SPOILERS Orlanthi vs. Hyalorings/Rams vs. Riders BIG END GAME SPOILERS

[rwmipi]

I'm just gonna say it.

Hyalorings are better than Orlanthi in every way and I'm sad that they'll inevitably be subsumed into Orlanthi culture. Consider:

1. Steppe people are cooler than hill people, and less overdone.
2. Riders have a unique look. How many times have you seen that weird far central Asian phenotype with epicanthic folds but light hair in fiction?
3. Horses>Cows
4. Hyalorings are actually free. Orlanthi are a bunch of hypocrites. They worship a god of change but are staunch traditionalists. And as my Raven advisor once said in an event "Look at me, I'm Orlanth God of Freedom! Who will buy my slaves?!"
5. Hyalorings have their own gods, they don't just have to steal everyone else's. Storm Tribe is a bunch of dilettantes. We can see new stories instead of retread ground!
6. Elmal the King>Elmal the Loyal Thane>Yelmalio the made up cold sun that got his ass kicked by everyone.
7. Osara>Vinga. Actual origin and place in the pantheon with a character arc in everything, instead of just a placeholder for female clan members that like to fight.
8. Raven>Eurmal. He/she does the things you must do but can't. Eurmal just pointlessly betrays you all the time.
9. Horse archers are used by only the most successful of pre-modern empires. Shield walls are used by every little pissant clan in history.
10. Warm comfy hats.

Seriously though. I hope the eventual vanishing of their way of life and outlook is slow so I can enjoy them as long as I can in the coming ages. It's sad to think that eventually the only thing left of them is that one weird clan in Dragon Pass that worships Elmal instead of Orlanth.

[CakeisGreat]

Yea the Hyalorings are much cooler then the Orlanthi. But don't worry the descendents of the pure horse clan become the horse spawn. So they'll be a pain in in the Orlanthi's side for generations to come.

[rwmipi]

Horse spawn are different though. IIRC they don't worship Elmal as chief god, they worship Kargzant. Presumably they lose most if not all of the pantheon currently held by the Riders. Now this is to be expected I suppose, a ton changes in the intervening years. But it's weird that once again the culture of change and motion and rebellion is, apparently, the second most stagnant in the region. The only guys that seem just as if not more unchanged in this period vs. the "modern" KODP one is the Dara Happans. Riders as we know them, as well as most of the other cultures of the valley seen here are just...gone, leaving only distant descendants behind at best.

[CakeisGreat]

That is true, it is interesting in how the groups in the valley live on in a way, but are radically changed culturally and God-wise. I do agree that it is pretty weird that the Orlanthi, the culture of freedom and motion, are somehow one of the only groups to live on without radically changing in some way. Does anyone have any idea on who the wheels live on as? I have heard some people say that their God, Samnal, lives on in the Dara Happan Pantheon I think?

[El Perrito Super Gordito]

I'm gonna hit at number 4 here. Its absolutely true that if you look at the average orlanthi, in KODP or in the usual PnP setting at the end of the third age, they come off as strong traditionalists and xenophobes, because that's true. But that's not an unchanging facet of their society. The orlanthi of the godstime, 1st and 2nd ages are some of the most xenophillic, heterodox and open peoples in the history of glorantha. They send missionaries around the world, connecting people, learning their religions, taking it back home with them, and forming the foundations of the Unity Council/World Council of Friends.

The Dragonkill really changed them, among other events. Your dragon pass area orlanthi essentially suffered 4 or 5 attempted genocides in a 300 year period and all that survived are the real hardy types, the cockroaches of society that were going to do whatever it took to keep their people around, and if that means never changing, never learning new things about the world then so be it. It ♥♥♥♥♥♥ them up on cultural level, and hundreds of years later even the knowledge that a true dragon woke up for a little bit in the pass awakens a paralyzing level of generational/cultural PTSD that they can barely deal with.

Somewhat related but not entirely, I don't know if the people who mostly approach glorantha from games have seen this. In the HeroQuest PnP system, when you make orlanthi characters they suggest going through a questionnaire[www.glorantha.com] that is essentially the KODP clan creation, but with 4 times as many questions and I think this one is pretty telling in terms of the changing attitudes.

Originally posted by HeroQuest:

20. The Dragonkill War

The EWF was corrupted by the dragons and finally destroyed when the dragonewts killed its leaders.

Afterwards, several great armies invaded Dragon Pass from the north, east, and south. After decades of warfare, hundreds of dragons (including the great dragons) appeared, some as big as the sky, and ate every human being they found, hostile or otherwise. A few incredibly lucky people survived, said to number only ten humans. Any hatred people had for the dragons was replaced by unconquerable fear.

What lesson did your clan draw from the Dragonkill?
Never try things that go against Orlanth's way.
Kings should rule, because priests make errors when they try to lead people.
New things are usually bad.
Knowledge itself is not harmful, only the way it is used.
Be careful when making friends.
Dragons are evil.
It was lucky that we lived in Heortland at the time.

[El Perrito Super Gordito]

Originally posted by rwmipi:

Horse spawn are different though. IIRC they don't worship Elmal as chief god, they worship Kargzant. Presumably they lose most if not all of the pantheon currently held by the Riders.

Originally posted by Jon snow and god of war khorne:

Does anyone have any idea on who the wheels live on as? I have heard some people say that their God, Samnal, lives on in the Dara Happan Pantheon I think?

The Wheels as depicted in Six Ages 1 are essentially original material, working backwards from an established but detail-light people that are mostly detailed in the book Glorious Re-Ascent of Yelm (first age writing in-universe, dara happan perspective) with a little followup in the historical sections of the guide. Spoilers follow because it is unknown how much attention these areas will get in any future game.

During the Grey Age following the Great Darkness (Six Ages 3 timeframe) the weakened remnant city states of Dara Happa will be conquered by peoples from the south that they call by various names including the chariot-riding Gamatae, meaning Warlords (footnote says literally meaning Riders) and the Hyalorong (which is their name for themselves at the time). They also collectively call this the Jenarong dynasty, after one of the first leaders but that's just bad history on their part. The Gamatae that invade claim to be the descendants of a group they call the Starlight Ancestors, which to someone familiar with how Darkness survival stories go would seem to imply that they are a Star Tribe, a broken culture that nearly disintegrated and lost much of their own history and knowledge, but were saved from complete destruction by the intervention of a demigod that arrived among them in the form of a shooting star and led them through the rest of the darkness. However they remember enough of their history that the Dara Happan scribe reports that they have a strong enmity to the Hyalorong, who they call the Liar Tribe. There's no absolute confirmation that these are the Samnali but...c'mon.

The same scribe reports that both of these groups worship Kargzant, but it might be worth remembering that the Dara Happans cursed themselves into not being able to remember the name Elmal anymore. Over the course of this occupation,the chariot-riders cede substantial ground in territory and in culture, eventually even giving up the chariot for horse riding, mirroring the real world development of historical warfare. Anyway, the Gamatae and the Hyalorong fight over the spoils of Dara Happa for a few hundred years until a nativist ...revolution? I can't think of the right word here takes place simultaneously with an invasion from the south by the World Council, who claim at least in later sources that their intentions are to free the downtrodden city and farm folk of DH but there was probably more than a little desire for plunder too. As the groups of warlords are pushed out of Dara Happa proper and onto the plains of Pent, the cultural boundaries between the two groups continue to erode and eventually all the sons of the sun are one group, though there continues to be a distinction of the Pure Horse peoples. They also leave a legacy behind in the cult of Yelm the Rider in the DH nobility.

Its not really super clear how much the storm age elmali culture has influenced the current rider cultures, especially since there hasn't really been much published on them since the guide publishing and retcon-fest of this decade. I'm not even entirely sure how much of a distinction can be made between Kargzant the Sun Horse and Elmal, who is occasionally also the Sun Horse.

[DCid]

Originally posted by rwmipi:

Horse spawn are different though. IIRC they don't worship Elmal as chief god, they worship Kargzant. Presumably they lose most if not all of the pantheon currently held by the Riders. Now this is to be expected I suppose, a ton changes in the intervening years. But it's weird that once again the culture of change and motion and rebellion is, apparently, the second most stagnant in the region. The only guys that seem just as if not more unchanged in this period vs. the "modern" KODP one is the Dara Happans. Riders as we know them, as well as most of the other cultures of the valley seen here are just...gone, leaving only distant descendants behind at best.

Kargzant = Yelm

[rwmipi]

Oh no, you did it. You disputed the identity of the sun. There's no escape for this thread now.

[CakeisGreat]

Thank you El Perrito Super Gordito, that lore dump makes sense. I am excited to see how the three valley cultures, and other cultures they interact with, change over the course of the next 5 games!

[semisphere4]

Your rider clan doesn't have slaves but other ones can. (or sell them, but not keep them)

I will grant you Raven is > than Eurmal.

Riders are poor at uniting to stop a greater threat to them: https://sixages.fandom.com/wiki/Federation_Trouble

So it makes sense why they fade away/into other groups.

I like the adventurous aspect to Vingans. I like Ayvtu's character but I don't really think about her association with Osara like I did with Kallyr or other Vingan members.

I'm mixed between which gods I like more for each archtype so it's probably pointless to keep going.

[rwmipi]

I'm always hesitant to go too far on this but...I don't remember ever seeing any mention of Vinga among the Rams in this game. But the Riders have a redhaired goddess of fighting women. Saird (the later name for the region the game takes place in) apparently also has one of the oldest temples to "The Red Woman" in the future.

Unless I'm mistaken about this, it's possible that Osara (and Redalda to an extent) are where the Orlanthi got Vinga as a deity. Of course with the way this stuff works in this setting Vinga can still exist as an entirely separate entity complete with her own godtime history and identity. Because causality doesn't matter.

[CakeisGreat]

I believe that Redalda, but with a different name, lives on in the Orlanthi pantheon. I think that she is connected with Elmal and has the magic of horse riding. I mean it is possible though that Redalda is also part of what makes up Vinga Aspects. But it makes sense that Osara and Vinga are the same, or Osara becomes Vinga, or some other form of Deity transfusion.

[rwmipi]

Some Orlanthi clans in the future worship Redalda as a goddess of horses, yes. She's depicted as either Elmal's wife, sister, or daughter, depending on the group. Redalda's marriage to Beren (who had strong ties with Elmal) are probably where the confusion comes from. Redalda was also known for red hair.

So Redalda could be one of the influences for Vinga. Or, alternatively, Osara's worship ends up collapsed into Redalda and the two merge into one deity in later history.

Or all of those are true at once because this is the God time and logic does not belong.

[CakeisGreat]

That is true, due to the fact that logic is not needed for stuff to happen in the God time, we could all be right, now lets go make some grain goddesses think their sisters, or the same Goddess.

[lyreofsheliak]

I don't recall any mention of Vinga by name either, although there are a couple of Ram warrior women who look a lot like Vingans to me, with red hair and motion runes:

https://sixages.fandom.com/wiki/File:RamsSeekAid.jpg (fourth from left)
https://sixages.fandom.com/wiki/File:RamTrader.jpg (third from left)

I do think that (whether Osara and Vinga are the same being or not) Osara's cult is going to end up influencing/being absorbed by Vinga's and Redalda's. (I also think that Gamari's cult is going to end up feeding into Redalda's, possibly as gods die out during the Darkness? But that's mostly based on the modern Orlanthi not seeming to have an animal mother for horses...)

For my part, I love Raven a lot (and do prefer Raven to Eurmal)! Osara also really grew on me; I think that was a combination of her having her own myth and the Osara-and-Verlaro stories that the advisors like to tell so much. I also ended up really liking Zarlen, who's another god who I think is going to blend into Vinga's cult over time. I'm going to miss all three of them so much.

On the other hand, Nyalda didn't quite live up to Ernalda for me (even though I'm 90% sure that those two are actually genuinely the same goddess). And I found Relandar pretty boring, and eagerly await his replacement by Lhankor Mhy.

IIRC, in KODP the Elmali neighbor clan did still consider Elmal to be the king of the gods, even though the player clan kept considering Orlanth to be the king of the gods even when they worshipped Elmal as their main god. I'm hoping that our descendants will be the former more than the latter. It'd be nice to see more differences from "mainstream" Orlanthi culture, at least.

It is true that the Riders' hats are superior! (And it looks like our Ram descendants will retain the hats. If only because the world is getting colder and warm hats are a must.)

And re: the tabletop clan creation questionaire: That last option ("It was lucky that we lived in Heortland at the time.") always cracks me up. Although also--is it possible to get elemental affiliations other than Earth and Storm? I think I managed that once, but then I kept trying to get Darkness/Fire/Water (for Argan Argar, Elmal, or Heler) and failing, so I'm not sure what's going on.

As a total tangent, this game makes me wonder how the Orlanthi got worship of Heler and especially Argan Argar--how exactly did some Orlanthi pick up worship of a troll god? If the Foreigner's Wedding is a reflection of Beren/Redalda on the mortal plane, what mortal events reflect the myth of Argan Argar and Esrola?

[El Perrito Super Gordito]

As far as I'm aware, Vinga doesn't have any sort of historical origin the way Elmal, Heler, Odayla and others do (yet, and she may never get one because Greg, Sandy, and Jeff never really got that Vinga, Nandan and Heler have an outsized importance to the LGBTQ portion of the fanbase compared to the amount of attention they get in material, but that's an entirely separate gripe) in a way that represents a completely separate people joining the early proto-orlanthi. So its entirely possible that the origin of Vinga comes through the Riders. The older theory that was more common was that she was some sort of deified mortal along the lines of Vingkot, some great warrior woman who was obviously so badass that she was *had* to be some sort of god and so was remembered as one.

There definitely seems to be some sort of connection between the Riders and Vinga, as rwmipi mentions with the Red Women.

Originally posted by Book of Heortling Mythology:

Bereneth the Rider, husband of Redaylda Winter. They
founded the Berennethtelli tribe. All of their daughters were
the Red-Headed Women.

Originally posted by Book of Heortling Mythology:

House Vinga
This is a collection of the tales of women warriors of the
Vingkotlings. They span many generations. The most
famous of these stories is that of Tenostere of the Vestenes.
In her saga, she is proclaimed "the Fightin'est Woman" after
she defeated every male challenger in the land. She died
with King Rastagar at the Last Royal Betrayal.
The stories of the Red-Headed Lodge of the
Berennethtelli are included in the saga of House Vinga.

If I had to bet on an actual identification of a later goddess with Osara though, its not Vinga, its Yelorna the Star Hunter, the fire rune goddess of female unicorn riding warriors in Prax (who is also, I guess, supposed to be Ourania the Queen of the Heavens in Dara Happa.)

I think the actual runic affiliations are important when trying to claim identity and Vinga is very much a storm deity, she even has her own weather system, the Defender Storm which is the last big warm storm coming off the ocean before winter sets in