Are Gloranthans oceans salty ?

[Agentorange]

Earth's are for all sorts of chemical reasons......but Glorantha is it's own place and doesn't necessarily run according to real world physics.

So are Gloranthan  oceans salty ?

[Jeff]

Yes.

[soltakss]

In answer to the next question "Why?":

• They are the tears of the Deities of Glorantha
• Because the sea is salty
• The Seas contain the "essence" of male water fertility gods
• To separate Freshwater from Seawater
• Because Seawater tastes of Death

 

[John Biles]

The earth element emerged from the waters, but left some of its essence behind in the oceans when it did.

 

[Agentorange]

10 minutes ago, soltakss said:

In answer to the next question "Why?":

• They are the tears of the Deities of Glorantha
• Because the sea is salty
• The Seas contain the "essence" of male water fertility gods
• To separate Freshwater from Seawater
• Because Seawater tastes of Death

 

Purity of essence eh ?

They'll answer to the coca cola company of Peloria you know.......

Also, the answer is of course all of the above  😁

Edited March 5, 2023 by Agentorange

[Agentorange]

So, next question then....do the salt water deities get on with fresh water deities. there's a tendency to lump all the various kinds of deities in with each other. but there's no more reason for water deities to get on with each other than any other familiy.

And in many ways the the division between fresh and salt water is a major one.....

Now I ask that because over in the Gloranthan rivers thread Joerg commented

"Rivers and sea currents are similar in nature, but sea currents never leave their element, whereas rivers ultimately do so, invading a territory that is alien and all too often hostile. "

So do we mean hostile in the sense of alien and inhospitable , or in the sense of actively maliciously hostile ?

 

Edited March 5, 2023 by Agentorange

[Joerg]

In my Glorantha, elemental water is isotonic, containing the same amount of salt as human (or merman) blood. Both freshwater and seawater are deviations of this norm.

The dissolved minerals aren't just the Gloranthan equivalents of sodium chloride (rock salt as used by humans), but also chalk (calcium hydrogen carbonate) and other kations and anions (potassium, magnesium, lithium, sulphate, iodide) leading to all manner of marine sedimentation - limestone, red sandstone, salts, natron, gypsum.

Isotonic elemental water is associated with Triolina, desalinated (rain) water is associated with Heler, brines are associated with Nelat (whose caustic baths are in all likelihood alkaline rather than acid, turning organic tissue into soaps).

2 hours ago, Agentorange said:

So, next question then....do the salt water deities get on with fresh water deities. there's a tendency to lump all the various kinds of deities in with each other. but there's no more reason for water deities to get on with each other than any other familiy.

Heler is the Sea deity who tragically lost their connection to the Seas, leading to an enrichment of salts in the oceans. There are numerous variants of stories telling how a sea deity lost their ability to re-join the seas, e.g. the beginning of the Keet epic in Revealed Mythologies (where the sea deity has a totally different name).

 

2 hours ago, Agentorange said:

And in many ways the the division between fresh and salt water is a major one.....

Yes, and there is more to it than just potability.

 

2 hours ago, Agentorange said:

Now I ask that because over in the Gloranthan rivers thread Joerg commented

"Rivers and sea currents are similar in nature, but sea currents never leave their element, whereas rivers ultimately do so, invading a territory that is alien and all too often hostile. "

So do we mean hostile in the sense of alien and inhospitable , or in the sense of actively maliciously hostile ?
 

What I meant is hostile to the Godtime rivers. Look what happened to Sshorga - backbone broken by Orlanth, enslaved by the Dara Happans, resurging in the Flood only to be diminished again by joint efforts of Orlanth and Valind. Other rivers had to overcome local resistance, often leaving battlegrounds behind. We don't know how many rivers were spawned and then overcome by foes, perhaps leaving a valley or a salt deposite behind, but their names forgotten.

Rather than alien, the surface of the Dry Earth that escaped the Seas in the Green Age was alienated from the rightful feeding by the Seas. Many a Godtime river might have had a history as a current accessing the submerged Earth Cube from above prior to the Green Age, attempting to return to its old feeding grounds and encountering new and alien things refusing it entry or nourishment. The Flood era during the early to middle Storm Age returned many such currents to their old homes, but only for a short while.

[soltakss]

On 3/5/2023 at 6:26 PM, Agentorange said:

So, next question then....do the salt water deities get on with fresh water deities.

They can do.

Some river deities are associated with the seas from whence they sprang.

Lakes in the middle of a continent probably don't have much to do with sea deities, unless they were left behind by the Waters invasion of the land.

On 3/5/2023 at 6:26 PM, Agentorange said:

And in many ways the the division between fresh and salt water is a major one.....

It is, as water cults can use Purify Water to turn saltwater into freshwater. I would say that some sea cults could turn freshwater into saltwater.

On 3/5/2023 at 6:26 PM, Agentorange said:

"Rivers and sea currents are similar in nature, but sea currents never leave their element, whereas rivers ultimately do so, invading a territory that is alien and all too often hostile. "

So do we mean hostile in the sense of alien and inhospitable , or in the sense of actively maliciously hostile ?

Land is inherently hostile to water, or rather land is not water so is different and therefore hostile.

Don't forget that the Waters invaded the land, with Oceans and Seas drowning lands, and Rivers being the Vanguards and Scouts. They were fought by the land, fire/sky, and air deities.