From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer) To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest) Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily) Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Fri, 30 Sep 1994, part 3 Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM Content-Return: Prohibited Precedence: junk --------------------- From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen) Subject: Pamaltela and other matters Message-ID: <9409292242.AA08520@idcube.idsoftware.com> Date: 29 Sep 94 08:42:07 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6415 Nils: >I have seen mention of creatures/people called 'the exigers' and >'the Promalti'. Who/what are they? The "exigers" are cruel humans who inhabit the Mari Mountains. (The middle range of Pamaltelan mountains, north of Jolar, south of Laskal). They have evolved a sophisticated warlike ethos, like the Samurai caste, or the ancient Spartans, or the Maori, for that matter. The exigers are the ruling caste, served by serf-like menials. In addition to the exigers themselves, most exiger clans maintain a good-sized band of mercenaries to help maintain their position. They engage in constant internecine battles, much like ancient Greece or Japan's Warring States period. Someday no doubt a genius will unite them and they'll come pouring out of the mountains to the woe of Laskal or Jolar or Kimos. But not yet. The exigers are Agimori, racially (but not Men-and-a-Half). The Promalti are entities composed of living fire. Kind of like the Dehore. They're not chaotic, but they're not necessarily benign. They tend not to wander too far north of the Nargan Desert for fear of rain. "Promalti wandering north" is proverbial among the Doraddi as a sign of a prolonged drought. >Since Eurmal is the trickster and according to everything I've >read his followers are not bound to any laws. Nor are they >protected by any laws. Is Eurmal then bound by the great >comprimise? or can he just ignore it as he seems to ignore any >other constraits placed on him? Eurmal is as bound by law as anyone. It's just that he breaks the laws (and suffers for it). The tales of Eurmal and the Trickster are cautionary as much as they are anything else. "See what happens when you let your little head think for your big head?" -- at the end of yet another Trickster-castration story. True, there is no "official" punishment for a Tricksters' violation of some societal norm, but this does not mean that a Trickster gets to steal with impunity. It just means that, because he's just a Trickster, he gets beaten when caught stealing rather than being expected to pay it back fourfold (or whatever the Orlanthi custom is). Joerg B. on his hobbyhorse about Pamalt not being an Earth god. I mentioned that Pamalt is father, brother, and lover to the Earth pantheon, and hence is considered a relative by those gods, instead of just a king. >By this rationalizing, Orlanth is the male ruling earth god of most >of Genertela: Yeah. So? You think he's not? You think that the Earth Goddess priestesses don't think of him as a relative? You think they don't have special calls on his prowess not available to anyone else? I say that absolutely Orlanth takes the place of the male ruling Earth god of that minor fraction of Genertela in which he is recognized as King of the Gods. But Orlanth's position is subverted to some extent by that fact that, by blood, he is a Storm God, and owes his brothers and father loyalty. And additionally he has the Lightbringers, to whom his relationship is that of blood-brother or best friend or something. But Pamalt is blood-relative _only_ to the Earth gods, Okay, technically he's just an in-law, but the stronger Pamaltelan rules for in-laws, and the lack of any important Pamalt blood-relatives causes Pamalt's wife and mother-in-law to fill the place of same. In essence, Aleshmara and Faranar are as important to Pamalt as Storm Bull and Ernalda are to Orlanth, but Aleshmara and Faranar are unified in purpose, and Orlanth's relatives are not. Orlanth's mythos is filled with times he is forced to choose between responsibilities, to act the King. Pamalt's mythos is filled with opportunities for cooperation, making allies not enemies. They are quite different. >Seriously, while I can accept that Pamalt has strong earth ties, he >isn't _of_the_Earth_ as is Genert. The differences are largely technical. I doubt any Pamaltelan shaman would consider Pamalt to not be a "true" Earth deity. >>When Chaos came to Genert's land, he immediately mustered to >>battle it. When Chaos came to Pamalt's land, he did not go until >>the very end, letting other gods strive against Chaos first. >Reason being that Pamalt was about as important then as Choralinthor >was in Genertela. I suspect that Pamalt's Necklace is the Pamaltelan >aspect of I Fought We Won. Correct on both counts. This presents yet another inverse parallel between Genert and Pamalt -- Genert started out powerful and mighty -- born to the purple, as it were. Pamalt was unimportant until he was able to prove himself. And yes, I agree that Pamalt's Necklace is the Pamaltelan I Fought We Won. >Pamalt gathered up the broken remains of other gods who had fought >chaos before, and almost sacrificed them to sing them into his >necklace. This is not quite accurate. Pamalt took the secret powers of the other gods, at their express consent, and then when Vovisibor broke the Meeting Treaty and killed all the gods, Pamalt was able to bring them back to life or recreate them or whatever he did. Then, with their backing, he defeated Filth-Which-Walks. The gods which sought to fight chaos before Pamalt were simply beaten, and not part of his Necklace. In fact, the gods who were in Pamalt's Necklace seem to have gone to the meeting with Vovisibor apparently NOT ready to fight, but were planning to negotiate a deal. >>I cannot concur. Molandro, Keeper of the Earth, was not a ruler, >>but a guardian entity. I don't think he ever ruled anything. >Well, the Orlanthi say that Yelm was meant to be a guardian only, >too, but that he usurped a sovereignty not his to take, and that >this caused the world to be almost destroyed. In the first place, I think this is an inaccurate portrayal of the Orlanthi POV. In the second place, whether Yelm was _meant_ to be a guardian or not, he wasn't one. He acted as the Emperor, rightly or wrongly. Molandro did not. >>Pamalt was obviously the Earth-King, >> and so the GL assumption was obvious. >That he was *obviously* the earth king still escapes me. Come on, Joerg. You don't have to blind yourself to the facts to fit your pet theories. Pamalt is Ruler of the Earth. One of his Pamaltelan titles is "Earth-King". Admittedly, he is also Ruler of the Land, and Ruler of Life, and Ruler of many other things besides. Can't a god rule over the Earth even if he doesn't have what the God-Learners call the "Earth" Rune? David Cake: > I think that they [the Kitori] started as two separate tribes >allied, and the first ceremonial marriage made them a single tribe >"officially". Over the years they are truly becoming a single >tribe.I think that they also think of the humans as owning the land >in the day, and the trolls at night. I agree with everything here, except that I think that they are, now, a single tribe. and are not still "becoming". >>I'm going to take on Peter and see who comes out on top. Peter: >Spoiling for a fight, eh? Not really. I've found that discussions which don't become bitter often illuminate the subject until they also become too technical. >And the Goblin marshes would also be considered bad by the Doraddi. Why? They're fertile. There's plenty of good hunting in them, and some useful plants, both edible and medicinal. They aren't threatening to expand over the savannah, they don't send waves of invaders into the Doraddi countryside. I don't think the Doraddi think that Sozganjio is bad at all. And the smaller marshes in occasional spots inland are doubtless viewed as wholly desirable. If there's one great threat in the Doraddi savannah it's got to be drought, which a marsh tends to mitigate, if you live near it. >The Sodal Marsh is not a Hellhole. >> Peter, you can't pick out individual examples and expect thus to >>disprove a general tendency. >But it is a correct application of the proverb 'The exception proves >the rule'. 'Prove' as in 'to test' Fine, here's the rule: In Genertela, swamps are mentally associated by most major cultures with Chaos. Most swamps also have some touch of Chaos within them. Im Pamaltela, swamps are NOT considered to be Chaotic, and it is rare for a swamp to have any more Chaos in it than does the surrounding countryside. The Sodal Marsh's lack of horrors (though note that it was famous for monsters in the First Age) does not disprove the rule though you are correct that it does test it. Somehow it has evidently been cleansed. Note also that there are folks that doubt the complete absence of monsters in that particular swamp -- it is still "culturally associated" with Chaos. >But you can say wastelands in both are chaos cursed cf the Nargan >and the wastelands. This is because Chaos makes wastelands, not because wastelands harbor chaos. Both the Nargan desert and the Chaos Wastes (named for what _caused_ it, not for what lives in it, by the way) were once fertile delightsome countries. Chaos wrecked 'em and did what Chaos tends to do when it gets ahold of fertile delights. You are confusing cause and effect. >I would say the reason for this difference [between the horrible >wars of Genertela and Pamaltela] is that Inland Pamaltela >does not >really have the magic to implement a night of horrors. Huh? Genertela wouldn't, either, if it hadn't had centuries of nonstop wars to polish its technique. Pamaltelan magic is as powerful as anyone's, it's just not normally centered only on killing and death. Genertelan history is filled with huge destructive wars. Pamaltela has a few, too, and is going to have more. >The only comparable struggle is Garangordos war against the Blues >(and Jraktali) of Fonrit (circa 450 IMO) and then later the Eight >season wars There is also the Elf Wars of the First Age which nearly wiped out Green Elves in Umathela. While they didn't look like wars to human eyes, they were just as genocidal as anything our own species had initiated. And there is also the great war against the Six Legged Empire, which was a genuine war with battles. Not to mention the wars of the Six-Legged Empire against Errinoru's Elf Empire. Then, too, there is the war going on Right Now between the people of Onlaks and the elf kingdom adjacent. >Do the Maslo work Jade? Beats me. I don't think they're Maori-equivalents. They don't have any real direct equivalent to anything on Earth. I haven't even decided whether they are more like Zimbabwe or the Mayans so far as their architecture. Maybe the Elamle are Zimbabwe-types, and the Onlaks folks are Mayan/Aztec/Toltec/whatever. >>In Pamaltela, Lodril is the _bringer_ of life, >Bringer of Life in the Long term in the sense that Volacnic ash and >ejecta has undoubtedly hazardous short term benefits No, I mean this quite directly and crudely. He is the god credited with creating the first forms of life, including the First Humans. (Assisted by a trickster entity recognized as Eurmal by the God Learners.) >What is Ironseed? I'm not sure. I predict that it is used to make arrowheads and spears though, not klanths. ---------------------