Kimos – Against the Gorgers

[Keith Nellist]

Now I have the Guide I am inspired to do a bit of Glorantha board game designing. The Southern continent beckons and I am drawn to the land of Kimos, and the endless battle between the humans and their foes the Gorgers.

The idea I have is some sort of accelerated geography battle with geographic features such as mountains, rivers, and the like being moved around as if the geography was speeded up, like a million times faster than here on Earth. That’s the basic idea, which is a relatively abstract simulation of geological processes.

The background premise has got me thinking though. Why isn’t there a winner in this battle? What maintains the status quo? Why hasn’t Kimos either sunk or expanded over the ocean? So, it appears that Gorgers and humans can interbreed, and humans can turn into Gorgers if they worship certain underworld gods, so it seems to me that Gorgers are really just some sort of humans gone bad. If all the Gorgers get wiped out, a bit of underworld god worship and more Gorger appear. If all the humans are eaten, perhaps the Gorgers turn back into humans or something. Anyway, I’m not clear on the details, what the Terrible Sacrifice is, or if the Underworld gods need to stay asleep or be sacrificed to, and in some ways it is not important to the battle of Mountains, Rivers, Volcanoes and Whirlwinds, but I am sure someone here will have a great suggestion.

[Peter Metcalfe]

My thinking…

The Gorgers are created by the sculpture-magic of the Kimotians. Sculpture-magic is only possible in Kimos because it is largely the body of Vovisibor left here by Pamalt and the Gods to provide a new world to replace the lost bits of the old.

Every time an important sculpture is completed, it is impressed with the spirit of the Sculptors to become active. But in doing so, it sparks the formation of a Gorger, a minute part of Vovisibor. Perhaps a Gorger dies every time that the sculpture that spawned him is destroyed. Or perhaps a Gorger dies when the Sculptors that made him also die.

The Sculptors are aware of this flaw and have used it in the past in desperate gambits (such as the destruction of a sculpture to kill a powerful gorger). They also use magics of earth and lava because these can destroy the sculptures. They persist with their magic because they can align the sculptures so that no Gorger appears (or perhaps the aligned sculptures create fewer but stronger Gorgers). Once all the sculptures are aligned, there will be no Gorgers and Kimos will know peace.

The Gorgers for their part are aware of their dependence on the Sculptures for survival. They could easily wipe out the Kimotians and have launched several devastating raids in the past to halt some imminent sculpture that could doom them. They do not want to die and have developed several sculptures of their own. One imprisons people magically imprisons people within a prison that also makes them immortal. Another subtly disrupts the alignment of Kimotian sculptures to strengthen themselves. Other sculptures can magically alter the connection between the Gorger and his originating sculpture, to meld two sculptures or shift a Gorger’s connection to another sculpture altogether. They war against the Kimotians to encourage them to build more sculptures. They use magics of storms and seas because these elemental forces are less likely to damage a sculpture.

Because the Gorgers are dependent on the body of Vovisibor for existence, they cannot move beyond the borders of Kimos. They are looking for ways to emancipate themselves from the sculptures entirely. But their magical researches have shown they have not yet reached the critical density of sculptures for emancipation to begin. And so the war continues.

[Joerg Baumgartner]

The humans of Kimos belong to the descendants of sunken Thinobutu and have an additional history of fleeing from the antigod kingdom of northeastern Pamaltela (the one finally crushed by Jesolo’s fleet from the East Isles).

This gives me the impression of a Polynesian Cthulhu mythos culture. I regard the Gorgers as another kind of antigod spawn. They have probably been cursed to remain in Kimos (at least until they get the pesky humans there eliminated, maybe then to move on to Thonokos or Maslo).

The Kimotans do all kinds of reprehensile stuff, like human sacrifice, cannibalism, incest, etc.

Can there be interbreeding? The gorgers make any approach very painful, but that doesn’t preclude the Kimotans from offering nubile females – whether from their own numbers or captured females fromraiding others – in a King Kong fashion.

(I wonder if the humans of Loral did a similar thing during the Closing.)

Can humans turn into antigods? Apparently yes, as with the huan-to in Kralorela.

Should Kimotans turn into Gorgers? I’m not quite convinced. Maybe as a side effect of that sculpting magic. And possibly that might work in the other direction, too. If that doesn’t make the Gorgers too banal.

[Peter Metcalfe]

The humans of Kimos belong to the descendants of sunken Thinobutu and have an additional history of fleeing from the antigod kingdom of northeastern Pamaltela (the one finally crushed by Jesolo’s fleet from the East Isles).

The guide says they were sent by King Kediri (p542), the Storm Age ruler of Alarlaverir (p687). I do think from the mythic maps in the Guide that Thinobutu Isle is the Loral Isles, Dakaputlo Elamle somewhere in what is now Elamle, Alarlaverir in Kimos and Ulrana in Laskal.

Since Revealed Mythologies (p48) has the Agimori remember Gendara as slavers and cannibals, this doesn’t negate your Tcho-Tcho suggestion by a long shot.

[Keith Nellist]

Thanks Peter and Joerg. I had not thought of “Kimos as the body of Vovisibor”, and there certainly needs to be a reason that Kimos has remained in one place. I agree with Joerg about Gorgers being some type of antigod spawn. Certainly, they seem almost like a HuanTokin if I compare stats in Glorantha Bestiary. Nightstalkers might be related too. I am not sure about the sculture magic. I cannot see any mention of it in the Kimos story that is inspiring me most:King Kediri and the Flood from Missing Lands p43. This has a lot of detail relating to food: People are “fat and healthy” game “tastes better than anything we eat today”.Demons appear (not yet Gorgers) and “eat everything in their path” (also, sinking boats, ambushing hunters, killing men and ravishing women). My thoughts is that the Kimotans have an unhealthy relationship with food – such things that we might describe as anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, food hoarding, gluttony – would be things that are front of mind for Kimotans. The Sculpture magic has to be there of course, but I see it as part of the “secret knowledge over the great elemental forces”

In the myth, at first King Kediri and his warriors were successful in fighting the demons, then the Gorgers came. I think this could mean that some of the warriors became Gorgers to defeat demons, but became a worse threat themselves – like a military coup. Perhaps those warriors that did not share their food or ate unholy things became Gorgers or possessed by a hunger spirit or something like that. “Women birthed the hideous scaled and horned spawn of the Gorgers” Then the sea attacks and everyone flees, landing in Kimos, but the Gorgers (meaning greedy warriors that have turned into emaciated greedy monsters) had got there first.

Those that stayed in Alarlarverir (Lingerers, evil people eating the food of Gorgers, having sex with hideous demons, having scaled and horned children) were drowned when the Underworld gods squabbled and without blood and sacrifice the underworld gods fell asleep.

The Kimotans that restrain their eating perhaps with taboos and fasting, and follow the “ancient and pure way of life and survival” survive.

I am tempted think of the Gorgers as some sort of scapegoat created by the Kimotans by taking all the bads emotions – greed, lust, anger, fear, pain – and perhaps some good ones – hope, enjoyment – and putting them all in someone who is the Terrible Sacrifice and becomes a Gorger, who is driven away but comes back with Storms, whirlwinds and emanates fear and pain. Thus the fatalistic and calculating Kimotans are like that because they put their anger and greed into some unlucky individual who become a Gorger.

The Jelmre do stuff with their emotions that have some similarities – they can crytalize their emotions and lose them forever. Perhaps Kimotans can sculturise their emotions and get rid of them forver via a sculpture creating a Gorger as Peter suggests. Thus the Kimotans need to purge themselves of bad emotions via sculpture magic.

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