Prosopaedia

Who's Who Among Gloranthan Gods and Goddesses

originally published in Gods of Glorantha

This document is Copyright © 1998 Issaries, Inc. It may be freely linked to, and one copy may be printed for personal use, but any other reproduction by photographic, electronic, or other methods of retrieval, is prohibited.

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Table of Contents

Pamalt Paslac Phargon Plant Brothers Pocharngo the Mutator
Polaris Primal Chaos

Pamalt [PAM-ahlt]

Pamalt pantheon -- earth-king of Pamaltela

Pamalt, the ruler of the Southern Continent, is the son of the primal earth. His duties encompass those which keep the land alive, and his worshipers are devoted to aiding their god, accepting their share of his responsibilities in their own worlds. They are the working men of the plains.

In sand paintings, he always sits atop his royal seat and holds a staff topped by a chieftain's insignia.

For more information on Pamalt, see the Cult of Pamalt.

Paslac [PAZ-lak]

Malkioni pantheon -- the emperor

Paslac was the last true emperor of Arkat's Dark Empire. He fought steadfastly against the God-Learner heresy and was finally made a martyr through treachery. In his realm, all men were treated fairly and with honor.

Western manuscripts reveal him as a monstrous being, perhaps a half-troll. Ralian manuscripts remember him as a handsome, stern ruler with curly blond hair. His arms consist of a gold lion on a checkered red and black background.

Phargon [FAHR-gon]

Merman pantheon -- the Founder

Phargon was the child of Mirintha and Grandfather Mortal, and his children are the ancestors of the mer-tribes.

As usual among the mer-tribes, no imagery is provided.

Plant Brothers

Elf and Pamalt pantheons -- children of the earth

These beings are the personification of an entire region. They can be a forest, a grassland, or a swamp. They appear when times are either especially bad or especially good, and they can be contacted by shamans.

When illustrated, each plant brother is shown as a person covered with leaves of the appropriate plant.

Pocharngo the Mutator [poh-CHARN-go]

Chaos pantheon -- the cosmic cancer

This god possesses a power which changes all that is good into that which is bad. Pocharngo corrupts from without -- nothing which it touches is safe from degeneration. Like a growing, slogging swamp, it even turned the old world into a sickening tumultuous slough of cancer. Portions of things which Pocharngo touched ran before it and outside it, and some of these cancerous parts even now run free. In ancient times it was stopped only by Zorak Zoran, courageous fighter for the world, who shattered its whole body and turned it upon itself, changing the evil into impotency.

In Zorak Zoran rituals, the sacrifice who takes the part of Pocharngo is stripped and painted with a special, foul-tasting slime.

Polaris [POH-lehr-ihs]

Yelm pantheon -- god of war, armies, and dance

Polaris led the armies of the Upper World in the Gods War. When the Spike exploded a hole appeared in the sky dome. Around that hole Polaris built a fortress to keep bad influences out of heaven. Other star captains created similar strongholds from whence the forces of light sallied to aid the dark world below. Polaris also calculated the rock and tilt of the broken sky-dome to coordinate the movements of his forces in the heavens. He sheltered the goddess of dance and thus was born the harmony of the heavens, which reflects both the beauty of dance and the precision of military drill.

Polaris is noted for his courage and unswerving loyalty, and is worshiped as the General of Heaven. Commanding officers of many large civilized armies sacrifice to him for aid in battle.

He is usually shown standing stiffly upright, armored, crowned, and holding a rolled scroll in his left hand.

Primal Chaos

Chaos pantheon -- the chaos ooze

Chaos itself is impersonal, less than mindless, naught but a primal force even to its own worshipers. Human philosophers perceive it as separated into six progressively more complex Planes or forms. The first is the Void, less than nothingness; the last is Gbaji, the seductive god who makes chaos appealing to outsiders.

In the cult rituals of chaos beings, any convenient lump of swamp ooze is used to represent Primal Chaos. At the conclusion of the worship ceremony, half the lump is crumbled into bits and the rest left behind on the altar.


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