I'm not sure that an Orlanthi would agree with you. They would say that Elmal was once part of the Fire Tribe, which was ruled by the Evil Emperor. Loyal Elmal was a great warrior for the Fire Tribe, so the Evil Emperor rewarded him with the [fill in names of objects representing important aspects of Elmal]. But Elmal came to know that the Emperor was ujust, so joined with Orlanth. But he took with him all of the things that the Evil Emperor gave him, like the cloak of radiance, or the fire stallion, or whatever the local Orlanthi identify as the source of Elmal's heat and light. I don't see that this requires knowledge of the monomyth for the characters. The players may recognize it for that.
> The only difference is that you believe that a great
> god holds a rune that
> makes them the source of all powers relating to that
> rune, where as I
> think the ultimate source is elsewhere, and the
> holder of the rune is just
> the biggest god of that type. (And that "great god"
> means something more
> cultural, but we've pretty much run that one into
> the dirt.) So Orlanth is
> the Biggest Storm, not the Only Storm, Yelm is the
> Biggest Sun, not the
> Only Sun. Chalana Arroy is the Biggest Healer, not
> the Only Healer, and so
> on.
I think Orlanthi might concede that the Evil Emperor was the original source of Elmal's being the Sun. This would not involve any continuing connection to the EE. Once Elmal had the Cloak of Radiance (or whatever), he kept it, despite his departure from the fire tribe. They would say Elmal is the Sun and the Evil Emperor is not, but it the leader of the Fire Tribe. More importantly, they would say that Orlanth is Storm generally or is King of Storm, while other gods or aspects are particular kinds of storms.
Chris
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