Jane

Or to put it another way, and one rather more relevant to anyone but newbies, the three shelves or so of Gloranthan material on my shelves can all be used together, as later things (RQ3, HW, HQ) gradually built on and expanded others, with the few suggested horrible clashes (all female Wind Lords vanishing because Greg was an oblivious idiot) being firmly squashed at the time. The new RQG not only clashes, but apparently does so deliberately, so we won't even be getting errata to put things right as we used to (remember the people who repeatedly failed to read KoS and got the date of the Bat at Whitewall wrong?). So, choice between one new and rather expensive book, or the last twenty years of development? Shame it has to be a choice, but it is, and it's a no-brainer.

And I'd say that adapting RQ to HQ is even easier, since RQ needs lots of detailed stats, and HQ doesn't. HQG needs even fewer.

And is therefore wrong. She's got a crystal embedded in her forehead. Incidentally she is most definitely female and proud of it, and if there's any doubt at all, in the Sky Ship scenario we get to meet her son.

HQ and RQ are just rule systems. Tools to help simulate existing in Glorantha. I also use "Hordes of the Things" for battles, we've used "The Pool" in the past, there's 13th Age... All just tools. What matters is the setting, and the story. Coming Storm is wonderful, and I still say Thunder Rebels would help you no end.

That's two specific requests. I'll see if I can find it. Once up, I'm sure people will look at and and suggest ways it can be expanded and improved.

I'll have it somewhere. Not even sure if I ever finished it. I'll go hunting.

Oh, nice! I'd completely overlooked the "Trader Princes" connection. And of course, Sartar himself was very much a Hero of Issaries. His descendants, somewhat less so... though possibly the cult of Sartar could be seen as a sub-cult/hero-cult of Issaries? Specialists in road building, and in getting people to work together.... sort of. Just don't ask about Salinarg. And now I think about it, there we are back on topic. Female values. Getting people to work together, and building non-warfare things, probably with earth magic.You get good enough at female values, you get to be top ruler, even if you do have the handicap of a penis.

RQ? Why? This isn't rules-specific in the slightest, and in fact the next thing I was going to quote was from Thunder Rebels - HW. I agree that we're drifting somewhat, though. It does look as if the main problems female rulers have isn't their gender, it's the Lunars, and possibly excessively loyal tribe members.

CHDP has her as "queen of the Kheldon tribe council" in 1613 (odd phrase in itself, but then Denseros wasn't Sartarite) in contrast to "Hofstaring Treeleaper, king of the Culbrea Tribe". Then in 1625 "they forged a new ring of Sartar. Kallyr Starbrow was named queen and warlord". Which still isn't either Prince or King. And then "Kallyr was queen of the Kheldon tribe in her own right". I'm beginning to think he or his translator was picking titles at random But yes, the Kheldon seem to have been very stubborn and refused to give her up. Leika, sadly, lost the backing of her tribe: Kallyr didn't. Which implies a whole load of fun adventures as she tries to sneak back in to keep the tribal magic going. I should think about that. After all, while she could use her standard team(s) for the purpose, she'd be better off with people who aren't known to be Kheldon, aren't on the Lunar Most Wanted list (yet) and aren't known to be her associates. Like, say, some group of PCs or other....

Depends on how into Star Wars you are Seriously, though, we're being misled by the limitations of the English language, normally used to describe a very different culture. "Prince" comes from "Princeps", first among equals. Which still isn't an accurate description of the role played by the House of Sartar in forming and leading the "kingdom", but English simply doesn't have the right word for the job. Welsh gets closer, but that doesn't help much. In fact, describing Kallyr as Queen of the Kheldon is odd in itself: the role she's usually described as filling is that of tribal King. Back in the "Sartar High Council" scenario in "Wyrms' Footprints", she's described as "Chieftain(ess) of the Kheldon, Priest of Orlanth Thunderous. .... appears to be the next in line for the kingship after the present king dies." So not only is she not yet the leader of the Kheldon tribe (in 1613), the title she may get is King, not Queen. I think we simply have to assume that titles are in Sartarite (obviously) and the various translations into English have varied in quality, and never have access to a word that really carries the required meaning. It's rather like looking at the leaders in Britain in "Arthurian" times - "kings" of various tribes can be identified, and then we have to look at who was getting them to fight together under one leader. "Dux Bellorum", among other possibilities, but one thing we can be fairly sure of is that whatever title "Arthur" held, it wasn't "King". (Insert detailed and very knowledgeable rant by Chris Gidlow, I expect, but as a rough analogy, I hope this works.)

Yes. It reminds me of a "joke" (too potentially true to be really funny) about Afghanistan. Under theocracy rule, women were forced to walk behind their husbands. After they'd been freed, it was noticed that they still walked behind their husbands. Asked why, they said "Land mines".

It's because we let the children men imagine they're important, when they're really just expendable. They're happier that way http://www.jane-williams.me.uk/glorantha/stories/elbq.cfm Read the last paragraph.

Yes. The tribe as a whole has done well, with built-in self-correcting mechanisms. If someone comes out with some daft brain fart like "only men can be Orlanth initiates" plenty of people can and do point to the existing female Wind Lords and Priestesses of Orlanth Thunderous, both PC and NPC. Also, you may notice that when I was pointing at good sources for female-based material, I was recommending male authors. We have a lot of good blokes around here, much more so than in the average RPG community.

Reading through this lot, a few more thoughts occur. The ambition of many Princes of Sartar, and of Tarsh, and of a few other places, is to be King of Dragon Pass. How do you do that? By persuading the Feathered Horse Queen to marry you. How did Orlanth become King of the Gods? By persuading Ernalda to marry him - well, to accept him as one of her many husband-protectors. The idea of "Orlanth is the King, and he has his wife's permission to say so" is no joke, it's hard fact.

They may well have been, but that's two very different things. I am not Chaosium, and they are not me.

Um, I've got a website full of material, all free for everyone to use. I used to fund my "Tales of the Reaching Moon" habit, and my "Hearts in Glorantha" habit by making sure I got as many "free authors' copies" as I possibly could. How much more "published" did you want? Earth priestesses? I'll give it some thought, but apart from the randomish additions to the novel, the next story I ought to finish is a continuation of "The Widow's Tale", with three female protagonists (two of them healers), a female viewpoint, and one bloke looking a bit lost, not to mention oblivious to at least half of the plot. (The one I'm finding rather more interesting features Kallyr age 18, being about as mature and sensible as you might expect.) Hmm, I wonder what an Earth priestess' view of Kallyr might be? Not all that flattering, I expect. I'll give that some thought. Scenarios - I don't really "do" scenarios, except for at conventions, with pre-gen PCs. Don't see the point: in a campaign, everything's driven by PC backstory or decisions. But I did say I'd try to get "In Pavis Fair City" written up, and that's investigative, driven by relationships and erm..... spoilers. Typically female skills, yes. I'm pretty sure one of the PCs is an Earth priestess, or senior initiate.

A red doe is Vinga's sacred animal Oh, and it's does that retain antlers in winter, not stags, so Santa's reindeer are all female. There, random Xmas fact for the day Seriously, I know there's a lot to take in, but the more I mused about this overnight, the more I realised that if you think Glorantha is male-default, you and I aren't in the same universe. I don't know what starting point you're coming from, but it sounds like RQ2, and we've moved on twenty years since then. Thunder Rebels, for the Ernalda writeup: or rather, the Ernaldan half of the book. It's dead cheap anyway, incredible value for money. If you want to look at the warrior women, and the healers, then Storm Tribe, for Vinga, Babs Gor and Chalana Arroy. Is Pam Carlson around over here? I'd know where to find her on Facebook, but I don't know if she's on this forum thing. If you want to build an entire tribe (ambitious!) or just run a clan, go and buy a game called "King of Dragon Pass". That has you running a small and weak clan at the start of the reoccupation of what will become the Kingdom of Sartar, and gradually building up to possibly form a tribe and marry the FHQ. It'll give you a good idea of the real, important, business of the clan (crops, herds, healing, babies, magic, trading. Warriors are an expendable resource, not as important as cows.) Actually, in Sartar, you don't want to try to build your own tribe. All the tribes exist, and are documented, if not in great detail in some cases. Pick one that's barely been touched and develop that if you like, but you'll be reading up scraps of the Resettlement Sagas to find out how they fit in without clashes, and that's a lot of work. Dr Moose (who again, I don't know how to contact on this forum, or even if he's here) did that for the Balkoth, you could talk to him about what's involved. I keep thinking about doing something similar for the Kheldon, and not quite getting round to it. I know we're drowning you in fiction, but for some quick snippets, come Christmas, treat yourself to a series of micro-fiction on my website. A few years back (um, 12 years back - how did that happen?), I did a challenge to write a story for each of the days of Xmas, starting with a Partridge in a Pear Tree and carrying on for all 12 days. Thinking through, I'm not sure even one of them is male-default. Some have protagonists who happen to be male, usually because I was using existing NPCs, but that's incidental to the story. http://www.jane-williams.me.uk/glorantha/stories/index.cfm

Is there a copy of the scenario "The Peace Process" online anywhere? Very much the female side of things, there.

Ooh... I can see me losing an awful lot of time reading that!

And of course both can do both. I also like cooking, sewing, teddy bears... But yes, there are a few very odd people who apparently haven't quite caught on to this yet. I remember once being told in all seriousness that obviously any woman in RL who was in a male-dominated industry was hated and feared by all her male colleagues and would have to be lesbian as a result. Yes, this was in a Gloranthan forum. Mad. Delusional, even.

Thinking through other very female HQs I've seen online, there's one by a certain @soltakss that's very much worth a look. http://www.soltakss.com/unicorn1.html Excellent site for many things, well worth a look around it

Thanks for the tag, Bill. Lots to answer here.... let's start with the question that's so obvious I'm surprised anyone's asking it. "Can you be a Woman and still do things that are traditionally masculine?" I'm a wargamer, former engineer, and as part of historical reenactment, used to hit people with swords, and "man" a cannon. Will have to get back to shooting that longbow again sometime, I can still do that without needing working legs. Main career was as a programmer, with the first 18 years of that being in military engineering. Am I a woman? I'll have to get my husband to check, but he was pretty convinced last time we looked. TLDR: yes, of course you can! My website hasn't been updated for far too long, but let me point you at a few potentially useful bits. Ernaldan (or rather, Earth Six) initiation: http://www.jane-williams.me.uk/glorantha/marshedge/earthinit.cfm The Lifebringer's Quest http://www.jane-williams.me.uk/glorantha/stories/elbq.cfm RQ3 Vinga cult writeup http://www.jane-williams.me.uk/glorantha/vinga/index.cfm Here's the Stories page, and a lot of them are about Vingans, or specifically Kallyr. http://www.jane-williams.me.uk/glorantha/stories/index.cfm (There's also about half a novel about Kallyr and her friends at Whitewall lurking on the hard drive. I keep adding bits, but it's nowhere near finished yet) and one about a young Esrolian Humakti may be of interest in this context http://www.jane-williams.me.uk/glorantha/stories/duel.cfm The Secret History of Sun County is up there, but I don't think "What my mother's sister told me", the female viewpoint on Sun County life, ever went on line. I'll have to see if I can find it. The other place you definitely want to look to find out more about Vinga is John Hughes' take on the subject. He pretty much took over Vinga where I left off, developing the role of Vingans in clan life. Have a wander around here https://myth-o-logic.org/glorantha/ For active not passive women, you'll want to look at Babeester Gor, of course. Also, do you have access to Thunder Rebels and the host of Ernaldan subcults in there? You want to. https://www.chaosium.com/thunder-rebels-pdf/ After that, go on to Storm Tribe to find out more about Vinga https://www.chaosium.com/storm-tribe-pdf/

I'm glad I move in the circles I do. Between us, we can usually pick one up, and say "it looks like this". And if we want to know if a fancy move will work, go out in the garden and try it. But no, this probably isn't normal Don't think I know anyone with a dagger-axe, though. May have to look out at the next reenactors' fair.

Yes, it's two factors: what is the author's time, effort, and expertise worth? and what proportion of my disposable income this month do I need to pay to get it? Looking at the first, that looks like a fair price to me: hard copy of small print runs is expensive, and for PDF, yes, that's a LOT of skill and time that I don't have and am happy to pay for. But as a proportion of my disposable income? Never mind disposable, that £60 would be considerably more than my entire earnings this week, and other than a few crafting commissions, I'm living on savings till January.

Even if you gave me the hard-copy free, and even if I was primarily playing face-to-face, I still wouldn't want it. Too heavy! No ctrl-F! For this one it might make sense, because I'll be looking at (and for) pictures, and they're harder to search on, but even so, if I want to physically hand some players a picture, I'll print out that picture when I need it. As it is, I'm absolutely happy to request Santa to take £25 or so from my Xmas allowance and spend it on the PDF, because what I saw of previews was detailed, well-researched, and generally wonderful. But £60? Not going to happen. That would send Santa over budget.