Kim

Why for the Lozenge's sake would any thing queue up to 'get' a 'rune'? To the OP: you've got an exciting premise; Make Your Glorantha Vary to suit it. Personally, I've long been fascinated by Coralinthor Bay, but never have caused/been in a party of adventurers who got to go there. You can definitely do better than me Lots of fun ideas posted here, lots published here and there -- but in the end, we're facing our fellow players and not internet squibble.

I've got geological kinds of patience Just go make a fun glorious mess out of this 'setting'!

This is a great thread. I love the heck out of it. ISTM that a big (and good/fun) part of Glorantha was about making cosmology and mythology literal and actual and mundane. If that is (or were) the case, then it seems natural that reaching beyond that actual mundane reality should be faced with extreme hostility and violence. The nasty threat of Illumination is baked into the rich cake of Gloranthan gaming.

I think you've got the seed of a really fun game, and a really fun Gloranthan game, already in the works Please, please do y'all come back and tell us about what's happening in it.

I can definitely see and agree with your point of view, here. I do think there are others; for example, the 'deracinated foreigners off the boat in a foreign, foreign land' approach (as taken from Tekumel). As far as being new to the setting, I don't see any difference or advantage between your plan and my quibble. When we are easing newbies into the world, I would argue that it's easier to introduce them to it as monads, cut off from their social network, but given an interesting political situation -- from which they can explore history and culture around them, as they wish. In my experience, running fresh players through any kind of clan/family/background pre-game results in them never leaving it; they end up playing in that pre-game forever. Not to knock clan-generation kinds of systems per se; I think they're great fun and well interesting.I just think that they're much better geared to reading and thinking by veterans, rather than actual gaming use for new inductees to the world.

Why, you libelous swine!!! The implication that I had scripted Waha heroquesting as cannibalistic todger-wars is insane and unwarranted! I am shocked and dismayed. In truth, it says far more about you for immediately leaping to that conclusion, than it does about me!!!!!!!!!!!! Liek, OBVIOUSLY, the burden of "Station 4" is that the culturally-sensitive, nature-protecting Wahans go frell off into heroquesty land or whatever and mystically discover that in fact FODDER was in fact ALWEEZ all about them already, and that when coming back to the mundane world, they can confirm that in NAO-time it is indeed theirs theirs theirs since forever. And is theirs. (Fodder isn't human people!!! Unless you're morokanth, and then it's OK!!!)

I don't really think this is a problem unless we make it one. Take the 'Borderlands and Beyond' case here -- On the patron side, it seems to me that Duke Raus is an Imperial, but is not a Lunar -- that is, he comes from the ruling/elite class of the highly multi-ethnic and multi-pantheonic Empire, but isn't obviously an adherent of the Lunar religious tradition. (If your players aren't willing to deal with such a basic distinction, then I tend to think all your "Lunars" will end up just as being orcs in Gloranthan drag.) On the PC side, it seems to me that you're assuming that players be playing Sartarites. (Including Sartar-exiles, Sartar-emigrants, and Orlanthi-linked religious cultures.) Why on earth??? Is it not possible, just to stipulate, while setting up the campaign and doing character-building, rather to say that the normal and basic starting point of the PCs is that of an Imperial colonist/exile/functionary, or Sable Rider, or (to be exotic) neutrally mercenary groups like morokanths and so forth? The great thing about most all classic Gloranthan adventure packs is you can quite easily turn them upside down and/or sideways and make them entirely different gaming experiences, just by inverting the implied values and identities.

I've always always kept Lunar illumination very uncertain and questionable, and basically keeping foreign illuminati as beyond the pale and not really part of the real world. We had an NPC, DM-expy, and occasional PC who had what we called an Occlusion Insanity(tm) which we defined as "I'm A Happy Little Otter". (At least 1w level, if I'm permitted to define NPCs in such terms nowadays.) The character in question was a Great Troll going on 3m tall and weighing half a ton, so this identity dysphoria was... 'problematical', for those nearby. Still: people came to believe that this Occlusion Insanity was mostly ever activated under situations of social stress and confusion; the character in question had a history as a carefree rollicking rafter on the Oslir River before becoming a serious, scholarly, cultured Great Troll; and had had a vicious run-in with a rather senior otter-goddess on that same river and subsequently had probably been badly cursed, forever. On the other hand, this... 'person', had a sincerity in the Lunar Path that was unquestioned, a strange familiarity with important Lunar powers and potentates, casual habits in disposing of abstruse epistemological and philological issues that were supposed to beyond the cognitive capability of uzdo, and above all, a startling cosmopolitanism in those spheres where arcane, holy, and taboo knowledge is supposed to obtain. So was Dr. Pop just a both clueless and neurotic mortal, or a transcendental entity we can only begin to attempt to understand through the crippling lenses of biography and psychology? I think it's best not to really know; and best not to let rules, even the HQ:G style of rules, intrude into the dubious awe.

The creatures we're talking about here who enjoy Lunar comradeship are, I suppose, Brooskis? I'm not disputing any mythological arguments about broo morphology, but it does seem to be that on a practical level, given 'chaos features' as a thing, a thing that looks like anything could actually be a broo. Regardless of their cosmological nature, and even if many or most have goatish qualities. That fine kilt which your heroquesting stormlord is strapping on could indeed be a lucky broo. Lucky, lucky broo...

I really like this webcomic. The thing is, there's a viable and active commentary thread already right there on its own website. If we can't get a distinct chat thread going here, is there any value in reposting images of it here? For silence?

In an old Glorantha game I was part of, we had an NPC healer/occasional PC sh*t-stirrer who was a Lunar Broo, a penitent, a devotee of Osentalka, a meek and life-loving little goatly thing that wept ginormous tears out its square-centered eyes when people hit each other, and fled and shuddered at any token of sexual feeling. We all still lived in dread of that moment when 'Maidenly' freaked out, let go of Her Grace, and systematically and brutally face-f***ed all our PCs into Chaos-motherhood.

1) Hungry peeps 2) Hangry me! 3) Food elsewhere 4) TOTES MY FODDER NAO. 5) Repeat until illumination and/or satisfaction

I agree. I'm gonna drop this thread now, and also apologize for all the personal offense I've given. And I'm wondering how bad my brainrot is; I may have been mistaking M Heldson for a completely different person I had in my mind -- embarrassing, and again, I apologize. Whatever Heldson I've been contra-posting with lately, is someone whose Glorantha I still am interested in. Gimme this Parthian shot though: if this is "a long way from Glorantha", and is (lately) about how historians and historiography do their business, then where exactly can fans of Glorantha talk about one of the disciplines that fed the growth of Glorantha as a thing (a place? a product? a property?)? Dunno. Maybe I'll try to fire up the old listservs and see if people bite. ('People' in the widest sense of the term, naturally. I do like ducks.) MOB, M Heldson, I really do apologize. Not for my Glorantha, but my behavior on this private forum.

I'm assuming you're capable of conceiving of the idea that historians work with models, techniques, methods, and theories; and aren't just homespun truth-tellers about way-back-then. But I could be wrong; it seems you're saying that historiography is only a specific time and specific place, and that's it. Someone who is so refractory to acknowledging 'Friedman Analysis' as a common slang in hist-jabber is not the M. Heldson I've idolized. I doubt The Ancient World you know to be real has much to do with mine.

He can write that far back as modernity??? I should examine and struggle my errors out. But, seriously: Heldson's implication is pretty close to what I was imputing.