Something interesting about the map of the Middle Storm Age

[jeffjerwin]

It bears a remarkable resemblance to our world map, and/or cartography of the Earth from the 15th century. The main deviation is the area around the Spike, Pamaltela closely resembles Africa, and Abzered Asia.

Edited November 29, 2018 by jeffjerwin

[jeffjerwin]

Here are some our world's late medieval maps for comparison...

[jeffjerwin]

And here is the De La Costa map, in outline, from c.1500:

This one is very very similar.

Edited November 29, 2018 by jeffjerwin

[Sir_Godspeed]

Good catch!

The climates are going to somewhat different, I suppose, and I'm still not sure what it's supposed to mean, if anything.

[jeffjerwin]

4 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Good catch!

The climates are going to somewhat different, I suppose, and I'm still not sure what it's supposed to mean, if anything.

I have no idea either. A similar thing happened in Tolkien's universe as well, though there he meant Middle-earth to be our world in an imaginary past. Here, there rationale is unclear, though I can't think its completely accidental; maybe it's subconscious.

[Sir_Godspeed]

If this had been the default map of Glorantha, then I would have assumed it was intentional, no doubt, but as it stands I'm going to see it mostly as a coincidence, unless those with more of an insider knowledge pipes up.

Apropos of this map, I am noticing some things I didn't pay too much attention to back when I read the Guide last.

First off, there's a place called Helerela. I assume this is after they joined the Vingkotlings as the third Orlanthi tribe? "Helerela" is an interesting name, as it is a territory-name after a water deity. I suppose it's not completely unprecedented (We have a land named after a storm deity, Umathela, in Time), it's just interesting, as it's usually the Earth godesses that get that honor, or associated entitied (Genert, Pamalt, Vith, possibly Lodril as well). If they truly were ancestral to the Entruli (although I suspect that there's a good deal of Mraloti Hsunchen in them too), how did they transit from a blue-skinned boat-storm people to pig-farmers and woodsmen? I'm not saying it's hard to explain, I'm just interested in the actual, literal process. Sheep are sacred to Heler, wonder why they're so associated with pigs and not shepherding? Maybe Entru/Entra just took better care of them in the Darkness. Or the Green Elves of Arstola for that matter.

And then there is "Ragnaglar's Land" just north of the Sweet Sea. Can't help but get curious about that one. Never knew he settled an entire land, for one. Could it also conceivably be called "Thedela"? (mostly joking here, but then again...) Could this be the homeland of pre-Chaotic Broos? (according to the new Bestiary canon on the origins of the Broo). Did they war with the Pelandans, or even the Blues there at the time? The Dara Happans? Is Vadrus around in that area too, since Valind's Glacier is just north of it? Were the Evil Trio already corrupted at this point? Lots of questions, not so many answers.

Love these maps, makes me go all sorts of "hmmm...". 

[jeffjerwin]

57 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

First off, there's a place called Helerela. I assume this is after they joined the Vingkotlings as the third Orlanthi tribe? "Helerela" is an interesting name, as it is a territory-name after a water deity. I suppose it's not completely unprecedented (We have a land named after a storm deity, Umathela, in Time), it's just interesting, as it's usually the Earth godesses that get that honor, or associated entitied (Genert, Pamalt, Vith, possibly Lodril as well). If they truly were ancestral to the Entruli (although I suspect that there's a good deal of Mraloti Hsunchen in them too), how did they transit from a blue-skinned boat-storm people to pig-farmers and woodsmen? I'm not saying it's hard to explain, I'm just interested in the actual, literal process. Sheep are sacred to Heler, wonder why they're so associated with pigs and not shepherding? Maybe Entru/Entra just took better care of them in the Darkness. Or the Green Elves of Arstola for that matter.
 

Heler is sometimes also a goddess...

[Julian Lord]

2 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

First off, there's a place called Helerela. I assume this is after they joined the Vingkotlings as the third Orlanthi tribe? "Helerela" is an interesting name, as it is a territory-name after a water deity. I suppose it's not completely unprecedented (We have a land named after a storm deity, Umathela, in Time), it's just interesting, as it's usually the Earth godesses that get that honor, or associated entitied (Genert, Pamalt, Vith, possibly Lodril as well). If they truly were ancestral to the Entruli (although I suspect that there's a good deal of Mraloti Hsunchen in them too), how did they transit from a blue-skinned boat-storm people to pig-farmers and woodsmen? I'm not saying it's hard to explain, I'm just interested in the actual, literal process. Sheep are sacred to Heler, wonder why they're so associated with pigs and not shepherding? Maybe Entru/Entra just took better care of them in the Darkness. Or the Green Elves of Arstola for that matter.

They didn't really transit from a blue-skinned boat-storm people to pig-farmers and woodsmen -- Most of them either perished when Slontos was destroyed, or they emigrated to Umathela. If there are many of the blue-skinned ones left, most of them are in Pamaltela.

The larger remnant of the ones in Genertela in the late Third Age lives in the Manirian highlands, where the lush woodlands are protected by the local Aldryami, so that the traditional sheep and cattle farming is less practicable, because clearing the forests for creating pastures is unfeasible, and so they are limited for that to some small areas of natural pasture that exist here and there. The Arstola forest and the surrounding woodlands are however simply packed with oak trees, so that the pig farming conditions there are excellent, as are BTW the roots and greens and fruits agriculture, thanks to the the conjoined influences of Aldrya and Heler, plus the clear influence of the Ernaldans of Esrolia. Though the humans up there are really a combination of these remnants of the Helering Tribe and of some pig people who have been there probably since before the Dawn (in my Glorantha they form somewhat of a Manirian underclass).

The Mraloti Hsunchen have never been native to this area, OTOH.

As for Heler and pigs, there is a Blue Boar subcult (it's a pretty vicious & brutal warrior and male fertility subcult, as you would imagine) -- I doubt that it will ever be officially described, but Heler has a large number of smaller or more local subcults centred around his very numerous forms, and this is one of the larger ones that's still not important enough to be put into a main write-up. FWIW though it's through this cult that the Helerings gained their alliance and friendship with the Manirian pig people, through their sow goddess, and how these two populations can live in general peace with each other, despite the occasionally violent aggressiveness in the Manirian Helerings.

[Sir_Godspeed]

9 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

Heler is sometimes also a goddess...

I thought of pointing that out, but as I thought about it, the being a goddess doesn't really set a precedent for having territories named after them. Yes, most toponymous land deities are female, but female deities that are not of the Earth do not tend to get lands named after them, iirc.
Anyway, it's not a huge issue, the regional naming in Glorantha is clearly not just some mechanical thing, but is subject to a lot of factors, which can produce unusual results such as Umathela, Jonatela or Helerela.

8 hours ago, Julian Lord said:

The Mraloti Hsunchen have never been native to this area, OTOH.

Ah - well, I had it wrong then. I have clearly conflated the Manirian pig people/Entruli with the Mraloti. Maybe I mixed it up with the worship of Bakan the Boar in Jonatela, too. And of course the Aramites.

[Julian Lord]

On 11/30/2018 at 4:07 PM, Sir_Godspeed said:

I thought of pointing that out, but as I thought about it, the being a goddess doesn't really set a precedent for having territories named after them. Yes, most toponymous land deities are female, but female deities that are not of the Earth do not tend to get lands named after them, iirc.
Anyway, it's not a huge issue, the regional naming in Glorantha is clearly not just some mechanical thing, but is subject to a lot of factors, which can produce unusual results such as Umathela, Jonatela or Helerela.

OK, Heler is a shapechanger in his primary nature, and the whole male/female thing is basically just a detail of it, not a principle. Greg warned me about this when I wrote that first write-up for Storm Tribe, but all of this Blue Age stuff is radically complex, and very hard to properly get your head around, and in this detail, I think I muffed it slightly.

I certainly will NOT "explain" any of it BTW, not on the interwebs anyway ...

Heler came into being in the Blue Age, whereas male versus female is a dichotomy that did not exist until the Green Age. This is the core of it.

VERY few entities of the Blue Age have survived the Gods War and the Greater Darkness -- two others are Subere and Kyger Litor. 

Still, Heler never is and cannot be a "land goddess" -- he is not of the land, but he is of the waters ....

His predominant masculinity is probably a part of the Chaos Wound that he suffered from death by Ui.

The Blue Age is extremely complicated to describe, and yet Heler is a Blue Age Entity. It (vague pronoun) could be described as the Potentiality for a Green Age,.

There is no "Black Age" BTW, contrary to some theories of the God Learners ....

[Sir_Godspeed]

On 12/8/2018 at 6:40 PM, Julian Lord said:

Heler came into being in the Blue Age, whereas male versus female is a dichotomy that did not exist until the Green Age. This is the core of it.

Interesting! But not entirely unexpected - given that the sea deities are defined to a large degree by being hermaphroditic or genderfluid, which is expounded upon to some degree in the new Sourcebook. The Green age, with Gata emerging from Saramak/Ssramak and her subsequent begetting of Genert and Pamalt may be the birth of this dichotomy you speak. Maybe Aether versus Gata are better candidates. Maybe the conceptual split of the Great Horned Serpent into Hykim and Mikyh is another. Who knows - food for thought at any rate.


I do wonder what Heler's cosmological role/place was in the grand scheme of things before he was integrated into the Orlanthi pantheon and aligned with Air by becoming the god of rain, though (or atmospheric waters, as it were).
 

On 12/8/2018 at 6:40 PM, Julian Lord said:

The Blue Age is extremely complicated to describe, and yet Heler is a Blue Age Entity. It (vague pronoun) could be described as the Potentiality for a Green Age,.

Answering my above question - albeit vaguely. All right, keep your secrets then.
 

On 12/8/2018 at 6:40 PM, Julian Lord said:

There is no "Black Age" BTW, contrary to some theories of the God Learners ....

A Black Age would be a hypothetical primordial Darkness Elemental age preceding the Blue Age of waters, then? (As opposed to the Darkness after the killing of the Sun immediately preceding Time). So, does this mean that darkness and water emerged at the same time, or something else? Is this the same era where Draconic activity is at its most vigorous? The primordial sea deities are so often described as dragons, for one thing, and draconic origin stories seem to coincide with the origin stories of other pantheons (cosmic eggs, self-duplication, conquest-of-Other-turned-ally, Emanationism, etc.)

Interesting that these Darkness deities, supposedly remnants of an age preceding sexual dichotomy are so clearly sex-identified in modern Troll religion. An innovation that happened after they emerged from Wonderhome, perhaps? Did something happen to Kyger the moment she stepped on Gata's upperside, or is this mono-sexual identity another "wound" from Chaos as with Heler?

Interesting stuff, nonetheless.

[jeffjerwin]

3 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

 

Interesting that these Darkness deities, supposedly remnants of an age preceding sexual dichotomy are so clearly sex-identified in modern Troll religion. An innovation that happened after they emerged from Wonderhome, perhaps? Did something happen to Kyger the moment she stepped on Gata's upperside, or is this mono-sexual identity another "wound" from Chaos as with Heler?

Interesting stuff, nonetheless.

Darkness does still contain gender-fluidity, as we can see in Varzor Kitor.

[Julian Lord]

3 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

A Black Age would be a hypothetical primordial Darkness Elemental age preceding the Blue Age of waters, then?

There is no meaningful difference between such a concept and the Darkness Rune as such.

 

3 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Interesting! But not entirely unexpected - given that the sea deities are defined to a large degree by being hermaphroditic or genderfluid, which is expounded upon to some degree in the new Sourcebook.

But my point is that such conceptions are entirely alien to the Blue Age, because sex did not exist there -- only the Primal Fertility of the Celestial Court.

3 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

The Green age, with Gata emerging from Saramak/Ssramak

Gata did not emerge from Sramak, but she is entirely of the Earth Rune. She came into being from that part of Glorantha that was neither of the Darkness nor of the Waters. To be very unfair, there is some weird unpublished GregStuff about how prehistoric evolution worked in pre-Dawn Glorantha in relationship with the Movements of the Arcana, and the Ages of the God learners ...

 

3 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I do wonder what Heler's cosmological role/place was in the grand scheme of things before he was integrated into the Orlanthi pantheon and aligned with Air by becoming the god of rain, though (or atmospheric waters, as it were).

Briefly, he was the King of the Gods, after having conquered the Middle Air and won Kero Fin into marriage.

But he changed shape from being Orlanth's superior and rival, into the shape of Loyalty for and Honour with Orlanth. This was a major event, remembered by the Orlanthi mostly as the Arming of Orlanth for his Lightbringers' Quest.

In Esrolia, Heler is one of three most important husband-deities beside Orlanth and Yelm.

Your other questions are excellent.

[Sir_Godspeed]

On 12/10/2018 at 8:09 PM, Julian Lord said:

There is no meaningful difference between such a concept and the Darkness Rune as such.

Cryptic, but interesting as always.
 

On 12/10/2018 at 8:09 PM, Julian Lord said:

But my point is that such conceptions are entirely alien to the Blue Age, because sex did not exist there -- only the Primal Fertility of the Celestial Court.

Fair dues - I did not necessarily mean to say that they were ALWAYS hermaphroditic, but to say that this representation implied certain things about their past. Anyway, I got your point. Their form of reproduction, intermingling, and multiplication defies our ideas of sexual reproduction, and - I'm guessing - any other form or label we currently have in the realm of RW biology.

On 12/10/2018 at 8:09 PM, Julian Lord said:

Gata did not emerge from Sramak, but she is entirely of the Earth Rune. She came into being from that part of Glorantha that was neither of the Darkness nor of the Waters. To be very unfair, there is some weird unpublished GregStuff about how prehistoric evolution worked in pre-Dawn Glorantha in relationship with the Movements of the Arcana, and the Ages of the God learners

Ah. I was of the impression that Sramak "produced" Gata in a manner conceptually analogous to (or at least human-mentally analogized as) a clam making a pearl. If this is another God Learner innovation then, again, fair enough. They are unreliable cosmologists/mythographers, even if they're one of the few whose writings we have access to.

On 12/10/2018 at 8:09 PM, Julian Lord said:

Briefly, he was the King of the Gods, after having conquered the Middle Air and won Kero Fin into marriage.

Wow! Now that is really interesting. No wonder the Seas were pissed/saddened to lose him. Well, temporarily. Even rain goes back to the seas, eventually. Are there any written/available accounts of this?

Edited December 14, 2018 by Sir_Godspeed

[scott-martin]

On 12/10/2018 at 2:09 PM, Julian Lord said:

Briefly, he was the King of the Gods, after having conquered the Middle Air and won Kero Fin into marriage.

 

YES

[Julian Lord]

On 12/13/2018 at 3:27 PM, Sir_Godspeed said:

Wow! Now that is really interesting. No wonder the Seas were pissed/saddened to lose him. Well, temporarily. Even rain goes back to the seas, eventually. Are there any written/available accounts of this?

Yes, but the Orlanthi generally and the Heler cult downplay the full significance of it, so that the published Orlanthi myths and more God Learnery histories of the Flood and the war between Orlanth and Heler need a little bit of reading between the lines.

The Esrolians, whose cults play each husband-deity to Ernalda against each other into rivalries, probably have a more active element of this in their own versions of the myths. But the Manirian Helerings I'd guess not any more than the Sartarite ones, as they are not descended from the same clans as the Dragon Pass ones, and so not from the ancient clans that participated in that kingship.

It's more of a cult secret belonging to Initiation than anything else, and as a secret would not even be part of the specific public rites of the Heler cult wherever they are open to the lay membership ...

Edited December 15, 2018 by Julian Lord

[Darius West]

It is interesting that the Spike is almost sitting in Egypt as you transpose the maps border for border.  Well... Egypt or Palestine.  So is it Jerusalem of the Great Pyramid?  It certainly isn't the tower of Babel, which would have been my first guess.

[jeffjerwin]

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

It is interesting that the Spike is almost sitting in Egypt as you transpose the maps border for border.  Well... Egypt or Palestine.  So is it Jerusalem of the Great Pyramid?  It certainly isn't the tower of Babel, which would have been my first guess.

Jerusalem was sometimes identified as the former site of the Garden of Eden in the Middle Ages (which, in other legends, is found on top of an immense mountain, viz. Dante's Paradisio).

I think, hesitantly, that this suggests that at some point in the generation of Glorantha's mythos that it may have been either an alternate history of our world, or a post-apocalyptic future.

Edited December 15, 2018 by jeffjerwin

[Darius West]

1 hour ago, jeffjerwin said:

Jerusalem was sometimes identified as the former site of the Garden of Eden in the Middle Ages (which, in other legends, is found on top of an immense mountain, viz. Dante's Paradisio).

I think, hesitantly, that this suggests that at some point in the generation of Glorantha's mythos that it may have been either an alternate history of our world, or a post-apocalyptic future.

I have puzzled over the same things.  Say, does that make Kralorela=Thrace, and the East Isles= the Aegean? LOL.  Not such a great fit.

[jeffjerwin]

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

I have puzzled over the same things.  Say, does that make Kralorela=Thrace, and the East Isles= the Aegean? LOL.  Not such a great fit.

Genertela is about the size of Europe or North America east-west. It's significantly smaller than Eurasia. This sort of tight fit is inevitable, but the Wastes are a much more serious cultural barrier than the Steppes of Central Asia.