I understood that the "Arkat Humaktsson" tag was metaphorical rather than literal, being the highest praise his peers could find for Arkat when, for a while, he was the best Humakti of his generation. Though maybe some of his followers started, erroneously, to interpret it more literally over time.
I wondered whether the "Humaktsson" tag also referred also to Arkat's illumination and echoed the belief in what some here have described as "Humakt's illumination" (if there ever was such a thing). Though on balance I am not convinced by this because Arkat's illumination was a dark secret rather than common knowledge.
Coming back to Humakt's "illumination", I want to bring up something from (the ancient) Cults of Prax, and reproduced in theCults Compendium.
Cults of Prax describes the Humakt cult as hating Chaos (one big difference between the Humakt and Yanafal cults, for example, is said to be that Yanafal does not share Humakt's hatred of Chaos), but it also says that the Humakt cult tolerates indvidual creatures of Chaos as members provided they can abide by the cult's strict rules (which few can). Is this still current? If so, is it evidence of an illuminated view of Chaos in Humakt's cult? Or is it simply the more prosaic attitude of a militaristic god who doesn't care how many arms, legs or tentacles you've got as long as you do it "the Army way"?
I would imagine at the very least it flags up why Cults of Prax is not Cults of Sartar too (though countless GMs and players, myself included, probably shoe-horned the book into that role for years, until fuller accounts of religion in Sartar were published), even where the gods are the same. A Broo or Scorpion-man might just about be accepted into a temple of freebooting mercenary Humakti in Prax (though they would probably encounter a lot of prejudice and have to prove themselves constantly (and win a lot of duels, and in the right way) to gain any degree of acceptance. However I can't imagine any right-thinking Heortling chieftain would have one as a Huscarl. (I'm not even sure that an unusually Lunarized chieftain in Tarsh would).
There is also the Carmanian Humakt cult, which is not the same as the Sartarite one -- though presumably their prayers and sacrifices still go to moreorless the same place on the God Plane? Is it possible that the presence of Humakti on both sides of the battle for Dragon Pass in the Third Age has contributed to some Gloranthans thinking that Humakt himself might be illuminated?
Then there is the troop of Humakti Broo that serves Ralzakark, which I expect was the inspiration for the reference to Chaotic Humakti in the link to "What the Priest etc. says" cited to this list earlier. If I remember correctly the RQ Dorastor book published by Avalon Hill (ages ago) said that they weren't really a proper Humakti temple, as in truth they worshipped a demon associated with sword-fighting which they mistakenly thought was Humakt. If Ralzakark's Humakti are phoney , then the existence of this group proves nothing either way about the real Humakt.
This may well be a big if though, as the best Humakti magics cannot be faked easily or at all. Humakt holds the Death rune so, by definition, his followers can do things with it that worshippers of a lesser Death cult cannot. (Even in old RQ this rule meant e.g. that only Humakt priests could cast Sever Spirit reusably). I did go with the false Humakt idea in my own Glorantha for a while though -- I thought was official, and in Kojuro (White Dwarf 46) I had an off-the-peg demon for sword-wielding warriors to worship. Maybe I still would?
Also Ralzakark and some of his lieutenants are illuminated in the Nysalor/Gbaji sense, so it may be that Humakt worship in Ralzakark's army, even if it is not fake, was cultivated by darkly illuminated leaders to serve their own ends, without involving any ambiguity in that god's attitude to Chaos.
Tales of another illuminated Humakti from a Chaotic race (the Humakti reborn as a Scorpion-woman who became her tribe's queen, as written up in the Bagog cult in Lords of Terror) might further feed the myth, at least at a local level.
Richard Hayes
From: Tim <tim_at_k17CWRrOcb_E8eWGDaOm_QgjZ65LNYySOqWqqoUCGQQjzpz6eGzTBOCgn6VI05MEMYB8RHjzuqc6xPNjIe0.yahoo.invalid>
To: WorldofGlorantha_at_yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, 9 December 2011, 10:00
Subject: Re: Quick Summary of Gloranthan Cultures Part Two: Westerners
(Quoting an early unpublished piece by Greg on Brithos
>
> There arose a short civil war in which the forces of Zzabur swept
> the field and nearly won. But the priests of Humakt called upon that
> god, their ancestor, and Humakt himself settled the dispute, saying
> that the young king, Elrtof Keytleson, was rightful king and Zzabur > had no claim to the throne.
This got me thinking about Arkat's Name "Humaktsson"
>
> And just to make it more confusing, the god Humakt as described in these stories later got a name change - and became Orlanth.
>
Which makes Arkat's connection even more intriguing...
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