Re: Elmal Invictus

From: bethexton_at_...
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 19:36:50 -0000

• In HeroQuest-RPG_at_yahoogroups.com, "Andrew Solovay" <asolovay_at_r...> wrote:
  > Greg_at_g... wrote:
  > > He was struck down, wounded, diminished, etc. but not killed.
  > > If he had been killed, he would have disappeared.
  >
  > That makes me wonder--In Yelmist understanding, the sun died and
  returned,
  > and this mythic event is replayed every night (with the sun dying
  and going
  > to Hell at sunset, and rising from the dead at dawn).
  >
  > If Elmal never really died, does that mean that the Heortlings
  don't see
  > night the same way? That is, to Heortlings, the night isn't a time
  when the
  > sun is *dead*--just resting, or perhaps "elsewhere".
  

Well, just like every god who is part of the compromise, he did die, in some way, right at the end, just in time to hold his part of the net (I forget exactly what the details of that are, but it is in his myth in Storm Tribe).

THE Dawn in Heortling myth is when Orlanth returns to the world through the dawn gates, and throws Elmal a torch to re-kindle his fire, or something like that.

So my guess is that to Heortlings, at night Elmal is still there, still a faint light if you look in the right place, and in the morning his light is re-kindled by fire returned from the underworld. But I could be way off base with that.

> This might have magical
> consequences. For example, Yelm could be expected to have
> "self-resurrection" magic or quests. Elmal would not, since he never
> died--though he might well have "recover from grievous wounds" or
even "turn
> out not to be dead when everyone thought you would be becuase your
head got
> chopped off" magic or quests.

According to Storm Tribe his secret (or the secret of at least one of his cults, I forget now if they have different secrets or not) is "heal completely at dawn." So long as the devotee is not _quite_ dead yet, when dawn comes he can totally heal himself. But no "come back from actually being DEAD" type magic that I'm aware of.

Interestingly, no mention in the Elmal myths of some crucial piece surviving intact, or of his being broken into so many bits but no more. It seems that so long as his sense of duty survives, he managed to pull himself back together.

-Bryan