Development of Glorantha over time

[Brian Duguid]

I was going to put this as a reply in another thread, but it grew a bit too long. And then I tussled with whether to share it and open myself up to criticism, or just to throw it out there anyway and see whether any of it strikes a chord.

I thought it might be worth stepping back from the detail (Elmal, Pharaoh, medievalism, yadda-yadda) and try coming at the original question (how has Glorantha changed over real-world time?) from a different angle. What are the trends over RL time in Gloranthan creativity that have perhaps facilitated those detailed changes? Here's my attempt at trying to frame that. I'm conscious I'm no deep Gloranthan expert, so I'll await other perspectives.

Before Creation

From 30,000 years before the invention of writing to 1966.

The void, or the primal plasma. Much of what eventually coalesced into Glorantha actually had its origins here. The long development of humankind’s collective unconscious into a collective consciousness. Greg Stafford: “The 30,000 years that preceded writing was the mythical age”. The growth and multiplication of the prima materia which Gloranthan creators would later plunder.

The Roots of Glorantha

1966 to 1976.

Glorantha was first discovered one night in 1966, when Greg Stafford wrote about an explorer accompanying a boat-load of refugees fleeing (what he later understood to be) the destruction of Seshnela. Very soon after that, Snodal’s Saga emerged. The world was discovered mostly by recording its history, through slightly medievalist fantasy tales, genealogies, and other fragments. Much of this material is still there in later versions of the setting, but often hidden, or buried, or fossilized: a deep-lying stratum that underlies everything laid down later. It was later described by Greg (in his introductions to the Roots volumes) as “the deep skeletal origins of the world”. It is still thrust to the surface in some places, most notably for me in 2014’s Guide to Glorantha. This was the work of a single creator but it was still a world in flux. Details of history, names of gods, everything was vulnerable to change.

Dragon Pass, Prax, and new explorers

1975 to 1977.

Dragon Pass (White Bear & Red Moon, 1975) and Prax (Nomad Gods, 1977) were discovered. It was not entirely whether this was the same world, or another one, as there was little or no content explicitly in common with the “Roots of Glorantha” period.

Greg later said that he had been struck by the idea of “using the systems of sword-and-sorcery hackwork and mythical archetypes to create a do-it-yourself novel”. The seeds of much of later “core Glorantha” were found in these two boardgames and the magazine Wyrm’s Footnotes (1976-1982). There were gods, but often not as they would be known later: e.g. the Six Dawngivers, and the Soul Arranger (later a.k.a. Larnste).

This was the first period where others were able to enter Glorantha and explore the epic sagas of the Hero Wars, but only in a limited way. The territory was tightly defined and the maps weren’t really intended for others to extend or annotate.

The first great exploration

1978 to 1983.

A portal was created, in the form of the game RuneQuest, whereby visitors could not only enter Glorantha, but could explore parts of it which were previously unknown even to its creator, making their own discoveries. Most of their discoveries went unpublished, but some of their findings were soon made “official”.

From 1978 onwards (from Wyrm’s Footnotes #4), it was explicit that the territory of Dragon Pass and Prax are part of the wider Glorantha, as Greg began to report in greater detail on the world’s geography and myth. The God Learners were revealed in Wyrm’s Footnotes #5, appropriately enough, as a freshly organized understanding of Gloranthan myth and history was now steadily revealed. Most of it bore only a glancing connection to the “Roots of Glorantha” phase.

Examples of parts of the world which were explored and defined by others at this time: Pavis (Steve Perrin), Snakepipe Hollow (Rudy Kraft), Balazar and the Elder Wilds (Kraft and Jaquays), etc. This was virtue made out of necessity: if you allowed others freedom to explore the world as a sandbox, they would of course find things you didn’t know were there. And if you wanted to make money from the setting as a games company, relying on a sole creator as a long-term bottleneck isn’t a great plan. The result is that the creator often became editor, as with books that were essentially compilations of other input: Cults of Terror, or Borderlands. For me, the best material had a narrower voice: Cults of Prax, and Trollpak, but there was sufficient editorial control that all this remains recognizable as the world of WB&RM and Nomad Gods.

The first age of canon

1984 to 1990.

I think the God Learners were first described in print way back in 1978, in Wyrms Footnotes #5. It was recorded that the God Learners had “evolved the Mythical Synthesis Movement”, an attempt to reconstruct “the mythical realities of the Gods Age”, perhaps imagining a less fragmentary and more coherent version of Glorantha.

Maybe something of that impulse lay behind Gods of Glorantha (1985), Genertela: Crucible of the Hero Wars (1988) and Elder Secrets of Glorantha (1990). Amongst other things, there was enough broad detail here to bring together the “Roots of Glorantha” material with the fruits of the Dragon Pass / Prax periods. I believe the big picture of the world has remained broadly true since then, despite more changes in detail. During this period, intentionally or otherwise, there were no new local adventures published to expand the understanding of “local” Glorantha, although of course visitors to the world continued to discover it for themselves. In hindsight, it was a period of consolidation, and what might be considered Glorantha’s “first age of canon”.

A brief age of exploration

1992 to 1995.

Scholars later called this the RuneQuest Renaissance. It was open mostly to others to expand upon Glorantha in print, and with the exception of Dorastor, the results were very localized, starting with Sun County (1992) and generally not venturing far.

During this period Greg  journeyed alone into the world’s hidden depths and mysteries, conducting a series of speculative archaeological investigations to better understand parts of the world that had not previously been properly explored. This began with King of Sartar (1992), which explored the future but also shared far more for Dragon Pass than had been published since 1975, and then Glorious ReAscent of Yelm (1994), works which sought to unearth (or explore more deeply) perspectives well beyond those of the previous period.

A broader new age of exploration

2000 to 2007.

This period may seem like another period of consolidation, but with hindsight I think it is something different. I get the impression that Greg seems to have been content to sit much more in the background. The world was defined and redefined by others: Peter Metcalfe's Glorantha: Introduction to the Hero Wars, 2000; Jamie Revell’s Anaxial’s Roster, 2000; and then numerous others contributing to Thunder Rebels, Storm Tribe, the Imperial Lunar Handbooks, Blood Over Gold etc. It seems as though the Great Compromise was being rewritten, with the perspective of Glorantha from King of Sartar and The Stafford Library seen here heavily refracted. With less editorial restraint, we got “based on the works and ideas of Greg Stafford”.

A wild Mongoose chase

2006 to 2010.

I've read very little from this period, but I get the impression that the trend set in the previous phase extended further. Other scholars here began to explore Glorantha’s Second Age in detail, very much in the "based on" mode.

The consolidation era

2009 to 2017.

The “RuneQuest Effect” has been described as being when the intrusion of an ever-growing number of subjective voices into Glorantha causes the integrity of the world itself to splinter. In Gloranthan history, these end-of-Age periods lead to catastrophe, followed by the consolidation that marks the beginning of a new Age.

The previous two periods (Issaries and Mongoose) had led to an increasingly fractured Glorantha. In this new phase, Jeff Richard began to restore order to the world, beginning yet again with the lands of Dragon Pass and Prax first explored over three decades previously: Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes (2009), Sartar Companion (2010), Pavis: Gateway to Adventure (2012). These were followed by two further Sartar campaign books in 2016-2017. No wonder Dragon Pass is the central site of mythic conflict in Glorantha: even the scholars constantly battle to redefine what's there.

There seems to be a clear effort here to go from “based on” back towards “adhering to”, but there are still plenty of trappings of the 2000 to 2007 period that hadn’t yet been deprecated.

The second age of Canon

2014 to date.

This most recent age began with Glorantha’s first official encyclopaedia: The Guide to Glorantha. A monolithic compendium of holy writ that opened the way to a series of further holy texts, the RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha line. I think no previous period of (official) Gloranthan publication has depicted the world with such consistency (and in many cases, this level of definition). Other voices contribute, but the level of editorial control is very tight. There is no equivalent yet of a Griffin Mountain or a Sun County.

The Golden Age

2019 to date.

The Jonstown Compendium community content program allows other explorers of Glorantha to record their own discoveries with official consent and support. There is a river of this material that presumably began in 1978 (game write-ups in APAs etc), although its own history is perhaps best recorded from 1987 (Pavic Tales) onwards. Over time, the flow has risen and fallen, sometimes even ceasing entirely for a short time. On numerous occasions sediments have washed across from Glorantha-alternative into Glorantha-prime.

Since 2019 it has become a torrent, to the extent that the volume of Glorantha-alt knowledge dwarfs the volume of material being presented in the current phase of canon. The “monomyth” version of Glorantha proceeds on its way slowly and deliberately, with a hopefully-temporary bottleneck in place, but the “opening up” period that in the past has followed on from such a phase is instead now simultaneous.

Edited December 22, 2024 by Brian Duguid
typos

[Malin]

I dropped in at the end of the first age of canon, and this echoes my feelings as a voracious glorantha reader (I never did Mongoose either).

[mfbrandi]

23 hours ago, Brian Duguid said:

A monolithic compendium of holy writ that opened the way to a series of further holy texts … no previous period of (official) Gloranthan publication has depicted the world with such consistency (and in many cases, this level of definition).

Having dropped in at the beginning of “the first great exploration” — then dropped out soon after its end and subsequently bobbled about a bit — I still find this aspiration toward “Total Glorantha” (with a running commentary telling us what we should make of it) a bit … odd.

Forcing people into acts of imagination (they have always had the option, four-letter prompt or no) is no bad thing, is it? It is hard not to joke that when the heroquesting rules — the MoLaD of the current age(s) — are finally published, we will have to hold a funeral for Glorantha.

Against that view, one might argue that the sheer volume of inscrutable holy writ, fatwa, and incunabula declared anathema guarantees that there will no settled view of Glorantha, paradoxically yielding a world almost as open as a “Thin Glorantha” replete with Blank Lands.

😉

[Brian Duguid]

Well, I was trying quite consciously to avoid value judgement, and just try to get a grasp on how Gloranthan creativity has varied over time. I certainly don't intend "holy writ" as pejorative, for example. But sure, there could be a series of axes or spectra that could be considered here:

- solo vs collaborative creation

- simplicity (monomyth) vs multiplicity of in-world "truth"

- the general tendency towards "canon", and away from what was once called GAG ("generally accepted Glorantha"), or from the increasing incoherence of some periods (I'm suggesting that these trends emerge directly in response to previous phases where looser, collaborative creativity led to an incoherent IP)

- creation through generation of an archaeological record (Roots, Stafford Library) vs through direct exploration of the ruins (game playing)

- breadth and depth of definition (a world to explore) vs the conscious provision of blank lands (a world to create)

- the fossilisation of the past vs the ongoing desire to revise and refresh

As hinted at in the last section, I think there's a parallel but hugely important history of unofficial Gloranthan creativity, which has perhaps paradoxically reached its current peak right alongside the strongest ever official commitment to understanding and presenting the setting in a coherent and comprehensive manner. I'm wondering whether there's a new and more sustainable model here that's very different to the ebb-and-flow, the breathing in and out, of previous development.

I also think there is substantially more scope for alt-Gloranthas to emerge than the creative community seems willing to consider, presumably because the community content model encourages creators to direct their attention towards the marketplace rather than to pursue flights of fancy that stray further afield.

Edited December 22, 2024 by Brian Duguid
typo

[jajagappa]

On 12/21/2024 at 7:04 AM, Brian Duguid said:

During this period Greg journeyed alone into the world’s hidden depths and mysteries, conducting a series of speculative archaeological investigations to better understand parts of the world that had not previously been properly explored.

This would be my main quibble: Greg wasn't journeying alone in this period. There were a fair number of folk in regular communication with Greg who were exploring, collaborating, and expanding on parts of the world. Sometimes Greg looked for feedback on his main focal points, sometimes he shared fragments or suggested approaches to developing our own materials. Some of the results appeared in fanzines, some in small articles (e.g. "Greg Sez", which were not all written by Greg), some remained largely unpublished (e.g. my Verenmars Saga). 

On 12/21/2024 at 7:04 AM, Brian Duguid said:

A broader new age of exploration

2000 to 2007.

This period may seem like another period of consolidation, but with hindsight I think it is something different.

Alongside the official works, you have to include the series of "fanzines" which explored Tarsh, the Char-Un, and were set to do more.

But the end-date for this period is 2005 with the proclamation of the Issaries Fan Policy. That was the Closing, and all non-official visions were swept from the Seas. Effectively exploration of the 3rd Age ended, and you get a retreat to the Mongoose 2nd Age.

[AndreJarosch]

As far as i have understood from talking with Greg and Sandy "The first age of canon" was only possible to be so successfull, because Sandy was the perfect match for Greg: 
Greg had a lot of great ideas, and Sandy came up with the expanations how a new idea of Greg was making sense in the published works. 

 

[scott-martin]

On 12/21/2024 at 7:04 AM, Brian Duguid said:

no deep Gloranthan expert

Until a deeper one emerges to present a divergent model I think you are the incumbent . . . and this is a natural evolution of your recent bibliographic work so builds on that great resource.

What I really like about this model and its refinements through discussion is the notion of two primary Gloranthan processes: one mostly solitary / accretive and one mostly collaborative / distributive. One produces dense texts that resist casual interpretation and do not really reward wide release. It's an underground phenomenon, wriggling through twisty tunnels in the near dark. You can get stuck down there. The other is where all that "treasure" comes back up and out again from that underground in a form that more people can enjoy.

In short it's the dungeoneering experience. But Glorantha is special because our history has singled us out within the larger hobby to spend more time in those underground phases, as isolated individuals and as a community. The archaeology we build down in the desert of the winter world is spectacular in its complexity. When it blooms, the tombs and root cellars swing open and the pollen is overpowering. It feels like the somer is indlas. 

And while the decade underground helped make that initial blast of '74-'75 material so rich and strange compared to what other people in the hobby were digging up at the time, it was a lonely decade. Nobody read those texts who liked them. Then nobody would read those texts again for decades after that. They were brought up like bottles of wine (long-dead grapes) and used judiciously as a condiment, having changed in the intervening years. This happens to Glorantha again and again. Unlike other games that strut around in the sun decade after decade, we've always been in the business of preparing our own ruins for later.

At least that's how it feels in Maine in December when all the rare texts are down in the basement and Jon Quaife just found his private A-list materials again. How lucky we are to get our winters.

 

[Brian Duguid]

3 hours ago, jajagappa said:

This would be my main quibble: Greg wasn't journeying alone in this period. There were a fair number of folk in regular communication with Greg who were exploring, collaborating, and expanding on parts of the world. Sometimes Greg looked for feedback on his main focal points, sometimes he shared fragments or suggested approaches to developing our own materials. Some of the results appeared in fanzines, some in small articles (e.g. "Greg Sez", which were not all written by Greg), some remained largely unpublished (e.g. my Verenmars Saga). 

Thanks, all noted! But it feels like there is a big gulf between the RQ Renaissance material (1992-1995) (mostly local expeditions around areas already well-trodden, with a sprinkling of Dorastor), and "unfinished works" that would (mostly) become the Stafford Library: King of Sartar (1992); Glorious Reascent of Yelm (1994); Fortunate Succession (1994/5); Entekosiad (1996). And from the same period the various other Lunar works: Before the Moon (1993); The Red Goddess (1994); Moon Myths (1995); any others? Sitting here having arrived late into the back row of the auditorium, those all feel like a return to the lonely historian methodology of the Roots period. But if anyone ever gets round to writing a history or biography, sure, there are many threads to draw on beyond that reductive view.

3 hours ago, jajagappa said:

But the end-date for this period is 2005 with the proclamation of the Issaries Fan Policy. That was the Closing, and all non-official visions were swept from the Seas. Effectively exploration of the 3rd Age ended, and you get a retreat to the Mongoose 2nd Age.

Yes, I put 2007 to capture Champions of the Red Moon and Blood Over Gold, but the Fan Policy date looms over any more inclusive history. I was trying to find a link on this forum to Nick Brooke's graph of fan pagecount, but couldn't track it down.

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:

When it blooms, the tombs and root cellars swing open and the pollen is overpowering. It feels like the somer is indlas. 

The God-king returned, and a new Golden Age in the Holy Country. 🙂 

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:

Then nobody would read those texts again for decades after that. They were brought up like bottles of wine (long-dead grapes) and used judiciously as a condiment, having changed in the intervening years. This happens to Glorantha again and again.

I'm constantly finding oddities from the different periods to bring back and open up - sometimes just little bites or condiments, sometimes even as the foundation for new dishes.

[jajagappa]

3 minutes ago, Brian Duguid said:

But it feels like there is a big gulf between the RQ Renaissance material (1992-1995) (mostly local expeditions around areas already well-trodden, with a sprinkling of Dorastor), and "unfinished works" that would (mostly) become the Stafford Library: King of Sartar (1992); Glorious Reascent of Yelm (1994); Fortunate Succession (1994/5); Entekosiad (1996). And from the same period the various other Lunar works: Before the Moon (1993); The Red Goddess (1994); Moon Myths (1995); any others?

I don't think you can look at this period without taking into account TotRM, the other small fanzines, the Freeforms, and the RQ/Glorantha Digests as these sailed in that gulf between and sometimes contributed one way or the other. Without TotRM there would have been no RQ Renaissance, no Sun County, to reignite interest (including from Greg). 

[jajagappa]

9 minutes ago, Brian Duguid said:

Yes, I put 2007 to capture Champions of the Red Moon and Blood Over Gold, but the Fan Policy date looms over any more inclusive history.

Probably well along the creation/editing/layout cycle in 2005-6. While 2007 is definitely the end point for releases, 2005 pretty much killed interest until the Moon Design content came along.

[Nick Brooke]

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

I don't think you can look at this period without taking into account TotRM

Brian is being modest: he was one of the co-founders of Tales of the Reaching Moon. This is quintessentially English self-deprecation.

[Nick Brooke]

1 hour ago, Brian Duguid said:

I was trying to find a link on this forum to Nick Brooke's graph of fan pagecount, but couldn't track it down.

Here you go. These are two of the charts from the back of last year’s Jonstown Compendium Catalogue:

I might yet update this for the 2024 catalogue, I haven’t yet made up my mind what’s going at the back.

[Brian Duguid]

1 hour ago, Nick Brooke said:

This is quintessentially English self-deprecation.

Or Glaswegian, in my case, not that most people would guess :-).

Anyhow - there is clearly another view of Gloranthan creative history that takes proper account of the fan side of things but certainly not for me, for now.

Briefly: looking at Nick's graphs it's notable that the dedicated Gloranthan fan material took off only at the tail-end of the 1980s, but of course, before that there was RQ material appearing in APAs, in broader FRP fanzines (in the UK DragonLords, Demon's Drawl etc), and in "pro" publications like White Dwarf (in that case up until 1998, the year before Tales of the Reaching Moon launched). 

[g33k]

On 12/22/2024 at 1:04 PM, Brian Duguid said:

...

Briefly: looking at Nick's graphs it's notable that the dedicated Gloranthan fan material took off only at the tail-end of the 1980s ...

Just looking at the 'zine graph., I'd call '87-92 more or less a "steady state" of fan output, with (if I read the color-codes correctly (those'd be "colour codes" some places)) Tales of the Reaching Moon taking over from Pavic Tales midway.

But then '93 marked the entré of an era of higher (albeit much more variable) output:  a substantive new player launched every year for 5 years '93-'97 & again '00 & '01 & '03. The fandom sustained generally-high output '93-'04 ...  up until ISS-FP2005 was published.

Edited December 26, 2024 by g33k
clarity

[Aurelius]

Thank you for the super interesting timeline @Brian Duguid — I much appreciate the bit about risking criticism as well. 

This pumping movement between consolidation and fragmentation, integration and differentiation, made me think a lot about how canonization works in Glorantha. 

While we have official takes on canon — for instance Jeff’s canon which pretty much includes ”official printed RQ Glorantha Books”, I think the true picture is mire complicated. 

Like I think some Stuff from WF and TotRM having been later adopted to canon and others being replaced or forgotten. I don’t have access to my library right now, but I think Lunar Way might have some Stuff perhaps was first published in TotRM for instance? 

I wonder what pieces of Jonstown Compendium might end up canon during the next 10 or 20 years. 

Some non-canon works might be fan-canonized, because they are loved (and thus kept around forever) but take a bit too many liberties to be canonized — Six Seasons in Sartar and some of the Glamour books for instance. And its hard to make an ”official” Glamour after the Rough Guide has been around for many many decades.

And I’d be curious to know what kinds of processes and guidelines Chaosium uses in order to keep copyrights straight and maintain the sometimes legally necessary firewalls between fan works and official works. (But I totally don’t expect Chaosium to comment on this, I know I wouldn’t.)

Then again if one started going through generally-agreed-upon Glorantha Stuff meticulously, one would probably be surprised how much of the roots, the trunk and the branches of Glorantha tree originate in works created by Greg, Chaosium, A Sharp, Mongoose, Issaries and other legally official entities … while majority of fan creations are either leaves of the Glorantha tree or at least Jonstown Compedium variety of semi-canon. 

[radmonger]

 

48 minutes ago, Aurelius said:

I wonder what pieces of Jonstown Compendium might end up canon during the next 10 or 20 years. 

Simon Bray's Furthest almost exactly matches the description of Furthest in LoR:DP, despite being published before it. About the biggest difference is he gives it a minor temple to Humakt, serving mercenaries and guards, in addition to the bigger Yanafil Tarnils temple serving the Lunar Army.

This is quite likely an omission from the latter book, as the Mythology cult dsitribiton has Humakt is 3% in Lunar Tarsh. More importantly. as Humakt has no associates, if you have a Humakti PC visit Furthest, they will have nowhere to regain RP if you treat LoR:DP as somehow binding canon on your game.

If Furthest was literally canon, Chaosium would be obliged to explain the discrepancy, perhaps by adding a correction, perhaps by coming up with some in-world explanation. This is easy enough to do; maybe King Pharandros had its leadership killed for supporting Fazzur, and so it is currently unable to function? Now your Humakti PC has a reason to care about the upcoming Tarsh Civil War...

Anyway, the point is currently Simon Bray's Furthest is the best available canon. For anyone not writing directly for Chaosium, this is a much more meaningful consideration. If you want a writeup, it is there. If you don't want it, then there is no obligation buy it.

 

 

 

 

 

[John Biles]

12 hours ago, Aurelius said:

Then again if one started going through generally-agreed-upon Glorantha Stuff meticulously, one would probably be surprised how much of the roots, the trunk and the branches of Glorantha tree originate in works created by Greg, Chaosium, A Sharp, Mongoose, Issaries and other legally official entities … while majority of fan creations are either leaves of the Glorantha tree or at least Jonstown Compedium variety of semi-canon. 

Keep in mind that by the 2000s, the legally official entities are largely staffed by people who started in fanworks.  That blurs the distinction.

[Brian Duguid]

On 12/27/2024 at 11:04 AM, Aurelius said:

This pumping movement between consolidation and fragmentation, integration and differentiation, made me think a lot about how canonization works in Glorantha. 

While we have official takes on canon — for instance Jeff’s canon which pretty much includes ”official printed RQ Glorantha Books”, I think the true picture is mire complicated. 

I think it's worth recalling what canon is for: to provide a platform for consistency amongst official publications. I think that leads to it being more exclusionary than inclusive in what it incorporates. And it also tends strongly towards the ideas of a single authority (Jeff today, drawing on what he knows of Greg's wishes), or a very narrow team (Greg and Sandy in the RQ3 era), because consistency requires decisions to be made.

On 12/27/2024 at 11:04 AM, Aurelius said:

Like I think some Stuff from WF and TotRM having been later adopted to canon and others being replaced or forgotten. I don’t have access to my library right now, but I think Lunar Way might have some Stuff perhaps was first published in TotRM for instance? 

There's some text in CoRQ: Mythology regarding the seven Hells of the trolls which first appeared in the Book of Drastic Resolutions. But that was written by Greg, I'm pretty sure (Drastic was often poor at identifying who contributed what). There is certainly other material now in canon which was written by others, often in direct collaboration with Greg or Jeff. There is some which was written by other authors on their own, and later drawn in. But I think there is less of that, on the whole. The key is the decision-making element, and working in collaboration makes that much easier. And there is also an IP element: Chaosium / Moon Design simply don't have any legal right to incorporate pure fan material - it requires either explicit permission, or at least tacit consent. I suspect the latter was much more prevalent in the past, but I'm just guessing, really.

On 12/27/2024 at 11:04 AM, Aurelius said:

And I’d be curious to know what kinds of processes and guidelines Chaosium uses in order to keep copyrights straight and maintain the sometimes legally necessary firewalls between fan works and official works. (But I totally don’t expect Chaosium to comment on this, I know I wouldn’t.)

For the Jonstown Compendium, authors sign up to an agreement which licenses "all user generated content in their work" irrevocably "for unrestricted use" by Chaosium / Moon Design, without further compensation. It becomes "program IP" which is also available for other community authors to use. That's my reading of the JC agreement - I'm sure someone will jump in if I've misinterpreted. However, I believe Chaosium aren't keen to actually exploit this feature of the agreement, and prefer to keep a clear mental divide between "Moon Design IP" and "Program IP".

Edited December 28, 2024 by Brian Duguid
typo

[M Helsdon]

Few there are who recall that the earliest influence was perhaps Lucian of Samosata, with his fantasy novel A True Story, which recounts the war between Endymion the king of the Moon and Phaethon the king of the Sun.

8-)

[Jeff]

On 12/21/2024 at 5:04 AM, Brian Duguid said:

I was going to put this as a reply in another thread, but it grew a bit too long. And then I tussled with whether to share it and open myself up to criticism, or just to throw it out there anyway and see whether any of it strikes a chord.

I thought it might be worth stepping back from the detail (Elmal, Pharaoh, medievalism, yadda-yadda) and try coming at the original question (how has Glorantha changed over real-world time?) from a different angle. What are the trends over RL time in Gloranthan creativity that have perhaps facilitated those detailed changes? Here's my attempt at trying to frame that. I'm conscious I'm no deep Gloranthan expert, so I'll await other perspectives.

Before Creation

From 30,000 years before the invention of writing to 1966.

The void, or the primal plasma. Much of what eventually coalesced into Glorantha actually had its origins here. The long development of humankind’s collective unconscious into a collective consciousness. Greg Stafford: “The 30,000 years that preceded writing was the mythical age”. The growth and multiplication of the prima materia which Gloranthan creators would later plunder.

The Roots of Glorantha

1966 to 1976.

Glorantha was first discovered one night in 1966, when Greg Stafford wrote about an explorer accompanying a boat-load of refugees fleeing (what he later understood to be) the destruction of Seshnela. Very soon after that, Snodal’s Saga emerged. The world was discovered mostly by recording its history, through slightly medievalist fantasy tales, genealogies, and other fragments. Much of this material is still there in later versions of the setting, but often hidden, or buried, or fossilized: a deep-lying stratum that underlies everything laid down later. It was later described by Greg (in his introductions to the Roots volumes) as “the deep skeletal origins of the world”. It is still thrust to the surface in some places, most notably for me in 2014’s Guide to Glorantha. This was the work of a single creator but it was still a world in flux. Details of history, names of gods, everything was vulnerable to change.

Dragon Pass, Prax, and new explorers

1975 to 1977.

Dragon Pass (White Bear & Red Moon, 1975) and Prax (Nomad Gods, 1977) were discovered. It was not entirely whether this was the same world, or another one, as there was little or no content explicitly in common with the “Roots of Glorantha” period.

Greg later said that he had been struck by the idea of “using the systems of sword-and-sorcery hackwork and mythical archetypes to create a do-it-yourself novel”. The seeds of much of later “core Glorantha” were found in these two boardgames and the magazine Wyrm’s Footnotes (1976-1982). There were gods, but often not as they would be known later: e.g. the Six Dawngivers, and the Soul Arranger (later a.k.a. Larnste).

This was the first period where others were able to enter Glorantha and explore the epic sagas of the Hero Wars, but only in a limited way. The territory was tightly defined and the maps weren’t really intended for others to extend or annotate.

The first great exploration

1978 to 1983.

A portal was created, in the form of the game RuneQuest, whereby visitors could not only enter Glorantha, but could explore parts of it which were previously unknown even to its creator, making their own discoveries. Most of their discoveries went unpublished, but some of their findings were soon made “official”.

From 1978 onwards (from Wyrm’s Footnotes #4), it was explicit that the territory of Dragon Pass and Prax are part of the wider Glorantha, as Greg began to report in greater detail on the world’s geography and myth. The God Learners were revealed in Wyrm’s Footnotes #5, appropriately enough, as a freshly organized understanding of Gloranthan myth and history was now steadily revealed. Most of it bore only a glancing connection to the “Roots of Glorantha” phase.

Examples of parts of the world which were explored and defined by others at this time: Pavis (Steve Perrin), Snakepipe Hollow (Rudy Kraft), Balazar and the Elder Wilds (Kraft and Jaquays), etc. This was virtue made out of necessity: if you allowed others freedom to explore the world as a sandbox, they would of course find things you didn’t know were there. And if you wanted to make money from the setting as a games company, relying on a sole creator as a long-term bottleneck isn’t a great plan. The result is that the creator often became editor, as with books that were essentially compilations of other input: Cults of Terror, or Borderlands. For me, the best material had a narrower voice: Cults of Prax, and Trollpak, but there was sufficient editorial control that all this remains recognizable as the world of WB&RM and Nomad Gods.

The first age of canon

1984 to 1990.

I think the God Learners were first described in print way back in 1978, in Wyrms Footnotes #5. It was recorded that the God Learners had “evolved the Mythical Synthesis Movement”, an attempt to reconstruct “the mythical realities of the Gods Age”, perhaps imagining a less fragmentary and more coherent version of Glorantha.

Maybe something of that impulse lay behind Gods of Glorantha (1985), Genertela: Crucible of the Hero Wars (1988) and Elder Secrets of Glorantha (1990). Amongst other things, there was enough broad detail here to bring together the “Roots of Glorantha” material with the fruits of the Dragon Pass / Prax periods. I believe the big picture of the world has remained broadly true since then, despite more changes in detail. During this period, intentionally or otherwise, there were no new local adventures published to expand the understanding of “local” Glorantha, although of course visitors to the world continued to discover it for themselves. In hindsight, it was a period of consolidation, and what might be considered Glorantha’s “first age of canon”.

A brief age of exploration

1992 to 1995.

Scholars later called this the RuneQuest Renaissance. It was open mostly to others to expand upon Glorantha in print, and with the exception of Dorastor, the results were very localized, starting with Sun County (1992) and generally not venturing far.

During this period Greg  journeyed alone into the world’s hidden depths and mysteries, conducting a series of speculative archaeological investigations to better understand parts of the world that had not previously been properly explored. This began with King of Sartar (1992), which explored the future but also shared far more for Dragon Pass than had been published since 1975, and then Glorious ReAscent of Yelm (1994), works which sought to unearth (or explore more deeply) perspectives well beyond those of the previous period.

A broader new age of exploration

2000 to 2007.

This period may seem like another period of consolidation, but with hindsight I think it is something different. I get the impression that Greg seems to have been content to sit much more in the background. The world was defined and redefined by others: Peter Metcalfe's Glorantha: Introduction to the Hero Wars, 2000; Jamie Revell’s Anaxial’s Roster, 2000; and then numerous others contributing to Thunder Rebels, Storm Tribe, the Imperial Lunar Handbooks, Blood Over Gold etc. It seems as though the Great Compromise was being rewritten, with the perspective of Glorantha from King of Sartar and The Stafford Library seen here heavily refracted. With less editorial restraint, we got “based on the works and ideas of Greg Stafford”.

A wild Mongoose chase

2006 to 2010.

I've read very little from this period, but I get the impression that the trend set in the previous phase extended further. Other scholars here began to explore Glorantha’s Second Age in detail, very much in the "based on" mode.

The consolidation era

2009 to 2017.

The “RuneQuest Effect” has been described as being when the intrusion of an ever-growing number of subjective voices into Glorantha causes the integrity of the world itself to splinter. In Gloranthan history, these end-of-Age periods lead to catastrophe, followed by the consolidation that marks the beginning of a new Age.

The previous two periods (Issaries and Mongoose) had led to an increasingly fractured Glorantha. In this new phase, Jeff Richard began to restore order to the world, beginning yet again with the lands of Dragon Pass and Prax first explored over three decades previously: Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes (2009), Sartar Companion (2010), Pavis: Gateway to Adventure (2012). These were followed by two further Sartar campaign books in 2016-2017. No wonder Dragon Pass is the central site of mythic conflict in Glorantha: even the scholars constantly battle to redefine what's there.

There seems to be a clear effort here to go from “based on” back towards “adhering to”, but there are still plenty of trappings of the 2000 to 2007 period that hadn’t yet been deprecated.

The second age of Canon

2014 to date.

This most recent age began with Glorantha’s first official encyclopaedia: The Guide to Glorantha. A monolithic compendium of holy writ that opened the way to a series of further holy texts, the RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha line. I think no previous period of (official) Gloranthan publication has depicted the world with such consistency (and in many cases, this level of definition). Other voices contribute, but the level of editorial control is very tight. There is no equivalent yet of a Griffin Mountain or a Sun County.

The Golden Age

2019 to date.

The Jonstown Compendium community content program allows other explorers of Glorantha to record their own discoveries with official consent and support. There is a river of this material that presumably began in 1978 (game write-ups in APAs etc), although its own history is perhaps best recorded from 1987 (Pavic Tales) onwards. Over time, the flow has risen and fallen, sometimes even ceasing entirely for a short time. On numerous occasions sediments have washed across from Glorantha-alternative into Glorantha-prime.

Since 2019 it has become a torrent, to the extent that the volume of Glorantha-alt knowledge dwarfs the volume of material being presented in the current phase of canon. The “monomyth” version of Glorantha proceeds on its way slowly and deliberately, with a hopefully-temporary bottleneck in place, but the “opening up” period that in the past has followed on from such a phase is instead now simultaneous.

Interesting take. I would really structure this wildly differently, but that's probably because after Greg I am probably the person most familiar with both the full range of his (and his circle's writings) and what was going on in Greg's life at the time he wrote things.

To me there are six or seven key moments:
1966: Greg starts sketching out a mythic fantasy setting while at university. He keeps sketching it out afterwards. 

1970 or so: Greg discovers Gbaji and Argrat.

1975: Dragon Pass, the Lunar Empire, the Red Moon, Harrek, and the Hero Wars. Argrat becomes Argrath, and then becomes Arkat as well. The pantheons take their present shape.

1978: RuneQuest. Glorantha becomes a roleplaying game setting. Stuff expands wildly in every direction.

1984: Greg sells RuneQuest to Avalon Hill. This is the start of a long era of wandering, some of it amazingly fruitful, some of it not at all. However, in the end, Greg becomes divorced from Chaosium, from his roleplaying games, and eventually even from Glorantha. 

2006: The return to Glorantha. This is when I start getting increasingly involved and with Rick and others, help Greg gather up the pieces. Some pieces don't fit together any more, and some paths are undertaken only to be discovered to be dead ends. But the path becomes clearer and clearer. 

2012. The Guide, Chaosium, and RuneQuest. That's when we are able to put the pieces together. It starts with the Guide to Glorantha, then a few years later Chaosium is reassembled, and then a few years after that we get out a new edition of RuneQuest that puts those paths together (and discard those that not longer fit together). We get Pendragon back as well before Greg passes away. 

But again, I am likely looking at things quite differently.

 

[Brian Duguid]

Thanks Jeff! I'm struck as much by the resemblance of your "insider" timeline to my "outsider" perspective as much as anything else :-).

I'll stand by my view, as an outsider looking in, that there are visible periods of "opening up" and "closing down", and I see both of them as creative acts: one very much about generation / discovery (in your brief timeline this is especially everything from 1966 to 1984, although it obviously continues after that); the other very much about consolidation and decision-making ("gathering up the pieces" and then "putting the pieces together", in your timeline).

[Jeff]

1 hour ago, Brian Duguid said:

Thanks Jeff! I'm struck as much by the resemblance of your "insider" timeline to my "outsider" perspective as much as anything else :-).

I'll stand by my view, as an outsider looking in, that there are visible periods of "opening up" and "closing down", and I see both of them as creative acts: one very much about generation / discovery (in your brief timeline this is especially everything from 1966 to 1984, although it obviously continues after that); the other very much about consolidation and decision-making ("gathering up the pieces" and then "putting the pieces together", in your timeline).

FWIW, I don't really make that same distinction. Generation/discovery went on through the whole period, as did putting the pieces together. The latter has always been there, as Greg would often write many variants of the same idea, looking for which one worked best for the overall goal. That being said, we both felt things had gone off the rails by the early 2000s and there needed to be a lot more editing after 2012 than previously. Between 1970 and 1984 Greg's writings had a goal: commercial publication. After 1984, Greg's interest in publication diminished - after all, he really didn't get any money off anything Avalon Hill published. And so he could experiment wildly. At first the experimentation was still done like his previous writings, but at some point the old editing discipline was removed. We ended up with plenty of tracks, to use an analogy Mike Mearls has made, no cohesive sound, let alone an album.

To restart things in earnest (that really started with the Guide), we needed to go through all the tapes, and produce a definitive mix.  And then try to stick with it. That took a long time and an awful lot of creative exploration. 

[Joerg]

On 12/28/2024 at 2:13 PM, Brian Duguid said:

consistency requires decisions to be made.

Consistency also requires keeping track of what has gone before and whether to keep that.

Breaking away from a huge shared consensus created from both limited access to original material and based on third party additions (like e.g. Star Wars pulling the rug under the Wookiepedia) does create canon. Irenaeus picking just four out of around 20 gospels is such a case, too.