From: gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au (Graeme Lindsell)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: RQ: Elmal/Yelmalio
Followup-To: rec.games.frp.misc
Date: 12 Jan 1993 09:35:00 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: 150.203.36.92

In article <ROWE.93Jan8030039@soda.berkeley.edu>, rowe@soda.berkeley.edu
(Eric Rowe) wrote:
> 
> Time to chime in with my theory of the Elmal/Yelmalio situation.  I think my
> position is quite strong, but I would like to still hear other opinions on
> this topic, especially those saying I'm wrong.
> 
> My basic stand is that Elmal and Yelmalio are one and the same.  The
> differences that arise I feel were the result of both activities of the
> gods themselves during godtime, and the religious/cultural seperation that
> occurred between the storm and sun pantheons.

 This could very well be. Is it possible for separate people to worship
the same diety under different names in Glorantha, given that the
dieties are real individuals? With a bit of effort (OK a heroquest) you
could go and talk to Yelmalio.

 Of course I could have this wrong. Perhaps a Heroquest is always an
act of creation: you see what you want/expect to see.In this case a
heroquest to discover something will, if successful, create what you
wanted to find. Perhaps this is the truth behind Monroghs "discovery"
of Yelmalio.

> Here we see how the Aldryami and the northern solar worshipping people could
> worship Yelmalio, the son of the sun, at the same time that storm followers
> worshipped the same god in the guise of Elmal.  That the two were not
> immediately recognised as one was due to the heavy emphasis upon different
> times in godtime that Yelmalio acted.  The solar people emphasise early
> actions and choose to ignore his conversion to the storm.  They show his
> chaos fighting as guarding the world for the return of his father.  The
> storm story ignores all of Elmal's early history, beginning with his meeting
> of Orlanth.  His chaos fighting then is show as guarding the world for his
> lord, Orlanth.

 Here's my theory: Yelmalio was originally an Aldryami gad whose worship
has spread to humans. All of his rune magic supports this theory: no
fire powers, lots of anti-darkness powers to help fight trolls. The gifts
are a bit of a problem: ride skill is useless to elves. Most of the rest
of the gifts are bow, characteristic or spear related: no problem for
elves there. I can't remember any geases that are any trouble to elves

 Loren Miller (I think, the thread has dropped off my news server)
claimed that Yelmalio might only be worshipped amround Dragon Pass and 
the other sun cults would never have heard of him. Checking in the
"Genertela: Cradle of the Hero Wars" pack I found only one reference 
to Yelmalio worship by humans outside of Dragon Pass: A city in Fronela
came out of the Syndics Ban as Yelm worshippers, when before the Ban
only Yelmalio was known, and only as a minor cult. The Dara Happans
don't worship Yelmalio, and don't need to: the Yelm religion has the
warrior subcult (Yelm the Warrior) already, as part of a cultists
spiritual progression. The Pentans have Golden Bow as a warrior god:
has there ever been a write-up of this cult? If so does it bear any
resemblance to Yelmalio?

 Only people who can't worship Yelm would really want to worship
Yelmalio IMHO. The elves can't worship him because they are
descended from Aldrya: thus they have Yelmalio to give them the 
light powers they need, without any of the hated fire powers.
The Elmal worshippers could not suddenly make themselves descendants
of Yelm so they start with Yelmalio. I suspect that soon some 
high ranking Yelmalians will Heroquest to "discover" that they are
descended from Yelm, and then introduce worship of Yelm amongst the
lucky few ie the nobles


> ps If Stafford only wrote a few notes and the conclusion, why did it take KoS
> so long to come out?

Editing, proofreading? 

> pps Seriously, although supposedly a novel, this is the kind of Game Supplement
> I have dreamed of for years.  Only Chaosium could be this cool.

 Just about everything needed to play an Orlanthi, and to understand
their culture, outside of actual game mechanics.

> pps Glad to have finally reached that 10% in Orlanth lore.

Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au
Research School of Chemistry,
Australian National University
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