Those Red Planet deities

[Joerg]

Just now, scott-martin said:

On 11/24/2018 at 4:50 PM, Joerg said:

when and how did Nakala acquire the power over tides?

If she's the Dame Darkness originally venerated at Hrelar Amali then this may be a later syncretism, a pregnant idea in itself . . . "adopting" the twins into the pantheon establishes a bond with the lopers among others.

I am a bit irritated simply because the Annilla myth is the one (and only) to explain the weird lifting and dropping of the seas on the Gloranthan shores, never mind tidal waves. There is no daily rhythm that would support a Xentha involvement, and to my knowledge there hasn't been any motion for Nakala other than the statement "I Am".

Giving birth to Zaramaka's waters through Styx and the basement of the Spike doesn't really warrant any tidal control.

The tidal powers are clearly assigned to her daughter, who led or accompanied the rise of the waters into the Sky, and the sudden drop from those heights is in the Blue Moon myths. The drop into Magasta's Pool however is an anachronism which just doesn't fit into the past, as the Blue Moon fell onto the surface when the Spike was still intact. The transition from losing much of her body to going through the cycle of rising up on the River, then following her partner Lorion/Engizi but dropping down directly into Magasta's Pool, drawing in the Seas that had crept up on the lands, taking power from the formerly dry places to combat the Void. Somehow Annilla kept her pack with Lorion or had one with Magasta.

So, the Moon may have been as instrumental in closing the Chaos Rift left behind by the Implosion of the Spike as the Rivers. But then the Pelorian Lunar cycle had long progressed past the Blue phase and even past the first of its black phases, which makes me wonder how much the tidal effect would be within the portfolio of Rufelza and even Sedenya any more.

[scott-martin]

15 minutes ago, Joerg said:

There is no daily rhythm that would support a Xentha involvement, and to my knowledge there hasn't been any motion for Nakala other than the statement "I Am".

For me it's a little simpler for once. To the extent to which Annilla's mother is Nakala and not some other Dame Darkness, the tidal relationship had to be introduced.

Nakala was the expression of Dark Mother that emerged in landlocked Ralios where tidal forces were completely esoteric if not unknown. Even if they emerged early enough to see an intact Blue Moon move across the sky, they'd have no empirical way to connect her power to oscillating water levels, and even if they contacted her in those days her power wouldn't have been communicated in a way that boat peoples understand.

And since Annilla and Tolat travel together at this layer, when she comes to the Dangan culture her brother comes too. This doesn't prohibit their original mother from being some other Dark Mother like Xentha along the southern coast, Subere wherever she was originally contacted by that name, a female "Dehore" in the western quadrant, an eastern figure lost to us now. ("Naga?")

If I were a magician in a Dark Empire I would take steps to revamp the Ralian elemental pantheon to favor the Dark and hobble the sky forces that collaborated with Nysalor. And as my knowledge expanded, I'd work in the exotic insights of far-flung lands to create a more inclusive system. A proto-monomyth might well have been one of the secrets the Seshnegites wrestled from the wreckage. But before that happened we would've seen the far east, met surviving Blue Moon people, taken their gods home as useful additions to our burgeoning theogony.

I'm fascinated by the footnote that a shrine to "Magasta" was built within the Hrelar Amali complex within historical times. What god was that, exactly? There's no trace of a Sramak there previously. Is he the same god who marries Ernalda sometimes in Esrolia?

(An early draft of Orlanth and Yelm has them fighting over a goddess who's already happily married to a water god.)

And "Magasta" has that strange son, half darkness demon, whose exoteric attribute is a weird lifting and dropping of surface tension. Father of monsters. Even the Only Old One raised a fleet once.

[jajagappa]

6 hours ago, scott-martin said:

(An early draft of Orlanth and Yelm has them fighting over a goddess who's already happily married to a water god.)

That's a very interesting tidbit!