Brian Duguid

What is it? It's a joy, that's what it is.

For Orlanth, you could start with Indra. Even the Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indra should give you a few similarities, such as their similar power over thunder, the vajra, and their battles against evil serpents in order to free the rains. But that's largely what you'll find: occasional correspondences rather than a 1:1 mapping.

It's showing as available again ... https://www.chaosium.com/mig3-the-meints-index-to-glorantha-hardcover/

20% off The Children of Hykim (and it's sister book The Voralans) in DriveThruRPG's GM's day sale for the next 10 days.

20% off The Voralans (and it's sister book The Children of Hykim) in DriveThruRPG's GM's day sale for the next 10 days.

I refer to it frequently. Little bit shocked to discover it's currently OOP on the Chaosium website! (Unless this means we'll get the leatherette edition as part of a reprint exercise 😉).

David Dunham had an otter Hsunchen tribe, the Udari (https://www.pensee.com/dunham/ralios/hsunchen.html). Although the Otter tribe is listed in Revealed Mythologies as one of sixteen original Fiwan tribes, I took the view in The Children of Hykim that if there ever were otter Hsunchen, they are extinct. Essentially, their descendants are the intelligent otters; just as many other Hsunchen tribes are extinct, with their descendants being the intelligent humans.

I also have a review of Treasures of Glorantha 2 over on DTRPG:

I'm sure everyone has bought this by now, but if anyone has not, it's worth finding the little "Adjust Donation" button when purchasing, as it allows you to increase the proportion of the sale that goes to both Chaosium and to WWF.

Black elves, please :-). As Joerg said, it's food. Fungi gotta eat, too.

Rathor's mother is Frona - CoRQ: The Prosopaedia, page 41.

We also have the (officially unnamed) gods or ancestors of the jaguar people (Te Huantal), jungle cat people (Chumbari), snow leopard people (Chen-ga), tiger people (Hsa), etc. In Anaxial's Roster, the ancestress of the bobcat folk, the Rinkoni, is named Rinkona. And there is also Sakkar, the sabretooth, God of Fear, Hunter of Men. Yinkin is the odd one out because he betrayed his beast kin and chose instead the Storm tribe (The Book of Heortling Mythology, page 38, although this myth reeks of the three-worlds bollocks of that era). All the other children of Fralar are recognised as spirit-ancestors by the Hykimi / Hsunchen. For yet more ex-canonical felines (including some names of deities), see Anaxial's Roster and Anaxial's Annex.

Paging @Lordabdul for your question about A Short Detour. The Red Moon Glow is unrelated to the transformation, which is a curse. I personally believe that technically, the invulnerability and the ability to change for long periods was the Chaotic gift of Nysalor; and that the "involuntary" nature of this was the curse of Talor, as per various sources on the history of the Telmori. The gift and curse both date back to well before the rise of the Red Moon into the air. You could make that link now - but there's nothing inherent in the official publications to back it up. Also note that Telmori can transform through the use of Rune magic - they are not limited to the involuntary once-a-week change.

Possibly other things, but as per the Glorantha Bestiary, page 181, they can be used to summon Lunes (or Selenes, if you have a Blue Moon rock).

Martin, you and Katrin are marvels.

I did a similar analysis a few weeks ago, although I ignored fumbles so some of my results differ from yours where low skill levels are found:

On page 314 of the RQG core rulebook: But on page 194: I believe page 194 is correct, so it may be worth adding a clarification to page 314 to the effect that: "Rune magic spells always take effect at strike rank 1, unless more than 1 magic point is used to boost the spell; see page 194 for further details".

Well that's a complete bonus!

I find this an odd view. Think back to 1992 when this came out. How much information was available at that time to the RQ-buying public regarding Dragon Pass, the Grazelands, Sartar, Orlanthi culture and mythology, the Colymar clan? Almost nothing. And yet KoS set it all out, alongside a detailed history, a proper account of the Lightbringers Quest. There was nothing else that covered Orlanthi customs and cultures in detail until 2009, seventeen years later (Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes), and with that out-of-print, there remains nothing until next year's Sartar Homeland book. And no, back in 1992, we absolutely did not need to have read all the lore and material you can get today to find this book both valuable and illuminating. To be fair, I am being a little contrary, but I seriously don't believe you need to bury yourself in facts before you grok KoS.

Yes. All those other sources (Mythology maybe a little less so) present Glorantha as a fixed world, at least up until a specific date. Geography and history are broadly fixed, although not everything is explained. This provides a base from which you can understand other Gloranthan material, and run a game that you can be reasonably confident will be compatible with future Chaosium material. King of Sartar has some of that as well: the Composite History of Dragon Pass, information on Sartarite customs, the Grazelanders etc. Some of that is available elsewhere in more coherent form, and some of it is probably now superseded, or will be when the RQG Sartar homeland book appears, and later the Grazelands homeland book (fingers crossed). But KoS is still, I think, the best source where the game world's creator presented it as deliberately incoherent, with a range of competing or unreliable narratives which cannot all be true. Obviously, Your Glorantha Will Vary. But Chaosium's canonical Glorantha does not, and we've been given the impression that the post-1625 timeline presented in forthcoming books will at least start out as a pre-determined series of events, even if the choices made in your game alter that somewhat. Until that Chaosium campaign appears, KoS is the original source for future history, and for a significant rag-bag of odds-and-ends that can be plundered as you will. The key part of that future history appears in The Guide to Glorantha, so if you have that plus the Glorantha Sourcebook, you won't gain many new facts just from KoS. But I much prefer the seemingly random presentation in KoS, because it pushes against the whole idea that Glorantha is coherent and knowable. Tl;dr: There are better sources for facts. But KoS is the book that tries hardest not to pin the butterfly's wings.

Lots of good stuff so far. @Demishadow23 - you mentioned Prince of Sartar, but do you have King of Sartar? Prince of Sartar is the webcomic (I can't link it because it has a dodgy site certificate and is blocked by my network). King of Sartar is essential in understanding Glorantha (well, small parts of it) as a world of possibility, as opposed to the monomythomaniacal approach of almost everything else.

Quoting Sandy Petersen: "The Blue Moon is undead. It was killed during the Gods War and buried ... as a potato. Literally. Potatoes are the Blue Moon plant, because they give life in the ground". Make of that what you will.

My thoughts, for what they are worth. The fetch is part of the shaman's soul yes, but it is awakened through contact with a greater entity, and all the shamanic abilities come through contact with the same. The greater entities (RQG pg 359) are traditional for any given culture: a Telmori shaman does not contact Kolat, or Jakaboom, for example, they contact Hykim / Mikyh. When the shaman first awakens their fetch, they pray to their tribe's associated greater entity to do this (pg 354). They do so by sacrificing POW directly to that entity. I think it's not unreasonable to assume that any greater entity which sees fit to awaken a prospective shaman's fetch will also have the power to take it away again.

If it's new art, your artists should be doing it for you. If it's old art, it's dead easy to make a pure white background transparent in Affinity Photo (which many JC creators use), and a bit more work if the background is not clean. I can help with that, if it's not too many images.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/61197/tradetalk-13-outside-genertala-the-islands?affiliate_id=1107865