David Dunham on the 'Cities of jrustela'
>I can't find it there, which is darned annoying since I wrote it.
It's in the old site's library of Londarios
http://www.herowars.com/greg/jrustela.htm
>What's not there, IIRC, is that the Waertagi had already transported
>other barbarians to Umathela. This was in 580 or so, and is said (in
>Missing Lands) to be the first settlement.
In the Missing Lands chronology p58, 580 ST is noted as the date of the first Seshnegi colonists' arrival in Umathela. From various sources, Jrustela was settled around 600 ST, and the first Jrusteli colonists arrived circa 660 ST. I suppose the barbarians were there before the Westerners.
>One other aspect of 9 is that you could interpret the myth in a
>political sense. Tyloque finds companions from three separate groups.
>Geography separates the Umathelan barbarians pretty effectively, and
>the God Learners probably tried to enforce this so they'd have nice
>independent experimental groups. So part of breaking the power of the
>God Learners is uniting three separate peoples. (And actually, each
>god -- or god's representative on the quest -- probably came from a
>different tribe.)
Thus, although the Godlearners tried to separate them, they eventually united and worshipped each others' gods, becoming stronger and forming a single people. I never heard of a similar situation in Glorantha and that's a great idea. Gives extra exotic flavor to the LBQ a quest for unity.
After the Godlearners' utter destruction the barbarians had to cope with the Woodland Judgements, and certainly this forced a feeling of duty to nature on them - that may already have been underlying because of their wild boarish origins. Not just restoring the sun, the Lightbringers restored the order of nature and the barbarians' gods have to preserve that order.
The invasion of Umathela by Fonrit in the 14th century provoked the Season Wars, during which the barbarians won in winter thanks to their storm and ice powers whereas the Fonritians won in summer thanks to their burning magic. Actually the invasion may have rekindled a very old, forgotten conflict between the Sun and the Storm - or as Missing Lands suggests, Summer vs Winter in Umathela.
BTW your (David's) myth sounds to me like Umath and the storm gods brought winter and war to the world, & the Lightbringers quested to restore summer and unity so that Tyloque established the cycle of seasons - and the Bee Goddess surely is a nice messenger of springtime!
I got the feeling that Tyloque has a similarity to Pamalt (except that his powers are atmosphere and the cycle of weather instead of earth). This due to the influence that living in Pamaltela had on the Orlanthi, rather than to cultural exchange with the inland IMO.
>>I haven't decided for my game. It's entirely possible they didn't
>>have Lightbringers at all until the God Learners introduced it
>>(nobody at all had this until Harmast, and he didn't get to Slontos
>>as far as I know). This would mean that there weren't 9 until the end
>>of the God Learners.
Olli Kantola:
>Outrageous. ...or perhaps not, but I wouldn't leave good old Orlanth
>out of the picture yet. HE did it first, or maybe you are implying that
>Harmast somehow created a large part of Orlanthi mythology out of
>scraps. 'Cos then without Harmast the Orlanthi wouldn't have a proper
>ending that to their mythic past. Surely the LBQ was before Harmast tried
>it.
Surely they had it but maybe its shape wasn't clearly defined yet, which allowed many local variants. Harmast may have set it the way it is now in Genertela, with six guys and a wyter, but possibly he did so after the Umathelans' ancestors migrated. Thus some group of heroes may have done it another way in Umathela where they hardly heard about Harmast.
Jerome
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