Tell me about Elmal and Yelmalio

[David Scott]

14 hours ago, Eagle Talon said:

The topic of the Many Suns is often mentioned. I’m not sure exactly what it means. Could you explain? 

The basic outline for this will be in the cults book:

Quote

There are several solar cults who are often identified with Yelmalio. These are sometimes treated as independent deities, sometimes as different names for Yelmalio, and sometimes as subcults of Yelm or some other solar deity. [...]

Yelmalio is often called Elmal, Daysenerus, Golden Spear Man, Kargzant, Tharkantus or other names. However, these names are merely different titles for the same entity. As the Hero Wars begin, Yelmalio is mainly worshiped in the manner described in this chapter, even in Dragon Pass, but there are many variations.

At the Dawn, the Heortlings of Dragon Pass worshiped Lightfore and the Sun together under the name of Elmal. Later in the First Age, the Dara Happans proved in magical contests with the Second Council that the returned Sun was a separate god – the imperial Yelm. The Elmal cult shifted its worship to Lightfore who remained even when the Sun is dead. Lightfore was called the Cold Sun, the Frontier Sun, but his most popular name was the Light Sun – Yelmalio. 

There's no authoritative text on this that I can sensibly point you to (yet), but Jeff did write a brief intro in Jan 2021 which you can find here.

I would also recommend @Nick Brooke's article in Nick Brooke’s Gloranthan Manifesto, Volume One, Elmal & Yelmalio. An article I wrote in the nineties to try and make all the silliness stop. It's stood the test of time well. (Free - https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/14217-nick-brookes-gloranthan-manifesto-volume-one/)

Overall this argument discussion has been raging for nearly 30 years, with more differing opinions than you can shake a stick at. Caveat lector.

Edited July 17, 2021 by David Scott

[Sir_Godspeed]

10 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

I agree that it’s hard to see the attraction of Yelmalio in-world. At least in RQG, Ernalda has better combat magic (this changes when he at least gets Shield). Are Yelmalio’s myths cooler? I don’t think so - Elmal Guards the Stead is victory through tenacity and sacrifice, while Hill of Gold is losing but surviving and maintaining that ”purity” by not having sex. Humakti geases tend to enforce honorable behavior; Yelmalio’s stop you from bathing and stuff like that (but then you can talk to birds!). And then there are the constant ”moral victories” (i.e. defeats), and it doesn’t help that the cult is so commonly used as someone’s else’s tool (and resurrected for just that purpose).

It’s hard for me at least to see the attraction. If I’m an Elmalite, they can keep their Yelmalio. My god is Orlanth’s local thane, and you want me to abandon Orlanth for a foreign god in the service of Yelm? Who are you, the Teller of Lies? 

Recalling Jeff's comments, the Elmal cultists that converted en masse were at least somewhat convinced by the ability to access a fuller mythic landscape and a wider context. Becoming their own power base was probably an important part of that, but I doubt all of it. So there's a piece of the puzzle we readers currently lack, I think. At least I hope there is. 

I can't recall whether Jeff said so or someone else, but there was apparently a myth where Yelmalio deliberately walks off into the dark with the last remaining light, to take the bull's eye off the other survivors, and makes himself the decoy, allowing them to survive the darkness. That's a pretty cool take, I think.

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Recalling Jeff's comments, the Elmal cultists that converted en masse were at least somewhat convinced by the ability to access a fuller mythic landscape and a wider context.

I mean, maybe? But Elmal has some pretty good mythic connections already. Orlanth's second in command, stand-in ruler and defender of the Storm Tribe, does stuff at the very end of the LBQ, the Elmal/Heler/Esrola triangle... does Yelmalio really have a richer mythic tapestry? And that's before we get into the Elmal myths we see in Six Ages (that the Heortling Elmali may or may not have access to).

[Richard S.]

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

I mean, maybe? But Elmal has some pretty good mythic connections already. Orlanth's second in command, stand-in ruler and defender of the Storm Tribe, does stuff at the very end of the LBQ, the Elmal/Heler/Esrola triangle... does Yelmalio really have a richer mythic tapestry? And that's before we get into the Elmal myths we see in Six Ages (that the Heortling Elmali may or may not have access to).

The issue, again, is that for Yelmalio we've only seen significant material published for an out-of-the-way, isolated, hidebound temple who don't really have a lot of ties to the other sun domes, and there hasn't really been any room in that material to explore his mythology besides the highlight. Elmal and his worshipers, on the other hand, have had a major role in two video games and two excellently detailed supplements, which has provided an opportunity to flesh out his mythology much more. The simple fact is that Yelmalio may well have a richer overall tapestry simply because he's never gotten the focus that Elmal has, so we've never gotten to see it. Considering that Jeff has access to all of Greg's notes and in general is the curator of all things Gloranthan right now, I think it's safe to trust him if he says that Yelmalio has more powerful myths, regardless of what we have seen from the outside, and just hope that either the cult book or heroquesting book will flesh them out.

[Eff]

One of the underlying assumptions in most of the Elmal-and-Yelmalio back-and-forth is that we should take things at face value when it comes to Elmal being a trusted servant or boon companion to Orlanth, his right-hand-man, etc. This is an assumption that I am increasingly suspicious of. Why would you put your trusted majordomo right on the outskirts of the divine stead? Why does, if Heortlings accept that Ernalda has multiple husbands and Orlanth is simply the first and best, Elmal only get to be wedded to the more minor Esrola incarnation? Why doesn't Elmal get invited to any parties, in other words?

I think it's also in keeping with the tone of most Gloranthan material- assertions of this kind are generally two-faced and containing various species of hidden meaning to explore.

So an alternate interpretation of Elmal is that Elmal is the quarrelsome second to Orlanth's leadership, always willing to second-guess Orlanth's actions, sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly, and regularly, like Brainy Smurf, getting tossed out of the village and sent to go patrol the walls for a bit. In this sense, being selected to play the role of Elmal in a ceremony might be a notification that the clan chieftain thinks you need to be cut down to size. But regardless, being an Elmali is a frustrating exercise in perpetual subordination.

To contrast, Yelmalio is independent. To turn the memes on their head, Elmal gets to stay at home and babysit while Yelmalio has a cool motorycle and glowing yellow sunglasses as he does wheelies on the foothills of the Spike. (Metaphors are always imperfect.) And of course, Elmali would be primarily drawn from the nobility given the centrality of horses to the cult. With the exception perhaps of horse-breeding specialists (who are the remaining Elmal worshipers as of 1625!), Elmal is a cult for people who are going to eat shit fairly often and be stuck in a medial position. Yelmalio gets to eat shit fairly often too, of course, but the light at the end of the tunnel is more obvious there.

(All of this is my interpretation. It also largely ignores the Elmal of Six Ages, who is not totally irrelevant to the modern day but certainly has quite a bit more Godtime to go through before ordinary Time can begin!)

[Nick Brooke]

Some important context here: (1) Greg Stafford dedicated King of Sartar to our good friend David Hall, describing him as the "loyal thane, keeping the light"; (2) David Hall was our Editor, Convention Supremo and Game Master, and without him we would never have achieved anything.

So back in the Reaching Moon Megacorp days, many of us (though never David) quite enjoyed toying with the idea that the Elmal-Thane took on responsibility for organising all those tedious chores around the stead that simply have to be done at certain times, that the clanspeople maybe don't particularly want to do, and that everybody has to join in whatever they might prefer to be doing.

So the Orlanthi Chieftain or King keeps his hands clean, and it's his poor bloody Elmal-Thane's job to organise night-watch rotas, or make sure everyone turns up for spear drill, or coordinate the heavy work at harvest time. He gets to be the tin-helmeted little Hitler, timekeeping and organising and making sure everyone pulls their weight and delivers their due.

And as his "reward," he gets treated like shit at Sacred Time, stuffed in a hole in the ground for days and pelted with filth by the rest of the clan.

Anyway, I thought that was worth sharing.

Edited July 19, 2021 by Nick Brooke

[Leingod]

1 hour ago, Eff said:

One of the underlying assumptions in most of the Elmal-and-Yelmalio back-and-forth is that we should take things at face value when it comes to Elmal being a trusted servant or boon companion to Orlanth, his right-hand-man, etc. This is an assumption that I am increasingly suspicious of. Why would you put your trusted majordomo right on the outskirts of the divine stead? Why does, if Heortlings accept that Ernalda has multiple husbands and Orlanth is simply the first and best, Elmal only get to be wedded to the more minor Esrola incarnation? Why doesn't Elmal get invited to any parties, in other words?

I think it's also in keeping with the tone of most Gloranthan material- assertions of this kind are generally two-faced and containing various species of hidden meaning to explore.

So an alternate interpretation of Elmal is that Elmal is the quarrelsome second to Orlanth's leadership, always willing to second-guess Orlanth's actions, sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly, and regularly, like Brainy Smurf, getting tossed out of the village and sent to go patrol the walls for a bit. In this sense, being selected to play the role of Elmal in a ceremony might be a notification that the clan chieftain thinks you need to be cut down to size. But regardless, being an Elmali is a frustrating exercise in perpetual subordination.

To contrast, Yelmalio is independent. To turn the memes on their head, Elmal gets to stay at home and babysit while Yelmalio has a cool motorycle and glowing yellow sunglasses as he does wheelies on the foothills of the Spike. (Metaphors are always imperfect.) And of course, Elmali would be primarily drawn from the nobility given the centrality of horses to the cult. With the exception perhaps of horse-breeding specialists (who are the remaining Elmal worshipers as of 1625!), Elmal is a cult for people who are going to eat shit fairly often and be stuck in a medial position. Yelmalio gets to eat shit fairly often too, of course, but the light at the end of the tunnel is more obvious there.

(All of this is my interpretation. It also largely ignores the Elmal of Six Ages, who is not totally irrelevant to the modern day but certainly has quite a bit more Godtime to go through before ordinary Time can begin!)

Thing is, from the standpoint of a new player making a character (speaking from experience), that probably makes Elmal more appealing, not less. As does the fact that his cult barely exists anymore, at least IME. Because it's easy to be loyal and honorable when you're on top in a position of respect and honor, showered with praise and rewards and treated as the trusted right hand of the chief or king. A character who's loyal to a clan or tribe whose leaders don't appreciate that loyalty as much as they should or otherwise keep that character at arm's length, whose contributions are overlooked because it's not as flashy to stand guard and play defense, a character who's constantly drafted to play the enemy in rituals because they're the only guy around with a strong Sky Rune affinity, etc., has its own obvious appeal. Because now you're not just the loyal, steadfast solar warrior: You're also The Last DJ Elmali, who stubbornly sticks to his guns even as the world has moved on and his former compatriots all "sold out" for the glitz and glamor of a big golden dome with farms worked by gray-skinned slaves and lucrative mercenary contracts. You're doing "the right thing" not because you're going to get heaped with accolades for it, those are probably going to go to whatever glory-hungry young Orlanth-worshiper is in the party, but because your clan/tribe need you to do it, and no one ever said doing the right thing was easy.

You can totally do more or less the same thing as a "tribal Yelmalian" per RQG, and at this point as far as the actual canon is concerned Elmal is basically just a local name for Yelmalio used around Runegate with maybe some extra horse magic in a local subcult or something. But you're starting with the thing I described above, where most of the material you can easily find on Yelmalio is from Sun County and doesn't do a great job of selling the cult of Yelmalio (and the Sun Dome culture) as cool and fun to be a part of. It's easy to walk away from that with the impression that a Yelmalian character almost has to be some flavor of prudish killjoy.

Edited July 17, 2021 by Leingod

[Nick Brooke]

2 hours ago, Leingod said:

Thing is, from the standpoint of a new player making a character (speaking from experience), that probably makes Elmal more appealing, not less.

Player characters are always exceptional. I don't have a problem with Humakti or Storm Bulls being over-represented among the adventuring classes, and it looks as if Elmali will be as well. Yay! Just as long as you don't think this means everyone's an Elmali, or shares your weird beliefs about how important Wee Free Elmalism is in modern Sartar.

Sun County is, of course, awesome, and if you walk away from reading that plus Sandheart plus MOB's ongoing "Cradle Aftermath" updates with the impression that they're all prudish killjoys and there's nothing more to it, I honestly can't help you. (The capsule description we used back in the day was "Uptight Spartans in the Wild West," which still sounds like a magnificent campaign concept to me; YMMV)

Edited July 17, 2021 by Nick Brooke

[Leingod]

8 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

Player characters are always exceptional. I don't have a problem with Humakti or Storm Bulls being over-represented among the adventuring classes, and it looks as if Elmali will be as well. Yay! Just as long as you don't think this means everyone's an Elmali, or shares your weird beliefs about how important Wee Free Elmalism is in modern Sartar.

Sun County is, of course, awesome, and if you walk away from reading that plus Sandheart plus MOB's ongoing "Cradle Aftermath" updates with the impression that they're all prudish killjoys and there's nothing more to it, I honestly can't help you. (The capsule description we used back in the day was "Uptight Spartans in the Wild West," which still sounds like an magnificent campaign concept to me; YMMV)

Oh, obviously there's a lot more to it, and the Praxian Sun Domers have all kinds of interesting storytelling and roleplaying opportunities of their own. I bought the whole Sandheart trilogy, you don't need to sell me on them.

But I'm talking about a surface-level "first impressions" read, from someone maybe just starting to get into the wider world of Glorantha after playing one of the excellent video games. From that perspective, someone is probably going to be going "Elmal sure was cool, but apparently he's not much of a thing anymore? Who's this Yelmalio guy? A xenophobic theocracy of self-righteous types who are scandalized by the sight of a bared ankle and refuse to use the same coins and wagons as everyone else? Wow, that's lame."

Edited July 17, 2021 by Leingod

[M Helsdon]

One thing to bear in mind is that the modern Yelmalio cult is the amalgamation of several Little Sun cults, primarily in Saird, and local traditions vary from Sun Dome to Sun Dome; probably the traditions differ to a greater or lesser degree between temples. At some, Yelmalio and Orlanth are allies, others rivals, and others enemies. These cults aren't going to monolithic, there is no supreme high priest set over all the temples. Even within a single temple, there will be factions, and, people being people, variations in attitudes.

[Nick Brooke]

1 minute ago, M Helsdon said:

Even within a single temple, there will be factions, and, people being people, variations in attitudes.

My Sun County Backgrounds piece opposed 'wrong but wromantic' hazia-toking pro-Lunar hippy mystics to the current 'right but repulsive' crowd of uptight militaristic God-botherers (epitomised by Count Solanthos Ironpike) to show readers that this variation also happens over historical time, and that things can change suddenly, and (given my chosen ECW parallel) that changes can also be reversible.

Sun County without a dourly puritanical control-freak with sexual hang-ups and prohibitionist instincts running the show could be a very different place. No need to look to the past for that: just wait and see.

[Jeff]

22 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

My Sun County Backgrounds piece opposed 'wrong but wromantic' hazia-toking pro-Lunar hippy mystics to the current 'right but repulsive' crowd of uptight militaristic God-botherers (epitomised by Count Solanthos Ironpike) to show readers that this variation also happens over historical time, and that things can change suddenly, and (given my chosen ECW parallel) that changes can also be reversible.

Sun County without a dourly puritanical control-freak with sexual hang-ups and prohibitionist instincts running the show could be a very different place. No need to look to the past for that: just wait and see.

Or wait until the new Sun Dome County book that Jon Webb and I have been working on comes out. That presents the main Yelmalio cult in Dragon Pass.

Edited July 17, 2021 by Jeff

[Orlanthatemyhamster]

Oh no, not again.

[Groovetronic]

Well, for my Glorantha, Yelmalio will be treated as a Dara Happan invader cult imposed by the bright Empire during the reign of Palangio that never left, and that now exists only because it provides high caliber mercenary troops. Elmal has a place in a player character Orlanthi clan, and Yelmalio does not. Yelmalio is an NPC cult for standard clan-based dragon pass games with a typical Orlanth chieftain. Yelmalio is a Stranger and an invader. This is different in places like New Pavis, for example, where PCs can come from different communities and where Yelmalio has a nearby community presence. Nostalgia for classic RQ2 is not enough to declare that Yelmalio is the default, King of Dragon Pass had it right and is MGF for me. YGWV.

[Jeff]

Part of the problem here is people are thinking of this as "conversion" or that Elmal and Yelmalio are separate entities.  But this is no more conversion than Alakoring displaying his Orlanth Rex magic in the Third Age. This is not a case where Monrogh said, "Hey I have this idea that Elmal is one of the names of Yelmalio, let's talk about it." It was more that Monrogh was able to SHOW you the truth of that in the inner worship rites of YOUR cult. "Your eyes were clouded, rinse them, and now look at the True Light. That is Yelmalio." Monrogh was challenged and tested, and each time he successfully proved his claims, in this world and in the Hero Plane. The cult spirits accepted him, Divinations reinforced him, and no Spirits of Reprisal ever came (indeed, Monrogh became the cult's spirit of reprisal).  

At this point, to be someone in Dragon Pass that refuses the acknowledge Yelmalio as a title of the Cold Sun, Lightfore, the Sky Dome, the last Light in the Darkness, etc. is to be perverse. You are refusing to accept what you have experienced in your cult rituals and worship ceremonies, concluding that the cult spirits have somehow betrayed you, that the ancient challenges and tests are wrong, and that somehow all communication with the god is misleading. At this point, you are cast out of your local Elmal cult (now normally called Yelmalio) and can go wander on your own.

Also there is a lot of weird stuff brought in from other cults in these discussions. Yelmalio doesn't hate Orlanth, but he does hate Chaos and is resistant to the Lunar Way. The cult uses gold wheels rather than silver coins - but this is the sort of weird monetary policy we might associate with Sparta (which went for "valueless" iron currency to get to the same point).

PARTICULAR LIKES AND DISLIKES

The cult is hostile towards Darkness cults. Yelmalio hates Zorak Zoran, who stole Yelmalio’s powers of heat. Worse, Kyger Litor and all her kin are despised for the long fight they put up against the forces of Light before the coming of Chaos.

The cult has a rivalry with Humakt’s cult, but one purely professional. There is no rancor in the relation, and individual Humakti sometimes can be found commanding a mass of Sun Dome spearmen. Humakt builds warriors—the Sun Dome trains soldiers.

Because elves worship light without fire as their sustaining sun god, the cult likes and is liked by elves. 

Yelmalio accepts and tolerates the Lightbringers for the aid they gave his father, despite previous battles. There often are close ties with the cults of the Lightbringers, particularly that of Lhankor Mhy. Yelmalio is sometimes a rival of Orlanth’s, but never a bitter one.

Yelmalio hates Chaos. He is stubbornly resistant to the Lunar Way and distrusts the Red Goddess for bringing Chaos into the world. Nevertheless, the cult is willing to serve the Lunar Empire as mercenaries.

MONETARY POLICIES

The temple has a peculiar and troublesome habit of always measuring costs in gold wheels, an oddly fractional system for a world which runs on silver L, but the cult is adamant on this point. It certainly, and perhaps intentionally, helps contribute to their general isolation.

The Priests and Lords of the cult have a religious obligation to use the cult metal (gold) as much as possible. This gives them the image of ostentatious riches, which is not always the case. They despise silver, and pound silver coins into lumps of metal before trading them for gold, even though it decreases the trade value with local money changers and those who work in precious metals.

 

[Richard S.]

Perhaps another valuable point to be made is that, since Elmal = Yelmalio, Elmal's mythology is a part of Yelmalio's. As it stands, you really can't talk about how one or the other has better or worse myths because, at the end of the day, they're the same stuff. Yelmalio guarded the stead, Yelmalio stood atop Kero Fin holding the last light, Elmal lost his fire at the hill of gold, Elmal trained the first pike regiments in the darkness.

[Jeff]

Just now, Richard S. said:

Perhaps another valuable point to be made is that, since Elmal = Yelmalio, Elmal's mythology is a part of Yelmalio's. As it stands, you really can't talk about how one or the other has better or worse myths because, at the end of the day, they're the same stuff. Yelmalio guarded the stead, Yelmalio stood atop Kero Fin holding the last light, Elmal lost his fire at the hill of gold, Elmal trained the first pike regiments in the darkness.

Yep. 

[coffeemancer]

Could it be, oh wow how do I try to explain this concept in english...

 

Ok, so, what if teh YELM part of Yelmalio kind of requires there to be a connection to the throne of the universe through his blood tie to Yelm?
So when Yelm was killed the YELM part of Yelmalio also went away making him just Elmal(io)? 

And with the death of his father certain obligations that binds Elmal(io) are gone so he becomes a more free and loose, or rather dynamic god? Teaming up with Orlanth to save the world. all that.
Once Yelm and the bounds of kinship and obligations of family returns the god Elmal once again becomes Yelmalio?

 

Am I communicating something here?

[Richard S.]

30 minutes ago, coffeemancer said:

Could it be, oh wow how do I try to explain this concept in english...

Ok, so, what if teh YELM part of Yelmalio kind of requires there to be a connection to the throne of the universe through his blood tie to Yelm?
So when Yelm was killed the YELM part of Yelmalio also went away making him just Elmal(io)? 

And with the death of his father certain obligations that binds Elmal(io) are gone so he becomes a more free and loose, or rather dynamic god? Teaming up with Orlanth to save the world. all that.
Once Yelm and the bounds of kinship and obligations of family returns the god Elmal once again becomes Yelmalio?

Am I communicating something here?

I get what you're getting at, but Yelmalio's whole identity was forged during the Darkness, long after Yelm's death. His only significance while Yelm is still alive is as one of Yelm's sons. Every important myth about Lightfore, regardless of what you call him, was written independently of Yelm - in fact, his independence from Yelm is one of his most significant aspects, which is why the Sun Domes tend to hold themselves apart from other solar cults (though they technically still need to respect Yelmites when they come to visit).

[coffeemancer]

Hm, well of course the son won't be the same as we was before his Father disappeared. 

[soltakss]

Yelmalio was Yelm's son, an uptight god of light and phalanxes with no phalanx magic, with temples scattered around and a few in the arse-end of nowhere (Prax, Balazar). Elmal was unheard of.

Then Greg Stafford came along and said "Hey, don't forget that Elmal is the same as Yelmalio but worshipped by Orlanthi, but Monrogh showed them bright new toys and they all joined Yelmalio". A lot of people didn't like the fact that a Deity could be changed so much (Yelmalio/Elmal) and outright rejected Elmal, but they came around in the end.

Then came King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages that made Elmal sexy and loads of new players loved him. (I haven't played the games so have no idea how Elmal is portrayed, I loaded King of Dragon Pass on my laptop years ago but had not clue how to play it so gave up)

Finally, when writing the Cults Book, Jeff puts Elmal back as a face of Yelmalio. The players invested in Elmal, quite understandably, don't like this.

 

So, what do I get from this?

• It is really cool that deities can change, or be changed. 
• HeroQuests can change deities by revealing aspects that were hidden, sometimes hidden in plain sight.
• Deities can be two different things at once. So, Yelmalio can finish the Hill of Gold, naked, beaten and stripped of his fore powers, led away by Arroin and High King Elf; but also, Elmal can leave the Hill of Gold with his weapons returned by Orlanth and leaving to join Orlanth at Stormstead. Then we have divergent myths of Elmal and Yelmalio where they do different things at different times. Are they the same deity just telling two parts of the same story? Are they two different deities, split apart by the trauma of the Hill of Gold? Are they two different deities who both went to the Hill of Gold? Who knows, and to a certain extent, who cares?
• In my game, I don't put much emphasis on Elmal simply because I think it's a boring deity. The same applies to Yelmalio, but I did play a Yelmalian for several years.
• Nothing is static. Just because something has been described in a certain way doesn't mean that it can't be revised and rewritten when expanding.

 

[soltakss]

18 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

One thing to bear in mind is that the modern Yelmalio cult is the amalgamation of several Little Sun cults, primarily in Saird, and local traditions vary from Sun Dome to Sun Dome; probably the traditions differ to a greater or lesser degree between temples.

Personally, I really don't like this approach, although I know that a lot of people love it.

So, some people say that Yelmalio is formed of little deities whose cults merged, so was Orlanth and Ernalda, and so on.

Personally, I much prefer the idea that the various cults existed at the Dawn, worshipping whet they knew or could remember about the Deities who helped them survive. The Awakeners of the Theyalans came around and woke up dryads, elves and so on. In doing so, they encountered a lot of fragments of cults and said "Hey, your cult is really similar to our cult, but we have a juicy pomegranate and you have a delicious apple, so that meant that our goddess had both a pomegranate and apple, we just didn't realise before". As they met a lot of cultures and cults, they could do this more and more often, thus rebuilding the shattered cults.

9 hours ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

Oh no, not again.

Oh yes, again, and it will come up again and again until Glorantha is forgotten.

7 hours ago, Groovetronic said:

Well, for my Glorantha, Yelmalio will be treated as a Dara Happan invader cult imposed by the bright Empire during the reign of Palangio that never left, and that now exists only because it provides high caliber mercenary troops. Elmal has a place in a player character Orlanthi clan, and Yelmalio does not. Yelmalio is an NPC cult for standard clan-based dragon pass games with a typical Orlanth chieftain. Yelmalio is a Stranger and an invader.

Which is a reasonable way of reconciling everything.

The Yelmalians of Prax originally came from Dragon Pass, but I can't remember it explicitly being stated where the Yelmalians of Dragon Pass came from.

Palangio could be a reasonable interpretation, but I am not sure if holdouts from his time would have survived in Arkat's Dark Empire.

An offshoot of the Sun Dragon Emperor in the Empire of the Wyrm Friends could also be a reasonable source.

Maybe the Yelmalians settled by Palangio were strengthened by the success of the Sun Dragon. After all, Balazar brought Yelmalio to the land named after him, at about the same time.

1 hour ago, coffeemancer said:

Ok, so, what if teh YELM part of Yelmalio kind of requires there to be a connection to the throne of the universe through his blood tie to Yelm?
So when Yelm was killed the YELM part of Yelmalio also went away making him just Elmal(io)? 

And with the death of his father certain obligations that binds Elmal(io) are gone so he becomes a more free and loose, or rather dynamic god? Teaming up with Orlanth to save the world. all that.
Once Yelm and the bounds of kinship and obligations of family returns the god Elmal once again becomes Yelmalio?

That is another good interpretation.

Elmal being Yelmalio without the connection to Yelm makes sense, as he if from the Fire Tribe but serves the Storm Tribe. He has lost his kin but has gained new kin by being adopted into the new tribe.

 

[SDLeary]

While I can get behind the fact that, metaphysically, Elmal and Yelmalio are the same being; I also don't have any issue with them being different culturally/socially, and being represented differently in those contexts. The fact that spirits of reprisal do not attack Elmali or Yelmalians shows that the deity doesn't think that either are far enough off the mark to punish, or perhaps doesn't even care as long as they are worshipped. 

For example, God, God, and God, on their face all appear to be different until you do an exam of the three major faiths. Then you see that the being is the same, but is represented differently due to the cultural or social context in which differing faiths are represented; or differing traditions. And then within at least two of these three, you have further variations still. No one would claim that all three of these were the same faith, or cult (yes, this brief is WAY simplified, I know).

Because the Orlanthi, Pelorians, Praxians and so on, are culturally/socially different, so will be the way they worship the Little Sun in my Glorantha. Both cults will exist.

SDLeary

[coffeemancer]

I'm gonna make it worse: what if yelmalio is yelm without royalty?

[David Scott]

1 hour ago, coffeemancer said:

I'm gonna make it worse: what if yelmalio is yelm without royalty?

How does that make it worse?