I found David's reconciliation interesting but unconvincing, so I came up with an alternative for my campaign. (I actually posted this some weeks ago but it got lost in the RQ-Daily crashes.)
Greg has told us in King of Sartar that the cult of Yelmalio was created/revealed by Monrogh in Sartar in fairly recent times, yet history indicates that Yelmalio has been worshipped for centuries in Sun County (and Balazar if you remember Griffon Mountain). Certain theories have been proposed to rationalize this discrepancy, I am going to add another one.
The man we know as Monrogh of Dragon Pass was a pious Elmali in Sartar within the last century. He was driven to seek new truths about his god. At one point in his questing he rode into the harsh desert of Prax. Where better to seek for truths of the sun? Many days later he arrived, half dead of heat prostration, in Sun County. The priests there recognized him as a holy man and treated him with reverence. In his quest through the desert, he had trod new hero paths unknown to the Elmali, this had brought him to new truths including the true name of Elmal which is Yelmalio. Like Yelmalio, he had paid a high price for his questing, one thing he lost was his name.
The priests of Yelmalio recognized the hero paths that he described. They saw that he was retracing the paths of their legendary founder, Monrogh. They tended and taught the holy man as he recovered from his ordeal until he was ready to continue his quests. They also learned from him, for many of his revelations made clear the errors that had accumulated in their own faith during the Solitude of Testing. When he was ready to leave they gave him many gifts to aid his quest. One thing they gave him was a new name. Since he was walking the founder's path, they named him Monrogh.
In time, Monrogh completed his questing and returned to his people in Sartar. There he taught them the truth. He taught that Elmal was not the servant of Orlanth, but was really Yelmalio, the son of the Sun, a prince in his own right, and the equal of Orlanth. His teaching was composed partly from his Elmali traditions, partly from the Yelmalio traditions of Sun County, and partly from his own revelations. His movement prospered. When he finally departed the mortal plane for the realm of the heroes, there were many to carry on the faith.
In Sartar, Monrogh is considered the one founder of the Yelmalion faith. In Sun County, Monrogh of Dragon Pass is now considered the reincarnation of the original Monrogh.
I think this manages to rationalize the discrepancies in our current knowledge. The cult of Yelmalio was founded by Monrogh in recent times AND in ancient times.
End of Glorantha Digest V1 #31
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