Epikhor the Librarian

[Nel]

This is a question about Epikhor the Librarian, a God from Esrolia.
Where can I find some info about it?

According to HeroQuest 1st ed. (pag.43), it’s a deity of the Earth Pantheon, and it’s a Lhankor Mhy subcult.

But Esrolia is the Land of Ten Thousand Goddesses and I am wondering if there is some more proper God I have failed to notice.
I am particularly interested in a god/dess for a female Esrolian scholar who works in the library of Nochet, and, I guess, writes in a Lhankor Mhy script.

[Nel]

According to HeroQuest 1st ed. (pag.43), it’s a deity of the Earth Pantheon, and according to Mark Galeotti (http://glorantha.temppeli.org/digest/heroquest-rpg/2003.11/19116.html) it’s a Lhankor Mhy subcult.

[Peter Metcalfe]

Female Esrolian Scholars would worship Lhankor Mhy. Epikhor is the result of a misguided philosophy to find a subcult or minor deity for every occupation in Glorantha. There may or may not be a hero in Nochet called Epikhor but if there was, female Lhankorings wouldn’t automatically worship her.

[Jeff Richard]

THE god of Esrolian scholars and scribes is Lhankor Mhy. The library of Nochet is the Lhankor Mhy temple.

[Nel]

Thanks for the quick replies.

So the female Esrolian scholar from Nochet worships Lhankor Mhy, despite it is not a Goddess.

Being Esrolia a matriarchy I expected them to have turned their Knowledge deity into a female one or, at least, changed it to fit the role of men in their society. For example, turning Lhankor Mhy in the husband of any goddess.
How does the Esrolian Lhankor Mhy’s profile change from the one appearing in the Storm Tribe book?

Peter’s comment raises an intriguing question:
> Epikhor is the result of a misguided philosophy to find a subcult or minor deity for every occupation in Glorantha

Looks that Epikhor the Librarian is no longer an Esrolian god, and I’m fine with that, but how can I know which of the gods introduced in previous books are official now?

Erasing that “misguided philosphy” means obliterating subcults and minor deities and coming back to the greater gods?
For example, according to “Blood over Gold, Trader Princes of Maniria” (pags. 24 and 35), Wenellian muleskinners worship Saint Gilles the Humble. Should I guess that they worship Issaries now?

[Scott Martin]

I’d start an investigation of LM in Esrolia with the use of false beards — what does the “bearded lady” trope actually signify in the land where grandmothers rule — and then work back to look at the kinds of families that produce LM priestesses in that part of the world. What makes a smart woman opt out of the Ernalda complex?

As for canon, coming back to the greater deities sounds practical. Maybe some day soon we’ll discover that a particular divinity has a specialized local subcult or they pray to him or her a little differently there, use different names. At various specific points in Gloranthan history the Issaries may have been called Gilles or Ashara. In your characters’ futures, the same god may reveal new names in the course of play.

[Joerg Baumgartner]

I still feel that the insistence on wearing beards is a reaction to the Grandmothers instituting a matriarchy. Maskilinists of Esrolia join Lhankor Mhy.

(Although I dare say that some of the grandmothers might be able to compete on the shaggy upper lip and chin area…)

[Peter Metcalfe]

<i>Being Esrolia a matriarchy I expected them to have turned their Knowledge deity into a female one […]</i>

They couldn’t even if they had wanted to. Secondly as Jeff has said, Matriacrchy isn’t that the woman rule, the Matriarchy is that the Grandmothers rule and they terrify both sexes equally.

<i>Looks that Epikhor the Librarian is no longer an Esrolian god, and I’m fine with that, but how can I know which of the gods introduced in previous books are official now?</i>

If they aren’t mentioned in the most recent works (which from memory is: Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes, Sartar: Companion, Pavis: Gateway to Adventure and Guide to Glorantha plus the unfinished works), then they don’t have official status as per statement by Moon Design.

<i>Erasing that “misguided philosphy” means obliterating subcults and minor deities and coming back to the greater gods?</i>

There are still subcults, minor deities and spirits. There are far fewer than once were.

<i>For example, according to “Blood over Gold, Trader Princes of Maniria” (pags. 24 and 35), Wenellian muleskinners worship Saint Gilles the Humble. Should I guess that they worship Issaries now?</i>

Blood Over Gold is now uncanonical and a lot has changed in the area, especially the Malkioni.

[Jeff Richard]

The Esrolian matriarchy is ruled by a group of women (grandmothers and queens). It is otherwise a civilized Orlanthi land and very culturally and religiously similar to the Heortlanders and Sartarites. Although Ernalda is the preeminent deity of Esrolia (her greatest temple is there), the Lightbringers are very important cults (the world’s largest temples to Lhankor Mhy, Chalana Arroy, and Issaries are all in Nochet).
Some cults have one or more variants, called “subcults”, that can range from a local variation to additional mysteries acknowledged by all but whose secrets are known only to a few. But given that the Nochet temple of Lhankor Mhy is the Great Temple of the cult, it might be more sensible to say that Sartarite lawspeakers who focus on oral lore worship a “subcult” of Lhankor Mhy.

[Bruce Turner]

It’s not too hard to imagine the Esrolian women who might be drawn to worship Lhankor Mhy. They would come from privileged families that could educate them, would have some amount of ambition, but would either lack interest in participating in the powermongering associated with the upper reaches of the Ernalda cult, or understand that their chances of succeeding in those efforts were low. A younger sister from an important family could face a lifetime of being overshadowed by her elders, or she could do an end run around them and achieve her own influence (and indirectly help her family) by joining Lhankor Mhy and devoting herself to her interest in a comparative study of Manirian sacred weaving patterns.

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