The Many and the One, or has there always been a Yelm?

[Grievous]

2 hours ago, Ian Cooper said:

In what way is Six Ages lore at odds with it?

If Yelm is a construct of the Bright Empire, then presumably Yelm wouldn't exist before the Bright Empire.

[Ian Cooper]

Just now, Grievous said:

If Yelm is a construct of the Bright Empire, then presumably Yelm wouldn't exist before the Bright Empire.

Sorry, I have yet to play Six Ages as I don't have a platform it is available on, so I don't really know what it implies. So my question was genuine: what does Six Ages say?

In GRoY and FS, the interesting questions around 'Yelm' are: is he is worshiped at the Dawn, GRoY and FS say no, not until the Bright Empire; is Yelm an entity with a mythic past, yes, but probably the 'Yelm' of the Bright Empire is a synthesis of the myths of Murharzam, Antirius, Kargzant and Elmal among others of the Many Suns; was there are an entity called Yelm that died, perhaps but it also possible that was just another name for Murharzam, the Emperor, who seems to be only one of the entities that form the 'cult of Yelm' that emerges with the Bright Empire.

In a sense we have this postulation of One->Many->One, but it is not clear if the One of the Bright Empire is the One of God Time.

 

[Sir_Godspeed]

Six Ages is set during the glacial era of the Storm Age, and explicitly references Yelm by name and says that he was murdered by Orlanth.

Six Ages also has a number of "little suns", however this also includes gods like Shargash, so it operates with a different idea of what constitutes a Little Sun than what some other published material does.

Six Ages also "reveals" that Elmal is not a native Orlanthi deity, but rather the "exiled" sun god of Verapur, the southern city of the Decapolis. As the Verapurans (the Hyalorings and Samnali) chose to ride out rather than join the other Dara Happans in the ice dome, they received threats from imperial emissaries that Elmal would be stricken from imperial records and would be forgotten. They defied this curse, and through the course of the game, one ending (the "good" one) is essentally that the Hyalorings partially join with the Vingkotlings and cross-pollinate the worship of Elmal - thus ensuring his worship up until the modern era in Time.

Now, I'll be the first to say that while I actually really like the views presented by Six Ages, I can also see it being only one possible take on the Storm Age.

EDIT: Six Ages also pretty explicitly separates Elmal from "Little Yelm" (almost certainly Yelmalio from a Hyaloring perspective, albeit before the events of The Hill of Gold), and *possibly* Antirius? There's a "Cold Sun" called Yonesh, which might be Antirius. Alternatively, Antirius is beneath the ice dome, and Yonesh is someone else entirely (EDIT: Apparently this is the more likely answer). Kargzant is never mentioned, as far as I know.

Edited February 7, 2019 by Sir_Godspeed

[M Helsdon]

3 hours ago, Ian Cooper said:

First, we don't have cavalry units for the Sun Dome Temples in the DP boardgame either. They are pikemen.

Yet very early outlines for a Glorantha wargame did.

3 hours ago, Ian Cooper said:

Second, it's not about whether there are cavalry units, it is about the god's mythology having a strong association with the taming of horses. We have those myths for Elmal, not for Yelmalio.

Yet Yelmalio has the Kuschile horse archery association, as does Elmal. Yelmalio was also associated with the Sun Dome chariot regiment destroyed in the Dragonkill.

3 hours ago, Ian Cooper said:

Six Ages tells the story of the Hyalorings and tends to imply that Elmal arrives with them among the Vingkotlings and marries in.

Being unable to access that game, unsure how canonical it is.

Edited February 7, 2019 by M Helsdon

[JonL]

16 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

EDIT: Six Ages also pretty explicitly separates Elmal from "Little Yelm" (almost certainly Yelmalio from a Hyaloring perspective, albeit before the events of The Hill of Gold), and *possibly* Antirius? There's a "Cold Sun" called Yonesh, which might be Antirius. Alternatively, Antirius is beneath the ice dome, and Yonesh is someone else entirely (EDIT: Apparently this is the more likely answer). Kargzant is never mentioned, as far as I know.

I took Yonesh the Cold Sun, who is "riddled with Storm runes," to be the same being known to the Heorlings as Yavor.

As described in The Book of Heorling Mythology, Yavor was a Fire Tribe warrior battled Umath. It went poorly for him, and he had to douse his own fire in order to hide and escape being slain. Later, he was among those who fought alongside with Shargash/Jagekriand when the latter slew Umath. Yavor took his revenge by decapitating the slain storm King, and made lightning darts from his brains. 

Orlanth later avenges his father in-turn; decapitating Yavor, and making his great weapons Gutburner, Treeburner, and Stormspear from his body - casting his head aside in disdain.

Later, when Elmal takes up his great vigil, Yavor's head recognizes his ersatz kinsman and becomes his deathly counselor. When Orlanth returns, he and Yavor reconcile and Yavor and accepts his role within the Storm Tribe.

 

[Sir_Godspeed]

Yup, that's why I edited my comment to be different.

Although it's never stated in-game, I believe.

[JonL]

55 minutes ago, Ian Cooper said:

Sorry, I have yet to play Six Ages as I don't have a platform it is available on, so I don't really know what it implies.

 

27 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

Being unable to access that game, unsure how canonical it is.

Despite having been left behind by Apple as current iOS has gone 64-bit CPU only, my 7-year old 3rd gen iPad runs King of Dragon pass and Six Ages like a champ. Being stuck at iOS 9, you can get them for a song (relatively speaking), looks like 40£-90£ on ebay-UK depending on condition and memory. (I otherwise use it as a reader and ultra-portable SSH terminal - with a keyboard case.) 

Just a thought.

[JonL]

1 hour ago, Grievous said:

If Yelm is a construct of the Bright Empire, then presumably Yelm wouldn't exist before the Bright Empire.

I don't think Ian is suggesting that there was never a Yelm prior to the Bright Empire, but rather that Yelm as known in post-Bright Empire Glorantha is the product of a bit of deliberate ret-conning and amalgamation on the part of the Dara Happans to cement their then-current dynasty's Imperial Cult as the restoration of Yelm's Golden Age empire, papering over and partially subsuming the Antirius and Kargzant solar eras as well as the many city-state specific sun gods along the way. 

[JonL]

On 1/17/2019 at 11:23 AM, Ian Cooper said:

Agreed, that is kind of the topic of the next thread I was thinking of posting. For the Orlanthi the Sun and the Emperor are two distinct things I think, until the Bright Empire where he becomes associated with Yelm, the sun disk.

I do not think that the essential Gloranthan conflict is sun vs. storm, but tyrant vs. rebel. The cycle seems to repeat in every age: Empire emerges, promises good new life for all at the price of allowing the leadership to become gods; rebel emerges to free people from the tyranny of these new gods. Nysalor/Arkat; EWF/Alakoring; Red Moon/Argrath

Meanwhile, over in Ralios, the tale was told that Storm King and the Sun King  vie for the hand of the Great Green Lady, but the Bad Emperor is Malkion. 

I have some thought that in assembling/discovering the full Lightbringer's Quest, Harmast Barefoot mixed elements from the Broken Council's syncretic "Great Compromise to Defeat Chaos" version, an earlier "Orlanth goes to the Underworld to recover Ernalda" "Lifebringer" version, and the Ralian "Green Lady sends Erulat to the Underworld to recover Ehilm." version and exploited the Ehlim ≈ Yelm ≈ Bad Emperor ≈ Malkion confusion to bring back his Malkioni hero to defeat Chaos.

Edited February 7, 2019 by JonL

[Leingod]

2 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Six Ages also has a number of "little suns", however this also includes gods like Shargash, so it operates with a different idea of what constitutes a Little Sun than what some other published material does.

Shargash is considered one of the Many Suns because in "Elmal Guards the Sunpath" he is apparently one of the sun gods who tried to loot the sunpath after Yelm's death to take his Rune of power. They seem to apply the term "Little/Small Sun" to any sun god considered lesser or illegitimate compared to Yelm or whichever sun god they believe is the closest to being a proper successor. If you perform the ritual "Hyalor Tablet-Maker," you'll notice this bit from the second ambassador after turning away the first one:

Quote

A second ambassador, Anakarius, comes, backed up by a retinue of Alkothi demon men. “If you do not cooperate in the construction of a dome over your city, the Emperor will curse the name of Elmal forever. This will mark him as a Small Sun, and he will dwindle away into nothing.”

Prove him wrong with a display of Elmal's power, and he'll flee in fear, recognizing that the unjust Emperor has no power over Elmal.

So it's apparently used as something of a pejorative label. There's also scattered reference to a "War of Many Suns," during which Small Suns like the Water Sun were slain.

2 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

EDIT: Six Ages also pretty explicitly separates Elmal from "Little Yelm" (almost certainly Yelmalio from a Hyaloring perspective, albeit before the events of The Hill of Gold), and *possibly* Antirius? There's a "Cold Sun" called Yonesh, which might be Antirius. Alternatively, Antirius is beneath the ice dome, and Yonesh is someone else entirely (EDIT: Apparently this is the more likely answer). Kargzant is never mentioned, as far as I know.

Kargzant is probably never mentioned because the Gamatae never appear in-game. The Hyalorings have already split into four separate groups that went in different directions (the northern ones are gone, though), with your own clan being one of the southernmost groups; the territory of the Gamatae is largely not on the map.

I suspect that "Little Yelm" is both Yelmalio prior to losing his fire and Antirius, because the Hyalorings seem to treat Little Yelm as the successor sun god of the Dara Happans.

[Sir_Godspeed]

19 minutes ago, Leingod said:

Shargash is considered one of the Many Suns because in "Elmal Guards the Sunpath" he is apparently one of the sun gods who tried to loot the sunpath after Yelm's death to take his Rune of power. They seem to apply the term "Little/Small Sun" to any sun god considered lesser or illegitimate compared to Yelm or whichever sun god they believe is the closest to being a proper successor. If you perform the ritual "Hyalor Tablet-Maker," you'll notice this bit from the second ambassador after turning away the first one:

True - but on a more fundamental level I meant that their definition of Little Sun differs because their definition of *SUN* seems to differ. The Red Planet becomes a sun in this equation, which it doesn't really do elsewhere.

Granted, GRoY refers to the celestial body above Mernita as a "sun" as well, although its used as one of the origins for Sedenya, and its corpse becomes known as the Blue Moon Plateau, so there is some precedent for the definition of sun to vary.

[Joerg]

3 hours ago, Grievous said:

If Yelm is a construct of the Bright Empire, then presumably Yelm wouldn't exist before the Bright Empire.

Yelm as we know him definitely is a construct, but a certain root Yelm probably goes back all the way to Brightface the Usurper, first incarnation of Gbaji, or even further.

As far as I am concerned, Yelm does mean Brightface in Dara Happan. He usurps at least one of the little suns (that of ur-Sedenya), possibly all the Planetary Gods of Peloria, true to the old adage that there is always a free spot at the top, or above it.

Hrestol knew about Yelm at the Dawn, even though the False God of the Sun was named Ehilm, after the Enerali sun god (or vice versa). A bunch of other major deities were known by their monomyth names, too, e.g. Eurmal, the Friend of Men.

Zzabur knew the Vingkotlings, or at least a bunch of Vingkotlings he had finally devised a very destructive spell against (though his well-defined targeting was thwarted by the fact that the target group had changed). This implies a certain minimum exchange of names and concepts. The Waertagi had entered the Pelorian rivers, and probably reported back to their marine kin, who then may have talked to Zzabur, too.

[Sir_Godspeed]

As I understood Ian's hypothesis/interpretation, the idea was that the Emperor of Golden age Dara Happa was never Yelm, but Murharzam, and that his solar disk god was Antirius. In the Bright Empire of Time, these were effectively synthesized, together with others probably, into Yelm as we know him.

I could be wrong, but that's how I read it.

[metcalph]

9 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

As I understood Ian's hypothesis/interpretation, the idea was that the Emperor of Golden age Dara Happa was never Yelm, but Murharzam, and that his solar disk god was Antirius.

No.  There were two Golden Age Empires in Peloria - the Kingdom of Perfection which Yelm ruled and the Decapolis which Murharzarm founded (late Golden Age, after the invasion of Nestendos).  Kinda like the difference between Egypt under the Old Kingdom and Egypt under the Middle KingdomThere is an massive artifact known as the Gods Wall which is thought to depict Yelm at his entrhonement.  It's been suggested by many people that the Emperor on the Wall is actually Murharzarm.

What Ian is talking about with Yelm being a constructed deity is that the Solar Cult of Golden Age Dara Happa had long been forgotten as a result of the Gods War and that the historical Dara Happans had no way of knowing  how to worship him anew.  They had access to Antirius who knew that he was the Sun of the Storm Age Dara Happa but also knew that he wasn't the desired Sun of the Golden Age.  They therefore constructed a cult of what they thought might have been the Golden Age Sun God from the many fragments of myth that they had (Ian says this took place during the Bright Empire - I think it took place earlier)

It is pointless in saying that Hrestol or Zzabur knew of Yelm.  What they knew was the visible sun.  What they didn't know (in Zzabur's case didn't care about) were the myths and rituals of how to worship him - the Sun of the Golden Age - correctly.  

 

 

[Joerg]

12 minutes ago, metcalph said:

It is pointless in saying that Hrestol or Zzabur knew of Yelm.  What they knew was the visible sun.  What they didn't know (in Zzabur's case didn't care about) were the myths and rituals of how to worship him - the Sun of the Golden Age - correctly.  

I was talking about the name "Yelm" being used before any contact with Lifebringer missionaries. 

[metcalph]

33 minutes ago, Joerg said:

I was talking about the name "Yelm" being used before any contact with Lifebringer missionaries. 

Then why bring Zzabur and Hrestol into it?  They don't know the name Yelm nor is there any evidence that the Lightbringer worshippers knew the name before contact.  

The earliest mention of the name is Plentonius.  The name may have been  taken from the Tower of Yelm in Raibnath (which has no other names when Jenarong arrived).  That may have been a title (ie the Tower of the One Shining Overhead) rather than the name of the God.

As for your contention that the name means Brightface - I doubt it.  Brightface is not a translation of a name but a title to conceal the God's identity

Quote

After listening to these, I asked why so many of the
gods were not named, but instead were given titles as if to
conceal their identities. My guide told me that this is
because the gods ARE masked, to conceal themselves.

Entekosiad p28

In any case, Brightface is a Darsenite Sun God parallel to the Sun God in Dara Happa and not the same..

[davecake]

I think the small number of cavalry associated with the Sun Dome Templars in DP are kept fairly close to the phalanxes or archers (in effect, being part of the same unit), in particular to stop the phalanxes being flanked, a core issue with deploying phalanxes. 

The Praxian Sun County has no horses, but the mounted archery tradition etc survives largely through the many followers of Yelmalio among the Praxians (particuarly the Impala people), who are often hired as mercenaries. In Prax they are also needed as scouts and anti-cavalry defence. 

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, metcalph said:

Then why bring Zzabur and Hrestol into it?  They don't know the name Yelm nor is there any evidence that the Lightbringer worshippers knew the name before contact.  

Because both Hrestol and Zzabur refer to the sun disk as Yelm in direct speech in Hrestol's Saga.

Irrelevant to 

1 hour ago, metcalph said:

 

As for your contention that the name means Brightface - I doubt it.  Brightface is not a translation of a name but a title to conceal the God's identity

We are talking about the early days of name-giving, where names are directly descriptive. Naveria translates as "(something) woman". Not red woman, unless there are different names for different shades of red, but then early color language appears to be rather limited, as Homer's appellation of the sea colors illustrate.

1 hour ago, metcalph said:

In any case, Brightface is a Darsenite Sun God parallel to the Sun God in Dara Happa and not the same..

Yelm originally being a local sun god, parallel to the multitude of Dara Happan city sun gods, is the point of this thread...

[metcalph]

2 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Because both Hrestol and Zzabur refer to the sun disk as Yelm in direct speech in Hrestol's Saga.

Hrestol's Saga, Smrestol's Saga.  There are better things to do then to make appeals to authority based on the use of a particular name in some hoary text that neither Greg nor Chaosium bothered to release publicly.

 

2 minutes ago, Joerg said:

We are talking about the early days of name-giving, where names are directly descriptive. Naveria translates as "(something) woman". Not red woman, unless there are different names for different shades of red, but then early color language appears to be rather limited, as Homer's appellation of the sea colors illustrate.

Except that Naveria is not a goddess whose name is obscured in the myth whereas Brightface is.The myth is not about the early days of name-giving but when male gods had their identities concealed while doing evil- only in death are their names revealed as is the case with Gorental (Entekosiad p28 and footnote).  The Naverian myths occur in a different cycle of mythology which does not require such apophasis.

 

2 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Yelm originally being a local sun god, parallel to the multitude of Dara Happan city sun gods, is the point of this thread...

Nope.  That's not what Ian is suggesting.  Ian thinks that Yelm was a construct to worship an unknown Sun God worshipped in Peloria during the Golden Age.  As such, Yelm is not parallel to Brightface etc because Yelm may not have existed in the Golden Age. 

Golden Age: Brightface (Darsen, Entekosiad p28)), Emperor God (Naveria Entekosiad p78), ??? (Dara Happa), Radiant Origin (Pelanda, Entekosiad p47)

Storm Age: Ersonmoda (Pelanda, Entekosiad p38), Antirius (Dara Happa, Glorious Reascent), Elmal (Vingkotlings, Book of Heortling Mythology), Kargzant (Horse-riders, Glorious ReAscent), All-Seeing Eye? (Rinliddi, Glorious Reascent)

For example Brightface, Radiant Origin and the Emperor God are parallel to each other because they are sun gods worshipped in Peloria during the Golden Age at the same time but are different from each other.   The gods are different in the Storm Age because the nature of the Sun changed.  The Dara Happans lost their original sun god and took up the worship of Antirius.  When the Sun came back after the Dawn, they had statuary, fragments of myths etc but no sacred texts or surviving documentation from the Golden Age.

 

[Ian Cooper]

21 hours ago, JonL said:

I don't think Ian is suggesting that there was never a Yelm prior to the Bright Empire, but rather that Yelm as known in post-Bright Empire Glorantha is the product of a bit of deliberate ret-conning and amalgamation on the part of the Dara Happans to cement their then-current dynasty's Imperial Cult as the restoration of Yelm's Golden Age empire, papering over and partially subsuming the Antirius and Kargzant solar eras as well as the many city-state specific sun gods along the way. 

Yes

[Ian Cooper]

18 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

As I understood Ian's hypothesis/interpretation, the idea was that the Emperor of Golden age Dara Happa was never Yelm, but Murharzam, and that his solar disk god was Antirius. In the Bright Empire of Time, these were effectively synthesized, together with others probably, into Yelm as we know him.

I could be wrong, but that's how I read it.

Yes, but also no. Some of my thinking has developed with the thread. Lets try this.

There is a one Fire rune: Vezkarvez

The first 'god' to devolve from that rune was: Ezelveztay. It devolves by association with other runes into the Keskeskenni

One amongst the Keskeskenni is considered the most fitting and given the title Emperor, or Yelm, or Lightfore. IMO Yelm and Lightfore are both titles that change hands, and can be translatd as Emperor.

There are three brothers Lodril, Arraz, and Dayzatar who are the earliest 'worshiped' generation of sky gods

Arraz is the first Yelm/Emperor/Lightfore. He is the celestial Emperor.

Yelm/Arraz and Dendara have a child: Murharzam. He is the earthly Emperor. He is one of their eight children, which has always implied to me eight ruling deity suns of the cities of DH that are acknowledged (though 10 ought to be the number)

I suspect this may be a relationship similar to the Red Goddess/Red Emperor.

The Blue Dragon Oslir forces Yelm/Arraz from the sky; Murharzam defeats the serpent to become Lightfore/Yelm. Arraz is I think, now, the servant or something lesser not the Yelm/Lightfore any more.

Orlanth kills Yelm/Murharzam.

Other suns hold for the role for a while Yelm/Antirius (who dies), then Yelm/Polaris and Yelm/Ourania

On earth there is a a succession of Emperors

At the dawn Yelm/Antirius returns, but is not the sun disk, just a planet (Lightfore). At the dawn the sun disk is not Arraz either, who is now a star. The sun disk is something new, associated with Time.

Under the Bright Empire the sun disk begins to receive worship, many myths of holders of the title of Yelm or Emperor are transferred to the sun. The sun accumulates all these individual Lightfore/Yelm/Emperor myths i.e. parts of Arraz, Antirius, Murharzam even perhaps Polaris and Ourania, The entities that were formally a Yelm decline in importance in worship.

Or something like that.

It's possible that Yelmalio is just a Bright Empire composite of the sons of Yelm i.e. the bits that were left over once we had done this 🙂

 

 

[JonL]

13 minutes ago, Ian Cooper said:

Yelm/Arraz and Dendara have a child: Murharzam. He is the earthly Emperor. He is one of their eight children, which has always implied to me eight ruling deity suns of the cities of DH that are acknowledged (though 10 ought to be the number)

Shargash and Sedenya round out the ten city-suns.

[Joerg]

38 minutes ago, Ian Cooper said:

Yelm/Arraz and Dendara have a child: Murharzam. He is the earthly Emperor. He is one of their eight children, which has always implied to me eight ruling deity suns of the cities of DH that are acknowledged (though 10 ought to be the number)

Plentonius and/or the Gods Wall adds planetary representations of Dayzatar (Zaytenaras) and Lodril (Ghelotralas) for the far eastern Senthoros (or above) and the far western Akuturos (or below).

Murharzarm is the second emperor of the Sunstop and the now more distant over-sun (Yelm/Arraz).

Arraz is something like the celestial father in this sequence, and (I suspect) created from contact with several of the urban suns and the realization that they need to have something in common.

At the same time, some local sun gets replaced by an ambitious Brightface, whose ambition knows no bounds and claims the Arraz position for itself, making the Sun stop in the sky, creating (this cycle's) static phase.

[kalidor]

1 hour ago, Ian Cooper said:

Yes, but also no. Some of my thinking has developed with the thread. Lets try this.

There is a one Fire rune: Vezkarvez

The first 'god' to devolve from that rune was: Ezelveztay. It devolves by association with other runes into the Keskeskenni

One amongst the Keskeskenni is considered the most fitting and given the title Emperor, or Yelm, or Lightfore. IMO Yelm and Lightfore are both titles that change hands, and can be translatd as Emperor.

There are three brothers Lodril, Arraz, and Dayzatar who are the earliest 'worshiped' generation of sky gods

Arraz is the first Yelm/Emperor/Lightfore. He is the celestial Emperor.

Yelm/Arraz and Dendara have a child: Murharzam. He is the earthly Emperor. He is one of their eight children, which has always implied to me eight ruling deity suns of the cities of DH that are acknowledged (though 10 ought to be the number)

I suspect this may be a relationship similar to the Red Goddess/Red Emperor.

The Blue Dragon Oslir forces Yelm/Arraz from the sky; Murharzam defeats the serpent to become Lightfore/Yelm. Arraz is I think, now, the servant or something lesser not the Yelm/Lightfore any more.

Orlanth kills Yelm/Murharzam.

Other suns hold for the role for a while Yelm/Antirius (who dies), then Yelm/Polaris and Yelm/Ourania

On earth there is a a succession of Emperors

At the dawn Yelm/Antirius returns, but is not the sun disk, just a planet (Lightfore). At the dawn the sun disk is not Arraz either, who is now a star. The sun disk is something new, associated with Time.

Under the Bright Empire the sun disk begins to receive worship, many myths of holders of the title of Yelm or Emperor are transferred to the sun. The sun accumulates all these individual Lightfore/Yelm/Emperor myths i.e. parts of Arraz, Antirius, Murharzam even perhaps Polaris and Ourania, The entities that were formally a Yelm decline in importance in worship.

Or something like that.

It's possible that Yelmalio is just a Bright Empire composite of the sons of Yelm i.e. the bits that were left over once we had done this 🙂

 

 

thank you, thank you and thank you, really!! best explanation never read.  I will buy it even if it changes later.

[scott-martin]

1 hour ago, Ian Cooper said:

Yelm/Arraz and Dendara have a child: Murharzam. He is the earthly Emperor. He is one of their eight children, which has always implied to me eight ruling deity suns of the cities of DH that are acknowledged (though 10 ought to be the number)

Dazzling fore and aft but this bit triggers a Recognition that's been emerging throughout the thread thanks to the 6A material, etc.

In a planetary environment "little suns" behave a lot like "storms" wandering freely and struggling for a place in the sky's lower reaches. As we know one of the siblings is enthroned, some are subjugated, others exiled, a few killed.

"Umath" is another child of the sun from a different mother. Call him a "little sun" too or call him a storm. He aims high and is brought low. One of the "little sun" peoples develops a little differently in his memory shadow. Maybe they were raised in isolation, unconnected with their cousins until later.

This has all happened and the copper records, being flat circles, imply that it will all happen again. The Dayzatar cult remembers and is gently elevated to irrelevance, leaving dirty buserians behind. Lodril is more complicated.

Weird vestiges persist on the fringes, places like Pent where archaic sun and storm are still at war, the vestigial elemental cults of Ignorance, whatever they had in "Umath"ela before their mythology was combed out. Put an umath back together, find a lost city (did he ever have a city or just need one of his own when there weren't enough), be a lost tribe, raise a planet.