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So when I tried to organize my thoughts on Pelorian religion, it quickly began to spiral out of control. For the moment, some thoughts: I interpret Pelorian life as centered around the polis (or, going by the featherwork in Six Ages, perhaps the altepetl of Mesoamerica is a stricter analogy, but that's quibbling) and the region. The poleis generally share the common Yelmic religion, the regions outside the direct control of the Poleis generally maintain their own customary religions like the worship of SurEnSlib, Vrimak, Gerendetho, etc. We also know that Weeders and Mudders had to be officially declared human beings by the Red Emperor Artifex, and that sources consistently distinguish between Dara Happans and "Lodrilli" even if, like Argrathssaga, they have clearly very little idea about Pelorian life as such. So to this extent, I define Dara Happans as the people who are permanent residents of the city, and "Lodrilli" as the people of the various countrysides, and then of course additional groups like the wetlands Weeders and Mudders, Arirans, and so forth. I think that you can divide the idealized DH social order into three groups of people- the diviners or star-seers, (associated with Dayzatar), the workers (associated with Lodril), and the nobles (associated with Yelm). But we know for sure that Dayzatar's priesthood is tiny compared to followers of Buserian, (and potentially Polaris and Ourania), who are the devolved gods of his particular role in the universe. And we also know that Lodril's "ten sons" are the gods of the basic working tasks of DH society. And so it is not too far to suggest that in the cities Lodril priests are rare compared to the cults of his ten sons. And in turn, I think that the direct Yelm cult, as opposed to the devolved gods, is fairly rare. Yelm Imperator or Yelm Justicemaker is probably a face of the god that is only ever approached by the heads of outright noble families, and instead you have assorted devolved entities (like Arraz) which the majority of the DH noble men actually worship in their day-to-day lives, appropriate with the particular job they're doing. But the thing which binds the polis together is the city-god and city-goddess (except in Glamour and other Lunar-founded cities, which I suspect have one divinity which fills both roles). I suspect this can be mirrored for women's religion- Dendara and Oria are supreme entities that most people only approach through "subcults" or specific emanations, which are largely unattested or consist of single names/figures on the Gods Wall. In the countryside, Lodril fills the role of Yelm, in being the source of justice and order in the universe, shading over to Pelanda where he becomes one of the High Gods in his guise of Turos, and Yelm/Brightface is a subsidiary deity. And then the regional deities provide the same kind of social structure as the city-god and city-goddess. As people go through their lives, they pass through the various subcults, and so it's expected that older people will eventually understand their deity enough to initiate fully. What exactly does this mean in RQ terms? It's fairly conventional, I'm afraid- my thought is that most people are initiates only in subcults, in rules language, and so only have a handful of highly specific spells that are almost useless outside a narrow context. So if we were making conventional Dara Happans or Darjiini or whatever, I would suggest writing out a "Yelm" cult, a "Lodril" cult, a "Dendara" cult, etc. with a full panoply of Rune Magic, and then giving NPCs a single Rune spell and common Rune magic and possibly fewer Rune points (since, after all, they are expected to move between subcults) and the vast majority of their magic is thus beyond the scope of normal gameplay. The city-gods I would hold as "lay member"-focused cults, with a handful of priests who have dedicated city-magic that mostly takes the form of such exciting spells as Discern Zoning Violation. I would also suggest that these subcults generally do not have full priests, and they're reliant on priests of the parent deities for most religious ceremonies (the parent deities do grant full access to their magic) and this in turn forces a reliance on the paterfamilias and materfamilias in that it's older people, at the head of the family (or at the head of the patron family) who have this ability to lead worship. Beyond that, I don't really have much in RQ terms, just a lot of breathless speculation/inventive effort that's deeply unorganized as it falls out onto the keyboard. EDIT: My immediate motivational thoughts for this were as follows: Sartarites need to remain the "Kingdom of Heroes", and as such they should have access to a more potent form of magic than many of their neighboring cultures, but rendering it as initiation/non-initiation seems inaccurate on first glance, as it produces the idea that it's rare for people to directly draw upon the divine for magic and the majority of people in Glorantha practice spiritism (this also guides my thoughts on Malkioni magic and sorcery). And for DH, it helps reinforce the hierarchical nature of society to have it be such that the lofty gods can only be approached by lofty people (this is entirely a cultural effect; witness Avivath) and so ordinary people need to approach the gods through their ordinary children and servants, who are the equivalent of RQ/HQ subcults. And in turn, these specialized subcults are ones people are expected to move through frequently. The overall effort is to create something reminiscent of the religion of classical antiquity but with the broody oppressiveness of Old Dara Happa looming to provide a contrast to the freewheeling Lunars.

Well, I mentally classify countryside people as Lodrilli/Weeders and only the city folk are fully Dara Happans! I think this probably deserves a full topic in the Glorantha forum though, where I can expound on my theories of Dara Happan religious life, haha.

Well, there's some overlap because Heortlings have a fairly homogeneous sense of what masculinity and femininity entail. "Everyone" is normally initiating to Orlanth/Vinga or Ernalda/Nandan because all the dimensions of masculine ideals are from Orlanth and all the dimensions of feminine ideals are from Ernalda, with Vinga and Nandan as extensions of those ideals. (This is one of the most entertaining aspects of Orlanthi- everyone is expected to be a worker and a fighter and a leader, all within the scope of a society which has substantial divisions of labor! No wonder they accept Trickster, Disorder is a chronic aspect of life.) I would say that, and this is somewhere between IMO and IMG, the big defining cult of adulthood for Dara Happa is actually probably the city god/city goddess. Of course, these deities don't have the same kind of scope/Rune magic as Orlanth or Ernalda do, so specialized cults are the order of the day in accordance with your social class and social circumstances.

Hypothetically, they may have accepted some kind of Lunar Truth about Yu-Kargzant that the traditional tribes reject completely. (And in turn, the abandonment of Yu-Kargzant by many Pentans after the Nights of Horrors might be due to another revelation of this truth...)

Historically, although regrettably I can't find the source now, about 10% of the population in Medieval Europe appears to have never had children. That's in the real world and without any relatively outre measures that are within the potential of described Orlanthi society. I think that the total percentage of non-reproductive people in a clan is probably less than 10% on average.

An Element Rune is a kind of physical substance. A Form Rune is a kind of shape you can be in. A Power Rune represents one of the basic opposing forces whose conflicts define the universe. A Condition Rune is any other fundamental force or entity, but technically they're Runes which only exist as modifications of other runes (so the sub-elemental rune of Light is on the Condition tree in the Guide to Glorantha). The differences between them are mostly relevant to sorcerers, because spirits and theists aren't directly fiddling with the Runes, they're fiddling with things that emerged from the Runes. So, say, using the Command technique on the Fire Rune allows you to order around the kinds of material phenomena, like fires, which emerge from that Rune, while using the Command technique on the Beast Rune allows you to order around the kinds of beings that have the Form of the Beast Rune (animals), and using the Command technique on the Motion Rune allows you to order around the processes of change and motion in the world, and using the Command technique on the Communication Rune allows you to order around the power of communication and interaction between different people. Or, in practical terms, you would have spells for cooking safely over a guttering fire, spells for driving livestock, spells for keeping your wagon's axle running smooth, and spells for understanding the thick Safelstran accent of the trader. I don't know so much about what the Magic Rune does for you if you've developed it. The Infinity Rune, though, signifies that you've contacted the infinite if you're manifesting it obviously. Everyone that's a capital-h Hero has the Infinity Rune. That's a passive thing, it's a signifier that you've become part of the world outside Time. Using it actively, well... the description is that you can totally control energy flows in an area and magic only works on you if you want it to. The best way to describe this is via the Battle of Pennel Ford. Harrek charges across the front of the Lunar line in order to find Greymane and beat him to death. The Lunar army has their Yelm priests bombard him with every Sunspear they've got. When the light fades, Harrek has merely had his armor melted and is substantially angrier, and then a few moments later every Yelm priest in Kethaela and Dragon Pass has their head explode. That's what Infinity can do for you- it can allow you to shrug off the wrath of the Sun and turn it back on those who delivered it to you. Harrek, Jar-Eel, Androgeus, and a handful of others are some of the only people who can use Infinity to that extent, though.

It's officially called the Hunger Rune now, I think? And the main reason for that is that Zorak Zorani zombies and Ezel's army of the Esrolian dead aren't Chaotic where vampires and ghouls are. So there's "undead" things which are an acceptable part of the universe, but the "Undeath" Rune is a blasphemous warping of Life and Death and so it's renamed to express the hunger for blood/braaaains bad-undead have. Chaos can be used as an Elemental Rune, but Chaos can be used as any category of Rune. Usually, though, IMO the typical Chaos cultist is using it as a Condition, because drawing on Chaos as a Form or Element is a good way to start dissolving into gorp, and drawing on it as a Power, well... *points to vampires*. Any Rune can be used for Chaotic purposes, but the Lunar Way will eventually teach you specifically how to draw upon your Moon Rune for that. The Magic Rune is a symbol of the communication between worlds. The Moon Rune is associated with balance and reconciliation between opposites. So by having a prominent Moon Rune in your makeup, you're already naturally inclined to be balanced between your Otherside self and your material self. You're also going to have an easier time learning diverse magic because you're prepared somewhat for the process of reconciling contradictory things. The Moon Rune is also associated with insanity, but one of the key principles of magic is Glorantha is that it's not a sane or rational thing if you're doing something impressive enough. To heroform, you need to convince yourself completely that you really are the incarnated god or hero, so completely that no one can tell you otherwise until you're ready. To gain spirit allies as a shaman, you need to convince them and yourself that you are a worthy and equal partner, or successfully beat them up, which quickly becomes an asinine notion from a rational perspective. What, you, a brief ephemeral mortal, can truly be equal enough to Oakfed or the White Princess to gain one of their close attendants as an ally? And sorcery is all about outright commanding the Otherside to obey you, down to the point of declaring that you sit above gods as far as authority goes if you've got the chops for it. And of course, mysticism is entirely about discarding rational processes in order to achieve deep insights about the nature of reality. Now, ordinarily you would have several competing powers of the Moon that would help split these great powers down into something understandable for pitiful mortals just starting out. Instead, you've got Sedenya, and understanding her all at once will snap you like a twig, and then you have Annilla and Octamo and Artmal as much lesser but slightly more comprehensible Moon deities- at least right up until Sedenya waltzes on in and proves she's all of them, too.

Part of it is that Westerns and jidaigeki are drawing upon similar thematic elements- they're set in a time and place where legitimate authority is absent or distant and violence is part of everyday life, where a solitary figure or a small group of people can reasonably impose order on the world and be right. And so you see some similarities with knight-errant stories from Medieval Europe and youxia stories from China too. (Or for that matter, detective novels in the noir/hard-boiled bent- it's a fun game to watch Yojimbo/A Fistful of Dollars and then read Dashiell Hammet's Red Harvest shortly thereafter.) Another part of it is that jidaigeki is in its modern form a creation of the film and television industry more than novels and Japan was absolutely wild for American movies during the early part of the 20th century. So pretty much anyone making a jidaigeki movie when the genre was being defined had seen stuff from Bronco Billy up to about Stagecoach. And then after the 1950s the genres feed off each other substantially.

It's also odd that it seems to have been utterly ineffectual at actually defeating Sheng. Yara Aranis spends a whole Wane preparing herself to challenge Sheng, loses, loses so badly that Kostaddi abandons the Lunar Way completely and Sheng ascends as a star the very next year, and then appears to be a total non-factor in the Battle of Kitor... (Which appears to be Sheng invading Carmania rather than Magnificus reconquering Lunar territory.) Overall, the Seleran wars are fairly confusing. The Reaching Moon also seems to be a non-factor in the Nights of Horrors and the Redlands Revolt, for that matter. Perhaps Yara Aranis exists solely to provide the very specific Lunar Hell Sheng is chained up in? Edit: And the Glowline would be a byproduct of the human sacrifices that provide her with the power to keep Sheng and other minor inmates like Hofstaring Treeleaper contained.

This is from a relatively old source- can't remember if it's Thunder Rebels or SKoH, and I'd be perfectly fine with discarding it for generally accepted Glorantha. It really doesn't make much sense, after all.

I think this would only be true for Sartarites and for a period after their arrival in Dragon Pass. Maybe Volsaxi too. (Belintar made use of the Moon Rune for the Holy Country, so I don't think he'd be especially fond of Heortlanders doing this). But a period of about 300 years of infanticide would be traditional enough in the real world. But it's entirely possible that most anti-Lunar folk beliefs only postdate the Lunarization of Tarsh! That would be a very rapid cropping up but such things have happened in the real world too.

Traditionally, a child discovered to be strong with Moon or Chaos (or presumably Hunger/Undeath, although that would be even rarer!) would be killed. Pro-Lunar clans probably didn't do this under the occupation for Moon children, though.

Yeah. If the warrior women cults are just game-mechanical abstractions to allow women to play traditional adventurers while not being weirdos like Humakti and Storm Bullies or Lunars, then the restrictions are kind of 🤔. But if they have a Gloranthan reason for existing, then they're pretty much fun. Unicorn riders! Earthquake summoners! Women with bright red hair doing the Final Fantasy Dragoon thing with wind magic! The Kalin Kadiev (iirc) art of the Axe Maiden where she's painted her hands blood red up to the wrists and the rest of her arms the color of dark earth! All prime stuff!

Well, I have my own theory, namely that the seventh soul is the representation of Chaos within the self. But it's also possible that it's seven as in one better than the completion of six elements and six forms, or seven as in one fewer than the eight powers and thus near-completion. Numerology is fun and frustrating, or, perhaps, funstrating.

Well, I actually see them as parallel. You can go deeper on either "track", (a surface level of the plower-and-sower role might well be what a friend described as her view of the prototypical Vingan: a sunburned woman sitting on a dock and fishing without a care in the world) and eventually emerge somewhere in deep mysteries.

Oof, BoHM is one of the gaps in my Gloranthan knowledge. Interesting that the large birds of prey seem to be divided in that way. Essentially, Trickster in Glorantha is much more a Loki or maybe Coyote figure than Reynard or Nanabozho or a "contrary". Violently self-destructive and only helpful because he's usually to blame in the first place.

Hawks, eagles, and falcons are most closely associated with the Sky, or rather with the Sun. Thankfully, the Orlanthi do have acceptable ways to mediate the powers of the Sky within their society (Elmal, Yelmalio, Rigsdal the Night Watchman), but a child with those kind of Solar connections would probably be marked for something. Priests and god-talkers would probably try to make sure that that something takes the form of "cast out from the Sky people and so of course we'll take them in as the hospitable Storm people". They may or may not succeed. I endorse all of this.

Not if it's a Storm bird, like waterfowl (ducks, geese, swans) are!

Depending on your game/story/personal vision of Glorantha, either 1) a divine vaginoplasty, complete with implanted uterus and ovaries (I think it's pretty well implied from various sources that the former, at least, is completely possible and so this is probably the most "accurate" answer if there ever were an official one), 2) the birth happens entirely on the Otherside via magic, 3) a phantom pregnancy that ends with an adorable giant snake/lizard coming into the stead with a bundled baby attached for delivery. (It could also potentially be a stork but I personally love the Ernalda/Earth connection with reptiles), 4) any/all of the above depending on the person. At the First Battle of Chaos, seeing the dead return to life and seeing the Red Goddess fly forth on the Crimson Bat, its eyes gleaming in all directions with enlightenment, its tongues drooling in hunger as it spotted the Carmanian forces, well, it spontaneously Illuminated a great many people, but in a way that led them to be heavily Chaotic and also crazy. Their leader became known as the "Mad Sultan". They proceeded to wander Peloria. Early in the First Wane, the anti-Lunar hero Jannisor Moonchaser managed to lure them into Tork, a region of Saird just south of the Imther Mountains, and seal them away from the rest of the world. The Lunar Empire has attempted to maintain this seal, though it behaves irregularly (as anything Lunar or Chaotic, and in this case both, will do) and expands or shrinks unpredictably, pulling people in or spitting out denizens. The first Mad Sultan escaped during the wars against Sheng Seleris, and he was the one who killed the first Mask of the Red Emperor for the last time (along with the last Tarshite king of the original dynasty). He currently lives in Dorastor with some of his followers. There are possibly other Mad Sultanates scattered around the Lunar Empire, though none quite as large or with as deadly a history.

The Vinga cult is said to be popular in Saird. This suggests that, like Barntar replacing Orlanth Thunderous, Vinga may well be a politically acceptable fig leaf for worship of Orlanth under Lunar rule (especially since the Red Woman iconography of Saird is presumably identified with both Vinga and Sedenya). Heroquest's 1st Edition is obviously an old source and in this specific instance is probably untrustworthy, but the Esrolian homeland in that book suggested Vinga was a major goddess for "foot soldiers" (as distinguished from the common "warriors" associated with the Thunder Brothers in that period of Gloranthan publications and their profusion of subcults). So we might well suggest that in relatively urbanized Orlanthi societies, the Vinga cult is socially important for providing a core of disciplined infantry for the city militias (and in turn the connection the most prominent Vingan, Kallyr Starbrow, has to Polaris/Rigsdal, takes on an intriguing aspect). King of Dragon Pass gives Vinga the blessings Pathfinder and Fyrdwomen, blessing explorers and allowing women to fight in the fyrd defensively. What do these mean, when taken together? That is, what does it mean that your clan has a Vinga shrine dedicated to a Fyrdwomen blessing? I will suggest, from these bits of evidence (popular in a more urbanized area, the HQ1 stuff, and KoDP) that this means your cult has a couple Vingans who dedicate their time to training women in fighting in the push-and-shove of shieldwall combat. I'm not sure what the Pathfinder blessing necessarily means, beyond Vingans possibly being ideally situated in steads and hides that are somewhat isolated from the tula (just like Elmali are best positioned on the edge of the clan's precincts). In other words, the subcult is distinct (albeit this distinction is an artifact of inertia) and not just totally absorbed in the way that Hedkoranth Thunderstone is because it provides unique social functions which clans find valuable. On the fertility aspect, there are of course levels of initiation, but I would suspect that someone deeply dedicated to Vinga not just in the warrior woman role but in the overall "performs masculine duties" role would have to worry more about impregnating partners than being impregnated after unprotected sex. Very much not something that should affect a player if they don't want to opt in, of course.

Yeah, if we ditch pronoun stuff, then I'm all for your view of Nandan!

Nandan really doesn't have much more information available. What information does exist (mostly in the form of old Glorantha Digest/mailing list discussions/arguments) is likely very outdated. From that information, there are kind of two broad interpretations possible: @Qizilbashwoman takes the tack that Nandan is the goddess of trans women (or more specifically those trans women who wish to take on a traditionally feminine role within Orlanthi society) and I, personally, take the tack that Nandan is a god of a complex nonbinary gender identity wherein the person is identified as taking on a feminine role (to the point of pregnancy and childbirth) while still also being masculine for other social purposes. It all depends on whether you want to keep the pronoun usage from older material consistent or not, and how you interpret the six genders of Orlanthi society. Beyond Nandan's involvement with gender identity within Orlanthi society, Nandan is also probably invoked for those instances when Orlanthi men have to take on a feminine role for whatever reason. (Title card for Gloranthan showings of Some Like It Hot and Three Men And A Baby: "The blessings of Nandan lie on this film".) Nandan also allows men and masculine people a route into the Ernaldan mysteries and rituals, but this is a very vague statement and I have no idea how definitive it will be for NPCs in future game products products.

The text is not clear/deliberately vague. However, Dara Happans divide the soul into six portions- the physical body, the life force, the fertility, the intellect, the shadow, and the awareness. "Heart and eyes", if they are not a literal reference, seem to suggest the life force and awareness (or Warmth Portion and Sight Portion, in DH terminology). Or, alternately, seeing someone come back with a drastically altered physical body and acting in a very different way than they had before.

Well, we know that at some point the Glorious ReAscent of Yelm was lost outside Alkoth and Yelmgatha recovered it. The big questions here are 1) when did this loss happen? After the Bright Empire? After the Dragon Sun? During the Yelm Is Not movement? Under the Carmanian Emperors? The time interval certainly seems like it needs to be longer than the Carmanians or Yelm-is-Nots as the cause. 2) How important is the Glorious ReAscent to solar worship? Is it the equivalent of the Kojiki? The Sibylline Oracles? If the GRoY is important for the proper worship of Yelm, then it may well be the case that Dara Happan religion in its current form is younger than the Lunar Way (though by only a few years). I don't think this is likely, but certainly it seems plausible that there's a religious reformation at that point.

Does this mean Clearwine is the Napa Valley? 🤔