How fragile is Orgovale Summer?

[Shiningbrow]

A new demi-goddess awakens.

We know almost nothing about her from years ago, and even less now that she's just awoken after a short nap.

But, since we're entering the age of the Hero Wars, I would think that having another such ally (or enemy) would be very useful.

However, I do wonder just how fragile/powerful she would really be.

Because, I'm sure that Jar-Eel would like to have some words with her! (Either, she'd feel it directly herself, being a similar being, or her spies would pass this information along.)

What, exactly, does it mean to be a 'demi-god', other than having the title (she only gets it because of her parents and grandparents, not because of an particular powers or abilities she's displayed).

Which sort of means - how much value would she actually provide to anyone who allies (or kidnaps) her - other than merely reputation.

[KungFuFenris]

That actually reminds me about a thought I had.

What ARE DemiGods? Are they bound by the Compromise?

[Shiningbrow]

16 minutes ago, KungFuFenris said:

That actually reminds me about a thought I had.

What ARE DemiGods? Are they bound by the Compromise?

If Jar-Eel and Harrek (and later, Argrath) are "demi-gods", and not merely very-capital H Heroes - then no, they're not really. (unless, it's a very flexible Compromise!)

 

But... certainly at least 3 we've mentioned are (were) human/mortal.

[Joerg]

27 minutes ago, KungFuFenris said:

What ARE DemiGods? Are they bound by the Compromise?

Depends on whether they are incarnate or not. Incarnate demigods - for a given value of mortal - retain free will and may act as they please (within their divine and mortal nature). Demigods as cult object in Godtime are bound by the Compromise.

Worshipped mortals might be limited in their choices by the force of their worshippers binding them to their feats.

Orgorvale is the child of two demigods, Vingkot (son of Orlanth and Janerra Alone, a mortal of the On Jorri folk) and the Summer Wife (daughter of Tada - avatar of Genert - and presumably Ernalda). She, and her husband Ulanin, are living and dying in Godtime, their presence there imprinted on the make-up of the world, engraved in the myth.

Can a deity that died in the Gods War be worshipped? Of course - all of the participants in the Ritual of the Web were technically dead.

Orgorvale is at best a godling, but she has become a genius loci for Orgovaleland - the Quivini foothills - and would have been worshipped as such by her descendants and their in-laws in the region. The tribe named after her (rather than her rider husband) disappeared when the Kingdom of Orlanthland came into being following the Gbaji Wars. Most of the bloodlines of her descendants were killed during the fall of the EWF and the Dragonkill - mostly by the Pelorian invaders or famine. Some of her descendants made it south into Heortland, from where e.g. the Red Cow clan returned into their ancestral lands.

The EWF managed to draconize her cult, projecting it onto a dream dragon (possibly of a Dragon Speaker?), making her original persona irrelevant. Events in the GM Screen Adventure Book may change that.

[Shiningbrow]

17 hours ago, Joerg said:

Depends on whether they are incarnate or not. Incarnate demigods - for a given value of mortal - retain free will and may act as they please (within their divine and mortal nature). Demigods as cult object in Godtime are bound by the Compromise.

Worshipped mortals might be limited in their choices by the force of their worshippers binding them to their feats.

Orgorvale is the child of two demigods, Vingkot (son of Orlanth and Janerra Alone, a mortal of the On Jorri folk) and the Summer Wife (daughter of Tada - avatar of Genert - and presumably Ernalda). She, and her husband Ulanin, are living and dying in Godtime, their presence there imprinted on the make-up of the world, engraved in the myth.

Can a deity that died in the Gods War be worshipped? Of course - all of the participants in the Ritual of the Web were technically dead.

Orgorvale is at best a godling, but she has become a genius loci for Orgovaleland - the Quivini foothills - and would have been worshipped as such by her descendants and their in-laws in the region. The tribe named after her (rather than her rider husband) disappeared when the Kingdom of Orlanthland came into being following the Gbaji Wars. Most of the bloodlines of her descendants were killed during the fall of the EWF and the Dragonkill - mostly by the Pelorian invaders or famine. Some of her descendants made it south into Heortland, from where e.g. the Red Cow clan returned into their ancestral lands.

The EWF managed to draconize her cult, projecting it onto a dream dragon (possibly of a Dragon Speaker?), making her original persona irrelevant. Events in the GM Screen Adventure Book may change that.

Well, I'm reading this as a bit of a history lesson for Orgovale Summer... but doesn't really address the relevant questions - how fragile/powerful is she compared to others with that classification (demi-god or godling...), and how much freedom from the Compromise does she have?

 

If your history is correct, she was alive during the GodTime - and thus, in theory (I imagine, but perhaps not), should be bound by the Compromise.

However, like Jar-Eel (and the Red Moon herself), she's also managed to bypass that by not being there for the Compromise itself, and has now come back to us (yes, I'm obviously referring to the GA scenario).

 

But, it also sounds like you're thinking she is just a (slightly?) more powerful version of, say, Tarndisi... and thus, quite fragile. And potentially manipulable (relative to the other big names on the board).

[French Desperate WindChild]

25 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Well, I'm reading this as a bit of a history lesson for Orgovale Summer... but doesn't really address the relevant questions - how fragile/powerful is she compared to others with that classification (demi-god or godling...), and how much freedom from the Compromise does she have?

 

If your history is correct, she was alive during the GodTime - and thus, in theory (I imagine, but perhaps not), should be bound by the Compromise.

However, like Jar-Eel (and the Red Moon herself), she's also managed to bypass that by not being there for the Compromise itself, and has now come back to us (yes, I'm obviously referring to the GA scenario).

 

But, it also sounds like you're thinking she is just a (slightly?) more powerful version of, say, Tarndisi... and thus, quite fragile. And potentially manipulable (relative to the other big names on the board).

imo

 

I see her like the dryad played by Jeff in the white bull campain

so still here "now" but here since before the compromise

 

that means (If i understand well)

a) she knows / she is aware of what was before and what is today (of course she has no memory about what happened when she "slept" )

b) she is able to "redo" (pattern notion) what she did before the compromise. She is able to love, to discuss, to help plants, etc...

c) she is unable to learn or discover new things.

d) she cannot act in a manner she never did before the compromise

 

for example

- If she never fight before the compromise, she will never fight, it is "impossible", so she will "freeze". (d)

- If she dug into the earth with a shovel, she can dug, but she will never be able to use a pneumatic hammer (b+c)

- if she meet lunars, she can learn they are lunars, even if there was no lunar bc (... before compromise...) becaue the thing is "there are strange clans/tribes/communities" which is not a new thing, so she can tell that she saw a group of lunars in the wood yesterday (a)

 

I m not sure she is bound to a specific location (unlike a dryad). So she can learn new locations. For example if she is able to travel from Sartar to Ralios, even if she never visited Ralios, she will be able to identify that's a wood, that's a river, and say I met these wolves near the river. Now I would play that farther than her bc location, more confuse would be her answer ( "there are 5 rivers, which one ? Oh I don't know, they are all the same here" then she cries).

I imagine this kind of goddess like people suffering from mental dissease. They are not dumb at all, but for any reason they can't do thing that seems "normal". And some  suffer of it because they may understand that there is a issue, they may remember they have not this issue long ago.

maybe the dryad doesn't understand because the forest is always the same but for a goddess facing humans always changing / creating (or not)

I m here in a difference between eder races and human but maybe that's not a gloranthan concept (more middle earth or d&d) . Don"t know if I 'm influenced

 

Edited February 27 by French Desperate WindChild

[Joerg]

52 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Well, I'm reading this as a bit of a history lesson for Orgovale Summer... but doesn't really address the relevant questions - how fragile/powerful is she compared to others with that classification (demi-god or godling...), and how much freedom from the Compromise does she have?

IMO she is somewhat upward from your typical wyter deity - an entity from Godtime, thus bound by the Compromise, but not bound to a piece of regalia, rather to the land her tribe had claimed around the Quivin Mountains. She might become the (minor) land goddess of the Kingdom of Sartar, on a hiearchy level below Kero Fin, but possibly with fertility and defensive blessings.

The Vingkotlings were a warlike culture, and at the very least she would have been giving support to her husband Ulanin, one of the seven husband heroes of the Vingkotlings shortly mentioned in the Orlanthi myths. While Ulanin seems to have been a Hyaloring, his adventures would have gone both against the Dara Happans of Anaxial's dynasty and against the winter foes. The giants of Red Cow Fort would have been a side issue.

That power over forces of the riverine empire to the north might have hampered the conquest of the Kingdom of Sartar by the Lunars, and may well hinder a future attempt at controlling the land. (The same could be said for the draconic alternative, though. Either way, the sovereignty introduced by Sartar would be backed up by a sovereignty from that piece of land.)

Unless Orgorvale finds an avatar to reincarnate into (possibly something akin to that weird self-destructive dance in

Spoiler

The Smoking Ruins where the Entertainer gives up her self for har ancestress

) I don't see Orgorvale as having any physidal agency in the Surface World. Her cult can, though, and cult heroes might add to the magical arsenal of the cult. An existing Thunderqueen magic might be co-opted and integrated into the cult, especially if the draconic version wins out.

The Dream Dragon alternative is an incarnate form that returned from dormancy, with a wider range of choices and agency.

[Shiningbrow]

I put this question in the Glorantha section, but I'll throw it here as well.

Given she's the daughter of Vingkot (as well as Tada), and her hubby was Ulanin - if one were to marry her, wouldn't they then become the heir to Vingkot? Certainly, I would think your kids would be...  (and, far more direct than Broyan - which is what spurred the thought).

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

(and, far more direct than Broyan - which is what spurred the thought)

Broyan specifically claimed descent from Kodig, son of Vingkot, who was granted or won the Sword and Helm. Those relics belonged to the descendants of Kodig who ruled in the Holy Country. So, yes, marrying Orgorvale might be one way to restart a Vingkotling line, but you'd likely only have a claim to ruling the Orgorvaltes tribe unless you did more. 

(For instance, in the Verenmars Saga which I worked on with Greg years ago, Verenmars goes into Alkoth and is able to gain the Blood of Vingkot to help establish him as ruler of Saird, where the Berennethtelli once dwelt.)

[Joerg]

39 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Broyan specifically claimed descent from Kodig, son of Vingkot, who was granted or won the Sword and Helm. Those relics belonged to the descendants of Kodig who ruled in the Holy Country. So, yes, marrying Orgorvale might be one way to restart a Vingkotling line, but you'd likely only have a claim to ruling the Orgorvaltes tribe unless you did more.

I am not certain whether Broyan claimed descent from Kodig - as I understand his story, his Kodigvari tribal markings came to him the same way Harmast (a Berennethtelli by descent, not a direct descendant of Kodig) acquired them - as an adaptation through effort and heroquesting, without (initially) aiming for them.

I have no idea whether Broyan had any idea about his lineage to the Vingkotling founders. He did embrace his (developing?) Kodigvari tattoo that sent the Grandmothers of Nochet into hives of bad conscience and fear for their authority, much like it had in Harmast's time.