Sir_Godspeed

"Sex is easy. Marriage is hard".

On a related note: that there is anthropological gold. An ethnographer would be giddy about the prospect of following such a case up close over an extended period of time (preferably multiple, but oh well) as they help showing a society's norms by highlighting their limitations. There is no culture in the world (Glorantha or ours) that has all the answers to every hypothetically possible situation up front. There will always be cases where people will have to go "Right, we'll have to figure out how to make this work." Very exciting.

But we do agree on the basic fact that when an Orlanthi *initiates* to adulthood (a cultural prerequisite for adulthood) they also do genuinelly *initiate* to a cult, right? In this respect, an adult Orlanthi is *by definition* an initiate to some cult or other. Most commonly Orlanth or Ernalda, as well as a minority of other "specialist"/"niche" cults. Right? If most adult Orlanthi are then initiates of Orlanth or Ernalda, they then would presumably become lay members of most of the other cults they interact with on a regular/semi-regular basis - ie. Issaries, Ty Kora Tek, Elmal, etc. Right? I know this was discussed a few pages back, but it feels like this is circling around.

I've been skimming through the last couple of pages as they pertain mostly to ruleswise stuff. One thing I feel is perhaps is important is this: unlike players, ordinary folks are a) unlikely to have teleologic knowledge of which rune spells are available, do what, etc., and b) are decidedly less munchkinny. I think a GREAT deal of deeply "suboptimal builds" have to be factored in.

My condolances. Please take your time.

I'm very sorry to hear, best of luck.

Given that we don't know anything about blackyinkin's conditions, such unsolicited life advice is potentially not very helpful. EDIT: Used the incorrect name and missed a word.

Absolutely, bring on the nude Malkioni and Kolatings. There is a frieze of the king of Seshnela and depicting the caste system that featured a lot of male semi-nudity, but it never got into the guide, unfortunately. It did a good job of giving a good (idealized) visual of Seshnelan society, including their relative "sensuality" when compared to the more ascetic nudity of the Loskalmi (or so we are told).

In some ways this can be explained by their respective elemental associations: the wind is out in the open, earth closes and hides things (and is metaphorically a womb). But you can easily flip this around: air is invisible, and in a sense so ever-present as to be virtually unnoticeable. There's potent secrecy in that. (I'm reminded of a recent jaunt through Neopagan sites where the intrinsic feminity of the moon is often asserted, despite the moon being a male deity in Germanic, Japanese and Ancient Egyptian mythologies. Nothing is set in stone. Not even stone.)

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.

Actually the Ducks of Dragon Pass are fairly orthodox Orlanthi themselves. This is part of a running joke of sorts (pretty much everything with the ducks is a running joke), where the Ducks see themselves as very serious and proper worshippers of Orlanth and Ernalda, and the other, human Orlanthi tribes react to this ranging from hostile, to amused, to nonplussed acceptance. Per a geographic quirk, they tend to worship the god of Death, Humakt, more than other Orlanthi tribes. They live next to the swamp of a necromancer, and wielding the powers of Death against the undead minions he summons or enslave is really useful. Of course, this leads to another running gag with the Ducks, where they are a often a very serious, dour lot, who take themselves and their duties very seriously, while they look comical and self-aggrandizing to their neighbors.

I don't think I have any particular requests as such, just curious to see what you put in there. Aside from all Glorantha lore, however, seeing fully-fleshed female characters interact with each other seems like the foundation to build this on, regardless of what specific elements of Glorantha you want to include.

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 was already adressed above by @g33k, but beyond just generically an FRPG trope that gods are real and therefore to some extent objective factors in the universe, Glorantha in particular is based around the idea of myths as living, participatory stories that form the central core of people's worldviews. People aren't just *told* about Orlanth's journey or Ernalda's wisdom, they partake in reenacting those stories during holidays and during Sacred Time, and those reenactments harmonize so strongly with the universe that people genuinely take on the form and personality of those gods, and literal magic and wonders occur. Not every ritual, and not always as strongly, but certainly often enough that most Orlanthi have a genuine, personal sense of experience of the divine and mythic. Also, great thread. I am unfortunately unable to participate in any meaningful degree due to being in a place with abysmal internet connection, and being swamped with family events, but reading it has been a delight.

BRTHNI OP PLZ NERF

In my opinion, an adult Orlanthi man is almost certainly an "initiate" of Orlanth (whatever subcult, doesn't matter). He is given a certain kind of insight into the mysteries of Orlanth, and could - hypothetically - channel some of the might of Orlanth through him. The same would go for an adult Orlanthi woman. The social structure of the Orlanthi require initiation into these cults to attain the status of adulthood - and I personally interpret this as actually being active members of the cult, but this does not mean priesthood in our modern institutionalized sense of the word. If the rules say that initiates officiate at ceremonies, then fair enough. However, most ACTUAL ceremonies in "Orlanthism" are fairly small, local stead-affairs, aren't they? Here's my opinion: the head of the stead, along with other adult males will be able to officiate their own local offerings and rituals. Fairly minor stuff, akin to the household cults of the Romans, the family blot of Norse paganism, or the family ceremonies of Hinduism (no Brahmins or other temple officials needed) (family in this case being the extended family and others of the household, so potentially a dozen people or maybe a few dozen even), or the family worship of Chinese folk religion. Pick and choose, this mode of religious worship centred on the pater and mater familias (or landowner/land-holder) is incredibly common in polytheism. It makes the family heads sort-of-pseudo-priests, but only within the context of their own family unit. Expert cults perhaps work a bit differently, as they exist in Orlanthi custom more or less as associates and supporters of the Orlanth-Ernalda "ideal family/gods-as-the-family-analogue" model. They might lead local ceremonies, or they might be limited to helping out in their own subcult ceremonies. I'm not sure what the rules specify. But big temple stuff? Clan stuff? No, that's the area of chiefs and priests and god-talkers and whatever else terms the books use. I don't know if such a distinction in scale is made in the rules books, but it seems pretty self-evident in the Orlanthi social structure to me. Just my $0.02.

So, how does the idea that someone who is an initiate is a dedicated worshipper of a deity gel with the idea that almost all Orlanthi are initiated to Orlanth or Ernalda when they enter adulthood? Are these the same *kind* of "initiates"? That seems to be the crux of the matter here.

Doesn't GtG or the Sourcebook pretty much outright state that pretty much everyone in Glorantha has some little magic available to them?

Don't worry, that's pretty par for the course for most of us.

This is an odd one, since it seems like "dying" and being restored was a pretty common thing during the Green Age, given the number of sacrifices and rebirths we see there (and presumably during the Golden Age as well). The issue for the Emperor was after all being "separated" *and not coming back*. IMHO Death in itself is sort-of-Chaos-y, but it's something that's so ingrained into the fabric of the Compromise by now that it would be impossible to remove - sort of like Time (they might be related, conceptually). Note that the Green/Golden age concept of death-rebirth/reassemblage is clearly distinct from undeath, of course (then again, visitations of the dead doesn't necessarily seem to be Chaotic in itself, as per the Esrolian Necropolis, or Kena Hill.)

That would be.... odd.

Lots of more Glorantha sculptures in that instagram gallery as well, including Uz!

Can you honestly blame them? Not only is the Lunar Empire is a clusterf***** from a worldbuilding perspective, with successive layers of history on top of a mishmash quilt of pre-Lunar Pelorian cultures and smashing a patriarchal nobility that claims direct continuity for over a hundred thousand years together with a revolutionary semi-messianic, gender-"equal" mass-conversion religion - BUT Peloria/Lunar Heartland is and remains severely underdeveloped from an on-the-ground perspective, which is vital to engender "grokking", as it were. Sorry if I come across as a bit grumpy, and it's not meant as an attack on the current Chaosium staff who've done a great job (the Redline History part of the Sourcebook helps a lot), but as a fairly recent convert, I deeply sympathize with trying to make sense of the Frankenstein-esque, self-contradicting descriptions of Peloria and the Solar/Lunar empires there.

This does raise questions about why Pentans(?) use curved swords despite having nothing to do with the Lunars, but I guess it's impossible to explain everything. EDIT: On a related note, are Lunar khopeshes still canon, or outdated representations replaced by the kopis-style swords? It seems like a damn waste to ignore this beautiful piece of bronze age weaponry.

While that sounds cool, I'm going to assume it's the same "it's crescent so moon lol" logic we see with the Sables and who knows what else.