> Shadows on the Borderland has the best information on the cult in the world as opposed to its convoluted mythos and notes the Tunneled Hills complex as well as temples in Kralorela, Peloria, Ralios and Maniria.
If I was re-doing Thanatar, I would scrap the cult framework as written (even in the 80s, I can recall complaints about the cult's organization) and go back to the basics - how the divided god might manifest as a corruption of human society.
There's two main sources of worship - the Orlanthi practice of headhunting and the Kralori scholastic sin of eating books and scrolls (which has spread to scholarly cults in the rest of Genertela). In the good old days, Orlanthi headtaking was a lot more respectable but now, like human sacrifice, it tends to be practiced by the type of Orlanthi that give deliverance hill-billies a bad name. Atyari cheatring is a bit more common (as it's so damned helpful in exam-time) but rarely poses a threat to life and limb.
The classic thanatari cult would be found IMO in three places. Than Ulbar, the Temple of Heads in Dorastor and a third in Ralios. These cults have sprung up because the two cults have unwittingly preyed on each other (a headhunter took the head of an atyari scholar or vice versa) and in their madness come up with the demented idea of the Divided God has being the source of the two distinct chaotic traditions. They are also so remote or hidden that attempts to exterminate them have not yet succeeded. Although similar, the three cults also have quirks that make them dissimilar.
Places like the Dyskund Caverns would be places of refuge founded by priests on the losing side of a factional conflict. Such places will have very short life spans as they are too close to human civilization to avoid detection yet they need human heads to thrive.
> The Tunneled Hills probably draws its converts from the Plains or points farther east. Ken Rolston tells us there is an active Thanatar complex in Carmania, which is not exactly Orlanthi territory. Ironically we know most about this one.
I doubt there is a Thanatari complex in Carmania. There would be an Atyari network of scroll-eaters most certainly but taking heads is too visible a crime for the authorities to ignore.
> We are told that the Shadows version is "the Carmanian version" (LOT) and it is also vastly different from the COT version, which we might posit represents a "Manirian version." Other versions (Dorastan, Kralorelan...) exist.
I don't give that statement much credence when the truth is that the cult of Thanatar couldn't be revised in time before Shadow on the Borderlands was published.
> In any event, the skull spends some time causing trouble in Kralorela, then is forced westward by persecutions. (COT)
The Skull is a huge skull in the Tunnelled Hills and was the remains of Tien when he was defeated by Basko in the Glory of the Black Sun. As for the cult spreading westward by persecution, I tend to think the Kralori punished it whenever they discovered it but it was never a serious threat to their society and that the practice spread westward because it was so damned useful in passing exams.
As for how Tien becomes Than, I now think they are separate deities/heroes and the original thanic tradition (which came about when Orlanth killed the Celestial Dragon and took its head) became corrupted once the headhunters became exposed to Atyari. Tien was chaotic from the start and his headhunting and other magics is a lot more exotic IMO.
> Whenever it happened, it was probably in the Wastes somewhere and Than Ulbar is probably one of the mother temples. From there, the Than/Atyar cult has to get to Carmania and Ralios and down to Maniria at a certain specific moment in history.
I'll leave Than Ulbar out of this. Atyar will probably start appearing in the Holy Country as a scholarly heresy in the Dawn Age (Treack Markhor being the first Gray Sage to be so caught). There were native thanic headhunters around at the time so all that's needed is for the two to mix and Thanatar is born. Since the Empire of Light used head-hunters, Dorastor is a suitable place for their main temple and a secondary temple in Ralios follows not so long after that.
--Peter Metcalfe
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