Imagining Glorantha

[Austin]

I'm splitting off from another thread here, both because I don't think this post would be very on-topic there but also because I think this is something worth sharing and discussing.

I'm curious what Earth things other folks use in imagining Glorantha, both textually and visually. Especially visually--like stuff a GM could direct players toward, or print out as scenery. Textually, I'm curious what translations into English of non-English works others find evocative (because so much relies on an inspired translation, even if it's inaccurate).

But most importantly I think this is about sharing and mutual curiosity.

On 8/25/2019 at 6:06 AM, David Scott said:

The spirit lingers, I think this is effortless. Part of the process is understanding you are dead, a normal reaction. Those that don't, linger longer and can turn into ghosts. Most cultures have ways of preventing this and helping the recently departed along. Have a look at this excellent film:

Thanks for sharing, @David Scott. I enjoyed this, as well as another film Youtube suggested to me afterward about Tibetan yogis; while the narration had a bit of uncomfortable fetishizing going on, it had some interesting archival footage of Tibet before the Chinese invasion right at the beginning. In particular, I found the distant shots of Lhasa very evocative of Boldhome to my imagination. There also was some footage within the city (very brief, unfortunately), which I enjoyed, and think could be interesting for getting visuals of Glorantha—folk engaging in the activities of everyday life within an urban, mostly un-Westernized culture.

Myself, I find my imagination repeatedly turns to the Hittites when I try to imagine Sartar. They're bronze age, live in hills (kinda), use chariots, go warring against everyone, and worship a Storm King! Their bas reliefs (at least I think that's the art form's name) and statuary rings so truely with the reliefs shown in the Glorantha Sourcebook that something just rings really true for me. I found them originally through Trevor Bryce's book Kingdom of the Hittites (not trying to push buying things, just figure Amazon link's quickest for identification), which I found enthralling. Hits that sweet spot between detailed history and storytelling, for me. There's also a novel about their king Suppiluliumas, I, the Sun, by Janet Morris. Fair warning, it gets somewhat graphic in places, but IMHO it does a good job making a real bastard (by Western morals) become relatable and sympathetic while still acting within what seemed to me like Bronze Age ethics and standards.

For trying to think about the sorts of stories told and the way people speak, I really like Stephen Mitchell's verse translation of Gilgamesh. I feel like most prose renditions really slog, but Mitchell's version is something I find myself returning to again and again. It's both completely over the top, yet feels emotionally raw—just like an Orlanthi hero should be. (Turns out you can read an excerpt here as well, which is neat.)

[Bill the barbarian]

8 hours ago, Crel said:

For trying to think about the sorts of stories told and the way people speak, I really like Stephen Mitchell's verse translation of Gilgamesh. I feel like most prose renditions really slog, but Mitchell's version is something I find myself returning to again and again. It's both completely over the top, yet feels emotionally raw—just like an Orlanthi hero should be. (Turns out you can read an excerpt here as well, which is neat.)

Good points... and Gilgamesh is the direction I find myself employing for inspiration to move away from the Heortland viking thing of yesteryear.

For an interesting melding of sci fi and fantasy as well as a nasty look at man become god, the after effects, their infighting and dealings with mortals,  might I recommend Zelazny's Lord's of Light. The pseudo-indian feel might just give a bit of imagery for a new gloranthan themed game. Always loved the book's opening line about the book's rebel

Quote

His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god, but then he never claimed not to be a god.

Been  awhile since I read it, but the new graphics in RQ G books make me think of it and the Bhagavad Gita. Have not read the Bhagavad Gita. and I do not wish to be culturally insensitive but have been told it is an incredible read for the fantasy fan. Continuing to not being culturally insensitive of a moment longer,  it is a way to enter another culture's beliefs so it might have other bonuses for the gaming reader as well.

Bahubali, an indian myth made into a movie a couple of years ago, was recommended here at BRP central (can not remember by who) as a great view of a Heortland super hero. A little (okay, a lot at times) cheesy and over the top in a Gloranthan way, one can expect a Bollywood sized song with the whole cast and all the extras to break out, but I agree. It is worth a watch for someone trying to immerse themselves in Gloranthan goodness.

Cheers

Edited August 27, 2019 by Bill the barbarian

[g33k]

10 hours ago, Crel said:

... Myself, I find my imagination repeatedly turns to the Hittites when I try to imagine Sartar ...

Your instinct is excellent, I think!  John Boyle was writing a Gloranthan novel.  I'm unclear why he moved it, but it apparently never got published as-such... but a VERY minor re-write has seen it published as a Hittite novel, Queen's Heir.  Reviewers say that it's still clearly Gloranthan.  I haven't gotten it (yet).

10 hours ago, Crel said:

... translation of Gilgamesh...

 

1 hour ago, Bill the barbarian said:

... Gilgamesh is the direction I find myself employing for inspiration ...

Gilgamesh too; I believe their origins were different, but I think the Hittites absorbed a lot of that Sumerian/Mesopotamian/Assyrian/Akkadian/etc imagery and culture.  I certainly find their art, & archeological records, to be visually compatible!

 

1 hour ago, Bill the barbarian said:

 ... The pseudo-indian feel might just give a bit of imagery ... and the Bhagavad Gita ...

Yeah, I throw the ancient Vedic influences in there too!  Good call.

Of course, it's kind of hard not to go Vedic, with Jeff saying his "go to" visual for Orlanth is this one

 

1 hour ago, Bill the barbarian said:

... inspiration to move away from the Heortland viking thing of yesteryear...

I know Chaosium is trying to deprecate those, but personally ... I retain that whole anglo-saxon-celtic-viking  northern European pastiche. 

It's kind of hard not to, with terms like "swordthane" and "cottar" and "hides of land" floating around.  🤫   Not to mention how that whole tribal cattle-raiding vibe sounds so bloody ancient-Irish to my ear...

I just take the pastiche as ONE element, along with other ones that are less common and "generic fantasy" in feel...

 

1 hour ago, Bill the barbarian said:

... Bahubali, an indian myth made into a movie a couple of years ago, was recommended here at BRP central (can not remember by who) as a great view of a Heortland super hero. A little (okay, a lot at times) cheesy and over the top in a Gloranthan way, one can expect a Bollywood sized song with the whole cast and all the extras to break out, but I agree. It is worth a watch for someone trying to immerse themselves in Gloranthan goodness.

That was MOB originally, I think; back in Jan 2018:  

I've also recommended it since.  I think others have, too.

 

Edited August 27, 2019 by g33k

[Bill the barbarian]

20 minutes ago, g33k said:

I've also recommended it since.  I think others have, too.

 

I believe I recall both you and MOB on this bandwagon.

Cheers

[Kloster]

I discovered the Hittites by reading Christian Jacq's Ramses. Book 3 is about the battle of Kadesh, what occured before and what followed. It is seen through the egyptian eyes, but a good part of the book takes part in the Hittite capitol and involves the royal family. It was a good introduction (for me). I don't know if the books are available in english, but if they are, I recommend them.

[Joerg]

24 minutes ago, g33k said:

I know Chaosium is trying to deprecate those, but personally ... I retain that whole anglo-saxon-celtic-viking  northern European pastiche. 

It's kind of hard not to, with terms like "swordthane" and "cottar" and "hides of land" floating around.  🤫   Not to mention how that whole tribal cattle-raiding vibe sounds so bloody ancient-Irish to my ear...

I just take the pastiche as ONE element, along with other ones that are less common and "generic fantasy" in feel...

It isn't as much a pastiche as a weirdly unique social structure, one largely absent from all those urban maritime cultures we discuss, or if we take their mythical stories, all those "demgod rulers by divine ancestry" top-down societies that are exactly what Orlanthi society isn't (any more, we have left the Vingkotling Age far behind us).

The ox-plow cattle-herder farmer-warrior republic is fairly unique to "Northern" Europe (we're talking about the Danubian valley and Illyrian mountains, which is latitude-wise as far from the southern shore of the Baltic as it is from Lampedusa).

Neolithic farming methods that spread millennia before Bronze or the corded ware people remained feasible in continental Europe when agriculture in the Fertile Crescent suffered from climate change that made the crescent a lot less fertile and in consequence required bureaucratic administration of manpower and supplies for communal works beyond religious monuments.

 

And let me repeat: the longhouse with indoor stabling is a neolithic farmer design for a climate that has real winters which need stabling of cattle and other lifestock. It was such a useful design that it fell out of use only with the arrival of motor-driven tractors.

Pants or leggins were worn by chalcolithic wanderers like the Ötztal Ice Mummy. They were still worn by Hallstatt miners or Danish bog mummies from Republican Roman era.

"Thane" is an English language archaism for a form of clan nobility, heavily used in the Scottish Play by that playwright who shaped the modern language so much. If you want to use or create archaic English-related terms, you will drift to Anglo-Saxon terms. You can go and use a foreign language, like English Latin (trust me, when spoken aloud it doesn't sound anything like a Romance language) or Greek.

 

There is the weird non-sequitur that equals "Celt" with Gaels. Read the classics! Caesar, the Greek historians... none of them ever encountered Hibernians knowingly.

 

But hey, if you find a culture of free farmer-warriors who are both transhumant pastoralists and grain farmers and form small republics as their dominant social order, point them out and show how they weren't really led by dynastic demigod kings, and use their cultural terms for these positions                                                                                                                                                                    

[Sir_Godspeed]

Like @Joerg and @g33k I also have a fondness for the pseudo-Dark Age Germano-Celtic look & feel of the Heortlings. I don't wholly oppose Hittite or Near Eastern inspirations (and I believe there are some really clever switches going on - like replacing Celtic Oppida with Near Eastern hilltop palace complexes for the Heortling fortifications), but going full Mycenaean is a bit too much for me.

Thankfully, we have more-or-less period-appropriate inspiration (as period-appropriate as the pesudo-Hellenic aesthetics of various Solar & Pelorian people) in the form of Hallstatt & La Tene Celts. Hell, if you want to integrate with Hittites and Anatolia, you've even got the Galatians, who were smack dab in the middle of it (albeit a thousand years later than Hattusa, not that it really matter, considering the vast time difference between the heyday of Sumer, Mohenjo Daro and the Hellenistic cultures mentioned above).

It should be mentioned that, from what I can tell, 13th Age in Glorantha, is mixing the Hallstatt/La Tene visuals with the Mediterraean influences - to great effect, based on what I've seen.

Look at these guys!:

Clearly a clan chief or tribal king discussing matters with his most trusted shield-thanes. The left one might be an Elmali, if we want to get cute with it.

Speaking of cute, look at this little guy, looks straight out of a Sartarite woodcarving!:



Heck, he's even got storm runes on his shield and sword!

Admittedly, you might want to "Mahabharatize" some of those Hallstatt people, but that's what's fun and clever about Glorantha: it's its own thing, at the end of the day.

Edited August 27, 2019 by Sir_Godspeed

[scott-martin]

Right now my core cinematic Glorantha is about half Sergei Paradjanov and half Peter Brook, which means they intersect a little awkwardly with Meetings With Remarkable Men. It's not so much any ethnographic detail as the effort to capture mythic consciousness.

Brook's crowning career achievement is of course the Mahabharata (all of these are available in their entirety on YouTube), which is deceptively simple, a five-hour epic built out of a list of five primal terms: LIFE BLOOD HEART FIRE END. It was meant to be performed live. Look at the staging, the casting and the way he directs performances. The appearance of Krishna is a true coup. His other movies are less interesting than the plays but easier to find. 

Paradjanov is trickier to assign to a specific Gloranthan locale but the journey is more rewarding. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is prime barbarian belt, probably Rathorela in some historically layered period that could be now, six hundred years ago or on the edges of Time. The assignment of Color of Pomegranates, Ashik Kerib and Suram Fortress is in the eye of the beholder. The Transcaucasian setting that bridges these last three increasingly says Ralios to me.

I'm also super fond of the alpine landscapes, hypnotized performances and apocalyptic doom of Werner Herzog's "Heart of Glass" as a tale of Old Sartar but I appreciate that it's a deeply anti-canonical posture. His Fata Morgana and other movies are also deeply Gloranthan but I don't know where exactly they live.

 

[Bill the barbarian]

I am mesmerized enough by your jargon scott-martin to go looking for the items you listed!

[scott-martin]

3 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

I am mesmerized enough by your jargon scott-martin to go looking for the items you listed!

If you hate 'em you get your money back.

[Sir_Godspeed]

47 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

I am mesmerized enough by your jargon scott-martin to go looking for the items you listed!

Same!

For some really out-there, Indian-inspired goodness, I also recommend Grant Morrison's 18 Days", which is sort of a science-fantasy, magitech take on the Mahabharata (look for the artbook rather than the actual comic series, the former has much more detailed and exquisite art), and the (free!) webcomic Kill Six Billion Demons which is a bit like Hindu mythology meets Gnosticism and coming-of-age, hyperviolent martial arts manga.

Both of these are unsuited for Glorantha as it is, but if you look at the artwork, and use it to imagine some parts of the Gods War (and thus Herquests and the like) I think they can be very engrossing.

Then you have the artist Vsevolod Ivanov's otherworldly, part mythological, part speculative artworks of an imagined, fictionalized Slavic past. I believe it's been referenced by other fans of Glorantha in the past. It has that great otherworldly feel to it, like things look real enough, but there are parts that just make it all somewhat dreamlike. Sadly, it seems like his works have somehow become quite popular with some less savory parts of the Internet (the ones that tend to get overly obsessed in make-believe pasts and tie it to nationalism), but as art pieces in themselves they are great.

Edited August 28, 2019 by Sir_Godspeed

[Qizilbashwoman]

4 hours ago, g33k said:

Not to mention how that whole tribal cattle-raiding vibe sounds so bloody ancient-Irish to my ear...

I go straight to India, never mind I speak the Irish; nobody raids cows like Indra.

If you can, get your tiny human hands on Strong Arms and Drinking Strength, which is about how the Rg Veda constructs masculinity in its poetry, it's truly a gem. It is clear that Jarrod L. Whitaker is an uzuz scholar who was taught by the First Elder before moving on to Wake Forest.

For me, though, the Solar peeps are Sumerians with Mycenean and Central and Southeast Asian influence. The Lodrili are rice farmers...

 

Edited August 28, 2019 by Qizilbashwoman
weird link error

[g33k]

Oh, yeah -- Moana, the Disney movie (of all things).

Start to finish, the whole story is a Glorantha-style Heroquest (complete with Otherworld excursions).

Edited August 28, 2019 by g33k

[Bill the barbarian]

13 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Strong Arms and Drinking Strength, which is about how the Rg Veda constructs masculinity in its poetry, it's truly a gem. It is clear that Jarrod L. Whitaker is an uzuz scholar who was taught by the First Elder before moving on to Wake Forest.

Quote

"This important book cuts sensitively to the core of the construction of masculinity in Vedic family, clan, and tribal society. From early hymns that reflect expansion through seasonal migrations to the hegemonic patriarchy embodied in state formation that closes the Rgvedic canon, Whitaker details a consistent androcentric ideology that lauds strength, intimidation, and violence through images of the hyper-masculine body and soma drinking of the god Indra. A needed but rare convergence of philology with gender, body, and ritual studies." 

--Alf Hiltebeitel, Columbian Professor of Religion, History, and Human Sciences, The George Washington University 

Seems like an important read considering how deadly possessing the xx chromosome can be in modern India from pre-cradle to grave.

[MOB]

37 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

I go straight to India, never mind I speak the Irish; nobody raids cows like Indra.

The word for "War" in Sanskrit translates as "A desire for more cows", at least according to the movie 'Arrival'.

Suspect it's the same in Praxian...

[Qizilbashwoman]

Yes, gáviṣṭi /ɡɐ́.ʋiʂ.ʈi/ from gavíṣ “wishing for cows, desirous (in general), eager, fervent” +‎  -ti and gó “cow” +‎ √iṣ, “to endeavor to obtain, strive, seek”.

Edited August 28, 2019 by Qizilbashwoman

[Sir_Godspeed]

 

Reminds me of "The Nuer", where anthropologist Evan-Pritchard admits in the foreword that he kinda went crazy because his informants never really wanted to talk about anything other than cattle, and how pretty much their entire society centred around cattle.

Incidentally, The Nuer is possibly a good source for Doraddi inspirations, or at least for the Pamaltelan plains in general.

[Qizilbashwoman]

17 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

The Nuer is possibly a good source for Doraddi inspirations, or at least for the Pamaltelan plains in general.

except you can't herd in Pameltela except for that one milk gazelle...

[scott-martin]

Oh yeah . . . Fellini Satyricon (also on YouTube) is prime Lunar Empire. I just don't spend a lot of hobby time there these days.

"If the work of Petronius is the realistic, bloody and amusing description of the customs, characters and general feel of those times, the film we want to freely adapt from it could be a fresco in a fantasy key, a powerful and evocative allegory: a satire of the world we live in today. . . science fiction of the past."

[Shiningbrow]

9 hours ago, g33k said:

Your instinct is excellent, I think!  John Boyle was writing a Gloranthan novel.  I'm unclear why he moved it, but it apparently never got published as-such... but a VERY minor re-write has seen it published as a Hittite novel, Queen's Heir.  Reviewers say that it's still clearly Gloranthan.  I haven't gotten it (yet).

thanks for the suggestion! 

In searching, I found this interview with him from earlier this year, in which he talks about Greg and the Glorantha connection... http://www.castaliahouse.com/john-boyle-the-queens-heir/

 

[Sir_Godspeed]

8 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

except you can't herd in Pameltela except for that one milk gazelle...

I thought so too - but apparently there is one mention of cattle herding in Jolar (and Umathela, but I feel like that it's own thing). As Joerg mentioned, it might be an errant relic of a previous edition, not brought into line with current canon, or it might be a misunderstood reference to domesticated or wild wildebeest herds, or something else entirely.

That being said, there are a few chapters in The Nuer that are still very evocative and useful beyond references to cattle herding, cattle decoration, cattle economics, cattle poetry, cattle raids, and so forth - the chapters on distance and time are incredibly good at getting across that "lived reality" that a lot of ethnography strives for - how it really feels to live on a massive plain and living according to the rhythm of the work and not some arbitrary fixed time unit, how magic and religion is incorporated into traveling and daily work, etc. There are also chapters on stuff like genealogy, totemism, religion, conflict arbitration, leadership dynamics and the horticulture that the Nuer practice during the wet season.

A lot of it is quite dry, but for anyone looking to immerse themselves in that sort of environment, it's a solid tome.

Other inspirations for the Doraddi might be looking up some stuff on the sedentary, horticultural Fur people (of the eponymous Darfur), and other Nilotic peoples. Khoi-San hunter-gatherers probably also provide some good insights (especially for those closer to the Nargan desert).

That's about where my personal experience with Sub-Saharan ethnography ends, unfortunately, aside from some more contemporary stuff on adjusting to modernity and capitalism, which is less relevant to Glorantha specifically.

EDIT: Obviously, talking about these as inspirations for fictional societies requires more sensitivity than when discussing Hallstatt Celts or Hittites, since the Nuer and San people are both very much still around, and very much critically engaged with the wider world, including some internet randos who are talking about potentially cribbing their cultural heritage and beliefs for a dice-rolling make-believe game.

Edited August 28, 2019 by Sir_Godspeed

[Joerg]

18 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

EDIT: Obviously, talking about these as inspirations for fictional societies requires more sensitivity than when discussing Hallstatt Celts or Hittites, since the Nuer and San people are both very much still around, and very much critically engaged with the wider world, including some internet randos who are talking about potentially cribbing their cultural heritage and beliefs for a dice-rolling make-believe game.

Sure. But then, our observations of their lifestyle can be projected on that of our mesolithic predecessors (or those displaced by our neolithic and then band ceramics predecessors).

But then, the Doraddi had managed to go from cultivating lineage plants and hunting to building an urban civilisation depending on horticulture and presumably water management. It isn't clear whether that culture included metal working - while helpful, metalworking is not required to create or maintain an urban civilisation. What is required is transport of food and the presence of water.

[Qizilbashwoman]

One of the things I saw in the Glorantha Sourcebook but is missing from a lot of illustrations is really fantastic premodern women's outfits.

Traditional non-steppes Eurasian outfits - from Greek to Russia to China - featured very tall hats, amazingly elaborate cloth "girdles" (wide belts, Greek zone, hence English "zone") worn by adult women (i.e marriageable and older), and elaborate sleeves (long, short, hanging to the floor ("winged"), thin, wide, whatever). The modern Armenian Hemshin community still wears some traditional tat, although tall hats and the zone went out with the Young Turks and the '60s. (Pictures below. Love the baby with the corncob.) The Hemshin are an unusual Armenian community: they are Muslim, they were not part of the Genocide, because they were isolated and not recognised as Armenians by outsiders, and they maintain a rural mountainous lifestyle. They mostly grow tea.

If you turn to the Sourcebook, Dendera the Good Wife is illustrated with an elaborate, horned hat in the Solar Pantheon illustration. It's a notable element. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be Pelandan, I can't remember how the Gods Wall classifies her clothing style.

Anyway my point is I'd like to see some non-Celtic influence in there, because there's a world of clothing and armor from the Bronze Age.

[Ochoa]

21 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

A little (okay, a lot at times) cheesy and over the top in a Gloranthan way, one can expect a Bollywood sized song with the whole cast and all the extras to break out

The ritual at the beginning of the second movie felt SO Glorantha to me !

[Ochoa]

16 hours ago, scott-martin said:

which means they intersect a little awkwardly with Meetings With Remarkable Men. I

 

Gods damn it, Scott