M Helsdon

AD&D is a game; Glorantha is a world, based very definitely upon the rules of mythology you will encounter in numerous terrestrial mythologies, especially those of Ancient Greece, the Near East, and others. It isn't a matter of canon but of how the world is set out. You are welcome to play in your version of Glorantha, but don't confuse it with the canon of Glorantha. Contradictions are common in mythology... Sigh. No, that's how others perceive them, not how they perceive themselves. They died by entering the Gate to the Underworld, and were Dead until the Great Compromise changed the rules of a damaged and dying cosmos. Anyone who enters the Underworld is Dead, unless they can get out. I suspect there's a fundamental issue you are missing: Death doesn't mean inactive, decaying, but is a different state of being in Glorantha. The Underworld isn't the destination of all who die: being eated by a Chaos monster like the Crimson Bat expunges you from reality; the Brithini fear Death because they have no afterlife - the spark of life goes (somewhere) but individual identity vanishes. Not all of the dead stay in the Underworld or even go there. The Underworld only became the level of the Dead when Death was found hidden there and released into the world.

And if we want to go back further than Roman and Hellenistic fiction, then there's Story of Sinuhe, dating back to the Bronze Age.

It's more that few survived. The Metamorphoses of Apuleius is the only Roman novel to have survived; there were others (such as the fragmentary Satyricon), but we know little more than the names of the authors. Of course much of the Metamorphoses is based in myth and legend to a greater or lesser degree. In the sophisticated urban cultures of the Lunar Empire (especially), and Nochet similar works might exist.

<space>. yields a number. One previously identified: Page 137: draconic indifference . Page 150: trade routes with Sartar . ,; yields two, previously reported: Page 68: elf Fwalfa Oakheart,; Page 68: Speaking Wheel,; and There are a number of scanning errors such as this one, previously reported: Page 18: the Iynx-spirit - should be - the lynx-spirit Note that this isn't immediately obvious in some fonts. I've had a look for other common scanning errors where 1 replaces I or l or I are confused and found: Page 115: Parg llisi which looks almost fine until you change the font: Parg llisi. I believe this should be Parg Ilisi. This occurs four times on this page. This sort of error is very hard to spot in a pdf, especially in the font used in the document. Have spent an hour looking for others but haven't found any as yet. Another common scanning error is a confusion of 0 and O - haven't found any examples in this document as yet.

One tool (though not always fully foolproof) which will catch other things is to create an index, as this will identify variations in spelling. It does, however, take a great deal of effort, and this document is not yet in a state where creating an index seed would be productive. I'd need a Word version to create the seed.

Sigh. The people of Vanch are on the borders of two distinct cultures with very different value systems. That border has moved over them in one direction or the other throughout Time. It's a little like the historical friction between the Irish and 'Vikings' - both peoples had honour based cultures, but their concept of honour differed significantly, to such a degree that each considered the other to be lacking in honour, with inevitable results. There's an entire cult write-up in the Pavis boxed set. As that states, many gods of Sartar and Prax have thieving abilities, and Gods of Glorantha names a few thief cults (though not Lanbril). If they don't get out of the Underworld, they stay there as one of the dead. Trolls left the Underworld when the dead Sun arrived. They are no longer 'denizens of the underworld' when alive, but most go there when they die (to a region set aside where the Sun doesn't shine), or are reincarnated, or are sent to the Sky Realm if they are judged to be evil - their 'hell' is the Sky cults' 'heaven'. Graves and tombs are not in the Underworld. The Halls of the Dead are. Any deity in the Underworld is dead, at least part of the Time, even when they leave. In terrestrial mythology, numerous deities, often agricultural, are accounted dead in the myths part of the time. For example, Persephone, or the older Dumuzi, who was sacrificed by Inanna/Ishtar to be dead at least part of the time as her own 'get out of the Underworld' card. Death doesn't mean in those mythologies that the deity is literally dead and inactive, forever, because they can be active even when dead. In Gloranthan mythology, finding how to distinguish between the Living and Dead, and to separate them to inhabit their proper places is a widespread activity of ancient heroes and gods, and in some locations, the Dead are still a bit peeved at this and sometimes get out and about, if the proper rituals aren't observed. For that matter, in Glorantha Life and Death aren't the only axis, because there's the third state of Undeath which covers creatures like vampires and ghouls who are Dead but active in the realm of the Living. Everywhere in Glorantha is potentially dangerous. The Underworld has its own dangers; it is also dangerous to non-residents because although you may get in, you may not get out. There are times when it is normal for Orlanth's Ring not to be in the Sky. It has a fourteen day cycle, being in the Sky for seven of those days. The losers were either dismembered or utterly destroyed.

No, I am saying why they are pragmatic. The Lanbril 'cult' is not a unified cult. Lanbril is one of several thief gods. No, I referred to gods not native to the Underworld. If you are not native to the Underworld and go there, you are effectively dead, unless you can get out. They managed to get in, but getting out was far more difficult. They were in the Halls of the Dead - which means they were dead themselves. They are dead unless they can find a way out. Some Heroes get in and out of the Underworld several times, but if they fail once, they remain dead. After the fall of Whitewall, Orlanth was trapped in the Underworld: his stars did not follow their cycle. Neither Orlanth nor Yelmalio died at the Hill of Gold. You need to read The Guide to Glorantha, not MRQ supplements.

Some planets first rose in the Darkness (Entekos and her children, Derdo (aka Lokarnos) and Vendara) but, as they spend time below the horizon died at some point during the Great Darkness. The only planet that didn't die was probably Mastakos, which is also associated with Uleria, (perhaps) the only surviving member of the Celestial Court. When a planet rises and falls in the modern sky, it is spending time traversing the Sky and then the Underworld, indicating that it died before Time.

The more likely answer is that Vanch is a mixture of Sun and Storm cultures, and those two cultures have very different attitudes to hierarchy and honour. Sun-worshippers consider Orlanthi to be rebels and thieves, because raiding is integral to their culture, whilst Storm-worshippers consider Sun-worshippers to be ruled by those who take but rarely bestow their wealth to their followers. (The two cultures have very different views, for example, on dividing up plunder in war - the Orlanthi have a relatively fair method of dividing spoil, whilst with Sun-worshippers the leader can take the lot, and only has to give out what they want to give out). Mix and merge those two traditions, and you end up with cultural practices which probably seem wrong to surrounding regions that are fully one or the other. All the Lightbringers went to the Underworld, which is the equivalent of death for those not native to the Underworld. The Sun Emperor was there because he was killed by Orlanth wielding Death. Many deities died, meaning that they are not permanently 'alive' which is why the Sun sets every day to spend time in the Underworld before rising to life again. Orlanth's Ring of stars rises in the sky and falls. There's a distinction between deities who never died, those who died, those who stayed dead - often because their parts were dismembered - and those that were utterly destroyed and can never come back. The Red Goddess is an example of a dismembered deity, who was put back together in Time, and so lives again.

It is well known that when reviewing something, if you find an error, you are less likely to find nearby errors. This holds for text or software code, and is one reason for employing multiple reviewers, because they won't all notice the same set of errors, and to employ multiple passes. It seems to occur because the human mind can usually only concentrate on one thing at a time, and when concentrating on investigating one error, others become almost 'greyed out': the probability of detecting something else in the same sentence or paragraph significantly reduces, sometimes the same page. However, employing multiple passes also results in diminishing returns, because two other factors come into play: seeing what you expect to see, and boredom, meaning that the reader skips over the material. It takes more effort to cover the same ground. This is also why authors often are the worst reviewers of their own work, because they know what they intended to write, even if they didn't actually write what they intended, but when they read it, they often can't detect anything wrong. Word blindness becomes a factor.

In the Great Darkness, Heort the Founder threw a rock at a dead otter fighting a live salmon and scared the ghost away; since that event, no otters are found in the Creekstream River or in Choralinthor Bay. This means there is a divide between western otters and those of the River of Cradles.

Page 6: called the power of Being – should be - called the Power of Being Page 6: power of Becoming – should be - Power of Becoming Page 7: their respective forms – should be - their respective Forms Page 7: the form of a beast – should be - the Form of a beast Page 7: though there are several Dragonewt Power cults, all modified by the Dragonewt Rune – is this still canonical? Page 8: rejected that as a separate magical – should be - rejected it as a separate magical Page 8: the power of Death – should be - the Power of Death Page 10: god-talkers – on the previous page has the form – god talkers Page 10: This document was written by the Carmanian mystic Hepherones of Ganbarri in the early Third Age, circa 1200. The insights are a remarkable synthesis of Carmanian dualism, humanism, and central Genertela pantheism. – Should be in italics. Page 10: Notbeing – possibly – Not-being – or – Not-Being

Members of the Cercopithecidae but not the genus Papio, so these can be discounted. Both large species or subspecies, and both might be used as a vague template, but Gloranthan intelligent Baboons are Papio Sapiens, a species with no terrestrial equivalent.

There are several files of Yelmalion Templars waiting outside to have a word with you... In the Great Darkness just about every deity suffered a humiliating defeat - at least all the ones who weren't utterly destroyed. Even Orlanth. The Hill of Gold is an important Yelmalion pilgrimage site, not just because of the opportunity to find crystalized pieces of their god's blood, but because it is a place where the Hill of Gold heroquest can be performed for various rewards, including defeating their god's enemies... It says: Fairly or unfairly, the Vanchites have a reputation as thieves. Whilst there are local variations, the Vanchites are a mixture of Orlanthi and Solar farming cultures dating back to the First Age. Given their geographic and historical position, on the ever shifting border between Solar and Storm empires, it is hardly surprising that the Vanchites are pragmatists.

General: various units of distance used in document: miles, kilometers (and km.). I believe the current standard are Imperial units. Page 3: and evil of Chaos – should be - and the evil of Chaos Page 3: They are 1. – suggest the use of semicolons instead of numbers. Page 3: Peloria, in the north-center – should be - Pelora, in the north-center Page 3: Genertela from Seshnela and Teshnos – should be - Genertela from Seshnela to Teshnos Page 4: by Brithini – might be - by the Brithini Page 4: Pelora has been home to many empires – might be - Peloria has been home to many empires Page 4: Far eastern, Kralora – should be - Far to the east, Kralora Page 4: West, past the lands of men, rolls the chill Western Sea, which has no bounds – and Slon?

The Vadeli certainly do, though they are the antithesis of Western culture. Brown Vadeli are the commoners; Red Vadeli are soldiers; Blue Vadeli (hopefully extinct) were sorcerers; Yellow Vadeli (extinct) seem to have been the rulers. The immortal Brithini have much the same coloration. Other Westerners seem to have lost to a greater or lesser degree their caste coloration; the Brithini would probably say this denotes their spiritual corruption as most are mortal, and only a few have longer lifespans than the humans descended from the animal peoples...

Starting a third pass, but very slowly. I am increasingly of the opinion that the fact the Theogony should be treated as the God Learner introduction to the subsequent Elemental Pantheons (this may be the intent, but it isn't obvious from the formatting), all the way through to the end of The End of the Gods War chapter, and perhaps beyond. There might also be notes or annotations that the material is not entirely accurate: this gets around some of the blatant falsehoods. The same should hold for many other chapters as well. There's the fact that all of us know considerably more about their world/cosmos than any mortal inhabitant of Glorantha, and that instead of objective out-of-world facts, players and their characters probably need subjective truths - at least from their cultural perspective. Much of the material leans heavily to a Sartarite viewpoint (woe to the Lunars - their magical regiments aren't detailed) so perhaps it should come with a large note that it is an in-world sourcebook instead of a game encyclopedia. For that matter, I recall reading somewhere that the design of the Runes as presented here and elsewhere are God Learner constructs, though widely accepted now. Just a thought.

It is up to individual GMs to decide, but this is a public forum. Of all the Mongoose books, Dara Happa Stirs is the best and closest to canon. The others vary enormously in quality. The penalty for using Mongoose books as canonical here is a trip to Dorastor with one of Ralzakark's avatars as your host... 8-)

Both, at best, dubious God Learner constructs and highly unreliable, in addition to being uncanonical. No Mongoose books are part of canon.

The Urox cult have been alerted...

It isn't finished. Delayed by things such as proofreading The Glorantha Sourcebook. However, it is approaching its maximum page size.

All of the Mortal Lands of Glorantha are effectively a post-apocalyptic landscape. There was a great deal of 'history' before Time, and the current geography was very different in the God Time, and this has left an enormous number of scattered ruins and artefacts, most of which are inexplicable to the modern inhabitants. At the Dawn the ancestors of the Votanki at Arau numbered barely two hundred and fifty, and whoever they had been before, they survived the Great Darkness as hunter-gatherers. The region before Time seems to have been: part of the Solar Empire, drowned under water, covered by glaciers, a troll hunting ground, an Aldryami forest etc.

As a Yelmalion, he was probably a Sairdite. Probably at roughly the same level. Votankiland had a human low population density, so EWF influence was limited in this borderland. Vontankiland was deemed as part of the empire, but probably more as a resource than as a territory. See above. Doubtless some were, as transient mercenaries of the EWF, but not a large presence. Legend says it was built by dwarves. It predates the Second Age, and is possibly a pre-Time relic.

Surface-to-air Rapier 8-)

Not really. There are no absolutes in Glorantha, and even the Guide contains (intentional) contradictions. I know this because I identified and reported some during the review process and was told they wouldn't be changed because they weren't mistakes. Based on my experience of working on other documents, making the changes which are accepted won't be a simple or quick task. We are talking almost as much effort as required to identify and report things (which in my case is around forty hours). Some of the apparent discontinuities can be 'fixed' by making almost all of the Glorantha Sourcebook in-world documents written by Lhankor Mhy, Buserian or Irrippi Ontor sages. Hepherones’ Statement of Magic, The Xeotam Dialogues, The Redline History of the Lunar Empire and The History of Dragon Pass are already in-world documents to a greater or lesser degree, and all appear to contain intentional inaccuracies, based on the subjective perspective of the author. This has advantages: it gives a 'get out of jail free' card when someone complains that the material contradicts another source, it demonstrates that Truth in Glorantha is elusive, and it provides information on the beliefs and bias of the 'author'. The resulting 'rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty' make Glorantha more 'real' than other fantasy worlds.