HeartQuintessence

Personally, I'd like to see more setting or character material.

I am a weird woman, and I want to see more things that focus on 'not heroing', or rather heroing, and cool stuff, that might not involve fighting.
Cycle of the year, the life of a clan, its trials and tribulations, but in the Tula and abroad, but not nessacerily the  active HEROWARS conflict. Not everyone can be Agrath or Jar-eel.

What is  Myrda - the Fordwife doing? (I literally just made that up, but I wanna know). What is she doing for her ,friends and neighbors, what about the clan's Tula and those strangers who have moved the next valley over, their ways are strange, but her daughter has taken a liking to one of them foreigner girls.

 What about those things? what about the animals in the care of the stead or, the local spirits? The clan has come apart , the wyter is gone, and someone needs to do SOMETHING!.

 Those are things that I wanna see, hearth- and-home...
 

Aww so they won't be available ever again. . ? *Sigh*

Does this exend to things like Thunder rebels and Storm Tribe ( getting rebranded?)

Excellent points:

I tried it once, and honestly the system, just feels clunking. The way its written makes it hard to  keep the flow up:

Ex ( from a game I played)-

 We were going from one ship to another (boarding essentially) and the system just felt awkard. I've only played one game of it with 6 players (as a 6th), but I found that making the decla4rations and scenes were trickier to  get people on board with ( and this was someone who enjoyed Fate games)

So, I love the world, but not so much the system, anyone have suggestions?

Thanks @Rick Meints That cleared that up. I thought I'd missed something.

Oh no. I backed, that's why I am confused.
I realized that Secret Society came out (to the public), but then I realized I didn't get an DT rpg-link for it via backerkit so I am more or less confused.

But I know that John Wick Presents, allowed Chaosium to publish the rest of them.

No sexual dimorphism? So they're all a standard height and weight?
No curvy little inn-keeper matron ladies, or taller  slender more Gal Gadot esque ladies?

No middle sized women with round mid-sections, and arms that can potentially lift stuck calves and  herd onry goats?

None of that variety and diversity? I don't know what I'd do if my character's biological sister wasn't her visual polar opposite . Where as Elham is tall (like nearly 5'7), and very brown skinned with dark black very very curly (like afro hair), with green eyes. Her sister  is a little less intense looking and sports more typical orlanthi brown hair, longer,  and more broad shouldered.

Interesting.
 

Ok as much as I love  the world of Theah, (omg the 2nd edition books are marvelous), I don't enjoy the system as much, but does anyone know whats going on with the kickstarter fufillment via backerkit?

It seems  Secret Societies is out ( and while its in my backerkit) there's no Drivethru link for it?
Anyone else experience this?

Alsoi I am super excited for Vactine City and... The New World book.

Ok

Content Warning: for talk of biological female anatomy and magic.

https://www.thewhoresofyore.com/sex-history/powerful-women-and-magical-vaginas-by-heini-sofia-alavuo

I now cannot un see the idea of an Ernalda n woman climbing attoping the barn where winter cattle are  completely nude just before the end of sacred time and the men of the town shooting the cattle out...

Bad ass..

1 hour ago, Alex said:

Or none?  <shocked gasps>  Yeah, it does look a little like a wish to avoid unpacking the details of how the patrilocal (or conversely matrilocal) thing works in any detail, or to avoid the possible 'look' if we have a sudden swathe of semi-detached-seeming women (N)PCs.

Mind you, the sample character are adventurers.  That's a) a state far more "unnatural" than any of the aforementioned, and b) the unmarried kinda tends to go with that territory!

 That is an excellent point.

Maybe that's something to be considered. Adoption is highly likely in a world where community ties mean life or death.

My little personal clan's existance owes to this: Lunar, Orlanthi/Esrolian, Grazelander, the tribe forms because a bunch of unattached  women come together. Some are mothers, others are warriors, still others are herds and  keepers of hearth.
 

Why must women being 'unmarried ' be unnatural?
Though it does bring up the whole Matrilocal and patrilocal concept , if you are an outsider who becomes your new family and where do you live?

9 hours ago, Runeblogger said:

We need scenarios that explore exactly this. Your humaktis, babester goris, orlanth adventurous and storm bullies will be of almost no use, and the ernaldans, chalana arroys and issaries will take the lead.

Exactly.

I feel like I'll need to try and write both mythos and stories for this.

My tribe has this going for it: the girl-woman(?) who leads them to their Tula is (most likely going to be an intiate of Ernalda.

Though this does make me wonder if  Ernaldans, Chalana Arroys,  Issaries, Dendara(?) those types of societal roles are just as important.

Holding the community together, binding and trying to keep people for doing violence There is always another way."  for a reason.

2 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Yes, backward planning.

Because there are almost infinitely many possible women's initiations and myths.  So design the one(s) you want to reach the adventures you want to GM.

But don't make the women's initiation the same as the men's.  That would be boring.  You have decided passivity is not the essence of femininity.  I don't argue with you, as I am married to a  non passive woman and was borne by one.    

Now decide what is. 

 

Thanks for that vote of confidence.

Though this does spark my interest:https://andrewloganmontgomery.blogspot.com/2021/10/sex-gender-and-orlanthi-running-riddle.html

 If you have not heard Tolkien's the Lay of Beren and Luthien, I present this to you:

If you have--- then  great, anyone got any other  Glorantha Love stories, that are not Orlanth wooing Ernalda?

I realize this is a weird thought, but  in riffing on my Women in Glorantha thread and the more 'at home stuff', it made me starting thinking about things in the culture that we don't think about that often.

We know Gloranthan courtship has a few steps, and ids distinct from just going for a roll in hay.
So we're Looking at Glorantha cool love stories and courtship rituals:

Redala & Elmal
What of Yelm and Dendara?

I like the idea of of the tattoos being applied magically (broad strokes perhaps are applied(and visible if a magical ritual going on) but to have them show on skin they must be applied manually

I thought I'd bring up this gem that the great creator of Six Seasons in Sartar brought up most recently : as is it pertinent to our discussion: https://andrewloganmontgomery.blogspot.com/2021/10/sex-gender-and-orlanthi-running-riddle.html

If biological sex (female/male)  by Gloranthan standards something seperatre from gender (like Ernalda, like Orlanth, like Heler, like Nadan, like Vinga, like none), which is very different from modern thinking and that's a bit of hurdle to cross perhaps. That is part of it.

When I played in a Six Seasons campaign briefly, I ended up being the only female player, and the only female character ( who ultimately turned to be 'like Ernalda' to th point that post initiation she was /green/ and her twin sister ended up being more like Orlanth and being /blue/ ., but now contextualizing it did give me pause.

It was done partly because I got be a very very 'sassy' ernalda (like telling Yelm, to sit down and be quite, this my kitchen and I will food, to whom I want... can't tell me nothing, sun-lord! Servant I may, but a Queen I am. ), I also tried to step out of line a bit  while "She sleeps she is not dead" is central to being like ernalda, a girl shouldn't have to be passive ( and no gloranthan woman is just waiting for stuff to happen to them- that's boring).

Being like one of the deities, in shape, and mimicing their actions is fine for a ritual purpose, but I started to think about how characters should and would react to the world around them.

My clan (Glimmer Hearth/GlimmerRock, the name needs more work) for instance- its proto clanness in 1610 is all women ( maybe a few boys and a few men), so you had a lot of women who were so inclined to do  formerly male designated jobs, and  without many adult men,  the rituals for boys couldn't really be put off, as the men had to construict new rituals ( this was a collection of people thrown together).

The girl-rituals in my clan always start with the words "Who Calls to you?"- always even boys start with those words, and unlike the very gendered rituals, the clan starts their ritual a place between (between a field and forest, between the mountains and the sea (yes my clans tula is weird and probably not in dragon pass if its by the sea- I guess).

The reason I've come up with is that the clan, acknowledges that a person's shape & gender may make themselves known in other ways. The clan sets forth object representing some of the major divinities ( and sometimes lesser ones will make sure their presencent known).  Its more or less about helping the person conciously step foreward as an 'adult'.  Though sometimes a person doesn't know- and they can answer that don't that's fine. if anything that is just what the tribe is about varience and outsiders.

I think the Women's ritual is going to have to be more elaborate when I get around to writing it. Looking at the Well of Dailath: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/gloranthan-documents/greg-sez/ernaldan-initiation-rites/

Greg made it clear that woman hood has few options, that undergoing female initation is being initiated into the Ernaldan religion and lasts for weeks it seems like.
So this is something I wanna try and write a initation on ( that is different)

(Ok early morning thoughts over)

This does know make me realize my clans vale may have true decesndants of Hippoi living in some Pegasus,  some unicorns, some regular horses,  some sea horses (or at least fish 'tailed')..

Oh now this is turning into MLP (My Little Pony).

But this does ultimate make Redala into a more interesting goddesses.

Its something that women and feminism in Glorantha aren't given enough credit for diversity of divinity-I blame the Godlearners.

But so many good back to 'root-Ernalda, or Esrola, or Aesralia, and dont/can't be too distinctive on their own and I think that's something we as a community can and should emphasize.

The little girls who play around as Esrola, as Vinga, as Redala in their childish games, the ones who play as Nevala, or a sky child, or battle their brothers and male cousins.

That is something that I wanted to bring up. In this thread: community and what women do, and how they do it.

On 10/15/2021 at 1:19 AM, JonL said:

Let's toss some more attention Redalda's way. She and her followers manage to buck (so to speak) a lot of these dynamics. Feminine + Fire. Riding through hills & plains with the wind in their hair, kicking ass and upholding Truth, yet also being comfortable with matrimony and life centered around upholding a community. There is no contradiction between tending the hearth and defending it. In particular, I love how her & Elmal's partnership involves the two of them doing things together and supporting one another hand in hand in a way that is very different from Orlanth & Ernalda's dynamic.

This too is womanhood in Sartar.

(Must... resist... urge... to start... Elmal... vs... Yelmalio argument...) 

 

I am going to admit that I totally wrote up a blurb that's called the "Bridle Rite" (yes the pun(?) is intentional)- For The my little clan's not Golden Eyes, are a gift from Redala herself- which required some people to legitimately get turned into horses (Loki-style- I never thought I'd say that).

But it helps to re-inforce that horse- and rider relation, that the pair needs the each half to be 'whole'. (honestly I also just straight up wanted to play with the 'horse-girl trope' because someone pointed out that "horse-girls" tend to be stand ins for budding female sexuality and the horses are standins for boys.. and then that just open up a whole can of mental ideas.

But Redala and Elmal is a good partnership non-the less.

Anyway this is turning into a great discussion.

Since my Women in Glorantha thread ranged all over creation (literally), I thought I'd create a place for to talk abou something that got a lot of traction.

Ways to do other interesting things in Runequest Glorantha other than combat, that are more than just simple dice rolls.

8 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

So Heart Quintessence, are you interested in creating a new thread about how to game social mechanics?

 I think we should.

On 10/7/2021 at 8:46 PM, Squaredeal Sten said:

Some of that emphasis on combat is in the life experience, or lack of it, of the players.  That example of convincing the clan chief is a wonderful example:  Why must it be the clan chief?  How about convincing the ring or the clan or tribal  meeting?

If more folks had experience in politics they would do that by lining up votes before the meeting, which requires many interactions and many orate or regional lore rolls.  Accumulating favors and debts.  Maybe some work identifying the various interests of the various parties, then some gift giving, flattery, log rolling, and occasional bribery. Finally turning out the vote: Whether by persuasion, oration, or inviting them to a barbecue, you make sure your votes attend the meeting, even though they have to walk from a far-flung clan tula to Clearwine.   

You didn't really think the vote was decided on the day of the vote, did you?

And if more GMs had that experience they would structure the scenarios to accommodate that sort of solution.

But that also takes players who don't view politics as boring.

Me, I recall getting thrown out of a campaign because my character spent time doing things like giving a local girl what amounted to a scholarship to study at the Ernalda temple, thus building goodwill.  Evidently the GM and other players regarded that as a waste of time. 

 

  Bringing things back on topic:

Women in Glorantha are usually explained as being 'non-fighty' (i.e. non-Vingans) and  kept into their Hearth and Home positions, how can we use that then to highlight the world of glorantha?

As this thread ticked on it game me  pause. I started this thread partially because I was unhappy with the 97% of rules in the RQG book being 'combat', but it also made me think about how women characters aren't in the foreground as much.

Vasana's Vingan, her sister Yanioth is an Ernalda, but Yanioth's position as an Earth Priestess (is she a full priestess?) ( Initiate?) isn't really brought up more than few times about how Yanioth did something temple related, or Earth-y Priestess-y related.

Now I legitmately had fun in an NON-RQ (GURPS 4th ed) game,  where like the person above I adopted an NPC, the gm totally just made a 1 off- character (a little girl who took to my Isekai'd character, and when she realized she had an interest in knowledge, helped to shape this girl.

She taught her to read basic words, she realized she was a WIZ a math, and this later became a plot point. (Ms. Isekai and the girl went to the local lord's manner, and the girl noticed that the accounts of the grain for taxes were just plain wrong.

None of the men expected her to beable to do math or read, they assumed she was a dumb farm girl. And she used that assumption to get a closer look at the books. Because my character had promised to 'apprentice her' and was using her as a local guide.

But you know what that was the most satisfying thing *EVER*.

Not at lot of combat in the Broken Tower campaign (It was a lot of fun, a lot of silly a lot of cool moments of my character being thrown off by a big mercenary dude who was hired, and totally was hitting on her (and yes she did end up marrying him in the end, becoming a big shot 'wizard lady' and help to fix the worlds problems --eventually--..

But it all started because she was a non-combat character dropped into a world that had thought it needed her. (like she accidentally got isekai'd).

But it got me thinking about how a women are even in Glorantha sterotyped and maybe we should all be looking towards building better scenarios, better fiction, that show cases women, homelife and the general craziness of living in a town or steadding.

I know my own little clan's Koza (magical sheep-goats) their first ram is called 'Chief Bronze Hoof' and even though I only ellude to it in one of my fiction peices. It got me thinking, Earth Initiates have Tame Swine (I think), and I think Tame Sheep, belongs to Nevala (Thunder Rebels), even writing a scenario where Chief Bronze hoof escapes and communes with someone might be interesting.

Going to take a breath here,

but do we know of any mythos that is active for women? Non-Vingan?

I recently read this critque of the Penny Arcade comic "The Tithe"   and it hit me.  This too exists in Glorantha (of course it does it was created mostly (at its inception) by men).

But it made me think: in Glorantha, a girl travels through the green age (mostly for Sartarites) gaining her Souls to emerge on the other side knowing of the World and her place and her power in it.. She sleeps she is not dead.

Passivity in  way its finest.

It urks me.

And it got me thinking.

What if we flipped it, straight up Women become Active and the men passive.

Women become Fire, and Air, Men are Earth and Darkness... what happens? Then if we literally  try and place the men into these non-active stories, where they become.  Where men are called?

It maybe time for more writers to consider this? Active earth, and Darkness, not sitting not waiting moving towards something, instead of being rooted.

Maybe its just me being stirred up but realizing that Vingan at least in Sartar culture is one of the few 'active' outlets for female characters.

Maybe Chalana Arroy as well, but only Vinga is truely active and participatory in /things/.

5 hours ago, Alex said:

Bear in mind that Dendara is a Fire-pantheon deity -- or her myths are Dara Happan accounts of a particular Mask, if you prefer -- and the Solars are hellaciously hierarchical.  The Orlanthi likely see the same myths as oppressive and illustrative of Yelm's tyranny.  (Lots of hierarchy in Orlanthi society too, mind you, but likely less overall.)

 

Those are -- apparently -- rarer among the Orlanthi, but that certainly aren't a Glorantha-wide stereotype.  Yelorna.  Nyanka.  Xiola Umbar (not exclusively an Uz deity, there's the likes of the Kitori too).  More lunar goddesses than you can shake a fist at.  

 

I think I quoted someone else as saying that, but my sense is that their query -- or rhetorical point -- was in complaint about "too much cults, clans, and society stuff these days!", rather than a gendery one.  Had she ever troubled to get initiated, in runic terms she'd seem very Vingan with a large side of Sandals of Darkness to me.  (If the latter is canonical these days, or is in the future.)

That's an good point, the more we talk about the way each society views its women, it does start to bring up how much we don't know.

We have no myths, no legends, Orlanthi and the DRagon Pass vs. the Lunar Empire are the focus.(for so much of Glorantha).

I'd actually love to see more on Esrolia (I know I know its an 'eventual project). But I wanna seen Darra Happen mythos about women. Yes its an extremely patriarchal culture. Esrolian myths about its goddess and women would be a nice change.

Part of the problem I see as a female gamer ( and player) in my RPGs is that the little boys get cool myths to  play. (I mean  play for children is remembering).

Boys get to be Orlanth, and Ermal and dozens of other male deities to embody, if a girl wanted to play, she'd be told to be Ernalda, and then be told to stay with the steading.

It kind of occured to me that so many of these things we never really see or acknowledge. The lives of the female characters are seperated, and Griselda only 'stands out' because she eshews female things (sort of) and becomes a real Adventurer.

Honestly,  the commen about it being too much 'Clan, Cult and Society stuff' is thag I may have helped to kick out into the open because I was knew, but its also important.  Glorantha stayed with it s war-gamey fighting roots and yet still managed to tell us so much about the people at its heart.

We should ( and at least through the Jonstown Compendium) are showing that the clans and societies these characters come from do indeed shape them.

 My little Tardis-valley clan is probably one of the funkiest things on the boards here (because its all over the map), but it got started because I asked myself as a writer : so what happens when a group of women form without many any adult males for its formantive years ( the 10 years between them living on borrowed/given land and then realizing they must leave)?

An entire clan of whose Fire, Air, Water, Earth runes actually matter. Men are luxury for them, their living legends include a Neval Initiate who pulled off a Heroquest (how's that for a cool idea, didn't think the little Sheep Goddess from Thunder Rebels would have such a cool idea attached.

Admitedly I realize that I have a long long way to go in make them a good people, but it go me thinking about how women with little male help would thrive. and these are women from very different groups the clashes of culture, but need for survival in sisterhood is important.

Question to  the Tribe:

We have discussed  Women and Runes, and how they are perceived.

What about Goddesses?

Dendara is often viewed as Ernalda's  overlord, Mistress., while Ernalda does all the work in  Yelm's realm (raising children, managing the house hold).

Is this an expectation of  Glorantha women, that the women in the house hold will defer to some kind of  'overmistress' and that is proper?

Cause in my one stint as a initate of Ernalda in a glorantha game,  Ernalda- took little shit from Yelm ( and never spoke with Dendara.. which does make me wonder, why Dendara isn't more featured in Ernalda's myths. They are both women, and yet  it seems that Dendara is forever just 'Yelm's trophy wife'. She's there to look pretty, bear his children and little more.

I would figure that any cult write up is gonna hopefully expand on her. But I am tired of the same old narritive of women in fiction being, demure, baby producing, housewives.

Now they need not be  Vinga or Babesteer Gor or Maran Gor either... but I always feel weird htat there is such a strong.. dichotomy, of Earth women, and Air women.. we hardly hear of Fire, Water, or Darkness or Sky women..  of a female girl being born in Glorantha and lacking the sterotypical Earth rune, but perhaps a fire rune with fertility still strongly present. That should produce some interesting characters.

Just lets put aside the Orlanthi 'all' for a moment. lets talk about those women shouldn't always = Earth.

The more I thought about it the more it made me think a woman with Fire/Sky, Fertility, and Harmony- change the one rune from Earth to Fire/Sky and that should produce a completely different sort of girl.

She'd buck trends, and probably lack the associated 'firmness' of an earth aligned sister.

The whole 'Men are active' /women are 'passive', needs to go away in Glorantha.  More fiction about non earth women please.

More building about it too, because  something I noticed is that when making characters the moment you deviate the more interesting and harder it becomes because social, customs, and cultures are ultimately design to work a certain way, and without precedents most women struggle.

I think it was said someone in this thread or one of the other's I'd started ' Does Griselda have a place in RQG?"

Silly rant over.

A little necromancy never hurt anyone now did it?

But bringing this back did make me think, that RQ/Glorantha's someway dated/gender essentialism (at times) especially in older materials that kinda gets reinforced through cults is annoying.

I.e. Vingans are Warrior Women, not Ernaldan, if you want to do that, then go join Babester Gor. There should be more flavors and nuance. Though I suppose some of that is to allow the players to decide and build things.

But new players to Glorantha would struggle to make choice or sense of it and I've found, Glorantha to be a little stuck sometimes- for its female players (and it characters).

My admitedly Sterotypical  Ernaldan Priestess while undergoing initiation, was basically a 'sassy ' Ernalda, and it hit me, why are Glorantha women portrayed in cerntain ways.

We've discussed Runes, but what happens when Runes on a woman, are not typical. an Orlanthi might have a Moon Rune, and as  while women in Glorantha don't nessacerily menstruate (monthly, apparently depending on who you ask)- it does bring up the question: If you're a woman with non-standard runes how does this effect your life?