Garrik

Fully agree there. I've actually written an article about a RW merchant-farmer family, who in all likelihood were also fishermen. I call them hybrid strategies, and they were much more common in earlier times than many know or believe. Actually, I find the RQG backgrounds a bit simplistic regarding the setting. OK, there are ways and choices to build your character in many different ways. And indeed this is what I've done. There's just too little discussion about these hybrid cases in the basic texts. A sentence or two would bring in the variety and show the possibilities. But then again I understand how the basic books need to be accessible, clear and not too thick...

OK, tried to palate all the info all of you have given. But I'm overwhelmed. You're suggesting that I buy 50$ worth of books to gauge for few snippets of information. The books surely are interesting and beautiful. But in this case, I just have to have faith in my GM, that he provides the necessary info. I like the idea of Lyksos-Engizi marrying to Esrola. This must have interesting consequences for persons tied to the Lyksos-Engizi river cult. Some of you are essentially suggesting that male followers of River Gods do not have the type of agency I envisioned for my character. Which of course might be a good reason for my character to leave his community and seek adventure. But I'm talking more about his background than about his future. There's the key question of what roles men have in Esrolia. All good threads overflow and meander, so let's look into this. I tried to closely read everything in RQG, the Gloranthan Sourcebook, and the published Cults material (bless searchable PDF's). So the basics, without going into excessive mythical detail, Stafford Library and the Jonstown Library. Nowhere is it stated that Esrolian males couldn't have cult agency and important roles. They are not political leaders, and they are loyal to and protective of their matriarchs. But men are initiates and priests of the male gods and assume the power such persons and institutions have, especially locally. Surely there are men among the renowned Esrolian heroes, for example architects and crafters. Which could tie into irrigation systems and aqueducts. (Were the Nochet aqueducts Belintar's invention? Or from the time of Panaxles the Architect?) Even if women govern the land and negotiate about its use, men can easily find roles in the business. This isn't a society without men, or with subjugated men, or a caste society where men would be totally excluded from certain professions. Everywhere there are men, and they have their roles and rights, even if women run the society at large. So I don't support the idea that a male (person, cult) couldn't have important agency in everyday Esrolia. But the male god/aspect who's mostly active in these everyday activities is of course Barntar. The Engizi cult (RQG, pp. 75, 292) clearly is river-centric, movement-centric, and in no way tied to agriculture. I'm not saying that it should. I'm asking if a male water god & his followers could have agency in irrigating and draining the fields, or designing and upkeeping the aqueducts. I think they could. It's a minor and seasonal role for sure, but where water rises from Lyksos-Engizi and flows back into him, the cult surely has agency, at the very least a ritual role. But I think you're right that Lyksos-Engizi is a bad fit for a farmer. It would make my character perhaps uniquely special, and require a lot of soul-searching and myth-spinning. Which would be great, but our game is on the more mundane, traditional-RQ side of the spectrum. All of this said, my character in the end might look more towards Heler, because he has a powerful connection to the Air rune, some Water, and nothing special in Movement. The river aspect might remain as a connection to his grandfather and family traditions, and as a gateway to him finding the waters above.

Good gracious, @Joerg, did you have all that already written up, or have you been tracking (and side tracking) this reply to my humble question this whole evening? 😀 It will take a couple of evenings to try to palate that and find out ways how it could be brought into play. It's definitely high holy day stuff, or heroquest stuff. A Lankor Mhy answer to an initiate question. Thank you!

So my new (male) character has farmer background but is interested in the river god. The location is right next to the river Lyksos, near Nochet. I think the river swells a lot during/after Sea Season, so its waters will rise on to the fields. Which is both a good and a bad thing. Perhaps mostly a bad thing, since Esrolia typically receives enough rain for cultivation. In practical terms, I think my character has been somehow responsible for irrigation and drainage of the fields. Since Nochet has those aqueducts, he might have been active also there, getting parts of the river to nourish the people. So my character is not a fisherman or a boater, yet still has a meaningful and practical job connected to the river. This got me thinking about the mythical and magical connections between rivers, rain and the earth. It seems that rain (Heler) is in the realm of the Storm Gods, rivers are usually allied to the Sea Gods, and earth & agriculture are the realm of the Earth Goddesses. However, making the fields fertile is paramount to all civilized people and requires coordination, and all these cults are necessary in cultivation, in one way or another. Question: is the coordination mainly social, among humans/mortals (husband and wife, village, priests of different gods)? Or are there examples of locally allied rain/water/earth cults that bring something extra to this marriage/technology of rain, water and growth?

After my youthful random gaming, I've run two RuneQuest campaigns of note. One in a medieval setting of my own, and one in the Hero Wars period in Glorantha. 1. In both campaigns, I started with pure RQ3, but soon moved forward. The medieval campaign ended up using hybrid HârnMaster/GURPS-inspired rules (HM is basically RQ with more stuff; GURPS has more character background and world-interaction rules), whereas the Hero Wars campaign first grew the RQ3 rules to include Heroquesting and heroic feats, and then was abandoned in favour of a HeroQuest/FATE hybrid. 2. The medieval campaign I ran for about ten sessions. The Gloranthan campaign for anywhere between fifty and hundred sessions, with some concluding sessions a year after. 3. My Gloranthan campaign started in 1618, so Third Age, on the eve of the Hero Wars. 4. My Gloranthan campaign started in the Far Place (Northeastern Dragon Pass, including places like Alda Chur, Snakepipe Hollow, Alone and Indigo Mountains), but the characters were involved in all of Sartar and did a trip to the Elder Wilds (Votankiland), Prax and Heortland. 5. In the Gloranthan campaign, the heroes came from a single clan in a single tribe in the Alone Confederation. 6. Too many inspiring sources to mention, really. I found the Issaries erea Orlanthi cult books especially useful. I mostly used the different cult descriptions directly as prominent characters. They are very useful for that, being so intricate and personal. Of course, RQ3 with its generic world description is always very important for RQ games. We even used the encounter tables there quite extensively, and sometimes that created adventures and long-term plots. 7. I always run very sandbox-like games, and allow the players to create agendas for the characters. In the medieval game, they owned a ship and could enter islands, harbors etc. at will, so basically the campaign saw them visiting places they thought interesting. In the Gloranthan campaign, I followed the early Hero Wars timetable quite strictly, but the characters still had agendas of their own, e.g. trying to create an Orlanthi-Storm Bull herocult that could "tame" the Storm Bull madness and make members of the cult more sociable, but still keep the "Sense Chaos" trait. 8. Glorantha for me is very importantly the events that take place there. My interest of using Glorantha in my games sees me using the Gloranthan plots and timelines quite diligently. 9. The medieval campaign I'd describe as an open-ended, character-driven sailing campaign, with player-chosen focus. The Gloranthan campaign I'd describe as a warlike local reiteration of the early Hero Wars, with clan matters and heroic aspirations colliding. I have a tendency to build a lot of plots and run them simultaneously. What emerges as the main plot(s) is an in-game experience (or "discussion") between the GM and the players. Some themes will just wither and die, while others grow into defining prominence. 10. RQ3 is quite deadly for beginner characters, so decide how you want to use/fudge it, and be open about this choice. Glorantha is a super-tense setting, especially in the Dragon Pass region during the Hero Wars, with tons of information available. So be ready to study, be ready to accept you don't know everything, and most importantly, carve out your own thing and be true to that, as that is what you share at the gaming table with your players. Don't mill around and retcon, if you learn something new about the setting. Leave that new understanding for the next campaign. Start small with big aims, let the players work it through to the level of understanding and heroism they prefer. Support their interpretation and their fun! For example, I had the dragon knowledge and dragons figure quite large in my Gloranthan Hero Wars campaign, but the players (and their characters) just avoided the dragon things and virtually ran away from the dragonewts when met. This meant that some of my ideas just didn't materialise, and maybe it also meant that the characters missed an opportunity to philosophize and meditate and understand some deeper truths. I also introduced the elder races: Trolls, Aldryami and Mostali, but the players/characters avoided those too, just accepting Trolls as allies in wars. Nevertheless, the players had their heroic campaign and made the most of it. And I had a blast seeing their character wreck Glorantha and wreck themselves too.

To what degree are Gloranthan cities found by some big guy as religious centres, and to what degree do they grow organically from trade and local division of work? Could it be that the latter often predates the recorded founding, and that city founding primarily happens on spots where there already is a proto-city, a bustling town?

Interesting tidbit from the Well of Daliath: Source: Hsunchen Peoples of Genertela (2003) – The Well of Daliath (chaosium.com) Obviously now superseded by the GtG entry (300,000) which goes back to the the Genertela box. Nevertheless, it is interesting that such a number was used by Greg Stafford and Jamie Revell at the beginning of this century. (The entry is dated to 2000 and 2003.) Why would these gentlemen have scribbled down such a number, when they surely had access to the Genertela box?

We can talk about how the publisher(s) presented RuneQuest, and how we, the players, used it. Both of these takes only mirror the viewpoints of very few people. It might be possible to draw broader conclusions about a general take on the material by the public if we could run a large enough gallup. That would be super interesting! In the meantime, I think the safest path is to look at the official and fan publications to try and see how the game was presented and used. I honestly don't understand how hiring henchmen or random monster encounters is part of any one style of playing the game. But since you brought this up, let's have a look. In our gaming circles, we had no problem in hiring henchmen or creating monster encounters with the 2nd and 3rd editions. These things were not neatly packaged in the main game, but the relevant information could be found in different sections and examples of the game: typical pay, typical skills and typical gear - even typical "threat-levels" and personal treasure. Some GM preparation was needed, of course. Unless you used the published adventures, which had all of this ready-made. Early adventure modules had typical mercenary bands for hire (PC's actually could be members of such bands in the 2nd ed), encounter tables, and pre-generated monster encounters with pre-generated monster stats. Small-scale military operations were very much a tendency in RuneQuest gaming, from Pavis & the Big Rubble to the pre-hero wars Sartar campaigns presented in the 90's Tales of the Reaching Moon. Then the myth/legend issue. How far did the early RuneQuest system & supplements focus on the mythic element as its driving force? Heroquesting is the link between small-scale skirmishes and myths, but heroquesting rules for RuneQuest were not available before the 90's, IIRC, when various in-house and fan mechanics became public in the fan press and early internet. Then, in the 90's, we started to see myth and legend as practical issues and even tools in RuneQuest/Glorantha. That still doesn't include the more generic use of RuneQuest in the Avalon Hill ancient/migration/Viking era alternate Europe, or as a generic system for any fantasy roleplaying. RuneQuest (and BRP) were not only about Glorantha, and Avalon Hill tried hard to present RuneQuest as a generic fantasy system. Avalon Hill and Chaosium published Gloranthan locations translated into generic ones (Griffin Island, Carse, Tulan), with little or no myth/legend presented for actual play. The focus was very much on classic adventure, character development, even pulp, if you liked that. I feel the late 70's and 80's and up to the early 90's publications didn't focus the game play on myths and legends. RuneQuest the game in its 1st-3rd editions was always very much a small-scale skirmish and character-development system, and acquiring the skills & spells had very little background in the setting. Instead, they had simple monetary values, so you could buy spells and buy teaching. The (at the time) novel individual skill experience system made trial and error a chief method of acquiring skills - and forced the GM to balance the opponents to the PC skill level, if total party kill was to be avoided. A classic situation in early roleplaying in general. The short cult descriptions brought some game-system meat around the bones, but very little in the way of myths and legends: you mostly had skill caps for attaining advanced cult levels, the heroic/mythical path was not described. Only a couple of cults had prohibitions/blessings, to enforce a certain behavior on the PC's. Humakt and Yelmalio come to mind. Then some Glorantha-specific supplements developed some cults further. Still, I personally feel the long cult descriptions rarely presented practical tools for bringing the myths into the focus of play. It was up to the GM and the players to create that magic circle, and from my own experience & what I heard from others, RuneQuest was often played without the myth/legend aspect. As you can see, I cannot discuss the 2000's RuneQuest editions, as I never played any. From what I've seen & heard, most of them have much stronger focus on Glorantha and the myth/legend aspect. Also, the 2000's publications are probably more self-aware about the style of gaming they represent, after the internet theory discussions. Perhaps you could explain your starting point in this discussion, to help me understand your point? Do you agree or disagree with my presentation of the tendencies about RuneQuest during its first 15 or so years?

Interesting. Which edition of RQ, and where is this stated? I've played 2nd and 3rd ed, and they had distinctly different feeling. 2nd had clearly clumsier mechanics (more akin to D&D), but had more Glorantha and Bronze Age in it. 3rd strived to be generic, with more choice but less atmosphere. Both had essentially dungeon adventures published, and I still clearly remember how awkward some more mythical tones/quests felt. Only when we started to develop our own setting and social dynamics did something more than D&D style gaming grow out. As to how you used/played those games and where you found your inspiration for the adventures is, in the end, personal. Even if the myth/legend might be stated somewhere as the 'official' story model.

Yes, this is plausible. My idea, just above, was somewhat different: not much mediation is needed, because within the specific spirit/animal tradition, all shape-changers are intuitively experts. After all, they are that other form/spirit too. So once the shaman has helped the Hsunchen to make this knowledge and feeling practical, there might be no need for further mediation. In other words, the shamans awaken their kin, and after the initial awakening, the shape-changing might work without mediation from outside. Just an idea.

Yeah. An interesting thing about reindeer is that their herds can vary in size a lot. From a mere half dozen up to thousands, even hundreds of thousands. Sometimes males travel all alone or in small groups. Some subspecies are sedentary (only regional migrations), others are migratory. They're social and adaptable animals. A lot of that behavior can be seen rather human. So the basic units and groupings of the Uncoling society can remain about the same, whether they are in reindeer or human form. Reindeer also use their antlers to threaten & fight predators, alone or in groups. Males are known to threaten even humans during the rut time. Usually, reindeer avoid and flee, but they can also put up a fight. Again, an easy bridge between reindeer and human behavior. The classic experience in Lapland are reindeer walking on the road. Often, they are not the least afraid of cars, but instead seem to accept them into their herd. Been slowly driving alongside a group of reindeer for a good mile or so, before they chose to leave the road. (These are herd reindeer, so more accustomed to humans. But so would be the Uncoling reindeer, especially if the reindeer are the Uncolings.) Probably a bit like getting stuck into a herd of sheep, but the reindeer groups tend to be very small, even just lone reindeer. But they feel they own the road. Dunno if these real world parallels help. I'm listing them to show that the basic units and behavior of human and reindeer society need not be very different. I'd imagine the Hsunchen approach their spirit world more instinctively than other shamans. They probably initiate quite young. (I don't mean 'initiate' as in game terms, but as in learning about the spirit world.) Although their tradition might be more limited, it is also more accessible and more natural, implicit. Could their animal companions be their spirit companions too? In real-world shamanistic spirit-travel the human body remains in this world, whereas the spirit is led by an (animal) guide or becomes that animal guide. For the Hsunchen, the difference seems to be that the body turns into the animal. There is no body left behind, and the spirit in the animal form is physical. This is so much more concrete than in real world shamanism, and IIRC more concrete than most other Gloranthan shamanism. (How many non-Hsunchen shamans can shape-change, how often, and into which forms? Is it connected to their spirit tradition rune? Eg. Kolatings can physically become wind/storm?) Cool. 🙂 Another thing I believe could be immensely helpful is a one-pager on how to think and what to do when playing a Hsunchen character. Real guidelines, three to six bullet points: do this, try to make this happen, approach dilemmas like this, approach other people like this, etc. Imagine a hand-out you can give to a new player in a convention, in addition to a possible character sheet with game stats. Writing such a condensed first-hand synopsis could be a great method for writing the whole treatise, as it forces you to constantly focus on practical experience of a Hsunchen.

I have precisely the same problem. The more I think about the ways reindeer and humans survive in tundra and taiga, the less reason I see for being a human first instead of a reindeer first, if you have the choice. There's the added problem of carrying around all the human items in reindeer form. Three really important things regarding survival that make human form preferable are: 1) conflict: spears and bows are much more efficient than antlers 2) food/resource stockpiling is easier if you have hands and can build storage 3) when you cannot get or stockpile reindeer food, hunting and fishing are easier with hands Reindeer natural counters to this lack of technology is that they breed & grow up fast, that there are many of them, that they have keen senses to find nutrition, and that they can lose nearly half of their body weight (fat, muscle) during the winter. They are superbly adapted survivalists. Humans need vastly more resources in order to survive in the arctic. But Greg - or Jeff - wanted to have 300,000 Uncolings, and to me, their description emphasizes that they're humans. I see no way around that in the big picture, even if one sentence in the GtG suggests they might believe they're reindeer. Then again, looking at that piece of land in Fronela between the Winterwood in the east, the Upriver/Kingdom of War in the west, Valind's Glacier in the north and Loskalm/Akem in the south, I'm wondering if even 300,000 reindeer is too much. Haven't done the math, and comparison with our world is always problematic, but I still have this nagging feeling. That's why I feel MGWV, even in the very basics. I'd say that the easiest thing would be to just cut their numbers. Personally, I'm a fan of more tundra/taiga in the north, so would push back Valind's Glacier and create a habitat to really sustain the culture. But this is all personal preference. I'm personally quite aware that I'll never be able to truly understand shamanism, if just because of the lack of first-hand experience and no need to believe in supernatural. In a funny way, understanding Gloranthan shamanism may be easier, because we can make it up. 🙂 There are interesting studies on North American, Siberian and Finnic shamanism, which go back to real interviews and anthropology. I haven't read David's postings. Obviously something to read. Of the Hsunchen in general, I think their peculiarity in Glorantha must be connected to the Beast rune. IIRC, they're the only shamanistic culture with the Beast rune at the centre of their tradition, in addition to the Spirit rune. Or is that just a game mechanic? How do hunters identify with the animal they're hunting? How do they live with that animal after they've killed it? How can you be both the hunter and the prey at the same time? At least our perspective on cannibalism must be different with the (herbivore) Hsunchen. I'm aware of old Finnish folk beliefs and rituals about interacting with bears in this sense, recorded in the early 19th century. But they're already quite 'modern', and the people who sung the recorded runo were not primarily hunter-gatherers, and their belief system was already Christianized. Anthropology on the Siberian and North American/Canadan indigenous people probably lends better comparison points. I think the main difference between real world hunter-gatherer shamanism/animism and Gloranthan Hsunchen shamanism/animism is that the Hsunchen are totally about one animal. Historical real world shamanism/animism is more about the ability to transform (in the spiritual world) into almost any useful animal form/spirit, to achieve what that animal/spirit does well (in the real world or in the spirit world or in a myth). Of course this doesn't help, as it makes comparison even more problematic. My only real suggestion or plea is try to keep your feet on the ground, and don't make the Hsunchen too lofty, to the point of being goofy and completely alien. Leave that to the Elder Races. I think Greg was wise in ditching some of the Digest and Issaries period theories. The direct republication in the GtG of most of Glorantha: Genertela solidifies a less 'illuminated' view of Glorantha - something that is understandable and usable to a broader gamer public, and not just the Gloranthan erudites. I find that's wisdom.

What I find important regarding Greg's Daliath article about the Hsunchen origin myth is that Greg introduced the concept of taiga, and put that in relation to Fronela, but not equal to Rathorela. I think this is an interesting and sensible opening. How we read & imagine & develop the concept of Fronelan taiga, is the next question. I'm not disucssing a materialist RuneQuest Glorantha. My hobby starting point really is around the year 2000, with the Issaries/HeroWars renaissance, and the late Digest & TotRM. That was very much a time when population numbers and maps were discussed. At the same time, it was the time when we really started to discuss & understand the mythical in Glorantha (and either disagree or get very lofty). So I see 'materialist' and 'mythical' very much walk hand in hand in making sense of Glorantha. Yes, agree on this. Totally. That is definitely the angle taken in the GtG, and derives directly from Glorantha: Genertela box. It's the view Greg has given us about Glorantha, and is not connected to any RPG system. That said, I wouldn't use the word 'just' in defining 'the beast spirit'. There's a lot in here, not to be belittled. Totally agree. The verb 'to herd' in regard to the Uncolings and their reindeer (or the Tawari and their 'cattle') should not be read in the modern sense. Not sure if the English language has a single, good, and generally understood word for what the Uncolings do. But follow-migrate-hunt is how I see it too. Maybe just 'hunt', as in hunter-gatherers? 🙂 Definitely. Modern vegetation zones recognize several different types of tundra and taiga. The habitat of the Uncolings surely encompasses several different types. Real world reindeer (and caribou) are a migratory animal who use different habitats in different seasons, and I think this holds true in Glorantha too. Btw, some of my ancestors were part-time reindeer-herders in the forest/taiga (but not Saami). 😉 Presume you mean 'hard to distinguish'. No, I don't hold this view, and haven't propagated it. Being Hsunchen, the Uncolings are very different from the reindeer people of Eol. But they are humans. I'm trying to lay the groundwork before even starting to dream about the spiritual practicalities. It's a pity there isn't more published about the Hsunchen myths and their practical shamanism & shapechanging. Glorantha being mythical, the Hsunchen description in the GtG is actually remarkably materialist. Clearly, this is an undeveloped part of the Hsunchen. It will be interesting to see how Brian develops this.

This is a semantic question. But a semantic question within Genertela, not among us. I'm perfectly fine with using the term Hsunchen when we speak about, well, the Hsunchen. But if the word is Kralori, I think it's plausible to look after Western terms, within Genertela.

Joerg, this is golden. Thank you! My google-fu with the Well of Daliath was weak. This Rathori creation myth is breathtaking. The Musician father of the Uncolings puts even more weight on the Kalevalaic/Väinämöinen/Vanemuine interpretation. It seems Greg really had something in that vein in his mind. And Jalaria, the taiga. This differentiates between Jalaria and Frona, the conifer forest and the mixed forest, and quite probably puts Jalaria north from Frona. The habitats of the reindeer & bear people make sense. And then there is Tawar, with Pelanda as his/her mother. GtG puts the Tawari in Loskalm. But as the most prominent cattle people their name could include other cattle people too. Apparently all the plains to Pelanda? Or maybe they originated in Pelanda but then moved westward. Some controversy here, so probably Greg played around with the name Tawar. So the modern Fronela can now be seen as three belts and three peoples: plains and cattle people in the south, mixed forests and bears in the middle, and taiga and reindeer in the north. Many things might have changed since Greg wrote that. But such food for thought. He had, after all, thought about Fronela! Thanks again, Joerg!