The Praxian Tradition

[Mark Mohrfield]

Of course Appendix C can't tell us about cults that aren't in Cults of Prax, other than placing them under the "other" category. Which leads to my quetion: what percentage of the Pol-Joni follow Elmal?

[David Scott]

9 minutes ago, Mark Mohrfield said:

Of course Appendix C can't tell us about cults that aren't in Cults of Prax, other than placing them under the "other" category. Which leads to my quetion: what percentage of the Pol-Joni follow Elmal?

Given that there are about 42 Yelmalions in the Tribe, I’d say none or as many as you like. Given that Yelmalio in the Wastes was effectively formed from a splinter of the sky gazer spirit society who knew him as Sun Daughter. When the Sun Domers arrived  it was a only a short step to realise they were the same. Polestar is the dominant spirit of that society and so I don’t think between Him and the knowledge of Sun daughter there is any storm equivalent. It does however make me wonder if the Orlanthi identify Ourania (IIRC) with Elmal. 

[jeffjerwin]

11 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Given that there are about 42 Yelmalions in the Tribe, I’d say none or as many as you like. Given that Yelmalio in the Wastes was effectively formed from a splinter of the sky gazer spirit society who knew him as Sun Daughter. When the Sun Domers arrived  it was a only a short step to realise they were the same. Polestar is the dominant spirit of that society and so I don’t think between Him and the knowledge of Sun daughter there is any storm equivalent. It does however make me wonder if the Orlanthi identify Ourania (IIRC) with Elmal. 

I thought Ourania was associated with Yelorna...? 

[Mark Mohrfield]

51 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Given that there are about 42 Yelmalions in the Tribe, I’d say none or as many as you like. Given that Yelmalio in the Wastes was effectively formed from a splinter of the sky gazer spirit society who knew him as Sun Daughter. When the Sun Domers arrived  it was a only a short step to realise they were the same. Polestar is the dominant spirit of that society and so I don’t think between Him and the knowledge of Sun daughter there is any storm equivalent. It does however make me wonder if the Orlanthi identify Ourania (IIRC) with Elmal. 

Your statement has me completely confused, as Appendix C states that 6% of the Pol Joni follow Yelmalio. Doesn't that come out to 300 total? And wouldn't the original Pol Joni simply have brought the cult of the Orlanthi horse god with them from Sartar?

[jeffjerwin]

43 minutes ago, Mark Mohrfield said:

And wouldn't the original Pol Joni simply have brought the cult of the Orlanthi horse god with them from Sartar?

I agree, this seems likely. In fact, Elmal would still serve a very useful purpose for the Pol Joni, as they are a mounted not an infantry force...

[David Scott]

9 hours ago, Mark Mohrfield said:

Your statement has me completely confused, as Appendix C states that 6% of the Pol Joni follow Yelmalio. Doesn't that come out to 300 total?

I'm using the figures from my Praxian cults spreadsheet. When I started working on Prax I needed to know the cults and spirit societies that made up their culture. Appendix C was very incomplete but was an excellent starting point. There are a couple of other assumptions you need to be aware of as well. Firstly when working with population numbers we assume that 50% are children, 25% are Men and 25% are women (unless like the Newtlings they are all one gender). So just using that on the 10K PJ, we get 2500 men and using the 6% number from CoP we get 150. I also needed to work out how individuals chose their cults, so for HQG I worked out the "Rune spread" for each tribe. This is the percentage of individuals with a particular dominant rune. We already know some of the dominants so this filled in the missing parts. An individual is likely to choose a cult with their dominant rune in it. Here's the High Llamas, Bison and Pol-Joni for comparison (all %):

Element Rune Spread
	High Llama		Bison		Pol Joni
The Empty	1		1		50
	M	F	M	F	M	F
Storm	10	2	94	2	75	5
Earth	2	10	2	94	5	75
Fire	1	1	1	1	5	5
Darkness	1	1	1	1	5	5
Water	85	85	1	1	5	5
Moon	1	1	1	1	5	5
check row %	100	100	100	100	100	100

Next is how many in each cult. The Pol-joni do have Yelmalions is their tribe, but it's not the only option for those with the fire rune. Along with Yelmalio there is the Sky Gazers spirit society (led by Pole Star) and the Burners society (led by Oakfed). The 5% with the fire rune is split between those 3 giving 5/3/100*2500 men = about 42.

This is about giving rough figures to give a feel of the tribes. You don't have to use them, but I've found it very useful when writing about them. Feel free to adjust/ignore/make your own numbers up.

As a side comment, I suggested taking any Elmali out of the Yemalio total as they are effectively the same god (!) however splitting them evenly would give 5/4/100*2500 men = about 31 each in each of the 4 cults available which actually looks good as well and fits in with the Empty %.

Apologies for bringing maths into this :-)

 

[David Scott]

10 hours ago, Mark Mohrfield said:

And wouldn't the original Pol Joni simply have brought the cult of the Orlanthi horse god with them from Sartar?

Yes, but I think it's about numbers and mythic origin. Perhaps there were more of one or the other at different times - More nomad recruits - Yelmalio dominates, More Orlanthi - Elmal dominates.

9 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

I agree, this seems likely. In fact, Elmal would still serve a very useful purpose for the Pol Joni, as they are a mounted not an infantry force...

Amongst the Praxians, Yelmalio is mounted. There are 14.5K Yelmalio nomads, in a nomad riding culture it can only be so. 

[David Scott]

11 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

I thought Ourania was associated with Yelorna...? 

You are correct, I didn't remember correctly (I've heavy cold and am not quite with it). I covered it here:

So It does make me wonder if the Orlanthi identify Lightfore with Elmal. 

[jeffjerwin]

3 hours ago, David Scott said:

So It does make me wonder if the Orlanthi identify Lightfore with Elmal. 

Well, Elmal is the fire that stayed burning above/on Kero Fin throughout the Darkness (which is already a bit different from the various Lightfores). He's identified with Antirius (and also called Anatyr in the old HW books): in The Fortunate Succession p.14, "Orlanatus bore Antirius as a Weapon, and bore Justice into heaven so that Lightfore overcame Vettebbe." So it's better to say he is one third of Lightfore from a Pelorian perspective.

However in the Sartar Companion, p.40: "Venebain is identified with the planet Lightfore." So the Orlanthi disagree. Elmal is presumably the Sun, not Lightfore, in their star maps. After all the Elmal versus Yelmalio debate was resolved by the "Many Suns" - not the "Many Stars" - vision.

[Tindalos]

According to the guide, the Orlanthi know lightfore is Yelmalio, while Elmal is the sun. Of course they're likely interchangeable on that front depending on who's in power.

[soltakss]

20 hours ago, David Scott said:

Given that Yelmalio in the Wastes was effectively formed from a splinter of the sky gazer spirit society who knew him as Sun Daughter.

Sun Daughter? Is that why Light Sons are forbidden to disguise themselves as women?

[David Scott]

4 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Sun Daughter? Is that why Light Sons are forbidden to disguise themselves as women?

It all makes sense now doesn't it.

[Mark Mohrfield]

On 3/3/2018 at 5:36 AM, David Scott said:

There are a couple of other assumptions you need to be aware of as well. Firstly when working with population numbers we assume that 50% are children, 25% are Men and 25% are women (unless like the Newtlings they are all one gender). So just using that on the 10K PJ, we get 2500 men and using the 6% number from CoP we get 150.

There's where I started to go wrong; I assumed that the percentage would refer to the tribe as a whole, as the percentage for Storm Bull cultists above did.

Quote

The Pol-joni do have Yelmalions is their tribe, but it's not the only option for those with the fire rune. Along with Yelmalio there is the Sky Gazers spirit society (led by Pole Star) and the Burners society (led by Oakfed). The 5% with the fire rune is split between those 3 giving 5/3/100*2500 men = about 42.

This is about giving rough figures to give a feel of the tribes. You don't have to use them, but I've found it very useful when writing about them. Feel free to adjust/ignore/make your own numbers up.

As a side comment, I suggested taking any Elmali out of the Yemalio total as they are effectively the same god (!) however splitting them evenly would give 5/4/100*2500 men = about 31 each in each of the 4 cults available which actually looks good as well and fits in with the Empty %

Yeah, that's too few worshipers of the Orlanthi horse god among Orlanthi horse riders for my taste, so my Glorantha will vary on that. I'll increase the percentage of those with the Fire rune at the expense of the other elemental runes on the theory that those with it would be drawn to a horse-riding tribe more than those without it. Let's see, reduce the Storm rune to 70%, and the other four by half to 2.5% for a total of 20% with the Fire Rune, for a total of 500. Of those, make 40% Elmal worshipers, 30% Yelmalio worshipers and  divide 30% among the other cults. That gives 200 Elmal worshipers, plus a few female worshipers. That should work for my purposes while still not altering them too far from the official version.

Edited March 5, 2018 by Mark Mohrfield
Corrected my earlier bad math

[David Scott]

On 04/03/2018 at 12:13 AM, Mark Mohrfield said:

That should work for my purposes while still not altering them too far from the official version.

This a great example of how I envisage the final info being used.

[David Scott]

Here is an update to 1627 and RQG and the Gods of Glorantha book that's in preparation. It's a first pass and is missing the membership numbers:

[g33k]

On 9/13/2019 at 11:57 AM, David Scott said:

Here is an update to 1627 and RQG and the Gods of Glorantha book that's in preparation. It's a first pass and is missing the membership numbers:

Thanks for this!

Some questions...

Is there any meaning to the red-dashed underlines I see?  Ronance & Mahome under Eiritha's "Associated Cults;" Jakaleel; Chalana (but not "Arroy"); Lhankor Mhy (including his runes); Orlanth-Adv&Vinga's Runes (but not them), etc...  Given the irregularity, I am presuming this is some sort of accident or leftover, not conveying unified information.  But maybe I presume wrong...?

Elsethread, Shamanism in Prax has been brought up.  I see here "has shamans" and "can be shamans" in different Cults.  Is this a meaningful distinction, or a rough-draft artifact?

Again... TYVM!

[jajagappa]

18 minutes ago, g33k said:

Is there any meaning to the red-dashed underlines I see?

Spellcheck in action!

 

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, g33k said:

I see here "has shamans" and "can be shamans" in different Cults.  Is this a meaningful distinction, or a rough-draft artifact?

Yes, that is meaningful.  "Has shamans" indicates that it is one of the levels an initiate can explicitly advance to in the cult. "Can be shamans" means that the initiate is not precluded from becoming one, but it is not a level to advance to within the cult.

[Qizilbashwoman]

15 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Yes, that is meaningful.  "Has shamans" indicates that it is one of the levels an initiate can explicitly advance to in the cult. "Can be shamans" means that the initiate is not precluded from becoming one, but it is not a level to advance to within the cult.

@jajagappa "can be shamans" for example in re Eiritha, here means "a shaman of Eiritha", right? as opposed to "can be a shaman called by a spirit while also an Eirithan initiate"? Sorry if dumb, just slightly confused hooman.

It means as an Eirithan, without any other external input, you can pursue shamanism, not that She respects you got a shamanic side on you

Sort of relatedly, can you be a shaman without a god? Just... a shaman. Only spirits. Throw some MP at Eiritha on her holy days like the rest of the rubes but not an initiate to any divinity?

On 3/2/2018 at 6:24 PM, David Scott said:

if the Orlanthi identify Ourania (IIRC) with Elmal.

what Orlanthi has ever heard of Ourania? If they had, Gamara is more obvious a choice: a female sun, even if she's a pony and down with the weirdos in Ralios. (I sort of wonder if your average Darjiini has. They know Yelorna...)

Edited September 14, 2019 by Qizilbashwoman

[g33k]

23 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Yes, that is meaningful.  "Has shamans" indicates that it is one of the levels an initiate can explicitly advance to in the cult. "Can be shamans" means that the initiate is not precluded from becoming one, but it is not a level to advance to within the cult.

That was my first thought; but some of those entries (e.g. all of the Hidden Paths and the Many Friends "can be shamans" -- I'd have expected many of those to be mostly/entirely shamanic traditions).

[Qizilbashwoman]

21 minutes ago, g33k said:

That was my first thought; but some of those entries (e.g. all of the Hidden Paths and the Many Friends "can be shamans" -- I'd have expected many of those to be mostly/entirely shamanic traditions).

oh but those are spirit societies; not everyone belonging to them are gonna be shamans, i.e. have a fetch and go to the godtime.

I'm very interested in the Oasis Peoples.

Edited September 14, 2019 by Qizilbashwoman

[jajagappa]

2 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

"can be shamans" for example in re Eiritha, here means "a shaman of Eiritha", right? 

It means Eiritha has initiates, god-talkers, and priestesses. There are no "shamans of Eiritha".  However, she does not preclude her initiates, god-talkers, or priestesses from becoming shamans, but that path is not part of her cult - the individual will have to find a shaman who agrees to take them on and train them.

2 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

can you be a shaman without a god? Just... a shaman. Only spirits.

Yes.

2 hours ago, g33k said:

I'd have expected many of those to be mostly/entirely shamanic traditions

I believe they are, but likely there are people who are part of the tradition, but not training to become shamans - probably guard or support the shaman.  However, I'll defer to @David Scott on that point.

[davecake]

RQG is a bit unclear (and I suspect very intentionally) on the difference between a Great Spirit and a god, and there is significant overlap between deities that grant magic via shamans and that grant magic through priests or rune lords - Waha, Daka Fal, Yu-Kargzant/Yelm.

And then there are cults that seem to be essentially theistic in the way they operate, but that allow members to be shamans. There are a few shades of grey here too. Storm Bull for example, is not shamanic, but is partly animist, their spirits are an important cult power. Waha khans aren’t shamans, but still have spirit summoning powers. 

But Eiritha doesn’t appear to have really integrated animism into their cult practices much at all, which is surprising - this diagram suggests that happens via Helpwoman, which I don’t know much about. 

Edited September 15, 2019 by davecake

[davecake]

I’m a little surprised the Twin Stars are in the ‘has shamans’ category. It would make them the only shamanic cult in the Praxian culture that is largely restricted to a single tribe, and out side of the classic cults of Prax nomad gods, so quite a notable change to Praxian culture. 

[davecake]

4 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Sort of relatedly, can you be a shaman without a god? Just... a shaman. Only spirits.

That’s the Horned God tradition. Less bonuses, but less restriction, than other shamanic traditions.