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 issue is shorter than usual because a lot of people (including myself) where at ChaosiumCon from Thursday to Sunday. Expect an article about it this week!

Chaosium News

Here are this week’s Chaosium news!

Mad Knight’s New Kickstarter

Mad Knight has been churning out officially licensed Kickstarters for many lines of Gloranthan miniatures for a few years now, and the new one is up and running! You have 12 days from the time of writing this.

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The new models include Bolgar Stomping Bull riding a Skybull, some Thunder Rebel Flyers, Lunar Sable Lancers, Lunar archers from the “Blessed Daughter” unit, some Newtlings warriors, and a troll spider rider hero.

If you back the Kickstarter, the pledge manager will offer some limited options (as stock allows) for also ordering some of the previous models.

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!

Jonstown Compendium Reviews

Here’s your reminder that if you’re unsure about a Jonstown Compendium item, there are reviews out there! For instance, Pookie from Reviews From R’lyeh has many Jonstown Compendium articles, and Sean Hillman has reviewed A Rough Guide to Glamour on RPG.net.

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.

The Legend of Greg

David Bell found this 1994 article about Greg Stafford while moving houses. It’s from the UK Sunday Express Magazine:

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The second picture should be good enough for you to read it:

With his earrings, pale skin and Caribbean shirt, Stafford seems like an ageing rock star. His fans are often professionals in their twenties or thirties, and produce an array of magazines and books about his works. Using the Internet, which links computers by phone, they swap ideas worldwide.

Nick Ryan, the journalist who wrote the piece, commented on the Facebook post:

I’m the author of said piece and tbf, I also smile at some of the text now . I was a long-time RPer who, as Daniel Barker was saying, was hanging out with the Tales of the Reaching Moon Crew at the time. I wouldn’t over-analyse it (I don’t): it was simply a fun piece in between other commissions, some of which involved going out to war zones. Everyone laughed at the sub-editor adding the line about riches. And I think they did charge me £66!

Wheel of the Year

Here’s another great illustration from previously-featured Lee O’Connor:

I drew this to go in the background of something and then got carried away. Had to colour it too, it was only right.

So it’s a Gloranthan Wheel of the Year with the seasons on; Sea, Fire, Earth, Darkness and Storm. The deities for each one are; Heler, Yelmalio/Elmal, Ernalda, Argan Argar and Vinga / Orlanth Adventurous.

I also stuck in a Maran Gor and Eurmal too, since I have players who are initiates of them. And Umath. And a god who I’m going to leave you to guess. There’s even a really small and wobbly Kallyr Starbrow too. Oh and I realised I missed out Sacred Time, so I crowbarred that in as well.

Humakti Tattoo

Here’s a great Humakti tattoo on Danny Bourne’s arm:

This is as good a time as any for a round-up of Gloranthan tattoos, such as Wesley Samsal’s Rune Magic tattoo, and Ian Brumby’s (of Fenris Games) Runes tattoos:

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Gloranthan Miniatures Pinterest Board

Torbjorn Andersson is maintaining this Pinterest board about Gloranthan miniatures… so if you need colour choices and suggestions, real-world non-marketing pictures or models you’re considering buying, or links to non-Gloranthan models that work in Glorantha, this is a good starting point.

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.

The Urra=hubullu

Yeah apparently, that’s the official name. It’s basically a 24-tablets-long dictionary which translates between Sumerian and Akkadian. It’s organized by topics, so for instance one tablet lists naval vehicles while another lists plants.

There are many other similar tablets.

Historians and linguists might yell at me for my ignorance (preferably in written form so I can publish their comments in a later Journal issue), but here’s the little I understand about this.

Cuneiform can be used both as a syllabogram (a character represents a syllable, like the Japanese hiragana and katakana) and a logogram (a character represents a word or a morpheme, which is basically a “bit of a word”, like the Egyptian hieroglyphs). As a syllabogram, you can technically use cuneiform to write whatever language you want (give or take some approximation of that language’s sounds). This is how services like Dumb Cuneiform can print you a custom tablet without actually translating your text to Akkadian or whatever. This also means that if I had known about it as a kid, I would totally have used cuneiform as a secret language instead of inventing my own.

Anyway, as far as I understand, the tablet in the photo above has Sumerian words on one side and their corresponding Akkadian on the other side. The photo features the 16th tablet of the lexicon which is about “stones”.

Orlanth Going After Yelm

Even though this picture is most likely a digital manipulation, it’s a great bit of flavour to add to, say, your Sacred Time ceremonies when your tribal nobles re-enact the Lightbringers’ Quest.

Greek & Roman Mythology in Movies (Part 2)

I had enjoyed the first video on the topic (featured in issue #37), so of course I checked out the second part which Vanity Fair published a couple weeks ago and which is just as interesting. It even features Jason and the Argonauts and Xena: Warrior Princess, with an absolutely spot-on commentary on both.

Plus, my new English word of the day: “etiological“.

The World’s Oldest Pants

I recently had to put on pants for the first time in ages to take a plane to ChaosiumCon, so let’s talk pants! These are from between 1200 and 1000 BCE in Western China. It was interestingly designed for horseback riding.

The world’s oldest-known pants were part of the burial outfit of a warrior now called Turfan Man. He wore the woven wool pants with a poncho that belted around the waist, ankle-high boots, and a wool headband adorned with seashells and bronze discs. The pants’ basic design is strikingly similar to the pants most of us wear today, but closer inspection reveals the level of engineering that went into designing them.

Exploring Hattusa

If you want to see what the capital of the Hittite empire looks like today, Irena and the Ancient Sites channel has a pretty seemingly complete walk-through of the site and its surroundings, with some historical commentary on top.

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.

This is issue 42 of the Journal! We have reached the meaning of life, the universe, and everything! Thank you to everybody who has subscribed to the newsletter, left a comment, sent an email, or even gave it a like or thumbs up on social media.

Note that next week is ChaosiumCon so the newsletter will be delayed by a day or two while I travel back to Western Canada.

God Learner Sorcery

Here is what us God Learners were up to this week.

Episode 10: Out of the Suitcase

Episode 10 of our podcast is out! Chaosium president Rick Meints chats with us about Pavisite fanzines, ChaosiumCon, RuneQuest streaming, podcasts. his “Index to Glorantha”, foreign licensees, QuestWorlds, LARPing, board games, collector items, and more!

Bog Struggles Sneak Peek

Here’s a preview of the cover for my second RuneQuest adventure! (the first one being, of course, A Short Detour) Bog Struggles is going to be shorter and simpler, as I’m trying to channel the early Beer With Teeth formula of a straightforward encounter that’s very easy to drop in any campaign, is scalable, and has one cool twist. I’m hoping to release by the end of the month!

Chaosium News

Here are this week’s Chaosium news!

RuneQuest is Now Available in PDF

And we’re talking about PDF as in “Papyrus Delivery Format”, of course. You can read the announcement here.

Yep, it’s April again. And I hope you got the Ea-nasir reference.

Balancing Old & New RuneQuest

James Coquillat continues his interviews with Chaosium designers. This one with Jeff Richard is very interesting because it deals with the Gloranthan design process, including how to deal with the 40 years of material, how to revise it, and how to find new things to invent. Jeff talks about the Elmal/Yelmalio problem, heroquesting, and more interesting things!

We Are Featured on Chaosium’s Blog!

The latest “Out of the Suicase” post on Chaosium’s blog mentions Rick’s interview with us this month. Plus: a funny advert for RuneQuest from 1983!

What’s Next for RuneQuest

Jason Durall, line editor for RuneQuest at Chaosium, has given some informal update on the current product pipeline:

The Gamemaster Sourcebook is well underway. I work on it almost daily, though managing all of the other projects and keeping them moving eats a bit into that time. I expect it to go into layout sometime this summer.

This Gamemaster Sourcebook is actually referenced directly (as “RuneQuest Gamemaster’s Guide”) in the core rulebook published 4 years ago, but we’ve been waiting for it ever since. Of note, Jason also confirmed that the much awaited heroquesting rules are part of this Gamemaster Sourcebook.

The product pipeline for 2022 looks like this:

Dragon Pass Gazetteer, Cults of Glorantha + Prosopaedia, Gamemaster Sourcebook

It’s interesting to note that the “Dragon Pass Gazetteer” has been branched out of the Sartar Homeland project. This possibly indicates that the latter won’t be a boxed set anymore, but that’s 100% conjecture on my part.

QuestWorlds Rebranding

The HeroQuest Glorantha books are supposed to go through a rebranding to remove mentions of “HeroQuest” and replace them with “QuestWorlds”. The last update we got was from Rick Meints back in January:

The Sartar book, Pavis book, and Sartar Companion book for Questworlds should be available in a few months.

We have some confirmation now that the older HeroWars material is not going to get rebranded.

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!

Vilinar Cave Miniatures

Dario Corallo has another pack of paper-miniatures for us. This one is for the “classical nest of broos” from the “Revenge of Muriah” adventure of the Borderlands campaign (also found in Borderlands & Beyond).

Seven Tailed Wolf Preview

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Andrew Logan Montgomery has shared some more sneak peeks at the third (and supposedly last) volume of the Haraborn campaign, which started in Six Seasons in Sartar and continued in The Company of the Dragon:

Six years after war drove them from their lands and families, the Company of the Dragon has returned home. But Black Stag Vale is ancient, and the powers that have re-awakened in their long absence are not so easily tamed. As the Lunar Empire threatens from the north, and the Prince they helped put on the throne falls, the Company stands at the crossroads between the lives they lost and the lives they have been forced to lead.

Which way they turn is up to you…

There are more pretty pictures where that came from.

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.

Suppressing the Orlanth Cult

During the Lunar occupation of Sartar and Prax, the Orlanth cult was prosecuted, and worship of the Storm God was forbidden. But how and why did it happen in practice? Jeff spills the beans on BRP Central when it comes to the city of New Pavis:

Sor-eel the Short kept the Orlanth temple open in New Pavis, but installed a priest who was widely considered to be Illuminated. Although the cult was suppressed by the invaders, the political clout of Orlanth’s priests allowed some of them to remain in the city despite the repression.

When Sor-eel was removed in 1621 (some say through the influence of Tatius the Bright), he was replaced by Halcyon var Enkorth, who had served with success as a Lunar legate to the barbarian king of Elkoi (and who had ties to the powerful Assiday family of Raibanth). From 1621 to 1624, Governor Halcyon was more aggressive in his suppression of the Orlanth cult in Pavis, and made active use of Gim Gim the Grim and the Moon Masks to suppress the cult. However, in 1624, Argrath and his nomad army defeated the Lunars and seized the city, at which point Orlanth Rex became the ruling cult (in contrast with Pavis which remained the city god).

The “aggressive” suppression of the cult would include:

1. Closing the temples known to the Lunar authorities that are near New Pavis. That would be the major temple in New Pavis, the minor temple at Garhound, and a few other shrines and minor temples. The minor temple in the Rubble might get raided, but the Rubble is too dangerous to waste soldiers in garrisoning a temple location.

2. Exiling/outlawing known priests and Rune Lords. Just forbid them from entering New Pavis, the Rubble, etc. Identifying them is a job for Gim Gim.

3. Harassing prominent initiates. That’s a job for Gim Gim and the Moon Masks.

4. Watching associated cults like Ernalda, Issaries, Lhankor Mhy, and Chalana Arroy for covert associated worship.

You might wonder whether there was a lot of heroquesting going on to try and change these things one way or another. This is especially worth thinking about given how the Lunars managed to “kill” Orlanth: the Windstop lasted from 1621 to 1622 and during that time all Air magic failed around Dragon Pass and Prax. Ernalda was dead too, with Earth magic also largely failing, but this is often considered an unwanted and unforeseen side-effect. It’s possible that the Lunars underestimated how much Ernalda would “stay close” to her husband. Anyway:

There is often an assumption because a group has heroquesters or is at least known to have had heroquesters, they will use heroquesting to solve all sorts of “problems” like the Thunder God being associated closely with the Earth Goddess.

Of course this is rarely the case, even in groups with many active heroquesters, such as the Lunar Empire or Argrath’s Sartar. First of all, most of these problems are largely academic or abstract compared to the actual threats that face the group. Hon-eel’s biggest quests were: 1. getting a new very productive crop to help feed the post-Sheng Seleris Heartlands, and 2. proving that the she (and by extension the Red Goddess) is the lover of Yelm and thus closer to the Sun God than the Pure Horse People. Her third big quest – to prove that she is associated with Ernalda in order to gain the support of the Provincial Orlanthi ultimately failed (but conventional Lunar military assets proved enough to cement her dynasty in Tarsh, although not without many reversals and set-backs).

And those threats were all immediate and tangible problems, and her quests were not about “re-writing the past” but about finding out something new that does not invalidate what was known before, but does result in a reinterpretation based on the new discoveries. Yes the Pure Horse People and their Queen were close to Yelm, but Hon-eel is even closer – she is Dendara to Yelm. Sure the Horse Queen continues to speak for Yelm, but needs to be wary around the Lunars because they too can speak for Yelm.

I find this reference to “re-writing the past” interesting, since I’m still unsure exactly what is possible or not with a heroquest. Heroquesting isn’t time-travel so you can’t change something that happened in Time. But I think you can change something that happened in the God Time? At least to the extent that you can make a new story that tells something different (or differently), and somehow convince everybody (including the Cosmos, maybe) that this new story is more important… or something along those lines?

Nochet Notes

Yep, pretty much what it says in the title:

Nochet is five times the population of Furthest and ten times that of Boldhome. At 600 hectares, it covers almost twice the area of Rome within the Servian Walls. With an average density of about 165 people per hectare (remember, the city has areas much less densely populated and areas much more densely populated), it is comparable to ancient Alexandria. Another roughly comparable size and population would be that of medieval Venice.

The Servian Wall is shown in blue in the map below. It encompasses the seven hills of Rome and was built in the early 4th century BCE. It was expanded around a century later with the Aurelian wall, shown in red in the same map:

Within its walls are:

15k Ernalda initiates
10k Orlanth initiates
5.5k Issaries initiates (more than all of Sartar)
4.3k Chalana Arroy initiates (more than all of Sartar)
4.3k Lhankor Mhy initiates (more than all of Sartar)
3.8k Dormal initiates
3k Argan Argar initiates
2k initiates of Asrelia
2k initiates of Gusbran
2k initiates of Lanbril
2k initiates of Lodril
1.6k initiates of the Seven Mothers
1.5k initiates of Maran Gor
1.3k initiates of Esrola
1.3k initiates of Babeester Gor
1.3k initiates of Humakt
And another 10-15k initiates of other cults.

In short an incredibly diverse city, although recognizably Theyalan. Almost all oceanic trade to Dragon Pass and Peloria pass through either Nochet or Karse. In Nochet we can get silk from Kralorela or Teshnos, spices from the East Isles, Fonrit, or Maslo, crafted goods from Seshnela or Loskalm, and more.

Note that most of the three thousand Argan Argar initiates are humans. These are all the people who facilitate life with the neighbouring troll lands.

There are not too many Esrola worshippers compared to the Ernalda cult because these represent people who directly worship Esrola. All Earth cultists would still worship her as an associated goddess:

[…] Esrola is the Grain Goddess. She has relatively few people who worship her independently of the Ernalda cult.

It’s interesting that, with 10-15k initiates of “other cults”, there’s still a LOT of room! For instance, water deities have a pretty good presence in Nochet, what with the Mirrorsea Bay (aka Choralintor Bay) and the access to the ocean:

Choralinthor has a lot of initiates – enough to support a major temple. But that is just a drop in the bucket with a city the size of Nochet.

In fact, you can add at least another 20 Major Temples for any non-listed-above cult in Nochet with these 10-15k. Or 40 to almost a hundred different Minor Temples! Go crazy, world-builders!

This makes me think that a trip to Nochet might actually be fairly common for minor cult worshippers in search of a sizable temple? It might be far from wherever you are, but you benefit from Royal Roads, the many possible caravans and travel companions, and many other opportunities once there.

Jeff warns Gloranthan scholars against relying too much on Stafford Library books like Esrolia: Land of 10,000 Goddesses for their campaigns, because these books are often about how stuff was a long long time ago:

This is a problem with using the 10k Goddess material. It is set up from the perspective of the First Age and has very little material about Nochet in the Third Age (about one page).

Anyway, Jeff continues about Nochet:

Many Sartarites have a strong connection to Nochet, as the kingdom is linked to the city by trade, culture, and religion. Many members of the royal dynasty lived there for some time – and many others lived and died there.

In contemporary Sartar, Erenava Chan lived there for many years. Gorangian the Chief Librarian of Jonstown is from Nochet (as is Sorala). Vasana and Yanioth both fought for Nochet against the Lunar Empire. Argrath himself was there for several seasons and is rumoured to have had a dalliance (or even been a Year Husband) of the young queen.

We can think of Nochet as the de facto center of the cults of Ernalda (Ezel is more sacred, but Nochet is still where everyone goes), Babeestor Gor (Axe Hall is more sacred, but Nochet is where the cult has its biggest presence and nearly one in twenty initiates reside there), Chalana Arroy, Dormal, Issaries, and Lhankor Mhy.

Ezel (west/north-west from Nochet) has a Great Temple complex to Ernalda, and is considered the “home” of the goddess. This is where those “10,000 goddesses” are actively worshipped.

Axe Hall is, surprisingly enough, at the top of the Shadow Plateau. I’m not sure why is but apparently we’re not supposed to argue with Babs… indeed, the short write-up from the Guide to Glorantha makes me chuckle: “Axe Hall (sacred place): Babeester Gor chose this place as her own. No one argued. No one else goes near it.“

The Shadow Plateau

Jeff is definitely spending some time in the Holy Country these days:

The Shadow Plateau is one of the great centers of trolldom in Glorantha, allthough it is now but a shadow of the former Kingdom of Night.

Hee hee hee…. it’s a shadow of the former Ki… what? Come on, let me have this one, okay?

There are some 41,000 trolls on the plateau. Of those over 8000 are adult dark trolls, 1600 are great trolls, 1200 are cave trolls, and over 26000 are trollkin. The rest are immature dark trolls.

That’s a lot of trollkin to bring down the defenses of your Sword-Trance’d Humakti!

These number don’t include the very small minorities:

[Mistress Race trolls] are always so few that they don’t end up in those counts. Any more than I am going to list the number of nymphs or dryads.

Trollpak’s random percentages had no more than 1% of troll society are mistress race trolls. I suspect the numbers are much lower. But in any case the range is probably somewhere between 40 and 200. And likely closer to 40 than 200.

Remember that there aren’t supposed to be many of these super ancient scary troll ladies. They’re supposed to be memorable encounters. I picture them a bit like Methuselahs in Vampire: The Masquerade.

Anyway, back to the Shadow Plateau:

Kyger Litor is the most important cult among the trolls (of course), followed by Argan Argar. Zorak Zoran is surprisingly popular with 1400 cultists, and Xiola Umbar has some 750. Most interesting are the 400 trolls who belong to the Orlanth cult!

Orlanthi trolls? Hey, that reminds me of some drawing I saw recently…

Because of the influence of the Argan Argar cult, the trolls are perfectly willing to work with humans on the right terms. The presence of ZZ insures that the humans respect and fear the trolls and let them drive hard bargains!

Sightseeing wise, the Shadow Plateau is probably impressive:

The presence of the Shadow Plateau in the Holy Country is an interesting one. Darkness is right there, looming over the land of Earth, Air, and Water. Covered in shards of black glass and pulverised obsidian.

Jeff recommends the Obsidian Flow at the Newberry caldera (in Oregon, USA) for reference. Here are some pictures:

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Oh and yes, I just learned today what a “caldera” is.

Krarsht Design Notes

In a thread on BRP Central, Jeff mentioned some changes to the Krarsht cult.

As written in the old Cults of Terror, this Chaotic cult was deliberately designed as a sort of “anti-Storm Bull” cult. Its Holy Days aligned with those of Storm Bull, it had a special skill called “Sense Order” (mirroring Storm Bull’s “Sense Chaos”), and its Rune Magic included spells like “Defend Against Law” and “Face Law” (mirroring Storm Bull’s “Defend Against Chaos” and “Face Chaos”).

Some of this has been revised in the upcoming Cults books. The two anti-Law spells were gone from early drafts, and the Sense Order skill has been removed from later drafts.

The holy day stuff “made it through” because I felt no need to change that (especially because of the [myths]). The “anti-Storm Bull” nonsense comes from one of the two main myths we have of Krarsht (the other is Larnst and the Footprint)

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The cult hates Storm Bull because of the damage he did to the Devouring Mother during the Gods War, especially since she has never fully recovered from her grievous wounds. [… Krarsht is] not a reverse-Storm Bull – she’s someone who hates Storm Bull because that god nearly destroyed her.

Ty Kora Tek

Jeff posted a note about everybody’s favourite zombie granma:

Ty Kora Tek is propitiated each Wildday by Earth cults. Wildday of Death Week is her seasonal holy day. The entire Death Week of Darkness Season is dedicated to her; her High Holy Day is Wildday of that week. On that day, the dead visit the living and must be fed and offered gifts.

Of course, Jeff illustrates this with the Mexican Day of the Dead:

Now that last sentence is pretty darned filled with possibilities. Obvious that means a festival analogous to the Día de los Muertos is going to be found in many Theyalan lands – particularly in the Holy Country, Sartar, and Maniria. But it also means that each year, the dead leave The Necropolis and travel to Nochet along the Sacred Road. And the living costume themselves up as the Dead, offer them food, songs, and gift, and celebrate their anscestors.

And so not only in Nochet and Esrolia, but no doubt in Boldhome and other Sartarite communities, we get Ty Kora Tek’s Day of the Dead celebrations!

I’d really like to play an adventure or two during the Necropolis procession. It can even be a reason to travel to Esrolia. Paying respects or asking for advice from an ancestor could be a roleplaying opportunity, but finding some particular dead person for information on a McGuffin could be a decent narrative hook. Plus, it could be used as a great, dynamic backdrop to some action scene (the way action movies like James Bond would use the Mexican celebration), and if you stretch it out for a bit, there’s a whole bunch of fun little side-adventures you can run with various ghost-related shenanigans. Yes, I’m very excited about the Necropolis procession.

Heresy in Glorantha

Jeff answered a question about heresy in the Lunar Provinces, and this post appeared. I”ve split it up in two parts (one about the Seven Mothers cult, and one about the Orlanth cult), and added some later comments below in this preface, because I think it makes more sense this way.

First, Jeff wants to make sure everybody understands the difference between heresy, apostasy, and blasphemy:

• Heresy is adherence to a religious opinion contrary to the cult’s dogma.
• Apostasy is the act of refusing to continue to follow, obey, or recognize a cult’s beliefs.
• Blasphemy is insulting or showing contempt for a deity.

So I’d say that heresy is about wrong thinking, apostasy is about slamming the door and leaving, and blasphemy is about drawing penises on the temple’s walls. Well, assuming it’s not a temple to Eurmal or Lodril or something (in which case it’s totally appropriate and please carry on).

Most Gloranthan cults are transactional – Orlanth agrees to give you some fraction of his powers on the following terms. If you violate those terms, that’s not heresy – that’s contract violation or apostasy.

I introduced the term “heresy” in quotation marks for a reason. But let’s remember what it is – a heresy is a belief that violates important religious teachings but is not apostasy. With many Gloranthan religions, if you are able to contact the god, wield its magic, and do not trigger spirits of retribution or other forms of divine anger, then it is pretty hard to argue that what you are doing is wrong in the eyes of the god.

And the follow up question is if it is ok with the god, who are you to argue?

Of course, in order to know whether spirits of retribution or divine wrath are falling upon a cultist, there must be a gamemaster making that decision! So we still need a good way to figure out if something is indeed “right” or “wrong”.

Heresy and the Seven Mothers

Let’s start here – when thinking about heresy in RQ, it is always worth looking at a cult’s organization as there must be people who declare something to be heresy. Here’s the organization of the Seven Mothers cult:

The supreme priest of the Seven Mothers is the Red Emperor. The Red Dancer of Power guides the overall activities of the cult. Within the Lunar Heartlands the cult is overseen by the local satrap, and in the Provinces, it is overseen by the General Guide for the Lunar Way.

From who the leaders of the cult are (and what their basis of authority is), we can quickly figure out a few things that they might consider heretical:

Challenging the authority or legitimacy of the Red Emperor
Challenging the authority or legitimacy of the Lunar Empire as a temporal political institution
Challenging the authority or legitimacy of a given satrap
Challenging Lunar policy in the Provinces.

I assume that this is all heresy because the Lunar cults’ dogma includes the Red Emperor being the son of the Red Goddess, incarnated on the surface to rule her empire and all that jazz. You can challenge the Lunar policy in the Provinces as an outsider (that’s called “rebelling against the Lunar Empire”), but you’re risking heresy saying the Red Emperor is wrong.

In short, the White Moon movement is pretty much the textbook definition of a Seven Mothers heresy. The problem there is that a 7 Mothers cultist can subscribe to the White Moon movement and unless that individual is Banned by a priestess, they retain full access to cult magic, spirits, etc. This gets even more thorny if the person is a Red Goddess initiate (and thus Illuminated). The Seven Mothers have no spirits of retribution, so the decision to call the White Moon movement “heretical” is fundamentally political, not easily enforceable without resort to coercive violence, and possibly poses the problem of being blown off by powerful Lunars.

The White Moon movement is another one of those things I’ve heard about but am just now looking into. It sounds like they believe that the Red Goddess never intended to have a lasting Lunar Empire on the surface — instead, she allegedly just wanted her “way” to spread through Glorantha’s cultures, and that doesn’t require a whole imperial war machine. It did require force at the beginning, but the White Moon people think it’s time to let the empire wither away, and to let the Red Moon become White, a moon of peace and calm. I guess the White Moon cult wants to spread as a philosophy rather than as a nation.

And thus we can see the problems the White Moon movement poses for the Lunar political authorities. Much better to get White Moon followers to agree that they were wrong through debate and discussion.

Some other “heresies” in the past – the most significant was “misidentifying the Red Goddess”. So saying that the Red Goddess is actually a manifestation of Entekos or Dendara – that’s a no no. The Red Goddess herself slapped down Valare Addi for that one. And she had good reason for that – the Red Goddess was an active heroquester and misidentifying her could pose serious dangers to her!

Valare Addi is only briefly mentioned in published material, as an early Lunar hero of the first wane. This was back when the Red Goddess was a mortal on the rise. Valare must have had her own opinions about the whole thing since she had her own cult going, but it seems like her and the Red Goddess reconciliated: Valare later went on to live on the Red Moon. The Valar-telsor is one of the main Lunar noble families, and claims descent from Valare.

Ok, I lied. There is a whole bunch of information on Valare Addi in the Entekiosad — in fact, the Entekiosad is supposedly co-written by Valare Addi herself. But I have not read the Entekiosad and you probably shouldn’t unless you really want to.

I do find it very interesting that once you start having a Hero Soul (i.e. a presence on the mythical plane), you have to keep an eye on other people, and on how they use or relate to you. I don’t imagine it would be important for adventurers unless you play at really high power levels, but it might be an interesting scenario idea to have, say, Argrath asking the adventurers to participate in some heroquests that aims to mess with Jar-eel’s identification!

Speaking of Jar-eel:

This was important enough that Jar-eel the Razoress needed to spend seasons debating with prominent White Moon leaders to get them to agree that they were wrong. And even then – with all the power and charisma that Jar-eel could bring to bear – it was only partially successful. The Red Emperor ultimately resorted to violence to suppress the White Moon movement. The resulting rebellion crippled the Lunar Empire during the crisis of 1625.

I’d say that the White Moon rebellion is probably viewed as a far greater threat by the Red Emperor than anything going on in Dragon Pass. Probably a greater threat than even the Voor-ash (which are viewed as far more threatening than anything in Dragon Pass).

The Voor-ash seem to be, basically, the return of the Pentians in the Lunars’ nightmares. You might remember that Sheng Seleris and his horse-riding nomads were a giant threat to the Lunar Empire during its 3rd and 4th wanes, almost destroying it. No doubt the Lunars were traumatised, so they must be getting extremely nervous with Dranz Goloi, the Khan of hte Voor-ash tribe, who is unifying the new Pent tribes and getting all setup to channel Sheng Seleris’ legacy once again.

Heresy in the Orlanth Cult

Jeff continues by looking at the Orlanth cult for comparison:

Individual temples are pretty much completely autonomous unless that have acknowledged a Rex – a tribal king or prince or similar “wide-ruler”. That Rex has the ability to bend the temples to his will, but needs to work to do it!

Without the Rex, Orlanthi temples have historically done such radical things as agree that a mortal hero can become the new Orlanth or decide that we should learn the secrets of the dragons and give worship and sacrifice to them. The Rex is able to keep constituent temples from doing that – assuming that the Rex disagrees!

So for the Orlanthi, “heresy” doesn’t really have any meaning. “Blasphemy” does – violating a religious rule or treating a god or sacred site with disrespect – but that’s the sort of thing that triggers the Spirits of Retribution.

In short, if a temple can access the god, gain Rune magic from it, and there are no spirits of retribution being sent, then it is ok. Individual temple leaders may impose restrictions, but that is going to differ wildly.

Instead what you usually see is that if a temple is able to get a more effective relationship with the god – more or stronger magic, more success in rituals, more or stronger spirits, whatever – then other temples are likely going to adopt that approach. Because ultimately it works and we can see and feel the results!

One of Orlanth’s Runes is Movement, and to me that means a willingness to try things and change, so this all makes perfect sense to me.

So when the Feathered Horse Queen revealed that La-Ungariant was a title for the great goddess Ernalda – which also gave her the ability to confront the Yelm priests – she was able to magically defeat her foes, gain the support of the farmers, gain the support of the powerful Shaker Priestess, and get the support of the local Orlanth priests. The La-Ungariant priestesses embraced this because 1. she was the high priestess, and 2. it worked!

We can see a similar thing going on when Monrogh revealed the Elmal was but a name for Yelmalio. individual temples rapidly embraced Yelmalio because 1. it worked, 2. Monrogh could get the god’s confirmation and repeat it, 3. it was also in everyone’s interest (and had the support of other powerful groups in Sartar).

But if a temple tries to go too far, it won’t have access to the god. Or might not have the full range of useful magic and spirits. And so it fails.

So rather than thinking about this in terms of “heresy” it just ends up being a question of effectiveness.

Now what you might often see is a temple saying, “we worship god this way HERE” without saying that worshiping that god in a different way somewhere else is wrong. That’s pretty common in polytheism.

I think that’s what happens with the Elmal conservatives around Runegate for instance. Generally speaking, this gives the gamemaster license to add a little local flavour to their campaign.

And of course we know that with the Orlanth cult. Specific temples might be dedicated to Orlanth Thunderous, but of course the members of that temple don’t think the tribal Orlanth Rex temple or the local Orlanth Adventurous temple are heresies.

The Red Emperor’s Rule

Since we were talking about challenging the Red Emperor’s legitimacy, here’s how the Red Emperor claims universal rule. It’s based on:

1. Being given charge of his Divine Mother’s affairs in the Temporal World,
2. Being Yelm’s deputy in the Mundane World, and
3. Being a god in his own right.

The Red Emperor is charged with providing peace and order to the whole world. Now that doesn’t mean he needs to govern the world – he’s perfectly willing to acknowledge clients and allies, and let them govern themselves. But they need to acknowledge his supreme status. Independent states outside of this system are fundamentally illegitimate- they are rebels against the divine order. Sartar, the Holy Country, the Voor-ash, Praxian tribes, Loskalm, they are all the same.

One question is the status of the Elder Races. Some Lunar philosophers claim they are doomed, but the Red Emperor generally has a live and let live attitude towards the trolls of the Blue Moon Plateau (even granting them the status of Ally) and the Yolp Mountain Trolls. Same with the dwarves of Jord and the Brass Mountains. And the Red Emperor often speaks of friendship towards the elves (which is usually ignored by them);

Another question is Ralzakark, whom the Red Emperor treats as a peer. Some anti-Lunars claim that may be tie of kinship….

Importantly the Lunar Empire has no “fixed” borders or boundaries other than the Glowline itself.

Dranz Goloi and the Voor-Ash

A couple days ago I would have said “Dranz Who and the What Now?” but in light of the Voor-ash mention above (in the heresy segment) I actually now know what Jeff is talking about.

I’m not going to quote him in full, since he’s pretty much rehashing what’s in the Glorantha Sourcebook: that Dranz Goloi is coming through the Redlands (the area between the Lunar Empire and Pent), raiding the eastern Lunar Provinces, with a couple easily repelled attempts at first in the early 1620s, but then with increasing force in the following years. Of note:

[In 1625], Oraya fell, as did most of First Blessed and the Red Emperor was forced to personally thwart an attempt by Sheng Seleris to slip out of the Underworld. Pentan bands raided the outskirts of Raibanth, and deep into Imther and Holay.

Sheng Seleris is trying to get out of Lunar Hell, people. This is, like, bad-ass villain stuff. It’s ridiculous but the first thing that comes to my mind is Tai Lung’s prison in the first Kung Fu Panda movie.

It only takes a goose feather for him to escape! What will it take for Sheng Seleris?

Then in 7/54 (1625), the True Dragon rose in Dragon Pass, and the Lunar Army of the south was lost. Soon after, the Lunar army was routed by Dranz Goloi at the Battle of Diavizzi Ford in First Blessed. The Red Emperor ordered the remaining garrisons of the Lunar Provinces to be stripped and sent them to First Blessed to fight. The Red Emperor appointed his demigoddess Jar-eel the Artess to command the remaining imperial armies.

People like to think of the big conflict of the Hero Wars as being the one between Sartar and the Lunar Empire, possibly because a lot of Gloranthan publications have been Sartarite-focused, but really, as Jeff mentioned previously, the Lunar Empire is a lot more concerned about this Dranz Goloi guy.

So if you ever wondered why the Lunar Empire seem unfocused on what is going on in Dragon Pass, well they kind of have bigger and more immediate problems right now.

Jeff offers this picture of a Scythian noble as inspiration for him:

Look up Evgeny Kray’s art for more Scythian goodness. I think that this is his official page on the Russian social media site VK but I’m not sure… it’s Russian… click at your own risk. This Twitter thread of Evgeny’s art is probably easier and safer.

The Prince of Sartar as a Patron

Jeff is travelling to ChaosiumCon at the moment and seems to have way too much time to post!

[…] we often overlook the role of the Prince of Sartar as a patron of letters and art. But of course that has always been one of the key roles of the Prince. Sartar’s friend Wilms was an artist and architect of genius, and Sartar was famed as a patron of the Lhankor Mhy cult, founding and endowing libraries in all of his cities. All of the Princes were known to be literate, and several even wrote works.

The fact that Sartar became criss-crossed with trade routes when the Inhuman Occupation ended and Dragon Pass was open to humans again probably played a part in this too. If all those caravans were only crossing hillbilly country, they wouldn’t want to trade with the locals, let alone stop and spend their money. Taxing the roads is fine, but having all these people talk about how fine your culture is wherever they go is even better, and brings even more business.

The Prince is not only a patron of arts and letters, but a judge of quality and merit, and his approval contributes to the acceptance of new ideas and art forms. Sartar, Saronil, Tarkalor, and Terasarin were all good examples of this – perhaps Temertain’s desire to be recognized as a Philosopher King was not as outlandish as we often imagine.

This is not just a Sartarite thing – Belintar, Moirades, and Fazzur Wideread were all famed for their patronage of arts and letters, and the Red Emperor often claims to be a scholar of unparalleled breadth. But we often forget how much the Sartar Dynasty were active and enthusiastic patrons of the arts and letters.

So remember that Kallyr and Argrath both are likely to be receptive towards scholars and artists seeking patronage. That’s part of their role and responsibility.

Fear not, players of scholars and artists! You can take part in the Hero Wars! Besides, you know what they say about history: it’s written by the victor’s scribes. If you’re one, you better make sure you’re already in their entourage…

But like in other displays of gift exchange, this is a way to tie scholars and artists to the dynasty. Give that Lhankor Mhy scholar support and a stipend, and watch them come up with ways to help and promote the Prince!

Modern Lunar apologists sometimes try to justify their conquests as if they were 19th century European imperialists – civilization over illiterate tribes. But that’s not really the case.

As far as I can tell, this misconception about Lunars “bringing civilization” to Sartarites is partly coming from using the wrong sources (like King of Dragon Pass’ pre-Sartar setting) and self-reinforcing fan-talk (referencing Life of Brian is too attractive to pass on even if Sartar already had roads and sewers before the Lunars). But it might also come from the more Celtic/Viking vibe of the HeroQuest material, where a good chunk of the art depicts wooden longhouses and palissades — a far cry from the colourful and sophisticated Greek/Mediterranean feel of RuneQuest Glorantha. A decent art budget can totally change (or ruin?) people’s mental picture of the setting, so I’m happy that I started with Glorantha being depicted in glorious full-colour detail.

Friendship and Gift-giving

Jeff writes about Orlanthi friendship:

Despite (or perhaps because of) the importance of kinship ties, friendship is greatly valued in Orlanthi culture, and many stories place greater importance on friendship than kinship. One has no choice in kinship, but friends are chosen – to be rich in friends (as Sartar was) matters more than the strength of one’s kin. “Friendship” for the Orlanthi is not casual acquaintanceship. It is a personal, reciprocal bond of loyalty between two or more individuals of roughly equal status who share roughly the same interest or goals. Friends are committed to each other by mutual obligations, and can rely on each other help. One’s loyalty to one’s friends is a key part of the Orlanthi concept of honor – violation of friendship is considered highly dishonorable, even impious!

This is why it’s possibly a good idea to have a “Friendship (Other Adventurers)” Passion for the player characters in your game after a while. You can mix it up a bit, too, with some adventurers having a Loyalty Passion to another adventurer, such as one adventurer being a personal bodyguard or scribe to another player’s Thane of Apple Lane character. This not only adds to the roleplaying bits, it also greatly helps the gamemaster justify why the same group of people keeps on going on adventures every season… otherwise “an Orlanthi warrior, a Yelmalion hoplite, a Yinkini hunter, and a Lhankor Mhy scribe enter an inn” sounds like the beginning of a bad joke.

Honor dictates that an Orlanthi remain loyal to their friends, even against their own kin. Obviously, this can be the source of tragedy – but it is also a great source of strength.

We put a lot of emphasis on kinship ties with the Orlanthi – as we should – but it is also important to note that many of the greatest Orlanthi were mightier in friends than kin, starting with Orlanth himself.

But Orlanthi friendship – like so many Orlanthi customs – is a two-edged sword. One must remain loyal to friends, even when they are wrong. So pick your friends carefully!

Rolling two Passions against each other is a good way for players to figure out what their character should do. Of course, don’t let Passion mechanics get in the way: if you know what you want your character to do, do that, and adjust the Passions as needed! Passions never force players to do anything, unlike what some people seem to think. However, Passions should go up and down based on what the players do end up doing. Doing something dishonourable to support a friend should lower the character’s Honor and increase their Loyalty to that friend… or vice versa.

As an aside, to be accounted the “friend” of a Prince or king is a very weighty position in Orlanthi society.

This is also known as “reaching the top quest-giver in the game”.

Now, on to gift-giving:

The exchange of gifts and favors among the Orlanthi is a reciprocal and highly ritualised process. Gift-exchange is often a key part of friendship. It is subject to three rules: the obligation to give, to receive, and to reciprocate. Reciprocity is not balanced – the person with the highest status is obligated to offer the most valuable gifts or favors.

When someone seeks to ask for a gift or favor, one must first make an initial gift. This could be a gift, or also a pledge of service or support.

So think about this next time your Orlanthi character “gives” someone a weapon or pledges their support. This is the sort of thing that the Honor and Loyalty passions are all over!

Gift-exchange is deeply tied to Orlanthi concepts of honor. Violating the rules of gift-exchange is considered as dishonorable as cowardice or breaking one’s word.

And one way of tying player characters to a powerful figure (like a tribal leader, warlord, priest, or even the Prince) is to give them gifts they can’t repay. Give them horses, weapons, herds, community support, even magic items! As gifts. And when they say they cannot possibly repay this, just smile.

Jeff then further expands on gift-giving:

With Sartar, Tarsh, Esrolia, etc. we can see the role that friends and gift- exchanges have in rule. But for our two god-kings things are a bit different. They rule as living gods and they have a cult, not friends. After all who would be presumptuous enough to proclaim themself a rough peer of the Red Emperor?

The Red Emperor has children and worshippers, not peers. Maybe the occasional outsider gets to be a favorite- a way of breaking out the bubble of 20 generations of children!

Belintar has children as well, but his friends are the gods and heroes of the Holy Country.

And then a short digression on hunting:

One more random Orlanthi thread – much large game hunting in Orlanthi lands is not by full time hunters of the Odayla or Yinkin cults (although such people might be present). Kings and princes and others are expected to hunt to show courage, patients, skill with weapons and mounts, and ability to take life.

I like this, because as far as I can tell, Kings going on hunts are a big thing in real-world history. Yet another scenario idea!

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.

Sandy’s Collaborations with Greg Stafford

Over at the Petersen Games blog, Sandy talks about “how to be a game designer“, and in particular talks about the different types of designers. He illustrates this point with some anecdotes from his collaboration with Greg Stafford.

Greg originally invented Glorantha to write fantasy books about, but instead this universe was used for games, comic books, art, etc. Greg was a virtual fount of creation., spewing out interesting concepts almost every day.

Sandy Petersen is of course a big name in Chaosium’s history, being the author of the Call of Cthulhu RPG. But he’s also worked on many parts of Glorantha, and you’ll find his name on things ranging from Trollpak to the Guide to Glorantha to his giant “Glorantha: The Gods War” board game.

I worked closely with Greg, but I am not his kind of creative. Instead, I am a syncretive designer. I pick and take ideas from others, matching these together to make a coherent new whole. In our collaboration, first Greg would come up with some crazy idea. Then I would listen to him, remember some idea he had a year ago on a related topic, and figure out how these both worked together. I also carried things to a logical conclusion, which he often hadn’t considered.

As an example, Greg said the Red Moon in Glorantha has phases, just like earth’s moon. But the Red Moon doesn’t move – it always sits in the same place overhead. So, I pondered, “Why would this moon have phases?” In Glorantha, the sun orbits the world in Ptolemaic fashion. There is no outside cosmos. So, what makes the Red Moon change appearance? I conjectured, “perhaps the moon is dying and being reborn. That’s what causes the phases.” Later, I suggested, “perhaps an unknown dark object orbits the moon, casting a shadow on it”. Well, Greg used both those ideas at different times, apparently forgetting which he liked better. Perhaps that ideas could be combined? I wondered – maybe an unknown dark object orbits the moon whose shadow kills the moon as it passes over it, only to revive when it passes.

Greg invented wacky cults and religions all the time. Then I had to transform them into something playable for a game. I was always focused on what is FUN for players. Greg just liked creating new material – in his mind, simply knowing about his world’s depth and features was enjoyable all on its own, and I’m not saying he was wrong. In the end, the combining of his fount of energy and my focus on playability led to some terrific game ideas.

This shows that two extremely different designers could be creative in different ways, and yet forge a coherent and great game universe which lives on. Similarly, you can be creative in more than one way.

Drawings by Lee O’Connor

Here are some very nice Orlanthi deities by Lee O’Connor:

From left to right and top to bottom, these are Vinga, Storm Bull, Eurmal, Humakt, Maran Gor, and Ernalda.

Glorantha’s Lozenge and Skydome

This illustration by Bernard Bittler Arias appeared in the landmark French magazine Casus Belli back in 2000, when it came back with the first issue of its short-lived “volume 2″… (you have to know that Casus Belli has had a complicated publishing history that started in the early 1980s, but it is still published to this day).

Anyway, Bernard is selling the original painting. Contact info here.

Clan Map of the Grazelands

French archivist extraordinaire 7Tigers has found this very nice map of the Grazelands on the Internet Archive:

Of note, it features the names of all the Grazelander clans, which is super useful because coming up with names is the hardest thing with world-building (at least for me). Give me a name, and I can write pages about it!

7Tigers credits the cartography to David Dunham, based on a map by Greg Stafford. I haven’t been able to double-check this but hey, 7Tigers knows.

Holy Country Ships

Some Holy Country triremes by Martin Helsdon, possibly from his upcoming Jonstown Compendium book on sailing around the Holy Country:

An Alatan hemiolia and three types of Holy Country trireme.

Thank you Martin for my new word of the day: “hemiolia“.

Right Hand of the Devil

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Jim Mozley shared this nice painted miniature of the Right Hand Claw, from Infinity Engine. The other pictures include one of the Devil’s severed fingers bleeding a gorp out, and a gorp reaching for something (probably an adventurer).

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.

Dragon’s Eye Stone Mine

Simon Phipp reminded me of this cool thing that definitely has its place here: the Dragon’s Eye Stone Mine in Lancashire (UK).

Not to be the fun-ruiner, but sadly some more research indicates that the surface of the “eye” is actually flat, and forms a roof over the cave. It appears curved and inclined down because most photos of it are taken with a fish-eye lens.

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.

This is another late issue because not only was I pretty busy last week, but also… well, you’ll understand when you get to the Jeff’s Notes section.

Chaosium News

Here are this week’s Chaosium news!

RuneQuest Starter Stream Episode 6

The wonderful RuneQuest Starter Stream continues, as James leads his players through the final act of “A Fire in Darkness”, the second adventure of the boxed set. However, this is the final episode: they are not going to play through the Rainbow Mounds (the third adventure), or otherwise continue the campaign.

Pendragon Design Journal on the Battle System

The 6th edition of Pendragon is just around the corner, and given the history of exchange of mechanics and ideas between it and RuneQuest, I found David Larkins’ latest “Design Journal” article interesting. It talks about the upcoming new mass battle rules. You might recognize a lot of stuff that was also mentioned about the upcoming mass battle rules for RuneQuest.

An early work-in-progress version of the battle rules was seen in Jeff’s house campaign with the Battle of Queens (and I annotated it heavily in issue #12 of the Journal). There’s a good chance the rules have been tweaked and improved since then, but you can refer to that video to see them in action.

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!

Bonus Content for Bad Day at Duck Rock

Peter Hart has updated Bad Day at Duck Rock with some bonus content featuring “Rill the Naiad”.

Some Art from the Periplus

Martin Helsdon’s next project is, I think, a Jonstown Compendium friendly version of his “Periplus of Central Genertela”, which lets the reader sail around the Holy Country and beyond. It looks like he’s investing in some high quality art! Here are two illustrations that will be in the book. The first one by Mark Smylie depicts Wolf Pirates, and the second by Katrin Dirim is an Esrolian mural of Nochet.

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.

Modern Pavis

Jeff has some thoughts on Pavis circa 1625-1626, which is the Pavis of the new RuneQuest Glorantha product line:

As we all know, New Pavis now has a king – Argrath Whitebull – who is backed up by the White Bull cult, a new Pavis Royal Guard, and many Sartarite and Wolf Pirate adventurers and mercenaries. The new king’s main source of wealth is the treasure he took from the Lunars when he took the city from them (who in turn took much of it from the Rubble).

The previous RuneQuest and HeroQuest lines were set a few years before the Dragonrise, so all these books described a Lunar-occupied Pavis. If you’re lucky, maybe you played one of these “Sartarite adventurers and mercenaries” who helped liberate Pavis… and if you were really lucky, you played one of the Wolf Pirate ones!

Jeff also added in a comment that the Lunar treasury used to pay these mercenaries was probably sizable “given that it was hoarded by the impecunious Halcyon”.

Think of this as Samarkand or Balkh, with a ruler backed by the nomadic tribes. Of course this changes the nomadic dynamic as well – as New Pavis is now a source of prestige goods for the nomadic khans. Orlanth, Storm Bull, and Waha are in ascendancy as are the Bison and Impala Tribe, while the Sable Tribe have much to prove to the fellow nomads.

Samarkand is a city in modern-day Uzbekistan that dates back to the 8th century BCE. It got conquered and occupied multiple times during its long history — it became Greek when Alexander the Great sacked it, became Persian later, then ruled by nomadic tribes from Central Asia, some Islamic Caliphates, and even Genghis Khan’s Mongols.

Balkh is a city in modern-day Afghanistan that was settled sometime between the 21st and 16th century BCE (although this is apparently based on very recent archaeological discoveries… until then it was thought to have been settled in sometime between the 6th and 4th century BCE). It was sitting on the silk road so it might have been quite wealthy and very cosmopolitan. In fact, it’s considered to have been an important place for the development of religions like Buddhism and Zoroastrianism, or for the birth of some traditions like Nowruz, a sort of Persian New-Year celebration as far as I understand. It was no doubt equally important for sciences and philosophy. It’s interesting to consider where in Glorantha you would put a city where new philosophies and cults might evolve… anyway, just as with Samarkand, it was conquered and occupied multiple times, and by the same usual suspects in roughly the same order.

The reason the Sable Tribe has “much to prove” is of course because they had sided with the Lunars during their invasion and occupation of Prax.

The next generation will be an era of much change for the Praxians. Many Praxians will fight for the White Bull in Dragon Pass and Peloria, and many will never return to Prax. New cults appear, some old cults will decline (at least comparatively) and others will gain a new ascendancy. Praxian khans will serve as companions and advisors to an Orlanthi Prince, and the Lightbringers and the Praxians become associated to an extent not seen since the First Age.

Somewhat related: how does Argrath, a Sartarite kid who was captured and enslaved by Praxian nomads, manage to claim the throne of Pavis?

Argrath’s right to the title of “King” likely rests on –

Acclamation by the Orlanth cult as “Rex”;
Acknowledgement by the Pavis cult;
Descent from Sartar (and thus distant kinship with Dorasar)
And of course, by right of taking New Pavis from the Lunar Empire.

Note that Dorasar is the founder of Pavis, and a grandson of Sartar. That’s convenient, isn’t it, that you can claim both thrones in one go?

Argrath’s motivation for liberating Pavis is a combination of:

1. it was his home for many years and he has allies and friends there,
2. he needed to take Pavis to cement the support of the Praxian tribes,
3. He couldn’t leave a Lunar stronghold in his rear,
4. It makes a good springboard for Dragon Pass.

Dendara’s Cult

Jeff writes about Dendara, the “good wife of Yelm”, and a fairly common cult in Peloria and similar Solar-worshipping lands:

In history, Dendara’s cult has remained important as the primary Pelorian and Pentan women’s goddess. She was revered by the Suns of the Son and the Pure Horse People, and called La-ungariant, First Wife of the Imperial Sun and goddess of women. Hers was one of the Ten Priesthoods established in the First Age by the first Dara Happan emperors and one of the Twenty deities recognized by name in the Second Age. In the modern Lunar Empire, her cult upholds both old tradition and the new ways of the Red Goddess. As the cult teaches, “there is great value to some of the Old Ways, for some things never change, even in New Times.”

The “Ten Priesthoods” were Dayzatar, Antirius, Lodril, Dendara, Shargash, Polaris, Naveria, Oslira, Buserian, Lokarnos, and Ourania. A nice mix of every sort of deity you need to rule a nation. And of course, a patriarchal society like the Dara Happans are going to tell the Dendara-worshipping women to stay in their place and respect “tradition”, eh?

She was the La-ungariant described in the Grazers chapter of the Composite History of Dragon Pass. However the Feathered Horse Queen revealed that there is more to her than just that, and that La-ungariant is a title of the Earth Goddess of Ernaldela – Ernalda.

The “Composite History of Dragon Pass” refers to a chapter of King of Sartar, if you haven’t read this, err, let’s say “academic” book.

Glorantha has a long history of people “revealing” that this or that deity is really this other deity. Did anybody do that in their game, with player characters heroquesting into an established cult to “reveal” that it’s something bigger or different? This might be an interesting story arc for an epic campaign… mmmh.

This radically changed Grazer society, and is why they no longer really resemble the Pure Horse People of Pent (or of Second Age Prax).

We have discussed the Feathered Horse Queen’s influence upon the Pure Horse People in past issues of the Journal (issue 33 and issue 40, for instance). But at this point it gets a bit confusing. I think that the La-ungariant of the Grazers was thought to be Dendara, but really La-ungariant being just a title, it turns out it was Ernalda behind it? Or something? Because Dendara and Ernalda are not the same goddess. The God Learners thought they were, but both Ernalda and Dendara “stubbornly rejected that”.

The God Learners were convinced that Dendara and Ernalda were the same entity, and even managed to transpose worshipers with no ill effects. But they never succeeded in getting either goddess to admit identity with the other.

The “Goddess Switch”, as it’s called, was an experiment by the God Learners conducted in 849, where they indeed switched worships of Dendara and Ernalda around different parts of Maniria. I had indeed no ill effects at first… but after a three or four years things started going bad: numerous recent marriages disintegrated, crops failed, fruits stopped growing, and famine ensued.

But hey, this is science, people. You try stuff, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. The key is to gather more data points after that. Who wants to try and switch Humakt and Eurmal? I can almost guarantee they are the same.

The Three Types of Magic

Glorantha, and RuneQuest in particular, famously has three types of magic:

Arguably the oldest is Rune Magic, whereby mortals can wield the power of the gods. In most cosmologies, the gods created mortals to serve or aid them. Mortals were descended from the gods that created them (as a form of very weak srvuali and burtae) or who mated with their ancestors (think the Vingkotlings, descended from Orlanth and a mortal woman).

Oh my, look at these casually thrown around terms like “srvuali” and “burtae”. I have now idea what the hell that is, but I have seen them used before. One answer is in the Xeotam Dialogues, a sort of Socratic dialogue thing that also exists in Glorantha with the Malkioni. The Xeotam Dialogues are in the Glorantha Sourcebook, but you can also read them here.

It’s not super important here but the Srvuali are, I think, the gods that exist as a part of an original Elemental god. They are more specialized and have more personality than the “pure” entity that embodies an Element. Therefore, it seems like Malkioni wizards prefer to use these Srvuali because they’re easier to negotiate with or to bind, and more effective to use. The Burtae are entities that are offsprings of Elementals and/or Srvuali… but the Burtae can then also create other Srvuali so… I don’t know? Let’s just say these are the demeaning terms Malkioni wizards use to talk about gods and their offspring.

Rune Magic requires a link between the god and mortal, where the mortal can draw upon the God Time power of the god. Initially this was easy – Orlanth was your great-grandfather and could show you how. But with the Greater Darkness and the coming of Time, that link requires initiation into the secrets of the god. And this initiation requires others to pass on those secrets and initiate new generations. It also requires sacrifice to maintain that link – sacrifice of magic points, food, and other treasures – as well as specialists supported by the rest of the community. Rune cults require community surplus, and thus tends to require settled agrarian or pastoral societies.

Next, spirit magic:

Spirit magic is perhaps inevitable in a world where spirits are everywhere. Although most shamans are trained through an apprentice-master system, others are self-initiated. Spirit magic is ubiquitous in Glorantha – taught by shamans, Rune cults, and long-lasting spirit cults. It is the magic of everyone, and the easiest to gain access to. But it is ultimately less powerful than Rune magic, and many times we have seen the progression from shaman to spirit cult to Rune cult in Gloranthan history.

Unlike Rune magic, spirit magic doesn’t require much of a social or economic infrastructure beyond a shaman. Hunter-gather bands, or other bands can have extensive access to spirit magic comparable to that of larger settled or pastoral societies.

I guess this is how, in RuneQuest, some powerful spirit societies actually provide a Rune spell or two, as opposed to just access to spirit magic.

As far as I can tell, sometimes it’s because the spirit being worshipped is powerful enough to be considered a minor deity, but other times I think it could be because a widespread type of spirit is being collectively worshipped in many places under a sort of “archetypal spirit figure”. This is the case with, say, river horses, who are water elementals associated with an archetypal River Horse entity who jumped around the world during the Great Darkness to escape Chaos monsters (it’s all explained in the Glorantha Bestiary by the way). This River Horse (capital R and capital H) might have existed, and might be the ancestor of all river horse elementals, but frankly it might have not “really” existed (for whatever that’s worth when you talk about the God Time) and it’s just an aggregation of all river horse stories. Maybe someone should do some heroquesting experiments… just saying… it’s for science, people!

Finally there is sorcery. Sorcery is intellectual and rational – a materialist approach to command the magic of Glorantha through mortal will alone. It can be as powerful as Rune magic, although it is certainly not as easy or quick to cast – but makes up for that with its range of possibilities.

Sorcery is more “expensive” than Rune magic, requiring a many years of dedicated study by specialists in order to learn. Most sorcery-using societies are built around the rest of society developing and supporting these specialists. Literacy or very long lives are needed to teach new specialists, and nearly all sorcerous societies are settled, literate, and urban.

Jeff then adds a few additional notes. For instance, the reason why RuneQuest has some mechanics to have spirit magic and sorcery mutually exclusive:

One other thing – the mental approach involved in spirit magic is antithetical towards the materialist will to power involved in sorcery. Sorcerers tend to eschew spirit magic and treat it as beneath notice.

So when we think of the personal risks associated with magic, spirit magic poses the least personal risk. The spirit rarely ask much from those they aid, other than to be treated with respect and given sufficient mana to work with.

Rune magic allows the user to wield the power of a god, and there lies the danger. The initiate must maintain the link between mortal and god, and thereby becomes the gods agent in Time. Generally we initiate to gods that we find useful and benevolent, but on a macro-scale this continues the conflicts of the Gods War in the world of Time. And the gods often make demands on their followers that can restrict actions and compel behaviour in order to maintain that link.

Sorcery poses the opposite danger. Sorcerers are subject to only their will and imagination. Their schools may teach otherwise, and many societies have means of coercion to keep sorcerers in line (indeed this is core to Rokarism), but the God Learners showed us the dangers of sorcerous hubris.

Let’s now go back to spirit magic.

One thing I’m really sad about with the RuneQuest core rulebook is that it doesn’t quite explain what spirit magic is really. When I first read it, I was wondering what it means to “learn” and “forget” a spell, and why CHA is the limiting factor (instead of POW or INT for instance).

As far as I can tell, spirit magic basically involves merging spirits into yourself. These spirits are extremely basic, and serve one function. Some might help you make your blade better (Bladesharp) while some help mend wounds (Heal). But you “wear” those spirits the way you wear a belt with sharpening tools and a first aid kit. It’s like allied or bound spirits, only they’re totally dumb and only do one thing. That’s why CHA is the limiting factor: you still need your tools to like you enough to stay. This is consistent with CHA being the limit for your bound spirits.

There are countless spirits beyond those described in the Bestiary. Spirits are EVERYWHERE in Glorantha. Every stone, every leaf, every plant, every insect has spirit and potentially “personhood”. It is perhaps easiest to think of it as the caster simply awakens the spirit of the thing and has it do its thing and then it becomes quiescent again.

It is meaningless to treat these momentary manifestations of personhood as something with POW or CHA. They are just moments that the localized Life Force of Glorantha is awakened to cause an effect. This is why spirit casters need that focus – it helps them awaken the spirit to do its deed and then become quiescent again.

That’s how Greg described it to me and is the approach I took in RQG. But given that there are many paths to animism, I don’t think too much description is useful.

And that in a nutshell is also why animist spirit magic and materialist sorcery end up being mutually incompatible ways of thinking about the world.

Notes About Esrolia

Oooh boy, as if last week’s Glorantha Art series wasn’t enough, Jeff is doing a four part series on Esrolia (part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4).

Ernaldela

When we think of Esrolia, we need to remember that unlike Sartar or even Pavis, it is an ancient land. Esrolia has a consistent history of being a settled and civilized land that goes before Dawn. Its ancient mundane history is almost pointless, likely just a few story cycles between Ernaldela and the Silver Age Heroes.

Ernaldela – that’s our real point of origin. Ernaldela is the home of the Earth Goddesses. It is a garden, populated by friendly reptiles and mammals, nymphs and dryads. Think yakshini beneath flowering trees.

That picture is indeed a Yakshi under some flowering asoka tree. The Yakshini are a family of nature spirits in mainstream Asian religions.

I often wondered why Esrolia is so big on Earth deities in general, when it’s supposedly the land of Esrola specifically, but I guess it makes sense if that was all the Earth deities’ home and she just inherited it at some point in the God Time.

On the Hero Plane, Nochet roughly corresponds to the location of the Earth Lady – the residence of the Earth Queen. Ezel strongly corresponds to the Womb of Gata – which is the source of Life. The Hearth (another location in mythic Ernaldela) corresponds to anything specific or it exists simultaneously at every sacred hearth fire. Flamal the Lord of Trees is not far away, and is associated with the Old Woods. There are plenty of other correspondences as well, but what really matters is that if we pierce the mundane veil in Esrolia we can see Ernaldela. Don’t worry or bother trying to name all the nymphs, dryads, and other godlings of Earth+Life+something else that reside here. What matters is that they are here and numerous.

This is nice information for world-building in Esrolia, as it gives us some basic “theme” for a few places around the area. In particular, Ezel as the womb gives a whole new picture of the great temple there where, supposedly, Ten Thousand Goddesses are actively worshipped. That’s a lot of eggs in Gata’s womb… although not as much as some ocean goddess, maybe.

So even though Esrolia is densely populated, it is not unusual for a dryad (without elves usually) to live in a grove near a village or town. Think like the sacred groves in India – small little enclaves of woods and flowers that are untouched by the local farmers, where logging and hunting are taboo. The villagers know her, offer her gifts and keep her happy so she might bless the fields or orchards. Other nymphs are the guardians of the treasures hidden in the earth, and so on. It is perhaps worthwhile to consult the list of thirty six yakshinis given in the Uddamareshvara Tantra for ideas about the various local nymphs and dryads in Esroia […]

I’m not going to copy the entire list of 36 Yakshini but you can read it here. Incidentally, this is a great list to get ideas for nature spirits in your game!

We obviously don’t use these names, but the titles give you an idea what they might be. Obviously many are very sex and pleasure oriented – these are fertility deities after all! Others are flowers, but some are skulls, and some are even terrifying – perhaps a “nymph” of the Gors!

I’m not sure what the “Gors” refers to here. It might refer to the Gors of Maran and Babeester? Or it’s the Welsh for a marsh or a bog, a term that John Hughes uses a lot in his description of the Far Place lands?

The Jolly Fat Man might appear at feasts and celebrations to bring intoxication to all. After all, wine, beer, and mead are all children of Ernalda and the Flowing Waters, or Ernalda and Flamal (in the case of wine). This proximity between Esrolia and Ernaldela has always been present, but it is nearer thanks to Belintar and the Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death. The Hero Plane is easy to access throughout the Holy Country – hence the annual pilgrimage of the Dead from Necropolis to Nochet.

We reported previously (in issue #30 among others) how the Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death helped maintain a thing called a Proximate Holy Realm around the Holy Country, which made it easier to heroquest.

And so Ernaldela is the mythic realm just on the other side of Esrolia, and easiest to access from there. Many of the early stories in the Entekosiad can also found there, but deeper, broader, and with more paths. The Earth goddesses are a substrata throughout much of Gloranthan myth, but in Esrolia they remained visible and powerful enough for the husband-protectors to acknowledge their sovereignty (in contrast with the Pelandan Brightface story, the Esrolians have Orlanth’s murder of Yelm as the goddess-willed response to Brightface’s attempted usurpation of the goddesses’ rights).

I think Brightface is some other name for Yelm, or other manifestation of the Sun in God Time myths… I don’t know, I haven’t read the Entekiosad! But hey, we get the general idea.

Silver Age Heroes

This section is pretty long but at least (thankfully) pretty self-explanatory even for Glorantha newbies. Plus, I don’t have much time left to annotate anyway…

During the Lesser Darkness, Ernaldela was ruled by a tribe of Air demigods (the Vingkotlings), who protected the goddesses of the land but also fought with trolls, sky people, dwarves, elves, and of course each other. Their rule was inherently unstable and when the Vingkotlings fought their own Mahabharata, the royal line was wiped out. And so the Esrolian Grandmothers seized power for their own protection and established the earliest framework of Esrolian society – rule by the priestesses of the Earth cults.

However, the Grandmothers enabled survival, not recovery. Recovery came from the Silver Age heroes.

The Silver Age heroes straddle the period between the Greater Darkness and the Dawn and helped knit the world back together. The most widely recognized Silver Age heroes include: Queen Merngala of Nochet, who was called daughter of Ernalda; King Heort, who fought the Unity Battle and founded the Heortling peoples; Vogarth, who was often called simply the Strong Man; Kalops the Sacrificial King; Tessele the True, who relit the fires that warm the earth; Aram ya-Udram, who conquered the pig demon, Gouger; Panaxles the Builder, credited with many of the ancient structures; and Sestarto the Artist, who first depicted the gods in sculpture and painting.

The Silver Age heroes are known throughout Dragon Pass and the Holy Country. Every Sartarite knows their stories, just as every Esrolian does. But they are perhaps more important to the identity of the Esrolians.

NOTE: few if any of these Silver Age heroes have independent cults. Their worship has long since been incorporated into larger cults, such as Ernalda, Orlanth, or Caladra and Aurelion.

There are only a couple names I know from that list of heroes but Jeff describes them below in more detail than what you can find in, say, the Glorantha Sourcebook. This is good stuff, again, for world-building and campaign development. Note that the description below is from a Third Age perspective:

Merngala the Great Queen

The greatest queen of Esrolia, Queen Merngala was the daughter of Esrola. She wielded awesome Earth powers, gained when her goddess mother retired to the Land of Sleep. Her main residence was a palace on Lake Bakan where her army guarded the bodies of the dead. The site is now simply called the Necropolis. With the Dawn, Merngala invited the Lightbringers back to Nochet.

Merngala was a mighty priestess with many husbands and is the model to which all Esrolian queens are compared. Some husbands were rivals for her at times, even murdering each other, as Heort did to Panaxles, or were boon companions, as were Aram ya-Udram and Vathmai Entrulsson. Even the Only Old One was her husband. She had Panaxles and the Strong Man build the great walls around Nochet and invited the Waertagi to set up piers for the dragonships. Merngala had Sestarto decorate the city and temples with countless sculptures inhabited by the gods. She allied with King Heort but did not join his kingdom. Merngala is worshiped as the founder goddess of Nochet.

The Necropolis is an important site in Esrolia. There’s even a special holy day where the dead go on a procession from there to Nochet, and I’m sure it’s scary and awesome.

Heort

Founder of the Heortling people, Heort was born in the Greater Darkness and spent his youth in hiding as the forces of Chaos destroyed the world. When all the world was gone, and every man was alone, Heort went out upon the world. There, at the edge of the world, he met with the Second Son, who told him of his great and terrible battle. The Second Son showed Heort his wounds, and the secret of the Star Heart, and told him the secrets of the I Fought We Won Battle.

Heort remembered that fight and went on past the Second Son, to the edge of the world. There he met the evil of his world and won. He made his way to Dragon Pass where he found others to resist the encroaching Chaos, and he made friends to fight the Unity Battle. King Heort supported the Only Old One to create the Unity Council.

Heort was one of the husbands of Queen Merngala, a bountiful woman of great fame, who is elsewhere recorded as the object of many Silver Age rivals. Another famous wife was Ivarne, who founded several dynasties in Dragon Pass. Heort fought several famous battles and duels.

At the Dawn, King Heort reestablished worship of Orlanth and the Lightbringers throughout his lands. When he died, Heort was burned sitting upright upon his throne, atop a colossal bier surrounded by his treasures. A huge wind rose and carried all away in a maelstrom of fire. Afterwards, people everywhere in his land worshiped him.

The whole thing about meeting the Second Son and learning the secrets of the I Fought We Won Battle is the core of some of the most common Orlanthi adulthood initiation rites. This is described by Greg Stafford here.

Vogarth

Vogarth was the Strong Man. He was huge, powerful, and generally kind, but he was noted for his dull mind as well as his great power; he was the strongest man in the world.

He did many great deeds. The Strong Man was always ready to engage in challenges of strength. A huge stone giant once came and threatened the Only Old One, who called for Vogarth’s help. He came running and cracked the stone giant with his hammer and saved the Only Old One. He threw a dragonship onto the Palace of Black Glass, and the trolls ate the Waertagi. Another time he challenged Jeri Babo, called the Immovable Person, and pushed him off his chosen place. Another time, he carried the wondrous Living Stone Tree from the Footprint to Queen Merngala’s palace. She took him as her husband for a while and had him build the walls around her city.

Kalops

Kalops was the Sacrificial King. He gave his very life to animate the Victory Spirit that inspired the troops at the Battle of Henerel, where the dog men were defeated and destroyed to the last creature.

Tessele the True

Tessele, a mortal child of Aurelion, was one of the first Twin Priests. When her Soul-Sibling was trapped and sacrificed by the Priests of Thed, her subsequent quest for vengeance made her the first hero of the cult.

In those troubled God Times, Tessele set off on impossible tasks that she performed through the efforts of miracles and willpower, eventually even succeeding in reconstructing and resurrecting her lost partner.

Aram ya-Udram

Aram ya-Udram was a great hero in the early Dawn Age. Aram was a civilized statesman, experienced general, and a religious leader of the Orlanth Adventurous cult. His most famous deed was defeating Gouger the God-Child, a divine boar. He took Gouger’s great tusks and made the Ivory Plinth, gaining control over the wild boars of the region.

Aram ya-Udram was a great friend of King Heort, and one of the husbands of Queen Merngala, but his boon companion was Vathmai Entrulsson. Together, Aram ya-Udram and Vathmai defeated the Pralori, and Vathmai founded the first ruling dynasty of Slontos.

At the Dawn, Aram ya-Udram was chosen to represent humanity on the World Council of Friends. Aram ya-Udram lived over two hundred years. When he died in 178 S.T., he was burnt at the Ivory Plinth, finally retiring to the Other Side. Aram ya-Udram had always worn a necklace of diamonds, which he named Uleria’s Necklace. At his funeral, the Goddess appeared and proclaimed a contest to win it. The winner of this contest was chosen to speak for humanity on the World Council of Friends, although the custom ended soon after when the council became the High Council of Genertela.

Of course, Aram ya-Udram’s legacy was tarnished, to say the least… his people at the Ivory Plinth later became the twisted and ugly Tusk Riders.

Panaxles the Architect

Panaxles was descended from the Stone-Souled builders and was thus related to the dwarfs. His mothers were the Tilntae, who were prevalent and important in the early ages of the world. Panaxles lived atop the slopes of the Spike before the Great Darkness. When the Spike was destroyed by Chaos, Panaxles managed to land in the place known as the Broken Arms. He was captured by trolls and made for them the Shadow Plateau to protect their Palace of Black Glass as a fortress against Chaos. The Only Old One set Panaxles free, who then wandered throughout Kethaela during the Silver Age.

Panaxles was the great builder of the period. He built the oldest sections of the temple at Ezel; the walls of Nochet; the palace of Queen Merngala; Whitewall; and many other famous buildings. Panaxles became a rival of King Heort over the affections of Queen Merngala and built for her the great sewers that drain the city of Nochet. It is said that King Heort met Panaxles upon the day the sewers were completed and the first waters rushed through it. Panaxles mentioned his contentment with his creation; Heort agreed, yet added, “It is a shame it is so ugly.” Thus began one of the most famous feuds of the Silver Age.

Sestarto the Artist

Sestarto the Artist shaped the landscape to create Ageless Beauty. He made the Farfalls, the Needle, and the sculptures that populate Ezel and the temples of Nochet. His sculptures became more and more realistic as he worked. Once, he made a sculpture in human shape. That was Ahrela, the Most Wanted, the Desired. The statue is still worshiped as an incarnation of Uleria, for everyone who sees it is seduced by it.

Remember that these heroes mostly existed before Time, so their stories can have multiple versions:

The Silver Age heroes are the great mythical figures of song and story. Everyone has stories about Queen Merngala and her many husbands – some are always mentioned (like Heort), but others appear in just one story. The Silver Age cycles contradict each other in chronology – and there are likely many different Lhankor Mhy attempts to put them in order, but new stories are continually told, and each true. Their deeds are in the God Time, not mundane Time.

The Shadowlands

Shadowlands – the Only Old One was the son of Argan Argar and Esrola, born in the Lesser Darkness. Argan Argar, a powerful Darkness deity and one of the commanders of the forces of Darkness on the Surface World, set up a camp atop Esrola, and the goddess went to him to plead mercy. Argan Argar told her to stand proud, for he would rather have her friendship than her fear. He became her lover and protector, and their child was the Only Old One, who was made king of the land.

The “camp atop Esrola” is the Shadow Plateau, which you can easily spot on a map of Dragon Pass.

Lodril was a spiteful and powerful god, and he attacked this place of darkness, but he was captured and subdued by Argan Argar and forced to work for that god of night. Lodril was forced to build the great Palace of Black Glass, wherein lived the Only Old One and his minions. It was a huge metropolis with tall slender spirals rising over spiked turrets of sharp obsidian. Its basement reached the Underworld, and its tallest tower reached to the sky’s zenith until it was broken by the Sun in the Dawning.

For millennia, Esrolia was protected by the Only Old One. Now the Only Old One was both benevolent AND malevolent. He was a troll after all (or was he?). He strictly followed his bargains, but the terms of those bargains could be cruel and merciless. The Only Old One endured for over a thousand years. He was the offspring of Argan Argar and Esrola, but also in some means a mortal or demigod rather than a full god subject to the constraints of the Compromise. He regularly acted in Time, but is thought to have had several incarnations. He definitely did not require something like the Tournament – instead it would appear that his connection to the divine realm was his Palace of Black Glass (aka the Palace of Night) that enabled him to directly access the Underworld.

The Only Old One’s influence can still be seen in Esrolia: There are still places of shadow and darkness (the Necropolis is perhaps the most important, but there are many others). Many secrets are kept in the shadows – for example Lanbril lurks in the shadows. Yelmalio (by whatever name we call him) is a much smaller cult in Esrolia than in other Orlanthi lands.

Argan Argar is a powerful and fearsome deity, capable of defeating Lodril and forcing him to make the Palace of Night. Argan Argar is still one of the most important cults in Esrolia – think of him like a fearsome asura who is nonetheless worshiped because he is the husband of Esrola (who is just a guise of Ernalda after all).

The picture here is one of Rahu, a shadow deity associated with a major celestial body in Hinduism. He’s depicted here with his wife Karali who I think (but hey don’t quote me on this) is the destructive aspect of Durga, the mother goddess. Who is also maybe an aspect of Mahadevi depending on how you go about it. I don’t know. It’s aspects all the way down. Hinduism is complicated, and it’s Monday. But hey, at least you have some starting point to do your own research now.

The Shadowlands era casts a long shadow (ha ha!) over modern Esrolia. It is an era with both benevolence and cruelty. It is not just (as Belintar is), but it is pragmatic and bargained for. An Equal Exchange – I feed you so that you do not feed upon me. But in return, you agree to protect me. Of course, if I do not feed you, then not only do you not protect me, but you likely feed upon me.

This affects how the Esrolians view the Darkness. Not as evil or a source of fear, but as something dangerous that can be bargained with.

One way of thinking about the Only Old One is like how the Ozians viewed the Terrible Wizard of Oz. He was a fearsome and dangerous being, who also could give good advice and generally kept the peace. But don’t bother him with trivial disputes or treat him with disrespect lest he devour you!

I did not have “Wizard of Oz” on my Gloranthan bingo card.

The fabled pragmatism of the Esrolians perhaps comes from this. The Only Old One is an ally because 1. he is useful, 2. he is too powerful to afford as an enemy, and 3. his demands are affordable. This is not an ideological alliance – that’s not really the Esrolian way. It is pure pragmatism.

And of course, Belintar made a much better offer as we will see soon.

It is worth keeping in mind that the Shadowlands were darkest in the Dawn Age, interrupted by the Broken Council for a generation, and then the shadows grew again throughout the Second Age. But never quite so dark, as the dragons pierced the Only Old One’s darkness from time to time. But the shadow was not lifted over Esrolia until 1318.

In all of Esrolia, there are some 70k Argan Argar cultists! A huge number – and it is the third largest cult in Esrolia (but dwarfed by number one and number two – Ernalda and Orlanth). The cult of the Lord of the Night is powerful, and we can imagine all sorts of nocturnal rituals in Nochet!

The Holy Country

Okay now we’re up to the time of Belintar the God-King:

For the last three centuries, Esrolia has been ruled by the God-King. Now I have written a ton about Belintar and the Masters of Luck and Death, but the short version is that Belintar and the Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death keep Esrolia (and the rest of the Holy Country) in close proximity to the Hero Plane. So we get to regularly interact with Ernaldela, instead of having to go through the collected stories of generations of interlocutors. This also means that all the stuff in Land of 10,000 Goddesses is less important to us now. Roughly every generation we all get to experience Ernaldela, and some of us even wander through it. Of course this works both ways, and it is not uncommon for nymphs, dryads, and other magical beings to wander through the “mundane” Holy Country, experiencing that world.

Jeff indeed talked about Belintar in the past, and we’ve covered that for instance in issue #34, where I also explained what the “Sixths” (see below) are, with a nice helpful map.

The mention to “Land of 10,000 Goddesses” is about this Stafford Library book. Reminder: the Stafford Library is a bunch of random notes from Greg and it best used for picking crazy ideas and cool-sounding names, rather than used as “canon material”.

The Sixths of the Holy Country correspond to the Six Realms of the Hero Plane. Esrolia is self-consciously the realm of Earth, just as Heortland is self-consciously the realm of Air. The Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death brings a regular infusion of comparative perspective into our mythic understanding. Earth regularly interacts with Air, Water, Fire, Darkness, and (emptiness). All of these realms work together to collectively form a whole – the Holy Country is the great cosmic dance of the elements.

In Belintar’s Holy Country, most places governed themselves, but were blessed by and disputes were resolved by Belintar. Belintar aided the Opening, showed the Magic Roads that allow people to travel through the Holy Country via the Hero Plane, and created the Fish Roads. Belintar rarely got directly involved in governing the mundane affairs of the peoples of the Holy Country. Each of the Sixths more or less followed their traditional ways – of course those traditions were changed by the very presence and role of Belintar. When a cult’s leaders might refuse to accept Belintar or reject his advice, Belintar was known to bring the cult’s own god into the discussion! But Belintar’s demands were few and always reasonable, and it was usually quite easy for cults and tribes to accept what he had to say.

Fish Roads are fun: they were magical roads that connected several landmarks of the Holy Country’s shoreline together, joining up at the City of Wonders. On Fish Roads, both land walkers and water dwellers could travel, so you could walk over the Mirrorsea Bay and cross paths with underwater beings merrily swimming alongside.

As a result, what never really developed around Belintar was the sort of court administration as you see in Glamour. Instead, Belintar surrounded himself with philosophers, mystics, magical individuals, adventurers, and vacationing gods.

So in Esrolia, the Earth Temples remain the owners of land, and were the sources of fertility and blessing. The Earth Priestesses are priest-queens, with the high priestesses having paramount authority. They have their associated cults – Orlanth, Esrola, Babeester Gor, Chalana Arroy, Lodril, Magasta, Flamal, Maran Gor, Voria, Asrelia. Ty Kora Tek, and Argan Argar (and others), all of whom are sworn to support or protect the Goddess. There is no specialized subcult of rulership – this is just social organization by the Earth Temple.

There are also plenty of important cults that are outside that Earth Goddess-centered system – Dormal, Issaries, Lhankor Mhy, Humakt, etc, and the Earth priestesses have to negotiate their relationship (although Ernalda’s ties to Orlanth helps with many of these cults). But power needs to be used with more subtlety in Esrolia than in Sartar – even the Queen of Nochet has less direct authority than a standard tribal king, let alone the Prince of Sartar.

About recent politics in Nochet:

For the last century or so, the Queendom of Esrolia has been held by the Queen of Nochet, and a descendent of Queen Bruvala. Bruvala married 15 men and at one time maintained 5 husbands. She had 23 children, of which 8 were daughters and fifteen were males, including three future queens and one winner of the Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death. That son forced her to retire in 1510, but she continued to dominate Esrolian politics for an other generation in retirement as the “Reverend Grandmother.”

The role of the Reverend Grandmother was something like the Fujiwara kampaku in the Heian period. The titular queen would be trapped in ceremony, marriages, and fertility rites, while the grandmother would actually run mundane affairs, the treasury, make deals, etc. However, the most recent two queens (Hendira and Samastina) have ruled without Reverend Grandmothers.

The Esrolian Queens list in the Glorantha Sourcebook is a fascinating document and provides tantalising hints into the power struggles within that sacred dynasty.

The Queens List is also available on the Well of Daliath.

Now there is an interesting parallel of the Reverend Grandmothers with the Tharkalists, that group of daughter-lovers around the Red Emperor, who some claim are the real rulers of the Lunar Empire. However, the parallel is limited – all Reverend Grandmothers served as Queen of Esrolia, while obviously none of the Tharkalists were ever Red Emperor.

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: The Mostali

JM and Evan continue their explorations by taking a look at the Mostali, the weird dwarves of Glorantha.

Snakepipe Hollow Walkthrough

D R has a new video up with more real-time 3D featuring Gloranthan caves!

A Tale of Two Covers

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GROGNARDIA takes a look at both the US and UK covers for RuneQuest 2nd edition. Above left is the original American version from Chaosium, and above right is the version published by Games Workshop.

Never having owned the GW version, I don’t know the name of the UK cover artist (please enlighten me in the comments). Whoever he is, there’s no question he’s more technically proficient than Luise Perrin. Compare the reptilian monster in each version and you’ll quickly see what I mean. The warrior woman’s pose from the GW cover likewise shows a greater command of human anatomy. Yet, somehow, even leaving aside the issue of the UK version’s cheesecake, I find Perrin’s version vastly more compelling to me. There’s a mythic, dream-like quality to it that I think better suits the tone and content of RuneQuest. 

I completely agree with the sentiment and couldn’t have put it better than that. The chain-mail bikini has been largely regarded as embarrassing (at best) for quite a while now, but even then, Luise’s version has a quality that is hard to pinpoint, even for someone like me who has zero nostalgia for it.

Pookie Reviews RQ Adventures Fanzine #1

Pookie, from the unmissable Reviews From R’lyeh, takes a look at this old Runequest fanzine from the 1990s.

Really Dicey Reviews the Weapons & Equipment Guide

I haven’t seen it yet, and probably won’t watch it until I’m done writing my own, but here you go in case you’re still on the fence about the book!

This Week’s Miniatures

Let’s put all the nice miniatures photos in the same section… and what’s a better way to start off than with a preview of the upcoming MadKnight Castings Kickstarter?

According to Andrew Taylor this is Kargan Bar, Aranea Spider Master. The Kickstarter is scheduled for “early April”.

Peter James has a nice collection of Uz:

Felix Miniature Painting has, as always, some great photos. These are MadKnight Castings’ Sable Riders, Newtlings, Blessed Daughters, Dragonewts, and Danfive Xaron Penitents.

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MadKnight Available From Rapier

Andrew Taylor alerted us that MadKnight miniatures are now available for purchase from Rapier Miniatures website! Check them out here. Note that Rapier has a few other 28mm Gloranthan miniatures, plus a line of 6mm Gloranthan miniatures, if you’re into large-scale wargaming.

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.

Geomorphological Landscapes

This Instagram account has quite a few “exceptional” geographical spots from around the Earth. When you’re trying to make a magical setting like Glorantha, it’s good to be reminded how weird and crazy the real-world can be, so you know you can go even wierder and crazier.

Here is Mount Maelifell in Iceland:

The Rock of Guatape in Columbia:

The badlands of Hingol National Park in Pakistan:

Here are some natural sand sculptures at Mono Lake in the USA:

The Stanislav Grand Canyon in Ukraine looks like somebody put too many Rune Points into a Fissure spell:

A lake in Japan that is most likely sacred to Uleria:

Here’s Hauser Spire in Switzerland… most probably where Earth Shield was used during the Gods War:

There is way too much to share here so check out the Geomorphological Landscapes profile here. They even have many videos of weird stuff, like, say, ice balls, a dragon’s eye, some cool sea caves, a surprise for your adventurers when they ford a river, or a crazy-ass mountain-top fort for the most devout Orlanth initiates.

Bronze Age Copper Mine of Great Orm

Guest entry by Jörg

This video describes the Bronze Age coppermine of Great Orm in northern Wales, and while Gloranthan mining mostly goes for nuggets and dust of native metal rather than ores that need smelting, the information on underground lighting and spelunking activity certainly is pertinent to any Gloranthan spelunking, and offers a rather primitive type of oil lamp to drop and spill. (Where the “dropped oil lamp table” is the RuneQuest equivalent to Hollywood igniting every car that rolls down a cliff… spilled fuel cools down quickly, and without the heat of the wick won’t keep the fire going.)

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.

This issue of the Journal is coming in a bit late because of Jeff’s massive “Gloranthan art” series, which required a bunch of research, and then I ran out of time this week-end. You may be interested (or not) to know that I really simply time-box these things: I do research until I’m satisfied, or until I run out of whatever time I’m comfortable spending on a free newsletter. Anyway, without further ado, here are your Gloranthan news for this week!

God Learner Sorcery

Here is what us God Learners were up to this week.

Glorantha Initiation Episode 5

This month we interview Steinar, also known as Coffeemancer on the BRP Central forums, where his illustrations became famous. As always with the Initiation Series, we discuss how the guest’s recent discovery of Glorantha happened, what was good, what was bad, and what was fun.

Chaosium News

Here are this week’s Chaosium news!

RuneQuest Starter Stream Episode 05

I’m still catching up, but James has already started the second adventure from the RuneQuest Starter Set! Aaaagh! But as I catch up (I’m up to episode 3 right now), I really like that James is taking the time to let the story unfold: the adventure, the characters, the relationships, and so on. Plus, sort of learning the system as they go and not pretending to know every inch of the giant pile of rules that is RuneQuest. It makes me feel less bad for running equally slow-moving game sessions, and hand-waving many rules!

Leather Map Bundle from Studio DeadCrows

French RuneQuest licensee Studio DeadCrows is showing off this leather bundle to store your fancy Gloranthan maps!

This is one of the stretch goals for the Smoking Ruin and Pegasus Plateau French edition crowdfunding campaign.

If you want to know what’s different in the main French slipcase, I wrote an article about that!

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!

New Glorantha Settlement and Area Maps

The Jonstown Compendium is pretty quiet at the moment except for Mikael Mansen churning out more fancy maps!

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There are a couple more generic settlement maps (Settlement 13, Settlement 14, although I might have missed a couple since last time), plus maps of Talastar and Erigia.

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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.

During the Windstop

Jeff answered a question about the Windstop on BRP Central and then posted about it on Facebook. The Windstop is the year (more or less) during which Orlanth and Ernalda were effectively dead for a whole chunk of Genertela, courtesy of Lunar heroquesting (see the affected area below):

Most of 1621 and 1622 was one long winter in Dragon Pass, and Air and Earth magic didn’t work much or at all, with the epicentre of this tragedy at Whitewall, where the last Orlanthi resistance fell to the Red Emperor’s forces. Kallyr Starbrow and King Broyan eventually fixed the problem with some heroquesting of their own. This all happened a few years before the start of RuneQuest Glorantha’s official timeline, but for those who play in the more “classic” timeline of occupied Sartar, the Windstop is an interesting challenge.

During the Windstop, initiates of Orlanth and Ernalda within the affected area could not use their Rune Point pools to those gods and subcults of those gods. That includes Orlanth Adventurous, Rex, Thunderous, and Vinga.

Tatius the Bright expected that it would cause the Orlanth cult to collapse, but instead, Orlanth’s associates stepped into the gap. Chalana Arroy, Eurmal, Issaries, Lhankor Mhy, Storm Bull, Maran Gor, Babeester Gor, Grain Goddesses, and many others (including friendly cults such as Humakt) took on a greater social and magical prominence during that year. When the Windstop ended, the respect for the Orlanth and Ernalda cults actually rose as their importance in maintaining the cosmos was made more vivid.

Tatius the Bright was the General of the Lunar Provincial Army at the time.

Now part of the reason the default setting is moved to after the Dragonrise is that the Windstop is IMO better handled in retrospective. We didn’t think the default campaign path should be to make up a character in either of the two most popular player character cults and shortly after be told, “Sorry, none of your magic works.” And then keep that up for another three seasons or so. Obviously, if you want to play that, do it. But we concluded it was a far better idea to put that and the Dragonrise in the near past, and move forward from there.

As far as I’m concerned, that is perfectly sound reasoning. That, plus the fact that among the many old-school RuneQuest fan, a fair share of them might have grown tired of the Lunar occupation years…

Grazelanders Again

We had some notes about Grazelanders in previous issues of the Journal, but Jeff shared a summary:

So when thinking about the Grazelanders, it is perhaps best to think of them as a duopoly headed by the Feathered Horse Queen. That means two groups:

Semi-nomadic horse herders. These folk call themselves the Pure Horse People but would be barely recognizable to their distant kin in Pent and Erigia. Others call them the Pony Breeders. They raise and defend their horses, moving them around from pasture to pasture, supplemented by hay grown by the farmers. They are provided with additional foodstuffs, crafted goods, and so forth from the towns and villages, but in amounts set by the Feathered Horse Queen and acceptable to both groups. They worship Yelm and Ernalda.

Farmers and townsfolk. These folk are Orlanthi farmers, crafters, and merchants. They also include the Humakt cultists, who are the ferociously loyal bodyguards of the Feathered Horse Queen. They farm their fields, make craft goods, and run the markets – and give a percentage to the Feathered Horse Queen and to the Pony Breeders. They worship Orlanth Thunderous/Barntar and Ernalda, as well as the other Lightbringers and Humakt. Many have commercial or even kinship ties with Tarsh and Sartar.

This sort of co-dependence between farmers and nomads was pretty common in the real world. Farmers cannot easily become Pony Breeders, but are not slaves either. Disputes between the two groups are resolved by the Feathered Horse Queen who is above both groups, as the living incarnation of the Earth Goddess. The Feathered Horse Queen dynasty is closely related to the Sartar Dynasty and since 1605 or so to the Tarsh Dynasty in Furthest.

This is an important bit of information for anybody used to the older material where the Grazelanders are described as having Vendref “slaves” (I’m reading the HeroWars books at the moment and that word is used all the time in this context!) This new version of the setting seems more interesting and plausible to me so I like that this was changed.

The Feathered Horse Queen is very much the ruler. And she protects the farmers from the Pony Breeders AND the Pony Breeders from the farmers! The local Humakt cult is pledged to her service (likely as part of their initiation rites), and she controls the fertility of the lands and the herds. Life served by Death.

It is also worth keeping in mind that Grazeland society has been half Orlanthi farmer and half Yelmite horse herder for over a century or more. Both cults compete for the favour of Ernalda (the Feathered Horse Queen).

Finally, some numbers to get an idea of the group dynamics:

There are in total about 40k people in the Grazelands. 18k are Pony Breeders, 18k are farmers, and 4k are urban townspeople.

Reading Recommendations for Heroquesters

This is what Jeff recommends you take a look at:

When thinking about heroquests, I strongly recommend reading Jung’s “Red Book” aka the Liber Novus. That and “Inanna’s Descent into the Underworld”. And Gene Wolfe’s “Soldier of the Mist.” Those three books combined with “King of Sartar” and “Glorantha Companion [sic]” and you are much of the way.

By “Glorantha Companion”, Jeff actually mean “Glorantha Sourcebook“. Well, I’ve read 3 out of 5, so not too bad.

The above little diagram that Jeff shared with his note is “a map of part of the Hero Plane associated with the Aroka Quest.” So instead of organizing a heroquest as a linear list of “stations” as described in the old HeroWars supplements, Jeff seems to do a more classic sandbox of scenes, the way you might organize a normal adventure.

Gloranthan Art Series

Jeff has posted a five part series on Facebook about Glorantha art through the ages (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5). Let’s get started, it might take a while!

Dawn Age

At the Dawn, there were basically two cultural centers – Dragon Pass (also known as the Theyalans or the Unity Council) and the Peloria lowlands ruled by the Horse Lords.

The Theyalans had a tradition of “realistic” art thanks to the Silver Age heroes called the Architect and the Artist (both of whom were active in Kethaela). Moreover, they had access to dwarf crafters, dragonewts and elves. And to surviving pre-Time relics. It followed geometric patterns of proportion and composition, and mortals and gods alike were depicted nude. This “Theyalan style” got spread all over the place, but also was probably really diverse. Individual artists did things in individual ways.

Example: Stravulstead, 1st Century, thought to be Heort

The reference for this statue is the New York Kouros, a life-sized marble statue representing a young Greek man. The statue was carved in Attica in the 6th century BCE.

Stravulstead was one of the settlements that existed at the Dawn in Dragon Pass. There are many of them (there’s a map in the Guide to Glorantha), but that particular one was in the heart of the Theyalan culture, just west of Dwarf Mine and near Grizzly Peak.

Heort is of course the founder of the Heortlings, and an early hero Orlanthi hero who participated in the I Fought We Won battle during the Gods War.

Meanwhile in Peloria, you start with court art that is intended to appeal to the Sons of the Sun. Lots of gold, horses, sun disks, etc. And it contrasts with Theyalan art by not being realistic or naturalistic. So very formal, very precise and almost abstracted at times.

Hey, there’s a reason why the Fire/Sky Rune is tied to the INT characteristic in RuneQuest. This kind of art is for intellectuals!

When Dara Happa is formed, the new empire takes some of the ideas of the Theyalans and starts making sculptures of important gods and rulers (who are the same thing).

And they look at the Gods Wall for style. Because of course there are Pre-Dawn relics. Just like in Dragon Pass – we have relics from ancient times. Broken statues of unknown gods.

The Dara Happan Empire was, I think, something that existed in the God Time under the Sun Gods. It wasn’t much of a thing anymore at the Dawn (as you might expected after the Great Darkness of the Gods War), but it was “re-established” in 221. It didn’t fare very well in Time, being defeated and occupied by their western Carmanian Empire neighbour, and then absorbed into the nascent Lunar Empire in the beginning of the Third Age. Remember that, since we’re going to reach that point soon.

The Gods Wall is that thing you can see on the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen:

There’s a detailed appendix on it in the Guide to Glorantha, but you can also get it in a puzzle triptych!

We also start getting more and more concentrated wealth in the later First Age. Temples spend substantial resources commissioning artists.

By the 3rd century, the Dara Happan Empire and the High Council were in contact with each other and began to influence each other. The Theyalan Orlanth was identified with the Dara Happan Umatum and Rebellus Terminus, and Yelm with the Theyalan Emperor. Once the Dara Happan Empire joined the High Council of the Lands of Genertela in the later 4th century, this influence became pervasive and the mythologies were fused. This also influenced art, as artisan went among Dragon Pass to Dorastor to Dara Happa. A rich Yelm temple might hire artists, only for them to later work for a Heortling king or Orlanth temple. This results in a cross-pollination of symbols and style from Ralios to the Redlands, Peloria, Dragon Pass, and Maniria. Regional differences, but also common influences. The later First Age is a shared language of mythology, art, and culture.

You can thank the God Learners of the Second Age for not having to deal with all these different names for similar deities! Real-world archeologists and historians have to deal with that, but that’s really just overly complicated and confusing for a make-believe fun-times roleplaying game.

Second Age

This unified culture collapses in the Gbaji Wars at the end of the First Age. War and poverty. A collapse, which in turn leads to reduction in complexity in artwork. A Dark Age from about 450 to 600 or so.

In Dragon Pass, you end up with a vibrant civilization around 700. But they don’t have the dwarfs around to help them. And a lot more trollish influences.

Sculpture became less “realistic” and powerfully primitive. Basic shapes, essentially. But done with lots of wealth.

This is people working off copies of copies, without the skills to do it.

This reference is a statue of the Mesopotamian-Aramean storm god Haddad. You can see it in Pergamon museum in Berlin… the satue, that is. Not the storm god himself. Although frankly I’m half expecting someone to pop up and say “come on, Ludovic, in Glorantha, of course both are the same!“

Around 800 things change. The Dragon Pass kingdom gets extremely wealthy and obsessed with esoteric symbolism. And is in contact with the Middle Sea Empire. Things get sensuous and baroque. This is the formation of what we call the Esrolian style.

The reference picture that Jeff shared at this point was very low-resolution so I’m having trouble finding where it comes from… but it looks to me like a Hindu high-relief sculpture like this one, from the Brahmeshvara temple in Kikkeri:

This piece is described as “Vishnu and Lakshmi under a Vesara aedicule” and if you’re like me, maybe the only words you understood there are “and”, “under”, and “a”.

Ok, I’m being a bit facetious because I have a vague idea who Vishnu is. He’s one of the principal deities in Hinduism, and he’s sometimes depicted as a… hold on… a blue guy with four arms? He “creates, transforms, and protects” the universe? He “restores the cosmic order” when the universe is “threatened by Chaos”? Oh hey, that reminds me of someone…

Lakshmi is Vishnu’s consort, although from the looks of it she doesn’t map as directly to Ernalda. She seems a bit more like Dendara (Yelm’s very respectable wife), with some Asrelia for the “wealth” aspect, and a few other things thrown in.

A Vesara is a specific architectural type of Hindu temple, and an aedicule is a type of shrine typically built as a niche with one or more statues inside. Huh. Oh well, those are my new English words of the week.

Anyway, the point is: art budgets are increasing thanks to trade money, so artists have more time to add more overly symbolic and detailed necklaces on everybody, a few extra arms for good measure, and complicated patterns all around the thing.

Whereas the Middle Sea Empire is more Hellenistic baroque. Very idealized baroque work.

Jeff’s reference here is a detail of the (checks notes) gigantomachy frieze of the Pergamon Altar. What? Seriously, are people just inventing new words now? Ok, so the Gigantomachy is the name of the battle between the Giants and the Olympian Gods in Ancient Greek and Roman mythology.

These cool sculptures are again at Berlin’s Pergamon museum. It’s a massive exhibit, check it out:

This was built in the 2nd century BCE in Pergamon’s acropolis. This is another one of Ancient Greece’s many cities founded on the other side of the Aegian Sea, in modern day Turkey.

Where the EWF is going for Indian baroque, the Carmanian and Dara Happans are going for something more austere and idealized. More stylized and austere styles in the north, more “naturalistic” and descriptive art in the south. To put it roughly, the Pelorians evoke ideas, the Theyalans depict things.

Carmania establishes a much less baroque and more austere idealized style in Peloria. Which, in turn, echoes the divide that existed before the First Age too.

The next reference picture is, I think, from the “Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal“. It’s a mural from one of the palaces in the Assyrian city of Nineveh, built in the mid-7th century BCE.

Here you can see him actually fighting the lion:

If you live in San Francisco, or if you like stupid internet memes like me, you might have already seen this guy wrestling that lion… the San Francisco statue below has been described as “…when you need to stop the cat from running outside while you’re getting that Amazon package“:

We are of course talking about the richer temples and rulers. Smaller temples are left behind. Villages shrines still do stuff like this:

This is a picture of an early 7th century BCE votive figure attributed to an Ancient Greek noble named Mantiklos. It was an offering to Apollo. We know this because it’s written on the figure’s legs: “Mantiklos dedicated me as a tithe to the Far Shooter, the bearer of the Silver Bow. You, Phoibos [Shining One], give something pleasing in return.” You can see this in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

In RuneQuest, that’s the kind of stuff your adventurers might leave at various temples to get those bonuses when replenishing Rune Points. You can even make it a full-on action figure, complete with accessories! Indeed, this Mantiklos votive figure has “…marks of attachment on the top of the head and a hole for attachment in the forehead. The hole in the left hand has been identified as support for a bow. It has been suggested also that the figure was a warrior, wearing a helmet and carrying a spear in the left hand and a shield on the right arm.“

The Middle Sea Empire influences Esrolia – you get rich temples hiring crafters from across the Middle Sea Empire for technique skill. Esrolia is super cosmopolitan, and its artists might throw in weird references from Kralorela or Fonrit or Seshnela or whatever. So in Esrolia, you basically establish super-baroque. Great technique, lush symbolism, but very naturalistic and sensuous.

The reference picture for this part is some of the sculptures from Khajuraho temples in northern India.

These temples, built between the 9th and 11th centuries CE, are famous for their erotic sculptures. These only represent about 10% of the numerous sculptures decorating the site, but of course that’s what tourists come to see. And given what they look like, it seems obvious that it’s a great idea to take family pictures there. “Naturalistic and sensuous” might become a lot more hard-core in some select Kethaelan temples…

In Dragon Pass and South Peloria, it is as baroque, but less sensuous and more abstract and symbolic. Here the influence of the dragons is the greatest.

And in Peloria, it is more austere, idealised, and formal. Also they have the Gods Wall to go back on.

Now Jeff shows us various ways to depict Ernalda:

In Esrolia, she is depicted as this lush and sensual dancing woman, surrounded by a dazzling array of flowers, grains, husband protectors, worshipers, lesser goddesses. She overwhelms with splendor to the point where your senses can’t even take it all in.

Another northern India statue is used for reference here:

I think this is a sculpture of the goddess Kaumari, a war goddess who rides a peacock, carries a spear and axe, and has several cool powers. She is one of the Matrikas, which are also known as (checks notes) the Seven Mothers. Oh hey! Well, I’m not going to go deeper into that because it seems super complicated and deals with various sub-types of Hinduism, but that should be enough to whet you appetite — in particular, I’m totally going to have an Ernaldan or Babeester Gor NPC riding a peacock, now.

But anyway, if I’m still following Jeff, this would be one way to sculpt some representation of Ernalda. But there are others:

In Peloria, she is very formal and strict. She looks much like the other goddesses, just more so. Or maybe she is naked and the others are clothed.

This is a sculpture of Asherah, a “mother Goddess” of ancient semitic religions. She was widely worshipped throughout the ancient Middle East, often as the consort of this or that god, like Ernalda is in Glorantha. And while Asherah was wed with various big deities in Caanite, Hittite, Assyrian, and other religions, her claim to modern fame is probably as a consort of Yahweh in Israelite religion.

In Dragon Pass, she is looser than Peloria, dancing like she is in Esrolian artwork. There are still goddesses, husbands and flowers around her, but there is also other stuff. Strange runes, which almost look like hers, but aren’t. The snakes around her look…odd, and not quite right. And some of the flowers do not look entirely real.

This is, I think, a picture of Nagaraja with his wife. Now I’m not clear on who Nagaraja is, because it might be less a person and more a group of persons. They are the kings of various types of serpents, although it seems like the Hindu texts mostly refer to three main kings. And yes, if you’re enough of a Gloranthaphile, seeing serpent kings with serpent legs should be firing all kinds of cylinders in your head.

But again, ignore my digressions: this is supposed to be how Ernalda might be depicted in Dragon Pass. She would be as liberated and sensual as in Esrolia, but with more weird draconic mysticism, I guess.

During the period from 878 to 910 that the EWF rules Dara Happa, elements of this style gets imposed along with traditional formalism.

Ah, finally a reference picture I can somewhat place: this is good old Marduk, a big shot Mesopotamian deity, and city-god of Babylon, no less. The drawing above is a depiction of the Statue of Marduk inside which the god was believed to reside.

So I suppose that Dara Happan traditional art style is augmented with weird bits about dragons and snakes, basically.

Then the seas Close. Esrolia is cut off from the Middle Sea Empire, and its art loses some of its technical brilliance, and gets even more baroque and less understandable.

Meanwhile in Peloria, the Carmanians react against the most obviously EWF stuff, but they are conquering and expanding, so they are hiring artists trained by the EWF but being told Be More Formal!

Third Age (Holy Country)

And then comes a long period of war that culminates in the Dragonkill War. Which divides the world into Kethaela and Peloria.

Kethaela starts with that late Second Age Esrolian style. Sensuous and baroque. Though regressed a bit and gets worse and worse at it. Since you don’t have the actual artisans present anymore.

Until Belintar shows up. And Belintar oversees a rich artistic renaissance. And he’s of course a thorough God Learner, with baroque references on top of baroque references. So the style remains mostly the same, but revitalized. Not “realistic” but symbolic and mythological.

And he draws on the Esrolians, the Heortlings, the Caladralanders, the God Forgotites, the trolls, and the dwarfs to create a visual melting point. And the Kethaelans get their technical skills back. The way the ornamentation and detailing is made is changed as a result of communication from the dwarfs of Gemborg. Intricate decoration.

At some point, the style is a reference to a reference to itself. So whereas the Second Age stuff was naturalistic verging on weird abstractions (like in the eyes and so on), under Belintar, temple architecture was naturalistic but not formalized.

This “plaque with female figure” dates back to the 1st century BCE in East India, and is housed in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. So while there are style similarities to the previous Indian pieces, this one is definitely less intricate and crazy-looking. In the real-world it’s because it’s an earlier piece using a different medium, but in Glorantha that would be because local artists have lost their EWF drug dealers.

Belintar tries to recreate that very spread out and universal First Age Style. And of course this just goes nuts with the Opening. Because the Holy Country is now stupid rich.

Now when Sartar gets settled, they bring this artistic tradition with them. Sartar and his heirs hire artists from the Holy Country. But Orlanth is the focus. It is not as baroque. It is more martial, more masculine. And somewhat technically cruder, except for the dwarf or Wilms-made stuff from Sartar’s time. Which is technically superb. More masculine, more martial, more violent. And even more individualistic.

Artists are very much encouraged to put their own spin on things. The overall style is there, of course, you can’t really escape it.

Jeff describes this picture as a “statue of a Sartarite Chieftain or King“. In the real world, it’s the Bharhut Yavana, from northern India in around 100 BCE. Indeed, less exhuberant detail and more serious.

This next reference is an “Ernalda cult image“. In the real world, it’s the Lady of Auxerre, currently housed in the Louvre Museum in Paris. It dates back to the 7th century BCE, and was probably related to some Ancient Greek goddess like Persephone. As always, we tend to see the past as monochrome, but this reconstruction shows how colourful it might have been:

Next, some reference for “Sartarite coin art“:

In the real world, these are coins from the reign of Agothocles of Bactria, in the late 2nd century BCE. Apparently we don’t know much about the guy, but we know a LOT about his coins! Of note, these coins show a mix of Greek and Indian deities, so good on Agothocles for the multiculturalism here.

If you’ve seen the coin art in the RuneQuest rulebook or the Guide to Glorantha, the similarities are obvious. And remember that you can get real Glorantha coins, courtesy of Campaign Coins!

Finally, this is a reference for “King Tarkalor”, who was Prince of Sartar and King of Dragon Pass in the late 1500s before being killed by the Lunars at the Battle of Grizzly Peak.

The actual image is the 6th century BCE life-size statue of an unknown or unnamed hoplite warrior found in the temple of Hera in Samos, an island in the Aegean Sea. There’s more here, but again, this is very martial and, frankly, plain.

The Lunar Empire

But, in Peloria, things are different. The EWF style are gone. And we have a long dark age.

The Carmanians embrace a formal brutalism style. Them and their gods triumphing atop piles of dead. Think Assyrian palace style. Scenes of war and scenes of authority.

Jeff doesn’t share any reference here, but hey you come here for the useful annotations, right? Here’s what an Assyrian palace might have looked like during the height of Assyrian cities from, say, the 14th century BCE to the 7th century BCE:

So not as brutalist as a 1960s communist monument, but still pretty concrete square looking. And here’s what the inside might have looked like:

There are more pretty pictures and information here. Generally speaking, it seems like you can use Assyrian cities such as Assur, Nimrud, and Nineveh as inspiration for your Glorantha’s Dara Happan cities like Raibanth, Alkoth, and Yuthuppa.

The Lunar-Dara Happan revolt comes out of that tradition but tries to turn it upside down. With a naked goddess being the equal of a stern but benevolent Yelm. Standing on top of a pile of dead Carmanians and Pentans.

But also we start getting new esotericism. It could be that the Red Goddess was not even initially depicted as a deity. But just as a woman. Deliberately smaller than the gods and rulers. Naked and human, but superior to the immortal gods. And she is not depicted in a formal manner. Idealised yes, but relaxed and in dance. The Yelm cult takes its cues from here as well. Yelm gets less formalized, although continues to be idealized. Maybe even more idealized.

Sedenya is basically the girl next door that your worshippers told you you don’t need to worry about. But hey, what’s that? Your worshippers are now wearing Red Moon t-shirts? Uh oh.

As the Lunar Empire gets richer, the art gets better, and becomes what we now call the Old Lunar style.

We get a century and a half of this Old Lunar style. And then in 1375 the Pentans come. And for nearly a century, the Pentans reduce Peloria to grasslands. People are eating mud and each other. The Lunar Empire consists of the besieged center of Glamour, some barbaric kingdoms in the south, and the Western Reaches aka Old Carmania.

Lunar art becomes cruder, poorer, and more emphatic. There is now no difference between Lunar and Dara Happan. There is simply Lunar-Pentan-Slave. Empathic in subject and very removed from the concerns of the world. Because in the real world Sheng Seleris rules. Minor victories or stalemates against Sheng Seleris are monumental triumphs!

In a surprise, the Red Emperor defeats Sheng Seleris and confines him to a Lunar (ie mystical) hell. The Pentans collapse. And now the Lunar Empire is able to resettle the New Grasslands of Peloria. This is where Lunar art comes from. Restore and Rebuild. New towns need to be built. Old cities need to be rebuilt.

All quickly, all at the same time, and from the Oronin River to the Arcos. From the White Sea to the gates of Alkoth. Every town gets laid out more or less the same, with a temple complex to the Red Goddess, Yelm, Dendara, Lodril, and whoever else. All by the same architects and artists.

And although directly supervised by the Red Emperor, Great Sister, or Hon-eel, it is initially done fast and on the cheap. And some a lot better than others.

So we now have within the empire basically four styles. Three are old and can be found in:

1. Glamour and the Tripolis
2. Western Reaches
3. Jillaro
4. Everywhere else: The New Lunar style or the Lunar Heartland style.

Towns are built quick. And cheap. Art is initially easy to reproduce. Very stylized and formalized. But over the next century and a half, the empire gets richer and richer and richer. So this New Lunar style gets built upon, embellished, upgraded. More elaborate and more technically skilled. But it is still based off that original post-Sheng style.

But now rich Lunar priests demand that the artist display technical virtuosity and work in all sorts of Lunar motifs and esoteric references.

I guess that’s what happens when the upper crust of the Lunar society starts to accumulate many rich second generation assholes and crazy Illuminates.

During Sheng’s occupation, the shift towards more empathic and non-real world related themes in art also brings in another thing. The artwork starts to depict Yelm, Lodril, Dayzatar, and all the others as idealized and perfect. These almost calming presences in the world, a source of stability amongst the chaos and horror of Sheng’s rule.

Yelm is no longer that stiff, formal, restricted thing on the Gods Wall. He is still that yes, but to the masses he is also the benevolent sun god. And the Red Goddess’ divine father.

This reminds me of this theory about western genre movie production, where we supposedly get more dystopian stories when the economy is good, and more zombie and post-apocalyptic stories when the economy is bad.

As the occupation ends, as more art gets made and the more and more money gets pumped into it, this transforms.

The Seven Mothers, Etyries , Hon-eel, etc. are depicted in a sensual, loose and free style. They are beautiful and relatable.

The Celestial Gods meanwhile are beautiful, yet perfect. They are not sensual; they are not mere mortal things. They are the perfect geometry of the world, the cosmic order.

A depiction of Hon-eel or Jar-eel or Etyries shows you an idealized reflection of you, the mortal viewer.

They were born, they suffered, they transcended. Like the Goddess herself.

The depiction of Yelm shows you something else though. something still beautiful, but in a different way. It is the beauty of perfect harmony. The beauty of the cosmic order of the Golden Age.

So let’s move this forward a tiny bit more. By the 7th Wane, the Lunar Empire is ruled by Yelm illuminates of the Red Goddess cult. For generations. They are self-referential by now in the sense that their art needs to communicate with them and not so much other audiences. So in our magnificent great temple in Glamour, with gold and gems and glass, abstract depictions of Yelm and statues of Apollo, we have this crude little gold sun disk on a horse from the Dawn.

What Now?

Well, this was fun. I think all this pile of information might be interesting to use for environmental storytelling. The way the gamemaster describes a given relic, loot item, temple, ruin, or vision from the past could use this Gloranthan art history to give subtle hints about when and where it’s from.

Environmental storytelling is probably harder to do in a tabletop RPG than in, say, a movie or a video game, and it will probably fly right over the players’ heads, but it’s the kind of little easter egg that shows you care.

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.

RuneQuest Year Zero Concludes

Baz Stevens’ deep newbie dive into the RuneQuest Starter Set concludes with an epilogue featuring only call-ins from listeners (you might hear my voice in there). I heartily recommend the whole series to any RuneQuest grognard, and I hope Baz gets to actually play a game soon.

The Vintage RPG on Glorantha

Previously mentioned Vintage RPG podcast has released an episode on Glorantha. It’s a nice presentation of the setting where one of the hosts explains the most mythical bits to the other host. It’s short and fun so check it out!

JM on Glorantha and Other Cool Things

The Live From Pellam’s Wasteland YouTube channel welcomes JM, of Exploring Glorantha and Jackals fame, to talk about Glorantha and other cool things. I haven’t watched it yet but hey, here you go.

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.

God Learner Sorcery

Here is what us God Learners were up to this week.

Episode 9: Nomad Gods (Part 1)

Episode 9 of our podcast is finally out! We welcome Chaosium’s David Scott again to talk about the 1977 board game Nomad Gods, after the usual news section where I do some marketing and Joerg gives some shout outs. Cited as a “foundational text” for Glorantha, we flip through the Nomad Gods rules booklet while David provides anecdotes, historical context, and revelations!

Chaosium News

Here are this week’s Chaosium news!

Runequest Starter Stream Episode 04

James and his players are wrapping up A Rough Landing! I’m behind by one episode so I’m still catching up, without anything interesting to write here.

Cults of Prax, One for the Ages…

It’s another one of Rick Meints’ “Out of the Suitcase” articles! I love those. This new one talks about Cults of Prax, its various printings, and some peek at production material, among other things. For instance, Chaosium’s archives apparently still contain the original art for the second printing:

There’s quite a few nice archive photos, fun anecdotes, and interesting information in that post so definitely check it out. There will be a lot of similar information in Rick’s upcoming “Meints’ Index to Glorantha” 3rd edition, which is supposed to go on sale “soon”.

William Church, who did several of the iconic RQ2 maps (including the one above) is still alive and well, but Rick mentioned on Facebook that “he wasn’t much of a gamer back in the day, and still isn’t now.” Another bit of good news is that Chaosium has approval from Church to use his “Dark Troll Jokes” from Wyrms’ Footnotes for their Redbubble merchandise… although of course it doesn’t mean we will necessarily have these jokes on a t-shirt any time soon.

The Chaosium Con Auction Teaser

Speaking of Rick Meints and interesting artifacts, here’s Rick teasing the stuff we might see at the Chaosium Con action! Plus: what the “Chaosium archives” actually look like!

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.

Uncoling and Other Hsunchen

This bit about the Hsunchen is, I think, some new text, possibly from the upcoming Cults book:

“Through the Golden Age, most of the world had taken shape, especially the division between gods and lesser beings. The gods and spirits were able to change their form, but mortals were not. At first life was wonderful and perfect, but eventually many mortals lost contact with their animal selves, thereby losing touch with Nature and succumbing to the vices of agriculture, politics, war, priests, and wizards. Those people were doomed, for all those things proved useless in the Gods War.

When Death came into the world, the remaining people followed the Horned Man and found Hykim and Mikyh again in the Spirit World. Hykim and Mikyh taught their descendants how to survive in the world, how to be reborn again, and what new ceremonies were needed to preserve the world.”

Hykim and Mikyh are draconic figures who are considered as ancestors of all beasts. It’s unclear (on purpose) whether this couple really exists, or whether they’re one hermaphrodite entity with two gendered aspects. Any time you hear about some bestial deity, like Eiritha or Storm Bull, there’s a good chance Hykim or Mikyh show up in the lineage.

Anyway, we’re here to talk about the Hsunchen. These are generally speaking tribes of primitive people who are strongly associated with an animal spirit. They follow a sort of neolithic way of life, have some animal buddy (a “beast brother” or “beast sister”), some shapeshifting magic, and are big with nature spirit worship. The most fun Hsunchen in Dragon Pass are probably the Telmori, who are basically Chaos-tainted werewolves. I’m running a scenario about them for Chaosium Con! (hopefully I’ll get to write it down and publish it)

The Hsunchen believe that after death, their souls are reborn into their own tribe, failing to distinguish between the human and animal members. Death rituals reflect this belief but vary greatly from tribe to tribe.

From this point, Jeff uses the Uncoling to illustrate his points (and also reply to the original post):

That’s the key similarity among all the Hsunchen peoples – they do not distinguish between the human and the animal members of their tribe. An Uncoling herder recognises the reindeer he herds as members of the same tribe as him, distinct from all outsiders. Sure the reindeer has a different function within the tribe, different duties and expectations, but they are of the same family. The reindeer is kin in a way that the inhabitants of Easval or Zoria are not. When that herder dies, he expects he may be reborn as a reindeer.

The Uncoling are the “reindeer people”, obviously, mostly located in Fronela. You can also guess from context, but Easval and Zoria are neighbouring “civilized” region, respectively a province of Loskalm and a city in Central Fronela.

Now a Loskalmi scholar might look at the Uncoling as consisting of a bunch of humans and their reindeer herds, and on a material level they would be right. We have some 300,000 Uncolings between Loskalm and Rathorela. They survive as pastoral nomads who assemble for rituals and trade. And so on. That understanding is correct but limited.

The Uncoling know the full truth – they are the people who have remained in contact with their animal selves. They and the reindeer are the same people. The reindeer offer themselves for their kin – they agree that some number must be sacrificed so that the tribe may continue. When a reindeer is to be killed, its kin come to it, ask it for its sacrifice, and thank it for its offering. It is slain with the Peaceful Cut and its kin weep and celebrate, and no part of the offering is wasted. Meat is eaten, fur and hide used, and even the bones are used as tools. All Uncoling know that they too have made that same offering in a past incarnation and will again in the future. This is the cycle of life-death-life, the way of the Uncoling.

Yanioth Turntable

Here’s a little work-in-progress for the many character “turntables” that Anna Orlova is doing:

As with other similar illustrations, Chaosium is taking particular care with the character’s tattoos.

Running Kallyr’s Lightbringer Quest

This question on Facebook was asking about Kallyr’s 1625 Lightbringer Quest. In the official material, she does this heroquest shortly after the Dragonrise, but fails when Lunar superheroine Jar-eel crashes the party.

Jeff replied with some advice for running it:

Kallyr’s Lightbringer Quest takes begins at the Hill of Orlanth Victorious and travels widdershins around the Quivin Mountains along both the Hero Plane and Mundane World until arriving in Boldhome for the culmination of the ceremony.

Today’s word: “widdershins“. Basically Kallyr and her companions follow a path that forms an Air Rune over Sartar.

It occurs during Sacred Time, a period when the mundane world and the Hero Plane are in proximity – but the massive outpourings of magical energy causes the Proximate Realm to overlap with our own. So plenty of people find themselves interacting with the Hero Plane – the safest thing to do is remain in the magical safe places (temples, homes, hearths, sacred grounds, etc.) and carefully do the traditional Sacred Time ceremonies, as Kallyr and her companions skit through the strands of mythology. But for intrepid adventurers might take this opportunity to do their own mythic explorations!

You might remember that the Proximate Realm is some sort of semi-permanent magic field that makes it easier to interact with the divine.

Jar-eel is of course a skilled traveler of Arachne Solara’s web and is able to navigate herself to the climax of Kallyr’s ceremony to terrible effect.

So in running this, you need think, what is my players’ role in all this?

1. Sidekicks of Kallyr? This could be interesting, but very dangerous and also runs into the narrative problem of the players playing the sidekick. I don’t really recommend it myself.

2. Adversaries of Kallyr? Many tribes want to test Kallyr, to probe her claims and also force her into an identity. The Colymar in particular are going to put her through the ringer. Maybe they take a power from her, maybe they end up owing her a magical debt. Regardless, they likely end up being part of the climax. I’ve run this multiple times and it is pretty much always good fun.

3. Participants in the ritual that decide to going exploring. This is what I would recommend for most GMs. The players participate in the ritual and get the opportunity to explore the mythic realm OUTSIDE of a story. Maybe they meet Uleria/Tarndisi, maybe Redeye or the Hound show up to devour the Light. Maybe they wander through the Gap and find themselves in the Chasm of Lost Souls! You can go nuts with this stuff, and then return the players to either their home temple or to the culmination of Kallyr’s ceremony.

You can watch Jeff’s game featuring Kallyr’s heroquest on YouTube. According to this episode list, it starts in episode S01E26 and runs for another four episodes. In that campaign, he sort of went with option 2: the adventurers were tasked by Argrath himself to go and challenge Kallyr during her ceremony.

Here are also previous notes on Kallyr’s heroquest.

The Repopulation of Dragon Pass

Dragon Pass went through a really bad period at the end of the Second Age with the Dragonkill War, when dragons basically killed everybody in the area (although mostly the humans). What followed was the Inhuman Occupation, when Beastfolk and Aldryami and Uz had the place for themselves, free to scream at each other and fight each other without any pesky human getting in the way. But of course humans eventually came back:

Humans returned to Dragon Pass around 1250 ST. These were the remnants of the Pure Horse People of Prax. Bands of Pure Horse People and their horses wandered about Dragon Pass, although from the start they favored the hills and valleys in the southwestern part of the Pass.

Orlanthi from the Holy Country began to settle the Pass only 50 years later. The first group were the Colymar, who settled around Clearwine. But starting in 1325, the first of several waves of settlement came from the Holy Country into southern Dragon Pass.

Around 1330 came the first Orlanthi settlers from Peloria in the north of the Pass. Initially this was a trickle, but it became a flood after the Daughter’s Campaigns in Saird.

The “Daughter’s Campaigns in Saird” was when the Lunar superheroine of the time forced the Orlanthi of Saird to bend the knee for good to the Red Emperor. This made Arim the Pauper go south with his people and found the Kingdom of Tarsh. Of course that didn’t do them any good, that Kingdom was conquered by the Lunars a couple generations after. So these Tarshites fled to Northern Sartar and founded the Alone Confederation. Of course that didn’t do them any good either because that was conquered by the Lunars a couple generations after too. Funny how that goes, eh?

By 1400, the Orlanthi settlers in Dragon Pass greatly outnumbered the Pure Horse People and the horse nomads were now confined to the southwest. The Pure Horse People forced some of the settlers (those in the southwest) to submit to their overlordship, but by 1450 even this was doubtful. The rise of the Feathered Horse Queen allowed a new community to form – the Grazelanders or Pony Breeders – where the queen ruled both the horse people and the farmers.

To understand the “even this was doubtful” mention, you can check out the notes on the Grazelanders back in issue #33, where we learned that the Vendref are less like the slaves depicted in the old HeroWars books, and more like a different culture that lives in some kind of symbiotic relationship with the sun worshippers.

Sartar showed up in the Pass around 1470 and over the next score of years, transformed the tribes around the Quivin Mountains into a kingdom, with cities, roads, and markets. Hon-eel arrived in 1490 and quickly the Lunars became a faction in the north.

It is now 1625, and so the southeast of Dragon Pass has been Sartarite for about half their history in the Pass. Similarly, Furthest has been Lunar almost as long as that area was Orlanthi. Places like Bagnot or Dunstop have been Lunar for a much shorter period (a little more than two generations). Thus does that resettlement era recede into the distance.

Now remember, these people are not hermetically sealed and have traded and otherwise interacted with each other for centuries.

If you have the RuneQuest Gamemaster Adventures booklet, you might know that the Colymar tribe has a couple clans of “pony riders” who worship the old Orlanthi sun god:

They called themselves the Hyalorings after that ancient solar horse-taming hero, but were Orlanthi and not Pure Horse People.

They did ride and worship horses though. Which made them stand out among the other settlers from the Holy Country.

This is where I’m getting a bit confused, since the Guide says that the Hyalorings were Pure Horse People. Maybe Pure Horse People is a general term or something. I don’t have time to dig further so I’ll just mention that Runegate, the nearest city to where these Colymar clans are, has a temple to both Elmal (their old sun god) and to Hyalor Horsebreaker, the hero Jeff mentions here.

I don’t think a Grazelander would stand out in Runegate as being any more foreign than someone from the Far Place or Esrolia. That being said, I don’t think that the Pure Horse People and the Runegate folk view each other as kin or related in any way. Sure both have cults to Hyalor, but so do the Sun Dome Temples as well.

Moving on:

The Grazelanders have more than a century of close relations with the Sartarites. Half their population is Orlanthi, their royal houses regularly intermarry, and they have often fought on the same side against the Lunar Empire.

Intermarrying between Sartarites and Grazelanders is the way to get crowned “King of Dragon Pass”, so go get that spouse!

Runegate Map Notes

Jeff sometimes helps Jonstown Compendium creators by sharing his notes. For instance, notes about Runegate. They’re pretty long so I’m not going to put them all here (they will be in the Well of Daliath in a few weeks for those who need them). The highlights for me are:

• Horsetown is a pasture northwest of Runegate with a wooden palisade around it. It has a minor Issaries temple (that is, a market) and a shrine to Elmal. Horses from there can be purchased at the weekly Runegate market or during an annual summer fair.
• Runegate’s stone towers and buildings were destroyed during the Lunar invasion of 1602. There are now more timber structures than usual.
• The East Gate is dedicated to Asrelia and is called “the Luck Gate”, because it’s the only stone one that survived the 1602 Crimson Bat attack.
• There are several recently built temples (most probably recently rebuilt?). These include the usual Orlanthi deities, but, of note, there’s a temple (or shrine) to Elmal the Sun Horse, and to Eurmal. A Storm Bull shrine was built after the Chaos Flood of 1610. And of course there’s a Humakt temple called the House of Death, which isn’t surprising given the proximity of the undead-filled Upland Marsh.
• There is also a Seven Mothers shrine which, unlike the one in Jonstown, is still standing. It’s not maintained by the Lunar Empire anymore post-Dragonrise, but it’s supported by travellers coming from Lunar Tarsh.
• As usual there are several inns, including a Geo’s.
• Jeff’s write-up for Runegate includes a couple of recent events, probably coming from some adventure book in progress.

I like to get more data points for my spreadsheets, so here’s the cultist make-up of Runegate:

150 Orlanth
150 Ernalda
50 Issaries
75 Humakt
25 Storm Bull
150 Yelmalio
10 Gustbran
50 Others

Heroquesting and the Hero Wars

Jeff talks about the main two types of heroquesting people do around the Hero Wars:

1. We do what we have always done. We stick to the path and don’t leave it. There’s strong societal and cult pressure to do that for everyone. Orlanthi, Lunars, Praxians, Malkioni, whoever.

2. We dive in deep. This is for the desperate, the lost, the mad, and the would-be-gods. In other words, for the heroes. There’s strong societal and cult pressures against that for everyone – even if successful, what you experience may change things dramatically.

I had asked in a previous Journal issue why people in Glorantha don’t generally heroquest outside of old strict rituals (category 1). I figured that it was maybe because only heroes and adventurers have the courage to do so, because the unknown is scary and there’s a long tradition of frowning upon it since the end of the Second Age. It looks like it’s not too far off:

Until relatively recently, the door to category 2 was generally closed. Sure we can name the Red Goddess, Red Emperor, Belintar, Hwarin Dalthippa, Hon-eel, Feathered Horse Queen, Sir Ethilrist, Sartar, and a few others. But they are rare – usually no more than one or two such people a generation.

The Hero Wars are terrifying because we open wide the door to category 2. Argrath and the Red Emperor both encourage this. We have scores of people doing deep dives into the Hero Planes – including player characters. We have heroes that have gone so deep they are rewriting the strands – Jar-eel and Harrek. And with this, the Lunars really don’t have much of a comparative advantage.

Although the Lunars have had several phases of wild experimental heroquesting (particularly in Wanes 0-5), they generally stick to what they know. Admittedly, they have explored some areas that others have largely ignored, but within that framework, usually stick to what they know.

Now Jeff provides some insights for running heroquests and choosing heroic boons:

Category 1 heroquests more or less just reinforce what we already know. And the boons are usually along the lines of existing cult magic and abilities. That’s useful and good, and you can end up with cool powers and curses like those of Hofstaring Treeleaper or Vamastal Greyskin.

But it is Category 2 where the real excitement happens.

What I see raised so often in discussions – “oh how do I fix some aspect of my cult that I don’t like” – occurs so rarely as to be a statistical blip. Heroquests change cults, but almost never because someone sets out to do that. Instead, cults change because heroquesters are directly interacting with the mythic realm and have different experiences than the received lore. And sometimes those new experiences result in very useful magic or insights – which then gets taught to the cult.

And in that manner, cults change even if the gods do not.

And this brings me to the backwards reasoning that a lot of people apply when discussing heroquests. They assume the boon and the experience was planned. That’s usually the case when the heroquest stays within the path of what we have always done.

But the bigger quests – where the heroes dive deep into the realm of myth – the boons and experience result from that deep dive into the unknown. They aren’t planned beyond a Hail Mary pass. Alakoring was desperate in his war agains the EWF and he traveled previously unknown paths that had him fight against the Dragons and win. In the process he became divine Rex, changed the cult of Orlanth (which also undermined the EWF), and gained terrible powers against dragonkind in the process.

In my opinion, even though these experimental heroquests are where excitement happens, the gamemaster needs to start with the first category, where the adventurers’ hand is guided, because the whole concept of heroquesting needs to be introduced to the players in the first place. But even then, the paths and the heroic boons wouldn’t be planned: the gamemaster should let players diverge from the path and get a taste of mythic exploration, and reward them based on what happened.

Understanding Mythology

Jeff shares a snippet of what he considers “to be one of the most important essays in the Cults book”:

Readers will see that many of these stories in these volumes seem to contradict each other, even when they are about the same entity. What, one may well ask, is the actual origin of Death? How can Umath be circling the rim of the universe when he is also at the cosmic court talking to Yelm?

One aspect of myth is that it simultaneously holds multiple versions of truth at any moment. It also means more than one thing. It cannot be contained by mere logic, not even by solitary illogic. It is a manifestation of Mystery that is simultaneously both a protective mask for, and an obvious path to understanding the Mystery. These different aspects are brought forth depending upon the circumstances of the ritual being observed, the magic being obtained, or whatever form of consciousness the participant or observer has.

The plurality of myths was frankly the least of my difficulties with Gloranthan mythology when I started getting into the lore. I understand that people who are looking for classic RPG background material may be confused, but once you realize it’s not that, anybody who has had a little religious education or read enough Marvel comics will know how to handle it.

FOUR WAYS TO EXPERIENCE THESE STORIES

Myths carry layers of meaning, and their meaning is also imparted differently depending upon the position of the recipient of them.

1. READING
You will probably read this book silently to yourself. The narration is necessarily externalized and will be from a distance. Only the mental facilities will be used. This is the weakest method of experiencing myth.

2. VERBAL RETELLING
To listen to someone else read or narrate these stories stimulates the listener much more than just reading silently would. The listener uses more senses, and more of the self is engaged and excited by sound, gesture, and surprises.

3. WITNESS
When the observer actually witnesses other people performing the myth all senses become engaged, and external perspectives give depth to the narrative. Furthermore, observers will see things being done that are entirely absent from the verbal retelling. This is how a Gloranthan lay member experiences myth.

4. PARTICIPATORY
To actually participate in a dramatic myth provides the most power and impact. Perspective is more limited than witnessing, for naturally the participant must take care to play his part and not be distracted by other things. But incredible depth can be obtained from participating in key roles, and in being observed by others, and in channeling the deity’s story. Participating in myth is part of the initiatory experience of every Gloranthan cult.

In other words, go play a game.

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.

Some Good Looking Glorantha Skirmish War Minis

Felix Figure Painting is sharing some more wonderful painting jobs!

These are all for Runequest/Glorantha Skirmish War – In no particular order

6 Full Moon Corps Archers – Mad Knight figures
The Bison is by Warbases
2 versions of an Adventurer – Mad Knight
2 Giant Eagle/Warhawks – Mad Knight
And for the older amongst us who remember the cover of the original Cults of Terror by Chaosium,
A Chaos Shaman summoning a Demonic Spirit this time with a sacrificial victim – Mad Knight

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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.

An Estate Agent for Spirits

David Scott is recommending that we listen to this episode of the BBC Sounds podcast as inspiration for “civilised shamanism/animism in Glorantha”. Here’s the episode blurb:

In Thailand, intricately designed homes for protective spirits are ubiquitous – and perhaps nowhere are these houses as noticeable as in the capital Bangkok, where they sit alongside a rapidly modernising city. Journalist Teirra Kamolvattanavith explores how the spirit house tradition has been passed down through generations, how it has endured, and how people interpret the tradition differently.

Teirra sets out on a tour of the spirit houses of Bangkok, meeting the believers, spiritual consultants, sellers and manufacturers, to uncover the web of spirituality, the blend of Hinduism and animism (the belief that everything, from objects to places, has a spiritual essence) that underpins this belief in spirits and the existence of spirit houses.

Here’s an example of a spirit house:

Thank you for reading

That’s it for this week! Please contact us with any feedback, question, or news item we’ve missed!