The text in Revealed Mythologies as it stands is IMO too mechanical in describing what Garangordos did. For a rustic hero fleeing the jungle, he's outdone the God Learners in changing myth for his own ends.
The Lunar New Year Ceremony
Throughout all Glorantha, the Rebirth Ceremony of the Sacred Time is of utmost importance. During the week-long ceremony most god-worshipping peoples act out their sacred myths of death and rebirth. Across the whole world everyone summons their spirits and gods, and the physical plane trembles with their presences. Even the cynicism of the God Learners never tainted these critically important rites. Fifth Wane Footnote. http://www.glorantha.com/library/history/hle-5wane.html When the time came to perform the annual Life Quest, Garangordos announced that he would not be performing the usual quest to defeat Vovisibor, Filth-Which-Walks, and release Kendamalar to be reborn as Varama. Instead he and his followers would use the quest to liberate Ompalam from the shackles of Jraktal the Tap. Revealed Mythologies p42.
So what I want to do is to flesh out some more background to make Garangordos's actions seem natural from within his own viewpoint. From that, inferences can hopefully be drawn about what Fonritan magic is like today.
There is a puzzle in that the Garangordos brought back the ancient Gods of the Artmali whereas the original Artmali tradition and their practices at the time of the conquest is animistic. A possible solution is that marine deities, like those of the underworld, are capable of encompassing more than otherworld but this doesn't explain why they flipped back and forth nor why many of the deities are not marine.
Looking at the Pamaltelan mythology, I see that beyond the gap in
the Mountains of Balumbasta is the land of Selvukko surrounding
the Mountain of Bandaku. Bandaku been interpreted as the Spike
but I think it wiser to make it a spike-equivalent in what is now
Fonrit. Ample precedent exists for this treatment in Heortling
(KeroFin) and Dara Happan (Jernalf) myth.
So rather than label the civilization _Artmali_ which implies that it is the same as the Artmali nations of Tenel (in what is now Zamokil) and Kungatu, I'll call it Selvukko.
This implies there's a big mountain in Fonrit somewhere although the Doraddi think Pamalt destroyed it. A possibility is that the ruins of the Great Mountain are to be found in Afadjann and surrounding lands. Afadjann forms the heart of the ruined mountain (or a volcanic plug/neck or tholoid in geology speak) while the surrounding lands are part of the mountain rim. After Pamalt destroyed Bandaku, the sea then filled up the remnants.
So what was Selvukko like? As the Other of the Pamaltelans, it becomes the psychic magnet for everything that the Doraddi, Veldang, Jelmre and Slarges think is wrong. Selvukko is not evil any more than a troll is - its continuing degeneration is merely another face of the contradictions that tore the cosmos apart during the Gods War and Great Darkness.
Now Selvukko (and Bandaku) appears in Doraddi mythology during the Creation Period which is before the first appearance of the Artmali during their Period). So who lived there before the Artmali? Elves are known to have lived there (Fonrit seems to be derived from the Aldryami name _Fontir_ "Love Gone" Elder Races book p34) before Garangordos came and exterminated them all (Revealed Mythologies p48). But since Garangordos appears to know so much about Fonrit before even setting foot there, I think his ancestors came from there.
Garangordos comes from Laskal where there still live a people called _Ia Rawthi_ ("Fort People"). They live in Dolorofey which is an early battleground in Doraddi mythology being a hole in the Fensi mountain chain. Now the "error" of the Fonritans is that they have taken an important tenet of the Doraddi too far and become theists instead of animists. Rather than attribute this to Garangordos himself, I prefer to make it an ancient practice of the Ia Rawthi that sets them apart from the Doraddi. I think this practice became apparent in mythical times (Creation or Old People's Period).
So originally Selvukko (or the land around Bandaku) was inhabited
by the Ia Rawthi ancestors among others in the Old People's
Period/Golden Age. The others probably include the Viymorni
(proto-Vadeli), the Yranians, the Genderans and any other
weird exotic people whose descendants practice some odd
magical tradition. This, after all, is the Golden Age.
Although the Fonritans believe they were the lords of that happy age, this may or may not have been so. What makes the Fonritans so strong now is that they were the most populous survivors of Selvukko.
Selvukko comes to an end during the Artmali period. First there was the Artmali that sailed anticlockwise from Zamokil to Maslo and then to Selvukko. The Thinobutan myths portray them as evil people that make them theist (although the terminology used again is too blatant for my tastes) which is probably due to the Artmali having landed at Fozeranto/Durba and becoming "corrupted". Due to their secret tidal powers, I think they cleared people away from Selvukko by using the waters to flood their homes. Because of this, the Fonritan ancestors moved southwards with a bitter grudge against the Artmali - which is why their descendents are all base slaves as punishment.
Then came the invasion of barbarian animal-herders that worshipped the Storm God Baraku. They undoubtedly conquered Selvukko but then moved on to wreck havoc on the Pamaltelan plains. The Elves probably betray the Fonritans during this time to make Garangordos & co. hate them later on while an eruption of trolls that later migrate to the Tarmo mountains worsens matters.
Finally Vovisibor is made. Five evil shamans make him (perhaps at Kalabar?) to conquer the whole world. The Fonritan ancestors oppose him but their gods are devoured by Jraktal the Tap and they are forced into hiding (perhaps their forts?). Finally Pamalt lurks Vovisibor into the place where he was made and destroys him with the Necklace and brings the Gods War to an end.
I think the Necklace myth is also known by the Ia Rawthi in which
it (or the wielder) becomes known as Darleester which is stated
(RM p47) to have been a god or weapon of Garangordos's. The
re-enactment of the Noose myth becomes what the Fonritans
and Ia Rawthi use as their sacred time rites.
This way Garangordos becomes the hero that returned his people and his gods to the Centre of the World. I disagree with the depiction in Revealed Mythologies of his religious changes in his epic as a couple of heroquests and prefer to think of the origins of the Seventeen Gods as gradual rediscoveries of the antediluvian civilization of Selvukko against the background of a war.
Well that was lengthy, onto the magic and religion.
At the apex of Fonritan religion is Ompalam. He's more of a cosmic order than a god and worshipped by everyone as part of the pantheon. There are seventeen schools of Ompalam's laws, one for each organ or attribute of Garangordos. The Kanaharim of each school lay down the law and custom and probably call on different powers to enforce their judgements - thus in Afadjann, the school of Darleester (Garangordos's noose) is dominant as a matter of state policy. Some people practice these laws as mystical austerities and gain special power from it.
Each school has a different attitude towards religious controversies. One already listed in Missing Lands is the schism between the Tsanyano and the Bolgaddi over the treatment of themselves and slaves. Others might be over whether it is lawful to enslave gods (or more commonly godlings), to remove organs from oneself or one's slave for magical benefit, to live after a natural death (as a mummy or other undead) and so forth.
Then there are the Seventeen City Gods which are identified as Garangordos's brothers and sisters. They embody the civilized arts as listed in Revealed Mythologies p42. I do think there should be another Seventeen Gods for basic cosmic forces (i.e. Baraku for Storm, Orjethulut for death), the Seventeen Blue Gods that blueskins must worship, the Seventeen Evil Gods (i.e. Gark, Jraktal etc) representing perversions of the cosmic order, and finally the Seventeen Others representing other people who were part of Selvukko (i.e. Yranians, Sorcerers, Masloi) and permitted to live here whether the Fonritans like them or not.
As to why Fonrit held out against the God Learners, I mainly think it was the Sorcerers of Kalabar that enslaved the Gods.
I was going to mention something about Sha'irs based on what I once read in "Nights and Horses and the Desert" but I can't find it right now.
--Peter Metcalfe
--__--__--
Powered by hypermail