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, Fri, 11 Mar 1994, part 2 Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM Content-Return: Prohibited Precedence: junk --------------------- From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner) Subject: Elmal vs Yelmalio, again, and heretic thoughts about Sartar Message-ID:Date: 10 Mar 94 22:39:06 GMT X-RQ-ID: 3288 Elmal and Yemalio, or How my campaign has an identity problem Stephen Martin states in his article "The Cold Sun" in the RQ-Con booklet that the Sun Dome temples of Prax and Sartar had been around only for about 60 years. While I still wonder how the Templars' phalanx techniques had survived in the hill-barbarian clans, I'll accept that the deity named Yelmalio in e.g. Griffin Mountain probably was Shargash, and was worshipped by some of the elves of the Elder Wilds as well, as specialist warrior against the trolls. It were these warriors who invaded the Greylands in the early Second Age, and they erected the 15 or so Sun Dome Temples. (Nick, who is the sun god of the hill barbarians in Carmania?) When Monrough and his fellow heroquesters reformed Elmal into Yelmalio, the Lunars happily supported this Dara Hapan influence in Dragon Pass (and Prax), and adopted and furthered it (through minor heroquesting) along their border. This heroquesting must have affected the Elves and Balazarings as well, but seems not to have traversed the Rockwoods. This makes the God of the Cold Sun of Heortland doubly interesting, after Harvar Ironfist had suppressed Elmal worship in northern Sartar in his 1611 campaigns. He doesn't seem to have affected the Colymar Elmal clan, and I doubt he'll have had any influence in Volsaxiland other than pushing Elmal-traditionalist refugees there, where they were appreciated as troll-hating colonists on the border to the Kitori. Apart from Monrogh's original heroquest, no further transformation had been made here, so that there was a border of reality similar to the Nysalor/Gbaji border pushed forward by Arkat in the First Age. South and west of this border, no schisma had occurred, along the border, things became fuzzy. How fuzzy exactly? In the initial stages of my Heortland campaign, I have a Dragon Pass Sun Domer NPC who has taken service at the court of a Heortlander Ealdorman as specialist to deal with defensive tactics against trolls and chaos from the footprint, kind of a military adviser like all the cold war contingents in Africa. His son, a PC, is about to be initiated together with the other local boys in what begins as a temple walk heroquest. Among the Hendriki, religion is a fuzzy affair. Ever since they had aided Arkat to overthrow the Iron Vrok, they had adopted some semblance of western culture which the superheroe, but more so his wizard and knight companions from Seshnela, had brought with them. (By this time Arkat had already joined the Humakt cult and relied less on personal sorcery than on divine magic.) These 1st Age Hrestoli taught their allies, the Hendriki, some basics of chivalrous horsemanship, castle building, and most of all they taught them about Solace and the prophets, Malkion and Hrestol. Their meritocratic caste system and the Vingkotling and Heortling society differed only slightly, and when some wizards were initiated into the secrets of Orlanth, and some Orlanthi priests and lords into wizardry and knighthood, the Aeolian Church of Heortland began to take shape. The average Hendriki would be hard put to define where a normal cult starts and where the church ends, too interwoven are the two. This might not have been so true for the settlers in Dragon Pass, who might have been traditionalists who wanted to breath air free of foreign influence. I suspect the same for the 1st Age Seshnelan settlers in Jrustela, and I know this was the case for the Golden Horse People. (Another case where I suspect retrospective kinship is the Colymar tribe's claim of descent from the Orshanti Clan in the Colymar Book in KoS, when in CHDP they are said to have entered Dragon Pass from Esrolia. King Sartar was a member of this Clan of the Hendriki, and to have one's founder come from the same clan naturally gives more prestige. A case where this worked the other way round seems to be Argrath's acception into the Colymar tribe.) The immigrants into the Quivin lands from Hendrikiland settled into towns, probably like Runegate, while others settled in solitary steads. (This reminds me a bit of the Danelaw settlements in Anglosaxon Yorkshire, where one could find Danish village names and Norwegian stead names, reflecting the different style of settlement in the respective home countries. Similarly I'd expect Hendriki to settle in towns and settlers of the other main tribes of Heortland, e.g. those living on the eastern slopes of the Storm Mountains, settle in solitary steads or in hill-forts.) The place-name Wilm's Church smacks of Malkioni, doesn't it? I think that the kingdom of Sartar is less typical Orlanthi than we tend to believe, with all its sun, darkness, death and possibly even Invisible God worshippers than say Aggar or Talastar. (Of course Hendrikiland is even less typical with its cnihts and episcopoi...) But back from Sartar (which offers the most documentation about Heortland) to Heortland itself. RuneQuest Companion told us (before sorcery was part of the rules) that the majority of Heortling and Esrolite farmers worshipped Barntar the Plowman. It doesn't tell us how they do so, whether in purely theistic or in Stygian manner. (How could it, at that date?) It is a bit more complicated to assign the fitting magic system to the various characters. Using RQ:AiG, I rule that the more rural or peasant the background, the less are the differences to Sartarite Orlanth worship; the more urbanized or adopting western practices, the more Malkioni they are. Aeolian wizards doubtlessly use sorcery and a few divine spells (in place of Saints, or together with Saints' blessings. The differences between a Malkioni Saint or an Orlanthi cult hero or minor deity are small, anyway), and cnihts would use Hrestoli knights' sorcery as well. On the other side, I have a Kolating assistant shaman and an Odayla hunter, both so rural that they follow ordinary cults and use spirit and divine magic. What really gives me trouble are the townspeople who have ready access to all three types of magic. Should they be able to learn all three types? (MOB set something of a precedent with his Thurla Trader Prince(ss) from his Hut of Darkness scenario, TotRM 9. Only I'm not too sure whether Hendriki townspeople should be as God Learner as western Manirian Trader Princes.) Maybe I ought to penalize people who want to use both spirit magic and sorcery by reducing their spirit casting chance from POW*5 to POW*4, or increasing sorcery spell difficulty by one level, depending on what they learned first. (RQ3 has no difficulties for skills, but lesser casting chances for sorcery than RQ4. There one might penalize Intensity and the other manipulation skills with -10% to chance of success.) What do people think about all-round magic users, i.e. people with memorized divine, spirit and sorcerous spells? Would they rather accept matrix users of all varieties? Back to the Elmal-Yelmalio schisma, or rather its non-existance south of the Marzeel River. Will the Sun Domer from Sun Dome County recognize Elmal as the old-fashioned, suppressed former religion of the Alda-Churi, or will he accept it as a cruder, but nonetheless valid version of his own creed (similar to a Sun Domer visiting Balazar)? I'm inclined to rule the latter, so that he'll let his son participate in the local initiation rite, and round it up with a later pilgrimage to the real Sun Dome Temple. I'm not yet certain when he will get his gift and take his geasa. Proposals? So much for the practical consequences of the Solar schisma on a campaign in its starting stages. Any help is appreciated. -- -- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de --------------------- From: jdegon@vega.iii.com (Jim DeGon) Subject: Gagarth Cult. Message-ID: <9403110647.AA03680@enrico> Date: 10 Mar 94 14:47:40 GMT X-RQ-ID: 3289 Where can I get info on Gagarth the Wild Hunter of Prax? Besides these tidbits, I have seen nothing: 1> I think Gods of Glorantha has some info, but that source is never much help. Effectively Gagarth is the destroyer. It gives the impression that he is the landbound equivalent of Gloomshark I think. 2> Martin Crim's tribes article proposes a permanent shrine at Moonbroth. 3> RQ-Adventures' Block issue(#3) says that Gagarth guards the east of Prax(Wastes?) for Stormbull, warding off chaos. How does a Gagarth band start? How to join one? Do they use a multitude of Praxian animals? If one initiates to Gagarth, and successfully DI's does the Wild Hunt show up and kill _everyone_? Are Stormbull and Gagarth associated? Additionally, what information is there on the multitudes of spirit cults in Prax. Basic skeletal raison-d'etre 's would be useful in building your own spirit cult structures. Has anyone built an expanded Prosopaedia which covers these cults? I suppose much of this information may have been published, but is certainly not available to the average RQ newcomer. Sadly, the Praxpack I have read about in digests-past will never materialize. Hope someone can point me in the right direction. Jim DeGon ---------------------