Hello Loran,
Rams are male goats, aren't they?
Both Carmanian/Lunar (Yanafal) and Helamakti/Heler cults IIRC call Rams their theistic animal icon.
So I don't think that Goatkin means just 'son of Ragnaglar', but that, in less Orlanthi-centric societies, you are right that many variations of the broogony myth exist.
Broogony=bith of the broos, mind you, not agony of the broos :-)
Anyway broos are chaotics, so any myth must explain their goat connection AND their destruction/violence/misapplied fertility lust.
The problem is that chaos is not described in the same way across the lozenge and *maybe* the fact that Ragnaglar (lord of goats) is the guilty god of the orlanthi helps broos to sprout as goatkin in Orlanthi-centered areas. This is complementary, but also partially in contradiction to your theory. As chaos should be :-)
Moreover, maybe chaotic beastmen (equally violent, lustful, prolific ones) are different monsters in different areas: the goat connection could not be universal, after all.
I imagine mandril(ape)-like chaotic bands in Pamaltela, for example. Or rat-rabid chaotic swarms in Loskalm, as another example. Or houndbeasts, like horrible impregnating werewolves, elsewhere.
Anything connected with violence, sexual lust, unnatural reproduction habits, and guilt/crime could generate (invite) chaos in our world, so why just goats/rams?
Ciao,
Gian
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: The thing with goats
From: Loran
To me the most questionable point is:
Where come the goat-like traits?
- From Ragnalar the goatkin/broo father? a storm goat god as we have his brother Urox, a storm bull god. Some texts seems to indicate that. Then broos are originated from Umath mating with some animal source.
- From Thed the goatkin/broo mother? Some texts indicate that too, then is the primal goatkin an full original race by itself or a mix of man and beast runes (like hunshen usually are)?
- Both? like two interpenetrating mythological universes, animist and theistic, something that didn't fit well together (who said one 'raped' the other?), something that happened everyday during the godwar?
Well I don't have firm answers, just questions.
What we have is only orlanthi sources, naturally orientated.
;-)
Loran
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