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Lunar Hell -Underworld


Martin

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1 hour ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Woah, this is new. I can see some connection with Shargash, given that he is also identified with Tolat, who is a moon god, but Reladivus/Kargzant, ie. one of the Little Suns?

Reladiva (always the female or an androgynous/hermaphrodite form) may have been a Lunar entity, too, IIRC from the Blue Moon Trolls game Greg improvised at Tentacles. At least the Lunars snatched it out of our hands and mandibles when we were trying to transport the top of that ziggurat as a special pregnancy snack to our Eldest Mother below the plateau.

 

Tolat was the twin brother of Annilla (various spellings) /Serartmale/Veldara (depending on whose myths you ask), but I don't think that he or his planet have ever been described as a moon, unlike Artia (another Southpath planet that doesn't have phases either). And while the Twin Stars apparently display phases by their lockstep dance around one another and hence are considered to be somewhat Lunar in nature, they never have been called moons in any text I have seen.

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14 hours ago, Joerg said:

The first four sound like pre-Dawn incarnations somewhere west of Dara Happa, and Urstenus definitely is Gray Age. Davu is known from Khordavu in the Dawn Age, and Kerestus actually postdates the rise of the Red Goddess - a contemporary of Sheng Seleris.

You've missed the bit when it says after the sun rose, it's after the Dawn. LoS says:

Quote

The sun rose. Nations separated, each to their own destiny. She began to become reborn in the world of mortals, from which all inspiration and change arises now. She was called Sethir, Verener, Morga, Sendaranpola, Urstenus, Davu, Nysalor, and Kerestus. Each of these men and women planted a portion of the knowledge that would be needed to dress Her in Her full glory.

So Urstenus is likely reincarnated in Raibanth.

Verener as a term appears in Verenerasanch, one of Malkion's Erasanchula. They are the power runes, some of who became deities. (Revealed mythologies p29 and Greg's notes). Possibly an incarnation who took the name, IMO likely a sorcerer.

Davu appears in GRoY page 42, an angelic protector of the [Khormesha] family. Possibly an incarnation again in Raibanth where Khordavu was born.

Kerestus is "an avatar of Nysalor" although he appears in the third Wane, as an avatar he can perhaps reincarnate at earlier times.

Sethir, Morga, Sendaranpola don't appear anywhere else other than LoS (including Greg's notes). So they could be anywhere.

These reincarnations need only be around while the Goddess is in the Middle world, a short 27 years.

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On 11/14/2018 at 11:20 AM, EricW said:

Just speculating, but I always figured the seven mother’s hero quest was a twisted lightbringer quest.

What happens if lightbringers (including a darkness cultist!!) make it to the court of justice, and ask for the return of a chaos god? 

Perhaps they receive a goddess who is a confusing mixture of light and dark, who plans to heal the world with chaos.

So.... another Red Moon Goddess? *chuckle*  Let's leave that until we have dealt with the one we have atm.  It seems to me that trying to heal the world with chaos is about as sensible as becoming a sex criminal in order to protect one's virginity.  Being very objective and a bit more charitable, I have considered that Chaos may behave a bit like stem cells by analogy, where the body is the Goddess Glorantha and Arachne Solara is the ego of that deity.  Stem cells are very necessary in the beginning of the creation of life, but as we age, out of place stem cells do bad things, like trying to grow a leg out of your ear, and the result is mutation and cancer, oh and rapey mutant goat-people.  So can Chaos/Stem Cells actually heal you?  IDK, but the auto-immune system of Glorantha (Gods and Heroes) will try hard to fight the cancer, and we really don't know if anyone in Glorantha actually understands the stem cells well enough to do anything other than create fresh cancers.  The Red Moon Goddess suggests she does, but who really believes she isn't trying to kill the world for chaos like a good little cancer?  The crimson bat is hardly an anti-inflammatory.

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22 hours ago, Darius West said:

It seems to me that trying to heal the world with chaos is about as sensible as becoming a sex criminal in order to protect one's virginity.  

Ha - a bit like elves who turn to Yelmalio the Krjalk to protect their forests? 

Or maybe a group of illuminated Arkat followers who join chaos cults to save the world from chaos?

Our world's history is full of groups which embraced insanity with the best of motives, like one group which believed that the softness of modern life had derailed natural selection. They believed that internment, sterilisation and ultimately mass murder was required to restore the balance which our foolhardy failure to embrace the cultural wisdom of our forefathers had upset. 

So its no stretch to suggest that a fictional group which plans to reengineer the universe and its gods to heal the imperfections of the haphazard Godtime mythscape would be prepared to embrace chaos, to risk the end of the world in order to achieve their rose tinted vision of how the world should have been, and could yet become.

Remember the Lunars believe they can control chaos - they likely believe the risk of accidentally destroying Glorantha can be managed, through careful planning and meticulous mystical research and engineering.

 

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3 hours ago, EricW said:

Ha - a bit like elves who turn to Yelmalio the Krjalk to protect their forests? 

Wait... You're saying this as if it is the exception not the rule.  Do you mean there are people who actually worship Yelmalio, and don't just use the Yelmalio cult label as a front for their chaos worship?  How odd?  I have met Thanatari posing as Yelmalios, Krarshti posing as Yelmalios, Cacodemon Worshipers posing as Yelmalios, Thedists posing as Yelmalios, and of course Vampires posing as Yelmalios (they sparkle the most).  Now you're telling me that there are Dorastor Chaos elves who actually worship Yelmalio?  Mind blown.  When is Yelmalio going to institute a geas against chaos monsters dressing up like his followers, or does Yelmalio only exist to be a front for chaos cults. (jk)

Seriously though, chaos disguised as Yelmalios is on the verge of being a Gloranthan trope.

Edited by Darius West
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3 hours ago, Darius West said:

Do you mean there are people who actually worship Yelmalio, and don't just use the Yelmalio cult label as a front for their chaos worship?

Keep in mind that Daysenerus was introduced in the Bright Empire, a portion of Antirius that was manifested by the Iron Vrok in the Battle of Night and Day, and that the cult remained a (or the) main war cult for the Bright Empire to the end of the Gbaji Wars. Illuminate Yelmalians manifesting Chaos Powers.

There is no problem with the Hellwood Elves contacting this aspect of the cult, is there?

The Tharkantus cult was at first opposed to Orlanthland and the dragonspeakers, then allied with the Orlanthland traditionalist leaders against the dragonspeakers, then surrendered to the dragonspeakers, adopted their dragon dream (their mysticism, and drew martial strength from it furthering the EWF cause in Peloria and Ralios), then lost their draconic leaders and advantage in the Utuma of 1042, and participated significantly in the True Golden Horde, losing their anti-dragon leaders and rank and file.

The EWF period saw the mysticism come in again, this time not concerned with Chaos but the outer realities of dragondom.

After 1247, at latest after Hwarin's expansion into Saird, the sun domers were under Lunar influence (or actively opposed, in Tarsh, until Hon-eel established the Lunar influence there). The two Tarshite temples may not actively support Chaos worship, but they go along with whatever the Lunar high command asks of them, unlike those weirdly conscientuous Vannstar forces at the Battle of Aurochs Hills.

 

For almost the entirety of the known presence of the Yelmalio cult in Saird and neighboring regions, mystical insights have overruled otherwise truth-bound rules of the cult. Acceptance of Nysalorean illumination was sort of inherent in the cult's conception.

 

Elmal (and presumably Yelmalio, too) has a myth about Chaos in disguise, letting himself get eaten, and destroying the nothingness of Chaos from within. The emerging entity has destroyed its foe by accepting its innermost secret.

This appears to be somewhat different from the Star Heart, though it isn't clear how different. The Heortlings (and probably all the other hillfolk Orlanthi) are possibly the greatest providers of (propitiary) worship to Chaos in all of Glorantha, possibly more so than the Lunar Empire.

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Darius, Illuminated Yelmalio serving Nysalor during the first age is canon. In the third age, the HellWood Elves somehow mix chaos with their mission to protect the forest.

You could argue that illuminated elves (or humans) ignoring cult rules and embracing chaos is not the same as a perverted chaotic version of a cult, but the outcome is pretty much the same - so are the concepts  really so different?

What happens when an illuminate goes on a heroquest and does something really bad?

 

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10 hours ago, EricW said:

Darius, Illuminated Yelmalio serving Nysalor during the first age is canon. In the third age, the HellWood Elves somehow mix chaos with their mission to protect the forest.

True.

10 hours ago, EricW said:

You could argue that illuminated elves (or humans) ignoring cult rules and embracing chaos is not the same as a perverted chaotic version of a cult, but the outcome is pretty much the same - so are the concepts  really so different?

Nysalor carries the Chaos rune like most other chaos deities, but doesn't detect as chaotic.  Illumination therefore is all just another chaos trick that we must not fall for.  Yeah, you could argue... but really, what's the point if the outcome is identical?  Any chaos? All chaos!  Know them by their deeds.  As to what a perverted chaotic version of Yelmalio, would look like, I have no idea as I have never met  a non-Chaotic Yelmalio.

10 hours ago, EricW said:

What happens when an illuminate goes on a heroquest and does something really bad?

Dunno?  They disguise themselves as a Yelmalio and run away?

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19 hours ago, Darius West said:

Nysalor carries the Chaos rune like most other chaos deities, but doesn't detect as chaotic.  Illumination therefore is all just another chaos trick that we must not fall for.  Yeah, you could argue... but really, what's the point if the outcome is identical?  Any chaos? All chaos!  Know them by their deeds.  As to what a perverted chaotic version of Yelmalio, would look like, I have no idea as I have never met  a non-Chaotic Yelmalio.

I've never met any Yelmalio ;-). 

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