Wyrms Footnotes nuggets

[metcalph]

My favourite detail from the recently re-released Wyrms Footnotes.  It shows the Agimori living in Maslo, Laskalia, Teshnos, Teleos (mislabelled) as well as Prax in the Dawn Age.  It's the Agimori rather than the Doraddi (who are south of the Pamaltelan mountains).  The Agimori of Pamaltela still survive along the Zuama Valley of Laskal (according to the Guide Fonrit chapter).  I guess the Green Elves must have driven them out off the Maslo region.  The Agimori of Teleos live where the Orange People are now.  They are not mentioned but then the Teleono don't even remember the foreigners who lived among them when the Closing struck so that's not really a problem.  

Edited February 11, 2020 by Rick Meints

[davecake]

I thought this was really interesting, too. 

During the Dawn Ages the Pamalt cult and the Embyli seem allied (Pamalt is described as leading the elves at the Sunstop), so that may be a factor too - the Pamalt cult may have pushed the Balumbasta worshippers out of the region. 

I think the current situation where Pamalt is sometimes described as a great ally of the elves, and sometimes as an enemy, is a result of the Doraddi/Pamalt worshippers taking sides in the Aldrya's Woe First age Aldryami wars. Perhaps Pamalt allied with the Yellow elves against the Green? Lots of Jolar was pine forests in the First Age. 

Teshnos puts them close to those other Pamaltelan wanderers the Loper people. No idea if there is any connection. I presume they just got pushed out into the Wastes, but have no suggestions for why or how. 

[GianniVacca]

In Issue No.2, Sartar is called "Sartar of Bullshill". I do not recall this moniker being used anywhere else.

[White Coke]

I don't recognize many of those islands. I assume one of those islands in the Western Ocean is Brithos but what are the other two, the Vadeli islands? That island between Kralorela and Vithela might be Vormain. Is that island group south east of Jrustela part of Kumanku? 

[metcalph]

49 minutes ago, White Coke said:

I don't recognize many of those islands. I assume one of those islands in the Western Ocean is Brithos but what are the other two, the Vadeli islands? That island between Kralorela and Vithela might be Vormain. Is that island group south east of Jrustela part of Kumanku? 

The two island groups to the west of Genertela are the remains of Brithos (Old Trade and the Red Vadeli Isles) and the Vadeli Isles (now two different islands).

I don't know what that Island in the middle of the Banthe Ocean is.  It might be Whalebone Island but modern maps put that close to the Genertelan mainland.  The cover of Arcane Lore which covers the same territory shows no island but has a different map for Luathela.  WF 4 (p13) has the same island and labels it Last Stop.  I think Dormal landed there.

The Island between Kralorela and Vithela could also be Kylerela which is mentioned in WF #4 as "usually been floating on this ocean".

The two island groups in what is now Kumanku is interesting but may have been discarded.

[jeffjerwin]

On 1/31/2020 at 6:58 AM, GianniVacca said:

In Issue No.2, Sartar is called "Sartar of Bullshill". I do not recall this moniker being used anywhere else.

I suspect it places his birthplace near the Print in Heortland.

[GianniVacca]

Wyrms Footnotes

Issue No.3, page 24

Who is "the gentle Grey Mistress"?

[Joerg]

Sounds like one of the Grey Ones mentioned above under the Harmony Rune entry and below under the Truth Rune entry.

Or Uleria's skin wasn't blue back then.

Edited February 10, 2020 by Joerg

[GianniVacca]

Wyrms Footnotes

Issue No.3, page 26

"Goblins" are listed amongst the Elemental spirits, along with Salamanders and Undines.

???

[7Tigers]

5 minutes ago, GianniVacca said:

Wyrms Footnotes

Issue No.3, page 26

"Goblins" are listed amongst the Elemental spirits, along with Salamanders and Undines.

???

Outside RPG scope, goblins are traditionally considered as earth elementals.
Ex:
http://www.mysticfamiliar.com/library/goblins/l_goblins.htm
WF#3 has been published in 77, and at the time, D&D goblins were not popular yet...

[Tindalos]

It's likely referring to the goblins created by Ethilrist's cloak of darkness. It wouldn't surprise me if this is an earlier name for shades, as Paracelcus' didn't have darkness among his elements, their name would be derived separately.

[GianniVacca]

Wyrms Footnotes

Issue No.4, page 12

"the three Wells of the Yar-arni"

- what are these wells?

 - who are the Yar-arni?

[GianniVacca]

Wyrms Footnotes

Issue No.4, page 24

Godday used to be called Holyday

[jajagappa]

5 hours ago, GianniVacca said:

"Goblins" are listed amongst the Elemental spirits, along with Salamanders and Undines.

Goblins appeared in a few places in early Glorantha material associated with the Earth deities. 

2 hours ago, GianniVacca said:

"the three Wells of the Yar-arni"

- what are these wells?

 - who are the Yar-arni?

Sounds like something for your LM sages to investigate and find out!

[g33k]

5 hours ago, 7Tigers said:

Outside RPG scope, goblins are traditionally considered as earth elementals.
...

I don't think that's so.  "Goblin" (and creatures with cognate names) are much more varied than that (in some cultures, I think the "earth elemental" traits may  be prominent), .  They are generally "fairy" type creatures, not usually/generally "e;lementals" with that fixed association to the Earth.

Certainly the little monsters of D&D are very un-like the folkloric roots of the word!

Wikipedia says:

Quote

Alternative spellings include gobblin, gobeline, gobling, goblyn, goblino, and gobbelin English goblin is first recorded in the 14th century and is probably from unattested Anglo-Norman *gobelin,^[1] similar to Old French gobelin, already attested around 1195 in Ambroise of Normandy's Guerre sainte, and to Medieval Latin gobelinus in Orderic Vitalis before 1141,^[2][3] which was the name of a devil or daemon haunting the country around Évreux, Normandy.

(n.b. folkloric faerie-ish beings, if malicious or dangerous (or prone to "sin" such as lusty habits, or lazy ones, etc) are often taken by Christian folklorists and re-cast as devils/demons).

 

4 hours ago, Tindalos said:

It's likely referring to the goblins created by Ethilrist's cloak of darkness. It wouldn't surprise me if this is an earlier name for shades, as Paracelcus' didn't have darkness among his elements, their name would be derived separately.

Paracelsus seems to have created the "gnome" (indeed as an earth-elemental) but I don't think "goblin" was any of his.

 

7 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Goblins appeared in a few places in early Glorantha material associated with the Earth deities. 

Given the uniquely-Gloranthan nature of Elves and Dwarves, I see no reason there shouldn't be a specifically-Gloranthan version of "Goblin" either.

[Tindalos]

19 minutes ago, g33k said:

Paracelsus seems to have created the "gnome" (indeed as an earth-elemental) but I don't think "goblin" was any of his.

Given the uniquely-Gloranthan nature of Elves and Dwarves, I see no reason there shouldn't be a specifically-Gloranthan version of "Goblin" either.

Oh, no, sorry if I gave that impression! I just meant since it wasn't one of his elements, they'd need a separate term for it.

As for goblins, there's been several different types. In White Bear Red Moon and Dragon Pass they were long-limbed, incredibly fast darkness beings who were summoned through the use of the cloak of darkness.

It's also a term for red elves or slorifings.

There's a mention of Xiola Umbar saving them from Zorak Zoran -- the one time she opposed him, and some are said to live on one of the east isles. These may be slorifings or the darkness entities.

[Gary Norton]

I wonder if Greg was inspired by Goblin Valley State Park in Utah. The hoodoos present there could inspire thoughts of earth elementals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goblin_Valley_State_Park

[Sir_Godspeed]

3 hours ago, g33k said:

Given the uniquely-Gloranthan nature of Elves and Dwarves, I see no reason there shouldn't be a specifically-Gloranthan version of "Goblin" either.

I mean, there is: Slorifings. Fern-elves. 

Pity they're stuck in those giant country-sized fens on either edge of Pamaltela, though. They'd be nice to have scattered about here and there.

[jajagappa]

2 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Pity they're stuck in those giant country-sized fens on either edge of Pamaltela, though. They'd be nice to have scattered about here and there.

Yes, it's a shame they are so out of the way!

[Julian Lord]

On 2/2/2020 at 12:19 AM, White Coke said:

That island between Kralorela and Vithela might be Vormain. Is that island group south east of Jrustela part of Kumanku? 

IIRC, Vormain was larger in the very old sources than it became in the published & unpublished ones that set up the "definitive" geography.

Edited February 11, 2020 by Julian Lord

[Sir_Godspeed]

"S'lon"

Pet peeve of mine: errant and seemingly aesthetic-only apostrophes jammed into words to make them seem fantasyish. Just rubs me the wrong way. Glad they did away with this one.

(One of the only times I can remember apostrophes being given a specific function in a fantasy language is from the Wheel of Time, where they seem to delineate the different roots in compound words - but not even that is entirely consistent, I think. In Klingon it apparently represents a glottal stop, which is probably the most functional usage for it I've seen.) 

/rant, I guess.

[jajagappa]

12 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

"S'lon"

It's what the natives of Umathela said as they waved goodbye to the folk of that land following the break when the land fell away.

[Julian Lord]

13 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

"S'lon"

Pet peeve of mine: errant and seemingly aesthetic-only apostrophes jammed into words to make them seem fantasyish. Just rubs me the wrong way. Glad they did away with this one.

(One of the only times I can remember apostrophes being given a specific function in a fantasy language is from the Wheel of Time, where they seem to delineate the different roots in compound words - but not even that is entirely consistent, I think. In Klingon it apparently represents a glottal stop, which is probably the most functional usage for it I've seen.) 

/rant, I guess.

In RW Grammar, apostrophes are typically used either to denote an elision (so "you've" rather than "you have"), or to represent punctuation. Yes, that means they can represent a glottal stop, but technically that only exists at the end of a vowel ; at the start of one, the similar "sound" is a silent h and is usually represented in modern Western scripts with that letter, but it's properly a glottal opening not a glottal stop.

And the one in "o'clock", for example, is both elision and punctuation.

In some ways it's a bit like a "top comma".

Edited February 11, 2020 by Julian Lord

[Sir_Godspeed]

10 minutes ago, Julian Lord said:

In RW Grammar, apostrophes are typically used either to denote an elision (so "you've" rather than "you have"), or to represent punctuation. Yes, that means they can represent a glottal stop, but technically that only exists at the end of a vowel ; at the start of one, the similar "sound" is a silent h and is usually represented in modern Western languages with that letter, but it's properly a glottal opening not a glottal stop.

And the one in "o'clock", for example, is both elision and punctuation.

In some ways it's a bit like a "top comma"

I am aware, although it's not a universal usage, and there are other RW usages as well, such as in Hebrew where double apostrophes are used to mark acronyms. My point isn't that fictional languages should follow RW (or, let's be blunt here, English) usage, but rather that once you decide to stuff in an apostrophe in a fictional language, it should be there for a reason and not just because it looks cool, which imho is usually the reason why we see them so often. I didn't mention RW usage because I wasn't talking about RW language, basically.

My point about Klingon was not to say "ah, Klingon uses it correctly as a glottal stop", because there's no real right or wrong way to use it in a made up language. My point was just to mention an artificial language that chose a function for the apostrophe and then applied it consistently. Which I think is a good way to make up languages (unless you want to get really indepth with irregular verbs, grammatical artifacts, non-integrated loanwords and archaisms in your artificial language, which you can do, but it's a bit of a pain for the reader, to be honest. Not that Tolkien let that stop him.  )

There's always the argument that most of these writers are English and so would default to English grammatical usage, of course, but that raises the question why they would make their imaginary language chock-full of contractions or elisions to begin with, like a writer typing out dialectal speech phonically for a culture that we haven't even been able to get to know yet, "y'all catchin' m'drift?" Going down that hole quickly just becomes a bit nonsensical, like wondering what phoneme Chris Metzen left out when he made up the names "Quel'Thalas" or "Gul'dan" for Warcraft. Applying Occan's Razor and say that a lot of apostrophes are added because they look exotic is imho the more commonsense way. 

Anyway, sorry if this came off as a bit terse, I didn't intend to, but now that I look back at it, I might've gotten carried a bit away. It's one of those things that honestly don't really matter, but I get worked up over it because apparently that's how my nerd brain works. 

[metcalph]

50 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

There's always the argument that most of these writers are English and so would default to English grammatical usage, of course, but that raises the question why they would make their imaginary language chock-full of contractions or elisions to begin with, like a writer typing out dialectal speech phonically for a culture that we haven't even been able to get to know yet, "y'all catchin' m'drift?"

People speak all the time with contractions and elisions.  Speaking formally in conversations just sounds plain weird.  Where you should be complaing about is the use of contractions and the like in written language.