Gods of stone

[Manu]

I realized that in the Glorantha I know, there is no god of stone (Earth, yes stone no) : Miner, mountains, hard rock, quarrymen,....

 

And I can easily imagine that when you build a big city, especially in a magical world like Glorantha, they use magic to do it. But which God is helping to do it.

 

 

[Richard S.]

Mostal is called the god of stone by most people. I don't know if he's actually worshipped by humans, but that's his title among them. You do make a point though, save for nonhuman cults like Flintnail or Mostal there's not many gods of mining or masonry. I think at least one of Lodril's sons is associated with building cities - in fact I'd say the whole solar pantheon is to a degree - but you'd think there'd be someone doing that job in Dragon Pass too.

[Leingod]

Asrelia is the keeper of the Earth's wealth, so miners and quarrymen would definitely be propiating her at the very least. Maran Gor, similarly, would need to be paid her due to keep tunnels from collapsing and the like.

Additionally, the Guide to Glorantha says that Stone was one of the casualties of High King Elf when he wielded Death against the World Machine, and the Heortlings often think of Mostal as the God of Stone. Depending on how much contact with dwarves exists in a given place, you might see human miners and other stone-workers use dwarven techniques rather than normal theistic worship of some miner-god (and outsiders would probably think they were just worshipers of Mostal in the same way a redsmith is a worshiper of Gustbran). Certainly I wouldn't be surprised to see that was the case in Sartar, where the House of Sartar learned a lot of techniques about building things from the dwarves before relations soured.

Edited May 25, 2020 by Leingod

[Tindalos]

While the best stone masons are the Mostali, they rarely share their secrets, leaving most masonry the province of Lodril and equivalents -- as well as their children.

In Dragon Pass, this probably falls under the aspect of Gustbran the Workfire. While more commonly seen as the god of the forge or potter's kiln, he would also be responsible for lime kilns as well, essential for mortar.

 

[Leingod]

23 minutes ago, Tindalos said:

While the best stone masons are the Mostali, they rarely share their secrets, leaving most masonry the province of Lodril and equivalents -- as well as their children.

In Dragon Pass, this probably falls under the aspect of Gustbran the Workfire. While more commonly seen as the god of the forge or potter's kiln, he would also be responsible for lime kilns as well, essential for mortar.

 

That still leaves the question of miners and quarry-workers, though. Which might just end up handled by local hero-cults or sub-cults of other deities, I suppose.

[Nevermet]

1 hour ago, Leingod said:

Asrelia is the keeper of the Earth's wealth, so miners and quarrymen would definitely be propiating her at the very least. Maran Gor, similarly, would need to be paid her due to keep tunnels from collapsing and the like.

Additionally, the Guide to Glorantha says that Stone was one of the casualties of High King Elf when he wielded Death against the World Machine, and the Heortlings often think of Mostal as the God of Stone. Depending on how much contact with dwarves exists in a given place, you might see human miners and other stone-workers use dwarven techniques rather than normal theistic worship of some miner-god (and outsiders would probably think they were just worshipers of Mostal in the same way a redsmith is a worshiper of Gustbran). Certainly I wouldn't be surprised to see that was the case in Sartar, where the House of Sartar learned a lot of techniques about building things from the dwarves before relations soured.

There's some mention of mining gods in the Fronela Chapter of the Guide.

Copper Man Valley has a collection of mining earth goddesses, and Enneserah worships Ganestos as a god of miners who stole from the Mostali.

(Also, the idea that Ganestos is worshipped FAR AWAY from Spol is absurdly fascinating to me, and worthy of another thread).

 

[Richard S.]

This brings up another question I've been wondering: where are the mines? Maybe it's talked about in the guide and I just missed it, but where does all the metal come from and who mines it?

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, Leingod said:

That still leaves the question of miners and quarry-workers, though. Which might just end up handled by local hero-cults or sub-cults of other deities

Heroes like Vogarth Strongman of Esrolia/Holy Country.

[Nevermet]

Just now, Richard S. said:

This brings up another question I've been wondering: where are the mines? Maybe it's talked about in the guide and I just missed it, but where does all the metal come from and who mines it?

It's not talked about much... 

A quick-ish text search... here are the mentions of mines, mine, miner, miners, and mining in both volumes of the Guide not related to Mostali:

• Fronela
  • Copper Mine Valley
  • Enneserah 
• Kralorela
  • Saresangk
• Maniria
  • Saltcastle (salt only)
  • Thanor (Now Sunk)
• Peloria
  • Brass Mountains (implied?)
• Prax
  • Troll Mine
• Ralios
  • Lartuli
• East Isles
  • Yevannava
• Fonrit
  • Salonmanad
• Jolar
  • The Exigers
• Umathela
  • Nemb Hills
  • Silubra Mountains

[jajagappa]

13 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

This brings up another question I've been wondering: where are the mines? Maybe it's talked about in the guide and I just missed it, but where does all the metal come from and who mines it?

Guide p.12 notes: "metals from the various dwarf strongholds (the only source of iron in Glorantha), bronze from Dragon Pass or Peloria, copper from Esrolia or Tarsh, or lead from the troll lands"

Guid p.470 under Exports:  Dragon Pass (bronze, copper), Holy Country (copper), Peloria (Gold), Maniria (bronze), Seshnela (Iron), Teshnos, (gold), Vormain/East Isles (gold), Jrustela (gold, silver, iron), Fonrit (gold), Umathela (silver)

Imther Mountains are an important source of copper and bronze.  (And another issue for the Lunar military when the King of Imther dies, leaves no heir, and the dwarfs close their gates. The dwarfs control the mining of metal there, though there are humans from local clans who quarry stone.)

Copper noted at: Copper Man Valley and Oreanor in Fronela, Kevrinth in Peloria (Naveria).  I thought copper mines noted somewhere in Aggar too but can't find reference.  Copper also found/mined in Esrolia.

A Tin portal is referenced in Porthomeka in Esrolia.

Lead likely in the Lead Hills between Shadow Plateau and Volsaxiland.

Many references to "bronze" in the Guide may represent both copper and tin.  

 

 

 

[Sir_Godspeed]

In Revealed Mythologies, Mostal is separated from Latsom. While Mostal is in some way seen as a world-maker and active agent, Latsom is seen as a kind of personification of stone (and possibly all the Earth, but seemingly primarily stone). Latsom is also seen as Mostal's brother. 

When people talk about Stone dying to the Elves, it is likely that it's Latsom's death they are talking about. 

However, this is likely a human and theistic take on it all, as Mostali/Dwarves do not actually anthropomorphize Mostal as much as you'd think, with references in the Sourcebook, iirc, pointing out that to the Mostali, Mostal is less an ancestor and personage, and more a term for the collective systems and processes of all of Glorantha. He is the World Machine, ie. effectively cosmos. If it is a god, it is a Pantheos. (This might be worth discussing in its own thread, but that's my take on it). 

So, basically, the notion of a god of stone is often linked to Dwarves, yes, but this is a human notion, not a Dwarven one.

[Bohemond]

3 hours ago, Tindalos said:

While the best stone masons are the Mostali, they rarely share their secrets, leaving most masonry the province of Lodril and equivalents -- as well as their children.

In Dragon Pass, this probably falls under the aspect of Gustbran the Workfire. While more commonly seen as the god of the forge or potter's kiln, he would also be responsible for lime kilns as well, essential for mortar.

 

Rather than seeing this as part of Gustbran's work (which to me feels like a stretch, since mining and masonry aren't really tasks that require fire except incidentally to see), I think it's more likely that the Sartarites simply don't have any gods who do this. Not every Glorantha society has a deity for every possible function, and as a result they are much better at some things than other things. Sartarites are pretty good at war and pretty good at cattle-raising, but kinda crappy at a lot of the things required for cities in part because they have gods for war and cattle-tending, but not for city-making. Sartar had to teach them even the concept of the city and it was such a stretch that it didn't really work very well. These are a people slowly making the transition to urban life, and in many ways they're not really ready for it yet. 

[Sir_Godspeed]

44 minutes ago, Bohemond said:

Sartar had to teach them even the concept of the city and it was such a stretch that it didn't really work very well.

That's a stretch. The Heortlings (and Orlanthi in general) have a surprisingly long history of urban organization and construction. 

However, it's true that their civilization does not center around the city or city-state as the natural unit (which arguably Malkioni and Pelorian civilizations do).

[Leingod]

Yeah, there are plenty of cities in Heortland. Cities themselves were not a new concept to Heortlings when Sartar came around. Sartar's city-building was unusual for the specifics surrounding them, not the simple fact that he built cities.

[Bohemond]

7 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

That's a stretch. The Heortlings (and Orlanthi in general) have a surprisingly long history of urban organization and construction. 

However, it's true that their civilization does not center around the city or city-state as the natural unit (which arguably Malkioni and Pelorian civilizations do).

Part of Sartar's work was to bring the (soon to be) Sartarites together by getting them to build cities. The strategy he chose is pretty odd. He got tribes to join into confederations, with each confederation maintaining a city. Then they had to figure out how to govern these weird communities that cut across clan and tribal boundaries, and they did it by creating a town ring, which was a new thing adapted from an old thing. He had to recruit wyters for the towns (Hauberk Jon, Wilm, and Swen) because the Sartarites had no deities who could naturally play that function for them. The residents of these new communities don't quite fit into the normal clan and tribal communities--they're not really members of any of the clans or tribes--members of those tribes don't stay with kinsmen in the town, but instead stay at tribal halls maintained for them. KoDP (which I realize isn't canonical) presents the creation of the town as something new and weird and requiring a willingness to do something new. 

To me, all of that looks like improvisation Sartar is doing. He's adapting and modifying existing concepts and practices because there's nothing there that directly corresponds to what he needs to make this new thing. The best the Sartarites have before him is tribal forts, which seem to be much simpler things than towns. Sartar's a Larnsting, so he's good at changing things to make new things. 

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, Bohemond said:

I think it's more likely that the Sartarites simply don't have any gods who do this

Given that Sartar brought in dwarfs to build Boldhome and probably the roads (I don't recall on the others), there's not a strong building culture here (unlike Esrolia).  Doesn't mean there isn't a god for this, but as you note Sartar does not necessarily require/need one, or might just call upon Barntar as a sort of Everyman.

1 hour ago, Bohemond said:

Not every Glorantha society has a deity for every possible function

And that was one of the problems with HW/HQ1 in that they tried to come up with obscure little deities for each and every function.  

[Lordabdul]

54 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Given that Sartar brought in dwarfs to build Boldhome and probably the roads (I don't recall on the others), there's not a strong building culture here (unlike Esrolia).  Doesn't mean there isn't a god for this, but as you note Sartar does not necessarily require/need one, or might just call upon Barntar as a sort of Everyman.

I get the impression that most Orlanthi see rocks as just a part of the Earth, and that's why they don't have a cult or even much knowledge about how to do masonry. They pick up the rocks, they pile them up, they throw them at each other, they might even play music with them and other such uses, but it's still "magic" or "obscure awesome hero and/or dwarf knowledge" that someone might be able to *shape* the rocks into something else than what they were when they got picked up in the first place.

Since the Orlanthi have known about that for a little while now (Sartar's roads and walled cities are not exactly new), and since the Orlanthi still haven't done much about it, I think we can assume that they are, indeed, the stupid conservative barbarians that they are, and that's possibly why the Lunars feel so justified in "civilizing" them. Mind you, guys like Sartar might have kept all masonry knowledge (among other things) close to their chest in order to secure their legacy... it doesn't look so magic and awesome if you explain the trick to the masses.

Quote

And that was one of the problems with HW/HQ1 in that they tried to come up with obscure little deities for each and every function.  

I think it was a fair consequence of some of the often overly-mythical aspects of Glorantha... for example, someone might say "a lot of diseases come from spirits". That's fine. But instead, we're told that no, *all* diseases come from spirits. Does this means there's no bacteria? If so, a whole bunch of stuff falls down and you need spirits to make cheese or something. That's how HW/HQ1 ended up with spirits and gods for making beer and alcohol AFAICT. Of course, there are many other and better ways to handle this particular problem, but I don't want to derail the thread... so I'll just say that one way to handle it is that deities don't have to map 1:1 to a thing we, as modern humans, know as "a thing". So for example, rock slides and avalanches might be Maran Gor, finding good rocks in the ground might be a quick prayer to (or even a "finding" spell from) Ernalda/your local Earth goddess, figuring out how to cut stone and pile them up (architecture-ish stuff) might be Lhankor Mhy cult secret that they reverse engineered from Mostali documents or whatever, and actually breaking the stones according to the plan might be, well, Maran Gor again maybe? Or Lhankhor Mhy sorcery? Or just nobody in particular: the sage just points at the drawing and says "hit here".

4 hours ago, Nevermet said:

It's not talked about much... 

A quick-ish text search... here are the mentions of mines, mine, miner, miners, and mining in both volumes of the Guide not related to Mostali:

Yeah there's not much... I asked about it in the Gloranthan Lore thread, but it was ignored so I guess Jeff doesn't think it's interesting. You can actually tell it's not interesting to the main authors because AFAICT there's not a lot of mention about cutting people's resources in times of war -- even though I think resources and trade were a big factor (and sometimes a trigger) in many classical era wars and politics. Instead, the focus in Glorantha is almost always on alliances and magic and myths which, I guess is really what Glorantha is about. It's telling how the Lunars focus on expanding the Glowline and bringing about the Great Winter instead of, you know, taking control of the few mines that Sartarites rely on to build all their armour and weapons. Nope, when armies clash, nobody asks who built their shields, the same way (to quote Grant Morrison) nobody should ask who pumps the tires on the Batmobile...

Edited May 26, 2020 by lordabdul

[Tindalos]

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

And that was one of the problems with HW/HQ1 in that they tried to come up with obscure little deities for each and every function.  

One of those annoying differences in what you see as a problem or not.

Orlanth's had subcults since the earliest day devoted to items taken from other gods. What's the problem with having subcults devoted to Orlanth as a farmer or Carpenter?

 

51 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Yeah there's not much... I asked about it in the Gloranthan Lore thread, but it was ignored so I guess Jeff doesn't think it's interesting. You can actually tell it's not interesting to the main authors because AFAICT there's not a lot of mention about cutting people's resources in times of war -- even though I think resources and trade were a big factor (and sometimes a trigger) in many classical era wars and politics. Instead, the focus in Glorantha is almost always on alliances and magic and myths which, I guess is really what Glorantha is about. It's telling how the Lunars focus on expanding the Glowline and bringing about the Great Winter instead of, you know, taking control of the few mines that Sartarites rely on to build all their armour and weapons. Nope, when armies clash, nobody asks who built their shields, the same way (to quote Grant Morrison) nobody should ask who pumps the tires on the Batmobile...

Of course, the usual fan answer to that was "Alfred, obviously."

Ignoring the mundane aspects of life in Glorantha because (to quote Grant Morrison) "It's a fucking made up story, you idiot!" feels at odds with the importance of Ernalda and the fertile earth in the setting. So I sincerely doubt that feeling was behind any answer you got.

 

[Sir_Godspeed]

2 hours ago, Bohemond said:

Part of Sartar's work was to bring the (soon to be) Sartarites together by getting them to build cities. The strategy he chose is pretty odd. He got tribes to join into confederations, with each confederation maintaining a city. Then they had to figure out how to govern these weird communities that cut across clan and tribal boundaries, and they did it by creating a town ring, which was a new thing adapted from an old thing. He had to recruit wyters for the towns (Hauberk Jon, Wilm, and Swen) because the Sartarites had no deities who could naturally play that function for them. The residents of these new communities don't quite fit into the normal clan and tribal communities--they're not really members of any of the clans or tribes--members of those tribes don't stay with kinsmen in the town, but instead stay at tribal halls maintained for them. KoDP (which I realize isn't canonical) presents the creation of the town as something new and weird and requiring a willingness to do something new. 

To me, all of that looks like improvisation Sartar is doing. He's adapting and modifying existing concepts and practices because there's nothing there that directly corresponds to what he needs to make this new thing. The best the Sartarites have before him is tribal forts, which seem to be much simpler things than towns. Sartar's a Larnsting, so he's good at changing things to make new things. 

That's all well and good, but we know that Heortlings have had cities for centuries, both in Hendrikiland and in Kerofinela itself. Orlanthland had cities. Hendrikiland had cities. Orlanthi were the prime drivers of urbanization in Dorastor and in Prax (and Ralian and Fronelan Orlanthi have also urbanized independently), and founded and pushed for urban consolidation in southern Peloria as well, where notable urban centres existed even before Lunar expansion (and probably had for centuries, though I am not an expert on the nitty gritty chronology there), and this is not even taking into account their neighboring Esrolians who, despite cultural differences, have mingled with Heortlings enough geographically, politically and culturally (Colymar supposedly claims to be from Esrolia, but was culturally Hendriki, and the whole marriage unions and Adjustment Wars and Heortling sections in Nochet, and Esrolian architectural and artistic styles dominating in all of Kethaela and Kerofinala, etc. show that there's no magical line between the two groups) and is literally the most densely populated place in the whole world, with its single largest city since the Opening, and an urban civilization going back to the Green Age. 

My point is: it's complicated. IMHO, Orlanthi society is not predicated upon urban organization, but Orlanthi have a long, long history of building and organizing towns. However turbulent they might be.

 

As Jeff has pointed out quite a few times, we might like to think of Orlanthi as rustic, rural people, but they have a history of creating fortresses, towns and cities in lots of places. 

EDIT: I should add, I don't disagree with the idea that Sartar was an innovator (all texts seem to agree there). It's just a little unclear what exactly he innovated *specifically*, and how that contrasts to other Orlanthi cities, historically.

Edited May 26, 2020 by Sir_Godspeed

[Sir_Godspeed]

27 minutes ago, Tindalos said:

Ignoring the mundane aspects of life in Glorantha because (to quote Grant Morrison) "It's a fucking made up story, you idiot!" feels at odds with the importance of Ernalda and the fertile earth in the setting. So I sincerely doubt that feeling was behind any answer you got.

 

I think it's just a case of author interest/knowledge versus reader interest/knowledge

An author who knows a lot about lingustics will painstakingly worldbuild around etymologies, language families, sprachbund, etc. (Tolkien), and author who is interested in phenotypes, for example, might delve into population migrations and such (Tekumel has a bit of this, even if I realize it's potentially provocative, and he is more notable for linguistics as well), and an author who is interested in myths will paint their maps and inject their character motivations with mythic themes (ie. Greg). 

I see several posters in this forum who are *deeply* knowledgeable about all sorts of things, and Jeff has talked about how agriculture varies, the very real demographic and logistic constraints of the Lunar army, etc. so it's not like Glorantha is alien to material realism. It might just be that no one at Chaosium or otherwise have truly had the expertise/knowledge to get down and dirty with mining extraction and distribution: the manpower needed, the infrastructure required, maintenance costs, the fuel consumption, the price fluctuations, the trading networks, the tonnage consumption per year, etc. etc. 

This also applies to a potentially infinite number of topics that people might find interesting. 

It's a bit like how doctors find medical dramas completely idiotic, or police find crime procedurals insulting, but police might enjoy a good medical drama, and a doctor might love a good crime procedural, or how engineers have debated for decades over how all the Ewoks didn't die during the Death Star's explosion, or how a population demographer absolutely gutted A Song of Ice and Fire's maps as ludicrously lopsided. Sometimes, when it comes to enjoying fiction, ignorance can be bliss.

Edited May 26, 2020 by Sir_Godspeed

[Tindalos]

4 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

It's a bit like how doctors find medical dramas completely idiotic, or police find crime procedurals insulting, but police might enjoy a good medical drama, and a doctor might love a good crime procedural, or how engineers have debated for decades over how all the Ewoks didn't die during the Death Star's explosion, or how a population demographer absolutely gutted A Song of Ice and Fire's maps as ludicrously lopsided. Sometimes, when it comes to enjoying fiction, ignorance can be bliss.

On the other hand, sometimes it's fun to watch these things, even if they're not "accurately" presented.

Ignorance may be bliss, but equally knowledge can be fun, and lead to other things.

I mean, to use a couple of threads from your post, the person who came up with the Dothraki language in Game of Thrones got his start as a kid trying to understand one of the alien languages in Star Wars!

[Lordabdul]

4 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I see several posters in this forum who are *deeply* knowledgeable about all sorts of things, and Jeff has talked about how agriculture varies, the very real demographic and logistic constraints of the Lunar army, etc. so it's not like Glorantha is alien to material realism. It might just be that no one at Chaosium or otherwise have truly had the expertise/knowledge to get down and dirty with mining extraction and distribution: the manpower needed, the infrastructure required, maintenance costs, the fuel consumption, the price fluctuations, the trading networks, the tonnage consumption per year, etc. etc.

Yeah I think that's really what's going on here... and to clarify things given @Tindalos's reply, I didn't quote Morrisson for the "it's a made up story!" bit, but more for what I interpret as his actual point behind this quote, which is that details like "who's pumping the tires" are irrelevant to the story unless they are relevant to the story. That is: the story is most probably about Batman using cool gadgets, doing detective work, and punching criminals... so nobody cares about the tires. Similarly, the stories in Glorantha are about the relationship between mortals and deities, the clashing of cultures, magic, and so on -- not about resource management and distribution... until it is. Maybe we'll see something coming out of Chaosium on that topic, and so they'll have to think about how it works given everything that was published before... otherwise, maybe that's where your/my Glorantha varies because that's what we are interested in.

22 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

As Jeff has pointed out quite a few times, we might like to think of Orlanthi as rustic, rural people, but they have a history of creating fortresses, towns and cities in lots of places.

You can still build fortresses and towns and cities without using much masonry, though, no? Like, late-neolithic walls vs. late bronze age walls?

[Sir_Godspeed]

2 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

You can still build fortresses and towns and cities without using much masonry, though, no? Like, late-neolithic walls vs. late bronze age walls?

Sure! I was more addressing the community organization aspect of it, to be honest. 

I believe there was a thread a way back that had art references for Orlanthi settlements from the Vingkotling to the modern age, and they included both cyclopean dry masonry and other techniques. 

Also, there's the Ernaldan square house, which is going to be the canonical basic template of Orlanthi steads going forward (although they already exist in artwork from Pavis), and those can be made in all sorts of ways, including wattle-and-daub, brick and mortar, logs and dry masonry. 

[Lordabdul]

2 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

those can be made in all sorts of ways, including wattle-and-daub, brick and mortar, logs and dry masonry. 

Yeah, and wattle-and-daub, along with dry masonry, are fun mostly because they can optionally include the one thing every Orlanthi clan should have more of: cow dung.  It's used mixed with soil and straw and stuff for the daubing in the wattle-and-daub wooden houses, but it can also be used as heat insulation in dry masonry by just sticking it between the stones. In my ever-in-prep Far Place campaign I was thinking of having a stead where "cow dung" specialists live, as insulation is important in colder places. A family with stinky hands, but a very important job.

[Leingod]

3 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

EDIT: I should add, I don't disagree with the idea that Sartar was an innovator (all texts seem to agree there). It's just a little unclear what exactly he innovated *specifically*, and how that contrasts to other Orlanthi cities, historically.

Well, I'm not super knowledgeable about the Holy Country in general, but Whitewall is the capital of the Volsaxi Confederation, yes? It might be that Heortling cities are usually built to be (or used as) the center of power of a great king ruling over multiple tribes, not something that multiple tribes come together to build without surrendering their independence; city-building is probably not usually seen by the Heortlings as a way for several neighboring tribes to come together in burying old enmities and forging new alliances, which is how Sartar used it. It's also known that Sartar is the one who invented the City Ring and the position of Mayor, to give both every tribe and the city-dwellers a voice in how the city was run. And that further ties in with Sartar's novel use of city-building as a way to bind people together by giving them something they all had a stake in maintaining.