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The Second Council

Posted on August 14, 2022

Once the decision had been made to form a Second Council to meet the challenges of a New Time there was a nomination of potential members by all the worshippers within the domain of the council. This took several years to complete. Active selection of the final members took place in a 4-day ritual which was a searing test of worship and mana to reform the matrix already erected by previous history. The result was a new political and religious makeup based upon the new Council members selected.

Four members of the Council were unchanged: Orlanth (Ruler of the gods), Kyger Litor (Ancestress of the Trolls), the Only Old One (ruler of the Shadowlands), and the Inhuman King (Demigod of the Dragonewts).

The first new member was Zorak Zoran, called Lord Master of the Demons of Death. He was a cruel demon from the stygian underworld, wielding the flail of death and a net of destruction. His primary worshipers were those serving in the armies, although almost everyone else gave at least propitiatory sacrifice to him.

The second was the replacement of Aram and his peoples by Seri-why-Ranor, master of a “common people cult” centered in Dorastor. His peoples were far more numerous in the new territories than the Dragon Pass peoples.

The third addition replaced the long-extinct race of the Gold Wheel Dancers.

With the change from the First to the Second Council also came a shift in the capital and working center from Dragon Pass to Dorastor. The new capital, rather than being shared by the many members of the council, was located in the City of Dokat, which soon grew to immortal splendor. Dragon Pass, far removed from the volatile fronts of growing conflict, grew pacific, dreaming with the dragons. This is not to say that there were no armies from that region, for the manpower here was strong and willing. But there was no clash nearby, nor anything more exciting than a convoy from some new corner of the continent to pass through the wide lands. These areas were called the Old Highlands.

The new expansionist policy of the Second Council led to reorganisation of the armies, taking voluntary contingents from all nationalities involved and integrating them into regular units. These tended to be similar in size and armament depending upon the races involved, with the Dragonewts taking the role of light foot and horse, the trolls taking the roles of heavy and medium infanty, while the humans were massed into phalanxes of spearmen, grouped as heavy cavalry from Prax, and as magicians. Among the irregular national armies of the times there was still considerable local variation, and it is not unkown to find national militia volunteered for a campaign a thousand miles from their homes in the early stages of the Second Council’s history.

In the year 240 there occurred the famed Battle of Argentium Thriílle, in which thousands of horse barbarians were crushed during three days of fighting. After this battle the defeated Horse Tribes withdrew from all of northern Peloria and into the Redlands and beyond. After such a victory, it would have been possible for the First Council to quickly convert the liberated tribes to their beliefs. But when the natives were faced with the terrifying armies of the Second Council carrying an aggressive pantheon into their midst, they quickly took up arms against their liberators. In this they were spurred on by several hostile cults previously suppressed by the horse barbarians or friendly to them. Among these were the Blue Moon School.

Again this is from the earliest stages of Glorantha and there is later clear confusion between Arkat and Argrath.

Jeff Richard

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Battle of Argentium Thriílle 240 ST, Inhuman King, Kyger Litor, Only Old One, Orlanth, Second Council, Seri-why-Ranor, Zorak Zoran

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