar cult bring to the trolls, or is it all his mother, Xentha?

To step back for a moment, a Xentha archetype seems to have been a major player in Spol so if they probed the night that's probably where we'd find a big body of lore. On the other hand they might have focused on analyzing the shadows between the lights. Xentha is also friendly with the dull and faintly glowing phenomena like the Streak and the equivalent of Artmal's vesper (possibly the lonely cry or "eastern lights") so her cult is probably a primary source of what we know about them. I suspect Argan Argar In Peloria got wrapped up in this cult and then suppressed when it fell. Maybe the Spindle Hags preserve parts of it.

Night worship is also cited in Guhan within the old "Dark" empire that followed the "Bright." Arkat is known to have pursued star magic to the extent that Plentonius' understanding of Quail and Dove no longer applies. Of course a lot of Arkat's sky work was eradicated in order to prevent reprisals. It would be amusing to think of the trolls as passing this on as purely theoretical hearsay . . . they themselves can't see the little lights twinkling but they can pass the lore on to those of us who can.

EDIT so I blew a precious traded point of Blue Divination and here's what I got: NOT THE FIRST (OR LAST) POLE STAR. Maybe you know what that means.

Edited June 6, 2020 by scott-martin