>>a) Ompalam, the ruling God in Fonrit, is also claimed to be a Chaos
>>God in GoG and ToTRM#8. Yet AFAIK his worshippers do not consider
>>themselves to be chaotic.
>Actually, I believe that Gods of Glorantha says nothing about whether or
>not Ompalam is chaotic. He is part of the "Chaos Array," which from the
>beginning (RQ3 for example) has specifically included some non-chaotic
>deities. Thus, Ompalam and Ikadz are evil, Gbaji, Jraktal, and Seseine
>are chaotic -- there is an important distinction. As GoG says, Ompalam is
>the god of "_evil_ centralization" (emphasis mine).
I don't trust the exegisis all that much in resolving whether a god is evil or chaotic. The selfsame GoG merely labels Vovisibor as Pamalt's Foe, Seseine as the goddess of Temptation and Pocharngo the Cosmic Cancer. (Before anybody objects, I am well aware that Vovisibor and Pocharngo are chaotic). In some cases, the distinction cannot be easily resolved (as you acknowledge with Malia).
Secondly, it is my opinion that the God Learners had grouped some gods as being evil and/or chaotic merely because they belonged to opposing pantheons which they were never completely able to subsume yet they knew quite well. The description of Ompalam thus reads to me like a caricture akin to the old Christian descriptions of Islam (or vice versa). This feeds into my theory that the God Learners never managed to completely subdue Fonrit.
As for Seseine being chaotic, I think that only genertelan succubi are unambigiously tainted with chaos whereas for Pamaltela, many are not. Of course when the God Learners tried to delve into her mysteries, they met succubi and assumed the worst...
>And Tales #8 is not an authoritative source -- the notes used to compile
>that article were very sketchy, and a fair amount of detail was added by
>the Tales crew. Even if we do accept this article, it is only one
>scholar's viewpoint, and I don't see any other evidence that Ompalam is
>chaotic to support it.
Hmm. He's included in Drastic: Chaos in 'the eightfold way of chaos' as being a god that uses Tap. Mind you, Zistor, the Bad Man and Sikkanos are also supposedly chaos gods according to this - which goes back to my original point about the God Learners slandering other gods as being chaotic (although Zistor IMO is an Orlanthi insertation that was picked up by the Lunars).
>>b) Jraktal tapped his Chaos Rune into nothingless and thus managed
>>to be integrated into the Cosmos.
>I'm sorry, but I find this statement to be pretty incomprehensible -- can
>you explain this a bit?
It's how the God Learners would have explained why they considered Jraktal to be a chaos god even though he does not have the chaos rune or is otherwise visibily chaotic. It's on the level of 'Issaries does not have a doubled trade rune because he sold the spare one to Argan Argar' or 'Pocharngo used to have a High Holy Day but it changed and is now lost'.
BTW Sandy, Nils and Greg Fried used Tyram and Xamalk in the East Isles myth. I'm still twitching about Xamalk.
Simon Bray:
On the Fonritan Humakt.
>I have thus opted for the radically different name of Evukindu
>(var.Evu-Kindo or Evuk-Indor) in my future references. I would be
>interested however in any ideas as to how this god of death came about.
>[...] I also suspect that Garangordos imported the religion from Laskal.
>I think that the cult is also worshipped in Laskal and a varient is
>worshipped by the Exigers of the Mari Mountains, although they only
>follow his warrior aspect.
He's also worshipped in Umathela although not as one of the nine lightbringers. I don't necessarily think that Garangordos has to import the god as the death god could quite easily be a native artmali cult that spread into Laskal and Umathela.
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