Fonrit and Umathela

From: peter metcalfe <metcalph_at_voyager.co.nz>
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 1997 19:53:27 +1300 (NZDT)


Sandy Petersen:

Me>>The Artmal maimed by the Wicked Storm Gods belongs IMO to Zamokil

>I don't think that
>the Artmal of Zamokil was maimed by the Storm Gods because there was no
>particular storm invasion of that region that I know about. Perhaps he
>was crippled by the Forest Gods?

There was a forest invasion of Zamokil? More likely are the following foes: Vovisibor or the Red Giant of Garanzarn.

>Note, however, that Umathela was never
>all that "dominated" by the God Learners for some reason, as witness the
>fact that it was not destroyed at the end of the Second Age. Fonrit was
>much more heavily hit, and Fonrit, in fact, had more God Learner
>influence. Certainly the Six-Leggers came originally from Fonrit, and
>they started out as God Learners, or at least as mock-God Learners.

Erm...

Umathela suffered the False Gods revolt, the destruction of the Universities at the hands of the Waertagi and massive riverine flooding coinciding with an elf-trollkin invasion and the Knowledge Assasins.

Fonrit on the other hand suffered a sunk fleet and an invasion of Water in the Kareeshtu straits (which may be a pointer to the location of a God Learner statelet there). There is the ruinous war against the Sorcerers of Kalabar but we have no firm indication whether they are God Learners or not.

So it seems to me that Umathela is ahead in the 'Just Punishment' stakes.

In any case, I think the criteria of using destruction as a measure of God Learner domination is flawed as Loskalm which was not God Learner at the time suffered the Closing whereas Safelster and Tanisor both were God Learnerized at the time but suffered minimal damage.

> There isn't really such an antipathy. How can there be? There is
>no such thing as "Umathela" or "Fonrit" as a political entity and there
>has never been. The closest approach there has been to such a thing was
>after the Vadeli "liberated" Umathela, and economically controlled most
>coastal towns for a few years.

Surely the lands of the Lord of the World's Knowledge (when he lived) would have been a closer approach to the concept of Umathela as a political state? Of course (he says muddying the waters) the Vadeli controlled parts of coastal Fonrit as well and the LotWK may have had some influence in Fonritan states (both God Learners and Native).

End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #274


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