Elmal / Yelmalio in the Alda-Chur confederation

[hipsterinspace]

45 minutes ago, radmonger said:

Yes, they have 14 great temples, compared to the 0 to 2 remaining minor temples to the Elmal subcult in dragon pass.

Given the relatively short distances involved, along a major trade route, and the (since Monrogh) mutual cross-recognition of initiation between temples, there is really no plausible way for those temples not to know and teach every myth known to the Elmal subcult that they find useful.

I get the sense that they wouldn’t find “Elmal’s myths” useful because Monrogh’s main contention is that Elmal’s myths are Yelmalio’s myths, but that his cult’s disconnection from Yelm and mythic and temporal subordination to Orlanth hamstrung them. Whether that’s true or not is another question, but in effect, Monrogh knew everything they knew and then said he knew some more, which he then spread as his revelation.

Edited April 17, 2023 by hipsterinspace

[radmonger]

from tfe linked article;

Quote

Now Monrogh only shows up into this story after around 1582 or so. The Provincial Kings, seeking military allies, encourage the local Yelmalio cult to organise along Monrogh’s lines and into Sun Domes, thus returning the cult back to where it was in the Second Age, as valuable mercenaries for whoever is the regional ruler.

So while Monrogh may have only been reminding them of things they previously forgot, that comes under 'well they would say that, whether or not it was true'.

post-Monrogh yelmalian sun dome temples in the lunar provinces claim the right to be paid as mercenaries, rather than just ordered to do stuff. On what basis do they make that claim?

My assumption is it is a consequence of holding legitimate sovereignty over the land they occupy. Which, in at least some of the provinces, they get from being married to Ernalda. The period of pre-Time Yelmalio spent accompanying Ernalda into exile with Orlanth is mythically necessary to connect Yelmalio being loyal to Yelm and him being married to Yelm's widow without a lot of obvious accusations being thrown about.

if they had forgotten about that, then Monrogh's reminder would have allowed them to reassert the independence they had lost. If not, they must have made a simultaneous independent rediscovery of the same idea, which seems redundant.

Note that none of this applies to the true Pelorian heartlands,where Ernalda is replaced by other earth cults, and Yelmic rulers have a monopoly on legitimacy.

 

Edited April 18, 2023 by radmonger

[DrGoth]

18 hours ago, hipsterinspace said:

From the article I linked to further up-thread, conveniently linked again here:

Which seems to imply that the Far Placers were never Elmali, they were always Yelmalio, although not always Sun Domers. Which does retcon WF#15.  

Unless (playing trickster for a moment) the Far Placers got to the Far place, wanting to dump everything Solar, because the Yelmites supported the Lunars. "Hmm, Yelmalio is a bit too close to Yelm. Hey, what's this Elmal cuilt those people down south have?"  Or should Far Placers (at least some of them) going Yelmalio -> Elmal -> Yelmalio be put in the "Your dumbest theory" thread?

Mainly because a) I don't want to retcon WF#15 and b) I so like the idea of a crotchety old Elmali Far Placer.

Edited April 18, 2023 by DrGoth

[radmonger]

56 minutes ago, DrGoth said:

Which seems to imply that the Far Placers were never Elmali, they were always Yelmalio, although not always Sun Domers. Which does retcon WF#15.  

The relevant bit of wf15 is;

Quote

At that time the lunar authorities constantly advised the leaders of the solar religion, and someone among them decided to import the cult to Tarsh to pacify some troublesome Tarshite natives. Later, the cult was transplanted elsewhere. In this manner the number of initiates grew, and it increasingly adopted other lowland solar ways.

Have to admit, i don't see any contradiction. It says 'cult' not 'deity'. The Yelmalian templars in Tarsh and other provinces simply picked up some new mythic tricks from Monrogh, unifying the worship of Elmal and Yelmalio (and Khelmal etc.) in a single cult. Unlike in Sartar, this didn't involve any mass migration, or adoption of a new way of life. That gave the the Templars better diplomatic relations with the local lightbringer tribes, and greater independence from the lunar authorities.

Rather smart move by the lunar authorities of that period to encourage the adoption of the only solar cult that isn't waving a giant mythic 'we are your enemy' flag at the hill tribes.

[Jeff]

I don't particularly mind ignoring WF 15 - I am not sure I have even used it as a reference in many a year. It was a vehicle to get some short material out during a time when we had few other options. I personally think I got plenty of things wrong - and since then, I have written the Guide to Glorantha, RQG, the Solar cults book, the Guide to Dragon Pass, and the Sartar Book - all of which are more to the point and far better sources. 

[Rob Darvall]

14 hours ago, DrGoth said:

... the Far Placers got to the Far place, wanting to dump everything Solar,...[/Lunar/Harvar]

To reiterate: The various inhabitants could possibly pick up Elmal to defy Harvar. The rites still work but you're not tied to Harvar's worship practices. So Elmal is a 'revival' movement as a political statement. People have done dumber things as acts of defiance (cf Grizzly Peak).
This gives you in-game reasons to use the WF#15 Elmal stuff while keeping Monrough down south and a Yelmalian continuity in the north. 

[Darius West]

On 4/13/2023 at 4:54 PM, hipsterinspace said:

Just because they’re not phalangites doesn’t mean they’re Elmal worshippers, they clearly aren’t, they’re not from the places where his cult existed in Heortland and Hendrikiland.

Here I must disagree.  Yelmalios are phalangites and Orlanthi don't have Yelmalios among them; they aren't friendly cults.  The Heortland is the origin point of Orlanthi belief and Elmal spreads out from there.  Also, just because a region is conquered by the Lunars doesn't mean they automatically adopt Yelmalio and chuck out Elmal.  It just doesn't work.

[hipsterinspace]

7 hours ago, Darius West said:

Here I must disagree.  Yelmalios are phalangites and Orlanthi don't have Yelmalios among them; they aren't friendly cults.  The Heortland is the origin point of Orlanthi belief and Elmal spreads out from there.  Also, just because a region is conquered by the Lunars doesn't mean they automatically adopt Yelmalio and chuck out Elmal.  It just doesn't work.

Plenty of Neutral cults coexist within societies, even Orlanthi society. Yelmalio isn’t hostile to Orlanth, he has the same level of relationship that Waha has to Orlanth, neutral, and the two of them get along just fine inside of very insular Praxian tribes. Yelmalio and Orlanth both coexist inside of Praxian tribes without trouble. They share the same level of relationship that is shared between plenty of cults that coexist without trouble inside of Orlanthi society, they just don’t typically share rites, that’s what Neutral means.

Maybe more important than Yelmalio’s relationship with Orlanth, which again is Neutral, not Hostile, is his Associate relationship with Ernalda, who is also Yelmalio’s wife. The cults can easily be given that basis to coexist in the same social order through the centrality of the Earth religion in the places that the now-Tarshites departed from. The Bell Temple in Filichet is one of the biggest Earth temples around, and as the article shows, there’s plenty of important Earth worship to tie Orlanth and Yelmalio together there.

You’re free to disagree with what has been written, but it’s made clear that Elmal is a Heortling take on Yelmalio rather than Yelmalio being a Solar corruption of Elmal. People who immigrated from north of Dragon Pass into Tarsh brought with them their own native Yelmalio tradition. Yelmalio is perhaps more their god than anyone else’s. The Lunars didn’t convert them to Yelmalio, they had worshipped Yelmalio from before the Dawn, and for some that was probably a big reason why they left when the Lunars conquered their homeland, after all, the Red Goddess and Yelmalio are Hostile.

As for your description of Yelmalio as a god of phalangites, that’s disputed here:

One mistaken assumption is that Yelmalio is the god of pike warfare. He’s not, although the Spear and the Arrow are his weapons. His temples developed a means of fighting in an organised and disciplined manner for their own mundane survival, but that is a historical development, and not something from Yelmalio’s deeds.

Elsewhere, Yelmalio is a god of herders, farmers, and cavalry. If you want a specific god of phalanxes, that’s probably a title that best belongs to Polaris more than Yelmalio.

Edited April 19, 2023 by hipsterinspace

[DrGoth]

21 hours ago, Jeff said:

 since then, I have written the Guide to Glorantha, RQG, the Solar cults book, the Guide to Dragon Pass, and the Sartar Book - all of which are more to the point and far better sources. 

Three of those we don't have yet - hopefully soon.

[Darius West]

On 4/19/2023 at 1:12 PM, hipsterinspace said:

Plenty of Neutral cults coexist within societies, even Orlanthi society. Yelmalio isn’t hostile to Orlanth, he has the same level of relationship that Waha has to Orlanth, neutral, and the two of them get along just fine inside of very insular Praxian tribes. Yelmalio and Orlanth both coexist inside of Praxian tribes without trouble. They share the same level of relationship that is shared between plenty of cults that coexist without trouble inside of Orlanthi society, they just don’t typically share rites, that’s what Neutral means.

Yelmalio isn't a friend or an associate.  The best any tribe will tolerate is that they won't fight them if they meet them in a city.  If they find them on their land, they had better have a damn good excuse as to why they are there.  To suggest that the relationship is the same as that between Orlanth and Waha requires me to point out that strangers met in Prax are a threat, and unless they are met under some system of truce, the assumption is that they are up to no good.  If Waha worshippers find Orlanthi in their lands, they fight them, capture them, and if they cannot get a ransom for them they enslave them.  The Orlanthi regard the Waha worshippers in the same way.  Again, there is a measure of truce observed at some market oases, but neutrality means the other party is neither a friend or an enemy, yet, but they are probably an enemy if their motives for being there are not clearly explained.

On 4/19/2023 at 1:12 PM, hipsterinspace said:

Maybe more important than Yelmalio’s relationship with Orlanth, which again is Neutral, not Hostile, is his Associate relationship with Ernalda, who is also Yelmalio’s wife. The cults can easily be given that basis to coexist in the same social order through the centrality of the Earth religion in the places that the now-Tarshites departed from. The Bell Temple in Filichet is one of the biggest Earth temples around, and as the article shows, there’s plenty of important Earth worship to tie Orlanth and Yelmalio together there.

Given that Orlanth killed Yelm, Yelmalio's relationship with Orlanth is never cordial and is one of ritual rivalry as demonstrated in both cult write-ups.  There is little love lost between them.  They will war over Ernalda's favor, not tolerate each other.  The idea that this will help them co-exist when territory/land/earth is THE scarce resource is frankly absurd.  Control of the land is what determines whose children thrive and whose starve, and whose culture and values thrives and whose starves.  It is a literal matter of life and death.  The notion of co-existence is dubious at best.  Orlanthi will tolerate loyal Elmali among them, not rivals.

On 4/19/2023 at 1:12 PM, hipsterinspace said:

You’re free to disagree with what has been written, but it’s made clear that Elmal is a Heortling take on Yelmalio rather than Yelmalio being a Solar corruption of Elmal.

ALL Orlanthi culture derives from the Heortlings from Before Time.  Elmal has been part of high Orlanthi culture since Before Time.  The idea that the Sairdites somehow changed over to Yelmalio worship just because they have some sort of hostile Solar influence is the opposite of how cultures react.  They double down against hostile influences rather than accepting them.  Any Elmali who joined Yelmalio would have been exiled from their clans.

[radmonger]

59 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Given that Orlanth killed Yelm, Yelmalio's relationship with Orlanth is never cordial and is one of ritual rivalry as demonstrated in both cult write-ups. 

Elmali[1] agree that Orlanth killed their father too  The choice is having that conflict  inside the clan or outside it.

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

Any Elmali who joined Yelmalio would have been exiled from their clans.

i'd imagine so. And then the exiles from different clans would join together with colonists from the empire and found temples capable of defending themselves.

Once Monrogh had his revelation (that Yelmalio was Elmal _after_ Orlanth left to bring back Yelm), things came to open conflict less often.

All sun dome temples[2],  and almost all orlanthi clans accept the Monrogh doctrine[3]. In those majority clans, any nearby Sun Dome temple became a completely acceptable way for a young adult from a non-thane family to go and learn the skills and magic to become a professional warrior. Certainly doing so functionally works; they can worship at an Elmal shrine and regain rune magic learnt at a Yelmailo temple.

Only in Sartar and Heortland were there ever actual Elmali organised temples that provided an alternative. And as of 1625, those are almost entirely gone.

 

[1] meaning those brought up in Lightbringer tribal society who spiritually identify with the fire/sky rune and the stories of Orlanth's solar thane, perhaps without necessarily qualifying as rune cult initiates by the RQ;G rules.

[2] so far as we know, there is some room for variation in lands with little published about them yet.

[3] you know how you reread a Pratchett book and you find a pun that has been sitting there all along?

 

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

Yelmalio isn't a friend or an associate.  The best any tribe will tolerate is that they won't fight them if they meet them in a city.  If they find them on their land, they had better have a damn good excuse as to why they are there.  To suggest that the relationship is the same as that between Orlanth and Waha requires me to point out that strangers met in Prax are a threat, and unless they are met under some system of truce, the assumption is that they are up to no good. 

On the other hand, Orlanth worshippers inside the clan or tribe are welcome.

We are talking about these cults coexisting in kinship groups, and we know that this happens quite  a lot.

 

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

If Waha worshippers find Orlanthi in their lands, they fight them, capture them, and if they cannot get a ransom for them they enslave them. 

Wrong. If Praxians find Sartarites in their lands, they may exchange a careful greeting to find out whether these strangers have any claim for hospitality and mutual benefit. Otherwise Biturian Varosh would never ever have reached Pimper's Block.

Waha cultists are not a monolithic entity anyway. Your phrasing is misleading in reducing these people to their cults. If the Waha cultists are this belligerent, what do the Daka Fal cultists and the Eiritha cultists in their clans do? What do the Yelmalio cultists in their clans do?

With all due respect I call this reduction to cults bollocks.

 

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

The Orlanthi regard the Waha worshippers in the same way. 

Again, context. The tribal butchers will be welcome because most people love some meat in their diet. Praxian mercenaries serving as guards to a trader will receive all due hospitality. Praxian raiders will be fought off.

 

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

Again, there is a measure of truce observed at some market oases, but neutrality means the other party is neither a friend or an enemy, yet, but they are probably an enemy if their motives for being there are not clearly explained.

Your picture of a "shoot first, have the shaman interrogate the ghosts" Glorantha bears little similarity to mine.

 

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

Given that Orlanth killed Yelm, Yelmalio's relationship with Orlanth is never cordial and is one of ritual rivalry as demonstrated in both cult write-ups.

A ritualized (and plain silly) rivalry that needs to be observed only by rune lords (and I strongly doubt that Argrath and Rurik go through these steps everytime they meet).

 

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

There is little love lost between them. 

The deities? The passion play characters in ritual re-enactment (the Gloranthan commedia dell arte version of the myths)? The average cultists?

How much do you personally hate the Germans, given that your parents or grandparents went to war against them?

 

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

They will war over Ernalda's favor, not tolerate each other. 

Orlanth tried to war over Ernalda's favor. His "suit" was summarily dismissed. He learned better. True, his last contest with Yelm was on the brutal side, but that was a personal duel, not a war.

 

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

The idea that this will help them co-exist when territory/land/earth is THE scarce resource is frankly absurd. 

These people share the same clans. They are kin. It is not a tribe of Yelmalio worshipers and a tribe of Orlanth worshipers meeting.

 

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

Control of the land is what determines whose children thrive and whose starve, and whose culture and values thrives and whose starves.  It is a literal matter of life and death.  The notion of co-existence is dubious at best.  Orlanthi will tolerate loyal Elmali among them, not rivals.

Orlanthi will tolerate in-laws. Maybe grudgingly.

Have you seen the myths about hospitality, about the foreigner wedding?

Harmast Barefoot claimed Bere the Rider and his Lightfore deity as an ancestor.

 

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

ALL Orlanthi culture derives from the Heortlings from Before Time.  Elmal has been part of high Orlanthi culture since Before Time. 

So has Daysenerus, the Cold Sun god of the Dara Happan general's Vanchite charioteer who was revealed at the Battle of Night and Day. Daysenerus was an Orlanthi sun deity, explained by the Dara Happans as an emanation of Antirius or some such nonsense, or possibly as a Rinliddic protector deity rather than from Nivorah.

 

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

The idea that the Sairdites somehow changed over to Yelmalio worship just because they have some sort of hostile Solar influence is the opposite of how cultures react. 

That's assuming that the Dara Happan influence was hostile, which it wasn't.

The Sun Dome Templars played a decisive role in the clean-up after the Tax Slaughter of 578, and their cult became a popular choice for people wishing to fight Darkness. Not Elmal, but Yelmalio Tharkantus, or whatever the name was. And this cult had an inheritance from the interaction with the Dara Happans in the Bright Empire, the gift of the Sunspear to their High Priests.

 

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

They double down against hostile influences rather than accepting them. 

And, as it happened, the Yelmalians and the Old Day Traditionalist Orlanthi found themselves on the same side against the EWF for quite a while. Brothers in arms against the uprising dragonfriends. Only after the dragonfriends had co-opted Orlanth and Yelm into their scheme did the Yelmalians serve them as mercenaries, and that only until Karvanyar threw out the Dragon Sun Emperor. When his son Sarenesh divided the lands he ruled after marriage to the daughter of Shah Nadar the Avenger among his sons, Saird was given to Verenmars, a heroic king who had the allegiance of the Dog Orlanthi and the Sun Dome Temples.

Balazar came from this region.

 

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

Any Elmali who joined Yelmalio would have been exiled from their clans.

From their Elmali clans? Much like any Orlanthi who accepted the Seven Mothers in Saird was exiled from theirs, creating marauding bands of Seven Mother cultist bandits terrorizing the Provinces (obviously not).

 

Your argumentation sounds dangerously like the real world unthinking "they who aren't my allies are my enemies" hogwash that dominates divisive politics all over the world.

[Darius West]

6 hours ago, radmonger said:

Elmali[1] agree that Orlanth killed their father too  The choice is having that conflict  inside the clan or outside it.

What is your textual source for this claim ?

6 hours ago, radmonger said:

i'd imagine so. And then the exiles from different clans would join together with colonists from the empire and found temples capable of defending themselves.

Yes, but they are not part of Orlanthi society at this point, they are part of Solar society.

7 hours ago, radmonger said:

Once Monrogh had his revelation (that Yelmalio was Elmal _after_ Orlanth left to bring back Yelm), things came to open conflict less often.

So let's just ignore the civil war...

7 hours ago, radmonger said:

All sun dome temples[2],  and almost all orlanthi clans accept the Monrogh doctrine[3]. 

I don't agree.  In southern Sartar Monrogh founded Sun Country as a buffer state between the Holy Country/Heortlands and Sartar after he won the civil war.  Other Orlanthi tribes have absolutely no reason to accept Yelmalio in place of their Elmal practices, and in fact they would and should reject them.  Monrogh's vision of Yelmalio is the embodiment of the disloyal thane by Orlanthi standards.  Monrogh's vision is one where Elmal betrays his oath of loyalty to Orlanth to become Yelmalio, becoming the Disloyal Thane.  I doubt many Elmali want that smear to their honor, especially when it comes with the added sleaze of Lunar conspiracy and orchestration. Certainly no clan or tribe of Sartar wants disloyal thanes.

7 hours ago, radmonger said:

Certainly doing so functionally works; they can worship at an Elmal shrine and regain rune magic learnt at a Yelmailo temple.

That is assuming that clans will let Yelmalios on their Tula to attend their shrine of Elmal when in fact they won't.

[soltakss]

5 minutes ago, Darius West said:

7 hours ago, radmonger said:

Elmali[1] agree that Orlanth killed their father too  The choice is having that conflict  inside the clan or outside it.

What is your textual source for this claim ?

Elmal is Yelmalio, so it is in the Yelmalio Mythos.

Or, are you going to claim that there is no evidence of what Elmali believe, or who Elmal's father is?

 

[Darius West]

24 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Elmal is Yelmalio, so it is in the Yelmalio Mythos.

Not so imo.  Elmali have a very different set of myths about their god to those the Yelmalios have.  How many sects in our world claim to follow the One True God, and yet how many schismatic iterations of that god are there?  Aten, Ahura Mazda, Brahma, YHVH, El Elyon, Allah etc. etc.  People can be very selective about what they believe and how they worship.  They can also spin the so-called "Yelmalio Mythos" in a million different ways to tell the story they want to tell.   I think the Elmal Mythos tells a very different story, about how a brow-beaten soldier god from the Solar Pantheon learned a different and freer way to live from the constrained life that had been forced upon him, and ultimately repaid his new more lenient lord with faithful service against chaos in the Greater Darkness.

Edited April 20, 2023 by Darius West

[hipsterinspace]

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

Not so imo.  Elmali have a very different set of myths about their god to those the Yelmalios have.  How many sects in our world claim to follow the One True God, and yet how many schismatic iterations of that god are there?  Aten, Ahura Mazda, Brahma, YHVH, El Elyon, Allah etc. etc.  People can be very selective about what they believe and how they worship.  They can also spin the so-called "Yelmalio Mythos" in a million different ways to tell the story they want to tell.   I think the Elmal Mythos tells a very different story, about how a brow-beaten soldier god from the Solar Pantheon learned a different and freer way to live from the constrained life that had been forced upon him, and ultimately repaid his new more lenient lord with faithful service against chaos in the Greater Darkness.

You’re free to vary your Glorantha as you please on this matter and any others, but that’s clearly what this is. You demand textual sources, are presented with them, and then totally disregard what they say. There’s been ample textual evidence presented, but you are committed to sticking with your own absolutist view of both cults and culture, one that does not line up with what has been presented in the guide or in the numerous articles about the subjects on Well of Daliath.

[soltakss]

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

Not so imo.  Elmali have a very different set of myths about their god to those the Yelmalios have.

Ok, let's play your game.

What is your textual source for this claim?

[Joerg]

Elmal and Yelmalio share a lot of myths and differ on a few. This might be a case of divine pluripresence misunderstood by the worshipers as two different deities, or this might be a case of two distinct deities sharing the same archetype (and celestial body, at least since 110 ST).

For much of the Godtime, Antirius (the sedentary sun high up above the pointy huge geographical feature) and Reladivus (the horse-friendly spear guy roaming about after abandoning his southern city) have clearly separate myths, and both the cult of Yelmalio and the (former?) cult of Elmal referred to different sets from either.

Elmal started out as the roving horse guy (Reladivus) but then became the Loyal Thane and remained mainly sedentary atop Kero Fin.  Yelmalio too seems to have been born (or otherwise realized) sufficiently early to witness the dismemberment of Yelm and the slaying of his (half-?) brother the emperor before confronting Orlanth at the Hill of Gold. In the Greater Darkness, he may have acknowledged Orlanth's feat of keeping the rot of Chaos out of the Sky World, though, while doing his own job for his aldryami and human followers outside of the territory formerly claimed by the Anaxial Dynasty Empire, wandering from crisis to crisis.

There is no basis for seeing Yelmalio sitting atop Inora's ice to illuminate the formerly Vingkotling and nascent Heortling lands of Kerofinela on both sides of the Greater Darkness. Any myth claiming this is a weak construct of over-eager syncreticism. Elmal on the other hand has few if any elf-friend features mentioned anywhere in the selection of his myths we have seen.

That 110 event merged the celestial bodies of Antirius and Reladivus Kargzant and bound the latter onto the Sunpath that is tread by Lightfore. Any subsequent Lightfore cult may have had to deal with a merged deity, but they are hardly alone in that. Lodril retains the name of Yelm's originally pure Srvuali fire brother despite having merged with that Earth thing he wrestled (possibly an Earth Walker deity, a lesser Genert or a lesser Tada). The Planetary Sun Alkor and the underworld demon Shadzor merged into Shargash to overcome Umath's invasion of the skies, and yet that seems to be a deity alike to but different from Tolat. And Reladivus' northeastern brother rejoined the central sun when Umath invaded the sky, whether to warn Yelm, whether to seek pathetic shelter there, whether to be devoured by the angry father, or whether to strengthen the Sun principle by joining his lesser force to the greater one.

[scott-martin]

11 minutes ago, Joerg said:

pluripresence misunderstood

This gives me flashbacks to the days of trying to figure out the propagation of "Ehilm" in the prehistoric west and in particular the route the Eneralites (presumably another vector of the diaspora from Nivorah) took on the way to lower Ralios and the Tanier valley in time to give Hrestol a horse. 

And it makes me realize that people looking for a strict binary resolution to the little sun problem are cheating themselves out of a real opportunity to find whatever they want in modern Delela, where the communities are organized along familiar tribal lines but the people are of Galanini descent. MGF suggests a thriving variant cult around its own dome that probably has the exact mix of spells, skills and attitude desired.

Possibly they have the rare combination Fire without Sky, for example. Or if they remember Zrethus, he is aloof and rarely important to the character sheet concerns of everyday life. And they might be the ones who cultivated the relationship with brown forests. They're clearly pony people, with a pony for a wife and so on.

Sad that Monrogh never went there. We can go. But by definition things over there are not necessarily like what we have over here around Dragon Pass . . . otherwise, nobody would ever need to travel or learn anything new if they did. Who would like to go for me and report back?

[Darius West]

10 hours ago, soltakss said:

Ok, let's play your game.

What is your textual source for this claim?

Well, first up, Elmal is listed as a Thunder Brother in the Stafford Library's "The Book of Heortling Mythology".  The Thunder Brothers are all Orlanthi subcults.  Yelmalio is not.  I direct you to page 169 where the situation is laid out in the Yelmalio section.  Frankly I think Greg Stafford's own words are good enough for me.

[radmonger]

4 hours ago, Darius West said:

Well, first up, Elmal is listed as a Thunder Brother in the Stafford Library's "The Book of Heortling Mythology".  The Thunder Brothers are all Orlanthi subcults. 

So Elmali are Orlanthi. Orlanthi believe Orlanth killed Yelm[1]. Therefore...

 

4 hours ago, Darius West said:

Yelmalio is not. 

 

Yelmalio is a cult[2]. Elmal is a subcult of Yelmalio that does not appear in the short form writeup [3]. The association relationship applies between subcults[4]. So Elmal is the subcult of Yelmalio that is associated with Orlanth. This represents the final status quo of the God Time at the compromise[5], when Orlanth and Yelm were largely reconciled[6].

Sun Dome temples that follow the Monrogh Doctrine officially acknowledge all that, and so do most (but not quite all) Lightbringer clans.

[1] Do i need to give a textual cite for this?

[2] cite; rq;g main rulebook.

[3] jeff has stated on these forums that this will be the case in the file cults book.

[4] rq;g main rulebook, orlanth writeup.

[5] earlier, and at compromise breaks like 110 ST, things were considerably more complex. Elmal is far from the only Yelmalio subcult with its own name and incompletely-reconciled myths.

[6] this bit represents my opinion.

 

Edited April 21, 2023 by radmonger

[hipsterinspace]

4 hours ago, Darius West said:

Well, first up, Elmal is listed as a Thunder Brother in the Stafford Library's "The Book of Heortling Mythology".  The Thunder Brothers are all Orlanthi subcults.  Yelmalio is not.  I direct you to page 169 where the situation is laid out in the Yelmalio section.  Frankly I think Greg Stafford's own words are good enough for me.

Book of Heortling Mythology is an in-universe document of myths among the Heortlings from the First Age (note, specifically the Heortlings, not all Orlanthi). It’s an intentionally limited aperture that carries their particular biases, it isn’t representative of the cults and cultures as we know them in the Third Age. In contravention to Book of Heortling Mythology, some Orlanthi groups keep dogs (fittingly called Dog Orlanthi), some Orlanthi groups adhere to the Western caste system and worship the Invisible God in addition to the Lightbringer gods (prominently in Jonatela), and some Orlanthi have a significant minority of Yelmalio (as Yelmalio, not Elmal) worshippers within their clans.

It’s also been said that in the First Age it was possible to worship Humakt through Orlanth, for example, but that stopped being the case at some point, and I’m not going to argue that it should be the case in the Third Age over a thousand years later.

[radmonger]

8 minutes ago, hipsterinspace said:

and some Orlanthi have a significant minority of Yelmalio (as Yelmalio, not Elmal) worshippers within their clans.

Note that this needs two caveats:

1. RQ:G p 288, under 'name':

Local languages usually have some variant of a given spelling and pronunciation. this is the name by which the deity is best known (and not necessarily the name used by the deity's worshippers).

Elmal is Yelmalio, so 'Yelmalio, not Elmal' is not really a thing. They would be more likely to say something like  'I'm a true Elmali, initiated at the Vaarntar temple. Not one of those idiots from up at Runegate'.

2. the long form Yelmalio cult writeup will, as per jeff's posts here, include subcults that will not leave a Yelmalio member of an orlanthi tribe as a lone pikeman in a skirmish regiment.

Similarly, Sartarite member's of the butcher's guild, patron Waha, hardly ever get to lead raids of animal riding nomads. They are clearly following a subcult, whether or not an explicit subcult writeup exists.

[Darius West]

3 hours ago, hipsterinspace said:

Book of Heortling Mythology is an in-universe document of myths among the Heortlings from the First Age (note, specifically the Heortlings, not all Orlanthi). It’s an intentionally limited aperture that carries their particular biases, it isn’t representative of the cults and cultures as we know them in the Third Age. In contravention to Book of Heortling Mythology, some Orlanthi groups keep dogs (fittingly called Dog Orlanthi), some Orlanthi groups adhere to the Western caste system and worship the Invisible God in addition to the Lightbringer gods (prominently in Jonatela), and some Orlanthi have a significant minority of Yelmalio (as Yelmalio, not Elmal) worshippers within their clans.

It’s also been said that in the First Age it was possible to worship Humakt through Orlanth, for example, but that stopped being the case at some point, and I’m not going to argue that it should be the case in the Third Age over a thousand years later.

To quote from page 169:

"Yelmalio: God of the Winter Sun, Preserver of the Light. When Yelm traveled to the Underworld, Yelmalio preserved the dim, cold light until he returned. He also fought against Orlanth at the Hill of Gold, and even stole fire from Elmal one time. He is now worshipped by some Orlanthi who have abandoned Elmal."

Now ALL Orlanthi culture derives from the Heortlands.  They may have headed north, but at their core they look to the Heortlands as the heartland of Orlanthi culture, because that is where the Orlanthi survivors of the Great Darkness came from and spread from.  In later ages Orlanthi from the north will go on pilgrimage to Kero Fin and the Temple of Old Wind and learn how to be proper Orlanthi. 

Elmal should be treated as a separate deity, even if he is a similar deity.  Elmal is a Thunder Brother and thus a distinct part of  Orlanth's pantheon.  Yelmalio clearly isn't.  Elmal and Yelmalio are culturally distinct religious practices and will continue to be separate whether or not they worship the same deity.  Ultimately it is the worshippers who will decide and they will do so based on politics, and that means most clans won't want the disloyal thane Yelmalio to walk among them.

👉We literally have a reference to Yelmalio stealing Elmal's fire powers one time.👈

This suggests to me that Elmal has retained his fire powers, which has long been part of my Elmal cult write-up.

As far as I am concerned the matter is closed and I consider my position completely vindicated.

Edited April 21, 2023 by Darius West

[radmonger]

14 minutes ago, Darius West said:

He is now worshipped by some Orlanthi who have abandoned Elmal.

Where 'now' is the First Age, before Monrogh's revelation that it was possible to worship Yelmalio without abandoning Elmal, betraying Orlanth, or condoning the murder of Yelm. if some did so even before that, then logically many more will will afterwards. And canon says 'almost all'.

Gods fighting themselves is pretty normal deity behavior. Likely the specific aspect fought was one of those Darra Happan subcults merged into one of the ancestors of the Yelmalio cult in the early dawn age or before.