A brief history of Pig Hollow, Gouger's Jaw, Gouger, Arum-ya-Udram, and Redeye (Oh My!)

[Scorus]

The Story of Pig Hollow, or, in the main, a tale of unintended consequences of the Earth pantheon and two giant boars

(This draft tries to bring together things from GtG, WF #3, the RQG Bestiary and GM’s Adventure Book, and Vivien Prigent’s brilliant JC publication In A Merry Green Vale. All errors are mine, some intentional to set the tusk riders as a player nemesis past Defending Apple Lane. Corrections most welcome!)

In the Second Age, Ernalda’s priestesses chafed as the farmers and herders of Dragon Pass neglected her worship in favor of sacrificing to the dragons under the Empire of Wyrm’s Friends. A conclave of Earth pantheon leaders embarked on a heroquest which resulted in the spirit God of boars Gouger, long a favorite of Ernalda, manifesting in the heart of EWF territory and disrupting the empire’s trade and taxation as the Earth temples quietly spread the theory that Gouger was angry at the neglect of his Mistress. Gouger established its base in Dragon Pass’ wilds, summoning many of its children to what became known as Pig Hollow.

The EWF recognized the scope of this threat and at a military council Aram-ya-Udram volunteered to tackle the problem. Aram was an ambitious Orlanthi warrior and leader who had fettered a powerful darkness demon in the pre-Dawn. With its help, he led the humans of the northern Dragon Pass area as the kingdom of the Aramites near Dagori Inkarth, with whom he maintained good relations, and was immortalized as the human member of the First Council. Ever pragmatic, Aram recognized the potential of adding draconic power to his Air and Darkness abilities and signed himself and his people on with the EWF as a founding member. As the call to handle Gouger came, Aram and the demon devised a risky way to subdue the God and drain its power. As fighting a God was beyond the terms of the demon’s bondage, Aram could not pass up the opportunity to upgrade from a demon thrall to a God and offered the darkness demon its freedom in return for this service.

Aram and his men engaged Gouger and its children in what is now the Colymar Wilds. In a pitched battle Aram continually gave ground at a high cost of his troops, luring the creature to a hilltop near present-day Fairjowl where it fell into the embrace of the demon. Aram tortured the beast by rending its mouth open as the demon enveloped and infused its huge tusks, draining the creature’s pain and power into them. When complete, Aram ripped the tusks from Gouger’s jaw and delivered his death blow.

Armed with the now-magical tusks, Aram rounded up many of the boar left in the area and retreated to his city of Parantikor Bel with the remainder of his men, founding the Temple of the Ivory Plinth as the locus of his Cult of the Bloody Tusk. The tusks which form the core of the temple and cult were endowed not only with Gouger’s power, but also with the pain that it endured as it was forced to give birth to these powerful relics and an essence of the darkness demon. To this day, the cult worships a combination of Aram, his victim Gouger, and the darkness demon.

Aram used the new magics to breed the large tusker mounts. The cult’s worship transformed his Aramites into the hated tusk riders, whose once-human visage and Orlanth culture were irrevocably scarred by the intensity of their new relationship with Death, Darkness, and swine. Their bodies and spirits know pain, for them an aspect of Death to be valued and shared. Their scarred appearance, violent conduct, darkness connection, and headquarters near a troll stronghold lead many to mistake tusk riders as relatives of the Uz and they can be found working closely with some Zorak Zoran warlords, though the long memories of the Kyger Litor Mistresses are ill at ease with these products of the accursed EWF.

Despite the strong presence of Darkness in their spirits, the tusk riders remain tied to the Earth essence of their pig-God. They are reticent to sacrifice worshippers of Ernalda and her kin, though will do so when no other options exist. Part of their kills are always sacrificed to the Earth, usually in a mundane manner but also as part of rituals channeling the Earth’s strength. To the dragons, the tusk riders were no longer human and were largely spared during the Dragonkill War. Untransformed and a known leader of the EWF, their god-leader Aram-ya-Udram was not so lucky.

Gouger’s Jaw remains, now calcified into a large rock formation resembling the pointed lower jaw of a boar with its tusks removed, it extends unnaturally from the top of one of the Thunder Hills. After the dragons exterminated the humans of Dragon Pass, a tusk rider leader briefly claimed the Jaw and area. But this was not the Dragon King of High Wyrm’s idea of a good neighbor and they were driven away. Lacking worship, the magic of the site went fallow and, due to the lingering influence of Ernalda, became the site of an annual harvest fair after the human repopulation. The Antorling clan seat of Fairjowl takes its name from this custom.

In 1573, Colymar’s King Penterest rebelled, attempting to free the tribe from the rule of Sartar Prince Tarkalor Trollkiller. Scholars and Ernaldan priestesses brought the story of Gouger to the Prince’s attention and he supported their Heroquest at the Jaw, on Penterest’s own Antorling clan's tula. Redeye the Boar, a smaller spirit child of Gouger, manifested and, while not powerful enough to challenge the enigmatic town of Fairjowl or the well defended (and strongly Ernaldan) Colymar capitol of Clearwine, its rampages decimated trade and food production and were a major factor in Penterest’s defeat. After the rebellion, Redeye was drawn to and settled in its sire’s lair in Pig Hollow.

Tusk rider mercenaries led by Xiorgar Trough-Lord were part of Jar-Eel’s 1602 Lunar invasion force that followed the Arfritha Vale toward High Wyrm and the back entrance to Boldhome. They took the Antorling chief captive at Fairjowl, sacrificing him on the Jaw to reconsecrate the holy place with its dark and painful magics. Fazzur Wideread saw them as the only option to safely garrison the key pass of Birne’s Squeeze given Redeye’s presence and tasked the Lysang to supply the tusk riders as part of their tribute to the Empire. An indignity at all times, during the Great Winter it required them to raid essential supplies from other Sartarites to ensure the survival of the same tusk riders who were raiding them for humans to sacrifice. This further drove a wedge between the Lysang and Colymar, as intended by the Lunar administration, and the Lysang became the sworn enemies of tusk riders.

The tusk riders, never one to be invited to formal occasions, were not present at the Dragonrise. With no one left to pay and feed them, Xiorgar went home with about half of his charges but his lieutenant Xiobalg Screamgiver chose to remain behind with ca. 25 tusk riders loyal to him and twice as many tuskers. Xiobalg is a descendant of the tusk rider that attempted to claim the Jaw after the Dragonkill War and has single-mindedly pursued this goal, including capturing solo dragonewts to sacrifice for revenge. He worships Redeye as a descendant of Gouger and sacrifices to him, in addition to providing him with female tuskers to mate with. While this process always goes poorly for the sow and usually results in no useful spawn, it has begun to bear fruit and Tarndisi’s elves have recently felled a rampaging tusker much larger than any seen before. Xiobalg has trained one of these new generation of tuskers as his own mount and is working with his band to do so with the other males. Females that come from this process become Redeye’s new brides and, while they still do not survive the experience, they more frequently produce viable offspring.

With Alebard's band nursing their wounds from an ill-fated excursion into the Upper Marsh, there is little that the residents of Fairjowl can do but stay in on the Blood Tusk's holy day nights that bring the screams of their victims.

[M Helsdon]

Both the Guide to Glorantha and The History of the Heortling People place the Ivory Plinth as a site at the Dawn, so Arim slew Gouger before the Dawn, and the Arimites were riding tuskers before Time began. The Arimites became half-trolls much later. [THotHP has a half-troll king riding a tusker also called Gouger, but much much smaller than the child of Maran Gor killed by Arim Ya Udram.]

[Qizilbashwoman]

1 hour ago, M Helsdon said:

The Arimites became half-trolls much later.

i think the term "troll" here has always been a misnomer; they're part demon because they have been solo-worshipping the Darkness for thousands of years, not part-uz-proper.

[M Helsdon]

1 hour ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

i think the term "troll" here has always been a misnomer; they're part demon because they have been solo-worshipping the Darkness for thousands of years, not part-uz-proper.

For centuries, not millennia. Aram used a Darkness demon to help defeat Gouger but his people didn't worship the demon until long after his death.

[Scorus]

On 7/10/2023 at 5:46 AM, M Helsdon said:

Both the Guide to Glorantha and The History of the Heortling People place the Ivory Plinth as a site at the Dawn, so Arim slew Gouger before the Dawn, and the Arimites were riding tuskers before Time began. The Arimites became half-trolls much later. [THotHP has a half-troll king riding a tusker also called Gouger, but much much smaller than the child of Maran Gor killed by Arim Ya Udram.]

I was trying to reconcile GtG with the history of Aram-Ya-Udram written by Stafford in Wyrms Footnotes #3 that specifically places the battle with Gouger during the EWF period. I wasn't aware of the Heortling People reference, which is clearer than the GtG entry, so I guess Greg changed his mind. In this case the sending of Redeye could be a result of a heroquest replaying the myth of the sending of Gouger, and the way to kill Redeye would be to do so in a heroquest replaying Aram-ya-Udram's conquest.

Neither mention Maran Gor, where did you find that? WF#3 state that it was "the Earth Goddess" who was angry that the "tillers of the Earth" no longer "held feasts and gave sacrifice" to her. As tillers of the earth worship Ernalda and boars are a big thing for her (while Maran Gor prefers dinosaurs), it seems to make since that it in Ernalda.

[M Helsdon]

5 hours ago, Scorus said:

I was trying to reconcile GtG with the history of Aram-Ya-Udram written by Stafford in Wyrms Footnotes #3

Long retconed I fear.

5 hours ago, Scorus said:

Neither mention Maran Gor, where did you find that?

An unpublished source.

[Scorus]

On 7/12/2023 at 2:53 AM, M Helsdon said:

Long retconed I fear.

The Prosopaedia has further retconned it such that both of us are wrong. The Aram ya-Udram entry has kept the old legend practically word for word but removed the EWF, but the encounter with Gouger occurs after the Dawn.

[M Helsdon]

7 hours ago, Scorus said:

The Prosopaedia has further retconned it such that both of us are wrong. The Aram ya-Udram entry has kept the old legend practically word for word but removed the EWF, but the encounter with Gouger occurs after the Dawn.

If you read it carefully, 'when the Long Night ended and the Dawn had begun' that's the Grey Age before the Dawn. See the description of the Ages in the Guide to Glorantha.

[Joerg]

Aram Ya Udram lived in the Silver Age until around 175 S.T.

He rode his boar alongside that of Vathmai of the Entruli, the founder of the westernmost tribe of the Entruli (and both shared the bed of the Queen of Nochet, probably at the same time, too) before the Dawn. And he rode his boar alongside whatever steed was favored by Lalmor of the Vathmai, grandson or great-grandson of the founder, when he set forth to bring the Theyalan ways to the other Entruli early in the second century.

Not stopping with the Queen of Nochet, Aram wooed and won the favor (and Necklace) of Kero Fin, and bearing this token of sovereignty he spoke for the humans on the Dawn Council, aka World Council of Friends.

 

The God-pig Gouger was sent by an irate Ernalda when humans failed to give her the respect and worship she deserved. Several settlements ("cities") were destroyed by the God Beast before Aram tricked it and attacked it with a darkness demon he had overcome earlier.

 

When did this happen?

Ernalda returned to the world at the Dawn, following her (hitherto unseen) daughter Voria on the first day of Time, the only day in Time that saw all the gods walking the surface world. Prior to this event, the gods (and their magic) were trapped in the Underworld, and their agency was limited. Not completely, however - King Heort perished when he faced Orlanth's liberating bolt (although we have no information how that came to pass - for all we know Heort might have chosen this as the means for his self-immolation, King Sartar might have copied that idea).

I sort of doubt that Ernalda had enough agency to send a god-pig while ascending the stairwell out of Hell in the grand procession of the gods attending the Ritual of the Web. So when was Gouger released?

One option is that Gouger stepped into the Greater Darkness just before Ernalda met Nontraya. The world, or what was left of it, was already swarming with demons, and somehow the destruction left behind by Gouger would have amounted to little more than a footnote in the catalogue of disasters.

So let's play through Gouger emerging in the Silver Age. That suggests that there was a magical tit-for-tat with Ernaldan fertility magic and grateful sacrifices by her followers going on, until some of them stopped these practices. And then several cities of worshipers of Ernalda were eradicated, when the entire population of Esrolia resided in Ezel (number unknown), Koravaka (countless dead) and Nochet (3000 at the Dawn, possibly fewer before). Aram and his elite boar-riding warriors chase the god-pig, Aram tricks it and makes it succumb to the Darkness Demon. The tusks are retrieved and built into the temple structure at the Ivory Plinth.

This means about 900 folk in the Silver Age as casualties to Gouger when the entire ancestral community of Caladraland was 200, likewise the Harandings, and supposedly the Vathmai (unless they, like the Aramites, were part of the Nochet survival group emerging from the Obsidian Palace).

 

Or we could posit that the "Dawn Survival Site" of the Aramites refers to a temple erected a few years into the Dawn, after Manirian pig totem Orlanthi cause trouble with the Earth Goddess, creating the Mournsea, and a runaway god-pig enters the lands of Esrolia and Kerofinela whose inhabitants were innocent of that crime. Someone (Mostali?) erects the base steps of the Ziggurat and tops them with the hollow teeth that are made into towers, carved from the inside.

The Dawn Survival Site census reads like it was collected after the fact, possibly from taxation records of the Shadow Lords who maintained communication and trade between the sites, and the newly erected Plinth would have been mentioned as if it had been there two or three years earlier.

 

Pig Hollow and Redeye may well have been a recursion of the Gouger incident, possibly aimed at the EWF. The Aramite hero at the time was Varankol the Mangler, apparently still a human at the start of his military career which saw him as one of the heroes of the Machine Wars (the leading EWF hero in the conflict, which failed to show any dragons in the struggle). My pet theory is that Varankol had his pig's tusks implanted after it was slain under him in battle, starting a trend which would soon lead to a dominant inheritable trait empowered by Remaker magics among the Aramites, granting tusks to the riders as well as the steeds.

[Ormi Phengaria]

Or: the Earth Goddess wasn't necessarily Ernalda, was receiving propitiatory or bloody sacrifice which stopped, the settlements so smote weren't in Esrolia, and the gods were active (if not yet as strong as they would become) in the Silver Age, when this took place, as Aram ya-Udram was a Silver Age hero, i.e, known for his Silver Age heroism. And thus the Ivory Plinth is there at 0 ST, with the inscription detailing all of this, including how to receive the Earth's rich gifts for yourself.

[Darius West]

Unequivocally Aram-Ya-Udram is a Pre-time hero who survived to be a member of the First Council in the First Age.  The notion that the Tusk riders only become a problem during the EWF isn't correct.

[Joerg]

50 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Unequivocally Aram-Ya-Udram is a Pre-time hero who survived to be a member of the First Council in the First Age.  The notion that the Tusk riders only become a problem during the EWF isn't correct.

I have to contradict that statement: From the Dawn Age up to the Machine Wars the Aramite riders of the Tusker Boars were humans. There were bloody rituals in the name of the Darkness Demon tamed by Aram. They served as an elite military force, and may have cohabitated with other Orlanthi in the cities of Orlanthland and the EWF.

At the time of the Dragonkill there were Tusk Riders of the modern "half-troll" type. It is possible that there were other Aramite riders of Tusker Boars who got evicted from Dragon Pass or who fell to the genocide first by the True Golden Horde and then the dragons.

The first prominent Aramite to gain tusks for himself might have been Varankol the Mangler, a Living Hero of the EWF who was not (primarily) a draconic mystic.

There is one notable half-troll during the Inhuman Occupation, but no data about his parentage. Typically, the Remakers are blamed for the new appearance.

More  theories are discussed in the God Learner podcast episode.

[Scorus]

On 7/14/2023 at 3:21 AM, M Helsdon said:

If you read it carefully, 'when the Long Night ended and the Dawn had begun' that's the Grey Age before the Dawn. See the description of the Ages in the Guide to Glorantha.

I'm afraid you'll need to explain this one to me like I'm five. 🙂  The Night ends and the Dawn begins before the Dawn?

[JRE]

There are a few mentions in the Guide, both as Grey Age and Silver Age, though with limited detail, as the time between the unity battle and the Dawn. Generations of heroes (such as Heort, who codified what means to be an orlanthi in central Genertela) lived and died during this period. Some detail, as specific to Dragon Pass and the Holy Country, appear in the Glorantha Sourcebook, including our old friend Aram the Soul of Udram. I quote:

 

Quote

THE SILVER AGE
The age between the Unity Battle and the Dawn was a time of great heroes who led the remnants of life, and the growing light and order were visible to all. Their names still fill our tales. They were recalled to our world by Arkat, and Belintar. By remembering the Silver Age heroes, we remember the time just before the Dawn.

[...]

Aram the Soul of Udram was a great hero among the people who would become the human boar riders of Dragon Pass. He was a worshiper of the pig goddess, and during the Great Darkness had saved his people by capturing and fettering a fierce black demon. In recognition of his greatness, Aram’s tribe took his name for their own, and became the Aramites.

Some people quantify it as several centuries.

Edited August 2, 2023 by JRE
errata chasing

[M Helsdon]

8 hours ago, Scorus said:

I'm afraid you'll need to explain this one to me like I'm five. 🙂  The Night ends and the Dawn begins before the Dawn?

It's like any sunrise - the sky lightens from black to grey pr dark blue, and gradually more color appears, and then the dawn comes and the sun rises.

So after the Great Darkness, there was the Grey Age, and then the Dawn and the birth of Time.

[Ormi Phengaria]

13 hours ago, Scorus said:

I'm afraid you'll need to explain this one to me like I'm five. 🙂  The Night ends and the Dawn begins before the Dawn?

In addition to what JRE and M Helsdon said: in the early First Age, the Dawn was often not considered a single discrete event, but more the magical insight that the world had been truly reborn. 0 ST was the year which became the agreed upon-dating, rather than being immediately incontrovertible. This year featured neither the return of light to the sky as was the measure of the Theyalans, nor the sun at last rising and setting upon Antirius' path, which was some time between 72 ST and 111 ST, and was the measure of the Dara Happans. The 0 ST compromise is the date the Dara Happans record as Kargzant's return to the sky as an irregular and erratic but definitely observable bright body; for the Heortlings this would be Elmal riding around the world, rekindling it.

[JRE]

The Sourcebook has the Only Old One calling the first Unity Council two hundred years before the Dawn, with Aram-ya-Udram as the storm representative, to prepare and unify Kethaela and Dragon Pass.

Meanwhile the Dara Happans have the following years, counting from Yelm's enthronement. The Lesser Darkness started in 100,000...

110,179 YS – The World is destroyed. 
110,666 YS – Planet Rise
111,000 YS – The Dawn.

Conflating both, the Silver age lasted many generations, though Time is still a flexible concept in this period.

[g33k]

On 7/10/2023 at 4:10 AM, Qizilbashwoman said:

i think the term "troll" here has always been a misnomer; they're part demon because they have been solo-worshipping the Darkness for thousands of years, not part-uz-proper.

I recall the ambiguity of were-they-weren't-they "half-trolls" all the way back in RQ2.

To me, the (afaik un-named?) "Darkness Demon" as a foundational element of the CotBT resolves this very nicely!

Also relevant, IMHO:  the "troll" deities ZZ, XU, AA, Subere & Xentha are none of them descended from KL; see here:
https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/darkness-genealogy/
This shows plenty of scope for (what looks (to outsiders) like) "trollish" and "troll-like" ancestry, that isn't actually "Troll" (in the sense of descent from the Mistress Race Uz) at all...

YGWV, but this nicely resolves most questions (specifically not the question of the specific "Darkness Demon" responsible; but the "half-troll" question).

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

the "troll" deities ZZ, XU, AA, Subere & Xentha are none of them descended from KL …
This shows plenty of scope for (what looks (to outsiders) like) "trollish" and "troll-like" ancestry, that isn't actually "Troll"

Yes but maybe — only maybe, this is not a prescription — XU and company are depicted as looking like trolls because Uz (or those who think of them as Uz-ish deities) are doing the drawing. Is ZZ in fact troll-ish (in shape, for example)? Possibly, these early Darkness beings are not humanoid, at all, and resemble Uz much less than you and I do.

XU = tough love in the dark. ZZ = burning terror in the dark. To try to pin them down any more than that — although we all do it, all the time — is asking for trouble.

I prefer that to “all Darkness beings look a bit like trolls if you  squint” … but your whatever will and should thingamajig and all that.

[JRE]

Deities tend to resemble their worshippers, though in Glorantha worshippers will also tend to resemble ther deities.

In the old Gods of Glorantha it was indicated that human worshippers of Zorak Zoran depict him as a human, trolls depict him as a troll, and I am sure his potential Morokanth worshippers will depict him as a morokanth. Xiola Umbar is peculiar in that her typical representation is a jar, and probably is never depicted as her worshippers, though as their worshippers are the downtrodden, maybe they do not want to present her as themselves or their oppressors.

My own take is that after Aram-ya-Udram died / apotheosized, rather than an Earth cult that controlled a darkness demon, the cult evolved, at least in part, during the EWF, though I do not think there is a causal link, to a Darkness cult that controls Earth beasts. I also believe that the Dragonkill War finished the change, as the remaining human Aramites were obliterated, and only the non-human ones survived. So the Earth controlling darkness faction disappeared at the end of the Second Age, and now only the darkness faction remains.

I have always considered them more half boar than half troll, myself, though tusks and an elongated muzzle are shared by both. No Darksense, no curse of kin, no eat everything (though we could argue a boar can eat almost anything organic).

[mfbrandi]

5 hours ago, JRE said:

Xiola Umbar is peculiar in that her typical representation is a jar, and probably is never depicted as her worshippers, though as their worshippers are the downtrodden, maybe they do not want to present her as themselves or their oppressors.

• She is symbolized as a clay pot
  inscribed with a healing charm on the
  exterior, and a mouthless face on the
  inside bottom. — Prosopaedia, p. 136

“I have no mouth, and I must scream” — so one could (but need not) argue that she is portrayed as one of her voiceless worshippers, although those who care for the helpless need not themselves be helpless. How trollish a face with no mouth can look, I cannot say. Maybe the idea is “I won’t eat you” rather than “I cannot speak” — I don’t know.

I think there is an IRL tradition of god pots, but I couldn’t tell you its significance.

[g33k]

On 8/3/2023 at 11:03 AM, mfbrandi said:

Yes but maybe — only maybe, this is not a prescription — XU and company are depicted as looking like trolls because Uz (or those who think of them as Uz-ish deities) are doing the drawing. Is ZZ in fact troll-ish (in shape, for example)? Possibly, these early Darkness beings are not humanoid, at all, and resemble Uz much less than you and I do.

XU = tough love in the dark. ZZ = burning terror in the dark. To try to pin them down any more than that — although we all do it, all the time — is asking for trouble.

I prefer that to “all Darkness beings look a bit like trolls if you  squint” … but your whatever will and should thingamajig and all that.

I think it does vary; there are Trollish & non-Trollish entities of Darkness, and not all of the "Trollish" ones descend from KL.
IMG, AA & ZZ are both  very  very  very  troll-like.
I could see Subere & Xentha as being much less-so.

The ancient Kitori race could freely shift form between Human & Troll... but were not IIRC descended from Trolls.

Other random "darkness demons" might have been more-or-less troll-like; or more; or less (specifically, for our case, the one associated with Aram-ya-Udram).