Yelmalion at an Elmal temple.

[Nick Brooke]

Here you go:

http://etyries.albionsoft.com/etyries.com/journeys/elmal.html
 

[Richard S.]

7 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

Silly over-reactions. I sorted this all out to my own satisfaction at the time, and ten years later old Chaosium agreed I’d nailed it (long after @MOB had adopted my answer as canon).

I'm assuming your answer is basically the same as the current one?

Edit: whoops didn't see you'd posted a link.

Edited May 19, 2020 by Richard S.

[M Helsdon]

Elmal and Yelmalio are probably both worshiped (with no religious schism) in Ralios, and Elmal alone is probably worshipped in Maniria.

Of course, is Elmal in Ralios confused with Ehilm (probably not) or Galanin?

Edited May 19, 2020 by M Helsdon

[soltakss]

8 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

But Monrogh (Yelmalio) said Elmal is Yelmalio, so his cult (at least those who follow him, so in Sartar, Prax and ... i don't know) should know Yelmalio was Orlanth's Thane too. Or maybe the interpretation is not thane but ally against darkness / chaos. In all case I cannot imagine they ignore some kind of association in God Time (not as cult association, but more "story association")

Yes, but the cult does not necessarily teach all the myths. There are some myths that only Elmali will remember as they are just not taught by the Yelmalio cult. Similarly, there are Yelmalio myths not taught by the Elmal cult.

don't forget that each temple has its own memory of myths and that some temples have access to different myths than others. A cult is not a monolithic set of beliefs, although the Theyalan Missionaries tended to spread their version of the myths and absorbed some myths in their travels.

It is like the various cults of Arkat. they all sort of know that Arkat was a Brithini, then a Hrestoli, then a Heortlander, then a Troll, but each of the cults concentrates on one Aspect. You wouldn't get members of Arkat Humaktsson talking about how Arkat became a Troll, or members of Zorak Arkat talking about Arkat teaching sorcery to Heortlanders. they have conveniently forgotten those myths.

2 hours ago, Manimati said:

That is precisely how we felt when Greg "gregged" us when he introduced Elmal. Greg did explain how and why it happened in the RuneQuest-Con convention booklet of 1994  "The birth of Elmal or, why I screwed up your Glorantha". You might find solace/consolation reading it (if you can get it).The booklet also included other essays on that issue by Stephen Martin and David Hall.

 

2 hours ago, Manimati said:

Since then "Yelmalio and Elmal" has been a bottomless source of discussions among Glorantha communities.

 

2 hours ago, Tindalos said:

Apart from we're now told that never happens, that despite Elmal having been around he's effectively just a historical figure.

Right, I might just have to write up the Elmal Cult of Dorastor. It won't be pretty and you won't like it. Elmal, the Krjalki Thane of Orlanth, as worshipped by Hellwood Elves.

2 hours ago, Tindalos said:

And that the different names and varieties of gods, outliers like the Darsenite thunder god, are now fallen forgotten by the wayside and everyone's now happy with unified gods.

Good, I never much liked that idea.

 

[Tindalos]

3 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Right, I might just have to write up the Elmal Cult of Dorastor. It won't be pretty and you won't like it. Elmal, the Krjalki Thane of Orlanth, as worshipped by Hellwood Elves.

That does sound interesting!

And it makes sense for Talastar, as the likely source for when Vinga faced off against the demon Erladivus.

 

3 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Good, I never much liked that idea.

That's good for you, less fun for those who liked the variety of that era. But each to our own.

[Akhôrahil]

52 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Right, I might just have to write up the Elmal Cult of Dorastor. It won't be pretty and you won't like it. Elmal, the Krjalki Thane of Orlanth, as worshipped by Hellwood Elves.

Oh, you're moving that from Yelmalio to Elmal? Intriguing...

I'm also really interested in what "normal" Elmal and/or Yelmalio worship in Biliniland would look like. My line so far is that while there is clear and definitive traditional Yelmalio worship down in the lowlands (Endeel and the Lingsting Sun Dome), the Orlanthi clans usually aren't even fully clear on what the difference is supposed to be - one clan might worship Elmal but under the name Yelmalio, and so on. 

Edited May 19, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, Tindalos said:

That's good for you, less fun for those who liked the variety of that era. But each to our own.

I really enjoyed the idea that the Lunars are trying to introduce a crappy ersatz thunder god, and absolutely no-one is impressed but the quislings make a show of playing along for political reasons.  

[Lordabdul]

4 hours ago, Manimati said:

That is precisely how we felt when Greg "gregged" us when he introduced Elmal. Greg did explain how and why it happened in the RuneQuest-Con convention booklet of 1994  "The birth of Elmal or, why I screwed up your Glorantha". You might find solace/consolation reading it (if you can get it).The booklet also included other essays on that issue by Stephen Martin and David Hall.

Is that the thing you're talking about?

2 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

Here you go:

http://etyries.albionsoft.com/etyries.com/journeys/elmal.html

Ah thanks! Hadn't seen that yet. That seems very sensible to me. I had Elmal as a decently prominent cult up in my neck of the woods (the Bachad Tribe, up near Alone), mostly as a hold out from the older Tarshite times that these people are coming from, but I suppose it would indeed make more sense to follow your advice and make them retain even older traditions in the form of old-school Yelmalio Orlanthi cults (i.e. non Sun-Dome Yelmalio cultists). I'll probably pick whichever looks good based on the cult write-ups in the Gods books.

I basically like the idea that, instead of having people arguing online in the real-world, we should have people arguing in game in Glorantha. This can be, to some degree, the Catholics vs Protestants equivalent in Sartar. Have different factions disagree about all this, make them scream and hit each other or heroquest the hell out of each other. That's probably a lot more fun than writing any more forum posts!

[Manimati]

55 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

5 hours ago, Manimati said:

That is precisely how we felt when Greg "gregged" us when he introduced Elmal. Greg did explain how and why it happened in the RuneQuest-Con convention booklet of 1994  "The birth of Elmal or, why I screwed up your Glorantha". You might find solace/consolation reading it (if you can get it).The booklet also included other essays on that issue by Stephen Martin and David Hall.

Is that the thing you're talking about?

Yes indeed.

[GAZZA]

9 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

Here you go:

http://etyries.albionsoft.com/etyries.com/journeys/elmal.html
 

OK having just read Greg's essay on why he did it, and following it with that... can we make this official? Nick's answer to this mess is perfectly suited to lazy buggers like me that don't want to get Elmal sauce all over my nice Praxian based River of Cradles/Borderlands/Sun Country game.

[Rob Darvall]

2 hours ago, GAZZA said:

OK having just read Greg's essay on why he did it, and following it with that... can we make this official? Nick's answer to this mess is perfectly suited to lazy buggers like me that don't want to get Elmal sauce all over my nice Praxian based River of Cradles/Borderlands/Sun Country game.

Both this for my Pavis campaign AND I want a solid Elmal/ Yelmalio conflict in my Far Place stuff. I know. Unadulterated greed. 

[Joerg]

About the Elmali betraying Jarosar - not insinuating anything, but wasn't this mightily fortuitous for Tarkalor? The somewhat less legitimate heroic son of Saronil who was ignored when his nephew got elected as king?

Tarkalor had been involved in the retaliatory assassinations in Nochet, as far as I am concerned. Possibly using Night Jumper magics to hone in on the Great Troll bodyguards that House Norinel likes to show off. We know that the sons and nephews of Saronil were perfectly willing to play foul to the Esrolians who had conspired against Sarotar, the glorious leader of their generation (and who by Tarkalor's own admission would have become an even greater king than himself). What qualification did Jarosar have over Tarkalor? And previously, what qualification did Jarolar have over Onelisin and Tarkalor? It appears to me that Jarolar was somewhat isolated from the rest of the royal family, but politically well connected, and the same kingmakers supported Jarosar after Jarolar's death. I wonder what Hofstaring and his youthful companions Gringle and Minaryth did in those years.

[Tindalos]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

About the Elmali betraying Jarosar - not insinuating anything, but wasn't this mightily fortuitous for Tarkalor? The somewhat less legitimate heroic son of Saronil who was ignored when his nephew got elected as king?

Tarkalor had been involved in the retaliatory assassinations in Nochet, as far as I am concerned. Possibly using Night Jumper magics to hone in on the Great Troll bodyguards that House Norinel likes to show off. We know that the sons and nephews of Saronil were perfectly willing to play foul to the Esrolians who had conspired against Sarotar, the glorious leader of their generation (and who by Tarkalor's own admission would have become an even greater king than himself). What qualification did Jarosar have over Tarkalor? And previously, what qualification did Jarolar have over Onelisin and Tarkalor? It appears to me that Jarolar was somewhat isolated from the rest of the royal family, but politically well connected, and the same kingmakers supported Jarosar after Jarolar's death. I wonder what Hofstaring and his youthful companions Gringle and Minaryth did in those years.

It's also worth noting one of Jarosar's children -- Saronna -- was murdered in the Holy Country as well, slain by dark demons. This may have been another name for Aransanda, or they may have been sisters.

Sartar's descendants did seem to fall to assassination a lot, up to and including Temertain.

[Lordabdul]

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

About the Elmali betraying Jarosar - not insinuating anything, but wasn't this mightily fortuitous for Tarkalor?

Tarkalor had been involved in the retaliatory assassinations in Nochet, as far as I am concerned.

It does sound like you're insinuating something here 😄  Do you have any references for Tarkalor being involved in those Nochet assassinations? What good would Tarkalor get from ordering the killing of Jarosar's daughter, for example? I'm gonna say Tarkalor had nothing to do with it...

...although an interesting conspiracy theory would be something similar to the story of pretty much every CIA operation from the 70s and 80s: the Lunars help Tarkalor rise to power in order to get rid of previous anti-Lunar Kings (so Tarkalor is only indirectly involved... maybe the Lunars were more "thorough" than he thought), but after a few years it turns out that the new King they helped get to power is even more anti-Lunar than the previous one, and comes back to bit them hard.

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

Possibly using Night Jumper magics to hone in on the Great Troll bodyguards that House Norinel likes to show off.

A day in the life of "lordabdul reads a message from joerg":

1. "What's a Night Jumper?".... (checks various PDFs, 2 minutes pass)... "ah, yeah, Sartar Magical Union... hadn't read that yet... oh well let's read it now"
2. Twenty minutes later: "Who's house Norinel again?"  (checks PDFs again, 5 minutes pass) "ah yeah, right. Wait, they have troll bodyguards?" (searches a whole bunch of PDFs, without success... 10 minutes pass)

Ok, well, that's one sentence down, after half an hour! Yay! Only 5 more sentences to go!

Quote

We know that the sons and nephews of Saronil were perfectly willing to play foul to the Esrolians who had conspired against Sarotar, the glorious leader of their generation (and who by Tarkalor's own admission would have become an even greater king than himself).

Is Saronil the "prince" mentioned on Queen Norina's death? ("[Norina] was killed by Sartarite assassins seeking to avenge the death of their prince"). I was wondering about that while I was checking out House Norinel earlier... Norina was killed in 1551. Saronil is marked as King of Sartar until 1552 in the GS Feathered Horse Queens and Sartar Kings dynasty diagrams... but the GS Sartar King list shows that Saronil died in 1550, which works better if that's indeed who those Sartarite assassins were avenging. Are the dynasty diagrams wrong?

(it also says that Saronil died "rescuing his granddaughter"... I'm not sure who that is? Did Arkillia's "other suitors" threaten the life of Saronil's family during their expedition, meaning to not just kill him, but his whole household too? mmmh)

Edited May 20, 2020 by lordabdul

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, lordabdul said:

"ah yeah, right. Wait, they have troll bodyguards?" (searches a whole bunch of PDFs, without success... 10 minutes pass)

Prince of Sartar - Samastina chapter: check out Queen Hendira's bodyguards 🙂

[Akhôrahil]

3 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Prince of Sartar - Samastina chapter: check out Queen Hendira's bodyguards 🙂

Samastina herself receives a Great Troll bodyguard in HQG, as well.

[Joerg]

5 hours ago, lordabdul said:

It does sound like you're insinuating something here 😄  Do you have any references for Tarkalor being involved in those Nochet assassinations?

The Nochet assassinations were targeting the Esrolian houses that caused or aided and abetted Sarotar's demise. Things got nasty around the time of Saronil's death.

5 hours ago, lordabdul said:

What good would Tarkalor get from ordering the killing of Jarosar's daughter, for example? I'm gonna say Tarkalor had nothing to do with it...

No, Tarkalor has nothing to do with the Lunars assassinating his grand-children or their cousins after his death. I was referring to the dying that the Nochet nobility did after they had conspired to kill Sarotar. A clear message to not mess with the House of Sartar.

5 hours ago, lordabdul said:

...although an interesting conspiracy theory would be something similar to the story of pretty much every CIA operation from the 70s and 80s: the Lunars help Tarkalor rise to power in order to get rid of previous anti-Lunar Kings (so Tarkalor is only indirectly involved... maybe the Lunars were more "thorough" than he thought), but after a few years it turns out that the new King they helped get to power is even more anti-Lunar than the previous one, and comes back to bit them hard.

No need to involve the Lunars in this, other as the constant military threat that all Princes of Sartar since Saronil had.

I was insinuating (merde, I admitted it) that Tarkalor, who was chummy with those light worshipers, may have had if not a hand in then at least a way of pointedly looking elsewhere as the Elmali betrayed Jarosar. 

 

5 hours ago, lordabdul said:

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

Possibly using Night Jumper magics to hone in on the Great Troll bodyguards that House Norinel likes to show off.

A day in the life of "lordabdul reads a message from joerg":

1. "What's a Night Jumper?".... (checks various PDFs, 2 minutes pass)...
2. "ah, yeah, Sartar Magical Union... hadn't read that yet... oh well let's read it now"
3. Twenty minutes later: "Who's house Norinel again?"  (checks PDFs again, 5 minutes pass)
4. "ah yeah, right. Wait, they have troll bodyguards?" (searches a whole bunch of PDFs, without success... 10 minutes pass)

And people have accused me of producing impenetrable walls of text. Looks like an improvement to me...

1. I was actually referencing King of Sartar, "An Earlier Argrath", in Argrath Book IIRC. The Night Jumpers are/were a Curtali (Kurtali?) secret society regular raiding their Kitori neighbors with a teleport-like magic. As there was no SMU in Tarkalor's time, 2. is a bit of a detour.

3. House Norinel - probably the most powerful Enfranchised House in Nochet for the last two centuries. Described in the Queens of Nochet text, and also in Esrolia: Land of 10k Goddesses. The family of Queen Hendira in modern times, the house of Bruvala and Brengala at the time of Sarotar's interaction with Arkilia (a daughter of that house).

4. was covered by Harald above.

 

5 hours ago, lordabdul said:

Ok, well, that's one sentence down, after half an hour! Yay! Only 5 more sentences to go!

And you're more up to date with what is going on between Sartar and Nochet. Now you can go and spread that bafflement to a wider public.

 

5 hours ago, lordabdul said:

Quote

We know that the sons and nephews of Saronil were perfectly willing to play foul to the Esrolians who had conspired against Sarotar, the glorious leader of their generation (and who by Tarkalor's own admission would have become an even greater king than himself).

Is Saronil the "prince" mentioned on Queen Norina's death? ("[Norina] was killed by Sartarite assassins seeking to avenge the death of their prince").

Sarotar was the "prince" (not "Prince") whose death was the fault of that Nochet conspiracy. IMO it had to do with the Grandmother being unwilling to consider anything but an uxorilocal relationship for her precious daughter. A reprise of the Adjustment Wars, which were as present to the Nochet elite back then as the US civil wars is to the former Confederate states. With the Adjustment Wars following Kodig's acquisition of Esrolia through marriage, of course, something the Grandmothers appear to view as a greater blow to their well-being than all that Greater Darkness business. (Only slightly exaggerating here)

5 hours ago, lordabdul said:

I was wondering about that while I was checking out House Norinel earlier... Norina was killed in 1551. Saronil is marked as King of Sartar until 1552 in the GS Feathered Horse Queens and Sartar Kings dynasty diagrams... but the GS Sartar King list shows that Saronil died in 1550, which works better if that's indeed who those Sartarite assassins were avenging. Are the dynasty diagrams wrong?

Yes, they are wrong. The Sourcebook has the most recent and the most reliable dates, but there are mistakes in there, too. (Like naming the daughter of Terasarin "Tarkalor" instead of "Tarkala".)

But it doesn't matter whether Saronil is still alive or not, the upset is about the demise of Sarotar. The ones to avenge Sarotar are his brothers and cousins, and probably his sister, too. And they don't pussyfoot around. Jarolar may be the tamest of the bunch.

All of this is backstory to my "Asrelia Priestess died, female descendants form a party to bring her to Nochet" scenario.

5 hours ago, lordabdul said:

(it also says that Saronil died "rescuing his granddaughter"... I'm not sure who that is? Did Arkillia's "other suitors" threaten the life of Saronil's family during their expedition, meaning to not just kill him, but his whole household too? mmmh)

That granddaughter is the youngest of the triplet born to Onelisin and some guy without much of a story to his name, the one Argrath claims as his ancestress.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Joerg

[Lordabdul]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

No, Tarkalor has nothing to do with the Lunars assassinating his grand-children or their cousins after his death.

Wait sorry am I getting my Sartar Kings all mixed up? Yes, I got mixed up between the 2 stories. Damn those similar sounding names! 

 

 

[Shiningbrow]

Back on topic, and a.mechanics question...

Is Cult Lore (Elmal) or Worship (Elmal) effectively the same skills as Cult Lore (Yelmalio) and Worship (Yelmalio)? This would be relevant for cult initiation (and, I presume, Heroquesting).

If an Elmali/Orlanthi does a Heroquest, and decode to hang around the Hill of Gold and backstab ZZ after he takes the fire powers, taking those fire powers off ZZ and gifting them to the Elmali (creating a new myth), would the Yelmalio temples also suddenly get fire powers as well? (Or would it be presumed that they still don't have that myth?)

[Tindalos]

3 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

If an Elmali/Orlanthi does a Heroquest, and decode to hang around the Hill of Gold and backstab ZZ after he takes the fire powers, taking those fire powers off ZZ and gifting them to the Elmali (creating a new myth), would the Yelmalio temples also suddenly get fire powers as well? (Or would it be presumed that they still don't have that myth?)

There's an interesting piece on this in Arcane Lore, part of the Stafford Library.

It's called Revisiting the Hill of Gold, and discusses a potential "path" a Yelmalion could undertake to gain the fire powers back from Zorak Zoran, and the progression to gaining them back as a full time cultish thing.

Likely it would just be a peculiar local detail, and the piece mentions it's part of the reason why different temples have different versions of their myths.

[soltakss]

58 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Is Cult Lore (Elmal) or Worship (Elmal) effectively the same skills as Cult Lore (Yelmalio) and Worship (Yelmalio)? This would be relevant for cult initiation (and, I presume, Heroquesting).

Essentially the same skill, but I might impose a Penalty to the skill, depending on what was being asked.

58 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

If an Elmali/Orlanthi does a Heroquest, and decode to hang around the Hill of Gold and backstab ZZ after he takes the fire powers, taking those fire powers off ZZ and gifting them to the Elmali (creating a new myth), would the Yelmalio temples also suddenly get fire powers as well? (Or would it be presumed that they still don't have that myth?)

At the start, the temples backing the HeroQuestor would get the benefit. so, if the HeroQuestor is backed and given support by his local Elmal Temple, then the benefit would go to that Temple. If, however, he got the backing of all the Elmal Temples everywhere before he did the HeroQuest then all those Temples would gain the benefit. Basically, they shared in the Myth to get the benefits, so they have access to it.

After a while, though the HeroQuestor could establish the myth in other Temples, by teaching it or taking others on the HeroQuest. Similarly, he could teach it to the Yelmalio cult and so would become the head a shared subcult.

 

Edited May 24, 2020 by soltakss

[Brootse]

On 5/19/2020 at 11:23 AM, Jeff said:

Elmal does not have Fire spells. 

A problem with Elmal is that he did not exist in RQ3 because by 1621, the Elmal cult had already become the Yelmalio cult. Greg came up with Elmal as he was trying to understand the Orlanthi of the FIRST AGE, and David Dunham included him in KoDP because that takes place BEFORE the Elmali embraced the Yelmalio cult.

So one way of looking at this is:
Pre-Sartar: Elmal is identical to Yelmalio, but associated with Orlanth instead of Yelm. No access to Sun Spear or Speak to Birds. Elmal cult subservient to Orlanth cult.

Saronil Era (1520-1550) - Elmal clans come in to increasing contact and influence from lowland Pelorian religion where the solar cults rule a pantheon of gods. Some embrace the Yelm cult, some Lodril, and others embrace the Seven Mothers. Monrogh brings back Yelmalio and his cult grows quickly. Varathanis (one of Monrogh's Witnesses) helps Dorasor found New Pavis and brings Monrogh's cult to Sun County, ending the Solitude of Testing..

Conflict Era (1550-1569) - Elmal clans in full revolt. Elmali murder Prince Jarosar. Most Elmal clans embrace Yelmalio and the armed cult aids Tarkalor against the Kitori.

The Sun Dome Temple Era (1570 - 1599) - Prince Tarkalor recognises Yelmalio and gives cult the Amber Fields and Vantaar, which becomes the Sun Dome Temple (which Tarkalor sponsors). Sun Dome Temple fights for King Tarkalor at Grizzly Peak. 

The Lunar era (1600 - 1624) - the Sun Dome Temple refuses to fight for Prince Salinarg. Their independence is acknowledged by the Lunar Provincial Government. The cult is willing to serve as mercenaries for the Lunars, however, they refuse to embrace Seven Mothers. 

Now (1625 - ) - The Sun Dome Temple is again independent and autonomous.

When in RL did Elmal lose his Fire spells? Did Elmal have them in HQ?

[Jeff]

2 minutes ago, Brootse said:

When in RL did Elmal lose his Fire spells? Did Elmal have them in HQ?

Elmal was never written up for RQ. When I did the original Elmal cult in SKoH, I gave him fire powers, but on retrospect I realise that was a mistake. I deliberately did not include an Elmal cult in the HQG rules.

[Richard S.]

15 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Elmal was never written up for RQ. When I did the original Elmal cult in SKoH, I gave him fire powers, but on retrospect I realise that was a mistake. I deliberately did not include an Elmal cult in the HQG rules.

If it's alright for me to ask, why did you give him fire powers in SKoH? I was doing some research the other day and was interested to see that that's the only Elmal writeup where he has a significant association with fire. At the time did you just think that the Heortlings needed a native god with fire powers who wasn't a Lowfire? Or was there another reason?

[Christoph Kohring]

14 hours ago, Richard S. said:

If it's alright for me to ask, why did you give him fire powers in SKoH? I was doing some research the other day and was interested to see that that's the only Elmal writeup where he has a significant association with fire. At the time did you just think that the Heortlings needed a native god with fire powers who wasn't a Lowfire? Or was there another reason?

Well,  I guess @Jeff was still under the spell of RQ:AiG1, i.e. the RQIV that never was, where Elmal does have Fire powers (Fireblade & Firearrow at least if I remember correctly)!?!

Edited May 25, 2020 by Christoph Kohring
AiG not RiG, damn!