Yelmalio in Balazar

From: ian (i.) gorlick <"ian>
Date: Sun, 18 Dec 1994 15:39:00 -0500


Nick Eden:
>I'm concerned because Balazar, who introduced Yelmalio's
>worship to the country seems to have come from somewhere without
>that god, or an analogue.

Sorry, I misunderstood your position. However I have a counter-argument for this position as well:
What makes you think that Yelmalio was unknown in Peloria? I have heard lots of discussion based on his absence from "The Glorious ReAscent of Yelm", but that is a Dara Happan document. Peloria is a large territory of which Dara Happa is only a fraction.

I have always assumed that Yelmalio was a popular god among the highland peoples of Peloria. The lowlanders of Dara Happa may well have never known him, or they regarded him as some disgusting heresy of "those smelly rustic bumpkins". His worship declined and was lost even in the highlands after most of his followers were destroyed in the DragonKill War.

My basic position on the whole Yelmalio thing is this: I want to do as little rewriting of reality as possible. The older RQ sources assumed that Yelmalio was an ancient and once wide-spread religion. I believe that I can rationalize this with the recent re-establishment of the cult in Sartar by Monrogh. So that is what I am doing. If you would rather assume that all Yelmalio worship must date from Monrogh's recent revelations, then you are required to make up all sorts of other solar cults to take the place of the ancient Yelmalio. Personally, I think that is a lot of work that does nothing to increase the MGF (Maximum Game Fun factor), nor do I find that it makes Glorantha more interesting or more believable.

I do not believe that Yelmalio is exactly the same cult in Balazar, Sun County and Sartar. They are all subtly different; but they are all alike enough that they can agree that they worship the same god, they just disagree on some details. Using the terminology from "Credo!", they agree on the articles of faith, but they are arguing about a lot of firm beliefs and customary practices.


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