JR>>>Really? Oddly, I've long believe that least during the First Age, the
Me>>They were but such influences were extirpated by Arkat IMO. During
>>the Second Age, the land was dominated by the God Learners with their
>>monomyth from whence came the cults of Orlanth etc.
Oopsie. Should be '... modern cults of Orlanth etc.' There is a temple of Orlanth in Hrelar Amali that was built by the Seshnegi in the infamous JC reference that Joerg and I were arguing about. Undoubtedly this became the focus of the Orlanth Lightbringing cult among the Lowlanders during the first age.
>Umm. . . I don't think that the cults of Orlanth were introduced into the
>Ralian lowlands by the God Learners, nor do I believe such influences were
>extirpated by Arkat.
Arkat when he ruled over Ralios had an uz-centred religion which is a tad incompatible with the Lightbringing Orlanth religion. Now I can't actually speak about what Arkat changes made as we only have polemic tracts about the Kingdom of Darkness and all that. However given that the Lowlanders exposure to the Lightbringers is tied in with Nysalor (they come from the same source), it would have been seen as _bad_ when he cleared Ralios of the deceiver.
Now I know Arkat betrayed the Malkioni to join Humakt to fight with Harmast. But he had betrayed the Malkioni (who now controlled Lowland Ralios) in doing so and thus any message of Lightbringing being good would have fallen among deaf ears in the lowlands and receptive ears among the Vustrians et al.
>>The tribes that became Orlanthi in the Dawn Age already worshipped
>>Orlanth in some form or another (like the Harandings) or were under
>>the influence of Lokaymadon (like the Sylilings).
Jeff the Lawspeaker then recites a whole list of rebuttals including:
>The Sylilings worshipped the great Sky Bear until
>the Council missionaries showed them that Orlanth is the Great Bear - again
>long vefore Lokamayadon was born.
Interesting. The Broken Council Guidebook claims that they and the Skanthings 'are all loyal worshippers of the Storm, who they name Odayala the Storm Hunter'. As these people are now Orlanthi worshippers, it was on this grounds that I thought (erroneously it now seems) that Lokaymadon was the guy wot dun it.
>>The Ralians have
>>their own Storm god, Humath, whom they were still worshipping at the
>>time of the Broken Council. IMO the influences would be more like
>>the influence of Hellenism upon Roman Gods rather than the wholesale
>>adoption of the cult of Orlanth (ie replace Jupiter with Zeus).
>Syncretic association of Orlanth and other storm gods did not necessarily
>take place at the same time. Thus in the mid-fourth century, it is
>perfectly reasonably for me to assume that the Ralians worshipped Orlanth
>the Lightbringer, a storm god, and Humath, a storm god.
But I strongly doubt that Orlanth have had a greater influence than Humath. My criterion for assuming that a tribe or peoples had been Theyalanized is the adoption of Orlanth as the men's god. Now the Galanini would have still been worshipping Eneral, Galin or even Humath (I don't know enough about the Galanini to say which one) as their men's god and not Orlanth. Even then I feel that Humath had a greater influence in Galanini society than Orlanth.
>>Depends on how close it was to the Bright Empire. Are we speaking of
>>pan-hellenism or what? Yes it did adopt some ideals but I do not
>>believe that the Galalini were transmuted into classic orlanthi.
>I agree that I doubt the Galanini became Heortlings. Do I think that they
>sacrificed to Orlanth? Yes.
Oh. [sheathes sword and offers hand. Thinks for a moment and quickly retracts hand and removes buzzer before offering hand again] Peace?
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