Tim, responding to me:
You should understand that my original post was from a monomythically inclined Heortling perspective, not a Praxian perspective.
> a) I didn't think Morocanth had (particularly prominant) tusks either
They're not very. This would be the fig leaf that the God Learner uses to explain away an inconvenient fact: "Horns and tusks are really the same thing, my learned friends. Have you ever seen a Morocanth's tusks?" (And, of course, they haven't.)
Plus, it would be the herd men, not the morocanth, who are descended from Storm Bull. (But don't say that in Prax.) Since the Morocanth are known to be wily and the herd men's ancestors to be stupid, perhaps they were too dumb to realize that the Morocanth were wearing paper-mache horns. (Or make up your own amusing fable to explain why morocanth have no horns, but all the other Praxian animals do! There's no canon around this question.)
> b)If Morocanth have an elemental affinity, surely it is with darkness rather than with storm?
Yeah, but this isn't really about elemental affinities. The Impala are fire-affinity, High Llamas are water-affinity, etc. It's an origin story, about how Storm Bull and his sons came down from the Outlands hell to the Greatlands paradise. As neighbors, the Praxians identify Storm Bull with Orlanth's older brother. Many think that the Orlanthi call him Urox.
> I wouldn't have thought the Human tribes of Prax think of them selves as "storm people", particularly.
They don't. The Dedra are the True People or the People of Waha. They had multiple origins and don't remember all of them clearly. And some of their "origins" if you went back directly through their ancestors does not match their "origins" if you ask them where theior ancestors came from. Both are right in different senses. Their experience in the darkness was so shattering that, if some of them thought they were storm people, they certainly lost track of that conception. For example, a Bison man's most distant lineal ancestor came down from the Spike with Storm Bull and his sons. But he knows that the True People always lived in Genert's Garden, even if he has zero lineal ancestors who "started" there (which would be incredibly unlikely, given that the pre-Dawn low point in the population of the Dedra was below a thousand two-legs).
> Monomythically if Urox is the son of Umath and Waha! the son of Storm Bull and Storm Bull is Urox, then Waha!
> shoule (or at least could) be counted as part of the Storm Tribe, but I don't think anyone does this?
God Learners might, especially since they had so little (friendly) contact with the Praxians. "No" modern Gloranthan would thnk that. (So, if you play second age, your God Learner can set about trying to unify the Praxian and Heortling pantheons. Hmmm.)
> How about the Pol-Joni. They don't ride Erithan beasts, but do they recognise Waha! in any form?
I don't think they worship him. Waha bans the riding of horses. (Well, at least since the second age it has "always been that way." The canon leaves it open to debate before then.)
> ISTR they have adopted praxian exiles - do they use some link between Waha! and > the Storm Tribe to achieve this, recognising him as a Thunder Brother (Thunder Cousin?)
I don't think so. Praxian exiles tend to (a) die and (b) if they survive, adopt the customs of whatever group takes them in.
I think the more interesting question is how the Bull-bands operate between the different cultures. Praxian Bullmen go into Sartar and Heortland with some frequency. (After all, who could resist seeing the Footprint and Snaekpipe Hollow?) And Heortling bull-men (Uroxi or whatever) visit the Block. So, there's a lot of cultural interaction there. What they say about the relationship between Waha and his notional cousins would be interesting. But Storm Bull being Waha's father is mythically important to Waha worshippers, not to Storm Bull worshippers. So the secret Bullmen rituals in which Heortling and Praxian Bullmen participate probably never mention the relatives. But there's no canon on this, so make up whatever pleases you.
Chris Lemens
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