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Elmal Yelmalio thing


Jon Hunter

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1 hour ago, JonL said:

Drawn to Runegate...

...to get stabbed with a flaming Justice Spear!

I joke, but also think this is legitimately a feature-not-a-bug. "Our nation has lost 6/7 of it's magic. Most of us still have ours though. Clearly, the right thing to do is draw as much of the nastiness down upon ourselves as possible, because every monster we fight is one we've spared someone else having to face while they're down." When the night is long and full of terrors, they decide to become human bug-zappers.

And that is why they are awesome.

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14 minutes ago, JonL said:

I joke, but also think this is legitimately a feature-not-a-bug. "Our nation has lost 6/7 of it's magic. Most of us still have ours though. Clearly, the right thing to do is draw as much of the nastiness down upon ourselves as possible, because every monster we fight is one we've spared someone else having to face while they're down." When the night is long and full of terrors, they decide to become human bug-zappers.

Shine on, guys!

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singer sing me a given

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1 hour ago, JonL said:

I joke, but also think this is legitimately a feature-not-a-bug. "Our nation has lost 6/7 of it's magic. Most of us still have ours though. Clearly, the right thing to do is draw as much of the nastiness down upon ourselves as possible, because every monster we fight is one we've spared someone else having to face while they're down." When the night is long and full of terrors, they decide to become human bug-zappers.

And that is why they are awesome.

It's something I really love about "Elmal Guards the Sunpath," too. The Hyalorings worshiped Elmal as their chief god, and that story tells of how Elmal both earned and took on the mantle of the sun in Yelm's absence. It's his triumphant ascendance.

And yet even in that kind of story, Elmal is still in the role of a steadfast guardian, even though here he goes out and brings the fight to the pretender suns ("sometimes the best way to defend is to attack"). Even when Elmal is attacking, he is doing it to defend something. Even when he claims the mantle of greatness, he does so only because he must, for the sake of others. And these are the qualities that the Hyalorings loved him for, and why they followed him over all other gods (and a few of their distant descendants still do!).

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12 hours ago, JonL said:

I joke, but also think this is legitimately a feature-not-a-bug. "Our nation has lost 6/7 of it's magic. Most of us still have ours though. Clearly, the right thing to do is draw as much of the nastiness down upon ourselves as possible, because every monster we fight is one we've spared someone else having to face while they're down." When the night is long and full of terrors, they decide to become human bug-zappers.

And that is why they are awesome.

Altruism is a rare thing in realistic settings - so it's extra inspiring when it appears. Very cool.

1 hour ago, Leingod said:

It's something I really love about "Elmal Guards the Sunpath," too. The Hyalorings worshiped Elmal as their chief god, and that story tells of how Elmal both earned and took on the mantle of the sun in Yelm's absence. It's his triumphant ascendance.

And yet even in that kind of story, Elmal is still in the role of a steadfast guardian, even though here he goes out and brings the fight to the pretender suns ("sometimes the best way to defend is to attack"). Even when Elmal is attacking, he is doing it to defend something. Even when he claims the mantle of greatness, he does so only because he must, for the sake of others. And these are the qualities that the Hyalorings loved him for, and why they followed him over all other gods (and a few of their distant descendants still do!).

Where is this from, the Six Ages game? I guess this means that it was the southern Hyalorings who brought Elmal with them into the Berenenthelli and consequently to the wider Vingkotling/Heortling society?


----


One thing that I'be looked into, and maybe missed before - is that apparently Yelmalio is associated with the Yellow Planet. Now, the Yellow Planet (which seems to be synonymous with Lightfore and the Little Sun, although I'm not entirely sure if that's totally accurate.) basically travels the sun path every night in a manner same as the sun during the day. What amused me a bit by this is that the Yellow Planet thus seems more like the RW moon than those actual moons we have in Glorantha otherwise - which appear in the sky at all times (at least the Red One) or was destroyed long ago.

That aside, it strikes me as odd that Yelmalio apparently is associated with a night time celestial light, but Elmal isn't? I don't want to make a re-thread into the whole "is Elmal the literal sun or what now"-debate, but it just struck me as odd that two gods identified as the same in many newer sources would be associated with a day-time and night-time event, respectively. On the other hand, it could explain, celestiologically, why Yelmalio does not have the Fire Rune (night time stars are not warm, however bright they may be) whereas Elmal has it (he carries the torch that is the sun across the sky daily!)

Or maybe I'm putting too much stock in wikis.

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19 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Where is this from, the Six Ages game? I guess this means that it was the southern Hyalorings who brought Elmal with them into the Berenenthelli and consequently to the wider Vingkotling/Heortling society?

Correct. In Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind you play as a Hyaloring clan descended from people from the city of Nivorah who refused to hide under the domes and instead rode out into the world under the leadership of Hyalor. In the game, they've had to migrate further south until now they're on the northern shore of the Black Eel River, with clans of Vingkotlings on the opposite shore. Much like the Grazers of the previous game, your first meeting with them is always when they raid you, and it's likely to happen more than once.

Much like in King of Dragon Pass, your clan's good ending is with a foreign wedding, namely that of Beren and Redalda, which seals an alliance between the Hyalorings and Vingkotlings. For bonus points, one of the ending images is of Orlanth and Elmal as giants standing on the south and north of the river and shaking hands as friends much like their people have, echoing the later Heortling myth of the two meeting, fighting, then becoming friends on a river.

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16 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

Vanntar was originally an Elmal temple (and prior to the Dragonkill possibly a Yelmalio temple); given that temples usually have defenses in the form of guardian spirits, the building of the temple of Yelmalio there with no apparent magical backlash is suggestive (as is the earlier lodging of the Golden Spearman in the temple of Elmal at Alda-Chur, though in that case it might be argued to be an associated cult).

Vanntar certainly was a holy spot for the little sun which would be why Palangio the Iron Vrok established his garrison temple to Daysenerus there in the Bright Empire. With that inheritance, I am fairly convinced that the Yelmalio Tharkantus sun domers of Domanand spread there in time for the Kotor conflicts of the EWF.

Note that the success of the Tax Revolt hinged on the trolkin abandoning their post because of the White Healers brought there by the Yemalians, which means that whatever became out of the Daysenerus cult after Palangio's demise played a role in the rise of Orlanthland.

 

16 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

Yelmalio and Elmal have been a cause of confusion in the gaming community for some time, but it translates into confusion in the setting, which is a good thing, if handled well, because cults and religions are never neat and tidy, and too many gaming systems treat gods as a handful of stats and interests, and rarely schisms within the ranks of their worshippers.

The introduction of Elmal in King of Sartar created a thread on  the RQ Daily and hot debates on conventions when King of Sartar came out shortly after Sun County, and did ceate a similar schism in the Glorantha tribe. That was a time when many a "RQ2-grognard" (aka people who loved the setting since at least the early eighties and had been playing their beoved RQ2 characters probably without a break since then, and never bothered to switch over to all of the new-fangled RQ3 stuff, or who had grudgingly adapted their old characters to the new system) who did like RQ3 Sun County felt backstabbed and went on for other pastures.

IIRC it was Martin Crim who created a list of overdone topics on the Daily. The top three were the Elmal/Yelmalio debate then (when we knew next to nothing about Elmal), the "sobjectivity" debate (objective vs. subjective universe), and the great moose debate when Europeans outed themselves as reading "elk" as Alces alces rather than as wapiti red deer. The latter one led at least to amusing silliness. The other two were connected, and led to some bitterness.

 

16 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

I suspect that a temple to Yelmalio has been present in sketch maps of Boldhome for a long time.

Probably since long before the discovery of Elmal... When we started to learn about Elmal, there certainly had not been a temple to a second little sun god in Boldhome. Greg's Many Suns revelation (which he gave one of the keynote short essays on in the Baltimore RQ-Con booklet) makes it look like this happened in play or when writing a Tarkalor narrative that never has been seen by the fans.

Unlike Greg  who had lots of variant pantheons and deities in his earlier writings about Glorantha, with many names for the sun, people who had been "brought up" with Wyrm's Footnotes "Gods and Goddesses of Glorantha" and Cults of Prax/Terror were used to the Jrusteli Monomyth as a single piece of monolithic truth, and probably never thought about e.g. the Teshnan solar pantheon as anything different from the unwieldy Cult of Yelm which described a religion practiced by neither Pentans nor Dara Happans as written.

RQG successfully presents Yelm the Sunhorse for the Grazer pure horse folk, without attempting to model the Dara Happan society under the same heading.

 

16 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

It's Change, and Sartar's founder embodied Change... I'll be very interested to see how this is presented in forthcoming material, as it would be an ideal source of dramatic tension.

Perhaps even more so when you can associate faces of people you met at conventions with people departing from their former community over the little suns schism.

21 hours ago, Jeff said:

The Yelmalio revelation did not cause strife, it helped end it. Read the Making Gods essay carefully.

It is quite a pity that the reworked King of Sartar did not expand this little germ by an account of Tarkalor's journey to Teshnos.

 

3 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I guess this means that it was the southern Hyalorings who brought Elmal with them into the Berenenthelli and consequently to the wider Vingkotling/Heortling society?

That has been my impression since when I first encountered the sons and daughters of Vingkot. The only thing I am unclear about is how these folk became shadowcat people rather than dog people.

 

3 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

One thing that I'be looked into, and maybe missed before - is that apparently Yelmalio is associated with the Yellow Planet. Now, the Yellow Planet (which seems to be synonymous with Lightfore and the Little Sun, although I'm not entirely sure if that's totally accurate.) basically travels the sun path every night in a manner same as the sun during the day. What amused me a bit by this is that the Yellow Planet thus seems more like the RW moon than those actual moons we have in Glorantha otherwise - which appear in the sky at all times (at least the Red One) or was destroyed long ago.

There are a few significant differences. One is apparent size in the sky - our moon happens to appear to have the same diameter as the sun. I suppose that that is true for the Red Moon outside of the Glowline, too. Another is that our moon does share the day sky with the sun when it is at its darkest, all the way to eclipsing the sun. This gives a much livelier "moon chases sun" experience than the diametrical opposite of the sun and Lightfore.

I wonder if there are heroquests or myths about Lightfore's journey across the Underworld sky. Or for any other periodical body that leaves the sky, like Orlanth's Ring between its exit from Pole Star's gate and its re-entry at Stormgate.

 

3 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

That aside, it strikes me as odd that Yelmalio apparently is associated with a night time celestial light, but Elmal isn't? I don't want to make a re-thread into the whole "is Elmal the literal sun or what now"-debate, but it just struck me as odd that two gods identified as the same in many newer sources would be associated with a day-time and night-time event, respectively. On the other hand, it could explain, celestiologically, why Yelmalio does not have the Fire Rune (night time stars are not warm, however bright they may be) whereas Elmal has it (he carries the torch that is the sun across the sky daily!)

Celestial bodies are associated with many deities, and deities may be associated with more than one celestial body or location, too. The travels of Lightfore paint the stories of Yelm the Youth onto the sky with its formations.

Apart from the star seers of Yuthuppa, few people can perceive the stars in the sky when the sun is up, which makes me wonder about the Starspill in the Copper Tablets.

Elmal's celestial presence is the sun that travels the Sunpath, but many of the Yelmalian rites are day rites, too, and look at the one sun for their magical support. Neither cult is impotent in the night (unlike Yelm), but I don't think that either cult cares much about whether light from Lightfore touches down or not. Day rites take in power from the sun, in night rites the cultist is the sun in the dark and radiates the light himself.

 

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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18 hours ago, JonL said:

I joke, but also think this is legitimately a feature-not-a-bug. "Our nation has lost 6/7 of it's magic. Most of us still have ours though. Clearly, the right thing to do is draw as much of the nastiness down upon ourselves as possible, because every monster we fight is one we've spared someone else having to face while they're down." When the night is long and full of terrors, they decide to become human bug-zappers.

Actually I just realized, that's basically exactly what happened in "Elmal Guards the Stead," too. Because of Elmal drawing Chaos's attention to Orlanth's stead, the other Vingkotlings were made safer even when he wasn't directly defending them.

6 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

That aside, it strikes me as odd that Yelmalio apparently is associated with a night time celestial light, but Elmal isn't? I don't want to make a re-thread into the whole "is Elmal the literal sun or what now"-debate, but it just struck me as odd that two gods identified as the same in many newer sources would be associated with a day-time and night-time event, respectively. On the other hand, it could explain, celestiologically, why Yelmalio does not have the Fire Rune (night time stars are not warm, however bright they may be) whereas Elmal has it (he carries the torch that is the sun across the sky daily!)

Well, Elmal has some minor stellar associations; Elmali are obligated to perform the Starwatch, the only night patrols in Orlanthi society, at least a few nights each year. That said, this might be partly because of Elmal's association with Rigsdal the Pole Star, who in Orlanthi society is portrayed as "the thane's thane," Elmal's loyal follower who kept watch whenever Elmal had to leave to take the "torch gift" to distant lands.

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1 hour ago, Leingod said:

Actually I just realized, that's basically exactly what happened in "Elmal Guards the Stead," too. Because of Elmal drawing Chaos's attention to Orlanth's stead, the other Vingkotlings were made safer even when he wasn't directly defending them.

Exactly. It was too beautiful a correspondence not to pick up in the Eleven Lights. It's possible something similar happens at Toena, but I wasn't writing about that.

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1 hour ago, Leingod said:

 

Well, Elmal has some minor stellar associations; Elmali are obligated to perform the Starwatch, the only night patrols in Orlanthi society, at least a few nights each year. That said, this might be partly because of Elmal's association with Rigsdal the Pole Star, who in Orlanthi society is portrayed as "the thane's thane," Elmal's loyal follower who kept watch whenever Elmal had to leave to take the "torch gift" to distant lands.

S:KoH has Rigsdal as a sub-cult of Elmal. in ST Rigsdal could be stand-aone, but it was hard to see how he would accumulate enough worshipers to be viable, or Elmal/Humakt. The Humakt association is also a little dubious. Putting Rigsdal under Elmal fits with the 'light in the Darkness' specialist. Also as Rigsdal is Pole Star but dancing to Orlanth's lilt and tune, there is correspondence with Elmal as the 'just' sun, loyal to Orlanth.

So the Elmal cult becomes the 'loyal stars' for Orlanth.

I am sure the Star Captains could be seen as belonging there as a result.

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3 hours ago, Joerg said:

I wonder if there are heroquests or myths about Lightfore's journey across the Underworld sky. Or for any other periodical body that leaves the sky, like Orlanth's Ring between its exit from Pole Star's gate and its re-entry at Stormgate.

Elmal Guards the Stead. Remember that Lightfore does not spend time in the Underworld but re-appears in the east after reaching the west. In effect this is Elmal resurrecting at the end of each fight as the sun rises, instead of dying.

Lightfore does not die, because the planet never enters the Underworld, and the Great Compromise reflects this.

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4 hours ago, Joerg said:

Celestial bodies are associated with many deities, and deities may be associated with more than one celestial body or location, too. The travels of Lightfore paint the stories of Yelm the Youth onto the sky with its formations.

Apart from the star seers of Yuthuppa, few people can perceive the stars in the sky when the sun is up, which makes me wonder about the Starspill in the Copper Tablets.

Elmal's celestial presence is the sun that travels the Sunpath, but many of the Yelmalian rites are day rites, too, and look at the one sun for their magical support. Neither cult is impotent in the night (unlike Yelm), but I don't think that either cult cares much about whether light from Lightfore touches down or not. Day rites take in power from the sun, in night rites the cultist is the sun in the dark and radiates the light himself.

 

2 hours ago, Leingod said:

Well, Elmal has some minor stellar associations; Elmali are obligated to perform the Starwatch, the only night patrols in Orlanthi society, at least a few nights each year. That said, this might be partly because of Elmal's association with Rigsdal the Pole Star, who in Orlanthi society is portrayed as "the thane's thane," Elmal's loyal follower who kept watch whenever Elmal had to leave to take the "torch gift" to distant lands.

All out of likes, but thanks for elaborating for me. :)

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2 hours ago, Ian Cooper said:

Elmal Guards the Stead. Remember that Lightfore does not spend time in the Underworld but re-appears in the east after reaching the west.

If that is canonical I must have missed that - Mastakos/Uleria is the special planet that doesn't enter the Underworld, with a stable 8 hour cycle. If Lightfore does this, too, he becomes indistinguishable with the sun in the day, wth highly variant speed near the solstices and constant speed at the equinoxes.

2 hours ago, Ian Cooper said:

In effect this is Elmal resurrecting at the end of each fight as the sun rises, instead of dying.

Lightfore does not die, because the planet never enters the Underworld, and the Great Compromise reflects this.

The Guide doesn't suggest this, but it would be an acceptable interpretation of observable facts for worshippers of a Lightfore deity.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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On 9/10/2018 at 1:00 AM, Jeff said:

The Yelmalio revelation did not cause strife, it helped end it. Read the Making Gods essay carefully.

Before diving into the Making Gods essay, I want to make a few points that I think are relevant to discussing the essay in the context of the emerging mythology of Glorantha. These are things that seem important to me as a consumer of the Glorantha myths, primarily through RuneQuest, then Hero Wars, then HeroQuest, and now back to RuneQuest: Glorantha. I am by no means an expert and I have not had a hand behind the scenes as a contributor in the creation of these stories. I’m trying to explain why I’m confused by some of the choices made based upon my readings as a consumer of the Glorantha stories.

1) King of Sartar, first published in 1992, is definitely one of the critical sources I’ve gone back to again and again to try and better understand the Elmal vs Yelmalio debate. As far as I’m aware (and I could certainly be mistaken), King of Sartar was the first time information about Elmal was officially published. Prior to that, there was no Elmal officially recognized in the materials available on Glorantha, or at the very least there was nothing about Elmal in RuneQuest. Only Yelmalio. So this is probably one of the most important documents contextually for the current controversy. But I think it’s important to recognize it was published in 1992 before Elmal had any official presence in the myths of Glorantha and that significant work has be done over the next 26 years to elaborate and clarify the role of Elmal in Glorantha.

King of Sartar is a world document. It is most assuredly not a game or systems document. But it has to grapple with how Glorantha is/was portrayed in game systems. RuneQuest at the time of its publishing. Later, it had to be in dialog with Hero Wars and HeroQuest.

In light of that, my impression is that part of the goal of the Making Gods essay was to officially include the Elmal mythology into the world of Glorantha while at the same time limiting it’s impact upon the published version of the myths and stories in RuneQuest. Why haven’t we heard of Elmal? Why doesn’t anyone worship Elmal in the published RuneQuest sourcebooks? How can the Orlanthi have all these important myths about Elmal but we only have Yelmalio in RuneQuest? How did Monrogh discover Yelmalio while he was actively being worshipped in Sun Dome County in Prax and other places?

It’s my impression that the Making Gods essay is an attempt to resolve those concerns while still introducing a significant new deity and collection of myths to Glorantha. It’s a bit of Greg trying to have it both ways. Elmal suddenly exists (and has always existed retroactively), but his newly established presence doesn’t require any actual changes to published RuneQuest sourcebooks because his cult has been fully subsumed into Yelmalio by the early 1600s. (Although it was obviously massively controversial in relation to the Sun County supplement also published in ‘92.)  I’d be happy to be better illuminated on the topic however.

2) Making Gods is an essay within Jalk’s Book which is introduced in a metatextual note from Greg Stafford as a framing device. This is a popular convention in fantasy documents that places the author into the narrative as if analyzing real documents from this fictional world. The character of “Greg” actually calls the accuracy of the essay into question in the introduction to Jalk’s Book.

King of Sartar, pg. 167 (emphasis mine):

Quote

Jalk’s Book
The original had only two internal divisions, other than the separate chapters. The Book of the Colymar, for instance, was not set apart from the rest in any way. Only the Report on the Orlanthi was set apart, by a larger headline. The other larger divisions are my own, though I think obvious to the material.
Essays begin the document. They seem to be the wild speculations of the old scribes hidden away in their lofty library.

This immediately casts the Making Gods essay, the first essay in the book following this introduction, as “wild speculations” and it should be read and evaluated against other sources and comments in this light. As a reader, I’m now forewarned that the narrators/writers of the various essays may very well be unreliable. In world documents should always be read with awareness of the reliability of the narrator/storyteller, but Greg has drawn extra attention to that point when setting up the coming essays. And notably, the version of the account in Making Gods frequently differs from other accounts in other sources.

3) Making Gods does not specify a lot of details. When was this document composed? Who was Hilliam Wants West? When and how did the Eyetooth clan aquire the antesmia statue? What exactly is the antesmia statue? Who was their tribal king? Why were they rebelling? Why were the Elmali enemies of Tarkalor’s father? When did this occur? How was Monrogh connected to them? When exactly did Monrogh have his Peculiar vision? Was the Peculiar vision at his initiation the same as his quest that brought back Yelmalio? Or was the Peculiar vision prophetic and his actual quest took place later?

The verifiable truth of these events are all in doubt considering Greg’s warning and the lack of details in Hilliam Wants West’s account. Why for example does HWW not know some fundamental details about when the events actually took place?

King of Sartar, pg. 169

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Tarkalor was the youngest son of Prince Saronil, who was very old or already dead at this event.

This seems like an event that should have a fairly defined date that a scribe would be able to record if they were a contemporary of Tarkalor and Monrogh, but none of the events have concrete dates. Is the event referenced from the previous paragraph when the Eyetooth clan began to worship the statue or the event(s) described later in the paragraph when Tarkalor uses the rebelling Elmali against his Kitori enemies? The scribe doesn’t even know if Prince Saronil was alive or dead when the event, whichever event it was, occurred.

He describes the event in broad strokes and then doubles back to give some specific details on Monrogh. For example, he started by talking about the Elmali and then by the end of a paragraph he’s suddenly talking about Yelmalio who he had not previously mentioned. So when he goes back to discuss Monrogh and Yelmalio, we don’t really know when the various aspects of Monrogh’s vision and accomplishments took place.

King of Sartar, pg. 169

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[Tarkalor] was looking for a way to make a name for himself, and had been dragged into a feud with Kitori clans. He sought allies among the enemies of his father, and promised the disgruntled Elmali that they could have their own lands, and the chance to make their own rules, if they would help him in his task against Darkness.

Why exactly again are the Elmali the enemies of his father? When did Tarkalor’s feud take place? Previously HWW doesn’t even know if Saronil was alive or dead during the event. Most accounts place Saronil’s death in 1550 (although the genealogy chart on pg. 32 places his death in 1552). This certainly seems like it can be interpreted as the conflict was resolved by giving the disgruntled Elmali their own homeland after they performed a service for Tarkalor. The emphasis here is on how Tarkalor turned a previous enemy and liability into an asset to solve two problems. To me, this puts the end of strife on Tarkalor’s clever action not upon the revelation of Monrogh. Without Tarkalor’s action, Monrogh’s Yelmalio revelation would have continued to cause strife in Sartar.

Getting into the specifics of Monrogh: What truth was Monrogh actually seeking? He got an answer, but the real meaning of his answer can change a lot depending on what the question was. Was he seeking a new truth of the Sun God? Or was he searching for a Sun god that would allow him to sway and convince the Elmali to fully abandon their traditional ways?

King of Sartar, pg. 169

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Monrogh is the one who traveled to the Sun God to find the truth which was needed. He traversed the worlds, and met with the elf lords and the wandering souls who had still been seeking the vision. They were assembled as the Witnesses, who have brought their magics to the cult.


Monrogh did not know the name of the god for whom he searched, but when he returned to this world he brought back Yelmalio. This deity was already known among the elves, and was said to be the wounded body of the Sun limping across the sky (perhaps even the immortal part, since it was not in the Underworld with the Emperor.) He recited the List of Visionaries, whose works had prepared the way for the liberation of Yelmalio among humans.

This actually doesn’t say anything about Elmal being a mask of Yelmalio. It indicates Monrogh brought a deity known among the elves and introduced him among humans. Sure this could be interpreted as Elmal is a mask of Yelmalio, and some other references point to that. But many other subsequent references indicate that it’s a new god “neither Yelm or Elmal.” This certainly doesn’t seem to give a definitive answer, even if we assume the scribe is reliable.

4) One thing this account does specify is that Yelmalio’s cult replaced Elmal’s cult.

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The success of Monrogh at attaining the truth attracted the rest of the Elmal worshipers who wanted to join the new Sun religion. They were the first converts.

In this version of the story, it seems as if Yelmalio completely replaces Elmal as “the rest” of his worshipers joined the new cult. Perhaps it merely refers to Sartar and the Quivini tribes though. Again, the scribe is not entirely specific. In terms of how this impacts gaming in Glorantha with Runequest, this makes sense historically in that it explains why there are no Elmali in RuneQuest supplements, but this interpretation doesn’t hold when we consider other documents released following King of Sartar.

Further, the cult spreads, with the assistance of the Lunar empire who imports it into Tarsh. This detail seems to imply that Yelmalio moved to Tarsh quite late, definitely after 1550, but since it seems to imply Tarkalor solved the conflict before the Lunars began to spread the new cult, this would place the spread of Yelmalio in Tarsh in 1579, or later, when Vaantar was officially awarded to the Yelmalio cult. It seems like this detail differs from other accounts I’ve seen folks providing indicating Yelmalio was a presence in Tarsh significantly earlier than that, but again I’m unclear.

King of Sartar, pg. 169

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The old religious/social conflict of the traditional and innovative Sun worshipers had weakened many kingdoms throughout Peloria before. Tarkalor managed to disarm it and strengthen his position at the same time. Whether Tarkalor was conscious of what he was doing we do not know, and he did not tell.


At that time the Lunar authorities constantly advised the leaders of the Solar religion, and someone among them decided to import the cult to Tarsh to pacify some troublesome Tarshite natives. Later, the cult was transplanted elsewhere.

This seems to indicate that the Lunars introduced the Yelmalio cult to Tarsh, but the timeline here again doesn’t seem to match up with the later sources about how Yelmalio was worshipped and when his worship came to Tarsh. Again, differing accounts make for a more complex and interesting fictional world, but it undermines the authority and accuracy of any one particular account.

 

In summary, Making Gods is a fascinating document as an in world document covering one perspective on a controversial topic, but it raises far more questions than it answers. It seems impossible to draw any answers from the document without reading it in dialog with many other documents, both in world and out, that discuss Elmal and Yelmalio. When examined against other documents, there are significant differences that make me reluctant to invest too much authority in this one single document.

 

 

 

Edited by daskindt
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7 hours ago, daskindt said:

I’m trying to explain why I’m confused by some of the choices made based upon my readings as a consumer of the Glorantha stories.

You're not alone with that. The Elmal/Yelmalio issue has been problematic for a while, after all the cult was strong in two of the three human settings published for RQ2 (Pavis/Rubble, Griffin Mountain), and the example character from the rules belonged to this cult.

7 hours ago, daskindt said:

1) King of Sartar, first published in 1992, is definitely one of the critical sources I’ve gone back to again and again to try and better understand the Elmal vs Yelmalio debate. As far as I’m aware (and I could certainly be mistaken), King of Sartar was the first time information about Elmal was officially published. Prior to that, there was no Elmal officially recognized in the materials available on Glorantha, or at the very least there was nothing about Elmal in RuneQuest. Only Yelmalio. So this is probably one of the most important documents contextually for the current controversy. But I think it’s important to recognize it was published in 1992 before Elmal had any official presence in the myths of Glorantha and that significant work has be done over the next 26 years to elaborate and clarify the role of Elmal in Glorantha.

All of that is true. The impact of that document (and the listing of Elmal in the gods of the Orlanthi) was exacerbated by the almost contemporary and highly accaimed release of Sun County for RQ3, which re-iterated all the Yelmalio history from the Pavis Box and expanded on it.

Due to the lack of Sartar/Orlanthi scenarios and background description until Hero Wars and Thunder Rebels, there was little opportunity to publish anything about Elmal. I would have to check whether Elmal was mentioned in the Riskland background in Dorastor - Land of Doom (Vinga was, weirdly, the other major upsetting revelation in KoS).

7 hours ago, daskindt said:

King of Sartar is a world document. It is most assuredly not a game or systems document. But it has to grapple with how Glorantha is/was portrayed in game systems. RuneQuest at the time of its publishing. Later, it had to be in dialog with Hero Wars and HeroQuest.

 

Yes. King of Sartar returned to the origin of Glorantha - storytelling and weird exploration of myth and history. following heroic protagonists.

At that time, two families of game systems existed for Gloantha - the RQ roleplaying game and the boardgames WBRM/Dragon Pass and Nomad Gods.

I think it would be fairer to say that the roleplayer readers of the book had to grapple with the game systems. Greg's own grappling with game systems for Glorantha had gone into quite a different direction at that time, struggling with a concept for heroquesting which used elements of resource administration a few notches above what he had done for the Pendragon campaign game, and probably still leaning on the concepts that never made it into the game Masters of Luck and Death. Arcane Lore shows snippets of that game development.

So,  if KoS has to grapple with any game system, it would be with the heroquesting role-playing boardgame computer game Greg was struggling with. (After Hero Wars had come out, I had the chance to play in a game with Greg where he used reduced Hero Wars rules to simulate this combination of storytelling, resource management and heroic questing to great effect.)

 

7 hours ago, daskindt said:

In light of that, my impression is that part of the goal of the Making Gods essay was to officially include the Elmal mythology into the world of Glorantha while at the same time limiting it’s impact upon the published version of the myths and stories in RuneQuest.

My impression of this document is rather that Greg wrote it for himself, to answer why it had taken him so long to recognize the need for a positively associated sun god for the hill barbarians. And unlike the RuneQuest community, Greg had been using local names and aspects of sun and storm deities forever. Ralian/Seshnelan Ehilm had been present as the test of Ehilm's Flames in the Lightbringers' Quest for as long as we have had that information, but Gods of Glorantha's Prosopaedia confusingly presented Ehilm only as a False God of the Westerners.

My own discovery of Glorantha fell into this period. I had been playing RuneQuest 3rd edition for a couple of years, using a fantasy setting of my own inspired by the RQ3 Vikings box. A world that had a heroic/magical history/prehistory of ten thousand years of human (or humanoid) agency in a struggle of demigod beings much older than that, designed to make best use of all the inspirational creatures and cults delivered with that game system without taking them over directly. This means my first approach to Glorantha was that of a scavenger, although I had enjoyed the full panoply of Gloranthan weirdness in the Dragon Pass boardgame. Possibly with an Arkati ethos of approaching this world of myths with respect while taking its inspiration with me.

My first encounter with the Vrok-Hawk riders of the sun-worshipping citadel in Votanki lands was through Griffin Island, not Griffin Mountain. I researched its pedigree through Uz Lore (Genertela Box had weirdly declared all the weath of Griffin Mountain as a blank land...), so I began the next hemicycle of putting Glorantha into and out of that setting in my research. The Griffin Island cult of Hilme for that citadel became a "many suns" revelation of my own.

7 hours ago, daskindt said:

Why haven’t we heard of Elmal? Why doesn’t anyone worship Elmal in the published RuneQuest sourcebooks? How can the Orlanthi have all these important myths about Elmal but we only have Yelmalio in RuneQuest?

That is pretty simple to answer. The RuneQuest material we had on Sartar was extremely fragmentary. Genertela box offered a few paragraphs on the Varmandi clan in the Genertela Players' Book Sartarite "What my Father told me" - not the most representative of all the clans in Sartar.  Apple Lane was our next best (and most misleading) glimpse into rural Sartar, just like the New Pavis material was our best glimpse into urban Sartar.

King of Sartar presented the Orlanthi clan, their rites and lesser deities. It is only the second view at a typical Heortling clan. How could we have encountered Elmal in Pavis County or Gringlestead, or in the raider clan of the Varmandi?

To me, King of Sartar also established clan level worship of Yelmalio in the "Tarshite"-speaking tribes of northern Sartar, including the Dinacoli.

 

7 hours ago, daskindt said:

How did Monrogh discover Yelmalio while he was actively being worshipped in Sun Dome County in Prax and other places?

Now that's the big question.

Monrogh Lantern was already established as a Yelmalio cult hero in Cults of Prax. The history of Pavis and Sun County makes it clear that Dorasar was accompanied by Sun Dome Templars, not Elmali. This gives us a very narrow window for the Elmal to Yelmalio conversion in Old Sartar.

 

7 hours ago, daskindt said:

It’s my impression that the Making Gods essay is an attempt to resolve those concerns while still introducing a significant new deity and collection of myths to Glorantha. It’s a bit of Greg trying to have it both ways. Elmal suddenly exists (and has always existed retroactively), but his newly established presence doesn’t require any actual changes to published RuneQuest sourcebooks because his cult has been fully subsumed into Yelmalio by the early 1600s. (Although it was obviously massively controversial in relation to the Sun County supplement also published in ‘92.)  I’d be happy to be better illuminated on the topic however.

Fully subsumed in the places anything on that detail level had been published for.

And yes, the insertion wasn't exactly perfect. Neither were the dates given for these events consistent. Nothing as bad as the CHDP mentions of Moirades after 1610, but the dates for the reigns of Jarolar, Jarosar and Tarkalor are a bit of "pick and choose your favorite".

So yes, people - especially long time players of Yelmalian characters - felt like being tossed out into cold water. Here was Sun County, faithfully transporting all the RQ2 Yelmalio lore from the RQ2 rules examples, Cults of Prax and the Pavis box into the RQ3 era, with glorious scenarios and great local detail, and there was this trip into deeper story-telling.

Elmal, the fire-owning horse and sun god of the Heortlings, and the loyal thane who kept guarding the stead in Orlanth's absence, refused to fade away. 

We can blame the third officially published game system for Glorantha, the King of Dragon Pass computer game, which helped popularize Elmal as part of the Heortling normal range of deities.

Then came Thunder Rebels and Storm Tribe, approaching clan-based Heortlings for Hero Wars, and providing the Elmal canon that now is mourned.

 

As far as I am concerned, all this Yelmalio stuff applies mainly to Sartar and to a lesser degree greater Tarsh. Neither the Elmali in the outback of Heortland nor Esrolia would have followed Monrogh en masse.

And Yelmalio among the Praxian Beast Riders requires quite a bit of explanation or adaptation, too.

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12 hours ago, daskindt said:

 

2) Making Gods is an essay within Jalk’s Book which is introduced in a metatextual note from Greg Stafford as a framing device. This is a popular convention in fantasy documents that places the author into the narrative as if analyzing real documents from this fictional world. The character of “Greg” actually calls the accuracy of the essay into question in the introduction to Jalk’s Book.

King of Sartar, pg. 167 (emphasis mine):

Quote

Jalk’s Book
The original had only two internal divisions, other than the separate chapters. The Book of the Colymar, for instance, was not set apart from the rest in any way. Only the Report on the Orlanthi was set apart, by a larger headline. The other larger divisions are my own, though I think obvious to the material.
Essays begin the document. They seem to be the wild speculations of the old scribes hidden away in their lofty library.

This immediately casts the Making Gods essay, the first essay in the book following this introduction, as “wild speculations” and it should be read and evaluated against other sources and comments in this light.

Take into consideration the nature of the other essays here. Forgetting Things and Vanstan's Ages of the World can be dated some time after the Battle of Heroes. I think that Hilliam was a Londario scribe, or a scribe in that temple of knowledge that Londario re-discovered.

 

12 hours ago, daskindt said:

As a reader, I’m now forewarned that the narrators/writers of the various essays may very well be unreliable. In world documents should always be read with awareness of the reliability of the narrator/storyteller, but Greg has drawn extra attention to that point when setting up the coming essays. And notably, the version of the account in Making Gods frequently differs from other accounts in other sources.

 

The only potential conflict is that the future count of Sun County accompanied Dorasar when he went to found New Pavis following the death of Sarotar, sent by Monrogh, from the Sun Dome temple at Vanntar. Apparently still in the reign of Saronil, which makes 1550 (or, with the alternate timeline in KoS, 1555) the latest date for Dorasar's project to be started.

Troll Pak names encounters with Yelmalio, even in the context of the Tax Slaughter, and Balazar was a worshipper of Yelmalio when he prepared the way for his children to rule from their giant-built citadels. The Cult of Yelmalio in Cults of Prax describes the situation in Mo Baustra a few years after the Lunar conquest of Prax and Pavis. And the two boardgames have a total of four templar units and none of the horseman archers the fluff text talks about. That's the pre-1992 canon on the cult of Yelmalio.

So mainly we get into a rush if we stick with the 1550 date for Dorasar receiving help from Monrogh. If any dates cause trouble, it is the Guide's 1579 date for the Sun Domers receiving Sun Dome County from King Tarkalor, although I find it a lot more likely that this was just the deed for the land, and that the fact had been established way earlier. The Guide also names 1560 for the liberation of Whitewall and the (final) victory over the Kitori. The first conquests for the Elmali in or near Vanntar must have predated that and the 1550 date.

 

 

12 hours ago, daskindt said:

3) Making Gods does not specify a lot of details. When was this document composed? Who was Hilliam Wants West? 

Also: where and for whom was this document composed. My guess is somewhere in the Far Place, or nearby. We get more detail about the Antesmia statue than about the extent of Saronil's reign.

12 hours ago, daskindt said:

When and how did the Eyetooth clan aquire the antesmia statue? What exactly is the antesmia statue? Who was their tribal king? Why were they rebelling?

My guess: a Far Point clan. Possibly having some personal connection to Hilliam.

12 hours ago, daskindt said:

Why were the Elmali enemies of Tarkalor’s father? When did this occur?

When did Saronil have to muster his army? We know that he supported Palashee in 1538. Other than that, his reign appears to have been mainly peaceful.

 

12 hours ago, daskindt said:

How was Monrogh connected to them? 

At a guess none beyond sharing their cult.

12 hours ago, daskindt said:

When exactly did Monrogh have his Peculiar vision?

According to the RQ-Con 1994 booklet, Monrogh had his vision when questioned by priests of Somash in Teshnos.

12 hours ago, daskindt said:

Was the Peculiar vision at his initiation the same as his quest that brought back Yelmalio? Or was the Peculiar vision prophetic and his actual quest took place later?

 

Here's a short summary of Greg's text on (very) young Tarkalor's and Monrogh's travel across the Wastes by Nick Brooke (http://glorantha.temppeli.org/digest/gd3/1996.10/1562.html😞

Quote

Quickly restating the background: the modern Sun Dome Temple in Dragon Pass was founded by Monrogh, a companion of Prince (later King) Tarkalor of Sartar, who had previously accompanied him on a land journey across the Wastes to see the elephants of Teshnos. It seems reasonable to myself and Peter that he gained his insight into how to establish a solar temple-based theocracy (as opposed to the previous tribal Elmali model) based on what he saw in Teshnos and in the Praxian Sun Dome. The latter had, of course, been worshipping Yelmalio, Son of the Sun, since the Second Age: Monrogh brought a variant of their belief back to Sartar to supplant the native Elmal cult, but may well have left the Praxian Temple some trace of his visit in the form of practices imported from Teshnos, later condemned as heresies. 

Here's my speculative timeline for this.

In 1539, the Dragonewts' Dream had opened the ancient seal on the Big Rubble, and given the heroic stature of Sartar's offspring already in very young years, I have little doubt that the sons and nephews of Saronil were among the first Heortlings who went there exploring and recovering artifacts, beaten only by intrepid Praxians. From throwaway comments in Dorasar's backstory, it looks like Dorasar was a youthful companion of his much older cousin Sarotar (probably not yet initiated, but being prepared for that), and it looks like Monrogh was among the companions of Tarkalor (who would have been rather recently initiated).

I think it is likely that Tarkalor and Monrogh made a visit to the Sun Dome Temple at Mo Baustra, and that Tarkalor saw the depiction of an elephant there. Being eager to make a name for himself, he somehow convinced his companions to follow him across the Wastes to Teshnos.

All of this was written in 1996, long before we learned of the 1250 Teshnan expedition into the Zola Fel Valley, where their colony lasted for a few generations. I have stated previously that I believe that a portion of those Teshnans found refuge among the farmers of Sun County, bringing some of their solar lore with them, and probably also that depiction of an elephant. (The alternative source for that depiction would have been the Rubble, brought there when Old Pavis was the best entrance to Dragon Pass for travelers wishing to avoid the conflicts in Kethaela.)

16 hours ago, daskindt said:

Getting into the specifics of Monrogh: What truth was Monrogh actually seeking? He got an answer, but the real meaning of his answer can change a lot depending on what the question was. Was he seeking a new truth of the Sun God? Or was he searching for a Sun god that would allow him to sway and convince the Elmali to fully abandon their traditional ways?

Or was he troubled because the Sun Dome cult of the Provinces would have made his followers necessarily the subjects of the Emperor of Dara Happa (who also happened to be the Red Emperor)?

As a companion of Tarkalor, odds are that he was not a great fan of the Lunar Empire. His dilemma may have been that while he wished to access all those nifty solar magics (including the superior training of the templars thanks to their exemption from agricultural duties), he needed a way to avoid Dara Happan overlordship.

 

16 hours ago, daskindt said:

King of Sartar, pg. 169

Quote

Monrogh is the one who traveled to the Sun God to find the truth which was needed. He traversed the worlds, and met with the elf lords and the wandering souls who had still been seeking the vision. They were assembled as the Witnesses, who have brought their magics to the cult.


Monrogh did not know the name of the god for whom he searched, but when he returned to this world he brought back Yelmalio. This deity was already known among the elves, and was said to be the wounded body of the Sun limping across the sky (perhaps even the immortal part, since it was not in the Underworld with the Emperor.) He recited the List of Visionaries, whose works had prepared the way for the liberation of Yelmalio among humans.

This actually doesn’t say anything about Elmal being a mask of Yelmalio. It indicates Monrogh brought a deity known among the elves and introduced him among humans. Sure this could be interpreted as Elmal is a mask of Yelmalio, and some other references point to that. But many other subsequent references indicate that it’s a new god “neither Yelm or Elmal.” This certainly doesn’t seem to give a definitive answer, even if we assume the scribe is reliable.

I am wondering whether Monrogh managed to find out something about Yamsur. In the old Gods and Goddesses of Glorantha series, Hyalor (ancestor of Beren) is a follower of Yamsur, the sun god of Genert's Garden, and possibly the "Yelmalio" who turned away the approach of Gash and Gore twice. Unlike the Hill of Gold Yelmalio, Yamsur was slain by Chao at Earthfall, and is barely remembered.

The description of this Yelmalio does fit Antirius, too.

Somehow Monrogh managed to provide a Yelmalio with sufficiently imperial solar pedigree without necessitating submission to the Empire.

Not that the Empire was an imminent threat when Monrogh converted the Elmali - Tarsh would be held by Saronil's foster brother Palashee until 1555. The Esrolian assassinations were a different threat.

 

16 hours ago, daskindt said:

4) One thing this account does specify is that Yelmalio’s cult replaced Elmal’s cult.

Quote

The success of Monrogh at attaining the truth attracted the rest of the Elmal worshipers who wanted to join the new Sun religion. They were the first converts.

In this version of the story, it seems as if Yelmalio completely replaces Elmal as “the rest” of his worshipers joined the new cult.

That's one way to read this. "the rest of the Elmal worshipers, all of whom wanted to join the new Sun religion."  Not my interpretation, though. "The rest of those Elmal worshipers who wanted to join the new Sun religion" is how I would read this, leaving all the other Elmali back in their tribes - diminished in numbers, and probably importance, but still there.

And "the first converts" does suggest that other converts followed, although that may be a nod towards the Far Place or the Praxian Sun Dome Temple that was taken over by Varthanis Brighthelm, with the Monrogh liturgy superseding previous practices  more or less heavily influenced by Praxian and possibly Teshnan ways.

16 hours ago, daskindt said:

Perhaps it merely refers to Sartar and the Quivini tribes though.

Or only to those Elmal among these who had been sufficiently slighted by Saronil to refuse to follow his call to arms. Only Jarolar went to fortify Runegate with towers. Saronil did not, instead he built his belt of keeps named after his sons in a row east of Runegate.

16 hours ago, daskindt said:

Again, the scribe is not entirely specific. In terms of how this impacts gaming in Glorantha with Runequest, this makes sense historically in that it explains why there are no Elmali in RuneQuest supplements, but this interpretation doesn’t hold when we consider other documents released following King of Sartar.

The discovery of Elmal sparked a fire and all the conflict that Monrogh's revelation was supposed to have repaired.

The cult grew popular through Hero Wars and Heroquest, to the extent that its apparent disappearance now invokes reactions quite similar to those when it first surfaced.

16 hours ago, daskindt said:

Further, the cult spreads, with the assistance of the Lunar empire who imports it into Tarsh.

Lunar Tarsh, or Far Place Tarsh? Goldedge should already have had the Sairdite version.

16 hours ago, daskindt said:

This detail seems to imply that Yelmalio moved to Tarsh quite late, definitely after 1550, but since it seems to imply Tarkalor solved the conflict before the Lunars began to spread the new cult, this would place the spread of Yelmalio in Tarsh in 1579, or later, when Vaantar was officially awarded to the Yelmalio cult.

I take the 1579 date as the deed of independence to the Count rather than the acquisition of the lands. I am not entirely clear when and how the enslavement of the Ergeshi (former Kitori) in their human shape occurred, and how it is maintained, but I used that as a minor plot point for my pilgrimage scenario.

Tarkalor's dates are somewhat problematic anyway. Terasarin is the older of Tarkalor's two sons, and has an adult son who marries a Far Place chieftainess. Saraskos has two at least young adult children when he dies trying to avenge his son in 1587, soon followed by his daughter trying to avenge father and brother. But Tarkalor's King of Dragon Pass marriage to the FHQ happens only in 1575, and Saraskos having two children with adult agency could not have happened within 12 years, unless another Illaro dynasty child prodigy stuff was going on. (As with Salinarg's children...)

This means that Tarkalor had been a lover of the FHQ considerably earlier, possibly in the 1550ies or so already. Which might explain the delay between establishing Monrogh in Vanntar and liberating Whitewall (although some of that also is part of the Esrolian assasination conflict with Houses Norinel and Arkilia's suitors).

 

I suspect that Tarkalor somehow joined the Night Jumpers while establishing Monrrogh, possibly around 1545. After Sarotar's death, he may have passed this secret on to his followers, enabling the assassinations of the Norinel queen and grandmother by homing in on their troll bodyguards.

(In the Boardgame, the assassin units have the ability to "teleport" onto any stack on the board. Nightjumping or leaping down from a star would be a non-teleport way to show up anywhere unexpectedly.

16 hours ago, daskindt said:

It seems like this detail differs from other accounts I’ve seen folks providing indicating Yelmalio was a presence in Tarsh significantly earlier than that, but again I’m unclear.

The presence of Sun Dome Temples predates the spread of Monrogh's synthesis. The surprise at the name Yelmalio is the one point where I am inclined to accept the caveat about the essay having been written in a scribe's study without consulting any field work or deeper research.

 

16 hours ago, daskindt said:

King of Sartar, pg. 169

Quote

The old religious/social conflict of the traditional and innovative Sun worshipers had weakened many kingdoms throughout Peloria before. Tarkalor managed to disarm it and strengthen his position at the same time. Whether Tarkalor was conscious of what he was doing we do not know, and he did not tell.


At that time the Lunar authorities constantly advised the leaders of the Solar religion, and someone among them decided to import the cult to Tarsh to pacify some troublesome Tarshite natives. Later, the cult was transplanted elsewhere.

This seems to indicate that the Lunars introduced the Yelmalio cult to Tarsh, but the timeline here again doesn’t seem to match up with the later sources about how Yelmalio was worshipped and when his worship came to Tarsh. Again, differing accounts make for a more complex and interesting fictional world, but it undermines the authority and accuracy of any one particular account.

We know that there were quite a few Sun Dome temples active in the Provinces when Phargentes became Provincial Overseer in 1545. Phargentes died in 1579, so any "Imperial Lunar" activities towards the Yelmalio cult would have been handled by him. Phargentes doubled as King of (Lunar) Tarsh only in 1555, and it isn't clear whether the author would have referred to his activities as royal Tarshite or as Lunar.

 

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I think that most gloranthans, if not all, do not question their beliefs. The things they believe in are necessarily true for them, they don't need any explanation.

It is the nature of myths to be contradictory so we won't find a clear answer anywhere. Aren't the gods and the God Time supposed to be unknowable, aren't we trying to find a truth when there is none that can be proven?

Are Yelmalio and Elmal two different gods or two aspects of the same god? Or both? Some believe Yelmalio is the same as Elmal and it is true because they think it is, and they can't be wrong because whatever his name their god gives them powers. So, it can't be wrong. By the same time, the Elmali believe Elmal and Yelmalio are different gods and they are true. Why? Their god gives them powers, so it is true.

In my opinion you should ultimately ask yourself whether you like this Elmal/Yelmalio thing or not in your game. If not, make your Sartar sun worshippers all Yelmalions. ElmaI can easily be ignored if you want it so. On the contrary, if you like the Elmal/Yelmalio controversy, embrace it. Different people having different faiths and thinking that they believe in the right one are commonplace. Many are even angry against the other faiths because they think they are wrong. And they are necessarily wrong because what they believe in is necessarily true. They just believe it is true, and thus it is.

In my opinion, this question is only of matter for a player whose character is worshipping Elmal or Yelmalio. As a gamemaster I am not sure you need to have an answer at all. If a character is doubting, I think that your task is to give informations and background to the player so that his character can solve HIS crisis. It is ultimately HIS problem, not YOURS.

My two provocative though friendly cents.   ;)

Edited by Corvantir
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On 9/10/2018 at 1:00 AM, Jeff said:

The Yelmalio revelation did not cause strife, it helped end it. Read the Making Gods essay carefully.

Weird.

It’s almost like Jeff ‘18 should carefully read some of the stuff that Jeff ‘09-‘12 wrote.

S:KoH, pg. 254:

Quote

Jonstown Compendium No. 34,795
Vaantar is an ancient site sacred to cults of the Sky and Light. During the Resettlement Period and the early decades of the kingdom of Sartar, Vaantar was an important temple of Elmal, belonging to no tribe and defended against the Kitori by determined members of the cult. Monrogh Lantern, a companion of Tarkalor, brought back Yelmalio to Vaantar, and his presence vitalized the people, who became the core of a rapidly growing cult. Within a generation, half the Elmali of Sartar had joined the new cult, creating terrible strife within the tribes of Sartar. The presence of many unattached foreigners aggravated the social problems.

 

 

 

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4 hours ago, daskindt said:

Weird.

It’s almost like Jeff ‘18 should carefully read some of the stuff that Jeff ‘09-‘12 wrote.

S:KoH, pg. 254:

 

 

 

Maybe at the time, I got the Making Gods essay wrong. Which is precisely the case.

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6 hours ago, daskindt said:

It’s almost like Jeff ‘18 should carefully read some of the stuff that Jeff ‘09-‘12 wrote.

Have we been Jeffed?

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Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

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1 hour ago, Jeff said:

Maybe at the time, I got the Making Gods essay wrong. Which is precisely the case.

Copy this, print it out - Jeff got something wrong! First time I can remember! 😉

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

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2 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Hardly. Like all writers I look at old material of mine and about half the time wonder "what the hell was I thinking?"

Plus there are other ways of social turmoil caused by the Elmal-Yelmalio split. I have been writing up an Elmali thane household to place somewhere in Sartar. If this household would be hit by the decision whether or not to follow Monrogh to conquer the ruins of Vanntar (ok, that's just a campaign against those hateful darkness worshippers to free a holy place) and then to move over there.

How will the clan react to that, and how will those family (blood line, household) members who are not initiated to Elmal react? Will dependent cottars follow? How will splitting the children of the stead affect these children who grew up as siblings up to that point?

What about the marriages, and the alliances they stand for? WIll the birth clans of the wives of the Elmali turning to Yelmalio have any form of alliance to those new entities?

And how are the new Yelmalion landlords presiding over the conquered Ergeshi population organized? Will they have clans, or will arrivals from numerous different clans group together as a sort of landlords' guild? What about non-Yelmalian cottar followers of theirs? Will they form a non-slave-owning lower- to middle-class small landholder half-carl class?

What about any former thralls lorded over by the Kitori (e.g. extorted through the Shadow Tribute)? Some will flock to the independent tribes of Volsaxar, e.g. swelling the Kurtali Clan to the Curtali tribe, others might have remained as thralls of the conquerors.

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12 hours ago, Jeff said:

Hardly. Like all writers I look at old material of mine and about half the time wonder "what the hell was I thinking?"

Yeah, let's not get into the deal of quoting folks earlier thoughts as though they were iron bands that bound them to that opinion forever. I may have a difference of opinion with @Jeff on this issue, but he is allowed to have new insights or opinions, without having his prior thoughts raised in a way that suggests he is being intellectually contradictory or dishonest.

It's not a useful addition to debate.

After all, if we want someone to change their mind, there is no point in suggesting they can't 🙂

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Something I'm curious about: in "Elmal Guards the Sunpath," the Cold Sun gives its name as Yonesh when it encounters Elmal for the second time, and when it claims to be the sun, Elmal defies it by claiming that Yonesh is "riddled with storm runes" and would pollute whatever part of the great sky road he touched. Is the Cold Sun in this myth actually Vadrus?

Meanwhile, in "Nyalda's Bride Price," when Nyalda is approached for marriage by many different suns, Little Yelm tries to use invisible chains to trap her in his palace and prevent her from escaping. Nyalda avoids his trap and flees to a hill that she beseeches for aid. The hill traps Little Yelm inside its depths, "where lurked a towering troll, who would keep him busy for a good long time." Is this perhaps related to Yelmalio losing his Fire to Zorak Zoran? I mean, Yelmalio's biggest myth is named after a hill...

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