Ancient West

[Joerg]

This came up in the thread about Arkat and Illumination, but has enough topic drift to become a thread of its own.  

 

The ancient western lands have two mythical histories, an older one (in terms of when Greg Stafford wrote them) which has the delightful multitude of deities and magical beings which drew us all to Glorantha in the first place, and a more recent metaphysical one we received in Revealed Mythologies, with concepts like "the One world" and separation of idea and substance that we received in Revealed Mythologies.

This isn't the first case where we have a top-down creation myth from principles and an older, richer bundle of geographic myths intersecting with the Devolution pattern. In Peloria, we received this in a different order, where Glorious ReAscent of Yelm gives us the devolution of VezKarVez and EzelVezTay (capitals mine) as the souce of imperial power, and then we learn about all those primeval Pelorian predecessor myths in the Entekosiad.

 

Revealed Mythologies has 34 pages of Malkioni material (not counting the short reprise of Vadeli activities in the South from Doraddi and Thinobutan perspectives). Most of that is Zzabur-centric (Zzabur said, Zzabur did), with a short 5 page section on the development of  modern Malkionism and a very short 2 page summary of Brithela and Brithos from the "children of Malkion and various goddesses" perspective before the 10 page glossary section with alphabetically ordered additional information and commentary.

 

Here is an attempt to visualize the intellectual layers of Zzabur's narrative of the One World etc. to Godtime Glorantha. The stacked triangles would be the Actions of Zzaburite Creation. Danmalastan would be the lower of the three layered triangles of abstractions of the physical world, and Brithela would be the surface portion of the cube, the physical world.

The model would also illustrate the Essence planes in the Four Separate Worlds model of the Hero Wars / HQ1 period, and whatever shades thereof might still be useful in current Glorantha.

(And show how Mostali solid Law - The Spike and what is derived from it - and Malkioni intellectual Law are separate, yet projections of one another.)

 

3 hours ago, Charles said:

Brithos is not the original homeland of the Brithini but a place of refuge. If the Brithini break the agreement then they start to age. Or worse (whatever that may be for the Brithini).

At least according to Zzabur's writings of the Four Actions, the Fourth Action brought down the original men to the material world. In that sense, Brithos and the entirety of Brithela are not the original homeland.

 

If you take the migration of the Mountain Peoples from the Monomyth maps, again the first people of the West are immigrants, coming down the slopes of the Spike.

Coming out of the Green Age, the entire Surface World would have been covered by forest - maybe of varying density, but forest everywhere, at least according to one portion of the Monomyth. Elf presence and forest density would have been strongest in the direct vicinity of the Great Trees (named Dontri, Hadorf and Ontal in Brithela), and ebbing out at the fringes, creating a Savannah where the early Earth cultures could practice their primeval (non-plowing) agriculture.

 

Topographically, Brithos is the remnant of Brithela that survived the Breaking of the World (wherein Zzabur destroyed the Spike, the Glacier, and drowned the evil Vadeli and those slaves who had fallen under their corruption),

Comparing the position of Brithos with maps of Danmalastan, it appears to have been the northwesternmost part of the Enrovalini territory, bordering on the original Kachasti lands.

 

1 hour ago, davecake said:

It is not strictly their homeland - and was initially quite forest covered, like much of Seshnela and Fronela was, so the elves may have quite outnumbered the Brithini. 

At least initially, when the Mountain People immigrated and set up the western Black Camp of Introspection.

Another possible interpretation of the coming of the Mountain People to Brithela could be the coming of Drona, son of the mountain (range) goddess Kala, and (a pre-incarnation of) Malkion the Prophet (siring the farmer and worker population of the West, of dark skin).

Drona is an Earth King figure, similar to KaCharal, Pamalt the walker, or Tada. His multitude of sons - possibly by lesser Oreads or other such female expressions of local divinity - populate the lands that would become the homelands of the Six Tribes of the sons of Malkion the Founder.

 

At some point, Malkion the Founder comes to the West, and institutes his six tribal founder sons as the new lords of the west - Tadenit the scribe, Kadenit the builder, Vyimorn the explorer, Waertag the sailor, Kachast the speaker and Enroval the (idle?) philosopher.

Drona's work is done, and he leaves for Fronela, or he has already done so earlier - possibly in search of his destined wife Frona, accompanied by his boar companion Bakan and by Eurmal (still a respectable deity, a teacher of mankind).

There is no evidence for the Volcano being much of a civilizing influence in Fronela, despite Mt. Ladaral on the site of Sog City. Ladaral or Laddy is depicted pretty much like Solf is in Teshnos, lazy between outbreaks of intoxicated lust. But maybe Eurmal is to blame, when he stole Fire (and possibly intellect and culture) for Mankind. The Firebringer (afterwards outlawed and persecuted by the gods) and Friend of Men, Prometheus except that his role in creating men is hushed.

 

Back to Brithela. Revealed Mythologies tells us a few things about its topography - three forests (Dontri, Ontal, Hadorf), two hill ranges (Kala, Dora), two seas on the edges (Sramak, Neliom).

 

Southern Brithela gets some attention in the Vadeli stories.

Middle Sea Empire offers an interesting capsule of the Five Actions (p.4), and then a chapter describing Mornastan, the land of the Viymorni, and its neighbors.

To the center lived the Viymorni, ruled by their Talars.
To the north lived the Flesh People, also ruled by their Talars. Where Vimorn came from.
To the west (!) lived the stone people, aka Mostali. (Weird, that, unless this myth intends to place Mornastan just east of the Curustus mountains.)
To the east lived the forest people, ruled by Aldrya - the forests on the slopes and at the foot of the Spike.
To the south lived the fleshless people, aka spirits, ruled by Bamat. So no Hsunchen/Fiwan contacts to the south, or not recognized because of them taking beast shape.
(How Vimorn describes Bamat's spirit lands bears a great similarity to what the Mostali Somelz project attempts to re-create, both with their Godtime land raising that destroyed Churkenos and with their plans for the Hero Wars...)

If you compare the map on p.7 in Revealed mythologies, this makes more sense if you change the directions to northwest for the Flesh People (aka Malkioni), southwest for the Mostali, northeast for the Aldryami and southeast for Bamatela/Spirit Land.

In the next sub-chapter, Vimorn is named as one of the Flesh People, i.e. a northern neighbor of Mornastan. Vimorn wanders west to the mountain of the stone people, then east to the forest people, and finally almost perishes straying south into the dead lands of Bamatela.

 

 

1 hour ago, davecake said:

The Brithini have some sort of agreement with the goddess Britha. Though the Brithini exploit it ruthlessly, she is supposed to have volunteered for it. She may even have made some provision to preserve the elf forests as part of it. 

Revealed Mythology p.25 acknowledges the children of Vadela as the first (or at least prior) inhabitants of Brithela,with three colored castes/tribes. The Brown Vadeli lived to the south, the Red Vadeli in the center, and the Blue Vadeli lived in the north, in Dora's HIlls, a range marking the southern end of the lands claimed by the Brithini.

But then, in the middle of the paragraph, suddenly we here about the Brown Vadeli of the north who retreat to the mountain tops, fearing the Malkioni (Zzaburi) magics.

 

Enter the Guide, p.527, describing the prehistory of the Vadeli, and giving a map showing Old Trade (the surviving remnant of Brithos on the surface of Glorantha) and the Red Vadeli volcanoes marking a western boundary for the Sea of Brithos that used to be the remaining dry portion of Brithela.

 

 

The only maps showing Brithos before its disappearance in context with Genertela are in Troll Pak Uz Lore (p.12, 14 and 22 in the RQ2 edition). Unfortunately, the maps of the ealier ages show the coastline of Fronela and the surroundings of the Neliomi Sea as if they were rotated by roughly 30° from their positions in the Third Age map (p.30, which corresponds quite nicely to the maps in the Guide/AAA.

The historical maps in the Guide show no such changes in the topography of Fronela, being based on the Third Age map of the region. The mythical map of the Gray Age (Guide p.697) however conforms to the previous Ages map in Trollpak, if you look at the extend of northern Loskalm in relation to western Seshnela (Neleoswal).

There are two theories about this - one assumes a cartographer's error when creating the three previous Ages maps, the other posits the idea that between the side effects of the Closing and the Ban a new slice of land (or reality) manifested in Fronela, extending the continent somewhat to the west. The appearance of the New Vadeli Islands might corroborate the second theory, which also leans on the Hidden Castles/Hidden Greens/Lost Lands concept.

Be that as it may, any newly appearing items on the maps now have a history of always having been where the AAA shows them (see "New Vadeli Islands" on p.529 in the Guide). This doesn't stop me from looking at the earlier maps, comparing the southern (presumably Vadeli) archipelago in its previous ages and Third Age position, and rotate the outline of the Island of Brithos and the inserted smaller island - presumably Old Trade - accordingly to fit it into the AAA map of the Sea of Brithos.

 

Horribly not to scale, but a possible first approximation of the extent of Old Brithos after the Breaking of the World and before its disappearance at the Closing. I really need to put the AAA maps into a GIS and create vector maps...

[scott-martin]

Foundation post of our era. A little graffiti scrawled here and there:

* I love the mountains as metaphysical representations of various Laws. Brilliant. No matter how much some people want to unify the grand systems, most models recognize that beyond a certain stage (duplication) that multiple conclusions can derive from original principles. The Law that ejected the Block and finally killed the desert devil may not have been from the theist mountain Srvuela. In fact, given what we now know about inertial paths, a more distant origin point is much more likely.

* Belintar was very interested in the multiplication of mountains, maybe because he had access to people who remembered / respected Lodril's mountain or something they called a "Spike." Volcano magic is a phase of this: deep magic of Caladra waiting to be investigated.

* Jrustela also had its primeval magic mountain. Like Srvuela in some regional accounts, it rose to the south of continental Genertela and was an advanced civilization that died. In other accounts, vestiges linger in the north, in the Pelandan zone. Jrustela had its elves and its dwarves and its unique insect nation, a kind of dark folk, but we digress.

* Every nation considers itself the center of the world until artificial constructs shift the origin point. The Magastan pool is the geographical center of Glorantha. We know about it from discourse with triolini. Whether they say it was the Spike once or we get that story from some other source is unclear. Perhaps two or more stories were spliced together. If so, the person who did this was probably not a Bright Empire scholar because they didn't have deep knowledge of the sea. If it was, our history of the Bright Empire and its reach needs to be revised.

* The "Xamalk account" of the chaos war (collected as Guide 702) is interesting because it is organized around a sense of a place to the south of Genertela, north of Pamaltela and east of a lost continent as the central origin. Unless this document comes from the destroyed Spike culture itself, Jrustela is the only major land mass that fits the bill. The pagans of Jrustela would have had access to a form of Lodril and a form of Lhankor as rival theoreticians. Maybe these were taken from the same or different tribes. More work is required.

* ("Lodril" as magician, possibly even "Lodril" as sorcerer. This becomes crucial to Carmanian sorcery as well as what they get up to in the Vent and the powers OOO stole, which is to say Spolite sorcery and the modern Dark Phase.)

* In the Xamalk account, Brithos is famously situated in the relative north. Some also say Brithos was originally connected to Seshnela via a land bridge, whether this is only a transient Expulsion Walk path or something more substantial before the atheists found out how to physically separate themselves from the mainland. Again, this hints at a Jrustelan origin for this story. 

* Others say Malkonwal was built somewhere near the Choralinthor basin and the true descendants are the Aeolites, but they are not orthodox. The directional cues still work, however. In this interpretation, you either need to move "Brithos" or posit a longer/more convoluted migration path across the Manirian coast . . . something like the Trader Prince pilgrimage route, how odd. 

* If you move "Brithos" then the official account is a lie. I suspect triangulating the diaspora points to a central origin somewhere near Old Trade and/or the Vadeli Isles, but there may well have been multiple home islands / Danmalastan "survivals" at various times. Jrustela seems to be connected to this sinking land belt or even on the same "plate," although I confess the deep zzaburist tectonics may point closer to Old Trade after all.

* I am away from the deep sources right now but seem to recall a confused migration narrative for the "Brithini" and/or Children of Malkion that has them born somewhere and coming to what we now consider the island. There were probably people who argued that Jrustela was the original homeland even though the Jrustelites themselves were immigrants and more or less converted pagan stock. 

* For every reference to original "Brithini" and Children of Malkion I suspect we can always at least provisionally read "Children of Vadela" until the evidence points otherwise. While modern self-identified Vadelists are gruesome people I see more to distrust the early accounts.

* Many mountains. For Belintar, Larnste is one of the entities who grew a mountain. They're very interested in Larn ste in his part of the world; this is a deep spring of deep magic. Larnste is the Rockwoods, separate from Mostal and working ceaselessly to separate elf and dwarf nations. A dragon who may evolve into something like Cragspider had a mountain but this might just be another form of Turos. Chalana had her inverted "mountain." Gonn Orta is one of these mountains. 

* Belintar is very interested in how to become a mountain, to grow as a personal mountain or in your approach self-sufficient cosmic system. There are probably Gloranthan hero practices that teach people to identify with "giants," become something like a giant. 

* The giants and the dragons are at war but at least one dragon has a mountain. Cragspider has a relationship with Larnste. Perhaps it is unique.

* Unless we can attribute the maps to some subjective in-setting perspective, I have to trust that Brithos and other features were always where they say it was. The notion of setting developmental error cannot be a factor. Unfortunately accounts of the island and its politics are ominously rudimentary . . . where were they in the era of Jrustelan supremacy, unless (a) already gone or (b) right there operating under a different name?

* Fronela is probably where the God Learner regime bent the maps most, either in an effort to control the territory or simply to enforce outside order on the locals. (Same thing. Pamaltela is of course another place where this happens.) The "objective" historical maps we have today do not reflect more heterodox accounts but given the way institutional heroquesting works "were always true" once they became true in the first place. The Ban and Thaw alter geography again, whether as a "reset" or a separate evolution is unclear and probably moot for most purposes.

* Archaic Fronelan history is uniquely effaced in the documents we have. They either suffered more severely in the God Learner regime, took their records with them into Carmania where they remain to be investigated, or both. Much of the fragments that remain focus on a relationship with Brithos that simply does not match the official zzabur-centric accounts. Which means that even if their version is not truthful, it can be extremely useful. The war goes on.

[scott-martin]

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

To the west (!) lived the stone people, aka Mostali. (Weird, that, unless this myth intends to place Mornastan just east of the Curustus mountains.)

Maybe "south"west or another of those rotations may be in play. The bizarre persistence of twin Decamonies (both with iron) makes me think Slon and the larger Piparovor complex are more important cosmologically than most Dragon Pass facing documents suggest. It's not hard to believe that these were the original Mostalites and the people who now run Nida are a kind of variant or successor race, possibly perpetuated from captive or converted stock. 

Belintar seems to have believed that one of the functions of the Rockwoods was to divide various factions of the Davimostingsi (makers / miners / minions) from each other, fostering a diversity of purpose (many "mountains") as well as geography. But this is obscure and the dwarves are eager to collect and hide most accounts of their origins and history.

> iron
> miners
> the origin of trolls
> elves

I am now more than half convinced that timinits take double damage from iron weapons too.

Edited April 18, 2021 by scott-martin
darkness or "dark moon" hsunchen

[Eff]

If we understand the descent of Malkion as involving the children of Malkion entering into the children of Vadela and producing the Malkioni, then we have some interesting reasons for Vadelism to be the way it is- subjugation of the Malkioni essence/Thetan while taking advantage of the biological immortality it offers. (And of course this puts a very different spin on the Malkion/Zzabur psychodrama and Malkion the Sacrifice/the Fifth Action!) 

And the oppositional accounts of creation from Malkioni and Mostali lead me to suspect there's a kind of sephirot/qliphot thing going on. Of course, for alchemists, one must putrefy and purify the soul alike to complete the rebis. (This might play into Argrath Dragonfriend and Giantmaster, to briefly wave at Dragon Pass before setting off on the seas...)

EDIT: No Yellow Vadeli, though. Where does Talar come in here? Does he have a different origin somehow?

Edited April 18, 2021 by Eff

[scott-martin]

8 minutes ago, Eff said:

Thetan

The western hero wars deserve to be as awesome as what the Sartarites are building. Everybody's does.

There are theories about vadelist chromatology but if I recall the goddess Vadela (they reckoned descent that way) had three lovers and never made it around to having a yellow baby before the Malkionite captivity. This is probably a deep secret of the archaic talars in itself but other people chase different angles.

[Nevermet]

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:

* Belintar was very interested in the multiplication of mountains, maybe because he had access to people who remembered / respected Lodril's mountain or something they called a "Spike." Volcano magic is a phase of this: deep magic of Caladra waiting to be investigated.

 

Do you have a cite for this?  I'm trying to get a better handle on the Holy Country.

 

As for everything else... I feel bad because I don't have anything to add, but thanks for this thread.

[Nevermet]

Also... is it a new dumb theory that the 3 points of the Law Rune are Mostal, Zzabur, and Malkion?  Or is that old, and I forget where I read it?

 

Either way, they're an interesting triad for sorcery: Material, Energy, & Personality.

[soltakss]

2 minutes ago, Nevermet said:

Also... is it a new dumb theory that the 3 points of the Law Rune are Mostal, Zzabur, and Malkion?  Or is that old, and I forget where I read it?

My dumb theory is that Lunars see the Law Rune with Malkion as its base, Hrestol as it's right side and the Red Goddess as it's left side, supported by Malkion and Hrestol.

[Nevermet]

6 minutes ago, soltakss said:

My dumb theory is that Lunars see the Law Rune with Malkion as its base, Hrestol as it's right side and the Red Goddess as it's left side, supported by Malkion and Hrestol.

That's a good dumb theory.

I think mine is coming from the way I've been thinking of the Godlearners being dismissive of personality to the point of disrespect (effectively being anti-Arkati wizards)

Edited April 18, 2021 by Nevermet

[Nevermet]

Also, regarding Lodril, IIRC, according to some Fronelan myths, he stole the secret of iron from the Mostali.  I wonder if stealing the secret of iron means Lodril learned sorcery.

(I assume this lead to the creation of the Third Eye Blue Kingdom, but that's conjecture)

 

(Also, seriously, Lava Boy really got around).

Edited April 18, 2021 by Nevermet

[scott-martin]

6 minutes ago, Nevermet said:

As for everything else... I feel bad because I don't have anything to add, but thanks for this thread.

This is all @Joerg, the original Halwal. When he pivots, all the rest of us can do is drop a little chaff or get out of the way. 

My mountain material comes from a draft mythological compendium attributed in-setting to Belintar that never got published. In theory the curatorial impulse reflects his interests and just maybe gives us the keys to repeat his work, but outside that specialized focus it's really just an effort to combine the various mountain rising memories.

[aumshantih]

4 hours ago, scott-martin said:

The western hero wars deserve to be as awesome as what the Sartarites are building. Everybody's does.

I can't agree with this more.    This is a fantastic thread, and would have been helpful when I was running my game in Fronela.

Currently, I'm running a Vithelan game, and I remember coming across this from Revealed Mythologies.

Vit. Malkioni name of the pagan “god” of the East, Vith. Vit was one of the Early Rebels, and with his powers managed to capture the sun. Zzabur’s Great Blast knocked Vit down; the sun was released from his grip, and rose to make the Dawning.

Which is super curious, as there isn't really any mention of this happening in the Vithelan mythos in Revealed Mythology.  It is widely acknowledged that Vithela experienced the Great Darkness in a very different way than much of the rest of Glorantha, and this line in particular stands out.    Perhaps Vith employed mystical Refutation and, at least from the perspective of his children, stopped the Sun from dying.   

[Nevermet]

10 minutes ago, aumshantih said:

I can't agree with this more.    This is a fantastic thread, and would have been helpful when I was running my game in Fronela.

One of my favourite things about the Guide is that every chapter has a "The Hero Wars Begin" sidebar.  Even if (especially because?) they are rarely fleshed out, it creates a great base for campaigns set anywhere in Glorantha.

[jajagappa]

6 hours ago, scott-martin said:

* ("Lodril" as magician, possibly even "Lodril" as sorcerer. This becomes crucial to Carmanian sorcery as well as what they get up to in the Vent and the powers OOO stole, which is to say Spolite sorcery and the modern Dark Phase.)

Of course, this could also relate to "Lodril" as the primal smith where smiths are always magicians/sorcerers for their abilities to transmute and transform substances.  And may tie into his own subsequent "disintegration" sequence into the Holy Wild Fire/Work Fire/Hearth Fire.  Lodril potentially conquered/divided not just by OOO but an envious or greedy Mostal may have contributed.

6 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Others say Malkonwal was built somewhere near the Choralinthor basin and the true descendants are the Aeolites, but they are not orthodox. The directional cues still work, however. In this interpretation, you either need to move "Brithos" or posit a longer/more convoluted migration path across the Manirian coast . . . something like the Trader Prince pilgrimage route, how odd.

Yes, interesting to see that potentially overlaid migration path.  One wonders if King Rikard attempted to follow that path?  What knowledge/speculation of Old/New Malkonwal did Rikard bring to the Holy Country?  What vestiges still lurk in Heortland?

6 hours ago, scott-martin said:

* Many mountains. For Belintar, Larnste is one of the entities who grew a mountain. They're very interested in Larnste in his part of the world; this is a deep spring of deep magic. Larnste is the Rockwoods

And perhaps if one can get a drop of Larnste's blood (we know where that is), but get it while it is still pure (or find a way to purify it), then perhaps that can be used to grow a new mountain, or allow one to become a mountain (physically or heroically)?

4 hours ago, Nevermet said:

regarding Lodril, IIRC, according to some Fronelan myths, he stole the secret of iron from the Mostali.  I wonder if stealing the secret of iron means Lodril learned sorcery.

(I assume this lead to the creation of the Third Eye Blue Kingdom, but that's conjecture)

Unless as @scott-martin hints, the real secret is that Mostal stole the secret of iron transmutation from Lodril??? Or bound Lodril in the chains which he had forged, locking him into the great mountains as their never-ceasing slave...

1 hour ago, aumshantih said:

Vit. Malkioni name of the pagan “god” of the East, Vith. Vit was one of the Early Rebels, and with his powers managed to capture the sun. Zzabur’s Great Blast knocked Vit down; the sun was released from his grip, and rose to make the Dawning.

Which is super curious, as there isn't really any mention of this happening in the Vithelan mythos in Revealed Mythology.  It is widely acknowledged that Vithela experienced the Great Darkness in a very different way than much of the rest of Glorantha, and this line in particular stands out.    Perhaps Vith employed mystical Refutation and, at least from the perspective of his children, stopped the Sun from dying.   

Or, if we consider Vith as Aether, the original light, then where does the light from the Sun go after it dies other than returning to its original source?  Then the release of the Sun is not seen as refuting or stopping the death of the Sun, but as the recreation of Aether's original devolution into Light, Fire, and Heat, and their re-release into the world of Time.

[Sir_Godspeed]

59 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Unless as @scott-martin hints, the real secret is that Mostal stole the secret of iron transmutation from Lodril??? Or bound Lodril in the chains which he had forged, locking him into the great mountains as their never-ceasing slave...

If we take the Dwarfs by their word, then Mostal is not so much a conscious entity, an anthropomorph, as it is the gestalt world-system of the cosmos. So what does that leave us with? 

Also, this arguably also puts Mostal at the level of the Invisible God and Glorantha/Arachne Solara as these meta-deities that either create, sustain or ARE the world personified. 

Then again, action attributed to "Mostal" might as well have been done by True Mostali in the God Time. Outsiders wouldn't have known the difference, and one can wonder whether the Mostali would have known either ("We are merely tools", as it were). 

The snippet about the Malkioni invading and terrorizing native Vadeli was one that intrigued me something fierce when I read it the first time. Can't help but wonder what it elucidates. Can't help but theorize that Zzaburite versions of God Time events is severely redacted, revised, or simply focused on things other than, well, people. His is a history of the devolution of intellect and mind into gross matter, impermanence and delusion, and one meant to serve as evidence for his grand hypothesis/world model, at that. It's a diagnosis over an unsatisfying universe, and that takes precedence over talking about which individual sapient bodies did what to who and where. A bit like Plato, I suppose. 

In summary, my guess is that the Western understanding of history was basically syncretized already in the God Time, or at the Dawn, whichever makes sense. Multitudes of people painting themselves into a cohesive, common, narrative, working backwards, perhaps. 

Still wondering how Malkioni/Danmalastani (whether seen as mind-intellects/archetypes or actual living people) and the Mostali fit together. They share so much I can't help thinking they have some common origin or at the very least some other commonality beyond just being neighbors.

Edited April 19, 2021 by Sir_Godspeed

[Nevermet]

1 hour ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

If we take the Dwarfs by their word, then Mostal is not so much a conscious entity, an anthropomorph, as it is the gestalt world-system of the cosmos. So what does that leave us with? 

 

If true, then that means a repaired World Machine means Glorantha becomes ... Well, I doubt it would sustain human life as we understand it.

It also means that stealing from Mostal means breaking the world machine a little bit, moving bits where they don't belong, etc.

 

 

 

As for the relationship between the Malkioni and the Mostali, I don't have time to re-read Revealed Mythologies for a few days.

 

Also, if I remember the newer material on Malkion that Jeff has shared, it implies Malkion came later than Zzabur or Mostal

[Nevermet]

2 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Unless as @scott-martin hints, the real secret is that Mostal stole the secret of iron transmutation from Lodril???

This fits my (very) dumb theory that Ganesatarus is actually an aspect of Lodril.

[Nick Brooke]

5 hours ago, Nevermet said:

Also, if I remember the newer material on Malkion that Jeff has shared, it implies Malkion came later than Zzabur or Mostal

In my take on things, Malkion as known to the Malkioni did indeed come later. He had been Zzabur's father, the original Lawgiver of Brithos, but after the world broke he came out with his New Laws to help now-mortal humans survive the Ice Age... and his original family condemned him for breaking his Old Laws. Zzabur exiled, and may even have murdered, Malkion. ("Sources and traditions differ," as we say)

Just my take, no idea how much of this you would know / learn / follow if you stuck to whatever's still considered canon nowadays.

[metcalph]

6 hours ago, Nevermet said:

Also, if I remember the newer material on Malkion that Jeff has shared, it implies Malkion came later than Zzabur or Mostal

The mythology of Malkion is IMO a construct (like the Trinity).  Malkion appears differently in myths depending on when those myths took place (Golden Age etc) and some bright spark had the idea of interpreting him through the Five Actions*, which also had the effect of explaining away his unfortunate defeat and demise to his critics (Zzabur: Malkion was a loser who died.  Malkioni: Yeah, but he *planned* it!)

I don't think Malkion was ever the Invisible God although Makan was obviously the Invisible God understood through his life (and Irensavel the Invisible God understood through Hrestol's teachings etc).  But there's plenty of details that don't fit and have not done so for a long time (Engr, Aerlit the Vadrudi etc) and the God Learners brushed them way by calling them apocrypha.  

*I know Zzabur makes this identification explicit in Zzabur Says (Revealed Mythologies) but IMO that document's spurious in that Zzabur portrays Malkion as his tragic friend whereas the real Zzabur wouldn't even bother mentioning him.

[Sir_Godspeed]

Then there's all these related terms/bynames for Malkion. Kiona. Ferbrith. In the scheme, they are different subgradients of Malkion, but could they have had different origins prior to a hypothetical synthesis?

[metcalph]

6 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Then there's all these related terms/bynames for Malkion. Kiona. Ferbrith. In the scheme, they are different subgradients of Malkion, but could they have had different origins prior to a hypothetical synthesis?

Ferbrith is related to Brithos and is Makan during the second action.  Yet Brithos wasn't colonized until the Late Storm Age.  Hmmm.  

[Darius West]

17 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Foundation post of our era. A little graffiti scrawled here and there:

* I love the mountains as metaphysical representations of various Laws. Brilliant. No matter how much some people want to unify the grand systems, most models recognize that beyond a certain stage (duplication) that multiple conclusions can derive from original principles. The Law that ejected the Block and finally killed the desert devil may not have been from the theist mountain Srvuela. In fact, given what we now know about inertial paths, a more distant origin point is much more likely.

* Belintar was very interested in the multiplication of mountains, maybe because he had access to people who remembered / respected Lodril's mountain or something they called a "Spike." Volcano magic is a phase of this: deep magic of Caladra waiting to be investigated.

* Jrustela also had its primeval magic mountain. Like Srvuela in some regional accounts, it rose to the south of continental Genertela and was an advanced civilization that died. In other accounts, vestiges linger in the north, in the Pelandan zone. Jrustela had its elves and its dwarves and its unique insect nation, a kind of dark folk, but we digress.

I agree. Mountains as manifestations of laws is a very interesting idea.  The idea certainly raises some interesting and difficult questions about the metaphysics of mountains however.

For example, when a mountain is actually a giant, or a dragon.  How does one understand that within the mythology?  I mean, think about it.  A giant man rune sits down and becomes a physical manifestation of law.  I mean, I could extrapolate, semi-humorously, that perhaps this is a subjective social law that applies to man-rune communities.  Should we then view Dragons posing as mountains as manifesting some form of "mystical" law or principle?

As to volcanic eruptions, well, clearly this is a legislative response to reinforce existing laws in times when they are proving inadequate.

It is also interesting to consider how the mountains move the political landscape of the societies they affect.  Walls of mountains serve as a barrier that is more effective than any line drawn in blood on a map as to define what laws hold in what territory. 

[Gallowglass]

23 hours ago, Joerg said:

Drona's work is done, and he leaves for Fronela, or he has already done so earlier - possibly in search of his destined wife Frona, accompanied by his boar companion Bakan and by Eurmal (still a respectable deity, a teacher of mankind).

 

I like this theory, although my money is still currently on Drona/Oran being one of the Kachisti who arrived during, or after, the Flood. Mainly this is based on him being described as a "demigod" in the Glorantha sourcebook who married Frona, rather than a true god in his own right. My own current project has been trying to figure out the myths of the Oranor pantheon, and how they all fit together. I have more thoughts about this, but I don't want to derail the thread (too much).

23 hours ago, Joerg said:

There is no evidence for the Volcano being much of a civilizing influence in Fronela, despite Mt. Ladaral on the site of Sog City. Ladaral or Laddy is depicted pretty much like Solf is in Teshnos, lazy between outbreaks of intoxicated lust. But maybe Eurmal is to blame, when he stole Fire (and possibly intellect and culture) for Mankind. The Firebringer (afterwards outlawed and persecuted by the gods) and Friend of Men, Prometheus except that his role in creating men is hushed.

 

When I was trying to find the connection between Eurmal and Lodril, the only reference I could remember was the Trickster stealing Lodril's fire in the Underworld, during the Lightbringer's Quest. I don't even remember where I read this now though. Having the theft of fire occur way before the LBQ makes more sense (although time is meaningless!) 

Here is a question slightly more on topic with the rest of Joerg's original post. Do any of the modern Malkioni of the Third Age know how to heroquest back to the time of the original Six Tribes of Danmalastan? Or really any time before the "Ice Age." I would tend to think the answer is no, mainly because the implications of this are kind of mind-boggling. A heroquester could, in theory, sit in the presence of Malkion or Zzabur and learn sorcery from them. Or re-create one or all of the original Six Tribes by learning their secrets. Or find some way to unify their whole religion, which I guess is what some of them try to do during the Hero Wars.

[Sir_Godspeed]

1 hour ago, Gallowglass said:

Here is a question slightly more on topic with the rest of Joerg's original post. Do any of the modern Malkioni of the Third Age know how to heroquest back to the time of the original Six Tribes of Danmalastan? Or really any time before the "Ice Age." I would tend to think the answer is no, mainly because the implications of this are kind of mind-boggling. A heroquester could, in theory, sit in the presence of Malkion or Zzabur and learn sorcery from them. Or re-create one or all of the original Six Tribes by learning their secrets. Or find some way to unify their whole religion, which I guess is what some of them try to do during the Hero Wars.

Another question is: why didn't the God Learners do it? Was it too controversial? No available paths? Or did they actually do it? 

I wonder how it would be to Heroquest back and speak with Zzabur. Would he know exactly what you were up to, essentially having awareness of the future and the past because it's all interlinked? Or is he bound to act according to the Compromise as the theist deities are?

[Gallowglass]

17 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I wonder how it would be to Heroquest back and speak with Zzabur. Would he know exactly what you were up to, essentially having awareness of the future and the past because it's all interlinked? Or is he bound to act according to the Compromise as the theist deities are?

If it were possible, Zzabur might be completely incomprehensible to mortals, or just uncooperative. The same might be true for other figures like Malkion. So maybe the God Learners did figure it out, they just didn’t get anything useful out of those Heroquests.