Your Dumbest Theory

[davecake]

On 12/5/2020 at 6:09 AM, PhilHibbs said:

 

On 6/16/2020 at 2:31 PM, metcalph said:

Xemela is Chalana Arroy.

 

 

 

I thought that one was just obvious.

 

 

 

Chalana Arroy is multiple cults melded together  - Chalana Arroy = Xemela Arroin, which is probably Theyalans recognising their 'White Lady' in a Western hero cult and a Fronelan elf cult and smushing them together into one cult. Happens early because they have a tradition of being wanderers. 

And Eurmal only joins the Lightbringer Quest in the West in some versions, when he is rescued from being executed by the inhabitants of Sorcerer Town. Which would mean that though we think of the Lightbringers Quest as mostly a central Genertelan myth about Orlanth and Yelm, that Orlanth is almost the only one of the Seven who can really claim a Theyalan origin - Chalana is a gestalt deity from mostly western deities, Lhankor Mhy and Issaries were originally Western gods, while Trickster is Universal Eurmal may originally be a Western version of Trickster... the Lightbringer Quest is mostly a Western Myth cycle, Orlanth just (typically) thinks it is all about him. I'm sure there is a Western version of the story of how Worlath and Ehilm realised they were idiots and agreed to behave more like responsible Erasanchula, and the Compromise is actually the Erasanchula submitting to Law and Logic. 

[davecake]

On 12/20/2020 at 6:04 AM, metcalph said:

The dwarves of Mostal's Graveyard (in the Tunnelled Hills) worship Krarsht whom they call "Our Lady of Spikey Bits". 

I just love Chaotic Mostali as potential villains. I don't want Krarsht to be the only Chaotic force they revere, but she is the most obvious vector, tunneling into Mostali territory directly bypassing their defenses - and not just in the Tunnelled Hills, but I've also put Chaos Mostali beneath the ruins of the Clanking City, and in the parts of the Jords Eye complex that have not fully been reclaimed since the underground wars against Krarsht there (IMG Jords Eye is now a functional city, but the parts that were too Chaotic just got walled off - and then Sheng busted the place up and large chunks of it are now a dangerous mega-dungeon complex). Particularly good villains for a gonzo 13th Age game, I use Derroes as Chaos Mostali, they look like Mostali but their brains are scrambled beyond repair. And they love not just Krasht but Pocharngo (why stick with nilmergs and gobblers when there is a whole array of crazy chaotic things to make?), Vivamort (other mortals are just raw materials), Thanatar, Primal Chaos, wild chaos sorcery, etc.

Also, the mysterious and not yet described Xamalki, servants of Xamalk the Chaos god of  Darkness, who are also burrowing creatures, and we know exist beneath Slon, and were major Chaos foes in the West (they attacked Luathela!) in the Great Darkness. They are probably Chaos foes of the Mostali still in Slon, and from there spread their influence to other Mostali areas. And in the East, dwarves are part of the armies of the antigods, so associated with all sorts of Chaotic and other bad behaviour. And the Mostali can sometimes magically 'tunnel' between cities, so Chaos Dwarves can turn up anywhere - the Tunnelled Hills is just a likely major stronghold. 

I like the idea of Krarshti Chaos Mostali trying to masquerade as lumpy ugly children, thank you Peter! 

[davecake]

On 12/31/2020 at 8:31 AM, MOB said:

Jiminy Cricket! Are allied spirits a divine gift or a soul-crushing existential burden?

My favourite model for an allied or bound spirit is Loiosh, Vlad Taltos's familiar in the series by Steven Brust, a continual supplier of snark and sarcasm. But that's just one of many ways to make allied or bound spirits full of annoying personality. 

Humakti allied spirits that are continually advocating to cast Sword Trance, because it's the only time they think their master has their priorities correct. Troll allied spirits that are constantly castigating their masters for being insufficiently violent and murderous. Or constantly reminding them to do things for their mother. Lhankor Mhy spirits sniffing disdainfully at this adventuring nonsense, and snarking about how its ruining their academic career. So many ways. 

[Akhôrahil]

16 minutes ago, davecake said:

My favourite model for an allied or bound spirit is Loiosh, Vlad Taltos's familiar in the series by Steven Brust, a continual supplier of snark and sarcasm. But that's just one of many ways to make allied or bound spirits full of annoying personality.

I just realized that if I’m ever in a position where most PCs have Allied Spirits, the player to the left will get to RP the spirit. 🙂

[jajagappa]

10 hours ago, davecake said:

Chalana Arroy is multiple cults melded together  - Chalana Arroy = Xemela Arroin, which is probably Theyalans recognising their 'White Lady' in a Western hero cult and a Fronelan elf cult and smushing them together into one cult.

Don't forget DH Erissa (aka "White Lady"), who is likely connected/related to Asharthcha, “North-Overseer-White.”  My personal theory is that Chalana was originally an Altinae goddess.

[davecake]

On 1/6/2021 at 10:29 PM, jajagappa said:

My personal theory is that Chalana was originally an Altinae goddess.

 

That makes a surprising amount of sense. One that had many descendants (metaphorically at least) that the formed the original cults among more mortal races (humans and Aldryami, anyway), who later realised the connection and combined the cults. 

[Akhôrahil]

Aldrya isn’t a goddess in the traditional sense. ”She” is ”merely” the collective consciousness of the aldryami and their woods as experienced through Elfsense.

Mostal also isn’t a god, merely the cosmic order imagined as an individual (like Einstein’s God, in fact - does Mostal roll dice?).

Edited January 12, 2021 by Akhôrahil

[Joerg]

4 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Mostal also isn’t a god, merely the cosmic order imagined as an individual (like Einstein’s God, in fact - does Mostal roll dice?).

He stopped when Gata complained about becoming dizzy.

[Akhôrahil]

3 minutes ago, Joerg said:

He stopped when Gata complained about becoming dizzy.

Magasta’s Pool shows how the final roll was a one?

[Joerg]

Yes and no - Mostal took exception and fixed her by pushing the Spike through. The result was a single dot on the top surface.

Later on, the Spike was removed forcibly, and the die broke apart. The mostali are working on fixing this, starting by pulling the Slon shard back into place south of Jrustela. Being perfectionists, they aim for a polished die, starting with the southwestern corner of the Earth which will be complete once their repair has been achieved.

[Sir_Godspeed]

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Aldrya isn’t a goddess in the traditional sense. ”She” is ”merely” the collective consciousness of the aldryami and their woods as experienced through Elfsense.

Mostal also isn’t a god, merely the cosmic order imagined as an individual (like Einstein’s God, in fact - does Mostal roll dice?).

That's my take on it as well, and I'm pretty sure Mostal being the cosmic order is straight up Chaosium-canon and mentioned in the Guide.

[scott-martin]

The "bearded wind" worshipped by Lokamayadon survives in severely vestigial form in the cult of another bearded god whose name is pronounced something like "Loka May" and misspelled by just about everyone, especially those who prefer not to talk about it.

[jajagappa]

3 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

The "bearded wind" worshipped by Lokamayadon survives in severely vestigial form in the cult of another bearded god whose name is pronounced something like "Loka May" and misspelled by just about everyone, especially those who prefer not to talk about it.

Now that could really blow a few character's minds!  And think of the poor Orlanthi who suddenly realizes that the old windbag who's been busy giving him advice all these years might be something more.... 

[ZedAlpha]

My dumb theory? Humakt was originally a Durulz deity who was appropriated and then anthropomorphized by humans living in the Dragon Pass area, then became part of the Orlanthi pantheon shortly before the end of the Golden Age. 

[Joerg]

The Animal Nomads have the same origin as the Durevings - they followed their herds down from the upper valleys on the Spike. Unlike those following Orlanth the Ram, the sons of the Bull ended up further east, in the paradisical Genert's Garden, and went so completely decadent that their humanity degraded to herd man levels.

[Leingod]

Yelmalio as he is known within Time never actually existed before it (well, he did, and he may even have been called by that title, but he wasn't the Yelmalio any of us would recognize as such); he was created in the First Age by Nysalor and/or Palangio as a sort of Composite Little Sun. He is essentially a synthesis (or maybe a Frankenstein's Monster) of the most commonly shared features of the Little Suns that were active in the Great Darkness, brought together into a single “Little Sun” god that can thus rightly claim to be any and all of the others. Yelmalio's followers can magically prove him to be the same god as any of the other Little Suns because Yelmalio was created for the express purpose of co-opting local Little Suns and their cults into the fold, in a feat that could probably only be dreamed up by an Illuminated mind.

Similarly, other traits of Yelmalio were very deliberately chosen by his “discoverers” to suit their particular needs, not just when he was first revealed in the First Age but also each time he's been rediscovered afterwards. That's why, for instance, he is simultaneously an ally and an enemy of Orlanth, and simultaneously a loyal son of Yelm and an independent power not beholden to him. He probably didn't have to possess those particular traits to serve the above purpose of unifying and co-opting Little Sun cults. That flexibility in Yelmalio's loyalties was just considered very useful for the purposes of those who revealed him to the world, and not so far from the truth that it couldn't be proven to be true ("truth" honestly being a very flexible concept when we speak of gods and magic, especially from an Illuminated perspective).

And here's where I get into my wild conspiracy theory that is the reason I'm posting it in this thread: Has it ever seemed weird that, throughout much of Genertela, in all three Ages, the cult of Yelmalio has seemingly defaulted to a certain, specific pattern of behavior? It's all just following the design baked into it at its inception. Essentially, the cult of Yelmalio was purpose-built to be able to come into a region, take over the local Little Sun mythos and its worshipers, and set themselves up as independent mercenaries split off from their previous loyalties, who could then be put to work by an expansionist empire with way more money to throw around than any local interests but still be seen as a.) locals rather than foreigners, and b.) sometimes-friends and sometimes-enemies, rather than outright foes; thus avoiding the ire and hatred they would otherwise earn as either colonizers or sellouts.

So then, while the Yelmalians are not at all wrong when they reveal another Little Sun to be Yelmalio, they are mistaken when they assume that this means Yelmalio is the “true” face of the Little Sun, the real face to which different locales simply apply different masks to suit their own needs. Yelmalio is, in fact, just as much a mask – an artificial, man-made construct to understand the Little Sun in limited human terms and for a particular purpose and agenda – as any of the others, whether they be known as Elmal or Antirius or Kargzant or even Halamao (the elves, it should be remembered, were Nysalor's biggest fans among the Elder Races). Yelmalio is just the mask created specifically to be all the other masks at once.

This actually applies more widely to pretty much all the gods of Glorantha – that all of them as they are understood by mortals are really just masks we've placed on them to make them easier to understand and communicate with and draw power from – but in the case of Yelmalio it's just easier to piece together the puzzle pieces of why exactly he exists in the form he does, because it was a conscious effort within Time that is more well-recorded than most.

Edited February 7, 2021 by Leingod

[Joerg]

27 minutes ago, Leingod said:

Has it ever seemed weird that, throughout much of Genertela, in all three Ages, the cult of Yelmalio has seemingly defaulted to a certain, specific pattern of behavior?

The extent of Yelmalio coincides with the activities of the Bright Empire, and its foremost military leader, a certain Iron Vrok. This established the first set of Sun Dome temples.

The rise of the EWF was accompanied by the rise of the new Sun Dome, at first in opposition to the dragon mystics, then their willing mercenaries, until the collapse, when they became their willing plunderers. Possibly excepting the Goldedge Sun Dome which must have been as draconized as the rest of central Kerofinela.

[Leingod]

Warning: Rampant God Learnerism.

Storm Bull, Maran Gor, Shargash, and Zorak Zoran are ultimately all aspects or reflections of a greater cosmic concept/archetype. They wield Death, but are not devoted to it like the Grim Death God; it's more of a tool in their hands, albeit one they use with great gusto, and they are often a father or mother to some group. They are feared and even despised, but they are accepted as necessary because they can fight and defeat some foe that no one else can, and through their acts of spreading death and destruction were ultimately instrumental in saving the world. This doesn't necessarily need to be as direct as Storm Bull fighting Wakboth: You might think Maran Gor doesn't fit there, but she vanquished the foe known as Hunger when no one else still alive could by fertilizing the fields with blood.

Each of these four gods, I will note, has a different Elemental Rune; this suggests that perhaps the major point of difference between these four particular aspects of a particular cosmic principle (which we will refer to as "The Destroyer") is that each filters this concept through a particular elemental perspective: They are each embodying the potential of that Element to be terrifying and destructive and horrible, but that potential needs to exist, and each of them does something that proves this appropriate to how mortals understand that elemental force.

Going even further, we can relate this ur-concept of The Destroyer to that of The Trickster: Each of the many Trickster gods clearly have some connection, are some glimpse into a greater truth, because each of them is ultimately some mortal's attempt to comprehend the force of Disorder made manifest through Illusion. The Destroyer is the same kind of thing, but instead of Illusion, each god that is a shared glimpse into this cosmic force is Disorder made manifest through Death, and it just so happens that the most prominent examples are also each glimpses of this principle expressed through an Element.

There are, obviously, two major problems with this (Well, okay, there are a million of them and this is all insane nonsense and ramblings, but bear with me): This raises the obvious question of where the Watery version of The Destroyer is (maybe Wachaza?), but more pressingly, Urox the Storm Bull is usually depicted as having the Runes of Air/Death/Beast, not Air/Disorder/Death, as he would need to in order to fit alongside ZZ, MG and Shargash. He is (pun intended) perhaps the ur-example of "The Destroyer" who saves the cosmos, but he doesn't have the very Rune that I'm pinning this whole theory on. This is, obviously, a very important question that needs an answer or else this whole thing falls apart.

So, I guess this whole thing fell apart and I've got nothing. Whoops. Still interesting to ponder on, though, right?

Edited February 20, 2021 by Leingod

[jajagappa]

5 minutes ago, Leingod said:

Storm Bull, Maran Gor, Shargash, and Zorak Zoran are ultimately all aspects or reflections of a greater cosmic concept/archetype.

6 minutes ago, Leingod said:

This raises the obvious question of where the Watery version of The Destroyer is (maybe Wachaza?)

In the Gods War game, these are all the War Gods and, yes, Wachaza is the Sea's War God.  (And for the Moon, it is Natha.)

For the most part, these are the gods who participated at Kargan Tor's Court of Conflict.  Each is a bearer of destruction is some aspect (sometimes marked by the Disorder Rune, sometimes the Death Rune, sometimes both).  They all have important myths of breaking some part of the world.  And as you comment, they each embody the terrifying aspects of their element. 

Of course Storm as an element of disorder and violence actually has a few gods that fit this model, not just Storm Bull.  There is also Vadrus and his particularly unruly son Gagarth.  The fact that Storm Bull has the Storm Rune mitigates the need for the Disorder Rune on top of it.

But what is notable about this set of gods is that on the whole they bring back some beneficial power to their communities from their destructive acts.  And, unlike Trickster, they are considered "acceptable" within their communities to some degree, even if they are dangerous and often unruly parts of it (which Trickster never is). 

 

[Ladygolem]

26 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

In the Gods War game, these are all the War Gods

Maran Gor is actually Earth's magic god and Babeester Gor the war god in the board game.

[MOB]

On 2/8/2021 at 2:43 AM, Leingod said:

This actually applies more widely to pretty much all the gods of Glorantha – that all of them as they are understood by mortals are really just masks we've placed on them to make them easier to understand and communicate with and draw power from – but in the case of Yelmalio it's just easier to piece together the puzzle pieces of why exactly he exists in the form he does, because it was a conscious effort within Time that is more well-recorded than most.

There's another few percent to add to my chance of Illumination next Sacred Time...

[jajagappa]

11 hours ago, Ladygolem said:

Maran Gor is actually Earth's magic god and Babeester Gor the war god in the board game.

Yes, I definitely fumbled my Gods War Lore roll there!

[John Biles]

Androgenous is actually an intelligent potato who adds accessories as needed, depending on what gender is needed at a given time.  (Or what limbs / clothing / tools are needed.)

 

[scott-martin]

It has come to my attention that buried within the modern Pamalt complex is an entity known simply as "Arbennissaries," "Cronisper the Youth" or "south talking god." This conceals a deeper secret of Genertela that need not concern us yet.

[Groovetronic]

I shared this on Facebook, but here goes - 

Jar-Eel the Razoress and Argrath are the same person. Note how Jar-Eel always has a breastplate on to conceal that White Bull Mark. Argrath is just Jar Eel without makeup and different jewelery