>In my campaign, all agriculture in Genertela does
>require earth-fertility magic, because Genert is dead.
I can't imagine any agriculture anywhere on Glorantha (do Vadeli farm?) that does not require earth-fertility magic. A farmer who doesn't worship his work (or has the wizard/sorcerer put in the magic) won't be able to harvest anything beyond the grudgingly given (Earth is bountiful, but not necessarily generous if neglected; if there is no veneration, earth will still give back part of what it is given, unless there is sacrilege).
>Eiritha does not provide this sort of magic. The Zola Fel
>river valley gets its fertility magic for agriculture from
>Zola Fel;
Zola Fel provides the water, but doesn't give any Bless Crops or similar benefits as far as I remember the write-up. What grows on the land grows from Eiritha.
>while few of the people in the area worship the river
>primarily, they all pay respect to it and include it in
>certain important ceremonies.
Much like the Dragon Pass Orlanthi include Heler (and/through Orlanth Thunderous) in their agricultural worship. Greg's myth of the month addresses this in passing, replacing or embellishing the earlier Orlanth woos Ernalda myth in WFP(rints).
>The symbolic marriage of the Count of Sun County to
>the naiad Kinope (a daughter of Zola Fel) detailed in
>River of Cradles is an example of this.
IMO this is an example for a water-bringing ceremony. The farmer knows that he requires three components - earth to give birth to the new wealth, water to make it grow, and sun to mature it; and none of these in excess. Accordingly, more importance is laid into rituals which concern a critical ressource - river water in Sun County, since rain is not only scarce, but mythically inappropriate.
>The oases in my Prax are areas where Genert bled when
>he died; as a result, they have some fertility without
>special earth-magic.
My only quibble with this is that it was Tada rather than Genert who fought and died in Prax - Genert died somewhere in the Krjalki Bog in most myths. Who tells this myth?
Joerg Baumgartner (via Hotmail)
mailto:joe_at_toppoint.de
End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #431
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