The Lore of Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind

[jajagappa]

18 hours ago, Leingod said:

I don't know, is Saird/Holay close enough to Dragon Pass to see Kero Fin? Because that's where you are on the map.

Yes.

And if you stand upon the Daughter's Road in Jillaro or Mirin's Cross or the end of it in Filichet in Holay and look south, you'll find that it points exactly at Kero Fin.

[Leingod]

Looking over The Book of Heortling Mythology again, I notice the throwaway line about Beren(eth) and Reda(y)lda: "All of their daughters were the Red-Headed Women." This would normally be taken by the Orlanthi to refer either to Vinga or to Redalda (who is the only one of Vingkot's daughters who has any real description given to her, noting that she is red-haired), but it might instead be an artifact of Osara once being present among the Berennethtelli.

Further evidence might be that it says that the stories of the Red-Headed Lodge of the Berennethtelli are "included" in the saga of House Vinga, the collection of tales about the Warrior Women of the Vingkotlings. Later Orlanthi who forgot about Osara might have just assumed that it was a local name for Vinga or something and just subsumed the tales of the Red-Headed Lodge into those of the Vingans.

[alakoring]

I don’t see anything that describes Redalda. (A name that’s spelled at least three ways in The Book of Heortling Mythology…)

[Leingod]

4 hours ago, alakoring said:

I don’t see anything that describes Redalda. (A name that’s spelled at least three ways in The Book of Heortling Mythology…)

Ah, that's because I remembered the wrong source. Redaylde is described as red-haired in Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes.

[Grievous]

On 6/29/2019 at 1:41 AM, Leingod said:

But yeah, it really is unfortunate that a lot of the material in Ride Like the Wind isn't really very usable in campaigns set in Time unless you're willing to really overhaul your personal take on Glorantha for it and throw out a lot of the written material, likely up to and including the prevalence of Elmal worship in the first place in the Third Age, since as written the cult is basically on the outs in favor of Yelmalio anyway and you pretty much only have Runegate and a few scattered clans to play with if you want to have a place where these gods can have a place, since I can tell you right now that the Sun Domers have no place in their society for any red-haired warrior daughters and bright-tailed wandering sons. Any real Hyaloring revival is pretty much going to need to be entirely home-brewed, though it could certainly be a pretty epic series of experimental heroquests and adventures undertaken by, say, members of the Runegate Triaty looking for something to empower Elmal's flagging worship by diving deep into his past or something.

One would think that the Pure Horse People - who have an origin among the Hyalorings - would preserve a lot of these old customs (even though it also seems that they are their own special thing even among the Riders). Of course, there's the general disappearance of Elmal to account for, and the resurgence of the Yu-Kargzant/Yelm worship (and whether that just popped up with the Dawn, or required some re-jiggering as by the Bright Empire), but we may get some insights into this as Six Ages rolls along (though it's as likely that the story will become more centered on the Berenethelli). And well, sure a lot what we know of the Grazers for example looks quite different, but the line of descent is there.

Also, who knows the Pentans could be pretty close to what we see of the Hyalorings.

So, yeah, I mean a lot of it isn't directly applicable, but I think it is a useful look at the past.

One wonders about the existence of Elmal among the southern Heortlings, but not among the northern Orlanthi, where he entered the pantheon, though. Of course it is likely Yelmalio has just overridden him there and it is the south which is farthest from the Yelmalian heartland, so.. 

Edited July 25, 2019 by Grievous

[Leingod]

On 9/29/2018 at 2:03 PM, Sir_Godspeed said:

I'm wondering if it's maybe some remnant king of Peloria? I honestly think it's quite interesting that the Hyalorings are differentiating so strongly between mortals and gods at this point in time, given that such a distinction in the God Time is often either meaningless or difficult.

Incidentally, this seems to be an attitude shared by the Dara Happans in general, as the Samnali are supposedly so hostile to the Hyalorings because they "treat a man as a god" (i.e. venerate Hyalor, who never claimed to be more than a man while living). I suppose it fits the general idea of the Dara Happans embracing very rigid (and often artificial) hierarchical distinctions in their society and enshrining those as the natural way of the world.

[Sheliak]

One interesting thing: in the Gods War art, gods almost always have swirls on their clothing (or skin or mane/tail, if they aren't human). Even Cenala, when she shows up in person, has this going on.

There are two exceptions. One is Hyalor, who started out as a man; he never gets any swirls. Granted, that could be because all of his myths/rituals take place before his human "death". But the other is Samnal. Which is interesting, because no one ever suggests that Samnal isn't a god, even the Riders. (They just think of him as a jerk god that they don't worship--but plenty of jerk gods we don't worship appear, and Maran Gor/Storm Bull/Yonesh/Shargash/etc all have the swirls.) But the art places him on an equal level with Hyalor, and it does so by depicting them both as mortals. Which does make me wonder if he was another human hero, who came to be worshipped, and the Wheels just think that that was okay because he was publicly known to be descended from a god...

(Also worth a mention: Verlaro, the god who lost his divine status. The one picture of him has his clothing entirely hidden by snow... An interesting touch, given that Osara and Yonesh in the same image both have swirls, and Yonesh's worshiper Stakar does not.

[Sheliak]

Another interesting bit of news-of-your-neighbors: 

Quote

The quick-tempered Rams of the <x> clan have long been known for favoring the throwing axe. Word has it that they were recently visited by an obscure and ancient figure in the saga of the Rams, a wooden man called Duref. He showed them not only how to carve valuable items from wood, but to sculpt foes with their axes, changing them from living to dead. The war magic they gained from this visitation will last at least seven years.

Duref has got to be Durev, the Great Carl: https://glorantha.fandom.com/wiki/Durev 

[Sir_Godspeed]

15 minutes ago, Sheliak said:

Another interesting bit of news-of-your-neighbors: 

Duref has got to be Durev, the Great Carl: https://glorantha.fandom.com/wiki/Durev 

Yup, he was indeed carved from wood.

Interesting stuff. Also interesting that he is referred to as "obscure", since as far as I know, he is hardly obscure in the Third Age. 

This might be during the period when the Durevings had not yet entirely integrated into the Vinkotling confederation, and not yet syncretized their own (undoubtedly different) mythology with that of the Kerofinelan Vinkotlings proper.

Although, saying that, since this is well after the Flood, then I suppose the Durevings should already have been assimilated... Bah, I don't know!

[Qizilbashwoman]

1 minute ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Although, saying that, since this is well after the Flood, then I suppose the Durevings should already have been assimilated... Bah, I don't know!

Are these Rams even Vingkotlings? This is Ice Age Vanch.

[Sheliak]

They call themselves Vingkotlings! 

(Occasionally also Kestaytelli, and Cistaruli in the debug files. No idea where those names come from, although both are used to distinguish the local Rams from the Infithtelli to the southwest, so I tend to assume they're a subgroup (or two different ones?) of Vingkotlings. ) 

Is there another Orlanthi group that might've been in this area? 

 

Re: Durev, maybe he's a minor god at this point and becomes more important during the Great Darkness, as others die? I can see him gaining worshippers after Barntar's temporary-as-it-turned-out death, for example. (Wild speculation, of course.) Or maybe this particular clan is the only Dureving-descended one in the area, and the only one that considers Durev/Duref important...

Edited October 6, 2019 by Sheliak

[JanPospisil]

Yes, they are all Vingkotlings. Another kind of southern Rams are the always heavily armed Vestantes.

[metcalph]

I figure that the Pelorian/Dara Happans called the Vingkotling Rams for the same reason that English get called Anglo-Saxons, the French Gauls, the Germans Teutons and the Hellenes Greeks etc.

[Qizilbashwoman]

2 hours ago, metcalph said:

I figure that the Pelorian/Dara Happans called the Vingkotling Rams for the same reason that English get called Anglo-Saxons, the French Gauls, the Germans Teutons and the Hellenes Greeks etc.

i think they say as @Sheliak notes that Vingkot is their ancestor (I played a little last night). I'm always fuzzy on who isn't a Vingkotling.

[Sir_Godspeed]

1 hour ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

i think they say as @Sheliak notes that Vingkot is their ancestor (I played a little last night). I'm always fuzzy on who isn't a Vingkotling.

To be fair, the situation at the time was probably a bit less clear-cut than it's made out to be in the "winter tribes and summer tribes" schema. We also know that they allied with/confederated various other groups, so there's a potential fuzziness.

[Qizilbashwoman]

37 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

To be fair, the situation at the time was probably a bit less clear-cut than it's made out to be in the "winter tribes and summer tribes" schema. We also know that they allied with/confederated various other groups, so there's a potential fuzziness.

Are the Ralian Orlanthi non-Vingkotling peoples? I've heard suggest they're a meld of Orlanthis and Horse Riders who were Theyalanised - which makes sense given they worship Yelm and the Sun Horse as coequal deities right up there with Ernalda and Orlanth - which would make them also Vingkotling.

[Sir_Godspeed]

1 minute ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Are the Ralian Orlanthi non-Vingkotling peoples? I've heard suggest they're a meld of Orlanthis and Horse Riders who were Theyalanised - which makes sense given they worship Yelm and the Sun Horse as coequal deities right up there with Ernalda and Orlanth - which would make them also Vingkotling.

The issue is whether everyone who worshipped Orlanth (by any name) in the Storm Age were Vingkotlings. In my question thread on the Talastari, they were mostly agreed to not be former Vingkotlings, but remnants of other Storm People, possibly a failed invasion of Dara Happa or Pelanda, or having migrated around or across the Rockwoods at some point. They worshipped a Ram-god of some kind which seems to some form of Orlanth (or possibly a beefed-up version of Voriof, which would basically be Orlanth anyway). Then there are the Imtherites, who apparently are goat-herding Orlanthi in Time, but we don't know what they were in the Storm Age I think, and all the other Bull Storm people towards the northwest as Fronela and Peloria meet. These are more or less Orlanthi in Time, but seems generally to be accepted to have been some kind of Storm Bull people in the Storm Age (or at least a lot more cattle-obsessed than the Vingkotlings). And there is of course the Ralians, as you mention. No idea about them. Hell, you don't need to go farther than Maniria before you meet the Entruli, who are Orlanthi now, but definitely were not Vingkotlings back in the day either, as they were convered during the day from essentially being Swine Hsunchen, or possibly just Swine-focused Earth People of some kind. Or maybe they reverted to being that during the Darkness and they actually were Vingkotlings (possibly Durevings or Helerings) during the Storm Age....

So yeah, uh, not easy to tell for me at least.

[Qizilbashwoman]

22 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

And there is of course the Ralians, as you mention. No idea about them.

Well, Ralians are funny because they are fully a quarter of all Orlanthis anywhere and Alakoring was one, but they never get mentioned. But their stories are not the stories of Kerofinela: Ehilm (Yelm), Galanin or Galana the Sun Horse (son of Ernalda and Yelm!), Erulat (Orlanth) and Mata the Green Lady (Ernalda), Aldrya and Flamal, Uleria and Korat, and Humakt Sun-Killer. Lesser deities abound, including snake gods and the hsunchen gods and so forth. Humakt killed Yelm in their narratives, not Orlanth, who just ordered it. They seem to be a melding of what Orlanthis and what Six Ages calls Riders, with varying narratives of their ancestry to the first man, who seems to be Vingkot, and to the Sun Horse.

34 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

the Entruli, who are Orlanthi now, but definitely were not Vingkotlings back in the day either, as they were convered during the day from essentially being Swine Hsunchen, or possibly just Swine-focused Earth People of some kind.

Ooh good point. Yeah, the Entruli are Orlanthi but not Vingkotlings! Definite Theyalan converts.

I would bet good money the Orlanthi in the South originally surprise-transplanted by the Waertagi are Theyalan groups, perhaps ambassadorial. This is the kind of nonsense I get up to when I play Civ so I definitely believe it. "We will bring you to the best opportunity! Gather your clans, ambassadors!"

[Joerg]

Even with the many generations between Korol Vingkotsson and King Heort, the probability of your average tribesperson having an actual blood lineage from Vingkot is rather slim. Having Vingkot among the tribal ancestors is a different issue and fairly possible.

 

There are quite a bunch of swine-related Orlanthi around - the Aramites used to be, the Harandings certainly were, and the Entruli as well. Vingkot wasn't the only son of Orlanth to father a lineage of Orlanthi kings. Harand Boardick's maternal grandfather Drorgalar was such a demigod, too, and there is little doubt that Orlanth littered the foothills of Genertela with more such sons.

Whether the Entruli started out as Durevings or as earth tribes isn't quite clear. They certainly weren't directly related to the Mraloti Hykimi of Ramalia, but the difference between Hykimi and beast totem Orlanthi wasn't that clear. The Basmoli/Pendali disappeared among the Tanisorans, Solanthi, and Enerali. The Enerali became Tanisorans and Orlanthi (in about equal numbers), and numerous Hykimi of Ralios and Fronela became Orlanthi, too. The Enjoreli that did not become Loskalmi or Janubians became Orlanthi, too.

 

The Ralians were Enerali or Galanini at the time, and became Orlanthi only under the Second Council. But then, only few of the Hykimi south of the Janube escaped becoming Orlanthi or extinct, with the Pralori and Telmori of Ralios probably the biggest or most powerful groups.

[Qizilbashwoman]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Harand Boardick

now there's a name! love it.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

the Aramites used to be

this I did not know! so Ernalda punished them with their patron ancestor spirit, basically?

[Joerg]

Just now, Qizilbashwoman said:

now there's a name! love it.

this I did not know! so Ernalda punished them with their patron ancestor spirit, basically?

I am not quite sure whether the Aramites were on the receiving end of the wrath of Gouger in the first place, or whether Aram interceded on behalf of the sinners, or stopped the rampage after the two cities had been destroyed which may have been the whole mission of the god pig to avoid collateral damage.

Given that Aram managed to find the favor of Kero Fin, either Orlanth's wife and mother had some different ideas on this issue, or Gouger had gone out of control.

[JanPospisil]

Since we're close to release, I should probably finish those three WIP blog posts about working on it, right? The ones I started writing last year when it came out on iOS?

Also this: 

A Rider Meets Death

“I came out from the river valley.
I drew near a darkness.
I set off for it but could not catch up to it.
I called to it, but it did not heed me.
This darkness turned about of its own accord
And set off after me, catching up to me.
His two-headed spear of black bronze came out to my saddle
And then tore the reins from my hands.
This darkness forced the snot of eight plow oxen out of my nostrils
And rubbed my golden mustache in the foul dirt.
All the mother’s milk that I have drunk
It made me vomit up.
It drew forth a great sword
And stepped forward as a man to take my head.”

The tawny steed on which he rode had the head of a deer,
And its head reached into the heavens,
And from its fetlocks sprouted long claws.
When it dashes out, it gallops.
When it gallops, you cannot see it.
The warrior who rides him
Is a white youth with mighty arms and thick wrists.
He goes about with his chest bare
And shows no care in his wanderings.”

(In our boring reality this is a slightly adjusted and cropped poem from "Nart Sagas of the Caucasus" by John Colarusso. Not an easy book to read, but full of great material for Glorantha.)

[alakoring]

Nart Sagas was definitely an influence on my Glorantha.

[Leingod]

Definitely going to enjoy playing this game again on PC. Glad I got the heads-up; I'd kind of forgotten about the port! Also glad this reminded me to check the wiki to refresh my memory and see the stuff that's gone up there since I last looked.

On 10/6/2019 at 8:58 AM, Joerg said:

Even with the many generations between Korol Vingkotsson and King Heort, the probability of your average tribesperson having an actual blood lineage from Vingkot is rather slim. Having Vingkot among the tribal ancestors is a different issue and fairly possible.

Slim, but at least one of the "Kestaytelli" clans definitely has some of Vingkot's blood among their number, given Redalda.

[Sheliak]

True. Not that Redalda is by any means average! 

OTOH, the Riders all consider themselves descendants of Hyalor, and your clan all consider themselves as descendants of Basikan (and maybe also Zenangar), which is probably just as mathematically dubious. I get the impression that these things are mythologically true and therefore literally true, because we're still in the era where myth can overwrite history. The fact that it's improbable is beside the point.

(Or alternately, it's mythologically probable that a Vingkotling hero is related to Vingkot.)