First Human Question

[Animal Nomad]

Is it safe to equate to each other Darhudan/Darhudana, Flesh Man, Kalwoan, and VogMaraden, they being in one way or another as First Human. I may be way off here, or spot on. 

[metcalph]

42 minutes ago, Animal Nomad said:

Is it safe to equate to each other Darhudan/Darhudana, Flesh Man, Kalwoan, and VogMaraden, they being in one way or another as First Human. I may be way off here, or spot on. 

The God Learners treated them as the same.  

Everybody else thinks there might be something to it but are unwilling to say so because they saw what happened to the God Learners.

(Where's Kalwoan from?)

[jeffjerwin]

The problem with all the First Men / Women being the same person is: is the same true of the first of every animal? Because that's hard to reconcile between the various mythologies.

Also, Hsunchen may be human because they resemble humans, not because they are human, which means the potential to be human exists in every child of Hykim and Mikyh/Korgatsu...

Murharzarm specifically is the "best man", not the original man, which suggests the other classes of Dara Happans were created separately, though his death still correlates to Grandfather Mortal's...

 

[Julian Lord]

6 hours ago, Animal Nomad said:

Is it safe to equate to each other Darhudan/Darhudana, Flesh Man, Kalwoan, and VogMaraden, they being in one way or another as First Human. I may be way off here, or spot on. 

The Entekosiad seems to suggest that the plurality of people pre-dated the emergence of personal individuality.

As such, the answer to "can you equate them" might be yes or it might be no, variable by context.

This might be a Uleria Mystery Cult meditation.

[Joerg]

Grandfather and Grandmother Mortal got made by the Celestial Court/personified the Man Rune, deep in Creation Era myth. All the peoples who claim that their ancestors migrated down from the Spike (e.g. the Orlanthi and Praxian Beast Riders) can easily claim them as their ancestors, including aldryami elves and uz (who arguably migrated up rather down).

For the Malkioni, it may very well be Malkion the Sacrifice who became/acts as Daka Fal, Judge of the Dead.

Vogmaradan is the male principle rather than the ancestor of all, much like Majadan/Iste in Vithelan myth (there one of the High Gods or Avanparloth) but also Ebe the Wild Man in Kralorelan myth who fathered all humanoid races on whatever, e.g. the Babadi (dwarves) on stone, and all the Hsunchen on their various animals, before meeting Yothenara. The stories are similar. Neither of them are involved in being the first to experience mortality.

For the Agimori/Doraddi, the Agitor(an)(i) are the First Men, the entire batch made through cooperation of Pamalt, Balumbasta, Noruma, Kendamalar and Nyanka (Revealed Mythologies p.45). The majority of them became mortal Agimori by drinking, and Dorad was the first of the Agimori to die and leave a lineage plant on his grave, taking that aspect of Grandfather Mortal. I don't think that Dorad gets identified with the judge of the Dead, though.

The other races of Made humans, like in Dara Happan myth which is quite similar to Pamaltelan myth except it doesn't admit to any earlier semi-successful creations, don't really provide a single pair of ancestors, either. The Thinobutans for instance recognize four pairs of ancestors of different tones of clay who then went and coupled with all counterparts, creating a variety of skin tones and temperaments.

The Artmali might have inherited Death through Cathora, the woman chosen by Artmal as his wife and ancestress of his offspring.

The Fiwan (Pamaltelan hsunchen) ancestors are mythically present already as witnesses at the creation of the world by Langamul/Earth Maker, in the shape of four fours of creatures (running, swimming, flying and water), RM p.40. (A God Learner monomyth-builder might want to associate that event with the emergence of Ga from the Waters.) The western Genertelan Hykimi (Hsunchen) story appears to be similar, as related by the Serpent Broterhood at the Dawn, and found fragmentary in the Ancient Beasts Society of Safelster. I am not entirely clear where, how and when Death entered their myths, but the Hsunchen know that Telmor ate the sun, causing the Darkness. I wonder what the Telmori make of that story.

The Hsunchen view on the God Time is badly under-explored, but with their different varieties so disparate that they don't even share a language between non-related animals we can expect vast differences in the details of their myths. Probably more than the God Learners could stomach, but then by the time they came to the picture, the Hykimi had already been altered by the Kachisti in Godtime and the Theyalans after the Dawn, or conquered and assimilated by their ancestors. In Pamaltela and Eest they had more interesting stuff to study.

 

Most of the Elder Races possessing the Man Rune don't appear to share the Daka Fal archetype.

Uz are re-united with Kyger Litor, I suppose, their surface existence being a consequence of Death invading Wonderhome.

Aldryami enter the forest song. Brown elves are residents of the Underworld every winter. Green Elves with their nightly sleep cycles and Yellow Elves who don't sleep at all might need some form of judge or similar, or maybe just a spirit catcher (which would be the forest).

Mortal merfolk entered the world in the Late -Golden Age, after the Birth of Umath and the invasion of the waters. They don't claim an afterlife, and probably just dissolve in the All Waters.

The beaked folk (Durulz and Keets) appear to share the human experience.

Giants are caught somewhere between the Immortal World of the Elder Giants which they seem to have lost, or sharing the human experience. There has been no great exploration of their afterlife. Only three individuals - the lesser giants of Gonn Orta's Castle - have ever given any insight to their thoughts in publications, with Boshbisil's origin unclear but having adopted the Issaries Cult rules, Sa Mita tracing descent from one of the dormant Elder Giants of the Eastern Rockwoods and troubled about trolls inhabiting caves there, and Hen Cik too full of adolescence to spend any thoughts on this.

[davecake]

A short, gaming applicable, summary - if the have the same Runes and are basically an ancestor worship (and optionally judge of the dead, to the extent that an authoritarian judge figure is culturally appropriate) figure, you can, and probably should,treat them as the same. Many of them probably have similar Death myths too. For other purposes and myths, the normal caveats about the wisdom of God Learnerism apply - they all have differences, ignoring the differences can get you into trouble - but many of them can be thought of as being about that specific lineage anyway. 

[jajagappa]

11 hours ago, Animal Nomad said:

Is it safe to equate to each other Darhudan/Darhudana, Flesh Man, Kalwoan, and VogMaraden, they being in one way or another as First Human. I may be way off here, or spot on. 

I'd say it depends on your goal.  If you are building up myths/quests related to the First Man, then yes.  If you are talking about the interaction between two different cultures, it depends.  If the cultures want to become friendly, then they would look at commonalities (you call him this, we call him that, but he is the same).  If they are enemies, then they would focus on differences (we know the True First Man, but yours is false - the child of the Evil one or the Trickster who made a parody or mockery of First Man).

[Tindalos]

9 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

The problem with all the First Men / Women being the same person is: is the same true of the first of every animal? Because that's hard to reconcile between the various mythologies.

Is that true?

Cosmic serpent/dragon seems pretty well established as Korgatsu, Hykim/Mikyh, Drolgard.

Even Langamul of the Fiwan seems appropriate, as a serpent god fathering the Hsunchen. 

[M Helsdon]

19 hours ago, Animal Nomad said:

Is it safe to equate to each other Darhudan/Darhudana, Flesh Man, Kalwoan, and VogMaraden, they being in one way or another as First Human. I may be way off here, or spot on. 

You may, or may not, be correct.

This is one of many areas of Gloranthan myth where absolute answers aren't possible (unless you are a God Learner, and we know what happened to them...) For that matter so many mythologies were utilized and interfered with by the God Learners that it probably isn't possible to determine the truth. Even so, different cultures will have their own truth.

So, the truth is what ever works for you.

[soltakss]

On 7/28/2018 at 12:31 AM, Animal Nomad said:

Is it safe to equate to each other Darhudan/Darhudana, Flesh Man, Kalwoan, and VogMaraden, they being in one way or another as First Human. I may be way off here, or spot on. 

I think Flesh Man is described as a son of Grandfather Mortal, so could well be the first human.

Grandfather Mortal put himself about a bit and played with a lot of deities to create the First Whatever. I can imagine that he played with some deities and created something that seems like the First Human several times. For example, Lodril made the Agimori from Fire and Dust and I can see Grandfather Mortal playing a part in that, as that is exactly what he used to do. I can't remember the origin of the Brithini, or whichever race they spawned from, but I would guess that Grandfather Mortal was involved in that, so their First Human would also apply. So, there would be two examples of a First Human, as each sets of humans have a different origin. 

So, if you accept that there can only be one First Human, then it makes sense that all the ones you mentioned are the same First Human.

However, if you accept that there could be several different First Humans, then they might not be the same.

Mythically, they occupy a very similar point, though, so would have a lot in common.

[David Weihe]

> Is it safe to equate to each other Darhudan/Darhudana, Flesh Man, Kalwoan, and VogMaraden,

> they being in one way or another as First Human. I may be way off here, or spot on.

Safe, no.  Just ask the God Learners taken by the Gift Carriers.  Possible, yes, with really good support on your Quest.

Correct?  This is Glorantha, where we remake what happened just for fun, sometimes?  And it WORKED, until it didn't.  Then the world broke, magic totally changed, and it all had to be rebuilt.

[scott-martin]

47 minutes ago, David Weihe said:

Just ask the God Learners taken by the Gift Carriers

Universal Descent from a single origin ("Grandfather Mortal") is my new variant GLS, exploited and punished like the others. The experiment would've been too tempting for their genealogically oriented "humanist" sorcerers not to attempt: run an ancestral reversion a la Liber Thisharb as far back as it goes (the "origin") and then get yourself adopted into a second nation, clan, family or other lineage. Run that reversion as far back as it goes. Do you encounter the same entities? At what point?

Of course everyone who might have succeeded in this is dead now, which is no real problem, and left no known descendants, which is.

 

[jajagappa]

2 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

The experiment would've been too tempting for their genealogically oriented "humanist" sorcerers not to attempt: run an ancestral reversion a la Liber Thisharb as far back as it goes (the "origin") and then get yourself adopted into a second nation, clan, family or other lineage. Run that reversion as far back as it goes. Do you encounter the same entities? At what point?

A lot of opportunity for some classic "Human" myths to play out (e.g. Cain vs. Abel, sacrifice of Isaac, Garden of "Ernalda", Temptation, etc.) that get reflected back into the mundane world.

[Julian Lord]

2 hours ago, jajagappa said:

A lot of opportunity for some classic "Human" myths to play out (e.g. Cain vs. Abel, sacrifice of Isaac, Garden of "Ernalda", Temptation, etc.) that get reflected back into the mundane world.

As a mythic exploration of intrinsic human fallibility ? Could be fun ...

Could be the common Ancestry Myth that's being looked for here.

"Everything was great. Then Ancestor <insert-name-here> screwed up by <insert-screw-up-here>, and now look at the state of things !!"

[jajagappa]

9 hours ago, Julian Lord said:

Could be the common Ancestry Myth that's being looked for here.

"Everything was great. Then Ancestor <insert-name-here> screwed up by <insert-screw-up-here>, and now look at the state of things !!"

Exactly.

And then you discover that Clan X is really descended from Ancestor who screwed it all up (if you didn't know that already!).

[Bohemond]

Doesn't Flesh Man meet Darhudan at one point during the Lightbringers' Quest? That would suggest they're not the same person. 

[Joerg]

9 minutes ago, Bohemond said:

Doesn't Flesh Man meet Darhudan at one point during the Lightbringers' Quest? That would suggest they're not the same person. 

Not necessarily - Arkat received the unhealable wound from meeting himself on the hero plane.

But I do think that it is stretching split identity a bit if the witness who goes crazy from seeing Darhudan's Death is Darhudan himself, still alive. One or two generations distant works better for me.

[scott-martin]

6 hours ago, Joerg said:

the witness who goes crazy from seeing Darhudan's Death is Darhudan himself, still alive

I don't know. Confronting the fact of one's mortality in a mirror or "vision of horror" like what Flesh Man used to gibber can really mess someone up.

[Joerg]

3 hours ago, scott-martin said:

I don't know. Confronting the fact of one's mortality in a mirror or "vision of horror" like what Flesh Man used to gibber can really mess someone up.

Sure, it's messy, but it is also a lot like Schrödinger's Cat - alive and not alive, while the first victim of Death should be DEAD all over, not a little bit dead. 

Every being made of the Man Rune aka every mortal being shares the experience, and Flesh Man had a front seat view of it, and experienced the certainty that Death would come for him, too. They all are instances of Grandpa Mortal, but they aren't the original experience (until the moment they die).

[Tindalos]

5 hours ago, scott-martin said:

I don't know. Confronting the fact of one's mortality in a mirror or "vision of horror" like what Flesh Man used to gibber can really mess someone up.

True, it's mentioned Orlanth almost became a Flesh Man when Eurmal showed him Death. (BoHM 82)

[Bohemond]

On 8/3/2018 at 9:00 PM, scott-martin said:

I don't know. Confronting the fact of one's mortality in a mirror or "vision of horror" like what Flesh Man used to gibber can really mess someone up.

That's so good I may have to go with that.