>The Orlanth cult writeup in Thunder Rebels still takes the view
>that Orlanth's existence is a cosmological necessity.
Well, Thunder Rebels is pretty much a Heortling document; I have no doubt that they think that Orlanth is a cosmological necessity. Using Thunder Rebels as a guide, the Lunar Empire is Evil, the Esrolians are nasty old women, the Tarshites are cowards, etc. I'm assuming that the matching guides for other cultures will have equally flattering portrayals of the Orlanthi. After all, the Lunars have spent centuries trying to prove that Orlanth is not a cosmological necessity.
>Now by acknowledging Orlanth, I do not mean that they must have
>some sort of entity called Orlanth in their pantheon who dresses
>up like the Heortlings do. Instead they have some sort of entity
>whom the Orlanthi can recognize as their god.
But how much of Air is Orlanth? Presumably, these other entities of Air don't have the connections to Movement, Rulership, and all those other things that make Orlanth Orlanth instead of "some Air god."
>Yeah, but even the Pelorians recognize that the Storm Barbarians
>have greater mastery over the aerial element than their own
>storm gods. They will dispute my cosmological reason for this,
>but they still recognize it.
But they are working to change it; clearly, the Lunars think that Orlanth can be replaced. It may be true now, but, if the Lunars have their way, it won't be in the future.
> >Similarly, Humakt may be Death for the Orlanthi, but Pelorians die
>>without Him,
>
>The Pelorians do not die without Humakt and he is acknowledged
>in their pantheon as "Urnbudud" (GRAY p56).
Was Urnbudud killed by Shargash?
> >Elmal and Yelm are boh the sun -- if Yelm were erased, the sun
>>wouldn't go out,
>
>When Yelm was "erased", the sun did go out. Even though Elmal
>still lived, he was a much weaker entity compared to what had
>gone before.
I thought that was because Elmal was wounded again and again defending the Storm Tribe from bad things. It had nothing to do with The Evil Emperor getting his. Well, OK, it was a consequence of it, but not directly related. Even when Yelm was taken to be the Evil Emperor, Yelm and Elmal remain separate. Otherwise we're back to the Monomyth.
> >although the Dara Happa would lose many vital things
>>(Justice, Rulership, Fertility (maybe), Male Identity (for the nobles),
>>and so on.
>
>The Dara Happans still had access to those concepts through the
worship of inferior entities (Antirius - Justice etc).
And they seem to have worked poorly. Yelm wouldn't have ended up being carted coughing around on an ox, that's for sure....
Peter Larsen
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