> It depends on the nature of the catastrophe. Garangordos conquers Fonrit circa 500 ST (which is rather late IMO) so Fonrit has had about five centuries to recover from the Great Darkness and Fonrit is in Pamaltela where the devastation of the Gods War was less than Genertela.
Not quite sure about that - coastal Pamaltela remained in the occasional grip of the antigods for some time, until they were overcome by the Fisherman hero of the southwestern East Isles. The Outrigger Peoples hid out while the apdara came raiding, except for the Kimotans who took the Gorger apdara more or less head on, or rather monument on.
Admittedly, the Thinokans form only a minority in Fonrit. The vast majority in the Dawn Age would have been survivors of the Artmali downfall, possibly with a few remnants of the storm people (Vadrudi?) who were too slow to catch up with the migration into the Veldt before their destruction.
The presence of goat herding in the Fonritian hinterland indicates that not all of those herd beasts were lost.
Somehow, the Agimori of the Veldt felt the reverberations of the Gbaji Wars and mounted a great migratory expedition to set things right, the Pithdarans. These folk migrated into Fonrit, aquired boat building technology from the natives and set sail (or paddle) on the ocean, only to be trapped in a strange time distortion - possibly some Waertagi magics, since they were released when the Waertagi primacy on the western seas was broken.
We have no records or dates for the Pithdaran arrival in the lands of Oabil, the traditional source for slaves for the Vadeli. From 4th action records, we know that the Vadeli took both Artmali and Agimori slaves in the region, but we don't know how far inland their slave-taking expeditions or trading went. There are some indications that the Artmali won a hold over the region some time in the Storm Age and terrorized the homelands of the Outrigger people.
Garangordos would have come to Fonrit in the wake of the Pithdaran migration. Fonrit was the only gap in the wall of forests in northern Pamaltela since Aldrya's Woe destroyed the Greenwood of that region, allowing unhindered overland contact with the veldt, so I have little doubt that the Pithdarans came through here.
"The Middle Sea Empire" tells us that the Pithdarans shared their stories with the Seshnegi, thereby giving them access to Pamaltelan lore.
Peter:> If only the other hand, you meant that the Dawn Age civilization destroyed itself rather horribly as a result of the Sunstop Revelations, then I am intrigued. What sort of disaster do you think took place?
I'm not sure that the Pithdaran migration would have been a disaster, but it certainly was a momentous event in later Dawn Age Fonrit.
>> Therefore Garangordos does not arrive as a prophet with a new religion and devoted desert warriors taking over an existing civilisation, but as an adventurer who lucks out with some enslavement magic and takes over, reinvigorating society (if not actually improving it).
I think that Garangordos' arrival in Fonrit is comparable to the exile colony of traditional exarchs in Chern Durel during Shang Hsa's reign - a variation of his homeland culture tossed out, and then imprinting itself on the natives who don't have much of a say in this.
(Interesting parallel to Froalar, too...)
I'm trying to think of similar historical conquests. Ghengis Khan in China did not turn over the social structure that far. Mogul India might be a valid comparison, but I don't know enough about that region and period. Columbus in the Caribbean and subsequent conquistadores in Latin America might be the best examples.
Garangordos certainly did not have the well-being of his conquered subjects in mind, but that of his conquering people. To the natives, this may not have been much of a change, given their previous exposure to apdara and waertagi raiders.
> I don't like the adventurer motivation (and enslavement magic is not what Ompalam is/should be about).
Enslavement is what the history of that land is about. Whoever wanted to hold on that land used enslavement to further their goals.
> Look at the other great cultural founding heroes: Arkat fought Gbaji, Alakoring fought the evil dragons. So the suggestion that Garangordos's motivation was to kill people and take their stuff does not sound right to me.
Maybe Syranthir is the cultural founding hero we should use for comparison - thrown out of the homeland, making contact with a native deity of rather cruel history (as seen by the Pelandans) and spreading his homeland creed and companions as the top layer of society and culture.
> You may have simply meant exploring which sounds better to me but
Garangordos still needs a better motivation than to just boldly go.
Not wanted in the homeland any more, taking followers along and setting up his way of life, heavily modified by the local conditions he finds among the foreign people he rules over.
>> Krarsht without Krarshtkids, at least that is the impression I get from Glorantha Bestiary. Still Krarsht, and perhaps still with the underground tunnels (of course! this is an RPG!), but without the kids. Perhaps Storm Bull didn't slice her up in Pamaltela so she's down there...complete.
> I'm pretty much in agreement here. Krarsht is the Pamaltelan equivalent of Arachne Solara and the Krarshtkids are trying to incorporate the rest of Glorantha within her.
>> The details of Ompalam, Tentacule, Darleester and even Jraktal confuse me.
> I'm currently seeing Ompalam as a Pamalt equivalent - the same deity in two different religions (although the Doraddi would probably say that he was Bolongo looking like Pamalt). Thus when the Doraddi speak about Pamalt doing such and such, the Fonritan myth is about Ompalam.
Sort of a parallel of Nysalor / Gbaji or Arkat / Gbaji.
> Where Pamalt emphasized kinship ties, Ompalam stressed duty. I think at the Dawn, Ompalam was worshipped in Fonrit and Laskal rather than being a new god revealed by Garangordos..
The Idovanus of Fonrit?
> Tentacule and Darleester are more like religious practices to bring the worshipper closer to Ompalam rather than independent deities in their own right.
As a side issue, what exactly does "ownership" (whether of slaves or other possessions) entail in Fonrit? The concept might differ from our modern concept.
>> I was using p42 of Revealed Mythologies:
> That's my least favourite section of Revealed Mythologies and most in need of a rewrite, I feel. It makes Garangordos even worse than the God Learners (who did not tamper with such rituals) and even more effective than Arkat (who despite being the HeroQuester without equal still had to fight bloody battles left right and centre). Secondly Seventeen is too big and unwieldy number and I would have chosen Five.
Seventeen is a holy number of the Pamaltelan Veldt, and one of the few certain Agimori influences I can see in Fonrit. It makes for a handy number of dominant city states quarreling with one another, too.
I wonder how urbanized either Fonrit or Garangordos' homeland culture was. It certainly is a major difference to the Agimori of the Veldt and might be one of the disagreements of his followers with the remaining mainstream culture.
(The Pithdarans may have carried pre-split traditions into Seshnelan lore. I wonder whether they were as hostile to cities and civilization as the modern Doraddi culture.)
>> This looks to me like Garangordos, as Pamalt, doing experimental Heroquesting to release Ompalam rather than release Varama. He is twisting Pamaltelan/Doraddi mythology.
> When I see the words experimental heroquesting, I reach for my gift carrier...
Choosing a different or impossible reward on a heroquest usually comes with enough punishment as is...
> Exactly how does Garangordos even know how to do this? Experimental Heroquesting is known only in Ralios by Arkat and his heirs whereas the God Learners didn't start heroquesting until they destroyed the Autarchy which is at least two centuries after Garangordos!
Arkat's experimental heroquesting involved deliberate changing of myths at well-mapped junctions. Random changes of myth has always been a possibility and a danger in heroquesting, usually followed by disaster, in rare cases followed by extraordinary rewards. I suppose that deliberate deviation from the well-known myth occured rather more often than we give credit for, usually when staying in the myth would offer dire consequences as well.
> My advice is avoid the rules talk and avoid ascribing modern cynical motivations. Garangordos should be trying to recreate a great rite that hasn't been performed for centuries (just as the Princes of the Ten Tests were reviving the ancient Dara Happan Empire - they weren't perverting the existing knowledge). That gives him a motivation to travel all around Fonrit.
A pity that that rite may have been the formation of Oabil, the Vadeli slave kingdom of northwestern Bamatela.
> Why is he travelling to Fonrit? For example, Garangordos had a particular enemy in the Yellow Elves. He started off in Laskal. Yet instead wiping out the elves of his homeland of Laskal before moving onto Fonrit as most people would have done, he moves to Fonrit and wipes out the elves there. It seems to me that his folks were in exile.
The aldryami of Fonrit don't require much wiping out - IMO they were part of the victims of Aldrya's Woe in Pamaltela. Most Pamaltelan Mreli and Vronkali were involved in the genocidal war against the Lascerdans or recovering from that episode.
IMO Garangordos' people started their trek into exile in the Pamaltelan Veldt, and Laskal is just where Garangordos took over. Perhaps they even started from Kolarmori, the city of iron in Pithdaran myth.
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