Another arcane Orlanthi Question
- Thread starter Rurik
- Start date
Rurik said:
At this point, Greg and I just call them "Ralians" or even just "Orlanthi". They aren't Vingkotlings (nobody is a Vingkotling anymore) or Heortlings.
And btw, how sure are you that kid mentioned in Second Age is actually Alakoring Dragonbreaker and not just a kid named Alakaoring with a mother who is making a mistake?
Jeff
Rurik said:
Possibly Heortlings as they were Orlanthi renmants who were taught the Lightbringers ways in the 1st Age by the Dawn Council missionaries. As far as I was concerned with "Trader Princes" Greg and I assumed that they were remants with no great founder at the Dawn. Similarly, the Wenelians have no cultural founder either.
There are no Vingkotlings in existance today. They were destroyed as a people during the Great Darkness and only scattered survivors remained. Vingkotlings are distant ancestors, cherished and admired but they and their kingdom did not survive - often due to the foolish actions of the Vingkotling leaders. This explains Esrolia, for example. Saying you are a Vinkotling is about as relevant as like saying you're descended from Noah. More immediate ancestors such as the Norman Conquest are more relevant.
Hope this helps!
Jeff
richaje said:
Yeah, that's the heart (ahem) of the matter. No Starheart for the Ralian Orlanthi. Or if they have it, its something that they've learned. Is the Star Heart Orlanthi or Vingkotling? I seem to recall that's somethign that the Orlanthi all have in common - those which did not know how to stand against chaos died.
I agree the Ralians probably did not participate in the IFWW or the Unity Battle. According to Greg (and myself) many of the Ralian and Wenelian Orlanthi are actually Beast Folk (both fallen hsunchen and theistic beast worshippers) who became Orlanthi in the Storm Age or during the Lightbringer Missionaries phase of the First Age.
But I might be wrong.
Jeff
Voriof said:
Just the Kerofinelan Heortlings use the initiation rites of Heort and the Second Son - it is not something that all Orlanthi have in common. All people in Glorantha have their secret story about how they survived chaos - for many people (including the Orlanthi) it is a clan or tribal secret.
What all Orlanthi have in common is that they worship Orlanth.
Voriof said:
Yep - many Ralian clans still venerate their Beast Totem as part of their clan identity and adulthood initiation. They do not practice the initiation rites of Heort and the Second Son. They have their own myths about how they survived the Darkness.
Jeff
richaje said:
So does any of this have any bearing on the status of the Alynx in Lanksti society (or the Orlanthi in Delela and Saug for that matter)?
Is the Alynx still as revered as it is among the Heortlings - or do the Ralian clans venerate whatever beast their roots are tied to?
And finally, would the Lanksti then likely be descended from the Telmori Hunschen (due to the close proximity) and therefore hold the Wolf as significant?
Rurik said:
First thing is first - the reverence for Alynxes is due to Orlanth's connection and not merely a clan ancestral issue. All Orlanth worshipers hold the alynx to be sacred to some extent. Now many Heortlings also hold Yinkin to be a clan ancestor (as did, for instance, Harmast Barefoot and King Hendrik). The Heortlings likely hold the alynx to be a kinsman as well as sacred, while the Ralians probably just consider alynxes to be sacred to Orlanth.
The Lanksti are very unlikely to be descended from the Telmori. Indeed, some Lanksti clans are actually descendants of Heortling settlements in the First Age. Additionally, Harmast resided amongst the Ralians for around 8 years, teaching the Ralian Orlanthi the secrets of the Lightbringers Quest and his methods for worshiping Orlanth.
Jeff
O.K., next cat question:
Are Alynxes and Shadow Cats basically the same thing?
As far as I can tell RQ 2/3 had Shadow Cats, which were black I think. HQ has Alynxes, which are Lynx/Bobcat like. MRQ appears to go back to black Shadow Cats. Are the two the same thing - or different? Is it just an inconsistency (or change over time) or are the two felines distinct species - perhaps prevelant in different areas?
Are Alynxes and Shadow Cats basically the same thing?
As far as I can tell RQ 2/3 had Shadow Cats, which were black I think. HQ has Alynxes, which are Lynx/Bobcat like. MRQ appears to go back to black Shadow Cats. Are the two the same thing - or different? Is it just an inconsistency (or change over time) or are the two felines distinct species - perhaps prevelant in different areas?
Exubae said:
IFWW is known to the folk of Dragon Pass - it is part of how the folk of Dragon Pass survived the Great Darkness. It is not significant outside of Dragon Pass.
Here is some snippets that Greg and I posted to the Heroquest-RPG list some months back:
I Fought We Won
A few words on this. I will be happy to answer questions here as well.
Officially, the I Fought We Won battle was performed by several masculine entities, cosmically and thus perhaps simultaneously. The individuals, unknown even to each other, went home and taught their form of individualized resistance to their families, clans and tribes. This resistance allowed those tribes to survive an initial onslaught of chaos. The IFWW heroes and followers, all of whom were from the Dragon Pass area, and agreed to cooperate - a real first since it included some individuals from all the elder races. But these forces together won the Unity Battle and defeated the larger chaos force assembled to destroy them. Continued cooperation allowed all the Dragon Pass tribes to survive.
The martial struggle of Heort is appropriate to his role as warrior and culture hero. It is the manifestation of some raw masculine powers of violence, destruction and general active, energetic role. In the IFWW these prove ineffective, the individual is destroyed, yet some part of the individual still manages to struggle on and, surprised, the chaos opposition is destroyed, runs away or dissipates.
The subsequent reconstruction of the Hero is based on an acknowledgment of the essential masculine role (I Fought), but it encloses the Secret just learned (We Won). He rearms, then goes forth and rescues his wife from the Ice Palace, and teaches the secret to the men of his tribe.
The mirroring struggle by Ivarne, Heort's wife, is appropriate to her role and feminine properties. She is the Culture Bearer, and the manifestation of the raw feminine powers of peace, creation and generally passive energetic role. Abandoned by her husband, Ivarne must protect her kids from the menaces of the Darkness. She doesn't fight them: she runs, she makes baskets to slide down an ice slope, she fools the wolves, she destroys the imps with words, she finds food, she makes food, but on and on she goes, losing friends, followers, then even her children to the cold
and monsters. She grows more tired and unable to act, and at last finds a place to curl up and rest. (In the Kitori version, she even feeds herself to her children before going to sleep.) But these, her essential feminine passive power, is not enough for her. She-- out of all her companions and friends and the whole world that came before,--she wakes.
The subsequent reconstruction of the Heroine is based on an acknowledgment of the essential feminine role, of bearing and being, but it encloses the Secret just learned (You matter). She finds her husband nearly dead, and she heals him in time to save his life.
These actions by the founding heroes are the secret survival methodology for the Heortling people. (And others of the Unity Council, though they always subjugated it within their more prehistoric mythology as one of many such struggles.)
Other surviving cultures have different stories. Most of these are of desperate families, each with some clan secret of survival. What is significant about the IFWW is that is was shared by a significant number of humans and other peoples. That cooperation is what allowed them to have an intact society and population in the thousands when Elmal rose.
The other population centers at the dawn had their own epic tales of surviving the Darkness. The self sacrifice of Xemela is part of the Seshnegi survival story. Joining together with the Great Living Rune (i.e., the eransachula Zzabur) to smash the glacier is another. The Kralori have their draconic story, the Pamaltelans have their Necklace, and the Dara Happans their wandering heroes, keeping alive and hiding the secret keys to life, humanity and heaven too. (The Vithelans may not have had a Darkness, so their tales is even more different.)
A few additional thoughts on IFWW. Heort's experience (along that of with his other Unity Council counterparts) is unique (at least among humans). If you aren't a Heortling, you don't have IFWW. Maybe you have some other story about how your ancestors survived the Darkness by learning to eat bark, or by falling asleep, but unless you were from one of those handful of population centers (like the Heortlings, the Dara Happans, the Malkioni, etc), your own mythology will likely gloss over how we got from the Darkness to the Dawn (like simply saying something like the gods came back for whatever reason).
Obviously, the other population centers each have their own epic tale of not only surviving but defeating the Darkness. But that tale is not IFWW.
It is also worth keeping in mind that non-Heortling Orlanthi do not have IFWW. The Ralian Orlanthi - which are almost as significant a core Orlanthi culture as the Heortlings - do not have IFWW. They have Ernalda, the Lightbringers Quest, all the core Orlanthi myths, but not IFWW or Heort.
Nor did the Talastarings have IFWW. They have their own survival stories. The early clans either disappear or grow to be larger. Clans become tribes, etc.
So when these population groups become tribes their particular customs and deep powers (we survive because we eat this at night or pray to this entity, etc.) provide the core "become an adult" initiation. Tribal culture heroes taught style of dress, haircut, and tattoos (the most physical appearances); ancestral worship methods, and everyone that survived the Dark had a spiritual protector of some sort; or practices or philosophies, such as a preference for a cult, matrilineal property lines, etc.
They SHARE the fact that they all worship the Orlanth pantheon as their religious component. Even when Lokamayadon was trying to replace Orlanth with High Orlanth he acknowledged that Orlanth and Ernalda were the Greatest Gods. And even the local ways to worship the Storm Pantheon are all based on the old Theyalan methods taught by the Lightbringer missionaries of the early Dawn. This broad method of spiritual practice unites the holy people across the entire "barbarian belt."
On the Other Hand, the Talastarings, Ralian Orlanthi and Fronelan Orlanthi look towards Top of the World as their Great Mountain, not Kero Fin. Same religion, but... different.
Jeff
Here's a little more on IFWW. Keep this in mind - the Heortlings (unlike most other Gloranthans) have more than a How We Survived The Darkness myth. They have a How We Defeated Chaos And Saved The World secret. This secret is in addition to the Lightbringers Quest whereby Orlanth returned the gods and goddesses to the world and made things much better.
Unlike the Talastari, the Manirians, the Ralians or plenty of other Orlanthi cultures, the Heortlings had figured out how to not only survive the Darkness but overcome the worst of the Darkness and rebuild their culture prior to the Lightbringers Quest. Heort did not have to sacrifice to Orlanth and aid the return of the gods in order for his people to survive - he had already ensured his people's survival. Nonetheless, he did. As a result, Elmal grew brighter, the weather warmed, Ernalda awakened and Orlanth returned and set Elmal free. And the Heortlings not only survived, but with Orlanth's aid, they prospered.
That's a different story than what many other Orlanthi folk will tell. These folk survived the Darkness but could not recognize that it had been defeated until the Theyalan missionaries arrived with the news that Orlanth had returned and showed them how to sacrifice to Orlanth and the Storm Tribe. However, the Theyalans did not tell these folk about how Heort had shown his people how to overcome the Darkness on their own.
Hope that helps -
Jeff
Unlike the Talastari, the Manirians, the Ralians or plenty of other Orlanthi cultures, the Heortlings had figured out how to not only survive the Darkness but overcome the worst of the Darkness and rebuild their culture prior to the Lightbringers Quest. Heort did not have to sacrifice to Orlanth and aid the return of the gods in order for his people to survive - he had already ensured his people's survival. Nonetheless, he did. As a result, Elmal grew brighter, the weather warmed, Ernalda awakened and Orlanth returned and set Elmal free. And the Heortlings not only survived, but with Orlanth's aid, they prospered.
That's a different story than what many other Orlanthi folk will tell. These folk survived the Darkness but could not recognize that it had been defeated until the Theyalan missionaries arrived with the news that Orlanth had returned and showed them how to sacrifice to Orlanth and the Storm Tribe. However, the Theyalans did not tell these folk about how Heort had shown his people how to overcome the Darkness on their own.
Hope that helps -
Jeff
richaje said:
Thanks Jeff. Jeff actually wrote about this in Cults of Glorantha - I had just didn't think to look there when I posted before :? . There is a boxed bit about Alynxes with the Yinkin cult.
It doesn't get into colors but states that in some regions, such as Ralios, they are called Shadowcats. Perhaps the black ones are more prevelent in Ralios (or perhaps I am just projecting my Shadowcat=Black Alynx=Tawney preconceptions onto the matter).
