Is there an Orlanth the Destroyer, Father of Urain Subcult?

[EricW]

Quote - King of Sartar

 

The Arming of Orlanth

One day, at the Hill of Victory, Orlanth met with the Vingkotlings for a Property Celebration. There he planned to review his possessions, and those of his tribe, as was first done at Longhearth. But the feast went poorly. First, Orlanth’s wife was not present. This disturbed the god, as it always did, for the seat beside him was empty, and half of his conversations were spoken to empty space. And others from his household were gone, too, so that the beer was flat, the hearth was cold, and the food was no better than cold porridge. Furthermore, the feast was disturbed. Whenever some person was called upon to admire or present a tool, he was called away by some combat or other duty elsewhere. Often they did not return.

At last Orlanth lost his temper. “What is this?” he cried. “Not since Ernalda was borne away have I felt so angry. Where is the respect which is due me in this time?”

And they said, “It is with the Grand Order, Great Lord.”

“And where is the Grand Order?” he demanded. And everyone agreed that it was gone, because the god of it had been taken away by the darkness.
Orlanth brooded so darkly that he made the Bad Rain. When clouds gather black, and do not drop their rain, and sink to the ground, monsters can come out of them. They did then, the first time, and Orlanth had to rise from his chair to drive Nasty Urain away.

“The world has fallen,” he said afterwards, “when a chief cannot have peace through a meal. I will go and regain this Grand Order.” He called for the Knowing God to come to him, and asked what the Grand Order was.

 

Could anti-heroes attempt to contact this aspect of Orlanth, and sacrifice to it for magic?

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, EricW said:

Could anti-heroes attempt to contact this aspect of Orlanth, and sacrifice to it for magic?

I read that as “contact this aspect of Orlanth and sacrifice it.”

“Ooh, that is a good idea,” I thought. 😉

[David Scott]

12 hours ago, EricW said:

Could anti-heroes attempt to contact this aspect of Orlanth, and sacrifice to it for magic?

As Urain is summoned for the Lightbringers quest, it's clear that contact is possible. However the magic summons all of the repressed darkness within the leader, which outside of the ceremony is not a great idea. See The Bad Rain.

[mfbrandi]

2 hours ago, David Scott said:

the magic summons all of the repressed darkness within the leader … See The Bad Rain.

Quote

The Bad Rain is Orlanth’s Shadow … The Shadow is a Jungian concept. It represents the repressed unconscious of the person. All the things feared, resented, etc … [star-linked Kallyr’s] fears of what she was bringing into the world — Darkness, Disorder, and Chaos — were made manifest — WoD

Quote

But the Black Sun is an important mystical concept — the Shadow of Yelm … He was later associated with the Solar Storm — WoD

Presumably the Jungian Shadow is not a person but an aspect or fragment of someone’s mind — like the Freudian id. But in Glorantha elements of the unconscious take solid form and go stomping about the place like the id monster from Forbidden Planet. I told the Mostali not to buy hooky Krell gear from Del Trotter, but would they listen?

But does the id monster itself have a Shadow? One is inclined to say that it is not a person and that it does not. One can imagine the conversation within the Nysalor riddlers’ workshop:

• What is the one thing that doesn’t have a shadow?
• I don’t know. Is it the sun?
• No, a shadow is the one thing that doesn’t have a shadow.

Because orthodoxy is impossible and Occam’s razor never leaves my wicked left hand, I am inclined to say that Orlanth is Yelm’s Shadow — his id monster; his fears of darkness, disorder, and chaos made all-too-solid hideous blue flesh — and doesn’t qualify for a Shadow of his own. The Black Sun, the Solar Storm, the Howling Interstellar Void — all Orlanth, surely. Not a person. Not a god. Just a part of Yelm’s unconscious escaped and causing trouble.

Quote

Orlanth conquered the world, but in doing so he let Darkness and Chaos into the world. — WoD

“But”? Because normally a friendly thing like conquering the world wouldn’t be associated with darkness and chaos, at all, right?

Or Orlanth is the darkness and chaos let into the world by the ever-fissile Yelm going to pieces. There is no “Lightbringer Quest”, only Yelm integrating his death, darkness, and other “Shadowy” aspects to establish the solar cycle of night and day, rather than trying to be “on” all the time — which was clearly too stressful for him, poor dear. 😉

[hipsterinspace]

3 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

I am inclined to say that Orlanth is Yelm’s Shadow — his id monster; his fears of darkness, disorder, and chaos made all-too-solid hideous blue flesh — and doesn’t qualify for a Shadow of his own. The Black Sun, the Solar Storm, the Howling Interstellar Void — all Orlanth, surely. Not a person. Not a god. Just a part of Yelm’s unconscious escaped and causing trouble.

Orlanth may be a reaction to Yelm, but Yelm’s shadow is well established, it is Kazkurtum, the empty emperor who reigns without justice. He is the part of Yelm who denies others when he already has enough to share, who jealously guards that which is not his to keep. The death of the sun was the clash of Yelm’s shadow, his jealousy, entitlement, and hubris, with Orlanth’s shadow, the disproportionate and impulsive violence of the storm. The lesson of the Lightbringer Quest is that both of those natures must both be reckoned with and overcome for the good of all, not just Yelm’s.

In that sense, Orlanth isn’t his shadow, he is manifested with agency rather than as a part of Yelm’s unconscious, but his Other. While the confrontation with the Other certainly exists at the level of the subconscious, it is not the unrestrained id of the shadow, it is instead the structuring superego function.

Edited March 9, 2023 by hipsterinspace

[soltakss]

On 3/8/2023 at 9:24 PM, EricW said:

Could anti-heroes attempt to contact this aspect of Orlanth, and sacrifice to it for magic?

Of course.

King of Sartar gives Urain as the result of Orlanth having a really bad headache, which he split off into a new deity, which I thought was a lovely myth.

Urain is one of the Thunder Brothers, but he fought against Orlanth's family as much as he helped them. He probably fitted in to Vadrus and his family, the Vadrudi, as he has a similar view of ultra-violence.

[Jeff]

22 hours ago, hipsterinspace said:

Orlanth may be a reaction to Yelm, but Yelm’s shadow is well established, it is Kazkurtum, the empty emperor who reigns without justice. He is the part of Yelm who denies others when he already has enough to share, who jealously guards that which is not his to keep. The death of the sun was the clash of Yelm’s shadow, his jealousy, entitlement, and hubris, with Orlanth’s shadow, the disproportionate and impulsive violence of the storm. The lesson of the Lightbringer Quest is that both of those natures must both be reckoned with and overcome for the good of all, not just Yelm’s.

In that sense, Orlanth isn’t his shadow, he is manifested with agency rather than as a part of Yelm’s unconscious, but his Other. While the confrontation with the Other certainly exists at the level of the subconscious, it is not the unrestrained id of the shadow, it is instead the structuring superego function.

Orlanth is not Yelm's shadow. Yelm can see Orlanth to begin with.

[hipsterinspace]

41 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Orlanth is not Yelm's shadow. Yelm can see Orlanth to begin with.

Yeah, you can’t very easily have a broadly Oedipal myth against yourself.