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Chapter 6 - Battle for the Cradle - "99 – Change"
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Your chance of Illumination has gone up by another 1%.
Chapter 6 - Battle for the Cradle - "99 – Change"
First Previous 41Comments Next Last
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99 – Change

by Kalin Kadiev on July 23, 2017
Chapter: Chapter 6 - Battle for the Cradle
Characters: Argrath

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Discussion (41) ¬

  1. Jonas Schiött
    July 23, 2017, 8:41 am | # | Reply

    The change of tenses in the first panel confuses me. Is he referring to the same events in the first and second sentence? If so, the second should probably be changed to past tense.

  2. Jörg Baumgartner
    July 23, 2017, 10:50 am | # | Reply

    That’s a strongly Arkati agenda Argrath is uttering there.

    • David
      July 23, 2017, 12:24 pm | # | Reply

      Remember Argrath = Arkat from an old Greg conversation…

      • Jörg Baumgartner
        July 23, 2017, 5:04 pm | # | Reply

        I’m perfectly aware of that, but I wonder how Garrath Sharpsword could have picked this up in the Wastes or in the Pavis backwater. His main Arkati companion is going to be Mularik, correct? Arkat’s Hold in Esrolia is outside of his area of activity. Dorasar might have brought some such heroquesting ethics back from the Holy Country, but the conflict of House Sartar with House Norinel appears to have honored those more in the breaching.

        • Charlie
          July 24, 2017, 9:45 pm | # | Reply

          If the God time is unchanging, endless, and eternal, how could someone “steal” something from it?

          • Dominic
            July 25, 2017, 12:05 pm | #

            When people Heroquest, they gain powers or attributes from the God Time / Otherworld. They still exist in the God Time / Otherworld, but also manifest in the material plane.

            I think that the use of “stealing” reflects Argrath’s view as to the legitimacy of some acquisitions, more than their removal from the God Time.

            That said, some Heroquesting can change the God Time. The World Council (creation of Nysalor), God Learners (Goddess Switch), and Lunars (rebirth of the Red Goddess), all changed the unchanging God Time. And a large part of Argrath’s manifesto here is to say that these sort of changes are wrong.

    • Dominic
      July 25, 2017, 11:39 am | # | Reply

      The Webcomic has gone down this path before, with both Belintar and Jar-Eel associating themselves with Nysalor at the end of the Holy Country chapter.

  3. Runeblogger
    July 23, 2017, 11:26 am | # | Reply

    So Argrath holding the Sun on top means he is for the Compromise, but at the same time, isn’t he embodying Orlanth??? Is he the embodiment of some kind of new “Orlanth Who Respects the Compromise” by not killing Yelm, and thus the hand that holds its own sword? My head is spinning already… :-S
    That’s what happens when you delve into the grasping of opposites…

    • jaguar
      July 23, 2017, 12:19 pm | # | Reply

      > and thus the hand that holds its own sword?
      I think Orlanth is putting the Humakt’s Sword back him from a humakti on the left of the first panel.

      • Jörg Baumgartner
        July 23, 2017, 5:09 pm | # | Reply

        That Humakti in the middle panel is most likely Arkat – black skin with blue tattoos in a knightly style, red hair, not enough resolution to show the Third Eye in the first panel. That grip on the blade is a bit ambiguous, but it might signify Argrath taking on the responsibility to protect the Otherworld Status Quo (ante).

        • Scott
          July 24, 2017, 2:42 pm | # | Reply

          Darkness rune looming on that cheek . . . maybe there’s a reason we need old Lionfish for this particular story, Arkat is a black god and in that “light” Ernalda’s absence looks a lot like the spider or some other troll mother. But anyway, the double-handed grip (black hand behind passes the unbreakable sword up to the blue hand in the illuminated now) is an iconographic achievement. Hoping this spread becomes a poster!

    • David
      July 23, 2017, 12:39 pm | # | Reply

      I think the imagery is much more complex here. Argrath/Orlanth is holding the Sun and it’s on top of the Spike/Kero Fin. The first image shows the Spike shattering and shows the shadow of Ernalda in the centre, Ernalda goes the the Underworld, the second image shows alive Ernalda. The point is that Orlanth rescued Yelm from Hell to save the World and thus comprised by accepting that both must co-exist, as did Yelm. Argrath/Orlanth holds the sword blade echoing “Mordhau” – the Thunder stroke, clearly a play on the handle being a Thunderbolt. A surprise tactic with Orlanth/Argrath using the same weapon as thunderbolt instead of Death. Perhaps an echo of what’s to come…

      • jaguar
        July 23, 2017, 12:57 pm | # | Reply

        > The point is that Orlanth rescued Yelm from Hell to save the World and thus comprised by accepting that both must co-exist, as did Yelm.
        I do not know well, is it an event that ended The Great Darkness?

        • Dominic
          July 25, 2017, 12:14 pm | # | Reply

          Effectively yes. The Lightbringer Quest.

          • jaguar
            July 26, 2017, 10:23 am | #

            Thanks. I had thought The Great Darkness has caused by unholy trio.
            But, If Garrath is correct, is the cause of The Darkness magical theft by mortals?

  4. David
    July 23, 2017, 12:22 pm | # | Reply

    oooh, a double page spread! Have I missed any others?

    • Kalin Kadiev
      July 23, 2017, 1:50 pm | # | Reply

      I think the last one we had was all the way back in chapter two. It was during Jar-eel’s​ lesson to Beat Pot.

  5. jaguar
    July 23, 2017, 12:36 pm | # | Reply

    The first panel is so mysterious.
    As if, Humakt, Yelm, Ernalda and Orlanth are seems like artificial gods made from the material mortals stole from Glorantha.
    And for mortals, including Orlanthi, it seems like everyone is an accomplice about making Nysalor.
    Is it just a coincidence that Nysalor resembles Orlanth’s anagram?

    • Carl Hicks Jr.
      July 23, 2017, 7:12 pm | # | Reply

      If you look at them like the Lunar Seven Mothers, it makes a bit more sense.

      • jaguar
        July 26, 2017, 10:13 am | # | Reply

        Thanks. I know my misunderstanding by reading people’s posts. Thanks, everyone!

    • carlfink
      July 24, 2017, 9:33 am | # | Reply

      Is it worth mentioning that Orlanth is not the original Storm, Yelm not the original Sun, and Ernalda not the original Earth, even in their own myths?

      • jaguar
        July 26, 2017, 10:10 am | # | Reply

        No. You are right. I have misunderstood panel one. I mistook the forward HeroQuestors as gods.

  6. Jörg Baumgartner
    July 23, 2017, 4:47 pm | # | Reply

    First Panel – I think I recognize Palangio and Lokamayadon in the foreground, Arkat and Nysalor in the background. No clear idea for the humakti on the left, though.
    I do have some trouble identifying the role of a black Ernalda (the silhouette is identical to the statuette upheld in the central panel) in front of a rather fractured Mt Kerofin, though. I don’t recall the Gbaji Wars messing with the Earth, just with Storm.

    • Scott
      July 23, 2017, 8:45 pm | # | Reply

      Now that you mention it, there’s plenty of strange “lost” earth cults buried in places like Snake Pipe Hollow, the Plinth, Shaker Temple waiting for Arim, Manirian pig peoples, etc. Black Ernalda may be a mystery of some imperfectly syncretized “sister goddess” hidden inside the modern veneration of Kero Fin, Mother of God.

    • Scott
      July 23, 2017, 8:58 pm | # | Reply

      As for HUMKT, strikes me that in mortal terms we know who wielded the greatest sword ever forged . . . and allegorically the West is sometimes mentioned as the third factor (alongside the synthesis of Sky and Storm) that drove the Bright Empire. In that scenario, Black Ernalda may actually refer to the mysteries of Dorasta’s Cleft, “wolf bear” or otherwise.

      Loving the “magical ecology” tone here.

      • carlfink
        July 25, 2017, 1:34 am | # | Reply

        What you’re calling “Black Ernalda” looks like “the absence of Ernalda” to me–the place she occupied before her death in the Darkness.

    • Harald
      July 23, 2017, 11:44 pm | # | Reply

      In the first panel, it looks like each figure has taken some part of the deities for themselves. Palangio holds a fire disk and behind “Nysalor/Yelm” is a black disk. Lokaymadon holds a storm rune and in the sky is a black space where the storm rune should be. Someone unknown (perhaps the figure on the left?) has made off with the earth figure (and not recovered until Argrath holds it and the sun disk in panel two).
      Of course, it’s possible the figure to the left in panel one is Harmast?

      • theprof
        July 25, 2017, 1:55 am | # | Reply

        and it looks like the Humakti (I’m guessing Arkat) has stolen the sword from the blue-skinned background figure (who has been left with a black silhouette of a sword). I’m thinking the background figure is Humakt himself as his death and truth runes are visible in the middle panel where Argrath is handing the sword back to him.

        • theprof
          July 27, 2017, 2:21 am | # | Reply

          one question that arises for me is, if the lower arm on the left belongs to Humakt, who does the lower arm on the right belong to (holding the Ernalda statue)? Although it looks like one of Argrath’s blue arms, the arm ring on it has water runes, which is not one of his runes (storm-movement-mastery). So just as we don’t know who stole Ernalda’s statue, we don’t know to whom it was returned. Or could it have something to do with his overseas travels? Magasta maybe?

          • Jörg Baumgartner
            July 28, 2017, 3:54 am | #

            It is the third arm of the Movement rune, an integral part of this Blue Argrath restoring the Cosmos through Change.

  7. Menhir Legrand
    July 23, 2017, 6:39 pm | # | Reply

    Orlanth & Ernalda are strongly linked, black Ernalda = Ernalda goes in underworld/sleep/is dead ; cause Lokamayadon has kill Orlanth…

  8. Carl Hicks Jr.
    July 23, 2017, 7:11 pm | # | Reply

    I love the oblique references to the God Learners AND the Lunars.
    I’m also seeing the implication that Argrath is Illuminated, but I might be wrong there.

    • Scott A
      July 24, 2017, 1:58 am | # | Reply

      Argrath is so Illuminated that you could read at night by him

      • Carl Hicks Jr.
        July 24, 2017, 8:08 pm | # | Reply

        I knew he was an Illuminate, but I didn’t know when that happened. For some reason I always thought that during the Cradle he wasn’t, that it happened later.

        • Kalin Kadiev
          July 24, 2017, 8:16 pm | # | Reply

          Funny story – he’s not Illuminated, at least not yet. What we see in these last two pages is God Time – linear time is not relevant.

  9. Ash
    July 24, 2017, 4:03 am | # | Reply

    That black shadow looks a bit like Krarsht to me.

    • jaguar
      July 27, 2017, 12:11 am | # | Reply

      Your remarks remind me of ominous reality.
      Last time, in 1964, in order to open the Olympic Games in Tokyo, countless rivers were diverted to sewerage and a 1,000 year old sacred tree was cut.
      Now, problems are overflowing in preparation for the next Olympic Games.
      The ruler of the human race in Tokyo become insane one after another, the huge taxes are wasted, lawsuits occur frequently, everyone seems to be agonizing and suffering.
      Fathers may have killed Genius Loci, brought Krarsht to the basement, and raised it.

  10. Dominic
    July 25, 2017, 12:24 pm | # | Reply

    For me the biggest surprise is not that Argrath can analyse the world like this, but that he is able to do it this way before the trip round the world that started with the Cradle, and included his illumination.

    • Dominic
      July 25, 2017, 12:48 pm | # | Reply

      On reflection, there is nothing necessarily illuminated about Argrath’s position.

      It seems to be classic Orlanthi Theology (stop mucking about with the Universe as established by the Compromise, or bad stuff will happen).

      It is unusually clear and articulate in its presentation, and expressed in a “non partisan” manner (i.e. not as stop mucking about with the Universe because Orlanth says it is wrong). But that is how you would sell it to other cults.

      So politically sophisticated rather than illuminated.

      • Ashsh
        July 26, 2017, 2:53 am | # | Reply

        Yes, he is basically espousing the theistic anti-God Learner position, the same position advocated by the Theyalan rebels who seceded from the Second Council.

  11. Erashul
    August 4, 2017, 6:14 pm | # | Reply

    What are these talismans with the Dragon Rune on them? Dragon teeths?

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