HeartQuintessence

3 minutes ago, Bohemond said:

One thing I've wrestled with in terms of making women's stuff dynamic and interesting for players is the fact that Orlanth has lots of 'cool bits'. For example, he's associated with poetry (and I wrote a myth about how Orlanth Stole the Ale of Poetry from the Bright Emperor). One can do a variety of neat things with the idea of Orlanthi poetry--like Bronze Age rap battles and so on. Orlanth has his Six Virtues--Hospitality gives us a chance to do the Greeting Ritual. Generosity allows things like Beowulf-style ring giving. 

But Ernalda doesn't seem to have a lot of comparable things to that--things that would make players say "wow, that's neat! I wanna be able to do that!" For Ernalda to be really equal in terms of playability, it seems to me that Ernalda needs similar cool bits. She doesn't, for example, have a comparable list of Virtues and practices connected to them. In other words, stuff that adds to 'on-stage' play and makes an Ernaldan player feel like she's in a Norse saga or something comparable.

So what cool bits does Ernalda have? Any thoughts? 

Ernalda is Queen  of the Earth, I feel like she probably has or had those things prior, Poetry- I mean what power of nature whether it is for woe or weel, does not inspire the  words to lip into existance and be created, summoning forth images and and game sometimes.

I honestly would give Ernalda Virtues and  other things take them for Orlanth and  rework them (if I knew what they were), saying she had them first or they perhaps share them.

45 minutes ago, Eff said:

I have some very vaguely developed ideas about how to throw even more wrenches into the works by introducing gay marriages, in the form of an adventure/scenario where the PCs have to resolve a dispute between the different clans over who's going to move in with whom. Unfortunately, I need a better grasp of RQ before it could even approach playability. 

Its such a good idea. If anything it could be simply looking at weighing who brings what to the table, in some reguards, maybe its not physical material wealth, but some other kind of wealth, a Heroquest they have  performed an  can teach the story of .

9 hours ago, g33k said:

The Derthofan family and the Guthwing family have been at each other's throats for a generation, and it's really holding the clan back!  Recently, the Guthwings have been garnering sympathy for their cause from a couple of other families, and the Derthofans' influential out-Clan relations have been grumbling about the Clan being unfair to the Derthofans', with corresponding consequences for trade and other relations and etc etc etc.

Things are headed for the crapper.

An old Grandma-Questgiver says she's had a dream, the clan must weave a Peace Tapestry.  We have special sheep to be quested-for, special Flax to be sewn and harvested, special dyes to be acquired, magic shears to be won from the Mostali, a loom blrssed to Arachne Solara (and where they gonna get them an A.S. blessing?  Off to Beast Valley!)  etc etc etc.  And Q says that every task will ONLY succeed if it has both a Guthwing and a Derthofan involved.  Questing, farming, spinning, dyeing, weaving, everything.

There is room for Ass-Kickery, but also a bunch of other skills will need to come into play (in fact, much more than the AK skills), culminating in some weaving rolls wherein some Chaos-Spirit (who has been behind it all along) is finally unmasked trying to sabotage the effort...

And at the end of it all, the Clan has their Peace Tapestry... but also grows the magical sheep & flax, with magic tools, and everyone has a stake in the Clan having the best weaving in Sartar!

THis is a amazing, I think this needs to be spun (pun intended) off into its own little scenario for the  the 'book'. Hmm maybe it really should be called  "Asrelia's Hut' - Gloranthan Femaleness- (ok maybe drop the sub title).

But I like the premise it turns all the things into really neat Heroquesting. I think we should also talk about how much  the women of the clans are its back bone - I mean I started reading thunder rebels last night, and on page 30 it talks about the types of marriage the Orlanthi recognize and this in terms made start thinking about how young women, might flirt and entince men- if  all marriages are exogamous ( in theory you're marrying no one of your own clan) - then by the  Thunder Rebels page .30  listing- which also states that it is exclusive and monogamous ( which we've positived  may not be always true).- we have both men and women moving about, which presents a complex issue for clans.

If your best cow-breeder woman is marry, how do you replace her? You can't really. Her secrets and her powers go with her lessening your clan.

i did.

17 hours ago, Darius West said:

Call your horse Roach.

They must always be a mare.

Oh  this has turned into an amazing thread once again. I am glad I reached out to the tribe. Makes me feel even better. Onto the quotes.

7 hours ago, Bohemond said:

I'm very late to this party--been offline for a couple of days--and I really love this whole thread. It seems to me that there are a couple of inter-related issues going on with Glorantha in terms of gender. 

1) A majority of those who have played in Glorantha are male because the gaming community skews male (although I think that imbalance is slowly evening out). Male gamers have tended to focus on violent conflict as the interesting story to tell. So the published scenarios have often focused on violent conflict as the obvious solution. Ernalda's 'Other Way' to resolve problems has often been an after-thought in scenarios, where it was considered at all. The number of published quests that are essentially non-violent is much lower than the number of quests that culminate in some sort of violence. For example, the three major non-violent cults of the Storm Tribe (Lhankor Mhy, Chalana Arroy, and Issaries) have one published quest each, whereas the violent cults have at least 7 that I can think of off the top of my head--Orlanth has at least 4 (more than all the earth cults combined). 

2) Fantasy literature (particularly male-centric stories) have compounded this tendency (although again, this has improved as fantasy has matured as a genre). When the average gamer thinks of fantasy stories, they probably picture orc-killing and the like. Women are usually positioned as healers and earth priestesses who need rescuing more than they rescue everyone else. Women are situated as 'home', which men leave and return to, defend, and procreate with, and the assumption that what women do at home when men aren't around is the boring stuff like cooking. So we have a lot of models for how to make male-centric activity (violence, mostly) interesting and few models for how to make women-centric activity interesting. RQ's elaborate rules focus on combat and hand-waving focus on things like cooking (the former is a long, drawn-out process with many steps, whereas the latter is a single roll) nudges us in this direction much more than HQ's system, which resolves all forms of challenging activity the same way (a Cooking challenge could as easily be an Extended Contest as a fight with a band of Broo might be).

3) The majority of people who created Glorantha (in terms of published material) have been men, and consequently their notion of what a truly gender-egalitarian society/religion looks like has been filtered through male assumptions about such things. That's not meant as a slight to Greg or MOB or Jeff Richards or anyone else--just as an observation. For example, Sartar becomes King of Dragon Pass by pleasing the FHQ and 'marrying the earth'. This nominally situates the feminine principle as superior--the Earth Queen chooses her king. But it's still the male Sartar who's doing all the cool stuff and the FHQ is just choosing from a slate of potential candidates, not going out and making herself the ruler of the Kingdom of Sartar. The whole ruling line of Sartar is men. Kallyr is an impressive female candidate for Prince of Sartar (apparently the first one), but her story is ultimately one of valiant failure, followed by the male Argrath succeeding. A truly gender-egalitarian society would have produced at least one Princess of Sartar in 150+ years. The 'active' earth goddesses--the ones who go out and get things done instead of finding men to do it for them--are both depicted as semi-monstrous figures. The Babeester Gor write-up in Sartar Companion positions her worshippers as nearly psychotic anger-ridden ball-busters (the classic trope of the Angry Woman in fantasy literature) and both she and Maran Gor engage in cannibalism (IIRC, MGs cannibalize their own children, another classic misogynist trope). It was left to Jane Wiliams to find a way to present a female warrior goddess who was actually a fully-playable and non-stereotypical idea of what a warrior woman might be. (Again, this isn't meant as a slam to any of the men who mapped out Glorantha. It's more a testament to the difficulties men have in viewing the world the way women view it.)

4) The decision to frame Sartarite women's religion as 'secrets' is problematic--it's discouraged the publication of myths/quest from the women's PoV. For example, the Making of the Storm Tribe myth is written so that it's clear that Ernalda was doing things behind the scenes, but we've never gotten a myth about how Ernalda Forms the Storm Tribe (although it seems that we've gotten a few peaks at it in Six Ages). If women are 50% of the population, their myths and quests aren't 'secrets'--they're just gender-specific knowledge, like how to weave. 

None of this is to say that we need to tear Glorantha down to the studs and make it gender-blind. One of the things I love about it is how deeply gendered the universe, because it's such a breath of fresh air from the Generic Fantasy Europe that most other fantasy RPGs are descended from. I love that instead of saying 'women can act like men', it's trying to create a game world in which men and women generally act differently. 

You can see a lot of this in the scenario that gave us the Humakt, Raven, and Wolf myth (off the top of my head, I'm forgetting the name of the scenario and don't want to bother to look it up). The magic spindle that the women need to perform a key clan ritual has been stolen. The solution is to do a violence-focused quest to get the ability to locate and kill the baddies that took it. If all goes well, the spindle is returned to the women, who then walk off-stage to perform the clan ritual that is supposedly the most important thing in the scenario. So the Spindle and the Mahomravrand ritual are actually MacGuffins--the thing the characters care about that the audience doesn't care about--and the quest and violence, which are nominally just the agents through which the ritual is saved, are actually the interesting bit of the scenario. There is no option for the women questing to get a new spindle. There is no option for Babeester Gor to go and get it violently (using her ability to track those who have offended the earth). There's no sequence in which the women actually perform the ritual, perhaps struggling to bring the clan back into full harmony. My point here isn't to beat up the author of that scenario for not writing a different one--it's a good scenario and I've run it three times.

My point is that the way we conceptualize a lot of what happens in scenarios (therefore shaping our sense of what happens in Glorantha) generally defaults to male-centric patterns. If we want a more gender-balanced Sartar (and a Sartar that is therefore a bit more friendly to female players in general), we have to swim upstream against strong currents. 

 

You my friend of my spirit, you nailed it, like I think you took what I had been running around trying to say and found words for it, perfectly. If this were reddit, there would be reddit gold involved.

But I do think this  what I have been trying to say so much of what women : 'Do is cloistered'. I am going to have to write a scenario where a young physically male child(but pre-puberty) sneaks into the ritual of his mother and aunts ect, and some how helps  and there for becomes effectively  initiated via helping, and so the ritual the becomes open to  pre-puberty people who wish to participate because their thoughts and ideas make leaps that adults sometimes do not make.

@Bohemond Peraps we'd best write up this Spindle mythos- ok at this right it sounds like I am gonna have to get a group together so we can produce this.

I do think  that perhaps there are some rites that Orlanthi men retreat into other spaces, for rites maybe that's part of things as well.

5 hours ago, Bohemond said:

Another thing that's always bugged me a bit as a gay man is the rather sexist nature of art for Glorantha. There are lots of naked women, especially woman showing their breasts, and yet very little with naked men. Sure, I get it that most gamers are straight guys so they like the occasional titty-show with their gaming, but it's just another thing that says that this is primarily material for straight men, not women or gay men. But this is just me grousing a bit. 

As a woman, I agree. I mean I know they covered up many of the Ernaldan priestesses the RQG book, (because the rules said so) but I found the  uncovered art to be tasteful and beautiful and yes we should have more men images, I mean, some Lunar lady with a cadre of cool male slaves (because that's a great image, but of course none of them are changed in an way, and they have weapons and they all look really neat).

Looks like this Supplement will after it written need some cool art.

5 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

There are other dimensions to this: as we've seen, very few male-"iconic" (ie. being dedicated to a male god with masculine iconography, etc.) is gender-limited, whereas it seems that we have a whole slew of female cults that are much more closed off. The way I interpret this is that there's been a focus on making the universe more "navigable" and open for female characters (and assumedly players), but with the thought in mind that it's men's areas (cults, etc.) that are desireable and prestigious, and thus need to be opened up. If so, this probably comes from the gender liberation in the RW, where women increasingly entered previously male-exclusive areas in professional and other capacities.

Problem is, it creates this weird, somewhat lop-sided image of Glorantha (or at least the Orlanthi) where men don't seem to have "secrets", men don't seem to squirrel off deep and profound mythical experiences - but women do. IMHO, it's a case of "thou doth protest too much". Ie. the relative openness of women into male cults and spaces seems more like an insistence that "it's totes not sexist, honest!". 

IMHO, it wouldn't hurt to have a few more ways for males (wether cis or trans or nonbinary) to engage with female secrets - and indeed, it wouldn't hurt to present some more myths or spaces or "secrets" of men (again, whether cis or trans or nonbinary).


Just to be clear: I'm not advocating some kind of return to a total bifurcation of society, but more one that acknowledges that the masculine identity and spirituality can be as sensitive, vulnerable, secretive, powerful and profound as that of women (which seems almost insisted upon to the tiring in some cases).

In other words: to make men seem less default, the solution isn't just to flesh out *women*, but also to flesh out (the peculiarities of) *men*.

IMHO I found this to be very refreshing when I first came across the artwork of topless Esrolian women in the Minoan style. It felt very desexualized and normalized. These women were topless because that's their preferred clothing, nothing more, nothing less. 

Compared to the "plastic-fantastic Barbie"-style fantasy artwork I've seen in A LOT of fantasy games, books, etc., Glorantha (at least since me exploring it from around 2016 or so) feels a lot more relaxed. 

Jar-Eel is also nude, or semi-nude a lot, but I tend to also view that as an analogue to Greek "heroic nudity", which is how Achilles and other mythical heroes are often portrayed. 

My perspective might be hopelessly naive, or a product of male gaze, I obviously cannot say, and if it makes people uncmfortable, and acts as a barrier to entry, then that's obviously a problem.

Excellent points all around. as I stated above- I think having an adventure  or two where people actively participated in  and engage in secrets in general of both sexes. A man being needed for ritual- but he  has to actually be in a particular mindset for the ritual that's not his normal - say a very 'gentle' guy being  turned into a roaring beserker-- random ideas are weird.

5 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

@Bohemond Very good points, I agree with most.  But modern fantasy lit or TV features many strong wonen, not sure what you have been reading...

One of our campaigns featured an extended "Rune Chef" competition, with the grand prize being the Claw of Gbaji.  The PCs didn't actually cook, but were involved in obtaining rare ingredients, protecting your chefs, harassing the opponents (some violence was allowed - you couldn't shoot an opposing chef, but you could shoot his bag of flour) and watching out for magical or other chicanery.  Judges were frequently charmed, bribed, or blackmailed.

So you played  "Battle Brigrade" in Glorantha, go it. I like that.
It depends on what Bohemond has been reading, there  are also weird subsets of books that make you go: Wait the entire point of this genre is for this women to have a polyandrous love life, but they all focus on her and not any of the other complexities that would come with this life, and all of this kinda grinds to a hault after she gets knocked up- I am not joking there are books on Amazon with components like that.

Also if Polyandry is a thing in Glorantha how does that work? I mean can woman hold the keys to multiple year marriages at once? Mind you the men are not brothers or related in any other formmat, they may even been opposing sides, like an Orlanthi lover, a Lunar lover and a  Grazeland  lover... (there is a story there that I am gonna have to write).

Thanks guys, this is getting to be really awesome.

But this is a book about Women and initian and power... Though i guess female ducks work and they deserve a place in the book.

Who do ducks worship? I feel their gods are distimce from the human ones...

Typos from Phone Typing. Fixed it.

Out of curiousity and to poll the community,

 WHAT DOYOU ALL WANT TO SEE IN THE  BOOK, at least i hope it'll be a book.

Wow deja vu all over again.

38 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Something that hasn't been mentioned yet, but which is worth mentioning: the main body of governance in Orlanthi societies is the Clan Ring, a semi-elected-semi-selected council. The Ring can have a variable number of members, but seven is pretty common. Regardless: all of these can be filled by women. There's nothing preventing women from holding formal political leadership roles in Orlanthi society.

This means that influence through informal (powerful women advising or cajoling their husbands) or sacred (temples, religious societies, etc.) are perhaps less essentially "female" than in most societies in real world history.

And of course; Ernalda is not the kind of queen who is queen only by marriage to a king. She was already Queen. The Orlanthi-cult origin myth makes her a concubine in the palace of the Sun Emperor by the time Orlanth found her and later saved her - but the Ernalda-cult myths (at least the ones found in Esrolia) makes it plenty clear that Ernalda is no one's concubine, and was already the Earth Queen long before she met Orlanth (even if he turned out to be a pretty great catch, all things considered).

Anyway, by contrast, there are a number of deeply patriarchic and chauvinistic societies who follow Solar pantheons which at least officially bar women from formal political leadership positions. In such cases, informal influence becomes more important. This split between formal and informal is a lot easier to pretend exists on paper than in real life (or in play), since pre-modern societies often do not differentiate between private and public, family and political affairs (and indeed why would they, if the primary political unit, the clan, is also at least conventionally, an pseudo-family unit).

Most of us here have our reservations about the supremely patriarchal Dara Happan culture, which is big on male gods judged by the degree by which they avoid sexual encounters with (lesser) female deities. However, by the time of the "present" in RuneQuest and HeroQuest, they have long been incorporated into the Lunar Empire, and their ruling class and imperial patriarchal solar cult have largely had to integrate with the Lunar Goddess cult, and while I hesitate to call the latter "feminist" (it's difficult to judge societies modeled after ancient societies by modern social movements), they do give women a great deal of legal independence and access to a great deal of religious and potentially political power.

This is great, it gives me an idea, for a character- though I am struggling to represent her a bit through RQG's history tables, but here's the rough version that's coalecsed over the last few hours:

-Child of the Hearthling Harts Clan (Ok that name sounds really kitchy and needs to change)

- Her family includes her two mothers- One a  Pure Horse woman Grazelander- 'captured via heroquest-   The  heroquest kidnapping may have been due to the Pure Horse Woman's lover being a Sartarite/Orlathi woman - The Grazelander Woman's  dowry was

 She is young yet- pre initiation (using RQG's  rules for inexperienced adventurers, though I may tweak things even more..)- as this thread was started to  create and develop a nice "Lady's Suppliment.

But opinions are welcome on the scant ideas I threw to the winds.

@Ali the Helering

20 minutes ago, Ali the Helering said:

Fortunate Succession has an indication of the different historical Pelorian forms of Illumination. 

Fortunate Sucession, that's the first time I have heard of this. Is this a book of some sort of a subsection somewhere?

3 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

I guess this is a side conversation, but as for gender: one thing we know, @HeartQuintessence, is that Jernotie (Jernotius, Jernotia, Jernedeus), a very ancient god of Illumination of Peloria and the mother-father of Oria and Dendera (Esrola and Ernalda), refused to choose a gender like all other gods. Some of the gods tried to slay them but ReDalaMa raised a seven-peaked mountain to protect their child on the Vosel - now called Mount Jernalf, the holiest site for the settled Pelorians west of the Dara Happans. I think this is a function of their identity as a primeval deity of Illumination, which eliminates difference. (Jernotie appears to be the only Illumination deity of the area that isn't Rashoran.)

Does that mean spirits have a gender? Well, I think they probably do have a sense of gender, depending on their level of sentience. A wyter? Most likely, although that gender could be like Heler's and shift back and forth. Look at the wyter's power and affiliation.

@Qizilbashwoman I maybe so new to glorantha that the  context of the above makes no sense to me. Isn't Illumination a  Lunar thing? How is there an ancient god of it?
I guess its best to say that the Wyter is the representation of the Hearthling Harts, this clan founded by women and orphans of the Greater Darkness and reliviing their story of their ancestors at the DragonKill. [I guess this is there 'canon' history now'].

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Little attachment to little attachments, yeah.

 

While having a bunch of grognards as a significant part of your customer base means an almost guaranteed number of sales to this bunch, it also means that you have to tread carefully not to tread too heavily on their sensibilities. I might be biased as one of the most vociferous of those grognards, but I think we are a fairly friendly and helpful bunch of old nags as long as our bbeacklog of Glorantha material isn't harmed.

 

The similarity is intentional. Yelorna is the star maiden, the main goddess of the unicorn riders of Prax. With Gloranthan unicorns being epitomes of chauvinistic arrogance, only (ritually) maiden women are accepted as riders by them, which makes Yelorna a war goddess for women with celestial connections. In a striking similarity to the Zebra riders, only a portion of the tribe rides the signature beasts of their tribe, as the (necessary) mothers and wives of the tribe must ride other steeds.

Yelorna is detailed in the classic RQ2 scenario box The Big Rubble, a companion piece to The City of Pavis, with both of them available as an omnibus pdf Pavis and the Big Rubble - one of the excellent, timelessly good and at the time of their publication ground-breaking scenario books which contributed so much to the popularity of RuneQuest in those days. Get the pdf...

 

 

Yes, we do have such people, and some of the myths have been adopted not just by the community, but even have wormed their way into canon.

And yes, a GM or even a player party can tell a story and (in cooperation with the GM) make it a "real myth". Glorantha is a setting full of myths waiting to be discovered, told, and be acted upon.

New myths should not discover a new Great Pantheon that rules over a significant part of the modern world - Glorantha is described in too much detail to allow this into a canonical version of the setting. (If you are fine with a not-so canonical setting with your own additions, there is nothing to stop you from adding such stuff, but altering the setting in such a major way makes it harder for people playing closer to canon to adopt it for their own games.)

On the other hand, it is fairly normal to discover a past culture or pantheon that did rule over a significant part of the setting, only to be destroyed by one of the known major players (like Chaos, the Storm Tribe, drowned by the Seas, eaten by the trolls, used as raw material by the dwarves, overgrown by the Aldryami), or simply dying out by exhaustion of their assets (like e.g. the Gold Wheel Dancers).

 

 

Doing things on a clan level has always a place in Glorantha.

 

A "clan without men" is possibly better described as an all-female cult or temple. The Unicorn Tribe of Prax (the Yelorna worshipers) are a non-Orlanthi example of such a society, even though they have males riding alongside the mothers of their tribe.

The Marazi amazons of Trowjang, an island beyond Teshnos, which is a fertile subtropical peninsula beyond Prax and Genert's wastes, have no men at all except for slaves and visitors voluntarily accepting slave status during their stay. The amazons are all the wives of their (planetary) deity Tolat, who visits them one night in the year and impregnates all of his wives who desire so (and who aren't cursed in a way that prevents impregnation, including the curse of old age).

Among the Heortlings, such a clan would be unusual in modern times. But if this is for the clan's founding story in the Greater Darkness, such a clan is quite possible.

Another opportunity to start such a clan would have been in the years following 1120 (the Dragonkill) north of Dragon Pass, when most of the adult male population had been killed by the dragons. A new clan founded from the widows and orphans left behind and without their normal providers could have been forced to make do without males for the first generation, at least.

But then, there is a biological imperative to find a method to breed new clan people, and unless you want to grant your clanswomen parthenogenesis, they are bound to require at least some males for breeding. If your clan is supposed to be Orlanthi, these males would usually marry the women, at least for year marriages. For the clan to be stable, these marriages would have to be matrilocal.

 

I don't suppose that you are envisioning a juvenile male harem fantasy (as found in dozens if not hundreds of shounen mangas) with that clan, but keep in mind that there may be an audience mistaking or mis-using it for such. You could of course play with that meme and invert it as a gruesome secret of the clan, but that is just sliding into the misogynistic Greek myths about powerful women abusing upstanding Greek heroes with their wiles. Again, I don't expect you to go into that direction, but it is another possible different interpretation of such a myth.

I would be very interested in such a take avoiding those pitfalls in the previous paragraph.

 

Reindeer are not usually living anywhere near Orlanthi, although the Ice Age before the Great Darkness brought them far enough south to interact with the Storm worshipers of southern Peloria. Having lived in northern Scandinavia for a while, I don't think that reindeer and productive agriculture of a neolithic to iron age level can mix, but hey, this is not the real world, and while in the real world deer better adapted to the absence of permafrost replaced the reindeer, why not go for a group of reindeer trapped on a diminishing island of permafrost and surviving through adaptation to warmer climate, possibly by allying to these women?

We tend to think of mammoths as shaggy woolly beasts, but the Columbian Mammoth of what now is the USA and Mexico was in all likelihood a pachyderm with as sparse fur as modern elephants. A reindeer variant with a lot less adaptation to the cold but retaining their antlers for both sexes is not that big a jump - adoption by Eiritha (or an equivalent earth goddess) might have brought this gift of surviving in a climate only rarely accommodating their strengths may work.

The variant species may be as threatened as the aurochs is in Dragon Pass. Or they may have been brought back by a previous hero. Bringing back an animal species is a common feat of notable heroes - Moirades brought back a songbird in his quest to woo the Feathered Horse Queen, Argrath is prophecied to bring back the aurochs (and The Coming Storm/Eleven Lights tell about a possible method), Enjeem the Leopard introduced (or re-introduced) her favourite large feline (also in the near future of the setting, despite my use of grammatical past). King Heort is associated with the White or Silver Deer, aka Heortling deer, a magical species that was important in the Great Darkness. With all these precedents, I see no trouble for bringing in the reindeer, with a little explanation/backstory.

 

 

THank you, this is making the  "Hearthling Harts" an interesting tribe.  I like the idea of the idea that the clan was founded by women who were widows and Orphans of Greater Darkness and then again a restablishment of "old methods' when the Dragonkill too many of the men : parallellism.

I don't think the Hearthlings are like those Marazi at all, though I imagine during the Greater Darkness  the Hearthlings took no slaves (that seems to be a thing that ties the Sartarites together, whether or not they took slaves during the Greater Darkness..

4 hours ago, Jeff said:

NANDAN

This daughter of Ernalda was born with a male form. She enables women who are biologically male to give birth and thus be eligible to become priestesses. She provides Pregnancy.

Many Earth cults have a strong gender connection. Ernalda is explicitly the goddess of women, and although men are often initiates of Ernalda, only women who have given birth can be priestesses. That's a magical insight needed for the deeper mysteries of Ernalda. Maran Gor permits men to become Dancing Women, but only if they have been castrated. Babeester Gor does not permit men to initiate into her cult at all (although they can be Lay Members). That's just how it works.

Orlanth is easier. Men and women can initiate to Orlanth, although men greatly predominate. There is an all-female subcult, which forms a warrior women subculture in Dragon Pass, but membership in it is not necessary for women to become Orlanth Rune Masters (although many women join the Vinga route as it provides resources and support for its members).

Other cults are strongly gendered - Eiritha, Ourania, Ty Kora Tek, Waha, and Yelorna all come to mind. Others - including Asrelia, Yelmalio, Lodril, Storm Bull - are not, although one gender or another may predominate amongst the membership.

Well dang, Maran Gor and Babester Gor are... well hard core in some ways. Good to know.

Also I am loving the fact that in a way none of the old material gets invalidated by newer stew (though the production values on the new stuff are TOP NOTCH  By Ernalda's bountiful breasts, "The Coming Storm" and "Eleven Lights" are beautiful to be hold... if I had more space and a book shelf I'd buy physical copies.

Ok so, who's Yelorna, I immediately see "Yel" in the name and go: "Any relation to Yelmalio?"

Do we have people who just write new MYths for Glorantha, and in Glorantha when you do that, does it take adoption by community? (see my Wyter questions at the top of Page 8? Or can someone simply telling a story and making it up  make it a real myth in the mind of those listening and so it can be performed as a HeroQuest?

I ask because I am considering building a Clan, who's Wyter are effectively Reindeer, a 'herd' of Reindeer, (at least in my mind. I think the tribe ended up with Reindeer-herd Wyters because even though they started in Earth Season, their clan making dance was not until Winter as was their quest to find the Wyyter ( which was initially because the grouping was made up of  young people, who.. thought they knew better. (I am not sure if this the official story).

Can one even start a clan without men or do we need both Genders? (Oh now I see how Glorantha becomes a rabbit hole).

Question:

Do Wyters(clan-spirits I guess), do they have a gender? Can they have gender? I know they mentioned  in Sartar Kingdom of Heros, but then in reading say Thunder REbels- which really goes into them (boy was Thunder Rebels eyeopening if, 'outdated' as others have said. But it opened my eyes to the world of Wyters.

Can a Wyter be created or born, formed from the collective quest to bring the clan together? Is there a clan-making ritual? Has it been written about?

Which I think got one of those 'pre-pub' versions at gencon.

Well that answers that question.

And with each question I ask, I get better equiped to answer my own questions and build my Glorantha slightly better.
Also I want God & Goddess of Glorantha out *[please let that been soon it sounds like we've been waiting for for 2+ years eve since Guide to Glorantha came out]*.

So now I am wondering if all this heroquesting stuff might present some new angles for women.

oh man , now I see why I keep returning to Glorantha, this scratches a mythical itch that I didn't know I had.. also--- Ernalda priestes turing a body of clay or a doll into a living child is.. um...impressive- also cool. Also wow that's one way to keep a tribe alive.

they need to give us RQG rules, or maybe just some HQG rules for Heroquesting.

Who's Redala and where can I read about her? Is she also in obsolete material and doesn't count?
Skimming through some of this material- what is up with all this shapeshifting in Hero Wars material?

Hero forming? Ok, please tell me more, because that idea just makes me go wait, in Glorantha you can do this by Heroquesting? Wait what? (like i know everything is mythical, but my brain is doing some real gymnastics to keep up with new information.
 

Could a man  wanting to Serve Ernalda as a priestess  simply take on a Heroquest and during that quest quest bear a child, cause like you said it seems impractical (not to mention exauhsting, I mean real child bearing just takes a toll, I can only imagine that doing it as a Heroquest is going to really be... intense.

Wait are people transported to the Heroplane physically or are they spiritually there? Is there a difference?

@Eff & @Jane Thank you for clearing that up, that's actually really interesting from a new person's point of view, like to have that mini summary.

So 1) Which early Glorantha '80s material can I find this in where the cults are not restricted by gender?

2) Where is there info on this Nadan cult? (I've heard a few people talk of it, but never seen any. More book suggestions please!

So this presents and interesting view point: and I ask all of my elder and more knowledgeable tribe mates for information on this topic cause this gets my wheels turning.

3) What are the compromises that  you all see?

Since I am really quite new, I think I kinda like idea  and may spin it this way:

a) Women and men can worship  Orlanth and Ernalda, and yes the subcults(?) Vinga (Orlanth as Woman, and Nadan (Ernalda as man) exist and maybe indeed  be the way  in which some Gloranthans  come into themselves and access the mysteries and their power.

But I don't think it stops men from worshiping Ernalda as Queen of the Earth, they just cannot be her Priestesses (because of the requirements, persay)

and I am not sure how it afffects Vingans.

Wait @Jane , can I get a little  clarification on that: You siad the RQG Clashes in what ways? Is this clash with prior material?

And what do you  mean 1 expensive book and the last 20 years of development?

I know Glorantha can and does ellicit strong feeling from various corners of the internet (the friend who introduced me to Glorantha for that matter).

I mean isn't the point of Your Glorantha May Vary (YGMV) to allow people to address those clashes at their own table and not necessarily have to have official stuff match?

Though I will agree that perhaps not mentioning any female Wind Lords is a little silly ( but wait are Wind Lords different from Vingan's which are different again from something else (Rune Priests?)?)

If this is the case then nothing 'clashes' persay, though I admit that having more material with female wind lords would be cool, front and center in official published material- so that way we can point and say: Yeah they  considered things!

That is a better way of putting it @g33k
 Also Hello!

Much easier.

man now i am really thinking about Women.'s myth, and heroquests and initatioms and  scenarios...

So this means that Grazelanders are living in the Dragon pass.

Cause tobecome King of Dragon pass you have to marry the FHQ who apparently has some  amazing fallijg and those women are like Ghngis Khan levels of... "i have stuff todo excuse me..." from what i read in RQG.

 So maybe ill work from a Sartarite, Grazelander, Esorloian perspective and write some qomwn, s myths.

No this is great.

@scott-martin

 wwhat god is this?

Well i guess the Orlanthi people are mired in their religiousity.

Is there a book about Prax and its culture? Because thenimage of thFethered Horse Queen is interesting...