So let's talk about Yelm and whence he comes from. This conversation is about Greg's King of Sartar and Stafford Library material, so its deep in textual argument and probably pulls from sources that are no longer of ‘clear’ authority. So be it. It is a brain dump and probably riddled with errors, but let’s talk about it.
It's not, for now, mostly, about Yelmalio. He can come later. First we need to talk about Yelm.
I'll give you the proposition first, then talk about where it comes from: Yelm is not the god of the sun at the Dawn for Dara Happa, or anywhere else. The major cultures central Genertela all have their own god of the sun at the Dawn. Yelm is a synthesis whose consequence is Nysalorian illumination and the Sunstop. Although he predates the God Learners, you can think of Yelm as a monomyth creation (although it's really Nysalorian illumination at the root of all this, including God Learnerism). Anyway, at the dawn, in central Genertela, the sun is Elmal, and Antirius, and Kargzant, (and others, all cultures have a sun god, even Ehilim in the west). Orlanth kills the Emperor, not Yelm. Rebellus Terminus is the enemy of the Dara Happan gods, not Orlanth. Orlanth goes on the Lifebringer's Quest to bring back Ernalda, not the Lightbriner's Quest to bring back the sun.
The Red Goddess was not the first divinity to be created inside Time in Peloria. That crown goes to Yelm. In many ways the birth of the Red Goddess is an echo of the birth of Yelm.
So how do I get to this conclusion?
First off, when Greg wrote King of Sartar (KoS), he looked in detail at Orlanthi culture. One aspect of that was to look at their religion. Up to this point we had tended to think about their being a single Gloranthan religion oriented around the monomyth. More than that, the cultures all worshipped an elemental pantheon. The Sartarites worshiped the Storm Gods, the Dara Happans the Sky Gods etc. This changed with King of Sartar. Greg started to think about the Orlanthi as worshiping a pantheon of deities instead. The cultures of the Dawn were isolated and complete. The Heortlings knew of the sun, they could see it in the sky, but they called it Elmal, not Yelm. To be a complete pantheon, there had to be a native god of the sun, among others, that had previously been only represented as foreign gods. But no foreign gods were known at the Dawn. Thus Greg's introduction of Elmal, a sun god for the Orlanthi.
"This time I looked at things anew, as always. Importantly, while wandering throughout the Stormtime and Nowtime, I looked up and wondered, for the first time, “Who is the Orlanthi sun god?” I realized that the place of the Sun in Orlanthi myth, as revealed so far, was that of the enemy and foe, the Emperor. Nonetheless, there was the Sun of Life which anyone can see and feel when they go out on a sunny day. Without that then the Dark Tribe would rule again. The Orlanthi knew it and surely acknowledged the Friendly Sun. I knew that, but even as Storyteller I did not know where this might be." - The Birth of Elmal, Greg Stafford.
KoS acknowledged that the religion of the Heortlings at the Dawn included sun gods, darkness gods, water gods etc. Any real reasoning about this had already needed to break the elemental correspondence anyway, the Heortlings had an earth goddess already in Ernalda, so they were never pure storm. Elmal was the name of the Orlanthi sun god. It was new to KoS, many of the names there were new to us. And it caused controversy because it changed how we thought about Glorantha, from one world pantheon, to multiple pantheons, originating in a different Dawn Age culture.
Inspired by this revelation, Greg went on to write Glorious Reascent of Yelm (GRoY) to examine Dara Happan religion, the Entekosiad to look at Pelandan religion etc. Gone was the vision of 'one Gloranthan religion' with different regions favoring different elements that had graced the Gods and Goddesses of Glorantha articles in Wyrm's Footnotes. Now we had many religions that met, and tried to reconcile their different perspectives of the Godtime, sometimes peacefully, sometimes violently.
"Third, my new status has freed me to explore other aspects of Glorantha which had previously been prohibited by the rules and laws of the RuneQuest tribe. As a result I have been delving deeply into the Solar Way (thanks to the entryway provided by the Many Lesser Suns) and, as a natural consequence, the Lunar Way." The Birth of Elmal, Greg Stafford
For Greg the touch point of this conflict was the identity of the sun. He refers to this in both KoS, GRoY, and Fortunate Succession (FS) as the conflict of the Many and the One.
Consider, that when two cultures meet, we can rationalize most differences between our pantheons by creating regional earth, river, city or storm deities. "Esrola is your land goddess down there, and Pela is our land goddess up here," folks say. "Orlanth is the great storm that blows down in Dragon Pass, but Entekos is the calm air of our region." The two cultures can share stories and agree that their gods are the gods of their region. Sometimes they share stories and tales, and people wonder: "Is your goddess also our goddess?" And when people meet in peace, as they did in the Unity council, this can create a synthesis that is greater than the sum of the parts.
But there is only one sun. So how can we reconcile competing sun gods?
Now, if you hear Greg speak at cons it is clear that Glorantha is a platonic universe. The 'All' of the 'Green Age' is unknowable except to the mystic and likely to drive anyone who experiences it mad without preparation. Most religions see the 'shadows on the wall of the cave' of that reality, a projection of their culture over the fundamental truths of the runes to create something approachable for worship. It is a 'soft' polytheism not a 'hard' one.
"In the Beginning, before there were people, before there was a sky, an earth or an ocean, before there were gods, before there was a Before, was Vezkarvez. Vezkarvez is not something which can be thought about, remembered, felt, or even imagined. Do not bother to try, for to try to do so is only to fall into the trap of the Other. Vezkarvez, pure and undivided, can be touched only by the highest gods who know secrets which you can never know." GRoY, p.6
Now someone might object to soft polytheism: "But in Glorantha you can heroquest and check the details!" But it is clear that heroquesting is still a projection of the mortal mind onto the cosmic "all", you can heroquest to cement your version of the truth and if enough people agree to it, then that is a truth for them. Harmast learns this and does this. But so does the Red Goddess, and (spoilers) so does Yelmgatha.
So, as we stated earlier, there is just one sun in the sky, so rationalizing that becomes a little trickier. Here is the problem of the Many and the One. We can't pull the region trick. How can the sun be your sun god, and my sun god? We have some options, which mostly boil down to: they are both names for the same god or you are wrong. Synthesis or conflict. The sun becomes the touch point for the conflict of the Many vs. the One. Either we accept that we don't have truth, just a "shadow on the walls of the cave" or we declare you a heretic.
IMO Greg was pretty clear what the scenario was at the Dawn in KoS and GRoY. The Heortlings have a sun god called Elmal, the Dara Happans have one called Antirius and the Horse Nomads have one called Kargzant.
"Elmal is the Orlanthi god of the Sun, a trusted thane of the Chief God who is charged with defending the homestead when Orlanth and his companions depart upon the Lightbringers’ Quest. His priests participate in the great festivals and important Sacred Time annual rituals, and have parts in many of the most widely known stories. ... The deity gave its initiates blessings upon the earth, good barley crops, healthy horses, and winter protection" King of Sartar, p.188
Now, as KoS instructs us, the horse nomads were driven off, and so the Heortlings and Pentans never exchanged their mythologies in a peaceful fashion. But the Dara Happans and the Heortlings did. And they wrestled with the problem? How can your sun god and our sun god both be the sun. Either we are hard or soft polytheists.
"During the Dawn Age there was a clash of cultures as the Elmal magic impacted with the fierce Sun God who was worshipped by the nomads of Peloria. The beliefs of the two cultures in their own Sun Gods [Elmal and Kargzant] were challenged for the first time. Each held true, but the fierce nomads were weaker and unable to withstand the shock. The war ended with their defeat, and they retreated to places where no people had ever lived before. The withdrawal of the nomads revealed a greater threat: the native Dara Happan Solar religion which covered all the regions previously occupied by the nomads. The impact upon the Theyalans is recorded, but the crushing splendor of the great golden towers of the Dara Happan Sun God was especially strong upon the Elmali. The Theyalans recognized that Yelm, the Dara Happan Great God, was the manifestation of their own Emperor, an enemy of Orlanth. The Orlanthi also realized that Yelm was also the Sun God." King of Sartar, p.188
and then later in GRoY
"Eventually these two cultures fused into a single entity called the Golden Empire of Nysalor, but that did not begin until the reign of Emperor Khorzanelm (c. 111,368 to 111,405), a century and a half after the era covered in this book. During the friendly century of this era occurred a fusion of the two mythologies of Dara Happan Yelm and Theyalan Orlanth. For instance, the part of Rebellus Terminus was taken by Orlanth, and he was associated with the Disruptor constellation by other peoples. Likewise, it was an easy step for the Orlanthi Emperor to become the god Yelm. The harmonious duality of Nature was thereby shown, especially in a myth of their competition for the hand of Ernalda, a Sairdite manifestation of the earth goddess. " From GRoY, 'Where is Orlanth' p.73
Fortunate Succession tells us more about this merging, which GRoY refers to as 'after this book' which occurs at the Sunstop:
"Khorzanelm was the emperor who supported, blessed, sanctioned, and oversaw the incorporation of the World Council of Friends within Dara Happa. With imperial support, the project was prepared with the best of everything. It was located in the south, because everyone wished to heal that direction first because it harmed everyone the most and was itself the most damaged.
In 111,375 Khorzanelm assembled all the best people of the Empire, and they spoke the Prayer to Yelm, and this time were answered by the appearance of the One God Himself. It was not just Antirius, the ever-reliable bright Disk, but instead this time was truly Yelm Overlord who rose.
Yelm wished to honor and praise the mighty Emperor who had tamed the world and provided the security for him to rise. Thus Yelm stood motionless in the sky and the Heavenly Choir rained praise upon all the faithful whose lives were enriched until their deaths as wise elders.
Such a unique opportunity was possible only because Nysalor had been born, the incarnation of the Many, born among mortals to bring the divine light to us." Fortunate Succession, p.32, emphasis mine
FS later moves events so that Yelm appears prior to the Sunstop, the result of debates about who the sun is, but gives birth to Nysalorian illumination because recognition that both Elmal and Antirius are the sun requires such insight.
"The time spent for Yelm to re-manifest the world was from 110,666 until 111,111 when he became manifest as the Real Sun. Yelm's insight into the secrets of the cosmos was originally the province of only himself and, perhaps, a few of the other immortals. But in 111,375 Illumination was delivered to mortals as well. This occurred when Nysalor was born. The burden of bearing the Impossible was beyond the power of even the One. Yelm paused in the sky, and he separated the Illumination from himself, and placed One among us mortals to keep our awareness of the First Being alive. Thereafter it was possible for the Many to be the One as well. A further benefit was that Yelm was purified. The Sun had purged itself completely from the Many when he gave this great gift to humankind. Thereafter, too, Yelm was less of a god and more of a Sun." Fortunate Succession, p. 74
Nysalor is the 'incarnation of the Many' and also 'seperated the Illumination from himself, and placed One among us." What does that mean?
IMO it means that Nysalor is 'soft polytheism' the idea that many gods could be associated with a phenomena because they are all 'shadows on the wall of the cave' not the all. If the sun is not Elmal, or Antirius, but something essential which we project these ideas onto, a Fire Rune perhaps, then we can create a new projection, synthesized from existing ideas: Yelm.
Greg reiterated this a number of times. From the WoG list:
and discussing the emergence of illumination in the First Age:
“In Dorastor, the Amalgam Deities were imported and incorporated. It is probably the origin of the Monomyth, in which Yelm and Orlanth play such significant parts in each others' myths. After this period the Dara Happan role of Rebellus Terminus is permanently grafted to Orlanth, while the Orlanthi role of Emperor is immutably assigned to Yelm.” Fortunate Succession, p.72
Wait, you may say, GRoY has Yelm in its mythic history. Of course, because it is a document that post-dates this syncretic deity. But Greg left a lot of hints as to the ‘puzzle’ he was creating for us. GRoY itself reveals the contemporary debates about Yelm. The most significant is the absence of Antirius on the God’s Wall. Why is Antirius absent?
“The Plentonic Debates began within a century after the author first circulated copies of his document. Debate started with worshippers of Doburdun, the Darsenite Thunderer, who pointed out that figure I-18 was precisely their deity, icono-graphically. They did not know Antirius, who was not associated with Doburdun at all. Attributes, powers, and myths were all different. Apparently many learned people had also been quietly wondering what I-18 had to do with Antirius. The priests’ questions thus began debates about the nature of the Plentonic Truth which, in turn, led to debates about the nature of Truth.”
The ‘problem’ of Antirius is only a problem if he is not the figure on the wall now identified as Yelm. Replace Yelm with Antirius on the wall, and recognise Yelm as a deity created in time, and he can take his rightful place on the wall again, as can Doburdun the Darsenite thunder god. The ‘Plentonic Debates’ on ‘Truth’ are ultimately a debate about the identity of the sun and the revelation of Yelm inside time — Antirius is only absent because we must have one sun that takes aspects of Antirius, Elmal, Kargzant, the Emperor etc.
That is why the sun becomes ‘the one’ split of from the many for the Nysalorians. Because we feel the need for their to be ‘one sun’ we divorce the ‘sun’ from the many deities that can represent him
It seems that the early Yelm cult, like the modern lunar cult, is a state religion whose purpose is worship of the Emperor and the organisation of the Empire. It seems little worshipped outside of this role:
“Emperor Khordavu, as well as his household and certain office holders, were considered to be divinities. They were a part in the natural hierarchy of life, along with spirits, demigods, and other deities.” Fortunate Succession, p.65
Parallels with the lunar cult of the Red Emperor seem reasonable, at this stage the Yelm cult is essentially worship of the divine emperor over the sun.
So that is how we can say: “ Thereafter it was possible for the Many to be the One as well. A further benefit was that Yelm was purified. The Sun had purged itself completely from the Many when he gave this great gift to humankind. Thereafter, too, Yelm was less of a god and more of a Sun” Yelm is the sun, separate from the cults of the sun, Antirius, Elmal, Kargzant et al. but also from the cult of the divine emperor that bears his name.
But what happens after the break up of the Bright Empire?
"When the Nysalorite Empire broke apart and the barbarians invaded, the unified belief continued, although unified religion was broken. Differences were encouraged by politics taking a turn for the worse, and the natural differences between deities being emphasized. Working harmony was gone again, leaving only the Ideal." From GRoY, 'Where is Orlanth' p.73
In other words though the belief in Yem vs Orlanth continued, the imperial cult was no longer the sun cult worshipped by both Heortlings and Dara Happans after that event.
But of course this creates a difficult moment. Who is the sun for Heortlings now? Yelm or Elmal? I suspect that the answer is 'both' but that this is problematic, because it contains within it traces of Nysalorian thinking, the acceptance of the One and the Many. Yelm is the sun god, Elmal is the sun cult.
Our only real evidence about what folks may believe in this age is compounded by the dominance in subsequent ages of the EWF in Orlanthi areas.
However, it is clear that in Dara Happa, at least, the cult of Yelm runs into trouble post-Nysalor.
"After Nysalor, the commoners' backlash resulted in extensive anti-Yelm feeling and activity. The anti-Yelmic passions were increased when the occupiers offered their own seasonal rituals to their storm gods, and many commoners joined. This, of course, is the way of the Many." Fortunate Succession, p.66
I believe by ’storm gods’ we should imply ‘Elmal’. Re-read this as: “After Nysalor, the commoners' backlash resulted in extensive anti-Yelm feeling and activity. The anti-Yelmic passions were increased when the occupiers offered their own seasonal rituals to [Elmal], and many commoners joined. This, of course, is the way of the Many."
Of course this is likely the cult of the divine emperors, who intercede with the sun, over the sun himself. The implication is that identification does not collapse.
It seems likely then that whilst the unified mythology was known to the Heortlings, worship of Elmal predominated among the Heortlings after the collapse of the Bright Empire, due to the association of the cult of Yelm with Nysalor and the divine emperors of Dara Happa. Yelm might be the sun, certainly, but Elmal was their sun cult.
Indeed, it’s unclear if Yelm’s cult really spread to the Orlanthi much outside Dorastor and Saird:
“Incorporation of Yelmic Rites into Dorastan Rites: avidly welcomed, and incorporated. Nysaloran Rites (especially in Saird) combine multiple cultures. These combined ceremonies are well-attended in Dorastor and Saird, but much less elsewhere, and poorly through most of Dara Happa. The popularity in Saird and Darani must be modified by remembering that both were thinly populated.” Fortunate Succession, p.71
So it is in Saird that the most-significant ‘mixing’ occurred. but it seems not to have spread. Saird lacked the population to spread its support for the Bright Empire's celestial beliefs. There is no implication of spread or persistence of these ideas in Ralios or the Shadowlands.
So if Orlanthi were worshipping Yelm, it seems to have been in Saird. But what were they worshipping, if Yelm was a cult of the divine emperor?
Under the Ordanestyan Reforms in Dara Happa there was an attempt to re-assert the Imperial cult and thus the divine emperors, but shorn of Nysalorian mystery. Worship instead seems to have focused on the twenty celestial deities. At this point, Anitirus is no longer one of the twenty (or wider eighty) but a part of the cult of Yelm Imperator, that is he is not distinguished from the sun. The ‘mystery’ of the Many and the One cannot withstand the lack of Nysalorian insight, it must be reconciled by eliminating Antirius.
So it is possible the Sairdites were worshipping deities from amongst the twenty (or eighty), which makes more sense than the cult of the divine emperor. So it is the spread of solar cults, over the cult of the divine emperor I suspect.
But even this cult waxes and wanes and seems unlikely to have impacted areas outside Saird. Why? Well, look at what happens next.
The cult of Yelm disappears under the pressure of first to the Golden Dragon and later to the Carmanians. Fortunate Succession is clear on this, there really is no Yelm cult during these periods. The cult, because it is really the cult of the divine emperor of Dara Happa is underground when foreigners rule Dara Happa.
An ‘underground' Imperial cult is an unlikely point of gravitation for second of third age Elmali. Why gravitate to an imperial cult in hiding? In fact, it seems likely that the Yelm known to the Orlanthi, is unrelated to the Dara Happen cult, existing mostly as ‘the Emperor’ the enemy god, over a genuine understanding of the Imperial cult of earlier ages. If the Yelm cult itself was constantly shifting, being driven underground, how could the Heortlings look to it for their solar identity? Indeed, the alternative for the Heortlings is draconic mysticism or Carmanian dualism.
So at this point the Heortlings have two, almost irreconcilable notions of the sun: Yelm whom they have projected the characteristics of the Emperor on to, as befitting an imperial cult, and Elmal the loyal thane. But the implications of the Yelm cult's association with divine emperors leads me to suspect that Yelm remains the Emperor for most Heortlings at this point, his identity as the sun a 'mystery'.
Now this mystery is difficult, for it implies the Many and the One. And it must be a source of questions for the priests of the cult, much as the textual legacies of the Caananite religion provide interesting questions in the Christian bible. But I suspect they continue to worship Elmal as the sun cult, with Yelm both celestial Emperor and sun. After all, the cult they have encountered up to now is an imperial cult, whose purpose is to empower the divine emperors. Not one they would gravitate to.
In fact, the cult of Yelm does not really resurface in Dara Happa until Yelmgatha, who uses the return of Nysalorian thinking and heroquesting to bring back a ‘fogotten' Yelm cult, centred around Dara Happen sovereignty following centuries of EWF and Carmanian rule:
“The suppression and destruction of the ancient Yelmic religion drove worship underground… Yelmgatha was a minor nobleman with a short temper who drove the Carmanians out of his land. When they sent armies to destroy him, the leader went to the Red Goddess nearby to ask for help. Thus Yelmgatha became one of the first Dara Happan Heroquesters. Heroquesting differed from previous forms of worship in being experimental and conscious. In fact, it was a return to Nysalorism in many ways, and openly acknowledged as such. Yelmgatha went several times into the Other Side, and emerged with the tools and powers1 he needed to complete the Ten Tests to make himself Emperor, which he did in 112,235. Then he cast out the Carmanians, and Yelmgatha became the new Emperor of Dara Happa. The event was called the Sunburst... During this whole time he was friends with the Red Goddess, who was performing similar quests. Their tasks were often intertwined, and strengthened each thereby. Sun and Moon became a pair of travelers in the Hero Plane.”
In other words, the cult of Yelm returns with the spiritual liberation of the Red Goddess. And the parallels between the two ‘created’ gods, synthesised from older religions via ‘Nysalorian illumination’ is drawn clearly here. These gods are made!
I believe Greg was trying to draw direct parallels between the First Age emergence of Yelm, synthesised from existing sun cults and the Sunstop, and the emergence of the Red Moon, synthesised from existing lunar deities and the Sunburst.
We associate Yelm with older religion in Dara Happa, but it seems that it co-exists in modern form with the Empire.
Remember, it is the cult of the divine emperor! Now that emperor is the Red Emperor. In many ways the cult of Yelm and the cult of the Red Emperor are one and the same.
The association of Yelm with the Red Goddess of course makes it any influence of the cult on modern part of the missionary work of the Lunar Empire. The promotion of “Yelm” as the sun and the elimination of Elmal, as Antirius was once eliminated, is in essence a Lunar project, driven by heroquesters.
So, when we learn that in Saronil’s reign
"Once the Eyetooth Clan brought in the antesmia statue. They did it because they were rebelling against their king, and they wanted to be able to bring a Sunspear down from their god, and were willing to pay eternal worship and tribute to a foreign deity in order to succeed.”, King of Sartar, p. 169
it is the missionary work of the Lunar Empire, that is also a renewed Bright Empire that is at the heart of this struggle IMO. This is worship of the imperial cult, and by implication worship of the Red Emperor, not just ‘Yelm’ the sun as opposed to Elmal. But this sweeping change must be dated to the emergence of the Lunar Empire, not earlier, because the Yelm cult was underground before that.
The implication of this is that Elmal is the sun during the reign of Tarkalor for the Sartarites, not Yelm, otherwise this act of rebellion means nothing. We have to see this in the context of Lunar celestial theology overwhelming the Heortlings in a way that could not have happened under the EWF or Carmania. There was no dominant solar cult to export post Nysalor and prior to Yelmgatha.
But what is true for the Sartarites would seem to be true of everyone, for until the Lunar Empire, after the Bright Empire, there is no Yelm cult to gravitate to, and the sun cult remains Elmal (or Kargzant).
Now, we risk getting into Yelmalio territory — remember his temples are in Saird and they seem to revitalise alongside the Empire, but let’s park where that leads us for now.
But Monro’s vision is surely one of illumination. His talk of the Many Suns echoes talk of the Many and the One. What Monro sees is one sun, many sun cults. His vision is not an objection to Elmal, but a reinforcement of the Bright Empire doctrine that there is one sun, and many sun cults (and we may well call that sun Yelm, because the cult worships the Emperor). But no sun cult is more ‘true’ than the others. But of course the implication is that Yelmalio is the sun too. Another sun cult. One amidst the Many.
But it is a dangerous vision, for it is a vision of the Nysalorians and their Bright Empire. All those priests in their retirement towers contemplating the sun. Sure sounds like a journey into illumination.
But it is clear that there is no cult of Yelm at the Dawn. Yelm is the name given to sun in the Nysalorian insight that there is one sun and many sun cults. It is also the name of the source of power for the cult of divine emperors that ruled during the Bright Empire, and now rule again in the Lunar Empire.
