Galanini and Western Hsunchen in the (real world) evolution of Glorantha

[Joerg]

Since Peter asked so charmingly friendly:

2 minutes ago, metcalph said:

4 minutes ago, Joerg said:

There have been different definitions of "Galanini", and one of them as originally horse Hsunchen never has been made obsolete, although a pure Hsunchen form probably predates Time, or was a retro-actively Hsunchenized form of the Enerali.

Joerg, this really isn't the place for deep gloranthan discussion of putting forward your theories as facts.  If there's no textual evidence, leave it out on the RQ forums.

Asking for textual evidence in the RuneQuest forum is of course not at all newbie-friendly, either.

In the spirit of the original post of that thread (wait, that was mine), I'll repeat my thesis here, and I challenge you @metcalph to provide conclusive counter-evidence. But you are as welcome to post another such short notice with a friendlier formulation of "a load of bullshit" and be done with this thread.

Sorry if this comes about as a bit grumpy. My pain medication after a major visit to the dentist doesn't do its job that well.

6 minutes ago, Joerg said:

There have been different definitions of "Galanini", and one of them as originally horse Hsunchen never has been made obsolete, although a pure Hsunchen form probably predates Time, or was a retro-actively Hsunchenized form of the Enerali.

As far as I am concerned, Enerali, Pendali and Enjoreli are what you get when you civilize Galanini, Basmoli and Tawari respectively. Whether this happened through interbreeding with Kachisti survivors or other theist acculturation I cannot say. I would tentatively place this after the Golden Age, throughout the sunny parts of the Storm Age and onward in the lesser Darkness prior to the destruction of the World Mountains (Spike, Flamal etc.) 

We have a list of the Old Ralian deities as they were encountered by the Theyalan missionaries. The Theyalans made identifications of several of these deities with their own Manirian versions, and with their slightly more effective magic and a lot of shared mythology that was able to patch forgotten bits of Vustri and other Enerali myths managed to Theyalanize the Dari confederation.

If there ever was written evidence about the pre-Lightbringer missionary myths of the Ralians, it probably went into the Autarchy lore which was then plundered and transshipped to the later sunk lands of Old Seshnela and Jrustela, where they formed the basic canon for God Learner heroquesting in Theist cults.

The Dawn Age Seshnegi had been practitioners of the same theistic cults as the Pendali, whose noble refugee tribe became known as the Basmoli of southeastern Ralios and northwestern Maniria (in the meaning of the Gloranthan region, not the portion of pre-sinking Slontos but including that). They appear to continue these semi-Hsunchen, semi-Theist practices in their warrior societies (Beast Warrior cults which are likely to make up a good part of the 100 war gods of the Kingdom of War, too), but in both cases, there appears to be a "back to the magical, Hsunchen roots" movement.

The animosity between these no-longer or not-quite Hsunchen (extending to the Entruli pig totem tribes, too) and the Serpent Brotherhood Hsunchen folk that slowly succumbed to the military power of the Second Council and then the Bright Empire, leaving only the most remote areas of Ralios to the shamanistic beast peoples does appear to be a distinction.

A case can be made that all the pastoralist beast riders that populated the uplands of the western Rockwoods, the Mislari, and the Nidan chain were Umathi in origin, as were the Beast Riders of Genert's Garden and Desero's Horde in Pamaltela. There seems to be a somewhat fluid transition from Tawari bull hsunchen to both Enjoreli aboriginees in Loskalm and Bisosae in Pelanda. Likewise there is a strong Storm connection for Rathor and probably Arakang making them hard to discern from the part animist, part theist Odayla of northern Saird.

Fact is that a lot of the Orlanthi that were Malkionized either in the Autarchy or under the Middle Sea Empire have Hsunchen or Hsunchen-like beast totem roots. The Ancient Beast Society of Estali has pretty much the same beasts as the Hykimi creation myths in the West, the Korgatsu Hsunchen of the Shan Shan, and among the Fiwan of Pamaltela.

(There may have been a fourth group for what became Slon - there used to be four Sea Turtle peoples, one for each corner of the world, but only the two eastern ones survived. The Dinosaur hsunchen of Slon don't appear to be Fiwan, but they may also be a way more recent retrograde development if Sandy's theory about Pamaltelan evolution going backwards in Earth parallels still is the meta-rule there.)

IMO the entire Serpent Beast Brotherhood and the Hykimi nations they descend from sits halfway in the Theist camp, halfway in the animist Hsunchen one. The hints about the Seshnegi warrior societies and the hints in the rules (RQG, HQG) and the guide about their use of theist and animist magic and their role in the HW/HQ1 era separate worlds dogma is contradictory to the pre-WBRM writings about the west, which have pretty much Theyalan-feeling polytheism for many of these. (And yes, it doesn't take Ethilrist's writings and the Lunar Empire map from the WBRM rules to remind me that there has been a lot of world building also in that region in the meantime, resulting in the texts of the Guide which is a synthesis of all those predecessors and has been slightly re-interpreted for the current editions of RQ and HQ compared to what it came from when it was published.)

The Kachasti migration resulting in the Kachisti settlement of the beast lands that would become known as the Greatwood to the Vingkotlings after the rising of the Nidan Mountains wasn't in those earliest stories. The raising of the Nidan Mountains doesn't have the same vibe for the Vadeli as do the four tribes of Old Brithos which permeate the pre-WBRM writings about the West, and which see short reprises in Revealed Mythology (next to all that "colliding Worlds" "Great deeds of the Eransanchula Zzabur who never was a son of Malkion the Founder" stuff in the Danmalastan section that IMO clearly postdates Greg's original writings about the God Learners), but without access to more than a part of those highest level rewards of the Guide kickstarter, I cannot provide an exact analysis about the development of these aspects of Glorantha. The gazetteer parts of Fronela - especially Loskalm - contain many a detail lifted from those stories that were not included in the RQ3 Genertela Box presentation of the West and its Beast-descended human neighbors, and probably mostly forgotten at the time that first edition of the world book was published. The glossaries of the three regions (west, south, east) in Revealed Mythologies let a few of those older sources glimmer through, but not quite shine.

The Kachisti/Hykimi hypothesis for part of the "Orlanthi" peoples of western Genertela with Hsunchen and Pastoralist Hill Folk sharing many a totem myth remains my best interpretation of the synthesis of these different creative periods that went into the Guide. And Jeff made it clear to me that the historical information in the Guide is far from complete compared to the stuff the historical maps provide in names and the Vault of the original Glorantha manuscript provides in short explanatory lists for those places, with the example of Vindorhall and a quite as interesting sequence of events unfolding there during the Gbaji Wars.

So, in short, there was a period of writing in which the Galanini were as Hsunchen as the Basmoli, and the Pendali were just a tribe of the Basmoli who had married into the theist land goddesses. There were tribes of elemental demons like the Likiti which may or may not have been humanoid and may or may not have practiced agriculture or at least horticulture, and may or may not have absorbed some of those Kachisti who escaped Vadeli enslavement after the Nidan eruption.

 

The High Llama pass is the continuation of a migratory path defined by Lord (high?) Llama across the low watershed between (what would become/had already become?) the Janube and the Tanier catchment (or at this time still invasion target) regions, and Mount Nida itself (NW) appears on the God Learner map of the first copies of the Cosmic Mountain. (In fact, we find three corners of a square of dwarf mountains with Magnetic (SW) and Diamond (NE) Mountain, and the fourth corner (SE) lost in what later became the Sshorg Ocean. The Mostali urge for a symmetric World Machine suggests a loss of workrooms in that area.) This extension of the North-South separation of peoples that had been started by Larnste in a way that was counter-productive to separate the differing world views - IMO on purpose, to promote his agenda of change and development - ceated two separate Hykimi areas, still labeled as the Greatwood in the historical and prehistorical maps, but introducing a Umathi cultural element to several of those peoples in the higher foothills. E.g. Jonating Bear "Orlanthi" (alongside Tawari cattle ones) vs. Rathori Hykimi - I doubt that these had always been completely unrelated.

Some of this unpublished stuff had been processed in the making of the Broken Council Guidebook, and that gives the lucky collectors who have a copy of either print run of that freeform companion booklet a glimpse of stuff that I suppose ended up in the set of scans in hardcover that accompanied about two dozen kickstarter deliveries of the Guide. (I cannot really regret having previously invested that Glorantha budget in visiting a number of European conventions instead, but I am a bit peeved not to have that access.)

 

The connection between Hykimi (aka Western Genertelan, Wareran Hsunchen) and Orlanthi isn't exactly a new idea. I think it was around 1995 that I took part in an email exchange with a number of people from the Daily (or already Digest) about the Urlanthi, the tribes or clans of animal totem people that became the Theyalan missionaried inhabitants of the Barbarian Belt. I think that some of the stuff debated then was echoed back to Greg by a few of the participants who had direct access at that time, and we either guessed correctly about a few things or actually managed to feed halves of a few concepts into the canon.

Yes, this is not explicitely the canon that is printed verbatim in the Guide. It doesn't contradict any information presented as fact about the history of that part of the world, either, and as I said before, a lot of the concepts (or at least names) from older ages have been glossed over in the Guide to keep it somewhat readable without an  exegesis like this.

[Sir_Godspeed]

Do we really need any challenges? Isn't it more fun to just shop ideas and references around?

I look forward to reading the post in its entirety though, the Galanini are very interesting.

 

[scott-martin]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

So, in short, there was a period of writing in which the Galanini were as Hsunchen as the Basmoli, and the Pendali were just a tribe of the Basmoli who had married into the theist land goddesses. There were tribes of elemental demons like the Likiti which may or may not have been humanoid and may or may not have practiced agriculture or at least horticulture, and may or may not have absorbed some of those Kachisti who escaped Vadeli enslavement after the Nidan eruption.

I would add para-Aldryami (paraldryami) and IMG para-Mostali (who may or may not become the Laderalites) along with possibly others. I'll be your search engine and will start with the western totem nations. It might take time. But I like having this lens in place.

The first detail that comes to mind is now we have a better sense of an archaic Pelorian diaspora as well so it's possible that horse nations can be triangulated back to a central disintegration of [King Griffon]. The loose thread that will get me through it is knowing that when the Basmolites met horse people the antipathy was instant and deep. The joke is that horse doesn't thrive in Pamaltela. The wonder is Ironhoof, son of the lady.

Broken Council is rare enough!

[Tindalos]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

There seems to be a somewhat fluid transition from Tawari bull hsunchen to both Enjoreli aboriginees in Loskalm and Bisosae in Pelanda. 

It wouldn't surprise me if there was some ancient nomadic bull culture responsible for not only those groups, but also the Lo-Fak of the Shan Shan (since Lofak is the name Zzabur gave to the Herd Mother), the Bull Leapers mentioned in the Coming Storm (ambushed by Finovan, who took their purple cattle), the Noyalings of Fronela, the Bull Riders who joined the Andam Horde, and the Bull Societies in Seshnela's cities of Harsad and Laralwaf.

The legacy of this ancient Ur-culture (I apologise for nothing) is likely the usage of bulls for riding, the reverence of the Bull Father (Storm Bull, Urox, Tawar, Bisos, KefTavar) his mate the Cow Mother (Uralda, Eiritha, Busenari, Esus, Lofak) and likely the usual Barbarian Belt tendency to look for their god atop a mountain (Stormwalk, Dabur, Nine Brilliances) 

[Joerg]

The Noyalings are about as much a bull people as are the Bison Riders or the Andam Horde. (And I miss a group using the water buffalo as a totem...)

I was reducing this to the true cattle folk (ok, including the aurochs which is the wild form, also in Glorantha as proven in the background of the Red Cow clan).

The bull warrior societies of Seshnela are most likely imports from Akem (ancient Loskalm), descended from the Enjoreli.

Soeaking of bovines, there is evidence for the (four-horned) water buffalo in Seshnela already in the Dawn Age, in that image of Ylream on p.409 of the guide, but other than for (rice growing) southern Seshnela and the lower Tanier valley, this kind of bovine is absent from any regional description of Glorantha, with special note for their apparent absence in the other rice-growing areas of Glorantha (Melib, the Teshno plain, the Pelorian basin, Kralorela, Vormain, the East Isles, Fonrit, Umathela).

 

[Tindalos]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

The Noyalings are about as much a bull people as are the Bison Riders or the Andam Horde. (And I miss a group using the water buffalo as a totem...)

True that muskox aren't actually bovines (unlike Ordeeds), they were originally placed in Bos.

(And I seriously doubt most people would view them as the goats they are)

[soltakss]

It's always nice to see a Joerg and metcalph duel. 

[metcalph]

3 minutes ago, soltakss said:

It's always nice to see a Joerg and metcalph duel. 

It's less than pleasant to see sotakss make up lies about me.

[soltakss]

1 hour ago, metcalph said:

It's less than pleasant to see sotakss make up lies about me.

Peter, I am sorry if you think that I have made up lies about you. That has never been my intention.

I am confused as to what lies you think I have made up about you. If you could point them out them I can clarify them or withdraw anything that is not accurate.

Differences of opinion or disagreeing with what people have said is not, as far as I know, lying, but I suppose it is a matter of perspective.

[Joerg]

On 7/9/2019 at 12:26 AM, scott-martin said:

I would add para-Aldryami (paraldryami) and IMG para-Mostali (who may or may not become the Laderalites) along with possibly others. I'll be your search engine and will start with the western totem nations. It might take time. But I like having this lens in place.

Thanks for the offer.

On 7/9/2019 at 12:26 AM, scott-martin said:

The first detail that comes to mind is now we have a better sense of an archaic Pelorian diaspora as well so it's possible that horse nations can be triangulated back to a central disintegration of [King Griffon]. The loose thread that will get me through it is knowing that when the Basmolites met horse people the antipathy was instant and deep. The joke is that horse doesn't thrive in Pamaltela.

Is it a joke? Or could the presence of lions mean that a wounded hippogriff had no chance to find any human protector, and hence never adapted to the veldt?

 

The habitat of the wild horses in southern Siberia includes regions where no wild cattle could survive the winters for lack of the ability to clear the undergrowth from condensed snow cover. Neither was that steppe hospitable to reindeer which thrive on lichen, which might offer more or different protein than the grass of the steppes and whatever grazing the taiga offers.

From a sky perspective, the lion is a somewhat less damaged griffin than the horse is a damaged hippogriff. The lion at least still is a predator and has a predator's forepaws, although neither beak, wings nor bird talons. The Char-un re-breeding efforts have produced a carnivorous stallion, which is roughly the equivalent of the lion, and a winged mare (effectively a pegasus mare). If they manage to combine those two atavisms, they'd produce a wounded hippogriff stage that only lost its bird talon forelimbs and beak.

 

On 7/9/2019 at 12:26 AM, scott-martin said:

The wonder is Ironhoof, son of the lady.

Son of Orlanth and the sister of the Horse God. Said Horse God was worshiped by the Grazers/former Pure Horse Folk of Prax, which made them kin to Ironhoof (the centaur demigod, not to be confused with Ironhoof, first king of the Grazers, apparently cut from a pain centaur).

On 7/9/2019 at 12:26 AM, scott-martin said:

Broken Council is rare enough!

I would estimate that there were more than 250 copies in total. Freeform companion booklets sold fairly well in the mid--nineties, so they were usually produced above demand as player handouts. On the other hand, there are probably a few more people who have copies of both print runs (which differ mainly in the sequence of chapters, resultin in different page numbers for identical text passages).

[scott-martin]

On 7/8/2019 at 4:42 PM, Joerg said:

there was a period of writing in which the Galanini were as Hsunchen as the Basmoli

I hope the mouth has improved! We've had a surgical procedure here in the house since so Arroin's vows on my mind.

Very little of the early material is dated beyond contextual tags like "when I had moved to California" or the occasional "1967" so making sense of the internal textual development will require a lot more work. My working model is that Seshnela evolved in something like chronological order and so he started with Hrestol and moved forward to "Argat," refining along the way as his understanding shifted. In effect this makes just about everything there one continuous draft with occasional cross outs as names migrate. In this model, the next full revision is probably the abortive Western Sorcerers effort of the terminal 1970s, followed by the Genertela Box. The north starts earlier and in more detail.

What we have in the earliest published draft is a world where the Pendalites are children of Hykim and the Eneralites are not. Galanin the horse god comes to Ralios fully formed (there's a pencilled "son of Pure Horse" in the margin) and takes his wife from the daughters of a separate land goddess. Basmolt [sic] is better documented as son of Fralar, son of Hykim, who raped a Jorestl dryad. Eneral marries a woman with strange lineage, daughter of both a Likite [sic, possibly the masculine form] and a Tilnta. Pendal has a strange encounter that is no joke:

Once, while still little, Pendal approached a horse, who was calmly grazing in a clearing. He was fascinated by the beast, but was also hungry. He approached the beast in kindness, though, but the animal sensed his hunger and in fear kicked out and knocked Pendal senseless. He awoke and cursed the beast so that even now none of the race may ride upon a horse. He awoke in the chamber of Ifttala, daughter of Seshna, who had seen him lying senseless and taken pity on him. This soon grew into love and they were married.

The juxtaposition of the horse encounter and the introduction to the daughter of Likita is unlikely to be two unrelated fragments stitched together. At that point the lion nation (who are definitely Hykimites here, or beast people) met the horse and became something like domesticated into the land goddess complex. He comes out of the forest, rejecting some aspects of what we would consider civilization. 

The Eneralites, on the other hand, appear to be migrating from the northeast through Otkorion. In these days there's a Lake Nradar infested with hostile triolini and the daughters of Telmor were already present. By the Great Darkness they had spread to what is now Arolanit as well as down to Tanisor, only rarely combining as any kind of political entity until much later. 

There was a third people already present in Tanisor at the dawn: the Pralorites, who apparently had some form of farming and were harried by "dehori" early on before a Pendalite incursion in 38 teaches them war. The Eneralites initially take the deer people's side but ultimately betray them and the Pralorites vanish from this phase of the Book of Enemies. 

The southern Eneralites then have what to us would be an intriguing violent encounter with "Vrimak, King of the Birds" before getting to work consolidating Tanisor before the Seshnegites finally take them over in the early 260s. Northern branches seem to ultimately get behind Dari. It's vague but this part of the world is a long way from the forest now so it's just nations in turmoil. 

Dari himself is something else at this stage, a prince of the then-matriarchal land of "Halikiv" where they know the secrets of metal because they honor Ormak Promalte, son of fire. These marry into the Vustrian branch of the Eneralites and by 265 are fighting Telmorites.

The timeline then jumps to "the year 1500," after the Closing, in an era when Seshnela has lost its overseas empire but moved into Ralios and Arolanit instead while your friend Yomili is fomenting civil war. Call it 990 ST. Amusingly this page is annotated with a tiny "good dates." There are still barbarians in Ralios at this time: the Galaninae, the Dangkae (friends of Halwal and also the Tamalites) and the Srotolinas. At this point in history they're really just barbarians and not animal nations, but it's interesting that the Dangan house of Vetag has dynastic claims from both Galanin and "Ehilm Promalte" and end up absorbed into Good Snodal's Realm.

(note to self: I suspect much of this material survives in the as-yet-undocumented Gospels of Malkion, much of which is evidently concerned with interactions with beasts or beast peoples)

(blasphemy: read Froalar for Fralar throughout and solve the Solution)

[soltakss]

5 hours ago, soltakss said:

It's always nice to see a Joerg and metcalph duel. 

In case anyone takes offence at this, I meant nice as in "You both have a huge amount of Gloranthan knowledge and can be very detailed in your arguments, so it's good to see such discussions".

[Tindalos]

42 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Once, while still little, Pendal approached a horse, who was calmly grazing in a clearing. He was fascinated by the beast, but was also hungry. He approached the beast in kindness, though, but the animal sensed his hunger and in fear kicked out and knocked Pendal senseless. He awoke and cursed the beast so that even now none of the race may ride upon a horse. He awoke in the chamber of Ifttala, daughter of Seshna, who had seen him lying senseless and taken pity on him. This soon grew into love and they were married.

So that's where the whole "Ralians don't ride horses" idea comes from! I'd always wondered about it.

[scott-martin]

1 hour ago, Tindalos said:

So that's where the whole "Ralians don't ride horses" idea comes from! I'd always wondered about it.

Yeah, for most of his life Greg favored the lion over the horse. It's cool deep background even though Basmol is a broken god now and very few people remember it even if they have strong lion blood. But they might recollect it some day. 

Looking at "the Barbarian Belt" these days I suspect this story comes from a level of textual development when neither Sky nor Storm had coalesced into the tidy mythologies we have today, so they were brothers then. Sky clans consolidated first across the north (horses go farther and faster) and Storm was refined from the pieces left behind. Then as the West expands we see some once-settled peoples driven to totemic desolation. 

Others absorb dragon ways. The Far East was closer in those days before Peloria and Prax stretched the world apart: the old Seshnegites in this layer of the text knew a lot about Kralorela and nothing about Dara Happa. As a "Hykimite" people the Pendalites may ultimately be from that side of the forest.

Edited July 13, 2019 by scott-martin
a little clarity here and there is good

[metcalph]

7 hours ago, soltakss said:

Peter, I am sorry if you think that I have made up lies about you. That has never been my intention.

Your sole intention has been to cause up trouble by making up a  supposed duel.  Your claims of innocence are as fraudulent as your original post.

 

[soltakss]

12 hours ago, metcalph said:

Your sole intention has been to cause up trouble by making up a  supposed duel.  Your claims of innocence are as fraudulent as your original post.

 

It was a joke. Sorry if that needs to be explained. Should I put smileys on posts so you understand?

[davecake]

19 hours ago, scott-martin said:

The Far East was closer in those days before Peloria and Prax stretched the world apart: the old Seshnegites in this layer of the text knew a lot about Kralorela and nothing about Dara Happa

Because they had connections to the ocean going Waertagi, but none of the Malkioni peoples had reached Dara Happa at that point? 

[Joerg]

8 minutes ago, davecake said:

Because they had connections to the ocean going Waertagi, but none of the Malkioni peoples had reached Dara Happa at that point? 

Pelanda at least was completely within the range of the riverine Waertagi.

[Joerg]

45 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

I hope the mouth has improved! We've had a surgical procedure here in the house since so Arroin's vows on my mind.

Let's just say that a dentist's idea of preparing the fixtures for a bridge is a case of vivisculpture, and that anaesthetics in the submandibular glands aren't that lucky as shots go. They (and as a consequence I) remain highly irritated.

45 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Very little of the early material is dated beyond contextual tags like "when I had moved to California" or the occasional "1967" so making sense of the internal textual development will require a lot more work.

 

45 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

My working model is that Seshnela evolved in something like chronological order and so he started with Hrestol and moved forward to "Argat," refining along the way as his understanding shifted. In effect this makes just about everything there one continuous draft with occasional cross outs as names migrate. In this model, the next full revision is probably the abortive Western Sorcerers effort of the terminal 1970s, followed by the Genertela Box. The north starts earlier and in more detail.

With Snodal, right? That makes the Fronelan discovery journey backwards in time.

 

45 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

What we have in the earliest published draft is a world where the Pendalites are children of Hykim and the Eneralites are not.

A foreshadowing of the "horses are no creatures of the Earth" theme that reigns in Prax?

45 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Galanin the horse god comes to Ralios fully formed (there's a pencilled "son of Pure Horse" in the margin) and takes his wife from the daughters of a separate land goddess.

Yet we have his birth place in Galin. But hey, deities get born as their own children or grandchildren all the time.

 

45 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Basmolt [sic] is better documented as son of Fralar, son of Hykim, who raped a Jorestl dryad. Eneral marries a woman with strange lineage, daughter of both a Likite [sic, possibly the masculine form] and a Tilnta. Pendal has a strange encounter that is no joke:

Once, while still little, Pendal approached a horse, who was calmly grazing in a clearing. He was fascinated by the beast, but was also hungry. He approached the beast in kindness, though, but the animal sensed his hunger and in fear kicked out and knocked Pendal senseless. He awoke and cursed the beast so that even now none of the race may ride upon a horse. He awoke in the chamber of Ifttala, daughter of Seshna, who had seen him lying senseless and taken pity on him. This soon grew into love and they were married.

The juxtaposition of the horse encounter and the introduction to the daughter of Likita is unlikely to be two unrelated fragments stitched together. At that point the lion nation (who are definitely Hykimites here, or beast people) met the horse and became something like domesticated into the land goddess complex. He comes out of the forest, rejecting some aspects of what we would consider civilization. 

Ok, that process of domestication was what my hypothesis is built on.

 

45 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

The Eneralites, on the other hand, appear to be migrating from the northeast through Otkorion. In these days there's a Lake Nradar infested with hostile triolini and the daughters of Telmor were already present. By the Great Darkness they had spread to what is now Arolanit as well as down to Tanisor, only rarely combining as any kind of political entity until much later. 

The Enerali are the only ones who bear the stem of the name of Ralios in their ancestry. Coincidence?

 

45 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

There was a third people already present in Tanisor at the dawn: the Pralorites, who apparently had some form of farming and were harried by "dehori" early on before a Pendalite incursion in 38 teaches them war. The Eneralites initially take the deer people's side but ultimately betray them and the Pralorites vanish from this phase of the Book of Enemies. 

That's at a time when four of the five Pendali kingdoms that had distributed old Seshneg between them still were independent of Froalar's heirs. Intriguingly, the dead deity the Pendali have to make without isn't their lion ancestor but their land ancestress - quite the difference to their easternmost brethren.

45 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

The southern Eneralites then have what to us would be an intriguing violent encounter with "Vrimak, King of the Birds" before getting to work consolidating Tanisor before the Seshnegites finally take them over in the early 260s. Northern branches seem to ultimately get behind Dari. It's vague but this part of the world is a long way from the forest now so it's just nations in turmoil.

The Enerali became the folk of Hrelar Amali, the place with temples to all the gods. No mention of King Dan as Dari's predecessor? Or are "Dan" and "Dari" only different ways to read the quite ligated type? I know that OCRing some of Greg's typewritten material from A&E had me on permanent duty to decide between "n" and "ri" with some early Atari ST based OCR software. With the narrow spacing of the type-writer or in hand writing, the distinction may be lost to a human reader, too.

45 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Dari himself is something else at this stage, a prince of the then-matriarchal land of "Halikiv" where they know the secrets of metal because they honor Ormak Promalte, son of fire. These marry into the Vustrian branch of the Eneralites and by 265 are fighting Telmorites.

There are strong parallels between the "sons of the founders divide the inherited land into kingdoms bearing their names" theme, though.

Eneral son of Galanin has four sons who become the ancestors of the four great tribes of Safelster, possibly remaining silent about a sister. Pendal has five sons with Ifttala, dividing up the Seshneg peninsula and continental root between them. Only the two easternmost kingdoms overlap somewhat with the westernmost provinces of the Rokari kingdom of Seshnela.

45 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

The timeline then jumps to "the year 1500," after the Closing,

That rhymes with the OOO's Fleet of Black Galleys active in 1250, in time for the Slontos sea battles.

45 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

in an era when Seshnela has lost its overseas empire but moved into Ralios and Arolanit instead while your friend Yomili is fomenting civil war. Call it 990 ST. Amusingly this page is annotated with a tiny "good dates." There are still barbarians in Ralios at this time: the Galaninae, the Dangkae (friends of Halwal and also the Tamalites) and the Srotolinas. At this point in history they're really just barbarians and not animal nations, but it's interesting that the Dangan house of Vetag has dynastic claims from both Galanin and "Ehilm Promalte" and end up absorbed into Good Snodal's Realm.

I wonder whether the Hykim ancestry is the only way to be counted as a beast person. Does it include any burtae of Mikyh, too? Thinking of Storm Bull here, or the various pastoralist groups that later were Theyalanized and now have always been Orlanthi.

By the time of Halwal and Yomili, the subjugated Pendali (subjects?) had long become absorbed into the Seshnegi population (and likewise the Enjoreli bull folk into the Akemite populaiton).

All of the Pendali cities that were present at the Dawn were continued as Seshnegi cities, suggesting that the Pendali or at least their (Likiti? Likiti-descended?) subjects practiced some form of horticulture, agriculture and/or pastoralism that was compatible with the Malkioni methods.

Promalte appears to be a heavily conjugated form of Primolt. Grandfather Sky.

45 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

(note to self: I suspect much of this material survives in the as-yet-undocumented Gospels of Malkion, much of which is evidently concerned with interactions with beasts or beast peoples)

The gospels are mentioned on p.18 of Revealed Mythologies, listing the six strongholds (with IMO one error: Noloswal should read Neleoswal, and one unnamed other major stronghold - possibly Isefwal or Nenanduft in coastal Loskalm rather than riverine Akem, if we follow that south to north trend).

The beast interactions are fairly numerous, only topped by his interactions with people:

Quote

Malkion discloses the fox’s lair.

Malkion summons the birds.

Malkion exterminates the mites.

Malkion banishes serpents.

Malkion tames a lion.

Malkion calms the rogue mastodon.

Malkion recommends fish.

Malkion blesses the swine.

Malkion and the horses.

 

(All taken from RM p.19)

 

45 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

(blasphemy: read Froalar for Fralar throughout and solve the Solution)

That has to be an A-type rumor.

[scott-martin]

41 minutes ago, davecake said:

Because they had connections to the ocean going Waertagi, but none of the Malkioni peoples had reached Dara Happa at that point? 

Love it. This early on, the Seshnegites were doing pretty good to figure out Tanisor, much less make contact beyond Kartolin. I wouldn't rule out the Akemites figuring it out faster, but these are not their chronicles and the two main colonial centers don't seem to have been in close contact in this era.

I think we know from the Entekosiad that if Akemites made it this far past Oronin their exploits aren't recorded? (This might win for most vacillating sentence ever from me.)

In terms of "real world evolution" Greg occasionally said the world of WBRM was created from mostly whole cloth and then the early material was folded around it. This seems to match the texts, which have room for the West through Slontos, Kralorela, Teshnos, Pamaltela (!), Artmalites and a Genertan waste but I have yet to find solar cities, a moon goddess, the animal riders. This gives us a challenge to solve.

Another angle might be that the digijelm / horse lords of dawn age Peloria effectively resisted all intrusion until they stopped.

[scott-martin]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Let's just say that a dentist's idea of preparing the fixtures for a bridge is a case of vivisculpture, and that anaesthetics in the submandibular glands aren't that lucky as shots go. They (and as a consequence I) remain highly irritated.

Ouch. That does not sound fun.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

With Snodal, right? That makes the Fronelan discovery journey backwards in time.

That is my Too Awful To Imagine theory there . . . the further north Snodal was driven, the closer to the original God Time the information he received becomes. The things they told him no longer existed in our Glorantha. Strange weather up there at the edge of the world.

But for our purposes it means that Snodal and Jonat were in place by 1967 and then he turned to work almost exclusively on the south until the mid-1970s. If not for the repetition of god names and concepts I wouldn't even be convinced they take place in the same world.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

A foreshadowing of the "horses are no creatures of the Earth" theme that reigns in Prax?
Yet we have his birth place in Galin. But hey, deities get born as their own children or grandchildren all the time.
Ok, that process of domestication was what my hypothesis is built on.
The Enerali are the only ones who bear the stem of the name of Ralios in their ancestry. Coincidence?

I think so. In all these lands horses (or at least equestrian culture) come from somewhere. They aren't native. This probably ties into some Six Ages lore but I haven't had time to ponder that one yet. Horse isn't invited to Waha's covenant and the first time I see the Eneralites they're on the move south to get away from the triolini of Lake Nralar [misspelled "Nradar" in original]. But this is all pre-Darkness.

This doesn't rule out Galin being the foundation of Western horse worship. It's a very old city and I recall references to wild herds of Galanini ponies there in the dawn days. Eneral may not have fully appreciated who his father was until his children made it down to the Felster. 

Even at this time the Telmorites guard the Pass so it's possible that the Eneralites brought riding from the east, but Greg doesn't seem to have been thinking of this. All their migration routes spread out from Otkorion. Besides, Eneral's mother is a daughter of Ralia (no coincidence! for all I can see, "Ralios" is actually a cognate for "horse land," wide plain) so wherever Galanin comes from the Eneralites are definitely a local horde.

Divisive inheritance definitely seems to be a thing they share with the Pendalites. The sister might have been a Western Yelorna! But the difference between these two nations seems to be that the lion people work a little better across archaic kingdom lines whereas Greg lingers on how Eneralites were reduced to "a miserable condition of petty chieftaincies." 

Dari's father is not listed, possibly as befits the matriarchal nature of "Halikiv" in this layer of the texts. I have fought the ligature too and wouldn't be surprised if the weird rhyme between "Dari" and "Dan(g)" originated from a similar confusion . . . but Dari and Dang are already both here, separated by several centuries. Could be continued iterations of a tribal prophecy.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

I wonder whether the Hykim ancestry is the only way to be counted as a beast person. Does it include any burtae of Mikyh, too? Thinking of Storm Bull here, or the various pastoralist groups that later were Theyalanized and now have always been Orlanthi.
By the time of Halwal and Yomili, the subjugated Pendali (subjects?) had long become absorbed into the Seshnegi population (and likewise the Enjoreli bull folk into the Akemite populaiton).
All of the Pendali cities that were present at the Dawn were continued as Seshnegi cities, suggesting that the Pendali or at least their (Likiti? Likiti-descended?) subjects practiced some form of horticulture, agriculture and/or pastoralism that was compatible with the Malkioni methods.

This is where the Book of Foreigners gets weird. For one thing, I haven't seen Mikyh yet. As far as the Pendalite sources go, Hykim doesn't have a wife. However, the archaic Seshnegites had a lot of information about "Hykimi dragon people and rightful rulers of all Hsunchara [sic] in Hykimela," a Vithelan land that may no longer exist. These people were great sailors and made it as far west as Slontos, where contact could have been made. This is back in Genert times.

The Hykimites are the imperial totem in what we would call a Beast Confederacy but they might've called something like Hsun Chen: Vrimakite bird people [!], Damalites, Fralarites, Neralite sheep people, Sofalites. Various civil wars including an engagement with "krjalki, minions of Gbaji himself." 

The initial "kings of the Kralori," on the other hand, are Vrimakites.

They don't seem to have likiti there for what that's worth. Anyway, Hykim may only be the signifier of a certain form of totemic / lycanthropic society that made it down to Tanisor as well as possibly other places. In this model the Praxian Basmoli may not be the end of the eastward migration from ruined Pendalela so much as other children of Basmol by local mothers.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Promalte appears to be a heavily conjugated form of Primolt. Grandfather Sky.
The beast interactions are fairly numerous, only topped by his interactions with people:

I wonder which epithet Genert would have taken but I haven't had a chance to dig into the Ernaldite texts yet, maybe it's in there. There's another elemental nation "Wambla" in the feminine that might be an early storm tribe.

The Malkion animal stories are a personal obsession. Now that we can read them as the story of assimilating the Beast Confederacy it gets easier to discover the details. Too Awful To Think!

Edited July 14, 2019 by scott-martin
misspellings kill

[Joerg]

I wonder when and how Harmast interfered with the Arkatsaga, and when and how Palangio entered the picture. The Theyalan element to the Dari confederation seems to happen mostly off-screen from those stories about the Enerali that @scott-martin mentioned before.

The Battle of Night and Day gets presented in Troll Pak, but the Curse of Kin already gets mentioned in RQ1. That's only 2 years after the publication of WBRM (where all the pre-history of Dragon Pass was the Empire of the Wyrms' Friends, and the Crater covered much of the Pelorian bowl).

Aerlit is another early form of Orlanth, IMO (alongside Jonat's Resat, and the Enerali versions Humath and Erulat), and Damol could be a key experience if there is ever any Orlanthi activity in Seshnela, even though Damolsket and Damolsten are now part of the Luatha-controlled archipelago.

 

The absence of a moon goddess probably means absence of another celestial goddess than Annilla or Artia?

The Genertan wastes probably feature in Avalor's saga, and possibly in the Loper epic.

The Zistorite epic seems to draw on the Kingdom of Night and the EWF, which makes it in all likelihood a post-WBRM story.

33 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

I think we know from the Entekosiad that if Akemites made it this far past Oronin their exploits aren't recorded?

The Poralistor river folk did reach the Thunder Delta as they pushed that second outlet of the Sweet Sea eastward. They appear to be followed by a slightly different blue-skinned evil people - IMO the Vadeli after the Nidan uprising. The enemy of Bisos may have been of Vadeli or Waertagi origin.

Mt Turos was the City of Lodril to the Dara Happans, their far western outskirt, and would have had one of the celestial orbs hovering above, at least while the Old Man still was awake.

 

On the whole it is quite weird that the focus of published Glorantha is centered on the WBRM region rather than the previously explored lands. Sure, Greg sank much of Seshneg, Slontos and Kralorela with the fall of the God Learners, and had Snodal shatter Fronelan cohesion (later in the historical timeline, but as one of his earliest stories).

 

To saddle a different horse, around 1470 a clan of Grazelander pony breeders and their herd traversed Esrolia westwards, unwilling to accept the Feathered Horse Queen and female horse power. Any idea what happened to them, or whether they encountered the female-led Galanini clans of south-eastern Ralios?

 

[scott-martin]

12 minutes ago, Joerg said:

slightly different blue-skinned evil people

A tangent but a lot of the dawn age texts are full of pernicious "triolini" in the rivers and lakes eager to steal our princes if not engage in outright warfare. This culminates in versions of the tale of our friend Damol where Neleswal becomes a real problem for the likiti-oriented Serpent Kings . . . quite a few vadeli witches married into that family. 

And yeah, I see Aerlit show up around Damol in some sources. One of the dukes of Neleswal got deep into storm magic so the inheritance gets complicated . . . but even this might be simply a screen narrative for early encounters with "storm barbarians" in the forest. More to come, just grabbing the blue thread.

(blasphemy: the first zzabur wasn't blue)

[Joerg]

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Ouch. That does not sound fun.

The fun factor is quite limited, yes. It mostly manifests as grumpiness.

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

That is my Too Awful To Imagine theory there . . . the further north Snodal was driven, the closer to the original God Time the information he received becomes. The things they told him no longer existed in our Glorantha. Strange weather up there at the edge of the world.

Nah, that's a fun theory. For all that we know, the Altinae are an immortal race of human-shaped demigods, apparently compatible to the aesthetics of the Malkioni. (But then they were also fascinated by the (mortal) dragon-people of the east and their southern neighbors of Eest.)

 

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

But for our purposes it means that Snodal and Jonat were in place by 1967 and then he turned to work almost exclusively on the south until the mid-1970s. If not for the repetition of god names and concepts I wouldn't even be convinced they take place in the same world.

Where does Avalor fit in here? His journey starts as a God Learner ruler of Teshnos, but he ends up in Loskalm and encounters Halwal there.

 

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

I think so. In all these lands horses (or at least equestrian culture) come from somewhere. They aren't native.

Including Brithos?

As (cast out) celestial beasts, they (or their ancestors) could have made hoof-fall anywhere in the surface world, and multiple times. The pegasi apppear to be different from Hippogriff, but may have lost their wings to other enemies, too. Gamara loses her wings, but there is no mention of beak and claws.

A sky origin of Eneral and his horses is more or less in the stories already.

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

This probably ties into some Six Ages lore but I haven't had time to ponder that one yet.

I haven't taken a closer look there yet, either. I have no idea whether Greg provided the main outlines of those stories, or whether those are a contribution of David Dunham and Robin Laws to the Gloranthan lore base. The outline of the False Sunhorses bias of the Grazers against the Pentan horse nomad force that was fielded at Karnge Farm (Char-un or Redlands/Opili mercenaries?) suggests a hostility between the hyal breeding Grazers (and former Pure Horse People of Prax, whose other surviving descendants are the Zebra folk of Pavis and Prax) isn't evident in the Hyalorings of Six Ages, who are presented as cattle breeders much like the Opili or the Pol Joni.

Thankfully I don't need to assess canonicity any more...

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Horse isn't invited to Waha's covenant

But is horse present for Waha's covenant at all?

Waha's activity ranges as far west as Sounders River, from where he dug the Good Canal towards the Block, and Day's Rest where he collected Eiritha's daughters. The nearest horse riders were Ulanin the Rider's Orgovaltes of what we now call Sartar, part of the Unity forces and in no need to join the covenant in their wet and fertile homeland.

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

the first time I see the Eneralites they're on the move south to get away from the triolini of Lake Nralar [misspelled "Nradar" in original]. But this is all pre-Darkness.

The four lakes of Old Ralios are best described in this text:

https://www.glorantha.com/docs/the-enerali-circa-130-st/

The presence of Triolini in these freshwaters (at least on the surface) is somewhat different in concept from the presentation of Zaramaka's offspring in the Sourcebook, but then the Waertain mertribe appears to predate the Cetoi/Piscoi divide and the flight of the Vadrudi.

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

This doesn't rule out Galin being the foundation of Western horse worship. It's a very old city and I recall references to wild herds of Galanini ponies there in the dawn days.

Contrast this to https://www.glorantha.com/docs/safelster-in-the-first-age/ which states that the Seshnegi had a huge head start on horseback fighting over the Enerali (who were charioteers in warfare, and riders only in herding/hunting). Really makes me wish to read "Malkion and the horses" from the gospels... which probably means someone has to write this.

 

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Eneral may not have fully appreciated who his father was until his children made it down to the Felster.

The Galaninae are matriarchal clans, according to the Guide (p.383). Do we have any hint whether the western Enerali were patriarchal?

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Even at this time the Telmorites guard the Pass

High Llama Pass, I presume? Kartolin should not yet be in the picture, nor what might lie beyond. (Does Avalor give any hints on how he got from the Genertan Waste to Fronela?)

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

so it's possible that the Eneralites brought riding from the east, but Greg doesn't seem to have been thinking of this. All their migration routes spread out from Otkorion. Besides, Eneral's mother is a daughter of Ralia

That's a direct parallel to Ifttala as ancestress of the Pendali.

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

(no coincidence! for all I can see, "Ralios" is actually a cognate for "horse land," wide plain) so wherever Galanin comes from the Eneralites are definitely a local horde.

There are a couple of regions or countries in Glorantha ending on -os, and all of them are coastal (Slontos, Teshos, Vralos), except for Ralios, unless you count these four lakes as coastline. If Ralios also has the meaning of "horse", then I would modify your "horse land" to "horse shore", describing a habitat not unlike the Camargue.

Galin was identified as Galanin's birthplace in Genertela Box, but that tribal list of 130 ST only has the female form Galana among the deities listed there.

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Divisive inheritance definitely seems to be a thing they share with the Pendalites. The sister might have been a Western Yelorna!

Yes, that's a theory I already came across when discussing the Broken Council Guidebook with the authors. And the sister may be the origin of the matriarchal Galaninae clans of southwestern Safelster, including the queens of Galin.

Now, which of the Enerali tribes would have been the most likely horse riders to fight for the Second Council against the Pelorian Horse Warlords? (RQ2 Uz Lore p.14)

According to "Safelster in the First Age", the Enerali began their warfare against the Seshnegi armed with stone axes (and the apparent cultural level of the band ceramic/battle axe people of central Europe), then received the knowledge of bronze working from the Theyalans. This does reduce the advantage brought in by Dari's connection to Ormak Promalte you mentioned earlier with access to metal working, or rephrase it to include the Lightbringer missionaries and their technology.

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

But the difference between these two nations seems to be that the lion people work a little better across archaic kingdom lines whereas Greg lingers on how Eneralites were reduced to "a miserable condition of petty chieftaincies."

When Greg published his Seshnegi king lists on glorantha.com, he commented on his writings about the dynasties and independent kingdoms of the Pendali and how he felt that those numbers and organisations may have been way too exaggerated for Basmoli chieftains.

I had seen those kingdom lists as part of Hrestol's Saga earlier, and my explanation was an unnamed basal human population of Seshna worshipers who provided the agriculture or horticulture for their mixed blood Pendali overlords and their untainted Basmoli cousins who could have formed a second tier warrior nobility. The mixed blood royals and the peasants were absorbed into the Serpent King Seshneg and emerged as Malkioni after the counter-paganism of the late second and early third century.

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Dari's father is not listed, possibly as befits the matriarchal nature of "Halikiv" in this layer of the texts.

Leaving all options for divine paternity. Candidates include the Storm God, the Sun God, the Horse God and the Smith God.

This version of Dari bears some similarity to the role of Damol (as can be deduced between his mentions in the Guide, the Seshnegi King List and Revealed Mythologies).

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

I have fought the ligature too and wouldn't be surprised if the weird rhyme between "Dari" and "Dan(g)" originated from a similar confusion . . . but Dari and Dang are already both here, separated by several centuries. Could be continued iterations of a tribal prophecy.

Akin to Arkat / Argrath.

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

This is where the Book of Foreigners gets weird. For one thing, I haven't seen Mikyh yet.

Interesting. Any other cases of transgender identities?

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

As far as the Pendalite sources go, Hykim doesn't have a wife. However, the archaic Seshnegites had a lot of information about "Hykimi dragon people and rightful rulers of all Hsunchara [sic] in Hykimela," a Vithelan land that may no longer exist. These people were great sailors and made it as far west as Slontos, where contact could have been made. This is back in Genert times.

The Shan Shan (or Hsunchen mountains) protruded all the way south to Teleos. The Sofali are the best known Diroti among the Hsunchen/Fiwan, and the lost Diroti Sofali from the Seabird Army incident in the Orlanth lore must have been westerners for Sofala to be available as transport to Luathela. Possibly from around the Tanier estuary, destroyed before the colony of Frowal was established.

Who would have been the people in Slontos to receive them? Kin of the Olodo of Jrustela and Umathela?

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

The Hykimites are the imperial totem in what we would call a Beast Confederacy but they might've called something like Hsun Chen: Vrimakite bird people [!], Damalites, Fralarites, Neralite sheep people, Sofalites.

Neralite sheep has a similar sound to Nevala the (Esrolian/Theyalan) sheep daughter of Esrola.

Vrimakites aren't that surprising - a variation of that name appears in the God Learner systematic of beasts in Anaxial's Roster p.209, Mirakas the world bird, also on the next page Avarna the Flyer to complete the Dara Happan Vrimak and Avarnia couple. Oumarani the Phoenix doesn't ring a direct Dara Happan bell, but the Rinliddic names may have somehow made it to Zzabur. The Poralistor Waertagi are the most likely conduit.

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Various civil wars including an engagement with "krjalki, minions of Gbaji himself." 

Sounds like the Sekever wars in more recent publications (Revealed Mythologies, Guide).

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

The initial "kings of the Kralori," on the other hand, are Vrikimites.

Is this an alternate spelling of Vrimakites or does this reflect the rumored dragon hsunchen? "Vrikim" sounds like a conflagration of Vrimak and Hykim.

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

They don't seem to have likiti there for what that's worth. Anyway, Hykim may only be the signifier of a certain form of totemic / lycanthropic society that made it down to Tanisor as well as possibly other places. In this model the Praxian Basmoli may not be the end of the eastward migration from ruined Pendalela so much as other children of Basmol by local mothers.

Basically the roots of the Serpent Beast Brotherhood in the Guide, which I also blame for the Ralian Ancient Beast Society.

 

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

I wonder which epithet Genert would have taken

Earth Walker?

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

but I haven't had a chance to dig into the Ernaldite texts yet, maybe it's in there.

Any chance for those to be pre-WBRM?

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

There's another elemental nation "Wambla" in the feminine that might be an early storm tribe.

From the Slontos region, or further east?

8 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

The Malkion animal stories are a personal obsession. Now that we can read them as the story of assimilating the Beast Confederacy it gets easier to discover the details. Too Awful To Think!

Is there any hint of beast styles in the Malkioni warrior caste prior to the Pendali wars or on Brithos itself?

(And are any of the six tribes other than the Vadeli and the Waertagi mentioned in the pre-WBRM sources, or are these in all likelihood a product of the 1990ies/2000s, created in the course of creating the Stafford Library volumes?)

[scott-martin]

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

Nah, that's a fun theory. For all that we know, the Altinae are an immortal race of human-shaped demigods, apparently compatible to the aesthetics of the Malkioni. (But then they were also fascinated by the (mortal) dragon-people of the east and their southern neighbors of Eest.)

Too bad about the people of the Gates of Dusk. One day I hope to learn what the Altinelans want but the encounter we have is a little preliminary. I need to find Siglat so I can ask.

Here in the northern quarter there's a cryptic note that the Hykimites evacuated to the far north, "the lands of the gods . . . where they continue in their Golden splendor." This feels like an echo of the ultimate settlement of Ignorance but takes place in Genertan times.

The east:

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

Where does Avalor fit in here? His journey starts as a God Learner ruler of Teshnos, but he ends up in Loskalm and encounters Halwal there.High Llama Pass, I presume? Kartolin should not yet be in the picture, nor what might lie beyond. (Does Avalor give any hints on how he got from the Genertan Waste to Fronela?)
The Shan Shan (or Hsunchen mountains) protruded all the way south to Teleos. The Sofali are the best known Diroti among the Hsunchen/Fiwan, and the lost Diroti Sofali from the Seabird Army incident in the Orlanth lore must have been westerners for Sofala to be available as transport to Luathela. Possibly from around the Tanier estuary, destroyed before the colony of Frowal was established.Vrimakites aren't that surprising - a variation of that name appears in the God Learner systematic of beasts in Anaxial's Roster p.209, Mirakas the world bird, also on the next page Avarna the Flyer to complete the Dara Happan Vrimak and Avarnia couple. Oumarani the Phoenix doesn't ring a direct Dara Happan bell, but the Rinliddic names may have somehow made it to Zzabur. The Poralistor Waertagi are the most likely conduit.

 I mis-typed Vrimak early on but this is the familiar Bird King we've known about since the old days, only here enthroned at the dawn as dynastic god of Kralor and enemy of the Hykimites. Some wild bird people separate from the regime are evidently extant by the 70s ST (tiny marginal note, year 1 = solar time) and they can fly. If I were agitating for anything I'd make this the glorious lost homeland of the keets and their bedraggled western cousins. I'd also have this culture extend across to archaic Rinliddi (they can fly!) and seed various Pelorian quail / heron / stork cults . . . one striking thing about this material is that there are few civilizational walls, peoples are constantly encountering each other.

For example, the original people of Trowjang were apparently "Nagi," which was perhaps considered too reminiscent of the possibly Dravidian Naga people of Sri Lanka or just too snakey. He dropped the "N" and we're better for it. But a conflict of totemic systems in the east: which will be dominant, snake or bird? For all I know the mystic creature who would have bridged them might've looked something like Horse with wings, claws, etc. (A few Eneralite heroes had a flying horse.)

I have yet to see anything between Avlor's origins and when the Vetagi find him in the Mislari foothills and marvel at how anyone coming from that direction can have such good manners. (He wanders off again, presumably into the north where these documents don't really reach. There's a funny epilogue though where 250 years later Good Siglat Himself comes down to help them wipe out a krjalk incursion.)

There may be a lost pass at the turn of the Mislari and the Rockwoods to let any Lightbringer-connected Halikites in, Ethilrist out, etc. A surprising number of people get through there. Or Avlor may have befriended some "Tamalites" in Ezkoro Roko (Nakala + Tilnta appears to equal Troll, or at least whoever Xem's people were in Pasos) and gone under.

----------------

Horses: I'm abdicating all points on which I might be tempted to especially empty-headed speculation. But what I am starting to suspect is that the dawn age Eneralite culture (male Galanin, definitely patriarchal inheritance) is different from people who go back to Galana and are probably based in Galin. This may be an evolution of [Yelorna], Stygian project or god knows what else. Maybe later.

The south and the sea:

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

The presence of Triolini in these freshwaters (at least on the surface) is somewhat different in concept from the presentation of Zaramaka's offspring in the Sourcebook, but then the Waertain mertribe appears to predate the Cetoi/Piscoi divide and the flight of the Vadrudi.
Who would have been the people in Slontos to receive them? Kin of the Olodo of Jrustela and Umathela?
Any chance for those to be pre-WBRM?
From the Slontos region, or further east?

Yes, there's 45 pages of pre-WBRM "Ernaldela" (roughly contemporaneous with the sagas) but it only goes to the eastern edge of modern Maniria. The archaic Hykimites might have come to Kaxtor or visited the Entruli, Ramalians or other peoples. I am not optimistic about this material solving the Were Pig Question but we'll see. From my early skim pre-WBRM here means no Lightbringers, no Orlanth, no OOO but I may have missed something.

Generally "Triolina" is the classification for nymph at this point although the father of the Blue Vadeli takes "Wavmor" and I'm sure there are other variations. It seems broader than the modern ceto / pisco taxonomy. For one thing, Avmor marries a triolina back in Teshnos who is a daughter of Sramak Himself, which strikes me as pretty regal for an air-breathing ludoch, even a princess. Some of these entities may even be fresh murthdryans, which sounds bizarre but would help finally establish why the bestiary knows so much about these people even though they never appear in the sagas.

Wambla is the classification for Menena's mother in this particular variant, which is interesting because it speaks to the Malkionites as patrilocal exogamists where the bride's function is not only to produce children but, more exciting, to signify. Since I think a "Wambla" is a type of air spirit this might be an early introduction of storm blood into the family of Malkion. On the other hand it could just as easily be a non-likitite earth inheritance or even some people that has since died out elsewhere.

Which brings us to . . . 

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

When Greg published his Seshnegi king lists on glorantha.com, he commented on his writings about the dynasties and independent kingdoms of the Pendali and how he felt that those numbers and organisations may have been way too exaggerated for Basmoli chieftains.
I had seen those kingdom lists as part of Hrestol's Saga earlier, and my explanation was an unnamed basal human population of Seshna worshipers who provided the agriculture or horticulture for their mixed blood Pendali overlords and their untainted Basmoli cousins who could have formed a second tier warrior nobility. The mixed blood royals and the peasants were absorbed into the Serpent King Seshneg and emerged as Malkioni after the counter-paganism of the late second and early third century.
Is there any hint of beast styles in the Malkioni warrior caste prior to the Pendali wars or on Brithos itself?
(And are any of the six tribes other than the Vadeli and the Waertagi mentioned in the pre-WBRM sources, or are these in all likelihood a product of the 1990ies/2000s, created in the course of creating the Stafford Library volumes?)

My current long-term work posits an entire "aldryami" substrate that could easily support a surprising material culture without ever really leaving the forest. Before even the Beast Peoples emerge, they were already there. But I rarely get time to really pursue it so there isn't a whole lot to show beyond that basic point.

They had aldryami on Brithos but I don't see much sign of totemic organization there. One theory might be that the castes had already absorbed a lot of the totemic force by the time we meet them, so there isn't a lot of need for animal identifications in order to differentiate society. However, as caste populations fail to thrive, replacements are "adopted" in from subjugated animal peoples, bearing the marks of their heritage to rediscover given motive + opportunity.

I used to think the Children of Waertag were adopted in this way but now I lean toward them as the original people of Malkion and the classic caste peoples emerge through further cross breeding to create the modern "wareran" or West Genertelan race. But then half the time I think there was never such a thing as Brithos and everyone who talks about it is either describing an Other World experience or lying for profit. We're all malestini here except for a few extremely rarefied enclaves of weirdos. Time to get on with the hard work of living, dying and JOY.

But anyway even if there was a Brithos and people could still go there in the Dawn Times, the same questions apply to DANMALASTAN. Maybe there was a blessed triangle on the edge of the world and those people were our endlessly rarefied ancestors. I don't see any reference to them in these documents, which take great pains to differentiate three core religions: Seshna, Brithos, Malkion. Only much, much later does Malkion become the state religion of Seshnela and then after that the battered Tanisorians in their desperation try to emulate some austere dream of Brithos. 

And there was a blue nation in the south that fell.

Edited July 15, 2019 by scott-martin