Hervé Carteau

Thesis N° 23-XIV (1621 S.T.)
Imperial College of Magic

All Hail the Reaching Moon!

I, Pilidum Falabdur, humble student of Irripi Ontor, present this Thesis to my masters of the Imperial College of Magic in the hope they will find it of sufficient interest to validate my claim to the exalted status of associated professor. May Irripi Ontor help me never stray from the Truth. May He provide the readers of this work with His deep Understanding.

Introduction

Of the many aspects of our Great Goddess, the Blue Manifestations have always been hardest to understand. Many cultures beyond our own beloved empire have known of, and worshipped, some aspects of the Blue Moon, whether they be obscure Dara Happan sects, Artmali from Pamaltela or even the inhuman Uz. However, one such aspect had been until now little studied and almost forgotten: that of the Zaranistangi, better known as the Loper People.

The Loper folk have roamed through our continent, Genertela, during the whole of human history. During the First Age, some took part in the creation of Bright Nysalor and others in His undoing. During the second age, they fought the Godlearner Empire to a standstill and it took all its might to chase them away. In the third age, they almost toppled the Kareeshtan Empire before vanishing again. We see a pattern: powerful confrontations leading to this strange people’s victory before they vanish from human lore. Where did they come from? How are they tied to our Great Goddess? And how much of an opportunity or of a threat can they pose to Our Ways?

Origins Of The Loper Folk

Zaranistangi are a blue-skinned people. In their oldest legends, they say they are the children of mother Orfeda and father Baraku. They first settled in “Coborandra, halfway between star and ocean, hard rock and soft heart”. This maxim is one of the few directly traceable to them. After long analysis and using the Irripi Reverse Corroboration method, we have established this was on the slopes of the Spike, World Mountain, itself. They seem to have been there during the Green Age, when their Mother shone over them, before Yelm took command of the Skies.

Interrogations of the august Buseri Seers reveal they know Orfeda and Baraku as stars 48 and 49, Ulundra and Ulurdrum. Orfeda, is of course the Sixth Phase of Our Lady, before (as Lesilla) and after her Illumination by Rashorana. She vanished from the Skies when she began incarnating in mortals at the Dawn; the Blue Streak is what she left behind her. The Dara Happans call her Anhila, the Pelandans Vendara, the Rinliddi Huvaran. Even non-humans recognize her, the Uz as Mahaquata the Bat and the mermen as Desduru, Mother of Tides. But it is not our point here to study the many aspects of the Blue Color of our Goddess. It is however important to recall hers are the powers of concealment and misdirection. Orfeda was only worshipped by Zaranistangi women.

Their father, Baraku, also has many names: Pelandans say she is female and call her EthelSora, whom other sects recognize as Uleria, the Web of Love. To storm barbarians, He is male and called Mastakos, a sea god made prisoner by their chief demon Orlanatus. As such, he is master of all forms of Movement, up to an including Teleportation. Praxians call this star Emilla, “Lord of the Blue Men”. Baraku is only worshipped by Zaranistangi men.

Here we must immediately dispel a long-standing confusion: Zaranistangi are not Artmali. They considered themselves the older half-brothers of the Artmali, themselves grandchildren of Serartamal , they own name for Orfeda (though they also call her sometimes Veldara), through her son Artmal, whose father was Lorion the Sky invader. Artmali lived on their Grandmother’s body before flying down to our world and settled in Pamaltela, where they built a mighty empire in the Storm Age.

Of common ancestry, Zaranistangi and Artmali met, traded, and forged alliances. It seems some Zaranistangi teleportation magic was learned by the Artmali, for whom it manifested as a violet cloud of energy covering the person who was “transferring”. However, we never hear of such visual effects in Zaranistangi magic. The Zaranistangi seem to have taken their riding beasts, the Lopers (chalicoterae or moropus) from Pamaltela. These great mammals had much longer front limbs than rear limbs, giving them a peculiar gait when they walked and the capability of doing great forward leaps. Their masters rode them everywhere as others did with horses and thus became known as the Loper Folk.

Mythic Actions Of The Loper Folk

Zaranistangi say their greatest king, Zemendarn, saved the Artmali emperor’s life in a great battle and that, in gratitude, this emperor gave him the Sword of Tolat. Here it must be reminded that Tolat is one of the barbarians’ name for dread Shargash, the Red Destroyer. The Artmali thought Tolat was the uncle of Artmal, which made him a brother of his mother Serartamal. Artmal had helped his uncle in a battle against a monster called Brejdeg, whom we now think was Umatum the first storm, and Tolat had given him his Sword, which had become the Artmali’s greatest treasure.

The Sword of Tolat was named the “Point of the Leaper”. It became one of the focus of Zaranistangi religion and greatly altered their culture, making them much more warlike. By including Tolat in their pantheon, they grew stronger in the new Storm Age. From then on, many became warriors who used their Parents’ powers to strike at the heart of their enemies, not just to avoid them.

In the long centuries of hardships of the Storm Age, it seems relations between Zaranistangi and Artmali soured, as they did between many peoples. Desero, a great Zaranistangi king, led his people in invasion of the Artmali Empire in Pamaltela. They leapt over the gigantic Wall without Gates circling the Empire and sacked it until they were beaten by Jarkaru, the Artmali hero, who then went on to build the Kungatu Empire. The Zaranistangi were driven back north to the Spike.

When entropy re-entered the world and threatened to annihilate it, Orfeda jumped into the cosmic maelstrom to try to stop its spread. Many of the world’s waters followed her, and she fell in the Underworld (as our Lesilla did), leaving behind her the Blue Streak. The loper folk used their great powers of movement to escape the Spike’s destruction and went north, having seen that a giant Firefall had destroyed the Kungatu Empire. They eventually arrived in Seshkaul in the Age of Darkness.

Seshkaul was a continent covering what we call today Teshnos, Trowjang and Melib. After settling there, the Zaranistangi had to face a new enemy: the waters, led by Lord Sshorg. Their lands were almost completely submerged by this mighty ocean, the way Dara Happa was submerged by Oslira’s mother. Dengbalu, their King, prayed and learned that Tolat would save them in exchange for human sacrifices. Dengbalu organized an immense sacrifice and the ground became blue with running blood. He then struck Tolat’s Sword in the ground. The God’s hand reached down from the skies and pulled the Sword’s hilt, raising the whole land above the waters. Since then, Zaranistangi have offered human sacrifices to Tolat every seventeen days. We see a parallel with Lesilla’s power, when she raised Her city of Mernita above the Flood, without the human sacrifices of course.

We know King Dengbalu then led a great expedition to find out what had become of their mother, Orfeda. Through rituals, he had learned her body rested very far north and left in his Great Blue Ship, sailing the skies, armed with the Sword of Tolat. He came to the Blue Moon Plateau and fought the Uz who had infested the Goddess’ body, changing her to something the Zaranistangi barely recognized, called “Mahaquata”. He realized the Plateau was but a part of the Goddess’ body, and that other parts were scattered across Genertela. Legends say he swore an oath to gather the parts of his people’s Mother. He then built the “Blue King’s Circle” at the western foot of the Plateau, which can still be seen today by heroes daring to brave the Blue Moon trolls.

While Dengbalu began his Great Quest westwards, leaving his ship behind, many of his followers chose to go back to Seshkaul and brought back with them their “cousins” the Sen Mari or bat-trolls, children of the Goddess’ Body. These creatures still haunt Melib’s forest to this day. But the greatest opposition to Dengbalu came from his son Piku.

Piku objected to his father taking “Point of the Leaper”, their people’s greatest weapon, into the unknown, too far away to protect the Zaranistangi people from danger. He couldn’t fight his father and chose instead to try and find another weapon of power for his folk. He took his followers away and, much later, is said to have met the Mostali in the Nidan Mountains. Thanks to his Movement and Concealment magics, he stole the secrets of iron from them. Piku and his clan then became weapon smiths who forged many wondrous weapons, including several copies of “Point of the Leaper”, under the name of the tribe of the “Third Eye Blue”.

It is much harder to follow the steps of former King Dengbalu. He seems to have travelled all over the world, and perhaps different worlds, before finally coming to Brithos. There, the Brithini mistook him for one of their old enemies, the blue Vadeli, and killed him and his followers. They took and kept the mighty Sword of Tolat for many centuries.

Back in Seshkaul, a master Zaranistangi King called Turvenost followed the advice of an influential East Isles mystic and ordered an end to the human sacrifices to Tolat. Then the Ashurtani fell from the skies at the end of the First from the celestial island of Churanpur. They were bitter about being cast out of heaven and started conquering Seshkaul. The Zaranistangi fought back but did have neither their Great Weapon nor the support of their Mother. The Ashurtani invoked their great enemy Sshorg again, and this time, an immense tsunami ravaged Seshkaul, separating it in several islands. Still, the island where the Sword had been struck, now called Melib, kept on slowly rising out of the waters and slowing getting bigger.

After their victory in Melib over the Zaranistangi, the Ashurtani attacked Teshnos, but were vanquished and conquered by the Teshnan hero Hisgorantor, Lord of the Gâki people. Melib was integrated in his Kingdom of Teshnos. When Hisgorantor mocked the Zaranistangi’s memory, their so-called ghosts or manes, actually their few survivors, sank his whole fleet. Humbled, Hisgorantor begged their forgiveness and converted with his people to the worship of Zaranistangi Gods: Orfeda, Baraku, Tolat and the others. Surviving Zaranistangi and Gâki then shared knowledge and prayers. The Gâki took to human sacrifice and tinted their skin blue. They even took the name of Zaranistangi, but some “pure” Zaranistangi of old remained apart to preserve their old powers undiluted.

The Loper Folk In History

First Age

A few Zaranistangi survivors from Melib, led by Bradoszaran, succeeded to escape and crossed Prax at the Dawn, where the tribes still remember them and identify Emilla the wandering planet as their “great spirit”. They went west, like their god Baraku did and does, to find and retrieve the Sword of Tolat, tool of their vengeance against the Ashurtani. They wandered across Genertela for centuries, sometimes mistaken for blue Vadeli, sometimes for Helerings, inadvertently crossing into some other peoples’ myths. We lose track of them until the Second Age.

Piku’s followers found their way in the birth of Nysalor, whom we do know was our Goddess trying to reincarnate in this Age. Sons of the Blue Moon, they were attracted to her sister incarnated and tried to reinforce her with their own powers. Before they could do so, the Nidan Mostali struck and shattered Piku’s clan, sending survivors all around Genertela to survive as individual weapon-makers and metalworkers.

In Brithos, one of the Brithini’s promising warriors, a man called Arkat, became Champion of their army. He took the Sword of Tolat and renamed it “God-Cleaver”. He was able to control some of its Power. Sadly, he was Nysalor’s Other: Gbaji. He spent the next 75 years trying to destroy the Bright God, finally chopping Him to pieces with Tolat’s Sword. Then Gbaji went to Ralios and established his Autarchy there. The Sword remained behind when he apotheosized and was passed to his successors.

Bardoszaran’s descendants finally reached Ralios in the 700’s. They managed to gain back their God’s sword from Autarch Paslac, offering him to fight off his Seshnelan enemies in exchange.

Second Age

In Ralios, the Shesnegi Righteousness Crusade crushed the Autarchy in 740, destroying the Zaranistangi warband, with few survivors escaping. The Seshnegi took the Sword of Tolat. It was identified by Jrusteli sorcerers as a weapon of great power and, though they couldn’t unlock most of its powers, one of their heroes, Ordval, used it in his conquests. He renamed the sword “Edge of the East”. The Empire of Land and Sea spread further until it reached Teshnos in 768; the Gâki then learned that their Divine Sword was held by western foreigners. Some of them tried to take it back but failed, drawing the Godlearners’ attention to themselves.

In 770, Ordval landed on Teshnos armed with “Edge of the East”. He established contact with the remaining Zaranistangi and, after discovering his Sword’s secrets, stuck the weapon back where Dengbalu had originally done so. He became King of Melib and chased the Teshnans, but could never take the Sword back. Even though its temple has been destroyed several times since, the Sword is still stuck there today. From 740 to 800, the remains of Bradozsaran’s warband fought hard against the Godlearners; striking, then vanishing away in their desperate quest to retake the Sword of Tolat. After several defeats they inflicted on imperial forces, the Empire organized a great magical ambush coordinated by ten different schools of sorcery. The trap was sprung in Slontos in 805. The Godlearners said they wiped out the whole people, but were completely wrong.

The Zaranistangi warband tried to teleport far away from their enemies, but it is probable that the enormous amounts of sorcery using against them made the attempt go wrong. They became lost in the Otherworlds and erred there for many centuries before finding a way back to Glorantha, when the Red Moon rose.

In 930, the Closing isolated Melib from the rest of the world. Under Godlearner masters of the Ordval dynasty, Ashurtani took control of the island again and restarted persecuting the Gâki/Zaranistangi folk. Unable to get any outside help, they retreated to the jungles in the heart of Melib and fought a long guerrilla war against the Ashurtani, sometimes with the remaining Godlearners’ support, sometimes against them. Thus did they did gain the use of some sorcery.

Third Age

In 1247, the Red Moon ascended to the skies. The few remaining Zaranistangi around the world stirred and recognized her as a parent of their Mother Orfeda. The new Moon also freed the Zaranistangi army exiled in the Otherworld in 805. Using their old powers and the new goddess’ power, whom they called Yran, the exiled Zaranistangi appeared again in Glorantha. They came back in Faladje in the highlands of Marana, in Pamaltela.

Between 1320 and 1331, under the name of “Yranian Leapers” and using their old blood ties, their raised the blues (Artmali) slaves against their Kareeshtani oppressors and conquered Vralos in Umathela. Wearing red robes to honor their Mother’s new form, they used their old leaping magic to invade their enemies’ cities, of which many fell. Then, as they seem poised to overrun all Fonrit, they vanished. They told their “little brothers” they left behind to “pay their debt” and went to the Other Side, never to be seen again until this day. The Tonds of Kareeshtu are still working hard to learn more about them, to be ready to fight them if they ever come back. The Faladje inhabitants seem to know more than what they admit about the Yranian Leapers and some might have stayed behind. This seems to have been the end of the Zaranistangi actions in Pamaltela – for now.

In Melib, the civil war between Gâki and Ashurtans lasted six centuries. A report noted that a visiting Amazon queen was killed while hunting in the hinterland by “strange blue men who could vanish and reappear at will”. The remnants of the True Cult of Baraku were still active. When the Pharaoh’s fleet landed in 1586, it gave its support to the Gâki and they took the reins of power in Melib again. In 1590, Harstar’s Teshnan army landed in Melib and took control of the Island. Harstar says he is descendant of Histogantor and plays Ashurtani vs. Gâki. He prepares for the conquest of the mainland, Teshnos. Gâki tell him they’ll fully support him if he can pull the Sword of Tolat from the ground, which he has not yet tried. The Gâki have begun again sacrificing humans in numbers to bring back true Zaranistangi from the Other Side. It seems the cost in lives is horrendous and they need Harstar’s support.

What Future for the Loper Folk?

So far it seems only a few true Zaranistangi have been brought back. When enough will have been reunited with their Sword, the weapon which killed Nysalor, the Zaranistangi people will become again a major power on Glorantha. Though they never were a people of empire-builders, they do have the power to infiltrate any civilization and take from it whatever they chose.

I thus strongly suggest that our Empire establishes contact with the Blue Loper Folk, to establish what threat and/or opportunity they can pose to our Great Goddess. With proper support of the cult of Annilla, we can gain a worthwhile ally to our cause, which holds the Greatest Weapon of the World. I plan on using this Thesis as support for requesting a Grant from the Imperial Exploration Office and go east to meet this fabulous long-forgotten folk!

MAY SEDENYA ENLIGHTEN US ALL
MAY IRRIPI PROTECT THIS TEXT OF KNOWLEDGE