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Dehori Questions


Animal Nomad

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It is true Kyger Litor is referred to constantly as a goddess, but Troll Gods page 78 indicates all troll deities are seen as spirits and they are worshiped through shamans, though this may be misapplied worship for some. If Kyger Litor is indeed a spirit, she may be in fact a Dehori.  The Dehore section in Troll Gods also mentions that of all his children, the Dehori are especially intelligent and powerful. Perhaps Dehore also has many other, lesser children, and they may be "regular" Darkness Spirits/Shades.  I see some evidence that Sinjota the Guardian is a Dehori, as are Yomat and Yostal, both children of Eurmal and Sinjota. 

 

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2 hours ago, Animal Nomad said:

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?

 

 

It really depends on your point of reference. 

A typical priestess of Kyger Litor will tell you that Kyger Litor is the sum of Living Uz and their various Ancestor Spirits. Dehori are the elemental fragments of shattered Dehore. Obviously different, and easily distinguished one from the other. Between those two categories you will find the "orlanthi all" of easily-contacted and useful darkness spirits.

The remaining spirits are more difficult to deal with, not having clearly established rules of engagement/etc. They are either left alone, or negotiated with individually by a shaman if that particular shaman feels some need to do so. They are better than non-darkness spirits, of course, but still generally more trouble than they are worth. The most powerful and useful of those spirits are worshipped as Gods (Zorak Zoran, Xiola Umbar, Argan Argar) in their own right. 

The division is not foolproof, though, as certain Dehori have at times been adopted as Uz, and occasionally founded lines of descent of their own, becoming both ancestors and dehori. 

A human is unlikely to draw or benefit from such fine distinctions, and could happily include any darkness spirit or deity at all in the single convenient category "dehori" without losing any sleep about it, or suffering in any meaningful way for doing so.

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3 hours ago, boztakang said:

A typical priestess of Kyger Litor will tell you that Kyger Litor is the sum of Living Uz and their various Ancestor Spirits. Dehori are the elemental fragments of shattered Dehore

Mighty Boz, was there ever a time or tribe in your hearing when the trolls had not yet been introduced to or had "forgotten" the dehori?

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On 7/24/2018 at 5:18 PM, scott-martin said:

Mighty Boz, was there ever a time or tribe in your hearing when the trolls had not yet been introduced to or had "forgotten" the dehori?

In Wonderhome, nobody really cared too much about such distinctions, so there could be some confusion there. On the other hand, the genealogy is pretty far separated (see p77 in the Glorantha Sourcebook) with Uz coming down from KL, through Dame Darkness, and Dehori from Dehore through FatherOfDemons/MotherOfSpace. I can't think of a ritual or remembrance available to mortals wherein it would seem strange to encounter Dehori, or recognize them as different from Uz.

Since the exodus, darkness elementals are common enough that to "forget" them would seem strange, and the divisions of the world are sufficiently "set" that it would be equally odd to mistake them as kin...

But all things are possible in Darkness and there could always be an isolated Clan or Tribe somewhere that believes differently.

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Then there are the likes of Ezkankekko, the Only Old One, who can take the shape of a human, a troll, or a dehori. True beings of Darkness, but no longer either of these shapes, even if they had been born to one of those shapes. They are also known as Kitori.

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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54 minutes ago, boztakang said:

the genealogy is pretty far separated

Thank you. This is the part that suddenly intrigues me . . . the idea of multiple irruptions from the Underworld, some of which are obviously trollish in retrospect, others that take time to resolve into a troll-centric narrative. I don't know if the Western outposts encountered the "troll" side of the family in their formative years, for example, or had to extrapolate from early experiences with the children of Dehore when they eventually met Darkness that walks like Man.

Krjalki, dehori, uz, digijelm, hollri, blue moonies, the shades who emerged in Ignorance, cave trolls, sea trolls, hot trolls, midget slashers, tusk riders  . . . at the Dawn, these were all just a few of the predators that lurked in the night. History has brought some into the "family" to varying degrees, others not so much. The Dark may well have had messengers and missionaries too, identifying the kinship of the good darks and denying others as tainted with something called chaos.

So if we can say conclusively that here is a moment when an outsider realized that the dark tribes occupying the verges of the central "barbarian belt" worship the darks who besieged Brithos in the earliest days, it's really helpful. Or even if some tribes brought some gods up with them (XU, ZZ, AA, GKK, Qualyorni/Moorgaki, the Blue Moon and the others) and others needed to be introduced. There might've even been, uh, multiple KL cults once upon a time. Maybe that person is related to OOO or maybe we had to wait for Dark Arkat's final revelations. 

Or maybe everyone's always known why trolls and hot trolls vary.

 

Edited by scott-martin
observing the role of new KL writeups

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I suppose it all depends on whether you classify Dehori as any old darkness spirit or as descendants of Dehor.

If Dehori are descendants of Dehor, then Kyger Litor is not a Dehori.

If they are generic darkness spirits then she could well be called one of the Dehori.

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  • 4 weeks later...
25 minutes ago, Bohemond said:

Does that not essentially mean that Mallia is, in origin at least, a Dehori?

No, it does not mean they necessarily equate.  If you look at the Darkness pantheon 'genealogy' from Glorantha Sourcebook, the Dehori are the branch descending from Dehore and Subere (and could certainly include Dehore himself).  However, Dehore (and Subere) are children of the entities Father of Demons and Mother of Space, who are noted on p.76 as "Neither of these enjoyed much of a cult, but were more noted for having some very powerful children, three of whom are listed below: Dehore, Himile, and Subere."  Mallia is just as likely to be a child of one of those entities. 

The Glorantha Sourcebook p.78 states "Mallia was a Death Goddess captured and enslaved by Chaos (or who freely joined, depending on the version being told)." or p.124 "Mallia grew from the Darkness, in the waste and destruction of the Gods War. She found nourishment and life amid the fallen foes, the wreckage and destruction, and the blood of everything that died in that age. She became a corruption of Death itself, tainted and degraded from the swift brightness which Humakt and Orlanth used..."

Or, she might be a daughter of Subere, of whom it is noted on p.76 that "Subere is the Goddess of the Inner Dark, and also called wife of Dehore and Goddess of the Darkness of the Underworld. It is written that the Lords of the Seven Hells all worship her. She is also called the Mother of Death, for that Rune was made or found within her cavernous being before it was brought into the Surface World"

Since it is not explicitly stated, I'd say that if you want Mallia to be a corruption of a Dehori, then that can work.  Or if you want her to have more demonic origin or be a variation upon Death, then that works too.

DarkPantheon-dehori.JPG

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5 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Mallia was a Death Goddess

A follow-up question here: are there Power Rune theogonies anywhere on Glorantha? 

Malia is interesting as a dark healer in archaic sources (sort of a "Black Lady" if you will, even a XU analogue) before taking up Death. Given the role of disease models in the spread of the Bright Empire and the trolls' rejection of that empire, it's a hint to conjure with. 

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8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

are there Power Rune theogonies anywhere on Glorantha? 

Very few, and probably only found in the list of Original Rune Owner vs. Current Rune Owner, and in the cult writeups on deities of power (e.g. LM son of Acos, or Donandar son of god of music and goddess of dance, etc.).

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4 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Very few, and probably only found in the list of Original Rune Owner vs. Current Rune Owner, and in the cult writeups on deities of power (e.g. LM son of Acos, or Donandar son of god of music and goddess of dance, etc.).

Acos himself is a name to conjure with!

My tentative working model is that we tend to see Power emerge in two spots: when a cult evolves away from one of the larger elemental theogonies we have, or when something like an elemental theogony has otherwise died out, leaving only an isolated mythic survivor like LM or Issaries or Chalana behind. So Malia, for example, was a dark goddess who acquired death without any relation to KarGan Tor and has since dropped out of most (all?) dehori- or ancestor-driven darkness religion. Chalana may have been a "light" goddess from a pantheon that no longer really exists in recognizable elemental form, so we know her only through harmony. Issaries is the unique possessor of his rune in some phases of his cult's history and now is content with his Powers. And so on with Stability, Movement, what have you.

Each has an associated ecosystem. Death is interesting because it's contagious. You can catch it.

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2 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Chalana may have been a "light" goddess from a pantheon that no longer really exists in recognizable elemental form, so we know her only through harmony

I'm fairly convinced that she is a goddess from Altinela (aka the White Camp of Innocence/Wisdom).  The White God (Zenfel, or Asharthcha in DH per GRoY) fell when Umath crash landed on the White Camp.  If you look at the Guide p.10 the world picture there shows a White Goddess at the north point in an attitude of prayer.  Note also Fortunate Succession p.93 on the DH alphabet: "Ch(a) is the most alien letter. It is the only one which does not have a deity associated with it. In fact, it is used almost exclusively within words, such as in Asarthcha."

From GRoY: "Asharthcha White Overseer of the North, Ruler of the Compass, Keeper of Wisdom. He is also called the Long-bearded Measurer."

Chalana Arroy's powers of healing have a blend of both innocence (healing all who approach) and wisdom (the knowledge of how/who to heal).

She's a close cognate of Harana Ilor so may be the Harmony of the North (perhaps there is a genealogy descended from Harana Ilor for each of the compass directions?).

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