Jump to content

Who's the Orlanthi deity of...


Stew Stansfield

Recommended Posts

6 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

That's... both awfully convenient (no need to involve yet more names and identities, which strikes me as a bit artificial-feeling) and weirdly contrived (So did the Orlanthi just not have a butcher deity before the Dawn? How did they import him?

I imagine they may not have had much need for a speciality one, or there may have been one who got supplanted by Waha, much like some other gods such as Varnaval or Siwend got replaced.

It may be that non-Heortling Orlanthi who have little contact with Prax may have a different god of animal products.

Of course, either way the cult of Waha amongst the Orlanthi would be very different to the one in HQ:G or RQ:G, since I doubt anyone would require them to go join a Praxian tribe or tradition.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't really think that the Praxian Beast Riders and the Vingkotlings had much contact in the times when Tada still ruled those lands. The neighbors were the Tada-shi, a culture practicing horticulture, possibly not unlike the Doraddi, and not the Animal Nomads (no idea whether they were riding already back then). The nomads may have had ancestral grazings near the Vingkotlings, but the term Nomads does imply that they roamed significantly (and not just transhumant). Plus a good portion of that land was submerged by the Aroka standing wave covering the eastern Rockwoods and parts of Balazar (roughly Elkoi) before joining the Oslira Sea covering Dara Happa.

Waha was contacted around 35 ST. He was born in the Greater Darkness and in all likelihood had never met Tada. The Tada-shi he met had degenerated into the Oasis Folk, a people so subdued that I am not entirely certain they have registered the changes brought by the Dawn.

At this time, the Heortling tribes and the Esrolvuli had already been established for generations, out of previously Vingkotling groups. As pastoralists long before the Praxians had become pastoralists, they would have had pre-existing rites for butchery. Possiibly none that let the slaughtered beast resurrect the next dawn, but magically proven.

Waha did not invent the Peaceful Cut. Foundchild had introduced it, as a universal hunter secret. Waha applied this to the herd kin of the Animal Nomad tribes.

Was Waha's Peaceful Cut more powerful than the Heortling magics? And did the few Theyalan missionaries that married into say the Hagolings bring all manner of minor deities and practices with them, or did they take over whatever they awakened from the Terror of the Great Night?

 

  • Like 1

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow, I didn't expect to open such a can of wyrms with my question.  In case people are wondering, I was asking because I am trying to figure out who the most appropriate Patron Deity for the New Pavic "Guild of Cloth and Leatherworkers" should be. 

Okay, so, having reviewed the sons of Lodril, none are even close to a good fit.  Durev and Orane are both good choices, no argument, and I wish we had cult write-ups for them.  Ernalda is a good multi-purpose choice, and a powerful deity politically, which fits with Brygga Scissortongue as written.  Waha is fine for leatherworking, but not for cloth.  Orlanth is too general I fear, and would be banned.  Barntar is more agricultural imo, and the same goes for Busenari and Uralda, who might supply the leather, but don't deal with cloth making.  I half considered Aranea as a cloth deity, but it's a poor fit.  As for Lhankor Mhy, he is great for the guilds, but a poor fit for this one.

In fact I can think of one other deity that could work that no-one else has mentioned, and that is Eiritha.  If you think about it, she can and does do cloth weaving and sewing, as well as working in hides.  She is a compromise candidate between Ernalda and Waha, who has the benefits of not only female hearth crafting skills but peaceful cut.

Also, how do people feel about Issaries in the role. given that he is a good all-purpose god of shopkeepers?

Now, for the record, the way I am writing the guilds, they only require members to be lay members of their patron deity for guild ritual purposes with the pursuit of further cult advancement entirely at the discretion of the individual member (bear that in mind).  There are guilds with more obvious choices, but the Cloth and Leatherworkers is a "knotty" one imo.

I am inclined to put the matter to a vote and defer to the wisdom of my fellow guild members.  Is there a seconder?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

New Pavis, to my knowledge, is such a metropolitan affair, that it brings a number of different concerns to fore compared to my earlier post, which was based more on traditional Heortling ideas, mostly (or Entruli, etc., you get the deal).

The above all sounds fine to me, but clearly I'm not too well-versed in this. :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

Patron Deity for the New Pavic "Guild of Cloth and Leatherworkers" should be

Given the New Pavis location, I'd agree with your thought of Eiritha.  She is daughter of Ernalda, so association with spinning and cloth as well as animal hides.  Among the nomads this activity would be performed by those who stay in camps rather than out those out herding or hunting, so again Eiritha seems to have the best fit (whereas Waha would handle butchering).

In Nochet (far more urban), Ernalda is universally the patron of the Societies of the Cloth whereas the animal mothers (Uralda/Eiritha, Nevala, etc.) are associated with aspects of leatherworking.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

New Pavis, to my knowledge, is such a metropolitan affair, that it brings a number of different concerns to fore compared to my earlier post, which was based more on traditional Heortling ideas, mostly (or Entruli, etc., you get the deal).

The above all sounds fine to me, but clearly I'm not too well-versed in this. :P

Please, don't sell yourself short.  The Durev/Orane answer is a good one, and I haven't given up on it at all.  It is perfectly valid for any Heortling/Sartarite settlement, and New Pavis is certainly enough of one of those.  In fact I got a lot out of your suggestions Sir_Godspeed.

Edited by Darius West
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would just like to say that both @David Scott and @Joerg brought up several points that made Waha as an Orlanthi deity (more specifically, a Heortling one, since that's the Orlanthi group I tend to default to mentally) a lot more nuanced than I first thought.

I still think your average rural carl would associate butchering more with Barntar or Durev, as every-man-gods, but the perspective of the average joe and the learned will probably be different, as will possibly the professional urban butcher. And Hendrikiland has been in contact with Prax since the early Dawn, much moreso than Talastar, Ralios or Fronela.

EDIT: Glad to be of use, @Darius West! It's fun speculation, especially when it leads to more knowledge. :)

Edited by Sir_Godspeed
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thankfully not quite the levels of Zeus... as far as I know. O.o

Jokes aside, I have my suspicions that most of the Air God-patriarchs have close affinities for horned herd animals (to the point of being identified as them), so Orlanth-as-the-Ram fathering a lamb or two is quite thematically consistent. More recent artwork shows him with ram's horns as well, sometimes. Urox is a bull of course, Ragnaglar might've been the billy goat, Varnaval might've been the Ordeed/Andam buck, and so on. There's also the story of Lokamaydon using his Giant Storm Ram mount to incarnate a new, syncretic god, Tarumath. Heler is of course associated with the Ram, but that seems more to do with their woolen fleece looking like rain clouds rather than the horns. Horns might be replaced with tusks, it seems, as in the case of whichever god is locally associated with hogs (Entru as the patriarch of the Entruli, Entra as the Sow Mother, or a temporally-displaced Barntar as the Companion of the Great Pig during the Descent). No word of whether Vadrus ever appearing in the guise of some sexually-dimorphic herd mammal. My bet is that if that was ever the case, it must've been mean and extinct. :P

That's more of a topic for a different thread though - like my para-Orlanthi one.

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I meant that as something of a rude joke guys, though your straight man dissection of the issue was also amusing.  Still, Orlanth must have been looking at his kids playing at the foot of the stead, and he sees Barntar, a strong kid, hard working but a bit lacking in imagination, then he sees little Voria who is so pretty and full of life, and then he sees Voriof...  Voriof is a sheep. How did that happen? How does Orlanth react?  Is Voriof just the "special needs" kid of the family?  Does he look askance at Ernalda and wonder why she spends so long in the milking shed?  Has he been cuckolded by Urox?  Questions must be asked, and the answers may not be pretty. Poor Voriof, the black sheep of the family, it is no wonder the "Ram of War" has it in for Orlanth, the conflict is Freudian, being Voriof's brooding unconscious Oedipal resentment of his disappointed father.  Can you milk a sheep for comedy?

Ernalda:  Orlanth, can you windword Heler to babysit Voriof again tonight?  I'm going to my mother's.

Back to the topic however... What do people think of a patron for Pavic Carpenters... Ostevios (Yelmalio import) or Durev (Orlanthi Import), or maybe Pavis himself (given the temple's Rubble Rebuilding projects)?  Other answers are always very welcome.

Edited by Darius West
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

I meant that as something of a rude joke guys, though your straight man dissection of the issue was also amusing.  Still, Orlanth must have been looking at his kids playing at the foot of the stead, and he sees Barntar, a strong kid, hard working but a bit lacking in imagination, then he sees little Voria who is so pretty and full of life, and then he sees Voriof...  Voriof is a sheep. How did that happen? How does Orlanth react?

He is proud as Punch. When he became Orlanth the Ram, he tupped whoever Voriof's mother was and produced Voriof. Orlanth has many Aspects and Orlanth the Ram is just one of them.

It's strange for us, for sure, but real life mythologies have many, many examples of deities taking animal form and having offspring.

In Glorantha, Urox does it all the while, for example.

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For the Carpenter, there is Orstan, a subcult of Orlanth. He introduced the saw to the Orlanthi when he created Orstan's Pass across the Dragonspine, nowadays in Grazer territory. Durev is the more handyman of all crafts but master of none in particular.

  • Like 1

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Darius West said:

then he sees Voriof...  Voriof is a sheep. How did that happen? How does Orlanth react?

There's an underlying assumption that the god of storms, clouds, and wind thinks of himself as a man.  If you've ever looked at a cloud, it's a lot easier to picture a sheep than a man. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/24/2018 at 1:23 AM, Joerg said:

For the Carpenter, there is Orstan, a subcult of Orlanth. He introduced the saw to the Orlanthi when he created Orstan's Pass across the Dragonspine, nowadays in Grazer territory. Durev is the more handyman of all crafts but master of none in particular.

Yes, good point.  I'll adopt that.  It's a better fit than Durev.

What do people think of Orane for the patron of the Barbers' Guild?  The guild being devoted to hair stylists, cosmeticians, and wig makers, plus the people who get the fleas and lice out of your follicles.  I figure Orane valued personal grooming more than most, and it's a long long way from Pavis to Rathmorasomangon.

Edited by Darius West
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...