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From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Sat, 10 Jul 1993, part 2
Precedence: junk
Status: O
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From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Thu, 08 Jul 1993, part 1
Message-ID:
Date: 9 Jul 93 22:40:51 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1252
Some feedback to my sacerdotal kings to be answered...
____________________________
Paul Reilly in X-RQ-ID: 1236
>>>
I agree, though, that a lot of the cults have a strong element of ancestor
worship. Yelm is an even more obvious example, his priesthood is
restricted by bloodline to the old Yelm noble families, which are
supposedly descended from Yelm! Obviously ancestor worship gone way
overboard.
<<<
My impression, too. I alway felt that Yelm weakens himself by this
practice, shooing away more creative and powerful minds to his associates.
(BTW, I hold with the Fritz Leiber (and newly Terry Pratchett in "Small
Gods") theory that a deity's power is depending on intensity and quantity
of worship it receives, and apply it to Gloranthan deities, too.
Opinions?)
>>>
We use some stuff adapted from Vikings as well. However, for Ygg's
Islanders we use it pretty straight.
<<<
Also the Spirit Communication bit to learn spirit magic for Sacred Time?
One problem I have with the equation Yggs Isles=Vikings is that all the
neat cultural stuff for Vikings at home (like taxing the Reindeer-Hsunchen
aka Lapps, trading, fishing) is hard to put in. The Winterwood is too
overwhelming in the coastal area to allow much cultural interplay with
less civilized peoples, which made Viking culture and lifestyle so rich.
Are Ygg's Islands at least good fishing and whaling grounds? Would there
be some trade with dried fish with some trade agency (e.g. the Vadeli)
taking the place of the Hanse merchants? And how did the Islanders survive
the closing, if they depended on seagoing fishing and whaling?
I'm afraid that the parallel doesn't work out very neat in this special
case. At least the end of the closing provides some reason for why an
impoverished (because cut-off from trade) people takes to piracy and
raiding. The Vikings were successful traders at the same time, providing
all of Europe with furs and dried fish. How about Ygg's people?
>>>
>Arim the Pauper wooed
>Sorana Tor, the Earth Priestess of Wintertop
Sources? Is this all in KoS?
<<<
Yep. Page 117.
___________
Nick Brooke
>>>
Joerg said:
Lots of really useful, true and insightful things about Orlanthi Kingship.
Thanks a lot for tying this all together. I loved reading that piece of
your mind, and am certain that you are mostly correct in what you surmise.
Except for the rude bit about Temertain, of course, and some of the detail
in what follows:
<<<
We beg thy forgiveness, Prince Temertain, but as a member of a truth rune
cult thou ought to accept the fact that thy ties to Orlanth Rex, the cult
of princes, leaveth something to want. While our humble scholar won't
doubt the purity of thy bloodline, and is in fact impressed by thy
achievements of keeping peace with the Lunars, thy scholarly interest hath
done little with regard to thy sacerdotal offices as ruling heir of
Sartar.
>>>
> Earth cults' sacrificial kingship: this is still practised in the
> Earth-dominated regions of Esrolia, Exile Tarsh (at Wintertop) and
> Grazeland (the latter apparantely including Imther and Holay, if
> we can trust Greg Stafford's scholarly conclusion that Inkarne was
> Feathered Horse Queen and queen of the latter countries).
The Pharaoh abolished the old Year Sons' sacrificial kingship, taking the
burden onto himself, when he founded the Holy Country. But the idea is
still current, and may well come back now he's gone. (Unless they can find
another male ruler who can die and return as the same person -- anyone
else want to join the Red Earth faction?).
<<<
Well, you know how hard it is to abolish hundreds of years of religious
practise. While officially I have little doubt that the Pharaoh officiates
in all the major rites, there will be parallel rites in the smaller
Queendoms. Since the Pharaoh is but one person, and there are lots of
independent Queendoms, I suppose there will be at least some first blood
versions of the rites in the less central Queendoms, and now and then
first blood will be simultaneously last blood. Who can tell whether this
was an accident?
I remember some fiction about Boudicca where the rite of marriage (between
the virgin harvest bride and the horned man) included a hunt of last years
horned man who was brought down and had to receive a bleeding wound. In
this book now and again the queens' daughters (future queens) took the
part of the bride, and their bridegrooms were hunted to death, not fake
death. I don't know how true in historical context this was, but at leasst
it offers plastic reading for a rite like this.
By the way, I think the Pharaoh's role in this originated with you, didn't
it? I'm not so certain that he really dies in the rite, however nice the
story about him and Jar-Eel is. While Belintar is known to have been
killed several times during his fight with the Only Old One, I got the
impressions that the tournaments of luck and death are held only all dozen
or two dozens of years, not annually (as I'd imply if the Pharaoh were
ritually slaughtered in the annual ceremony).
Some clarification?
>>>
Old Tarsh is a *fascinating* case, and I occasionally distract myself by
wondering about their religion. Has anyone worked on their "sacrificial
Orlanth" cult? Presumably Ernalda / Maran Gor talks Orlanth into going on
the LBQ, in their version of the myth...
<<<
There is the bit in Tales 6, which was partly rejected by Greg Stafford in
a later letter. Still, there are some useful concepts in there.
>>>
You have misinterpreted Inkarne / FHQ's domains, conflating her
post-Argrath expanded role as Queen of Dragon Pass with her pre-Argrath
position as "dormant / potential sovereignty". The Grazelands don't
stretch to Holay, and Argrath's child-bride from Holay was a different
person from Inkarne.
<<<
You mean the collecting scholar (signing GS) has? I refer to the paragraph
"The Grand Wedding" in the conclusion chapter, page 266. it ends one page
later with "Thus we can conclude that Inkarne Long lived, Queen of Holay,
Feathered Horse Queen, Sorana Tor, was the wife of Argrath."
Everything Greg Stafford says is wrong? ;-)
>>>
> Synopsis: There is no mundane kingship in Orlanthi culture
There should be no "mundane kingship" in *any* culture in Glorantha. In a
magical world, Authority and Power are naturally interlinked. That's why
there aren't any truly "mundane kingships" on Earth, either.
"There's a divinity doth hedge a King", and all that jazz.
<<<
Out of curiosity: how do upstart selfmade kings like Richard the
Tigerhearted or Harrek (in Pamaltela) fit in? As we've discussed in
private, Richard the Tigerhearted, self-styled king of Malkonwal aka
Hendrikiland, wouldn't care a damn for Orlanth/Ernalda fertility rites.
What is his role?
Even worse: could you imagine Harrek the Berserk carrying out fertility
rites (other then Vashanka's Ten-Slaying in Thieves World)?
___________________________
Bob Luckin in X-RQ-ID: 1243
>>>
The Orlanthi kingship idea is enticing. The question is, to what degree is
it codified into the culture (via Orlanth Rex), and to what extent does it
just work out that way because it feels instinctively right to them ?
<<<
I'd say it feels instinctively right because it has been codified into the
culture before time, when Vingkot made the first Orlanthi kingdom.
Unrelated to this:
____________________________
Loren Rosen in X-RQ-ID: 1241
>>>
My two cents on the salt mines: forget geology, a mythological
explanation for where and why the salt is there would be much
more interesting. Besides, Glorantha wasn't formed by Earth-like
geological processes, so why should the salt be in the same places?
<<<
In my experience mythology and geology work well together. And certain
mechanisms like evaporation of liquids still apply, otherwise the
alchemists would be hard put to refine any crystalline substance.
But there's nothing wrong if the salty liquid that evaporated were the
tears of Genert's wives and daughters after he was slain...
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de