Communiqués from the Wizard Caste

Welcome to a new issue of the Journal of Runic Studies, the premier Malkioni publication for studies into the nature of Glorantha. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please consult with the spirit bound to the appropriate electronic page.

We’re aware the next episode of the podcast is late (it should have been released early this week). But first we are not used to this weird Earth calendar with shorter months. Then, I had lots of work, and two ChaosiumCon scenarios to write. Oh and last, the chat with our guest ended up lasting 3 hours, which means as much audio to edit down to a manageable length… so yeah. It should be out next week! Sorry!

God Learner Sorcery

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

RuneQuest: Aventures dans Glorantha

Are you curious about what’s in the recently released French edition of RuneQuest? I wrote a short tour of it!

By the way, if you want more French content, the crowdfunding for the Smoking Ruin and the Pegasus Plateau is starting!

Chaosium News

Here are this week’s Chaosium news!

ChaosiumCon 2022 Sign-ups Open

Chaosium is organizing the sign-ups on Warhorn (like the vast majority of gaming conventions these days), and it’s now open for the general public, after an early-bird period for people signed-up to GM something. Go here to see the schedule.

I’ll be GMing one RuneQuest game and one Call of Cthulhu game. As I write this, there is still room for the the latter one.

RuneQuest Starter Stream Episode 03

James and his great cast of players reach the end of the starter set’s first adventure, “A Rough Landing”.

Loic Muzy on Glorantha Illustration

This is a nice and quite personal interview about Loic Muzy and his very welcome entry into the world of Glorantha. Very nice to see James speaking French too!

About the Culbrea Sourcebook

Diana Probst had shared the scoop with us that the Beer With Teeth crew was working on a Culbrea-focused campaign book for Chaosium, but the details were pretty minimal. Now she has written a bit more about it.

There is also a bit more information from the Facebook discussion that followed the article. For instance, about whether the Culbrea material from The Coming Storm was used or not:

Where possible, we left things open. There were so many possible interpretations of King Ranulf that we could not choose them all, so we tried to sketch in the big things and leave options. We needed a Tribe that had big internal problems, and they matched best, but we then nudged it towards what we felt was representative of the Starter Set and RQG materials. We mostly stuck to the Guide and material already published or due for publication for RQG but we also looked at previous work. It’s hard to say what formed what – we had to choose between differing realities.

A lot of the time, leaving an open set of options meant we were not doing our job of creating a sourcebook, so there were a lot of avenues we had to close off.

So it looks like Glorantha will further differ between the HeroQuest and RuneQuest lines:

The Two Pine clan is one of the names of the Jotoring, with a history to note why the change of name, and that some people still call it Two Pines. Two Pine Ridge is in there. The Coming Storm was not one of our main texts, though.

It was already the case between the HeroQuest material and some of the places in the first two adventure books for RuneQuest. It personally doesn’t bother me as long as each line stays roughly consistent.

I’ll leave you with this funny comment about some of Diana’s favourite things about working on the Culbrea book:

[…] being able to write in all seriousness that a village got crushed because of some drunken dinosaurs, and that’s just a throwaway line that explains some geography, but it’s RuneQuest, so I was able to put it in.

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!

GM Day Sale on DriveThruRPG!

DriveThruRPG is running a site-wide sale on many products, with up to -30% discounts. Many Jonstown Compendium items are on sale, so be sure to grab anything from your wishlist this week (because yes it’s called “GM Day Sale” but it actually lasts two weeks… go figure!)

My first title, A Short Detour, isn’t part of the sale (mostly because I just started learning about managing that kind of stuff, like, two days ago, and also because it’s too recent), but it will most likely be part of future sales.

Durulz Character Tokens

Friend of the show Skulldixon has figured out how to use his wonderful duck pics in your games. The Durulz Character Token pack is now available in the Jonstown Compendium! It contains 26 unique character tokens, with 3 different frames for each.

Hsunchen of the East Update

Paul Baker notes that his book on the animal totem tribes just gained a third tribe: the Pujaleg Bat folk. Just in time for the release of the new Batman movie! The book is also part of the aforementioned DriveThruRPG sale so grab it now!

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.

Sartarite City Wyters, and What Lunars Want

This question on the RuneQuest Facebook group asks whether the Lunar Empire ever replaced existing city wyters with their own in occupied lands. Jeff replied that it would only happen if they wanted to “completely refound the city”:

But that’s not really a Lunar thing in the Provinces, beyond Furthest (which was intended as a major Lunar settlement to hold Dragon Pass).

Given that they would somehow need to overcome Sartar himself (no mean magical trick), those Lunars with the ability to do this had far more pressing concerns than expending resources to do that.

When Sartar founded his cities, he also created their cults and their original leaders – Wilms, Jon, and Swen – became their guardians and spirits upon death. They are sources of continued identity of those cities, tied to the cult of Sartar in Boldhome and in the tribes. It would be no easy trick to replace them or to introduce a Lunar variant without completely obliterating the city and resettling it. Sure Jar-eel or the Red Emperor could do that, but why?

Jeff then goes into what Lunars did in Sartar, and what they were after:

[…] when the Lunars invaded they largely ignored the traditional religions except where they summoned powers antithetical to the Lunar Way. They built a few Seven Mothers temples in the cities like in Boldhome, and later put their resources into the New Lunar Temple in southeastern Sartar.

The Lunar interest in Sartar was primarily:

1. The kingdom controlled the key strategic route between Peloria, Kethaela, and Prax.
2. Because of that, the kingdom was very wealthy and powerful beyond its size.
3. The kingdom was a stronghold of the Orlanth cult which is in active opposition to the Red Goddess. As long as Orlanth fights the Red Goddess, her triumph is slowed.
4. Sartar’s continued independence potentially destabilised the Lunar Provinces, which were Orlanthi kingdoms defeated by the Lunar Empire. Sartar twice proved capable of threatening Furthest (once successfully, when Saronil and Palashee successfully drove the Lunars out of Dragon Pass, and once unsuccessfully when Tarkalor and the Feathered Horse Queen fought against the Red Emperor at the Battle of Grizzly Peak). During the occupation, Sartar was only fitfully of interest to Glamour beyond the construction of a new Temple of the Reaching Moon.

As recent world events have made abundantly clear, there were no doubt many different goals among the Lunar elite.

But most important is what the Red Emperor’s goals were. He personally led the conquest of Sartar, and then appointed a Yelmite Lunar nobleman from the powerful Assiday family to govern the conquered territory. After that the Red Emperor tried to conquer the Holy Country, but was defeated at the Building Wall Battle. After that he returned to Glamour and did not return to Dragon Pass for over two decades.

The Building Wall Battle in the Holy Country in 1605 saw the defeat of the Lunar army. The Lunars returned in 1619 through Hendriki, and by 1621 they have not only conquered the Holy Country but they’ve effectively “killed” Orlanth and Ernalda, ushering the Windstop, or Great Winter, during which Orlanth magic doesn’t work in Dragon Pass, and Ernalda magic is super weak. But this doesn’t last very long, and a couple years later things start going downhill for the Lunar all the way to the Dragonrise and beyond.

During that time, there were numerous Lunar agendas. Some just wanted to make their fortune and reputation, others wanted to screw with the Orlanth cult, others wanted to pacify the area (not necessarily the same thing), and still others wanted to settle here.

Around 1618 the Red Emperor started paying attention again and in 1621 personally appointed a new governor who presumably shared his agenda – conquer the Holy Country, crush Whitewall, and build a new Reaching Moon Temple. Why the Red Emperor wanted those things is no doubt a question of speculation in Glamour and Boldhome.

Pelorian Names for Rulers

Jeff had already shared a list of Theyelan terms for rulers (for use in, say, Sartar and the Holy Country). Now he’s shared the Pelorian version (for use in Lunar Heartlands and Provinces):

Emperor
Dara Happan/New Pelorian. Term literally means “universal ruler.” Only one legitimate emperor can exist in the world at a time, although the title is also applied to Yelm. The emperor rules by right not only Peloria but the entire world and is responsible for maintaining both the social order and the cosmic balance. The emperor must be acclaimed at Raibanth. If during periods of civil strife or political division, more than one person claimed the title, it is understood that only a single claimant could be the true emperor – the others are false.

The Emperor is acclaimed at Raibanth possibly because that’s the city where you’ll find the “Footstool of the Sun God”, which is located on top of a big ziggurath with ten thousand steps, allegedly created by the Sun God himself before the Dawn. The top tier of the structure is the temple and residence of the Solar Emperor. The footstool is connected directly to the sun via a big ray of light which… well I’m not sure what happens when the sun sets. Maybe, you know, don’t build your house to the west, just to be sure.

Oh and the Gods Wall, which you can see on the RuneQuest gamemaster’s screen, is about ten miles north of Raibanth.

Overseer
Dara Happan/New Pelorian/Carmanian. Denotes someone entitled to give commands; typically used by a ruler appointed by an emperor or satrap to serve as their representative or agent.

This title is most often seen in practice with the “Provincial Lunar Overseer” which resides in Mirin’s Cross. Until the Dragonrise, it was Appius Luxius who, as far as I can tell, was, well, overseeing all of the Empire’s provincial operations, from taxation to military movements (so Fazzur Wideread was reporting to him). Previous such Provincial Lunar Overseers also included, say, King Phargentes of Tarsh.

Satrap
Dara Happan/New Pelorian/Carmanian. Term literally means “protector of the province.” Denotes a ruler with some inherent authority that is properly subordinate and loyal to the emperor.

As far as I can tell, while the Lunar Provinces are split into, well, provinces, the Lunar Heartlands are split into satrapies. So satrap is mostly seen to denote the ruler of a piece of the Lunar Heartlands. Each of these satraps is the head of some powerful family which, you might remember, are always fighting each other, overtly and covertly. Satrap NPCs is where you can go crazy with weirdos, creeps, heroes, and villains.

Sultan
Pentan/New Pelorian. Term literally means “power” or “authority”. Denotes a ruler who claim almost full sovereignty, but without claiming universal rule. In the early Lunar Empire “sultan” was used synonymously with “satrap”. After the fall of Sheng Seleris, this title has largely disappeared in favor of “satrap” although it is sometimes used to describe the rulers of peaceful barbarian nations and sometimes for powerful satraps or governors.

You might have seen the term “Sultan” for the “Mad Sultan”, which, frankly, is a great name for an NPC. He was driven mad by the sight of the Crimson Bat in the 1200s, and was last seen in Dorastor, I think.

Tyrant
Dara Happan/New Pelorian. Term literally means “illegitimate ruler”. Denotes someone who rules without lawful authority, such as a rebel, barbarian tribe, or usurper.

Yeah… I guess “tyrant” gets tossed around a lot by everyone.

Count
Dara Happan/New Pelorian/Theyalan. Literally means “delegate of the universal ruler.” Denotes an independent ruler whose authority is sanctioned by the “universal ruler,” either the emperor or even from Yelm. Used by the Yelmalio cult for the rulers of the Sun Dome Temples. Also used by the Lunar Empire for Black Horse County.

Duke
Western/Carmanian/New Pelorian. Literally means “leader”, but typically denotes a martial commander or someone who exercises martial command in an area.

You probably most encountered the titles “Count” and “Duke” around the Zola Fel valley in Prax, between the Counts of Sun Dome County, and Duke Raus who ruled over the grantlands of Prax in RuneQuest’s Borderlands campaign. But those two titles are also used a many other places across the Lunar Empire, Seshnela, and beyond.

The Lunar Heartlands

Speaking of Lunar Heartlands, here’s some perspective:

The Lunar Heartlands are about 10 times the area of Sartar, with 25 times as many people.

To the south of the Lunar Heartlands are the Lunar Provinces, a series of client kingdoms (most originally Orlanthi) centered on Mirin’s Cross. War is common in the south and many Heartlanders just consider the south to be the Land of War. Warlike and adventurous people are sent there to make a name and reputation for themselves – and also to keep them from being trouble-makers in the Heartlands. It is a dumping ground for misfits, malcontents, and others, where they can serve the imperial interest rather than cause problems.

Oh hey now it makes sense that the aforementioned Provincial Lunar Overseer is based in Mirin’s Cross. But as far as the provinces go, although the Heartlanders might see it as the “Land of War”, I imagine there’s a big difference between the provincial cities and the back country. Furthest is very lunarized and multi-cultural, and even other provincial cities might have hipster neighbourhoods that would surprise the most biased Glarmourite. It might also be the Land of Opportunities for an enterprising young merchant, crafter, artist, or whatever.

To the west are the West Reaches, the rump of what used to be Carmania. They have long been extremely peaceful, protected by the Syndics Ban. However, Lunar priests and magicians warn that the Ban is lifting and none know what will be revealed.

You know what, I’ve been reading and playing in Glorantha for a couple years, but I still have very little idea of what the Syndics Ban is. Does everybody else? Well, just in case, here’s the short version.

In the mid 1400s, a heir of Loskalm named Snodal came across a “map of future Fronela” (which Loskalm is a part of) that showed it… not in great shape. He traced the map back to Zzabur, the Sorcerer Supreme, who apparently wanted to sink Fronela (Zzabur is big on sinking things, he sunk whole chunks of Genertela with the Closing of the Oceans). So… this is where it gets weird. For some reason, Snodal decided to heroquest and slay the Fronelan god of communication. What was he thinking? I don’t know… but obviously that was a very bad idea. When he came back, all of Fronela was split in small bits, all cut off from each other by some weird magical fog that prevented any travel or magic to go through.

In the past three decades, most of the Syndic’s Ban has been lifted, but there are still pieces of Fronela stuck in it, and nobody knows what happened in them for the past couple hundred years. Notably, the entire region between the Nidan Mountains and the Sweet Sea is still under the ban, which means that travel between Lunar Heartlands and the west is difficult, requiring long detours.

To the north are Lunar allies – Thrice Blessed (aka Eol), the Char’un Pure Horse People tribe, and the Blue Moon trolls. They are also peaceable.

The real concern is the east – Redlands and Pent. This nomads of Pent have recovered from the Nights of Horror and now raid the eastern satrapies. They reject the Lunar Way, and now many embrace Orlanth and Storm Bull to fight against the Lunar Empire. Many tribes are unified together in a big confederacy called the Voor-ash.

So whenever you think about Lunar activity in Sartar, keep in mind that it usually just part of the Land of War – the southern reaches.

Jeff adds:

Although the Seven Mothers is a missionary and proselytising cult, Sartar, Prax, and the Holy Country are a long way away from the main cult centers. And the Lunar Heartlands and other major centers of Lunar civilization still have a lot of work to do to get them to all embrace the teachings of the Red Goddess. It is much easier to be a Seven Mothers missionary in Doblian or Sylila than in Tarsh, and far easier to be a missionary in Tarsh than in Sartar or Prax!

The toughest place to be a missionary is probably where the players are, though…

Lunar Religion and Chaos

Here’s some note about the role of Chaos in Lunar cults (which came from Jeff’s answer in this BRP thread):

One of the clear distinctions made in the Compromise is that Chaos is not of this world. The deities and powers of the world had touched it, and were still afraid of it, and their continued existence required that they remain apart from Chaos. Chaos became the enemy which must be fought and suppressed. With one enemy recognized by everyone, the squabbling deities found a common theme for unity.

That statement is attributed to the God Learners, but could be said by any Dawn Age Orlanthi, trolls, aldryami, mostali, Malkioni, Praxians, and Yelmites. In the late First Age, the Sun stopped in the sky and Nysalor was born. Nysalor taught that Chaos is, in itself, neither evil nor inimical. His followers used this knowledge – called Illumination – to use Chaos to further their goals. As we all know, a terrible war followed, Nysalor was torn into pieces and his cult scattered.

Centuries later, the Red Goddess met and overcame Arachne Solara and Nysalor on her great Goddess Quest. She returned from the Underworld with a Chaos god called the Crimson Bat and used Chaos to destroy her foes. She now teaches Nysalor’s path to Illumination and by its faith, the Lunar Empire must accept Chaos in philosophy. The Crimson Bat is an example of how this can be done, as may be the vampire regiment rumored to be training in the mountains of Peloria. Yet many Lunar heroes gained fame by killing Vivamort cultists or smashing the slave heads of Thanatar. The awareness of the educated or sensitive concerning the proximity of Chaos makes them acutely aware of their dire responsibilities. The teachings of the Red Goddess, though passionate and fierce, strongly admonishes against certain temptations.

Chaos is a tricky thing — it’s hard to control, and it’s hard to use “for good” without Illumination powers. If you’re interested in this, and at the risk of shameful marketing, you might find the Appendix of my adventure “A Short Detour” quite useful.

The Lunar Way in no way condones the worship of Chaos entities which follow the ways of Gbaji and fall into moral depravity. The religion and state do not forbid it, either, as required by their philosophy. The rulers are adroit at manipulating the results if people do fall into the way of the Chaos gods. Lunar history contains lessons of generals and priests gone bad and point them out as bad examples.

That’s one of the things I like about the Lunar Empire: they’re ultimate pragmatists, of sorts: it doesn’t matter who you are and what you do as long as you help with the Red Emperor’s goals, and it doesn’t mess things up too badly for your fellow Lunars. The Red Goddess thinks outside the box, and encourages you to.

The world hates the Empire because it includes Chaos within its worship. This is a clear and necessary stand for the old gods to have, for their very existence is based upon the fighting of Chaos.

But the Red Goddess, born inside Time, has other options, and wisely uses them to maintain her power among the gods of the cosmos. Her secrets are woven into Balance and Time, resulting in the Lunar cycles laid upon the surface of the world.

The Lunar religion is one of unendurable freedom compared to most of the religions and societies of its time. Inner secrets reveal the immense dangers of such freedom, and Lunar disasters of over-experimentation sometimes are noted. But to attain such cosmic freedom it is necessary to include a worshipful understanding of the Chaotic bondage of mindlessness and the Void. Such concepts, though, are alien to most trained minds of the world, and proven ways of life and religion do not bend easily in the face of novelty. The Lunars, of course, consider this rigidity to be ignorance and imbalance.

Edit: Jeff added a few comments while I was sleeping

This account of the Great Compromise seems to imply that Chaos itself is actually part of the deal!

The Spider Woman constructed a great and magical web made of many things no longer found in the world, and then she gave the web to all the gods to hold ready between them, to use as a net. When Chaos entered their realm, the gods cast the net upon the Devil and held him tight. While the other deities had distracted the Devil, Arachne Solara leapt upon him with vengeance and a strength of desperation and mystical splendor. She enwrapped the Chaos god in her many legs and struggled mightily, and at last devoured the evil soul.

The great beings of the universe then held council and tried to discover what their further course of action might be. The Seven Lightbringers proved that they could lead the way out of the Underworld, but they were not sure what world was left outside. Their Old Way was gone forever, replaced by empty void and Chaos. But they could no longer exist within the confines of the universe.

Arachne Solara proved capable of communicating with the Beingless Voice of Eternity. Through her, and with the Voice, the gods made unchangeable pacts and carved themselves into powerful spells. Arachne Solara led a great dance, reconstructing the shattered cosmic matrix, linking all the surviving gods within an immutable web of pacts and oaths, bonds and relationships, conjurations and creations. The gods swore themselves into a Great Compromise with Chaos, wherein the Old World and the New World (of Death and Chaos) would co-exist, alternating their forces and powers along the myriads of weaves within the matrix of the universe. She revealed her child, born after she devoured the Devil. The child is Time, the Pledge of the Gods, and all existence swore by it to uphold their agreements. This is the Great Compromise, and it is the oath which recreated the world.

I understand this last part as including Chaos in the weaves of the universe, on purpose. Jeff adds:

This is the core conflict about the Lunar Empire – its relationship with Chaos and whether that is progress or destructive lie. We can spin that around and around and around again, and the best answer we get is “Both”.

About the Red Goddess “overcoming” Arachne Solara, it’s not necessarily what you might think:

She contacted Arachne Solara, was not destroyed, and gained a secret boon or knowledge from her. That is what the Lunars mean when they say the Red Goddess overcame her.

She Who Waits is not Arachne Solara, nor is the Red Goddess.

The Red Goddess meeting Arachne Solara in the underworld is one of the oldest and best known parts of the Seven Steps of the Red Goddess. Although no doubt there have been Lunars who have wanted to conflate the Red Goddess and the Spider Mother, the Red Goddess herself rejected that identification (as she also rejected the identification with Entakos).

The “Seven Steps of the Red Goddess” can be seen in the Well of Daliath, and in the Prince of Sartar webcomic.

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.

Coeur de Runes

Coming from the French side of things, Uzz has formally released “Coeur de Runes“, a rules-light RPG for Gloranthan gaming. The PDFs are free under Chaosium’s fan license, and you can download them on Uzz’s official page for the game.

Over more than 200 pages, Coeur de Runes offers a complete system for playing in Glorantha: not just the usual stuff like character creation, rules, cults, and magic, but also player and gamemaster guides, pre-generated characters, an overview of Glorantha with places, factions, and creatures, a sample scenario, and more.

At a high level, Coeur de Runes is a lighter version of HeroQuest/QuestWorlds. Your character sheet doesn’t even have ability scores anymore: you either have it or you don’t. The task resolution system is based on a 3d6 roll, with various degrees of success or failure. You “spend” your abilities to affect this roll with a flat bonus, a die set to 6, or a reroll, depending on what kind of ability you spent.

There’s nothing better than a look at the character sheet to get an idea of what an RPG is about so here’s Jarollar, one of the pre-generated characters:

If you want more information about Coeur de Runes, Uzz is a regular on the French Glorantha Discord server, French Glorantha Facebook group, and can be contacted directly here.

Snakepipe Hollow Cliff

D R is still working on modelling the Caves of Chaos in 3D, but here’s a nice treat:

I’ve just finished the infamous cliff and thought that people might want to see a screen shot of it.

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.

Citadel of Mycenae

Here’s a possibly good inspiration for a major Sartarite, Hendriki, or Esrolian hill fort or city: the citadel of Mycenae. It’s located in Greece, obviously, about 120km south-west of Athens. During its heyday in the 12th century BC, it was about 32 hectares large, with a population of 30,000.

It’s possible that Clearwine was already inspired by this kind of settlement, actually: the “cyclopean walls” as fortifications, the Royal Palace at the top, the graveyard area, and so on. Note the “secret stairway” to a cistern that provided Mycenae with water in times of siege.

You don’t want another incident like Kirra (which, interestingly enough, may be the reason for the existence of the Hippocratic Oath).

There’s a cool looking “Lion Gate” to enter the place, because of course all your forts and cities need a “Someting Gate” with some appropriately thematic sculptures around it:

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.

Bis Repetita: RuneQuest Starter Set

In which I revisit my review:

Since I wrote my RuneQuest Starter Set review, I’ve had some time to mull it over a bit longer and, more importantly, I listened to Baz’ excellent RuneQuest Year Zero podcast which provided many revelatory insights. I figured that the latest episode of his podcast was as good an opportunity as any to revisit my opinions, although it means that this article might turn into a bit of a direct reply to Gaz, rather than a truly standalone post. I’ll try my best to stay close to the latter however.

There are some excellent discussions around starter sets and RuneQuest out there, and hopefully this adds a bit to them.

Chaosium News

Here are this week’s Chaosium news!

RuneQuest Starter Stream Episode 02

The official RuneQuest actual play, now dubbed “RuneQuest Starter Stream”, has released its second episode! The group goes through the second half of “A Rough Landing”, getting their first taste of Chaos. You can definitely tell that James Coquillat, who officiates as GM, is having fun adding some local colour to each scene, letting some roleplay occur here and there, compared to other actual plays of that scenario who try to cram it all in one session. This is nice, since fantasy settings like Glorantha come alive in the details.

Pendragon Design Journal #7

Chaosium has been releasing regular “design journals” for the upcoming 6th edition of Pendragon, and the latest entry reminded me of one of the many little things I don’t like in RuneQuest. It talks (among other things) about a bonus stat called Geniality which adds to a character’s APP (Appeal) and some related abilities. It models how wearing fancy clothes, shiny armour, and impressive weapons can add to your charisma.

In RuneQuest, these things are somewhat hand-waved and give you a +1 to CHA (Charisma). My first reaction when I read this was to wonder what happens if you give or sell these impressive items away, lose status, or time passes and people forget what you did two years ago. I wished it had been handled with a separate ability, with some room for it on the character sheet… so if you’re like me, it might be worth it to steal a little more mechanics from Pendragon!

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.

Gloranthan Alcohol

Jeff might have had some good drinks this week-end since he posted several times about alcohol in Glorantha early in the week. Let’s break it up, and add some annotations for those out there like me who know nothing about agriculture and alcohol… yes you read that right, I’m a French guy who knows nothing about beer or wine. Mostly because I don’t drink it and never have. And yes, that’s why they kicked me out of the country and I had to go to Canada… anyway, enough chit-chat!

Lunar Alcohol

First, a list of Pelorian drinks:

Corn beer. Like chicha, this is made in huge earthenware vats and because of its low alcohol content (1-3%) is consumed in vast quantities. Corn beer is often drunk in Lunar celebrations and ceremonies because of its connection with Hon-eel.

Chicha is a corn beer popular in the Andes and elsewhere in Latin America since the time of the Inca. It, err, looks like sewage water or something:

Depending on the process and additives, it can have various colours and tastes though. More here.

Rice wine. Many varieties of rice wine are known in the Lunar Heartlands, with an average alcohol content of 18-25%. Particularly popular in religious festivals for Lodril, the local rice goddess, and Oslira.

Rice wine is traditionally popular in Southeast Asia, which shows you how much of a mash-up the Lunar Empire is. The most famous type of rice wine is probably sake, which is generally clear in appearance, and that you can get in your local Japanese restaurant. But again, there seems to be many different types of rice wine. Some are pale yellow, some are milky white, yet others are dark yellow, all with different amounts of alcohol and sugar in them. It looks like some of them are actually used for cooking, instead of drinking.

Barley beer and wine. In the Lunar Provinces, Sylila, Karasal, Oronin, and the West Reaches, barley is more important than rice and barley beer and wine are popular. Barleywine is a strong ale, 6-12%. It is considered semi-barbaric by many Heartlanders.

Wheat beer. In the Lunar Provinces, beer made from emmer wheat is popular. It is considered barbaric by many Heartlanders.

Barley is a cereal that I always mix up with wheat. Frankly they look the same in the field to me. Don’t come at me, farmers in the audience… but it looks like many beers also actually mix barley and wheat anyway! So there.

As far as barley is concerned, it looks like two thirds of barley production is for animal fodder, and one third is for beer and distilled beverages. We’ll talk about distillation in a bit so let’s ignore whisky for bit.

Barley and wheat beers, as far as I can tell, encompass all your classic western beers, from Germany to the UK to North America. This includes cooking barley into malt and letting it ferment, sometimes mixed with wheat or yeast or whatever. More or less. Listen, I’m totally useless around alcohol, ok? And I’m not sure about barleywine either, so I’ll leave it there.

Kumis. Nearer to the Redlands, fermented mare’s milk is popular. It is also drunk by many aristocratic clans.

Kumis is an actual real-world drink, which is common in the Central Asian steppes, Turkey, and some other areas nearby.

Dragon Pass Alcohol

Next, some common drinks in Dragon Pass. Some types of alcohol are repeated from above so refer to the previous annotation as appropriate:

Beer. Made from emmer wheat, einkorn, or barley, beer (I am using the term broadly) is the most common drink. Brewing is often associated with the Ernalda cult and most brewers are women. Lots of different varieties and styles.

Ok so I already can’t tell the difference between wheat and barley, and now I have to figure out the difference between different types of wheat? Nope! It’s all funny looking plants with nicely arranged hulls! I assume Dragon Pass beer will differ from Pelorian beer just as beer differs between Germany, Belgium, France, and the UK. I fondly remember many drawn-out debates between friends and family members about the pros and cons of this or that beer compared to other beers… that’s usually when I tune out and read a book or draw something.

White wine. White grapes are grown in much of Sartar. It is associated with the Ernalda cult, particularly around Clearwine, and again most wine brewing is done by women. Wine is mainly consumed in religious rituals.

Oh hey that’s easy, right? You take white grapes, stomp on them bare foot, let it ferment, and then drink it? Or something? (checks notes) Oh no, it’s actually super complicated, from skin-contact fermentation, residual sugar ratios, and so on. Let me, err, go read a book instead.

Corn beer. Popular in Lunar Tarsh, this drink is like chicha and made from fermented maize. Associated with the Hon-eel cult.

Kumis. Fermented mare’s milk is popular in the Grazelands. A Praxian variant is popular around Swenstown.

Troll beer. Don’t drink this. Everyone knows troll beers are lethal to humans.

Burned Water (aka Water of Life). The Free Sages of Boldhome have figured out a method of distilling beer and water. It is pricey and largely confined to the wealthy.

There, I knew we would come back to distillation! I thought it was only invented somewhat recently, but it turns out there’s evidence of it in Akkadian tablets. So no need to pay insane Mostali prices for your whisky — I hear they only produced it as a failed attempt at making fuel for some of their machines.

There’s some adventuring opportunity there too, since Lhankor Mhy sages outside of Boldhome have also developped their own distilleries (see below in the Holy Country) and now you have some conflicts between the cognacs, rums, and scotches of various knowledge temples. Have you ever seen drunk philosophers fight? It’s quite pathetic.

Holy Country Alcohol

Finally, some Holy Country drinks, which is were connoisseurs apparently get their stuff:

Beer. Made from einkorn, emmer, or barley, beer is made in vast quantities by the Earth Temples. It is also drunk in vast quantities, and celebrated as the Gift of the Goddess. Many suggest that the Jolly Fat Man is the incarnation of beer and its joys (but the cult also consumes wine in vast quantities).

Red Wine. Wine grapes are grown throughout the Holy Country. The best are thought to come from the Vinavale with its pleasant climate, hills, and volcanic soil. Red wine is a very important trade good and ships loaded with amphora sail out of the Choralinthor to distant lands, and caravans carrying wine travel the roads of Dragon Pass to the Lunar Empire. Wine is drunk in religious rituals and at social gatherings.

White Wine. White grapes are common in Heortland, although many merchants claim the best come from Dragon Pass.

Burned Water/Water of Life. The Lhankor Mhy cult has developed techniques of distilling wine and beer into strong spirits. About time the Alchemists were good for something! Lots of variations, lots of different techniques. A popular trade good but pricey.

Miscellaneous Alcohol Notes

Jeff didn’t mention fruit wines (such as Apple Lane’s cider) because they are “usually a purely seasonal/local thing”. So “apple wine, berry wine, and so on” might be available at any local market given the right season.

Another absentee is mead:

Now mead is well-known to the Orlanthi and it is a ritually important drink. The Orlanthi make mead mixed with various plants and fungi to produce a drink called “Crazy Black Widebrew”. This drink is an entheogen and often consumed in vast amounts during religious rituals and as the preparations for a heroquest.

I hear it is very sweet and flavorful, and dangerous if drunk outside of religious rituals.

In these bastardised times, it is possible to get a bowl of mead, but this is watered down stuff, barely worthy of the name. Real mead – Crazy Black Widebrew – will transport you across realms.

Allocating Your Unconscious Life

Here are some notes for thinking about the spirituality of Gloranthan people:

Runequest distinguishes three basic levels of spiritual participation in a cult – lay member (casual), initiate (dedicated), Rune Master (professional). Another way of thinking about it is how much of our Unconscious Life is devoted to a particular cult or thing. So let’s imagine what percentage of our unconscious life is dedicated to specific pursuits.

– Maintaining contact with a major deity like Orlanth or Ernalda require at least 5% of your unconscious (minimum required for adulthood initiation). But full contact, like being an initiate, requires 20% of your unconscious. So let’s say Vasana has 20% – 5% with Orlanth in general, and 15% with Vinga Adventurous.

– A minor deity takes up 5-15% of your unconscious.

– An allied spirit takes up another 10%. Each bound spirit is another 2%. Dealing with ancestors and those sorts of community rites are at least another 5%. This isn’t the Daka Fal cult- that’s a minor deity – but just what a community does to revere those who went before them.

– Spirit magic. That also takes up unconscious life – let’s say usually somewhere between 10 and 15%.

– Personal Power. Everyone has some inner reserve which is used to protect oneself and one’s ego. Let’s say 10%. Let’s say Vasana has 15% in that.

– Dream. In a sense all of the other categories determine the shapes one’s dreams take, but this is the stuff that outside our control. Minimum of 10% to keep your sanity. Lets say Vasana puts 25% in Dreams.

– Undifferentiated. This is what you don’t know and can’t know. At least 10%. A few mystic traditions try to get this to 100% so that they Know. Let’s say Vasana has 25% in that as well.

So with Vasana, we already have about 50% of her unconscious life allocated to specific spiritual pursuits, with the rest being daydreaming or undifferentiated. She’s pretty concentrated and focused on spiritual things, but almost half her unconscious is either undifferentiated or dreaming.

Now let’s say she becomes a Rune Lord. That knocks things up another 10% likely coming out of her undifferentiated self – that allied spirit is a part of her unconscious! She then becomes a heroquester, knocking things up another 10%, as she tries to organize cult activities around her explorations – that comes out of her undifferentiated self and her dreams.

Add in a few more spirits and pretty soon her unconscious is fully devoted to spiritual pursuits. There’s really nothing more that she can do!

Now the point of that thought experiment is to show that our adventurers are already pretty spiritually developed characters.

We could imagine Alvin the Ordinary. He’s doing the minimum necessary to function spiritually within his society:

– 5% to Orlanth
– 5% to the ancestors
– 10% to personal power
– 5% for spirit magic
– 25% for dreaming
– 50% is Undifferentiated. Alvin is more like us moderns than we are like Vasana!

So you can see a big difference here. We call Alvin a Lay Member and Vasana an Initiate, but really it is how much of their unconscious self they are dedicating to spiritual pursuits.

Now some cultures (like us moderns) dedicate a lot of our unconscious to various abstractions like Monotheism, Sorcery, Democracy, etc. But the Orlanthi and the Pelorians don’t really do that.

Except for philosophers. But they are weird.

I have no idea what to do with this… I’m not even sure what it means. Is this allocation done on a time basis? That is, is Alvin the Ordinary dreaming 25% of the time? Or is this in terms of brain-power over the course of a day? Or brain-power at any given time?

Jeff continues, this time with Argrath, Harrek, and Jar-eel, all major “superhero” figures of the Hero Wars:

Now it is important to note that this is not something that underpins any game mechanics at this point. But it gives us some interesting hard limits on spiritual participation. […]

Argrath actually dedicates most of his unconscious self to things other than himself:

Dream 15% – Argrath is more of a dreamer that most people.
Undifferentiated 10% – this is that bit that Argrath doesn’t and can’t know. He’s a mortal after all.
Orlanth 25%, divided between Orlanth, Adventurous, and Rex.
Dragon stuff 10% (Dragontooth Runners, etc.)
White Bull 10%
Personal Power 20%
Other Spirits 10%

It’s interesting that Argrath being “more of a dreamer” than most people gives him a lower percentage of dreaming in his unconscious life. Is it because he’s consciously dreaming? Lucid dreaming means it takes up less room in your unconscious, making room for other stuff? Mmmh.

So in terms of personal aggrandisement, Argrath is about on the same level as Vasana or other Orlanthi hero-types. More than half of the mana he receives goes to Orlanth, Draconic stuff, the White Bull, or other spirits. About a third goes to personal power and dreaming. Now admittedly his is a MUCH BIGGER pie than someone like Vasana, but he divides it up in a more or less normal way.

Harrek is different.

White Bear 30%
Dream 10%
Undifferentiated 10%
Personal Power 50%

With Harrek almost everything goes to his personal power and to his White Bear self. And given how HUGE the mana pool he gets to play around with must be, that Personal Power lets him do stuff like kill with a glance.

Jar-eel is similar to Harrek, not Argrath.

Personal Power 50%
Bloodspillers 20%
Dream 10%
Undifferentiated 10%
Red Goddess 10%

So with Jar-eel about half goes to her personal aggrandisement, and another 20% goes to her Sardukar [sic] Guard.

The Bloodspillers is an elite regiment of the Imperial Bodyguard, who embrace Jar-eel’s cult of the Moonsword. A guy named Beat-Pot Aelwrin (who I’ve heard of but know next to nothing about) is the high priest of this Moonsword cult. Sardaukar is just a Dune reference to the Padishah Emperor’s own elite bodyguard regiment.

This actually shows a nice and tidy way of distinguishing between superheroes and mere heroes. Heroes are lifted by others and those others share in their rewards. Superheroes have gotten to the point that they don’t need those others any more and have broken out of that system.

Sneak Peek At Heroquesting Character Sheets

Here’s what Jeff is working on with regards to heroquesting rules:

There were no comments given, so we can only guess. We already know that Hero Points represent the power of the Hero Soul. They act like Rune Points in many ways, except that you don’t replenish them by worshipping deities: you replenish them by having other people worship you.

If I remember correctly, the Mastery Rune (above the Hero Points box) is supposed to represent your ability to control the mythical landscape during a heroquest. The Techniques entry (second to last) should contain the various heroquesting techniques you have mastered, such as “ranging” from one myth to another, “identifying” with a deity, and so on. I suppose that these techniques won’t get any ability score per se, and will instead be just like Illumination powers — you either have them or not. However, they might incur an ability roll. Last I heard, for instance, “identification” is done by rolling under two of the target deity’s Runes. Succeeding in both gives you bonuses to do things the deity is supposed to be good at, while failures means you might get misidentified.

Doing “cool stuff” in the heroquest is probably done through the Runes, where “cool stuff” means “magical mythical stuff”. That’s how it is in my own heroquesting house rules, with normal successes giving a rough equivalent of a 1 point Rune Spell’s worth of effects, a special success giving the equivalent of a 2 point Rune Spell, and a critical success that of a 3 point Rune Spell. Spending Rune Points lets you “bump” those effects up in my house rules, and doing something that matches a Rune Spell you already have is also easier than trying to do something else, so it’s interesting to see Rune Spells and Rune Points on that character sheet. I wonder if Chaosium is going for something similar, and I’m certainly looking forward to the official rules.

POW and CHA have always been advertised as important characteristics for heroquesting. I’m going to assume that one of them (maybe both) will be your “attrition” characteristic, a bit like Hit Points. In my own heroquesting house rules, and in Jon Webb’s rules in his Sandheart campaign, POW takes that role.

Passions are probably there because they’re always useful for augments… but I can’t help and think about how Passions are going to be used as “fuel” for fighting in battle, when the mass battle rules eventually get published. I wonder if this is the same thing here, and maybe that’s where community support comes in: maybe your clan and tribe can provide their own Loyalty and Devotion Passions for you to use during the heroquest?

Finally, Boons are the special powers you get from successfully heroquesting. Sometimes you simply get bonuses in characteristics or other abilities, or you get a Rune Spell, but the main point of a heroquest is that you can also get something that’s completely unique and potentially rules-breaking. This is where gamemasters and players can go wild! It’s interesting however that there’s no “Banes” or other sort of bad stuff on there.

Well, that’s enough theorizing for today.

The Powerful Issaries Temple

Jeff wrote a few comments about the influence of Issaries temples in legal matters in Sartar:

[…] Issaries has a STRONG interest in making sure that its members are not cheated (and will send Spirits of Reprisals against members who do cheat or steal).

Jeff adds that the Merchants Guild is “powerful and rich”, and will generally be upset about any embezzlement or other crimes inside the organization. Plus, the god itself will be upset too.

And if the Jonstown Temple refuses to do anything about it, this could even be the sort of thing that gets the Merchant Princes involved as it threatens the ability to put together caravans. And anything that gets the Merchant Princes attention could get Boldhome and the Prince involved (especially if Argrath, who is more sensitive to the financial requirements of warfare than Kallyr, is Prince).

Here is some information about the Association of Merchant Princes:

These are the merchant priests of the Goldentongue cult whose caravans travel the roads of Sartar carrying goods and other valuables. Their primary concern is with themselves and their livelihood. The Merchant Princes sometimes combine together to form big caravans that may consist of hundreds of armed people – however, they are official neutral in the conflicts between the Empire and Sartar. They seek peace and protection for their caravans, and cooperate with each other to protect themselves and their profits. They have much wealth and can provide many things which adventurers desire.

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’s Trolls

JM and Evan are back with another Exploring Glorantha episde which focuses on the trolls. As always, they chat about everything they like or find interesting about the topic, and you can get their notes if you are a backer of Iconic Productions (which does many other things besides these video series). Plus, I get a little mention at the beginning!

New Ducks Courtesy of Skulldixon

Friend of the show Skulldixon (whom we interviewed) is working on some more duck illustrations! I really love the design of these ducks. Here’s a snail herder:

You can also see a work-in-progress duck shaman here.

Rubble Runners Miniatures

Here are some painted Rubble Runners, from Infinity Engine, courtesy of Jim Mozley!

Sable Rider and Humakti Miniatures

Felix Figure Painting has already painted more than 170 miniatures so far in 2022 apparently. I have painted, like, two in my entire life. Oh well. Let’s look at some pretty pictures!

First, Sable Riders from Mad Knight Castings:

And next, some Humakti warriors:

Morokanth Kitbash

Is everybody working on their miniatures this week to forget about the horrible state of world news? Maybe! Let’s forget our troubles by looking at more pretty pictures! These ones come from Phil Leedell, whose kit bashing was previously featured in the Journal of Runic Studies.

Morokanth from Rapier Miniatures are so very big and altogether a bit too bipedal… but lovely sculpts. Herdmen with sticks and stones are Victrix kitbashes.

RuneQuest Year Zero Wrap-Up

The excellent RuneQuest Year Zero podcast is reaching its end, or at least the end of its first arc, as Baz wraps-up his read-through of the RuneQuest Starter Set and gives his final thoughts. There is a lot to unpack there, so I did that in a separate blog post.

Improved RuneQuest Rulebook Index

Phil Hibbs has made a better index for the RuneQuest rulebook, which makes page numbers bold when they point to the “main” definitions of the corresponding item. It also fixes a few errors with wrong or missing page numbers.

For instance, compare the rulebook’s Yelm entry with Phil’s improved one:

More information here.

Elsewhere on Arachne Solara’s Web

Not everything is about Glorantha, although most things are! Here are loosely relevant things that we found on the interwebs.

Greek & Roman Mythology in Movies

I often enjoy these “so and so expert reviews so and so in movies” videos that various YouTube channels have, and this one is pretty good in my opinion, especially since the choice of movies includes a few surprises as far as I’m concerned. A lot of what the expert, Peter Meineck, says about mythology is quite interesting even for fun-times dragon-land fantasy gaming.

Wave Rocks

Katter Kich, also known as “Wave Rock“, is when the Water Tribe tried to invade the Earth Tribe during the Gods War but their tsunami attempt was frozen in place by Maran Gor, or, errr, something. I don’t know. But I’m sure someone will figure out a cool mythical explanation:

The “wave” is about 15 meters high and around 110 meters long. It’s located in south-western Australia.

If you look for wave rocks, you might also find “The Wave“, a sandstone rock formation in the United States.

This might be another iconic dungeons like Rainbow Mounds, with the ridges being where a multi-clawed Chaos monster scarred a now fallen god. Like I said, someone might have some cool mythical explanations for these things… if you do, send it to us!

When You Meet A Shaman Broo

No comment (see it here if the embed doesn’t work).

@the_lives

𝘾𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙈𝙚 𝙂𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙛𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙂𝙤𝙖𝙩 😆 #the_lives #สวนสัตว์tiktok #goat #smoke #drunk #animals #fyp #viral #fypシ #feelingz_zero

♬ original sound – ⓛⓘⓕⓔ – ⓛⓘⓕⓔ

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.

Initiation Series Episode 4: Skulldixon, the Unecessary Severed Leg, and Ducks

Our Initiation Series continues with Skulldixon, who talks about his recent discovery of RuneQuest, everything he likes about Glorantha, some unnecessary severed limbs, how to deal with mountains of lore, and ducks!

Chaosium News

Here are this week’s Chaosium news!

The RuneQuest Starter Stream, Episode 01

The previously announced RuneQuest actual play has started! Episode 1 is out, and James Coquillat runs his extremely well dressed and tattooed players through A Rough Landing, the first adventure of the Starter Set.

ChaosiumCon Schedule

The schedule for ChaosiumCon is now up on Warhorn! There’s a lot of interesting games and seminars, and it’s going to be tricky figuring out where to go and what to prioritize.

I’m getting nervous since I’m going to be GMing my first convention games there. You’ll find me for “Survey on Mount Seton” (Call of Cthulhu) and “The Bloody Banquet” (RuneQuest).

Chaosium Suspends Plans for Future NFTs

This is not really Glorantha-related, but the whole Chaosium NFT saga has been such a loud thing in RPG circles in the past couple weeks that I figured I would address this here once. The main news is that Chaosium has announced they were suspending their NFT plans for now.

I was already shaking my head a couple years ago when I heard about Chaosium’s plan to use the blockchain, and I kept shaking my head after they announced what it was for. But looking at people with red circles or hexagonal profile pictures reply to Chaosium’s Twitter announcement just adds face-palming to my head-shaking — these were the kind of people interested in NFT collectibles, not so much Chaosium fans.

If you don’t know what NFTs are, you probably don’t want to know. It’s an incredibly stupid technology that’s inefficient, badly designed, and doesn’t even do what it says it’s supposed to do. Blockchains are arguably technically interesting, even though they are a badly-scalable solution in search of a problem, but NFTs are just dumb.

Even if Chaosium’s blockchain business was a small drop in an ocean of ugly cryptobro grift, it’s still participating in larger environmental, ethical, financial, and manufacturing issues I’d rather they weren’t associated with. Chaosium could totally sell digital collectibles using some “classic” underlying technology instead — and I hope they do! Using a blockchain-based service like VeVe adds an unnecessary energy wasting scam to the mix, and is ultimately problematic. Arguing that “Disney is using it so it must be OK” doesn’t sound so great to me either.

Seeing Chaosium fans pushing back this hard against the company, and making them change course, makes me hopeful that there will be push back eventually for other things too. In the Glorantha-adjacent parts of Chaosium, I’m mostly thinking about Sandy Petersen’s anti-trans leanings (or his son’s), to which Chaosium only responded with a weak generic statement (I’m not alone here). I enjoy Sandy’s work as much as the next Call of Cthulhu or Glorantha fan, but this isn’t great for a guy that’s usually pretty open-minded, and a company that has been increasing their staff diversity of late.

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!

Creatures of Glorantha

Davide Quatrini has released a small (8 pages) PDF titled Creatures of Glorantha. It adds a few more creatures to a gamemaster’s bestiary:

Pale Masks, Limbscutters, Corrupted Shadows, Tuskapes, Lamias, Goat Suckers and Chimeric Hydras

Jeff’s Notes

Jeff Richard, the current mastermind on everything Gloranthan at Chaosium, is often posting notes and thoughts on the RuneQuest Facebook group. Here’s our curated list from the past week. A partial archive of these sources is compiled on the Well of Daliath.

The Web of Arachne Solara

Arachne Solara, seen whispering in Jeff’s ear in my little drawing above (I hope that was clear!) is known as the “Mother of Time”, since she’s the one who help make the Great Compromise that separated the world of Gods from the world of Mortals, all held together by her “web”.

Jeff talks a bit about her:

Glorantha is held together by the Web of Arachne Solara, a vast net woven out of the strands of myths – each the encapsulated deed of gods or heroes in the Godtime. We can understand these myths through stories, song, and worship – or we can enter the Hero Plane and follow along these strands, experiencing and participating in the events of the Godtime. We can even learn to travel from strand to strand and explore the Godtime itself.

So I guess that heroquesting is effectively travelling over Arachne Solara’s web. Advanced heroquesting techniques letting you jump across it, pull strands together, apart, or “down” to the Mundane World.

Jeff will talk about heroquesting in a little bit but in the meantime, if I was to follow these analogies further, I wonder what “getting stuck” on the web means for heroquesting, or having the World Spider “roll you into a silk swathing band” for later eating, or… wait a minute. If strands of web are myths, and given how spiders produce silk, does that mean myths literally come out of Arachne Solara’s ass? Is that an allegory for how we all invent our own stories? Are we all the World Spider, making shit up as we go? My god, Greg Stafford, you genius bastard.

Each time we follow a strand and participate in the deeds of gods and heroes, we experience a new story. The story can change in details each time – in one version the hero was ambushed by Gagarth, in another by Ygg, or perhaps in one version the hero had a romantic detour to the island of singing nymphs, and in another the hero bypassed the island entirely. But even though the stories change, the underlying myth-strand usually remains visible.

Strands can be joined or separated, maybe even cut altogether if we consider forgotten myths and deities we can’t contact anymore… ok, time to breathe and look at a pretty picture:

As promised earlier, Jeff continues with what it means for heroquesting:

Through great imposition of will or the use of dangerous magics, it is possible to change a strand of the Web. Perhaps it is forcibly tied to a new node or is cut and bifurcated, and now barely resembles the original strand. Or even worse, with the power of Chaos it can be mutated or warped beyond recognition, or even destroyed entirely. Such actions threaten the Web itself, which is why the Arkat cult demanded no heroquesting without respect.

All cults know how to follow some strands – these myths are recited in song and story, and even experienced during cult worship ceremony. These strands are the source of your Rune Spells and allied spirits. Some cults know more – they know some strands that lead outside of the domain of the god. These paths can be followed by those brave enough to enter the Hero Plane. They contest with the same powers the gods or heroes did, and can gain boons or bring terrible curses upon themselves and their supporters.

And a few individuals know much more – how to change the story through your own will and power, or even how to jump from strand to strand. These are Heroes, Masters of the Tournament of Luck and Death, or other such individuals.

Jeff adds some comments about Lunar myths in particular:

Now an interesting thing comes up when we think about the Lunar Religion. Like everyone else, Lunar cults have their own myth-strands they know and follow. They are unusual in that the Moon Rune is woven into them, which makes them hard for many others to access or understand, but they are there.

As far as the God Learners records go, there was only a few fragmentary Lunar things – the Blue Moon and Artmal mainly. And that was a strange overlap of Sky, Darkness, and Water. So it is safe to say that the appearances of the Moon in the Hero Plane date to the Third Age, most likely since Castle Blue. The Red Goddess said she encountered Arachne Solara on her Goddess Quest, and some of her initiates (all illuminated Rune Masters) claim similar encounters.

Here are a few references to stuff I don’t know at all, or know only a little of… so as always, let’s check some books:

• The Blue Moon used to be some mysterious deity in the God Time, but when the bad stuff started happening, she just crashed down. The Blue Moon Plateau, which you can spot north-east of Peloria, is the largest remain of her body, although there are other pieces of Blue Moon elsewhere. The trolls who live on the Plateau claim to know some super secret things, and they sometimes help out the Lunars. The rest of the Blue Moon is still in the sky, and is responsible for the tides of Gloranthan seas… but because she’s broken, her movements are a bit erratic and she can barely be seen as a “blue streak”.
• Artmal was a son of the Blue Moon. He fought Umath at the beginning of the Gods War, but was later slain by some other Storm God (the God Learners say it’s Orlanth). The Artmali (and all other people descended from the Blue Moon) have blue skin, and the blue skinned people living in slavery in Fonrit nowadays are related to them.

So I guess that’s what the “overlap of Sky, Darkness, and Water” comes from: the Blue Moon travels in the sky, but is hidden, and affects the tides.

Now, I’m not sure why the Blue Moon would have been completely absent from the Hero Plane if at least parts of her are still travelling the skies and affecting the tides… but indeed her mythical presence was probably boosted by the Red Goddess’ apotheosis, which happened at the aforementioned Castle Blue.

We know that the Red Goddess is tied to Chaos – did this allow her to introduce something new to the Web? Or does her changes threaten the Web itself? What did the Spider whisper to her?

And it should not be surprising that Arachne Solara is central to many of the Red Goddess’ own deeds.

Given how Chaos is the only way to bring something truly new into Glorantha, maybe that’s how the Red Goddess managed to make new myths, new strands of the web. I think she was really so broken than that there was no way to piece her back together with existing pieces, so she grabbed some new material from outside Glorantha and shaped her new form with it. But it either corrupted her, or she figured that this Chaos thing is very useful, and she’ll keep using it… which, frankly, sounds very much like “being corrupted” by Chaos if you ask me.

By the way, if you’re confused between “Hero Plane” and “God Plane” and “God Time” and what not, you’re not alone. Jeff adds a note on that:

When we remain within the domain of our god – the sacred circle of the worship ground, the walls of the temple, or the Elysian Field of their Godtime presence – we do not heroquest. We enter the Hero Plane, experience the divine realm, offer of ourself to the god, and gain magic and spirits – but this itself should not be described as a heroquest. We do not leave the security of that sacred ground to enter into the dangers of the Web. It is only by going outside the safe and familiar that we heroquest and become heroes.

The Elysian Field reference here points to some Greek mythology, but I assume it’s used to describe a limited, favoured place. So the Hero Plane is easy and nice to access, assuming you’re a devoted initiate of the temple (which you would have to be to worship there anyway), but you won’t get crazy heroquesting gifts until you leave and venture into the mythic landscape.

And thus although it should not be surprising that the Red Goddess has a deep and mysterious connection with the Cosmic Spider, it should also not be surprising that Orlanth, her rival, is defined by the Mastery Rune. More than any other god in Glorantha, he is the patron of heroes and adventurers.

With Arachne Solara’s strong connection to the Fate Rune, I wonder if there’s something there about the Red Goddess’ views on destiny, versus Orlanth’s views on forging your own path. Or something. I don’t know, I’m just spitballing here.

The parable of Arachne Solara’s web reflects our experience as gamers. There is published material on Glorantha – that material is eternal and timeless. Even today, we can go and explore Snakepipe Hollow or defend the Cradle (using our RQG characters even!). These are our myths, our strands of the web.

But every time we experience these materials, we have a different experience. At one level it is the same – sure that’s Snakepipe Hollow or the Cradle – but an another, it can be very different. This is why when Argrath summoned the Champion of Pavis a score of different Rune Lords showed up, each carrying Balastar’s Axe!

If you want your own Balastar’s Axe, check out one of the very first RuneQuest dungeons, Balastar’s Barracks (or here in POD once Chaosium has sold all the original print run). A word of warning: it’s extremely dated, and extremely deadly.

Interestingly enough, that dungeon, and the magical axe of the titular character, were very much pitched as an “in-world” thing in the original scenario. That is: you go in the Big Rubble, enter one particular ruin complex, and find a fancy weapon for you to keep, of which there is only presumably one. However, if you were to heroquest and get the fancy weapon as a heroquesting gift, then potentially other people could do the same, resulting in multiple people with that fancy weapon (although maybe with subtle differences depending on how well they did). So if multiple people eventually carry Balastar’s Axe, you either simply explain it by saying that going down that dungeon sends you on a heroquest… but Jeff is hinting at something much more meta! See also: the God Learners’ secret being something called “RuneQuest Vision”.

This is also how myths and heroquesting operate. We have a myth – a strand of Arachne Solara’s Web. We can experience that myth by following along the path of the strand through the Hero Plane. But our experience of that may differ significantly from that of another group of heroquesters following the same path. Regardless of that, both are right, both have experienced the true myth. And their followers may end up telling rather different stories about the same myth.

But this is not because of “pr spin” or the demands of the powerful – it is primarily grounded in experience.

Werewolves of Glorantha

I asked a question on Facebook about the Telmori Wolfbrothers, Glorantha’s werewolves, and what kind of horror movie tropes apply to them. Jeff’s answer is interesting enough to include here:

The Telmori have two basic forms – more or less ordinary human or all-but-invulnerable wolf (when the moon is full). When they are human, they can become wolf-like through magic, but to become fully wolf is a lot of magic. Or it just happens automatically on Wildday.

On Wildday the Telmori are a tribe of four-legged wolves. If well fed, they don’t have a particular compulsion to eat livestock or humans. If there is a human group that they trust and are loyalty to, they continue with that loyalty.

So basically unless there are other factors at play, the Wildday Telmori aren’t the type who go on wild, bloody rampages, and wake up the next day covered in mud and blood, wondering what happened. They are quite still in control, and at half of their original INT, they can probably carry out missions that were planned in the previous days.

You can find Telmori in the Sartarite capital, Boldhome, and in cities like Jonstown. They have a history of providing an elite troop to the Prince of Sartar, to act as bodyguards. The last time I looked into this, there was a lot of, ahem, conflicting reports as to which Princes allowed it, and which ones refused to have the Telmori around… so I guess you should feel free to have them in the Boldhome Royal Palace if you want, or not. Whatever fits your campaign. But here’s what Jeff says:

The werewolves in Boldhome tend to seclude themselves on Wildday. They don’t restrain themselves, they just stick to their tribal areas while in four-legged wolf form. Maybe when Salinarg was Prince, they lounged around the Royal Palace like big dogs. But for over 20 years they have been subject to abuse from Sartarite and Lunar alike. I doubt Temertain ever reestablished personal ties with the Telmori (and remember all that Sartar Dynasty stuff is personal, not really institutional) and in any case, he didn’t run Boldhome.

To sum it up:

When the Telmori become wolves, they are still themselves but animals – they are limited to what a very clever dog can process and understand. So they still know who is friendly and unfriendly, and are capable of working together as an incredibly well-trained pack, but they are animals on that day.

Malkioni Society

Here is how wizards can do their thing: they have a whole society to support them:

Malkioni society is logically organized to best support (and control) sorcerers. To be good at it requires intellect and a powerful soul – and to learn sorcery takes many years – even decades – to train. It is a specialty skill like being a good mathematician. This means the vast majority of any human population are not going to be good sorcery specialists.

In terms of RuneQuest rules, it requires an above average INT. The minimum is 13, but you won’t do much without having a much higher INT. The rules that say you can’t improve your INT are, in my opinion, coming from outdated views on intelligence and mental capacities, so in my game I would totally allow improving INT.

But each sorcerer needs to be supported by many workers (mainly farmers, but some crafters, laborers, etc.) in order to have enough food surplus that the sorcerer can focus solely on their craft. Each sorcerer needs to be defended by fighters, as they are vulnerable to physical attacks, and have a tendency to annoy people, especially outsiders. And each sorcerer needs to have some community leader capable of resolving disputes between the sorcerer and the rest of the community, and with outsiders.

This sounds very much like Ars Magica, where magi are surrounded by companions and grogs. In that game, you’re encouraged to adopt a “troupe play” approach, where only one magus comes out at a time, and the other players have secondary characters that are that magus’ companions. The corresponding other magi are working on their research, and mostly out of the picture.

I think using Ars Magica as a model would be a great way to play a Zzaburi wizard campaign that respects how Gloranthan sorcery actually works. However, I get the feeling (from past ImpCon discussions) that Jeff may be more interested in having the Zzaburi as patrons, and the adventurers all playing assistants and bodyguards who, just like Lhankor Mhy sages, only dabble in sorcery. But hey, I could be wrong, we’ll see how the West gets developed.

Voila! The Malkioni system. Clearly every sorcerer agrees this is the best way to organize human society (and in their secret hearts, I am sure the Lhankor Mhy cult knows this!). The only question is where to get the workers, fighters, and community leaders – and how to make sure they keep supporting the sorcerer!

Sources and References for Gloranthan Work

Here are Jeff’s most important sources and references when he’s working. Published sources are:

– Guide to Glorantha: I consult this every few days. Invaluable but normally at a pretty high altitude concerning specific details. But if I need to know how things all over the lozenge fit together, it is ideal.
– Glorantha Sourcebook: I consult this almost every day. Myths, histories, family trees, you name it.
– RuneQuest Core Rules: Loads in here, not just rules.
– RuneQuest GM Adventures: If I need anything on the Colymar Tribe, it is here.
– Trollpak (Chaosium edition): Question on trolls? Here is the answer.
– RQ Bestiary: Question on any creature except trolls? The answer is probably here.
– Borderlands: Shockingly useful whenever I have a question on Praxians of all things.
– Pavis/Big Rubble: Still the foundation for everything in Pavis, the Big Rubble, and the River of Cradles.
– Stafford Library: Probably at least once I week I look up something in GRoY, FS, or HHP.
– Greganth Atlas: At least once a week I look up something in it.

Not all of these sources are equal, though. All of them are available in print or PDF from Chaosium right now, but the last one is a bit of a deep cut. It’s a book that was part of some obscure stuff offered as high backer rewards for the Guide to Glorantha Kickstarter. It’s the one on the upper right on this picture:

Here’s what Kick Meints says about these rare items:

Published in 2007 and 2015, [the Roots of Glorantha] only contain very early Gloranthan lore, both in terms of when they were written (1966-1976) and the eras of Glorantha they document (early, early stuff). Most of the maps related to these writings ended up in the Greganth Atlas, another very rare item, although not technically one of the Roots of Glorantha series.

[…] Greg originally sold these in 2007 to a very small handful of super scholar-collectors for big $$$. This was at a time when Greg’s income was quite low. That’s the main reason we did likewise when we offered them as part of the Guide to Glorantha Kickstarter. Greg didn’t want us to significantly lower the price he had charged previously.

Find out more information here.

Now, onto Jeff’s unpublished sources. These include, without much surprise, many of the upcoming RuneQuest books: Cults of Glorantha, Sartar Homeland stuff (Sartar Players Guide, Bolhome Book, Dragon Pass Gazeteer), other gazeteers (Heortland, Esrolia, Prax, Shadowlands), and the Hero Wars Campaign. Jeff frequently consults some spreadsheets, too, like the cult distribution and cult compatibility tables. Finally, there’s another couple of obscure references: the “Master Map series”, which I assume are Greg Stafford’s original maps of Third Age Glorantha, and the “Mythic Map series”, which is probably the same but for God Time Glorantha.

Finally, you have probably already guessed the out of print sources:

– Dragon Pass/WBRM: the single most important Ur-Source on the Hero Wars and everyone in it. Consult it at least once or twice a week.
– Nomad Gods: the single most important source on the Praxians. I consult it everytime Prax comes up.

These two board games are supposed to get a reprint some time in the next few years.

Race and Ethnicity in Glorantha

Jeff once again surprisingly posted in a BRP Central thread that frankly looked like a potential dumpster fire from the start. But this is interesting stuff. The original question was basically whether Lunars and Tarshites and Praxians and Grazelanders and such presented a “different ethnicity and/or race” from each other. Jeff starts with some broad strokes:

Race: Categorising people into groups based on shared physical or social attributes that the categorised perceives as being different from those of other groups of the same species. Members of these groups may or may not be aware of their presumed membership. Example, the various Praxian Animal Rider Tribes, the Men-and-a-Half, Wasp Riders, Green Elves, Brown Elves, Snow Trolls, trollkin, Malkioni castes, etc.

Ethnic Group: is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, society, culture, nation, religion, or social treatment within their residing area. Example: Colymar Tribe, Sartarites, Lunar Tarshites, Tarsh Exiles, Lunars, Orlanthi, Dara Happan, Esrolian, etc. 

As you can see, these are really broad labels. In the Dragon Pass area cult, language, and tradition are the main things that define an ethnic group. Which isn’t surprising – cult is the root of culture after all.

Now, some practical example:

If a Sartarite talks to a Lunar Tarshite that person is probably going to lack the markers that identify one as a Sartarite – membership in a Lightbringer cult or its associates? Membership in one of the Sartarite tribes? If the conversation is in Tarshite (and not New Pelorian) language won’t be a problem, but lack of cult or tribal ties will. 

But what are those markers? Well the Orlanthi tend to tattoo their group associations on their body. Hey, that woman has Colymar markings! And also their cult initiations – hey that person is marked with the Runes of Orlanth. That helps members of Orlanthi society navigate around different Orlanthi groups. 

What isn’t a big deal? Skin color or hair color. The Orlanthi tend to be brownish skin with brown or reddish-brown hair, but there’s plenty of diversity.

The sneak peek we got about the Sartar Homeland boxed set indeed shows the diversity you find within the Orlanthi of Sartar:

Now wait, you might say, Bison Riders look differently from Impala Rider and from the Men-and-a-Half! Sure, but that is not the source of their group identity. The key elements of being a Bison Rider are (drumroll) – riding a bison. If you don’t ride a bison, you can’t be a bison rider. If you ride a bison, then we look to see if you are marked with Clan markings. Same thing with Wasp Riders, etc. 

So about the original question:

Would an Orlanthi recognize a Lunar based purely on physical characteristics? Nope. How about costuming? At the extremes, yes – but not in the middle. So yes, an Orlanthi might assume the person wearing the big red cloak and the breastplate featuring the Red Goddess is a Lunar, that is until they see the markings of Death and Truth and the nice iron sword that indicates that this is a Humakti (who often wear red cloaks because of blood and death) and the breastplate shows that she defeated a Seven Mothers Rune Lord in single combat. 

I like this idea of a warrior wearing the gear of significant defeated enemies — I’ll have to put some of that in my games!

That’s why Orlanthi culture has all sorts of social rituals to help sort out strangers into friends, neutrals, and enemies. Rather than attack on sight, the Orlanthi tend to ask strangers, “hey who are you? Did you kill any of my relatives?” and that kind of thing to figure out how to interact with them.

Some of these “social rituals” are mentioned in the RuneQuest rules, like the “Wind Lord Challenges”. Older Gloranthan products included various other such traditions, like that of hospitality.

In our world, categorising people into races was associated with the rise of vast transoceanic empires that ruled over many disparate peoples not associated with each other through language, religion, or tradition. If that exists in Glorantha, it would like be something you might have seen in the Middle Sea Empire. 

The ruling elite of the Middle Sea Empire were Hrestoli Malkioni. They likely tended to see the world through the lens of class – who are the talars, horals, zzaburi, and dronars of the world? This matters when bringing new people into the empire. Are those barbarians basically warriors or are they workers? Can our talars marry the sons and daughters of their rulers? Are those Dayzatar mystics essentially zzaburi? Places like Teshnos, Safelster, Umathela, Jolar, and Kralorela may have been to a greater or lesser degree affected by this.

The Middle Sea Empire was a Second Age nation that stretch across all of Glorantha. Being a Malkioni society at heart, they divide people in castes: talars are nobles, horals are warriors, zzaburi are wizards, and dronars are farmers.

And thus it is not odd they divided peoples into the “races” of Wareran (which likely just really means, “we are familiar with them since at least the First Age”), Kralori (our eastern dominions), and Agimori and Veldang (our southern dominions). Agimori and Veldang were obviously different groups to their Jrusteli conquerers – to start with, the Veldang are blue. And worship very different gods. And everyone else (who get called the Agimori) agreed they are different.

The Guide to Glorantha actually lists most of these under the “human racial types”: Agimori effectively sound like Central Africans, Vithelans are Asians, Warerans are Near and Middle Eastern people, and Veldang are Gloranthan-speicfic blue-skinned people. Jeff nicely solves a few problems here by remapping these classifications to how and when the Middle Sea Empire encountered people.

Further answering the original questions, Jeff adds:

“Lunars” is a super broad category, even by these standards. Do you mean a Seven Mothers worshiper in Boldhome or are we talking about citizens of Furthest? I think in most cases they might be viewed as being different ethnic groups (remember – language, cult, and tradition drive that), but not different races.

Lunar Tarsh is a specific ethnic group. They speak New Pelorian (language), follow the Lunar religion (cult), and have a long tradition of identifying themselves as a group.

And about whether Praxians, Heortlanders, Esrolians, Grazelanders, and so on are different “races”:

Under the God Learner system? Yes. Under the categorisations of whatever Lhankor Mhy just wrote the most influential History of Our Times? Who knows. Maybe he divides people into the categories of Orlanthi, Lunar, Praxians, and Pure Horse People? 

Some News of the Heroquesting Rules

Jeff is teasing the upcoming heroquesting rules for RuneQuest, which he has been playtesting a lot lately.

Key highlights – it is definitely not Super RuneQuest, and we are doing our playtesting with the pregens from the Starter Set. Characters with strong Runes and Passions, plenty of Rune Magic and lots of POW and CHA are going to do better than characters with high skills – which is as it should be!

The “Super RuneQuest” mention here refers to some old school of thought that says you encounter super-high-powered NPCs in the God Time, with skills in the 500% or even 1000% range or something. So you need community bonuses to get appropriate skill bonuses, and maybe some custom mechanics for handling large numbers.

The new rules do a fantastic job showing how Gloranthan myths change while the God Time remains eternal and changeless. They really encourage and facilitate exploration of the Hero Plane, and all the players could have something to do.

In order to overcome a (possibly magical) drought the players set off to liberate the waters taken by Aroka. Amusingly, Vasana gained a Dragonbreaking boon in the quest’s climax – she spurned the liberated Blue Woman’s offers and went straight for power over dragons, while Sorala Tor gained insight into communicating with dragons and even a little Dragon Magic. Yanioth gained a magic fruit from the Lord of Trees and is somehow tied with the Poisonthorn Elves, while Harmast now has a magic kid with hooves and antlers. Just a regular jaunt into Hero Plane.

And it is good that the players managed to get extraordinary support from their clan and the Clearwine Earth Temple or there is no way they would have succeeded!

I’ve only run one heroquest so far, using some half-assed custom rules, but the God Time mechanics haven’t really been my main problem — it’s more about that last part: how does community support mechanically help the heroquesters, and what does it mean to go heroquesting “on your own”. I’m very curious to see how these new rules will turn out!

The extra treat in Jeff’s post is a handout he used for the game:

Attached is one of the game aids the players had – a map Sorala Tor had taken from the Holy Country describing the relationship between locations known from the Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death.

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.

Upcoming Miniatures from Mad Knight

Andrew Taylor, of Mad Knight Castings, is teasing the next Gloranthan miniatures Kickstarter, which is scheduled for March 2022:

One of the items will be Bolgar Stomping Bull and the Thunder Rebel Flyers. Here are some pics painted by Jonathan Tarry.

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Here are some more of these miniatures, and a few others, painted by Felix Figure Painting:

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Gloranthan Minitatures Environment

Simon Webb has made some nice Gloranthan buildings!

More information here.

The Vintage RPG Podcast on RuneQuest

The Vintage RPG Podcast has a new episode out where they look at the history of RuneQuest, its origins, its legacy, and more.

Snakepipe Hollow Height Map

We’ve featured D R’s Gloranthan 3D explorations before, and here’s more: a visualization of Snakepipe Hollow’s cave complex from the outside, to get an idea of the height differences. This is great because it’s easy to forget about the third dimension while looking at 2D maps in scenario!

Some More Origins of Gloranthan Names

French archivist and Gloranthan scholar 7Tigers has found a few fun entries from the old RuneQuest Digest mailing list (dating back to 1994). Sandy Petersen explains where some Gloranthan names come from. You might have heard some of these stories before, while others might be new to you:

– Cam’s Well: Cam Stafford, Greg’s wife at the time.
– The Biggle Stone: Clint Bigglestone, friend and RPGer
– Waha the Butcher: a high school acquaintance of Greg, who is unaware of his high honor. His war cry was “Waaaahaaaa!” and his dad was a butcher, a fact of which he often boasted.
– The Tada Shi (people of the Golden Age): Tadashi Ehara, Chaosium’s one-time business manager
– Yan Starcere (Humakti hero cult): Ian Starcher, who argued that Humakt should have an anti-resurrection spell. Yan Starcere provides same.
– Swenstown: Anders Swenson, well known bon vivant and RPGer in the Bay area.
– Makla Mann: Mac, a famed gamer and figure painter from the Los Angeles area.

And of course, a classic, although I had heard that Greg changed the name to avoid Disney copyrights:

An unsung friend of Greg’s is directly responsible for the Ducks! Here’s how it happened. Greg needed a name for one of the towns on the White Bear Red Moon map, and asked this pal to name it. He instantly responded, “Duckburg”. Greg thought that was a little too unGloranthan, and suggested “Duck Point” instead. His friend said, “Well, okay. But it’s gotta have ducks in it!” And the rest is history.

Iconic Production’s JM Shows You The Gods War

JM, whom you might know from the Exploring Glorantha videos with Evan Franke, or from his bronze-age RPG Jackals, is showing off Petersen Games’ The Gods War, one of the few board games that require an entire extra room in your house for storage and play. If you’re still waiting on that second Kickstarter to get into manufacturing, this might offer a little vicarious relief.

Fantasy Worlds That Aren’t Magical Earth

Well-known sci-fi and fantasy website TOR.com has an article about fantasy worlds that aren’t “just magical Earth”. Since I’m mentioning it here, you can bet Glorantha shows up in it, surprisingly enough!

Although Stafford began work on his Bronze Age fantasy setting of Glorantha in the 1960s, it was not generally available to the public until the 1970s, when game company Chaosium incorporated the setting into board games like White Bear and Red Moon and Nomad Gods, and most significantly (at least from my personal perspective), the roleplaying game RuneQuest.

On a small scale, Glorantha looks Earth-like, featuring two large continents separated by a vast sea. Pull back for greater perspective, and this familiar arrangement is revealed as the top of a cube floating in a sea of chaos, surrounded by a great sphere beyond which sensible mortals do not explore. This is a magic-imbued world operating according to rules entirely unlike the rules of our world and the shape of the world reflects that.

I would have thought they had way enough novels and book series to pick from for that kind of article but hey, I’m not complaining.

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 Lonely Castle

One of my favourite websites, Atlas Obscura, has many articles on weird and interesting places. I was reminded this week that it’s also a good inspiration for Gloranthan places:

Carved into a massive boulder, Qasr al-Farid, or “The Lonely Castle,” is a stunning ancient structure that rivals the majesty of any carved architecture in the world.

Created around the 1st century CE, the tall facade was never actually finished. The description of the site as a “castle” is misleading, as the grand carving is actually a tomb that was built as part of the ancient Nabatean site of Hegra. The Nabateans had a unique construction technique that saw their tombs being chiseled right out of the rock from the top down.

More here.

Kneeling Bull With Vessel

The pretty historical artifact of the week is this silver bull from around 3000 BCE. More info here.

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 week was rather quiet, which is nice. I think I have to thank Jeff being on vacation or something for that. I have resumed work on an old Jonstown Compendium book I had half-written way before I wrote A Short Detour, and started organizing my thoughts about putting my “Goonies in Glorantha” kids campaign down on the page.

God Learner Sorcery

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

Runic Rants: Detect Enemies

Here’s an article about the Detect Enemies spell, how to use it at the table, and how to mess up with your players:

This is one of those things that RuneQuest players love to argue about ad nauseam, using increasingly convoluted abstract situations. The spell says that it detects “any being intending to harm [the caster]“, so what does “being” mean? Does it detect animals or undead? Can a wild creature “intend” anything if they lack INT and are driven by instinct? What if the danger is a colony of flesh eating ants who, individually, don’t “intend” anything because their attacks are the result of an emerging group behaviour? What if…

No. Stop. Just stop.

More here!

Chaosium News

Here are this week’s Chaosium news!

RuneQuest Starter Set Trailer

Chaosium released this very nicely done “trailer” for the RuneQuest Starter Set. It features animated versions of some of the art found in the booklets, and some voice-over narration by the delightful Becca Scott (who plays a lot of Call of Cthulhu, but also a bit of RuneQuest).

A Quirky Game Company

Rick Meints has posted a little anecdote on Facebook, pointing to some RuneQuest 3 promotional materials from 1983:

Rick says:

I wondered if it would mention anything about RuneQuest, and I was not disappointed. As I read the short advert for the new edition of RuneQuest I immediately thought “what were they thinking?” Here’s a small example of how Chaosium earned its “quirky game company” reputation back in the 1980s.

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!

Visions of Pavis Teaser

Matthew Cole is teasing “Vistas of New Pavis”, which will surely use all the 3D reconstruction work he has done on New Pavis in the past few years. It’s on track for a 2022 release.

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.

Chaotic Associations in Gods

Thankfully for my week’s productivity, Jeff has only posted one interesting note:

For most Gloranthan religions, Chaos is something outside of the realm of gods and spirits. There are a few gods or spirits that were corrupted by Chaos or who otherwise embraced it during the Greater Darkness. The Orlanthi, Praxians, Malkioni, Doraddi, and followers of the Old Gods (animism) all agree on this.

Most celestial cults agree as well, but Yelm is oddly associated with two Chaos gods – Nysalor and the Red Goddess. Perhaps it is Yelm’s claims to universal rule, which would include Chaos along with everything. Or perhaps it is Yelm’s inability to see his own Shadow.

I love those last two statements, and I think they’re probably important to grok Yelm.

Entities like Thed, Ragagnalar, etc. are not invoked in most magical ceremonies or heroquests – unless they are specific enemies to be overcome as part of a magical defeat of Chaos. Death, disorder, and lies are all part of the cosmos – but Chaos is outside of it and antithetical to existence.

That last statement is also important in my opinion — the line between “evil” and “disorder” and “Chaos” and all that is one I explored in my first Jonstown Compendium book. A lot of what Jeff writes below is addressed in my book too:

Getting back to the original thought, most Gloranthan religions hold that Chaos is “outside” of the cosmos. It precedes it, and the cosmos was formed out of the Primal Chaos. Chaos is an assault on the existence of the cosmos itself and is thus wholly different from every other element or power. To analogise, the other elements and powers are jostling against each other within the confines of the cosmos; Chaos threatens to return the entire system to where it came from – the gaping maw of Chaos.

Illumination allows one to understand that is not per se evil and not to fear or hate it. But for everyone else, that is a bridge too far including for Chaotic tainted beings such as broo, scorpion men, vampires, ogres, and the like.

So regardless of how dangerous, treacherous, or even evil deities like Zorak Zoran, Eurmal, Gorgorma, Wachaza, or Gagarth are – they are “of the world” and still preferable to things like Thed, Vivamort, Primal Chaos, the Crimson Bat, or Krarsht.

Also:

The mindless devouring maw of Chaos continually threatens Glorantha’s existence. In the Greater Darkness, existence very nearly ceased. [I Fought We Won], Arachne Solara and the Net of Existence – these are mythic events where existence itself was able to continue due to the deeds of one who was all.

Deities such as Orlanth, the other Lightbringers, Storm Bull, Babeester Gor, Yelmalio, Zorak Zoran, Kyger Litor, and Magasta are very much defined by the struggle against Chaos. They fought terrible rear-guard battles against Chaos to continue to exist. It is not surprising that their cults hold true to that.

The Red Goddess is of course different:

At a certain level, the Red Goddess is something of Wittgenstein’s duck-rabbit. Does she threaten the existence of the cosmos or does she liberate us from fear? Both can be true, depending on the viewer!

You’ve probably seen the Wittgenstein duck-rabbit before, but it’s here if you need to confuse your brain again… and possibly achieve Illumination.

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.

JM and Evan Interview Rick Meints

Taking a break from their regular “Exploring Glorantha” chats, JM and Evan had a nice chat with Chaosium president Rick Meints about… well, many things Chaosium-related.

More Snakepipe Hollow Explorations

D R has posted another update of their 3D explorations of Gloranthan dungeons. We had previously seen some of the Rainbow Mounds, but they’re also working on Snakepipe Hollow, here with a particular look at the… well, I don’t know if we can have spoilers for a 40-year old book, but it’s in the video title. Avert your eyes if you don’t want to know!

Upcoming Duck Miniatures

Jonas Svensson, of Far Flung Miniatures, has an upcoming Kickstarter campaign for some duck miniatures! It’s not launched yet but you can get notified when that happens.

“The Future of the Clan”

It had been a long time since John Hughes did some 3D Gloranthan art (unless I missed something). The piece below is called “The Future of the Clan“:

A Sartarite Elmali clan scene featuring three clan leaders (followers of (left to right) Vinga, Ernalda and Esrola/Uleria) and two young children blessed by Voria and Voriof.

More here too, and his entire website has lots of Gloranthan goodness.

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.

Babylonian Sheep Stew

Max Miller, of the “Tasting History” channel, is cooking a 4000 years old recipe… and you can easily follow at home!

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 8: The Early Days of Glorantha (Part 1)

Episode 8 of the podcast is out! We are joined by Andrew “Doc” Cowie, who has more than 40 years of experience with RuneQuest. He talks about what it was like to play RQ2 as a teenager in the UK, how the complicated publishing history of Glorantha affected his gaming, and lot of other tangentially related topics.

A Short Detour is now Copper Best Seller!

Thanks to all of you who bought the book, left reviews, or sent me private messages via email, Facebook, and Twitter! It’s all very much appreciated!

Chaosium News

Here are this week’s Chaosium news!

A Few Jokes at Glorantha’s Expense

I love the “Out of the Suitcase” articles from Rick Meints, and here’s a new one! It deals with Gloranthan jokes making it onto some of the order forms found in Chaosium products… I won’t spoil the punchlines so go read those (arguably terrible) jokes here!

New Upcoming RuneQuest Actual Play

Chaosium has just started advertising an upcoming Actual Play for RuneQuest… and no, it’s not the return of Jeff Richard’s “White Bull” campaign, but a new campaign with James Coquillat as the gamemaster! And not only that, but a few players from Brian Holland’s recent one-shot (below) are also coming back, such as London Carlisle (playing Varakos), and Cynthia Marie (playing Vasana).

Rounding up the group are Chaosium’s Miskatonic University ambassador Bridget Jeffries (playing Yanioth) and Chaosium’s digital content manager David Naylor (playing Mago).

The game will start on Monday, February 14th at 3PM Pacific on Chaosium’s Twitch channel. I’m certain that episodes will later show up on Chaosium’ YouTube channel for those not watching live.

Complementing the RuneQuest Starter Set Dice

If you are looking for getting more of the same dice that came in the Starter Set, Rick Meints shared what they are: Hengda Dice SKU HDP-08.

I think that they’re the “Golden Pearl” model pictured above, which you can get here on Dice Market (but you should ask your friendly local gaming store for them).

Giving the Nod

Here is a nice post from Ian Cooper, talking about how much he tried to “give the nod” to fan material when writing The Coming Storm:

We incorporated ideas from material that had been developed in TradeTalk (I tried to at least ‘give the nod’ to much of the fan creativity of the 90s if we could).

Interestingly, I originally wrote Jonstown, from the Sartar Companion, as part of The Coming Storm, with the idea being a campaign that moved from clan to city and back, but we moved it to SC. Again I tried to ‘give the nod’ to that earlier material.

Where Do Morokanths Come From?

Well, obviously, when two Morokanths love each other very much… but no, this is a question on BRP Central about what gave Greg Stafford the idea to make sentient tapir creatures. David Scott posted this page from a book presumably owned by Greg, with the following quote:

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Moeritherium is on the same page (read the entry). I think he was leafing through books to find cool things to use. […]

I also think that Moeritherium is mashed with an -akanth tail from another creature (see chaos-ium)

Swedish RuneQuest News

Joerg is pointing me to this Facebook post which mentions progress on the exclusive campaign book that will accompany the Swedish RuneQuest.

If I am to trust Google Translate, this new material is focused on Skanthi and its capital of Oxhead. This is an Orlanthi region stuck between the Lunar province of Aggar and the Chaos infested Dorastor. Skanthi itself is not quite yet a proper Lunar province, and the Guide mentions a very familiar struggle between the rebellious traditionalists and the pragmatic collaborators. This sounds like a fun way to bring back the “Lunar occupation” gameplay of RQ2’s earlier timeline, while at the same time giving an entirely new spin on things due to the new location.

Anyway, the post says that you will do, among other things:

– Pull out on raids and looting trains. Everything from stealing a few dozen sheep from a neighboring clan to a large-scale raid on the lowlanders in Lakrene.
– Negotiate a marriage with a person from the neighboring clan to strengthen the bonds between the two families.
– Escort the trolls’ winter caravan to the town of Oxhead, where they will sell their exotic goods.
– Participate in the annual Great Hunt, where the country’s foremost hunters are chosen, and where the winner must have laid a magical quarry.
– Sent by the chief to spy in the border areas where the chaos beasts came from during the war, and to investigate whether new attacks are in the trade. One consequence may be that the adventurers get the honor of fighting next to Stormbull’s cultists when Chaos once again threatens to pour in from Dorastor.
– Help the fraternal clans of Aggar rebel against the Moon Empire and fight the brutal General Roan-Ur. At the same time, the adventurers can examine the truth of the rumors that the Moon Empire is preparing an expedition to Aggar (Skanthi’s eastern neighbor) to lay the foundation for a new temple for the Red Goddess cult.
– Fight the ice demons to drive back the winter – for this year.
– Follow a shaman – maybe one of the adventurers? – into the spirit world to annihilate an old curse.
– Make their own social, political, religious and magical careers. An adventurer who starts as a young adult has a whole life ahead of him with unimaginable possibilities! It is even possible to participate in shaping the next age, now that the third age is suffering towards its inevitable end.

Sounds great, but I sadly don’t think the 8 hours of Swedish lessons I once took will be enough to read this…

By the way, Joerg tells me that General Roan-Ur had previously appeared in none other than the Life of Moonson freeform. You can get the new version here.

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 2022 Index

Nick Brooke has left behind his previous Jonstown Compendium index and made a new one for the new year. And guess what: it currently features my art for A Short Detour on its cover! (although I expect Nick to rotate the art with every major update to the index)

These index….es? Indices? Err…. these compilations are useful for gamemasters looking for the best Jonston Compendium book to buy and fit into their ongoing campaign.

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.

Belintar

Jeff talks about Belintar, the mysterious heroquester and founder of the Holy Country:

We all know about Belintar’s first incarnation – from when he appeared off the shore of Kethaela in 1313 and his titanic struggle with the Only Old One that resulted in his apotheosis as the God-King of the Holy Country. We also all know that Belintar’s mortal shell expired many times, and that the Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death was a great magical-mythical contest that selected the new incarnation of Belintar and kept the Divine Realm in close proximity to the Holy Country.

The Only Old One was some kind of half-troll (or something), the son of Argan Argar (the troll God of Surface Darkness) and Esrola (an Earth goddess). As far as I understand, Belintar sort of cheated: he was killed by the Only Old One, but came back the next year to try again, succeeding.

The “Divine Realm” mentioned here is, I think, the Holy Country version of the Proximate Holy Realm, which was mentioned in issue #30. Basically, the mythical design of the Holy Country, and the regular Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death (MOLAD), maintained some kind of magical field over the whole place, which made it easier to… do stuff. But, like, cool stuff.

Belintar had a cult and many priests in each of the Sixths who offered him magic points, incense, and other accoutrements of worship. This worship aided him in doing many miracles, such as extending the Magical Roads that connected the Sixths to the City of Wonders or indeed in maintaining the City of Wonders itself.

The City of Wonders was in the centre of this magical mythical Disneyland we call the Holy Country. The “Sixths” were each of the themed lands of the metaphorical amusement park. Clockwise from the south, the Sixths were the Rightarm Islands (Water), Caladraland (Fire), Esrolia (Earth), the Shadow Plateau (Darkness), Heortland (Air), and, God Forgot (Joerg tells me it might stand for the Man Rune, but also points out that Prince of Sartar hinted more simply towards the last elemental Rune, aka the Moon Rune… but maybe to represent spirituality rather than the present Red Moon).

The prime function of each incarnation of Belintar was to maintain the proximity of the divine realm with the Holy Country. In some ways, Belintar can be thought of as a high priest of each of the gods whose job was to communicate between the gods and their worshipers AND between the gods and themselves. He reconciled the needs of the gods and their many different cults.

Now Belintar was rarely powerful enough to impose his will on the gods. Instead, he needed to work with the gods, and often interacted with them in the divine realm for the benefit of the people of the Holy Country. This involved near constant heroquesting. Like the time Belintar brought the Jolly Fat Man to Nochet so he might reside within the city. Or the time Belintar brought Heort to Stormwalk Mountain so they could both view the Holy Country. Or when Belintar got Argan Argar to invite him to share a meal with the Mistress Race Trolls beneath the Tarpit.

Each incarnation, regardless of their mortal identity, always appeared as Belintar in the Hero Plane. The gods recognized him regardless of incarnation and the many pacts and bargains he made were always upheld by the gods. Because of the proximity of the divine realm with the Holy Country, gods often manifested in the Holy Country, visiting their worshipers even outside of the worship ceremonies!

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.

We’ve already read Jeff mention it before, but a lot of the important people in modern Sartar gained heroquesting experience in the Holy Country, especially while Lunars occupied their lands:

Belintar and the Tournament of the Masters of Luck of Death served as a heroquesting school for the Sartarites. Heroquesting techniques that were lost or rejected by most cultures were developed and refined in the Holy Country.

If you read older material, you might see Belintar referred to as “pharaoh”, but that term is now abandoned because it obviously gave the wrong idea. Similarly, don’t imagine Belintar’s Holy Country as a well organized machine (which is probably where the comparison with Disneyland falls down). It sounds more like some underground artist venue:

What never really developed around Belintar was the sort of court administration as you see in Glamour. Belintar surrounded himself with philosophers, mystics, magical individuals, adventurers, and vacationing gods. When young Tarkalor visited the City of Wonders, he met:

– Belintar, who was a woman at the time
– Enamyx, the “False Daughter” of Belintar (she was the daughter of a previous incarnation)
– Darkasten, Prince of the Hendriki
– Antagorn, the Rich Thief of Nochet
– Bardranu, the Teshnite nobleman
– Mister Bondaru, the philosopher
– The Tanist, Belintar’s identical stand-in

As well as such strange beings as the Dwarf Giant, the Spirit of Freedom, The Constant Guard, The Five Physical Spirits, The Reef Master, and the Tide Lord.

I’m getting Andy Warhol & The Velvet Underground vibes here.

Anyway, the Lunar Empire wanted access to the sea, and to the trade that comes from it. As a point of reference, Jeff mentioned in passing that the Kingdom Sartar was richer than most Lunar provinces thanks to this trade… so they got Jar-eel ( the bad-ass Xena Warrior Princess daughter of the Red Emperor) to remove the only thing that stood in the way:

But now Belintar is gone. No heroquest is going to bring those tattered webs back into place, or rebuild Humpty Dumpty’s broken egg. Jar-eel tore it into parts, shattered the pillars, and broke the Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death so that it always fails. That magic is still churning and looking for an outlet, but can’t find one. The divine realm is still in proximity with the mundane world and is now easy to grab. And that goes a long way to understanding the Hero Wars.

As I understand this, because there’s so much magic hanging around, instead of a “normal” war between the Lunars and everybody else, it’s now a war between gods and heroes and spirits too. The Third Age was due for a reboot anyway.

Later, Jeff talks about Belintar’s effect on the neighbours:

Increasingly I view Belintar as the mentor or godfather of the Sartar Dynasty and later the Sartar Magical Union. He is a big reason why the Orlanthi of Sartar really don’t resemble the Orlanthi of King of Dragon Pass or Thunder Rebels.

It sounds like after looking at Sartar in relation with everything around it (Peloria, Prax, the Holy Country), Jeff realized that it would be better to emphasize the trade and heroquesting aspects that the Kingdom gets from its neighbours. That makes it a lot less about “isolated hillbillies” and a lot more about “proud tax-taking hosts and

And Belintar was there for centuries. Not really a single individual, not really an office, but definitely a single soul that had many incarnations.

That’s the hardest thing to get around – that Belintar had many incarnations, each with their own personalities and appearances, but the same powerful soul. And each incarnation knew secrets that only Belintar could know.

Who is the other big guy with multiple incarnations again? Oh, right, Moonson, the Red Emperor:

Moonson is certainly similar. But if you dig you find some big differences. Moonson was created by the Red Goddess to manage her worldly affairs after she rose into the sky as the Red Moon. Belintar made himself through contests, pacts, and proofs that he made throughout the Holy Country and now must make anew roughly every generation through the Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death.

And remember, every incarnation of Belintar has managed to succeed in the Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death, which is a far more “experimental heroquest” than the Ten Tests of a Dara Happan Emperor (and much harder to rig in your favour). Politics plays much smaller role in selecting the new incarnation of Belintar (usually none at all) than it does in selecting a new Mask.

The “Ten Tests” are a bunch of magical challenges meant to prove that you can be the rightful Emperor of Dara Happa. By now, I’m not sure if the Red Emperor needs to do them anymore, but historically several Red Emperors completed them to prove their rule over the former Dara Happan lands that make up a good chunk of the Lunar Heartlands.

Anyway, we have a guy who has a “mortal element” that he swaps with a new one when the previous one dies, and an “immortal element” that carries on, like some Methuselah from Altered Carbon. Who else does that in Glorantha besides the Red Emperor?

[…] there’s probably a dozen or more entities in Glorantha that do that.

Just off the top of the head – Mani, Jaldon Goldentooth, the Founder Khans, Aronius Jaranthir, the Only Old One, possibly Waha, and Arkat.

Oh boy, I don’t know half of these names… time to look into some PDFs!

• Mani is the guy who gives his name to Mani’s Fort in the Big Rubble in Prax. He’s known as Mani Tor or Mani of the Many Lives. He reincarnates into his tribe (the well named Mani tribe) every two or three generations.
• Jaldon Goldentooth was a Khan of the Bison tribe who kicked the Pure Horse People out of Prax (they went to the Grazelands), sacked Pavis a few times, fought the Empire of the Wyrms Friends, and is generally considered as a hero of all Praxian tribes, having united them against a common enemy during his lifetime. He has been “summoned” a few times since, whenever the Praxian tribes needed unified again, including by Argrath during the upcoming Hero Wars. Several of his bodies lay at Jaldon’s Rest, which you can find in a Dragon Pass map somewhere between Dangerford and Moonbroth.
• I had no idea who the “Founder Khans” were until Joerg pointed me to Nomad Gods (whose rules booklet is available in PDF here). Without much surprise, they are the original founders of each of the Praxian tribes. In the Nomad Gods board game, a current tribal Khan can “call” upon their Founder and make them appear on the board.
• Aronius Jaranthir is a Carmanian hero who helped the Red Emperor twice, more than a century apart, having died in between.
• We already mentioned the Only Old One, the sort-of-troll who ruled the Shadow Plateau.
• Waha is one of the cults in the RuneQuest rulebook so we know who that is, but it’s indeed worth mentioning that he seems to show up occasionally in history. I’ve got no idea how that happens though… he seems to just be there.
• Arkat is the big scary guy who fought Nysalor’s Empire of Light and ended the Second Age. He was killed a few times, but that didn’t stick. It seems more like self-resurrection, or enough bad-assery to walk out of the Underworld, rather than some reincarnation shtick like Belintar, but what do I know.

I think that King Ironhoof might qualify too — he’s the leader of all the Beast People of Beast Valley, and every now and then (when needed) he reincarnates into the current Centaur King’s body.

What does it take to be the next Belintar?

I think we modern Westerners tend to have a very ego-centric sense of the self. Think of Belintar as a hero out of some young adult fantasy series. Belintar is dead, so now we have a big contest and tournament to choose the new Belintar. During this contest, our hero succeeds in making the pacts and winning the contests that are necessary to magical unify the six lands, including displaying the necessary temperament and self-discipline to serve as Belintar, and in the process starts to communicate with all the previous Belintars. Many Who Are One. In the end, our hero triumphs and becomes the new Belintar, aided by all those who came before.

And our new Belintar is capable of calling upon all their prior selfs. But is also their own self. And all share in that mighty soul called Belintar, which is recognized by the gods and spirits of the Holy Country.

Jeff offers Avatar as the closest pop culture reference for Belintar. And he means the excellent “Avatar: The Last Airbender” animated series, here… not the James Cameron action movie with giant blue people. By the way, if you’ve been living under a rock and don’t know about the immensely popular crowdfunding campaign for the Avatar RPG, learn more here from Magpie Games.

The Only Old One’s Return

There were a lot of interesting comments on the previous item, so I’m taking some of them into their own item:

The Only Old One had endured for over a thousand years. He was the offspring of Argan Argar and Esrola, but also at 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 that enabled him to directly access the Underworld.

He was destroyed by Belintar, but it might not be the last we hear about him:

There are rumours that the Argan Argar cult seeks to reassemble [the Only Old One’s] pieces so that he may return to the world, but nobody other than the Argan Argar cult thinks that would be a good idea. There isn’t exactly a lot of nostalgia for the OOO in the Holy Country, outside of Argan Argar and the trolls.

Belintar was fair with the trolls and took no action against them despite his war with the OOO. The trolls participated in the Tournament and even won on at least one occasion. But now that Belintar is gone, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some trolls searching through the Underworld for a way to find the OOO.

The Red Emperor’s Titles

And here’s another comment from the Belintar thread that I think is worth reading:

Remember that the Lunar Empire is not truly a “state”. It is dynasty appointed by the Red Goddess to manage her worldly affairs. The head of that dynasty holds several “state titles” like Emperor of Dara Happa and Shah of Carmania, etc., but in the end his rule rests on things like:

1. His position as the head of the Lunar Religion
2. His ability to command the Yelmite nobility
3. His personal power
4. His ability to give out gifts to powerful supporters, soldiers, and magicians.
5. His command of the Crimson Bat
6. His ability to keep other powerful individuals and groups satisfied.
7. His ability to maintain his system of satraps and client kings.

And so on. The Red Emperor has tremendous power but in none of these categories is it unquestioned. For example, his position as the head of the Lunar Religion requires accommodating Great Sister and Jar-eel. His ability to command the Yelmite nobility means doing Yelmite things. And so on.

I had never heard of Great Sister before so I assume some of you might need this: apparently she’s a demigoddess daughter of the Red Moon, and as such she answers directly to her, and not the Red Emperor. She controls an independent military unit (the “Sister’s Army”), and reincarnates every now and then — although her current incarnation is more than a century old.

Argrath’s Life (up to 1627)

Here is Jeff’s “short” summary:

So the basic story is that Argrath was exiled to Prax as a youth. He was taken as a slave by the Bison Tribe, but while a slave he found/freed the White Bull spirit. The White Bull is a son of Storm Bull/brother of Waha who the Praxians believe will lead them to fight a final battle against Gbaji or Chaos or whatever.

Argrath, as the person in direct contact with the White Bull, becomes the leader of this new magical society, which thanks to the Lunars spreads quickly within all the Praxian tribes.

But meanwhile, Argrath is part of the Sartar Dynasty (from a minor branch, but thanks to the Lunars that’s really all there is) and is an Orlanth Adventurous cultist. He is an experimental heroquester (where do you think he found the White Bull?) and is seeking things in the weird recesses of the Hero Plane – the Drinking Giant’s Cauldron, the Dragonteeth, etc. When a baby giant is born as an unexpected side effect of one of these quests, Argrath protects her on her voyage to the sea. This brings him into contact with Harrek the Berserk.

The Lunar ran an assassination campaign against all heirs to the Sartar throne in the early 1600s, which is something you can see in the RuneQuest Glorantha character creation, during the family history step. So that’s why Argrath is “viable” as a Prince even though he’s like a grandson of a cousin of something.

It’s interesting however that he’s an experimental heroquester from the beginning of his “career”… as far as I know, he went pretty quickly from his adulthood initiation to being exiled to Prax, so he’s doing all this on instinct, as a prodigy. It’s probably only later that he goes to the Holy Country and gets even more experience heroquesting.

It’s also interesting that the giant’s cradle, which is such a big element of the old RuneQuest Praxian campaigns, is directly linked to Argrath’s heroquesting.

After a rocky start, Harrek and Argrath become allies and they circumnavigate around the Homeward Ocean, plundering and adventuring, and seeing all sorts of things. Teshnite sun priests, Teleosites, bat-hsunchen in Laskal, Doraddi, Fonritian Ompalam cultists, the ruins of Jrustela, Seshengi sorcerers, and so much more. By the time Argrath gets to the Holy Country, he is one of the most broadly adventured people in Glorantha.

From the Holy Country, Argrath returns to Prax where the White Bull movement has spread during his absence. He gathers members from all the tribes and summons Jaldon Goldentooth so that he can conquer (liberate) New Pavis from the Lunars. After that he quickly unrolls the Lunar garrisons in the River of Cradles.

Shortly after, he gets his first major set-back. Argrath tries to conquer Dragon Pass with his Praxian allies, but is beaten by the Lunar College of Magic at Hender’s Ruins. He returns to New Pavis to recoup, but in the meanwhile the Dragonrise happens and Kallyr Starbrow is acclaimed Prince of Sartar.

This brings us to 1625, the starting date of RuneQuest Glorantha.

Kallyr’s rule of Sartar is short-lived and Argrath returns to Dragon Pass with an army of Praxians and adventurers. After forcing the Lunars out of Alda-Chur, Argrath marches on Boldhome and is acclaimed Prince of Sartar. He has little direct relationship with the traditional Sartarite leaders – the tribes and the city councils, but he is backed by Orlanth Adventurous, Storm Bull, tricksters, an army of Praxians, plenty of misfits, adventurers, outlaws, hedge priests, shamans, and weirdos – basically everything that Thunder Rebels says isn’t there.

Its clear that the new Prince with a seasoned army (and plenty of cavalry) plans to strike against the Lunar Empire, but first he needs to get his ducks in a row, so to speak. But the clock is ticking as the Red Emperor and Jar-eel have suppressed the revolt in the Redlands, and are restoring order to the Lunar Provinces.

That’s the scene in 1627 when the ball really starts rolling. At that point we are in the White Bear and Red Moon board game.

I’ve heard before of the “Multiple Argraths” theory, which stipulates that all the deeds attributed to “Argrath” were actually done by multiple people, because obviously one guy can’t have done all these things. Even the Glorantha Wiki (at the time of writing) embraces it completely with their article on Argrath. But that theory is officially non-official:

Greg and I both concluded that the “multiple Argraths” turned out to be a failure and an obstacle for gamesters. And a nightmare if we ever want to do RQ fiction. You’ll see that we abandoned that approach in the Guide to Glorantha, Glorantha Sourcebook, and everything since.

Like any major historical figure, he has many contradictory stories about him. For example, a story might put in him in Nochet at the same time he is supposed to be in Pavis or tomb raiding in Jrustela. That’s totally fine – and the same thing is true of Jar-eel, Harrek, Arkat, etc.

Lunar Point of View

Jeff commented on this question on Facebook with his take on the average Lunar’s opinion of the Empire:

In character: because I grew up in Furthest or Jillaro or Yuthuppa or wherever. I am a citizen of city X and a loyal person of our Red Emperor, the Moonson and the ruler of the world. The Red Goddess is our patron and she remade the world in our benefit.

Look into the sky! There She is – the Red Moon. She blesses us with Her very presence. She tasked Her son with ruling the mundane world and protecting Her people.

Many enjoy Her blessings but do not know Her secrets. However, I was initiated into the Seven Mothers as a young adult, just as my parents were before me. I have felt the desperate need that drove the Seven Mothers to find *something* that could remake the world and save them – that *something* is none other than the Red Goddess.

This was followed by some extra notes:

I think the overwhelming majority of Lunars justify being a Lunar in some manner like the above. To be outside of the empire is to be a barbarian, a rebel, a monster. The Red Goddess is the patron of the empire and her son is its ruler.

If I wanted to be outside of the empire and justify it, it is easiest to point to the millions of Pelorians who have enjoyed peace and prosperity over the last century and a half. Most Lunars have not seen or experienced war or privation in their lifetime or that of their parents or that of their grandparents or that of their great-grandparents or…

I personally think very few – if any – Lunars justify their religion or empire by referencing the Orlanthi or Pentans or who ever – the year is 1625 not 1275 after all! The Lunar Empire is its own justification, as is the Red Moon in the sky. It is there, we benefit from it, and have benefited from it for as many generations as we can recall. The Red Goddess has proven herself, and for countless generations, her initiates and religion have blessed us. It is simply who we are now.

Similarly, the conflict between the Lunar Empire and the barbarians/rebels/monsters outside of it is taken for granted by most people. The Lunar Empire has all sorts of ceremonies that define the world and if you are a Lunar, you are on the inside. The Orlanthi, Praxians, Pentans, trolls, dwarfs, elves, dragonewts, etc. are by definition on the outside.

Most Lunars fear Chaos in the same way that they fear Death, although perhaps even more viscerally. Everyone knows that the Crimson Bat is a terrible monster, but one that serves the Red Goddess (and more immediately, the Red Emperor). Everyone knows that broo, ogres, and other monsters are evil, but they can serve the Red Emperor if they submit to him and obey his commands (like do not kill my people). Philosophers and mystics may raise questions about the Compromise, but the Red Goddess overcame the limitations of the Old Gods and proved her power at the Battle of Castle Blue, so why are you going on about that?

Another thing is to think of the Lunar Religion as a series of mystery cults placed inside of each other. We start with the Seven Mothers or their equivalent (Hon-eel, Hwarin Dalthippa, etc). That’s about as deep as most Lunars ever go. It celebrates the birth (and life) of the Red Goddess, and embraces both Life and Death – but is not Chaotic.

Let me repeat that for emphasis – the Seven Mothers are NOT Chaotic.

But the Seven Mothers grounds us for the next level. See chief priestesses CAN Bless folk with Chaos through the Red Goddess. Sparingly, and the Chaos Blessing is temporary. Priestesses learn more, experience more, and can study the Nysalorean Riddles.

And once Illuminated, a priestess can go much deeper and learn the mysteries of the Red Goddess. They can learn to warp the Spirit World. And they can learn to call upon Primal Chaos. Because the Red Goddess embraces both Life and CHAOS – a deeper understanding than what the Seven Mothers can provide. At that point we are ready to explore like the Red Goddess herself did.

But this final group is a tiny percentage of the Lunar population. There are probably fewer than 10,000 Red Goddess initiates in the entire Lunar Empire. Probably half of them are in Glamour. The next big batch is the Lunar College of Magic, key officials in the satrapies and provinces, etc. The ruling elite.

The Winter Deities

Looks like it’s snowing in Colorado, so Jeff is thinking about winter:

It is the right time of year (at least in Colorado) to talk about the trinity of winter deities – Valind, Inora, and Himile. These gods are much more important than their tiny cults would suggest.

Valind is the Winter King. He is a dangerous and powerful god who brings the winter storms, snow, and ice across Genertela. In the Lesser Darkness he ruled much of the world, and his glacier – a vast accumulation of ice and snow – displayed his might. Each winter, he advances from his glacier stronghold and tries to conquer Genertela. He is initially aided and later opposed by his storm god kinsfolk, but he always is eventually forced back so that spring can occur.

In recent decades, the Lunars send an annual group of heroquesters to fight him on the glacier and force him back, as the ancient hero Kallikos did before Time. This has weakened his advances into Peloria, and shortened winter. But Valind himself remains powerful and has built up resentment against Peloria like a river against a dam. Now if the Lunar heroquesters ever fail, winter will return with a terrible vengeance.

I wonder who’s going to make these heroquesters fail? Mmmmh…

Inora is the goddess of the snows, particularly the mountain snows that remain year round. In some lands she is viewed as an enemy; in others she is the primary source of water and fertility. She is the half-sister of Orlanth and an ally of Valind.

Huh, I didn’t know about Inora before (although I think I came across her name once or twice). I guess I should mention her in my Alone Confederation campaign, since the Indigo Mountains have a few glaciers… although Skyfall Lake and Engizi might be more important for bringing water and fertility to the valley in this particular location.

Himile is the god of cold itself, a dark and hungry god, even more terrible at night than day. He is perhaps the most dangerous of the three gods of winter, but the least obvious.

That’s interesting… Himile is related to the Darkness pantheon, and is said to be worshipped in “cold places”. Trolls in Pent have a sizable worship of him, for instance. I’m getting Wendigo vibes here. Which is a good thing.

Safelster

Here is a region of Genertela I don’t know about, even though I’ve seen it mentioned many times!

Safelster is a fascinating area, both familiar and very different. Some 2.9 million people are within 100 km of Lake Felster, which itself is about 200 km long. The area is densely populated, with an overall average density of 21 per square km. However, it gets closer to 80 per sq. km near the lake and lower the further away you go.

Let’s put this on the AAA maps. Lake Felster is west of the Mislari Mountains, and northwest of Maniria. It’s two-thirds of the way from the Holy Country to the west coast.

There’s also a lot of people living there: about 3 million humans according to the Guide. Compare that to the mere 655,000 humans in Dragon Pass…

Lake Felster is somewhat smaller than Lake Ontario, just to get a feel for it.

Which means it’s big enough that when you’re standing on the shore, you can barely see the other side, and on most days, it’s like standing next to the sea.

Rokari, Orlanthi, Old Gods, Stygians, and numerous other Malkioni sects and heresies all can be found here. There are trolls and elves, but few dwarfs. The Lunar Empire is nowhere to be seen, but an ascendent Kingdom of Seshnela aspires to hegemonic power.

Malkioni sects are basically different schools of thought for western sorcerers, and each often comes with a different focus. So just like RuneQuest cults are more than character classes because they come with a culture, traditions, specific world-views, and so on, Malkioni sects are also a bit more than just “Fire College of Magic” or whatever.

• The Rokari school are, as far as I can tell, the “die hard” Malkioni people who follow the Abiding Book to the letter, and put everybody in castes for life (noble, wizard, soldier, farmer), as opposed to, say, the Hrestoli who encourage caste mobility so that a small elite becomes “Men-of-All” (i.e. people who can do everything).
• By Orlanthi, I think that Jeff here means some sort of henotheist school where they consider the Invisible God to be the supreme divine entity, but still acknowledge and worship whatever “lesser” gods (in this case, Orlanthi) is appropriate for the area?
• Stygianism is the Malkioni school that holds Darkness as the source of everything, and that everything will eventually go back to Darkness. Possibly related to Arkat (he’s a big deal around here), but regardless, this is your ticket if you want to do cool Dakrness sorcery.

The Kingdom of Seshnela used to be to the southwest of Lake Felster, but it was destroyed in the Second Age, literally: their peninsula was shattered and only islands and ruins were left behind. The new Kingdom of Seshnela is now futher east from where it was before, and therefore close enough to Safelster to cause trouble.

Politically, the area is divided among more than a dozen autonomous or semi-autonomous city-states. Most are more populous than Sartar. In the Third Age many hegemons have momentarily unified Safelster:

1100 – Kingdom of Jorstland
1240 – New Dangim Alliance
1325 – Nedurant
1350 – Estali
1400 – New Dangim Alliance
1455 – Kingdom of Seshnela

Since 1515, no power has been able to dominate Safelster, although many have tried and failed, most recently the Duchess of Sentanos with her Proven Appearance of Arkat. Many fear the alliance between Kustria and Galin is a new attempt to dominate the region.

So you can imagine this area as something politically like the Italian city-states in the Late Medieval or Renaissance eras.

I love city-states, because there’s so much gaming opportunity to be had everywhere you go. But anyway, let’s look into all these unknown (to me) names:

• Sentanos is a state that includes the handful of cities immediately north of the lake (you can spot it on the map). The Duchess’s “Proven Appearance of Arkat” is a political movement that apparently has totally failed to make Arkat appear lately (whatever that means), which is why it’s losing steam.
• Kustria is another state that includes another handful of cities, immediately west of the lake (you can also spot it on the map).
• Of course Galin is not a state, because in Gloranthan fashion we never quite know when a name relates to a geographical region, a country, a cultural land, a city, or what… So Galin is a city: it’s right at the eastern tip of the lake. The new city queen is politically on the rise after marrying the King of the aforementioned Kustria, which is the allegiance Jeff is talking about here.

There are only a few paragraphs for each of those places in the Guide, but there are so many cities and states in Safelster overall that you still end up with more than half a dozen pages of material anyway. And it’s all so evocative that you’d have to be dead inside if it didn’t fire up your imagination… by the way, if you are indeed dead inside, please report to the Upland Marsh for updated orders, thank you.

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.

News About the Pavis Companions

In the early 2000s, Ian Thompson wrote a piece on Pavis and the Big Rubble for the fanzine Ye Booke of Tentacles (volume 3). This was quickly followed by four other “Pavis Companion” fanzines, which are now long out of print (more information also on the Well of Daliath).

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Well, Ian Thompson is currently looking at the possibility of updating and releasing these books in PDF, most likely on the Jonstown Compendium:

I am talking to Fabian about the practicalities of this. We wouldn’t just re-release them though, but update them as well. So a fair bit of work, but feels worth it to get the material out there again. Anyway, practicalities talks have begun

In the meantime, have a look at some previously unpublished appendix to the Pavis Companion books!

Dicebreaker’s 10 Best Beginner Friendly RPGs

Gaming news website Dicebreaker has a roundup of the 10 best tabletop RPG boxed sets for new players. They have a few classics and obvious choices, but they also have a few surprises. Meanwhile, they have both the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set and the RuneQuest Starter Set! Not bad, Chaosium. Not bad.

What Would The Smart Party Do Podcast RuneQuest Episode

Guest submission by Jörg

In this episode Baz and Gaz discuss the history of RuneQuest from the perspective of players in the United Kingdom, a perspective which may differ from the experience in North America. We learn how RuneQuest ended up being the alternative Baz did not choose to pursue when an opportunity presented itself.

The episode has a few memorable quips, like “the game should come with a grognard in a box” as a GM, or the Gloranthan/RuneQuest “fan base is like barnacles – you cannot shift them.”

I find it interesting that Baz did attend the German RuneQuest and/or Glorantha conventions Tentacles and Kraken without getting much exposure to the setting, but the lack of exposure to RuneQuest results from these conventions happening during the HeroQuest era, before RuneQuest and Glorantha were re-married by Chaosium. The lack of Mongoose’s Second Age Glorantha on these conventions may have something to do with the history of how our conventions spread into the UK and North America via the digests.

RuneQuest Year Zero Podcast

Guest submission by Jörg

Baz continues his examination of the RuneQuest Starter Set and whether RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha hits his sweet spot.

To recapitulate Baz asked Chaosium for a copy of the Starter Set Box for this solo project of his, which he has planned to do for 101 days this year, and Chaosium complied.

The podcast is quite honest and offers a really fresh view from a long-time D&D/D20 player looking out for what makes both RuneQuest and Glorantha special, and doesn’t spare the authors from expectations not quite met or being underwhelmed by some of the content, although the later episodes slowly see the sparks draw not just smoke but also some flame.

One telling question was the question whether it was wise to produce a starter box that offers content for long-time players of the game, but as we can see from the fact that the UK warehouse completely sold out the first delivery of starter set boxes, economically this made a lot of sense as the sales volume by those old timers easily supported the probably rather marginal net revenues of this really tightly packed box. One criticism Baz mentioned about Book 4: Adventures is that the box doesn’t really address people who are new both to roleplaying/GMing and to the setting.

While he liked the first two Scenarios, I found the comparison with the D&D approach which leaves the dungeon with sessile monsters only after the DM has leveled his players and his GMing skills to level 3 rather telling. But then, Chaosium’s participation with the New Gamemasters Month is addressing exactly that problem.

Speaking of that, the New Gamemasters Month February post now is asking for feedback on a quick form, or on one of the discussion platforms. Unfortunately, those have only very few posts yet. We’d be interested to hear about participants’ experiences trying out RuneQuest, too.

Kitbashing Sable Riders

Phil Leedell is at it again!

Austin Conrad Reviews the Armies & Enemies of Dragon Pass

It’s a short but very useful review by the author of Monster of the Month (among other things) for people who don’t have this big book yet:

My favorite part of the book is how much new detail (well, new to me, anyway) it provides about Peloria and Dara Happa.

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On my “tabletop/armchair” spectrum, A&E fits firmly in the “armchair” category. The gamemaster will get a lot of use from A&E—inspiring story hooks, antagonists, etc.

[…]

To be honest, if you’re going to buy only one “reference” book to support your RuneQuest collection, don’t buy the Guide to Glorantha—buy A&E. I feel A&E is more relevant to the action of an RQ campaign than the Guide, providing useful, story-generating details.

That’s pretty high praise! Read the entire review here, and get Armies & Enemies of Dragon Pass here.

Some More Zoja Barylko Art

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Previously featured Zoja “ladygolem” Barylko has been drawing Rhino Riders lately, and they’re… well, I want to say “lovely” but I’m pretty sure I would get punched in the face. Check out more of her art here!

Elsewhere on Arachne Solara’s Web

Not everything is about Glorantha, although most things are! Here are loosely relevant things that we found on the interwebs.

Pentan Inspirations

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I don’t know whether these pictures are staged or legit (one more here), but I think they can be used as inspiration for Pent nomad children?

For more steppe nomad goodness, you can check out the Eagle Huntress movie, about a Kazakh girl who strives to become an eagle hunter. Trailer here:

Eagle hunting in the steppes looks pretty bad-ass, so here’s some more imagery to fire up your day:

Egyptian Beadnet Dress

And now for something totally different: a 4500 year-old Egyptian beadnet dress:

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Thank you for reading

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

Edits:

• A previous version of the article mispelled Zoja’s name.
• Bridget Jeffries was incorrectly listed as playing Vasana, instead of Yanioth.

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.

A Short Detour

My first Jonstown Compendium contribution is finally out!

When the adventurers stumble upon a mother and her son being attacked by wild boars, they are thrown into a tricky situation in which multiple powerful factions are on a collision course. What will your players do when they can decide who lives and who dies?

A Short Detour is a straightforward adventure for RuneQuest Glorantha that will take about one big or two short sessions of play. It can be placed anywhere around Sartar, with the text assuming that your campaign is based in or near Colymar lands.

In addition to the adventure, A Short Detour provides an insightful look at the nature of Chaos, with rules for Chaotic corruption.

Of course you should buy the book because it’s great (hopefully)… but if you want to support the God Learners newsletter, blog, and podcast, then you can buy the book to make me think it’s great, and encourage me to continue the other things too!

Characteristic Rolls vs Skill Rolls

I also wrote a new Runic Rants column this week on one of my pet peeves with the Chaosium’s system:

It’s kind of funny: BRP games like Call of Cthulhu or RuneQuest are among my all time favourite RPGs, but BRP itself is not even close to my top 5 systems. One of the reasons for this is the split between characteristics and skills, which don’t interact much with each other. I’m a kid of the 90s: characteristics and skills are meant to be added together, damn it!

Anyway, this split means that the gamemaster needs to decide when to ask for characteristic rolls, when to ask for skill rolls, and what to do when both could apply. Here are some thoughts.

You can read my advice on dealing with characteristic rolls here.

Chaosium News

Here are this week’s Chaosium news!

New Gamemaster Month is Wrapping Up

New Gamemaster Month has posted their final lesson about running your first game. Here’s the one for RuneQuest. You can still catch up with all the previous articles!

The First Sold Copy of Dungeons & Dragons

Most of you might already know the story, but it came up again recently so it’s always good to repeat it: Greg Stafford owned the first copy ever sold of D&D.

Here’s what happened… Greg and a buddy had been working in Lake Geneva WI area as itinerant belt buckle salesmen (“Real hippy job. I’d take buckles, hitch hike around and sell them to shops, etc.”)

It was Greg’s buddy who met Gary Gygax in a Lake Geneva print shop one day in early 1974: Greg by then was back in the Bay Area, working on his own first game ‘White Bear & Red Moon’, which was eventually published the following year by his new game company The Chaosium.

The Chaosium Twitter account has the rest of the story, plus some links.

Progress on the Fantasy Grounds RuneQuest Module

It had been a while since we heard about this, but it looks like work is still going on. Details on Passions are now accessible in the VTT interface.

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!

Blue Moon Plateau Area Map

Here is another Mikael Mansen map! This time it’s about the Blue Moon Plateau, up in Peloria.

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.

About the Grazelands

A few notes about the Grazelands:

Let’s keep in mind quick how the Grazeland functions in the present age (rather than how the Yelm cult likes to tell stories about the good old days).

There are about 40,000 people living in the Grazelands, divided into three groups: agriculturalists, horse herders, and townsfolk. All land is “owned” by the Feathered Horse Queen who resolves all disputes between the groups, interacts with outsiders, and unites the nation.

Here’s the Feathered Horse Queen:

The groups are in a symbiotic relationships – the agriculturalists provide grain, fruits, vegetables, and “lesser meats”, the townsfolk provide crafted goods, and the horse herders provide military protection and animal products from their herds. The horses benefit from this – the horse herders raise them and tend them, the farmers provide them with additional fodder, and the townsfolk trade part of the herds to outsiders in exchange for goods and coin which benefits everyone.

These groups are actually pretty small – there are about 18,000 farmers, 18,000 horse herders, and about 4,000 townsfolk. The area is geographically not all that big, only about a 1000 square kilometres, which actually means that the Grazelands are about as populated as the settled parts of Sartar.

Ernalda, not Dendara, is the Earth Goddess. She is the spouse of Yelm AND Orlanth, and unites horse herder and farmers together. Her cult is the largest in the Grazelands – as large as Orlanth and Yelm’s combined! The Ernalda cult is led by the Feathered Horse Queen. When the Pure Horse People and the Orlanthi farmers seemed destined to destroy the Grazelands, a priestesses descended into the womb of the Earth and returned with the secrets and power of Ernalda the Earth Mother, whose favors both Yelm and Orlanth must contest for.

This is the story of first Feathered Horse Queen. As far as I can tell, the historical context starts with the settling of Tarsh’s Twin Dynasty, which we talked about last week. When they entered what would become Tarsh, they met the Purse Horse People, the horse herding Grazelanders we were talking about. There was some falling out between the two, so that the Purse Horse People stuck to their side of the land, and the Tarshites to the other side.

For a while it seemed like the Grazelanders would be stuck in the hills for a few generations until they faded away from their reluctance to spread around, and their growing infighting. But in the early 1450s a priestess of the ancient Earth cults of the Grazelanders went into the Earth and gained the blessing of the local goddess, which was revealed to be Ernalda, I guess. The priestess came back with not only the blessing, but also some really cool headdress that reminded everybody of old Earth traditions of the Pure Horse People. The Sun King of the Grazelanders tried to protest but he lost the contest against the new Queen.

And so this new Queen is yielding a lot of power while also walking a fine line between the solar and storm cults. The interesting thing is that against the worse instincts of the concerned parties, the Feathered Horse Queen is making this cohabitation work: storm-worshipping farmers and sun-worshipping horse breeders, kept in check by a powerful earth-worshipping population. Talk about a menage a trois… literally. I imagine that heroquesting the Grazelander mythic realm is like some kinky sitcom. But that’s what the Earth is good at: weaving communities together, finding compromises, loving everyone. And everybody gets something from it anyway: the farmers get protection, and the Pure Horse People have the support system that lets them live their magical nomadic life “purely”.

The other Lightbringers are also important – more than half of all townsfolk follow one of the Lightbringers. And Humakt is also important as the primary War God.

The prevalence of Humakt’s cult in the Grazelands also seems to be a consequence of the early Feathered Horse Queen’s political moves. She restored a Humakt-related cult among her ranks and got some scary looking bodyguards, just in case.

Jeff adds a few comments:

A lot of the wrong assumptions about the Grazelands is a result of looking at Dragon Pass from stories that largely predate the Feathered Horse Queen or Sartar.

In the 1450s, the Pure Horse People were staring at extinction. Tarsh had built up its own cavalry force and no longer needed the Pure Horse People – even worse, they were importing Praxian mercenaries! The local Orlanthi farmers who had been forced to raise grain for the Pure Horse People needed only ally with Tarsh and could be rid of the Pure Horse People. Worse yet, the Sun Lords of the Yelm cult couldn’t see this and insisted that the Earth priestesses remained subservient in the traditional “Dendara role”. One of the Earth priestesses descended into the womb of the Earth in search of secrets.

Queue the history I told above.

The Feathered Horse Queen is who emerged. She placed the farmers under her personal protection and defeated the Sun Lords in magical contests, forcing the Stallion King to submit and pledge obedience. She issued the Marriage Contest to find allies and it was Sartar the Prince who proved his worth. Sartar built trade posts with temples to the Lightbringers, issued coins, and facilitated trade through the Grazelands. The trade posts became towns where crafters congregated. In short, the Grazelands were radically transformed by the Feathered Horse Queen AND by Sartar into something new. Horse breeder and farmer found a way to coexist through the person of the Feathered Horse Queen. The trading posts brought wealth – but also scribes, merchants, crafters, healers, mercenaries, and the rest of the accoutrements of civilization. The Pure Horse People certainly tell stories about how they are Yelm’s chosen and the spiritually elect and all that jazz. But it was the Feathered Horse Queen that allowed them to survive. And everyone knows that.

And thus just like the Orlanthi tribes of the Quivin Mountains were transformed by Sartar, the people of the Grazelands were transformed by the Feathered Horse Queen. Add more than a century to build upon that transformation and you have the Grazeland Pony Breeders we first saw in White Bear and Red Moon.

Lunar Provinces Cult Demographics

Jeff talks about cults in Aggar, Holay, Imther, Tarsh, and Vanch:

There are a little less than 1.4 million humans in the Lunar Provinces. Looking at the Provinces as a whole, the largest cults (those with over 10k cultists each) are:

– Ernalda 167k
– Seven Mothers 164k
– Orlanth 132k
– Yelmalio 72k
– Pelora (Oria) 52k
– Hon-eel 51k
– Lodril 41k
– Hwarin Dalthippa 40k
– Issaries 20k
– Oslira 20k
– Chalana Arroy 18k
– Lhankor Mhy 13k

Etyries is at less that 10k, so doesn’t make the list… the Provinces are mostly Orlanthi culturally speaking so their merchants are probably leaning towards Issaries.

Looking at it as a whole, there is a big Lunar belt stretching from New Lolon to Furthest and centered on Mirin’s Cross. But beyond that, the Provinces are pretty much Orlanthi. And it also has a few interesting localized cults like Jajagappa (with less than 10k cultists in total), some enclaves of the Shargash cult and over 5k wagoneers. There’s also a lot of Storm Bull cultists in Aggar – there are about three times as many Storm Bull cultists in Aggar than in Sartar!

Jajagappa is a psychopomp of the Dara Happan pantheon, a deity who fights the dead who escape their place in the Underworld. Shargash is a primal war god who destroyed the world.

I’m not sure why there are lots of Storm Bull cultists in Aggar though. Looking at the maps, I figure that it’s probably because Dorastor, land of Chaos, is nearby. These Storm Bull cultists might have less to travel if they were based out of Skanth or Bilini, but according to the Guide the Bilini tribes are little more than a bunch of bandits, so maybe Aggar is the nearest best thing to get some good drinks.

Here’s a little more about the Lunar cults themselves:

The way it works is that we have many Lunar cults, each founded by a heroic figure who achieved god-hood in Time, plus a handful of associated cults (Yelm, Gorgorma, Natha, etc.) who have ties to the Red Goddess cult itself. The main vehicle are the Seven Mothers – Danfive Xaron, Deezola, Irrippi Ontor, Jakaleel the Witch, Teelo Norri, and Yanafal Tarnils (She Who Waits has no real cult) – either individually or collectively. They are the mortals who “gave birth” to the Red Goddess and form the mainstream mortal path to her secrets.

I’m not super knowledgeable about who the Seven Mothers are so let’s quickly look into it:

• Deezola was an Earth priestess, and now the “Keeper of Vows” and “Avenger of Wrongs”. Sounds a bit like a Babeester Gor sort of cult to me.
• Irrippi Ontor was an outlawed sage, which shows you can still do great things even after you get kicked out of school. He’s the “Master of Secrets”.
• Yanafal Tarnils was an exiled nobleman who somehow “defeated his master, Humakt, in battle”, and became the immortal Lunar war god.
• Jakaleel the Witch was a shaman-priestess, and became… err, wait, another “Keeper of Secrets”. Well I think Irrippi Ontor is more for knowledge, and Jakaleel is more for magic. Sounds to me like maybe she’s doing secret Lunar sorcery stuff.
• Danfive Xaron was a “bloodthirsty outlaw who volunteered for the most dangerous task” in the ritual to recreate the Red Goddess. He’s now the “Gatekeeper”, whatever that is. I seem to recall his cult is also good for atonement of crimes in the Lunar society.
• Teelo Norri was an innocent child, plucked from the streets, who didn’t know anything about the ritual… because apparently that was an important element of the ritual. She’s now the goddess of Innocence and Experience. Whatever that that is too.
• She Who Waits was a mysterious person whose identity is only known to Illuminated followers of the Red Goddess. My theory is that this was the Red Goddess herself, coming from the future or whatever. She helped with her own rebirth because she’s also cyclical overall inside of Time. Don’t listen to me though, this is nonsense… OR IS IT?

There are other vehicles as well – Hon-eel, Etyries, Hwarin Dalthippa, Glamour, Yara Aranis, Aronius Jarathir, etc. Plus there are those old gods who were associated with the missing goddess – Yelm, Gorgorma, Natha, etc. and of course Nysalor. So Natha has a tiny little cult that is associated with Gorgorma and Danfive Xaron.

Hey, plenty of names that I only vaguely know, or don’t now at all! Let’s get through them:

• Hon-eel is one of the daughters of the Red Emperor, who conquered many lands and discovered maize… because apparently everybody forgot about it.
• Etyries is basically the Lunar version of Issaries, the trader god.
• Hwarin Dalthippa is another daughter of the Red Emperor, also known as the Conquering Daughter, which we already talked about previously.
• Glamour was I think the first daughter of the Red Emperor but is also the city of Glamour? I’m not sure that Glamour ever walked around like the other daughters, though: I think she might have been created as a city from the start.
• Yara Aranis was the next daughter after Glamour, and the one whose powers maintain the Glowline, which we talked about here and here. Plus my look into the different versions of the rules.
• Aronius Jarathir seems to be a noble who became famous for his wars in the West Reaches. Somehow I suppose he built a hero cult for himself, but I don’t know more.
• Yelm you should know, that’s the sun god, duh!
• Gogorma I don’t know much: she has two mouths, devours things, and is Dendara’s sister Dendara is Yelm’s wife, the docile and well-mannered version of Ernalda, I think… so maybe Gogorma is sort of a Maran Gor?
• Natha is the “Goddess of Balance”, and I don’t know much either. She can bring all kinds of opposites, from Life and Death to Light and Darkness and whatever. It sounds like she’s scary and better kept propitiated without asking questions.
• Nysalor is, well, a whole thing. He was created by the Broken Council, founded an empire who was supposed to bring Light and crazy-ass Illumination to the world, wounded Kyger Litor and create the trollkin curse (woopsie), and got into a big war with Arkat.

Each of the Seven Mothers is associated with a moon phase:

Black Moon – She Who Waits
Crescent Come – Danfive Xaron
Empty Half – Yanafal Tarnils
Full Moon – Irrippi Ontor
Full Half – Teelo Norri
Crescent Go – Jakaleel
Dying – Deezola

See – each of the Seven Mothers represent a phase of the Red Moon, but only the Red Goddess represents the whole.

Now some Lunar scholars try to map some other old gods onto that scheme to aid in heroquesting. So Orogeria gets associated with Crescent Come, Natha gets associated with the Full Half, Gerra with the Dying Moon, etc. Even poor Dayzatar gets associated with the Full Moon in some schemes. But this is more of an attempt to create a Lunar heroquesting map than anything that is widely practiced.

Lunar Heartlands Cult Demographics

And now, for the same thing in the Lunar Heartlands:

The Lunar Heartlands are home to almost 5.4 million humans. This is the center of Lunar culture and the Lunar religion, a fact made omnipresent by the presence of the Red Moon looming over the Crater.

The largest cult in the Lunar Heartlands is, not surprisingly, the Seven Mothers. If we combine their worship collectively and individually, we come up with a grand total of an amazing 850k cultists. That easily makes the Seven Mothers one of the largest cults in Glorantha, and one of the Big Three in Central Generela. Not bad for a desperate cabal of heroquesters!

And when we add the Lunar Provinces and the Western Reaches we easily get above 1 million members (probably above 1.1 million). So that is one BIG cult.

After the Seven Mothers, the largest cults in the Heartlands with over 100k cultists each are:

– Lodril 500k
– Oria 350k
– Dendara 170k
– Oslira 165K
– Yelm 150k
– Hon-eel 135k
– Surenslib 115k

Yay, once again names that I don’t know much about. Let’s gooooo:

• Lodril is a lustful fighter god of the Sky. He love to get down with the Earth deities, and he became the Volcano God. I’ll wait over there while you unpack the not-so-subtle phallic ejaculation references here. I’m not sure exactly what good Lodril is for nowadays… given the number of worshippers, I imagine he’s good for anybody who Works Hard, Plays Hard? But more seriously, I think he’s the farmer/fighter god of the Pelorian farmers. Sort of like Orlanth/Barntar for the Orlanthi, but with more dick drawings.
• Oria is the Pelorian Earth Goddess, and the Maize Mother. Her and Lodril are the main Sky/Earth power couple for the Pelorian masses, I suppose.
• Dendara, as we mentioned earlier, is Yelm’s wife. Although she’s associated to Earth goddesses, I get the impression that she’s more linked to the household, with good manners and well behaved children, rather than linked to the crops and fertility. This split between Oria and Dendara sounds interesting for Pelorian world-building because it doesn’t exist much in Sartar as far as I know.
• Oslira is the goddess of the Oslir river, and as such probably comparable to Engizi in Sartar. Her cult must be important for all the irrigation needed around the rice paddies that dot the Pelorian landscape.
• Yelm is, again, the sun god, duh. He’s historically important given that the Lunar Empire used to be a Solar Empire at some point.
• Hon-eel we also already mentioned. Lots of maize fields here.
• Surenslib is… err wait, Jeff talked about that one.

Now that last one is a bit surprising – that’s the ancestress of the Darjiini, and is a rather big cult. She didn’t make the cut in the Cults Book despite her size because her influence is totally localized and she’s not really of cosmological importance outside of Darjiin and Doblian.

Ok so that didn’t help much. As far as I can tell, Surenslib is the Heron Goddess, responsible for marshes and other wetlands, and… (checks notes) known as “lewd”. Yes, she’s wet, and lewd. My god, Lodril and Surenslib is what happens when game designers get horny.

Anyway, I checked out Darjiin and it’s a very densely populated Lunar province with lots of rice farmers, marshlands and small lakes, and a tight grasp on their old gods. Hence an obscure wetland goddess making the cut of the top 10 cults in the Lunar Empire.

We can think of Yelm+Lodril+Oria+Dendara+Oslira as being the backbone of the old Dara Happan civilization before the Red Goddess. But the Seven Mothers have now definitely eclipsed the old Solar Pantheon. They are still there, but more in the background. With the Red Emperor recognized as the avatar of Yelm Imperator, the old gods of Peloria now serve the Red Goddess.

And speaking of the Red Goddess, what’s her cult like, given that the requirements to join it are pretty insane? (you need to be a Runemaster of a qualifying cult, and be Illuminated) Well, Jeff thinks there might be around 8000 Red Goddess initiates.

The Eel-ariash Clan

A bit of a deep cut here, but Jeff is talking about the Eel-ariash clan, a prominent noble family in the Lunar Empire:

The Eel-ariash come from Doblian, and were the family of Sandene, a village weaver woman who had protected the Red Emperor when he hid from Sheng Seleris. The family first appeared in the chronicles around 1460s thanks to the deeds of their most famous daughter, Hon-eel the Artess, who was revealed to be the daughter of Sandene and the Red Emperor.

The Eel-ariash accompanied Hon-eel on her rise, becoming her priests, administrators, and household. When Hon-eel resettled Oraya, one of her kin was appointed Satrap in 1587. The family was greatly weakened in the Nights of Horror (1506) and lost control of that satrapy but they aided the Molari-sor in seizing that satrapy in 1521 and one of the most famous Dart Warriors of all time, the Chain Dancer, was a member of the family. In 1543, the Eel-ariash took over the Oronin satrapy, despite the opposition of the Red Emperor.

You might remember that Sheng Seleris was a sort of Solar Genghis Khan figure who almost destroyed the young Lunar Empire with his horse-riding nomads. The Nights of Horror was one of the biggest battles between the two.

Dart Warriors are the operatives who take part in the Dart Competitions, a sort of “officially covert war” between Lunar noble families. I thinking “Roman Senate meets Jason Bourne”, here.

It is said that every action Chain Dancer made was part of a magical ritual taught by Hon-eel in his dreams. The results of his dance was the birth of the woman Farangold, who served as the concubine of the Red Emperor and gave birth to Jar-eel the Razoress in 1588.

So the Red Emperor needed some hardcore CIA spy to get a date? Wow, what a dork.

Among the relatives of Farangold was her nephew, Sor-eel, who was given command of the conquest of Prax in 1610. He was aided by a Tarshite officer, Fazzur Wideread, who became governor of Dragon Pass in 1613. In 1621, Sor-eel was relieved from his governorship of Prax by the Red Emperor after a remarkable magical artifact – a Giant Cradle – slipped out from his fingers. Sor-eel returned to Glamour, and he now serves in his cousin’s household.

Now obviously, the Eel-ariash are an extraordinary family, but we have a family descended from a weaver woman and the Red Emperor, whose descendants include a corn goddess, two children of Yelm (!), one of the most skilled Dart Warriors of history, satraps, generals, governors, and of course Jar-eel the Razoress.

Not to mention at least one Mask if not more.

Lunar Nobles of Alkoth

Let’s keep talking about Lunar nobles… Mark Durston asked about noble families in Alkoth, and got a big enough reply from Jeff that I’m featuring it here.

First, let’s figure out where Alkoth is, thanks to the Argan Argar Atlas. You can spot the city in the middle of the map, along the Oslir river. It’s one of the three main ancient Dara Happan cities, with Raibanth and Yuthuppa, and the last of them to have fallen to the Lunars. That’s possibly because Shargash (a primal war god) is the city’s official god, so they are known to have pretty bad-ass warriors. There’s more information in the Guide about this big city (classified as a “metropolis”, which means 25,000 residents or more).

The city is the center of the Shargash cult, with roughly some 4000 cultists. It is a Lunar city and has 5000 Seven Mothers cultists – most here are going to be dedicated to an individual Seven Mother (Deezola, Yanafal Tarnils, and Irrippi Ontor probably the biggest cults). It is also one of the centers of the Yelm cult with 2000 members. There’s another 9000 adults in Alkoth – so we have lots of Dendara, Oslira, Biselenslib, Lodril and Lowfire cultists as well. I expect there might even be 150-200 Red Goddess initiates.

The ruling elite in Alkoth are going to be Lunars. Some are Yelm cultists, some are Shargash cultists – but all of the ruling elite accept the Red Emperor. In fact, this is where much of the conflict within the elite comes from: competition for the attention and favour (or disfavour) of the Red Emperor and his court (in reality it is mainly his court).

Free, family Alkorneval is an ancient family with members holding senior positions within Yelm and Shargash cult (particularly the Alkor subculture), as well several Red Goddess initiates, officers in the Yanafal Tarnils cult, Irrippi Ontor scribes, etc. They have been leaders in the city since the liberation of the city in the Fourth Wane. However, they are largely of regional ties and importance, with few contacts outside of Henjarl.

The liberation mentioned here is because Alkoth was occupied by Sheng Seleris and his Pentian nomads from 1404 to 1423.

Alkorneval are locked in conflict with the Full Moon Blesses Us family, originally from the Hungry Plateau. They were installed in several key city positions about a dozen years ago, due to the intrigues of the Mother of Strength and the Tharkalists. They revere the Seven Mothers (in particular Yanafal Tarnils and Deezola), but are headed by a Jakaleel-Red Goddess shaman. The Full Moon Blesses Us family have relatively few local connections (although they were given ownership of the Raus domains in Kostaddi after a rebellion about a decade ago), but they have very good ties to Glamour and Two Tower.

Ok, let’s look at the names I don’t know…

• The Hungry Plateau is visible in the map above, east of Glamour. There’s a tribe of Sable Riders living here, related to the Praxian Sable Riders. No idea if the Full Moon Blesses Us family are Sable Riders who became sedentary or what… but I assume so, since the Mother of Strength who put them in Alkoth is their shaman ruler (and the ruler of Kostaddi province).
• The Tharkalists are the seven daughters of the Red Emperor, born some time in the mid 1570s. They’re all born from different mothers, but are identical except for one feature each. It’s a Village of the Damned sort of situation, I guess (you might be more partial to the older 1960 movie). Now grown up, they are at the head of the newest of the big influential noble families. Creepily enough, the Tharkalists had children with the Red Emperor… yeah. Ewww.

These families are engaged in a low-level Dart War, with spies and assassins trying to embarrass the other family in the eyes of the Imperial Court.

Remember that Dart Wars are the covert schemes that Lunar noble families run against each other to maintain or increase their position in the court.

So both families likely motivate themselves with their Loyalty to the Red Emperor – heck they want to show how loyal they are and how disloyal their rivals are. These conflicts are over power, status, and personal connections, and not really ideological as we would understand them.

Jeff then gives pointers to bring another faction — possibly a patron for adventurers in a Lunar campaign:

Now if we want to throw another family into the mix, we might have some powerful administrator appointed by the Court, perhaps even a son or daughter of the Red Emperor. He has a lot of those, and this is from a previous Mask, so no particular personal connection with the current Mask. But it is a child of Moonson, and thus a grandchild of the Red Goddess (and theoretically a sibling of Jar-eel and others) so is owed respect and fealty (especially from the Yelm cult). But of course, the reality is that they need to build their own power base and has decided to start here in Alkoth.

So now you have a three-way conflict. Given the size of Alkoth, there are likely far more than this, but at least we can see the contours of elite conflict.

Hero Cults

Jeff talks about hero cults:

Many heroes and “living gods” have cults while they live. Those cults provide the hero with magical resources – however, these cults do not directly provide the worshipers with Rune spells. Instead they insure that the hero can continue to protect, defend, bless the community – or sometimes just so that the hero is well-inclined towards the community!

In RuneQuest, mechanically speaking, I suppose that these cults provide the hero with “Hero Soul points”, which were obtained during heroquests and other epic magical feats. From what we know of the upcoming heroquesting rules (and the preview from The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories, page 187), these points are like Rune Points, in that they let you cast special magic, but they get replenished not when you worship someone, but when people worship you.

The Red Emperor is probably the most widespread example of this sort of “living god” cult, although Belintar, Sir Ethilrist, Cragspider, Jaldon Goldentooth, Jar-eel, and others also have cults (Godunya’s cult is a very different animal).

Now these cults have priests, some who are secunded from other associated cults (like the Red Emperor’s cult being built off the Yelm Imperator infrastructure in the Lunar Emperor or Jaldon Goldentooth using the existing Waha cult. They get material benefits from the hero (like access to spirits or special spirit magic).

That’s a clever way to get a whole bunch of potential worshippers, but I imagine you have to make extra sure the primary deity won’t get pissed off that you’re taking a cut of the action… I wonder if someone ever got in big trouble for that…

When a hero is associated with an existing cult, their cult might function as a subcult that provides access to special Rune magic from the god – not from the hero. The hero might show a path towards that Rune magic, but the god is the source of it, not the hero. Think of the hero as the guide that shows the way to the god’s special magic, and not the source of it.

I guess that’s a good way to introduce new Rune spells!

So in the Holy Country, Belintar had many temples and countless “lay members”. He had priests – but those priests were also priests of the gods of the Holy Country and led Belintar’s worship ceremonies as well. In addition to provide massive magical resources for Belintar, these ceremonies were connected with the Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death, and Belintar carefully made sure that the various gods of the Holy Country had their representatives in his “cult”.

Leftarm Islands

And since we were just talking about the Holy Country, let’s go there!

Off the southern tip of Heortland is the area called God Forgot. It is associated with the Bandori valley and the Marcher Lands. Collectively this area has about 100,000 human inhabitants, roughly evenly divided between God Forgot and the territories on the mainland.

Let’s bring the map!

The Bandori valley is around the river that passes through Refuge. I’m not sure where the Marcher Lands are but I assume they’re the wetlands to the southeast of Refuge.

God Forgot is dominated by a pre-Hrestoli variant of Malkionism. More than half the adult population (20k) worship no god except the Invisible God. These people strictly follow an ancient caste system of laborers, soldiers, sorcerers, and rulers. The rulers of this area are claimed to be from Brithini, as are several sorcerers. They came here in the Second Age and managed to survive the wars that destroyed the Machine City. There is a sizable minority of Aeolians (7.5k) particularly among the farmers and soldiers. Many coastal fisherfolk worship Choralinthor (3k) and there is a small cult centered on Casino Town that worships only the Goddess of Luck, Who Giveth and Taketh Away.

Aeolians are sort-of-gnostics who believe the Invisible God to be the creator of the cosmos, but also consider the gods to be “emanations” of him… so they are basically Orlanthi people who go “<wink wink> we know who Orlanth and Ernalda really are, right? <wink wink>“. For more on Aeolians, see issue #24 of the Journal.

The Mirrorsea Bay (in the centre of the Holy Country) is also named Choralinthor Bay, so you can bet that Choralinthor, the god, lives down there. It’s probably a good idea to worship the guy when you live on its shores.

Refuge is another Brithini outpost that follows the ancient caste system. Almost half the population of Refuge follow the Invisible God (1.5 k), with the next most important cults being Aeolianism and Choralinthor.

Rural Bandori and the Marcher lands are more like Esvular in Heortland. The largest cults here are Aeolianism, Orlanth, Ernalda, and Eiritha. Humakt has a major temple at Marcher Fort, which defends the passage to Prax.

Refuge

We were just talking about the area around Refuge, so here are some more notes:

The city of Refuge is port city in God Forgot and a Brithini outpost which continues its tenuous existence using the old caste systems of Brithos. Cautious and defensive, the rulers are ancient and canny politicians and rarely act rashly. The city has an ancient alliance with a tribe of Esvularing peoples called the Bandori. Beginning in 1620, a flood of refugees from Heortland has swollen the city’s population.

This would be refugees fleeing the Lunar Empire’s expansion, I suppose.

Refuge has a great temple to the Invisible God, major temples to Aeol and Choralinthor, minor temples to Orlanth, Ernalda, Issaries, and Lhankor Mhy, and shrines to Chalana Arroy, Dormal, Humakt, Waha, and Eirtha. Because of the refugees from Heortland, the temples to Orlanth and Ernalda are now effectively major temples.

There must be interesting stories to tell when a minor temple’s resources become strained under the pressure of too many worshippers… Not just because there’s not enough room for the ceremonies, but also because there’s not enough staff to teach skills and spells, or because the temple wyter can’t get everybody onto the God Plane for big rituals. The leading priest there might be quite liberal in appointing God Talkers, which means that adventurers could easily get a promotion even if they barely qualify…

The ruler of Refuge is the brother of the Talar of God Forgot. He is a Brithini, and is aided by several sorcerers and by his fearsome bodyguards.

About a third of the city’s population are God Forgot Malkioni. About 10% are Aeolians. The rest is a motley mix of Heortlanders, Praxians, Boat People, and Esrolians.

There are caravans that head out from Refuge to the Monkey Ruins and into Prax. That route is greatly preferred to the route to Corfu and then upriver to New Pavis.

It’s a fun route: you pass by the Monkey Ruins, with plenty of baboons and Oakfed cultists, and then you get to Biggle Stone, with its weird humid mushroom forest in the middle of the chaparral. It’s a nice change from Caravan Alley!

Karse

Elsewhere in the eastern Holy Country is the city of Karse:

Karse (large city): This ancient port city is an important trade center with Dragon Pass. Goods are transferred from ship to caravan here. Karse is located on the coast, a few kilometers from the mouth of the Marzeel River. The high Heortland cliffs rise a few kilometers behind the city and the Shadow Plateau. Karse is a very old city, dating back to the Dawn. Temples to the Sea Gods stand near the harbor, a natural inlet that has been worked on for the last 1500 years or so, most recently by Prince Tarkalor Trollkiller and his Sartarite stonemasons.. The city has many warehouses and inns, including a Geo’s Inn.

Karse was listed as a “small city” (500 to 6000 residents) in the Guide to Glorantha. Jeff lists it as a “large city” here (6000 to 25000 residents). Given that Jeff also notes that the city’s area is 40 hectares, with about 150 people per hectare, that comes up to 6000 residents, which is exactly the cut-off between the two categories. The city might have grown a little bit between the Guide’s 1621 and RuneQuest Glorantha’s 1625, enough to push it in the next category.

Either way, you can see Karse in Hendriki on the map featured a few sections above. And here’s a sketch of the city itself, which we already saw in a previous Journal, when we compared Karse to Massalia:

Unlike Massalia, though, the high cliffs around the city means that it’s probably in the shadows for several more hours every day, with less daylight than other cities in the region:

I expect night comes a little early to Karse, as the kilometre high cliffs of the Shadow Plateau are only about five kilometres away. Before the Only Old One was defeated by Belintar, the Tower of the Palace of Black Glass would have been clearly visible about 20 km away, a huge structure that rose to the Middle Air.

And with the Shadow Plateau nearby, “Argan Argar is of course important in this area, second only to Orlanth and Ernalda“.

[Karse is] a stronghold of the Argan Argar cult, so very troll-friendly (by necessity if not by inclination).

On a trade and travelling note, Karse is the beginning of one of the Royal Roads of Dragon Pass, which lead you to the Sartar Roads and, if you want to go that far, the roads leading to Pavis or Tarsh and Peloria:

Karse is an interesting base for a campaign as it has very strong connections to both Sartar and Nochet. It is the southern terminus of the Dragon Pass caravan route and so has merchants from the Lunar Heartlands, Esrolia, Prax, and even over the seas. Orlanthi are of course welcome there, but there are even some Lunars who remained after its conquest by the Hendriki.

From Karse, a campaign could easily link Sartar to the far off islands of Jrustela or Teshnos, get involved in Esrolian politics, and have to fight off Wolf Pirates.

Jeff also mentioned Prince Tarkalor Trollkiller: he fought some war here in 1560 against the trolls that almost caused these trade routes to be closed. I think these trolls are the Kitori, although they might be a slightly different kind of trolls, created by The Only Old One, the ancient ruler of the Shadow Plateau and son of Argan Argar… I’m not clear on this whole affair. Anyway, these trolls’ territory is now reduced to the Troll Woods, and the trade routes are relatively safe… or are they?! (cue some adventure seed)

For more notes about Karse, including what the labels point to on the map, again, refer to issue #27 of the Journal. Jeff adds a few details though:

There are a lot of inns – caravanserai – in the city, including a Geo’s Inn.

And:

The main city is strongly fortified with two main gates – a Land Gate (the main gate) and a Sea Gate that leads to the harbor – and a fortress that guards the harbor. Despite the seemingly impervious fortifications, Karse fell to the Lunar Army in 1619, after a dramatic assault by land and sea.

Karse has major temples to Orlanth Adventurous, Ernalda, Issaries, Argan Argar, Choralinthor, and Aeol, minor temples to Chalana Arroy, and Lhankor Mhy, and shrines to Diros, Dormal, Humakt, Lanbril, Magasta, and the Seven Mothers.

Another bunch of unfamiliar names!

• I’m not sure who Aeol is but I assume that’s the person who created Aeolianism (see above, and issue #24), worshipped as a cult hero of the Invisible God or something.
• Diros is the “God of Boats”, whose cult originates from the Second Age’s Middle Sea Empire.
• Dormal is the guy who “reopened” the oceans to deep sea travel, after figuring some sort of workaround to whatever magical mess caused the Closing.
• Lanbril is the Heortling Thief God. I’m curious about whether his temple is public, or something more clandestine, maybe along the lines of “everybody knows mafia boss Jimmy Two-Guns is found at the Strike One bowling alley“. I’m also wondering how it differs from Eurmali thieves.
• Magasta is an important Water god. He’s generally busy operating the whirlpool that bears his name at the center of Glorantha. Under the whirlpool is the hole left after the Spike exploded in the Gods War. I suppose that people sailing to Pamaltela (the southern continent) need to do a minimum of worship to Magasta to travel safely past him.

There likely was a shrine to Yelmalio but it was abandoned in 1619 and the cult played no part in the city’s liberation by the Hendriki in 1624.

And now what’s up in 1625 and beyond:

Not surprisingly, Karse after 1625 is in post-Liberation turmoil. The Lunars are gone, the Hendriki are leaderless and their brief kingdom is falling apart. Esrolians queen does not rule outside of her lands, although she has great influence on Karse. In the Shadow Plateau there are those that want to extend the Shadow again. But trade with Sartar is returning, and there is once again a free Prince in Boldhome.

Argrath becomes Prince in 1627 and one of the first things he is tasked to deal with by the Heortlanders and Esrolians is to stop the Wolf Pirates.

It sounds like Karse is often depending on Sartar:

Not only is Karse dependent on trade through Sartar for its livelihood but between 1570 and 1600, I would expect that most of the public architecture in Karse got built by the largesse of the princes of Sartar. Harbor, gates, temples, etc.

That stopped after the conquest of Boldhome, and then it was whatever the city could get the merchants to pay for – either directly through gifts and donations, or indirectly through market fees and tolls. That stopped in 1619 after the city fell to a Lunar military assault. After 1621, trade was severely disrupted due to war. The Lunar garrison was withdrawn late in 1624 or early 1625 and the city was ruled by the Hendriki, but they collapsed early in 1625. So it would seem likely that the place the oligarchs of Karse look to is Boldhome, now that there is a Prince again.

Caladraland

Let’s stay in the Holy Country, with one of my favourite places there:

Caladraland is one of the regions of the Holy Country, and one people don’t pay enough attention to! If we look at Caladraland as a whole (so Highvale, Porthomeka, Vinavale, and Thomble), the most important four cults are:

Ernalda 102k
Caladra and Aurelion 59k
Lodril 30k
Orlanth 30k

We already just talked about Lodril (see above), but here we’re dealing with the Holy Country version of his cult, which is bound to be different since farmers here would worship aspects of Orlanth most of the time.

Caladra and Aurelion are Lodril’s twin children, although there’s a bit more to them than that (see below).

A few interesting observations. If we look at Caladraland AND Esrolia, we have around 90k Lodril cultists in the Holy Country. That’s a lot. Sure the Ernalda and Orlanth cults are a scale of magnitude bigger than that, but Lodril has a bigger cult in the Holy Country than any of the lesser Lightbringers and is about tied with Argan Argar.

So of course the Orlanth cult of Dragon Pass is familiar with Lodril. They probably associate him more with the Vent than with Peloria. And yes, they know that the Volcano God of Caladraland (called Veskarthan) is Lodril and since the Second Age that name is likely more prevalent.

Caladra and Aurelion is also interesting. There’s over 60k members of that cult throughout the Holy Country, making it a solid second tier cult behind the likes of Lodril and Argan Argar. But the cult is almost completely localized in Caladraland, so there they are the biggest cult after Ernalda (and in Highvale they are actually much bigger than Ernalda or Lodril). Again, most Orlanthi in Dragon Pass have likely at least heard of the Twins. The Twins are children of Asrelia and Lodril, and thus siblings of Ernalda and Maran Gor.

The Guide mentions that the cult of Lodril in Caladraland (back when it was called Veskarthan) was “disrupted by the God Learners” with “their cult of Caladra and Aurelion”. I wasn’t sure what that meant but thankfully Jeff explained:

The God Learners realised that Caladra – a cult centered on the Vent was tied with Aurelion, a cult on the island of Jrustela. Both could be contacted together at Meetinghall Mountain in Slontos. The priests of each cult quickly embraced the connection to the other, as they realised their cult had a twin deity!

The cult was promulgated throughout the Middle Sea Empire from its core areas of Jrustela, Slontos, and Caladraland. However, with the collapse of the Middle Sea Empire, the cult only survived in Caladraland and environs.

So it sounds like the God Learners tried to bolster their volcano god by tying it to another volcano god, and the Caladralanders ended up with two gods for the price of one, all for themselves to enjoy. Neat!

Sartarite Land Ownership

This is a common question with newcomers to Glorantha: do you own the land your farm is on? Jeff has some answers:

In theory, all arable land belongs to the Earth Goddess. As a practical matter, cultivable land is usually allocated by her local husband (in Sartar, this is the tribal Orlanth cult or by the clan, or both). Normally, the clan claims what it can defend and work, and the tribe backs that up. As long as the rights and wishes of the Earth Goddess are upheld, the Earth temple goes along with this.

I read somewhere once that the Babeester Gor’s cult is responsible for enforcing this. So if someone messes up with the stones that delineate the plots of lands, they get a visit from… well… let’s just say no one messes up with the stones.

The tribe or clan might alienate their community rights over some piece of land and assign it to a temple, another tribe, or even to the Prince of Sartar. This is how the cities worked – the tribes all gave up their exclusive rights to part of their land and gave it to a council made up of all the tribes. It is even possible for a tribe or clan to be convinced to alienate some land in exchange for a lot of silver. But again, in all of these cases the rights of the Earth temples need to be acknowledged (which is usually a percentage of the harvest). All of this ends up involving a lot of haggling between armed kinship groups. But in theory, the tribal king can have the clans give up land in order to support retainers, priests, etc (which is exactly what happens in a few scenarios). This land usually already has people that are working it, so it is really about who gets the additional renders – the clan, a thane, the tribe, a temple, whatever.

Pasture lands are handled differently. The livestock graze wherever they can be defended. If you graze your herds in lands claimed by another tribe or clan, they might gather some warriors together and chase you off. If you can defend your herd then either the clan or tribe needs to get a bigger group of warriors or needs to tacitly accept it. Clans mark their boundaries in order to signal what they are willing to protect and claim as their own.

If this whole thing sounds pretty turbulent, that’s because it is. Thanks to the Sartar Dynasty, there has been a non-violent means of resolving disputes over land – appeal to the Prince. That’s kept these borders from changing a lot, which in the long run tends to make things more secure. But from time to time a clan or tribe loses land because it simply can’t protect it any more and the Earth Temple no longer acknowledges them as its protectors.

At a certain point, Orlanthi land rights are what you can get others to accept, mainly though kinship ties, cult status, and personal might.

I think this is broadly speaking the system of land ownership found throughout the Orlanthi Belt from the Holy County through Maniria, Dragon Pass and the Pelorian hills to Ralios and Fronela. I expect we have a different system in Dara Happa and in the Malkioni West.

Lunar Land Ownership

Continued from the previous item, Jeff added this:

So for example in the Lunar Heartlands, we get a complex and hierarchical land ownership system. Here’s some thoughts:

The Red Emperor owns personal and royal property which is used as he sees fit. He additionally exercise dominion over conquered lands (such as in the Lunar Provinces), and can give this land to whoever he wants. Owners of conquered lands are rarely displaced and are usually allowed to continue living on and working their lands. However, they have to share the profits of the land with their imperial overlords.

Nobles can own land on a restricted and unrestricted basis. Nobles obtained land by purchasing it from other nobles or as a gift from the emperor for service to him or the Lunar religion. Purchased land can be sold or willed. Land grants from the emperor sometimes have conditions that required them to be returned to the emperor upon the death of the owner. Lunar citizens have similar rights to purchase land or receive it from the emperor. Institutions such as the army, temples, and certain public offices could also own land which was received from the Emperor. These entities own the rights to the profits from the land and use them to support the office holder. However, the individual office holder did not own the land.

Commoners cannot own land on an individual basis. However, they have access to land through their village or kinship groups and they are permitted to choose a headman to manage the distribution of communal land. This land is given to individual families, and generally stayed with the family unless it goes uncultivated for two years or the family moves away. If this occurs, the unused land is then redistributed to other families.

And now some comment on conquered lands, in both Orlanthi and Lunar cultures:

When the Lunars conquered land, the Red Emperor (through his proxies and representatives) claim the right to dispose of such lands as they wish. Of course, they have to be able to enforce these decrees, which means it is actually usually just demanding that they get paid a portion of the harvest or market fees etc.

Sartarite conquests tend to be more limited. A defeated locality is forced to acknowledge the authority of the victorious king or tribe or whoever. So a village might be forced to stop supporting the defeated tribe and to join the victorious tribe instead.

In the Hero Wars, when Argrath conquered locations, he generally stepped into the shoes of the defeated rulers, taking those properties the Lunar government had reserved for itself, and generally leaving other arrangements aside.

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 Episode 14

JM and Evan take a look at the Aldryami, the elves of Glorantha. I haven’t watched this because I was a bit busy this week, as you can see from the very first item in the newsletter!

Jonstown Compendium POD Unboxing

God Learner friend RPGImaginings is showing off many Jonstown Compendium books in this video, which is great if you want to check out what the printing quality looks like for these print-on-demand titles.

Starter Set Unboxings and Short Reviews

Did you think everybody had done their unboxings and reviews of the RuneQuest Starter Set by now? Think again! We have two videos this week: one from the Tabletop Gaming Guild, and one from Erik Tenkar (of Tenkar’s Tavern, a pretty well known community around the D&D/OSR crowd).

Rhino Rider Miniature

Barry Lee has this very nice partially-custom made miniature of a Praxian Rhino Rider!

Rolling Boxcars Reviews Apple Lane

Keith aka Modoc reviews Apple Lane (now available in print-on-demand), the 1978 supplement for RuneQuest. While many old-school RuneQuest players here might have fond memories of this classic, it’s always good to realize that it hasn’t necessarily aged well in many aspects. Check out the review to see what the module looks to fresh eyes!

Six Ages at GDC

Talk about the intersection of my job and by hobby! Here is David Dunham at GDC (one of the main game developer conferences in the world) talking about the design of Six Ages. This is a presentation for game designers and developers, so while it’s not super technical, it does go into game scripting, procedural generation techniques, and so on.

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.

Orlanth Thunderous Shrine

This is nice little spot on the Isle of Skye (in Scotland) is a good inspiration for an Orlanth Thunderous shrine!

Gravinis Passage Tomb

This Neolithic burial site is located an island in Brittany (France) could be another good inspiration for an adventuring site:

The Gavrinis Passage Tomb is an ancient burial ground which is thought to have been constructed around 3,500 BC. The site features a stone burial chamber which is covered in a cairn, or stone mound, with a mound of earth packed on top of it. When the tomb was constructed thousands of years ago, the island of Gavrinis was still connected to the mainland.

I really like the carvings inside:

Thank you for reading

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