Sir_Godspeed

Glorantha is incredibly well-suited to subjective realities and unreliable narration, imho. People's cultural upbringing shaping how they see the gods and spirits, how they see the Hero plane before them, how those they meet respond to them. What works for them and what doesn't. And of course, how those cultural upbringings can be altered and innovated upon. Great stuff. 

Keeping things kinda vague and mythical and mystical is a great fit for Glorantha, imho, because it helps reinforce the point that this isn't world where magic is something clearly separate from the ontological underpinnings of the world, but rather is fully incorporated into it. 

I think some replies here have misinterpreted the OP, maybe. I think OP is pointing out that Glorantha is well-suited to remove the false dichotomy between "magical" and "mundane". It's not that magic is real. It's that reality is magic. Or maybe I misinterpreted OP, lol.

In Glorantha, every last fibre is inherently magic in some degree, to the point where trying to divide the magical from the mundane is sorta... pointless. Instead, what you end up with are degrees of magicalness, or rather, degrees of exclusivity or awesomeness. The sun and its light is literally magic. The soil you step on is literally magic. Speaking is magic. Scratching your bum is a magically significant act. But, obviously, sometimes, some folks are able to do stuff that goes beyond that and does the truly spectacular like firing bolts of lighting from their hands or jump several miles or turn invisible. But at the end of the day, that's not inherently different from the magic that lets a cow birth a calf or water replenish your strength. IMHO. 

And it's probably not a coincidence that this non-dualistic worldview is one that is held by many animistic and polytheistic societies throughout history. The world is alive, it has a intention and agency, and is something you can communicate with and bargain with. Glorantha is probably the most well-realized fictional setting that incorporates this aspect. 

Apologies, I think I'm talking in circles, it's late over here.

20 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Are they wrong to do so? Are Hunter’s “sons” distinct from Hunter any more than Orlanth’s “daughter” is distinct from Orlanth? Applying the razor — as any good Lunar should — aren’t the names of Hunter’s sons just names for Hunter, as “Vinga” is (even if we don’t like it) just another name for the Big O? I mean, it is not as if we believe every land has its own distinct goddess, is it? 😉

IMHO, I think it's less that they are separate entities in and of themselves, but rather that the Agimori traditions can differ significantly from Genertelan Foundchild traditions. Can we infer Agimori traditions and beliefs by looking at Balazari and Praxian Foundchild beliefs and traditions? I have no idea, but it's an interesting question at least.
(that being said, they've been in the area for over a millennium, so SOME cultural drift is bound to have happened.)

On 1/8/2024 at 3:54 PM, Ynneadwraith said:

Yeah it really is very good.

Some more neat things I've found while wandering around the web.

Ancient Tales of Chukotka is a neat compilation of lots of folklore from north-eastern Siberia, including quite a good description of who the Chukchi are as well. I feel like it would be good inspiration not just for a lot of the 'Big Myths' that Glorantha majors on, but also for a lot of the 'little myths' that should probably exist all over the place. Things like stories of regular folk outwitting murderous witches, or just having spiritual events happen to them. I like to think of them in a Gloranthan context as a thousand little 'mini Hero Cults' as someone from a cultural group doe something especially impressive and has their story retold until it becomes part of a clan's mythology.

Also generally, with most of the written action in Glorantha occurring in relatively temperate climes, there's a real itch to scratch for 'Gloranthan-Siberian' peoples living near and on Valind's glacier.

They also have some super-neat armour concepts:

This is great fodder for my entirely counter-canonical North Pentan Storm Muskox people.

On 3/22/2024 at 1:08 AM, Ynneadwraith said:

All it needs is a hint that the Storm Tribe of old used to practice ultimogeniture. Spin a myth that Umath did not want to inflict the hardships of his childhood on his own children. The eldest were strong enough to fight for a place within the world, but the youngest should be cared for with a place of their own ready for them (unlike his elder siblings Sky and Earth, who took all the space in the world and left none for him).*

 

No need to invoke a set birth order. These things are flexible. In a Ragnaglari/pre-Chaos Broo mythos, maybe Ragnaglar was the firstborn. There's no need for a 1=1 relation between different mythologies. 

On another note, while Thed and Ragnaglar are associated with goats, it also seems like Ragnaglar may be associated with antlered animals like elks, moose and reindeer? This pops up in the Six Ages video game, and in his model for the Gods War tabletop game. I'm not sure what the basis of this is, but I'm interested to hear if anyone knows anything more.
 

1 hour ago, Ynneadwraith said:

Interesting idea. Syncretisation of Yelmic and Orlanthi beliefs into a shared narrative where Orlanth is both murderer and saviour. Both the cause of the sun's setting each night, but also its rising with the dawn. Yelm's most loyal servant, who dared to follow his Lord's orders and slay the Relentless Sun, providing the respite of night to his baking mortal subjects.

Well that ended up a bit more Gospel of Judas rather than Set, but interesting to think about anyway!

I suspect the broken Council/Bright Empire might have taught something like this at some point.

One major theme of Glorantha, that of Storm vs. Sun/Sky is pretty likely derived from ancient Egyptian myths. Orlanth is akin to Set/Sutek, and Yelm is Ra or Osiris. The fun spin is not only the change in landscape, but also the typical reader's sympathies. It's as if Stafford went "okay, but what did all of this look like from Set's perspective?"

Ooh, that's very fascinating!

A bit late to the party, but keep in mind Orlanthi culture is clan-based. Use extended families, in-laws, cousins, aunts & uncles, third-cousins twice removed, etc. for all it's worth. Do you want a reason for the PCs to go somewhere? They've got a relative there. Or they can accompany a relative there, a well-connected adult who's got business or a mission, or is on a pilgrimage or virtually anything.

Combine this with the differing cultic affiliations to add a secondary dimension. Do you want the PCs to get involved with something in an area? Someone there is active in the same cult as one of the PCs relatives. "Oh, you're Ghirrigan's kin? I know him well, we both spent a good deal of time financing and building the shrine to our god here. C'mere, I know somewhere you can stay. Tomorrow we will talk with my sister, she'll know about that thing you're looking for."

And of course, sometimes this will be a sham. 😉

1 hour ago, Duff said:

My Glorantha miniatures. Click on the image to go to the collection.

 

I am in AWE. I saw the studs on the lamellar or whatever that was, holy crap. 

And your non-metallic metallics are fantastic.

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

It has always been part of Glorantha. The actual Dragon Pass is tiny compared to the wider Dragon Pass that surrounds it.

2 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I knew that Dragon Pass was named after an actual pass, I just never knew there was a huge f***-off skull nested above it. How is this not on some book cover somewhere, that's metal as hell! XD

Woah, wait, the ACTUAL dragon pass has a giant dragon skull over it?! I am just learning about this now! Is this still canon, or is it just a specific version that Oracle cited that might be no longer canonical?

Also, on another note, since this is apparently the only crossing possible - is it heavily fortified on either side, or is the "only" a bit of an exaggeration?

This is cool as hell, well done!

What if stars in Hell are primarily infrared? 

Incidentally, what do Lodril's volcanoes look like from below?

Wait, newtlings are herbivorous? I'd at least assumed they were omnivorous like humans, basically. 

So they don't fish or gather clams or anything like that?

On 2/17/2024 at 10:29 PM, Tatterdemalion Fox said:

The first step is to walk like Waha until Waha walks like you, is it not? (The second step is to be in concord that, yes, kicking ass and taking names is one of Waha’s dance steps.)

Mantling, hell yeah!

Dont they look to Top of the World as their primary sacred site rather than Kero Fin as well? Or is that a generalisation?

Shucks, rarely have I received such glowing recommendations. I'm happy to have inspired something. ^^ 


As others have mentioned, the Monomyth we see in writings appear to be a result of a historical syncretism that took centuries, perhaps first occuring in the Lightbringer-First Council era between Heortlings and their Elder Race allies, and exported and expanded with the Lightbringer missionaries. Then, perhaps later, there's a Bright Empire syncretism that marries Orlanthi and Pelorian myths into a somewhat cohesive whole. 
This is what the God Learners latch onto, and just... turbocharge. Monomythical concepts and narratives appear to be exported to virtually the entirety of Glorantha, and appear to be internalized so thoroughly that it's hard to envision them never being there. 
Or maybe it's a case of the writers just needing SOME level of common ground. 

But we do find "canonical" cultures that buck this trend. If you want to get into a brain-twister, the Entekosiad features some example of what we might call "subaltern" Pelorian traditions, that are less interested in the Monomyth, and whose roots are in the Green Age rather than the Golden and Storm ages. This is the area of painted men naming the animals species and the Pale Queen ruling the cosmos and abstractions of heat and matter transforming again and again. I wouldn't make it my FIRST Stafford Library read though. 

In Revealed Mythologies we get a glimpse into the East Isles Vithelan mythology, which also generally bucks the monomythic trends. One of my favorite aspects here is that they don't really have a Greater Darkness apocalypse (well, sorta, but not completely), but rather an illusory empire that is snuffed out of existence with the Dawn. It's not completely opposed to trends in the Monomyth, mind you, the East Isles still struggle with rapacious sea and storm gods, and does face Chaos, but it unfolds differently than in Central Genertela. 

I'm also tempted to look at someone like Zzabur's perspective on things. He's got some... ideas on what has actually transpired. 

As for my own writing, since the Yggling stories, I've also tinkered with a completely-invented North Pentan Muskox people's myths, which admittedly kinda follows some monomythic motions, but from a very different perspective than the Theyalan Orlanthi. 

A more radical departure is also a sort-of Shargashite Heresy I've been brainstorming. I like taking ostensibly one-dimensional things and going "ah, but actually it's really deep and profound" and seeing where it can take me. The idea was to make Shargash a deeply tragic character, a once noble and vital figure that self-immolated in grief into a fell and terrible bringer of vengeance with the death of Yelm. The Only Loyal Son. It's super counter-canonical, but fun to think about.

People aren't generally optimizers, but "sufficient-izers". To borrow from economic theory, we're usually not "Homo Economicus". Our understanding of choices is limited, our perspective flawed, and the amount of effort we're willing to put in to achieve some goal is definitely limited as well. 

A lot of cults in Glorantha probably survive because they are "good enough" for their worshippers, and changing cult to something potentially more materially optimized would just be too much hassle. 

(and to reiterate what Jeff said, cults aren't just packets of spells, they're communities that open up social benefits.)

17 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

You don’t actually say that the Devil is lacking in cunning, but the juxtaposition suggests it, so let’s run with it.

Two kinds of stories/fantasies:

1. The Devil is made out to be stupid and Everywoman can trick him (no Mensa membership required).
   The giant ain’t all that and any Tom, Dick, or Jack can take it down.
   — The story’s version of the threat is smaller, so we can feel bigger and safer.
    
2. The Devil is very tricky indeed, but with a bit of luck and a following wind is fooled.
   The dragon is as dangerous as feared and then some, but the dice are kind, the heroine’s high-risk strategy comes off, and it is slain; the best models still say that 99 times out of 100 the dragon eats.
   — The little person wins, but the story is more exciting because she should have failed.

(There are, of course, other kinds of stories.)

Perhaps the second story is always in danger of collapsing into the first.° Probably Goliath never stood a chance against David. But games are a safe space to fail: the players aren’t going to get eaten by the dragon, so the characters can be allowed a big chance of getting toasted and eaten.

When we are playing “my god is bigger than your god,” we should take care not to judge a god’s power by its achievements — the gods that make it to the altar are the gods that got lucky: 100 other gods of the same power and with the exact same play book/character sheet went straight down the throat of Kajabor, but no one remembers them.
 

—————————————————————————
° For good reason? We don’t want it to be dumb luck that the heroine wins, so the temptation is to make it plausible that she wins. The way to fix it? Show that intelligence went into improving the odds: this is the best strategy — idiots lose 9,999 times out of 10,000 — but it is still a losing strategy more than half the time, maybe a lot more than half the time. “It is a slim chance, but it is the only real chance we’ve got.” Maybe.

Controversially: it probably also took less to impress people in the past, because gigantic virtual spectacle driven by a professional class of story-inventors and special effects people wasn't a thing. So St. George killing a dragon the size of a RL Nile crocodile was plenty impressive enough. Someone outwitting the Devil with some clever wordplay or practical jokes was plenty impressive enough. The idea of villains with plans within plans wasn't all that common.

And ironically, these more down-to-earth feats could relatively easily be paired with ludicrously massive events like a global Flood or someone killing the sun because a cosmic sense of scale was not only less understood, but more malleable and plastic. 

Or in other words, the devil is as smart as the storytellers need him to be. The hero is as strong as the storytellers need him to be.

How does this affect Glorantha? Not sure, but imho we can take comfort in that stories, even of "true" events conform to the world-understanding of whoever is transmitting the story. I'm sure the conflict between Orlanth and Yelm feels more grand in a literary urban culture than among a band of hunter-gatherers, even if it still boils down to "storm killed the sun".

4 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

If that were accurate then the militia would be the same percentage of. all adult populations, except as they may have more elderly or fewer males survived the last war, or more females participate.

Not really, there will always be people who'll need to stay behind to care for said elderly, or care for young children, etc. Now, granted, some of those will themselves will be the older kids and the comparatively more able-bodied and clear-minded elderly, but there'll always be a minimum of "regular" adults. 

Then there's the the need to care for the animals. There's just no avoiding that. Older kids can do a lot, but you'll still need some adults. 

Lastly, I presume some potentially-armed adults need to stay behind just to guard the stead. At least attempt to prevent counter-raids, or keep watch, and so forth. 

There's also maintenance. Things still need fixing, producing, collection, etc. 

There's also food. A mustered militia can hunt and forage, but they'll probably have non-combatants helping out with cooking and the like. If it's anything like medieval armies, that number of people might be equal to the actual militia, but I'm not sure how comparable that is. An area will quickly become drained of edible stuff, so some food will always have to be transported, so that requires manpower too, and unless it can be gotten by looting the enemy, then that also means draining the foodstores back home.

I could be wrong, but as I understand it, the actual potential number is probably closer to 30-50%(??) of all adults (a larger percentage for the males, lower for the women), and that's for a *short* period, admittedly. After a relatively short time, this becomes unsustainable.

Divine genealogies are essentially maps made by mortals attempting to chart out how divine powers relate to each other. They're descriptions of what relations look like to mortal perception, rather than necessary encompassing the relations-in-themselves. They are effectively analogies. 

It's a bit like referring to a company as a "daughter company" of another company within a larger concern structure, even if that company might actually be older than the parent company, it just happened to be bought up recently. Or when a less powerful king would send an envoy to a more powerful king, addressing the more powerful king as "father" and himself as "son", utilizing the analogy of family relations to succinctly capture their diplomatic positions. Or it's like looking into light and finding out that it behaves both like a wave and as particles, depending on how you approach it.

The simple answer to the above is: they're all true, but not in all contexts. Sometimes it makes sense to approach the relation between Ernalda and Esrolia as sisters, other times as mother and daughter, other times as something else. 

"Family" is essentially an analogy that scholars of Glorantha (and the real world!) found useful because it is both familiar and intuitive, and it is quite flexible. But it probably is not flexible enough to capture the mind-boggling complexity of divine interrelations - which ultimately is sort of the point, I bet. 

I'd argue the same is also true for divine gender in Glorantha, or the social class of gods, or the number of arms they have, or their skin color, or their temper and humour, etc. etc. These are mortal attempts at filling in descriptions for phenomena which are just so, so, SO much more than humans could ever hope to accurately grasp.

To what extent do Storm Pentans WORSHIP the East Sting Wind (ie. Gagarth) as opposed to just offer propitiatory sacrifice?

On 1/21/2024 at 6:03 PM, Malin said:

Yeah, I am loving Glorantha so much! The Grain goddesses sadly gets so overshadowed by Ernalda, maybe I need to sit down and think about some myths there eventually...

It's not so bad, the Grain Goddesses ARE Ernalda in some sense, just like Ernalda IS Asrelia or Voria or Gata or Imarja or Maran and so on. 

From what I know, in regions outside Central Genertela, Ernalda will often be worshipped under the name of the local Grain Goddess, ie. Seshna in Seshnela, Ralia in Ralios, etc.

22 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

• Rurik has become a Rune Lord of the Sun Dome Temple.
  — RQ2 Classic (PDF, p. 61)

But the RuneQuest ur-character wasn’t averse to a broadsword (ibid, p. 143), right? And if they never used swords, anyway, “never use a sword of any kind” (Cults of Prax Classic (PDF, p. 57)) wouldn’t be much of a geas, would it?

Rhett Butler, Rhett Davies, … it’ll come to me in a minute. 😉

I am working off comments made by others here, if characters can use bladed tools, then that's good. It's not a prerequisite, it just feels like we're avoiding handing someone an in-universe idiot ball just for the purpose of being "thematically consistent".

I just don't like it when writers seem to go "OH, so it's an elemental based logic - welp, better make EVERYTHING based around those lines" and turning it into a somewhat absurdly stereotyped setting. It has so many examples of cultural cross-pollination and outliers and synchreticism that I don't even think it fits Glorantha.

tl;dr: I don't think some mythical darkness origin of wasps should be enough to justify some kind of primal hostility between wasp-riders and Yelmali if more pressing and practical historical and contemporary issues makes it useful for them to work together. Also vice-versa.

3 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

I don’t know, but I suspect — going meta — that it is just a result of some designer assigning insects to long ago (because they went “creepy-crawlies — ugh!”). If you want to keep that, but your campaign still needs the Wasp Riders to seek allies against trolls who wish to attempt genocide-by-picnic against them and their trusty steeds, you can call on Xiola Umbar as someone who can — canonically — bridge the – gap through friendship. (AA attempts domination; ZZ introjection — thereby “birthing” Shargash?)

Like when someone decided that the Yelmalions don't use swords because swords are Storm-aligned weapons, and spears are Sky-aligned weapons? 

Gotta admit, not a huge fan of simplifying things that much.