Personally I see Donandar as a mirror to Lhankor Mhy. Before chaos came
they were both knowledge gods and shared what they knew. They chaos came,
and knowledge started to be lost.
Lhankor Mhy saw that the best thing to do was to grasp all knowledge and
keep it safe.
Donandar said that this was wrong, for if chaos were to take Lhankor Mhy
then all the knowledge would be lost. It was better to tell everybody
everything. Then Chaos could kill some of the people, but there would
still be someone that knew whatever there was to be known.
At first Donandar told Lhankor Mhy what he knew, but Lhankor Mhy would
not offer up his secrets in return. Eventually Donandar go fed up and
stopped talking to his former friend.
Donandar now teaches storytellers and musicians in Orlanthi society. His
magic lets his worshipers reveal secrets. Their shrine spell, History,
is a lot like LM's spell Knowledge, save that were LM's spell tells the
caster what he wants to know and he then gets money for revealing the
knowledge, the Donandar spell involves the sklad sitting down and saying
"Ah, now this was the sword of Ranlar Windwoice, who fought against the
men of Tarsh when Sartar still walked the earth.....
This Donandar is the Donandar of Sartar. The Donandar we are more
familiar with, from Gods of Glorantha and other places is the Solar
Donandar. Presumably the God Learners merged the two, even though the
Orlanthi Donandar's runes are Truth and Harmony, while the Solar's are
Illusion and Harmony. The Solar one, the civilised musician, just doesn't
have a place within Orlanthi Society.
I might still have a cult writeup for this Donandar on disc somewhere.
The computer I wrote it for (it appeared in Read Pheasant Throughout#1)
was stolen, but I think it was on a floppy. If I can find it I could
upload it if people were interested.