>Has anyone given any thought to how Alakoring actually broke dragons and
>earned his title? He managed to physically kill Drang, and he introduced
>the (presumably Ralian) idea that tribal kings did not owe allegiance to
>any larger institution, including the Cult of Orlanth.
There is the example given in Ingolf Dragonfriends Saga of how Ingolf was wrestling with a Dragon and found himself magically huge. The Giants who fought the Dragons were also somewhat large but permanently so.
One could also adopt the trick of actually being swallowed, resisting the digestion and cut yourself out from the inside (Sir Ethilrist does this to Hungry Jack and Argrath does this to the Devil). I suspect that when Orlanth puts his foot in the Dragon's bottom jaw and tears the head off using his arms, he is using a variant of this motif since by putting his foot on the dragon's jaw, he is exposing himself to consumption by the Dragon.
There is also Murharzarm's battle with Nestendos/Tiamat where he lets the Serpent wrap itself around him nine times before breaking its back which combines the motif of becoming magically huge and being swallowed and cutting oneself's way out. One could argue that since the Dragon had to wrap itself around Murharzarm several times whereas Orlanth was only big as the Dragon's Mouth that Murharzarm was a better hero than Orlanth...
>* To tie in with a recent comment, Vadrus rescued Blue Woman from the water
>demon, and ended up fathering Iphara on her. Orlanth rescued Heler from
>Aroka the Blue Dragon. It's easy to see a possible connection between Blue
>Woman and Heler.
Or a 'connection' between Orlanth and Heler for that matter....
Stephen P Martin:
>Finally, note that Drang was the Diamond _Storm_ Dragon. This must also
>have had something to do with it, IMO.
I think Alakoring was warring against the Orlanth Dragonfriend Cult and they decided to force a confrontation. Perhaps the EWF decided that sending a Storm Dragon against Alakoring would rob him of the advantage of his bag of tricks. But given that Drang was also the Diamond Dragon, does that means that either the Dwarves or the Caladralanders were also participants in the Dragon?
On being eaten by the bat.
Me>>They are not destroyed...
>>Thus the Bat is actually performing a Good Deed when it eats
>>people.
>So, if this is true, what did the Bat do
>when it ate people in the First Age, before it was "enlightened" by the
>Goddess?
Some scholars believe that the Immortal Self was returned to the Creator devoid of everything it had experienced upon Glorantha and insist that the Bat now preserves the experiences.
Others believe that the Bat merely sent the Immortal Self is sent to become part of Gorpgod or Primal Chaos who lies outside the Universe. But since the Immortal Self still has an attachment to something which is material, it has not returned to the Creator.
Others believe that the Bat always sent its victims back to the Creator with its experiences intact since the experiences are part of the Immortal Self and cannot be destroyed by Chaos. What the Red Goddess did was to incorporate the Bat into the Lunar Way.
Joerg Baumgartner:
>Fact is, we have one recorded influx of Praxians, along with their beasts
>and presumably their myths, into Dara Happa, as it happens just before Mr
>Plentonius wrote his book.
Just a slight correction. They only settled down into certain areas of Dara Happa (mainly the South and Kostaddi) not all over Dara Happa as Joerg seems to imply.
>The immigrating Praxian nomads simply took over the role of the horse-riding
>warlords who ruled that part of Peloria since the Dawn.
I don't think this is correct. The Horse Riders were last ruling Darjiin where Argentium Thi'rile occured whereas the locations of the Praxian Overlords (Bison Lords of Darleep, Hungry Plateau) are *not* in Darjiin. Darjiin had an autochtonous governer at the time of the Broken Council.
>Am I the only one who wondered why the giants - especially the Good Giants,
>Gonn Orta's kind - speak Darktongue? They lived in an age _before_ Sky and
>plants when they fought their wars with the dragons. I wouldn't be
>astonished if they worshipped Night besides their ancestral deities, He Who
>Moves and "Annilla".
I don't really think the God Learner comsomology is correct when it says that there were no plants before the Green Age nor Sky before the Golden Age. That would be akin to assuming that there were no Mammals before the Age of the Dinosaurs - methinks the Ages should refer to a dominance of a particular 'rune' if at all.
FWIW Entekos and the Eight Lights were reportedly in the Sky before the coming of the Three Aetheric Brothers and gave off light. The God Learners would have viewed these entities as Empress Glorantha and the Celestial Court IMO. Likewise (also IMO) the Green Age is more of an ad hoc label to describe the Wild Age before the time of the Golden Age Civilizations rather than any actual dominance by Plants.
Moreover the fact that the Giants are humanoid effectively dates them to after the appearance of the Man Rune rather than the Dragon Age (which I view as akin to a Dinosaurian Age upon Earth). Most of the humans were effectively living in a Provarian (Hunter/gatherer) stage when the Giants began their war with the Dragons. As proof, I cite the material culture of most giants.
Perhaps most of the Giants speak Darktongue because during the Great Darkness they fell under the influence of the more sophisticated Uz and so learned Darktongue to speak with the little people.
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