Those Red Planet deities

[David Scott]

12 hours ago, Joerg said:

I am still curious how Shargash get's associated with bronze

It's just a colour interpretation. The planet in Prax is bronze coloured.

[Joerg]

7 hours ago, metcalph said:

It is repeated a few times in the Guide "the God of Love and War" p427, "A God of War and Sex" p437, "A God of Love and War" p439.  It's what the Amazons see him as as opposed to being him as a god of the Underworld.

Tolat as a god of love and war - no disagreement. A mix of Uleria and Humakt - vastly misleading.

Still, the Amazons have no doubt that they worship the same deity the Zaranistangi of Melib and formerly Teshnos worship. They venerate the same red sword.

While we have little evidence of Shargash as a lover, we know that he has his fertile aspects, and the Orlanthi tell lots of myths where various sons of Shargash struggled with Orlanth or some of the Thunder Brothers. (Big difference to Humakt, who has - maybe - one offspring - Arkat.)

The Amazons worship him as a better choice than mortal men. Given their claimed ancestry as granddaughters of the sun or daughters of stars, I find it quite unsurprising that they found mortal men wanting.

 

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As I pointed out on Google+ (but the format of the comments necessitating terseness make it difficult to communicate such matters), just because the gods are associated with the same planet does not mean they share the same attributes.  A key case in point is the small blue planet which is viewed as Mastakos by the Orlanthi and Uleria by the Pelorians.  

The guide consequently refers to the 8-hours-planet as Mastakos, though it mentions the Dara Happan idea of Uleria.

Mastakos is a lot of things, but he is not Uleria. He is a significant portion or heir of Larnste, the only other member of the Celestial Court known not to have been destroyed, so maybe the planet is basically the celestial refuge of the Powers of the Celestial Court. But then Mastakos has an ancestry in the Sea Tribe, and was abducted and adopted by Orlanth during his expedition to the Baths of Nelat. He may have been part of the waters host led into the sky by Lorion, like Heler. This may explain his alliance with the descendants of Lorion and Annilla/Veldara/..., the successful leaders of that invasion.

Emilla, the planetary deity of the city of Istval - the center of the Blueskin cults on Melib - is described as a female incarnation of Mastakos rather than Uleria. Ancestress, so there is a certain fertility aspect, but as important as the source of their (beasts') teleportation magics.

We find Annilla as the Melib goddess of rice, too - an unexpected fertility aspect of this Underworld and sky goddess.

 

While discussing the Zaranistangi traces in Genertela, I wonder how the period of 16 days for human sacrifice in Imperial Age Slontos maps to any celestial period of their deities, least of all to the Blue Streak (which averages at 4 periods in a fortnight).

 

My point about the Red Planet gods is that Tolat - the war god of the Zaranistangi and Artmali, original bearer of the red sword, attested by various peoples who were conquered - shares lots of attributes with Shargash beyond occupying the Red Planet, like being sibling to the moon. Attributes he doesn't share with Balumbasta, but with what little is known about Vorthan, too. Jagrekriand likely is little more than the Orlanthi name for Shargash since the Bright Empire mapped their myths upon one another.

The Marazi weren't conquered by traditional means of war, and basically are a nation of diluted demigoddess daughters of Tolat. And granddaughters,  great-grand-daughters, ...

 

 

[Joerg]

10 hours ago, scott-martin said:

When the proto-Brithini went roving, they apparently met the red god first as Tolat[h]. You know, it's funny but with so many Blue Peoples to choose from I never thought of Artmalites marrying into the West, but there's a reference to Cathora as "the daughter of the king of the Fralari nation," which may well be some slight garble of Froalar and his line. It would definitely explain how people like Xeotam learned what little they know about this mythos and why Tolat[h] is acknowledged (as judge of the underworld) in that weird Hrestolite story.

 Fralari sounds to me like a clear reference to Fralar, child of Hykim, ancestor of the carnivorous beasts like Yinkin, Basmol, Hsa, Rathor and Telmor. The Fralari nation might be a veiled pointer to a Basmoli (and ultimately Likiti) origin.

10 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Jagekriand seems to be a native Orlanthite name for the planet, which is a god they don't like. I like the "Jaga" root pointing toward Saird, especially since Jajagappa loves dogs (bad dogs figure often in Heortling grudges) and rules a hell. Would not be terribly surprised if similar cults persist in Henjarl to this day.

I guess that the name translate as something negative but translatable, like "chainer", or "wheel smasher".

10 hours ago, scott-martin said:

"Hamstringing" and crippling imagery comes up a lot with Southpath entities -- Mastakos obviously, the broken family of Artmal, a fleeting First Age reference to "Orlanth's family" taking down Shargash [sic] by hamstringing him from behind -- so I want to look for an Elmal (I'd almost say "Emil" but that's another labyrinth) or other wounded little sun there also. 

To date, there are three Southpath wanderers If you count the twinstars as one wanderer with two bodies: Tolat, Artia and the Twinstars. All are some shade of red (the Twinstars possibly only by association with the Red Moon).

Both Tolat and Artia are among the four rebels made responsible for the demise of Yelm in Jar-eel's version of the event, in Prince of Sartar. Artia has been called a small moon at times, too.

10 hours ago, scott-martin said:

On the other hand an extensive list of defeated enemies of Shargash studiously does not mention any time when he beat the bat or the blue moon. Maybe they're his sisters too.

Most telling is the absence of his role in the rebellion that overthrew Murharzarm. Alkoth did take part in the Jannisor rebellion, and held out a 10 year siege before bowing to the Red Emperor again.

10 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Another strange thread running through a lot of these gods is their affinity for the cosmological scale of "giants." Isn't there a reference somewhere to Jagekriand as a rogue planet, or did I dream that?

That could be the phonetically similar Juggernaut. Probably a different entity.

 

Deities and even mortal heroes taking on giant scale appears to be quite common. See e.g. Morden Defends the Camp and his encounter with the Strong Man.

[scott-martin]

26 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Fralar, child of Hykim

That's awesome! Let's bracket the implications to avoid obscuring your central points here, but this is a lot cleaner and more useful. Not least because as it happens I woke up obsessed with mysteries of the Telmorites -- the text in question refers to the Genertelan Blues  as "the Wandering Tribes of the Northern Continent" -- and to me at least the lunar wolfman cycle could benefit from stronger astronomical contacts if not any relationship stronger than bride theft. There's also Basmol as yet another crippled god to factor into the complex. 

I wonder where the Bright Empire seven-day week comes from. Separately, one of the few things we know about Unvoreth is that his 28-day cycle is important, 14 days in "active" mode (purify/sky) and the next 14 days in "passive" prayer and magic. The "traditional" Kralori calendar cuts across this cycle so the red planet isn't the primary time keeper there, at least from an official exoteric imperial point of view. There are, however, exactly 7 16-day sacrificial periods in the Artia cycle, so maybe in the loper people's desperation they turned to the Bat.

As we get old and the East gets slowly less enigmatic I wonder if the Tolat culture of Melib sent emissaries to the God Project as well, only their identities were relatively obscure (to us fans at the time) or special care was taken (by the victors) to obscure their participation in particular. In this scenario Tolat would come up into the Bright Empire, recover vestigial relationships with the dread lord of Alkoth and estranged Hykimite cousins, then recede from the mainland as the loper people fight their long guerrilla retreat. 

In any event the "Shargash" form doesn't seem to have had much influence outside the green walls of Alkoth unless the jungle is full of recognizable "enclosures" that nobody's talking about. I'm not even convinced it's easy for his people to migrate across Dara Happa without serious ritual support. "Tolat," on the other hand, is known in widely separated areas.

Did I dream Tolat as a parti-colored god, half red and half blue, or am I thinking of the cover of Revealed Mythologies? Either way, I wonder if the intense color cults of the far East have astronomical origins.

And I wonder where Shargash's green comes from. Like Tolat, he can be a mighty fertility figure when motivated.

Back to Jaja and "hamstringing," somebody caught the Dawn Age sun in a black "net," so who knows what secret powers great Jannisor had at his command . . . before southpath entities killed him, of course. And as it turns out, one of the beast peoples knew it all along. Makes me wonder what else the Sable People remember.

[scott-martin]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Emilla, the planetary deity of the city of Istval - the center of the Blueskin cults on Melib - is described as a female incarnation of Mastakos rather than Uleria.

This is where the needle scratches off my record so hope people will forgive the long double post. Emilla is also "the name used by men" in accounts of gendered Zaranistangi blue moon worship so it's not hard to imagine tantric relationships -- "Uleria" -- similar to what we see on Trowjang today. They must have been a very strange people. 

But they were also convinced that "Anehlla" wouldn't be restored "forever full" in the sky until they recovered the sword. Maybe Mastakos is close enough for the wandering men -- maybe we call them the "loper sect" -- while others consider the blue jumper just a fragment of the lost larger entity. A lot of people say a lot of different things, especially defeated cultures with nothing left but talk.

The power of the sword has two big associations for me that might tie into "planetary" magic or at least the movements of hell and sea within the sky. First, the sword lifts lands and resists the waves. That reminds me of the strange powers of the Wachaza cult to meddle tactically with surface tension . . . and Wachaza is the only son of hell and sea that I know about until you get into the weird blue moon family powers. Second, everyone who cares about the blue moon agrees that it crashed. If the sword had been there at the time, it may have remained aloft. Maybe the miserable remnants of the Veldang will yet go home some day.

But Wachaza, strange god. No direct sky connections, luckily, but it gets me wondering how Lorion and Great Magasta interact except via the Sky River Falls and heler phenomena in general. Remember the maps showing the fleets of the "Helerites?" Who were they, really, that boat people? Where do they go? Unless it's the moon, it's a side topic.

 

[M Helsdon]

15 hours ago, Joerg said:

Myth isn't, as a general rule. Having almost the same text in opposing media does give a strong hint for a great degree of objectiveness, though.

Not if the cultures concerned have had a period of relatively peaceful contact, which is the case.

15 hours ago, Joerg said:

I am inclined to make Shargash as we meet him during the Darkness and as lord of the Shadzorings as a merger of a nasty sky god with an even nastier underworld deity, and quite remote from the eight planetary sons or early Alkoth defender one. Shargash is as impure as one can get in the sky after returning from his execution of Umath in the ruins of the White Overseer's camp, more so than Umath or Orlanth ever were. Artia is practically pure and celestial in comparison.

I suspect that we are seeing 'events' in God Time through several filters, and even the Dara Happan culture is more a construct of synthesis than initial unity.

15 hours ago, Joerg said:

Prince of Sartar depicts four rebel gods instrumental in slaying Yelm - Orlanth/Rebellus Terminus, Verithurusa/Sedenya/Shepelkirt, Shargash/Tolat/Jagrekriand, and Artia/Mahaqata/Quatanara.

Again, an in-world 'document' as mortal heroquesting appears to not just allow interaction with myth, but over time modifies it.

15 hours ago, Joerg said:

Hmm. Praxians know bronze items as treasure, and have limited access to it. Given the color, I would have associated the planet with copper rather than bronze.

Mostali and Pelorians call the metal brass, and it is linked to Turos/Lodril in its Carmanian deposits.

It depends on the colours of the Gloranthan metals, and the colour of the planets. I've seen Mars through Lowell's telescope, and it looked more brown than red.

These discussions remind me of the mythology books I collect - two different publishers, both issuing their books from around 1900 into the 1930s. One simply presents the myths, the other instead mostly explores the mythologies, tries to draw ethnographic and historical conclusions, which from the perspective of modern knowledge are often profoundly wrong, as a century of advances in archaeology and fields the authors didn't even imagine completely demolish their careful analysis. So there are long digressions on Pharoahs having red hair (they didn't, chemical analysis shows it results from the preparation of the body) and other topics. The other interesting aspect of the books is their presentation - you can see historical events having an impact: they begin with leather and gilt embossed boards, and end with cardboard boards. But that's a digression...

These discussions are fun, but Glorantha is a puzzle we can't ever solve, which makes it more like real mythologies than almost all other fantasy worlds.

[Steve]

19 hours ago, Joerg said:

I am preparing a collection of references from that source and a few peripheral ones from e.g. Middle Sea Empire. (BTW - are the current editions of the pdf searchable? Mine isn't.)

 

Yes, current editions of the Stafford Library PDFs are fully searchable.

Edited March 22, 2017 by Steve

[Tindalos]

A possibility could be that the Red Planet is associated with blood.

For Balumbasta, this blood connection comes from his masculine force. He is the blood of the earth, who warms it and uses his life force to make good things.

For Shargash and Unvoreth, it comes from their nature as warriors, using their weapons to draw blood, and using it in their rites.

Tolat represents both these connections (which is why he's the predominant god of the planet)

 

And given that the red planet has a cycle of roughly 28 days, the planet may also be associated with the menstrual cycle. (The guide does mention how it is considered a good time for begetting children. When he rises, it might be associated with the Luteal Phase, with menstruation taking place when he sinks into the underworld. With the obvious proviso that nature is rarely so regular)

[davecake]

A few comments on Pamaltelan myth:

- there was clearly a period in which the Doraddi and Artmali had significant peaceful interaction, and there was some mingling of myth, but it's mostly obscured by Doraddi revisionism now. I think Peter overstates the case for them being entirely separate somewhat.

- Doraddi genealogy is explicitly a bit unreliable, and the myths about Enjata Mo as the wife of Cronisper/the dead sun are Doraddi myths. Don't read them too literally.

- I suspect Doraddi sky lore is likewise pretty dubious and inconsistent. Balumbasta as the Red planet might be one of things that is widely known, but maybe not important or particularly true. Mostly, it just doesn't matter much to them - sky lore isn't a particularly big deal to them except in the myths about the dead sun and the sky witches, which is much more important to the Artmali.

- if Cathora is indeed from the Fralari people, and this is a reference to the carnivore god, then this is much much more likely to be a reference to the Pamaltelan fiwan rather than some wild connection to Genertelan telmori etc. Now I say it, its kind of obvious - the blues certainly seem to originate in southern Pamaltela, and the fiwan are the only non-Doraddi there. The Westerners (which could be the Vadeli, maybe even when they were still Viymorni) would of course recognise the fiwan according to their own divine taxonomy. As to what exact species of carnivore people, who knows. There are some nasty ones, such as the Crocodile-bear (andrewsarchus).

[Joerg]

5 hours ago, scott-martin said:

This is where the needle scratches off my record so hope people will forgive the long double post. Emilla is also "the name used by men" in accounts of gendered Zaranistangi blue moon worship so it's not hard to imagine tantric relationships -- "Uleria" -- similar to what we see on Trowjang today. They must have been a very strange people.

I was a bit astonished to find Annilla as the goddess of rice for the flood plains of Mellon in central Melib.

She is important to any folk living under the influence of the tides, whether it is tidal flats between the Rightarm and Leftarm isles of Kethaela, the bay of Maslo or the river estuary of the Teshno river which sees salty sea water carried deep into the land at high tides, and low tides with potable water that can be used for the rice paddies after the tides ran out.

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But they were also convinced that "Anehlla" wouldn't be restored "forever full" in the sky until they recovered the sword. Maybe Mastakos is close enough for the wandering men -- maybe we call them the "loper sect" -- while others consider the blue jumper just a fragment of the lost larger entity. A lot of people say a lot of different things, especially defeated cultures with nothing left but talk.

The Zaranistangi appear as allies of the no longer innocent Artmali, possibly only after the death of Artmal. King Durpal appears to fall between Artmal and Jakartu.

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The power of the sword has two big associations for me that might tie into "planetary" magic or at least the movements of hell and sea within the sky. First, the sword lifts lands and resists the waves.

This might actually a moment of triumph for Bertalor, who named the solid (and buoyant) form of Sea Metal Lo-Metal. If the sword was a gift from the Promalti of Balumbasta's home region in the Enmal Mountains, we can make the God Learner connection between Balumbasta and Lodril/Lodik/whichever other name the Jrusteli gave to the tainted Srvuali of Fire within Earth, and have one useful connection between Balumbasta and the Red Planet.

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Wachaza is the only son of hell and sea that I know about until you get into the weird blue moon family powers.

The only offspring of the Triolini or Manthi branch of the sea entities. Drospoli spews forth lots of creatures that fill that description. And anyway, Styx, sort of the mother of Zaramaka, is a hell creature, so one may well say that all water entities are direct descendants of Hell.

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Second, everyone who cares about the blue moon agrees that it crashed. If the sword had been there at the time, it may have remained aloft. Maybe the miserable remnants of the Veldang will yet go home some day.

The prophesy on p.430 in the Guide makes this a major theme for the Hero Wars. Interesting - the Fall of the Red Moon might bring back the Blue one, possibly in addition to a white one.

 

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But Wachaza, strange god. No direct sky connections, luckily, but it gets me wondering how Lorion and Great Magasta interact except via the Sky River Falls and heler phenomena in general.

Easy - Sramak's River feeds all the waters in the world, whether Lorion's River in the Sky, Styx in the Underworld, or the Seas and Oceans in the Middle World. If microorganisms like Pseudomonas aeruginosa can swim against the arc of a water hose in the garden, there should be watery entities able to act as messengers.

And then there is Mastakos, a sea entity with the ability to switch places...

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Remember the maps showing the fleets of the "Helerites?" Who were they, really, that boat people? Where do they go? Unless it's the moon, it's a side topic.

A relevant side topic, though, since they too are a blue skinned boat people that went about conquering or raiding coastal lands at roughly the same time the Artmali did.

Helerite ships are solidified rainclouds rather than the indigo cloud emanations of the Blue Moon. While I was informed that these Storm Age/Flood Age "ships" often were little more than the concept of a floating hull tied to the concept of sails or oars, without reflecting anything like the technologies we find in use after the Dawn.

On the other hand, these dream-like vessels surely inspired the ship-builders after the Dawn.

The easiest explanation for Helerites is that they were one of the first blue-skinned attackers on Brithos, but were repelled, probably under heavy losses, and then went on to attack in Maniria under the name of Helerings rather than Helerites, where they met the Vingkotlings, and became one of the three great tribes of the Orlanthi. It is unclear whether the Helerings continued to conduct naval raids on others, or whether the struggle against Worcha broke their naval aspirations.

[Joerg]

6 hours ago, scott-martin said:

That's awesome! Let's bracket the implications to avoid obscuring your central points here, but this is a lot cleaner and more useful. Not least because as it happens I woke up obsessed with mysteries of the Telmorites -- the text in question refers to the Genertelan Blues  as "the Wandering Tribes of the Northern Continent" -- and to me at least the lunar wolfman cycle could benefit from stronger astronomical contacts if not any relationship stronger than bride theft. There's also Basmol as yet another crippled god to factor into the complex. 

I wonder where the Bright Empire seven-day week comes from.

My guess would be Orlanth's Ring with 7 days visible in the sky and 7 elsewhere.

Combined with Tolat we get one in four weeks (starting) with both parties visible, one (starting) with none of them visible, and one each with only one of them visible, twice a season. In Sacred Time, Tolat remains in the Underworld, and Orlanth's Ring retraces the Lightbringers' Quest.

6 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Separately, one of the few things we know about Unvoreth is that his 28-day cycle is important, 14 days in "active" mode (purify/sky) and the next 14 days in "passive" prayer and magic. The "traditional" Kralori calendar cuts across this cycle so the red planet isn't the primary time keeper there, at least from an official exoteric imperial point of view. There are, however, exactly 7 16-day sacrificial periods in the Artia cycle, so maybe in the loper people's desperation they turned to the Bat.

Unless Artia has some mysterious draconic connections, I don't see how the Kralori would rely on one of the unreformed Hsunchen folk rather than their more elegant reformed dragon hsunchen for time-keeping. There has to be some other, pre-dawn cycle they base their week upon - after all their calendar, too, has survived since before the Dawn (discussed in one of the Jonstown Compendium entries of Chaosium's RQ Companion).

But then, continuity through the Greater Darkness, especially in terms of day cycles (rotations of the Sky Dome, measurable after Zator leaving through the Storm Gate and opening the way for the stars) often are the result of amnesia about the worst periods rather than true continuity.

Speaking of Bats, the Pujaleg are the fourth major group worshipping Tolat from their own motivations (as opposed to enforced Tolat worship among the Outrigger peoples). They are present both in Laskal, next to the former Artmali lands of Fonrit, and in Fethlon next to the once Zaranistangi-dominated (and salvaged) Teshnos. Coincidence, or fellow travelers?

6 hours ago, scott-martin said:

As we get old and the East gets slowly less enigmatic I wonder if the Tolat culture of Melib sent emissaries to the God Project as well, only their identities were relatively obscure (to us fans at the time) or special care was taken (by the victors) to obscure their participation in particular.

Depends on what sources you choose to believe.

The Zaranistangi could have crossed the Wastes without making a continuous tour. Sea-born travel could have carried emissaries along the swampy south shores of the continents. I stated in another thread that the Nysalorean missionaries wouldn't have entered Genert's Wastes since not even the Beast Riders used to do so.

6 hours ago, scott-martin said:

In this scenario Tolat would come up into the Bright Empire, recover vestigial relationships with the dread lord of Alkoth and estranged Hykimite cousins, then recede from the mainland as the loper people fight their long guerrilla retreat.

The Alkothi would have insisted on keeping the interpretation rights of the Red Planet in the Project. Vehemently so. Zaranistangi would have been tapped (not in the sorcery sense) for their migration method, Emilla's powers.

6 hours ago, scott-martin said:

In any event the "Shargash" form doesn't seem to have had much influence outside the green walls of Alkoth unless the jungle is full of recognizable "enclosures" that nobody's talking about. I'm not even convinced it's easy for his people to migrate across Dara Happa without serious ritual support. "Tolat," on the other hand, is known in widely separated areas.

The Guide begs to differ, especially during the worst of the Greater Darkness, but well up to the Battle of Argentium Thri'ile, which made Eusibus accept Khordavu as emperor. Sources: Guide p.695, Box Characteristics of the Great Darkness:

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Civilizations: None, although the city of Alkoth rules vast territories of Uz, humans, and monsters. Scattered descendants of the Vingkotlings cling together thanks to the Deer Folk who dashed between the strongholds.

Corroborated in History of the Heortling Peoples pp.15ff, which blames many of the killings of Theyalan missionaries and even forward colonies in Saird and Terarir on the Shadzorings of the Green City. If the Underworld demons named Shadzorings could travel that far from their stronghold even after the Dawn, their reach was quite impressive.

But then, the Shadzorings might have been another Antigod manifestation like the Andins, Gorgers, or Huan-To. Especially interesting if Churanpur maps onto Trowjang, making the Marazi the human-shaped survivors of the Churanpur monsters, much like the Alkothi Shadzorings apparently took on human shapes after Eusibus' surrendering to Khordavu.

The Enclosures are the ritual entries to Shargash's portions of the Underworld. The question is whether the Zaranistangi would have used such. The accusation of their human sacrifices every 16th day in Slontos might corroborate such an Underworld connection, but then they may have been slander by the Slontan God Learners, or misunderstood heroquesting.

6 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Did I dream Tolat as a parti-colored god, half red and half blue, or am I thinking of the cover of Revealed Mythologies? Either way, I wonder if the intense color cults of the far East have astronomical origins.

Tolat's cognate Vorthan is black and red - his description fits the depiction of Arkat in Dan Barker's piece on the battles in Dorastor. Jagrekriand turns black in order to defeat Umath's Red God-optimized magics. Sorry, I don't see any chance for Tolat to display blue as a color.

6 hours ago, scott-martin said:

And I wonder where Shargash's green comes from. Like Tolat, he can be a mighty fertility figure when motivated.

Where did he get his jade armring?

The name Alkor for the Yelmson protector of the city from the Genertela Box is linguistically related to Alk, the Green Goddess of earliest Pelanda, in the Entekosiad.

6 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Back to Jaja and "hamstringing," somebody caught the Dawn Age sun in a black "net,"

Is this a reference to the Bridling of Kargzant, ending the Sun Swirl? Or do you mean the strands of Arachne Solara's web that became more and more visible during the Sunstop while Yelm's immobility violated the Compromise?

6 hours ago, scott-martin said:

so who knows what secret powers great Jannisor had at his command . . . before southpath entities killed him, of course. And as it turns out, one of the beast peoples knew it all along. Makes me wonder what else the Sable People remember.

Check out the Praxian Tradition thread about the Sable phratries and their origin not as Waha khanship but through the Twinstars ancestor(s).

 

[David Scott]

33 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Check out the Praxian Tradition thread about the Sable phratries and their origin not as Waha khanship but through the Twinstars ancestor(s).

Not quite :

[metcalph]

22 hours ago, Joerg said:

While we have little evidence of Shargash as a lover, we know that he has his fertile aspects,

Such as?

22 hours ago, Joerg said:

and the Orlanthi tell lots of myths where various sons of Shargash struggled with Orlanth or some of the Thunder Brothers. (Big difference to Humakt, who has - maybe - one offspring - Arkat.)

Simply having offspring does not make Shargash a fertility deity as pretty much all gods have children.  Tolat on the other hand is described as a love deity.  

22 hours ago, Joerg said:

My point about the Red Planet gods is that Tolat - the war god of the Zaranistangi and Artmali, original bearer of the red sword, attested by various peoples who were conquered - shares lots of attributes with Shargash beyond occupying the Red Planet, like being sibling to the moon. Attributes he doesn't share with Balumbasta, but with what little is known about Vorthan, too. Jagrekriand likely is little more than the Orlanthi name for Shargash since the Bright Empire mapped their myths upon one another.

My point is that you called Tolat an underworld deity on the grounds that he lives in the red planet.  He is not and the common planet origin does not make him one.  All planets are siblings to the Red and Blue Moons just that all planets are fathers and sons of the Sun.

As for the commonality of Shargash with Tolat, I find a lot stronger common attributes between Shargash and Zorak Zoran.  

 

 

 

[metcalph]

21 hours ago, Joerg said:

Most telling is the absence of his role in the rebellion that overthrew Murharzarm. Alkoth did take part in the Jannisor rebellion, and held out a 10 year siege before bowing to the Red Emperor again.

Alkoth was fighting for a legitimate Dara Happan Emperor in the Jannisor Revolt.  Lunar sources say otherwise but then they would say that, wouldn't they?  Vinyargatha shares a common element with the name of Yelmgatha and Spengatha to the extent that he is acknowleged as a son of Emperor "On the Run" (Fortunate Succession p52) .  The Glorantha Sourcebook goes so far as to state that he claimed descent from Yelmgatha although I think Spengatha more likely as the latter did abscond to avoid civil war.

The great rebel is Vinyardavu whose common element Vinyar suggests that he was related to Vinyargatha.  He thus has a legitimate line of succession from Yelmgatha.  Likewise Elmexdavu, who seized Darjiin (Glorantha Sourcebook), through the common davu element in their names would have been Vinyardavu's son.

Hence Alkoth's opposition to the Lunar Empire is not evidence that Shargash was secretly one of the murderers of Murharzarm.

You earlier made the point that Shargash was quite ineffective against Nestendos.  Glorious ReAscent p84 has Shargash being refused by the Emperor to go to war against numerous foes such as the Serpent because they could forsee what would happen (but not the inevitability of it).  I daresay a similar thing happened here.

 

 

[Joerg]

 

1 hour ago, metcalph said:

Such as?

Husband for Biselenslib.

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Simply having offspring does not make Shargash a fertility deity as pretty much all gods have children.  Tolat on the other hand is described as a love deity.

As a sex deity, maybe tantric in nature. There is nothing about love in any but the physical sense about him - neither paternal care for his daughters, nor any particular attachment to his wives other than doing his matrimonial duty once a year. Doing that well, given the city's name, but still just doing his duty, I don't think he is bringing flowers, or offers a snuggle afterwards.

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My point is that you called Tolat an underworld deity on the grounds that he lives in the red planet.  

I still think that Southpath equals underworld sky origin.

The Storm Age planets did not fall out of the sky into the Underworld, but they rose into the visible sky from the Underworld. Big difference.

If you say Tolat is not Shargash, then he is not a son of Yelm (unlike Shargash, whose hell qualities we agree upon, as well as his similarities to Zorak Zoran). The western genealogy myths as per Xeotam have him and Annilla as twin children of (Ralian?) Ehilm and Nakala. This translates as sky and underworld, or in other words underworld sky, the part of the sky sphere that continues below the horizon, parts of which occasionally dip above the horizon.Fort

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He is not and the common planet origin does not make him one.  All planets are siblings to the Red and Blue Moons just that all planets are fathers and sons of the Sun.

Artia is a daughter of the sun? The Twin Stars are? Mastakos and/or Uleria are?

So much for the statement "all planets", clearly false. Some planets are. The original eight are. I contest the notion that the red planet that rose from Umath's Crater was the same that went there to avenge the destruction of the northern Pillar (god).

The Red Planet almost has a celestial size for itself - smaller than the low-hanging Red Moon, but significantly larger than any other planet, or star.

Veldara or Vendara may be a child of the Sun-in-Hell. Pelandan and Doraddi myths agree on this, the Xeotam lineage doesn't contradict it (because it doesn't give a "date" of birth). Why would peoples in between differ?

 

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As for the commonality of Shargash with Tolat, I find a lot stronger common attributes between Shargash and Zorak Zoran. 

The same applies to Vorthan - black skinned, third red eye on his brow.

I stand on the record that ZZ was the prototype uzko - burnt troll. (See the Three Curious Spirits story in Troll Pak. One might even argue that Argan Argar and the siblings XU and ZZ are sky entities, born from their exposure to Aether. Underworld sky entities. AA has the additional sky origin through his mother, Xentha, who might be a mother of all underworld stellar beings.)

But at the same time, he is not a child of Kyger Litor, not even a wayward one.

Shadzoring shares the "zor" element of Zorak Zoran.

History of the Heortling Peoples names Zolan Zubar as the warlord deity of the First Council, not Zorak Zoran. The Heortlings note the similarity of the two, and name them siblings. It is only later that Zolan Zubar's cult gets subsumed by Zorak Zoran's. The spirit remains in Kolat relations.

 

So, Tolat.

Fire powers? Maybe his blade. Anything else? Not that we know of.

Light powers? Brighter than the night sky. Visible through the lightest of clouds.

Death powers? A sword. War god. And Death as an attribute is well attested even for the Marazi amazons.

Death is an underworld power carried into the Surface World.

49 minutes ago, metcalph said:

Alkoth was fighting for a legitimate Dara Happan Emperor in the Jannisor Revolt.

Holding out for 10 years after the rebellion was crushed, and the pretender removed.

49 minutes ago, metcalph said:

Lunar sources say otherwise but then they would say that, wouldn't they?  

Sure. Noone has ever accused Lunar sources of objectivity.

49 minutes ago, metcalph said:

Vinyargatha shares a common element with the name of Yelmgatha and Spengatha to the extent that he is acknowleged as a son of Emperor "On the Run" (Fortunate Succession p52) .  The Glorantha Sourcebook goes so far as to state that he claimed descent from Yelmgatha although I think Spengatha more likely as the latter did abscond to avoid civil war.

The great rebel is Vinyardavu whose common element Vinyar suggests that he was related to Vinyargatha.  He thus has a legitimate line of succession from Yelmgatha.  Likewise Elmexdavu, who seized Darjiin (Glorantha Sourcebook), through the common davu element in their names would have been Vinyardavu's son.

All of this only states that Dara Happan emperors' offspring can rebel against an emperor they have issues with.

Enter Shargash in the Doom Constellation, or in Jar-eel's rendering of the Pelorian myths. Even the Dara Happans call him unruly.

 

49 minutes ago, metcalph said:

Hence Alkoth's opposition to the Lunar Empire is not evidence that Shargash was secretly one of the murderers of Murharzarm.

It is one more point of evidence of Alkothi rebelling against a rightful emperor.

49 minutes ago, metcalph said:

You earlier made the point that Shargash was quite ineffective against Nestendos.  Glorious ReAscent p84 has Shargash being refused by the Emperor to go to war against numerous foes such as the Serpent because they could forsee what would happen (but not the inevitability of it).  I daresay a similar thing happened here.

p.11 of the pdf clearly states that Shargash went to meet Nestentos:

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Then Shargash the Thunderer came forward with his thousands of Drummers, divided into five divisions, but they were swamped, and even the mighty god had to throw away his drums and drumsticks in order to escape.

One of the most slapstick moments delivered by Plentonius.

It gets demeaning in less slapstick ways in this Flood myth: http://www.glorantha.com/docs/the-blue-dragon-sshorga/

Then Alkoth gets drowned. It survives as part of the Underworld.

[scott-martin]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Zorak Zoran

That vast territory of Uz, humans and monsters might be the key on this side. I never really considered what it meant for Alkoth to "rule" the early digijelm belt that the Unity Council scouts went around -- nice one! 

I was just reading a variant on the God Project narrative in which the need for better war gods motivated them to pivot veneration from Xiola Umbar to ZZ. Another pair of dark twins. Undoubtedly not direct analogues for Annilla and the red god, but maybe some of Bina Bang's people would draw conclusions. 

ZZ loves his red. Talking about telescopes, I wonder what the planet looks like under Darksee.

[Tindalos]

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

p.11 of the pdf clearly states that Shargash went to meet Nestentos:

One of the most slapstick moments delivered by Plentonius.

It gets demeaning in less slapstick ways in this Flood myth: http://www.glorantha.com/docs/the-blue-dragon-sshorga/

Then Alkoth gets drowned. It survives as part of the Underworld.

Drummers is probably a euphemism for warriors, since this was the early golden age, and before Murharzarm/Urvairinus invented war.

(A similar term is used by the Theyalans in Esrolia, land of 10,000 goddesses. There trollish armies are referred to as drummer and horn men.)

 

[Tcneseis]

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

I stand on the record that ZZ was the prototype uzko - burnt troll. (See the Three Curious Spirits story in Troll Pak. One might even argue that Argan Argar and the siblings XU and ZZ are sky entities, born from their exposure to Aether. Underworld sky entities. AA has the additional sky origin through his mother, Xentha, who might be a mother of all underworld stellar beings.)

Zorak Zoran and Xiola Umbar are well-known Darkness deities who have no inherent Fire/Sky relationship. It also seems that Styx, who is not quite Water yet, but nearly so, has a distant connection with Annilla, and might be closer to Sky deities.

 

 

 

 

 

[Joerg]

3 hours ago, Tindalos said:

Drummers is probably a euphemism for warriors, since this was the early golden age, and before Murharzarm/Urvairinus invented war.

Sure - Umath uses the harp of harmony in battle against the Predark, and emerges victoriously. Shargash fielding drummers will be a way to instill fear in normal deities, and a wall of sound and thunder would have been a real weapon.

(Sounds a lot like a conflict simulated in Heroquest rather than gritty realism and RuneQuest... but this is the Godtime, where gritty realism was not part of the reality.)

What happens is that Shargash fields a previously well proven force against the invader, and the force is washed aside without even a struggle.

3 hours ago, Tindalos said:

(A similar term is used by the Theyalans in Esrolia, land of 10,000 goddesses. There trollish armies are referred to as drummer and horn men.)

Heortling Mythologies describes the Humakti legion along similar lines.

 

Godtime combat probably has a lot more choreography and flashy moves than weapons hitting body parts.

[Darius West]

On 3/23/2017 at 8:50 PM, metcalph said:

Simply having offspring does not make Shargash a fertility deity as pretty much all gods have children.  Tolat on the other hand is described as a love deity.  My point is that you called Tolat an underworld deity on the grounds that he lives in the red planet.  He is not and the common planet origin does not make him one.  All planets are siblings to the Red and Blue Moons just that all planets are fathers and sons of the Sun.As for the commonality of Shargash with Tolat, I find a lot stronger common attributes between Shargash and Zorak Zoran.  

Has it not occurred to you that perhaps Amazons are not the most romantically inclined people? The Amazon notion of love is probably closer to Thed's than Uleria's, given their history and behavior towards outsiders. Now Shargash does actually have a history of being a womanizer, as he started an affair with Oslira and when Biselenslib complained, he basically left her.  As to Shargash being Tolat, and somehow having a different character, hardly so, Shargash simply treats Teshnos as his private sexy time resort when he's not in Alkoth or at work in the Sky Dome.  Different regions emphasize different elements of the same deity.  The original Shargash write-up in Enclosure 1 made Shargash sound like a proto-Orlanth who killed the Sun to save him, and chucked thunderbolts to boot.  Shargash is a very interesting deity.

[jeffjerwin]

On 23 March 2017 at 10:34 AM, Tcneseis said:

Zorak Zoran and Xiola Umbar are well-known Darkness deities who have no inherent Fire/Sky relationship. 

Zorak Zoran is the only troll deity to master fire. Xiola Umbar is part of the myth when ZZ discovers part of Yelm's soul in the Underworld.

[Joerg]

6 hours ago, Darius West said:

Has it not occurred to you that perhaps Amazons are not the most romantically inclined people? The Amazon notion of love is probably closer to Thed's than Uleria's, given their history and behavior towards outsiders. Now Shargash does actually have a history of being a womanizer, as he started an affair with Oslira and when Biselenslib complained, he basically left her.  As to Shargash being Tolat, and somehow having a different character, hardly so, Shargash simply treats Teshnos as his private sexy time resort when he's not in Alkoth or at work in the Sky Dome.  Different regions emphasize different elements of the same deity.  The original Shargash write-up in Enclosure 1 made Shargash sound like a proto-Orlanth who killed the Sun to save him, and chucked thunderbolts to boot.  Shargash is a very interesting deity.

I wonder when the green planet of the south (also a shade of bronze, after all) turned red, and I think it is upon contact with Umath (which may have scratched off all the patina off the planet). In other words, prior to Umath's invasion, there was no Shargash, but Alkor, the green god of the green city. That god went down and into the Underworld with Umath at the crash of Umath into the white pillar. That event triggered quite a lot of underworld experiences of deities of all kind - probably Eurmal's first visit to Subere and his initial meeting with Vivamort, or already Humakt's journey along with Eurmal, or both - each in a different cycle coinciding with the Umath+southern planet crash, with Humakt one of the parts ripped off Umath. Humath, Humat, Humct... There is a possibility that it was Humakt's kin severing that took Umath out of action in the Gods War.

Alkor is a god of fertility, former (?) husband of Biselenslib, and (a) lord of the green city and its immediate environs. Shargash/Jagrekriand is the skinned version of that deity, reduced to cruelty, underworld affinity etc. Another of the four conspirators shown in Jar-eel's liberation sermon to Beatpot in Prince of Sartar would experience such a skinning in the final stages of the Gbaji Wars, being turned into even worse a demon than earlier (when not just being the other red planet of the Southpath).

I wonder whether Black Entekos/KataMoripi/Enjata Mo was a southpath planet, too, and whether Chermata really was Lokarnos or rather the Twin Stars. That would group all the underworld-born planets on the Southpath, and the sky world-born ones on the Sunpath.

[metcalph]

6 hours ago, Darius West said:

Has it not occurred to you that perhaps Amazons are not the most romantically inclined people?

Please do not resurrect age-old posts to fire snarky questions.  

 

[Darius West]

36 minutes ago, Joerg said:

I wonder when the green planet of the south (also a shade of bronze, after all) turned red, and I think it is upon contact with Umath (which may have scratched off all the patina off the planet). In other words, prior to Umath's invasion, there was no Shargash, but Alkor, the green god of the green city. That god went down and into the Underworld with Umath at the crash of Umath into the white pillar. That event triggered quite a lot of underworld experiences of deities of all kind - probably Eurmal's first visit to Subere and his initial meeting with Vivamort, or already Humakt's journey along with Eurmal, or both - each in a different cycle coinciding with the Umath+southern planet crash, with Humakt one of the parts ripped off Umath. Humath, Humat, Humct... There is a possibility that it was Humakt's kin severing that took Umath out of action in the Gods War.

Alkor is a god of fertility, former (?) husband of Biselenslib, and (a) lord of the green city and its immediate environs. Shargash/Jagrekriand is the skinned version of that deity, reduced to cruelty, underworld affinity etc. Another of the four conspirators shown in Jar-eel's liberation sermon to Beatpot in Prince of Sartar would experience such a skinning in the final stages of the Gbaji Wars, being turned into even worse a demon than earlier (when not just being the other red planet of the Southpath).

I wonder whether Black Entekos/KataMoripi/Enjata Mo was a southpath planet, too, and whether Chermata really was Lokarnos or rather the Twin Stars. That would group all the underworld-born planets on the Southpath, and the sky world-born ones on the Sunpath.

I think you might really be onto something with this Joerg.  It is pretty clear that Alkoth has been around for a very long time, certainly long enough for Shargash to have changed a lot.  The notion of Alkor's metamorphosis into Shargash and his subsequent rejection of Biselenslib fits all too well with the other "jigsaw pieces".  If it isn't true, it should be imo.  I like it a lot.  

22 minutes ago, metcalph said:

Please do not resurrect age-old posts to fire snarky questions.  

Sorry, you'd have to reference that with the post in question before I knew what you were talking about metcalph, and the question wasn't snarky but rhetorical.

[Sir_Godspeed]

Well, it might have been a thread ressurection from a while ago, but it made for very interesting reading. I've also been somewhat interested by how Shargash is an endemic Pelorian deity, but Tolat seems to be lozengally known.

In terms of Shargash changing, how does one put together that Shargash and Umath fought violently and seemingly brutally in the Sky prior to their fall, and that later on Shargash put together a seemingly "civilized" war party of drummers and hornblowers? You'd think it was the crash into the Underworld that actually changed him, and not some arbitrary point later on.

Unless my memory of GRoY is incorrect, and Oslira invaded before Umath existed... but that seems very wrong to me.

The bias of the myths authors should also be taken into account. Plentonius might've had some motivation to present Shargash in the way he did - possibly to ridicule him and show the superiority of Murahrzam - but also possibly to show him as civilized? I don't know.



A bit of a side-note, but I always just assumed that "Shadzor" was a garbled pronounciation of "Shargash", and that the Shadzorings were Shargashi berserkers risen to some kind of rulership position, and by extension gone kinda nuts, with the lack of an emperor, or just due to the insanely hostile conditions of the Greater Darkness in general. I considered whether the Greater Darkness-era cult of Shargash's berserkers might've also allowed the induction of trolls, both for practical concerns and due to some kind of realization of Shargash's partly darkness- aligned nature/parentage. Later Dara Happa would obviously have covered up any troll presence if there actually was one, much as they tried retconning the identity of the Hyalorings. I didn't actually think the Shadzorings were a different race of beings until I read threads about it here.
Still not sure how I feel about that. Somehow the idea of humans (or humans-and-trolls) gone so bloodthirsty that even the Vingkotlings saw them as demons seem more interesting to me than another race of literal demons. Eh, oh well.

Edited November 22, 2018 by Sir_Godspeed