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Does it have the rules for illumination? The rulebook said those would be in the Gamemaster's Guide along with a bunch of other rules.
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Sep 15, 2018 16:42
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Can men join the Babesteer Gor cult?
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Oct 27, 2018 04:06
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cheetah7071 posted:At the end of the quest, Orlanth will call most of the boys to his side, Ernalda most of the girls, and the rest of the new adults will be called to the side of the gods they show a special affinity for, but the PCs are going to get lost and end up talking to a true dragon instead, who will lay out the framework for the rest of the campaign (which I'll get to below). This sounds like there was some kind of God Learner/Empire of Wyrm Friends influence on the clan to make them so weird. Is that what you had in mind?
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Nov 2, 2018 00:11
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I can see Flamal having human worshippers as some off shoot of an Earth leaning clan but I don't think Zorak Zoran has non-troll worshippers. Humans who want to worship him get turned into trolls, and he doesn't seem to have positive relationships with non-Darkness gods. Plus his worshippers get turned into undead so he's going to come into conflict with Humakt.
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Nov 2, 2018 02:15
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The Carmanians follow a Dualistic Western faith and have been part of the empire since the beginning. I don’t know how much they’ve syncretized with the Lunar Way though.
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Dec 8, 2018 22:13
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Don't the Morokanth need to take someone else's thumbs?
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Nov 16, 2020 21:57
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I read the sourcebook then the guide, and I didn't get the significance of a lot of the stuff in there. Wait a bit before you try to read it, but the sourcebook is a great place to start.
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Jan 7, 2021 00:25
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reignonyourparade posted:An "orthodox" dragonnewt is basically impossible to play not so much because of the past lives thing but because they're too fuckin' weird and alien and atemporal. On the one hand you can just starve yourself to death after completing a quest, but on the other you have track down anyone using your corpse as equipment.
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Aug 13, 2021 01:32
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How has the difference between Elmal and Yelmalio been depicted in different rules? I know that Elmal is sometimes depicted with fire powers and other times he only has light, while Yelmalio seems to consistently only have light but sometimes can summon fire elementals to make up for that.
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Aug 29, 2023 20:03
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wiegieman posted:Elmal mostly comes up in A-Sharp's work on KoDP, Six Ages, and Six Ages 2. In case you didn't pick up on it, I'm an Elmal supporter who thinks that homogenizing the Orlanthi sun god into the Solar frontier god is lame (especially if you're doing it because you think computer games are Not Invented Here.) Elmal being the Orlanthi sun god does then raise the question of what the Lightbringer Quest was for, was it just to get Yelm to give up some of his power to make Elmal strong enough to fill in his father's role as the sun? If so it doesn't seem like he's making amends for his wrongs or compromising since he's giving his subordinate more power which means making himself more powerful. I've read a bit about the theory that the Lightbringer Quest was originally the Lifebringer Quest intended to resurrect Ernalda but that it supposedly got hijacked to bring back Yelm or something. Nanomashoes posted:Yelmalio also loving sucks mechanically in Runequest. His biggest spells are catseye and light wall, which are only really useful for fighting trolls. He doesn't even get Shield, despite being famed for his endurance. If you want a formation fighting god, Polestar is way better. That's why I was curious about how the two god have evolved mechanically. Discussions about them often bring up which is better mechanically as to why Elmal is better, which strikes me as rather irrelevant to the truth of the matter. I read something about how Yelmalio was weaker in the current Runequest rules than previously, he didn't have Shield and couldn't summon Fire Elementals like he used to &c. Someone also brought up Elmal not being able to summon Fire Elementals and being extremely hostile to the Sky pantheon because of his adoption into the Storm but I don't know if those were actual rules or just some head canon. wiegieman posted:There's no reason why Elmal has be be Yelmalio, either. Isn't the issue though that there's only one sun in the sky? There are lots of different wind patterns which move around, which is where all the different Storm gods who embody various winds come from but there's one atmosphere which is Umath. Do the Orlanthi or Dara Happans distinguish between when the sun is their sun helping them out and when it's the other guys's sun screwing them over as part of the normal environmental cycle?
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Sep 1, 2023 07:14
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wiegieman posted:The simple answer is that there have always been many suns, but Yelm is The Sun whose presence is necessary for cosmic order. Many of the Lesser Suns stepped in to try to do his job during the Darkness, but none of them were up to the task. Even Elmal could only protect his people with Orlanth's help, Yelmalio tried to be his father and failed. There were many suns in the God Time but in Solar Time there's only one while the other gods who were suns are other celestial bodies. Shargash served as the sun for a while but he's a planet now, Elmal/Yelmalio/Kargzant/Antirius are Lightfore. Also Shargash was totally up to the task, he managed to protect everyone and everything that was left after the other inferior suns failed. Do any of the cultures in ST think of the sun as being totally different gods based on the season or weather or whatever? Sky gods seem to have the hardest time being culturally relative because while an earth, storm, or water god can embody a specific local feature or area everyone looks up at the same sun and sky.
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Sep 1, 2023 23:53
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Narsham posted:Does getting rune points back (in the new system) come with the restriction that you can’t use your fire spell? In the new system Elmal doesn't have fire spells either.
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Sep 15, 2023 17:36
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Nessus posted:I would simply worship Humakt with my fellow ducks. No one in this thread is ready for the truth of Zorak Zorlanth.
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Sep 15, 2023 20:52
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Magnusth posted:Yeah, but this is both a coward's way, and a big difference from how glorantha used to do things. Like, "actually the god learners are right in the ways that matter" just makes glorantha worse. The idea that there is a single, definate truth, a pair of myths that are unquestionably true outside of your religious experience of them, is violence to the metaphysical foundations of glorantha. There may be general truths and relationships between powers, but a single true perspective or set of events. The Elmal-Is-Yelmalio explanation is that Yelmalio did Guard the Stead as part of his defense of the world during the Greater Darkness but not as Orlanth's subordinate, and that Elmal lost his heat powers while he Guarded The Stead. Also Yelmalio worshipers don't have a prohibition against wearing red in RQ:G. And there's a tension between Elmal being Orlanth's loyal thane and thus his subordinate and his worshippers being able to become Orlanthi kings. King of Sartar mentions that an Elmali tribe brought in a Yelm statue so they could use Sunspear to aid their rebellion against the king so the kernel of dissatisfaction with their mythically imposed role is there. And even if Elmal and Yelmalio are different gods with different myths who provide different spells via different runes to their cults Yelmalio is the stronger god whose cult provides better benefits. Benefits which allowed Monrogh Lantern to convince Elmal worshippers to switch to Yelmalio, and allowed them to defeat the Kitori and other enemies of the Kingdom of Sartar. So if Elmal gets to keep his fire powers then the rules should reflect that Yelmalio and his cult is more powerful. But when I see discussions of Elmal vs Yelmalio the idea that Elmal is stronger and therefore better keeps popping up and it seems to me that the point isn't just to say that Elmal has to be different from Yelmalio but he always has to be better in a mechanical sense or it isn't right.
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Sep 15, 2023 23:02
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Magnusth posted:These are bad explanations, because the myths are about different things. You can sort of shoehorn it in there, but myths, especially in glorantha, serve the explain the world, and Yelmalio's wandering, his defense of the world, and his trials at the hill of gold explain very different things than Elmal's myths of adoption, of loyalty to orlanth, and protection of the stead as Orlanth's thane. And, there's no indication in any of the versions of Defending the Stead that we have that Elmal would've lost his fire powers. If Elmal is a less complete understanding of Yelmalio then those myths can be seen as attempts to explain Yelmalio from an Orlanthi perspective that's concerned with framing his actions in a way that supports Orlanth's sovereignty instead of providing one where Yelmalio is neutral or opposed to Orlanth's rule. One of the things that I like about Yelmalio is that he's an inter-cultural god who bridges Storm and Solar cultures in a way that Elmal and Antirius don't so his myths about aiding various cultures in the Greater Darkness are more open to interpretation. Magnusth posted:There's no reason for this to need to be the case. Monrogh could have converted Elmali because some of them did align more with Yelmalio in terms of runes and strengths, because it was politically convenient, or because they preferred some aspect of Yelmalio life, or because some element of Yelmalio's mythos resonated with them. That's true, but that's true of everything in a fictional setting. You could just as well say that the creation of Elmal was a mistake in the first place and just retcon him away completely. The current canon though is that Monrogh Lantern proved that Elmal was Yelmalio by demonstrating greater powers via more complete myths. He isn't mentioned to have lost any powers so while Elmal and Yelmalio may have differed mechanically in the past, in lore they are at least the same and if there is any inequality in their powers it should be weighted in favor of Yelmalio. Which apparently is how the current rules are going to work once the relevant book is published with Elmal losing Yelmalio's gifts and geases and having slight differences in gaining spells from associated cults. Magnusth posted:Lastly, i've never seen anyone complain that Elmal's cult must be better than Yelmalio - in fact, i've often seen people claim that Yelmalio's cult writeup is lackluster - but rather that it should have access to fire magic because Elmali have always been portrayed that way, and unlike Yelmalio, there isn't a tradition of not having lost their fire magic or whatever. Have they? I know that he's had fire magic in a lot of his rule sets, and I don't have access to older books but from what I've read from other people it sounds like in some previous rules he's had Light instead of the Fire/Sky rune, not just the current RQ:G. In RQ:G Elmal also has the Truth rune but in some systems he doesn't and instead has (I think) the Stasis or Movement rune yet people don't seem to be as fired up about him losing those, they want Elmal to have fire powers because they want their characters to have fire spells. Gorelab posted:Also it feels weird that stronger magic would just make people want to leave their clans and tribes so fully. If the stronger magic comes from having a more complete understanding of your god then that would, and did, convince many. There was also apparently a civil war going on because many Elmali were dissatisfied and being stirred up by the Lunars and Monrogh's revelation provided a political solution because Yelmalio is neutral to Orlanth instead of owing allegiance so it allowed the former Elmali to assert their autonomy in a way that didn't challenge the Kingdom of Sartar's Orlanth derived authority. This is coming from Jeff Richard though so take that how you will. White Coke fucked around with this message at 01:39 on Sep 16, 2023 |
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Sep 16, 2023 01:34
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Rand Brittain posted:The thing is, "people are leaving Cult A for Cult B because it's politically convenient" is an interesting story. So is "people are leaving Cult A because Cult B has a charismatic leader who gives access to better magic," or "people are leaving Cult A because Cult A is being suppressed and Cult B isn't." wiegieman posted:Yelmalio lacks fire magics because he represents the denuded war magic skills of the Pelorian people in the wake of Yelm's death, the war of many suns, and the invasion of the various barbarian peoples. The myth is the history, and the history is the myth; they are intertwined. Yelmalio's myth is about enduring defeats and remaining unchanging. As Antirius, he represents reactionary responses to internal challenges to Imperial rule. People keep claiming that Elmal and Yelmalio's myths are totally different but to me they seem to have a lot of overlap so if you think that they have irreconcilably different meanings then you can interpret them that way but as written in the canon of the official publications their myths are similar enough that most Elmali have switched over. This and also this are an interesting explanation of the broader context of the transition from Elmal to Yelmalio. "Yelmalio was the alternative to Yelm, rather than the alternative to Elmal." is an interesting point. I've only come to the setting recently so I don't feel strongly about defending an earlier retcon as the way it's supposed to be versus a later retcon. That said I'm also not opposed to them being different gods with Monrogh tricking Elmal worshippers with Lunar illumination tricks or some other explanation. But my perspective is colored by seeing discussions about Elmal vs. Yelmalio end up talking about how they want the official rules to allow their Elmal worshipping character to be able to use fire spells without having to create their own non-canon Glorantha at odds with the published rules. Gorelab posted:Elmal's been fire and truth in everything he's been fully written up in too until RQG. I don't have a copy, but I found a post on another forum saying that on page 45 of Storm Tribe he has Light not Fire. Can anyone confirm? Here it doesn't list any runes for Elmal in Storm Tribe. If he did have the Light rune in Storm Tribe then it'd mean he didn't have Fire in his first published set of rules. wiegieman posted:In Heroquest terms, Yelmalio is <Light> <Stasis> <Truth>, while Elmal is <Sun> <Movement> <Truth>. Aside from their different runes, Yelmalio gives geases that can be followed for increased power and teaches various phalanx tricks, whereas Elmal is part of the storm tribe and has access to associate magic from it while teaching cavalry magic, but both are powerful defenders. According to the list he also doesn't have Movement in Heroquest so I'm really curious about his write up in Storm Tribe.
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Sep 16, 2023 03:44
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Gorelab posted:Looking it up: Elmal in Hero Wars just had a personal run which was a sun. This isn't that uncommon in Hero Wars and a lot of various gods have something like that, which can be seen in the entire Lunar book where literally every god just has a unique rune which powers are hanging off. In Heroquest and it's derivatives it's all Fire and Truth. I wonder where that poster got the idea he had Light then. In Hero Wars did Elmal have fire spells? wiegieman posted:Yelmalio (or Antirius) has the Light rune, which is the Fire rune without a dot in the middle -- he is the shed light that lingers, but not a source of warmth. He is not a god of easy times. Except for in RQ:G where he has the Fire rune but can only use Light spells. And in Sartar, Kingdom of Heroes. Lodril also sometimes has the Heat rune, other times Earth or even Fire. TGG posted:All of this would be solved if we just put our faith in Gustbran who came to us all as the Many Fires in the Darkness, the Lord of Smiths, Greatest of the Lowfires, who shall repair the world and light the way in darkest winter. Would you like to hear the good word of Zorak Zorlanth?
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Sep 16, 2023 07:21
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Magnusth posted:Hey, first, sorry if I came off a little aggressive. Elmal is dear to my heart and I'm used to fighting old grognards about it, so apologies if I came out swinging. Funny you say that, because my impression was that the people defending Elmal were the grognards upset that things were being changed from how they used to (and should) be. I guess it's all a matter of how long one is in the fandom. I didn't see you as coming out swinging or anything like that, so no need to apologize. Magnusth posted:Remember, myths aren't just things you learn, they're things you do, things which are manifest around you in the social and physical world. Sometimes, it makes sense that a myth may be a leaser understanding of another, if it represents a less complete understanding and explanation of the world around you, but Elmal and Yelmalio represent very different things. There's some truth to that seeing as how Elmal was originally the sun and not the sun's light like Yelmalio is, but I don't think that it's a stretch to say that his myths can easily be re-contextualized to fit within broader Yelmalio myths. The Orlanthi are concerned with integrating a foreign god-and his worshippers-with a rival claim to be ruler of the world into their society in a subordinate role so they only tell of the times where Elmal helped the Orlanthi, and emphasize that he wasn't doing this as an equal sovereign or free agent but as a willing subordinate. Where Yelmalians see contractual payment Orlanthi see a swearing of fealty. The Orlanthi don't care about Yelmalio helping the elves or other non-Storm peoples, in fact they want the opposite because Elmal having loyalty and obligations beyond Orlanth challenges their desired hierarchy. If Elmal is supposed to be the sun then as I said previously I think it makes Orlanth and the Lightbringer's Quest less interesting and compelling since instead of bringing back his slain enemy and trying to work things out he's taking power from a defeated foe in order to make his own subordinate more useful in order shore up his own rule of the cosmos. It's exactly the sort of thing a proud Orlanthi would want to gloss over, just like a Yelmite is going to want to downplay Yelm's agreement to compromise, but however much they want to ignore it the world is split between Sky and Storm, and now Moon too and that's the way the gods made it. Magnusth posted:To be clear, what I meant was simply that it doesn't have to be true that Yelmalio is more powerful because he was able to convert people. I'll comment on the mechanics and powers stuff a little further down. But is there any reason he shouldn't be stronger? I ask this because another common refrain I've encountered is that Elmal is better/stronger because he wasn't beat up like Yelmalio was at the Hill of Gold. It reminds me of Virgin vs. Chad memes. In fact that's another commonly raised point I've seen, Yelmalio the incel virgin vs. Elmal the happily married family man. So much of the discussion that I've seen hinges not just on how they're different but that Elmal is better both as a person and as a source of mechanical benefits. So I admit I'm suspicious of Elmal defenders as people who want to eat their cake and have it too, that they want Elmal to be quantifiably better as well as a wholly different entity. This might all just be in my head but that's where I'm coming from. Given how Monrogh's revelation is described it seems to me that the intention is that he proved Elmal is Yelmalio by demonstrating greater powers derived from a more complete understanding of who Elmal really was. And so I wonder then that if in compromise people would be willing to accept having Elmal given separate status but at the cost of his implied inferiority made explicit. Magnusth posted:So, I went and looked this up. Storm tribe doesn't list Elmals runes, because HW makes different assumptions about how gods and runes work. His personal rune is called the sun rune, but doesn't match the "modern" sun rune, the circle with the dot. That rune is used in HW, but as far as I can tell, only as Yelm's personal rune. I thought elves loved Yelmalio because his light allowed plants to grow without the risk of heat causing them to burn? And that he had some frost resistance powers gained from his fight with Inora on the Hill of Gold? Also I don't find "he's always been this way so he should always be this way" a compelling argument given how much the setting has changed, such as the creation of Elmal himself. If the setting can't be changed in any way that might make existing fans dissatisfied then I think it'd be a less interesting one. The Malkioni would still be heavily based on medieval Europe, the Orlanthi would be vikings, and those who want Kralorela to be something other than orientalist fantasy China are out of luck because some people like it the way it is. But on the other hand I do think that there's a desire to sweep Elmal under the rug in RQ:G which I think is a mistake because it alienates fans of Elmal while also eliminating some interesting potential storylines from the game. I think that you can still have all the original interpretations of Elmal's myths but that they become more interesting because now they can also be seen in a new light cast by Yelmalio's versions too. There are some devout Elmali who still worship him and don't just call Yelmalio Elmal, and I'd like to learn more about them and how they've coped with the revelation and subsequent changes. To sum up my position I'd say that I think that Elmal-is-Yelmalio is a (at least potentially) more interesting option than having them be two completely separate gods, but that more should be done with Elmal even though I think there isn't going to be much done with him in the current system. radmonger posted:The Elmal subcult of Yelmalio, when it’s published, will very likely be associated with Yu-Kargzant or someone, and so have Firespear (which is in the Red Book of Magic, but not taught by any published cult write up). Isn't Firespear a spell Lodril grants? It would be a neat way to differentiate Elmal from Yelmalio though if Elmal gets Firespear because Orlanth gave him his spear back while Yelmalio gets Sunspear because he didn't sever his connection to Yelm.
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Sep 16, 2023 22:00
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wiegieman posted:The dissatisfaction the Elmal fans have for the current Elmal/Yelmalio situation, as I see it, comes down to three(ish) points: 1. The Dragon Pass Sun Domers are converted Elmali. Their culture is different from their previous Orlanthi culture but it's something they evolved into, and they were already adopting Dara Happan cultural practices like different plows and bringing in Yelm based objects of worship before they were Yelmalio worshipping. 2. The Elmali were already rebelling against the Orlanthi polity of Sartar due to Lunar influence and greater contact with the Yelm worshipping Dara Happan culture of Peloria. Worship of Yelmalio was seen as a way of solving that conflict by shifting from a god hostile towards Orlanth to one who was neutral. The break had already been made 3. Those games are about playing Elmali, but how many people are buycotting them for that reason as opposed to just playing Glorantha games, or buying them while ignorant of the setting and the metaphysical debate? And Six Ages is still on part two of six right? Who knows what the status of Elmal will end up being when the game is done. Josef bugman posted:The war of the suns is also something that can be appealed to. Some revelaitons and other Gods can be similar but not the drat same. Either Elmal is the Orlanthi Lightfore which means he's a parallel for Yelmalio, or he's the sun which means he's the Orlanthi parallel to Yelm (or he's some other, third, thing but if that's the case then what planetary body is he and why would that grant him the Fire rune?). If Elmal remained the sun in S.T. then the Lightbringer quest wouldn't have resurrected Yelm but instead have empowered Elmal to restore the world enough that it wasn't going to die (or they just had to bring back Ernalda with the Lifebringer quest and Yelm didn't need to come back or cede his power to Elmal). The Orlanthi don't see two suns where everyone else sees one after all, either the Big Sun was resurrected or he wasn't. This would mean that the Storm pantheon has fully integrated the sun into theirs in a clearly subordinate role, whereas the Sky pantheon hasn't integrated the Storm gods in the same way because they haven't subordinated the storm system that represents Orlanth and instead keep trying to find ways to eliminate him like the Windstop. It makes the Sky vs. Storm conflict one direction since the Orlanthi only need to defend themselves against Sky aggression and also means that the Orlanthi are "right" since they had a holistic cosmology that has a place for everything until the Red Moon screwed everything up.
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Sep 17, 2023 18:56
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I found this Greg Sez about Yelmalio and it's an interesting read because it talks about how Yelmalio has been known by different names in previous ages so it's up in the air as to whether the current Yelmalio is the same Yelmalio as has been previously worshipped. One section that addresses the question of why Elmali shifted to worshipping Yelmalio states: quote:In Sartar the great hero Monrogh established the cult. He originally worshipped Elmal, the sun of the Orlanthi pantheon, but followed other lights and entered into doctinal disputes with the Orlanthi priests who normally ranked over the sun. Monrogh was challenged by Prince Tarkalor of Sartar to reveal his god who was stronger than Elmal, and he revealed Yelmalio. As proof, Monrogh led the conquest of the Kitori, and Tarkalor granted him the wide conquered lands to honor and recognize the new god and his worshippers. A few thouand people departed from the worship of Elmal and converted to Yelmalio, then left their homelands and settled in the new grant by the Creekstream River.
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Sep 18, 2023 16:38
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Tias posted:If you want to keep Elmal as a separate deity, just give him those powers and say they are gifted from associate cults that jive better with his specific mythology. That'd let people play the kind of Elmali character they want, with fire spears and arrows, but it wouldn't solve the issue for those who want Elmal to be the sun and not Lightfore. It isn't enough to say that they're different beings, Elmal needs to have different (and de facto better since Light is a component of Fire) runes and be a different (and more important) planetary body.
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Sep 19, 2023 17:27
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Nanomashoes posted:Six Ages 1 has Elmal being the sun as rather core to its plot. I haven't played Six Ages yet myself but doesn't it add in extra suns like Yonesh the Cold Sun (Cold Sun being one of the titles of Yelmalio) as well as a Little Yelm (implicitly Yelmalio)? Are we to take any canon conflicts between Six Ages and RQ:G as always being resolved in favor of Six Ages? If Elmal is the sun then there's an interesting interplay between him, Yelm, and Yelmalio because while he fills the same physical role as Yelm his mythology is closer to Yelmalio's since both of them are sons of Yelm who tried to fill his role after Orlanth killed him, but were unable to so well enough. What's been interesting for me rereading King of Sartar as well as finding other material like that Greg Sez from 2000 that I posted earlier is that it was the influence of Yelm that disrupted the Elmali and led to the dissension and dissatisfaction which paved the way for Monrogh's revelation. Whenever there was contact between Dragon Pass and Dara Happa there was a one sided cultural transfer because Yelm both provided more powerful magic and was not subservient to Orlanth but claimed to be his superior. So Monrogh's revelation grew out of him trying to find the truth about Elmal, to see if he could still be worshipped instead of Yelm. Maybe he was wrong to say Elmal is Yelmalio but he found the only viable alternative since, per what Greg Stafford wrote, Yelmalio was more powerful than Elmal which proved he wasn't just imposing a weaker god on the Elmali in order to neuter their capacity to resist the kingdom of Sartar but he also satisfied their desire for a god who could be an equal of Orlanth without being his enemy like Yelm is. As for the cultural differences between the Sun Domers and the Dragon Pass Orlanthi, they were already diverging and Monrogh and his converts were former Elmali so they made the culture they wanted and were already moving towards.
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Sep 19, 2023 19:51
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Magnusth posted:Elmal is the Sun God, but no one claims, to my knowledge, that he is the sun disk, that's Yelm. Most myths describe Elmal carrying or guarding the Sun; the guide mentions him as 'the sun stallion' and as a horse carrying the sun on his back. Book of Heortling mythology describes the lightbringers quest and mentions Elmal 'riding his chariot again' after Orlanth returns. They all describe Orlanth going to the underworld and making peace with Yelm and agreeing to the compromise an bringing him back etc. So he's the sun god but he's not the sun itself and instead helps fulfill its functions and protect it? Isn't that similar to the role of Lightfore gods who represent the sun's light and serve as intermediaries? Magnusth posted:Honestly this is more about the culture of Yelmalions, who have traditionally been described as having a giant stick up their rear end, being misogynist pricks, having sexual prohibitions, etc. You know, being extremely hatable in general. He also happens to have really weak mechanics in RQ:Q, and i think most people - even ardent Elmalaboos like myself - think he should have something better. (Seriously, how does he not have an auto-ressurect spell? or any useful combat magic?) I don't think Yelmalio should be worse than Elmal mechanically, because i don't think any god should be a trap option, and as for which god could beat who in a fight, i... why would i possibly care? The Orlanthi culture is awful too with human sacrifice, slavery, lynching, endemic raiding & warfare, and legalized murder. Not to mention its own strict gender roles even if they are more flexible than the Sky pantheon's. And as for which god could beat which in a fight, the gods aren't all equal in their power. It goes to the conflict between Sky and Storm in God Time and the struggle between Storm and Moon in Solar Time. Elmal is the Loyal Thane because he's weaker than his father Yelm, who was killed by Orlanth which made Orlanth king of the world. Yelmalio lost his powers because he was beaten and robbed by various gods but nonetheless persevered. And if the hate-ability of different gods' worshipers' cultures is to be considered why not the relative power of the gods themselves? If the only way to avoid having gods be trap options is to make them equally capable of winning a fight, then I don't see how that can be done without severe homogenization. Magnusth posted:Sure, but what is gained by flattening Elmal and Yelmalio, on insisting on them being one god? I know what's lost: a rich vein of Elmali history and mythology, a particular niche in Orlanthi society, a type of character many enjoy playing, a more complex relationship between the Orlanthi and sun worshippers, and more interesting variety among the clans and tribes. I do not see what is gained. You gain and lose whichever decision is made, but there are still Elmali clans and the Elmali myths are still around. Elmal is going to be a playable sub-cult in an official publication. Magnusth posted:According to Jeff, you are a wierdo pervert and cast out of the cult because the truth is so obvious and everyone knows it and you probably smell too. I can't say I've seen him say anything that vehement, but I have seen him get frustrated at and confused by "Elmalaboos" litigating the same fight over and over again which is going to wear down anyone if they deal with it long enough. And he's the one who allowed the Elmal subcult to be included when it's within his rights to just retcon Elmal out completely. Magnusth posted:I mean, all it says is that he was challenged to show a god stronger than Elmal and presented Yelmalio as the answer, and then proved it through military might. But, like... Monrogh being able to conqour poo poo doesn't make Yelmalio nessecarily stronger than Elmal, it just makes Monrogh a powerful hero. Note that that quote also specifically casts Yelmalio as not Elmal - a separate god, and people departed one for the other. The military might was a demonstration of Yelmalio's superior power relative to Elmal's. It came from Yelmalio's power, and if it was Monrogh's abilities as a Hero that accomplished it then Yelmalio was the one providing him those powers, powers which he didn't have when he worshipped Elmal. It's true that that quote speaks of them as separate gods, but also gods with a clear difference in relative power. Why is one part open to interpretation but the other not? Why must Elmal be at least the equal of Yelmalio when there is a direct statement they aren't? Magnusth posted:I do just want to point out here, that the reason we want Elmal to be a sun god isn't because the sun is more important than the Lightfore, it's because he's always been the sun god and makes sense as the sun god, and most importantly because Elmal, as a whole, defines a very interesting and fun niche in Orlanthi society. He wasn't always the sun god, he was retconned in. When he was introduced he was brought in as the Orlanthi sun god because someone asked who the Orlanthi sun god was before they made contact with Dara Happa. Lodril has had a bunch of different runes, should he only ever have Heat and Disorder? Why then does he need Fire in order to be loyal? Wouldn't Truth be the more important rune for that? If he was able to get all of his iconic fire spells through associated cults, or lost them completely, would that make him any less of a Loyal Thane?
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Sep 19, 2023 23:52
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reignonyourparade posted:No, because the lightfore gods represent a explicitly separate celestial object. The relationship between Lightfore and the sun is varied based on different culture's views. According to this some see Lightfore as pulling or carrying the sun. If Lightfore is the portion of the sun that didn't die, then one theory I've read is that during the day it merges back with the sun but doesn't head to the underworld at night. Rand Brittain posted:This all seems like a lot of minutiae when the only really important thing is "the Storm pantheon should be allowed to have its own sun god rather than having a sun god who they think is part of their pantheon, but really belongs to the Sky pantheon, because they are dumb." Even if some things in the setting are mysterious or May Vary, they should at least be allowed to have their own book presented from their perspective, rather than having Elmal "cut for space" from a book he's already in. The current Orlanthi perspective though is that Elmal is Yelmalio except for a few conservative hold outs. Monrogh didn't just convince Elmali that Elmal was Yelmalio, he also convinced the Orlanthi including the prince of Sartar which is why they were granted some of the Kitori land after they conquered it. If the books were about an earlier period then Elmal should be included in the Lightbringer's cult book, but they don't have rules for extinct sub cults like Orlanth Dragonfriend either (although I only skimmed through and might have missed it). And they weren't being stupid, a lot of knowledge was lost in the Great Darkness and it was over time through contact with other cultures that survived which increased their knowledge of the gods. Even gods like Orlanth are kind of composites from the gods of various small Orlanthi communities that survived. Vinga is another example, she's either the daughter of Orlanth or the female aspect of Orlanth. Likewise Elmal was based on the best understanding they had of Yelmalio, and given how many times Yelmalio has been rediscovered and suppressed he should be presented as one of the weirdest gods around as it is. Elmal was their Lightfore god but they mostly don't see him in just the role of the Loyal Thane anymore in the present day of the game. And while Yelmalio is a Sky pantheon god he isn't exclusively one. Yelm is his father but isn't his liege in the way Orlanth is Elmal's. Yelmalio helped many different cultures in the Darkness but then he'd either have to have his rules copied into a bunch of different books or just stuck in one, the Sky pantheon makes sense since he does have strong ties to them. Kestral posted:this Jeff character makes me a wee bit concerned about non-Stafford influences. The complaint I see a lot about Jeff seems to be that he's hewing too closely to Stafford's early works which is why he pushes the Elmal-is-Yelmalio position since Elmal didn't exist in early versions of Glorantha. I think a lot of the early material about Elmal comes from the video game King of Dragon Pass which I don't think Greg Stafford had a lot of direct involvement in, although Stafford did first come up with Elmal but also came up with the Elmal-is-Yelmalio retcon too.
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Sep 20, 2023 03:31
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wiegieman posted:There's a lot of copying and pasting on glorantha products. Even the new cult books, while they have great art, use a lot of copy verbatim from old cult writeups in previous editions. The issue is how many of the current line of books would have identical, or nearly so, entries published. Ernalda isn't in the Lightbringer's book even though she's important to the Orlanthi pantheon. Likewise there'd be Elmal or Yelmalio in the Lightbringers, Yelmalio in the Solar book, and maybe Yelmalio in the Earth and Lunar books too. Magnusth posted:The lightfore is a separate celestial body, which aahas a different function and role. That said, I don't mind Elmal having lightfore associations, of it isn't in the service of just turning him into Yelmalio. But Elmal is also very strongly associated with the sun as it rises at dawn. The exact role of the Yellow Planet is mysterious, what it does varies by culture, and isn't entirely clear in or out of universe. My issue with the Lightbringer's Quest regarding Elmal being the true sun is that it means Orlanth doesn't have to give anything up for the Great Compromise beyond what all the gods did by segregating themselves in the God Time. He kills Yelm and gets to remain king of the world without having to unhappily share dominion of it with Yelm. Magnusth posted:Sure, I'm just saying, this is one of the reasons people consider Elmal to be the proverbial Chad compared to Yelmalio. That, and a lot of people consider Elmal guards the stead a much cooler myth than Yelmalio and the hill of gold. The Sun Domes are all autonomous from each other and they don't have the exact same cultures or rites. If all the Sun Domes in Dragon Pass are misogynistic assholes then it's because the Elmali were misogynistic assholes before they converted, either due to northern solar worshipping influence or by being less egalitarian than non-Elmali Orlanthi because of their solar heritage. I think Jeff Richard said that the Praxian Sun Dome is particularly bad but isn't normative, and that Dragon Pass Sun Domes would be written in such a way to clarify that. Do Elmali tribes lynch more tricksters on average than other tribes because they don't have as many Orlanth initiates to protect the tricksters? Do they cause more damage to the homes and crops of those they raid with their fire weapons? Magnusth posted:I don't really see why I, or anyone else should care about space battle level rankings of gods. Greg Stafford literally said that Mongrogh proved Yelmalio was more powerful than Elmal and then confirmed that proof by subjugating the Kitori. Not that Yelmalio's cult was more powerful than Elmal's. If anything his cult would probably have been weaker since it took some time for the majority of Elmali to convert. It's not just a frivolous question, like who would win in a fight between Anne Frank and Lizzie Borden, but what statements from the creator of the setting you think should be regarded as canon forming. And if it is frivolous why defend the honor and integrity of Elmal in such a silly contest where he stand to gain nothing by winning? Magnusth posted:No one is claiming this? But also, "what magic you can draw from a cult as a worshipper" and " how strong the god is in some objective way" are at best indirectly linked. So Yelmalio could be stronger than Elmal as Greg Stafford said, but could still provide weaker magic to his worshippers than Elmal does. Although I would dispute that given how Yelmalio's greater strength is directly correlated to defeating the Kitori. Magnusth posted:I'll comment on the Elmali clan stuff below, but if you think something is gained, go ahead - what is gained by insisting that Elmal is Yelmalio at a 100% objective, uncomplicated fact? Elmal, and Elmali clans are still around in the canon and even the present time of the setting. Elmal's myths are still true to an extent and can be heroquested. Elmal's worshippers didn't lose all access to their magic after Monrogh's revelation. You can play an Elmali who rejects the fact that Elmal is Yelmalio a go on all sorts of adventures based on that belief, but still receive spells and recover rune points because your character's understanding of their god is still kind of right. Magnusth posted:Let's quote the man himself. That's rather venomous, but he seems to have changed his mind since he's going to make Elmali playable. Magnusth posted:The quote simply says that Monrogh offered his conquest as proof, and I'm happy to accept that at that time, for Monrogh, Yelmalio was a stronger god than Elmal. But "this one guy once conqoured some people" is hardly compelling evidence that Yelmalio is, always and as an objective fact stronger than Elmal. But you're the one insisting on a hard, objective hierarchy of gods that doesn't exist or need to. Greg Stafford said he was stronger not some in-universe, limited perspective, highly biased source. The guy who made up Elmal, Yelmalio, and lot of other stuff. In fact was there ever a point when Stafford said Elmal and Yelmalio were wholly different gods without any connection? I was trying to find that out the other night and what I found said that Elmal first appeared in King of Sartar but that so did Monrogh's revelation. I have the revised edition so I can't verify if that's true but if it is then from the very beginning of his creation he was tied to Yelmalio. Magnusth posted:Again, what is gained by this specific change? Elmal's light or fire rune isn't an incidental versioning difference, it's a part of a push for a specific, simplified, and boring version of glorantha. There's something to be said for creating specific, simplified, and boring versions of things to get new people involved by making it more friendly and accessible. And just in general trying to clean things up and clarify them is good. Magnusth posted:He needs fire because he is mythologically the sun god and his major myths include him burning and cleansing things. His fire and brightness is a part of his main mythology and iconography. He is the friendly sun, the warrior sun, and that's an important part of his mythology. He's the sun god, but he isn't the solar disk right? Yelmalio is known as "the Winter Sun" and "the Cold Sun" but he isn't literally the sun. Yelmalio can get Sunspear from associating with Yelm so maybe Elmal got fire powers from other associated cults. Or maybe he used to have fire powers but lost them after the Sunstop or some other sun based magical experimentation gone wrong (or right).
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Sep 20, 2023 21:42
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Magnusth posted:I don't really see why I, or anyone else should care about space battle level rankings of gods. Something else that occurred to me is that the God Learners were the ones who systematized the runes and spread them around with their empire right? So early Elmal worshippers wouldn't have had a strong understanding of the differences between the Light and Fire runes because those would've been foreign concepts to them until at least the Second Age, if not later given that Dragon Pass was under the control of the EWF. And if Monrogh's proof of Yelmalio's greater power was actually just him being a very strong hero, and that by performing the Hill of Gold 'wrong' a Yelmalian can gain fire powers, and if Elmal Guards the Stead is a variation of the Hill of Gold (as per modern canon) then perhaps the fire magic Elmali had access to is a result of them doing the Hill of Gold 'wrong' institutionally, and since there is such a large body of Elmal worshippers who have access to fire magic they don't realize Elmal lost it. I saw someone mention that the blessings Elmal provides a tribe in KoDP don't have anything to do with heat and from what I can see that seems true. After all the Cold Sun can help crops grow without providing any heat. So while individual Elmali have a standardized way to gain access to fire magic and they tell myths mentioning Elmal's heat it doesn't mean that Elmal has to have the Fire rune in order to explain why his worshippers can shoot fire arrows and use fiery spears. reignonyourparade posted:Having Yelmalio and also Elmal is not remotely inaccessible though. Speaking from my own experience, finding out about the Elmal holdouts was and is a strange experience. If the game's canon was changed to contradict what its creator wrote in order to satisfy the fans with a very strong attachment to a video game, and then new players were to learn about how Elmal was Yelmalio until the game designers catered to a specific group of fans in order to make them happy even though it went against what Greg Stafford wrote I imagine they'd be even more confused. Rand Brittain posted:That sounds incredibly patronizing. What's the alternative? The game saying that Monrogh might have been wrong about proving Elmal is Yelmalio? Or does the game need to say Monrogh is a liar and Lunar puppet who tricked the naive and virtuous Elmali into worshipping a wimp? Or maybe Monrogh's revelation and all of the attendant history and metaphysics need to be removed so that no possibility exists of anyone thinking there's any official sanction to the idea Elmal is Yelmalio? Because this argument isn't about some peoples' home-brew settings. It's about the official game canon which people obviously care about given how much people have argued about how Elmal needs to be a distinct god and have taken issue with the direction Jeff Richard is taking the current version. Since the game's canon is being fought over then of course some people are going to feel offended, ignored, and patronized because their preferences aren't going to be elevated over other peoples' and given official sanction. But you can't just flip a switch and have Elmal no longer be Yelmalio without it creating a host of other issues. Shargash-is-Tolat sounds similar to Elmal-is-Yelmalio. The Friendly Sun is the sun, but The Winter Sun isn't at all. Do Pentans worship Humakt or North War Wind (or Hueymakt)? &c. TGG posted:
Isn't Humakt worshipped in Carmania, and don't the gods the Carmanians worship have Light and Dark aspects? It's funny how both Yelmalio and Humakt are Truth gods whose worshippers serve as mercenaries, seems the only real truth in Glorantha is that only money matters. Josef bugman posted:I do prefer the six ages version of all of this. I do wonder how the game is going to deal with Monrogh's revelation in the Third Age. Hopefully they don't take a cowardly route and end before the timeline gets to that point. Based on what people have said about the depictions of Elmal and Yelmalio they haven't shied away from the conflict but haven't definitively taken a side. My guess is that the player's clan will have the choice of switching over to Yelmalio and that whatever decision they make will be the 'correct' one. What I'm more interested in though is how the First and Second Ages will be depicted. I hope we get to see the Bright Empire and Empire of Wyrm Friends in all their illuminated madness along with how the Elmali deal with the Yelmalios of those periods, Daysenerus and Tharkantus.
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Sep 21, 2023 18:37
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Magnusth posted:Okay, I'm going to deal with this first. You insist on some bizzare space battle ranking, so let's engage. I'm going make two claims here: one, Greg did not say what you're claiming he said, Two, the question is nonsense on the first place. I keep bringing up the 'bizarre space battle rankings' because I think you keep dismissing what seems to me such a direct statement about not just their relative power but what established the link between Elmal and Yelmalio. I don't care about a grand unified theory of who can beat whom. I first brought up the relative strength of the two because I had seen the opposite argued, that Elmal was stronger than Yelmalio and that that was proof of their difference and then I discovered something from Stafford which said that they were the same because they were unequal. The article you posted was very interesting and had some quotes of particular interest like: quote:Worship is critical because it is the conscious merger of the unchangeable gods and the always-changing mortals. and quote:Orlanth also collects collateral worship through the sacrifices made to Worlath, an inferior manifestation of him. Magnusth posted:And now that we're quoting Greg anyway, let's bring up what he actually said about Elmal vs Yelmalio. What you quoted seems to lean towards soft Elmal-is-Yelmalio-ism since it presents it as an issue yet to be fully resolved which I do find more interesting than just saying "Move along Elmal is Yelmalio nothing to see here". The way he describes the Hero Wars as a conflict between gods via their cults for who gets to be the one true god of this-or-that is a lot more interesting than King of Sartar's "Argrath gets all the gods eaten" ending to the Hero Wars. Magnusth posted:Sure, but it's not the sun. It's the light of the sun that endured after Yelm's death which is why it doesn't go into the Underworld at night, but before Yelm died the sun's light was part of him so during the day Lightfore might still be in the sky but impossible to see because it is out shone by the sun or merges with it at dawn before separating again at dusk. But such a possibility cannot be entertained because of its implications. Magnusth posted:I mean, he still does? And also, he had to raise from the dead his father's murder and allow his past as glorious emperor of all to be forever true. If he raised Yelm from the dead then Yelm is the sun not Elmal. If Elmal isn't the sun then how does he manifest in the world and how does it make him a sun god and not a planetary god? Magnusth posted:I'm not making some definite statement about how the Yelmalions should be. I was just mentioning it as one of the reasons Elmal fans especially dislike the change. What about lynching tricksters? King of Sartar page 218 posted:No one likes or trusts Tricksters. They are regularly lynched, partly because no one trusts them, and partly because murderous idiots, who are normally restrained by law, have no law to restrain them from murdering Tricksters. Thus, Tricksters live utterly outside the law, and can do anything that they want. However, they are not protected by law at all either, and most tribes lynch anyone proven to be a Trickster. As a defender cult are they responsible for rounding up and executing suspected tricksters? The stead must be guarded from internal enemies too. I keep harping on this point because Orlanthi society has its share of unpleasantness and the Elmali must surely participate in it too if they are Orlanthi. If players feel that they have to be a 'Puritanical Mormon Spartan' as I believe someone put it (quite aptly) in order to authentically play a Yelmalian then there are all sorts of unseemly behavior which have uncomfortable parallels with the real world an orthodox Elmali would have to get up to. Magnusth posted:This is an odd argument on several levels. For one, the most prominent ways to get into Runequest and Glorantha feature Elmal in a big way. For another, forcing Elmal to be Yelmalio invites arguments; keeping things the way they’ve been for 30 years lets everyone be happy. Yelmalio isn’t impacted in any way by Elmal existing independently, but Elmal, his cult, etc is greatly impacted by a very very recent editorial mandate that they must be the same. A lot of people would be less confused if there was simply an Elmal cult in the book. KoDP and SA are both set in earlier time periods. Making books to allow people to play in earlier time periods would be great but aside from Elmal there's been a bunch of changes from how things are depicted in KoDP. Should the setting also revert back to them? If you want to preserve the rich anthropological mythohistory, then having Elmal be definitively not Yelmalio would require ignoring or removing any lore from the setting regarding Monrogh's revelation and still require taking a definitive authorial position about the nature of not just Elmal but by extension the gods in general. When people say that Elmal-is-Yelmalio is God Learnerism or Monomythism they're making a statement about the setting as a whole not just this one case. That Greg Sez article I posted was from March 2000. So to say that it'd been settled for 30 years until some grognards came in recently to mess everything up seems inaccurate to me. And wasn't Stafford involved with the early development of Runequest: Glorantha before he died? At the very least there's been ambiguity about the nature of their natures for a long time instead of a definitive separation recently undone. Magnusth posted:As mentioned, Elmali who reject elmal-as-yelmalio are wierdo perverts according to Jeff. Elmal exists only as an unimportant appendage to Yelmalio in Jeff’s Glorantha, and also don’t bother because they’re all Yelmalions now. Well despite his personal feelings he's going to allow them to be playable. If you don't want to play something associated with someone who has insulted the kind of character you want to play then don't, but if he had said Elmali were all well meaning but misguided holdouts would you drop your rejection of Elmal-is-Yelmalio? Magnusth posted:This is a bizzare misreading of how the world works. If the main Elmal cult consistently heroquest a version of Elmal with the fire rune then... Elmal has the fire rune. Like, that's how heroquesting works. If you consistently quest in a partcular way, you can (and do) affect the gods, because that's how humans can affect and change the gods. We have a specific quote on this regarding Yelmalio, even! So if consistent heroquesting can change the nature of a god such as giving them a rune they might not have had, then couldn't a single incredibly powerful hero like Monrogh who could almost single handedly defeat an enemy that the kingdom of Sartar was unable to, and used that victory as proof of his revelation about the nature of his god Yelmalio vis Elmal have heroquested in such a way as to turn Elmal into Yelmalio? Magnusth posted:Greg Stafford wrote Elmal, though. Stafford has been writing glorantha for like 30 years with Elmal in it. What's happening is that the canon is being changed now to appeal to grogs from the 80's for some bizzare reason. From what I've been able to find out, Elmal was introduced in King of Sartar which also had material about Monrogh's revelation and how that came about from Elmal worshippers converting to Yelm worship or subordinating themselves to Yelm instead of Orlanth. But my copy is the revised version so I don't know how much of that material is in the original. Magnusth posted:I mean, the setting has worked fine for many years with the answer ultimately dependent on the actions of heroes. Of course, HeroWars and HeroQuest also had the perfectly functional answer that Yelmalio-worship had been incorpoated into Elmal through contact with solar cultures, and Monrogh followed that to its source and revealed Yelmalio. I don't quite follow regarding HeroWars and HeroQuest. Is it that Yelmalio worship was blended with Elmal worship until it was strong enough within Elmali rituals that Monrogh led mass conversions to Yelmalio? If so why did Elmali shift over to Yelmalio according to those books? Magnusth posted:What host of other issues? Please, give examples. To build off of the three I mentioned: 1) If Elmal can't be Yelmalio because Elmal is the sun and Yelmalio is Lightfore, but Shargash is Tolat because they are both the Red Planet then that suggests all gods which share the same celestial body or other embodied physical feature or natural process, like death, are the same god. This would mean Elmal is Yelm, which seems to be what many Elmali were coming around to before Monrogh got them to worship Yelmalio instead. 2) When is a sun the sun? When they have the Fire rune instead of Light? Shargash has the Fire rune and was also a sun during the Greater Darkness but is now a planet. If a planet can have the Fire rune why can't a sun have the Light rune? Must all gods be locked into having specific runes because of the roles they fulfill? Isn't that God Learnerism, to say that gods have to have specific runes in order to fulfill their requisite functions and from there you say that all those gods must be the same because they have the same runes and do the same things? If one rejects the idea that sharing the same runes means that two gods have to be the same, but doesn't also reject the idea that two gods can actually be the same then why do they have to have identical runes? 3) The Guide to Glorantha says that some Pentan tribes worship Storm gods and lists them plus their Orlanthi analogues. This is presented as a recent development. I think it might not just be post Sheng Seleris but within living memory. The Guide mentions a new tribe, the Women Warriors, who reject the traditional gender norms for men and women but does say that the Storm tribes "maintain the ancient social structure derived from Kargzant". The implication is that these are the Orlanthi gods but adapted to local conditions. There isn't any mention of them being Lunar New Gods or recently rediscovered Pentan gods from the God Time. I'm unaware of where it is mentioned that the Pentans used to worship the Storm gods, so they've quite dramatically reinterpreted gods who are foreign to them. There isn't mention of a revelation like Monrogh's but it does show that gods can be rather radically reinterpreted, even renamed, but still be the same, which fits in with at least a soft Elmal-is-Yelmalio interpretation. Is such an interpretation to be thrown out because of its implications?
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Sep 22, 2023 06:18
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I have a question about Daga. He's an Orlanthi god but he seems to be regarded as an enemy god or is used by Orlanth to punish people. His father is Yelm or some other Solar god and while his mother Molanni is associated with Entekos who is a Dara Happan god there doesn't seem to be any analogue for him in the Dara Happan pantheon even as a foe like how Orlanth is Rebellus Terminus. What I'm wondering is if any cultures have deliberately incorporated another culture's enemy god into their pantheon in order to strengthen it, or altered the cult of one of their gods to incorporate elements of a foreign culture where their god is hostile? This seems like the sort of thing the Lunars and Nysaloreans before them might have done. The Lunars did make Yara Aranis to be an enemy of the Pentans but she was born of a goddess they feared and later apotheosized. Maybe the Yelm cult don't want to admit his bastard?NewMars posted:
And depending on who you ask it might also have died but came back to life before the sun did with the sun possibly having only come back after the Dawn. Also it might not have initially followed the same path the sun does but zipped around, and there might have been multiple Lightfores until one was subordinated to another and it might have lost some of its brightness and power after the real sun came back, or after the Sunstop or some other magical experiment.
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Sep 23, 2023 02:47
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Tias posted:Daga is kept in a jar at Orlanths bedside, and so having him around to interact with in the god-time is probably hard. The 'problem' I see with your contention is that no god is inherently good or bad (though we humans probably would agree that Daga, a god of famine and drought, is bad for us), and some cultures have a god as enemy while others have the same god as an ally or even supreme king. The war of many suns that pop up routinely in here is a good example. The gods are not necessarily adopted because they are someone's enemy, but because your own circumstances have changed. Daga is sometimes kept in a jar until used by Orlanth, sometimes he's just driven away by Orlanth so he might be contactable. Not to mention what might have been possible during the Windstop. Wakboth is the god of capital 'E' Evil, but he's the exception that proves the rule. Also an enemy god is a god, or culturally relativized version of one, which a culture views as evil, hostile, misguided, or otherwise opposed to their pantheon and so will probably be seen as inherently evil by that culture. We as players might take the position that all the gods (except Wakboth) aren't inherently good or bad but are unilluminated characters going to all share that perspective? The Orlanthi view the red planet as Orlanth's enemy Jagrekriand whom they conflate with (and he may actually be) Shargash, from the Orlanthi perspective Jagrekriand is the evil murderer of Umath and they don't see the positives of Shargash since some of those positive aspects are directed against them. I asked about the Lunar or Bright empire incorporating Daga because they'd definitely see being able to spread drought and famine in order to advance their cause as a good thing. The Nysalorean Riddlers spread diseases only they could cure and the Lunars use the Crimson Bat among many other Chaotic things. Given the different climates of Peoria and Dragon Pass they might see some other positive side to Daga that the Orlanthi don't, like how they see the still air of Molanni/Entekos in a favorable light unlike the Orlanthi.
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Sep 23, 2023 17:06
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wiegieman posted:The point I was trying to make with the Shargash/Tolat thing is that, even through they're both gods of the red planet, they're different gods because they're gods of different people. Shargash isn't Tolat, he's the Demon Sun of Dara Happa, the husband of Oslira and Yelm's dread enforcer. Tolat is the Artmali war god who subdues the ocean and raises the land. Syncretization wasn't unique to the God Learners. The Unity council spread their religion too. And even before they got to Ralios they syncretized the Lightbringers and associated gods from the small communities they found in Kethaela and Dragon Pass. What confuses me is that when people denounce God Learnerism and its attendant syncretism it sometimes sounds like they want all the gods in the setting to be wholly distinct and separate when they aren't given how existing gods can incorporate myths, forms of worship, and even the names of other similar gods. If they are supposed to be wholly separate then everyone seems to keep doing God Learnerism for some reason.
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Sep 23, 2023 17:52
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Magnusth posted:I mean, it very clearly supports my claim that godly strength isn't an absolute thing, but dependent on the mortal world. Can you clarify some things for me? You previously said: Magnusth posted:Because gods don't have agency, and their strength exists primarily in relationship to mortals. If the gods' power is primarily determined by their worshippers, and even their runes can be altered through experimental Heroquesting then would the gods have any fundamental essence of their own or are they just constructs formed of mortal belief? That Storm Tribe quote presents Elmal gently expelling the worshippers who have altered his rites too much by redirecting their worship to the proper god, but you seem to say that gods are ultimately at the mercy of their worshippers regarding their nature. My understanding is that the gods are fixed by their action in Godtime and attempts to change them without breaking the Compromise can work temporarily but will eventually lead to them reverting like what happened with the God Learners, but because much knowledge of the gods is still lost and given how different cultures myths have been forced into a single world they can potential be radically "altered" from the perspectives of their worshippers. Magnusth posted:I have nothing against "Elmal and Yelmalio are connected" or "Elmal and Yelmalio may have some degree of shared nature," I am against it being established as absolute truth that Elmal is just a different mask of Yelmalio, and especially that this is an obvious in universe truth that everyone accepts. Why? There are sociopolitical reasons for why Elmal worship would have declined aside from the metaphysical truth of Monrogh's revelation, and unless the size and uniformity of a god's cult is the only thing that matters their Truth would still be true. Plus there is still a group of Elmali who don't admit Yelmalians or accept that Elmal is Yelmaio: radmonger posted:Of the two remaining tribal temple controlled by the Elmal cult, one admits Yelamians and one does not. How large of a presence do you want them to have? Depending on the ratio of Elmali to Yelmalians there are different kinds of stories you can tell and while you may not want to tell any stories about Elmali being reduced to a minority there are some who will want to play as an embattled, almost extinct minority plus people might want to tell stories about how the absence of Elmali has changed the broader culture, like how with most Elmali converted and moved south to the Sun Domes there aren't any Elmali around to participate in Sacred Time rites so they have to find a replacement which could mean traveling until they find an Elmali who might be from a hostile tribe, getting a Yelmalian, or finding some other solar god worshipper. We can all come up with all sorts of story ideas based on the different numbers and status of Elmal, some speak more to you and its unfortunate that the current lore is something that you find not just un-compelling but repellant but it's how things have been written and it'd require changing a lot of material. For example I think that the loss of the majority of Elmali is supposed to have critically weakened Dragon Pass militarily, with their conversion to Yelmalians being a political lesser evil since the Elmali were being lured over into Yelm worship and thus Lunar influence. Get rid of that and does the Kingdom of Sartar fall? If it doesn't then the Holy Country won't come under siege and does Belintar still disappear? Magnusth posted:Yelm is the sun disk, Elmal is all the good friendly parts; mythologically, he pulls or rides the sun disk itself. Is that a distinction they'd have made at the Dawn? King of Sartar just says that in the First Age the Orlanthi called him the sun god until they met the Dara Happans and acknowledged that Yelm was the sun too and that the Dara Happans worshipped Yelm, not Yelm through Elmal. As you describe him Elmal sounds like Galanin who pulls the solar disk Ehilm in Ralian Orlanthi myth. Interestingly in the Prosopaedia both Ehilm and Galanin have double Fire runes (with Galanin also having the Beast rune) so there's the implication that Galanin might just provide access to Ehilm, but it could also be that they share the mastery of the Fire rune that having two copies signifies. Narsham posted:I should probably be more upset at the suggestion that the Orlanthi had no contact with solar cultures before the Dawn, which is just laughably wrong, but this retcons a really interesting political dynamic and subthread in favor of, uh, being more boring, I guess? And it doesn't seem as nuanced as you're suggesting. I admit I'm less eager to get the Sky and Storm books after seeing what the Prosopaedia is doing in terms of flattening complexity. Keep the complex cultural and political Glorantha and simplify the rules, instead! The Orlanthi civilization at the Dawn was a post-apocalyptic society. There wasn't even much of a society beyond individual families and small tribes. They had lost most of their knowledge of their gods and their Storm Age civilization, let alone other peoples' gods and civilizations and as they spread they learned more about their own past first. Plus given the weirdness of Godtime the solar cultures they had had contact with weren't quite the solar cultures they would go on to make contact with after the Dawn. In the Godtime Yelm was The Bad Emperor while to the Dara Happans Orlanth was Rebellus Terminus. Elmal wasn't the son of Yelm he was the son of the dead Emperor.
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Sep 25, 2023 05:13
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Magnusth posted:Seems like a fairly reasonable distinction to make. Whether or it they made it at dawn, it is how Elmal is portrayed in e.g. the guide. I was reading through the section in the guide on the pantheons and something that stuck out to me was that Yelm's runes were Fire x2, Mastery, & Stasis when he usually has Fire x2, Fertility, & Death. It got me thinking about what runes would suit a god best, given how part of our discussion has hinged on whether Elmal needs Fire instead of Light based on his myths. If Elmal is the friendly sun shouldn't he have Fertility too? Him not having Death makes sense if he's the part of the sun that didn't die but Fire by itself doesn't seem to suit the beneficial aspect of the sun he embodies. But also why does he have Truth? Truth doesn't seem like it fits, but that might just be me thinking of maladjusted antisocial weirdoes like Humakt, Dayzatar, Yelmalio, and Lankhor Mhy. Is it supposed to represent his role as a god of justice? Those other Truth deities all seem to be authorities unto themselves for the most part whereas Elmal's justice would be Orlanth's. If Elmal is more just than Orlanth it calls Orlanth's fitness to rule into question and by extension Elmal's justness since he's letting an unjust tyrant stay in power. I also wondered if it would be fitting for Yelmalio to have the Mastery rune. One of the functions of the Mastery rune is political authority which is an important feature of Lightfore gods. Antirius was worshipped alongside Yelm by Dara Happan emperors into the Second Age, at least until when the EWF and Carmanians got involved, and Kargzant and Antirius were the patron deities of competing groups fighting for control of Peloria in the Grey Age and early First Age who claimed to be the heirs of Yelm's empire so political authority is derived from worship of them. It would also provide a clear reason why Yelmalio worshippers gave up Heat magic and reflect how they went from being politically subordinate to Orlanth to sovereign, neutral peers. Elmal is left in charge when Orlanth is away but his authority comes from being Orlanth's deputy. Yelmalio inherited his authority from Yelm but became a sovereign in his own right. Magnusth posted:I have nothing against "Elmal and Yelmalio are connected" or "Elmal and Yelmalio may have some degree of shared nature," I am against it being established as absolute truth that Elmal is just a different mask of Yelmalio, and especially that this is an obvious in universe truth that everyone accepts. I've been thinking about this. The Lightfore deities are one of the portions of Yelm that remained on the surface after he died, and represent the light of the sun and an attempt to continue Yelm's rule on the surface despite diminished capacity to do so. Elmal fulfilled a similar role but unlike them he wasn't weakened enough to lose his Heat. Instead he swore fealty to Orlanth thereby ceding his claim to rule the world as a son of Yelm. Could it be that he's actually a composite of multiple portions of Yelm amalgamated into a single god who fulfills some of the sun's functions, the ones Orlanth found useful? Lightfore+ in other words since the distinctions between and specific functions of the constituent parts don't matter as much to Orlanthi as they would to Dara Happans. It would explain why Elmali started to incorporate worship of Yelm before Monrogh's revelation since they'd come to the conclusion, through contact with Pelorians and Lunar missionaries, that they were just worshipping an inferior manifestation of Yelm which is why, for example, they couldn't use Sunspear on their own. There's also the question of whether Elmal goes to the Underworld at night because of his role of pulling or riding the sun disk despite the fact that he didn't die. Does he become Lightfore at night or is he some other planetary body that's also only visible at night? Some of the Lightfore gods did die but they left the Underworld before Yelm. Yelmalio though seems to have endured throughout the entire Age of Darkness like Elmal. Narsham posted:"After the Dawn" is radically distinct from "early in the Third Age" in my mind and my understanding of Glorantha is that not everyone accepts Elmal is Yelmalio even in the Third Age, but this is all nitpicking. In the early Third Age the Heortlings that settled Dragon Pass would have still been dealing with the consequences of the Dragonkill War and repudiation of the Empire of Wyrm Friends's draconic revelations, as well as being subject to the authority of the Only Old One and subsequently Belintar who meddled in the religion of their Orlanthi subjects to secure their own power. Tharkantus, the Second Age Yelmalio, became associated with the EWF not to mention that the Solar religions of Peloria also had had draconic reforms so there was a sharp religious reaction against solar influences in general and Orlanth worshippers in particular would want to remove anything that might threaten their rule within Orlanthi society so they'd want to assert the submission of the sun to Orlanth and forgetting (or "forgetting") would aid that. radmonger posted:To my mind, artificial ambiguity does the opposite; it rules out all those potentially interesting stories. Clarity and physical space are both limiting factors to consider too. If the authors set out to present all the options and ambiguities to the players they're doomed to failure. In every roleplaying game there's the explicit or implicit understanding that people will change whatever they want whether it's the lore or the rules. As it says in the main Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha rulebook: Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha posted:Glorantha is a world of colossal proportions and depth, yet it has plenty of room for new ideas. If the gamemaster wishes to put orcs on some island in Glorantha or invent a new cult for a city, they should feel free. Everyone’s Glorantha will vary, and should vary to match every individual group’s play style. But as you said there needs to be something for one's own Glorantha to vary from. Not everyone is going to like what's presented as "correct" but that's how things go. If you present five different possibilities as being equally plausible someone's going to ask about six through ten. radmonger posted:As you see in King of Dragon Pass, most Elmali are individuals within majority-Orlanthi clans. There are only one or two majority-Elmali clans. You play such a clan in Six Ages, but there they are one clan amongst many. Good point. I had been thinking in terms of clans, not individuals. Elmal is known as the Loyal Thane, but as I found reading the Prosopaedia Heler the rain god is also known for their strong loyalty to Orlanth to the point where comparing someone's loyalty to Heler is high praise. It's interesting how the primary Fire and Water gods in the Storm pantheon are set up as examples who know their place and don't challenge Orlanth's rule. I can see why people who worshipped Elmal because he represented the element they have an affinity for would be resentful that their political ambitions would be limited because of who they are called to worship. According to King of Dragon Pass elevating Elmal above the other gods is next to blasphemy for many Orlanthi. At least by worshipping Yelmalio they wouldn't have society telling them to stay in their lane and know their place.
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Oct 1, 2023 06:45
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Narsham posted:if you go to the Hill of Gold, can you run into Elmal, Yelmalio, and Antirius as separate beings? Can you make them encounter each other? Is that answer determined by what you already expect, and if not, what does determine it? Is there an edge condition, a point where you can meet Elmal on the Hill of Gold and a second point where you can't because it turns out he was always Yelmalio? If you could never meet him there, how did the Elmal cult ever exist? The answer to all those questions is: whatever the game master and players decide on. You can, and should, come up with any number of answers to address those issues so pick what's fun.
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Oct 13, 2023 06:32
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