Some miscellaneous questions about Volsaxiland

[jeffjerwin]

This post is a lot less weird than my last one, I promise...

The old Dragon Pass gazetteer suggests that Baron Sanuel was a Trader Prince or a Trader Prince mercenary. Is this still true?

I think the Locaem must have originated from around Smithstone, a sacred space for Gustbran (whose father's former mountain is very close by). Does that work?

Speaking of Gustbran, when died he learn smithing from the Mostali? Is there anything specific regarding this?

If the Volsaxi came from its vicinity are they (the original core clan) Fire/Earth Orlanthi or Storm Orlanthi? The same hoary gazetteer suggests that Volsax was a rival of Dreven, who I think is probably a Dureving given his name.

I also place Geo's original home at the Cave Inn, which I think is southwest of Whitewall, and speculate that he was recruited by Sartar there as Sartar contemplated crossing the Crossline. (This is my game canon, as the Cave Inn is where there PCs come from..). But is there anything out there that makes this a shaky/wrong assumption?

The other thing I had to nail down was the date of Karsten's war with the Bacofi over the magic bull, which, based on the Tain Bo Cualaigne I put in the generation before the Red Moon's rise (in the Tain the events prefigure the Crucifixion). I don't think this is contradicted anywhere but if I'm mistaken, let me know. Thematically, this should involve chariots, lost magic, and trolls, all of which are on the wane by the 16th-17th centuries.

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

The old Dragon Pass gazetteer suggests that Baron Sanuel was a Trader Prince or a Trader Prince mercenary. Is this still true?

There was a speculation that "Baron Sanuel" might be a title granted to Mularik Ironeye. Lacking the preview of the Glorantha introduction that is to accompany the 13G book, I cannot say more about that.

2 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

I think the Locaem must have originated from around Smithstone, a sacred space for Gustbran (whose father's former mountain is very close by). Does that work?

I find that unlikely. The Locaem became a tribe of Sartar after Sartar founded the Wilmskirk confederation. If they had still been in contact with other Volsaxi tribes, they would have been as likely to remain in the Volsaxi tribe (which had an independence from the Overseer of Heortland on and off).

2 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

Speaking of Gustbran, when died he learn smithing from the Mostali? Is there anything specific regarding this?

Who but the Mostali claims that this is the case? The link between Gustbran and the Mostali appears to have weakened since the old "Gods of Fire" article in Wyrm's Footnotes/Footprints. Even then, Gustbran may have been more the impersonal elemental forge fire from among the Lowfires than the human-like god who wields the hammer.

Storm Tribe names him as a son of Vestkarthen exiled for trying something new.

 

2 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

If the Volsaxi came from its vicinity are they (the original core clan) Fire/Earth Orlanthi or Storm Orlanthi? The same hoary gazetteer suggests that Volsax was a rival of Dreven, who I think is probably a Dureving given his name.

I may be wrong here, but to me the Volsaxi appear as a continuation of the Hendriki tribe rather than one of the Foreigner tribes defined by Aventus' Laws (see History of the Heortling Peoples), and the Hendriki are pretty much the most archetypal storm Orlanthi among the Heortlings that I can think of.

Volsax is listed as one of the Orlanthi heroes in Heortling Mythology (p.185), active in the Dawn Age. IMO he founded a sub-tribe of the Hendriki Tribe.

Dreven may have been a river worshipper, or the river deity or demigod of a group of Orlanthi worshippers. All of that significantly after the Dawn, so "Dureving" should not be applicable any more than Vingkotling - all the Orlanthi (in the stricter sense) in the region were Heortlings. There may have been non-Heortling Theyalan (a scholarly term for culturally, but not cultic Orlanthi) fisherfolk, these are attested as one of the foreigner tribes subject to the foreigner laws - kin to the Pelaskites of Karse and the Rightarms. 

2 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

I also place Geo's original home at the Cave Inn, which I think is southwest of Whitewall, and speculate that he was recruited by Sartar there as Sartar contemplated crossing the Crossline. (This is my game canon, as the Cave Inn is where there PCs come from..). But is there anything out there that makes this a shaky/wrong assumption?

Geo was a companion of Sartar, and his cult later adopted the Sanchali Tribe (which was a remnant of the precursor of the Cinsina, according to The Coming Storm). His origin is as unclear as that of Wilms or Ostling Four Wolves (the other two named companions of Sartar).

2 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

The other thing I had to nail down was the date of Karsten's war with the Bacofi over the magic bull, which, based on the Tain Bo Cualaigne I put in the generation before the Red Moon's rise (in the Tain the events prefigure the Crucifixion). I don't think this is contradicted anywhere but if I'm mistaken, let me know. Thematically, this should involve chariots, lost magic, and trolls, all of which are on the wane by the 16th-17th centuries.

None of these details have been confirmed or contradicted in publications (or maps) since, but I think that this info might have come from the crowd-sourcing for that gazetteer. While it gives the in-Glorantha document "History of the Heortling Peoples" as a source, that data is not included in the Stafford library publication to that name.

Those Irish parallels were all the rage in the Orlanthi discussions of the 90ies in the digest. I never cease to wonder why the anglophone concept of Celts is so firmly tied to that island outlier of the Celts and not to their core area around the northern flank of the Alps, or their expansion along the northern Mediterranean.

Anyway, Karstanstead is described as a royal Volsaxi stead by the time of Hardrard the Green, so Karstan would have lived significantly earlier than Hardrard, possibly as early as the early Imperial Age, long before the Volsaxi could claim the inheritance of the Hendriki kings.

[Tindalos]

35 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Who but the Mostali claims that this is the case? The link between Gustbran and the Mostali appears to have weakened since the old "Gods of Fire" article in Wyrm's Footnotes/Footprints. Even then, Gustbran may have been more the impersonal elemental forge fire from among the Lowfires than the human-like god who wields the hammer.

Storm Tribe names him as a son of Vestkarthen exiled for trying something new.

It's still the case as of Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes (pg. 32) where it's mentioned that the dwarfs taught him (and thus all Orlanthi.)

Presumably this would be during the Golden Age, because he knows how to work metal before his exile.

[jeffjerwin]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Anyway, Karstanstead is described as a royal Volsaxi stead by the time of Hardrard the Green, so Karstan would have lived significantly earlier than Hardrard, possibly as early as the early Imperial Age, long before the Volsaxi could claim the inheritance of the Hendriki kings.

Thanks for your insights...

Regarding the above, I wonder if part of the problem is that Volsaxar/the Volsaxi Confederation is sometimes confusingly conflated with the Volsaxi proper, a constituent tribe. On onomastic grounds, I have a theory that Hardard the Green is actually related to the kings of the Bacofi - viz. their names: Hagard and Hroar. This would mean that the Bacofi claim to be the chief tribe of Volsaxar in the 1620s has some merit. It also might explain why they press their claim to North Vale - that being the location of Whitewall itself. Again, here I am using the model of kingship among mediaeval Celts where it alternates between two or more distinct male lineages with a (possibly mythical or concocted) common male ancestor. Remotely, of course, Volsax, would be a common ancestor of everyone in the Confederation, though from the evidence of Sartari tribes, this may be in the sense of "everyone gives sacrifices to him" rather than "we know the names of every man in the descent between us and him"; there is obviously a tendency to adopt heroes who are associated with clan and tribal territories. Whoever Volsax was he must have done a great number of interesting things.

The Bacofi are also - in DP I believe - to be descended from Silver or Dawn Age clan called the Orvantes, though more recent works make clear the whole area was properly under the rule of the Garanvulings, who were hardly numerous enough to have sub-clans at the Dawn. Perhaps "Orvantes" is a by-name of the Garanvuli... certainly they had a king "Orvis" who could have fathered a bloodline by that name. This would make the Bacofi, at least, lineal descendants of the Garanvuli. Which would also imply Volsax was one as well. But not necessarily...

Hendrik himself was a Gavrening, that is, a lineal descendant of Yinkin, though that may have come through his mother. I have the feeling that the later Hendriki kings were related via either daughters or sisters of his, which is one reason they clearly have elective kings. In fact, Hendrik might not have been a king at all...? 

Now the Hendriki Old Laws seem to hold up the tradition of there being no thralls in their steads. This tends to limit the Volsaxar tribes in the same way if they are in fact Old Hendriki, though in the DP gazetteer, the Bacofi have clearly abandoned this Law. The Kurtali also seem to have thralls in some sources.

Edited December 17, 2017 by jeffjerwin

[jeffjerwin]

I would think that the following eras show space for Karsten and the Bull War...

The era of Orlanthland (before the EWF) - this is what Joerg suggests... This period would also be the period of the Tax Slaughter and a neo-Traditionalist period, but with social domination by priests rather than kings. The quarrel, however, is between two kings and a queen. On the other hand, if one uses the Tain as a model, the vast influence of Cathbad in that myth-cycle is closer to an Orlanthland theocrat (or a Vedic sage).

I'd point out that the story of the Tain isn't all that out of place if it's set in "Vedic" India, as another Indo-European epic period.

After the Dragonkill but before Belintar (c.1020-1316) - my initial preference.

In terms of the actual Bull War in Orlanthi perspective, there are obvious "problems" that result in the ritual strife hinted at in the book. There's a proud king who ignores or offends his wife (comparable to Rastagar, and I'd expect in a reconstruction of the epic that he would be compared to Rastagar), a magic bull (clearly a sacred animal of Urox) - if one uses a Vedic parallel, it's like those wandering stallions invested with royal virility - and a devastating price exacted for the cuckolding - the stripping of the Bacofi of their core territory of North Vale - which eventually leads many years later to the rise of Hroar, who betrays the Volsaxar to recover at least part of the old lands. But if the epic exists, it probably has a didactic aspect. So some sort of disaster is also the consequence of this adultery, pride, and greed. In the first era, the disaster is the EWF and the ruination of Whitewall; in the second possible setting, it's either the Red Moon or Belintar.

I'm working from very little here, but any other period would probably have Kitori attempting to enforce order, which apparently isn't a part of the mix.

 

[Joerg]

2 minutes ago, jeffjerwin said:

I would think that the following eras show space for Karsten and the Bull War...

The era of Orlanthland (before the EWF) - this is what Joerg suggests... This period would also be the period of the Tax Slaughter and a neo-Traditionalist period, but with social domination by priests rather than kings. The quarrel, however, is between two kings and a queen. On the other hand, if one uses the Tain as a model, the vast influence of Cathbad in that myth-cycle is closer to an Orlanthland theocrat (or a Vedic sage).

Two kings and a queen is a timeless classic. (Need I mention Eleanore of Aquitaine? Helen of Sparta/Troy? Although the first myth that comes to my mind with a queen and a bull will remain the myth of the minotaur.)

 

2 minutes ago, jeffjerwin said:

I'd point out that the story of the Tain isn't all that out of place if it's set in "Vedic" India, as another Indo-European epic period.

One problem I have with the Irish myths is that they come from a culture that is primarily pastoralist, hardly agriculturalist, giving their cattle a much greater importance than even the responsibility to draw the plow that they had in Vedic (and later) India. The Irish diet in the Roman Iron Age was mainly based on milk and butter, and hardly on grain, according to the research I did on them in the last millennium. But then the Hendriki are probably the Heortling tribe which comes closest to this not necessarily sedentary life-style.

 

2 minutes ago, jeffjerwin said:

After the Dragonkill but before Belintar (c.1020-1316) - my initial preference.

A possibility, but surely a lot less archaic than the Orlanthland period.

 

2 minutes ago, jeffjerwin said:

In terms of the actual Bull War in Orlanthi perspective, there are obvious "problems" that result in the ritual strife hinted at in the book. There's a proud king who ignores or offends his wife (comparable to Rastagar, and I'd expect in a reconstruction of the epic that he would be compared to Rastagar),

That theme of the thwarted wife is re-iterated in Finelvanth's conflict with his Nochet wife for the pre-Belintar range of the Third Age. No rival "love" or male power source, but all the parameters for the Sword and Helm conflict in the Modern Age.

 

2 minutes ago, jeffjerwin said:

a magic bull (clearly a sacred animal of Urox) - if one uses a Vedic parallel, it's like those wandering stallions invested with royal virility -

Urox is (like Pelandan Bisos) the death-overcoming self-sacrificial bull. But there are myths tieing both Orlanth and Vingkot to the bull, as its tamer and harnesser.

 

2 minutes ago, jeffjerwin said:

and a devastating price exacted for the cuckolding - the stripping of the Bacofi of their core territory of North Vale - which eventually leads many years later to the rise of Hroar, who betrays the Volsaxar to recover at least part of the old lands. But if the epic exists, it probably has a didactic aspect. So some sort of disaster is also the consequence of this adultery, pride, and greed. In the first era, the disaster is the EWF and the ruination of Whitewall; in the second possible setting, it's either the Red Moon or Belintar.

I like your approach, which probably ignores the aspects I like to consider - how the life circumstances of a people will affect their myths (and vice versa).

Adultery by the wife isn't the norm in Orlanthi morality tales - compare the failings of Finelvanth. I wonder whether the Orlanthi have some concept like a "year divorce" as a reversal to a "year marriage" - a sabbatical from a marriage which might be under duress.

 

2 minutes ago, jeffjerwin said:

I'm working from very little here, but any other period would probably have Kitori attempting to enforce order, which apparently isn't a part of the mix.

Actually, the Kitori are willing to sit by as long as both parties don't slack in their tribute contributions or call them to intercede.

[jeffjerwin]

1 minute ago, Joerg said:

Actually, the Kitori are willing to sit by as long as both parties don't slack in their tribute contributions or call them to intercede.

Indeed, though cattle are money for the Hendriki. This legend would probably heighten this sense. If there's a Kitor present, he/she is probably going to say "that tribute better be paid, whoever has the bull owes us". Of course, in the Tain the bull ends up getting into a fight with another sacred bull, they both die, and it's a complete waste of lives. Though a good story. I think it's specifically contradicted in the book, but it would have been amusing if the bull was carried off by the Kitor as "tax" under some pretext after the war ends. Another possibility is the Argan Argari/Kitori trading various suspect magic objects to the two/three parties involved to sway events that go completely wrong... followed by them winning the bull as tribute.

If we go with Orlanthland as the setting, and I'm partly there, now, then some survivor of all this masculine stupidity will probably go looking for "another way" and run into a dragonewt... At the very end.

[Joerg]

41 minutes ago, jeffjerwin said:

Indeed, though cattle are money for the Hendriki.

While this is true for basically all Heortlings, it doesn't matter to the Kitori. We get an impression of the nature of the Kitori tribute with the Darklord Krengen Bik who rules-lawyers the amount of some extinct type of grass seeds into a mountain of barley seeds in History of the Heortling People p.72. Other forms of that tribute involve kin of the king.

41 minutes ago, jeffjerwin said:

If we go with Orlanthland as the setting, and I'm partly there, now, then some survivor of all this masculine stupidity will probably go looking for "another way" and run into a dragonewt... At the very end.

That made me chuckle. Yes, take that as a morality tale...

[M Helsdon]

6 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

The other thing I had to nail down was the date of Karsten's war with the Bacofi over the magic bull, which, based on the Tain Bo Cualaigne I put in the generation before the Red Moon's rise (in the Tain the events prefigure the Crucifixion).

Tricky. There were three extant manuscripts, and dating legendary events is notoriously tricky. Most date the events of the Tain to the 1st century, but, if based on real events it may not be so old.

As for cattle raiding, that's an Orlanthi preoccupation throughout history, and into the present.

6 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

Thematically, this should involve chariots, lost magic, and trolls, all of which are on the wane by the 16th-17th centuries.

Light war chariots, as used in Ireland and the British Isles, are still in use by the Orlanthi of Ralios.

 

6 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

If the Volsaxi came from its vicinity are they (the original core clan) Fire/Earth Orlanthi or Storm Orlanthi? The same hoary gazetteer suggests that Volsax was a rival of Dreven, who I think is probably a Dureving given his name.

Your best resource would be Wyrm's Footprints#15. The Volsaxi appear to be most closely related to the Sartarite Old Hendriki and the Sword Orlanthi. Both subtypes worship Orlanth and Ernalda.

Edited December 17, 2017 by M Helsdon

[jeffjerwin]

1 hour ago, M Helsdon said:

If the Volsaxi came from its vicinity are they (the original core clan) Fire/Earth Orlanthi or Storm Orlanthi? The same hoary gazetteer suggests that Volsax was a rival of Dreven, who I think is probably a Dureving given his name.

[jeffjerwin]

Sorry about the above post - for some reason I couldn't add any text - only snip... weird.

Ok, the Locaem are said to be Lodril worshippers, which I took to mean Veskarthen/Gustbran worshippers and hence likely from either Smithstone or from southern Esrolia.

 

Trying to track down a citation for this at the moment.

 

Edited December 18, 2017 by jeffjerwin

[jeffjerwin]

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

There was a speculation that "Baron Sanuel" might be a title granted to Mularik Ironeye. Lacking the preview of the Glorantha introduction that is to accompany the 13G book, I cannot say more about that.

 

Interesting. Of course if Mularik is a Westerner he might actually possess a surname, and be Mularik Sanuel, called "Ironeye". This of course would have explained how Mularik is missing from the war-game. In Blood and Gold, "Sanuel" is the forename of Caselain, whose Saint was Ashara (that is, Sorcerous Issaries), which - if still canon - suggests a link to Maniria. But as I understand it B&G is apocryphal now.

[metcalph]

6 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

Regarding the above, I wonder if part of the problem is that Volsaxar/the Volsaxi Confederation is sometimes confusingly conflated with the Volsaxi proper, a constituent tribe.

It's my opinion based on the current material, that the Volsaxi tribe refers to the current tribal confederation and that there is no constituent tribe of that name.  A smilar usage can be seen in the Kerofini tribe when referring to the Tarsh Exiles who are actually several tribes.

 

[g33k]

1 hour ago, jeffjerwin said:

Sorry about the above post - for some reason I couldn't add any text - only snip... weird.

There seems to be a bug in the editor (in at least some browsers).  I think @Trifletraxor has seen at least some aspects of this ...

It plays out (for me, using Chrome) as:  "edit down a quotation, and at some point the insertion-point seems to be edited to inside the quotation, and you can no longer add your "own" text outside the quotation (only inside, causing a mis-attribution)."

If you begin typing outside the quotation FIRST -- even a tiny bit -- and THEN go back and edit-down to just whichever bit you want quoted, you can return and finish adding your own text.

[jajagappa]

2 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

nteresting. Of course if Mularik is a Westerner he might actually possess a surname, and be Mularik Sanuel, called "Ironeye". This of course would have explained how Mularik is missing from the war-game. In Blood and Gold, "Sanuel" is the forename of Caselain, whose Saint was Ashara (that is, Sorcerous Issaries), which - if still canon - suggests a link to Maniria. But as I understand it B&G is apocryphal now.

B&G, as well as the varied "Saints" (and "barons") are now non-canonical, though certainly parts of it do fit with canon.  Mularik is a westerner from beyond Maniria.

 

2 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

the Locaem are said to be Lodril worshippers

They are sometimes known as the Spear Tribe, but I don't recall seeing any reference to being Lodril worshippers (certainly not in the canonical sources).

[jeffjerwin]

47 minutes ago, g33k said:

There seems to be a bug in the editor (in at least some browsers).  I think @Trifletraxor has seen at least some aspects of this ...

It plays out (for me, using Chrome) as:  "edit down a quotation, and at some point the insertion-point seems to be edited to inside the quotation, and you can no longer add your "own" text outside the quotation (only inside, causing a mis-attribution)."

If you begin typing outside the quotation FIRST -- even a tiny bit -- and THEN go back and edit-down to just whichever bit you want quoted, you can return and finish adding your own text.

Exactly what happened to me. Still, I worked around it.

[jeffjerwin]

33 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

They are sometimes known as the Spear Tribe, but I don't recall seeing any reference to being Lodril worshippers (certainly not in the canonical sources).

It appears that it is non-canonical, after looking through everything Hero Wars and later on hand. They are said merely to worship "foreign" gods in Sartar:KoH, which, if true prior to the Resettlement, might mean they were a Foreign tribe/clan under the laws of Aventus. Gustbran is not a foreign god; he married into the Earth tribe, after all.

Edited December 18, 2017 by jeffjerwin
brevity

[jeffjerwin]

30 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

B&G, as well as the varied "Saints" (and "barons") are now non-canonical, though certainly parts of it do fit with canon.  Mularik is a westerner from beyond Maniria.

Does that mean the WBaRM and Dragon Pass (the war game) are non-canon now? Because that's where "Baron Sanuel" comes from. I suppose we out to have a Kethaelan vocabulary for titles, much as we do for Western peoples. Or did Belintar simply adapt Jrusteli titles... if so it might be a clue where he originates.

[jeffjerwin]

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

 

Adultery by the wife isn't the norm in Orlanthi morality tales - compare the failings of Finelvanth. I wonder whether the Orlanthi have some concept like a "year divorce" as a reversal to a "year marriage" - a sabbatical from a marriage which might be under duress.

 

Certainly Ernalda "divorced" Orlanth when Orlanth was outlawed. She then took year husbands until the outlawry was lifted.But outlawry - which seems to impose divorce (as part of its severance aspect) - seems a bit severe as a means to "take a break". I could see it though, as it seems very practical and the Storm/Earth approach to marriage is, if nothing else, very practical. As Heort says, "sex is easy, but marriage is hard". 

[metcalph]

 

2 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

Does that mean the WBaRM and Dragon Pass (the war game) are non-canon now? Because that's where "Baron Sanuel" comes from. 

Sanuel may still exist but it is unlikely that he would still be a baron.

 

2 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

Or did Belintar simply adapt Jrusteli titles... if so it might be a clue where he originates.

The Holy Country uses Jrusteli titles and bureacracy (History of the Heortling Peoples p86) although Baron is not used in the descriptions that we have.  The source is not Belintar but the Esvulari.

[M Helsdon]

19 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

Ok, the Locaem are said to be Lodril worshippers, which I took to mean Veskarthen/Gustbran worshippers and hence likely from either Smithstone or from southern Esrolia.

Gustbran Bonesmith is a son of Veskarthan (whom educated Kethaelans call Lodril of the Vent).

[M Helsdon]

16 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

Does that mean the WBaRM and Dragon Pass (the war game) are non-canon now? Because that's where "Baron Sanuel" comes from.

Canonical, but not entirely accurate... The map given of the Lunar Empire, for example, is no longer entirely correct - compare with the latest maps in the Guide. Baron Sanuel, at least as a 'name' has been replaced with Mularik, but may relate to somewhere he ruled...

[Tindalos]

If it helps, the Locaem are said to be Axe Orlanthi in WF#15, which places them in Northern Esrolia and Heortland. My guess is this includes Volsaxingland, which would make Smithstone a possible home.

My guess is the foreign gods mentioned may actually be the Lunar ones, as the tribe are Moonfriends.

 

14 hours ago, metcalph said:

Sanuel may still exist but it is unlikely that he would still be a baron.

If Sanuel is Mularik, rather than simply being replaced by him, it's possible he would still be a Baron. Mularik is from Dangim, in Seshnela/Ralios, which does use the title. It's possible Mularik was a baron there, before fleeing when his lands were invaded.

[jeffjerwin]

When did Mularik arrive in Heortland?

If it wasn't until Harrek's invasion, this leaves a gap where the semi-canonical materials specified a "Baron" being overlord of the Volsaxi and guardian of the road from Whitewall to Karse. I'm tentatively thinking Gold-gotti would take his place (and I'm definitely rejecting the "call out" in naming Gold-gotti "Auric" in the Dragon Pass gazetteer...). Or should the man in charge of patrols and tolls be a Pelorian?

This has significant impact on my campaign, but I'm not at a point yet where it's come up directly.

[M Helsdon]

10 minutes ago, jeffjerwin said:

When did Mularik arrive in Heortland?

Around 1624, and was probably among those who aided King Broyan to defeat the Lunars.