Sons of Barntar?

[Martin]

Does anyone know the names of any of Barntar's sons?

[Nozbat]

Nothing in the Prosopædia.. and nothing in the older Genealogy table of Mongoose's Cult Compendium and nothing in Cults of Prax. Only mention is of his wife, Mahome the Hearth Goddess. Nothing listed for Mahome either

I haven't access to any other documents presently so others with greater knowledge may know more

However, the Sons of Barntar like a 'peasant' revolt along the lines of Wat Tyler's rebellion, the Jacquerie or the Irmandiño revolt of medieval times.. maybe they are a secret paramilitary uprising?

[Martin]

No I mean  the names of any deities that are deemed as his sons

[Darius West]

2 hours ago, Martin said:

Does anyone know the names of any of Barntar's sons?

Where did you read about Barntar having sons?  Barntar has Mahome for a wife, but I've never read anything about them having children other than Mahome having a son by Yinkin called Hevren.

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

Where did you read about Barntar having sons?  Barntar has Mahome for a wife, but I've never read anything about them having children other than Mahome having a son by Yinkin called Hevren.

I think it stands to reason that he has them - he's the ideal farmer everyman, and the ideal farmer everyman obviously has good and strong sons.

I would be unsurprised if there's not much particular to them, maybe not even as much as Lodril's ten little sons who at least have one characteristic each.

Edited August 29, 2023 by Akhôrahil

[scott-martin]

5 hours ago, Martin said:

Does anyone know the names of any of Barntar's sons?

IMG doctrinally they are never named because they're basically just the random dudes you see in the village on holy days. All farmers are his sons. The important thing about Barntar is his (our) relationship to his father.

Of course this might have been different before Orlanth really got going as the primary masculine identity cult. If you live in a place where people focus on Barntar, he might reveal hidden, lost or "new" segmented roles for his heroic followers to explore.

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:

IMG doctrinally they are never named because they're basically just the random dudes you see in the village on holy days. All farmers are his sons. The important thing about Barntar is his (our) relationship to his father.

This sounds right.

Now when I ran the Harvest Bride scenario, I had a competition to see who would become the Barley King and marry the Harvest Queen. That seems like it would be a son of Barntar, and leads me to think that if they are named, they are titles, not names: Ploughman, Oxtamer, Hearthmaker, Steadraiser, etc.

[mfbrandi]

46 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

IMG doctrinally they are never named because they're basically just the random dudes you see in the village on holy days.

I like this — possibly because it reminds me of Auntie L’s tale of circle dances and dead relatives seen on the other side of the ring — but I wonder too if there is some kind of rule of three going on.

The crone, mother, and daughter may be one goddess. Surely the detached/ascended, regal/middle-air, and earthy/fallen Fire–Sky brothers are in some sense the same god. Deities are collapsible vertically and horizontally, but we don’t like too many segments to the telescope in any one story. And are non-twin siblings a vertical or a horizontal array?

So one vertical Storm array might have Umath (out of the picture, like Dayzatar), Orlanth (still contesting the middle air with middle brother/daddy substitute Yelm — whatever hands were shaken and promises given), and baby Barntar grubbing around in the dirt (rival to the farmers’ version of Lodril). To try to squeeze another generation into the same story might be a bit much. But as Barntar is — in one way of looking at it — just Orlanth in drag (with a face like thunder), children of Orlanth might do as children of Barntar, but this brings us awkwardly to the matter of Barntar’s Gloranthan Karaoke party piece.

Spoiler

Now, many, many years ago when I was twenty-three
I was married to a widow who was pretty as could be
This widow had a grown-up daughter, had hair of red
My father fell in love with her and soon the two were wed
This made my dad my son-in-law and changed my very life
My daughter was my mother ’cause she was my father’s wife
To complicate the matter, even though it brought me joy
I soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy
My little baby then became the brother-in-law to Dad
And so became my uncle though it made me very sad
For if he was my uncle, that also made him the brother
Of the widow’s grown-up daughter who of course was my step-mother

I’m my own grandpa
I’m my own grandpa
It sounds funny, I know, but it really is so
For I’m my own grandpa

But as you say, Orlanth need not be in the ascendant everywhere and everywhen, so we might sometimes have Umath —> Barntar —> ??? or even Barntar —> ??? —> ???. I wonder what those arrays would look like.

[g33k]

I suspect Barntar + Mahome children may include some of the "Lowfire" and other "helper" spirits...

"Winterlight," the spirit of candles and lanterns that let you see to do your indoors projects (carving, embroidering, etc) when the days are short.
"Graywhet" the spirit of whetstones, that let you sharpen knives & scythes more-swiftly.
(I just invented those (AFAIK... maybe I subconsciously-remembered it))

I just don't think they engender the kind of stories that need a vast corpus of myth (and attending deity) to support & explain.

[mfbrandi]

4 hours ago, g33k said:

I just don't think they engender the kind of stories that need a vast corpus of myth (and attending deity) to support & explain.

Little personal gods for home shrines for which no names or stories survive — just like real life (e.g. Sumer IIRC) — and perhaps they will prove too small for Argrath to go to the bother of feeding them to Wakboth!

[John Biles]

During Lunar rule of Sartar, Barntar often did basically take Orlanth's place and their kids then get more attention.

 

[ZedAlpha]

hm. Maybe Barntar's sons could be immortal demigods, like Vingkot? Children that Barntar had with mortals before he settled down and got married, or after (gods often sometimes break their own rules)?

If you run with that, they're probably closer to heroic ancestor-spirits than actual gods, and each clan with strong connections to Barntar probably has their own unique versions.

[Akhôrahil]

3 minutes ago, ZedAlpha said:

If you run with that, they're probably closer to heroic ancestor-spirits than actual gods, and each clan with strong connections to Barntar probably has their own unique versions.

Some son of Barntar as your clan or bloodline ancestor makes perfect sense to me.

[Joerg]

Barntar definitely made it to adult stage, but in the sense of devolution, later generation Srvuali become little more than demigods or Founders. Barntar still does his own version of the Enkoshons/Aroka quest, but from there downward it is only heroes repeating the Orlanth feat (rather than Vadrus's feat, because of the different outcome).

I can see a collective like the Farm Brothers, or possibly the Sons and Tools of Barntar. Not quite up to the Ten Sons and Servants of Lodril whom we find on the Gods Wall.

Thunder Rebels gave us names for the handmaidens of Ernalda and the wives of the expanded Lowfire children of Lodril, but that's for the "ruling" generation rather than for the descendant generation.

Deities don't usually have dynasties, unless you have severe attrition from repeated cataclysms, but even the Vithelan myths have little more than three or four generations, and emphasize the mundanisation of the protagonists.

 

Putting Barntar into a generation is a bit tricky, too. For the Downland Migration, we have most of the Storm Brothers (named in Thunder Rebels) present for the exploration and then migration, but the birth of Barntar is tied to a Storm Age event called the Checkered Battle (which Orlanth failed to attend).

But like Vingkot's death from a wound in a battle far to the future of his reign and apotheosis, a birth "date" does not preclude a deity from participating in earlier events, or from having multiple birth dates and parents.

[Kettlehelm]

I mean Barntar has two mythological brothers in the Prosperdia who also could be sapping his mythological status. Varnaval and Voriof are both labled as full brothers. Though we know the theogeny isn't 100% accurete to other lore. That's a dead older brother who Barntar can never match the expectations of and a brother who represent the coming youth. Squeezing out Barntar as the father of the next generation.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Kettlehelm

[Darius West]

On 8/29/2023 at 10:55 PM, Akhôrahil said:

I think it stands to reason that he has them - he's the ideal farmer everyman, and the ideal farmer everyman obviously has good and strong sons.

I would be unsurprised if there's not much particular to them, maybe not even as much as Lodril's ten little sons who at least have one characteristic each.

Look, I'm not going to say this is wrong in any way.  I agree that Barntar should have sons, but I can find no mention of any of them.  On the other hand, Barntar is a bit of a momma's boy.  He knows all about tilling a field and doing as he's told, but Orlanth must look at the kid and seriously question if He's the father.  And let's face facts...  Is he?  Is he really?  Does even Ernalda know?  😆

Edited August 30, 2023 by Darius West

[Jeff]

Barntar is widely known and invoked as the Plow Man. In every agricultural community, the plow is key to making seeds grow in the field. He's a phallic god, who enables Air to enter Earth. Where Orlanth Thunderous is present, Barntar is rarely the subject of an independent cult, but everyone knows him.

Does he have sons and daughters? No doubt he does, but again those offspring rarely get their own cult. 

[RobNic]

5 hours ago, Jeff said:

Barntar is widely known and invoked as the Plow Man. In every agricultural community, the plow is key to making seeds grow in the field. He's a phallic god, who enables Air to enter Earth. Where Orlanth Thunderous is present, Barntar is rarely the subject of an independent cult, but everyone knows him.

Does he have sons and daughters? No doubt he does, but again those offspring rarely get their own cult. 

@Jeff wondering what your current thinking is...

Is Barntar worshipped in Sun County - either / both Dragon Pass and River of Cradles

[Jeff]

4 hours ago, RobNic said:

@Jeff wondering what your current thinking is...

Is Barntar worshipped in Sun County - either / both Dragon Pass and River of Cradles

Certainly in Pavis County he is. I suspect he has been dropped in Sun County. 

[g33k]

52 minutes ago, Jeff said:

... I suspect he has been dropped in Sun County. 

Who is (mostly) tilling the soil, then?
Imported Kitori serf-class (war-captives / descendants)?
Lodrili farmers?
Or..?

(but I would suspect at least a few farmer-refugees from Sartar, bringing Barntar with them... n'est-ce pas?)

[Qizilbashwoman]

11 minutes ago, g33k said:

Imported Kitori serf-class (war-captives / descendants)?
Lodrili farmers?

the Sun Domers definitely use ergeshi (kitori-lineage slaves) as field slaves.

The Lunar colony uses transplanted Lunar serfs, although the colony fails at a certain point.

[g33k]

51 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

the Sun Domers definitely use ergeshi (kitori-lineage slaves) as field slaves.

...

I think the Ergeshi as a race-based slave-class is being deprecated by current Chaosium.

I could be mistaken--- they haven't actually published  it, as yet; but I think they are moving away from some of the elements they expect to be most-problematic in the modern era.

[Jeff]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

I think the Ergeshi as a race-based slave-class is being deprecated by current Chaosium.

I could be mistaken--- they haven't actually published  it, as yet; but I think they are moving away from some of the elements they expect to be most-problematic in the modern era.

Nah, it is more those notes from WF 14 reflected how Greg and I were thinking about it some dozen years ago or so. Needless to say, I have done an awful lot more work understanding Dragon Pass and the formation of the Yelmalio cult there since then.

[metcalph]

If Barntar is worshipped in Sun County, I think he would be worshipped as a subcult of Ernalda (CoR:TL p77) rather than as a subcult of Orlanth Thunderous as they do up north.  I expect this to be true of clans or tribes where the local Husband-Protector has no association to Barntar (ie isn't Orlanth).