This post is both disjointed and highly focused on the fictional world of Glorantha and the RPG Runequest.
Ever since Runequest 7E/Runquest: Adventures in Glorantha came out, I have been feeling somewhat disquieted about how they are handling the crucial element of the cults. Beyond any aesthetic changes, which are ultimately meaningless, I can’t shake the feeling that RQRG is just in the wrong spot for them.
The cults have evolved from the big generic elemental pantheons found in Dragon’s Footprints and RQ 2E. Supporting an objective history of the universe. Through a bevy of increasingly specialised and esoteric deities in RQ3 and the Greg Stafford Library. To names and roles that were both true and fluid across fictional time and geography in Hero Wars and Heroquest. To back to the first type but also trying to have the cake and eat in for RQRG.
I'm reading through RQRG Cults of Fire & Sky where other commentators are gnashing their teeth over the Dendara-Enalda-Entekos connections. Where the text keeps going back and forth over their relationship and which god did which before time started and what sphere overlaps.
And I'm thinking, wasn't this all laid out?
Then I realise I'm going off Wyrm's Footprint, where Stafford wrote out an objective history then hurriedly erased it in the Library. Retconning it all to be the Orlanthi perspective. But fortunately, the library can be teased out into a rough chronology of names for the same gods/people, with new names added when someone becomes too embarrassing to mention. And we know this to be true because Stafford mentions writing out the list of gods and kings in their original “modern” names he first devised and then he goes back and makes the names obscure.
This still fits with the existing structure of an objective cosmology that matches the Western perspective and the history as recorded by the Orlanthi. There are gaps and omissions in the narrative and locations. Just like regular history, that the esoteric Stafford Library attempts to fill. And I'm fine with both an objective and muddle history, just no blanket statements.
I think pat of the problem is that Hero Wars and then Heroquest bulked out the pantheons with every Runespell being a subcult. Sub-cults were attached to select temples in Hero Wars+Quest despite being part of an overall mythology, or they were some extremely local aspects. It created this deep need for sub explanations to explain what a gameplay feature was, without providing greater depth.
RQRG has mashed the syncretic ideas of Hero Wars, where gods change every hundred kilometres and are fundamentally unknowable fusions of different cultures. With the big broad elemental spectrum pantheons of early RQ. Where Orlanth and Yelm are these big gods on their sacred thrones, with their own individual opinions. Like Xena Warrior Princess, they can and will take holy calls from characters. In RQRG, regional gods which are very distinct are now the same republished god. Many smaller roles are now cults but missing details. This slapdash approach annoys me the most, even in RQ3, where we got the first Ernalda and Yelm write-ups. They mentioned and they repeat verbatium even in RQRG, that some cults are more prevalent in different cultures, but never explain where. So, we have complexity without verisimilitude.
This aggressive syncretism does not match with the elemental spectrum of gods. By going "he's exactly like that in that other religion too" because then it makes zero sense why the Orlanthi aren't also worshipping Yelm. He’s the sun and in the elemental past of RQ, the Orlanthi just had to suck it up if they wanted sunlight and warmth.
Like, the Yelm cult believes him to be a noble and righteous ruler, pure, but ultimately correct. The Orlanthi think of him as The Emperor, the tyrant from before then but ultimately necessary as represented by Orlanth making friendship with him, but fundamentally, that indicates that the Orlanthi do not worship Yelm. They synchretised Yelm as the Emperor figure but their Yelm is not the same Yelm as the other because they don't think of him as a fair and just ruler, Orlanth is the fair and just ruler.
This makes sense in RQ2/WB&RM/WF where everyone agrees the Orlanthi and the Malkoni are right. But it's a matter of interpretation of those facts.
Yelm's the Bad Emperor, of course he's the Emperor, only Orlanth thought it was bad.
Orlanth was the Rebel, but opinion is divided between them whether that was good or bad. Very pop-culture Greek Gods and the approach I like the best, maybe because I read older RQ 2E stuff first. It’s not clear-cut just like real history and still has sufficient gaps for the Stafford Library. Where we are pretty sure of the big steps, but a lot of individual idea are muddled and lost to time.
Is Orlanth or his father the Rebel? Yelm probably reused the title. Now they occupy the same myth. And if you were to Heroquest, you could slip into either being’s role. But specific Umath and Orlanth myths (if they could be distinguished) don’t work with each other. At the Dawn, the Theylan missionaries were about piecing together that mythology again, and conveniently elbowing out any local gods.
This all started because I was ruminated on Elmal, Yelamlio and Antirius. The worse hole in Glorantha fandom. Having established that the god of the sun (Yelm) was hostile to the default player characters and the little god of the sun and defender of the hill lands (Yelmalio) was a stuck-up jerk. Stafford realised there was a sun-shaped hole in Orlanthi mythology. So, he created Elmal, the sun disc and lord of horses. He had since been supplanted by Yelmalio in Orlanthi society (expect in areas we would never get material for).
But then Stafford made a mistake, despite being supposed to have dwindled in the past, he used them for the contemporary Hero Wars material. Suddenly the Orlanthi had a popular fire god without the strict Yelmalio rules.
Stafford and then Jeff Richard have been very aggressive in reigning back Elmal as a concept. If Your Glorantha May Vary, no Glorantha can have an active Elmal cult. Made worse by him appearing in all the popular video games, including being the key figure in Ride like the Wind.
In fact, Ride Like the Wind answered that question of the how and the why for Elmal/Yelmalio, satisfactorily to me.
Yelmalio means Little Yelm, Each city-state after Yelm died is ruled by a son of Yelm, which might just be an emanation in a literal demonstration of devolving power. Antirius was the sun which shone under the ice dome and said he wasn't moving. He might of actual won a civil war, because if you pick Dara Harrapans as an ancestral enemy, Elmal fought him. As the last, purest sun/son standing, he gets the title.
I kind of worked it into a theory that because Time happened, there is only so much mythological "bandwidth" to go around. Yelm is the sun disk and holder of the Fire Rune. But there is not enough bandwidth for more than one Lightfore. Glorantha being very cultural purity-based, Antirius has all the purity while Elmal is subsumed into the Air pantheon. That's fine when the Orlanthi were less connected to Peloria, Elmal operating in a smaller pool. But afterward it's a test of who has more bandwidth and Antirius has the purest mythological role to dominate that.
Locked into a heroquest of competing to see who will be the current Yelm but like, in real time/ repeating the Great Darkness. Elmal can't give you all the mythological juice that Yelmalio can. But he can give you juice without Pelorian/Sky purity tests. It just so happens that the people wanted a strong figure to separate themselves from those Orlanthi Rex priests.
RQRG attempt to shove both into the same cult can be explained by an Orlanthi cultural practise. A little bit of bandwidth from those who will never worship a recent Pelorian-named deity. Even if I'm reaching a straws to cover poorer writing.
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