Sphinxes in Glorantha

[svensson]

I think we're all getting into apocrypha and ephemera a bit too deep here.

Going over Green Age and Pre-Dawn bestiaries is an academic discussion at best. There are no stat blocks or discussions of the missing creatures [that I'm aware of] and so the odds on the adventurers at your table encountering them are pretty low. I love me some RuneQuest, I really-really do, but let's be honest here - - most GMs don't make creatures out of whole cloth in RQ. And of all the types of creature one is likely to design, multi-headed chimera types are some of the more complicated.

OTOH, I had quite forgotten that manticores are sentient... and I have the RQG Bestiary and have read it... so good point.

I like the idea of an Earth Heroquest into Genert's Garden and the now-extinct creatures one might find there. Now that the Heroquest 'box' has been opened and there's open discussion about the mechanics of planning and undertaking a Heroquest and the consequences of an HQ's success or failure [personal rewards /punishments and societal assets and deficits], I admit that it's fun to speculate on how to set up and run such an undertaking. For those of you who keep a foot in Pathfinder and their computer games, the PF: Kingmaker  CRPG from Owlcat Games [ALSO a chimeric beast! 😁], the plane of The First World is an excellent mental image of such a Genert's Garden-type environment.

But my main point here is this: If you're going to include hippogriffs [etc.], why NOT include shedu [etc.]? Was there a reason for that?

Edited March 16, 2022 by svensson

[JRE]

I would say that Griffins / Griffons or hippogriffs are easier in Glorantha than Shedu / Lammasu or human headed sphynxes (a hieracosphinx is functionally a wingless griffin), adue to the opposition of the Man and Beast runes. That is not to say they cannot exist, but that either they are unnatural (such as the remade in Beast Valley), or they need a good story, such as Ironhoof. 

I also think that is one of the reasons why the existing beastmen are considered strange in a world full of mythic creatures.

We can well suppose the EWF remakers were looking for some previous age hybrids when they started their "experiments", and that is what you could find in Genert's garden, but I would limit most human / animal hybrids to Hsunchen myths and cultures, who do not see the difference between Beast and Human in the same way. 

[EricW]

5 hours ago, Darius West said:

Now that could make for an interesting encounter.  Plenty of danger, plenty of unexpected wonder, plenty of reward, but it is in fresh water, fruit and grain, all precious in Prax and more-so in the Wastes, but not so big in monetary value and they don't travel well.  I like it!

Thanks :-). And perhaps an element of tragedy - people who become entranced by the garden, and lose themselves in its beauty, eventually share its fate. Choosing the wasteland is the red pill choice to face reality, and the ongoing need to fight chaos. 

[scott-martin]

1 hour ago, JRE said:

the remade in Beast Valley

This thread has convinced me that the mythic system of Kanthor's Isles contains a somewhat different mix  + that based on the sedrali of Ralios this might be where you go to find the human heads. I think they would definitely have lion forms based on the regional history. Giving them wings is a slightly tougher proposition but possible . . . a lot we don't know about lion empire religion.

[Brian Duguid]

Harpies are another creature with human heads, although I don't know what their mythic origins are within Glorantha.

The Sedrali give me the creeps every time I think of them 😆.

[Joerg]

There's also that weird island in central Jrustela with the giant beast-headed humanoids.

[g33k]

12 hours ago, svensson said:

... I like the idea of a Earth Heroquest into Genert's Garden and the now-extinct creatures one might find there ...

*COUGH*COUGH*UnicornRiders*COUGH*
 

[svensson]

2 hours ago, g33k said:

*COUGH*COUGH*UnicornRiders*COUGH*
 

Absolutely. Though I thought unicorns still existed in the Mundane World in Glorantha. They're just rarer than exceedingly rare. I don't have the Yelorna writeup from Big Rubble immediately to hand, but I do remember that initiates had to undertake a sacred quest to make friends with a unicorn. This was differentiated from a Heroquest in that it took place entirely on the Mundane Plane with Initiates rather than any of the Spirit-walking or planar travel required for the Rune levels.

[The party that had my Rhino Rider, Grettir, also had Epona Shininghair, Yelorna initiate, in it and we were her supporters during her quest.]

Edited March 16, 2022 by svensson

[Sir_Godspeed]

On 3/15/2022 at 12:40 PM, JRE said:

I would say that Griffins / Griffons or hippogriffs are easier in Glorantha than Shedu / Lammasu or human headed sphynxes (a hieracosphinx is functionally a wingless griffin), adue to the opposition of the Man and Beast runes. That is not to say they cannot exist, but that either they are unnatural (such as the remade in Beast Valley), or they need a good story, such as Ironhoof. 

I also think that is one of the reasons why the existing beastmen are considered strange in a world full of mythic creatures.

We can well suppose the EWF remakers were looking for some previous age hybrids when they started their "experiments", and that is what you could find in Genert's garden, but I would limit most human / animal hybrids to Hsunchen myths and cultures, who do not see the difference between Beast and Human in the same way. 

I'm wondering if some of the really ancient chimeric forms are less of a combination of man-beast runes, but "living fossils" from an age before the Man and Beast runes diverged. I realize that this probably does not fit with how thing work in RuneQuest, but cosmologically at least it seems to make some form of sense, given just how little the gods give a toss about that particular divide, and how the Green Age seems to flaunt it as well. A similar observation can be made on how the Beast Rune seems to have diverged (or devolved) from the Dragon Rune.

So in short, it's not necessarily that these creatures are "unnatural" to Glorantha, it's more that they're a remnant from a previous, archaic runic ecosystem, if you will.

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I'm wondering if some of the really ancient chimeric forms are less of a combination of man-beast runes, but "living fossils" from an age before the Man and Beast runes diverged.

If you go back to the Green Age where these would be most prevalent, and think of the beginnings of the Beast Rune, then the initial forms would be Beast + Element.  However, those creatures undoubtedly could mate with each other to produce Beast + Element + 2nd Element.  And it could devolve further with other crossed elements.  These would be the broad chimeric forms (something that I think is nicely represented in 13th Age Glorantha in the Fangplace quest).  If you like Maurice Sendak, then this is "Where the Wild Things Are".

[JRE]

That is why I was referring to Hsunchen myths above, as they are the main ones that refer to the Green age before the split, and indeed they can manifest as human headed animals and animal headed humans.

I was tempted to make six limbed creatures draconic, but we have to consider the solar connections of original horses and griffins. And draconic beings run the whole gamut of limbs.

[soltakss]

9 hours ago, JRE said:

I was tempted to make six limbed creatures draconic, but we have to consider the solar connections of original horses and griffins. And draconic beings run the whole gamut of limbs.

What about insects?

[JRE]

Who can be sure of how many limbs they have? Usually 10, 6 legs and 2 pairs of wings, though many have atrophied some of them, so counts vary. 

[dumuzid]

For a number of reasons, I like sphinxes as creatures of the Blue Moon.  She was up in the Sky, so there's a connection to other mythic winged quadrupeds like Griffin and Hippogriff, but the human heads are sufficiently distinct from the solar winged quadrupeds to distinguish the lunar chimeras immediately.  They're vanishingly rare to nonexistent in our available material, which coincides well with them mostly dying with their parent goddess in the Gods War,.  They may only 'now' exist in the parts of the God Time where she is still alive.  Sphinxes' penchant for riddling also coincides neatly with the Blue Moon's oracular powers.

[g33k]

On 3/23/2022 at 9:40 PM, dumuzid said:

For a number of reasons, I like sphinxes as creatures of the Blue Moon.  She was up in the Sky, so there's a connection to other mythic winged quadrupeds like Griffin and Hippogriff, but the human heads are sufficiently distinct from the solar winged quadrupeds to distinguish the lunar chimeras immediately.  They're vanishingly rare to nonexistent in our available material, which coincides well with them mostly dying with their parent goddess in the Gods War,.  They may only 'now' exist in the parts of the God Time where she is still alive.  Sphinxes' penchant for riddling also coincides neatly with the Blue Moon's oracular powers.

This seems excellent thinking!

And I'll observe that maybe "Blue Moon Trolls" might not be strictly "trolls-with-wings," but possess other chimerical/sphinxian attributes;  robes & armor may cover all manner of chimerae!  Or maybe there are those trolls-with-wings, but ALSO troll-headed sphinx-genera creatures, some of whom occasionally "pass" as more-ordinary (!) "mere" Blue Moon Trolls...

[JRE]

Riddling and mixed features not seen in ages is also a general Lunar thing. Sphinxes could work as mystical advances of the coming White Moon. 

[dumuzid]

On a similar note, might there be a connection between sphinxlike chimeras and the Serpent Beast sorcerers of the First Age, who are described as taking on chimeric animal bodies with humanoid heads or faces?  If you continue with my Blue Moon-sphinx connection, that whole socio-magical complex in western Genertela could've represented the survival of a tradition of sphinx-originated Blue Lunar sorcery.  When the Blue Moon died and most of their original tutelaries went with her, the Serpent Beasts might've developed techniques to become sphinxes themselves to maintain contact with the highest mysteries of their tradition.  Being a sphinx yourself, spiritually or physically, might be important to achieve the necessary interactions at Hrelar Amali and other points of contact with the Gods World to receive initiation into the highest levels of the Serpent Beast system.

Edited March 25, 2022 by dumuzid

[g33k]

Just wanting to say... I am really liking this line; white-moon, blue-moon...  This feels right.

Maybe those two Moons are struggling over who gets to control the "Sphinx Complex" archetype... and occasionally uniting to keep it out of Sedenya's hands?

[JRE]

That is a good idea. Maybe they are part of Blue moon lore that did not make it into the Red Moon, so they will have to return before the white moon can take her place in the Middle Air.

[Joerg]

On 3/23/2022 at 6:20 PM, soltakss said:

What about insects?

Most chiroptera adults sport ten limbs, with many others retaining vestigial versions of the wings. The common housefly does for the missing set of wings, too, while beetles have turned one pair into exterior armor plates. (And we know that the Creator loved beetles...)

Multi-limbed organisms aren't necessarily chimeras, and the development of wings may use parts of limbs (birds, pterosaurs, bats) or use other appendices grown into wings or sails, like certain gliding lizards extending mobilized ribs, not that different from bone-fish fins.

Most creatures we talk about here are chordates, with that weird building plan of interior bones extending from that long encased back brain we are so familiar with. Evolution tends to favor economical approaches to number of limbs and gets rid of superfluous ones, or turns them massively vestigial (like T.rex forearms or ape tails), but creation and hardly limited potential is not limited in the numbers of appendices to that basic structure. (Not that I would like to figure out the skeleton of a winged bull or the internal plumbing of a centaur in a hurry...)

The dragonewt development suggests that functional wings can be grown from a neotenic form as an afterthought.

This suggests that embryonic development of sky-related creatures may show wing development and subsequent resorption, much like the mermaid tail human embryos develop and ditch, except for a few unlucky specimen that kept them until becoming unviable, and ending up in formaline in medical collections.

 

But then Godtime creation often follows one of two paths. The first path is directed birthing by mother goddesses, collectively called "daughters of Uleria" or Tilntae. Nymphs may choose the shape of their offspring, both when a father is involved and when not. The other path is to take some magically imbued clay and to start shaping that, drawing out limbs etc. as required, and possibly by that time drawing those out of already living flesh-and-bone, or at least living matter like the original Stone.

According to the Monomyth, all beasts come from the twin dragons Hykim and Mikyh, and thus are manifestations of draconic devolution or development. Thus there will be draconic features in every beast that has bones, starting with fish, and only the creatures of Darkness without endoskeleton deviate from that.

 

[Orlanthatemyhamster]

On 3/28/2022 at 4:51 PM, Joerg said:

 

According to the Monomyth, all beasts come from the twin dragons Hykim and Mikyh, and thus are manifestations of draconic devolution or development. Thus there will be draconic features in every beast that has bones, starting with fish, and only the creatures of Darkness without endoskeleton deviate from that.

 

I thought there were lots of exceptions, creatures created by a particular deity?

[g33k]

On 3/15/2022 at 3:15 AM, svensson said:

I think we're all getting into apocrypha and ephemera a bit too deep here...

I am shocked, sir -- shocked I say! -- that you should level a charge of being "into apocrypha and ephemera a bit too deep" amongst a group of Glorantha-nerds!!!

[Joerg]

8 hours ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

I thought there were lots of exceptions, creatures created by a particular deity?

The EWF proved the draconic identities of many deities, including deities of Darkness.

Much of that may be projection, but the runic template for Beast implies dragon and vertebrates except for the most form-fluid Elements.

[soltakss]

11 hours ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

I thought there were lots of exceptions, creatures created by a particular deity?

There are.

 

[Brian Duguid]

On 3/25/2022 at 1:03 PM, dumuzid said:

who are described as taking on chimeric animal bodies with humanoid heads or faces?

Where is this stated, please?