Right
now I’m only going to dig into the Guide. There’s more stuff, both back
from antiquity and from other fanworks, but the Guide is now the place
to start.
First and foremost: the name has flopped between Chern Durel and Chen Durel for a while, but the Guide uses Chen, so that’s official.
Chen Durel is treated as a province of Kralorela, and given 6 pages of its own. A third of the Notable People of Kralorela are Chen Dureli, and all of them are members of Can Shu’s clique. The gods of Chen Durel occasionally get mentioned elsewhere - the Gang of Four are part of Kralorela’s history, the Black Sun is described when talking about troll gods, and they all get play in the Hero Wars section. As a consequence of its placement, we should expect the writing to have a quietly pro-Kralori bias.
The history of Kralorela is well rehearsed. Prior to any human life, there are ancient pyramids covered in hieroglyphs. There is in the Godtime the worship of a Sun God, who appears in different ages: Early Light, Rising Orb, Victorious Zenith and finally Solar Storm. Elsewhere he’s named Zerel Fan. Under Solar Storm, they attempt to invade Kralorela, but the newly rising Emperor Shavaya “finally opened the blinded third eye of the ferocious Solar Storm and brought him to peaceful enlightenment” (GtG p.286). The defeated Chen Dureli return to their ancient ruins, and a new prophet rises among them named Shadow of the Sun, who reveals a previously hidden meaning from the pre-human writings of their home. These are the revelations of Solar Storm after his enlightenment. After hearing of the Suns to Come, and about how the world will end, the people of Chen Durel turn from enlightenment and become the Kingdom of Ignorance. This is probably the most obvious place that Chen Durel is interpreted from a pro-Kralorelan perspective, as it requires us to accept a framework where Kralorela is the enlightened land, and a failure to act as Kralorela is a wholesale rejection of mystic pursuit, as such. We better model dynamics across Glorantha to instead adopt a Nysalorean/Arkati distinction here, where Kralorela is a Nysalorean mysticism and Chen Durel is forced to develop an Arkati model as a response to Kralorelan power shaping Chen Durel.
A second prophet arises later, Jorazzi Redhands, who institutes human sacrifice to strengthen Zerel Fan. The blood-drinking aspect of the sun is named the Blood Sun, and in return for the gift of blood, the Blood Sun gives food and spiritual power. As the next section is the arrival of a great army of trolls during the Lesser Darkness, it’s unclear when this happened. This may be an episode of the Lesser Darkness, after the death of Zerel Fan/Yelm but before the rise of Chaos, or it may be more associated with the Golden Age. I am tempted, actually, to call it an episode of the Lesser Darkness, but it plays out really weird in Chen Durel as a function of the unity of Sun and Storm that is seen nowhere else in the world (that I can think of).
The existence of Solar Storm as compared against other Sun/Storm dynamics is something to be explored later.
Regardless, the Lesser Darkness is most explicitly marked by the arrival of the trolls. Upon finishing their generations-long ascent from Hell, a band of trolls discover a great black flame, who leads them to Chen Durel from the West. The flame is recognized immediately by the Ignorants as the Black Sun, a long predicted Sun to Come, and they quickly find a way to live that involves the cannibalism, human sacrifice, ball games and gladiatorial battles we all know and love.
Interestingly, the Guide fast forwards to 550 S.T., and doesn’t touch on Emperor Sekever in a Chen Durel context at all. The rundown of Kralorela’s history explicitly connects him to Chen Durel:
The 550 S.T. jump also marks a jarring and sudden introduction of Mostali to Ignorance, who make common cause with Uz and Ignorant humans against a Kralorelan invasion, that fails due to infighting. The dwarves are expelled from Ignorance and their lands are seized by the Dragon Empire. It’s not clear where they came from, what they were doing, or where they went.
We skip ahead again to 768, when the New Dragon’s Ring seizes power in Kralorela and refugees flood north. An enterprising group of refugees makes an alliance with the trollkin, and uses them as manpower to defeat and expel the last troll kings of Ignorance north to Koromondol, noting that this either has led to their near extinction, or becoming incredibly powerful after spending 1,000 years undisturbed in the uninhabitable wastelands that Uz can inhabit quite well, thank you.
400 years later, Godunya expels ShangHsa May-His-Name-Be-Cursed, the False Dragon, in 1120 and is enthroned as Dragon Emperor in 1124. The newly ascendant central Kralorelan authorities reintegrate the refugee communities of Chen Durel into the Dragon Empire, and Godunya assigns Can Shu to be Exarch of Ignorance around this time. Administrators are sent from Kralorela to Chen Durel to run the place, and they fucking hate the gig.
Not much time is spent on how Ignorance fared under Sheng Seleris, but as nothing bad is said the answer seems to be “Ignorants gleefully joined up as a chance to revenge themselves against their hated enemy to the South.” It’s also not clear what Can Shu was doing during this time. It’s also not clear how Can Shu has lived to the ripe old age of at least 500.
So, there are a lot of productive gaps from the basic history. We have a scenario: a conquered region that has always been shaped by a peripheral relationship to the economic powerhouse to the south. What had been for hundreds of years an informal alliance between a government-in-exile and the native population against the Middle Sea Empire-backed New Dragon’s Ring has solidified as Kralori domination of the region now that said government-in-exile is out of exile. The native customs of Chen Durel are routinely described as disgusting, from a Kralorelan perspective, and ongoing efforts to suppress the native culture and religion are a constant effort of the administrators dispatched there. The impact of some of the biggest events to happen in the region are not really explored, at all. No reign of Sekever is considered from an Ignorant perspective, nor is Sheng Seleris, who attained enlightenment in Chen Durel.
Now, this has gone long enough, I’ll make this Part 1, with Part 2 to focus on the description locations. After that, I should look into Can Shu, who cannot be avoided, and into the gods of Ignorance, but for that one I should probably grab a copy of Revealed Mythologies.
First and foremost: the name has flopped between Chern Durel and Chen Durel for a while, but the Guide uses Chen, so that’s official.
Chen Durel is treated as a province of Kralorela, and given 6 pages of its own. A third of the Notable People of Kralorela are Chen Dureli, and all of them are members of Can Shu’s clique. The gods of Chen Durel occasionally get mentioned elsewhere - the Gang of Four are part of Kralorela’s history, the Black Sun is described when talking about troll gods, and they all get play in the Hero Wars section. As a consequence of its placement, we should expect the writing to have a quietly pro-Kralori bias.
The history of Kralorela is well rehearsed. Prior to any human life, there are ancient pyramids covered in hieroglyphs. There is in the Godtime the worship of a Sun God, who appears in different ages: Early Light, Rising Orb, Victorious Zenith and finally Solar Storm. Elsewhere he’s named Zerel Fan. Under Solar Storm, they attempt to invade Kralorela, but the newly rising Emperor Shavaya “finally opened the blinded third eye of the ferocious Solar Storm and brought him to peaceful enlightenment” (GtG p.286). The defeated Chen Dureli return to their ancient ruins, and a new prophet rises among them named Shadow of the Sun, who reveals a previously hidden meaning from the pre-human writings of their home. These are the revelations of Solar Storm after his enlightenment. After hearing of the Suns to Come, and about how the world will end, the people of Chen Durel turn from enlightenment and become the Kingdom of Ignorance. This is probably the most obvious place that Chen Durel is interpreted from a pro-Kralorelan perspective, as it requires us to accept a framework where Kralorela is the enlightened land, and a failure to act as Kralorela is a wholesale rejection of mystic pursuit, as such. We better model dynamics across Glorantha to instead adopt a Nysalorean/Arkati distinction here, where Kralorela is a Nysalorean mysticism and Chen Durel is forced to develop an Arkati model as a response to Kralorelan power shaping Chen Durel.
A second prophet arises later, Jorazzi Redhands, who institutes human sacrifice to strengthen Zerel Fan. The blood-drinking aspect of the sun is named the Blood Sun, and in return for the gift of blood, the Blood Sun gives food and spiritual power. As the next section is the arrival of a great army of trolls during the Lesser Darkness, it’s unclear when this happened. This may be an episode of the Lesser Darkness, after the death of Zerel Fan/Yelm but before the rise of Chaos, or it may be more associated with the Golden Age. I am tempted, actually, to call it an episode of the Lesser Darkness, but it plays out really weird in Chen Durel as a function of the unity of Sun and Storm that is seen nowhere else in the world (that I can think of).
The existence of Solar Storm as compared against other Sun/Storm dynamics is something to be explored later.
Regardless, the Lesser Darkness is most explicitly marked by the arrival of the trolls. Upon finishing their generations-long ascent from Hell, a band of trolls discover a great black flame, who leads them to Chen Durel from the West. The flame is recognized immediately by the Ignorants as the Black Sun, a long predicted Sun to Come, and they quickly find a way to live that involves the cannibalism, human sacrifice, ball games and gladiatorial battles we all know and love.
Interestingly, the Guide fast forwards to 550 S.T., and doesn’t touch on Emperor Sekever in a Chen Durel context at all. The rundown of Kralorela’s history explicitly connects him to Chen Durel:
The Land of Splendor was then ruled by the evil, false Emperor Sekever. The antigod ruler of Ignorance, Sekever conquered Kralorela with an army of demons and corpses. He was an evil demigod who caused even the Minister of Fire to hide himself away so that all the land was cold and dark. Sekever then sacrificed to his hidden god, and a Black Sun rose into the sky and sent rains of blood across the world. Sekever warred against Vormain and Teshnos, and blasted all the lands west of the mountains into wastes.Other sources deal with Sekever in a Chen Dureli context, which is to say positively, but the ones I have are mostly fan works.
The 550 S.T. jump also marks a jarring and sudden introduction of Mostali to Ignorance, who make common cause with Uz and Ignorant humans against a Kralorelan invasion, that fails due to infighting. The dwarves are expelled from Ignorance and their lands are seized by the Dragon Empire. It’s not clear where they came from, what they were doing, or where they went.
We skip ahead again to 768, when the New Dragon’s Ring seizes power in Kralorela and refugees flood north. An enterprising group of refugees makes an alliance with the trollkin, and uses them as manpower to defeat and expel the last troll kings of Ignorance north to Koromondol, noting that this either has led to their near extinction, or becoming incredibly powerful after spending 1,000 years undisturbed in the uninhabitable wastelands that Uz can inhabit quite well, thank you.
400 years later, Godunya expels ShangHsa May-His-Name-Be-Cursed, the False Dragon, in 1120 and is enthroned as Dragon Emperor in 1124. The newly ascendant central Kralorelan authorities reintegrate the refugee communities of Chen Durel into the Dragon Empire, and Godunya assigns Can Shu to be Exarch of Ignorance around this time. Administrators are sent from Kralorela to Chen Durel to run the place, and they fucking hate the gig.
Not much time is spent on how Ignorance fared under Sheng Seleris, but as nothing bad is said the answer seems to be “Ignorants gleefully joined up as a chance to revenge themselves against their hated enemy to the South.” It’s also not clear what Can Shu was doing during this time. It’s also not clear how Can Shu has lived to the ripe old age of at least 500.
So, there are a lot of productive gaps from the basic history. We have a scenario: a conquered region that has always been shaped by a peripheral relationship to the economic powerhouse to the south. What had been for hundreds of years an informal alliance between a government-in-exile and the native population against the Middle Sea Empire-backed New Dragon’s Ring has solidified as Kralori domination of the region now that said government-in-exile is out of exile. The native customs of Chen Durel are routinely described as disgusting, from a Kralorelan perspective, and ongoing efforts to suppress the native culture and religion are a constant effort of the administrators dispatched there. The impact of some of the biggest events to happen in the region are not really explored, at all. No reign of Sekever is considered from an Ignorant perspective, nor is Sheng Seleris, who attained enlightenment in Chen Durel.
Now, this has gone long enough, I’ll make this Part 1, with Part 2 to focus on the description locations. After that, I should look into Can Shu, who cannot be avoided, and into the gods of Ignorance, but for that one I should probably grab a copy of Revealed Mythologies.
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