Death is a sword.
HeroQuest calls some entities great gods.
Everything we know about Humakt signals him to be a great god.
"Great gods are immense, so powerful and with so many spheres of influence that they can never be truly known by mortal beings, who must instead worship great god's aspects as if they are separate deities. They are great because their power reaches wide and deeply. A great god is known as himself even outside his own pantheon and mythology. The secret of great god is of cosmic importance." HQ114
In the old RuneQuest era, some deities were "known" to own their respective core-runes. It seems that the rune holding deities are titled great gods in HeroQuest. The RuneQuest symbol for rune ownership was a double rune. The symbol for runic source, the rune authorship was to have rune of infinity.
Umath is the source of Storm rune, and Great Orlanth is that Storm.
Death rune, is has its origin in the most ancient Kargan Tor, the pre-creation god of endings, the forefirst god of war and conflict. Kargan Tor was Humakt's trainer, teacher, tutor, master.
Humakt is the Sword God. Humakt inherited the unfathomable of the powers of infinite Death rune. True Humakt is that Death.
***
The mythologies have to cover issues of life and death. Humakt does not take the place of each pantheons endogenous deities of death.
So Humakt being the great god of death does not interfere with cultural conceptions. Only that most mythologies seem to recognise a fitting figure; a storm warrior, a man of iron, a terminator, a teeth of a wolf, a silence of the lambs, a great fear...
Death Bat:
> >The idea that the Crimson Bat is actually just a shadow of this
> >Death Bat is pretty frightening. :)
Is The Crimson Bat really *a shadow of* this even badder bat or is "she" *a shadow compared to* the Death Bat Blaskarth?
Humakt's mother:
>>> Now, who was Arkats mother?
> Kyger Litor - at least at one point in time.
This is in par with Humakt having Subere as his mother
Humakt's uncles:
> The only information that we have is King of Sartar in which
> the uncles of the sons are listed (p64). The listed uncles are
> Genert, Kalt, Lodril, Magasta and Dehore and they may be
> intended to correspond to the listed sons: Vadrus, Urox,
> (Ragnaglar), Humakt and Orlanth. Kolat is not mentioned.
Peter, an intresting take on the subject! (maternal uncles, that is)
I am a firm supporter of an interpretation that Kalt is short for Kolat. I do not mean that in exclusive way, that Kalt is equal to the heortiling understanding of Kolat, anything but. But I behold Kalt is of air, Umbrolous, and of earlier generation than the later Umath's sons.
> Second is the apparent elemental sequence - Genert
> represents Earth, Dehore Darkness, Magasta Water
> and Lodril Fire. Kalt may or may not represent the
> Lunar element. He could represent the Predark which
> had a more neutral image in those days. Kalt is
> unlikely to represent Storm as there is no known
> Storm Mother.
I do not disagree. Kalt may very well or may not represent lunar or predark powers. It's possible. Kalt as storm-uncle is strange. But think I'd like the elemental progression in this: =2E..Darkness-Earth-Air-Water-Fire/Sky-... air included.
I think I can fit Kalt into Storm even though it might seem unlikely. Maybe a justified case of orlanthi all: "They were _all_ enemies of the children of the children, because their father had offended them." "These were _all_ uncles of the children gods, so although they they hated them they could not kill them."
Kalt wasn't as much an enemy as others and was an older relative. (The latter sentences are propably both entirely true & accurate.) This gives Kalt a special role & hidden functions in the Story.
Kalt - The Renewing God - becomes the initiator of Storm Sons. And maybe a sly double agent that plays both the boys and the uncles about what is going on. It is noteworthy that every son seems to be tested in a field they were/became supreme at.
> We are told that Magasta is not Vadrus's uncle
This is propably the "...water, an element which has no connection to air" - bit. Vague, but definitely agreed.
I tried to fit these uncles into elemental progression order.
Orlanth - Earth nephew - becomes King of Storm Vadrus - Air "nephew"- beats the hell out of the water tribe Humakt - Water nephew- the death of Yelm, creates darkness Urox - Fire/Sky nephew- prevails in the great darkness Ragnaglar - Darkness nephew- nearly destroys the earth
Humakt's relationship to the waters is unexplained, but could be Styx. It could also fit the notion about "air having no connection to water". Humakt isn't as airy as the rest of the Umathsons.
Otherwise only that Humakt was there in the Middle Of The World slaying Monster Of The Void, springs to mind. Afterwards all the waters of the world filled the emptiness that remained.
:/ ???
This second has the idea that storm gods use airy powers to overcome the tests they face. For Vadrus it is easy, because of the elemental progression. Orlanth faces the most difficult task of "overcoming" the earth element, to which air is vulnerable. He might not have done it alone, but clever as he was he made strange allies.
Vadrus - Well of Water (Sea)
Urox - Animal Corral (Fire) (Lodril painted the Animals)
Humakt - Fighting Pit (Darkness)
Orlanth - The Prison (Earth)
Now, this leaves us with Ragnaglar trying to defeat air with air.
And this I think might bring out some kind of innate weakness in his initiation. Not necessarily Ragnaglar's fault really.
Maybe in this he turns into some kind of lunar, predark thing.
"There is nothing like desire for preventing the thing one says from bearing any resemblancce to what one has in mind." - Marcel Proust, Rememberance of Things Past -
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