The Piece of Prax often overlooked

[g33k]

On 5/21/2017 at 2:27 AM, David Scott said:

It's certainly true. But no one has memories from that time. Only what is happening now. Sure you can visit the bad stuff on Holy days, and the Eternal Battle is around, but it's way beyond that now and people experiences are of herding, the cycle of seasons, some hunting, and following the migration paths of their ancestors. The apocalypse happened 1500 years ago, look at human history that long ago (without archeology and modern history) and what have we got. A vague understanding of what went on. These people aren't literate either, so what is known is in the oral histories, art and rituals. 

I really think you're missing something, here:  when you see every year what the Garden  USED TO BE LIKE; and live every day with how it is NOW; and the defining and binding element of pan-Prax culture is Waha's Survival Compact ...  I don't think likening Praxian experience (of their "antiquity") to real-world experiences (of ours) is actually a valid comparison.  Heroquests and rituals (which are often mini-heroquests) are much more vivid experiences than anything learned via "literacy."   Those "1500 years" are ... kind of irrelevant .

OTOH, you are completely correct that the Nomads' days (and nights; and weeks/months/years) are filled with the seasonal cycles of life, with herding and raiding and hunting and migration, etc...  It's not an episode of "Walking Dead!"

 

[jajagappa]

10 hours ago, David Scott said:

I don't think Earthtongue has a written form

I'd go back to your point re: not a standard script.  I could readily picture veins of minerals, metallic flakes, etc. infused into stone and creating some pictorial or symbolic image as the written form of Earthtongue. 

[jajagappa]

9 hours ago, Jon Hunter said:

The ruins such as the plateau of statues suggest the garden was quite well developed and civilized in places, i think writing, runes and forms from that period would be more developed the aboriginal cave drawings.

As I said its an area where YGMV  but there is plenty of scope for lost written forms of earthtounge to have survived here.

I agree.  But, following David's notes about everything separating and having to be stitched back together, I'd imagine that most of it is very broken - perhaps only single 'words' or short relatively unintelligible phrases.  The Plateau of Statues is where I'd expect the most 'complete' writing to exist.

Of course, you'd also have to have some reference point to decipher it, and that is most likely going to be in Esrolia, particularly Nochet, Ezel, and even Koravaka, the great Necropolis.

[Joerg]

What people tend to overlook - the real Praxians are the Oasis folk. The Beast Riders are immigrants who used to roam a much wider area (slowly re-discovered as The Wastes, parts of them drawn back from the Hidden Greens) and who did not like the ancient Redwood savannah of Prax very much, but tolerated it for the sake of their ancestress Eiritha. If Sandy's idea that the Covenant made the "winners" smarter rather than the "losers" (the grazers) dumber, I am inclined to agree that the Beast Riders have no notion of the value of writing, and never had. The Tada-shi are a different case, though.

Are there written versions of elemental languages? I don't really think so. Writing appears to be a human activity. Sure, there are dragonewt plinths with depictions that might be glyphs, and there might be dwarven  schedule engines yielding certain types of clacks in certain sequences, but putting language into a type of writing appears to be a human endeavour.

(Lhankor Mhy cultists might beg to differ, but given the suspicious of his western origins, his writing and that of the Tadeniti might be the same.)

 

[David Scott]

7 hours ago, Joerg said:

What people tend to overlook - the real Praxians are the Oasis folk. The Beast Riders are immigrants who used to roam a much wider area (slowly re-discovered as The Wastes, parts of them drawn back from the Hidden Greens) and who did not like the ancient Redwood savannah of Prax very much, but tolerated it for the sake of their ancestress Eiritha.

I don't think you can really differentiate between two different group that occupied the same area and call one the Real Praxians. They have different origins yes and a different history, but that doesn't make one any more real than the other.

The Oasis Folk originate in the Man Rune era of the Golden Age, the children of Tada. Tada was killed in the Storm Age:

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Tada was gone, his few remaining Ta-da Shi were only shadows of their former selves, blasted into something else. Some returned later to raise a mountain-sized memorial mound to a god they did not remember. No vestiges of Tada and the Ta-da Shi’s culture survives into the nomadic times after the Dawn

The Ta-da Shi were clearly a part of Tada. I think when Tada died, part of them died too, hence "only shadows of their former selves, blasted into something else". They then hid themselves emerging transformed as the Oasis Folk.

Most of the Animal Nomads originate in Prax in the Gods War era. Storm Bull came down from the Spike with his sons and married Eiritha. His sons marrying the Protectresses and became the Founders and gave birth to the different groups of 2-Leggeds and 4-Leggeds we now call the tribes. Their most of their ancestral grazings are in Prax.

[David Scott]

18 hours ago, g33k said:

when you see every year what the Garden  USED TO BE LIKE

We're probably going to have to disagree here. The vast majority of Praxians are part of cults that have no link back to the Garden. The only two that do are Storm Bull and Eiritha. Storm Bull is only 3% and Eiritha 20% of all Praxian adults (all major & minor tribes). Waha, Foundchild, Helpwoman and Daka Fal only appeared in the Great Darkness. I think few Praxians get to see the Green Age. Eiritha's mythology (see Cults of Prax ), is basically - small bit of Garden, Asleep until the Dawn, reestablishment in the tribes. Storm Bull (see Cults of Prax ) come down form the Spike, marry Eiritha, Eiritha goes to sleep, smash the Garden up, kill the monsters, Dawn, keep killing the monsters.

[David Scott]

12 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Of course, you'd also have to have some reference point to decipher it, and that is most likely going to be in Esrolia, particularly Nochet, Ezel, and even Koravaka, the great Necropolis.

True, the Paps lost contact with other Earth temples after Genert dies.

[Joerg]

34 minutes ago, David Scott said:

I don't think you can really differentiate between two different group that occupied the same area and call one the Real Praxians. They have different origins yes and a different history, but that doesn't make one any more real than the other.

As far as I know, the Beast Riders roamed Genert's Garden in the Storm Age after immigrating from the slopes of the Spike, much like Orlanth led the Durevings and the Ram People north from Dini, and various other herd beast leaders like the Andam Horde or the Bisosae did further west.

Eiritha was a lot more mobile before Tada hid her underground when Death walked the lands.

There aren't significant reports of interactions between Vingkotlings and Beast Riders, either. There is one single (pre-Vingkotling?) myth, the story where Orlanth used lariat and stick to overcome the bull.

Quote

The Oasis Folk originate in the Man Rune era of the Golden Age, the children of Tada. Tada was killed in the Storm Age:

Tada was killed in the Lesser Darkness, which overlaps with the Storm Age, but definitely after the arrival of Storm Bull and the Beast Riders.

Quote

The Ta-da Shi were clearly a part of Tada. I think when Tada died, part of them died too, hence "only shadows of their former selves, blasted into something else". They then hid themselves emerging transformed as the Oasis Folk.

Clearly a part of Tada? Like the Basmoli Berserkers are clearly a part of Basmol? Or the Beast Riders a part of Storm Bull and/or Waha, and of course Eiritha?

So they suffer from a similar loss as the Heortlings did during the "Orlanth is Dead" episode 1621-1622, but ongoing.

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Most of the Animal Nomads originate in Prax in the Gods War era. Storm Bull came down from the Spike with his sons and married Eiritha. His sons marrying the Protectresses and became the Founders and gave birth to the different groups of 2-Leggeds and 4-Leggeds we now call the tribes. Their most of their ancestral grazings are in Prax.

Their survival sites are in Prax, around the place where Tada had buried their ancestress to hide her from Death. Their birth sites where the slopes of the Spike met Genert's Garden were most likely destroyed by Sshorg or Worcha, and their habitat was throughout the Garden. They all followed Storm Bull's call to the Eternal Battle, though, and that's how they ended up in Prax, conveniently close to the Eiritha Hills, which are quite likely located on an ancient site of Ernalda worship of the Tada-Shi.

Or do you have ancestral grazing sites for the long noses, the plains elk and other such lost tribes in Prax?

I don't see the slightest evidence that the birth sites of the Beast Nomads were where Eiritha was buried. Eiritha is acknowledged even way up in Pent as cattle mother.

There are myths which credit Tada with raising the Shan Shan range, too. The Tada-shi weren't necessarily restricted to Prax, either, but that's where they survived, and where their most holy places sit. They were neighbors of the Orlanthi at the end of the Downland migration, and there were marriages between the two peoples who worshipped their common Earth Mother. Possibly including Beren/Redaylde and Orgovalte/Ulanin, followers/descendants of Yamsur. The Praxian savannah may have been home to the Hyalorings before their migration to Saird, rather than the offspring of Storm Bull.

Edited May 23, 2017 by Joerg

[David Scott]

4 minutes ago, Joerg said:

As far as I know, the Beast Riders roamed Genert's Garden in the Storm Age after immigrating from the slopes of the Spike

Cults of Prax page 27

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Her favorite place was the rich plains of Prax, where she lived with her daughters, each a goddess the mother of a species of friendly animal. When the mighty Storm Bull came to the land with his peoples the goddess Eiritha gave up all her old paramours and married the god. 

Page 18

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In the Golden Age the Storm Bull led his sons down to the fertile lands of Prax where they befriended the peoples and wed the goddesses.

Page 26

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Founding Spirits who came down from the Spike in Godtime with the Storm Bull and who wed the Protectresses to Create the race of people 

Page 31

EIRITHAN GENEOLOGY

Daughters of the Good Shepherd and Eiritha = Protectresses

Sons of Storm Bull and Unknown = Founders

Children of the Protectresses and Founders = (Ancestors of the People)

 

Nomad Gods also tells us pretty much the same. The Nomads are not from the Spike, but born in the Garden. Nomad Gods specially says on page 26:

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from the silvery slopes of the cosmic Spike to the rich lands of Tadas State. 

 

 

[David Scott]

22 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Or do you have ancestral grazing sites for the long noses, the plains elk and other such lost tribes in Prax?

No, But I'm sure the Paps know where the Nose Horn, long noses and plains elk are as they died out in the First Age. It's doubtful that they are as large as any of the major and minor tribes (likely one hex in the AAA) as at the Dawn they were only family sized groups of roughly 25 each. It's likely they were in Prax or close to the Zola Fel on the other side of the river. Their locations are certainly a plot hook.

I don't think any of the Garden 2-legged/4-legged groups were more than a few clans in size.

[Joerg]

2 minutes ago, David Scott said:

EIRITHAN GENEOLOGY

Daughters of the Good Shepherd and Eiritha = Protectresses

Sons of Storm Bull and Unknown = Founders

Children of the Protectresses and Founders = (Ancestors of the People)

Nomad Gods also tells us pretty much the same. The Nomads are not from the Spike, but born in the Garden. Nomad Gods specially says on page 26:

Yes - born in the Garden, in Tada's kingdom (which apparently stretched all the way to the Shan Shan, and south to the slopes of the Spike).

The tiny little land now known as the Plains of Prax are what is left after Worcha eating up the southern shores (hence the cliffs above the marshlands), and Chaos and Genert's Death devastating the places east of Zola Fel.

It isn't clear what protected modern Prax from the bad results of Earthfall to the extent that makes it appear lush compared to the Wastes. Storm Bull's last stand, Tada's trickery hiding Eiritha from Death and her continuing presence when most other Earth Deities were lost, and the troll victory at the Castle of Lead up in Shadows Dance may all have contributed.

Prax, Tada's Kingdom, and Genert's Garden may have been used to describe the same place prior to the Earthfall.

 

1 minute ago, David Scott said:

I'm sure the Paps know where the Nose Horn, long noses and plains elk are as they died out in the First Age. It's doubtful that they are as large as any of the major and minor tribes (likely one hex in the AAA) as at the Dawn they were only family sized groups of roughly 25 each. It's likely they were in Prax or close to the Zola Fel on the other side of the river. Their locations are certainly a plot hook.

And that's only the tribes that survived the Greater Darkness. There are likely others that were lost before Waha's Covenant, and not necessarily to Chaos, but e.g. to the Seas, to the Basmoli, or to the Zaranistangi. Possibly also to the Hyalorings. The Flood Age and the Lesser Darkness saw changes in Genert's Garden which brought strife and death. We know at least one son of the Bull who perished, Orani.

I don't mean this as attacks on your position, David, but as a means to find out new interesting facts about the history of Prax, and, as you wrote, new plot hooks. By presenting a different perspective on the place that has been viewed through Beast Nomad eyes mostly, we might find out more about the Garden - like e.g. the sudden appearance of Brown Elves in the early conflicts with the trolls. Clearly they weren't yet asleep then, and the continued presence of Genert may have been a factor in that, as was the continued survival of Flamal at Hrelar Amali before Eurmal and/or Zorak Zoran laid the axe to the primal tree.

1 minute ago, David Scott said:

I don't think any of the Garden 2-legged/4-legged groups were more than a few clans in size.

There must have been attrition of clans, especially for the tribes which emerged as minor at the Covenant and after the Dawn.

I wonder whether the Sables were the only tribe with a variant origin that beats your Eirithan Genealogy above, or whether other tribes of the early covenant had similar variant roots, phratries and queens. Impala, Bison and High Llama don't, but we have no idea whether other tribes (including the rhinos, long noses and plains elk) might have had. Likewise, we only have two variant beast rider tribes (ostrich and bolo lizard) emerging from the Greater Darkness and joining the Covenant. Lots of others in a similar shape may have been lost due to their distance from the Storm Bull. Lastly, the Hyalorings...

Neither would the various Tada-Shi communities have been much bigger, except possibly for the Sleeping City and the precursor of the Paps and other such high holy places. The Tada-Shi and the Oasis spirits appear to have been allied from before the devastation, much more so than the Beast Riders. Is there any evidence of lost oasis altars in the Wastes?

There are other grand ruins in Prax - Monkey Ruins, Winter Ruins, Ex. The Wastes might have other such places with forgotten (but possibly somewhat retrievable) histories, which might help contribute to a reconstruction of Genert. But then, exactly a success of that project might put the Beast Riders or at least their Covenant out of business.

[g33k]

2 hours ago, David Scott said:

We're probably going to have to disagree here. The vast majority of Praxians are part of cults that have no link back to the Garden. The only two that do are Storm Bull and Eiritha. Storm Bull is only 3% and Eiritha 20% of all Praxian adults (all major & minor tribes) ...

23% is virtually 1/4 of all adults; that's a huge bloc of opinion; not a majority in itself, but not inconsiderable.  And note WHO they are ...  I doubt many folks will argue very hard against Storm Bull; and VERY few are willing to offend Eiritha's priestesses by dismissing a core foundational element of her origin-story.

And members of the Tribes often co-worship, accepting "temporary Initiate" status for some events.  Virtually all revere Eiritha, and don't snub her on her Holy Days!

I also note that people often gather out-cult allies to engage in various Heroquests.

Taken all together, it looks to me like some vision of the Green Age is experienced by many (and possibly by most) Praxians.

===

But whether or not we agree on how-widely-held is the experience of the Green Age, my key point is that the "post-apocalyptic" elements of Prax are a useful compass-point for orienting newbies.  In the end -- even if you dismiss my arguments above -- we get back to the Survival Covenant...

The people had been numerous:  life had been good, easy.  Then  <Bad Stuff Happened (apocalypse)>  and it wasn't easy any more; the people weren't surviving.  We have to eat our brethren to survive!  Nothing says post-apocalyptic survivalism like a bit of cannibalism (and note that overt and unambiguous cannibalism (instead of mythical / symbolic cannibalism) is one known (albeit "perverted" to most) interpretation of the Compact).  Waha taught us how to survive; what happens when outsiders come to Prax, try to wander around?  Mostly, they die.  Oh, sure... caravans can follow known routes (if they carry extra water and fodder).  But what happens if they get lost?  Mostly, they die.  We survive because of the Compact!

And as @soltakss said:

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You've got nomadic bands who come along and raid the struggling settlements, ancient ruins from long ago, a ruined city full of looters, a place where nothing can live, other places so blasted that only the desperate can live there and monsters beyond imagination coming from the wastelands. What's post-apocalyptic about that?

 

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, g33k said:

Taken all together, it looks to me like some vision of the Green Age is experienced by many (and possibly by most) Praxians.

Genert's Garden is mostly a Golden Age story. Some Green Age stuff is associated, but most of it is Golden Age (e.g. Seolinthur entering is a result of the invasion of the Ocean of Terror, an event triggered by the Birth of Umath and re-introducing Change to the Stagnant Empire (again - there are well-documented cases how Brightface usurped rulership from the White Queen in Entekosiad, and RQ Companion describes three victories of Yelm on his ascendance, so there was a period before Yelm from which he struggled into his role as emperor).

I have come to the conclusion that "Green Age", the "First Events", can happen well into the Gods War, changing the Cycles to include the consequences of these First Events. Like Death entering the world. Like the Separation of the Living and the Dead (one of the last First Events, starting the Gray Age or Silver Age). Like Waha's Covenant.

2 hours ago, g33k said:

But whether or not we agree on how-widely-held is the experience of the Green Age, my key point is that the "post-apocalyptic" elements of Prax are a useful compass-point for orienting newbies.  In the end -- even if you dismiss my arguments above -- we get back to the Survival Covenant...

The Survival Covenant is somewhat exceptional in that the Survival method that led into the Gray Age still continues, but other peoples hunt or slaughter their totem beasts too.

Genert revived will lead to the Garden blooming again, restoring it to Golden Age or Early Storm Age splendor. (Nobody wants to go back to a time before the rivers entered the Garden, do they?

2 hours ago, g33k said:

The people had been numerous:  life had been good, easy.  Then  <Bad Stuff Happened (apocalypse)>  and it wasn't easy any more; the people weren't surviving.  We have to eat our brethren to survive! 

This is true for basically all of Glorantha, without any exception for the land of Prax. The beasts we slaughter don't rise the next morning! (Whatever next morning means in Godtime...)

People having been numerous... Lots of small groups of very different, often bizarre peoples. Like e.g. the Beast Riders.

2 hours ago, g33k said:

Nothing says post-apocalyptic survivalism like a bit of cannibalism (and note that overt and unambiguous cannibalism (instead of mythical / symbolic cannibalism) is one known (albeit "perverted" to most) interpretation of the Compact).  

There is human sacrifice for crops (maize rites, Maran Gor rites, Esrolian male sacrifice).

Survivalism isn't tied to apocalypses, it follows to ordinary warfare, epidemics, or natural disasters several steps short of an apocalypse. Think of e.g. the consequences of the Black Death, the Irish Potato Famine, or the Thirty Years War.

2 hours ago, g33k said:

Waha taught us how to survive; what happens when outsiders come to Prax, try to wander around?  Mostly, they die.  Oh, sure... caravans can follow known routes (if they carry extra water and fodder).  But what happens if they get lost?  Mostly, they die.  We survive because of the Compact!

Marsh dwellers, jungle dwellers, people inhabiting tidal flats, mountain dwellers all can claim the same thing - they all survive because of the special knowledge and rites of their culture, and foreigners get claimed by their everyday hazards.

 

[Akhôrahil]

Thanks, Joerg – I never quite understood why people say "Green Age" when it comes to Genert's Garden and Pavis' project. Yes, it's about a time when things were lush and green in Prax, but not predominatly back to the mostly undifferentiated past of the Green Age. Genert's Garden is mostly a Golden Age thing.

Also, I have to wonder just what Waha-worshipers would think of the Garden. Yes, it's lush and nice and all, but also 'soft'. It's not really a case of "God created Arrakis to train the faithful", but they're likely to think of the Garden as somewhat unmanly, and compare it to the oases and the widely despised oasis peoples of the current day.

[David Scott]

Using the Mythos & History section of the Guide, as the sequence, this is how I'm viewing Genert's Garden and the Praxians:

Golden Age - splits into:

Dragonewt rune phase

Plant rune phase (Green Age starts)

Beast rune phase - Eiritha born, Protectresses born

Man rune phase - Flesh Man Born, 

Young Gods born

 

The Gods War 

Storm Bull born and his sons born

Storm Bull marries Eiritha, Protectresses and Founders marry, tribes born.

Last idyllic moments of the Garden.

Death kills Flesh Man - Eiritha hidden.

 

The Storm Age

Orlanth kills yelm - All of the Earth Goddesses go the underworld with him and enter the Goddesses Dream.

[Joerg]

9 hours ago, David Scott said:

Using the Mythos & History section of the Guide, as the sequence, this is how I'm viewing Genert's Garden and the Praxians:

With Praxians, do you mean the beast rider members of Waha's Covenant,  or do you generalize for all the other "parts of Genert and parts of Tada", as you have classified the Golden Age peoples?

 

9 hours ago, David Scott said:

Golden Age - splits into:

Dragonewt rune phase

Plant rune phase (Green Age starts)

Beast rune phase - Eiritha born, Protectresses born

Man rune phase - Flesh Man Born, 

Young Gods born

So, apart from Umath, no birth of Elemental Celestials inside the myths of Genert's Garden?

Did you mean to write Flesh Man rather than Grandfather Mortal (later known as Daka Fal)?

9 hours ago, David Scott said:

The Gods War 

Storm Bull born and his sons born

Storm Bull marries Eiritha, Protectresses and Founders marry, tribes born.

Last idyllic moments of the Garden.

Death kills Flesh Man - Eiritha hidden.

I'd be interested in your placement of a couple of events in Praxian myth:

• Larnste seeds the Rockwoods
• Tada becoming active (being born?)
• arrival of Seolinthur (first flooding)
• arrival of Basmol
• death of Basmol, Tada acquires cloak
• Tada raises the Shan Shan
• Brown elves in the Garden
• arrival of Ragnaglar

 

9 hours ago, David Scott said:

The Storm Age

Orlanth kills yelm - All of the Earth Goddesses go the underworld with him and enter the Goddesses Dream.

I wonder about this single piece entry. Sure, it describes the start of the Storm Age - the last of the Contests - and its end.

The Storm Age describes an era where the Earth Goddesses were moving in with Orlanth, including Thed (a sister of Eiritha).

We see a number of arrivals here, none idyllic.

• Prax between Kerofinela and the Paps flooded
• Raging Sea claims all the southern portions of the Garden
• Flood beaten back by Orlanth and Vingkot
• Meeting place (Adari)
• Tada gives twin daughters as wives to Vingkot
• Genert, Yamsur and the elves fend off the trolls
• Valind encroaches from the north (clearly before Earthfall)
• trolls arrive in Shadows Dance to stay
• Thed, Malia and Ragnaglar give birth to the Devil
• dismemberment of Hippogriff, taming of Hippoi
• Moon Broth gains its Lunar connection
• Men-and-a-Half arrive

Earthfall marks the end of the Garden. Genert, Seolinthur and Yamsur slain, the Darkness starts. The Wastes left empty except for Hyena and roaming Chaos, all focus moves to the small part of the Garden west of Zola Fel.

• Orani's Mistake
• Ragnaglar slays Tada (before or after the birth of the Devil? Likely after Earthfall, since Genert bemoans the absence of Tada and the Bull)
• Eternal Battle: Storm Bull thrown down in (soon to be) Dead Place
• Spike implodes, Block tumbles in from southeast, flatten's Ex before landing on top of the Devil
• Thanatar beheaded by Hrothmir
• Rivers change direction to aid Magasta
• Oakfed devastates what is left of Prax (on the instigation of the Oasis Folk and/or Monkey Kingdom), Redwood retreats to current extent

Finally we have a Gray Age

• Waha born at the Paps (none of the Founders were born there)
• Protectresses saved
• Good Canal dug
• Contest of Eaters and Eaten, Waha's Covenant
• Beast Riders move into ancestral grazings (cleared by Oakfed)

 

[Jeff]

There seems an awful lot of over-analyzing going on here. Here's what pretty much every Praxian cult agrees upon: Prax was once Genert's Garden, the richest and lushest part of Glorantha. It was destroyed by the Devil, and exists at all because of the sacrifices made by Storm Bull and Eiritha. Despite that sacrifice, we all would have died but for Waha. He made the Covenant so man and beasts could survive in Prax. He made the Good Canal to drain away the Devil's poison. And so on.

Each cult has their own gloss and secrets to attach to that. Storm Bull knows that Orlanth is his brother and ally. Eiritha knows that Ernalda is her mother. The Praxians also  know about IFWW, about Orlanth, Humakt, and Yelm, etc. But these stories coexist with other stories - they have 1600 years of nearly continuous contact with Dragon Pass (admittedly broken from 1120 to 1350 or so) and so these are not classified as "Praxian stories" and "Outlander stories".  

[Rick Meints]

On 5/21/2017 at 4:06 PM, David Scott said:

So in Prax as an adventure I can escape the Baboons at the  Monkey Ruins with a beautiful Herd girl on my High Lama and then as I ride along the coast, I see a strange reassembled statue standing astride the river with a giant cradle passing between its legs. 

Actually, you are Talar, an outer atomic explorer, who crash lands in Prax centuries after your journey began. Your companions have their INT fixed and become herd men. You escape the baboons at Monkey Ruins, then you ride off with a beautiful herd girl. As you ride along the coast you recognize an oddly reassembled statue from your "Godlearner" era, allowing you to suddenly realize you're home, and that those bastards blew it all to hell...

[David Scott]

7 minutes ago, Rick Meints said:

Actually, you are Talar

Complex, but plausible.

[Rick Meints]

6 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Complex, but plausible.

I chose that name only because it sounds a lot like Taylor...

[Joerg]

7 hours ago, Jeff said:

There seems an awful lot of over-analyzing going on here.

I don't think so.

7 hours ago, Jeff said:

Here's what pretty much every Praxian cult agrees upon: Prax was once Genert's Garden, the richest and lushest part of Glorantha.

How much of this did the Basmoli experience? The men-and-a-half?

Modern Prax (i.e. west of Zola Fel) was once a part of Genert's Garden. A special part since Eiritha was buried there.

Prax used to be the Redwood savannah east of the Storm Mountains - not really a grazing ground, but a browsing area for different herd beasts (possibly dinosaurs/earth shakers rather than the children of Eiritha), with villages of an agricultural folk that followed Tada as their leader, and fantastic temple towns like Monkey City, Winter City or Ex. The Beast Riders don't really have a memory of this. Some Baboon ancestors might.

Beast Riders wouldn't quest into this Godtime sequence. Heortlings and possibly Esrolians (especially Ernaldans researching ancient mysteries) retracing the origin of Vingkot's wives might.

The destruction of the Savannah (in winter mode) by Oakfed is another important event without much if any participation of the Beast Riders which sealed the destruction of Prax beyond the grievous wounds to its fertility from Chaos.

7 hours ago, Jeff said:

It was destroyed by the Devil, and exists at all because of the sacrifices made by Storm Bull and Eiritha.

Doesn't the last breath action of the Storm Bull which aimed the Block to shatter the Devil make the difference between absolute Chaos and the existence of all of Genertela, possibly even all of Glorantha?

Storm Bull (just like Tada) was notably absent from Earthfall. His presence there might have made a huge difference.

7 hours ago, Jeff said:

Despite that sacrifice, we all would have died but for Waha. He made the Covenant so man and beasts could survive in Prax. He made the Good Canal to drain away the Devil's poison. And so on.

Still - when was Waha born? After Eiritha was buried? After Eiritha sacrificed the Winter Plains to re-ignite the spark of life of Storm Bull

7 hours ago, Jeff said:

Each cult has their own gloss and secrets to attach to that. Storm Bull knows that Orlanth is his brother and ally. Eiritha knows that Ernalda is her mother. The Praxians also  know about IFWW, about Orlanth, Humakt, and Yelm, etc. But these stories coexist with other stories - they have 1600 years of nearly continuous contact with Dragon Pass (admittedly broken from 1120 to 1350 or so) and so these are not classified as "Praxian stories" and "Outlander stories".  

I have the very practical reason to have warlocks of the Sartar Magical Union or the Barbarian Horde requiring explorative quests to find new magics, in order to create more magical regiments than just the Eaglebrowns and the Eleven Lights. Looking past the well-known Covenant myths into a greener age is logical, isn't it?

 

I agree that this doesn't affect a beast rider campaign very much. Go raiding following Jaldon, meddle in Heortling affairs, get betrayed, get revenge, rinse and repeat - a small think like the arrival of the Hero Wars doesn't affect this.

Possible outcomes of the Hero Wars might. What if the Aldryami reforestation could extend to Prax? A return of the Redwood to the ancestral grazing grounds of the Beast Riders would be a momentous change, and the Beast Riders would most probably research the Oakfed devastation. Questing about the nature of the Torch might make all the difference, with aldryami, beast riders and pure horse folk interested parties here.

Then there is Pavis, with its weird reason for its existence, there is Adari, there is Barbarian Town.

[Revilo Divad Of Dyoll]

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

12 hours ago, Jeff said:

There seems an awful lot of over-analyzing going on here.

I don't think so.

Of course it's being over-analyzed.  This a forum for Gloranthaphiles.

[soltakss]

On 5/30/2017 at 9:58 AM, Jeff said:

There seems an awful lot of over-analyzing going on here.

Wecome to the world of Gloranthan fandom! 

[MOB]

On 30/05/2017 at 9:58 AM, Jeff said:

There seems an awful lot of over-analyzing going on here.

On 30/05/2017 at 5:41 PM, Joerg said:

I don't think so.

On 30/05/2017 at 10:28 PM, Revilo Divad Of Dyoll said:

Of course it's being over-analyzed.  This a forum for Gloranthaphiles.

I nominate this as the single-greatest exchange ever on BRP Central.

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, MOB said:

I nominate this as the single-greatest exchange ever on BRP Central.

One in league with the Great Elk Debate of yore?,