Guide to Glorantha Group Read Week 11 - Heortland

[David Scott]

Heortland section discussion here!

Don't forget Colin Driver's epic maps and the artwork.

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/6721-guide-to-glorantha-group-read-week-11-holy-country/

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/6722-guide-to-glorantha-group-read-week-11-deep-discussion/

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/6693-guide-to-glorantha-group-read-week-11-errors/

[Joerg]

The Lunar Occupation of Heortland box (p.247) offers a new term for the Jondalaring tribal region (a term first published in Thunder Rebels, but apparently on the political map overlay for Heortland from earlier on): Hendrikar (in order to rhyme with Volsaxar, Gardufar and Esvular, I suppose).

Comparing with the military structure of the Holy Country, it appears that -ar might be the local suffix for a duke's domain. Volsaxar doesn't have a duke, it is barely a regular part of the Holy Country. For Lunar occupation purposes, these areas may have different garrison locations, probably at the main cities.

I wonder why Backford was the center of Belintar's cult in Heortland, and recipient of its bridge. The Fish Road up the Syphon does make sense, after all the Syphon does draw the brackish Choralinthor water up to wash away the ichor from the wound. Since the print doesn't get flooded, there appears to be a void or some Underworld entrance up there. The Fish Road map (p.254) shows the bridge pointing to Durengard instead.The Derensev entry mentions the efforts of the Kultain tribe sworn to its defense. However, according to Sartar Kingdom of Heroes p.229 the Kultain tribe was dissolved by the Lunars when they opposed the invasion of Heortland - that would have been in 1619 or 1620.

Durengard is described as the main port of Heortland (p.254). Leskos is serving as port for Durengard (p.255).

I don't think that Durengard will see much of sea travel. The Turtle Fire ships from God Forgot did travel upriver to assault the city (History of the Heortling People p.62), and presumably other ships can do so, too, but I think that a lot of the port business is handled by river barges that transship at Leskos.

I will never understand why the most ancient of all chaos-fighting rivers, the Syphon River, is consistently describes as evil or chaotic. True, it continues flowing uphill from the Mirrorsea Bay, carrying the brackish water that results from the waters of the many rivers emptying into Choralinthor mixing with the waters of the Rozgali and Solkathi seas that meet south of Choralinthor. But it has a fish road, indicating that the water tribe has no problems with this river. The brackish quality of the water will actually be a replacement for salt licks for the local herds.

I didn't expect the river gorge of the Syphon to be that low-lying, unlike the Bullflood river which is described as navigable up to Durengard. Quite likely this is a matter of map feature generalisation rather than a new map detail to obsess about, though.

 

[metcalph]

6 hours ago, Joerg said:

Comparing with the military structure of the Holy Country, it appears that -ar might be the local suffix for a duke's domain. Volsaxar doesn't have a duke, it is barely a regular part of the Holy Country. 

Except that -ar is implied to be a lunar term rather than a Holy Country one.  According to the History of the Heortling Peoples, the three provinces were North Province, Central Province and South Province.

6 hours ago, Joerg said:

I will never understand why the most ancient of all chaos-fighting rivers, the Syphon River, is consistently describes as evil or chaotic.

Does it obey Magasta?  No.  Ergo it's evil.  

6 hours ago, Joerg said:

But it has a fish road, indicating that the water tribe has no problems with this river.

That's a bit of a big leap to make.  Elsewhere, we see things done by Belintar that do not make him universally beloved.  What's to stop the Fish Road up the Syphon be a cause of great discontent by the Mirrorsea Ludoch?

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, metcalph said:

Except that -ar is implied to be a lunar term rather than a Holy Country one.  According to the History of the Heortling Peoples, the three provinces were North Province, Central Province and South Province.

Hendrikar might be a Lunar creation, but Esvular most definitiely isn't - the tribe is called Esvulari in the Durengard Scroll.

2 hours ago, metcalph said:

Does it obey Magasta?  No.  Ergo it's evil.  

Yawn. Do the Heortlings care whether it obeyed Magasta? Hardly. Do they care that it keeps searing away the Chaos at the heart of the Footprint? Very much so.

The presence of a Fish Road in this river suggests that the sea powers of the Holy Country are fine with the things as they are, too. So who is there to claim that it is evil?

And why is Sounder's River, redirected by Waha to sear away at the Devil, not evil?

2 hours ago, metcalph said:

That's a bit of a big leap to make.  Elsewhere, we see things done by Belintar that do not make him universally beloved.  What's to stop the Fish Road up the Syphon be a cause of great discontent by the Mirrorsea Ludoch?

I don't know of a case where giving the sea entities access to land has caused discontent. Mostly it only caused appetite for whichever food those lands had to offer.

[metcalph]

35 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Yawn. Do the Heortlings care whether it obeyed Magasta? Hardly. Do they care that it keeps searing away the Chaos at the heart of the Footprint? Very much so.

Do the Heortlings know that it keeps searing away the chaos at the heart of the Print (or even if this is an actual fact)?  I don't think so.  All they know is that it behaves differently than other rivers and that difference is connected to the Print.  Ergo evil.

35 minutes ago, Joerg said:

The presence of a Fish Road in this river suggests that the sea powers of the Holy Country are fine with the things as they are, too. So who is there to claim that it is evil?

All it suggests is that Belintar is happy with it.  There's nothing to suggest the "sea powers"  are fine and my contention is that they may not be.

35 minutes ago, Joerg said:

And why is Sounder's River, redirected by Waha to sear away at the Devil, not evil?

Sounder's River is out of sight, on the other side of the mountains and, most importantly, flows naturally.

35 minutes ago, Joerg said:

I don't know of a case where giving the sea entities access to land has caused discontent. Mostly it only caused appetite for whichever food those lands had to offer.

But the issue isn't giving the sea entities access to land, the issue is defying Magasta's call and endangering the world as a result.  The Syphon is the only river that does this and is widely described as evil for doing so. 

[davecake]

The Syphon takes water out of the ocean and pours it on the land. So obviously not really good as far as the sea gods are concerned. 

I do actually think the water magicians in Prax think that Waha using the Spunders river to wash away the devil is wrong, but hardly anyone cares what the Thirstless society think if Waha thinks it is a good idea. 

[Joerg]

52 minutes ago, davecake said:

The Syphon takes water out of the ocean and pours it on the land. So obviously not really good as far as the sea gods are concerned. 

I do actually think the water magicians in Prax think that Waha using the Spunders river to wash away the devil is wrong, but hardly anyone cares what the Thirstless society think if Waha thinks it is a good idea. 

The waters are well aware that all waters are a cycle. The Syphon searing away at the little void at the bottom of the Print doesn't mean that the water is lost, no more than the waters going down Magasta's Maelstrom are lost to the world.

Even in Godtime, when the rivers still crept into the world, a significant portion of the flow must have been back into the ocean - a portion filled with the silt and other gooddies from the Earth, if not directly digestible by water creatures, then by lesser water creatures which in turn are edible. Internal currents running forward and back, that's how a Godtime river worked.

(Are there any krill-filtering merfolk?)

As far as I am concerned, Magasta's call was "bring forth all your force against the bad Chaos Void." Which is exactly what the Syphon already did.

[davecake]

There may well be many people who think the Syphon is doing the right thing. And, given the references to it as evil, some who don't.

I think if there were krill-filtering merfolk they are gone, but some baleen whales, probably some entire species, are sapient and worship the sea pantheon. 

(i think one of the many reasons the Ludoch and the Malasp hate one another, is the Ludoch think the sapient cetaceans are sacred, and the Malasp think they are delicious)