>> While Ygg is a grandson of Vadrus, his people also are descended >> from Nelarinna, a niiad of Neleom's lineage (a kinswoman of Warera >> Triolina, btw - distant kin to the Waertagi, or, if you believe one >> old genealogical myth, the Malkioni in general).
> Where is it stated ? Is it official ?
Tales of the Reaching Moon #10, an article by Greg Stafford. I*d rate it "Unfinished Work" official...
> I just found in Anaxial Rooster (p. 105 in the french edition :
> "Wartaïm's descendants"), that Lord Black Ice, also called Valind, was
> the son of Osserelta (from which I know nothing), and that the Ouori
> are Ygg's brothers or half-brothers.
>> I'm fairly certain that they value kinship fairly high, but that >> they also have ways to renounce kinship if kin treats them unfairly.
> But I don't think they value kinship more than power...
Certainly not, since strife between brothers would not be uncommon. But sharing the same ancestors still ought to be a reason to stand together against external threats - much like Vadrus did lead the host of the Storm Tribe in the first conflict with the seas.
>> (I guess that this means maternal kin has little influence in >> Vadrudi society.)
> I have splitted my yggites into two bloodlines :
> 1) the Wos (male bloodline) who worshipp Ygg, Valind and the vadrudi
> pantheon (sacrifice), they are descendants of Ygg's clan of Stormbrothers.
> They are in charge with war, plunder, trade, navigation, protection
> from the outside (especially the waters that keep trying to submerge
> the Ygg's islands.
> 2) the Oreas (female bloodline), who worshipp (ecstatic rites) the
> earth spirits of the islands (previously knowns as "the thousand
> hills", and preserved from total submersion by their alliance with
> Ygg's clan during the Great Darkness), they are are the descendants of
> Vendreas'clan of earth nymphes.
> So boys and girls follow distinct initiations, rites and
> divinities/spirits.
This is fairly similar to what I did for my own Vadrudi splinter group finding refuge under the Glacier (unpublished...) - a male hunter/monsterslayer culture, and a female shapechanger/gatherer culture surviving on giant crabs, shellfish etc.
Not appropriate to my idea of the Yggites, though - which has a strong dose of Erik the Red, Viking chief of Greenland.
>> > 4) What do we know about the involvement of the Vadrudis in the >> > strife between the Water and the Storm Tribe ?
>> They raided the sea gods for wives and started several lineages of >> merfolk (Cetoi, Piscoi, indirectly also Zabdamar) and land folk >>(Yggites from Ygg's "marriage" to Nelarinna, some Malkioni lineages >> from Aerlit and Warera).
> As Ygg is also a deity born from Air (Valind) and Water (?), as the
> "Sea Storm", I'd rather seen him "marrying" an earth deity to beget
> the Yggites than another water deity, who will increase the "watery"
> part of the Yggites...
I wasn't aware of Valind's relation to the Wartain tribe other than through Ygg's marriage, but I don't see a need for a strong Earth element there, either. Yggite farming is a secondary means of getting nourishment. Fishing, herding (shaggy goats) and hunting/gathering (reindeer, moose, seabird eggs, shellfish) are the main sources of food.
> Descendants of Ygg, the half water deity, and a
> naiade would be some kind of mermen IMO.
I don't regard either Valind or Ygg as half water deities any more than I regard Orlanth as an Earth god (even though his ancestry is on quarter Fire and three quarters Earth), but as Storm Gods.
Heler, a water deity, had human offspring, too. And the Malkioni human race is named after a Niiad, Warera Triolina.
It is possible that such offspring either gets a choice to remain merfolk, or that it has to give up the merfolk abilities in order to survive (compare the HC Andersson fairy tale of the little mermaid). That would not be dissimilar to the Entekosiad myths of how humans were the leftover of the Tree People or the people craving immortality.
Peter Metcalfe
> Joerg:
>>Slavery sounds rather civilized, implying a tradeable commodity.
> Not to my ears. Your suggested "thrall" implies that the Vadrudi
> are Heortlings, which I like to avoid.
I rather mean to imply that both Heortlings and Vadrudi inherit from the same primal Storm Tribe nastiness of keeping people as property. Heortling thrall-holders are seen as throwbacks by the majority of modern Heortlings, therefore associating them with Vadrudi makes sense to me.
> Perhaps the Valindi among
> the Heortlings would have Thralls but the Vadrudi in northern
> Fronela would not.
I think we ought to clarify what we mean by Vadrudi.
To me, the Yggites are a splinter group of Vadrudi origin who are different from the rest by adopting their island-based culture, IMO through the less violent union of Ygg and Nelarinna (compared to the origin of the merfolk) which should be seen as a parallel to the Pelaskos marriage (in Storm Tribe).
In my Glorantha, there are other Vadrudi bands (to avoid the term "clans") which are still based on stealing their wives from outside sources etc - your "armed gangs".
One group I wrote up for my Frozen Skies project (mentioned above) slowly got corrupted by taking their (unattractive, sea-related selkie) wives from the same sources over and over again.
Then there are the Hrimthurs lesser giants from Valind's glacier, demigods who carry on the outlaw life of the Vadrudi, and capable of enslaving lesser deities. For those, I find your cultural observations very accurate. I disagree mostly about the Yggites.
That said, the Yggites do have a tendency to breed back those Vadrudi features, which find their outlet in the Wolf Pirates.
>>> Priesthood among the vadrudi is little more than holy slavery. >>> Their person is sanctosant but their lives are made miserable >>> by the dieties they serve.
>>Somehow I doubt that. What deities would that be?
> All of the Storm Gods worshipped by the Vadrudi.
Vadrus' sons? Ok.
The weak ones that followed Orlanth? You wouldn't worship them, but raid them. Yes, they might beat you back several times, but that won't stop you trying. Rather worship Thryk Stormraider than some soft Orlanthi deity.
> It's a feature of their method of worship, which makes their
> deities capricious and fearsome.
Fearsome, I grant you. Capricious? Ruthless, uncaring, ungrateful yes, but consistently so.
>>Demanding slavery? I just can't see that.
> Even Orlanth has thralls.
Orlanth was a Vadrudi, too, when he met Ernalda.
> But I didn't write anything about
> demanding slavery, I simply said that their priests were
> holy slaves.
Your priests enter the relationship with their deities as slaves. To me this makes a problem as there are no rewards other than a neglectious protection from their deity's fellow deities, and maybe an occasional scrap of bread from their table. That takes a very twisted male Vadrudi.
On the other hand, it describes very well the "traitor daughters" of Vadrus, like Molanni (who sold herself to a fire god), or Brastalos (who sold herself to the lord of the waters, another enemy). This is why I think this kind of priesthood is for female Vadrudi.
>>Vadrus isn't worth worshipping - most of his powers are innate to the >>Vadrudi (berserk rage, strength, intimidation) and available from all his >>descendants, too.
> IMO Vadrus has bequeathed a particular religious mindset to
> his offspring and this more than anything else marks his
> people as Vadrudi rather than Valindi. If the Vadrudi were
> to worship their gods in the Heortling manner, most of them
> would be a lot friendlier.
Uroxi and Uraini are just as nasty, and they live in Heortling lands. Valind, while one of the strongest and also most intelligent of the Vadrussons, also is the one son of Vadrus who made a treaty with Orlanth. IMO he is regarded as weak-willed for his acceptance of Orlanth's sovereignty, so all the other Vadrudi except Valind's vassals chose to ignore his orders. Unless directly threatened.
>> > Although the Vadrudi regularly sacrifice to their gods to avoid >> > dire retribution, most of their magic comes from godlings and >> > spirits they have managed to capture. >>This feels right. Take Orlanth's mastery of the Four Weapons as an>>example. It would take a very successful vadrudi deity to get as many >>magics available as feats or even affinities.
> No, the magic is acquired by the Vadrudi and not the gods they
> worship.
By heroforming a successful Vadrudi god, and beating the enemy god on the heroplane, right?
Orlanth Master of Elements dates back to Orlanth the Vadrudi.
>>Maybe priesthood should be a female occupation among the Vadrudi?
> Insofar as the Vadrudi have priestesses, they are likely to
> appear as mad crones and hellish witches.
Slaves to the gods. I don't really see those brutalo machos approaching an ancestral giant as a slave. On the other hand, norns and curse-wielding witches feel right.
> That Umath was concerned about fighting for freedom is an
> Orlanthi view. The Vadrudi consider that the ideal state
> to be is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short". They
> simply will not give up their violent impulses even if it
> means life will be more pleasant.
And that's where IMG the Valindi, the Yggites, and those "below the ice" refugees parted from the Vadrudi.
Boris:
>>3) Maybe enslaving kin is taboo ? Maybe even the weaker
>>membre of the storm tribe deserves freedom or death ?
> The laws of kinship is again an Orlanthi construct. Vadrus
> slew Barntar for example and the only regret he ever felt
> was when Orlanth kicked his teeth in as punishment.
Still, kin are those you fight only when there is no one else worth taking the trouble.
> If the "clan" decides to follow another god then the priests
> start cursing left, right and centre.
Somehow this doesn't strike me as typical for their deities. Punching some heads in, yes. Snowing them in, pummeling them with whirlwinds, hailstones and similar would be in character. Slaying some thralls to show that they can, and that they care.
> Choosing another diety
> is like telling Tony Soprano that you are shifting your
> allegiance to somebody else.
And calls for little better than broken leg subtlety.
> As for advantages to the faithful, the Vadrudi fear their gods
> (as the Aztecs did) and want very little to do with them.
> That's why the Vadrudi prefer magic beaten out of somebody
> else.
How do they get there? Heroforming their deities?
>>So, their gods have access to the master rune, I presume, which give >>them the ability to enslave other spirits, godlings and essences ?
> IMO it's a magical practice among the Vadrudi rather than
> their gods. It may be a relic of being initiated into Vadrus
> or whatever (the Vadrudi don't really care) but it's something
> that defines the Vadrudi as a distinct culture. It's not as
> bad as say Thanatari headhunting (another possible kinsman
> of Vadrus) but it is still unpleasant.
I still pose that parts of Orlanth Thunderous have sufficient similarity to the Vadrudi. Heortling-style worship through sacrifice wouldn't appeal to a Vadrudi deity. Emulating one (as Orlanth emulated Vadrus when slaying Aroka) should be acceptable.
>>I believe vadrudi only worshipp the adventurous and thunderous >>aspects of Orlanth ?
> They could consider the allfather aspect to be a god of slaves.
Few of the Adventurous subcults known to the Heortlings would appeal to the Vadrudi. Varanorlanth maybe. Of the Thunderous subcults, I see primarily Daylanus magic-taker, but that is no different from any of their other deities. Hedkoranth and Desemborth, while potentially appealing to the Vadrudi mindest, are too bound into the Heortling society as presented in Thunder Rebels. Maybe complete rewrites could free them of that encumberance.
>>I'd rather think the central figure are Ygg and moreover his son >>(Yggdrasyl ?) who teaches the yggites how to build ships, navigate and >>plunder... (their kind of Heort)
> What's Ygg got? A few small islands. What's Valind got? A huge
> motherfracking glacier.
Where do the Yggites live? On those very islands.
> Valind is clearly the more important god among the Vadrudi.
Sure. Ygg is comparable to Vingkot. Valind is very powerful, but repeatedly showed weakness. He is too tame.
> Ygg is notable because most of the
> people encountered by outsiders worship him.
Ygg is the cultural deity. A huge motherfracking glacier doesn't give you ideas how to survive. Ygg does.
>>There's not much to gain from the worshipping of Valind... more >>snow and ice ?
> How to live in the coldest winter.
Many, if not most Yggites prefer to live where that doesn't happen.
>>Valind's Winter Palace should represent paradise for the Yggites.
Why?
>>Maybe they are buried into the Glacier, to lie forever within their god ?
> It depends on the Vadrudi tribe IMO. The had the idea that some
> Vadrudi clans might inhume their dead within icicles and pray
> that they may become ice giants.
Ygg's Isles are too tame for that.
> Well, I don't think the Yggites built ships until the Imperial Age.
> Before then, they were mainly land dwellers in Bija or Winterwood.
I disagree - if they didn't live on the islands, they wouldn't be yggites. If they live on the islands, they need boats.
I see plenty of room for land-bound Vadrudi in northern Fronela, at least in earlier ages. But those wouldn't be Yggites (unless driven there at some time).
After the Thaw, the Kingdom of War looks like a place where Vadrudi would thrive.
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