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Balazaar in 1625?


Jon Hunter

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1 hour ago, jeffjerwin said:

As an aside, I noted when I was reviewing my sources on Balazar that in the Glorantha Sourcebook it's stated that the Opili wiped out 'cities' on the Elf Sea prior to 1375 (p.169).

I would hazard the guess that these would have been agricultural centers of the Arcos civilization - the goat herding and grain growing folk of Jarst and Garsting.

Possibly another "Yelmalian" and elf-friend (or elf-fearing) culture.

1 hour ago, jeffjerwin said:

Based on the Guide, p.140, these would have been otherwise forgotten Balazaring citadels.

That's extremely weak evidence. The Garst and Jarsting population is missing from this map, and it would have been them who would have built cities.

 

There were only three giant-built citadels, one for each child of Balazar. There might have been more if the founder had not perished in the Dragonkill, but there were none.

The human kings of Balazar did not have the technology to build citadels. A structure like the "sun dome temple" in Dykene is possible as central feature for anything the citadel folk might build, but I don't see them leaving their home citadels for unprotected exposure to the risks of the Elf Sea.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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6 minutes ago, Joerg said:

There were only three giant-built citadels, one for each child of Balazar. There might have been more if the founder had not perished in the Dragonkill, but there were none.

The human kings of Balazar did not have the technology to build citadels. A structure like the "sun dome temple" in Dykene is possible as central feature for anything the citadel folk might build, but I don't see them leaving their home citadels for unprotected exposure to the risks of the Elf Sea.

Fair enough. Still, we know now there were multiple urban settlements around the sea before the Opili. Still, the map on p.140 shows the area as Balazaring around the right time. We may want to say (as you do) that this is spurious, like the evidence of Votanki power south of the Rockwoods - in my opinion that should be a green/Aldryami exclave.

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41 minutes ago, Joerg said:

There were only three giant-built citadels, one for each child of Balazar. There might have been more if the founder had not perished in the Dragonkill, but there were none.

The human kings of Balazar did not have the technology to build citadels. A structure like the "sun dome temple" in Dykene is possible as central feature for anything the citadel folk might build, but I don't see them leaving their home citadels for unprotected exposure to the risks of the Elf Sea.

Actually, Balazar himself only built two. The last one was built after his death by one of his sons, who used a magic ring to temporarily compel a few giants to do his bidding so they could build the third citadel.

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8 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

Fair enough. Still, we know now there were multiple urban settlements around the sea before the Opili. Still, the map on p.140 shows the area as Balazaring around the right time. We may want to say (as you do) that this is spurious, like the evidence of Votanki power south of the Rockwoods - in my opinion that should be a green/Aldryami exclave.

Not necessarily - the Votanki hunting range may very well have overlapped with those areas, and the power of the citadel kings has always been rather limited to their own citadels and little beyond (at least before the giant Vrok Hawks were tamed, which was at best a generation ago).

7 hours ago, Leingod said:

Actually, Balazar himself only built two. The last one was built after his death by one of his sons, who used a magic ring to temporarily compel a few giants to do his bidding so they could build the third citadel.

Balazar oversaw the building of two of those citadels. He himself didn't build anything, although he may have ordered the defensive structures done as he saw fit.

That "son" may have been a daughter... but the point remains that without that magical descent from Rigtaina and Balazar the Founder, nobody was able (or inclined) to start another citadel, and after what the giants who built Elkoi had done to Trilus, few people would have dared to enrage more giants.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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I have been studying the sources on the Starlight Ancestors - that is, the Lenshi mythology, along with the Stafford Library.

Some observations:

The original divinity of the Zatanae or Zayteneras is Zaytenera, later known as Verithurusa, the White Moon. Her lost city, Senthoros, was apparently in Andarkon, due east of the Yellow City (Abgammon). The Dara Happans reassigned her portfolio to her eastern neighbor, Buserian (who was given the (male) title of Zayteneras), and distinguished her from the god of Mernita, though the Lunars state that Lesilla/Jernedeus was her incarnation after she was refused hospitality by Yelm.

According to the Life of Sedenya (http://ruleonemagazine.com/Iss5/Myth_LifeSedenya.php) her first lover was Him Below, whom I would equate with Devkuroski [alias Kuroskus], the Dweller Below or Evil God, whose fall from the Sky formed the Elf Sea. He is associated with Cold and Storm, and might be also equated with Yonesh, the Cold Sun. Since the Elf Sea was formed by a battle with Chaos, this divinity may be a Storm God who has usurped Sky powers. I think he is among the Orlanth called Vadrus. Vadrus' consorts included the Blue Woman, and of course after her love affair with Him Below, Verithurusa eventually became the watery Blue Moon.

(A possibility that just occurs to me is that Ragnaglar might have been involved. He is perhaps connected to the Goat God Generdetho, whose son (Ovosto) usurped rule over Senthoros in her absence.)

One part of her people went south and became the Votanki after making a pact with the Dog God (these obviously did not join with the Darnlo and become horse people). The Lenshi do not consider the Darnlo (the proto-Pentans) as being associated with the Zatanae, but instead they came with Him Below/Devkuroski. It was a group of the Darnlo [according to them] who converted to the worship of Kargzant and caused Devkuroski's death by using fire. Another part of the Darnlo, consisting of women, was enslaved as the Fifth portion of the Gamatae by Hurfor 'king of the Zaytenerae', who was an avatar of Kargzant. I think Hurfor's people were perhaps a mixed group, rather than being one or the other...

Entekosiad: 'Kuroskus was a fearsome god. He had wounded many stars, and he had cast many down to the world. There were places on the earth where his victims still burned. The path of Kuroskus crossed that of Hurfor. Kuroskus waged his whole following of bright warriors against the children of Hurfor. They met in battle at the fields called the Distevos, where no stars shine today. The enemy god was destroyed and his bleeding carcass dropped to earth. Where it crashed down it created a great hole, and his bleeding filled it and sent waters rushing in a great river. All the men of Kuroskus were killed or condemned to the lake with him where they still live and steal women. All the captured women were taken into the tribe as fifths."

Note the absence of any chaos in this battle, but of course the Orlanthi remember it as a battle against Wakboth. Perhaps Vadrus was betrayed by his unhappy followers? Or is this Ragnaglar?

Him Below's death may have left Zaytenera/Verithurusa with a part of the Middle Air as her widow's portion, but her then identity would have been taken as a captive by Hurfor-Kargzant along with her mortal daughters, so she possibly escaped as the Blue Moon.

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4 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

One part of her people went south and became the Votanki after making a pact with the Dog God (these obviously did not join with the Darnlo and become horse people).

In Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind, I recently got an event where you can find some hunting Votanki on your lands, and it turns out if you feed them instead of chasing them away they'll tell you a bit about themselves. Specifically, they talk about their immortal hero Votank, who taught them how to hunt and whose boon companion, Brother Dog, they also worship. So perhaps Votank was the one who led those people south with Brother Dog?

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25 minutes ago, Joerg said:

If you look at the Copper Tablets, there is of course one storm god cast down into the Underworld when Verithurusa entered, too - Umath.

Umath fell upon the White Sea, not the Elf Sea/Sea of Death, however...

If this was Verithurusa's lover, then Devkuroski [alias Kuroskus] might be her son. As might be Ragnaglar...

 

However, the Life of Sedenya seems (vaguely) to distinguish between them: "When the new god dipped below the horizon, Zaytenera, now curious beyond thoughts of safety, followed. There She met Him Below, a powerful god to whom She was forcefully attracted, and who She took as Her first lover. She left Her white dress behind, and rose again a vital, bright red. She called Herself Verithurusa, which means either the Wondrous Wanderer or the Changing Truth, or both."

The new god is Umath.

 

In The Life of Sedenya, this figure is called 'Big Guy' and is the father of Homura, the gem, the weaver of celestial silk. The Lunar Handbooks gave this consort the name Asyrex, and associate him with the 'healed entity' and nurturing husband, though the Life implies he was unfaithful.

Edited by jeffjerwin
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Re: Verithurusa

The Umath connection is interesting, because of course the Blue Moon rises over next to the White Sea, the grave of Umath.

Homura, the Gem, sounds like a Star God. He does not sound like any of Umath's well known sons. (In fact, Gem of Heaven is a title of Yelm's!)

Star number 35 in the Perfect Sky is the Jewel Flower, which came to the aid of the 'Empress'.

When 'Zator' followed Umath into the Pit, 'Many Stars Came Out'. [GRoY, p.74]

 

Cerulia, the later mortal incarnation of the Blue Moon/Lesilla, 'taught immortality by living on the spiral path' (Entekosiad)

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More on Verithurusa, goddess of the Elder Wilds.

She is perhaps identifiable with Natha, who was imprisoned in the Fourth Hell/Strange Gods Pit alongside Orlanth and others. This is the Darsenite Miringite or Mingarite Cave.

Note the doubling of Orlanth's captivity in Hell, based on Umath's descent into the Underworld.

Mahaquata, the Dara Happan goddess of bats and Death, was born from the Hall of Verithurus[a]. She is of course the child of Lesilla/the Blue Moon, the adult Verithurusa. Mahaquata/Death distracted Yelm when Orlanth came to kill him, armed with Humakt. Is Homura the Gem in fact the child Humakt-Mahaquata? *QTA = death, cutting, severing?

Homura-QTA + Huma-kt.

Also note the probable equation of the Battle of Stormfall with the breaking of the Ice of Devkoruski. This may be the same event that saw the escape of the Hyalorings from the Dome, given that the Elf Sea is water in Six Ages. The problem of chronology here, however, is pretty enormous. It may also be the moment when Hippogriff was maimed, with Galani ending up among the Hyalorings and Kargzant among the Northern Wheels.

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1 hour ago, jeffjerwin said:

Mahaquata, the Dara Happan goddess of bats and Death, was born from the Hall of Verithurus[a]. She is of course the child of Lesilla/the Blue Moon, the adult Verithurusa. Mahaquata/Death distracted Yelm when Orlanth came to kill him, armed with Humakt. Is Homura the Gem in fact the child Humakt-Mahaquata? *QTA = death, cutting, severing?

Homura-QTA + Huma-kt.

That's dense. I'm still a few posts back trying to figure out if putting a beard on Zaytenara (shades of a Streisand movie) and then making "him" the knowledge keeper tells us anything about how MHY acquired Truth Rune from the incumbent who they say got too abstract like some kind of streak crawling up the outside of the sky. We know another lightbringer comes from the far north and she is a white goddess. Maybe the "sisters" carry a buried family relationship with the "sages." (Never, ever, spell the beard god's name with the "-khor" rune no matter how tempting, logical or natural it is. MHY has zero relation to the house of Khor. Clearly.) 

We know they had goats. I wonder who Arroin's real father was. Odds are the Wild Healer has insight there, having looked at life from both sides now and found some harmony in it somewhere.

But anyhow, sometimes the undifferentiated archaic storm god stresses the "HU" before we discover his parts. Humath + QTA = HUMQTA.

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13 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

How do the Horse-Hsunchen of Ralios work with this idea of horse proliferation?

It is an interesting question.

It may be that horses have different origins:

  • Maiming of Hippogriff
  • Descent from Hykim and Mikyh
  • Cutting of Centaurs into horses and humans

There could be an argument for Mikyh mating with Maimed Hippogriff and creating a Horse Ancestor for the Hsunchen Horse People.

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3 hours ago, soltakss said:

It is an interesting question.

It may be that horses have different origins:

  • Maiming of Hippogriff
  • Descent from Hykim and Mikyh
  • Cutting of Centaurs into horses and humans

There could be an argument for Mikyh mating with Maimed Hippogriff and creating a Horse Ancestor for the Hsunchen Horse People.

There are two main (pony-sized) horse types around, galana hill ponies and sered horses. It isn't exactly clear whether the galana are united in a single origin or whether they are something similar to the Wareran shape of Genertelan humans, dominant wherever there were hill barbarians (including the lowland Enerali). The sered horse isn't much taller than the galana, and seems to hail from the eastern Pelorian grasslands.

If the "racial type by region of birth" scheme is applicable, the Gamara horses may have been ancestors to both galana and sered breeds. The Hyal breed probably was lost whenever horses either were used to draw chariots or where people started to farm.

The Hyal sun horses are descended from Hippogriff, and were the inheritance of the Pure Horse folk, only available through Feathered Queen magic.

 

 

The centaurs are in all likelihood of Pure Horse Folk human and herd stock, and not so different from the Grazer ponies. Perhaps a little bigger, closer in size to a war zebra.

I wonder whether Pegasi are only one stage of the degeneration of hippogriff or a separate species, and whether they may have left a different magical lineage in the horses.

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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5 minutes ago, Joerg said:

There are two main (pony-sized) horse types around, galana hill ponies and sered horses. It isn't exactly clear whether the galana are united in a single origin or whether they are something similar to the Wareran shape of Genertelan humans, dominant wherever there were hill barbarians (including the lowland Enerali). The sered horse isn't much taller than the galana, and seems to hail from the eastern Pelorian grasslands.

The persistence of Unicorn and his shield maidens might be relevant here. Yelorna worship was "exterminated everywhere west of the Rockwoods," which probably had a permanent impact on horse culture in galana country. 

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singer sing me a given

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I was rereading my copy of ToRM #16. There's an article on Chariot Gods by Greg in it.

It states that Yelm's Chariot was drawn by six horses. Presumably therefore there were six (white) horse gods in Golden Age, who may have also possessed wings, etc.

The chariot was damaged multiple times, and perhaps the axle was shortened... (my gloss). In any case, I'd guess Hyalor's Hippoi/Gamari is only one of the mares mated to Kargzant, which one would assume was the lead horse in the herd.

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