There are more than 600 videos on the Lindybeige channel, many of these dealing with “lots of swords and spears”, and quite a few clarifying questions that arise from playing RuneQuest in Glorantha.
Lloyd started roleplaying at age 12 or so playing the typical dungeon raids and realizing the plot holes like why are there monsters hiding behind doors to jump at exploring adventurers guarding treasure chests. A few years later he came across RuneQuest and appreciated its approaches and how they helped playing in a more believable world.
We forgot to talk to him about his legendary “Prax Warrior” video, too, which you can see here:
(the story behind this video is explained in its description)
The praises of RuneQuest in its second edition are sung. They are still the same great points as in Lloyd’s series of videos on D&D from eleven years ago. Part one is below, but check out part two and part three too:
Lloyd talks about the Dragon Pass board game, and how he never managed to find opponents to play the full game with all the magic, the alliances etc. We also talk briefly about Glorantha: The Gods War, for which Lloyd made an extensive video review:
Ludo talks about the realism of combat systems and melee weapons, and the strike rank approach in RuneQuest. Lloyd describes the “dagger vs. pike” situation, and offers a house rule assigning a different weapon strike rank for fist range fighting.
The reality of disengaging aka running away without getting stabbed in the back, which seems to be a lot easier in real life than in most rpgs.
Ludo brings up the footwork rules in GURPS, and we talk about using terrain, maneuvers, and magic, especially spells like Lightwall that enable a side to regroup without the opponent knowing about it.
Lloyd mentions how keeping track of all the magic that may enter a melee can be a challenge for a GM in RuneQuest.
We talk about the usefulness of shields and parrying missiles, and house-ruling those situations.
Lloyd discusses the importance of the GM’s eye-contact with the players in role-playing and how playing online takes a lot of that unspoken communication away even in a video chat.
We discuss active use of shields in combat, character expertise over player expertise,
On the topic actual experience of fighting in a shield wall, we learn that individual prowess matters a lot less. Lloyd discusses the death-defying attitude in re-enactment battles and suggests that facing the same situation when it is your life on the line may involve a lot more visceral fear. As you might expect, you can learn more about shield walls on Lloyd’s channel:
Lloyd talks about group coordination topping individual melee expertise, the importance of maneuvering and initiative, and how one can make a difference in group combat even without actually stabbing or slashing at the foe just by positioning yourself.
The ideal fight should not be a slogging match where you stab the other guy but to achieve an objective like crossing a bridge or capturing a flag.
The tendency to fight to the bitter end seems to be ingrained in roleplaying combats, and the fear of a certain type of players (and game systems catering to their style) to lose the items that make them effective.
Jörg asks about the practicalities of offering ransom in the middle of a melee. The answer seems to be to let go of your weapons, raise your hands and shout the amount of money that you are worth, but without any guarantee that the opposing side will accept that, even if that is the accepted outcome. In the end, this is up to GM discretion, table consensus, and dramatic effect.
Talking about setting a scenario in a major battle, Lloyd mentions about his work on a book on the Trojan War for D&D 3.5 but the D20 license was discontinued and adapting the project D&D 4th edition. He discusses a couple of approaches, like having the outcome sort of pre-determined.
If the side the player characters fight on is going to lose, the objective of the game is not to win that battle but how the unit of the players performs, whether they distinguish themselves in the battle or what losses they suffer.
There is the possibility of pushing the player characters into the situation that decides the outcome of the battle, but that can often be contrived and needs some setting up.
Lloyd talks about giving the players an objective other than winning the battle, like a detached raid around the battlefield against the train or camp of the foes to recover a maguffin.
We discuss actually playing out the war-game inside a roleplaying session, and Lloyd says that this approach needs a lot of practicing and necessitates a couple of bad games before getting the hang of this.
Lloyd talks about the constants in ancient warfare, with the basic concepts remaining the same like spears, shields, or signalling through shouts, insignia, drums or horns.
The difference made by magic on the battlefield is a lot higher than any technological differences. Also magical development may replace technological development.
Are old people in Glorantha really healthy? What is the availability of high powered healing or restoration magic?
How do people allocate their magical resources? Ludo introduces spreadsheets for administration of available magics.
Reputation as a spring-board to drama.
Skill proliferation vs. nifty new skills, on the example of a “read battle” skill (which sounds like a good interpretation of how to use RQG’s Battle skill).
Are different weapon type skills necessary? Lloyd suggests a general melee skill independent of the weapon type.
What is a “broad sword”?
Bronze weapons, and limitations real world bronze has.
The importance of tin in the Bronze Age, and using its control and supply chain as plot hooks.
Contriving situations where groups of five characters can make the difference, again and again and again…
Lloyd points out that skipping ahead to avoid tedious routines of standing watch etc. so that the bad guys don’t catch up with the players is giving out unintended information that no, the bad guys aren’t going to show up now.
He talks about doing flashbacks to establish still unknown relationships, and how “you can’t die in a flashback” may spoil the suspense for some players who prioritize survival.
Ludo suggests to have players roll the doomed assault of NPC fighters and experiencing their deaths in between playing their less combatant main characters.
There are two main types of action scenes: fights and chases, and most role-playing games dedicate entire chapters on combat but hardly any space on chases. And even if you have rules for chases, those might be about catching and fighting the opponents and not overtaking them in a race.
Welcome to a new issue of the Journal of Runic Studies, the premier Malkioni publication for studies into the nature of Glorantha. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please consult with the spirit bound to the appropriate electronic page.
Last week and week-end were exceptionally busy for me, so the newsletter doesn’t go too deep and even, for the first time, skips some of Jeff’s notes. Apologies! Now quick, let’s get on with it!
Episode 1 of the new RuneQuest stream is out! I’m happy to see James Coquillat back in the gamemaster’s chair, although with only two players: Bridget Jeffries (Miskatonic Repository embassador for Chaosium) and David Naylor (digital content manager for Chaosium).
Not much else to say yet since I haven’t had time to watch this past the introductions… if you did watch, what did you think?
Jeff Richard, the current mastermind on everything Gloranthan at Chaosium, is often posting notes and thoughts on the RuneQuest Facebook group. Here’s our curated list from the past week. A partial archive of these sources is compiled on the Well of Daliath.
Tarsh Exiles
The Tarsh Exiles are the holdout Tarshites who still resist (rather pointlessly, if you ask me) the Lunarization of their Kingdom. Jeff paints a rather bleak picture in the first paragraph… I can’t wait to have my players visit the place, because I love Maran Gor cultists.
In addition to the archived bits linked above, Jeff posted this, too, on the “social order” among the Tarsh Exiles:
The High Priestess of the Shaker Temple, often called the Shaker Priestess, is the unquestioned authority in the region. However, by tradition she does not involve herself in mundane issues of justice, trade, or war, preferring to let these be handled by tribal officials, approved by her. The current Shaker Priestess is Sorana Tor, reincarnated from an earlier era and now tended by 47 men and women—all cannibal virgins.
Cannibal virgins. Told you it’s wonderful!
For matters of justice, trade, and war, the Tarsh Exiles form the Kerofini Tribe. The Shaker Temple has great influence over tribal affairs and in 1448 they insisted on a queen and a matriarchal inheritance, overseen by the priestesses, but that proved disastrous. Since 1455, the priestesses chose a king to ceremonially marry the goddess and become lord of the ring. The king needs to be able to serve the goddess or her representative during sacred rituals, and inheritance is matrilineally derived. The tribe otherwise follows Orlanthi norms.
In 1625, the Shaker Priestess chose Unstey of Wintertop to be the Sacred King of all the Tarsh Exile clans. He rules from Wintertop Fort.
The Far Point
Here’s a short description of the Tarshite-speaking tribes North of Sartar. There’s nothing new here, except maybe for the fact that the Vantaros tribe has slightly more Yelmalions than Orlanthi… that’s a lot of military power to wave around, when you consider than hoplites of the Cold Sun are much better soldiers than an Orlanthi militia that only trains once a year.
Jeff previously shared some notes on the Far Place, or at least the Alda-churian (above) and Dinacoli (below) parts, including some cult membership figures.
It can get confusing however that the area is sometimes called “Far Point” or “Far Place”, and that it sometimes includes the Alone confederation and sometimes not…
I view Sir Ethilrist as a guy who climbed up the greasy pole and lost himself on the way. Although in his case, it is that he fell so far he has no idea where he started from any more. He was lost in the Realm of the Dead, made pacts with Darkness Demons, sacrificed his beliefs, causes, friends and family in order to survive and gain power. Each betrayal could be justified with a half-truth but after so many stacked up, the only thing that could justify this is the Destiny of a Hero. It was not his decision to enslave his followers to the Hell Horses as part of a Dark pact – that was Destiny. It was not his decision to bind the Hound into submission or make the bargain with the Goblins. All this was was what “needed” to be done to fulfill his destiny or whatever. It is only Keener Than that reminds him that this is a lie – Ethilrist decided to do these things.
I only know the short version of the Ethilrist’s bio: some sort of mercenary from Ralios who went to the Underworld and got the Doom Hound (his hellish steed), a Cloak of Darkness, and a herd of demonic Black Horses for his soldiers, now called the Black Horse Troop. Given that his original warband was called the White Horse Troop, you might think his heroquest gifts were a bit too much on the nose but hey, this is Glorantha, so we’re going to call it “mythically resonant”.
I personally picture Ethilrist more like a guy a with a purpose, who actively went looking for these dark powers, and got corrupted along the way… and who knows who’s really in control, between Ethilrist, the Darkness demon in his cape, and the Doom Hound. Maybe he’s got a 3-way schizophrenia or something. In the Disney version, these two other things stand on each of his shoulders and sing evil plans into his ears. I mean, back in the White Bear & Red Moon board game, both the cloak and the hound had their own counters!
Anyway, Ethilrist sold his services to the Red Emperor for thirty years in exchange for the land now known as Black Horse Country… although when the deal expired he immediately turned on the Lunars and helped the Grazelanders sack Dunstop.
The “bargain with the Goblins” might be explained by checking, once again, the White Bear & Red Moon board game rules. In it, Sir Ethilrist can invoke the Cloak of Darkness and stay put for a couple turns, after which “the darkness congeals to become a unit of goblins”. More on goblins later.
Keener Than is Ethilrist’s “childhood friend and former scout”, who he found while he was in the Underworld. He was “instrumental in Ethilrist’s success in the Underworld, and they rode back to life together.” But Keener Than immediately turned against Ethilrist, so there’s probably an interesting story about how Keener Than ended up down there in the first place…
And so Ethilrist spends a lot of time quietly observing his private collection of treasures, hoping that might assuage his uneasy heart.
His 2600 Black Horse Troopers and 2000 Auxiliaries were given this vale circa 1567. This by the way greatly alienated the Feathered Horse Queen who later married Prince Tarkalor. Ethilrist dutifully served the Red Emperor and fought at the Battle of Grizzly Peak. But in 1597, his 30 years of service expired without a renewal, and the next day he offered his services to the Feathered Horse Queen. Together they sacked Dunstop and halted Lunar expansion until 1602.
Ethilrist claimed a valley that already had peasant farmers in it, followers of Ernalda and Barntar. Ethilrist had NO INTEREST AT ALL in having them stop being good Earth worshipers. All he asks is that they are all lay members of his cult. And given that Ethilrist would be a tough fight for the entire Grazelander forces, the Feathered Horse Queen acquiesced to his land grab.
I guess lay members are good enough to replenish some Hero Soul points, right? It’s all about taxes.
There is a caravanserai at the entrance to his valley, called the Red Gryphon Inn. This is where most trading takes place, and his agents buy goods from caravans. It serves as a shrine to Issaries, and also is famed for its selection of beverages and exotic tastes. Beyond the Red Gryphon Inn, you need formal permission to enter the Count’s lands, although for those visiting Muse Roost, such permission is normally granted.
Jeff imagines Muse Roost as a “cross between one of those huge Alpine monasteries […] and something like Mehrangarh Fort“:
It is an absurd place, with 2500 Black Horse Troopers, 2600 black horse demons, goblins, and the Hound. It should be something that makes no sense – the castle of a fairy tale villain. Built by dwarfs who owed Ethilrist a favor (or were paid handsomely with knowledge only he might have.). I doubt it even has servants outside of the Black Horse Troop. In fact, I think only initiates of the Black Horse Troop and guests of Ethilrist are permitted within the walls. Maybe the goblins do most of the labor?
By the way, the term “goblin” refers to red elves (elves related to ferns and spore-bearing plants). They have some ties to Darkness (they were saved by Xiola Umbar once when Zorak Zoran wanted to exterminate them or something), so I guess that’s how Ethilrist got a deal with them through the darkness demon that lives in his cloak, or whatever it is. Or maybe it’s a completely different creature in this case. Jeff actually shares Greg’s own description of goblins for this:
Description: Goblins are relatively tall and lanky, with long torsos and wide, bowed legs, and splayed feet and hands. Their joints are swollen and their eyes are prone to catching any light and glowing. Hairless, their ears are small and located atop their heads, much like those of a cat or bat. They wear little clothing, favoring fur mantles or cloaks.
It doesn’t quite line up with red elves but Jeff adds that it’s “perfectly reasonable for Greg or me to tweak descriptions of minor figures.”
In South Peloria the cults of Dendara and Ernalda overlap, often with great confusion.
As we all know, Ernalda is the great Earth Goddess of the Theyalans. Her cult is centered on what was once Ernaldela – the land of the Earth Goddesses. Her cult is about Earth, agriculture, fertility, women, childbirth, and community – she is closely associated with the Grain Goddesses. She is also associated with the malevolent aspects of earth through Ty Kora Tek, Maran Gor, and Babeester Gor. Ernalda has many husband-protectors – Orlanth, Yelm, Yelmalio, Flamal, Magasta, Storm Bull, even Argan Argar. Although she generally lets her husband-protectors manage affairs of war and disputes, her priestesses wield great influence and power.
Dendara is the Earth Queen of the Lunar Heartlands. Her cult is centered on Dara Happa, and her cult is also about Earth, fertility, women, childbirth, and community – and like Ernalda she is also closely associated with the Grain Goddesses. However, Dendara has but one husband – Imperial Yelm, and is associated with the malevolent aspects of earth through Gorgorma. Dendara’s priestesses are greatly respected, but must defer to Yelm’s priests and lords. She has a “horsey” aspect as well, as Dendara took pity upon Hippoi and cared for her.
To illustrate this, Jeff uses a picture of Astarte, a goddess that basically looks like a Hellenized version of good ol’ Inanna/Ishtar.
Creative Commons photo
Despite the best efforts of the God Learners, both goddesses consistently denied recognition with the other. They are clearly closely related, but not the same. See the Feathered Horse Queen, who revealed that the great goddess La-Ungariant of Dragon Pass is Ernalda, and not, as all other Pure Horse People believe, Dendara.
Jeff confirms that the God Learners tried to approach these goddesses as different aspects of the same figure, with Dendara as a younger Ernalda before she gets “rescued” by Orlanth and leaves Yelm. But he adds: “[…] unlike most times when the God Learners played their interpretation magic, it failed.” So apparently the cosmos doesn’t agree:
But what is interesting is that this seems an easy identification but the goddesses rejected it! There’s far more concrete difference between Ernalda and Dendara, than between say Yelmalio-Kargzant-Elmal.
The God Learner in you might then theorize that maybe they’re twins, but nope:
[…] Ernalda and Dendara deny even having the same genealogy!
Anyway, back to Ernalda-Dendara worship through Southern Peloria:
In Saird, both goddesses can be found, distinct but often intertwined. Ernalda-Dendara are often clustered together, sharing the same temple, like how the Great Mother and Hecate shared a temple at Samothrace. At Filichet, there is an echo of the ancient Hippoi/Hyalor cults, where the Hippoi goddess – called Redaylda – is the patron of the queens and is associated with the Ernalda cult. Other stories associate her with the ancient Vingkotlings and still others with the Hyalorings of the Dawn. Redaylda is an echo of La-Ungariant/Sorana Tor cult around the Feathered Horse Queen as well.
In the province of Holay, the High Priestess of Redaylda is ruler of the city of Filichet and Queen of Holay. Holay has been a Lunar client state since around 1460 or so and the Lunar Empire has long supported the queens of Holay.
Filichet is an important religious center in the Lunar Provinces. It is best known for its great temple to Ernalda called the Bell Temple, where the Earth goddesses and their consorts are entertained by music created by racks of chime bells. The Bell Temple includes major temples to Pel-Oria and Redaylda, minor temples to Dendara, and Orlanth Adventurous, and shrines to Asrelia, Babeester Gor, Gorgorma, Maran Gor, Ty Kora Tek, and Voria. The Bell Temple recruits and supports the Bell Temple heavy cavalry regiment, a famed unit of the Lunar army.
The city also has a major temple to Barntar Thunderous, with shrines to each of the Seven Lightbringers, and minor temples to Gustbran and Humakt. The market has a major temple shared by Issaries and Etyries, with a minor temple to Lokarnos. There is a great temple to the Seven Mothers, with a major temple to Hwarin Dalthippa, and a shrine to the Red Goddess. The city has a major temple to Yelmalio and a minor temple to Yelm, with shrines to Hyalor and Uleria.
Having a little fun working on God Learner divine genealogies – I clearly always loved my Hesiod! Some are filled with fascinating insights if you look at them enough – for example, here’s the genealogy of the Earth deities.
Which gets really interesting when you add the Ernalda and Hykim taxonomies and the Air Gods.
Next is the Air gods:
Orlanth, like Ernalda and Yelm, has many children. These are both srvuali (like Vinga) and burtae (like Barntar and Voriof).
Srvuali and Burtae are some technical terms for various types of gods. Srvuali are “lesser incarnations” of Runes (gods that are avatars of a Rune but are also necessarily less representative than the pure Rune itself, since they, you know, can do other stuff). The Burtae are mixtures or offsprings of different Runes (like the children of two Srvuali).
Asrelia and Ernalda have fathers – which help explain what they are (both are burtae after all). Gata is sireless, coming directly from Imarja aka Ga.
Next up, more animals!
Now for some stranger taxonomies, here’s some of the animals NOT descended from Ernalda. Note that Palar and Jaskal are “aunts” or “uncles” of Ernalda and Maran Gor.
How does this square with the idea that dinosaurs are the descendants of dragons? Couple of ways – first remember that Hykim is usually though of as a dragon. So reptiles would be dragons that have descended to the material world of earth. But another way is that dinosaurs aren’t reptiles, but something else – Jaskal is the mother of snakes, lizards, turtles, etc., and not dinosaurs.
In short, this taxonomy does not need to line things up like ours does!
Indeed. One of the favourite past time of Gloranthan scholars is too look at these genealogies and come up with funny stuff like “you know, horses are a type of birds, actually”.
By the way, Jeff sets the record straight on the God Learners:
[…] that is where people get them wrong. The God Learners found connections between deities that were unknown to the stories. But those connections worked and enabled them to do amazing things. In short, the God Learners didn’t squeeze those myths into their own “truth” – rather they carefully studied countless myths, experienced them, and then found new connections previously unknown.
The God Learners downfall did not come because their approach was in error, but because they themselves grew proud and arrogant, and viewed the cosmos as something to be exploited to their benefit.
Community Roundup
The community roundup is our highlight of interesting things being mentioned in the Glorantha-related Facebook groups, sub-Reddits, and other similar online places.
Exploring Glorantha: Tour of Dragon Pass: Sartar
Guest segment by Joerg
J-M and Evan branch off their channel for some geographic exploration of the setting, starting with the focal Kingdom of Sartar., while also announcing a series of exploring the history of this region.
J-M in particular emphasizes the possibilities the amount of detail available for Sartar offers. Evan actually references our Diana Probst interview for how rescuing Kallyr Starbrow at the Battle of Queens can create a big twist on the stetting.
Glorantha Explained Through GIFs
I’ve mentioned before that there are not enough Gloranthan memes out there, so I was very happy to see Effy address this problem on Twitter! Follow the link for GIFs “explaining” Hazia, the War of the Many Suns, Arkat, Newtlings, Prax, and more!
Ardwulf on Gods of Glorantha
Ardwulf goes through the RQ3-era “Gods of Glorantha” boxed set while sharing various anecdotes about RuneQuest and its different editions, Glorantha’s focus on religion, and so on. It’s a short, candid, high level unboxing video which works well if you are curious about what this classic boxed set contains.
Glorantha is a vast world , with many different cultures , landscapes , and religions . However, most of the official publications have always focused on the two most emblematic regions in Glorantha: Dragon Pass and Prax. But, what about the huge variety of adventure-rich background material that extends beyond those two regions? You just need a quick peek into the encyclopedic Guide to Glorantha to see the range of possibilities is almost endless. So, if you are looking forward to explore a refreshing, new part of Glorantha with ready to play scenarios for RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha, you might be interested in checking out Pirates of the East Isles Vol. 1, a book in PDF format penned by Scott Crowder and sold under the Jonstown Compendium section of DrivethruRPG
This piece is from Mark Smylie, for Martin Helsdon’s next Jonstown Compendium project, a periplus around the Holy Country:
This picture shows a Giant Otter and friend at Handra.
This is a scene from the Periplus, but the book includes a page specifically about these two, giving their history and stats.
Minecraft RuneQuest
Diana has awesome players — for a mere experience check in a Passion, they make a whole variety of things between sessions. This includes a Humakt temple in Minecraft!
This got the player a Devotion (Humakt) check… more pictures here.
Miniature Scorpionman Fight
Over on Twitter, Jeremy has some nice painted miniatures of four various warriors about to get stung! More close-up pictures here.
Elsewhere on Arachne Solara’s Web
Not everything is about Glorantha, although most things are! Here are loosely relevant things that we found on the interwebs.
Interactive Map of Herculaneum
The Digital Maps of the Ancient World blog has a nice interactive map of Herculaneum, a village founded around the 6th century BCE that was destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE (more here). Find out where the toilets are, or what kind of entrances and exits were available on the public baths! Plus: some floor plans for some of the residences!
Thank you for reading
That’s it for this week! Please contact us with any feedback, question, or news item we’ve missed!
Welcome to a new issue of the Journal of Runic Studies, the premier Malkioni publication for studies into the nature of Glorantha. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please consult with the spirit bound to the appropriate electronic page.
Here is what us God Learners were up to this week.
Glorantha Initiation Episode 8: Scott, Novelizations, Baboons, and Too Many Cows
Our new Initiation Series interview features Scott Rinehart, and was recorded back in October 2021. Scott had only played in a couple of one-shot games, but he has flipped through quite a few books! He chats with us about the challenges of discovering Glorantha!
Bog Struggles Featured in Journey to Jonstown
Chaosium’s latest article in the “Journey to Jonstown” blog series, which regularly catches up with the recent Jonstown Compendium releases, had my latest adventure Bog Struggles featured at the top! I’m very honoured. And congratulations to all the other authors who released new titles recently!
Chaosium News
Here are this week’s Chaosium news!
New RuneQuest Actual Play Coming Next Week
Chaosium announced a new RuneQuest actual play! The previous “RuneQuest Starter Stream” ended after 6 episodes, when the group concluded the second (out of three) scenarios of the RuneQuest Starter Set.
It’s nice to see a Gloranthan actual play come back to Chaosium’s channel, but I haven’t seen much else about it — I don’t think we even know who’s playing in it? Unless I missed something? Anyway, from the little promo material we have, I assume the group will play through the Gamemaster Adventures pack, starting in Apple Lane.
Each workshop path has many focused lessons, writing goals, and more to hold your hand and help you publish your first (or not first) adventure. More information (including price and dates) is available here.
Simon Cogswell is hard at work on laying out the Cults Books!
News on Upcoming RuneQuest Products
In a Facebook group thread about the upcoming Sartar Homeland boxed set, we learn that… it won’t be a boxed set after all. It was never confirmed to be a boxed set anyway, it was just an aspiration from nostalgic game designers. It sounds like the reality of manufacturing and shipping products in 2022 has required some reshuffling of the pipeline:
The Sartar Homeland material is now a book.
The Sartar Gazeteer is now part of a bigger Dragon Pass Gazeteer sourcebook.
The big Sartar map that Chaosium wanted to put in the boxed set will likely be sold via Redbubble, where you can already buy many big maps from the old “RuneQuest Classic” boxed sets.
Jonstown Compendium
The Jonstown Compendium is Chaosium’s community content program for all Gloranthan games, hosted on DriveThruRPG. Disclaimer: all the relevant links are affiliate links that hopefully will let us cover some of the hosting and maintenance costs for the website and podcast! Thanks for using them!
This is volume one of a three part campaign spanning years, perhaps even decades. You and your players can leave Dragon Pass behind and be pirates in the mysterious East Isles. Explore an exotic land where each island is a god unto itself. Play new occupations such as Pirate, Sailor and Mystic. Learn a unique martial arts system. Worship all new gods with a completely different mythology than what you’ve known till now. No Orlanth, no Thed, no Issaries, no Trickster!
Disclaimer: I did a bunch of art and cartography in this book!
Dario Corallo has released a new “artpack”. These packages contain a bunch of Gloranthan “clip art” that other Jonstown Compendium creators can put in their books, free of charge (well, after they’ve bought the art pack of course). Dario only asks to be credited, and to receive a copy of the book.
Trailer for the Lifethief
Diana Probst made this trailer in Blender for Beer With Teeth’s most recent release!
Duckpac Preview
Neil Gibson of Legion Games posted a sneak peek at their upcoming Duckpac, a 350+ pages “epic resource on the Durulz“.
To keep me honest we’re hoping to commit to the following release schedule: Book 1 (Myths, lore & history) – end of June Book 2 (Duck Adventurers) – mid July Book 3 (Duck Scenarios & GM resource) – mid August Book 4 (Solo Quest) – also August
This is ‘Red Quill’, one of the playable character from the Duck Adventurer book.I hope you enjoy it. We’re suuuuper excited to get it out to you.
Jeff’s Notes
Jeff Richard, the current mastermind on everything Gloranthan at Chaosium, is often posting notes and thoughts on the RuneQuest Facebook group. Here’s our curated list from the past week. A partial archive of these sources is compiled on the Well of Daliath.
Did you know it takes about 6 days to get from Boldhome to Karse by caravan? One day to get to Wilmskirk, two days to get from Wilmskirk to Whitewall, and three days to get to Karse.
Or it takes 10 days to get from Boldhome to Furthest by caravan? One day to get to Jonstown, another day to get to Dangerford, another day to get to Herongreen, another day to get to Alda-Chur, three days to get to Slavewall, and three more days to get to Furthest.
From Boldhome it takes about 12 days to get to New Pavis, by way of Bigglestone and the Paps.
Looking up some of those itineraries in Highways & Byways, it seems to mostly check out, if you consider that caravans are almost always mule trains, so they have MOV 9 in the speed tables on page 8.
What is even more interesting to me is that a caravan can get from Karse to Filichet (the terminus of the Daughter’s Road) in a 19 days plus another three to rest the animals. So three weeks.
So you can have a pretty long trade trip in just one season if you don’t spend too much time stopping for deals or getting pulled into side-adventures.
The distrust of Kallyr goes back to before Starbrow’s Rebellion. Kallyr was widely viewed by many tribal leaders as an ambitious Kheldon tribal leader who happens to have enough of Sartar’s blood to make a bid for Prince. Even worse was the performance of Starbrow’s Rebellion of 1613 – which resulted in deep resentments among many of the tribal noble families.
Kallyr definitely pushed the revolt in 1613 (it is called Starbrow’s Rebellion after all), and forced the hands of the other tribal leaders. The other leaders knew the rebellion was doomed before it began – its early success was a surprised to them (and paradoxically meant they had to support it). There were no plans for next steps or how a liberated Sartar would survive the inevitable Lunar counteroffensive (remember, this was the Lunar Empire in 1613, before war, invasions, and dragons had reduced its military resources).
A rebellion with no plan for stabilization is a common mistake… which happened many times on Earth too.
I was actually looking up who participated in the rebellion recently (and, by omission, who didn’t). As far as I can tell, it included the Kheldon, Culbrea, and Colymar tribes (for the most part, I don’t suppose everybody in those tribes was up for it), parts of the Telmori, and a whole bunch of unaffiliated warbands made of outlaws, exiles, or clan members who defied their King or Queen’s orders. The Durulz (ducks) were made scapegoats of the rebellion but I don’t think there’s any evidence that they had any particular role in it.
Other clans and tribes still uselessly tried to rebel afterwards, for some reason — a Sambari clan in 1615, the Dundealos tribe in 1618, and so on. Many other tribes kept a rebellious attitude (sometimes under pretences of collaboration) throughout the whole Lunar occupation. So all in all, it’s not like the other tribes weren’t sympathetic to revolutionary ideas, I think it was really down to Kallyr being a reckless and divisive figure, with methods not many agreed with.
As a result of the rebellion, many thousands were killed, and the tribal leaders of the Colymar were exiled. The Colymar leaders particulary distrust her – Kallai and Beneva Chan were already in exile (as were Erenava Chan and others). Kallai, along with other Colymar exiles, died defending Whitewall from the Lunar Army. Other Colymar exiles fought in the siege of Nochet. This distrust of Kallyr Starbrow extends to many other tribal leaders. The Culbrea and Malani also shared the Colymar distrust, and blamed her for the Rebellion’s failure.
But then Kallyr gets lucky (although that’s a debatable notion) by raising a dragon who eats an entire Lunar temple.
Kallyr became Prince in Darkness Season 1625, after successfully liberating Boldhome and defeating a Lunar counteroffensive at Dangerford. That gave her the respect of many common Sartarites, but the tribal leaders still distrust her (and fear she has no plan to deal with the Lunar Empire’s response). That distrust, dislike, and fear drives her decision to undertake the Lightbringers Quest that Sacred Time.
It is important to remember that Starbrow’s Rebellion was a disaster. Sure, Sartar was briefly independent, but at the costs of thousands of lives, and losing the near-autonomous status some of the tribes (esp, the Colymar) enjoyed. The only thing the Sartarites got out of it was Temertain. Yeah team!
If I’m following this right, as the Lunars were campaigning to defeat Kallyr’s forces and take back control of Sartar, a guy named Redbird (a “dangerous sage seduced by foreign sorceries”) showed up with another viable heir to the throne: Temertain, who he found living as a scholar in Nochet.
[Leika] was part of a Colymar quest to find a legitimate heir. Remember, Starbrow was not Prince during the Rebellion and was mainly seen as a Kheldon tribal leader of the Black Rock clan. The Colymar sent Leika, Redbird, and others to the Holy Country to find a legitimate heir – they found Temertain.
Temertain proved his (tenuous) link to Sartar’s lineage by making Sartar’s Flame flicker in Boldhome, and was offered as a quick alternative to pacify the tribes, compared to another military campaign.
With 20/20 hindsight we know how that turned out, but at the time it was seen as a big victory.
Furthermore:
[…] And most Sartarites agreed that Temertain had a better dynastic claim, being the son of Prince Salinarg’s cousin Jotisan. Kallyr’s claims were further away (grandfather was Prince Terasarin’s cousin).
Of course, by 1625, Kallyr has a small army and the advantage of being not Temertain. And she defeated the Lunars at Dangerford.
By 1627, Argrath has the advantage of a larger and very dedicated army. And he defeated the Lunars as well.
She fled to Volsaxiland (aka South Sartar) later falling into the orbit of Broyan of Whitewall. She likely aided Broyan making raids in Sartar against Lunar allies and assets in 1617.
[…] did you know that 20% of intelligent beings in Dragon Pass are nonhuman? That’s one of the highest concentations of nonhumans in human dominated lands in Genertela.
For comparison: Peloria 8% nonhuman Kethaela 5% nonhuman Fronela 7% nonhuman Seshnela 7% nonhuman Ralios 18% nonhuman Prax and the Wastes 19% nonhuman Kralorela 13% nonhuman
Note that Kralorela does include the Kingdom of Ignorance with its big troll population.
Only Teshnos has a higher nonhuman percentage (22%), largely because of the huge yellow elf population in Fethlon.
The Elder Wilds reverses this as it is the only large area in Genertela dominated by nonhumans. Only 18% of the population is human there!
As far as I can tell, these numbers line up with the population numbers from the Guide to Glorantha, so no surprises there. But of course, who knows if the scholars who gathered these numbers really got it right… they might not have gone very deep into Vulture County or Pent, for instance, because who would? So feel free to add big chunks of nonhumans anywhere you want!
Elder Races in Dragon Pass
Speaking of non-humans, Jeff posted some more information on Elder Races in Dragon Pass. It goes over some general but evocative information about the Dragonewts, the Trolls, the Beast People, the Dwarfs, the Elfs, the Tusk Riders, Giants, Wind Children, Baboons, Newtlings, and Ducks. Phew!
Picture by Felix Figure Painting
I didn’t spot anything new, but I did note the following:
The elf population in Dragon Pass is reduced to only a few strongholds (you can listen to our recent episode on the Aldryami for more on this), but that “there are several isolated dryads who sadly sing out to their lost elf companions, but rarely get a reply.” This opens up space for a very small elf community in your campaign, as needed (I have one in my game!)
A seemingly factual statement that the Tusk Riders indeed originate from experimental cross-breeding with trolls during the EWF era.
How the Wind Children hid high in the mountains during the Lunar occupation, but “now have begun to reengage with the newly liberated principality.“
[…] if you are wondering what the Orlanthi of the East Wilds in Ralios are like, the Griffin Mountain supplement is actually a good reference. The daily life of an Orlanthi hunter from distant Ralios differs little from that of a Balazaring hunter in his homeland.
The various hunter-gatherer clans there are gathered into about a dozen tribes under the erratic guidance of the Voshfrei dynasty.
The East Wilds tribes do get bronze tools and weapons, but “mainly through the Voshfrei dynasty or through trade with Safelster.“
The Celestial Empire of Sheng Seleris
Here’s a note about everyone’s favourite solar shamanic Ghengis Khan. It’s not archived on the Well of Daliath yet so I’m pasting it here in its entirety, even though I don’t have much annotation to add:
From about 1360-1460, the nomads of Sheng Seleris terrorized the areas adjacent to Pent – Kralorela, Ignorance, Prax, Teshnos, and Peloria. The Celestial Empire was focused on Sheng Seleris and his Enforcers, an elite band that rode atop whatever hierarchy of people they ruled. Large roving bands of nomadic horsemen devoted to Sheng Seleris’ will turned fields into grasslands and terrorized the local population.
These nomads were not administrators – that work was given to subordinate officials of Pelorian, Kralorelan, or Teshnite origin. People from one region would be sent to administer another region – so Kralorelans scribes might be sent to Peloria, Pelorian scribes to Teshnos, and Teshnite scribes to Kralorela, and so on. Government was simple – worship Sheng Seleris and his Bursts, pay the demanded tributes, ritual obeisance to the representatives of Sheng Seleris, and ABSOLUTE OBEDIENCE to his representatives. Beyond that the subject peoples were largely left to their own. Rebels were dealt with brutally and with extreme terror – collective punishment was the norm.
Hopefully Sheng Seleris wasn’t turning too many fields into grasslands, otherwise the subdued populations would have had trouble feeding themselves and giving any tribute. Well, unless Sheng Seleris wanted to force them to become nomads too but I doubt it?
The army of Sheng Seleris was large, fast moving and possessed incredible magical power. A few beings (ok, Godunya himself) were powerful enough to tangle with Sheng Seleris, but the norm was whoever opposed Sheng Seleris directly was screwed. He was powerful enough to invade the Red Moon and scar it. Sheng Seleris respected some Nysalorean schools, and also his techniques bore some superficial similarities to aspects of Kralorelan mysticism (particularly the relationship between the Dragon King and the Exarchs, which was echoed with Sheng Seleris and his Bursts).
I don’t know much about Godunya but for the other newbies out there, he’s the Dragon Emperor of Kralorela, in eastern Genertela.
After 1460, his empire quickly collapsed. Without Sheng Seleris, the nomad bands retreated to the Redlands. Hon-eel had many contests with them, defeating the Reverend Horse Mother in the contests over Yelm. In 1503 the Opili Nation unified many Pentan tribes and invaded Oraya, leading to the terrible Night of Horrors in 1506, which destroyed both the Lunar Army and the Pentan nations.
Jeff then compares Shen Seleris with the Tibetan Buddhism story of Rudra, which… well, go read it, he sounds super bad-ass in just one paragraph! Short story: Rudra fucks up living like a true buddhist, goes to buddhist hell, is reborn through sex magic with extra limbs and super powers, and almost brings forth enough apocalypse to freak out mortals and gods alike.
We can call that a failed mystic – as Sheng Seleris accumulated vast magical power through terrible austerities that used to conquer the world. Kralori mystics would say he COMPLETELY MISSED THE POINT (and thus he is a failed mystic), but he did nearly conquer the world! Sheng Sellers’ successes of course influenced later Lunar magical techniques – as how could they not?
Boldhome is a diverse and cosmopolitan city, far more than most Gloranthan settlements. There are young, unmarried warriors from the Adventurous cult, caravanners and merchants from all over, veteran Humakti warriors, Earth women with their snakes, tattooed Thunderers, Sun Dome pike men, Axe Maidens, dancing Earth Shakers, Seven Mothers mystics, hazia fiends, and poets, Eurmali clown societies, Healers of the White Lady, bearded scribes, devotees of Love, Storm Bull cultists ranting about the White Bull, potters and red-smiths with their kilns, cattle women and Animal Nomads, mounted Pure Horse People, the occasional elf or troll, and even dragonewts. There’s a cacophony of music, song, shouts, and tongues – Tradetalk as nearly as common as Sartarite, and Esrolian, Praxian, and New Pelorian can almost always be heard. There are dancers, sights, and smells; spices from the Holy Country and beyond, braying Praxian beasts, incense and hazia, wine, and grilled meat.
Just one tribe! The Stallion King is king of the Pure Horse Tribe aka the Pony Breeders, but he is a lesser figure than the Feathered Horse Queen who is the ruler of the Grazelands.
This is one of those occasions where I check back in the RuneQuest core rulebook, of all things, and find that the information was there all along. If you look at the Grazelands Homeland write-up (page 114), it does indeed imply that there is only one tribe of Pure Horse People, divided in a dozen clans (one of which can be the sample “Four Gifts” clan). I often find that there is a surprising amount of setting information hidden here and there in the core books…
By the way, you might remember this non-canonical map I shared in an earlier issue of the Journal:
I suppose you can still use that map for clan name ideas. You could even consider that these are the names of the Vendref clans, as opposed to the Pure Horse People clans? I assume that the two cultures have different groups?
By the way, Darren Happens identified that map for me. It is part of an old and long abandoned project for a “Grazer Pack” sourcebook, by Danny Bourne, Simon Bray, Duncan Rowlands and Martin Hawley.
You can also get a good list of Grazer clan names from David Dunham’s website. I assume the list is from the same source since it aligns pretty well with the above map.
Community Roundup
The community roundup is our highlight of interesting things being mentioned in the Glorantha-related Facebook groups, sub-Reddits, and other similar online places.
Also, I’m told that tapirs are related to horses and rhinoceroses?
Someone needs to do a Yelmic heroquest right now to sort this out.
“We’re Fed Up with Scary Dreams”
Sometimes when someone steals stuff from an Earth temple you don’t actually send an angry Babeester Gor Axe Sister after them to collect limbs. Sometimes, you just send spirits to haunt them with dreams of guilt.
A gang of thieves have returned more than a dozen idols they stole from an ancient Hindu temple in India, saying they had been haunted by nightmares since the crime, according to police.
The new Initiation Series interview features Scott Rinehart, and was recorded back in October 2021. Scott is new to Glorantha, having only played in a couple of one-shot games, but he has flipped through the new RuneQuest slipcase books, and the Glorantha Sourcebook.
Welcome to a new issue of the Journal of Runic Studies, the premier Malkioni publication for studies into the nature of Glorantha. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please consult with the spirit bound to the appropriate electronic page.
This is issue number 52 which means I’ve been going at it for a year now! The newsletter is happening once again on Monday because this week-end was actually extraordinarily busy for me… various other hobbies and family duties took precedence, but also I released a new adventure on the Jonstown Compendium! (more below)
My new RuneQuest adventure is up on the Jonstown compendium! Help some newtlings fight off a horrible threat and join a water cult! It’s called “Bog Struggles” and you can get it here, or read a bit more here. Note that my previous adventure, “A Short Detour“, is currently on sale to celebrate the occasion!
Jonstown Compendium
The Jonstown Compendium is Chaosium’s community content program for all Gloranthan games, hosted on DriveThruRPG. Disclaimer: all the relevant links are affiliate links that hopefully will let us cover some of the hosting and maintenance costs for the website and podcast! Thanks for using them!
– The Damali (Fallow Deer) now added to the Hsa (Tiger), Lo Fak (Yak), and Pujaleg (Bat) people. – Plan to add one more group in the next couple of months. – Rules for generating characters, background on the hsunchen from an eastern perspecive, aswell as cults and myths/history.
Video Trailer for Pirates of the East Isles
Scott Crowder has posted a video trailer for his upcoming book on the Pirates of the East Isles!
The book will describe in detail more than twenty of the totem animal (Hsunchen) tribes found in central and western Genertela. It will have rules for creating a Hsunchen adventurer, ideas for scenarios and campaigns, even some thoughts on Hsunchen heroquesting.
There will be quite a lot of information on Hsunchen magic, technology, culture – even economics i.e. trade relationships. I’m delighted that Diana Probst and Kristi Jones are both contributing art for the book, and I’m aiming for the artwork to address “ordinary” life as much as possible.As a taster, here are a couple of work-in-progress images from Kris showing a Rathori (bear-folk) family group fishing together in the midsummer; and a Hogari (mammoth-folk) group outside one of their mammoth-bone huts.
Jeff Richard, the current mastermind on everything Gloranthan at Chaosium, is often posting notes and thoughts on the RuneQuest Facebook group. Here’s our curated list from the past week. A partial archive of these sources is compiled on the Well of Daliath.
More about the EWF
As a complement to last week’s note on Dragon Pass in the Second Age, Jeff posted a “quick sketch showing the core areas of the EWF”.
This would have been the most civilised and most developed areas of the EWF.
We could also expect now to find the most EWF era ruins in these areas. Note that Upland Marsh was at the very center of the EWF.
So it is worth keeping in mind that many of the core areas of the EWF are still largely abandoned. Bonn Karpatch, Voss Varaina, Olorost, Orin Jistel, Salor,Bon Bolar, Intarn – all of these are now pretty much outside of settled areas. The ruins of the EWF are viewed as haunted and cursed.
A nice hint when you’re wondering where to put haunted draconic ruins…
Dragon Pass at the Dawn
The Guide to Glorantha already has a map of Dragon Pass at the Dawn, but I love seeing the originals from the Chaosium archives:
At the Dawn, Dragon Pass was one of the strongholds of mortal beings. Thanks to I Fought, We Won and the Unity Council, it was one of the main population centers of Genertela. But in truth, that is only in comparison with everywhere else. Let’s look at the numbers.
At the Dawn, there were about 55,000 mortals that participated in the Unity Council. Of those, 16,000 were trolls, 16,000 were dwarves, 5000 were dragonewts, and 13,000 were humans.
Only 13,000 humans! As Jeff puts it, “one way of putting this in context, is that the entire human population of Dragon Pass at the Dawn was smaller than the population of the Colymar Tribe.“
A century or so later, right before the foundation of the Second Council, the population has grown to about 125,000, but by then the human numbers had grown to 75,000.
Of course, it is worth comparing that with the current population of the old Unity Council lands – which is over 2.6 million!
During the Second Age, the common folk worshipped Orlanth (including the Rex sub-cult) while the “savage but heroic” rules worshipped Yelm, which meant many religious rites highlighting the Orlanth/Yelm rivalry. This weird religious tradition was born from centuries of interaction with Dara Happa, along with a good dose of God Learner syncretism.
After the Dragonkill War, when all humans were wiped out in Dragon Pass, the Orlanthi culture was split between those of southeastern Peloria and those of the Holy Country. Meanwhile, Dara Happan (and the basis of the Yelm cult) gets defeated by the Carmanians. Yelmalio survives as the Sun God (because that’s what Yelmalio does) although his martial role gets some competition from Shargarsh in some places like Alkoth.
While Dragon Pass is closed, the Orlanthi of future-Tarsh are effectively in a dead-end, geographically speaking. “I imagine they sell grain and livestock to the lowlands, plus other raw materials.”
Then it gets even more interesting:
They also fight in the lowlanders wars. Many Orlanthi fought for and against the Red Goddess. And when Dara Happa revolted against the Red Emperor, an Orlanthi leader, Jannisor, brought an army of Orlanthi and other barbarians to sack Glamour. This was a very near run thing for the Lunar Empire, and after the revolt is finally defeated in 1285, the Red Emperor sends his Conquering Daughter to secure the south.
In about 40 years, she conquers Syllila, Vanch, Saird, and Imther. The Kynnelfing Alliance – the main Orlanthi tribal confederation – is defeated and the Daughter’s Road goes within 30 mile of the Deathline. Many Orlanthi flee Syllila, Saird, and Vanch and settle in Dragon Pass – especially those that were on the frontline against the Lunar Empire in the Dara Happan Revolt or against the Conquering Daughter.
At that point, people still think Dragon Pass is closed to humans, but the Conquering Daughter makes people desperate. That’s when some Orlanthi led by Arim the Pauper cross the line, realize it’s actually OK, and later found the Kingdom of Tarsh there.
Now already by 1350, I can see some big differences with these Orlanthi and those of the Holy Country. Yelmalio is already in their pantheon, and they know Yelm well (and have been ruled by him on many occasions, and not always badly). But Orlanth Rex is the king of the gods, and has the ability to impose his authority over the feuding clans. They have centuries of contact with Dara Happa. And they know the Lunar Empire. They were there when Jannisor shattered the gates of Glamour and when the Antelope People betrayed him. They saw the Moonburn. And witnessed the Conquering Daughter in action.
When the Lunar march south into Tarsh the first time, they get routed by the Tarshites who have “ancient powers of Dragon Pass” and can call upon Maran Gor. The Lunar retreat and soon they have bigger problems to deal with (that’s Sheng Seleris).
The Kingdom of Tarsh likely began as a confederation of tribes under the suzerainty of the Tarsh Tribe. The Danbalings of Kordros Island, the Barnteri between the Oslir and the Black Eel, the Alda-Chur of Far Point, and the Karvenings around Slavewall, all were ruled by the Tarsh Tribe, which extended from the Falling Hills to Kero Fin. The Uiteros and Quivini tribal groups were rebellious tributaries. The Grazelanders are initially close allies, and later enemies after the Tarsh King steals their sacred horses to create his own cavalry force loyal to him (the origins of the Pol-Joni). The Praxians and trolls are sometimes hired as mercenaries.
So taking a snapshot, around 1450, the Tarshites are a powerful barbarian kingdom. They dominate Dragon Pass, but I do not think they are particularly rich. There isn’t that much trade between the Holy Country and Peloria – Sheng Seleris is too disruptive for that. The Tarshites are recognizably Orlanthi, although some lowlander cults are likely well-known – Oslira, Yelm, Lodril, maybe even Dendara (although Ernalda is the main goddess). The Earth cults are VERY important, and Maran Gor and Babeester Gor are an important part of the kingdom’s strength, but also demand human sacrifice. But they also have Orlanth Rex, Humakt, and the other Lightbringers. Storm Bull, Eiritha, and Waha are not significant, while the conflict between Orlanth and Yelm gets played out in war with Pentans and Pure Horse People (as well as Dara Happans).
This is of particular interest to me because this gives a good trajectory for Tarshite culture, from which I can extrapolate a bit more while working on the Far Place (Alda-chur and Alone). This part of Dragon Pass is populated by originally Tarshite people, and I’d like it to feel different from Sartar.
And best of all, Jeff shared another set of historical maps, like this one below!
Turns out there are from the GregAnth Atlas, and there’s a bit of additional commentary at the bottom… so check that out!
More about Jar-Eel
We already had a look at Jar-Eel in past issues of the Journal (here and here), but let’s look again.
So people love to worry about Harrek the Berserk or complain about Argrath being a warlord, but one of the most important Heroes in the Hero Wars is Jar-eel the Razoress.
Going back to one of those earlier looks (the second link, to be exact), Jeff had detailed Jar-eel’s “unconscious life”:
Remember Jar-eel is similar to Harrek, not Argrath.
– Personal Power 50% – Bloodspillers 20% – Dream 10% – Undifferentiated 10% – Red Goddess 10%
Despite – or perhaps because of – being widely worshiped in the Lunar Empire as the incarnation of the Red Goddess, Jar-eel’s mana primarily goes to her own personal aggrandisement, and another 20% goes to her Sardukar Guard. Sure she defends the Lunar Empire, but at least in part because it is a resource that enables her to do great things, but HER great things are the ultimate purpose of the empire, not vice versa.
Thinking of Jar-eel in this manner helps make her tick for me. She’s already proven her independence and autonomy from both the Red Emperor and the Red Goddess – you better accommodate her desires, because you are not going to stop her.
At least not unless you have your own superhero on your side.
There’s more about these last two paragraphs in the next segment, but in the meantime, Jeff adds:
I do not know specifically when she proved that she was not overwhelmed by the Red Goddess, but I suspect it was between 1602 and 1610, when she was in her late teens.
Remember, Jar-eel was already a Red Goddess Initiate at age 8(!).
Becoming a Superhero
The previous bit about Jar-eel’s power and “independence and autonomy from both the Red Emperor and the Red Goddess” gets clarified when Jeff explains how to become a Gloranthan superhero:
Greg speculated that to become a Hero, one needed to:
1. Participate in at least two “great events” – heroquests outside of those known by cult or tradition. This would include cult heroquests that go outside of known paths.
2. Have at least four special items or abilities
3. Have at least one unique item or ability
And finally:
4. a final test against one’s own god where the Hero proves their independence.
I’m inclined to think that these more or less define our Gloranthan Heroes, although of course there going to be exceptionns. But Jar-eel, Harrek, Argrath, Jaldon, Gunda, Beat-Pot, Ethilrist, etc., all fit into this system nicely.
Note the importance of the Hero being independent from one’s god. Even those heroes who are revered as avatars of their god – e.g.,Harmast, Alakoring, Argrath, Hon-eel, Jar-eel, etc., proved their independence to their deity!
Don’t forget Arkat, too:
Heck [Arkat] proved his independence from at least FOUR deities!
All the heroquesting and heroic feats required to become a hero or superhero can’t be achieved by being a murder hobo, though. Jeff says that “you are unlikely to get very far without community support.” If the upcoming heroquesting rules are tuned correctly, you’ll need this community support to succeed at more than a couple heroquesting challenges… fingers crossed!
Map Scales
If you know me, you know that early in my Gloranthan studies I got confused by the various maps with different scales throughout Glorantha’s publishing history. Jeff has put his foot down and confirmed what the “real” scale is:
The map scale has always been one Dragon Pass hex is 5 miles or about 8 km. That’s the absolute scale.
That is the scale for the map in the Starter Set, the maps the Guide to Glorantha, etc.
First, a bit of background. Garrath Sharpsword appears in the classic Pavis: Threshold to Danger boxed set (now available in PDF and POD). He’s a Wind Lord who fled Sartar and spent some time with both the Praxian nomads and the Wolf Pirates, and he gets heavily involved in the “Giant’s cradle” incident. If that sounds a lot like Argrath, and if you realize that Garrath is an anagram of Argrath, then you can easily subscribe to the theory that Garrath is Argrath himself and that he changed his name at some point, either as a case of superhero-style hidden identity, or as a classic case of ancient leaders changing names to sound more important (we’re told in some places that “Argrath” means “Liberator” or something).
In the HeroQuest era, several books (like Pavis: Gateway to Adventure) chose to follow the “multiple Argraths” theory, where the identity of Argrath is up to the gamemaster and players (so that a PC could be the Argrath). This also meant that all the accomplishments attributed to “Argrath” in the “canon” could actually be distributed among both PCs and NPCs if necessary. This also gave the setting a little flair of real-world history, where composite historical figures are not uncommon.
Of course, it’s arguably simpler to just tell people that they can play along an alternate history of the setting where Argrath is just someone else who does other things, rather than tell ask gamemasters and players to engage in some sort of world-building puzzle challenge where the goal is to fit all the pieces. So the latest RuneQuest product line won’t revive this “multiple Argraths” thing and will just flatly present who Argrath is and what he did, and then people can do whatever they want with the information. In this version, Garrath is Argrath… which shouldn’t be surprising if you’ve read Prince of Sartar.
Hopefully this long-winded introduction was welcome for the few newbies in the back.
So if you imagine Garrath Sharpsword circa 1621 – he’s very skilled at sword, shield, riding, spear, dagger, and thrown dagger. He is lean and wiry man, very charismatic, with the sort of quiet self-confidence only a person who has lost everything and then rebuilt himself up is able to have. He easily passed the test of the Weaponsmasters Guild, which gave him the right to have an independent school, wear his arms openly, and a degree of freedom despite being openly a Wind Lord of Orlanth Adventurous. He is fluent in Praxian (as well as Sartarite) and has many Praxian friends – mainly Bison Riders and High Llamas, but some Sable Riders and Impala Riders as well. He’s more comfortable in the company of his students, Praxian shamans, or adventurers than he is with the Garhound clan leaders or city leaders, and stays out of city and temple politics.
The Garhound are an influential family of Sartarite expats in Pavis.
Gim Gim the Grim is thought to consider him one of the Orlanth Allies, and the Moon Masks keep an eye on him, but given that he heads a recognized weapons school, they avoid harassing him or his students too much. Gim Gim keeps Krogar Wolfhelm and Govoran the Magnificent (who of course has his own mercenary band) under far more scrutiny.
Gim Gim (often spelled Gimgim in old material) is a Lunar spy who manages the Emperor’s intelligence network in Prax.
The Moon Masks are one of the many gangs of Pavis, but those are affiliated (unofficially, as I understand it) with the Lunars. You can bet Gim Gim occasionally hires them without them even knowing where the contract comes from.
The Orlanth Allies is another gang, mostly composed of disgruntled Orlanth worshippers (remember that in 1621, the Orlanth cult is still somewhat suppressed by the Lunars).
You can stat that guy up if you want, but you need to keep a few secrets, like his Dragontooth Necklace, his powerful allied spirit, his connection with the White Bull spirit, and several other boons and gifts gained from heroquesting, hidden from view. But in a Lunar game, Krogar Wolfhelm or Jarang Bladesong are much more likely to cause trouble than the “weapon master Garrath Sharpsword”. And when he does reveal himself, it is as per the Cradle scenario and then he is gone for years.
And when he returns, it is with an army of Praxians.
Yep, that’s Argrath alright. As for the other named NPCs here, Krogar Wolfhelm and Jarang Bladesong are other Wind Lords living in Pavis around the same time.
Miscellaneous Notes
Here some other miscellaneous notes that were posted last week, and which I don’t have time to annotate:
And while we’re at it, here’s a note on Orlanth Victorious, basically a “fully integrated Orlanth” cult that combines Adventurous, Thunderous, and Rex. It’s supposedly dangerous because you get sucked into Lightbringers Quest territory pretty easily when you heroquest. Jeff added in a comment that this is very dangerous, for a powerful myth attracts powerful threats, and when Argrath was getting started he didn’t have much community support (it was just a shrine!)
Why do traders travel along roads and not rivers through Sartar? Well, it’s mostly impractical.
What is magic? Apparently it’s not just a collectible card game that should have stopped a long time ago. Here are some general ideas on Gloranthan magic.
Community Roundup
The community roundup is our highlight of interesting things being mentioned in the Glorantha-related Facebook groups, sub-Reddits, and other similar online places.
My brother made this for my birthday last year, just got round to putting it in a mould. Not sure if it will get released but I thought I would share some pictures here. Mistress Race Troll with scimitar, Mistress Race Troll with mace and a “wristless mace troll”. Cue the bad troll puns.
Bad troll puns… bad troll puns… OK, how about this one:
Did you know that the trolls also have a famous indie, alt-rock, hat-wearing musician? But he’s named Stan?
As pointed out by Skull Dixon, in the SoloQuest there are some mobile shrines – there are places set up to worship before the big battle. There’s a Vingan shrine, and a Humakti one, and there are also people worshipping their Ancestors in the river. These are not permanent resources, and in the case of the Ancestor worship may not be a resource at all.
[…]
But what are these shrines. If you want to have rules for them, how do we think they’ll work?
Regular Gloranthan miniature painter (and by which I mean that they paint Gloranthan miniature, not that they are a very small person who paints Gloranthan landscapes or something) Felix Figure Painting has another wonderful picture:
Some Glorantha Trolls/Trollkin by Mad Knight and 3 Infinity Engine Rubble Runners for a commission.
I’ve been working on a little side project, turning the Boldhome map in to an actual landscape, here are a couple of screen shots. In the first one, I’m using the map as a guide for features, in the second one it’s a landscape material that changes based on height and slope steepness. I will be adding the waterways, roads and trees, but I’m not sure if I’ll go much further than that.
Thank you for reading
That’s it for this week! Please contact us with any feedback, question, or news item we’ve missed!
Hey, Ludovic here. I released a new RuneQuest adventure on the Jonstown Compendium! Help some newtlings fight off a horrible threat and join a water cult! It’s called “Bog Struggles“, it’s only $3, and it’s fun! Here’s another look inside:
To celebrate the release, my previous RuneQuest adventure, A Short Detour (which I just realized is now Silver best seller, thank you very much) is on sale at almost 30% off! Get it here!
It’s tricky to show pages of that adventure without giving some spoilers, but here’s something:
Welcome to a new issue of the Journal of Runic Studies, the premier Malkioni publication for studies into the nature of Glorantha. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please consult with the spirit bound to the appropriate electronic page.
Last week was quite busy for a whole bunch of reasons (including some that are God Learners related), so the newsletter has less material than the week warranted. C’est la vie! In this era of hyper-connectivity we are supposed to learn living with FOMO, aren’t we?
Here is what us God Learners were up to this week.
Episode 12: People of Glorantha: The Aldryami
We released episode 12 of our podcast! We welcomed Shannon Appelcline, author of Designers & Dragons (among many other fine books) and expert on the Aldryami, the elves of Glorantha. We talk about their culture, religion, myths, psychology, and all the other material we’ll find in the upcoming “Elfpak” sourcebook!
Why do some Heortlings get involved with Chaos when they know it’s really really bad?
Short answer (in my opinion of course): people are flawed, and Chaos is hidden under multiple layers that permeate through the edges of Heortling society.
Be sure to stick around for the addendum at the bottom of the article, since I might have not explained myself well enough in the main text…
Chaosium News
Here are this week’s Chaosium news!
Three Weirdest Things in Glorantha
James Coquillat asks Jeff Richard what are (in his opinion) the three weirdest things in Glorantha. Jeff picks the Maidstone Archers (I love how James immediately asks about actually bringing these things into a game!), the Ducks (bonus points to Jeff for mentioning Donjon!), and the floating island Kylerela (which I don’t know anything about except that it’s a token in the Petersen Games’ Gods War board game).
Product Guide for RuneQuest
Jeff runs through the products of the RuneQuest line, explaining which ones you should get and in what order. I’m sure most of this newsletter’s readers have bought them all, but this is a good video for your friends, or for figuring out what to gift.
Warehouse Clearance Sale
It’s that time of the year, and you can save a bit of money ordering some RuneQuest Classic books, maps of Glorantha, and more. Before ordering, make sure to check which warehouse has what, and which warehouse ships to you.
Sad Spanish RuneQuest News
If we are to trust random people posting on forums (and why not? Professional journalists even do it these days), it looks like the Spanish edition of RuneQuest won’t get its Glorantha Bestiary translation. It currently has the rulebook and Gamemaster Screen Pack, but sales numbers are not good enough for the editor, EDGE Entertainment, to continue with other books.
Jonstown Compendium
The Jonstown Compendium is Chaosium’s community content program for all Gloranthan games, hosted on DriveThruRPG. Disclaimer: all the relevant links are affiliate links that hopefully will let us cover some of the hosting and maintenance costs for the website and podcast! Thanks for using them!
Diana Probst released The Life Thief, with art by Kirsti Herbert, which means that at least half of Beer With Teeth was directly involved in this thing. This adventure deals with the Dead Place, shamans, and ugly growing things that shouldn’t be growing.
The authors say that it works well after Gifts of Prax. It’s optional of course but if you want to be Diana’s favourite person, you might as well do what she says.
With proofreading finished and layout almost complete, I’m hoping to have this out in time for Father’s Day. You know deep down every dad’s a pirate!
Disclaimer: I did some art for Scott on this book, including the cover itself.
Jeff’s Notes
Jeff Richard, the current mastermind on everything Gloranthan at Chaosium, is often posting notes and thoughts on the RuneQuest Facebook group. Here’s our curated list from the past week. A partial archive of these sources is compiled on the Well of Daliath.
the Yelmalio cult did not always fight in phalanxes, let alone in pike formations. At times they have been better known for being horsemen or even charioteers! Starting in the late First Age the Sun Dome Temples became increasingly known for their disciplined spear formations. By the Second Age, the Sun Dome Templars had recognized that discipline plus their long spears gave them a tremendous advantage even against more powerful war gods.
In Prax, the Yelmalio cult was invited in by the Yelm worshipping Pure Horse People, who recruited the Sun Dome Templars to fight against Thog and his allied dark trolls. That’s the Yelm connection in Sun County by the way – a nearly forgotten connection to the Khan of the Horse People, their suzerain.
Often I’m getting lost with all the different Yelmalio cult timelines, between those who are on horses and those who are on foot and those who fight here or there. Someone will have to make a diagram some day…
I rarely use the word “Heortling” to describe the Orlanthi of Sartar and Heortland, prefering “Sartarite,” “Heortlander,” or even just “Orlanthi.” When I get manuscripts with the term, I usually edit it to one of the above – unless the term is referring to the people of Dragon Pass and surrounding lands the First Age or early Second Age.
The reason for this is that the culture – its organization, language, even cultic practices, so dramatically changed that it is quite an anachronism to call them “Heortlings”. Most Sartarites call themselves “Sartarites”, while the Heortlanders often call themselves Heortlanders or Hendriki.
Even if you ignore the cultural and historical reasons, I’m all for making terms easier to understand and grasp, especially for newbies. The people of Sartar are Sartarites, and the people of Heortland are Heortlanders… that’s good, right?
In the First Age, the people of Dragon Pass called themselves the “people of Heort” or Heortlings. This lasted a bit into the Second Age, but when the old tribes disappeared, the old institutions were gone, and folk started to talk with dragons, I expect that changed. Only Lhankor Mhy scholars likely still do that, like the use of the Latin title “Dei Gratia Suecorum, Gothorum et Vandalorum Rex” by the early modern Swedish kings.
More on that here. And by the way, Jeff pronounces “Heortling” as “Hee-yort-ling”.
In between the First Age and the Third was the Empire of the Wyrms Friends. The Dragon Pass Orlanthi were the foundation of the EWF. They lost much of their ancient culture during this period of dragon worship. The splendid and colorful age combined many parts of many ideas to make a new wholeness. When the EWF collapsed and was destroyed the successors were not a restored version of the First Age Heortlings, but something new.
What we have in the Third Age is not the same culture as in the First – even the Orlanth cult has changed, with the Orlanth Rex cult giving great authority to the Prince and tribal kings. The Orlanthi of Heortland had far greater cultural and religious influence from Esrolia (remember they had tried to conquer Esrolia in the late Second/early Third Ages), and later strong influences from the Holy Country (and lesser influences from the Lunar Empire). I think a different and less anachronistic term is more than warranted.
Jeff continues:
the [Dragonkill War] killed pretty much anyone who could call themselves Heortling with a straight face. The Hendriki were not a Heortling tribe (they were formed out of rebels against the Broken Council and called themselves Hendrikings for a good reason) and outside of the Kingdom of Dragon Pass (which later became the EWF).
Language similarities follow the same idea:
Sartarite/Heortlander is heavily influenced by Esrolian. Old Pavic might be the closest to Second Age “Heortling”.
The EWF influence spread through the so-called Barbarian Belt in the 800s. Lakrene was EWF by 850, Anadikki by 870, and parts of Brolia were taxed around 890. The process was for draconic groups to enter the Orlanthi lands, intimidate them and kill the leaders, then impress them with kindness. Once acclimated to draconic ways, the tribes were eventually made responsible for collecting the EWF taxes, and spreading their word, to the next tribe or clan to the west. The collectors were well rewarded in dragon lore, and in valuable goods. Thus a few great behemoth dragons slowly wended their way across the land, escorted by regional tribesmen. As a result, a wave of refugees always preceded the EWF missionaries, eventually collecting in the backwards, poor land of Brolia.
If, like me, you’re utterly unfamiliar with these Second Age region names, Jeff provided the following map so you can follow along:
So if we think about how this might have worked, we might have some Storm Voices who can speak Auld Wyrmish riding wyverns or wyrms, some intelligent wyrms, a few other dragon speakers, maybe a dream dragon, some dragonewt auxiliaries, and plenty of tribal militia (some riding dinosaurs) and mercenaries (Humakti, Yelmalio, etc.). That’s pretty impressive, and can quickly roll over opponents. Then you show kindness and magnanimity to the defeated and offer them something to gain. It just steamrolls along.
Since these latest posts from Jeff have not been archived on the Well of Daliath (yet), I’m going to keep copy/pasting for a little bit:
The Carmanian Empire lasted from about 750 to about 1250. It was founded, as the stories go, by “atheist barbarians from the West”. For most of their history “atheist barbarians” were able to rule a polyglot empire that consisted of Pelandans, Dara Happans, and Theyalans. The ruling dynasty were skilled at respectfully acknowledging and using the gods of their subjects without submitting to any of them.
In a world where there is evidence that gods actually exist, being an “atheist” is mostly about what you think these entities are. Jeff stated that the Carmanians are “‘atheists’ in the sense that the gods are explainable magical phenomena that can be studied and controlled.” Remember that sorcerers totally agree that, say, there’s a big, generally blue guy who calls himself Orlanth and has Storm magic. But these sorcerers don’t worship that guy nor do they acknowledge that he’s anything special — except that he’s a big powerful pile of magical energy, and they are totally looking for ways to bind it and use it!
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Red Goddess first showed up in the middle of the Carmanian Empire, a place full of crazy sorcerers.
The leaders ruling dynasty often assigned autonomous appanages to members of their family. The most famous of these is when the Three Brothers divided the world. Nadar of Carmania was a great king (or shah) but had no sons. His daughter was married to a Dara Happan emperor (Sarenesh) and had three sons. When Nadar died, the sons were acclaimed rulers of both Carmania and Dara Happa. The senior son Sassacar (Kewetesh in Dara Happan sources) received Carmania and the title of King of Kings (Padishah), while the middle son Heredesh was given Dara Happa. The youngest son Verenmars received nothing except command of the armies fighting against the EWF – he conquered a kingdom of his own in Saird.
Of course the children of these brothers fought each other. Heredesh’s son Karsdevan proclaimed “I am not a Carmanian” and over the next few generations there were purges of Carmanian influences from Dara Happa, that eventually became three generations of dynastic conflict that only ended with the Invincible Golden Horde and the Dragonkill War.
The Carmanian dynasty retained their “atheist” reputation for their entire history, and the ruling dynasty were patrons of an Malkioni sect that had an elaborate dualist cosmology and adapted deities from its subject peoples into comprehensible forms. Individual members of the ruling dynasty were often eclectic in their practices, and histories show the cults of Yelm, Humakt, and even Storm Bull.
Jeff notes:
Having “atheist barbarians” dominate Peloria and locked in conflict with the dragon-mystic Orlanthi of the Empire of the Wyrms Friends gives us something that feels very different from our Third Age conflicts.
The atheist barbarians though were definitely preferably (at least to the Dara Happens and Rinliddi rebels) to the “Urox barbarians” of the later Carmanian Empire. This was founded in 1139 by usurpers from Vangstal and ruled until the Battle of Four Arrows of Light in 1147.
This battle is listed to have happened in 1241 in the Sourcebook and the Guide, so I don’t know if Jeff made a typo here. But that battle is when the recently created Red Goddess brought the recently discovered Crimson Bat to the Carmanians, and utterly destroyed their capital and ruling family.
Of course, the Carmanian rulers are “barbarians” as far as the Dara Happens, Pelandans, and Theyalans are concerned. They speak a strange language, have odd customs, and their food is strange! And their bread is made of black rye, not wheat or barley. They worship our gods strangely, do not offer sacrifices to their own gods, and have evil sorcerers among them who claim to command gods and spirits.
Let’s keep going with random bits of history, this time with recent Tarshite history (if you’re new to this, Tarsh is the formerly Orlanthi and now Lunarized Kingdom located on the other side of Kero Fin from Sartar):
King Pharandros of Tarsh has been on throne for 15 years in 1625. Educated in Glamour and Syllila, Pharandros is culturally a Lunar Heartlander. The son of the famed Lunar magician and polymath, King Moirades, who ruled for over 30 years, and grandson of the heroic King Phargentes One-Arm, who ruled a quarter-century, Pharandros suffers somewhat in comparison to the deeds of his ancestors. He is a generous patron of the Lunar University of the Provinces, and has recruited famed scholars and artists from far and wide. He has sponsored the construction of many grand buildings, including the Moirasseum, expansions of the royal palace, and building many shrines, monuments, and temples.
Pharandros has two half-siblings – Inkarne, who is the newly acclaimed Feathered Horse Queen, and Phargentes, the teenaged son of King Moirades and Jar-eel (from the union in 1610 which killed Moiraides). Neither live in Furthest.
The bulwark of the Lunar Dynasty in Tarsh has been the Orindori clan. Vostor Blacktooth was right-hand of King Phargentes, and a general of the Lunar Army, who fought at Grizzly Peak. Vostor grew up in the Lunar Heartlands, in the household of the exiled princes, Philigos and Phargentes. Vostor was 24 when the Empire re-invaded Tarsh, and he commanded a cavalry contingent in the fight, showing himself to be clever, confident, and competent.
The Battle of Grizzly Peaks happens much later, in 1582, and marks the definitive victory of the Lunars in Tarsh. Also, to understand the bit about the “exiled princes” we need to roll back to 1538 when Palashee Longaxe, an old-school rebel, manages to take back Tarsh from the Lunars. Philigos and his entourage have to flee to Furthest. Palashee sits on the throne for almost two (probably very unstable) decades, until the Lunars “re-invade” for good, with Vostor Blacktooth leading some of the attacks.
This should be enough to follow Jeff with the next bit:
Though Philigos was slain, Phargentes made a brilliant recovery, slew Palashee, and became king himself. The year was 1556. Vostor was rewarded with Dunstop and most of Kordros Island.
Vostor had four sons and one daughter by two wives. They were all loyal and brave. The brothers all became Lunar soldiers who fought often for their king. The eldest son, Farrad, died at age 28 in the Battle of Grizzley Peak (1582) which smashed the Sartar army. The second son, Goslem, died at age 23 in the Battle of Bagnot (also 1582), when he acted rashly and attacked too soon. The third son was Wassail. He was quick to rise in the priesthood and helped Phargentes arrange the difficult magic which helped kill Sartar prince Terasarin in 1600. Fazzur was the youngest son, born in 1564. He was a gifted child and a talented soldier, receiving his commission early. Vostos’ last child, a daughter, was born in 1568 and was named Harsta. She was a proud and haughty noblewoman, and wed the son of King Phargentes – Moirades – and was the mother of Pharandros.
Fazzur was the dominant figure in Pharandros’ court, becoming a Lunar General, and later Imperial Governor-General of Dragon Pass. He was never much of a “politician” but served his nephew ably and loyally. Fazzur was removed from his imperial offices by the Red Emperor in 1621, and was replaced with Tatius the Bright, from a Raibanth noble house closely tied to the Red Emperor and his court.
Fazzur has two sons, Onjur and Annstad, and unlike their father, both regularly clash with their royal cousin. Both are learned men, greatly gifted in mind and body, and talented soldiers like their father. Onjur led the defense of Tarsh against a major Tusk Rider raid, killing their leader in personal combat. In Furthest, Annstad was notorious mainly for seducing priestesses and married women, and for his good looks and sybaritic lifestyle. He surprised all by initiating to Orlanth Thunderous at Kero Fin in 1625.
The year 1622 was a busy year in the Gloranthan meta-plot, but that’s when this “major Tusk Rider raid” happened. Called either “Battle of the Porkers” or “the Great Boar Hunt”, it saw the Tusk Riders mount a massive raid from the Ivory Plinth into Tarsh. Some sources say that Fazzur himself was also heavily involved in organizing the Tarshite defences.
As for Annstad, he will surprise people even more when he joins the side of Argrath Whitebull… unless he’s a double agent? Indeed, Jeff reveals that “Annstad is also a Red Goddess initiate…..” With that amount of dots at the end of the statement, it seems obvious Annstad is up to something….. (I’ll remind you that initiation into the Red Goddess requires Illumination, which means being able to ignore all kinds of cult limitations)
In recent years, the king has increasingly viewed Fazzur, and more importantly his children, as a growing threat. The Dragonrise and rebellion of Sartar has greatly contributed to the king’s paranoia, and when the King begged Fazzur to come out of retirement after the Dragonrise, the speed by which Fazzur gathered an army loyal to him terrified the royal court in Furthest. While Fazzur fought at Dangerford, Pharandros had several allies of the Orindori convicted on charges of treason.
Although Fazzur is still outwardly loyal and dutiful, his sons are in open disobedience to the king, seeking allies and fomenting trouble.
In 1625, King Pharandros is 43 years old. He is skilled with weapons, a Red Goddess initiate, is erudite, learned, and a skilled military captain. He is also reckless, paranoid, and unprincipled.
Again, don’t forget that initiation into the Red Goddess requires Illumination… Pharandros is not to be taken lightly.
Pharandros is married to a noble woman from the Lunar Heartlands. Together they have three children. If I recall, they were married in 1602 in a ceremony overseen by the Red Emperor himself!
Some other comments from Jeff:
One thing about Lunar Tarsh is that the Lunar population is overwhelmingly in Furthest and its environs. The city of Furthest, with less than 3% of the total population has 11% of the entire Seven Mothers cult and about the same percentage of the entire Hon-eel cult.
For the decade before the Dragonrise, the most famous humans in Dragon Pass were probably King Pharandros and Fazzur Wideread, followed by the Feathered Horse Queen and Sir Ethilrist. Prince Temertain was pretty much just installed in Boldhome to keep the Sartarite tribes happy and allow an end to Starbrow’s Rebellion.
This history of Dragon Pass in the Second Age seems to re-use a lot of existing material from the Sourcebook and the Guide, so I’m not going to archive it here — it’s too long for that anyway. I’ll let someone else go through the exercise of spotting any new or different bits.
I will however show you this map Jeff shared for the occasion… it’s very interesting if you want to know where the EWF cities mentioned in various obscure material are located (Tikal, Bon Bolar, etc.) That’s possibly where your adventurers will find dangerously draconic items, creepy EWF ghosts, and more!
These two big slabs of text on Third Age Dragon Pass (Part 1 and Part 2) have not been archived on the Well of Daliath yet, but are also too big to reproduce here anyway. They seem to mostly pull from available material from the Sourcebook and the Guide, similarly to the previous segment. It possibly clarifies a few things, such as how the Feathered Horse Queen rose to power, but nothing we haven’t discussed in the Journal already. Again, I’ll let someone else figure out if there’s any real differences or new bits.
Just like the previous segment, there is a map that comes with it, showing the early stages of the Dragon Pass repopulation.
The second post continues the history of Dragon Pass, again drawing from and summarizing existing material. There’s a bit more emphasis on the pre-Sartarite tribes who “lived as lawless bandits, plundering the ever-increasing caravans that pass through”, and how they became a lot more civilized and organized under Sartar’s reign and subsequent dynasty. There are also a maybe a few more sentences about Tarkalor and Monrogh Lantern’s role in “bringing peace” to the Sun worshipers, who evolved into the modern Yelmalio cult. Hard to say — again I’ll let someone else do the “spot the differences” game. But Jeff spills the beans on the intent behind this editorial work:
There’s a lot in there. Little or none of the information is new, but the attempt is to present it from an overall Dragon Pass perspective rather than just Sartar and also to emphasise how transformational Sartar and his dynasty were.
One thing that is worth keeping in mind is that until 1602, Sartar was the richer and more powerful kingdom than Tarsh. Phargentes certainly was able to contest with Sartar, but needed imperial resources to do so. Even then, Sartar was able to more or less hold its own – and even expand – although the long term trend was towards Tarsh, especially after 1582. However, it was the Lunar Empire, not Tarsh, that conquered Sartar in 1602.
And of course there’s a map! Modern Sartar is starting to take shape…
Edit: now archived on the Well of Daliath here and here.
Community Roundup
The community roundup is our highlight of interesting things being mentioned in the Glorantha-related Facebook groups, sub-Reddits, and other similar online places.
UK Games Expo & Eternal Convention
Jonstown Compendium embassador Nick Brooke at UKGE 2022
Two face-to-face conventions just ended: one is the UK Games Expo, the trade show for our hobby in the United Kingdom (pictured above all around Nick), and the other is the Eternal Convention in Bacharach am Rhein, in Castle Stahleck. If you were there, played some Gloranthan games, and have some convention report written somewhere, send us the link!
OpenQuest Online 2022
OpenQuest is an RPG system that traces its lineage back to RuneQuest (through some convoluted connections), so this might be of interest to Gloranthaphiles. Plus, it was designed by Newt Newport, long-time Gloranthan contributor, and features quite a few ducks.
Anyway, Newt has announced an online convention for summer 2022, so if you haven’t yet, here’s your chance to play a system that some people have described as “the subset of RuneQuest that people actually play“. Registration is open on Warhorn.
These were from a wee while ago, before the Starter Set map came came along and made everything much more relatable. (All hail the Starter Set map.) I was kinda filling in what I thought were gaps in the approaches used by the published maps I’d seen up to that point. (Those published maps are still great though.)
You will see that I hit my artistic pinnacle on the Sartar map with the drawing of the symbol for the Dragonrise’d Temple of the Reaching Moon. Rarr.
Matthew Constantine Unboxes the RuneQuest Starter Set
You probably already know what’s in the box — you most probably even own it yourself! But hey, maybe you need to show someone about it, in which case, here’s another unboxing!
Dario Corallo’s Next Art Pack
Art by Dario Corallo
Dario Corallo is teasing his next art pack for the Jonstown Compendium with these drawings of Yanioth, Vasana, and an Agimori pikeman.
Ossi Hiekkala’s Character
Art by Ossi Hiekkala
Chaosium cover artist Ossi Hiekkala shared this painting of Jaramoor the Potter, his “first ever RQ character” (Ossi had only been a gamemaster until recently). You can read Ossi’s character backstory:
When Jaramoor was young, he was a dashing light cavalry officer, a son of an Old Tarsh noble woman, grandson of a Storm Voice hero. He was a close friend of a prince and the royal household of Sartar, and the prince’s bodyguard, too.
And after one fatal negligence of duty: a refugee, a bandit, a drunkard and a beggar. He crawled out from the ditches of Badside and became a potter, rather lousy at that.
Old, sickly man. Nobody paid any attention to him, which was all he hoped for life.
Then the hoplites of the Red Moon came to his friends’ homestead, and he had to dig up the axe and the armor he had buried in the acidic soil of Prax.
I have often used Barbie to explain Greek mythology, and people laugh until I explain it, and then they get really serious and thoughtful.
I say, “The Greeks ascribed aspects to gods. Apollo had many aspects, but all were Apollo. He’s like Barbie that way. She’s an astronaut, a veterinarian, and a rollerskater, but no matter which of those things she is in the moment, she is always still Barbie. She is Barbie in her aspect as.”
Then people get not only the idea of “aspects” of godhood, but also, well, the changeable yet eternal nature of Barbie.
And yes, I want a Maran Gor Barbie and a Chalana Arroy Barbie and most of all Babeester Gor Barbie (“Barbiester Gor?”) You know you want them too. The next best thing is of course Jar-Eel Barbie:
If you want, you can actually get some Greek mythology Barbie, including this awesome Athena Barbie:
Thank you for reading
That’s it for this week! Please contact us with any feedback, question, or news item we’ve missed!
Shannon Appelcline is our guest for the 12th episode.
Shannon tells us about his entry into the roleplaying genre, which features the typical games of the early eighties. RuneQuest became one of his main systems when he joined the Erzo game by Eric Rowe, a long-running campaign set on Eric’s own universe, but he also started exploring Glorantha. In the 1990ies , Shannon joined the Chaosium staff.
Shannon’s Glorantha credits include articles for Tradetalk magazine and Ye Book of Tentacles (a series of fundraiser books for the German RuneQuest convention). Shannon also organized RuneQuest conventions in the nineties, and his improvised “Hero Wars” logo made for the 1998 convention ended up on the product.
We talk about the upcoming Elf Pack for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha (the manuscript has been handed in, which means that a series of time-intensive steps need to follow).
We learn about the incarnations of Shannon’s Elf writings, starting with a coverage of all elf forests of Glorantha for the HeroQuest (1st edition) line of Issaries Inc. But due to delays, Greg Stafford taking a sabbatical teaching English and studying shamanism in Mexico, the Issaries line closing down, and HeroQuest 2nd Edition taken in license by MoonDesign, this first manuscript was never published.
Around that time, Mongoose published their “Glorantha – The Second Age” line, and unwilling to see some other authors contradicting more than 1000 pages of material, Shannon contacted Mongoose and offered to write the elf supplement for them. Despite usually working with in-house writers, Shannon managed to convince the company. The result was Elfs: A Guide to the Aldryami, written in just three months – a short time compared to the other two manuscripts, but very long for a Mongoose RuneQuest book.
About the current version of Elf Pack, we learn that it is (mostly) focused on the Dragon Pass area, like the rest of the latest RuneQuest books.
Designers & Dragons
Shannon’s major contribution to the hobby is his history of roleplaying games titled Designers & Dragons. An original massive 2-volume book expanded into the current form which has four books, with one book per decade. It is available in print from Evil Hat (or translated into other languages, like German or French), with additional volumes with somewhat different focus added over the time.
Shannon has a few more volumes in the works, including “The Lost Histories”, two volumes of stuff that did not go into the first four volumes.
Shannon talks about Reaching Moon Megacorp as one relevant example of Gloranthan publications.
The 2010s volume is about to be collected, as a certain distance is required to make sure no trends are overlooked: Shannon talks about how his volume on the 2000s missed the Old School Renaissance movement.
Another ongoing project is four volumes on the TSR histories talking about all 100+ TSR publications (OD&D, 1st ed. AD&D and Basic D&D) for the D&D Classic website on Drivethrurpg.
Last but not least, Shannon is working on a publication history of Traveller for Mongoose.
We also mention a recent article on rpg.net on the many editions of RuneQuest, Traveller and Talislanta, part of Shannon’s Advanced Designers and Dragons series there which adds current events, eulogies, and occasional glimpses into the work-flow.
This is not an “Aldryami 101” episode, we assume that listeners have, at least, access to the Glorantha Bestiary. For a full newcomer presentation of the Aldryami, you can of course read the Bestiary, or watch the Exploring Glorantha episode on the topic.
Elf Culture
Elevator pitch: Plant people in tune with their forest interacting with it in a collaborative way where they really are all one
Comparison with Tolkienesque elves in standard fantasy (literature and rpgs) and the difference in appearance.
Evolution of elf depictions for RuneQuest: Gaunt faces, spiked ears – that’s about the main common denominator of early elf artwork, with increasing treeishness as the time proceeds.
Different elf types matching certain types of trees or forests.
Is there space for “elfs” based on other plants?
Shannon mentions vampiric trees sucking up nutrients or sap from other trees in the network.
Undead as seen by elfs – petrified trees, trees hollowed out by insects, vampiric ones.
Vine elfs – Shannon wrote a myth why those aren’t around any more.
Elder Races pantheons may tend to be smaller than human ones.
Elf deities shared with humans
Seedings of generations of gods by primordial ones.
The Elf “Secret” – Elfsense, the ability to pick up the experiences of plant beings around them.
The importance of Aldrya, who upholds the forest
Elf Philosophy
Balance: Growth balanced by Taking
Cycles: Reincarnation, though without memory of individual experiences (but then those are held by the forests)
Making the myth matter in the game
Lots of myths not included in the Elf Pak manuscript
Myths as patterns for a heroquest (another word for an adventure)
A preview on the upcoming scenario “The Great Graft”, set in the Stinking Forest
The first Pruner among the elfs
Playing an Elf
Four major Passions:
Loyalty to Forest – find out the goals of your forest
Devotion Grower – further Growth, spread life
Devotion Balance – realize that every single elf is your brother, and all the other races are too, even though they may have the opposite job
Devotion to Cycle – things that are killed will return, and so will you if you die.
Different psychology of Green and Brown Elfs
Elf emotions being spread out into the forest, delaying a reaction.
Green emotions (communal) vs. Red emotions (individual) vs. Black emotions (anti-community).
Five forests of the Dragon Pass region:
The Old Woods (easternmost region of Arstola) – dissidents from mainstream Arstola, lost the site of the Great Tree when probably Arkat cut it down at the end of the Dawn Age
Tarndisi’s Grove – about the smallest an elf forest can become
The Stinking Forest
The Vale of Flowers (including the normal trees of the Flower Wood)
The Dryad Woods – including an adventure about the Forest of Wondrous Beasts
Not included, but Shannon elucidates on it: the Redwoods of Dagori Inkarth/Prax
Bringing elfs into the game:
Rootless elfs – elfs cut off from Elfsense
Rooted elfs – elfs pursuing the goals of their forest
Elfs are long-lived and have long-rooted plans
Range of elf-sense – a quarter-mile outside of the forest they lose contact and are left alone with their emotions etc.
Purpose-grown material or even individuals
The role of rootless elfs in elf society – a constant source of pity
Flamals seed came to rest on the three elements. Those that fell on Gata (Earth) became the Green, Brown and Yellow elfs, those that fell on Sramak became the various types of Murthoi or Blue elfs, and those that fell on fire became the lost White Elfs of the peak of the Spike. Those are the true elfs.
The Hybrid Races were born out of the moment of Balance between Growing and Taking, and that’s where the Red Elfs are grouped by the true elfs, right alongside the humans and other non-autotrophs.
Lesser aldryami races – Runners, Pixies, Sprites
The role of the dryads in elf society – demi-gods, something akin to the Mistress Race uz.
First encounter in an elf forest – usually an arrow.
Kings and queens of elfdom, nobility of the elfs, are more of a diplomat caste than rulers.
Vronkali were the ones who learned to Take in order to survive. The Mreli chose to accept death rather than give up their natures, and got re-awakened after the Dawn.
Hostility between elfs and other Elder Races.
Does the Cycle come into the destruction of the world in the Gods War? Shannon counters with Grower being reborn as five entities, finally Voria to restart the Cosmos.
Elfs and the Man Rune – individuality as the primal sin, the unfortunate outcome of the Green Age ending.
Intra-elf conflicts: God Learners call it Aldrya’s Woe, the elfs call it the Planting.
Runic Rants is an irregular series of thoughts, opinions, and experiments about RuneQuest.
Why do some Heortlings get involved with Chaos when they know it’s really really bad?
Short answer (in my opinion of course): people are flawed, and Chaos is hidden under multiple layers that permeate through the edges of Heortling society.
Chaos is Bad, M’Kay?
Just because something is bad doesn’t mean people will stop doing it. Heortlings are humans, and humans are deeply flawed. They get angry, desperate, and envious. They cheat, steal, kill, and worse. Everything bad that happens on Earth also happens in Glorantha. But in Glorantha, Chaos often lurks further down.
Besides, the “Chaos is bad, m’kay?” rhetoric probably loses its impact after a while for anybody who does not have a “Hate/Fear Chaos” Passion. The emotion of the moment, the pressure of the situation, the obligations to other people, all have more immediate importance — this is why people do bad things, whatever universe they live in.
Sure, Heortlings certainly believe much more deeply that Chaos can destroy their way of life than, say, we Earth humans believe that climate change can destroy ours. But humans are still generally bad at dealing with uncertain, future threats or rewards. They are much better at dealing with the short term. And the short term possibly means dealing with some really shady people.
Once You’re in the Family…
The way I picture it, Chaos is manifested and surrounded by various types of people. There’s a nest of scorpionmen here, a bunch of feral broos there, a hidden temple to Cacodemon somewhere in the middle… but I’m most interested in how Chaos enters cities and tribes. One way might be through criminal organizations.
Sure, not all criminal organizations are Chaotic, the same way that not every street gang in Baltimore, prostitution den in London, email scam office in New Delhi, or drug dealer in Hollywood is necessarily involved in serial killings, human trafficking, or large scale industrial pollution. But human societies are highly connected, and if you dig deep enough, you’re only a few degrees of separation from a ruthless Mexican cartel drug lord or Russian mafia boss1. It only takes a few debts to repay to start walking down these connections.
And that’s one way Chaos seeps into Glorantha. The road to Chaos is paved with good intentions, and all that. People start with something slightly wrong or illegal, they hire criminal services, they deal with the wrong spirits, and unless they make an effort to pull out, they risk gravitating towards Chaos as they navigate these connections. Plus, they might not even know! How can you tell whether this merchant you’ve “helped” get business from the clan ring is “just” a corrupt opportunist, or a worshipper of Mallia? Are you even going to ask? He’s got muscle, and you already owe him a lot. You did what you did to get your wife some urgent care when the Chalana Arroy temple was full, and you like your kneecaps intact, thank you very much. It’s better to look the other way, and not think about it too much when you hear that the tribal Issaries priest has died of a surprisingly fast-acting disease…
Of course, shortly after, they’re telling you that they need your participation with something on the next Black Moon, and you have to bring a dead rat. That’s probably nothing?
Update: based on the feedback I got from this article on Discord, I want to clarify the point I’m making. The point isn’t about whether criminal organizations are Chaotic (not necessarily) or about the nature of Chaos (it’s complicated). The point is about world-building and narrative design, which is something I’m looking into as I prepare my next campaign arc.
I’m thinking of TV series like Justified or The Wire, where local criminal groups like the Bennett clan or the Barksdale gang are connected to various other factions, including an invariably scarier, bigger, and powerful shadow in the distance, such as the Detroit mob or the Greek mafia. These mysterious factions, represented only by a few visiting characters, supply the main protagonists with the resources they need, such as the drugs they deal throughout the series. But we eventually get a hint of the broader picture. For instance, a container full of dead East European prostitutes washes up on the docks and the corrupt port workers’ union, who was previously only used to forging cargo manifests and operating dead-drops, now has to go out of their way to protect their “sponsors” from a full-on human trafficking police investigation that threatens to unravel the truth.
In this comparison, the criminal hillbilly dynasties of Kentucky, corrupt docker unions of Maryland, and street gangs of Baltimore are not Chaotic. The drugs they smuggle and sell aren’t Chaotic either2. But the leading families of the Detroit and Greek mobs would in this case be stand-ins for Chaotic cults, and the container full of bodies would be a direct consequence of Chaotic activity. This is how I’m currently building up my factions, and how I’m looking at stories where players uncover Chaotic activity in their lands. I’m talking about stories like the classic thriller/noir structure of starting with a simple or unremarkable problem, and eventually uncovering vast conspiracies and deep rooted corruption. Only I’m not building stories, here — I’m building a world that is (hopefully) conductive to these stories. A connected world where Chaos survives because it finds a place inside an ecosystem.
I’m curious about your campaign, though: where are your Chaos cults, what are they up to, and how do your players find them? Let me know!
2 Although I reserve the right to make an adventure where a new type of drug gives you temporary Chaotic features! Hey, if that trope works in Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green, with Tcho-tcho smuggling operations and drugs laced with Mythos magic, it can work in Glorantha too!
If you have any comment about this Runic Rant, or some ideas for a future installment, please send them to us!
Welcome to a new issue of the Journal of Runic Studies, the premier Malkioni publication for studies into the nature of Glorantha. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please consult with the spirit bound to the appropriate electronic page.
We reached issue #50 of the Journal! That’s some sort of milestone, I suppose. Joerg tells me this is the “gold” edition of the Journal, and I’m wondering why he’s feeling so romantic about it. Oh well, I’m busy starting the layout for my second Jonstown Compendium adventure, which I thought would have already been out by now, but you know how these things go.
The RuneQuest Starter Set cover by Ossi Hiekkala is now available on the Redbubble store, which means you get get that wonderful picture of Vasana & friends fighting a Krarshtkid on, say, a skirt or a shower curtain or a pillow. If you’re a very boring person, I suppose you could simply get it as a poster but you’re not a boring person, are you? You’re a brave person, who goes where nobody dares to go!
Jonstown Compendium
The Jonstown Compendium is Chaosium’s community content program for all Gloranthan games, hosted on DriveThruRPG. Disclaimer: all the relevant links are affiliate links that hopefully will let us cover some of the hosting and maintenance costs for the website and podcast! Thanks for using them!
Day’s Rest
Jamie Revell, who usually specializes in the Genertelan West, has released a book on Day’s Rest, one of the oases of Prax:
This is a mini-sandbox setting describing one of the Praxian oases closest to Sartar and including fourteen NPCs that can provide interaction or story possibilities for RuneQuest games in Glorantha. It also provides a guide to the often-overlooked Oasis Folk of Prax.
Jeff’s Notes
Jeff Richard, the current mastermind on everything Gloranthan at Chaosium, is often posting notes and thoughts on the RuneQuest Facebook group. Here’s our curated list from the past week. A partial archive of these sources is compiled on the Well of Daliath.
The Collective Unconsciousness
Jeff has some thoughts about the “Collective Unconsciousness” of some RPG settings, such as the God Time in Glorantha, the Dreamlands in Call of Cthulhu, or the Enchanted Britain of Pendragon. As mentioned in issue 47 of the Journal, now that Jeff’s Facebook posts are correctly archived on the Well of Daliath, I won’t always quote them in full here. This is the case here so follow the links if you want the full thing.
So in RuneQuest, this is heroquesting into the realm of myth. In RuneQuest, myth describes the eternally occuring events of the God Time – by that I mean that the God Time is not the past, present, or future, but something that is constantly there on the “other side.” The mythic event where the Sun was killed by Storm is always occuring, as is the mythic event where the Sun was returned to the heavens by the gods. This is the realm of archetypes and the source of stories – we might give some of these entities and stories names to better grasp them, maybe we call this Zeus and Cronus or Orlanth and Yelm to better ground ourselves, but the names can be deceptive. It is the archetype that we are dealing with – everything else is something we add to it.
[…]
RPG adventures into the unconscious are great fun (and can feel very primal and powerful regardless of system) but they pose hurdles on the GM and players. How do we interact with an archetype – it is both more powerful but also less powerful than us. Adolescent Jack can defeat the Giant, and the Wolf can devour Granny without killing her. How do we travel through the realm of archetypes – a voyage in the realm of myth or dream does not have the same sense of space as a horse journey through Late Antiquity Britain, Dragon Pass, or a train journey across Europe. Heck, how do we distinguish between the unconscious realm and the mundane? Endless dreaming is of course indistinguishable from death, and we want our characters to live! But I find this adventuring in the unconscious showing up in all of my games – even our explorations of Ringworld.
That’s interesting, and of course that’s just Jeff own preferences being laid out. Personally, I don’t know if the diegetic recursion is very important to my games. I don’t necessarily need my character to delve into some collective unconscious inside the game when, really, I am already doing that by playing an RPG to be begin with. Because that’s what the game is: it’s a collective world of stories in which we interact with archetypes through our characters. Only they’re not necessarily “raw” archetypes, it’s up the gamemaster to craft NPCs that are either primal or complex. Interestingly enough, some games like Unknown Armies even integrate NPCs-as-archetypes into the lore of the setting.
What seems interesting to me is that these settings have “strange” mechanics that are accessible through a unique activity that happens to be a bit meta. Without heroquesting, Glorantha might be “just” a sword & sandals setting, but it’s enhanced by the ability to interact with myths and get rules-breaking effects. The reason that Call of Cthulhu’s Dreamlands weren’t too interesting in previous editions is, I think, that there wasn’t much in the way of dreaming mechanics where one can “push” on the dreamscape and have it push back, or whatever you can think of that would make the Dreamlands more than “just” a parallel fantasy universe. And thankfully from what Mike Mason has been sharing, this is going to change.
Greg’s Map Projections
Map alert! Jeff has shared some new (as far as I know) Glorantha cartography from Greg Stafford’s archives:
One of Greg’s many interesting map projections intended to get a better feel for how things fit together, I particularly like this one as it shows the connection between Delela and Dorastor, and Halikiv and Aggar, as well as how far off Talastar is from Dragon Pass.
My ex-GIS developer brain will quickly gloss over the use of “map projection” here and dive into the map proper:
The second of these maps goes further west, and again shows how far the Orlanth hill culture extends in the west, And nicely compares northern Ralios to the Lunar Provinces.
I put both maps together, just because I’m that kind of guy:
I don’t see much difference from the Argan Argar Atlas maps, although it’s tricky to compare them since North points at an angle here. At least, it’s nice to have all the landmarks removed, with only the region names written down (these names were only given secondary importance on the AAA maps, and were often obscured by all the cities and rivers and forests and such).
The Horse Queens
Jeff talks about the two main horse queens of central Genertela. The first is of course the Feathered Horse Queen of the Grazelands, and the other one is the Queen of Filichet, in Holay, a province of the Lunar Empire. They both descend somehow from the same solar Pure Horse People ancestors:
These traditions have been separated for nearly a thousand years. And yet they reach to similar archetypes and places in the Hero Plane – the horse-loving goddess who grants the right to rule the land.
One of the nice things about the worldbuilding of Glorantha is that it can get as much philosophical as it gets mythical. For instance, each culture and cult has their own idea about where we come from, where we go when we die, and even, sometimes, what is the nature of the soul. In a BRP Central thread about sorcery, Jeff talks briefly about this topic. Of course, it starts with the usual Gloranthan disclaimer that “yes, everything is true to some degree“:
I can easily say the Brithini view and the Orlanthi view are equally true interpretations of what happens when you die. It just depends on what you are saying is your essential “you”.
Remember, few people believe that there is only one soul. What we track as the existential Self depends on what we focus on.
Everybody’s favourite wizard, Zzabur, has famously strong opinions about “the self” and how he really really doesn’t want to lose it:
Zzabur says that the will, the ego, the self – all that is explainable in materialist terms as matter and energy. There is spirit and soul, and that is the energy source that powers the raw matter – the body. But when the body dies, the energy is NOT the self. And thus it is nonsense to talk about Solace or whatever. Sure maybe some of that energy goes to various places, but you are not that energy.
Solace is some sort of Western Malkioni epiphany that lets you become an “Ascended Master”, which may or may not be a big deal depending on which Malkioni school of thought you adhere to (more on that in last week’s Journal). Either way, Zzabur doesn’t buy it. I guess that you either are, or you aren’t. Whatever remains after your death is an echo, or something that believes it’s you.
Anyway, like I mentioned, various cultures have various opinions on the souls. Dara Happans and other solar-based cultures generally think your soul has 6 parts, while the Orlanthi think your soul has 5 parts… although funnily enough it sort of overlaps with your physical body:
The number of souls we say a person has is really a matter of how a cult defines things. So with the Orlanthi we have:
– Darkness Soul (the individual’s shadow); – Water Soul (blood and bodily fluids); – Earth Soul (bones, tissues); – Fire Soul (bodily heat); and – Air Soul (the vital breath).
The Orlanth cult says your vital breath is the essential you – and it, as magical Air, will return to Orlanth’s Hall until it is carried down again by Orlanth’s winds to return to the world. If you are a hero, part of it always exists there in Orlanth’s Hall.
Meanwhile, the Ernalda cult focuses on the bones and tissues that can be preserved and cared for within the Earth, where its magical essence resides with Ty Kora Tek.
And it is possible to meet the same dead soul in both the Lands of the Dead (Ty Kora Tek) and Storm Home or at the Four Winds or wherever.
Jeff expands cryptically on that last bit, about meeting the dead:
How are you discussing with them? How are you meeting them? I mean they are dead after all. Are you wandering around the Hero Plane somewhere trying to find them? Did you critical a Love Family roll while visiting Orlanth’s Hall on his high holy day? Is this the start of the Lightbringers Quest, when the ghosts show up? Are you hiring a Daka Fal priest to summon their spirit? What is going on?
Each approach to the dead is going to have a different result.
I assume that the way you meet the dead, and therefore which aspect of their soul you meet, is going to manifest as a different sort of ghost or spirit with different preoccupations. The Air Soul encountered in the Storm Home might look like an air spirit, transparent and floating like the wind, asking you to carry on with their old grudges and loyalties. The Earth Soul however might be encountered underground, looking like a decomposing skeleton, and mostly concerned with resting and finding peace. I’m obviously making all of this up and I don’t know if that’s what Chaosium’s Glorantha looks like, but I’m gonna keep this in mind for the next time my players want to meet some ancestors.
Caladra and Aurelion – the Volcano Twins – are the patron deities of Caladraland, and some 20% of the population are devoted to them. They are the twin offspring of Lodril and Asrelia – and younger siblings to Ernalda and Maran Gor.
The cult in its current form dates to the Second Age, but is of great importance in Caladraland, and also found among the Ditali.
The Ditali are an Orlanthi tribe from Maniria — go west from Holy Country and you’ll find them.
Jeff uses this bas-relief of Apollo and Artemis as an illustration, since these are also twins in the Greek mythology.
Twins are a matter of great magical significance in Glorantha – each of the Runic polarities can be thought of as manifestation of the cosmic Twins – and you see that a lot in the Earth Religion (Asrelia-Ty Kora Tek, Ernalda-Maran Gor, Babeester Gor-Voria). But I think Caladra and Aurelion are the most important cult where both twins are worshiped together in a single cult.
The Twin Gods combine Heat and Earth, Fertility and Harmony. They are crafters, miners, and musicians – the lyre is their instrument.
Interesting — I never thought of pairing these deities together. Asrelia and Ty Kora Tek are both Earth plus Life/Death. Babeester Gor and Voria are pretty much similar. Ernalda and Maran Gor are both Earth plus Harmony/Disorder plus Life/Death (double the dichotomy!)
Veskarthan is just an old Kethaelan name for Lodril. After a few centuries of God Learner domination, Lodril might be the popular name. He’s the big volcano god. About 11% of the population in Caladraland follow Lodril. The Orlanth cult is about the same size as Lodril in Caladraland (10% of the population).
[…]
The most popular cult in Caladraland is…. Ernalda with some 35% of the population. She is the older sister of the Twins and worshiped as the daughter of Lodril.
About the Larnstings
Here’s a short little thing about the Larnstings, which are interpreted as followers of Orlanth Adventurous and Mastakos, focusing on the Movement Rune magic.
Community Roundup
The community roundup is our highlight of interesting things being mentioned in the Glorantha-related Facebook groups, sub-Reddits, and other similar online places.
Dario Corallo Art
Gloranthan illustrator extraordinaire Dario Corallo has been posting regular pieces of art on Facebook and I’m due for another round-up. Some are commissions, some are works-in-progress, and some are character studies.
Exploring Glorantha Interviews Rick Meints (Again)
The Exploring Glorantha crew, JM and Evan, interview Rick Meints again! They talk about ChaosiumCon, the upcoming Stafford House Campaign book, other upcoming RuneQuest publications, and more!
I’m a big fan of details that add colour to the game. The world is part of the reason why people are playing RuneQuest, not any other game. One that I like, and lean on, is Spell Focuses. My PC has a lot of them, and they are mostly tattoos. She’s got her Heal matrix in the shape of a scar on her right thigh. She was nearly killed in a bar fight by someone with a broken amphora, and to remind herself, and to focus on the learning, she had the scar filled in with woad, and it’s how she focuses on the healing magic.
I think spell foci are a bit like spell components in D&D: everybody knows you’re supposed to have them when you cast your magic, but the vast majority of gamers probably gloss them over and roll the dice directly… anyway, read more here!
Ardwulf’s Roleplaying Ramble
You might already know the Ardwulf’s Lair YouTube channel if you’re a fan of wargaming, Harn, and/or Traveller… but now there are also live-streams, including this brand new “Roleplaying Ramble” series on tabletop RPGs. The first episode is about RuneQuest, a topic that doesn’t seem to be uncommon when it comes to first episodes!
Snakepipe Hollow Walkthrough Part 2
D R has posted the second part of their walk through a 3D reconstruction of Snakepipe Hollow and it’s…. claustrophobic. Part 1 is over here.
Grab the file here, install it, and it should show up as a variant as pictured above.
Elsewhere on Arachne Solara’s Web
Not everything is about Glorantha, although most things are! Here are loosely relevant things that we found on the interwebs.
Neo-Assyrian Rock Art Discovered Under Turkish House
This unfinished Neo-Assyrian art was discovered recently under a Turkish house. It shows some Aramean gods, with Hadad the Storm God at the front, yielding some sort of lightning thingie. What’s interesting is that it dates back to some time between 900 and 600 BCE, when the Neo-Assyrian empire expanded into Aramean settlements. There was an increasing mix between the two cultures, and this mural demonstrates that by showing Aramean gods in a very Assyrian art style.
The panel shows “ … a local cohabitation and symbiosis of the Assyrians and Arameans in a region and period under firm Assyrian imperial control,” the authors write. They call the panel “ … a striking example of regional values in the exercise of imperial power”—a relationship that could have involved a give and take between Assyrians who wanted to impress their new subjects and Arameans eager to please their new overlords.
That’s something I might want to re-use as my RuneQuest campaign plays through the Lunar occupation of the Far Place. The construction of new buildings featuring Lunar-influenced art or architecture, and even maybe the replacement of previously traditional Tarshite sculptures and paintings could be the starting point of some interesting storylines…
The Archeological Museum of Pella, in Greece, has some exhibits about the ancient Kingdom of Macedon, since Pella was its capital (that’s where Alexander the Great was born). Not far from there is the village or Archontiko where a large burial site was found, including thousands of graves dating back to the 6th century BCE.
Of note, there were several individual graves for warriors and nobles whose face was covered with a gold sheet, or whose mouth was covered with a sort of golden medallion called a “stomion”.
I’m immediately thinking of a Yelmalion or other solar burial tradition (because gold is their thing, of course) but I guess you could change the type of metal and use the same idea for really any Gloranthan culture.
