Aram ya Udram and the Empire of the Wyrms Friends

[Joerg]

Once more in the correction thread for Earth Goddesses:

7 minutes ago, Deadstop said:

p. 66, "Aram ya-Udram was a human, one of the original founders of the ancient Empire of the Wyrms Friends." Was he? I thought he was a First Age hero, the human on the Unity Council. Possibly "World Council of Friends" is meant, though if the information on the Glorantha Wiki is correct he apotheosized shortly before that name change as well.

Note that this is the cult of the Tusk Riders, a demi-human race of people descended from the Aramites. The Bestiary tells their own version of the history of Dragon Pass, and the claims by the cult that Aram-ya-Udram was the founder of the EWF results from that version of their history.

The earliest history of Dragon Pass was printed in the board game White Bear and Red Moon, and that version named the Empire of the Wyrm's Friends as the only predecessor civilization in Dragon Pass. But the EWF was present only for a much shorter period in history. It was the successor of the Theyalan civilization of the Heortlings and other Orlanthi in the region. Naming the earlier history the Empire of Wyrm's Friends was a political fiction bowing to the greatest human empire in the history of the Pass region.

Aram ya Udram had a hand in creating that human civilization.

Aram was a Silver Age hero, probably born in or before the Greater Darkness, and human representative on the Unity Council in the first century after the Dawn - possibly until 170 S.T. if I recall the availability of the Necklace of Kero Fin correctly. He was one of the lovers of Queen Merngala, the queen who resettled Nochet from the Obsidian Palace where her predecessor Norinel had led the survivors of that city when her husband Kimantor could no longer defend the city (or its outlying farming area) against the monsters.

At some point, Aram hunted down Gouger, the God Pig, sent to destroy three cities where the people no longer paid the proper respect to Ernalda. Using a darkness demon Aram had bound earlier, he killed the Earth Avenger that had gone on a rampage of destruction beyond its original task, and from the tusks of that boar the Ivory Plinth was shaped on top of an older low ziggurat.

At some point, Aram became the lover of Sorana Tor, the avatar of Kero Fin - possibly as reward for his action against the rampage of the God Pig in her domain, and was gifted (or loaned) the Necklace of Kero Fin.

After 170 S.T., Aram was no longer alive. His followers and descendants became the Tusker-boar riding humans of Dragon Pass. A descendant fought in the Battle of Night and Day around 380 S.T., leading the center of the Heortling and Troll forces, with 400 boar-riding warriors. There are no accounts about Palangio's retribution against the Aramite humans.

After the liberation of Dragon Pass and the victory over the Bright Empire, civilized Aramites became a warrior elite in the urban culture of the Kingdom of Orlanthland. Tribute from Dara Happa helped fueling the rapid urbanisation of the Dragon Pass Orlanthi.

This urban culture predated the discovery/spread of draconic thought and Auld Wyrmish among humans by at least a century, and it was not before 700 S.T. that the first dragonspeaker became a member of the ruling council of Orlanthland. Another three generations later, the dragonspeakers had replaced the traditionalist Orlanthi on the council, and the Kingdom of Orlanthland finally became the EWF.

In the Machine Wars of the early 900s, the leading EWF hero was an Aramite by the name of Varankol the Mangler, a Great Living Hero (i.e. a mortal receiving worship by a cult, enabling him to perform greater magics than humanly possible). While not a draconic mystic, Varankol was a citizen of the urban EWF and profited from its accumulation of magical power, aka the Proximate Holy Realm (at the expense of tributary provinces in Peloria and Ralios).

When the EWF collapsed in 1042 and the EWF cities were raided by the vengeful Pelorians (Sairdites, Carmanians and Dara Happans), the urban Aramites would have been its best defenders, and possibly bore the brunt of the onslaught. With the magical crops and magically enhanced livestock powered by the draconic magic failing, the enslaved EWF citizens carried off into Peloria were spared a period of famine and deterioration that those left behind were suffering, with many fleeing south into the powerful Hendriki kingdom to escape starvation. The humans who remained in the Pass adapted to the old ways of pastoralism and agriculture, with the once proud cities deteriorating into half-empty fortified towns occupied by farmers managing the surrounding lands. They too acepted the leadership and protection of the Hendriki kings.

When the dragonkill struck the invading True Golden Horde, few of the human defenders of Dragon Pass were remaining. The dragons kiled all the humans that remained on the land, but spared those who had been changed by the magics of Remakerela. Among these may have been the Tusk Riders, descendants of Aramite Tusker boar riders, possibly changed in the image of Varankol the Mangler who was said to have had the tusks of his boar implanted after it was killed in the Machine Wars.

 

[metcalph]

I really don't have a problem with the statement that Aram-ya-Udram was one of the founders of the EWF.  He could have returned again like Ironhoof does.  

[soltakss]

He was a Hero and could have been reincarnated in some way, or could have returned to the mortal world. Stranger things have happened.