Yelmalio origin

From: James Turner <lib155_at_abdn.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 10:03:00 +0100 (BST)


I find myself confused over the origin of the Yelmalio cult. In an effort to find out how cults/religion start on Glorantha I found this excellent piece in KoS, but it creates more questions than answers.

        The origin of the cult seems to start when Elmali change their pratices after recognising Yelm. Most noteably the Eyetooth clan who brought in the antesmia statue (whatever that is!) so that they could cast sun spear. Presumably the rest of their magic still came from Elmal who didn't mind them worshipping a foreign God.

        Tarkalor then brought in the disgruntled Elmali to fight the Kitori. Why are they disgruntled? After he won they founded The Sun Dome Temple, to worship who? They have deviated from Elmal at this point but Yelmalio doesn't fully exist as a cult and his name isn't known yet.

        Monrogh has this vision at his initiation(which cult is he being initiated into?), and travels to the sun god to find the truth which was needed. He didn't know the name of the god he searched for but brought back Yelmalio.

        This last bit stumps me! I'm guessing that at this point that they are confused about having contradicting Elamli bits and Yelmie bits in their religion. Monrogh goes off to find the truth, I don't know what truth he was looking for but it sounds like an "Orlanth are you known as God X" type of quest which the digest agreed was impossible to answer.

        Lo and behold all their questions are answered when he comes back with the cult of Yelmalio, which they had accidently discovered by wanting to cast sun spear! Since the elves have known about him for ages it wasn't a sneaky trick by Monrogh either.

        Also what's the current stand on the Sun Dome in DP? Is it now officially an Elmali temple or is it still Yelmalio?

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