Eff

Well, I mean more that the imagery that Sedenya chooses for herself is that of a peasant revolt throwing off the oppressors (along with the human sacrifice imagery, of course). And then you have the aspect that Takenegi doesn't have any independent source of legal authority beyond being Dara Happan Emperor, which then leads to the civil war after the death of Argenteus, as no one has any real claim to rule the Empire until Phargentes the Younger... Of course, the real reason here is that it makes for a great deal of Romanesque irony to have the idealized Lunar society be so beautiful in its egalitarian vision, and then the reality being massive latifundia, Roan-Ur, Moonburns, the Cult of the Crimson Bat. Like the contrast between Roman firm expressed belief in liberty and their meek acceptance of the destruction of the Republic (and also mass slavery, but that's slightly less hypocritical in the Roman's own terms...)

I mean, the Arrolians aren't too bad (until Riverjoin joins the Kingdom of War). And the Lunar Way lacking any kind of sovereignty rites in and of itself (and of course the sacral weapons of the scythe, sickle, and kopis being adaptations of working tools) suggests that the ideal form of Lunar government is probably some sort of democracy, or at least something as oligarchic as the Buddhist sangha in terms of decision-making. Pity that they had to go and adopt Dara Happan methods of government, then...

You can probably trace the high proportion of unfree people in Esrolia to the effects of trying to reconcile urban life with Orlanthi cultural customs. If freedom is something that's maintained by a continual state of low-level raiding to liquefy wealth...

Well, Esrolian city-states seem to be one step above tribes in terms of organization (or they have some way of organizing a lot of clans coherently into "super-tribes"), at least. Oh, yeah, "barbarian versus civilized" is a great way of thinking about the conflicts Orlanthi have with their neighbors in Peloria and Fronela and Ralios.

Of course, the model I learned in college (but which is heavily challenged) was a division between band/tribe/chiefdom/state. The central distinction here is the question of where authority resides- in bands and tribal societies, it resides in personal abilities and charisma, chiefdoms base authority on kinship, and state societies base authority on non-kinship formal structures. As such, Orlanthi might fairly be claimed to be tribal (certainly the tribe and clan are the most sustained polities in Orlanthi life outside of Esrolia), chiefdoms (kinship structures are dominant), or states (but the actual means of acquiring authority in Orlanthi society is via formal elections). How barbaric of them, to slip categories so easily. 😆

I think it's probably the fallout from a magical duel, yeah. She attempted to Lunarize Sorana Tor, Sorana Tor demanded a few things in return. Something similar probably happened in Oraya with the contest against the Pentan shaman, but there Hon-Eel seems to have gotten away less affected.

I briefly mused at one point (when considering a Reddit topic on possible Incan/Andean-aesthetic areas in Glorantha) that the pre-EWF Kingdom of Orlanthland might well have the kind of high-altitude terraced farms and carved-staircases-and-rope-bridges roads you'd associate with the Inca, or would if you're me, at least. And then I pondered whether potatoes are a Draconic secret- Dragonewts don't seem to plant seeds because all their crops are hidden underground! Of course, when they decided to wind up the EWF, the Minarian Memory Removal was therefore done to remove all memory of fried potatoes from human minds...

Thank you, thank you. I should probably get a blog or something to post this stuff on...

I have two stories of Etyries handy. One is sui generis, one is part of a larger work. 1) The Goddess's truest followers have always been the lowly of the world. Bandits, street girls, disgraced scholars, queens without regalia, followers of the Wasp God too waspish for Carmanians, madwomen who barter with spirits, slaves. Etyries was a merchant, and who expects much from someone who leads jackasses around by the nose for a living? And yet when she came before the Goddess, in those days when the Victory was fresher than morning dew, she started and nearly fainted, it is said, and the Goddess pulled her out from the line and said, "Here, she is a Natural!" She did faint, at that. And between her and Valare, that is how we learned what Naturals were. Etyries had all three of her eyes open, and all of them caught the Goddess's light. The unfiltered light of the Goddess, in those blessed days of the Zero Wane, brought madness to anyone who saw it, and Etyries was no exception. But her madness went deeper, and she saw further, and when she recovered from fainting, tended to by the Goddess Herself, she looked up and pulled out a coin from her purse. She held it up to the Goddess and said, "This I might have offered to you before, but I see now that it is a glamour, and so it already belongs to you." The Goddess, it is said, clapped Her hands and laughed and said, "You, I shall personally instruct! You are already well along the Way." Etyries learned quickly at the Goddess's side, and then she sallied forth and shared her insights with the merchants, the traders, the lenders, the tax-collectors, and the speculators. Some understood, some said she had gone round the bend, some merely scratched their heads and returned to their abacus. Etyries returned, frustrated, and consulted with the Goddess for a long time, and then with Irippi Ontor for a while, and then she spent her time writing and writing, even as she instructed those who had proved receptive to her revelations of the intangible. She wrote even as the Goddess ascended into the Air and wrapped the Mask of the Red Moon about her. Finally, a year before Yelmgatha died, she finished her work and apotheosized. It was an explanation of the Lunar Way in simple, clear language that even the most prosaic shopkeeper could understand. Unfortunately, it was so perfect that it apotheosized with her. And so we who follow her have been bedeviled with hecklers ever since. If you are lucky and capable and pious, you may be privileged to someday see it in her emporium on the Moon, and perhaps copy out a single sentence. 2) "Vibe Check!" The Goddess declared this many times. It was a frequent exclamation of Hers. Whenever She was introduced to someone new, after greetings She would often say this, usually gently tapping them on the forehead. Normally She would follow this up with some small words of praise. But She also screamed it forth just before Her scythe swung down on the Shah of Carmania. And after that, She was heard to say, "Terrible, just terrible." And this mystery confused many. One day when the Goddess was instructing Etyries on the proper uses of hazia, Etyries at last ventured to ask Her just what that meant. The Goddess giggled uncontrollably, fell over on Her side, and finally said, "I'm hungry, let's find something to eat." As they ate, the Goddess said, "This is what I look for when I say that. This is the fullness of goodness that I sought." And She kissed Etyries in delight. And Etyries finally understood, but she never told anyone else what the Goddess had meant.

Who do you think does all the grunt work of scribing and copying? Starseers?

Something that does intrigue me a bit is that starchy roots don't seem to have much of a presence in Glorantha as things currently stand. Manioc/cassava, taro, yams, sweet potatoes, and of course regular potatoes. Where might they be grown? Of course, given that maize was a lost God Time crop until Hon-Eel reintroduced it together with the proper rituals for cultivating it, perhaps potatoes (sweet and white) and manioc are also lost God Time crops, only awaiting some dedicated Heroquester to discover their secrets. And African/Oceanian crops have places where they would be likely to be cultivated in Pamaltela and the East Isles.

Hmm. I have fairly small-c catholic tastes, unfortunately, so I'd enjoy playing a pretty broad swathe of women in Sartar/Tarsh/Holy Country settings. Orlanth women/Vinga, Ernaldans, Issaries, Lhankor Mhy, Chalana Arroy, Humakt, Babeester Gor... those are the major player-characterish cults. I would probably my-Glorantha Ernalda and Babs a bit. Vinga is probably the most directly relatable cult to me, but that's because I'm also a somewhat butch lesbian and so the combination of masculine role expression and visible femininity (along with of course the intimations of women's homosociality, especially in older fan writeups) is very appealing. Lunar cults in general are also fairly appealing. I can't think of any that are specifically related to transness beyond a general appreciation for deliberate and conscious transgression in Lunat philosophy as a whole. I think my biggest wish would be a sense of where transness and LGBTness generally fits into Western cultures. Meriatan is probably gay, maybe bi, and that's about it, I think? There should be more about it in Peloria but I have a good sense of how to incorporate it into existing material subconsciously, I think. I think the only Heler iconography I can really remember off the top of my head is KoDP illustrations, yeah. Contemporary stuff is likely to be better just because of the more cosmopolitan influences going into the most recent art.

Some deities that ought to be important in RW mythologies are often surprisingly afterthoughts. Amaterasu and Susanoo, Sun and Storm, are virtually absent from ordinary Shinto rituals and it's rare to see them in shrines. Shapash, the sun goddess of Ugarit, appears to have gone completely without any worship as far as we can tell. Offering my own personal take as a trans woman, I think that there needs to be a lot of careful steps taken to flesh out Orlanthi gender (though the RQG core has a good starting position!) in order to strike a balance between using historically evident "constricted" expressions of variant gender (eg sworn virgins, hijra, kathoey, certain forms of being two-spirit historically) and providing something that allows transgender folks to play in Glorantha as ourselves. And Heler is of course tricky because most of the existing iconography is masculine.

And then you add Pella to the mix... Perhaps there's room to write a myth here. "How Orendara Sorted Out The Grain Sisters"?

I don't think there are any places where it's definite that rye and/or oats are used as primary crops, but rye and oats are both known in Pelanda, and I have a speculative construction of a three-tiered Pelorian agriculture with the rye/barley/oats (and possibly millet?) complex in the hills, wheat (as Pelora is the goddess of wheat to the Esrolians, which certainly suggests a connection with Peloria) in the flat country, and rice (domesticated wild rice rather than Oryza sativa, or maybe sativa is the third variety) in the river valleys, marshes, and floodplains. The hills would now to a certain extent be fortified with maize. Rye and oats are also both cultivated in Esrolia, oats are definitely cultivated in Maniria. Using RW analogies, perhaps Fronela cultivates rye and oats as their predominant crops, seeing as rye is the major staple grain in the cooler parts of Eastern Europe?

Obvious, Disorder is what happens when you remove the middle string of Harmony, causing the other two to get tangled. 😛

I have several objections to this. I'll start with the mostly purely Gloranthan one. Firstly, it supposes that the Lunar Empire performs a massive top-down social transformation within its borders, one which touches every single facet of daily life, solely and specifically for replacing the existing infrastructure of trade from the top down. This is completely uncharacteristic for them, and it raises the question of why they don't do this for any other facet of the Lunar Way, especially ones that would seem much more core to it than the question of which god the village merchants pray to to ensure their rice harvest makes it to market and fetches a good price. That is, why aren't they engaging in social engineering to crush Dara Happan traditionalism (which has been a frequent problem for the Empire!) or to eliminate slavery, or something? This ends up handing the Lunars a level of power they never really demonstrate elsewhere, and thematically disrupts the sense that the Lunars are trying desperately to balance forces that could very easily overwhelm them if they aren't handled properly. Secondly, there's not really any sense that the Lunars want to replace any gods beyond possibly Orlanth (certainly they suppress Orlanth's worship, but their rhetoric is about healing and calming him, not about eliminating him). In other words, if the Lunars make no effort to replace Ernalda in Tarsh, as opposed to explaining how Ernalda is related to the Red Goddess, and if they have a ready-made explanation for a Lunar relationship for Issaries, by declaring Etyries is Issaries's daughter, (or taking advantage of a pre-existing belief related to that), then why would they not do with Issaries what they do with Ernalda? Thirdly, I feel that this is something of a backwards way to approach things. If we see a pattern in Lunar deities where they more or less have a kind of non-overlapping magisterium with regards to the existing gods of various cultures, such that Irippi Ontor coexists with Buserian and Lhankor Mhy, Yanafal Tarnils coexists with Shargash and Daxdarius and Urvairinius and Humakt and Polaris and Yelmalio, Deezola coexists with Oria and Ernalda and Chalana Arroy and Erissa, Teelo Norri doesn't displace other youth and childhood deities, Jakaleel's spirit practices haven't wiped out existing spiritism, etc. etc., then why would we presume that a particular deity breaks the pattern? In other words, why wouldn't we assume Etyries is like other Lunar deities in that she's a deity that's been adopted and used for the purposes of running a multicultural empire that explicitly sets its ruling class apart from all the cultures that it rules and adopts specific deities that can be set above existing ones without creating problems? And then once we have looked at her from this functionalist perspective, we can develop the ways in which she fits this pattern. Fourthly, it's just not really fun to tell Sartarite and Praxian players, "Okay, here's this god of traders and rhetoricians and diplomats, but his cult was effectively wiped out and forced underground until this very year, (or is currently forced underground if you're playing at any point between 1602 and 1625) and all the cool stuff you can read about in the background materials... just doesn't exist anymore. It will all have to be reconstructed." And then there is no other option- Etyries isn't playable as of yet, and won't be playable until GaGoG comes out. It's bad from a "making Glorantha playable" perspective because it's taking core setting elements (most people are going to be reading Lightbringer stuff where Issaries is prominent as their introductory/early material) and severely restricting them in the most developed parts of the setting to play in. Fifthly, I do think it kind of degrades a major conflict in the setting. If the conflict isn't "Sedenya versus Orlanth" but "The Moon versus the Storm Tribe", the question of collaboration becomes a lot less complicated because it's a genuinely existential conflict. Ernaldans can't say that there's always another way when the Red Goddess wants to eliminate them entirely, etc., whereas if it's something where it seems like 90% of Sartarite life can go on as usual, just with some slight modifications to make Destor and Barntar the names you use in the ceremonies, then the internal conflicts within Sartar become much more mutable. Obviously this is less of an issue if you start at the default RQG date of post-Dragonrise, but pre-Dragonrise Sartar should be gamable and the conflicts caused by the occupation should be, and this is of course all my opinion, very much ones that aren't clear-cut for players, even if characters find it very clear-cut that Uncle Vengaharl did something unforgivable by going to the Seven Mothers temple in Wilmskirk for food for the stead during the Great Winter. That being said, I am only laying out my reasons why I find this perspective unconvincing for myself and arguing for why I think my take on Etyries is more fruitful.

I'm not sure that's the case. Apart from MGF as a principle, Lunar cults don't appear to generally displace pre-existing cults. Deezola doesn't replace Oria or Ernalda or Chalana Arroy or Erissa, Yanafal Tarnils doesn't displace local wargods, Irippi Ontor hasn't replaced Buserian. In general, Lunar cults seem to place themselves "atop" existing cults as a point of entry to the Lunar Way (and not incidentally form a kind of bureaucracy as a consequence). And we know that Issaries was the god of markets in Peloria before the Lunars, because Lokarnos is a god of wagons/tribute collection, rather than free trade, so unless we presume Etyries has completely replaced Issaries in the Empire, entirely unlike any other Lunar cult, I just don't see a Gloranthan reason why Issaries would be suppressed in Sartar. That being said, what does Etyries do that makes her cult a distinct one from Issaries? Perhaps Etyries focuses on the creation of large trading enterprises as opposed to the small individual traders of traditional Issaries life? (And of course the bookkeeping techniques associated with that.) So the markets will be sacralized to both under the occupation.

Some potential setpieces: - Large Pelorian cities probably take out the city gods from their temple and parade them around in a massive day-long celebration on their holy day. Our intrepid barbarian heroes have just managed to get away from the Unspoken Word, now they have to make their way through the party without being seduced by Lunar blandishments and still evading the pursuing secret police. And for some unfathomable reason, there's all these people carrying large panes of glass around... -The heroes, having run afoul of a secret order within the Lion Society, have been captured and put into the Basmol Ruins, to be hunted to keep the Lion Society's elite sharp. These ruins were made for lion-people, with lots of open courts atop buildings laid out perfectly for sunning yourself, lots of broad ramps, and so on. Will Rokar/Hrestol/Siglat/Arkat's guidance be enough to let them escape, or perhaps even triumph over their captors?

There are basically two options here, as I see it: 1) Dara Happan religion is like Hellenic and Roman religion and initiation is a province of mystery cults and not an everyday thing. This would require a great deal of elaboration to make work within Gloranthan metaphysics and with existing material which very much suggests Dara Happans use theistic emulation magic which RQ calls Rune Magic. 2) Dara Happans don't initiate like Orlanthi in that the overwhelming majority aren't initiated into adulthood into the same god's cult. Instead you initiate into the city-gods' cult at adulthood and then into particular cults associated with your social role and move between them as that shifts. Obviously, I prefer this approach, in that it retains a lot of the Mesopotamian and Classical Antiquity feel of Dara Happa and Peloria by making DH spiritually a collection of city-states bound by shared cultural norms and also works without having to stretch the metaphysics too much. And how this manifests is that the average Dara Happan has more specialized magic than the average Orlanthi does. So Dara Happans are generally better in their particular field than Orlanthi but not as flexible. (In a military analogy, the DH phalanx would be difficult to break with a frontal assault but the looser Orlanthi warbands would be more able to flow around it and attack from its sides and rear.) The broader question is that this would possibly push things into HQ1 territory with regards to profusion of cults, though ruleswise it seems simple to just have a citygod overarching cult and note a few specialized variants.

Other good euphemisms for Z-guy: Dronar's tick Horal's burden Talar's rash The Wicked Hydrophobe Of The West

And, to be honest, the elementalism breaks down completely if you're in an spiritism-dominated culture or Malkioni country. It's kind of a shame that theism has such a dominant presence in Gloranthan discussion online- there's at least three other answers to any given question about the setting, and while Lunar ones are usually unhelpful...

I mean, I think the issue here is that the elements used have fairly strong connotations. The idea of a calm storm defies the basic metaphors we use to understand the world. It's downright paradoxical. Obviously, there's calm air, so perhaps the Storm element should "really" be the Air element or whatever. But a lot of Gloranthan definitions are built around these basic metaphors. The Fire rune is technically the Sky rune. The Sky is the heavens. The heavens are above us. They're perfect and unchanging, reliable. So the Sky is better than we are and by implication demands we submit to it. So the idea of a rebellious Sun requires quite a bit of work to fit in (unless it's as a cosmogonic rebellion against the Dark or the Earth or whatever). So I don't like the "elemental civilization" motif because I like Glorantha because of how anthropological it is. That is, elemental civilizations in fantasy fiction are generally similarly metaphorical and so they become a kind of extension of a psychological state, especially for the protagonist. To pick on Avatar: the Last Airbender for a moment, it's not surprising that it's Water and Air fighting Fire's attempt to dominate the world and having to try and persuade Earth to assist with difficulty. There's also nothing wrong with that. But when Glorantha is running on all cylinders (and it certainly doesn't always do so), then it takes these externalized psychological/metaphorical conflicts and reintegrates them back into people's heads without sacrificing the externality. That is to say, it is easy to imagine the internal conflict between self-aggrandizement and self-sacrifice within a person, but in the Gloranthan mode that I use, it can also be shown via Harrek fighting Jar-Eel. So Glorantha is in a way a playground where we can explore sacredness.

Feel free to steal it! This becomes even easier after Argenteus dies- clearly, Moonson has turned his back on the Empire in its occlusion! (And if they make it all the way to the 1640s, they eagerly flock to Phargentes the Younger when he marches south.)

This is going to get deep into the mythological weeds very quickly. After all, does Sedenya's "struggle for control of the Middle Air" mean that after she wins people will all breathe moonbeams instead of air? Or is she trying to replace Orlanth in his metaphysical "King of the Gods" role, sort of walking up to Ernalda and telling her, "Babe, you could do so much better than this himbo" and lowering her sunglasses meaningfully? I have my own answer, but it's fairly deep myth and not really relevant to the lay Lunar unless they're of a mystical bent. Well, moreso than usual. You're using the default post-Dragonrise date for this game, right? 1625 or thereabouts? If you are, bear in mind that a number of tribes and clans embraced the Lunar Way. So a full-on purge of Lunars is not practical and probably doesn't happen. So if your character is just following a Lunar cult, Seven Mothers or whatever, you could be one of those, furtively worshipping in secluded services among the "collaborator" clans. Or if you're a Tarshite, the Fazzurite faction there is loosely aligned with Sartar while being strongly Lunar, which would probably force some official tolerance. If you're a full Heartlander (or at least from further north in the Provinces), perhaps you are a Lunar dissident. You've concluded (maybe after seeing the Dragonrise or Harrek's rampage or some similar Lunar disaster) that the Empire has it wrong, is misunderstanding Sedenya's will. Perhaps Moonson has been deluded by his wicked Carmanian/Spolite/Dara Happan/Pelandan/Orayan/Provincial counselors. Perhaps the current Moonson is a fake! You're probably not a pacifistic White Moon cultist, though. You may also have simply gone a little native and started identifying with the Sartarites. You might well be able to get away with it if you praise Orlanth loudly and publicly enough. (Perhaps you've determined that Orlanth has been healed, what with his Ring having all 11 lights in it again).