Death, Aeolians

From: joe_at_toppoint.de
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 15:34:10 +0100 (CET)


Julian Lord

> The Sword of Life myth.

[...]

Wow!

Gian Gero

> A lot of focus has been made in Gloranthan publishing
> about Heortlings of Sartar.

> In the old days (before herowars) I thought that they
> were a major culture in Glorantha (analogous Orlanthi
> cults "seemed" widespread from Prax to all the
> barbarian belt, to Ralios, humakti Carmanians etc.)
> but, recently we discover that canon Glorantha says
> that Heortling of Sartar are such and such only in
> Sartar and only in the XVI century.
> Their appeal is unconstestably a publishing one, a
> Gloranthophile thing, we could say, but they are just
> a trifle in the grand scope of Genertela, let alone
> the whole of Glorantha.

They still set the mold for all the other Orlanthi cultures we know of. You downplay their cultural influence on Genertela in the Dawn Age, which made most of the other Orlanthi and Orlanthi-like cultures so similar, too.

Perhaps it has to be said about Heortling culture that it comes to the fore in times of deep crisis. Heort introduced culture into the aftermath of the Greater Darkness, made the Gray Age into the Silver Age. His successors reacted to the errors of the Second council but lost big in the Battle of Night and Day, but still one Harmast Barefoot helped end the Bright Empire by bringing back Arkat and Talor. Heortlings were there to end the terror of the Machine City, and again in the Dragonkill War (which happened to destroy their centre of power). And they are about to accelerate the Hero Wars.

Hey, you can't be number one all the time!

> Now, with herowars/quest, I discover that the
> Esvulari/Aelioans are a small culture that doesn't
> even dominate Heortland

My bad, I guess. I based that dominance on the "strong western influences" in Heortland. Peter has since written a different story about King Andrin's reforms of the clans.

> and that the other stygian
> churches (mixing of western and barbarian religions,
> according to RQ3 terminology) are very different (even
> if the rulesy bits to play them could be similar).

That's something I have proposed for years. Different barbarians, different churches.

> So are the Aeolians of Heortland such a small
> political reality in western culture, like the
> heortlings of Sartar are in the theyalan culture?

Most of Western culture probably never heard of them. They came into focus only very recently with Richard's Kingdom of New Malkonwal.

> Are the various "stygian" churches rival and local and
> substantially unrelated (like Arkati vs Aeolians or
> like Sartari vs. Ralian Orlanthi) or is there a sort
> of ecumenic movement of stygian churches that could
> retrace their common origin, during the hero wars
> period?

Facing the danger of sounding like Greg, that's up to you and your players.

If you want to have an ecumenical movement, then that's a heroband with members from various henotheist or Stygian sects. As the Hero Wars loom with ever more cataclysmic events, they will probably have to band up with other groups to fend off whatever gets tossed at them, while pursuing their agenda. If they survive, they might be able to work up an organisation to rival or outshine the Rokari or Loskalmi. However, competition is stiff, with the Rokari crusade rolling over Ralios, five Arkat's rising up there out of Hell, Jonatela between the Kingdom of War and Charg, Slontos and Kethaela about to be drowned, burned etc.

The evidence so far doesn't point to the various sects showing any unity. With five Arkats to choose from, it doesn't look like the successors of the Dark Empire are going to see unity.

At How the West Was One, they were mostly ignored by the vicious fight between the two main factions. In the Leicester run of 1994, they didn't even get a candidate for the Ecclesiarch of the united Malkioni Church. Instead, the castle coast archbishop stood for election (and remained pretty much alone...).

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