Malin

One fun thing we did in this era was to play a band of Lunar deserters after all the disasters that beset the Lunar army. Trying to decide if they want to blend in with the natives or trying to figure out a way to go back home without being executed for desertion and/or treason. We did that post-Penal Ford on the outskirts of Sartar and had great fun with ex-legionnaires from one of the penal legions pretending to be civilians and eventually marrying into one of the local clans. He wasn't a worshipper of one of the chaos-affiliated gods, so he was reluctantly accepted after some suitable deeds.

I think I've gained at least 1d6% in Illumniation by now

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

Once a being has realized that there is no final difference between Chaos and Law, he may later make a similar but false parallel between his personal ethics and his personal desires°°

And that might prove to be an insight into the Arkati; they have substituted their personal desires for their personal ethics. They might no longer fear the intrinsical alienness of chaos, but they assume that the personal desires they held before (eradicate chaos) are the one true answer to the universe now that they can freely see the truth.

Being illuminated does not mean wisdom, only freedom from instinctual reactions.

This has always been an enormously useful post for me, and now when I am finally posting on the forum I'm going to say thank you and ask: There were some mentions in here of a Prax book. Is that still on the table? Or one about the Wastes?

10 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

I've shared this before, but my vision of the Zola Fel and environs is the inland shrub-steppe of the Columbia River Basin

As someone who took a trip there this summer, I have to agree. I had to keep pointing stuff out to my fellow player in the car. It's really amazing terrain.

3 hours ago, Martin Dick said:

Do you have an example of a shared ongoing creation which is satisfying but where canon is not used? Maybe the Lovecraftian shared world which has long deviated in many ways from Lovecraft's initial vision?

That's the only one that came to mind for me, but can it be counted as a shared world more than Dracula or Sherlock Holmes at this point? More than fairy tales or Greek myths? Or Nordic tales or the bible?

I think to count as a shared world, there must be an assumption that other tales told of that world must at least rhyme with each other. It's not a retelling or a remix but something like a giant mural painted by many hands. There is a Center of the mural everyone looks at and is inspired by as they want to make their own additions around it, but at least for me, the center is best when it is cohesive. Something people can count on when they build their own stories. If there isn't a canon, then nothing can challenge that, or be a new take, or be shocking. There is nothing that makes it Your Glorantha.

I know it might sound weird, but for me, the best thing that happened was when the "many Argraths" part was quietly retired. Why? Because that meant that there now is one Canon Argrath, which will have his campaign and stuff. And that means that I am free to ignore as much as I can about that and do my own riff on what really happened pre-cradle and eventually onwards.

Oddly enough I find it much more comfortable to break "rules" when they actually exist rather than a vague "it's up to you". Maybe it's the Eurmal in me.

As someone who was initially not too concerned about establishing a consistent canon history in the games I publish (interactive fiction, not ttrpgs), I really wish I had been more stringent with that from the start. And that's only two books by now and still my editors and I have to scramble and ensure everything fits together (or is subtly adjusted). Hell, I thought I could get away with not having a fixed timeline, but oh no. People start dissecting everything, so it needs to be as waterproof as possible.

I can truly understand why Chaosium focuses on a single timeline because anything else escalates and causes trouble. I am impressed that they have managed to wrangle this together!

And nope, Chaoisum's glorantha is not exactly my glorantha, but that's the beauty of it.

Honestly, that's a fascinating situation. I can see a staunch Humakti refusing to duel a Kralori martial artist simply because they are not armed.

Just got the first draft back from my editor/writing partner with tons of notes. I have to say it's fun writing with a sociologist. So many things I had not considered...

I am once again reminded how very grateful I am that the Your Glorantha May Vary is a base tenet of the game that keeps being repeated. Gives a wonderful freedom for someone like me.

I finished this too today, it was great! And a good example of YGMV in my opinion. I had so much fun.

Depends. The Sun County one is really useful if you play there. The River of Cradles one is a good overview of the entire Zola Fel river. Dorastor was cool as hell with a good hook for a campaign there, though I never played it. I think those three were the ones I found the most useful where stuff has not been used for new supplements and stuff yet.  A lot of the Prax and Borderlands have been popping up elsewhere I think.

59 minutes ago, soltakss said:

That sounds great. Here is the Campaign that I would have loved to run, and which I ran probably two-thirds of in my last Gloranthan campaign, and here is a timeline of events set in the Pavis area.

Nice! I haven't got to Pavis yet, we are doing Sun County stuff and the choose to go into the Wastes instead. But ho boy that timeline was interesting and useful!

4 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

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however I don't remember how / why the pc were able to recognize Kallyr and not believed it was Orlanth, or another deity. And they were conscious of that:  they started their heroquest  with the goal to meet her.

So it means that gloranthan know they don't meet gods but echo of them (echo as heroquestor or echo as automaton, just how the god acted and how it should answer in the best way when facing something new =  heroquestor weird activity).

 

If I remember correctly they were doing one of the shorter, ritual lightbringers quests where they don't leave the mundane world but travels between ritually prepared areas. I suspect that has something to do with it, it's still the real world, you are not wholly immersed in myth when you walk the streets of Boldhome. That's why it's also safer.

I would say whatever is Maximum Game Fun!

However, for me personally, I would say that it is less chance to meet if they are on the same side of the heroquest. Many Yelmalio followers can ascend the Hill of Gold at the same time, there's no reason why they should run into each other. However, A Yelmalio group and an Orlanth group can easily meet if Yelmalio is doing the Hill of Gold, while the Orlanth one is looking for the lightning spear or something similar. That's a mythical connection that might serve to pull them together. Same with a troll group looking for fire related stuff.

On second thought, I would say that if the Yelmalio groups would meet, it would be in the final stage, on top of the hill.

9 hours ago, Yazurkial said:

Trust Simon to suggest something right and playable, too. (If you have not read his book on heroquesting, go get it from DriveThurRPG! Stop readng this. Go buy it now!) It kind of helps explain why the Praxians refer to Orlanth as both Rain Man and Little Brother: it's two different spirit cults, one for Orlanth Thunderous and one for Orlanth Adventurous.

Alright, did that; thank you for pointing me in that direction! I had missed that one... 🙂

Thank you, thought that was the case, but I just wanted to double-check!

Just wanted to make sure I am not overlooking something. The old Sun County volume is not possible to buy outside used copies, right? I know some old modules are but I have been looking everywhere and not being able to find it.

I have had mine since the nineties, just wanted to check if there was a link in case others were interested in buying it too. Same with the River of Cradles one.

Got almost 50 000 words on this by now, the first complete draft is nearly done. It's been a productive vacation, thank you everyone for being so supportive.

52 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

This is of course "knuckle bookkeeping" where uh digits fill up one hand and then transfer to the other register. Not weird at all as a way to track where you are in the theyalan octave.

I just counted my knuckles and was blown away. This makes sense.

I had a complete Glorantha newbie when I started my latest RuneQuest campaign in Sun County (just south of Pavis), and this is the campaign primer I sent him to help him make a character. It has some information about Pavis too. Ignore my spelling mistakes...

suncountyblues.rtf

Very nice, bit disappointed in having SurEnslib as an ancestor cult, but on the other hand having an ancestor powerful enough to eat the Red Emperor is rather impressive.

Got it!

8 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

If it helps, you have my complete blessing to use or ignore anything I've ever written about Sun County - the motherlode is Sun County Backgrounds in Sandheart Vol. 1.

If you want to quote bits of that article, borrow any epithets that are only found there (Gold, Bronze & Copper Lords, the Red Count, etc.), work the miraculous Summer of Love into your agrarian sociological model, etc., I'd be delighted!

If you want to quote lots of that article verbatim or rework it somehow, just let me know: I can provide editable docs on request.

Two other great sources are the Secret History of Sun County (on Jane Williams' website) and MOB's thread Some notes on the Cradle aftermath...

Thank you! A lot of your stuff is the basis of my writing! That was what got my brain going in the first place. I don't have direct quotes, but I am certainly using the terms and ideas. I am also heavily inspired by MOB's posts, but won't get to that point since the timescale is around 1613-1620 for this one as that's the period I'm running my campaign in so far. Secret History of sun county had some interesting ideas, but there mine diverge a bit more. There are seeds in there though.

Yep, I've been scouring Sun County material from the web for a long time, I might be a slight gloranthophiliac...

I wish I could crawl into that picture and buy the books right now...