Subere Myths?

[Godweyn]

Hello hive mind!

Someone knows where to find myths about Subere?

[AndrewTBP]

Glorantha Sourcebook p.76 explains her parents, children, and some worship, including “She is also called the Mother of Death, for that Rune was made or found within her cavernous being before it was brought into the Surface World.”

[Leingod]

Subere's one of those deities that's so remote and primeval that even those who pay her worship likely have very few myths that are actually about her, rather than just myths in which she features. I don't think there are really any that have been written down in any official source. In-universe you'd maybe find something among the uz or perhaps at Black Well, the only temple to her that we know of (found in Bliss In Ignorance, north of Kralorela).

[jajagappa]

I believe she will appear in the forthcoming Cults book.  She is the darkness where light has never been - Goddess of the Inner Dark, or the deep regions of Hell. 

There's a few notes in RQ Classic Trollpak.

p.45: she has a temple in the Redstone Caverns: 

TEMPLE TO SUBERE is the temple to the goddess of the Hell-darkness. Her priestesses also live here, and are responsible for guarding the entry to and from the deep pit which leads to the Underworld.

p.74: in the troll adoption rites:

The trolls then mutilate the initiate to make him into a troll. At some point he will die and his soul itself will be reforged by Subere to be a troll.

In the Guide p. 288: she has a significant temple at Black Well in the Kingdom of Ignorance

Black Well: This temple to Subere is an entry to the deepest Underworld. Powerful magicians gather here to summon demons or other Underworld entities; occasionally, something crawls out of its own volition and haunts the surrounding plains.

She can summon, command, and dismiss almost any spirit, elemental, or monster of Darkness.  And she hides those creatures within her Darkness so there would be myths of her she rescued or saved creatures of the Dark from the fiery, burning light of dead Yelm.

Xentha, Goddess of Night, is her daughter, so one myth would clearly be the birth of Night and the sending of Night out into the world to give shelter to the trolls forced from Wonderhome. 

[Sir_Godspeed]

The Sourcebook seems to say that she mothered the Dehori with Dehore (makes you wonder why they're not called the Suberi, but that's another issue). Is there a myth about this? Probably not, but there could be. Perhaps the Dehori themselves have myths.

EDIT: Although, it's worth keeping in mind that the Sourcebook genealogies are based on God Learner theories. I'm guessing this point doesn't deviate too much from indigenous Uz beliefs though.

Edited August 8, 2021 by Sir_Godspeed

[Squaredeal Sten]

Subere;  Mother of Xentha so Grandmother of Argan Argar. 

So would Subere be an associated cult of Argan Argar?  Not in Cult Compendium. but....

It would seem to me that at a minimum, Subere would figure in Argan Argar cult lore.

Kyger Litor " stepped forth to mate with the Man Rune for her mistress, Subere, also called Hell Darkness. "   "Mistress" is the feminine of "master".  So that's another Subere mythical connection.   So would Subere be an associated cult of Kyger Litor?  Not specifically in Cult Compendium. but....  Cult compenduium does say

"Other Darkness Deities
Trolls can, in general, worship most Darkness
deities as associated cults, though they gain no
special spells for so doing unless they actually join
the other cult.  "

 

 

 

 

Edited August 8, 2021 by Squaredeal Sten
found KL reference

[Joerg]

The obvious out of print source is of course RQ3 Troll Gods, where Subere gets two pages of a "long" cult write-up (57-58, and a waste of ink on the following page with a caption mentioning her).

Her main mythology is that she hoards the secrets, and remained unchanged even when Fire (the dead Sun god) invaded the Underworld. Her secrets were taken to light only twice - when Vivamort betrayed his guardianship and Eurmal stole Death, and when the Black Eater was summoned at the Battle of Night and Day.

The write-up lists one special spell - Attack Soul - and three associate cults, Himile (Decrease Temperature), Kyger Litor (Darksee) and Xentha (Create Shadow).

[scott-martin]

Your players might enjoy exploring the notion that Subere and Kyger Litor (and Himile and Dehore) were originally divergent forms of dark worship brought together by trolls and others at an early stage. This would give you the freedom to reconstruct a unique mythology for Hell Dark distinct from what everyone knows today about her most successful surface descendants. Arguably Subere is what's left behind after we figure out who is a troll and who isn't.

In terms of her mythic character, IMG it's so deeply submerged that we (including uz) really only interact with it in mystic states or philosophical abstractions . . . something like the way earthly voodoo handles Danbala as primordial foundation of the divine universe who is necessary to invite into the rites but never talks in intelligible language, being too large and too old for that.

She's the limit on our ability to name and recognize shapes in the dark. I suspect she can't really even interact with anything younger than Styx without spawning an intermediary to do it for her, which will constrain the cast of characters considerably.

 

[Eff]

2 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Your players might enjoy exploring the notion that Subere and Kyger Litor (and Himile and Dehore) were originally divergent forms of dark worship brought together by trolls and others at an early stage. This would give you the freedom to reconstruct a unique mythology for Hell Dark distinct from what everyone knows today about her most successful surface descendants. Arguably Subere is what's left behind after we figure out who is a troll and who isn't.

In terms of her mythic character, IMG it's so deeply submerged that we (including uz) really only interact with it in mystic states or philosophical abstractions . . . something like the way earthly voodoo handles Danbala as primordial foundation of the divine universe who is necessary to invite into the rites but never talks in intelligible language, being too large and too old for that.

She's the limit on our ability to name and recognize shapes in the dark. I suspect she can't really even interact with anything younger than Styx without spawning an intermediary to do it for her, which will constrain the cast of characters considerably.

 

Granted, this sort of midnight angel would definitely be an interestingly personable route into the deep Dark!

[Qizilbashwoman]

20 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

The Sourcebook seems to say that she mothered the Dehori with Dehore (makes you wonder why they're not called the Suberi, but that's another issue).

Presumably because Subere is essentially an abstraction. She's just "Darkness", which like Earth is conceived of as primarily female, but is about as anthropomorphic as Gaia. You don't really belong to a Gaia cult either, these are the origin of the associated rune. Worship belongs to what the God Learners considered "hybrid" deities; that is to say, [ELEMENT] + [FORM, CONDITION, POWER]. (Some deities have only two total, some have more, and naturally it depends on which ruleset you are using - HeroQuest (deprecated) has ruling elemental deities get doubled ELEMENT forms.)

TL;DR they are dehori because Subere isn't actually exactly a deity de jure

Edited August 8, 2021 by Qizilbashwoman

[Eff]

7 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Presumably because Subere is essentially an abstraction. She's just "Darkness", which like Earth is conceived of as primarily female, but is about as anthropomorphic as Gaia. You don't really belong to a Gaia cult either, these are the origin of the associated rune. Worship belongs to what the God Learners considered "hybrid" deities; that is to say, [ELEMENT] + [FORM, CONDITION, POWER]. (Some deities have only two total, some have more, and naturally it depends on which ruleset you are using - HeroQuest (deprecated) has ruling elemental deities get doubled ELEMENT forms.)

TL;DR they are dehori because Subere isn't actually exactly a deity de jure

Another way of putting it is that everything descended from Subere is a suberi, or a subaru, so "dehori" is necessary as a cladistic term to separate out the children of Dehore+Subere from the children of Subere+everyone else. Now, everything comes from darkness, so everyone is a suberi, or a subaru, and that is why the Uz adoption rites work.

[jajagappa]

16 minutes ago, Eff said:

or a subaru, and that is why the Uz adoption rites work.

Must mean I've been adopted by the Uz since I have two at my command in the garage.

[Sir_Godspeed]

19 minutes ago, Eff said:

Another way of putting it is that everything descended from Subere is a suberi, or a subaru, so "dehori" is necessary as a cladistic term to separate out the children of Dehore+Subere from the children of Subere+everyone else. Now, everything comes from darkness, so everyone is a suberi, or a subaru, and that is why the Uz adoption rites work.

While that makes sense, I should probably add that Subere isn't actually considered the ancestress of most troll gods or trolls, at least according to the Sourcebook's genealogy. That genealogy is of God Learner origin, so people'll have to specify how it deviates, if anything, from Uz beliefs. 

30 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Presumably because Subere is essentially an abstraction. She's just "Darkness", which like Earth is conceived of as primarily female, but is about as anthropomorphic as Gaia. You don't really belong to a Gaia cult either, these are the origin of the associated rune. Worship belongs to what the God Learners considered "hybrid" deities; that is to say, [ELEMENT] + [FORM, CONDITION, POWER]. (Some deities have only two total, some have more, and naturally it depends on which ruleset you are using - HeroQuest (deprecated) has ruling elemental deities get doubled ELEMENT forms.)

 

Jumping off from the above point, I'm wondering if people here are mixing Subere together with Nakala? The latter who is considered primal darkness. 

 

I have no issue with them being the same, or Subere being a fraction of the former or whatever, but at least the Sourcebook separates them explicitly.

[Eff]

3 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

While that makes sense, I should probably add that Subere isn't actually considered the ancestress of most troll gods or trolls, at least according to the Sourcebook's genealogy. That genealogy is of God Learner origin, so people'll have to specify how it deviates, if anything, from Uz beliefs. 

Jumping off from the above point, I'm wondering if people here are mixing Subere together with Nakala? The latter who is considered primal darkness. 

 

I have no issue with them being the same, or Subere being a fraction of the former or whatever, but at least the Sourcebook separates them explicitly.

It's, in my opinion, the same thing as Yelm having authority over Lodril and Dayzatar and Arraz despite being of the same generation. It's possible to inherit positions like "abstract element" or "ruler of the element". You see this strongly in Water as well, and less strongly with the Ga-Gata duo in Earth. By Fire and Storm, you have one generation of abstraction and then the arrival of the concrete burtae. And then Moon is a sparkling, glittering, twirling mess. Try and untangle the choreography and you find a third eye staring back at you out of the mirror.

[scott-martin]

21 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Must mean I've been adopted by the Uz since I have two at my command in the garage.

We have a game up here called "count the crosstreks."

Love the talk about midnight angels and the GA analogues. Interesting how at the most "malign" depths of the witch's craft, down below all the cottagecore friendly friendly about healing herbs and the return of repressed feminine power, you get access to the Queen of Hell and she'll hand out curses like Asrelia rummaging for scraps to distract starving grandchildren. We don't talk a lot about savage earth nowadays but maybe it makes a comeback.

One more footnote on Styx, I'm reminded that Subere is a big deal in the Dashomo, which must be a great story about the ways the wet and the dark interacted close to the beginning of things. Elsewhere it seems that her cult is mostly intellectual, insisting on high levels of literacy and ritual expertise. That's interesting.

[Eff]

1 minute ago, scott-martin said:

We have a game up here called "count the crosstreks."

Love the talk about midnight angels and the GA analogues. Interesting how at the most "malign" depths of the witch's craft, down below all the cottagecore friendly friendly about healing herbs and the return of repressed feminine power, you get access to the Queen of Hell and she'll hand out curses like Asrelia rummaging for scraps to distract starving grandchildren. We don't talk a lot about savage earth nowadays but maybe it makes a comeback.

One more footnote on Styx, I'm reminded that Subere is a big deal in the Dashomo, which must be a great story about the ways the wet and the dark interacted close to the beginning of things. Elsewhere it seems that her cult is mostly intellectual, insisting on high levels of literacy and ritual expertise. That's interesting.

Once you get down into the deep dark, the chirality stops mattering and the Feynman diagrams get simpler. Left-hand, right-hand, the path is the path, blessings are curses, hells of blazing fire are enormous cookouts and rivers of blood are fancy punchbowls. "Welcome ❤️ Hell", as more than one acquaintance of mine might say.

[Nick Brooke]

6 hours ago, Eff said:

Moon is a sparkling, glittering, twirling mess. Try and untangle the choreography and you find a third eye staring back at you out of the mirror.

Please, I urge you all: do what @Eff suggests. Try and untangle the choreography of Lunar mythology and theogony. Keep checking in mirrors, so you'll know if it's worked. And always have a plausible mask handy, in case the barbarians get suspicious. 

[Nick Brooke]

6 hours ago, Eff said:

Left-hand, right-hand, the path is the path.

SUBERE = EREBUS. Facile, but deep.

[Qizilbashwoman]

On 8/8/2021 at 7:59 PM, Sir_Godspeed said:

While that makes sense, I should probably add that Subere isn't actually considered the ancestress of most troll gods or trolls, at least according to the Sourcebook's genealogy. That genealogy is of God Learner origin, so people'll have to specify how it deviates, if anything, from Uz beliefs. 

Jumping off from the above point, I'm wondering if people here are mixing Subere together with Nakala? The latter who is considered primal darkness. 

 

I have no issue with them being the same, or Subere being a fraction of the former or whatever, but at least the Sourcebook separates them explicitly.

She owns the Darkness rune, which was described as "arising from Her form". Unless this has changed in the upcoming CoG, her generations of parents are "Father of Demons and Mother of Space", who appear to be fictional abstractions. Yes, Nakala is the perfect equivalent to Gata, but Subere's not in any way similar to the Earth pantheon's children of Gata, Genert and Pamelt.

[EricW]

I think the powers Subere offers would pretty much be incomprehensible to all but the greatest heroes, and even they would struggle to grasp her secrets. Look at what Argarath had to do to penetrate her realm - a LBQ which shook the universe, when the gods couldn't deliver on their promises, then a deeper quest when he finally reached the realm of Subere, and discovered a path to the private hell of Sedenya. Or the original stealing of death, and all the trouble that caused. Subere is surely the goddess of unknown unknowns - the secrets so hidden in the dark only the greatest heroes even think to look for them.

Edited August 11, 2021 by EricW

[davecake]

Darkness alone of all the Elements predates what we normally think of as matter.

And so is primal Darkness is different from the other primal elements. 

[davecake]

On 8/8/2021 at 7:04 PM, Joerg said:

The write-up lists one special spell - Attack Soul - and three associate cults, Himile (Decrease Temperature), Kyger Litor (Darksee) and Xentha (Create Shadow).

This leaves out her most important magic, IMO - she has Summon, Dismiss, and Command spells for a wide range of Darkness beings. These include well known being like darkness elementals and dehori, but many stranger and older things too, some of them entirely otherwise unknown. 
In RQ3 this included chonchons, hellions, hags, wraiths, lamiae, and ghoul spirits.

In RQG it would include such beings as nyctalopes, Darkness demons, hags as Darkness nymphs, many other forms of dehori, gloom’s and living shadows, and all manner of others. And all sorts of other underworld beings - perhaps they can summon black horses or hell hounds. They know the things that live in the deepest Darkness, and the underworld. An encounter with Subere cultists should include strange and terrifying Darkness being. 
 

And in RQG they also have Absorbtion. 

[davecake]

Among humans, I think that the inner core of the Spolites probably worshipped Subere as well, with Xentha/Netta the more common cult.