From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
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Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Sat, 01 Oct 1994, part 2
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From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Sandy agrees on Pamalt and others
Message-ID:
Date: 30 Sep 94 20:23:48 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6427
Sandy Petersen in X-RQ-ID: 6415
> Joerg B. on his hobbyhorse about Pamalt not being an Earth god.
According to Genertelan definition.
>>By this rationalizing, Orlanth is the male ruling earth god of most
>>of Genertela:
> Yeah. So? You think he's not?
Glad to find you agreeing!
> 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 think they do. I'm just not certain how these look like. To expand on
Davd Dunham's Land Goddess summary, the Orlanth Rex cult seems to have
filled part of these functions in a form acceptable to the male
dominated Orlanthi. Other functions (like the Illaro dynasty king
sacrifice) seem to remain in the hands of the earth priestesses.
> 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.
i.e. Genertela outside Tanisor, Loskalm, Teshnos, Kralorela and the
Lunar Heartlands. Not that King of Gods must have much meaning in
all of these areas...
> 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,
Well, Cronisper seems to be his father or so (not that that mattered
too much among the Doraddi), and could be called a sky god.
I think the old concept of the Burtae (deities of mixed elemental
ancestry) is pretty much out of date, except among die-hard God
Learners. However, these were the ones who made the parallel, and
they might have seen the parallels between the ancestry of Pamalt and
Umath or Orlanth.
> 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.
The lack of any important Pamalt blood-relative: Any idea what
caused this? Did his blood-kin perish (Pamaltela has as great a
share of dead gods as has Genertela, it seems, and the Old Gods are
specially listed in the Prosopaedia)?
If applying linguistics can deduce a connection or two for pre-KoS
writings, then Pamalt seems very Fire/Sky connected: the closest fit
I can think of is Primolt, also spelled Promalt, the other name for
Aether.
(Yes, I try to figure Pamalt out as an outsider, the Doraddi mindset
escapes me somewhat.)
> 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.
Orlanth's myths are more complex in that they unite all kind of
conflicting notions - making friends and making foes, cooperating
with one's kin and fighting it, etc. If Pamalt, as you say, lacks
these myths of conflict, is this because he is less a composite deity,
because his myth is of recent origin only, or because Pamalt's myths
were less in the focus of the authors compared to the "more interesting"
Genertelan myth?
>>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.
Well, the Pamaltelans seem less obsessed with the elemental nature of
things than the central Genertelans. Thus, being of the Earth means
less in Pamaltela than in Genertela.
> 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.
This, and losing the first contest, reminds me strongly of Orlanth's
rise to supremacy. Orlanth's myths are more extreme, but otherwise
Pamalt's efforts remind me of Orlanth's.
> 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.
A bit like Stormfall or the battle at Castle Blue, where the
established gods went and fought fairly (the Genertelan equivalent for
negotiations ), and expected their opponents to do the same.
>>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.
Well, do you have more info about Molandro? I saw his name only twice,
first in the three contests of Yelm, then in the Pamalt write-up his
stomach is used as an artifact.
> Can't a god rule over the Earth even if he doesn't have what
> the God-Learners call the "Earth" Rune?
Well, if Orlanth can, as you said above, then I have no problems at
all with Pamalt, who has visible Earth ties in his divine spells.
And Lodril in most of his forms is as much an Earth deity as a fire
deity.
However, this opens another question I've been harbouring for some
time: How is the native Pamaltelan divine magic different from the
Genertelan? Cults of Terror calls the native Pamaltelan philosophy
Naturalist, similar to the Hsunchen. (IMO this is just a GL way to
say "We don't really understand, so let's group these.) Do the Doraddi
perform theist worship, or rather something similar to Praxian or
Hsunchen spirit cults? Were their ways of worship different before the
Six-legged Empire came, like it is said about the Praxians before the
advent of the Pure Horse Tribe?
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de
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