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Three New Stars, Three New Gods?


Leingod

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So, in The Eleven Lights (warning you right now, massive spoilers for that book, don't continue if you don't want that), the dead gods you revive as the Three New Stars are originally just worshiped as a group, but with 500 worshipers any of them could become a sub-cult of Orlanth “or a similar deity.” They could also become a cult of their own with 2,000 worshipers, but that’s another thing entirely.

Anyway, my question is: Who and what would these old/new gods become gods of? How would their worship differ from similar, established gods (since I don't see them replacing any of these gods outright barring some serious Gods War shenanigans), and what changes might they create in Orlanthi society if they become established cults or subcults of their own?

Varnaval the Shepherd King was a very martial god, while his replacements Voriof and Uroth are not. I think Varnaval as a subcult of Orlanth would be a path for shepherds to become warriors who can not only defend their flocks from invaders but take the fight to them. I could see a young shepherd initiating to Varnaval and becoming an Orlanthi version of David, for example, defeating some great foe and becoming a great conqueror.

In other words, I think Varnaval would present a martial path for shepherds to become raiders and conquerors rather than just skirmishers and defenders of flocks, which might lead to greater respect and prestige for shepherds in clans where his worship catches on, which would probably be clans where sheep-herding is already very important to them, i.e. Light Orlanthi clans.

Siwend the Hunter is represented by the Man Rune where his replacement Odayla is represented by the Beast Rune. Odayla represents the hunter as a person who straddles the line between man and beast, a creature of the hinterlands between the wild and the civilized worlds. One of the major Odaylan myths is of a man hunting a bear, one of them coming back, and there is ambiguity as to which is Odayla (with the mythic secret being that they are both Odayla, and that the hunter and the hunted are two parts of a whole).

I think Siwend represents a hunter who isn’t of the wild the way Odayla is; he is a man who conquers beasts, rather than someone who is both man and beast and has to reconcile the two as he advances in the cult. I guess he might become a subcult for the more “civilized” Odaylans?

Apropos of nothing, in Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind one of the Hyaloring gods is Dostal the Hunter, whose wife is Inilla the Forager, a daughter of Nyalda, the Hyaloring name for Ernalda. Meanwhile, Siwend the Hunter is married to Indeg, who made the thorn basket that always has another handful of dried berries in it. Does that mean that Siwend himself might have been a foreign god brought into the Vingkotling fold along with Elmal? Would it then be possible for Siwend to become a subcult of Elmal the way Rigsdal is, or am I just completely off-base in how that works?

Korolful the Keen is a Star Captain; he is the Shooting Star who speeds across the sky to strike enemies with burning flame. He represents the idea that all men make their own inheritance (like all Star Captains, apparently) and values pride, independence and initiative. Very proper Orlanthi values, actually. So, I’m actually not sure what changes introducing the worship of Korolful would bring. Maybe something to do with his Fate Rune?

Baroshi the Avenger is actually interesting, in that he strikes me as akin to a male version of Babeester Gor. He sought vengeance almost from birth and has a strong connection to Maran Gor, and he of course has the Earth Rune.

It actually raises a question for me. Is it possible, as an Orlanthi boy taking his initiation, to display an affinity for both Earth and Death? Being a Nandan is the only Earth-related male role I know of, so what happens if you have a connection to Earth but aren’t really cut out to act like a typical Ernaldan? Is that just not possible, and would introducing Baroshi as a subcult to some suitable Earth goddess (probably Maran, I’d think) make that possible? If so, I’m really curious as to how they would take that in Esrolia, where Babeester is much more popular than she is elsewhere. Would they see that as an intrusion of some kind?

Saren the Charioteer is the driver of Elmal’s chariot, in which Elmal crosses the sky. The Orlanthi aren’t a chariot-focused people in the first place and Mastakos fills any need for chariots and charioteers they do have. It’s actually kind of weird, because the Elmali are the horse riders of the Orlanthi, so I think if a subcult of Saren emerged there might be some real tension with the rider subcult of Hyalor in particular. Which would be an interesting resurgence of the tension between the Riders (Hyalorings) and Wheels (Samnali) in Six Ages, actually.

Actually, in that game “Samnal” was one of the children of Elmal; the Riders didn’t like to admit that, because it would mean admitting that Samnal was closer to Elmal than Hyalor, whose divine parentage isn’t even known to the Hyalorings unless you do the Gamari Heroquest and discover that he was the son of Yamsur. I wonder is Saren is another name for him?

Oonil the Skillful actually reminds me of Lugh of the Tuatha Dé Danann in Irish myth, who among other things is called Ildánach (“skilled in many arts”) or Samildánach (“equally skilled in many arts”). I'm sure that's entirely intentional.

When Lugh tried to join the court of Nuada, he tried to offer his services in a variety of professions, but he was rejected each time because the court already had someone with that skill. Lugh was let in when he asked if they had anyone who could offer each of those skills rather than just one, and so was made the Chief Ollam (Ollam/Oonil?), the greatest poet/bard in Ireland; I think this is actually where D&D got the idea of bards as jack-of-all-trade characters.

Well, after having said that, I’m not sure I can imagine what niche Oonil would fulfill in Orlanthi society. After all, it’s got Issaries for trade and negotiation, it’s got various gods like Gustbran and Orstan for crafts, and the Orlanthi spout poetry all the time. It's got lawspeakers and the like to recite histories and legends of importance. So what would Oonil's place be, then?

I don’t have the confidence to even touch Tanian.

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Siwend was one of the early gods who went with Varanorlanth into Esjenen, the First Land, so if he's identical to Dostal he may come from Dini and the south and be renamed Dostal rather than the other way around. I think Varanorlanth's band is primitive-pre-Vingkotling in origin, when Orlanth is the Wind, Yinkin is his companion, and his mate is Velhara, his half-sister.

Also, Baroshi is the godling from Snake-Pipe Hollow, where he's connected both to Maran Gor and Babeester Gor, but his father is clearly a Vingkotling demigod and his mother is an Earth demigoddess.

Also, I've theorised elsewhere that the Bouncer at Geo's is a Nandan devotee of Babeester Gor, goddess of beer and justice. 

PS. Baroshi's head is a barley-seed. He may have something in common with Flamal, Genert and other gods of male Earth.

Edited by jeffjerwin
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I have thoughts. But that feels like it might end an interesting conversation where you come up with better thoughts too early. But I didn't want you to think I was rude by ignoring the discussion. Glorantha has a long tradition of co-creation, it's out in the wild, it's as much yours as ours, so I want to sit back with a cup of tea and a biscuit for now. Have at it.

 

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John Barleycorn: A Ballad 
Robert Burns


1782
Type: Poem

There was three kings into the east, 
Three kings both great and high, 
And they hae sworn a solemn oath 
John Barleycorn should die. 

They took a plough and plough'd him down, 
Put clods upon his head, 
And they hae sworn a solemn oath 
John Barleycorn was dead. 

But the cheerful Spring came kindly on, 
And show'rs began to fall; 
John Barleycorn got up again, 
And sore surpris'd them all. 

The sultry suns of Summer came, 
And he grew thick and strong; 
His head weel arm'd wi' pointed spears, 
That no one should him wrong. 

The sober Autumn enter'd mild, 
When he grew wan and pale; 
His bending joints and drooping head 
Show'd he began to fail. 

His colour sicken'd more and more, 
He faded into age; 
And then his enemies began 
To show their deadly rage. 

They've taen a weapon, long and sharp, 
And cut him by the knee; 
Then tied him fast upon a cart, 
Like a rogue for forgerie. 

They laid him down upon his back, 
And cudgell'd him full sore; 
They hung him up before the storm, 
And turned him o'er and o'er. 

They filled up a darksome pit 
With water to the brim; 
They heaved in John Barleycorn, 
There let him sink or swim. 

They laid him out upon the floor, 
To work him farther woe; 
And still, as signs of life appear'd, 
They toss'd him to and fro. 

They wasted, o'er a scorching flame, 
The marrow of his bones; 
But a miller us'd him worst of all, 
For he crush'd him between two stones. 

And they hae taen his very heart's blood, 
And drank it round and round; 
And still the more and more they drank, 
Their joy did more abound. 

John Barleycorn was a hero bold, 
Of noble enterprise; 
For if you do but taste his blood, 
'Twill make your courage rise. 

'Twill make a man forget his woe; 
'Twill heighten all his joy; 
'Twill make the widow's heart to sing, 
Tho' the tear were in her eye. 

Then let us toast John Barleycorn, 
Each man a glass in hand; 
And may his great posterity 
Ne'er fail in old Scotland!

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45 minutes ago, jeffjerwin said:

Siwend was one of the early gods who went with Varanorlanth into Esjenen, the First Land, so if he's identical to Dostal he may come from Dini and the south and be renamed Dostal rather than the other way around. I think Varanorlanth's band is primitive-pre-Vingkotling in origin, when Orlanth is the Wind, Yinkin is his companion, and his mate is Velhara, his half-sister.

Also, Baroshi is the godling from Snake-Pipe Hollow, where he's connected both to Maran Gor and Babeester Gor, but his father is clearly a Vingkotling demigod and his mother is an Earth demigoddess.

Also, I've theorised elsewhere that the Bouncer at Geo's is a Nandan devotee of Babeester Gor, goddess of beer and justice. 

If I had reactions left, I'd give you a "Thanks." I'm not nearly deep enough into Gloranthan lore to understand, like, half of that, which is largely why I put this question up to begin with. So, Siwend is actually one of Orlanth's oldest companions? That might fit; in the Hyaloring lore, Dostal was a god that the Hyalorings (and Samnali) only met after they left Nivorah, and who seems to come and go as he pleases.

I was aware that Baroshi is from Snakepipe Hollow and his connection to Maran, and his write-up in the Eleven Lights implicitly states that his parents were demigods (saying they can't be worshiped because they were destroyed by a son of the Devil). 

49 minutes ago, jeffjerwin said:

PS. Baroshi's head is a barley-seed. He may have something in common with Flamal, Genert and other gods of male Earth.

Now that I was not aware of. I hadn't even considered connections to Flamal or Genert. I guess that makes Baroshi one of the last male Earth gods to be born? I wonder if that's the significance of his eternal state of childhood?

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9 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

Baroshi is the godling from Snake-Pipe Hollow

Here's Greg's answer as to who is Baroshi (from 1998!):

https://web.archive.org/web/20000518224236/http://www.glorantha.com:80/greg/q-and-a/baroshi.html

 

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Huh. So Baroshi is almost like a chance to make your own god's story in the Hero Wars (when the Compromise is being sorely strained), since Baroshi's own was so short and he never reached maturity.

Actually, with that and his Chaos-fighting powers he could almost be like one of the survivors of Ragnarok after Argrath gets most of the gods killed destroying the Devil. If it does indeed just come back anyway, Baroshi might be the first god to return to Man to help him fight him again.

Actually, now I think it would be cool to have a story set in the Fourth Age where you're trying to rediscover whatever old gods are left and awaken their worship to fight off the return of the Devil, and the very first three the party discovers are whatever Three New Stars they resurrected and returned to the sky centuries ago.

Edited by Leingod
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10 hours ago, Leingod said:

So, in The Eleven Lights (warning you right now, massive spoilers for that book, don't continue if you don't want that), the dead gods you revive as the Three New Stars are originally just worshiped as a group, but with 500 worshipers any of them could become a sub-cult of Orlanth “or a similar deity.” They could also become a cult of their own with 2,000 worshipers, but that’s another thing entirely.

 

10 hours ago, Leingod said:

Anyway, my question is: Who and what would these old/new gods become gods of? How would their worship differ from similar, established gods (since I don't see them replacing any of these gods outright barring some serious Gods War shenanigans), and what changes might they create in Orlanthi society if they become established cults or subcults of their own?

You are asking this as if Orlanthi society is going to remain unchanged in the upcoming conflict. Argrath's creation of the warlock bands is new. Lots of shattered clans in the wake of the Fimbulwinter provide a new and rather unprecedented situation with thousands of Heortlings drifting without a legal or magical identity but vague tribal ties, flocking into their tribal cities, or drifting off to Nochet. There is a need for new concepts. Unfortunately, only three of the candidates really bring some significant departure from the previous way, and chances are that they may be ignored by the questers. Only Baroshi, Oonil and Tanian really break the mold. Korolful is cool, but just a reprise of the emergence of the Star Tribes. He would be an excellent focus for these identity-less masses, similar to how Garan and Sedenor managed to gather wretched survivors and formed tribes. Baroshi offers a form of agriculture that would support cities with much less of rural support than Sartar's cities require. Oonil is great for city dwellers in any kind of industry. Tanian stands for daring the Impossible, and might be a meta-deity for the Sartar Magical Union in the making.

10 hours ago, Leingod said:

Varnaval the Shepherd King was a very martial god, while his replacements Voriof and Uroth are not. I think Varnaval as a subcult of Orlanth would be a path for shepherds to become warriors who can not only defend their flocks from invaders but take the fight to them. I could see a young shepherd initiating to Varnaval and becoming an Orlanthi version of David, for example, defeating some great foe and becoming a great conqueror.

Varnaval was the pastoralist migratory tribe leader of the Storm Age. With the Ordeed-riding Andam Horde he is remembered in Pelanda (possibly pre-Flood), and as the ram aspect he is remembered in Anaxial dynasty Dara Happa. (The Dara Happans stay silent about the use of chariots, but then those wouldn't have been anything noteworthy. Riding anything but a bird was noteworthy.)

Pastoralist and migratory doesn't necessarily mean nomadic.

Varnaval is one of the many aspects of Orlanth that perished in the Gods War.

10 hours ago, Leingod said:

In other words, I think Varnaval would present a martial path for shepherds to become raiders and conquerors rather than just skirmishers and defenders of flocks, which might lead to greater respect and prestige for shepherds in clans where his worship catches on, which would probably be clans where sheep-herding is already very important to them, i.e. Light Orlanthi clans.

This is not to his advantage as it is the Red Cow clan, as cattle-obsessed as they get when they don't worship Heler, sent to return a deity.

10 hours ago, Leingod said:

Siwend the Hunter is represented by the Man Rune where his replacement Odayla is represented by the Beast Rune. Odayla represents the hunter as a person who straddles the line between man and beast, a creature of the hinterlands between the wild and the civilized worlds. One of the major Odaylan myths is of a man hunting a bear, one of them coming back, and there is ambiguity as to which is Odayla (with the mythic secret being that they are both Odayla, and that the hunter and the hunted are two parts of a whole).

His Man Rune is already present among the Seven Lightbringers, and while his role is survival in hardship (in combination with his wife and her thorn basket), I don't see that much use for an Orlanthi foundchild, whether as counterpoint to Odayla or to all the other Destor lookalikes of the Discovery Band.

10 hours ago, Leingod said:

I think Siwend represents a hunter who isn’t of the wild the way Odayla is; he is a man who conquers beasts, rather than someone who is both man and beast and has to reconcile the two as he advances in the cult. I guess he might become a subcult for the more “civilized” Odaylans?

His presence in the Discovery Band indicates that he comes from the unformed, adolescent phase of Orlanth, but he somehow got himself a wife, and after he was tamed, he all but disappeared as a recognizable face among the Thunder Brothers.

A similar argument might be made for Oonil, but Oonil stands for development and adoption of civilization in a positive way. Siwend is more of a cautionary tale.

10 hours ago, Leingod said:

Apropos of nothing, in Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind one of the Hyaloring gods is Dostal the Hunter, whose wife is Inilla the Forager, a daughter of Nyalda, the Hyaloring name for Ernalda. Meanwhile, Siwend the Hunter is married to Indeg, who made the thorn basket that always has another handful of dried berries in it. Does that mean that Siwend himself might have been a foreign god brought into the Vingkotling fold along with Elmal? Would it then be possible for Siwend to become a subcult of Elmal the way Rigsdal is, or am I just completely off-base in how that works?

 

Subcult of a cult already obscure enough that it didn't make it into the basic list of RQG?

10 hours ago, Leingod said:

Korolful the Keen is a Star Captain; he is the Shooting Star who speeds across the sky to strike enemies with burning flame. He represents the idea that all men make their own inheritance (like all Star Captains, apparently) and values pride, independence and initiative. Very proper Orlanthi values, actually. So, I’m actually not sure what changes introducing the worship of Korolful would bring. Maybe something to do with his Fate Rune?

Like I said above, Korolful could mark the new start for the orphaned folk left behind by the Fimbulwinter as a Star Tribe.

10 hours ago, Leingod said:

Baroshi the Avenger is actually interesting, in that he strikes me as akin to a male version of Babeester Gor. He sought vengeance almost from birth and has a strong connection to Maran Gor, and he of course has the Earth Rune.

I wouldn't make that comparison. While Baroshi is an accomplished avenger, he is a champion of Fertility and a bringer of Fertility. The Flamal or Tada role of the ancient Earth Tribe would have been his if not for the Chaos invasion.

Baroshi is very much the Harry Potter among the deities of Glorantha - the child that overcame absolute evil after the self-sacrifice of its parents.

10 hours ago, Leingod said:

It actually raises a question for me. Is it possible, as an Orlanthi boy taking his initiation, to display an affinity for both Earth and Death?

Barntar is riding the divide between Fertility and Death with his plowing, and is the most Earth-bound of the Storm Brothers. Like Vadrus, Orlanth and Orvanshagor, he is a dragon-slayer. Like Durev and tamed Orlanth, he is the family father.

10 hours ago, Leingod said:

Being a Nandan is the only Earth-related male role I know of, so what happens if you have a connection to Earth but aren’t really cut out to act like a typical Ernaldan?

The point of Nandan is that it is not a male, but a female role, regardless of body shape.

10 hours ago, Leingod said:

Is that just not possible, and would introducing Baroshi as a subcult to some suitable Earth goddess (probably Maran, I’d think) make that possible? If so, I’m really curious as to how they would take that in Esrolia, where Babeester is much more popular than she is elsewhere. Would they see that as an intrusion of some kind?

I think that a triumphant return of Baroshi would please everybody, except maybe the Grandmothers who fear any male domination. Fortunately that isn't tied to his role as one of the new stars but can be (or can have been) achieved by the Snake Pipe Hollow scenario/campaign (I never played it, but it looks like a dungeon that requires more than one visit to clear out the various denizens). 

10 hours ago, Leingod said:

Saren the Charioteer is the driver of Elmal’s chariot, in which Elmal crosses the sky. The Orlanthi aren’t a chariot-focused people in the first place and Mastakos fills any need for chariots and charioteers they do have. It’s actually kind of weird, because the Elmali are the horse riders of the Orlanthi, so I think if a subcult of Saren emerged there might be some real tension with the rider subcult of Hyalor in particular. Which would be an interesting resurgence of the tension between the Riders (Hyalorings) and Wheels (Samnali) in Six Ages, actually.

Saren looks very much as an intentional runner-up to me. Worship of Elmal was weakened when Monrogh converted the greater part of his worshippers to his version of Yelmalio.

The Red Cow are worshippers (and probably descendants) of Ulanin the Rider, a cousin of Beren, and of Hyaloring ancestry. Not the most receptive crowd to play to, unless a recent mythical requirement for chariot use has cropped up.

10 hours ago, Leingod said:

Actually, in that game “Samnal” was one of the children of Elmal; the Riders didn’t like to admit that, because it would mean admitting that Samnal was closer to Elmal than Hyalor, whose divine parentage isn’t even known to the Hyalorings unless you do the Gamari Heroquest and discover that he was the son of Yamsur. I wonder is Saren is another name for him?

Being an Android user, I still have to wait to experience Six Ages, so I cannot comment yet on those myths. The adoption of Hyalor from Genert's Garden and the Hippogriff rather than Sered origin of the Hyal Golden Horses is a mythical complication some of us scholars thrive upon and many of the play-oriented folk can do without, but we are in deep heroquesting territory here anyway.

10 hours ago, Leingod said:

Oonil the Skillful actually reminds me of Lugh of the Tuatha Dé Danann in Irish myth, who among other things is called Ildánach (“skilled in many arts”) or Samildánach (“equally skilled in many arts”). I'm sure that's entirely intentional. [Lugh Llamfada snipped]

Well, after having said that, I’m not sure I can imagine what niche Oonil would fulfill in Orlanthi society. After all, it’s got Issaries for trade and negotiation, it’s got various gods like Gustbran and Orstan for crafts, and the Orlanthi spout poetry all the time. It's got lawspeakers and the like to recite histories and legends of importance. So what would Oonil's place be, then?

While not in Heortling Mythology, this myth has been told both of Vingkot and of Vinga - not the single best one in any of the fields tested, but better than anyone else but the expert.

Oonil would be the crafter/trader god, the workman's shopkeeper that is sorely missing from Orlanthi pantheon. Right now, urban crafters are shoe-horned into all manner of cults. Orlanth offers obscure subcults like Orstan and Durev, Harst is the peddler approached through either Orlanth or Issaries, knowledge-based arts like jewelry, perfuming, alchemy fall into the aegis of Lhankor Mhy, redsmithing goes to Gustbran, iron-working to Humakt Inginew. Wilms, companion of Sartar, has taken up a similar role, and would easily be joined with Oonil.

10 hours ago, Leingod said:

I don’t have the confidence to even touch Tanian.

Afraid of burning your fingers?

I was surprised about Tanian receiving the Dragonewt Rune, and would have expected Water (which is missing from the list).

Lorion is worshipped as Engizi, the Sky River Titan, by the Heortlings - not the primal river (that used to be Sshorg(a)/Oslir(a)), but the first modern river joining his force with Magasta's Maelstrom, and the greatest local chaos fighter of the Greater Darkness.

Tanian never surfaced anywhere near the Heortlings - he was called by the God Learners to Banthe Sea, and he might be an annual guest south of the Nargan Desert when the sky spills some of its liquid fire onto the Surface World. But he is the god of the impossible, and as such a welcome guest for the upcoming cataclysms.

 

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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Great topic, I admit to being a little stumped as to what to do with these whenever I'll get to that point after reading about them in Eleven Lights. I'm definitely not up to the known mythology about them, so this thread is great information and inspiration.

I wonder how the fact that they are discovered as a group of three will effect things. What kind of bond will this form between these separate gods, how will they individually feel this and how could this be reflected in the (newly) emerging mythology? To me, it seems this should also be a factor in their new resurgence.  

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Orlanth's Ring is a weird stellar entity anyway. In a way, it is a fragmentary Umath treading the path of Umath up to the collision with Jagrekriand, and then continued several times by young Orlanth on his way to the challenges.

The Dara Happans name the orange stars of the ring differently in The Perfect Sky (in Glorious ReAscent of Yelm).

Star 50 (orange) is the Disruptor, whome they identify with Oralanatus.

Star 54 (no color given, hence orange) is the Raider Star. Not a description I would use for any of the other six Lightbringers, so maybe Orlanth. But then Star 50 would have to be Eurmal.

Star 56 (no color given, hence orange) Third Outlaw. Could be anyone.

Star 57 (no color given, but from the context green) Dragons Head - not a Lightbringer component of the ring.

Star 88 (no color given, hence orange)  Donkey Holder. Given Issaries' mule affinity, a possible identification.

 

Looking at the sky map in the Guide (p.645), I wonder about the position of Orlanth's Ring away from the direct line between Stormgate (yelow, west of the Red Moon, north of the Pit) and Pole Star, and about its motion arrows, but then this might be the reflection of the Dragonrise sky when the star questers had to traverse the route that the constellation would normally traverse in a week in a single night to emulate the path of Umath, shortly before their clash with Jagrekriand/Shargash.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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Great thread! Especially because it features one of my favorite themes, potential-pre-Vingkotling Orlanthings/Umathings, and Male Earth deities.

There's an excellent image of Baroshi* fighting a massive chaos worm-thing inside the temple of his mother in the Guide to Glorantha. I tried looking for it online as I thought it had bee released as a preview, but regardless, the little guy is a personal favorite of mine after reading about him. Just a tenacious li'l guy holding out in one of the most chaos-ridden places. His weapon of choice, the volcanic/charged stone, is a nice touch too.

(* I have a headcanon that his full title is Baroshi Barleyseed, and that Baroshi actually just means barleyseed in some ancient language or early Theyalan. Purely my own fantasy, of course, but it scratches my desire for alliteration, or redundancy-doubled names like Legolas Greenleaf)

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

While not in Heortling Mythology, this myth has been told both of Vingkot and of Vinga - not the single best one in any of the fields tested, but better than anyone else but the expert.

I feel like this description fits for Orlanth himself, too. His great ability is to to gather around him greatly skilled people to whom he can give specialist responsibilities. Beyond that he is good at many things, but not the best.

This also applies to Pamalt as well, but that's neither here nor there (although there are a few similarities between Orlanth and Pamalt what with the ring/necklace as well).

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

Star 54 (no color given, hence orange) is the Raider Star. Not a description I would use for any of the other six Lightbringers, so maybe Orlanth. But then Star 50 would have to be Eurmal.

Could that be Vadrus, or some other prominent Umathing warleader, like the Chief of the Andam Horde? Or do these stars all have to be Lightbringers? Sorry, I'm not entirely knowledgeable about the Ring, and whether it's supposed to be based on Umath's offspring in general, or specifically the Lightbringers.

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

Star 57 (no color given, but from the context green) Dragons Head - not a Lightbringer component of the ring.

Well, both Orlanth and Vadrus are noted dragonslayers, and Orlanth carries a Dragon's Head in many depictions, especially the newer ones I've seen. (I have a pet theory that Orlanth "stole" the dragonslaying story from Vadrus after the latter died in the Gods War, but maybe they weren't conceptually/runically separated at the point of slaying or something similar.)

Edited by Sir_Godspeed
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8 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

although there are a few similarities between Orlanth and Pamalt what with the ring/necklace as well

I wouldn't be surprised if "Phamaltela" is the land where the earth giant fought and we won . . . assembling the Necklace to tie the world back together as their version of the LBQ. Of course he had weather on his side.

Talking about Baroshi fighting grubs makes me wonder if the Ginijji Culture experienced the Greater Darkness primarily as crop failure. Possibly even with a rogue psychotropic component . . . of all the major elder races, elves have the strongest historical sympathy with "chaos." Which reopens the question of what's going on with those plant disease spirits Daughter of Ralzakark is collecting.

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

Star 88 (no color given, hence orange)  Donkey Holder. Given Issaries' mule affinity, a possible identification.

This might predate Issaries or conceal deeper connections. Anaxial's Roster does claim that Donkey is a Lodrilite animal. 

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18 hours ago, Leingod said:

Anyway, my question is: Who and what would these old/new gods become gods of?

What ever you/your players make them into. To me it's a blank slate, just because they once did those things doesn't mean that they can't be moved into something new (but similar or related). Also bear in mind, you only get three, and to my mind the list that Janara names if the PCs fail is the most interesting.

Varnaval is totally the god of ram charioteering. Awesome chariots pulled by the offspring of the Iron Ram (great HeroQuest opportunity).

Tanian is clearly an Argrath secret weapon, a dragon god of burning rain.

Korolful is a star captain. I'd make him the god of burning fire arrows, raining down from the sky.

The others.

Siwend, maybe a heroquest scout/raider.

Baroshi is a blank slate, and can approached much like Firshala in Griffin Mountain. He's clearly an Earth warrior with a Storm weapon, hero forming him is likely a way forward.

Saren seems like a fire aspect of Mastakos. Perhaps chariots need to come back to help in the hero wars.

Oonil is the big picture guy, he'd be useful for melding new ideas together for the hero wars. 

I'd be interested to hear which three @Ian Cooper's group brought back

18 hours ago, Leingod said:

How would their worship differ from similar, established gods (since I don't see them replacing any of these gods outright barring some serious Gods War shenanigans), and what changes might they create in Orlanthi society if they become established cults or subcults of their own?

Establishing will take time. Getting players to run with this was a difficulty in my Griffin Mountain campaign (with Firshala), they didn''t want to become a new religious hierarchy. Unless my players were interested in developing one of them, I'd leave them minor.

The biggest change if you brought back a or both charioteers would be the return of war chariots. 

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2 hours ago, David Scott said:

The biggest change if you brought back a or both charioteers would be the return of war chariots. 

Based on material and illustrations in RQ:G war chariots are still a thing, though primarily as battle taxis and transport for religious regalia. The Lunars still use war chariots (based on material in the Glorantha Sourcebook) and have the few working Dara Happan artillery chariots. But then it is difficult for a high ranking officer (especially if Dara Happan) to ride a horse in their long tunic which reaches below the knee, and so riding in a chariot is much more dignified (until it breaks down - there's a dire need for spare wheels to be carried by the supply train).

Massed chariot warfare is probably a thing of the past, as they need relatively flat terrain and a lack of cavalry.

In our world, the battle chariot ceased to be militarily effective when cavalry and infantry skirmishers armed with barbed arrows and javelins appeared in great numbers, though continued to be present as a sort of prestige weapon platform for some time. The Persians and Successors armed them with scythes but they were rarely effective.

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3 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

Based on material and illustrations in RQ:G war chariots are still a thing, though primarily as battle taxis and transport for religious regalia. The Lunars still use war chariots (based on material in the Glorantha Sourcebook) and have the few working Dara Happan artillery chariots. But then it is difficult for a high ranking officer (especially if Dara Happan) to ride a horse in their long tunic which reaches below the knee, and so riding in a chariot is much more dignified (until it breaks down - there's a dire need for spare wheels to be carried by the supply train).

Massed chariot warfare is probably a thing of the past, as they need relatively flat terrain and a lack of cavalry.

In our world, the battle chariot ceased to be militarily effective when cavalry and infantry skirmishers armed with barbed arrows and javelins appeared in great numbers, though continued to be present as a sort of prestige weapon platform for some time. The Persians and Successors armed them with scythes but they were rarely effective.

True, but Glorantha does run a bit more on Rule of Cool, err... I mean, Rule of err, The Myth Says Do It.

Maybe the charioteer gods have some particularly potent magics to make chariots competitive.

I mean, the Lunars have flying boats (Yeah, I know that's not really comparable, but hey).

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44 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

True, but Glorantha does run a bit more on Rule of Cool, err... I mean, Rule of err, The Myth Says Do It.

Maybe the charioteer gods have some particularly potent magics to make chariots competitive.

I mean, the Lunars have flying boats (Yeah, I know that's not really comparable, but hey).

I'm pretty sure all the insane chariot tricks in the Cattle Raid of Cooley work in Glorantha, with enough magic behind them.

https://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol5/5_1/karl_5_1.pdf

 

Edit: here's a breakdown of martial feats (Cles). https://www.jstor.org/stable/25512561?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

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10 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

Massed chariot warfare is probably a thing of the past, as they need relatively flat terrain and a lack of cavalry.

Perhaps that’s the secret, Varnaval is not going to be a major cult, so a small one with several rune lords each riding flying ram chariots. 

Saren can likely fly too, carrying Elmal across the sky. 

Do chariots being aerial platforms help?

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On 9/21/2018 at 10:03 AM, David Scott said:

In our old RQ Campaign, the PCs freed Baroshi and he gained a cult. As he gained more worshippers, they gained the secret of his Thunderstone Sword, so gained a spell that was like the Bless Thunderstone seplll from RQ3, but allowed the worshipper to bless a Thunderstone sword, giving it Thunderstone powers for 15 minutes. He also gained the Great Parry spell from Babeester Gor. In fact, a lot of Babeester Gor worshippers joined Baroshi as a subcult, for his skill at fighting Chaos. I think I also gave him Face Chaos, as he never retreated from Chaos.

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On 9/20/2018 at 11:47 PM, Leingod said:

Varnaval the Shepherd King was a very martial god, while his replacements Voriof and Uroth are not. I think Varnaval as a subcult of Orlanth would be a path for shepherds to become warriors who can not only defend their flocks from invaders but take the fight to them.

Thanks for the useful post. I have just used this as a seed for an adventure with my RQG group. It was as a foreshadowing of the main adventure in the new adventure pack where the Dragonrise is causing ancient powers to stir. All the young shepherd boys had run off, leaving only the shepherd girls (and any from the other 5 genders) to look after the sheep. The party had to investigate and ended up rescuing a small group of sheep from the ghosts of Star Fire Ridge. The Shepherd boys were all found at a local inn acting all manly and heroic (Wrestling, posing with their chins out and blowing hair in the wind etc) it seemed as though they were under some kind of spell or charm and it was only dispelled when their Mums came and scolded them for running off. Party have no idea of what caused it and I think i will leave it that way for a while. 

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16 hours ago, David Scott said:

To me it's a blank slate, just because they once did those things doesn't mean that they can't be moved into something new (but similar or related).

On the one hand, yeah, fair point, but on the other as someone who majored in history I tend to want the future to be informed by the past. I'm not saying they need to be exactly what they once were. I guess I didn't really phrase the question the way I meant it to be taken as, which is:

"How do these old/new gods affect the society of those who worship them, and how do they change in turn in a new world?"

16 hours ago, David Scott said:

The biggest change if you brought back a or both charioteers would be the return of war chariots. 

If nothing else, chariot races might become popular with Orlanthi in more urbanized areas, with cultists of Mastakos, Varnaval and Saren all having races on holy days and maybe settling arguments and competitions in that way.

I wonder if chariot races between cultists of Mastakos and Saren would make for a good way to peacefully solve arguments and ease tensions between Orlanth and Elmal worshipers if something like the Yelmalio schism starts to happen again during the Hero Wars?

3 hours ago, David Scott said:

Perhaps that’s the secret, Varnaval is not going to be a major cult, so a small one with several rune lords each riding flying ram chariots. 

Saren can likely fly too, carrying Elmal across the sky. 

Do chariots being aerial platforms help?

I don't think a cult that's too small would be able to support multiple rune lords. That said, turning chariots into vimana would certainly make them combat-effective to a terrifying degree.

28 minutes ago, Gryphaea said:

Thanks for the useful post. I have just used this as a seed for an adventure with my RQG group. It was as a foreshadowing of the main adventure in the new adventure pack where the Dragonrise is causing ancient powers to stir. All the young shepherd boys had run off, leaving only the shepherd girls (and any from the other 5 genders) to look after the sheep. The party had to investigate and ended up rescuing a small group of sheep from the ghosts of Star Fire Ridge. The Shepherd boys were all found at a local inn acting all manly and heroic (Wrestling, posing with their chins out and blowing hair in the wind etc) it seemed as though they were under some kind of spell or charm and it was only dispelled when their Mums came and scolded them for running off. Party have no idea of what caused it and I think i will leave it that way for a while. 

Glad you got some use out of me throwing out ideas. Joerg (for some reason it won't let me type after that tag, so now it's stuck at the end) seems pretty on the money about Varnaval being a "migrating pastoral raider" archetype, as well. And although his chariot is mentioned prominently in his write-up, I think it probably isn't as central to his myth as it is for Mastakos and Saren, who are explicitly the charioteers of greater gods, so you could potentially have his worshipers ignore that aspect in favor of other powers from him in places where a focus on chariots isn't practical (until you get to rune lord level and can ride Iron Rams - or perhaps Storm Rams - and/or fly around on a vimana).

In which case, I feel like he might catch on with Orlanthi who are migratory and pastoral rather than tied to agriculture and settling down in villages and towns (and who are warlike raiders on top of that), something I bet at least a few Orlanthi will take to during the Hero Wars. A bunch of tattooed raiders riding in on horse-sized rams, their nobles and leaders flying around in chariots, raining death on their enemies below? Sounds like a worthy addition to the setting IMO. @Joerg

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18 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Could that be Vadrus, or some other prominent Umathing warleader, like the Chief of the Andam Horde? Or do these stars all have to be Lightbringers? Sorry, I'm not entirely knowledgeable about the Ring, and whether it's supposed to be based on Umath's offspring in general, or specifically the Lightbringers.

No, given the orange color, the seven stars could as well be three greater and four lesser pieces of Umath following the dragon (that followed Orlanth into the sky).

18 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Well, both Orlanth and Vadrus are noted dragonslayers, and Orlanth carries a Dragon's Head in many depictions, especially the newer ones I've seen. (I have a pet theory that Orlanth "stole" the dragonslaying story from Vadrus after the latter died in the Gods War, but maybe they weren't conceptually/runically separated at the point of slaying or something similar.)

Orlanth "stole"/copied the Aroka dragonslaying from Vadrus, and passed that on to Barntar (which would have given Vadrus enough grief to explain though not excuse his slaying of Barntar). But Orlanth has two more dragonslayings under his kilt - the Black Dragon of Blackorm Mountain (Cliffhome, aka Conquest Mountain), and Sh'Harkarzeel, the former owner of the head, whose utuma was caused by decapitation and no such "rip the great beast apart from between the jaws" shenanigans. It is possible that Vadrus demonstrated that it could be done, but Orlanth showed several ways how to.

18 hours ago, scott-martin said:

This might predate Issaries or conceal deeper connections. Anaxial's Roster does claim that Donkey is a Lodrilite animal. 

The donkey probably has less elaborate myths of origin and less ostentatious races and breeds than the horse, but just because one pantheon associates an animal with one deity doesn't mean that all other pantheons are likewise bound.

And in a way all those lowfire husbands of handmaidens of Ernalda indicate that a portion of her followers from the Emperor's Palace may have included kin of the Deep Fire, known to the Heortlings as Veskarthan and to the Brolians as Turos.

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