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Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 09 Aug 1994, part 1
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X-RQ-ID: Intro
This is the RuneQuest Daily Bulletin, a mailing list on
the subjects of Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's
world of Glorantha. It is sent out once per day in digest
format.
More details on the RuneQuest Daily and Digest can be found
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---------------------
From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Joerg breaking a lance with the Blue Wizard
Message-ID:
Date: 8 Aug 94 12:48:47 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5535
Peter Metcalfe "dreams of the Blue Wizard" in X-RQ-ID: 5512
____________________________________
Someone else's POW for enchantments:
The munchkin deep inside of me squirms... There _is_ a RQ3 way to use
someone else's POW, but it is for divine magic users only. It requires
a casting of Mindlink to the provider of the POW and sufficient Extension
to last this Mindlink through the ritual. Each participant can use the
magical knowledge of the other participants, so a POW spirit could use
the Enchantment skills of a mindlinked enchanter, and, if Commanded or
Controlled, could produce a magic item.
However, this practice is regarded as God Learnerish, mightily frowned
upon by a cult, and only used to create great artifacts of the cult,
usually embodying some of the participating priests' spirits (not
POW-spirits) as guardians of the artifact. Needless to say that this
is a desperate thing to do, and needs desperate conditions. Might have
happened in the Machine Wars (the powerful curses of Clanking City), or
in the EWF, or in Second Council or Nysalors Dorastor. (Add any other
magical powerful and overreaching Gloranthan culture - Lunar Empire and
God Learners taken as default.)
______________________________
> The Great False Gods debate!
> At last, someone steps into the arena to debate with the Blue Wizard.
Since we live on opposite sides of our darkness Rune, the literal meeting
in the arena might have to wait for a few years...
> Joerg said
>> Not necessarily. The God Learners of Umathela just chose a number of false
>> gods and imposed them on an unsuspecting poplace.
> I prefer to think the the Jrusteli being the first to systematically worship
> the False Gods in time imported the cults to Umathela and Fonrit.
> I do believe
> the Theyalans of Umathela worship Orlanth, they being cheap labour from
> Slontos or wherever.
I don't know where the "Orlanthi" settlers in Umathela were drawn from.
If they were transported there by the early Empire of the Middle Sea,
Slontos or Fronela would have been the logical origin. I am not certain
that Orlanthi were very prominent in Slontos - King Vathmai is said to
have reached Slontos in 115, thereby assuring that the Lightbringers'
knowledge was firmly entrenched into the culture of the region. (RQ
Companion p.17)
> It is just that Orlanth with his Cult of Freedom would be
> a subversive influence in the Ompalami worshipping cities of Fonrit, at worst
> he would be thought of as Sikkanos. The Fonritians desiring a air god to
> achieve the cosmic balance chose Worlath for being more easily slotted into the
> Ompalami social order.
Fonrit is different from Umathela, and I don't think that they imported
any Umathelan deity on their own, or desired one.
>>At least some of these myths were made retrospectively; or they identified two
>>different myths as 'being one really'.
> The God Learners wouldn't have adopted such a view in their quest for the
> monomyth.
This is scraping close to their secret, I fear, but their ultimate secret
might have been "the Monomyth cheats", and they exploited this. They
certainly did use this technique to call Tanian down on the Waertagi.
> I would in some cases (like where was Arkat born: Trolls say Redstone
> caves wheras Westerners say Brithos), but the sources are based on Western and
> God Learner documents which would attempt to find the ultimate truth.
The Arkat mystery fits easily into the Monomyth: his birth in the lowest
caves of the Obsidian Castle (which we know were connected to the Castle
of Lead, and probably to the Redstone way into the deep darkness as well)
was the result of the Kyger Litor troll adoption rite, which requires death
by mutilation, and rebirth from a cocoon. The birth from Garazaf Hyloric's
womb might refer to her fashioning of the cocoon Arkat used.
> I do not
> think that the God Learners would attempt to prove they were the only source of
> civilization in the world invented the False God mythos to prove every god of
> note was driven from the western lands. IMO they would leave the birthplaces
> of the Gods they encountered where they were and leave the Kingdom of logic
> unsullied by these fripperies. (but it is a good theory mind you).
IMO the God Learners were far from understanding the Kingdom of Logic. The
fact that they supported the Return to Rightness movement seems almost
contrary to this.
> Your idea of the wizard who discovered Solar powers is what I would belive was
> the case with Ehilm. He refused to share his secrets and was expelled from
> Brithos with the upshot that brithini can't cast fireballs.
I pose that Worlath, Humct and Ehilm were local deities of Storm/chieftain,
Death/warrior, and Sun/king which had different myths of origin from those
of Orlanth, Humakt and Yelm. The Theyalans and later the God Learners
merged these myths, and gave the Kerofinelan myths preference over
deviating local myths.
> IMO he was a
> blazing orb to the Galanini in much the same way as Elmal was to the Orlanthi
> or Kargzant (golden bow?) to the Horse nomads during the Grey Age but not the
> real sun, Yelm.
There is a real sun in Glorantha. For some reasons the God Learners
found it politic to identify Yelm universally with this sun, and I think
they were responsible for the renaming of the sun gods of Ralios and
Fonrit. In Ralios, the old name of the Sun God has been recorded. It even
sneaked into the monomythed version of the Lightbringers' Quest as the
Flames of Ehilm, one of the tests Orlanth has to endure to give proof
before Yelm the slain Emperor.
Would a Dawn Orlanthi have said that Yelm rose, or that Elmal rose
from the East, when Orlanth at last freed all the casualties of the
Gods Wars? We know he found Yinkin, Humakt, Ernalda and other friends
and retainers in the Court of Silence. Plentonius reports that Shargash
was victious over the Vingkotlings and their king/god Elmalus.
Is there a myth how Elmal died defending the Stead of Orlanth during
his absence on the LBQ? In the saga of King Heort (KoS p.89f) the laws
of Vingkot ceased to work. Could this show that Elmal was not present
any more?
> To your false god lists I would add Zistor (who seems to be the essense of a
> false god of Mostal; where this leaves Urtiam I'm not sure as Acos is mentioned
> in Bertalors document. He's probably a dim memory from the days of the Kingdom
> of Logic. I would also place Nakala, Lodril, Umath, Sramak and Gata in this
> catergory). Uleria as a false god could explain why her HHD is in disorder week
> and not fertility week. Very Good, Joe!
Hmm. I don't mean that Uleria is a False God in her origin.
A dim memory from the Kingdom of Logic: Do you subscribe to my view that
the ancient KoL was "divided" in six parts: one of each element, and one
human? Plus a few handy non-humans on the outskirts (the aldryami of
Brithos, and mostali below).
The Ancients of the KoL developed five schools of elemental magic the
Brithini inherited and reformed as sorcery. Their original teachers might
well have been the gods they later "explained by Logic" to have been
powerful sorcerers too enmeshed in their elemental powers.
Zistor is not a False God as in that a sorcerer got obsessed with a power,
it is a constructed deity. I am not so sure about Gorings the Tap, who
might well have been a powerful sorcerer.
> The mention of false gods lacking 'effective magic' before 901 ST is to my mind
> one of the barriers that I can't seem to grasp. Greg's hiding something here.
> Perhaps it's the forbidden secret?
To my God Learner self this bit is fairly clear - it takes a certain amount
of worship (and invested life force) to make a deity respond, or to form it
(or an aspect of one, which might end up to be te same) in the God Plane.
With Zistor this had worked along the lines of their experiment, so if they
had watched that success (Zistor did exhibit unusual and effective magic),
their surprise would have been less.
> One final False God that I forgot to mention is the Devil who is mentioned in
> G:CotHW in the western lands and in the Arkat Writeup in Troll Gods as being
> the brother of Zzabur. I'm pretty certain that this is neither Wakboth nor
> Kajaboor, but another westerner heretic who was expelled by Malkion. Perhaps
> the western court has a whole chaos tribe of false gods as well.
"Brother of Zzabur" can be read as in "Brother of Storm Bull" - a relative.
I wouldn't make the Devil a son of Malkion, unless Vadel turns out to
be one.
The Brithini would identify Vadel, ancestor of their ancient enemies,
with the Deval (typo intended).
The God Learners (who remain strangely quiet about the Vadeli) might
say that in their Monomyth Malkion's father is a Storm God, therefore
his children and Grandchildren are such as well. Ragnaglar is recognized
by some as a descendant of Umath as well, and the God Learners will have
jumped at this handy connection, so in their reading Zzabur is a relative
of Ragnaglar, and thereby a relative of the Devil.
I don't know what the Return to Rightness guys had to say about this...
_________________
The Only Old One:
> The Only Old One could have been a troll demigod who ruled Kethaela for his
> father.
The First Age myth of the OOO mentions his proof that he was _not_ a
troll when he resisted the iron the dwarf hero of Gemborg employed
against him, and was not burnt.
> He would have sent Charmilla as his representative to the first
> council prefering to remain secure in the obsidian council.
I still think that Kethaela had its own version (imitation) of the
Dragon Pass Council, with elves from Arstola, dwarves from Gemborg,
dragonewts from Ryzel (?) and other forces from the sixths participating.
In a way, for a time their Council was more complete and true than the
World Council of Friends, because they even included the Westerners from
the Left Arm Isles. (My theory of Kethaela reflecting the Kingdom of
Logic, again.) However, this council broke up before the First Council
changed into the Second Council, when the dwarfs of Gemborg dissented.
(Another hint that this council and the Dragon Pass council were not
identical - the dwarfs remained true to the Osentalka project.)
> Xiola Umbar would
> have been the acceptable face of Trolls whereas Argan Argar was a ruling God of
> Kethaela in much the same way as Basko was the ruling God of Bliss in
> Ignorance.
Xiola Umbar was the only of the troll deities recognising unborn Aether
as "Friendship from afar" ("Three Curious Spirits", Uz Lore p.5, sidebar).
This makes her predestined to cooperate with all the other forces. Argan
Argar learned to tolerate, but not to befriend the light.
I don't know whether Argan Argar was the ruling god of Kethaela. In
Esrolia he is one of the Husband Protectors of Esrola/Ernalda. (Do the
Esrolites worship Faralinthor in this role, Nick?) If we take the parallel
to Genertela, Kerofinela and Prax, then the son of the ruling earth goddess
is the ruling male deity, not her husband: Genert, who has no father;
Orlanth, not Umath; Waha, not Storm Bull. (This would make Barntar the
male ruler of Esrolia, I suppose.)
> Later when Xiola Umbar lost her power and Zorak Zoran came to fore
> in the second council, the Only Old One may have been engaging in adventures
> (military) to expand his power in Wenelia. For that he developed the
> mercantile face of Argan Argar as a means of softening up the opposition.
I agree that when XU fell from popularity and ZZ came to the rise, the
military expansion of Kethaela into Slontos and Ralios was under way. AA
doesn't come into this picture, yet, this much I agree with Sandy. He was
the male ruler of night, though, a role which is rarely appreciated.
The mercantile face of Argan Argar might be a side effect of his
communication aspect. His spell of Safe is his only (but not minor)
asset to a trader.
Argan Argar's role during the Darkness is almost similar to Yelmalio's:
(Troll Gods p.17)
"Argan Argar was active during the Darkness, aiding anyone who called
upon him, whether elf, man, or beast-man."
[Issaries worship in addition to Drago Pass and Maniria:]
> I would have said Ralios, Southern Peloria (which in the early years of the Red
> Moon was barbarian not solar).
In short, the realm of the Second Council before Argentium Thriile.
> The Serpent Kings praticed paganism so I
> imagine Issaries was worshipped there.
A god of trade certainly was worshipped. I still think this would have
been Garzeen the Merchant, after all a member of the Ruling Family, and
thereby an ancestor if one uses the enlarged definition.
_______
Talars:
The Talars are the only caste of the Brithini who are assigned Free Will.
All other castes have the powers, but cannot take decisions outside their
caste restriction. Only the Talars can without breaking this restriction
(except in extreme cases, like the Spell forbidden by Uvostio).
In a way, the Brithini are very strict adherents to the compromise. They
avoid aging, the effect of Time, by denying their Free Will, their
humanity, except for the Talars, who deny themselves anything else.
Thus the Talars are the only ones who can react to greater schemes
outside the spheres of Brithini life. Their Dronals provide them with
the information about providing, their Horals give them their insights
in military problems, and their Zzaburs give them their magical information.
Only through coordination by the Talars the Zzaburs do the right magics
for the harvest, or for equipping the Horals with magic.
Zzaburs have found sneak ways around the Talar domination - the Immortality
spell might well be Zzabur's invention to get freedom of will _and_ remain
immortal. All men are equal, but some always are more equal than others...
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de