Octamo

[theconfusingeel]

I was browsing the well of daliath and I found out that one of the vormaino gods, octamo, has a moon rune, whih caught me off guard because I thought only gods associated with Sedenya had it.
Does anybody know more about him? Or at least does anybody have any good theories about him?

also I hope I'm not posting too much on here,excuse me if I'm doing that

[metcalph]

The Moon is visible in all parts of glorantha so it will have a cult everywhere.  Around Vormain, the main worshippers of the Red Moon would be the Cult of the Blood Sun.  Octamo is mentioned in the Prosopaedia and the Guide

Quote

Runes: Moon and Fertility.

Octamo is the source of all blessings and patron of farmers.

Octamo has both a male aspect and a female aspect.

Octamo is the only kindly Vormaino deity seen by outsiders.

During Octamo’s great festival, war and unnecessary work is forbidden. Octamo is depicted both as male and female, or as androgynous. Sometimes Octamo is depicted as male on the right side carrying a bowl with grains or fruits and female on the left carrying a harvesting sickle. Octamo is always red-skinned.

Prosopaedia p90

 

[theconfusingeel]

Is the blood sun really Sedenya?
I remember it has some cultists in the Lunar empire, so I can't imagine it's just a regional identification.
Plus I assume both of these cults existed before the red moon rose

[mfbrandi]

22 hours ago, theconfusingeel said:

Is the blood sun really Sedenya?

I don’t know — someone else will — but if a “secret part of the sun” were intimately connected with elusive Nysalor and/or rebel against and daughter of the sun, Sedenya, it wouldn’t be that shocking a revelation.

A Hon-Eel–Octamo conjunction doesn’t sound mad, either: half-and-half; grain & sickle; John Maizeycorn must die!

Edited May 2 by mfbrandi
verbosity reduced … a bit

[Eff]

1 hour ago, theconfusingeel said:

Is the blood sun really Sedenya?
I remember it has some cultists in the Lunar empire, so I can't imagine it's just a regional identification.
Plus I assume both of these cults existed before the red moon rose

One answer: people look up in the sky,  see a big red ball, and they know the Blood Sun so they assume a connection. This assigns agency to Gloranthans and the capacity to think about the world to them, so it's automatically suspicious. It's also possible that they can read old Glorantha Digest posts that asserted that Sedenya was the Blood Sun across the barrier between fiction and reality and take them as sacred truth from a higher plane. Who can say?

[g33k]

5 hours ago, theconfusingeel said:

...
also I hope I'm not posting too much on here,excuse me if I'm doing that

I have never -- ever -- heard of such a complaint being leveled.  You're fine!
Newbies often arrive with tons of questions, enthusiasm, etc.  Helps enliven the grognards!  😉
 

 

2 hours ago, theconfusingeel said:

Is the blood sun really Sedenya?
...

Your Glorantha Will Vary !
 

Personally, I wouldn't equate Sun & Moon.
But with the Lunar/Solar marriage, I expect the Blood Sun has some profound links with some of the more-arcane X more-violent apects of the Red Moon!

[metcalph]

4 hours ago, theconfusingeel said:

Is the blood sun really Sedenya?
I remember it has some cultists in the Lunar empire, so I can't imagine it's just a regional identification.
Plus I assume both of these cults existed before the red moon rose

From the Guide (For example Cryptic Verses of the Yellow Calendar p745-746), I think it evident that the Blood Sun worships the Red Moon.  Yes, it was extant before the rise of the Red Moon.  Then they worshipped the Sun and had weakened magic because of it.  

The worshippers in Peloria (3% of Oraya's population according to CoR: Mythology p153 or 12k!) are Kralorelan migrants making the pilgrimage to get closer to their God.  They are accepted by the Lunars as being another facet of the Red Goddess.

As for Octamo, it's not clear whether it had existed before the rise of the Red Moon.  Since Vormain is such a secretive place, we don't know how it changed over time or even the history of its contacts with outsiders.

[theconfusingeel]

8 hours ago, metcalph said:

From the Guide (For example Cryptic Verses of the Yellow Calendar p745-746), I think it evident that the Blood Sun worships the Red Moon.  Yes, it was extant before the rise of the Red Moon.  Then they worshipped the Sun and had weakened magic because of it.  

The worshippers in Peloria (3% of Oraya's population according to CoR: Mythology p153 or 12k!) are Kralorelan migrants making the pilgrimage to get closer to their God.  They are accepted by the Lunars as being another facet of the Red Goddess.

As for Octamo, it's not clear whether it had existed before the rise of the Red Moon.  Since Vormain is such a secretive place, we don't know how it changed over time or even the history of its contacts with outsiders.

I remember that the blood sun cultists in Peloria were converts. The guide mentions this, including specifically a guy who teaches in the Lunar empire.
edit:
Is it possible that Octamo or the blood sun are verithurus(a)?
Verithurus is directly related to sedenya, plus there's it's sometimes regarded as female and sometimes as male which Octamo also does(thought you could say with verithurusa it's a case of different cultures interpreting the same god in different ways than  it being an actual trait they had)

Edited May 2 by theconfusingeel

[metcalph]

7 hours ago, theconfusingeel said:

Is it possible that Octamo or the blood sun are verithurus(a)?

Verithurus is directly related to sedenya, plus there's it's sometimes regarded as female and sometimes as male which Octamo also does(thought you could say with verithurusa it's a case of different cultures interpreting the same god in different ways than  it being an actual trait they had)

Octamo is fertility related so it seems more likely that he or she is analogous (in the way that Elmal is analogous to Kargzant or Solf is analogous to Lodril) to Hon-eel than Verithurusa.  That said, I haven't seen the treatment of Hon-Eel in the Lunar Way.  As for Verithurusa's transitioning, I always thought it was due to stuck-up Dara Happans being unable to accept a girl among Yelm's sons.

[theconfusingeel]

Is Hon-eel worshiped in Vithela?

[metcalph]

3 minutes ago, theconfusingeel said:

Is Hon-eel worshiped in Vithela?

I didn't say she was.  I just said analogous to.

[David Scott]

On 5/1/2024 at 8:15 PM, theconfusingeel said:

Does anybody know more about him?

See also https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/?s=Octamo

[Darius West]

This is a great topic.  

The issue I have is that there is nobody from the Lunar Empire going on large world discovery missions by sea that are listed in the histories.  As such, the idea that the people of Vormain would have any contact with the Lunar Way of Peloria is very unlikely.  In any case, as the Red Moon rose in 1247, the Vormaino have had 378 years to develop an alternative version of Lunar Worship.

It is interesting that other cultures around Glorantha haven't also seen the Red Moon rise and decided to worship it and see what happens.  Or perhaps they did, and not much occurred?  Given that Sedenya is illuminated, it is unlikely anyone could sense the Red Moon's chaos at such distances.

Octamo is an interesting deity.  I wonder how the Vormaino managed to get Sedenya to give them farming powers?  I mean, Octamo is listed as a peaceful deity, and I would not recognize Hon-Eel's agricultural blood worship as being peaceful at all.  Or are the Vormaino so bloodthirsty that human sacrifice such as the Hon-Eel cult demands are not considered a problem?