Human sacrifice and other dark rituals in Orlanthi culture

[UristMcTurtle]

Well, reading throught the last Runequest core rulebook I came across an interesting fact about the cult of Maran Gor: Every male child born to the God Talker must be sacrificed. That small line reminded me that (and correct me if I am wrong) human sacrifice is still present in Orlanthi society to a certain extent, even if it seems rather reduced.

My questions are: How are Orlanthi human sacrifices carried out? Which Orlanthi gods accept human sacrifices? Is it something universal or only present in some clans?
 
As a side note, i really, really like the presence of this kind of stuff, and hope that Gods of Glorantha can give us more detail about it. Maybe is a bit unconventional or dark, but honestly, this really reafirm the bronze age feel arround the Orlanthi.

[Mirza]

It's done by the Orlanthi through the worship of Ana Gor, the Goddess of Death and Human Sacrifice, because only through her does human sacrifice not damn or destroy the soul of the sacrificed, and is thus a non-Chaotic act. Those sacrificed through her worship go to the Beautiful Place, an afterlife that's considered the most pleasant in the underworld as a reward.

Most worshipers of Ana Gor are temporary, only taking up her worship when their god demands that a life be taken, though I remember that there might be traveling holy people of Ana Gor that can be called upon for the performing of the sacrifice, and there is the Shaker Temple Ana Gor priestesshood. Yeah the Shaker Temple is a focal point of human sacrifice in Dragon Pass, it involved sacrifical Sacred Kings, and started up again once humans started returning to Dragon Pass in Tarsh since Arim the Pauper married the living incarnation of Ana Gor, Sorana Tor, which is eventually why Hon-eel found the Tarshites willing to accept blood rites.

For the gods that call for human sacrifice, Orlanth and Ernalda expressly forbid such for their own rites, but Maran Gor, Babeester Gor, Humakt, Ty Kora Tek, and Esrola (Yeah, Esrola's not completely the warm and fuzzy type as it turns out) are Orlanthi gods that on rare occasions demand for human blood to flow to be appeased. Outside the Orlanthi gods there are some more I can think of that probably also desire human sacrifices, Shargash, for Hon-eel's cult blood flows like water, Natha, Mallia if you clan needs to propitiate to her to stop a disease, Magasta, and Wachaza.

I excluded the Troll gods because well, human sacrifice is something they desire probably, but it isn't the same sort of taboo as when someone is sacrificing their own species, though Zorak Zoran, and Karrg definitely accept Troll sacrifice iirc.

[Akhôrahil]

6 hours ago, UristMcTurtle said:

My questions are: How are Orlanthi human sacrifices carried out? 

I would think that it's blood sacrifice, with the victim getting slashed to bleed out over the altar stone or the ground.

6 hours ago, UristMcTurtle said:

As a side note, i really, really like the presence of this kind of stuff, and hope that Gods of Glorantha can give us more detail about it. Maybe is a bit unconventional or dark, but honestly, this really reafirm the bronze age feel arround the Orlanthi.

Agree - Glorantha sometimes leans into being a little too "nice".

5 hours ago, Mirza said:

I excluded the Troll gods because well, human sacrifice is something they desire probably, but it isn't the same sort of taboo as when someone is sacrificing their own species, though Zorak Zoran, and Karrg definitely accept Troll sacrifice iirc.

The Black Sun and The Blood Sun are all about human (well, non-human is fine) sacrifice too.

Edited February 13, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Sir_Godspeed]

There are different kinds of rationales and purposes for sacrifice. I'm pretty sure Troll gods want sacrifice because, well, they eat, and it's a kind of prestige food. I doubt that's why most Orlanthi gods require blood sacrifice. It can be a required restitutionary sacrifice, like someone being punished instead of the community as a whole (ie. a scapegoat), or, depending on the angle, nobly giving their own life instead of having the community suffer (ie. the lamb of God, as it were), and then there are sort of quid-pro-quo (I bet the yanks here are tired of hearing that phrase, my apologies) where someone is given great blessings, but will eventually have to return to their benefactor to repay them with their life. Earth is big on that last one, I believe.

Earth also has a - if I dare say - pseudo-incestuous thing going on with the sacrifice of kings who are sons of earth goddesses, but then also spawn the next generation of holy kings.

When looking at the section on Dawn Era Dragon Pass and its surroundings, I believe we already then find a number of survival settlements that practiced human sacrifice, and I suspect the eventual Lightbringer cult integrated those beliefs into the more coherent Heortling synthesis after a few decades/couple of centuries. To those settlements it was probably a survival secret for the Darkness (ie., in lieu of sun and the goddesses' natural vitality, one offers mortal blood as a substitute), but it probably goes back even further. Earth-cult human sacrifice is imho likely a Green Age practice, which took on a decidedly darker tone once true Death was released into the world (and the sacrificed husband-sons did not get reborn as reliably and completely as they once had). This is a bit up to interpretation, of course. This may or may not overlap with Green/Golden age Moon cult practices - but this leads us down the Entekosiad rabbit hole, which is deep and confusing, and not directly relevant to third age Orlanthi for the most part, so I won't dwell on that. 

I'm not sure whether the Orlanthi sacrifice war captives, a relatively common practice in the RW.

Edited February 13, 2020 by Sir_Godspeed

[scott-martin]

1 hour ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

quid-pro-quo

We can say "do ut des" here, it's OK. Love this stuff.

[soltakss]

In the Tale of the Arganauts, our last Gloranthan Campaign, the PCs were working to resurrect Genert. One of the steps was to sacrifice 1,000 people, making a 10x10x10 cube of their bodies. They took it in their stride and it became a logistics exercise about how to source 1,000 people to sacrifice, not whether it was OK to sacrifice them.

[Grievous]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

In the Tale of the Arganauts, our last Gloranthan Campaign, the PCs were working to resurrect Genert. One of the steps was to sacrifice 1,000 people, making a 10x10x10 cube of their bodies. They took it in their stride and it became a logistics exercise about how to source 1,000 people to sacrifice, not whether it was OK to sacrifice them.

Murder-hobos taken to another level: murder-engineers.

[Sir_Godspeed]

58 minutes ago, Grievous said:

Murder-hobos taken to another level: murder-engineers.

Moving up in life!

[g33k]

9 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Moving up in life!

...

or death.

[French Desperate WindChild]

I am not very clear about human sacrifice in Orlanthi communities

I know that Ana Gor is called by Humakt, Ty Kora Tek, Babeester Gor, Erantha Gor, or Esrola cults.
I know that Babeester Gor cultists sacrifices their male children.

I believe -not sure at all-  that Sorana Tor sacrifices every 7 years the king of .. Tarsh ?

I can understand that Esrola needs sometimes more powerful fertilizer than manure.

And that's all.

 

Who is sacrificied and when/why ?

For example, how can an humakti sacrifices an unarmed person ? Does that mean the "sacrifice" is the one who is killed during a duel ? Only a sacred type of duel ? Only a dedicated duel to follow a [periodic] ritual where 2 champions are proposed ?

Why Ty Kora Tek needs sacrifice ? when there is not enough dead in a year ? when her priestess is to old and decide to join her ? Who is then killed ? Only the priestess ? some slaves ? servants ? children ?

same for others nice gods ?

 

What kind of scenario can we build with these sacrifices ? Free a prisonner (if there is only volunteers, no) Convince someone to renounce ? (what will the cult do in these case ? a hunt party? )

And of course what are the candidates ? initiate of an opposite cult ? priest(ess) of the cult ? men ? women ? etc...

 

 

 

[Darius West]

12 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Who is sacrificed and when/why ?

Within the RQG rules on p316 there are rules covering bonuses to one's Worship skill.  As an act of pure Godlearnerism, if it is a buff discussed in the rules, that is enough reason to use it 🙂.

IRL there are a few different reasons why human sacrifice was carried out.  One was to provide a deity with a servant, optionally a meal if they were man-eaters.  Some deities notionally need to be placated, and will forestall their violence in return for a regular tax in human life.  Remember that in Orlanthi culture, every year there are large sacrifices in cattle and sheep to all deities at Sacred Time.  It is also worth underlining the importance of Ana Gor and the fact that the person sacrificed is not spiritually destroyed again. Given that this needs having attention drawn to it, perhaps it was not always the case, and this is part of how chaos slipped into the world, despite the protestations of the priests to the contrary?  If you have to say "we have a special goddess who makes this bad thing we do not chaotic", everybody knows the act is morally suspect, and is just making excuses imo.

The notion of humans forgoing the earthly advantage of the things sacrificed to honor the gods is supposed to move the gods to intervene on behalf of the worshippers, partly because gods like presents (even if they probably don't need them), and because gods are moral exemplars who feel compelled to act by witnessing worthy deeds conducted in their names.  We must assume that Gloranthan gods don't feed on the souls of the creatures, as Ana Gor allegedly makes that unnecessary.

Some people have hypothesized that the death acts as a spiritual catalyst, and the sacrifice becomes a channel for divine favor.  According to the Mesopotamians, gods (the igigi) crave burning flesh, and are attracted by the smell of cooking.  Old Germanic tribes conducted human sacrifices and made deities of those they sacrificed, carrying them into battle and venerating them until they began to suffer setbacks. Among the Norse, one would hang a thrall on Odin's tree, much as Odin himself had hung on Yggdrasil to receive the runes. 

It is also worth noting that human sacrifice is mainly chthonic in Glorantha, as in our world in ancient times, save that Glorantha is far more restrained than we Earthlings ever were.   The sky and air gods don't perform human sacrifice, only those of Earth, Water and Darkness do.

[Ali the Helering]

I think we can be in danger of bringing our own attitudes to bare here.  This is not a dark ritual, it is the righteous appeasing of the Earth, and similarly to be understood for the other deities.  If you don't do this your crops will fail, chasms will open up across your land, Maran might just spit her flaming phlegm up from them and go full Geldingadalir on you.  The tremors of her fury will knock down buildings and undermine the tula's defences.  This is a very, very important ritual accompanied by much booze and deep breathing.

[soltakss]

8 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

I am not very clear about human sacrifice in Orlanthi communities

I know that Ana Gor is called by Humakt, Ty Kora Tek, Babeester Gor, Erantha Gor, or Esrola cults.
I know that Babeester Gor cultists sacrifices their male children.

I believe -not sure at all-  that Sorana Tor sacrifices every 7 years the king of .. Tarsh ?

I can understand that Esrola needs sometimes more powerful fertilizer than manure.

And that's all.

I play that human sacrifice was commonly practised, but then the Orlanth-Ernalda rites brought an end to that.

It only really raises its head when the Orlanth-Ernalda rites fail, for example in the Great Winter after Orlanth is defeated by the Lunars.

Hon-Eel famously reintroduced human sacrifice to make her maize grow, presumably because the current rites did not help.

 

[Qizilbashwoman]

13 hours ago, Darius West said:

The sky and air gods don't perform human sacrifice, only those of Earth, Water and Darkness do.

Shargash alone demonstrates the untruth of that statement

[Joerg]

Orlanthi sacrifice involves feasting on the sacrificial animal. and possibly being sprinkled in the blood of that sacrifice. That makes human sacrifice somewhat weird. Is there ritual cannibalism involved?

[Ali the Helering]

2 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Shargash alone demonstrates the untruth of that statement

Blood Sun, anyone?

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Shargash alone demonstrates the untruth of that statement

Shargash is an underworld (Darkness) deity as much as he is a sky deity.

But then there is Yelmalio with his Three Strikes of Anger, there are sacred gladiatoral games in Dara Happa, etc.

With Yelm and Lodril, we have two more underworld deities, of course.

[Ali the Helering]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Orlanthi sacrifice involves feasting on the sacrificial animal. and possibly being sprinkled in the blood of that sacrifice. That makes human sacrifice somewhat weird. Is there ritual cannibalism involved?

 

 

 

Yes, well....

[French Desperate WindChild]

thanks all, but who could be the victims ?

volunteers ?

"designated" members of the community  (job position like sacred king / high priest(ess) ) ?

"designated" members of the community (divination, runes roll or just analysis by the hight priest(ess) ) ?

slaves ?

prisonners ?

gladiators ? but is "sacred" gladiator fight a sacrifice or just a sacred ceremony ? (with death at the end, but maybe not a human sacrifice from a human/glonranthan morale perspective)

of course all depend on the cult, but if you have any answer about one cult, thatwould be wonderful.

[Ali the Helering]

Roman gladiatorial combat is generally accepted as having evolved out of funerary games, with two slaves (or more?) fighting to the death.  So a blend of ancestral and chthonic worship.

[Darius West]

15 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

I think we can be in danger of bringing our own attitudes to bare here.  This is not a dark ritual, it is the righteous appeasing of the Earth, and similarly to be understood for the other deities.  If you don't do this your crops will fail, chasms will open up across your land, Maran might just spit her flaming phlegm up from them and go full Geldingadalir on you.  The tremors of her fury will knock down buildings and undermine the tula's defences.  This is a very, very important ritual accompanied by much booze and deep breathing.

🙂 Tell that to the thrall.  Feed them the line about Ana Gor and a better afterlife.  They might be gullible enough to believe you.  There is every likelihood that the earthquake will subside on its own, but the priests will use a ritual murder to take the credit for stopping it.  A very important ritual indeed, as it maintains the illusion of control by the priest class. 

This isn't so much about our attitudes as it is about the fact that the Orlanthi culture pretty much did away with the practice because they decided human sacrifice is morally wrong or unnecessary in the worship of their gods.  As a GM who routinely takes the roles of horrible monsters I don't "have a dog in this fight", but please don't assume that our repugnance for human sacrifice IRL is entirely transferred into our gaming.  Without fearsome enemies, where is the story after all?

14 hours ago, soltakss said:

Hon-Eel famously reintroduced human sacrifice to make her maize grow, presumably because the current rites did not help.

I bet Hon-Eel's ritual doesn't even invoke Ana Gor, given that she is part of a Chaos Pantheon. 😛

 

 

[Joerg]

3 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

 

 

 

Yes, well....

That used to be the Aeolian style (in the HQ1 write-up)...

Also, this is almost like an everlast-biscuit of a sacrifice. Almost 2000 years ago, and still keeps giving. Sermon of the Mount, in perpetuation.

 

Then there is the "messenger to god" function, where the sacrifice gets shot first, then delivers the message. The other form also of the royal sacrifice, as per the Heimskringla.

Edited May 10, 2021 by Joerg

[Sir_Godspeed]

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

🙂 Tell that to the thrall.  Feed them the line about Ana Gor and a better afterlife.  They might be gullible enough to believe you. 

Okay, but in the context of Glorantha, this is not an unreasonable claim, given that visiting the afterlife/underworld is totally a thing that people can do.

I do agree that the Orlanthi seems to mostly have moved away from human sacrifices most of the time, though.

Edited May 10, 2021 by Sir_Godspeed

[Rob Darvall]

There was once a fairly horrific take on Voriof that involved fighting Telmori through the mechanism of ritual cannibalism. While it was definitely non-canonical it was well done enough to provide an interesting perspective. You got a definite feeling of life on the edge and what Pratchett called "the dreadful algebra of neccessity."

[Ali the Helering]

5 hours ago, Darius West said:

🙂 Tell that to the thrall. 

I don't have to - they know the reality as well as the priesthoods.                                                                                                                                                                                 Every time the Earth is offended we feed her blood.  Every time we feed her blood, the earthquakes stop.  The causality is obvious.  To suggest otherwise flies in the face of logic and rationality.

During a tutorial I was once asked "How scientific was St. Paul's thinking?"  The expectation was that I would attack him for his implied idiocy.  What I did say was "Absolute.  Given the science of the time."  If we import our notions of logic and reason, (let alone that ghastly nonsense of "We hold these truths to be self-evident" when they are certainly not so), then we don't get close to the ancient mind. 

The priests aren't trying to put one over on the thrall, they are trying to ensure everybody - including the rest of the thralls doesn't get eaten by the Mother of all Earthquakes.