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Dehori Questions


Animal Nomad

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Do we as a community have the names and/or titles of all the 22 (?) known Dehori? I think Ikadz and Lord Lurker in Shadows are known Dehori, but are there others? Is Himile, for example, a Dehori? And is Lord Lurker a title or a name? And are all the Dehori as mighty as Ikadz and perhaps Himile? Is the mother of all the Dehori known? Perhaps it is Hegeda Dehora? Or are Mother of Space and Father of Demons the known parents?  Complex questions no doubt from a simple Animal Nomad! 

 

 

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15 minutes ago, Animal Nomad said:

Do we as a community have the names and/or titles of all the 22 (?) known Dehori? I think Ikadz and Lord Lurker in Shadows are known Dehori, but are there others? Is Himile, for example, a Dehori? And is Lord Lurker a title or a name? And are all the Dehori as mighty as Ikadz and perhaps Himile? Is the mother of all the Dehori known? Perhaps it is Hegeda Dehora? Or are Mother of Space and Father of Demons the known parents?  

I've never heard of Ikadz being described as a Dehori before nor have I heard of the 22 Dehori.

Himile is Dehore's brother and a god in his own right and with his own servants.  

Any darkness spirit is a dehori, even a shade.  As for the parentage of the Dehori

 

Quote

. .Dehore is the God of Fear and father of the
Dehori, many lesser Darkness spirits with
limited power and capacity. This god did not
father all these, but seems to have collected the
otherwise leaderless Darkness spirits into his
command. There are some “lieutenants,” but
they are unusual. Shamans know this deity and
his followers. His wife was Subere.

Glorantha Sourcebook p76

 

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34 minutes ago, Animal Nomad said:

I see. Is there a more in-depth article about Dehore and the Dehori that is canon? Much of what I speak is not canon it appears. My Glorantha certainly varies from the official version, but I hope not too much.

The material I quoted from the Glorantha Sourcebook is pretty much all that has been written about him.  There's one or two sentences elsewhere but he's really the Guy in charge of Dark Spirits and not a guy known for doing anything major.

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I don't think it's really what you are looking for, but this is the Dehori description from the upcoming trollpack "types of Uz" section
 

Quote

DARKNESS ELEMENTALS (DEHORI)

Dehori are the elemental spirits of Darkness. Though they are not truly Uz themselves, they have a natural alliance with the trolls, and are often found in their company. Dehori most commonly manifest as a dark, amorphous or bestial shadow, though they could conceivably take whatever shape they desire. They can be just about any size, from tiny dark spots to the miles-wide shadows of Shadow’s Dance. 

Though their overall mass” is fixed, Dehori can adjust their density” at will, appearing as a larger diffuse shadow, or a smaller pitch-black shape. In their most concentrated form, their darkness is so intense that beings not naturally attuned to Darkness can be killed outright by the freezing cold and utter terror of their embrace.

Many Dehori are mindless, or of such alien intelligence as to appear so. Those that do have recognizable personalities tend to be fond of secrets and guessing games, and scary or unsettling stories. Dehori hate light of any sort, and extinguish fires or other light sources whenever they can, and flee or hide from any light they cannot overcome.

The Glorantha Bestiary has stats as well as an example "unique" Dehori.

Mythically, when Subere hid from Light becoming the dark beyond dark, Dehore broke into countless pieces - all the various Dehori. There are certainly wayyy more than 22 of them in total, but there could easily be a tradition of 22 "special" ancient and huge ones. Personally, any limitation to the quantity of dehori seems contrary to their mythology, but darkness probably the best place of all for YGMV, as even the most knowledgeable of gloranthans will be either ignorant or deliberately misleading about such details if pressed.

A few possible "known" Dehori might include Hellroar (ZZs spirit of retribution) Cragspider (according to some interpretations of some early stories) maybe Basko, the black Sun. The vast majority, however will be nameless or forgotten.

In general, Uz divide darkness spirits into two main categories: Ancestors, who at some point had an Uz body, and Dehori, or all the other assorted spirits of darkness.

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I have seen some very old notes that suggest there are 22 named and/or special Dehori, but this info seems to have been either been rejected or revised into the current form. It is fun to learn more about the unknowable corners of Glorantha.  May I ask what the publication schedule for this new troll book is?

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On 7/19/2018 at 2:15 AM, Animal Nomad said:

Do we as a community have the names and/or titles of all the 22 (?) known Dehori? I think Ikadz and Lord Lurker in Shadows are known Dehori, but are there others? Is Himile, for example, a Dehori? And is Lord Lurker a title or a name? And are all the Dehori as mighty as Ikadz and perhaps Himile? Is the mother of all the Dehori known? Perhaps it is Hegeda Dehora? Or are Mother of Space and Father of Demons the known parents?  Complex questions no doubt from a simple Animal Nomad! 

The Animal Nomad returns to bedevil!

Himile is not a dehori because the standard genealogy has Himile and Dehore (and also Subere) as children of Father of Demons and Mother of Space. Thus Cold differentiates from Darkness at this early stage. (This may be an uh "blind" or deliberate mystery to non-initiates.)

In the same texts Ikadz is a burtae and so not necessarily a true dehori . . . most likely a death god in the underworld but not necessarily of the Dark. He may be adopted into various lists of course. 

Given your interest in the tamali you might be willing to trade your lore of Hegeda Dehora for a story of how the dehori fathered the tamali. As for the mother of dehori, I would not be surprised if it was formally Subere although in some archaic sources "Xentha daughter of darkness" is their queen, which is interesting.

If I were listing dehori I'd start with a list of my 22 (or whatever number) favorite battle magic spells and wrap a shadow around each one. This suggests to me that the number of greater darks is equivalent to the number of spells a particular shaman can source from that particular elemental court.

singer sing me a given

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I am not sure if Ikadz is Chaotic or not. Any thoughts? Also, I know little of Hegeda except there is a chance she(?) is important somehow to the Dehori species. Certainly possible that Hegeda Dehora is simply a forgotten title that means Mother Dehori, and is indeed Subere, Xentha, Nakala, Space Mother, or some other lucky lady. Perhaps there are several castes of Dehori, certain of them named, powerful, and self-aware, and others much less powerful, mindless, and roaming around. Do you think it is possible for two (greater) Dehori to couple and generate more (lesser) Dehori? Do any other elementals replicate by themselves? As always my knowledge is incomplete but getting more accurate after each reply and the grand index continues to gain clarity. Thanks. And I am ready to read a story about the creation of the Dehori. I dig them guys. 

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On 7/20/2018 at 3:03 PM, Animal Nomad said:

 May I ask what the publication schedule for this new troll book is?

It is some way off still. The manuscript is largely ready, but there is still a bit to be done on that end, then art and layout, etc.

I'll probably have more info after Gencon.

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19 hours ago, boztakang said:

It is some way off still. The manuscript is largely ready, but there is still a bit to be done on that end, then art and layout, etc.

I'll probably have more info after Gencon.

Is it still an HQG book, or has it now turned into an RQG book? I assume there are some game system-specific bits in there.

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13 minutes ago, Steve said:

Is it still an HQG book, or has it now turned into an RQG book? I assume there are some game system-specific bits in there.

It will be RQG - though I do have an awful lot of HQG-specific material that will hopefully get into print at some point as well. 

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On 7/21/2018 at 1:56 PM, jajagappa said:

And listed among the Gods of Chaos in the Guide p.703.

That list includes a few more deities which are only skirting outright Chaos - Gark, Mallia, Ompalam, Sedenya, Seseine. The Guide was quite generous assigning the Chaos rune to cults which used to not have it. By this definition, Arkat, Vith and a few other deities should be assigned Chaos, too.

In a way, some of the troll gods may be included, too. The chaos-tainted cave trolls and sea trolls are part of Kyger Litor. Boztakang is a bit suspicious, too. (As is Hengall the Second Son...) And then there is Death, the entropic power on the border to Chaos, and Arachne Solara, the mother of Time.

A huge number of antigods of the Eastern Myth can be included in the Chaos Array, and by extension Vith and Gebkeran might, too. Indirect chaos is not a discerning concept  pretty much anywhere outside of the Storm Pantheon (Orlanthi and Praxians).

 

There might be chaotic dehori, to come back to the original subject. If uz could be tainted and subverted, why not dehori?

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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1 hour ago, Joerg said:

There might be chaotic dehori, to come back to the original subject. If uz could be tainted and subverted, why not dehori?

If the Dawn Age Seshnegi had a word for "chaos" they might well have agreed that there's a fine line between dehori and the monstrosities that break the world. As far as I know the dehori war that triggered Xemela's sacrifice is the only substantial early interaction between the Malkionites and the kind of Darkness familiar to troll friends . . . and it did not leave a good impression. It might take an Arkat centuries later to plumb the depths of troll cosmology in a sorcerous context, by which point the prejudices had been set.

The origins of the cave trolls are unclear to me at least . . . our uz friends don't like to talk about it for good reason and I am not eager to get punched pressing the point. They could come from the far east. Probably some theoretician even argues that many of the weirder founding members of the Chaos Array are indistinguishable from especially virulent dehori. 

singer sing me a given

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Mallia of course was originally a spirit of darkness and healing.

The Malkioni originally weren't the best at discerning supernatural beings. "Krjalki" was about any not completely human, hostile entity. Dehori was any magical creature with darkness ties, from an animate pool of shadow to full-fledged deities of Darkness.

The beauty of the Malkioni scheme of classifying whatever they encountered by observable properties made their magical targeting quite flexible.

Yes, Mallia is present wherever disease spreads, just as Orlanth is present wherever wind blows. She may have been summoned by some of those forces of Darkness.

 

I guess that Froalar's Malkioni would have classified uz, shadzorings (the Alkoth underworld demons), andinni or actual dehori all as dehori.

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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59 minutes ago, Tindalos said:

The description in the prosopaedia makes it sound like Mallia.

Great catch. I got my sacrificial verses confused: 

Finally Hoalar rose and said . . . “You have come for a king. I am here. I will go with you if you leave the rest of my people alone.”  The darkness spirits muttered amongst themselves saying, “Surely Dehora will accept a live king better than a dead one and his people. Let us strike this bargain with them.”  So it was done, and Hoalar went from his people.  In the Underworld he was rewarded by Dehora for his bravery, and was made Protector from Demons over his people.  This was the same trick used by Xemela, wife of Froalar, during the Great Night in Seshnela.

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singer sing me a given

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Is this from the Ice Age survival narrative of Brithos?

19 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Finally Hoalar rose and said . . . “You have come for a king. I am here. I will go with you if you leave the rest of my people alone.”  The darkness spirits muttered amongst themselves saying, “Surely Dehora will accept a live king better than a dead one and his people. Let us strike this bargain with them.”  So it was done, and Hoalar went from his people.  In the Underworld he was rewarded by Dehora for his bravery, and was made Protector from Demons over his people.  This was the same trick used by Xemela, wife of Froalar, during the Great Night in Seshnela.

 

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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19 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Is this from the Ice Age survival narrative of Brithos?

It is! Which gets me thinking about the "weird" distinction in the West between "darkness" and "ice." By the time the God Learners start making maps we know the monomyth but in this archaic material the lines between, for example, Dehore and Himile get blurry. And what we might call the "Chaos Age" looks a lot like a darker darkness. 

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I see in GtG that Kyger Litor possesses the Spirit, Man, and Darkness Runes, and I also see notes that suggest all Darkness Spirits are Dehori.  Does this make Kyger Litor a Dehori, or does the presence of the Man Rune squash this? I still suspect that Ikadz/Ikaj is indeed a Chaotic Dehori, though I could just as easily be wrong. 

 

 

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I would personally argue Kyger Litor's spirit rune is an indication of her power over spirits rather than her personal nature.

Of course, the Glorantha Sourcebook describes the Dehori as not all fathered by Dehore, but that other darkness spirits are still lead by him. If Kyger Litor was a spirit, and a darkness spirit, then she could be a Dehori.

 

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