Fonrit resources?

[hkokko]

On 3/10/2020 at 9:33 PM, Harrek said:

Hello,

we are about to finish our 10-year old campaign in Pavis. The next campaign will be set in Fonrit and around (Loral, maybe Kumanku). Almost everything else is still unclear. We know however, that the next campaign will have  elements like boats and seafaring , pirates, social dilemmas, scheming and backstabbing, slavery and expeditions. After a very heroic campaign in Pavis, we have planned to keep the next one on quite a low level. I have found/purchased the following Fonrit resources already:

- Guide to Glorantha and Argan Argar Atlas 

- Tradetalk #14 

- the excellent Mythras Encounter Generator with plenty of Fonrit related content, and tools for GM's from Notes of Pavis site 

- this forum with all it's Fonrit related topics

I know that there will be a Fonrit book by Chaosium at some point, but I doubt that we'll see it in time before we start our campaign (It's not the first in pipe, right?). So, I'm interested about all kinds of material related to Fonrit and Loral, at least. Meaning maps, cult writeups, place descriptions, session seeds, herobands/organizations, npcs etc. The material doesn't have to be Gloranthan even, if it has the "Fonritan vibe" from your point of view. Meaning inspirational art, harbour maps from real world, building concept art etc.

Have you run a campaign set in Fonrit? It would be nice to hear what kind of story line have you created?

Thank you in advance. 

Hi @Harrek

What happened to your campaign. My group of players just landed to Hombori Tondo from 10 year of real life campaign part in Loral (my version). I am interested in what others have done in Pamaltela

[hkokko]

As a background for my campaign next phase  I created a personal interlinked Obsidian database from all of Pamaltelan material in Guide to Glorantha, Prosopaedia, Revealed Mythologies and some other material available to me. Obsidian is extremely useful for background material. For example all the place names are now interlinked to all the maps they are presented in... This has been way too much prepping for Pamaltela based part of my campaign (3534 interlinked files, part from my campaign, part from the background material above), so let's see where this goes. At least I am prepared... Hopefully the players do not decide to head back to the north continent... 

Edited July 27, 2023 by hkokko

[davecake]

On 7/25/2023 at 6:40 PM, mfbrandi said:

Duty or slavery? I am tempted to say pick at most one. “Reclaimed”?

The Varama text is describing the Sun myth from a Doraddi POV, the Tenoarpesas entry from a Fonritian.

On 7/26/2023 at 9:48 AM, Squaredeal Sten said:

I imagine that most GMs and scenario writers would like to write scenarios that use Ompalam's cult as the enemy. 

Well, represents Ompalam as an evil, certainly. Fonrit has been described as incorporating elements of both Mali and Melniboné. 

On 7/26/2023 at 9:48 AM, Squaredeal Sten said:

y.  For adventurers from outside Fonrit, they will want to avoid being enslaved.

Or remaining enslaved, having been enslaved involuntarily. While it’s definitely a plot element that would definitely need to be discussed before it’s incorporation, its a classic sword and sorcery trope (eg Conan), albeit one that works notoriously poorly in RPGs.

On 7/26/2023 at 9:48 AM, Squaredeal Sten said:

For adventurers originating in Fonrit - well I don't yet have a good enough vision of Fonrit to generate that.

If you read through the Fonrit sections in the Guide, you’ll find it has some reasonable diversity - there are areas not dominated by Ompalam, and freedom movements, and unique city states, etc. It’s also possible to play characters originating in a wicked society and have their character arc be about their journey to true freedom, etc. Clearly, though, the mainstream of Fonritian society is one that is repellent by modern standards, occasionally very obviously so. 

 

[davecake]

FWIW I think the entry for Ompalam in the Prosopedia more represents the general Pamaltelan, largely Doraddi, impression of Ompalam. I think the Garangordites see Ompalam more as some see Mallia - an unpleasant fact of life, often linked with Chaos, but not intrinsically Chaotic - and that in ‘freeing Ompalam from the shackles of Jraktal the Tap’ Garangordos freed Ompalam from being intrinsically Chaotic - at least, that may be their official dogma. It’s dubious though, because I don’t think even the Garangordites believe that slavery was a widespread social institution in Pamaltela before the Vadeli created their vast Godtime slave empire. Or do the Garangordites claim that Tishamto was a slave civilisation? Certainly I think the Doraddi would vehemently deny it. 

So of course, it’s also very likely that when the Doraddi say the Glorious Ones are False Gods, they are substantially correct, and when the Garangordites say Ompalam worship is not Chaotic the way they do it, they are hypocritical and/or delusional, but they might not be 100% false. It’s almost certainly possible to worship Ompalam with no Chaos rune and no use of Chaotic powers. But it’s also true that there are probably tempting Chaotic abilities available to the Masarin, such as using the power of Tentacule or Darleester as a conduit for Tap like magic for taking slave life force for magical power (as the Vadeli did). 

While there are ways in which the Glorious Ones parallel the Seven Mothers, there are big differences too. One is that the original, untainted, deities that the Glorious Ones usurp the power of are still very much active and powerful, and worshipped to the south. Another is that the Glorious Ones can claim to be redeeming Ompalam, but ultimately the Glorious Ones are deeply hostile to the mythic origins of Ompalam, Darleester, Tentacule, etc because the original slave powers of Pamaltela were the hated Vadeli, and they know they are using stolen Vadeli secrets. The Lunars see themselves as gradually uncovering, and returning to, a utopian past - the Glorious Ones see that for themselves too (they think of themselves as the true heirs of Tishamto), but secretly (and in some ways openly) acknowledge that the foundations of their power are actually the dystopian horrors that their worst enemies wielded in the distant past. Of course, they also blame the corruption of the Artmali, leading to the inherent corruption of the Blues, as a reason to blame the Blues for the persistence of many other Chaos cults  (Seseine, Pocharngo, Gark) but the Masarin and the Garangordites are at least, if not considerably more, to blame. 
The Vadeli ruin everything. They are the worst. 

[metcalph]

6 hours ago, davecake said:

 Or do the Garangordites claim that Tishamto was a slave civilisation? Certainly I think the Doraddi would vehemently deny it. 

The Doraddi are free to believe bad things about Tishamto because it's not part of their ancestral mythology.  The surviving descendants of Tishamto after being conquered by the Artmali migrated under Afati-Tal to Laskal.  They are called the New Artmali then but that could be an intended parallel with the New Christians of Spain (ie Jews and Muslims) and they might have been forced to wear Blue Paint (as per the Entekosiad).  Meanwhile the Doraddi ancestors are wandering around destroying the Artmali Empire with the Firefall.

Tishamto in the Fonritan eyes may or may not have been a slave state.  Its conquest and subsequent destruction are what is important to them and not what it was like before.  It was good and then Bad Things happened and their ancestors were forced to do even more Bad Things.  It is the start of a mythical cycle which explains to the Fonritans why things are so shit.  Its always been like this - the only way ahead is to do unto others before they do the same unto you.

 

6 hours ago, davecake said:

While there are ways in which the Glorious Ones parallel the Seven Mothers, there are big differences too. One is that the original, untainted, deities that the Glorious Ones usurp the power of are still very much active and powerful, and worshipped to the south.

But Lhankor Mhy/Buserian, Humakt and Ernalda are also worshipped within the Lunar Empire so I'm not actually sure this is a Big Difference between the Seven Mothers and the Glorious Ones.  

 

[scott-martin]

9 hours ago, davecake said:

the Garangordites see Ompalam more as some see Mallia - an unpleasant fact of life,

This thread has convinced me that ompalam is more of a fundamental orientation toward consciousness and less the usual third age personalized devotional entity . . . more "experimental heroquesting" and less "arkat," more "cyclical magic" and less "sedenya." More "zzaburists," less "zzabur," as it were. More the tap and less some kind of "jraktal." A technology. 

With this in mind, I'm sure some factions take this propitiatory / apologetic attitude toward slavery as an unpleasant fact of life as they understand it. Ironically these would be some of the more sympathetic factions, the ones who can operate as "the enemies of your enemy" and so be relatively friendly to free Doraddi or visiting Theyalans or what have you. They don't like what they're doing. They can find another way.

The ones who are really deep into the way of submission have learned to revel in it as a route to personal aggrandizement or at least power fantasy that inverts or even perverts the basic LBQ/7M (and others) insight . . . we come together at the beginning from all directions embodying all the powers to create a new world, but then we deliberately murder that new creation in order to grab what we can from the corpse. Since we are all conspirators, we know we're all guilty, what we're all capable of doing. We can't trust each other. The necklace fragments back into ominously glowing beads, each bead is the seed of a separate chain of custody, its own slave city. They fight to exhaustion, extermination or forever, whichever comes first. They fight. I-and-I-Alone win. That's the ompalam.

Of course these sound like "vadelist" economies but IMG the hip sages don't really talk much about a separate historical Tribe of Vadel. Something alien to the theyalan way happened down here that gets associated with "vadel" and vadelist revivals at various historical moments. Who knows.
 

[mfbrandi]

4 hours ago, scott-martin said:

[The rescue of Ompalam] inverts or even perverts the basic LBQ … we come together … to create a new world, but … we know we're all guilty, what we're all capable of doing. We can't trust each other.

Apologies if that rather brutal summary is also a distortion.

I wonder whether it really is an inversion or perversion of the LBQ — perhaps the LBQ is just as depressing if we look at it from the POV of Orlanth and company. To take the Big O as the exemplary figure (although with blame, there is always an inexhaustible supply — plenty left for others): he knows he is guilty, a murderer; he knows he broke the world and started a potentially world-ending war; he knows he cannot trust himself or any of the other gods — given half a chance, they would start another war and do it all again. The Great Compromise is that the gods come back but in chains, and to exemplify this, the “new improved sun” runs on rails. If we buy the idea that at least some of the gods signed up for the GC — as if anyone ever signed the social contract —, we can imagine they did so in despair: “God is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Here’s one who thinks he is the master of others, yet he is more enslaved than they are.” (Apologies to Rousseau.) It is a grim solution for them, but they cannot think of a better one, so they submit to the manacles. If — and I do not say we should — we allow that all in manacles are slaves, then from this point of view slavery is worse than natural, it is justified.

DX as Orlanth and all that. But the Godtime loop gets the O out of displaying any penitence: it came too late°, so it didn’t make it into the greatest hits tape.

I remain unconvinced that having the social contract as slavery metaphor running in parallel with Ompalam as the deity or notion of actual slavery is a smart move.

(There are other viewpoints from which to observe the GC, of course. One needn’t hold that what is good for the gods is good for mortals, nor that Orlanth and fellow Compromisers were right about the gods. Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend.)

———————————————

° Perhaps time — entropy redux — was set running early, as an incentive for the gods to sign on the line. (A thought contrary to the above, of course.)

Edited July 31, 2023 by mfbrandi
spelling, italics, caps

[metcalph]

I'm not sure blaming the Vadeli for Pamaltelan slavery actually works.  Slavery in the sense of capturing outsiders and making them work for you was known in the Golden Age which is kinda  before Vadel set foot in Pamaltela.  I think the Vadeli legacy is a lot subtler than saying the Vadeli created Ompalam, which isn't quite what Revealed Mythologies or the Guide say.  

 

[radmonger]

I think the implication is that the Doraddi, like many ancient tribal societies, do have that kind of slavery.  This may or may not be magically backed. If it was, there would be something like a variant of the Oath spell that enforced a year's servitude.

My reading is that post-Vadeli  Fonrit has two distinct but related practices:

- tapping slavery, where the master sorcerously breaks the will of the slave

- Ompalam slavery, where the slave dedicates their own will and energy into being a better slave.

The second form is why Fonrit is so rich. The threat of the first is why slaves commonly tolerate it.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 1, 2023 by radmonger

[metcalph]

Things I would like to have a better idea about:

Jeff has been clear that the Vadeli use only sorcery.  So how exactly did they "pretend" to be Gods?  I imagine as they were worshipped, the magic points expended was channeled to fuel their spells.  Was there anything more to that?  The Vadeli could always be lying their faces off but that would have been something a truth spell would have shown.

Seseine and Echeklihos are both worshipped in Fonrit.  How exactly do the two get along?  I suppose I'll have to wait for the Lunar Book next year for the beginnings of an answer.

I had thought of Ompalam as having some twisted austerity magics.  Sort of like the Shamanic Abilities in the RQ rules.  The idea being that the more intensely you devote yourself to Ompalam, the more gifts you get*.  Thus the society is not reinofrced on their ability to command others (although that helps) but on the desire of the worshippers to acquire better magic in return for their dedication to their master.  Ompalam won't provide any other magics so an intermediary like the Master's ancestor provides the magics instead. 

*If a slave sacrifice characteristics, would that go towards the Master?  Food for thought.

Edited August 1, 2023 by metcalph

[mfbrandi]

8 hours ago, metcalph said:

Vadeli use only sorcery.  So how exactly did they “pretend” to be Gods?

To my surprise, there seems to be an answer — probably means there is a contradictory one lurking somewhere else:

• When Garangordos quested to liberate Ompalam from
  Jraktal the Tap, he returned with ancient Vadeli magical
  insights … When the Opening came, the Vadeli returned
  to Pamaltela and conquered much of Fonrit posing as
  the returned Glorious Ones. The Vadeli revealed secrets
  of the Glorious Ones that had been known only to their
  initiates. As a result, the Vadeli were worshipped
  — The Vadeli Legacy, GtG, p. 46

So immortal sorcerers had to impersonate demigods who traded in Vadeli techniques in the first place — sounds doable.

As for truth, this seems to be a flexible thing in Glorantha: there are lie spells as well as truth magics and I doubt that we would consider Gloranthan “proofs” of divine identity as anything of the sort. If x says that they are the reincarnation of y, who is to say they are not? What does it even mean? Cue magical arm wrestling and some fireworks for the rubes — job done! And if there is no truth, or it is not a settled thing, or it is unknowable, can there be even an intention to deceive?

And for the general case, if I say “I am a god” am I making a claim of fact or saying something more like “worship me”?

Drawing up an empirical checklist for godhood seems like a foolish task, but if you put a gun to my head, I would say that the received opinion of the Vadeli personality is just right for a god:

• Vadeli reject Malkion’s laws utterly and their culture
  deliberately and knowingly transgresses against the
  laws of the universe. All Vadeli are notable for their
  lack of empathy, cold-heartedness, egocentricity,
  superficial charm, manipulativeness, irresponsibility,
  impulsivity, criminality, lack of remorse, and a
  complete disregard for morality.
  — Vadeli Isles, Culture, GtG, p. 527

Who could fail to love a people of whom that was said? I can feel my heart warming toward them as I type.

Edited August 1, 2023 by mfbrandi
line break

[metcalph]

11 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

So immortal sorcerers had to impersonate demigods who traded in Vadeli techniques in the first place — sounds doable.

They didn't trade in Vadeli techniques - they used Vadeli magical insights, which is a slightly different thing altogether.

 

 

 

[mfbrandi]

9 hours ago, radmonger said:

Ompalam slavery, where the slave dedicates their own will and energy into being a better slave

Yuck! I’d feel like I was living in a JF Lange sex fantasy. Tap me. Tap me now. Tap me down to dust.

[metcalph]

Thoughts about Jraktal.

I don't think Jraktal teaches the sorcerous tap spell, rather he is the source of weaker magics that the Fonritans and Westerners readily identified as Tapping.  Although the Jraktali might have been leaders of Blueskin society before their Conquest, I think they are low status magicians that thrive by tapping petitioners in return for magical services or extorting protection.  The Masters hate them because they are a drain on their slaves 

[Glorion]

On 7/25/2023 at 3:40 AM, mfbrandi said:

I would be interested to hear the completion of the thought.

If Chaosium must have Pamaltela as “Fantasy Africa,” perhaps they should hand it over to actual Africans to retcon it into something unrecognisable.

The tendency to present everything as in-world documentation by unreliable narrators confers “plausible deniability,” but some of the stuff in the recent Prosopaedia reads as ill-considered metaphor:

• After the Greater Darkness, Pamalt called Noruma to rekindle the
  ancient fires. Kendamalar was reborn and was called Varama. He is now a
  slave, a bright orb of fire chained to an unyielding path, trapped by duty
  to his task.
  — p. 129
   
• [Tenoarpesas] returned from the Underworld as both the power of Ompalam
  and as Varama, the now shackled sun. He reclaimed the power of slavery.
  — p. 119

Duty or slavery? I am tempted to say pick at most one. “Reclaimed”?

• [Ompalam] is the corruption of the powers of the Center, where all should
  be balanced and harmonious, but instead are used by Ompalam for self-gain
  and tyrannical exploitation.
  — p. 91

So slaveholding seems to be some kind of metaphor for corrupt government and bondage more generally — everyone is a slave, possibly even Ompalam … especially Ompalam! — but he is also the literal god of slavery of a slave state. Is that a sensible choice? And of course he is obese, because what could be more corrupt than a fat person?

• Tentacule is the power of possession. Anything that is held by anything
  uses the power of Tentacule. Even the living who hold onto life are
  subject to it.
  — p. 119–120

That is the one that particularly gets my goat: note that it is the thing held (e.g. the slave) that uses the power of Tentacule and the thing doing the holding (e.g. the slaveholder) that is subject to it. That looks a lot like victim-blaming. “But, of course, we at Chaosium don’t think that — that is just an unreliable, ironic, or evil Gloranthan writer.” But the thing is one can easily imagine this starting with thoughts like “the lover is a slave to the beloved”, “the addict is a slave to their drug”, and “employers have become addicted to cheap labour.” The thing about metaphors is that they are usually false, so in a world where they are literalised left, right, and centre, one has to take some real care. And if the free were banned from using slavery as a metaphor for — I don’t know — the next 400 years, would the world be any the poorer for it?

(Yes the exploiter may indeed be in turn exploited, and they may be trapped by their very act of exploiting others — but it is unlikely to be those at the bottom who are the agents of the whole sorry mess.)

Finally, Garangordos:

• Garangordos brought the benefits of civilization, chief among them the
  ability for some individuals to treat other human beings as property to be
  bought, sold, and forced to work …

  Garangordos became the divine guardian of the temples of Ompalam …

  Garangordos is depicted as a black-skinned nobleman carrying shackles
  and a noose.
  — p. 44

I don’t really know what to make of that. It is not straightforwardly condemnatory like the description of Ompalam, and plausibly the IRL author is being sarcastic while the fictional Gloranthan author is writing from a pro-Garangordos POV.

Slow-witted as I am, I cannot figure out what Chaosium is trying to do with all the Pamaltelan slavery stuff, but I do wish they would stop.

I think it wasn't completed due to my computer having a mind of its own that day. I don't think I intended to say anything more profound than "which is bad." There probably should be slavery in Pamaltela, since after all there was plenty of slavery of different sorts in Africa, though not of the extreme ultra evil sort in the Fonrit writeup. And it did not have a racial character, as it most certainly does in Fonrit, with evil black people vilely mistreating blue people, and doing so in a manner that sounds suspiciously like Eurocentric caricatures of slavery in the Islamic world.

[dumuzid]

There's an element to the Fonritian masirin that makes them in many ways more frightening and dangerous than the Vadeli themselves: their connection to the God Learners.

The Middle Sea Empire conquered and colonized Fonrit around four centuries after Garangordos first entered the region from Laskal, about a century after the conquest of Teshnos.  The Guide describes them defeating a confederation of the Fonritian cities.  I don't know that any existing sources describe exactly when first contact happened, but given Fonrit's proximity to Umathela I can't imagine it took MSE explorers long to find the place once the Waertagi monopoly on ocean sailing was broken.  They had both time and opportunity to observe Fonritian culture before the conquest, and examples like the founding of Eest in Teshnos to teach them a great deal about manipulating the myth structures of fully foreign cultures towards their own ends.  God Learner societies within the MSE would've had broad and deep access to Fonritian cult lore after the conquest, and one of the main results of their research seems to have been defining Ompalam's place in the Monomyth: as an equivalent to the Invisible God, which could have theoretically allowed them to fully syncretize Fonritian and Jrustelan Malkioni practice.  They did not have much time to execute any plans for major religious and cultural change in Fonrit as widespread revolts toppled the MSE colonial structure in Fonrit less than thirty years after the original conquest was completed.  Nevertheless, the "Ompalam is the Invisible God" belief remains widespread in Fonrit into the 1600s ST.

There are two elements of the revolts against the MSE worth highlighting here.  First: in Afadjann, the effort was spearheaded by a jann who managed to "enslave Darleester the Noose," and so was able to wield the full power and authority of Garangordos within the Fonritian system.  That seems to mean authority over the other janns, temporarily suspending the infighting and intrigue that normally keep the city-states from cooperating effectively, and it suggests a supreme expression of the Glorious Ones' power to enslave others, bringing them permanently into the Ompalam chain of ownership.  This leads me to believe that any successful revolt against the MSE by the janns must have resulted in them capturing and subsequently enslaving some of their opponents.  I'd even suggest that capturing the highest-status officials and magicians available would've been a primary war aim of the janns, and that possession of especially valuable MSE captives would've been a source of bitter contention between the janns once their victory was achieved.  If these inferences are accurate, then the fall of the MSE in Afadjann results in at least some of the janns owning former MSE slaves who could be compelled through the magic of Darleester and Ompalam to divulge all their secrets to their new masters.  This would make Afadjann one of the primary areas of Glorantha where the thought and teachings of the God Learners survived in an unbroken line through the catastrophes that ended the Second Age.

Second, there is the particular way the revolts played out in Kareeshtu, to the north of Afadjann.  The leader who rose to the head of the Kareeshtan effort was a rebel MSE governor.  The Guide does not give their name, or specific fate, and as far as I know neither does any other publicly available source.  Given the location though, I've theorized elsewhere on this forum that this rebel governor is connected to (and possibly identical to) Archidomides the Undying, the immortal ruler of modern Golden Kareeshtu.  Whether that attribution is correct or not, a successful revolt supported and led by MSE secessionists suggests that Kareeshtu is another area where the God Learner intellectual tradition survived mostly intact through the terminal Second Age.  

I think access to God Learner thought and techniques gives the Fonritian ruling class a truly frightening degree of finesse when manipulating the God Time, at a level comparable to what's been achieved by the Travel & Journeyers of the Lunar Empire.  The capture of God Learner slaves would have given them the ability to examine their myths in detail from both the internal, Fonritian perspective and the detached, Jrusteli Monomyth perspective, plus information about the wider Gloranthan monomyth, which present a dazzling array of potential insights for them to mine and harness.  The peculiar state of the god Artmal circa the early 1620s is a potential result of this synthesis: his worship is permitted among the Veldang slaves of Fonrit as Artmal the Slave, but their ability to access and explore the rest of his mythic landscape is next to nonexistent.  According to the Guide, Artmal's full God Time presence will only become accessible once his fragmented parts are rejoined and he is healed of his old wounds, by the Red Sword Quest of Gebel and Gabaryanga.  Until then, the Fonritian rulers have engineered a situation that allows their Veldang slaves an outlet of worship for their ancestral god, but only a form that reinforces their position as the subjugated foundation of Fonritian society.  After Oenriko Rocks the janns have Vadeli slaves who won't die of old age like the captured God Learners of centuries ago as long as they're allowed to fulfill their caste obligations, some of whom may have personally experienced the Vadeli empire of Oabil in God Time Pamaltela.  The Vadeli have experience with turning the tables in these sorts of situations (see The Kachasti War in Revealed Mythologies), but in the meantime the janns have at least some time to mine Vadeli mythic and sorcerous knowledge to augment their existing command of the ancient Vadeli sources of Pamaltela and the surviving knowledge gleaned from the God Learners before the Veldang Revolution brings the Hero Wars to Fonrit.

Post-script:

Spoiler

A natural rejoinder to all this would be, "If the Fonritians have access to this kind of magical power and finesse between their God Learner and Vadeli influences, why haven't they expanded they way the Lunar Empire has?"  The answer to this, I believe, lies in the climax of Garangordos's conquest of Fonrit, and his murder by Jokotu, the man he left as steward of the people while he embarked on his inverted Necklace of Pamalt quest.  His death dissolved the unity of the Glorious Ones, who dispersed to rule the patchwork of new Fonritian city-states founded by the conquest, and this pattern repeats itself over and over in Fonritian history: confederation behind central figures, followed by dissolution and infighting once those leaders fail or lose relevance.  The only Fonritian state that appears to avoid this pattern is Golden Kareeshtu, where Archidomides seems to derive more power and authority from his connection to the city god Tondiji and the torture god Ikadz than Garangordos or Darleester. 

There's a lot that's interesting about the Garangordos-Jokotu connection, but what strikes me as relevant here is that this recurring loss of central leadership isn't present in the myth Garangordos's quest deliberately inverted, Pamalt's Necklace of Life.  Nobody murders Pamalt in the end in that one; that Pamalt survived the Gods War is the main mythological difference between Pamaltela and Genertela, after all.  To me this suggests that contrary to, say, the example of Teelo Norri, Garangordos's death at the end of the conquest was not an outcome he intended, but a difference in the quest introduced by Jokotu going 'off-script' and assassinating the 'Pamalt' of Garangordos's Necklace.  That act introduces a vacuum at the center of the myth's final configuration not present in the conventional Necklace of Pamalt, which cyclically destabilizes any attempt by the Fonritian states to cooperate on a grand scale.  If Garangordos wasn't murdered, or if he'd been able to leave a successor demigod behind once he fully apotheosized to continue his earthly rule as the Red Goddess did with her Moonson, the early Second Age might have seen a Fonritian empire repeating the Veldang conquest in Elamle or Umathela, confronting the MSE much earlier and in a much stronger position.

Post-post script:

Spoiler

I think Jracktal the Tap is probably the name for a spell cast by Zzabur as part of annihilating the Vadeli empire of Oabil.  The effect of this spell was negated by the Glorious Ones, allowing Ompalam to return fully to Pamaltela as the god whose power and secrets underly urban civilization.

 

[metcalph]

The God Learners in Fonrit.  I've included some foreign details to indicate what they were capable of doing at the time.  

c. 480 ST - Ten Colonies established in Umathela by Slontans, Caladrans and others.  There may be some colonies in Fonrit as the name of their Hero of this period Abbak is also found in the Fonritan City, Abbakar [and Delerenkos (in Abbakka as a tile of their Queen) - PHM]

500 ST - Garangordos conquers Fonrit.

580 ST - The Seshnegi settle Umathela.  Now their arrival is mentioned in the Fonritan chapter of the Guide by the earlier migration isn't?

646 ST - Abiding Book revealed.

654 ST - God Learners destroy Vralos.

679 ST - Kalabar is established.

770 ST - MSE dominates Kareeshtu.

780 ST - God Learners begin mapping the Gates to the Otherwords.

800 ST - God Learners invade the rural holy places and also begin to guess at the forgotten places.

806 ST - God Learners map the Spirit World.

838 ST - MSE intervenes in Fonrit and defeats a rival coalition.  Kareeshtu formally becomes part of the Empire and large parts of Fonrit submit to the Empire for protection.

845 ST - God Learners raid the strongest gates.

849 ST - Goddess Switch performed.  The God Learners are busy trying to identify the Elder Gods and the switch was an attempt to overcome divine resistance.

861 ST - Six-Legged Empire established in Jolar. 

879 ST - MSE rules over all Fonrit.  The MSE describes it as taking control of a few key ports and playing off the others against each other.

901 ST - MSE orders withdrawal from Jolar.  

907 ST - Kolat Slave Riots; Most Fonritan co-operation with MSE ends.

908 ST - Jann of Afadjann revolts.  Kareeshtu soon follows.

922 ST - Last MSE holdings in Pamaltela are lost. 

955 ST - Closing strikes Fonrit. 

960 ST - God Learners begin Power Heroquests.  

1020 ST - Umathelan Coalition is destroyed with the death of the Lord of the World's Knowledge

1049 ST - Universe snaps back.  Gift carriers active?

1077 ST - Invisible Fleet destroys God Learner Fleet in Koraru Bay.

1080 ST - Fonritans retake Ateggeanga from the Umathelans.  The Umathelans are probably Malkioni dominated by the Elves rather than God Learners.

1137 ST- Kalabar destroyed.  

Edited August 4, 2023 by metcalph