>Az-Yahlem [...] is portrayed IMG as being as strong tyrant so that
>Tondiji the city god looks all the more impressive for ruling him.
>I do think that Fonritans use terms like TYRANT and
>BACK BURNER when they describe the power of their gods to others, especially
>slaves. I have a tendency to find many of Glorantha's deities as being to
>mild and easy on their worshippers.
A minor point: In the land where people have dark coloured skins, I'm not so sure they would be aware of sunburn. Even the 'whites' of Fonrit are probably heavily tanned.
A major point: I'm not denying that Fonritan Gods are harsh and oppressive, I'm questioning whether they would nakedly be described as such by the Fonritans themselves. The Aztec Gods, for example, are pretty fearsome *but* they are not evil in the eyes of the Aztecs. Likewise the plight of a slave in a Roman Latifundae was pretty dismal yet the Roman Gods are not seen as tyrannical. In glorantha, a pious Rokari may be driven to despair over the nature of his sinful soul yet he would not describe the Invisible God as harsh and oppressive.
To describe one's own god as a tyrant implies that there is an alternative (especially if the term is used negatively). The Fonritans themselves have known since the Second Age of "Genertelan" Gods who are less oppressive yet they do not follow them. Therefore what the foreigner sees as harsh oppression by the Fonritan Gods, is not seen as such by the Fonritans themselves IMO. What then is it that the outsider sees as 'harsh oppression'? IMO the Fonritan religion is more sensitive to the presense of the Divine. A god that he follows has taboos and strictures that must be obeyed. A Fonritan can theoretically observe a wide range of taboos which would seem bedeviling in number to the outsider. The spiritual punishments for breaking them would certainly be seen as severe.
The flip side of these taboos is that the Fonritan worshipper is rewarded with a closer spiritual presense of his god or gods than that of his 'genertelan' counterparts. A genertelan really only experiences her god's presence once every holy day or when she prays. For the Fonritan, the spiritual gulf that this lifestyle entails is to him unthinkable even with the increased freedom. Thus he would prefer the fonritan gods to the genertelan ones.
Therefore for a Fonritan Slave in obeying his master, he is spiritually rewarded with the presence of Ompalam. It is this that maintains the social system of Fonrit IMO than horrific gods that compel worship or else. Yes, some of the Fonritan Gods do have a Dark Side (and a few do not even have a bright side)
>I do think that some people worship their gods
>through fear and not just peity. The religions in Fonrit are described
>as being corrupt and manipulative in their actions, I think that such
>priesthoods would use fear as a tool to further their plans.
Described in the Pamaltela Book? ['Bother' said Pooh as he was viciously gregged into the mud again].
As for 'corrupt and manipulative', I think this is another subtle distortion. Bear in mind that the current Fonritan social system looks like an invention of the Vadeli for squeezing blood out of a stone. The agricultural sector is virtually enslaved (yet there are free artisans). There's a massive slave revolt underway by the Veldang of which the scale appears to be unknown in Fonritan history.
Hence I think that before the Opening the wretched veldang lived in numerous villages and the local Massarin had the right to their labour and produce (the Spanish _ecomiendas_ if anyone is interested). Thus the plight of the Veldang was bad but tolerably so. The agimori and wareran peasantry dwelt in free villages. But since the Vadeli domination, the situation has been changed for the worse. The veldang now slave away in vast latifundae (and are on the brink of revolt with Kirk Douglas yet to be seen) whereas the formerly free peasantry now toil away in econmiendas.
I'm digressing here because I wanted to get across the impact of the Vadeli domination on Fonritan society. To return to the point about corrupt and manipulative religions. It is my belief that the Vadeli similarly uprooted the old religious order. Now the religions are still around but there is no accepted understanding of their proper place in society. The myriad religions of Fonrit are trying to secure what they see as their rightful place in society at the expense of the other contenders. This has of late degenerated into blatant powerplays (which are sadly becoming more frequent) which leads to the foreign impression of Fonritan Religion as corrupt and manipulative.
>We are after all talking about a
>country which patrices open human sacrifice (Barueli), consorting with
>demons (Fanjosi) and instant death to all foreigners (forget the city).
It's not stated that the Barueli sacrifices are human and the Fanjosites do not see their incubusses as Demons but as Saintly Angels.
>You yourself said that "the Cruel" had different connotations for
>Fonritans so why not "Tyrant"?
What I meant was that the word 'cruel' was a perverse misunderstanding of the Fonritan term much like 'terrible' in Ivan the Terrible. We understand terrible to refer to the horrible things that Ivan did yet he was actually called the terrible because he bestowed terror on his enemies which was a Good Thing to the russians (unless you happened to be the [internal] enemy in question). I thus would only find the word 'cruel' in foreign writings and use a different word to describe Garangordos.
>The Massarin (Fonritan for masters) worship hard and potent gods in my
>opinion, that is how rule is maintained.
Is the term Massarin from the Pamaltela Book?
>I believe
>that Darleester the Noose is a sub form of Ompalam who justifies the
>reasons for the position of the Janns, and was created by the Jann
>for this very purpose.
I had the impression that Darleester was an ancestor of the Agimori who dwelt in Afadjann and was famous for strangling rivals with a bowstring. Every Afadjanni citizen has to join his cult (of which the current Jann is the High Priest) upon pain of having something inventively horrible happen to them. Thus the Jann can effectively transcend the traditional city state hostility. Since the will of Darleester happens to be the same as the Jann, the Afadjanni have to obey taboos such as 'obey the Jann', 'denounce dissidents to the secret police' and 'pay taxes on time'.
>Where did the reference to Enkidu come from? I remember it vaguely, but
>cannot find it anywhere.
Enkidu in the gloranthan context was described by Sandy in digest v04.n290:
::If a Humakti traveled to Umathela, and discovered that a local war-god, ::Enkidu, had vestiges of honor, and a sword + shield as his emblem, he would ::be likely to assume that Enkidu was the local name for "Humakt". The fact ::that Enkidu's swords are curved and that he is always portrayed as a ::skeleton might bother him a bit, but it might not.
The reason it sounds so familiar is that there is a sumerian hero known as Enkidu. I had to check the spelling coz I thought I was getting it wrong.
>I am very unsure about the "Prince", I cannot remember his name, I
>think he may be trying to defeat the current Jann to reinstate the
>older tyrannical practices of his father or alternatively he is trying
>to overthrow a tyrant.
I'd be interested in more details. But I'm thinking that the Prince and the Jann are related. There's a charming custom of the Ottoman Sultans where to ensure political stability, the male relatives of the Sultan were strangled. Since there was never a change of dynasty within the Ottoman Empire, this effectively stilled opposition towards the Sultan because the alternative was chaos. IMO Afadjann is similar and the Prince is the Jann's nephew who has escaped his uncle's clutches and is formenting rebellion.
>The leaders of the Kareeshti seem to be called Shaks (according
>to the Pamaltela book), what do you think.
In the Sea Special, Kareeshtu is called the Unity of the Republics of Golden Kareeshtu. It looks as though a Shak is a City Magistrate selected by the Plutocracts/Massarin from among their ranks.
>Finally who is the Jann, son of Afadjann in KOS, noted as a companion
>to Argrath?
Hunralki of Jolar IMO. I think Argrath met him in Afadjann (after the second battle of Oenriko Rock) and so he is thought of as being from Afadjann. I'd say Hunralki styled himself Jann of Pithdaros after he took it over.
>I think one factor that is important to remember is that many of the gods
>were duplicated by the God Learners and given two identies suggested in
>TotRM as being called the God Switch (IMO).
I think this refers to the God Learners importing the Genertelan Gods and making the conquered parts of Fonrit worship them. So now they have two gods for every one that they used to have.
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