Yemalio

[Paul Bestwick]

One thing I have spotted is that under the 2nd age Cults book is Yemalio having fireblade and firearrow as cult spells.

Is this a difference between the 2nd and 3rd ages, is it a correction? Can someone enlighten me on the background to this.

[Simon Phipp]

That is a mistake, in my opinion.

Yelmalio lost his Fire powers in the GodTime, at the Hill of Gold.

I cannot see any reason for Yelmalio to have Fireblade and Firearow in the Second Age, unless a GodLearner HeroQuestor went back to the Hill of Gold and defeated Zorak Zoran in Yelmalio’s name. That seems very, very unlikely to me.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of mistakes in the Second Age cults books.

[Paul Bestwick]

It would seem so, however playing devils advocate there could be an explanation in that almost all previously published material was prax/pavis/river of cradles focused. Could it be that this was a local variation/schism? I also read somewhere that the River of Cradles history as I know it from RQ3 days with the line of counts of sun county following on from the establishment of Pavis has changed, can anyone point me to the relevant documentation please?

[Niall]

Well the new list if it is a new list would be in the latest Pavis book.

[RippedShirtKirk]

Quote:

Quote from Simon Phipp on September 13, 2013, 13:54
That is a mistake, in my opinion.

Yelmalio lost his Fire powers in the GodTime, at the Hill of Gold.

I cannot see any reason for Yelmalio to have Fireblade and Firearow in the Second Age, unless a GodLearner HeroQuestor went back to the Hill of Gold and defeated Zorak Zoran in Yelmalio’s name. That seems very, very unlikely to me.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of mistakes in the Second Age cults books.

I’ve got to back Simon on this one; since Zorak Zoran defeated Yelmalio and stole his fire powers during the God Time, that would affect the Runes associated with Yelmalio-full stop. Note that when Jaxarte visits Sun County, he makes the social gaffe of wearing red, the color of Yelmalio’s lost powers.

I’m not sure what kind of HeroQuest would be required to restore said powers to Yelmalio, but it would have to be pretty epic-and dangerous. Not to say that your PCs wouldn’t try!

As for the revised listings of the Counts of Sun County, that I’m not too sure about. But I’ll do some digging when I get home from work, and see what I can find.

[Simon Phipp]

You could do a Hill of Gold HeroQuest to restore Fire powers to yourself – that is quite straightforward, all you need to do is to defeat Zorak Zoran.

But, from a mythic point of view, that is contrary to the Yelmalian myth, maybe the equivalent of performing a Jesus Christ Passion HeroQuest and breaking the cross in two.

[Jeff Richard]

Quote:

Quote from Paul Bestwick on September 13, 2013, 14:18
It would seem so, however playing devils advocate there could be an explanation in that almost all previously published material was prax/pavis/river of cradles focused. Could it be that this was a local variation/schism? I also read somewhere that the River of Cradles history as I know it from RQ3 days with the line of counts of sun county following on from the establishment of Pavis has changed, can anyone point me to the relevant documentation please?

The official answer is that Mongoose did a poor job. Yelmalio does not have Fire powers (although he does have the Light subset of the Fire Rune). Not in Prax, not in Dragon Pass, not in Saird, not in Garsting, and not in Talastar, Fronela, and Ralios.

And the line of the counts of Sun County has not been changed.

Jeff

[Scott Martin]

Quote:

Quote from Jeff Richard on September 14, 2013, 07:40

The official answer is that Mongoose did a poor job. Yelmalio does not have Fire powers (although he does have the Light subset of the Fire Rune). Not in Prax, not in Dragon Pass, not in Saird, not in Garsting, and not in Talastar, Fronela, and Ralios.

Thanks be to Monrogh and all the founders!

I come back to the ancient description of how light and heat divided here: “it is in fact the sun cult as worshipped by mountain people where the fiery orb is praised more for light than for heat. In lowland cultures it is normally the sky which is a source of light without heat, thus this god of light without heat is the ‘sky-sun’ or Sun Dome.”

So is the Yelm of Dara Happa still the source of heat (with light), in which case fire is sacred in their ziggurats? Or has his fire been delegated to some more crass entity (“low” fire) as our image of the sun himself ages and our understanding of the old runes evolves? I would like it if he was still a fire god, an archer god, a musician, a lover of birds. Let him be “this and that” occasionally.

Fun tidbit I’d always glossed over and only a few people seem to have ever picked up: Yelmalio spent the second age fighting “dwarves everywhere and spearheaded armies invading the mountain regions.” The latter part may be a reference to his role in a reawakened (and relatively lowland) Saird, moving up from the valleys as the EWF rolled back. The former part seems to reflect his aldryami connections in Balazar in particular — but “everywhere?” Was Yelmalio a key factor in the elder race world war that Mongoose missed the chance to cover?

[Simon Phipp]

Yelm is the Sun God, the owner of the Fire/Sky Rune. Now, I have long been of the opinion that the Sky Rune should be a Form Rune and the Fire Rune an Element Rune, but that isn’t going to happen in Glorantha. So, Yelm is the prime Fire god.

Lodril is the Fire below the earth, Fire without light. His children are the Low Fires, the help fires, the ones that are not too high up to aid mortals. So, Oakfed, Gustbran and Mahome help people in various ways.

Dayzatar is the Sky Above, Sky without Fire, the prime god of Light, ruler of Aether’s Realm. He is too far away and holy to answer people’s prayers, to offer help.

Sure Yelm has different aspects, so he is the Emperor, the Sun God, the Harper, Father of Birds and so on. Such a major god can always be worshipped in different aspects.

[Scott Martin]

Thanks, Simon. So people who worship Yelm directly use fire magic?

[Simon Phipp]

Yes, I would say so.

In HeroQuest 2 terms, they have the Fire Rune as part of their makeup.

In HeroQuest 1 terms, Yelm has fire magics.

In RuneQuest terms, Yelm used to have Sunspear, Fireblade and Firearrow, I think. he definitely had access to Salamanders.

[Scott Martin]

Thanks again. Asking whether Yelm has fire seems like the most ridiculous thing, but the oddly precise phrasing in Cults of Prax got me thinking about sun and sky, light without heat, heat without light and where exactly “fire” ends up. We know Yelmalio lost his heat and is mostly light. He’s what I’d consider an essential “Sairdite” cult. We know Lodril never bothered much with light and is mostly heat. He or at least his cousin Turos is what I’d consider an essential “Pelandan” cult. So the question struck me, is Yelm the only entity of Dara Happa proper who participates in light with heat, and is that what we call the Fire Rune?

The Teshnan fire religion is “actually close to the standard Solar Pantheon,” so there’s probably an amazing story there I haven’t heard yet. And in ancient days, the Wyrms Footnotes write-up took great pains to note that the five phases of “Yelm” are accepted as such in both a “primitive nomad culture of the horse barbarians” and of course “the splendid empire of Dara Happa” (which funnily enough is cited here as over by around 700 ST).

So Yelm the Youth, Yelm the Warrior, Yelm the Teacher, Yelm the Leader, Yelm the Sage. Presumably people who worship that guy through his cycle do in fact have access to fire magic. But the Yelm of the Unfinished Works is more aloof than the Yelm of the Footnotes, so for all I know he’s delegated that. (“Yelm is not ___the sacrificial flame___.”) Maybe my question should have been, in our modern understanding, who actually worships Yelm the Youth Warrior Teacher Leader Sage circa 1625 ST? And what does this tell us about how to think about the “Fire” Rune — which as we all know is just the Dara Happan sigil of Yelm the Sun — and what spiritual forces Yelmalio lost and Lodril held onto despite various indignities? (He’s not a dignified god.)

We also know that old Xeotam distinguished between fire (“heat?”) and sky (light) as separate elemental courts. Was he wrong? Apparently you can have a dome without a sun and a sun below the dome is the flame.

[Simon Phipp]

Nobody else seems to be chipping in, so …

Aether was the Sky, father of Dayzatar, Yelm and Lodril. As Primal Sky, he encompassed the sky done, the sun, the first Emperor and everything to do with Fire and Sky. The golden Sky Dome comes from his physical form. Dayzatar became the master of the Upper Realm, beyond the Sky Dome. Yelmalio seems to have become the god of the Sky Dome itself.

Yelm is the Sun and the Emperor, and yes you can have the Sun and Sky as separate things. In the Lesser and Greater Darkness, the sun was not in the sky for those 2 ages. Even now, at night, the sun goes into the Underworld and Hell while the Sky remains above.

As for the different Yelm cults, I’d say they were still worshipped in the modern Glorantha.

Yelm the Leader is worshipped by Dara Happan nobles and their children. The Red Emperor worships Yelm the Leader, in principle. This is hereditary and forms the leaders of Dara Happa.

Yelm the Warrior is worshipped by those Dara Happans who are not nobles and who can trace their descent back to a Yelm cultist. There are a lot of these in the empire.

Yelm the Sage, in RQ2/3 times, used to be the cult of Yelm where priests of other Yelmic cults could join if they satisfied certain conditions. I am not sure if this is still the case, but it makes some sense. Once these are accepted in Yelm the Sage, their sons would qualify for Yelm the Warrior membership.

Yelm the Youth is worshipped by those Dara Happan boys and young men who have not yet accepted a role or position in the Empire. This includes the sons of noblemen who have not yet been given a place at court. This is mainly a stepping-stone cult, with members leaving to join Yelm the Warrior or Yelm the Leader at the appropriate stage.

I’m not sure about Yelm the Teacher, to be honest.

Yelmalio lost all his fire powers when Zorak Zoran took them and embodied them in Amanstan. Lodril was imprisoned by the Only Old One and forced to build the Castle of Black Glass, so he was enslaved, and troll smiths can still use his magic. But Lodril is a more powerful deity than Yelmalio and has many more aspects that the Only Old One couldn’t touch.

In my opinion, Yelmalio also manifests as the Golden Canopy of the Great Forests, the equivalent of the Sky Dome, again a form of Light without Heat. So, he isn’t just a Sairdite deity, but was known by the elves since the Darkness. But, yes, in Dara Happan terms, Yelmalio’s main cult centres lie in and around Saird.

Yelm has delegated a lot of his functions to his children and to other deities. He still has responsibility, but does not do the actual work. This is similar to the way that Orlanth has responsibility for farming, and can be worshipped as Orlanth the Farmer, but has delegated this to Barntar.

All in my opinion, of course, and probably wrong.

[Paul Bestwick]

In RQ3 Yelm the various parts listed by Simon above were presented as a progression within the same cult, ie there were no priests of Yelm the Youth or Yelm the Warrior. Is the more accurate presentation to be priests for each, but Runelords only for Warrior and Leader?

[Jeff Richard]

OK, first off Yelmalio is NOT a Dara Happan cult. You will only find Yelmalio in the former lands of the EWF.

As for the cult of Yelm following the age progression, I’d say that better describes Kargzant, not Imperial Yelm. Glorious ReAscent of Yelm, and Fortunate Succession describe the cult of Yelm in far more detail than Gods of Glorantha or Different Worlds did.

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