John Biles

Most Gloranthan cultures don't have the unity, cooperation levels, or ideological coherence to conduct a war of extermination against Chaos. (Also, the history of Glorantha basically demonstrates that trying to go full Arkat on anything is the equivalent of nuking yourself to kill the cockroaches in your house.) But there's a substantial gap between 'Chaos is bad, but if we go alone we die and who can trust those damn Warbles' and 'Chaos is part of society' I think you're ignoring here. Especially since, given Glorantha's history, a grand crusade against Chaos would probably trash everything more than Chaos can actually manage. Glorantha is a place where grand ideological crusading generally ends in you either failing and everything gets trashed, or worse, you succeed and the damage is even higher. (The second the Lunars decided to spread We are all Us by force, they began the process of setting up to eventually go down in apocalyptic flames.) (This is how we know Argath killing the Gods won't lead to anything good because that kind of grand gesture by an obsessive man never, ever, ever leads to anything good in Glorantha. All Argath is doing is setting the stage for the fourth age to be an even more ruined, declining age than the third and for the world to continue its re-enactment of the Godtime myth cycle.)

Playing off the idea of a textile component to Yelmite divorce - part of the process of marriage is that the man supplies the woman with threads she makes into sheets for the marital bed, then during divorce, the sheets are burned.

Half of everyone died by age 10. The rest lived to in their 50s or 60s unless killed by violence; a handful lived longer than that. My impression is that Glorantha has less child mortality but more dying as an adult (raiding, chaos monsters, etc)

Yes, though I would expect the pickings are a lot more slender at that age. My own impression is that most Older Orlanthi who aren't wanderers are married most of the time.

There used to be an amazing Miskatonic Repository work on the Cruel Empire of Tsan Chan, but it's no longer available, on drivethrurpg, anyway. It's an interesting take on their never ending war to use comprehensible cruelty to keep out Mythos insanity. They are horrible, but in ways humans can adapt to and survive, though their leaders are no longer really human and struggle with the call of the Mythos.

Cults of Cthulhu was a great book and very useful. And I would love Cults book for Hastur, Shubby, and the big N.

Just a bit from one of my stories with kids playing a minor role in a myth (where Ernalda and Yinkin go looking for Ernalda's run away daughter Kylera) Finally, Laikadessa found a wall segment with a little waterway breaking through under it, big enough for a small child to get under the wall. “The Water Tribe has taken her!” she said frantically. The wall did not reply, but she now ran to Ivarnala (Mahome). “Mahome, I need you to watch over the rest of my children!” A force of some 22 kids, probably overdoing it, now came out of the darkness. For a moment, Ivarnala looked overwhelmed, then she said, “Of course, Ernalda. I will keep them safe and not let them eat all the cookies.” Now the kids were angry but couldn’t do anything about it.

This being Glorantha, eventually, the battles themselves become a Heroquest performed there.

This has long been an enigma as to the full details, which is why I put this in my Blue Moon Empire project: Hill of Gold: This is the holiest site of Yelmalio, where he got his ass beaten down and was stripped of his strongest powers, but proved to be too tough to die. Different Yelmalio sects identify different attackers, including Orlanth, Zorak Zoran, Sheng Seleris, Zzabur, merpeople, Elmal, Ernalda, seven different ice goddesses, Anterius, Yu-Kargazant, Waha, Bisos, Navaria (who tried to sacrifice him as a Corn King and bungled it), and Odalya (who mistook him for a deer somehow). One myth cycle claims he somehow attacked himself. This brings a steady tide of pilgrims to the base of the Hill to pray and carry out Heroquests. This is also believed by Orlanthi to be where Elmal met Orlanth. That also brings pilgrims. A group of Zistorites, the Legion of Gold, briefly seized the Hill during the Second Age, but were basically mobbed by Sun Domers.

I believe if this plays out differently, it becomes the scenario where Yelmalio/Elmal and Orlanth become friends.

So here's my take on the sex pit issue. I have an ongoing series of Glorantha stories I poke away at every so often and the third one revolved around a clan trying to do the initiation ceremony after having it invaded by Grazers the previous year, so they're kind of paranoid. My own research which I can no longer figure out where I got this idea had four pits - The Pit of the Strange Gods - where Orlanth himself went. You have to stage a jailbreak with allies from the strange gods in order to 'win'. In the story, Petrad recruits the ancient allies of his clan (a Westerner and a Dwarf) and the origin group of one of their blood lines (a Pamaltelan) to escape and later he is able to warn the other initiates and other people in the rite that the Ogres are coming and defeat them with the help of his allies. This pit usally leads to becoming Orlanthi, but it might end up recruiting you to all sorts of weird gods. You personally win if you make friends, good or bad, though your clan might not see it that way. The Pit of Combat - you have to fight *something* to win. What you fight depends on your clan's history and what god you're drawn to. Enfrew's clan was originally part of a bigger clan which, desperate for food, conquered the Helots only to discover they had no food, so most of the clan ate them and became ogres and the White Quartz were those who refused to eat humans and escaped, finding another way to survive. So Enfrew, who wanted to be a Storm Bull, had to fight the angry ghosts of the Helots, and was tempted by Cacodemon (in disguise). But he didn't just want strength, he wanted it to fight Chaos and so Storm Bull took him to the Monkey Ruins in Prax and he got to beat up a scorpion man (and nearly die) and become a Uroxi Initiate. If Enfrew had hated undead or had a stronger knack for fighting, he might have ended up a Humakti. You also might end up under Orlanth Adventurous this way or various other fighting gods. The Pit of Elements - Boys who are oriented towards an element more strongly end up here. A future Helerite might have to figure out the secret of breathing underwater. An Orlanthi figure out how to fly or at least get an ally to save you from falling. An Elmal/Yelmalio person would have to learn to survive fire. This is the most dangerous pit because if you fail the test, you probably die. Big risk, big reward. Harvald got lucky and was saved by a troll who was impressed by his determination (he was trying to do the Olanthi 'fall off Kero Fin, learrn to fly' thing) when he asked her to take him back to the top and throw him down again that he got an enchanted spear from her made of dragonfly chitin. He also became an Orlanth initiate. The Sex Pit - This is complicated and I'll discuss it below -In the story, this clan had a Priestess of Uleria they hired for the initiation; this one went wonky and basically Heleric and the girl he liked (Oranessa) had to fight Raglagnar with the spear Harvald had gotten. They both became initiates of Heler. So what is the purpose of the Sex Pit? The Sex Pit is all about a central problem of Orlanthi society - Men are expected to be impulsive and often violent, but that is easily a recipe for rape. The Pit of the Strange Gods is about handling the non-sexual relationships you will have as an adult. The Pit of Combat is grounded in how Orlanthi men sometimes *have* to fight, because Violence is not only 'Always an Option' but also 'inescapable if you don't want your reputation destroyed and your clan slaughtered' all too often. The Pit of Elements is about *magic*; those drawn to magical power end up here. And the Sex Pit is about sexual relationships and how to cultivate them. The myths of the Orlanthi are riddled with stories of Orlanth seducing everything in sight (Ernalda is the same way) for good and bad reasons, so the Sex Pit can lead to Orlanth if you follow the same path as Orlanth himself in relationships. So this is what happens in the Sex Pit. You confront a being who you find sexually attractive - for most Orlanthi men, this is a woman, but it might be a man, a Vingan, a Nandan or whatever. For that matter, it might be a troll, elf, dwarf, etc. Basically, if you have a sexual orientation, it's whatever you would most want to have sex with. (If you are asexual, you don't end up in the sex pit). If you chose the sex pit (or it chose you), you're going to proposition them ((if not, you probably didn't end up in the sex pit). They *turn you down*. Because the heart of the sex pit is how you deal with someone who doesn't want to have sex with you when you want them. The worst solution is rape because it goes one of two ways - 1, you earn Raglagnar's favor, initiate to him, and become a rapist who eventually is going to die for it or end up a Chaos freak in exile, or 2, your target and/or their defender turns you into giblets and you come out of initiation as a corpse. You can die in all four initiations but this is the death that reflects worse on you. (You may be killed trying to escape if you chose allies poorly in the Pit of Strange Gods, you may die of combat in the Pit of Combat, and the Pit of Elements is very 'get magic or die') But here's where character and proper preparation come in. Bare minimum, anyone who goes into the sex pit knows about the romance of Orlanth and Ernalda (or the romance of someone with someone, depending on your clan's own mythology collection). Ernalda makes Orlanth woo her and given Orlanthi women are expected to model themselves on Ernalda (and other goddesses don't just roll over for the first person who wants to sleep with them either), the correct answer to the sex pit is to woo the person you want to be your lover and to recognize them as a *person* and not just something to have sex with. How you woo the person and who the person is both influence who you end up initiating to. You may end up doing a cattle raid, collecting shells, growing crops, all sorts of adult activities, but it's tied to building a bond with the object of your affections. Your chance of death on this path is minimal, though dying in the Pit of Strange Gods is also rare. Eventually, you woo them and have sex, and then return with some kind of gift and probably initiated to Orlanth. (All the paths end up with some kind of gift or power, unless you die.) You also now know better how to deal with people you're attracted to and that's a gift you're going to need in a society where unmarried people happily have sex, but may not want to have it with *you*. Now, I have a comment on the Uleria thing and why Orlanthi society has issues with her. Orlanthi marriages are intended to be faithful. Critically, this allows you to be sure who are the parents of any child. While someone in a Heroquest might have to have ritual sex for relgious purposes, that's done by priests and priestesses, not by the faithful. There is no holy adultery tradition - rather, adultery is a crime that brings down disaster on the clan as the spirits of retribution start kicking *everyone's ass*. And that is why Uleria, who doesn't care if you're married or not, is a poor fit. Uleria is a goddess of marriage, but also a goddess of sleeping around on your spouse. She's effectively in sync with the unmarried young adults, but those young adults are expected to eventually settle down, marry someone and not sleep with anyone else so long as they are married. (In practice, until you die.) If her men and women are around, it's going to be a constant source of social strife. A lot of her attitudes overlap with Orlanthi ideals but don't work well with marriage, which is what most Orlanthi are expected to do. (So the Orlanthi are sex-positive, but marriage trumps that. If it didn't, there'd be a lot less incentive to have marriage at all.)

The history of Glorantha is not real-world history which is dead and gone and can't be changed. Every GM has every right to have Argath step on a rake and accidentally kill himself whenever it's convenient. Argath is most vulnerable in his early days when he doesn't have a lot of power, but conversely, the Lunars don't know he matters at that point. After he takes Pavis is probably when he's most vulnerable - he's now prominent enough for them to care and they have incentive to kill him.

I basically ignored the recent retconning of the west, though if we get a west book with a full development of it, I might change that.

"We are all Us" The Red Goddess contains both light and darkness and constantly changes between them, because in this way, she can be both mutable *and* constant, changing in a predictable way.

I incline to think Brithos resembles the movie Zardoz.

And Sartar was then conquered by its enemies pretty quickly afterwards. You could pretty easily make the whole shift the result of Lunars working to wreck Sartar's defenses if you wanted to.

This is Glorantha. All attempts to make major changes to the world just end up causing mass death, so yes. Heroes have the power to change the world but if they use that power, they only break it more.

That presumes a degree of mobility that is often not the case in Glorantha, though probably much of Peloria would be descended from Yelm by now. That would certainly help explain how everyone and their dog has passed the Ten Tests at some point.

Of course he did, but the rules don't care. Pass the tests, you are the legitimate Emperor, even if you barbequed and ate the former Emperor, you dress yourself entirely in dirt, and you like to dress up Yelm statues as Orlanth. This has always been a problem for Dara Happa because lots of people have found ways to pass the tests without being very good Yelmites.

The last Yelmic emperor cuddled up to the Lunars and the Red Emperor took over when he died; every incarnation of the RE passes the 1en tests, making him officially Yelm's chosen Emperor. So the Red Emperor is legitimately Emperor of Dara Happa by its own rules.

The Greeks maintained a group identity for 2000 years of rule by others. It's plausible the Dara Happans could maintain their identity, especially since their identity has magical powers tied to it.

All you have to do to become the Yelmic Emperor is pass the 10 tests, which has been done by a dragon, among other things. Whatever some DH tell themselves about nobility and Yelm, ultimately, you could be born in a cardboard box in a DH garbage dump and still become Emperor if you can beat the tests. I think two big things are going on here. 1. Dara Happa has actually spent much of its history in time being kicked down the stairs and being ruled by outsiders in one way or another. IE, they often didn't have an advantage. 2. The Yelm cult gives them enough unity and there's enough Dara Happan cities that they could often beat up their neighbors because they cooperated; we know the Pelandans have never gotten their act together to unite against foes and everyone else is small, localized cultures that are generally going to be outnumbered. Whenever anything bigger than the DH cities shows up, they get bulldozed - the Unity Council, Pentans, Sheng Seleris, the Lunar Empire itself, a Dragon just taking over for a while, etc, etc.

The Malkioni would not want to believe goddesses were involved. The Man Rune, at the Creator's command, made the first people. Some sects probably assume that the Krjalki were flawed attempts to create men and then humans capstoned creation; others see the Krjalki as the jealous attempt of other runes to create their own humans, who came out warped and twisted.

Belintar was obviously Saruman, jumping universes so no one would know who he was.

The Lunar Empire was Big and Rich and they were not. This no doubt lead to some cultural influence in the area closest to Tarsh and facilitated the whole Yelmalio cult rising thing.