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Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Fri, 16 Sep 1994, part 3
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From: CHEN190@csc.canterbury.ac.nz (Peter Metcalfe, CAPE Canty)
Subject: Last word on Yelmalio, (I hope)...
Message-ID: <01HH6RC18I1UFH02LY@csc.canterbury.ac.nz>
Date: 17 Sep 94 05:05:45 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6237
Simon Hibbs
===========
>>[Justice to the Cold Sun]
>If he did it for his tribe, he must have the full backing and support of the
>tribe when he goes on the heroquest. He can't just sneak off on his own, do
>the quest and surprise everyone next HHD.
I didn't say he could. I just said he was on a cultural HQ.
>Geting back the fire powers sounds great, but it runs much
>deeper than that. Sandy's point about a quester who gains the fire powers not
>getting immortality is well made. Every heroquest has a price.
Which was what I was trying to say. He may alter the heroplane to bring
benefit to his people but he runs the risk of alienating his people from his
god. If he does so, the culture will have to expend mythic energy into
maintaining their heresy as their contact with Yelmalio is reduced. The
heresy is a magical construct made by the hero. It does not recieve
mythical support from Yelmalio.
Think of the god as an oil field. The orthodox cults drill in with
their rites (and strike the oil field). They recieve energy from the god
in return for the correct worship. The heretical cults shift the drill
to another place. (there is less oil there). They do not recieve as much
energy but since their drill/rites still exist and are magical in its
own right, the heretics are able to derive some benefit but they must
find the energy to keep the drill running from another source.
However how do you tell the difference between a heretical cult and a
orthodox cult. My answer is through divination (where conservative
priests get their inspiration from). In the long run a heretical cult
has a lesser chance of surviving than orthodox cults as they expend much
to maintain their rationalle that they have less to react to future
crises.
Invisible Orlanth
=================
My own idea of the invisible Orlanth cult is that its probably based on an
actual meeting between Theyalans of the First Council (Orlanth) and Western
Explorers (The Creator). The encounter degenerated into a battle which was
resolved using magical rites (like Shargash fought against Kargzant during
reign of Horse on the Table). The theyalans won and gained some mythical
secret (Orlanth becomes enlightened).
Now since nothing like this ever shows up in the Orlanthi myth, I have
this inspiration that the Orlanthi responsible were the New Wind
worshippers of Lokaymadon and that the Invisible Orlanth cult is
actually the last remants of the Good Orlanthi Lokaymadon.
Dart Wars:
==========
I have a suspicion that the first inventor of the dart competition got
of lightly because prior to then the usual method of assasination
was a posioned fish which stretches back to the Time of Ovosto. The
assasin was probably commended for the first novel excuse for a rival's
death and that IMO is how the Dart comp becomes ingrained in the Lunar
way.
Alex:
=====
>> So if I believe that Yelmalio didn't really loses his fire powers at the
>> Hills of Gold, I can use Fireblade? To me this is simplistic.
>Yup, it sure is. Belief is not, in this context, just One Man's Opinion.
>What matters is the whole communities belief about their god, and how this
>reflected in their lives, and their worship. In order to re-jig the religion
>to "fix" his fire powers, you'd have to redo his whole mythology, and the
>whole society based upon it. Big heroquest.
Even though whole cultures may change their position on what really
matters in their world view, I do not believe that a change in the
myths praticed by a culture forces a change in the god.
>>I must come out into the open and state my belief that at 0 ST, the gods were
>>frozen by the web. All the myths that we have of a particular god are the
>>totality of the god himself.
>I don't think this is true, myself. Certainly mythology has changed since,
>and while some of these changes may be caused by "rediscovering" lost truths,
>I don't think that accoubts for all, or even most of them.
I didn't say it accounted for all of them, I pointed out to the example
of Orlanth and Arangorf where it was otherwise. I do feel that it accounts
for most of them (IMO of course).
>> Other types of cult changes can be either of two mechanisms.
>> [...] the heroquester [...] invents a power in which case he becomes
>> the focus of a subcult.
>Right. Why isn't this "new" mythology, and effectively a new (mini-)god,
>then?
I was talking about whether the original god changed and not the subcult.
>>>Glorantha isn't a world based on science where things can be proved right
>>>or wrong - where there is one true way.
>> I do not accept this. The Gods were, the gods are.
>The gods form a confluent term reduction system?
This is trite goobledigook. Please rephrase in standard english. I
cannot understand the point you are making here.
>>[Orlanth = Invisble God?]
>I don't
>think this hinges on some plane of Platonic ideals somewhere, where there
>are gods which Simply Are something, regardless of what people believe and
>practice.
So Gods don't exist? Burn the Blasphemiser!
>>[Invisble Orlanth]
>Whichever way you slice it, they believe in a relationship between
>the two {Orlanth = invisible God} which would not be accepted elsewhere
>(like Loskalm, or Sartar). Which of them is wrong, and why does their
>magic still work?
Their magic works because of the mythic energy poured into creating the
myth. I believe it was created within time. The spirit they have created
by the creation of the myth and which they now worship is the secret of
'Orlanths' enlightenment.
>>However if Elmal was not Yelmalio/Antirius/Paininthearseus, they
>>were still trying to do was substitute a foreign god and the Sartarite could
>>have easily made the charge of 'God Learnerism' which he doesn't.
>Obviously no priest is going to stand up and boldfacedly tell his
>congregation that they'd been worshipping the wrong god, let's switch to
>a new one. That doesn't mean that either i) he's right, in some one true
>cosmological sense; or ii) that he won't later deny any identity, when
>others persist in worshipping the "wrong" god.
So Martin Luther and Jan Huss were not worshipping Jesus Christ when they
made their doctrinal changes?
>In any case, I don't think the typical Sartarite has a great working
>knowledge of God Learnerism, so it would hardly be the insult of choice.
See Orlanth and the Machine God in KoS for the average Orlanthi belief
and view of God Learners.
>>What I am talking about is
>>the objective view which would be useful if say a lost Caladralander Lodril
>>priests manages to make his way across the wastes to see the temple of Solf.
>>Would he be able to regain his spells there? Yes. But if a sage asked the
>>Solfties if their god was Lodril, they would say no.
>But is there an "objective" view, in any meaningful sense? I'm not sure
>if he would be able to regain said spell, I'm not certain how similar the
>cults are.
Given that G:CotHW said Solf=Lodril, (IMHO of course), he would.
I believe that the Gods have a subjective view too and this is what
is being ignored when people say 'What only matters is what you believe'
>But in any case, I don't think it's a matter of Object(ive)
>Identity, but of similarity of belief and religious practice, and of faith
>in the True Equivalence of the particular worshipper.
True in the case of a Dara happa trying to worship at the temple
of Yelm Kralorelensis.
>>In any case I do not
>>think you could DI against other people so your conundrum does not arise. DI
>>(IMO at least) is only used for enhancing your own situation not diminshing
>>various attributes of others.
>You can quibble about what you can do to an arbitrary person,
>worshipper or not, but there's a clearly stated further restriction
>about what you can't do to worshippers of the "same" god.
So you can't use divination to find out which scummy priest has murdered
the High priest? The restriction only applies to divine intervention, IMO.
Surely Zorak Zorani can use whatever Runespells they like when fighting
each other.
> >>[The dissension in the Elmali clans]
>>>Of course, the precise route they used to bring this about is to "discover"
>>>that Yelmalio is Yelm's son, and hence his associate, therefore getting
>>>said Sunspear.
>>Hmm, but they worshipped Elmal to start off with, not Yelmalio. What the
>>conservative elmali were complaining about IMO was the Dara Happan nature of
>>the 'Antirius' cult.
>The Yelmalio cult, please, if you would. They're arguing about things like
>whether (Y)Elmal(io) is the son of Yelm, whether one should have shrines to
>Yelm in the temples, etc. These are ultimately Dara Happan idea, yes, but
>hardly require that one has door-to-door salesmen from the Antirius cult.
If they didn't have missionaries from Dara happa then how did the trouble
come about?
>>This is david hall's intepretation. I haven't seen any sign of the Elmali in
>>the Righteous Wind revolt apart from this.
>If you mean that Elmali as such still exist, this is also Greg Stafford's
>interpretation.
>I'm not clear if you're disagreeing about something else.
In Hall's story, the clans were seperated as you described.
What my interpretation of the story was that strife wracked the
Elmali clans until Monrogh came back with a version that proved
acceptable to all: Yelmalio (not too Dara Happan, not too Wimpy).
Undoubtedly Elmal exists in Ralios and Fronela and Umathela where he
competes to a certain extent against Yelmalio and Ehilm.
>>If you read back further, I did suggest an origin for Yelmalio. As for saying
>>it hardly solves anything to suppose it has an elvish origin, I do not
>>understand. What is there that needs to be urgently 'solve'd?
>I'm not clear on that myself. What I'm saying is that I don't see the power,
>or the point, of the idea that the cult was adopted from the elves, though
>I suspect there is a parallel. Did the Elmali and aldryami send missionaries
>to each other? How does this relate to the Dara Happan influence? What,
>in short, is the Elven Yelmalio theory _for_?
My interpetation of the situation is:
1) There was strife among the Elmali clans around the time of Tarkalor.
The argument was about whether to adopt more Dara Happan customs.
2) The Dara Happanizers said we should adopt these customs because we will
draw closer to the real god.
3) The conservatives said 'Ugly Yelmites Catamites' or words to that effect.
4) Monrogh journeyed into Teshnos with Tarkalor and had the peculiar
vision of the many suns.
5) He took back the cult of Yelmalio from an elvish soucre (I suspect
Teshnos although it may have been Prax.
6) The cult of Yelmalio proved acceptable to all (The happanizers liked it
because it was 'more dara happan' whereas the orthodox liked it because
it was independant.)
I suspect by now, the others are getting a wee bit tired of hearing all
about Yelmalio so if anybody wishes to take issue with my interpretation
of the facts of the formation of the cult, would they please take it
offline?
--Peter Metcalfe
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