Troll Shamanic Practices

[Jon Hunter]

What are currently the best published sources on troll shamans?

Does the troll incarnation of DakaFal have a different name?

[Jens]

Not much has been published for RG:G aside from the Bestiary. The Well suggests that Kyger Litor encourages her Priestess-Shamans to join Daka Fal to gain access to Summon Ancestor and Summon Spirit Teacher- see https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/publishers/chaosium/runequest-glorantha-bestiary-print/cha4032-runequest-glorantha-bestiary-qa/#ib-toc-anchor-39

[metcalph]

35 minutes ago, Jon Hunter said:

Does the troll incarnation of DakaFal have a different name?

Her name is Kyger Litor.  

[metcalph]

I think that the cults of Kyger Litor have two tiers.  The remote clans (in the Elder Wilds) have ancestral worship with Kyger Litor teaching only Counter Chaos (I assume) among ancestral magics while the more urbanized clans (Dagori Inkarth) resemble the traditional cult with ancestral magics being scarce there.  

Edited June 23 by metcalph

[Squaredeal Sten]

On 6/23/2024 at 2:15 PM, Jon Hunter said:

What are currently the best published sources on troll shamans?
 

Trollpack.  Until the Darkness cults book of Cults of Runequet is published, likely this year. 

The RQ2 books Cults of Prax or Gods of Glorantha  will be nice to read too  and the PDFs are available and inexpensive..

Edited Monday at 09:56 PM by Squaredeal Sten
Spelling / typing

[theconfusingeel]

10 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Trollpack.  Until the Darkness cults book of Cults of Runequet is published, likely this year. 

 

I think the dragon pass book will probably be the last thing published this year, and the sky book will come out before the darkness so at this rate it might take 2 years

Edited June 24 by theconfusingeel

[David Scott]

There are a few shamanic cults for trolls:

The links show the sources.

• Kyger Litor is the premier ancestor worship cult with Daka Fal as an associate.
• Aranea is similar to Hsunchen cults with Kropa providing Transform self
• Gorakiki is similar to Hsunchen cults with Kropa providing Transform self
• There are a load of troll spirit cults too.

 

 

[davecake]

20 hours ago, metcalph said:

The remote clans (in the Elder Wilds) have ancestral worship with Kyger Litor teaching only Counter Chaos

YGWV. 

Ultimately Kygor Litor is the ancestress of all trolls, but I don't think she teaches dealing with the Ancestors, never having had to do it herself. I think the troll version of Daka Fal is, well, Daka Fal, in his earlier incarnation as Grandfather Mortal, the source of the Man Rune - as Kygor Litors mythology says she mated with the Man run to give birth the race of trolls. So Daka Fal would be her old lover, and ultimately Father of the race of trolls. In all the many versions of the cult of Kygor Litor, he seems always to have been referred to as Daka Fal (and clearly a separate being to KL, though a close ally). So, I don't know, call him Old Man or First Man in Darktongue or something, but trolls probably know it is the same being as Daka Fal. 

 

 

[radmonger]

1 hour ago, davecake said:

don't think she teaches dealing with the Ancestors, never having had to do it herself

From her POV, she doesn't deal with ancestors, but descendants. And the same is equally true of Daka Fal.

I'd imagine the normal case is to initially learn ancestor worship from your living family. Shamanism exists as a way to bridge a generation gap, reestablishing the practice after some catastrophe.

 

[davecake]

11 hours ago, radmonger said:

From her POV, she doesn't deal with ancestors, but descendants. And the same is equally true of Daka Fal.

Yes, but ancestor worship is really dealing with the spirits of your dead relatives, not strictly all ancestors (Ancestor magic is understood not to apply to your living grandparents etc - -maybe works for dead older siblings?). Ancestor Worship is essentially about the mortal experience. Daka Fal is in the unique situation of having been a mortal, and experienced death and existence as a lifeless spirit and going to the underworld and found an explored the afterlife, and so has learn to act as a bridge who can teach mortals (for he understands mortality) about being a spirit, going to the underworld and the afterlife, and communicating with those on both sides of that. Kygor Litor has never been mortal, or experienced death or the descent into the underworld as a disembodied spirit  - while Daka Fal has, and was the first. 

And that's just half the story, the story from inner experience - the other half if that every single writeup of Kygor Litor is very explicit about Daka Fal being a quite distinct being to Kygor Litor, and there being a relationship between the two. The RQG will to (at least, it does in the Bestiary and in the Preview). That's the argument from observed fact, and it is pretty clear to me. I find the argument otherwise to be basically just saying lets eliminate a whole cult and just subsume his substantial magic into another (already somewhat overstuffed, honestly), and I find that to be just pointless and uninteresting and requiring a strong argument, and it only has a weak one. 

You can also think of it as Daka Fal (as Grandfather Mortal) being the original source of Kygor Litors Man rune. She doesn't teach any Man rune magic (though of course worshippers can use it for common rune magic), and before mating with him (at Subere's request) she was a pure Darkness spirit. 

Now, I would like to see Daka Fal among trolls written up as an Ancestor cult (akin to SurenSlib etc). A name (which is probably just Old Man or First Father or something in Darktongue), a few associated cult spells (KL might grant DF Darksee?), or at least the connection to the Seven Sacred Ancestors (which are some of the most excellent spells around for Gloranthan flavour), though I think they, and other ancestor cults, will mostly be in the KL writeup they can be approached as ancestors for sure (and are probably worshipped as part of troll ancestor cult ceremonies as much as KL ones). And maybe a special version of the Ancestral Summon spell for the Mistress Race, or maybe they just roll 1D10 rather than 1D100. But it's pretty much just Daka Fal with everyone being trolls (and assuming many will also be KL initiates). Note that unlike KL, Daka Fal has no additional requirements that keep troll kin out, so is potentially very significant in troll societies. He has a lot of attraction for trollkin, many of whom expect to experience death and the afterlife fairly soon, and any many of whom aren't particularly unhappy to see this life go. 

[metcalph]

IMO any ancestor cult of the Uz would look like (after the example ancestor cults list in Cor: the Lightbringers p84-p85)

Kyger Litor provides her initiates with Darksee (in addition to the Daka Fal Rune magics p83).

She is associated with:

• Boztakag, who provides Stones to Kill Chaos
• Hoboboboom, who provides Tambour
• Jakaboom, who provides Create Foe-Curser.
• Jeset, who provides Styx's Shore.
• Karrg, who provides Induce Uzdo
• Kogag, who provides Float
• Korasting, who provides Purification Ritual
• Subere, who provides Attack Soul
• Vaneekara, who provides Hurling
• Xiola Umbar, who provides Healing Trance
• Zorak Zoran, who provides Crush

I really don't see the need to create a hitherto unknown ancestor worship god considering that Kyger Litor's children are called the Seven Sacred Ancestors, of which one is a Shaman in her own right.  Likewise I do not believe that Surenslib or Votank acknowledge learning the secrets of ancestor worship from somebody else. The murkiness will offend the God Learners but that's not a problem for the trolls or other ancestor worshippers.

[radmonger]

33 minutes ago, metcalph said:

IMO any ancestor cult of the Uz would look like

Agreed; for an ancestor cult. If a troll clan can prove their descent from Vaneekara, their Kygor Litor temple has a shrine that teaches Hurling.

Ancestor worship is more general. After all, 99.9% of ancestors don't provide Rune Magic. It includes diffuse practices (sacrifice MP at a funeral so the spirit has a safe journey), shamanism (travel to the spirit world and find your dead relative), and probably some wizard stuff too. 

The cult of Daka Fal is in a unique place because, as he is the ancestor of all mortals, there is always someone alive descended from him. So you will always be able to find a Daka Fal shaman priest who can teach you the magic needed to find the right ancestor, rather more easily than spirit travelling that deep.

Daka Fal Initiate membership says Initiates must demonstrate a blood relationship with the accepting shaman, although it can be as distant as Grandfather Mortal himself. Which is a pretty strange statement when you think about it...

For a troll clan to actually need a human to find out who their ancestors are is a sad state of affairs. But, if you look at troll politics and Gloranthan history, it is a thing that is going to have happened.  In the extreme case, there could be trolls who have lost their connection to Kyger Litor, and so forgot they were trolls until Daka Fal reminded them.

Hence, at least within the Lightbringer cultural area, Daka Fal is an associated cult of Kygor Litor. As Cults of Prax says, In fact, the priestesses are urged to become priests of Daka Fal. They don't want to be reduced to that state again.

 

 

 

[metcalph]

I generally distinguish between statements about Daka Fal's worship in Prax and Daka Fal in the Monomyth.  One is worshipped by the Praxians and nearby peoples.  The other is a God Learner Construct.  Why did the God Learners give so much primacy to Daka Fal when they probably had somebody closer to home?  Because Daka Fal was the first clear example of an ancestor cult they observed in the world and that other ancestor cults could be seen as mixtures of it.  Because they are God Learners with their monomyth, they do not even consider the possibility that numerous peoples developed ancestor worship at various times and ages; for them, it has to be a single God or Mortal that goes around the Great Darkness teaching the scattered mortals how to distinguish the Living from the Dead.  That all other ancestor cults do not even recognize such a person is not their problem - they are Wrong and the Monomyth is Right.

My own speculation is that the teacher of Seshnegi Ancestor worship is one Malkion the Old.  Now due to several factors, both social and mythical, there is intense rivalry between the Wizards (whose traditions stem from Zzabur) and the Priests of Malkion (who was betrayed by Zzabur and murdered).   Discovering the cult of Daka Fal, the wizards see their chance to reduce the importance of Malkion the Old.  Instead of saying, that Malkion the Old taught the secrets of Acnestor Worship, they say instead that it was Daka Fal (nasty, foreign and worshipped by savages.  And Baboons).  Result, ancestor worship gets tarnished and the Wizards gain in prestige.  The Wizards could have decided otherwise when constructing the Monomyth but preserving the social status of hated spiritual rivals isn't an important task in anybody's book.

[radmonger]

2 hours ago, metcalph said:

Because they are God Learners with their monomyth, they do not even consider the possibility that numerous peoples developed ancestor worship at various times and ages; for them, it has to be a single God or Mortal that goes around the Great Darkness teaching the scattered mortals how to distinguish the Living from the Dead. 

To me, that seems exactly backwards. the God Learners were searching for immutable cosmic truths, and studied other cultures not for their own sake, but to get a different perspective to find out what those truths were. They were God Learners, not Cult Learners. One of the many ways in which they got confused was when they missed that there actually was cultural contact and exchange between the people they studied. So an apparent similarity might not be a cosmic truth, but have a common origin[1].

What does make a lot of sense that the decision to label the cosmic entity they felt they had revealed in this way with an untranslated foreign word is a result of rivalry between the Zzaburi and the Priests of Malkion. There were very likely now-forgotten figures who instead said 'lo, even the baboons of the wasteland know something of the truth of Malkion'.

 

[1] Just as is true in the real world for most Proto-Indo-European gods. 

[davecake]

21 hours ago, metcalph said:

I really don't see the need to create a hitherto unknown ancestor worship god

I am surprised that you were previously unaware of the existence of Daka Fal. 

OK, that is a bit mean of me, but you were being disingenuous. The previously unknown part exists only as sleight of hand - first you theorise the existence of a separate deity as necessary, ignoring the canon position that the identity of some deities is generally accepted and recognised (no God Learnerism necessarily, just pragmatic observation as seen in many actual bronze age religious practices of polytheist pantheons), then you claim it was hitherto unknown, because you imagined it in to being yourself seconds ago. It is not even a decent straw man argument worthy of the name - a few wisps of straw vaguely cast into a man shape but lacking limbs. 

Obviously what is going on here is not me creating a new deity (I am mostly suggesting that we could add a sentence to his writeup that says something like 'among the trolls he is referred to as the Old Man'), but rather you maintaining firmly that the situation described in every one of the many previous Kygor Litor write-ups is completely wrong, because you've had a thought bubble that says we need to remove one of the oldest gods ever mentioned from the description and merge his abilities into Kygor Litor. Trolls are specifically noted as worshipping Daka Fal in Cults of Prax in the Daka Fal and Kygor Litor cult write-ups - this is opposite of new and hitherto unknown, this something well known since 1978 and restated regularly for every edition of the game. Pretending that it is not is silly. 

But as you seem desperately opposed to accepting the cult as described in all the canon sources and RAW for some reason, YGWV, and disagreement can be left at that. You have agreed to disagree with canon/RAW/every KL cult writeup past, present, and almost certainly foreseeable future, and you can if you want. 

I still think the details are useful for general discussion in everyone elses Glorantha. 

FWIW the two cults are clearly interwoven - every member of Kygor Litor is able to participate in ancestor worship ceremonies as an initiate of an associate cult, and able to Summon Ancestors. For most of them, there is little reason to do more - you can worship famous ancestors through their Hero Cult without joining Daka Fal specifically, you can attend the Ancestor ceremonies and chat to your ancestors in the Axis Mundi without specifically joining, and there is a good chance the local Daka Fal shaman is your local Kygor Litor shaman priestess anyway. Initiating to Daka Fal is pretty much just choosing to make the effort to be more committed to understanding the ancestor cult mysteries, and being accepted by the relevant shaman.

As I said earlier, the most pertinent point of separation between the two cults for average trolls is that it is easier to join Daka Fal than Kygor Litor, and so it is accessible to trollkin (and I guess tusk riders, who are also considered half-trolls, but who also don't seem to be part of troll society often, and if they worship Daka Fal at all probably do it in a more normal human way, not sharing troll lineages within living memory). And this may not be a big point of separation, and being accepted by the local shaman is obviously up to the shaman - many KL shaman-priestesses might say no to allowing those who aren't KL initiates to initiate as ancestor worship initiates either, and they will have to find a different shaman if they wish to proceed, which may have its difficulties for a trollkin who is likely a slave. But trollkin are a majority of most troll populations, and a minority of trollkin are KL initiates, so Daka Fal would be a very significant cult if they are allowed to join it (though it would still be firmly controlled by dark trolls, as a vanishingly small number of trollkin are likely to become initiates). 

For those who are already shamans (of Kygor Litor or otherwise), RAW say you must meet the requirement to learn Spirit Speech at 90%, which would be a reason why not all troll Kygor Litor shamans are Daka Fal shamans, but as all troll ancestors can be assumed to know Darktongue this is probably replaced with a requirement to Speak Darktongue at 90% (which would still not be satisfied by all Kygor Litor shaman-priestesses). And the only other requirement is to ceremonially cast Axis Mundi alone at Sacred Time, and defeat an ancestor to prove ones worthiness - presumably a fairly trivial task to someone who is already a shaman. 

22 hours ago, metcalph said:

considering that Kyger Litor's children are called the Seven Sacred Ancestors, of which one is a Shaman in her own right

The Praxians worship Daka Fal for shamanic communication with the ancestors, but also have a deity that is a shaman in their own right (Horned Man). This is well within normal ancestor worship. The deity who is the ancestral being, the deity who teaches the first shamans, and the deity who is the bridge between the dead and the living may be different deities - and all acknowledged within the same cultural tradition, which can range from a near universal through to minority active tradition within the cultures mythology. Though functions similarly, as all ancestor worship traditions follow a very similar pattern - as evidenced by it having multiple ancestor worship traditions across Glorantha that are acknowledged as Owning the Man rune, and also having the Spirit rune.

The cultural attitude to ancestor worship can vary, with some centralising it , some dignifying it in various ways even it makes it less universal (the Seshnelans care a lot about noble ancestors) or joining it to a cultural founding tradition (BisElenslib or SurenSlib), some taming it in various ways. The early Orlanthi seem to have turned ancestor worship into being centred around tribal founders who are also members of divine dynasties and so intertwined with the Orlanth pantheon, the later Orlanthi seem to have eliminated this as an active practice as part of the Rex cult changes, and now regard direct ancestor worship as an outsider practice, ancestors reduced to the status of Orlanth cult spirits (details of this in the Adventure book

Spoiler

in the Dragon of Thunder Hills which details one such ancestor cult

and in Kralorela ancestor worship of Ebe the Wild Man is rejected in its original form by the Kralorelans as something only the (pitiful and primitive) original hsunchen related people do, that should be subsumed into instead acknowledging his son Aptanace the Sage the ancestor of all civilised people (you can practically hear the condescending sneering at those who ancestors merely gave birth to them without also bequeathing them a tradition of civilisation and a trade). 

21 hours ago, metcalph said:

The murkiness will offend the God Learners

The person who is offended seems to be you? There is absolutely no murkiness if you simply read the KL cult description and accept it as correct, and don't create an entirely different, hitherto unknown, version of the most written up (ok, only in simple number of official publications, but still) cult in RQ history. 

22 hours ago, metcalph said:

Likewise I do not believe that Surenslib or Votank acknowledge learning the secrets of ancestor worship from somebody else.

For Surenslib we actually know she does acknowledge someone else as granting the secrets of ancestor worship. SurenSlib is part of the Darjiin cultural pantheon. Suvar is the first shaman in that culture. It is Verondum the son of Suvar who teaches how to worship SurenSlib - while SurenSlib is the ancestral goddess, not Verondum, who teaches worship of SurenSlib and the Revered Ancestors. I'm not sure why you don't believe that - once again YGWV.

And I'm not particularly concerned that the whole paragraph or two we have about Votanki pre-Balazar mythology does not mention the founding of the tradition, absence of any mention of that particular detail is not evidence of anything given we have just a couple of paragraphs, but even with that limited info it seems quite unlikely that Votank is the teacher of ancestor worship (the sentence "Votank confers no special power or honor but, instead, is an eponymous ancestor who defines the community and social order." would seem to directly contradict the idea). It seems more likely that Votanki shamanism originates with shamanic worship of Foundchild (who, as Votanks father, obviously precedes him) and Hearth Woman (which I think is now considered an animist tradition). It seems likely that the Votank tradition does not even identify Votank as the first Mortal, but simply the ancestor of all the people in that area who follow that social structure (such as revering Hunter above other mens gods, always acknowledging Brother Dog, etc). Note that the pre-eminent shaman of Balazar, does not even seem to be an ancestor worshipper, but instead reveres Hunter and Brother Dog. The first shaman is probably connected to Horned Man, the first ancestor worship shaman may be identified as a particular ancestor, or Grandfather Mortal - the first Votanki Ancestor worshipper may be a son or daughter of Votank. 

[metcalph]

26 minutes ago, davecake said:

I am surprised that you were previously unaware of the existence of Daka Fal. 

OK, that is a bit mean of me,

Then you should have done everybody a favour and deleted the comment.

[davecake]

21 hours ago, metcalph said:

I generally distinguish between statements about Daka Fal's worship in Prax and Daka Fal in the Monomyth.  One is worshipped by the Praxians and nearby peoples.  The other is a God Learner Construct. 

I don't think anyone is disputing that. But it important to understand that the God Learners are mostly right. Magically, it works. There is a deeper structure to the magical world where the abstract identity of Grandfather Mortal appears in mythology pretty much everywhere, and magically provides access to certain powers related to the mysteries of the mortal experience of Birth, Life and Reproduction, and Death. And so to some extent cultures can notice connections and identities between mostly the same, but mildly dissimilar, cults from other cultures, and did for roughly half of the history since the Dawn before the God Learners came along. And there are interesting ways in which parts of the MonoMyth theory are objectively observable to be true - the way widely separated Hsunchen people who maintain the basic lifestyle and practices do not experience linguistic drift and so on - and that means a position of pure cultural relativism is a purely constructed thing. I think Ancestor Worship, like Trickster and the various Hsunchen, one of those things were the MonoMyth bones are close enough to the surface to be observable and acknowledged long before the God Learners came along to make a big theory around it. 

Why did they settle on the name Daka Fal (who, at the time, was probably a more respected figure in Orlanthi religious practice) rather than directly associating it with Malkion? 

19 hours ago, radmonger said:

What does make a lot of sense that the decision to label the cosmic entity they felt they had revealed in this way with an untranslated foreign word is a result of rivalry between the Zzaburi and the Priests of Malkion. There were very likely now-forgotten figures who instead said 'lo, even the baboons of the wasteland know something of the truth of Malkion'.

LOL. That answer is funny enough I am sure it is (at least partially) true. It is also true that when they are trying terribly to rebuild Malkionism into entering around an intellectual world view (Makanism) and rejecting all that old Zzabur era stuff about the primacy of the physical world, and so working very hard to make Malkionism to be about Malkion the Old who rejected the physical as less important than the spiritual, not Malkioni the Founder who was the great ancestor of literally everyone they thought worthwhile, and so inextricably linked with physical existence. Better to not mention it and hope people stopped making awkward deductions about Ancestor Worship. Which somehow (ok, due to Talars intermarrying with other divine genealogies while the Zzaburi remained celibate) always seemed to weaken the power of Zzaburi. But the Zzaburi are the ones who talk about it, so first get snobby about it, later reject its practice as much as you can. 

22 hours ago, metcalph said:

Because they are God Learners with their monomyth, they do not even consider the possibility that numerous peoples developed ancestor worship at various times and ages;

The God Learners probably got a bit more sophisticated, as (mostly) Hadmalists they acknowledge that you had to interpret things on multiple levels, but of course usually everyone elses creation stories only needed to be understood allegorically of course, while their stories must be considered as having some literally true elements. 

 

22 hours ago, metcalph said:

My own speculation is that the teacher of Seshnegi Ancestor worship is one Malkion the Old.

Yes. But is effectively supported by everyone except the (celibate) Zzaburi, who have a lot of reasons to dislike it as a religious practice even as they acknowledge it is reflective of a mythic truth. Divine ancestry is truth, but getting magic that way is a subtle Error (of the kind that people are making frequently at the end of the Darkness era). 

 

22 hours ago, metcalph said:

Now due to several factors, both social and mythical, there is intense rivalry between the Wizards (whose traditions stem from Zzabur) and the Priests of Malkion (who was betrayed by Zzabur and murdered). 

Yes, though of course it is centuries between Malkion The Old bringing Ancestor Worship with him, with an awful lot in between (Hrestolism, etc). Ancestor Worship is quite respectable in the early dawn age, works Even Better once the Talars start intermarrying with divine lineages, and it comes to a head around the founding of Makanism and the writing of the Abiding Book, the rejection of Arkati henotheism, and the split with the Waertagi. As you say, identifying Daka Fal as the central figure of Ancestor Worship is far more convenient at that point.

But that doesn't really change that long prior to that point, various ancestor worshipping traditions had recognised their essential similarity (it doesn't take a God Learner PhD in Applied Theological Relativism to recognise that the basic subject, practices, and magic are pretty much the same), and that includes the trolls and Orlanthi recognising that their big ancestor worship traditions are very similar, and the figure that the trolls recognise as the First Man that KL makes with is looking like the same as the First Mortal figure of the Orlanthi. This probably happens around the First Council era, centuries before the God Learners and without their involvement. The whole thing about rejecting Malkion as a central figure of Ancestor Worship explains mostly why the God Learners just go along with what central Genertelan people already understand, and don't try to make it all about them as they often do. 

[davecake]

29 minutes ago, metcalph said:

Then you should have done everybody a favour and deleted the comment.

And you could, equally, have not made an obvious straw man version of my argument, and then demanded I don't do anything so unfair as to point out you had done so. But we are neither of us people of perfectly tolerant natures. 

[Scotty]

Stop it now.