Your heretical Gloranthas

[Groovetronic]

When I met Greg Stafford at GenCon '99, the most disappointing thing he said to me was, "I have no interest in other people's Gloranthas."

Well, I do. For one, the fate of my Glorantha and the gods of my setting will not be that of the gods as detailed in King of Sartar.

What are your heretical Gloranthas and 4th age outcomes? Does Sheng win? Does the Glowline encompass both of the continents and the Red Goddess rule benevolently over all? 

One idea I am playing with is a Harshax setting, where outlawed, renegade scholars try desperately to bring back the magic of the gods while on the run from the agents of the Harshax, before Wakboth returns.

Another is where the Throne of Yelm is won by an Osliran Illuminant who passes the 10 tests, and Yelm the Thief is cast down, the Red Goddess is now white, and an Azure Empress who incarnates the ruling powers of Oslira sits on the throne of Peloria in splendor and power.

A third is where when Sheng Seleris returns, he does so because Argrath sacrificed himself to teach Sheng a draconic lesson he can not refute, and Sheng goes on to become Glorantha's Buddha, and the Red Emperor becomes his greatest disciplie.

Share with me your heretical Gloranthas and 4th age visions.

[g33k]

Someone posted a fair bit on "what if the Lunar Empire was Blue-moon?"

And there's some real gems in the "Dumbest Theories" thread, too!

[soltakss]

In one of our campaigns, a PC became the adopted son of the Red Emperor, but they didn't really change a lot.

In another campaign, Mello Yello interrupted a ritual where Great Sister performed Utuma on the Red Emperor, transferred the wound to himself and died, but was immediately reborn as the Golden Dragon Emperor, at which point the Utuma wound flared up again on the Red Emperor and he died, mainly of embarrassment. The campaign stopped after that as the Players did not know how they could top that.

[jajagappa]

8 hours ago, Groovetronic said:

What are your heretical Gloranthas and 4th age outcomes? Does Sheng win? Does the Glowline encompass both of the continents and the Red Goddess rule benevolently over all? 

One idea I am playing with is a Harshax setting, where outlawed, renegade scholars try desperately to bring back the magic of the gods while on the run from the agents of the Harshax, before Wakboth returns.

I've not thought too much about it, but I think I'd incorporate the following:

• The Red Moon is gone from the Sky, the White Moon has risen - new cults have risen to worship the White Moon, but these cults are radically varied (healers, peacemakers, perhaps even Death or Undeath cuts)
• The Crater remains in Peloria, but large chunks of the Red Moon fell upon that land and like the Blue Moon Plateau these are dangerous, "radioactive" places.  Glamour is gone - now its a place of nightmare.
• The connection to the Gods has been damaged by Argrath.  The Gods exist but even more locked into the God Time and their daily or annual cycles in the world.  Rune Magic is no longer possible, or only through complex Worship rituals. 
• Harshax rules in the remnants of the Holy Country - what survived after the Flood.
• The landscape of Genertela has changed dramatically by Flood, magical energies, etc.

[Sir_Godspeed]

Radical Earth mystics in Esrolia and Prax, with cells otherwere, go all-in on a project to permanently revive Genert. They hope to reduce the conflict between Yelm and Orlanth, they hope to made the Wastes verdant again, they hope to reclaim Seshna from heathen atheists, they hope to calm Maniria, they hope to liberate Darsenite and Darjiin cults from under the Celestial yoke, etc. It's an immense project taking decades and reverse engineered Godlearnerisms (like the Seven Mothers' project).

It works, but not quite the way they hoped, as with all of these kinds of plans.

[Ali the Helering]

Rather than being done away with, the gods become 'idiot-gods', accessible by sorceries only.  Rune magic is gone, and dangerously powerful sorcerers feud for dominance. 

[scott-martin]

This Dragon Pass thing is only a sideshow for the evolution going on inside the Issaries diaspora. Trader Princes. Desert Trackers. The Chain Gang. Red Haired Tribes. Etyries. Wolf Pirates. Drastic resolutions. The fate of the Gadaringers and the rise of the Great Talar. Heretics Country. Nochet, Dormal, the Navigationalist Heresy and other Spell Networks. Gini. Geo. Silver Ancestors. Silver Feet. [Są’áh Naagháí] Bik'eh Hózhóó, Haschélti, Gonn Orta, Genert. "Night time fell at the opening In the final act of the beginning of time." Dorastor. Apple Lane, there is a fireman with a [harshax]. 

A Deal With God. Get him to swap our places.

It's why you don't hear from us as much when it really gets going. But the Dragon Pass thing is exciting too.

Edited July 18, 2021 by scott-martin
kate bush reference a must

[Ian Absentia]

It's doubtless a sign of growing old and becoming, almost by definition, "post-modern", but I envisage roleplaying games set in the era of the Old or New Testaments but outside of the Levant, set in Tolkien's Arda but outside of Gondor/Mordor, set in Glorantha but outside of Dragon Pass, all where life is exciting, and desperate, and full of adventure, but where everyone looks over at these hotbeds of feuding bumpkins and say, "What the hell are they doing?"

That, and a different take on elfs that I discussed already in the Dumbest Theory thread.

!i!

[Akhôrahil]

6 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

Rather than being done away with, the gods become 'idiot-gods'

Blind idiot gods? 🙂

#azathoth

[Ali the Helering]

Why else does Dayzatar's figure in Gods War have the rag across his eyes?  All those Umbroli make for really enthusiastic flautists as well!

[Nevermet]

A Eurmal cult becomes a powerful force in Maniria, much to the chagrin of.... everyone.

However, they are quite effective at ruining the best laid plans of the Elves and the Ramalians, so it's not all bad.  Just mostly bad.

[Eff]

A nightmare of the 4th Age: The world dies and is reassembled again, but this time it is lacking one particular concept- Law. Glorantha moves into an age of consensus reality, where the fragile nature of existence begins to come apart again, say in about 450 years time, under the pressures of esoterrorism, colliding statospheres, numerologies of three rather than seven... 

A dream of it: With the Sun silent and distant, his face turned away from Peloria, there can be no Emperor, and so Peloria begins to experiment with republics and the faintest hints of democracy, as condottieri spar on behalf of rival poleis. 

A vision beyond either: 

[UnlikelyLass]

2 hours ago, Eff said:

A nightmare of the 4th Age: The world dies and is reassembled again, but this time it is lacking one particular concept- Law. Glorantha moves into an age of consensus reality, where the fragile nature of existence begins to come apart again, say in about 450 years time, under the pressures of esoterrorism, colliding statospheres, numerologies of three rather than seven... 

A dream of it: With the Sun silent and distant, his face turned away from Peloria, there can be no Emperor, and so Peloria begins to experiment with republics and the faintest hints of democracy, as condottieri spar on behalf of rival poleis. 

A vision beyond either: 

You jest a little, but I’ve long felt that you could play a pretty great Glorantha game using Unknown Armies 2nd ed — Rune Lords are close enough to Godwalkers, being magical through emulation, while minor charges map pretty well onto spirit magic and major & significant to rune magic.  Dunno.

[Sir_Godspeed]

3 hours ago, Eff said:

Glorantha moves into an age of consensus reality,

Moreso than already? 😜

[Shiningbrow]

Elric and Hawkmoon get off a boat in Choralinthor Bay, and through the help of Arioch (and the Runestaff) allow a portal to be opened (given Gloranthas much higher ambient magic, and a new 10,000 year Bright Empire is created.

[aumshantih]

14 hours ago, Eff said:

A vision beyond either: 

Look at all those Death runes!   Do we all get to dissolve into glowing red Lunar gorp?

[Eff]

4 minutes ago, aumshantih said:

Look at all those Death runes!   Do we all get to dissolve into glowing red Lunar gorp?

Fun fact: the circles in the sky are heavily distorted Fire runes, while the ghostly arms are made from stacked layers of Moon, Undeath, and Law runes. There are also Chaos runes in the figure's hair, and an Undeath rune held back by a Moon rune on her forehead. All too heavily filtered to be visible, I think. Anyways, I think the gorp Lunar Corporeal Light would probably be pale white, the color of titanium or platinum, as I intended it. But who can really see the future?

[Nick Brooke]

1 minute ago, Eff said:

Anyways, I think the gorp Lunar Corporeal Light would probably be pale white, the color of titanium or platinum, as I intended it. But who can really see the future?

Zinc!

[Sir_Godspeed]

Just now, Nick Brooke said:

Zinc!

Well great, now I'm just thinking about that one Simpsons gag.

[Nick Brooke]

2 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Well great, now I'm just thinking about that one Simpsons gag.

 Nothing so crude, I assure you. Witness @Eff’s genius:

 

[Rodney Dangerduck]

We faced many conspiracies against the Lunar Empire, sometimes even all Glorantha, but our PCs eventually "fixed" them.

1. A cabal heroquested so that instead of the Goddess defeating Gbaji, he defeated her.  They then took over the Empire and had to be stopped, with unexpected aid from Gbaji's still-existing vampire wife and Arkat.
2. Over-zealous Deezolans defeated and imprisoned Humakt so that nobody would die.  (See Torchwood, "Miracle Day")
3. A combination Putin/Richard III Danfive was "temporarily" put in charge of the Empire (the PCs did this while "fixing" another issue), imprisoned or killed all the prospective Emperors, and, using alliances with Delecti and Trolls, rules the Empire.  Jar-Eel had been killed in the previous campaign and was replaced by "Jar-Uz"

[Prince of Cinders]

A few from me:

1. Chaos destroys reality because it is the only thing that makes it feel whole.
2. Dragon Pass is weirdly boring and I am not sure why.
3. Mongoose 2e had some good bits in it.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Prince of Cinders

[dumuzid]

The late 1620s see the re-establishment of a necessary and prophesied Darkness + Earth + Harmony power in Kethaela and Dragon Pass: the Only Old One returns, either personally or in the form of a troll (or man (or both/neither)) embodying his principles and influence in the Middle World, in the same way that Argrath seeks to embody Orlanth.  The Shadow Tribute is first re-established after the Battle of Dunstop, when Fazzur Wideread offers it to the new Shadowlord on behalf of formerly-Lunar Tarsh in exchange for protection and intercession in peace negotiations with Argrath's Sartar.  More Shadow Tributes follow as the woes of the Hero Wars increase and the people of central Genertela reach back to the survival magics of the Great Darkness, where the Only Old One's pacts lie waiting to be renewed.  The New Black Palace becomes a place of refuge for the people and gods of the former Unity Council lands when the ocean rises in the Flood.  When the Hero Wars reach their climax, and the Monster Empire comes slouching and oozing south, there will be a Unity Army to meet it, to win the Unity Battle in the Middle World and change the course of Argrath's Lightbringer Quest in the otherworlds..

[Darius West]

On 7/18/2021 at 10:46 PM, Ali the Helering said:

Rather than being done away with, the gods become 'idiot-gods', accessible by sorceries only.  Rune magic is gone, and dangerously powerful sorcerers feud for dominance. 

What is to say that this isn't presently the case in Glorantha?  Is it not possible that theist magic is merely a different form of this sorcery?  The gods haven't been very active since time began.😉

Edited July 23, 2021 by Darius West

[soltakss]

In my Glorantha, Humakti can be resurrected.

If they are killed in battle and ask for Divine Intervention as their life slips away, then Humakt will grant it and being them back to life, as they never actually died.

However, is a Humakti is found recently slain and another Humakti uses Divine Intervention to bring them back then the request will be denied, as Humakt does not resurrect.

However, if the deceased Humakti is resurrected then nobody really minds.

Of course, fanatical Humakti might kill the resurrecting healer and then kill themselves in a fit of religious pique, but good riddance.