Guide to Glorantha Group Read Week 1

[jajagappa]

2 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

What is the relationship of the White Goddess, Chalana Arroy, to the northern lands? 

Btw, it's interesting to note that very few deities have the "Cha" name.  In GRoY we have Asharthcha, the White Overseer of the North.  "Cha" = "White".  And Chalana is the "White Lady".  And from Fortunate Succession: "Ch(a) is the most alien letter. It is the only one which does not have a deity associated with it. In fact, it is used almost exclusively within words, such as in Asarthcha."  (i.e. it's not Dara Happan, but came from some other, presumably Northern culture - Altinae?)

[ingot]

Thanks for starting this group read, David.  I'm always busy, but will try to keep up.  Haven't had time to read everyone's posts to this thread in detail, but my brief thoughts in the first section are:

General - for this group read, I decided to use the physical book, whereas if I'm looking up something, I use the PDF.  Picking up the physical tome again, I was reminded how heavy these books are.  However, the group read also made me wish the books came with bound bookmarks to help me keep my place - would have perfected what are otherwise deluxe products.

Slipcase - I just got this recently.  A nice sturdy slipcase.  Like the use of the Kalikos artwork in particular - one of my favourite pieces from the Guide.

Book jacket - love the artwork.  I've always liked the stories of Harrek, Jar-Eel and Craigspider from when I was first introduced to Glorantha through the board game Dragon Pass (White Bear & Red Moon), so it's great that the jacket provides a link back to this origin of Glorantha in the gaming world.

Cover page (p. 1) - I've always loved the invocation of varying gods in Glorantha publications - sets the tone from the very start of the books.  This time, the book invokes Lhankor Mhy (of course).

Thanks to backers (pp 2-4) - I was actually the backer who coined the phrase "I Bought, We Won", though I was inspired by other phrases that other commenters on the Kickstarter page had typed.  So it's nice to see two references to me on page 2 

Foreword (p. 6) - great and interesting foreword by Greg Stafford, giving the history of Glorantha from its origins as one man's discovery into a group endeavour.

Coins (p. 12) - I like the fact that the Esrolian clacks are square.  Makes sense for a country that worships the Earth pantheon.  Nice too to see the inclusion of troll bolgs.  Trollpak is my favourite Gloranthan release.

Harrek and Jar-Eel (pp 14-15) - as stated above, I've always liked the stories of Harrek and Jar-Eel, so I love this artwork (by Mike Perry).  Personally, the Red Moon behind Jar-Eel seems a bit too uniform in colour for my liking, though I understand you wouldn't want too much detail on the moon to draw attention from the Razoress.  I think referring to Harrek and Jar-Eel in the introduction was a great idea, priming the reader about individuals in the conflict between great powers that is to come in the Hero Wars (whereas much of this book focuses on a Glorantha on a much more impersonal and macro level - countries, cities, etc).  As to the text about the two heroes, personally I would've liked maintenance of the hero-superhero distinction used in the game Dragon Pass - an indication that, as powerful as many heroes are, there are those who have power a magnitude greater.

Crystals of the Gods (p. 17) - the distinction between crystals of living gods and those of dead gods is really interesting, and makes me wonder how this could be implemented in a Runequest context.

Final comment: there's no index at the back of volume 1.  I know that would have raised various issues (page numbering, having an index in the middle of a text etc) but for practical reasons, given that the books are heavy (my leg went to sleep resting one volume on it while I typed this up), it would've been useful to have an index at the end of both volumes (instead of having to pick up volume 2 too), and for the index to indicate which volume the reference can be found in (though I see volume 1 ends at page 400, which is a convenient place).

 

Edited June 27, 2017 by ingot
typos

[metcalph]

Most of the material in this section I had read before as it was part of the William Dunn's introduction in the Genertela boxed set.

The Middle World of Glorantha despicted in the Cosmology of Glorantha p10 was for me the biggest thing to geek over.  The map is undoubtedly that of the Dawn (I'm not too fazed about the presence of the Red Moon as it being unseen in the Sky before 1220 is an idea that's cropped up in some Gregly writings).  The detail is not perfect (for example, the western rockwoods don't quite mesh up with their known geography) so other deviations from today's glorantha may just be an artifact.

Jrustela and Brithos are intact.  

A large island exists southeast of Teshnos, northeast of Teleos and west of Vormain.  This is probably Churanpur which was described as being in the area during the Gods War but later vanished with the Transitory Empire.  Joerg's idea that it could be Kylerela is intruiging but a real nifty idea for me would be that the island is *both* Churanpur *and* Kylerela.  In other words, the demons blighting Vormain and Teshnos were Esrolians.

There are two large islands of the coast of northwestern Kralorela.  They look markedly different from the islands that currently exist.  They may be intended to be Sortum and the Kang Islands.  If so, it's notable that the Zeven Islands are not shown on the map.

The northernmost eastern island (the one just infringing into the Middle World) is not shown on current maps.  The borders of the Middle World in the eastern isles seem to be much further westward than currently is the case (compare mainland Vithela/Vithalash on the p10 map with now).  Hence it is my belief that this is the Zeven Islands, almost a continent and that some catastrophe has sunk its core.

The biggest thing about Pamaltela is that there is no Nargan.  Instead bordering the Sea of Flame is a massive swamp and a yellow elf forest.  Now the Nargan is shown on God Learner mythic maps so there seems to be a problem.  However the God Learner maps are not infallible (see for example the Heron Hegemony which is actually in Darjiin).  My best guess is that the Nargan existed but expanded in the Dawn wiping out the swamp and the woods so that when the God Learners arrived they thought its then extent was what it always had been.

A more interesting point is that two of the Pamaltela woods are jungles.  Prior writings was that all elf forests in the Gray Age/early Dawn were Green Elf Forests until the Browns and Yellows revolted and cast them down in Aldrya's Woe.   For example, the Guide itself mentions the Pine Forests of Taluk Mormadak on the Guide p543.  Hence the ecological population of the elvish forests is more complicated than I thought.  Another possibility is that the Doraddi (or even the Agitorani!) in their wars against the Aldryami invoked repeated Firefalls   

Okay, enough obsessing over the map!

The coins p12 were interesting and I wasted time in trying to work out the legends.  The Wheel's face reads Murharzarm while the obverse has Yelm.  The Lunar Imperial has at the top of the starred Diadem Sedenya at the top and Takenegi at the bottom.  To the left of the hoplite, it reads Fazzur while to the right it reads Urengerum (an archaic name for southern Peloria).

I can't read the legend on the Clack and I have no idea what it might be.  Hendira and Nochet don't fit.  The same goes for the Guilder, the Seshnelan Silver and the Ducat.  I do have some examples of Western writing but it's kufic compared to the runic inscriptions on the coins.

Biggest change to canon: (p13) Seshnegi Talars (ie the noble caste) now provide the heavy cavalry of Seshnela (previously it was the warrior caste).

p14.  Still cannot get over Harrek's porntasche.  The pic is said to be a fresco of Argrath's Temple of the Reaching Storm in Tarsh.  This means that the one in Saird (mentioned in Argrath's Saga in King of Sartar) was not the first.

[Steve]

Ah, I've learned lots from this thread already. Such a great idea, @David Scott. Like the fact that the hard copy dustcover explains the ouranekki board and the characters on the cover - I was going to ask who the mystical dude was, but I know now.

Here we go with my notes for week one:

Front cover - love it. Jon Hodgson delivers the goods again. Surely would catch the interest of anyone totally new to Glorantha and wonder who these folks are. Now that I understand that the background is an ouranekki board, it makes it even more intriguing - i.e. the great "game" that is going on there.

p1 - The art strikes me again. Amazing. And I hadn't seen the link before that David has posted, explaining how this one (the full version, with the heroquesters, as we'll get to later in the book) was created. Fab.

p2-4 - Reminds me that I missed the Kickstarter for the Guide, because at the time that was going on, I hadn't yet got back into Glorantha again (after originally encountering it and enjoying it in the RQ2/3 days). Luckily I did manage to snaffle a hard copy of the Guide left over from the KS, once I re-discovered Glorantha. Again, loving the art on p4 - I like the animation in this scene, how almost everyone is moving. Looks like the pig is about to wreak havoc! Wonderful.

p6 - Greg's foreword. Reminds me again how much we have to thank Greg for, how much came from one man's mind (and then was built on by others, as he says). A great write-up. Also good to see him telling the story about how it was a friend of his who bought the first copy of D&D. I'm sure I've seen this story reported elsewhere as Greg himself buying it. Nice to see how far we've come with the Guide when compared to that Glorantha: Genertela boxed set.

p7 - the map. I love maps. This one doesn't do so much for me as a lot of the other maps, being at such a high level. But of course it needs to be high level to show the whole world. Still good, and for me most places outside of Dragon Pass are unfamiliar to me, but I'm slowly starting to be able to place areas such as Slon as Jrustela. I still get Fronela and Fonrit mixed up though! I really need to keep a map close by when going through the Guide.

p8 - intro. Now we start getting into references that (for me, at least) could lead to a *lot* of cross-referencing to later in the book to learn more. But a bit like when I first read The Silmarillion, I find it's best to take a deep breath and plough on, and not try to understand every reference right now, knowing that later on I'll learn a lot more. Don't want to get bogged down in the first few pages!

p10 - OMG! I could spend hours looking at this picture of the world. So many little details here and there, and already I've learned from the discussion on this about Theya and Rausa (mentioned by @jajagappa in the error thread). Really, I could spend hours looking at this. Wish I had an even bigger version to look at. Who is the artistic force behind this one, @David Scott? I too was wondering about those branched-off bits on the SW and E and their depth, as already raised earlier in the thread (not saying it's wrong, just intrigued and got me thinking). Did I mention that I love this art? Drool ...

p11 - The note in the first column about the lack of our modern (taken for granted, in many cases) freedoms stands out for me here. A nice reminder about how far removed Glorantha (and any other Bronze Age-ish society) is from modern life. Good points that I hadn't thought about specifically before, and a good reminder to point this out to players who have their PCs think in modern ways. Lots to think about here.

p12 - Nice to see pictures of coins and not just text. Love the variation here, e.g. the contrast between the very clean Kralorelan coin, then the rougher Sartarite ones (makes me think of British Iron Age coinage) and then of course the Troll Blog!

p13 - Amusing reference in the first column to "more horizontal forms of refreshment". Despite the vast gulf in a lot of areas between "ancient" societies and modern ones, some things never change! I really like the description of the market that starts at the end of the first column, but I feel it's a shame that we don't have some art to illustrate this. But of course the description goes wider here than any art could depict, and does help to get the imagination going to try and picture the scene.

p14/15 - The art grabs me again. It does make me notice, though how all the Harrek art so far doesn't seem to match the description in the sidebar (p14) of the bear skin's lower jaw being below his neck and Harrek looking out through the jaws. It's a great description but seems noticeably absent in the art. I guess the artists want to show his face better. Or am I misunderstanding something?

p16 - I like the section justifying adventurers and Glorantha, and helping define what they are exactly Again, good info for a GM here, to help explain to players why they are "here" and what they are doing, especially if the players have come from a more dungeon-crawling/looting background. Helps the world make sense. On Bones of the Gods, I have a mental block about bronze being able to be made from alloying bronze and tin too, as mentioned by someone else (I think in the error thread?) - possibly because the possibility isn't mention here (though of course it isn't excluded either).

p17 - Interesting to see the term Wareran used here. This is the first time that I can recall coming across it. Maybe I've missed it, it seems to hardly be used elsewhere when talking about humans in Glorantha, as opposed to the other terms of Agimori/Veldang/Vithelan.

Even though I read this section recently, before re-reading it for this forum group read, I still found it interesting to go back and make notes for this discussion.

 

Edited June 30, 2017 by Steve

[Joerg]

Harrek Art

I have been part of a few discussions about Harrek's appearance in the last two years.

One was about the depiction of Harrek in Prince of Sartar, and how difficult it is to put the lower jaw there in a position that doesn't make the bear look slack-jawed.

Eric Vanel (the artist behind some of the more artistic maps in the Guide) has been working on Glorantha-themed scupltures, and his current project is a 3D-version of the fight between Harrek and Jar-eel. Eric has chosen to go all polar bear on Harrek's head, with interesting effects where the bear body gives way to the bear fur worn like a cloak by the human.

If you take a look at a polar bear's skull, you will notice that it is comparatively flat, and that the upper jaw with the skull might be made into a headgear resembling a baseball cap-shaped helmet.

For all the impressive angle a bear can open its jaws, in order to fit a human face in between the lower jaw would have to be dislocated, and it would look like a cross between white sideburns and the ribbons fastening a bonnet. It looks a lot less threatening than it sounds.

I guess what Harrek's opponents really see is a superimposition of his moustached snarling face and the snarling head of the White Bear God. It might be possible to use transparence or animation to achieve this, but for stills, the version without the lower jaw and the human face is one way to do it, and another is to go full bear.

[David Scott]

6 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Eric Vanel (the artist behind some of the more artistic maps in the Guide) has been working on Glorantha-themed scupltures, and his current project is a 3D-version of the fight between Harrek and Jar-eel.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/107325676003381945997

 

[Bryon1187]

Picked up my copy at Origins between sessions of running Rune Quest: Role-playing in Glorantha.  Fun, fun , fun.  Anyway spent most of my next week getting about 1/3 of the way through volume one.  I was hoping for more new artwork, but I'll have more time later to actually add something here.

[Steve]

58 minutes ago, David Scott said:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/107325676003381945997

 

See, again no human-head-peeping-through-bear-jaws.

Too hard to make it look anything other than silly without seeing him in real life? I like Joerg's input on this:

Quote

I guess what Harrek's opponents really see is a superimposition of his moustached snarling face and the snarling head of the White Bear God. It might be possible to use transparence or animation to achieve this, but for stills, the version without the lower jaw and the human face is one way to do it, and another is to go full bear.

 

[Charles]

16 hours ago, David Scott said:

You need to know about Ouranekki

http://www.glorantha.com/for-those-who-are-interested-heres-my-base-sketch-for-a-sixth-wane-ouranekki-board-note-the-strong/

Board, pieces and rules:

Ouranekki.pdf

Go to G+ and search for Ouranekki, @Charles did a great piece of work on that.

I had a load of fun creating the icons and runes based on Jeff's drawings and was flattered beyond amazement when several of my designs were incorporated into the front cover illustration of Vol 1 of the Guide.

[Charles]

15 hours ago, Joerg said:

This is even stranger since the pure Man Rune (which I assume stands for humans) would logically have preceded all other applications of the Man Rune, such as Men of Stone, of Plants, of Darkness, of the (deep) seas.

If you read the Green Age descriptions carefully (perhaps later in this process ;-) ), you'll find that it starts with relatively undifferentiated descriptions like stone folk, dragon people etc. Only in the Golden Age do the 'modern' racial names like Mostali and Dragonnewts emerge... This is entirely deliberate...

[David Scott]

 

58 minutes ago, Charles said:

If you read the Green Age descriptions carefully (perhaps later in this process ;-) )

That's week 7 folks, remember the guidelines at the beginning of this thread. Don't get distracted by @Charles :-)

[Joerg]

4 minutes ago, David Scott said:

 

That's week 7 folks, remember the guidelines at the beginning of this thread. Don't get distracted by @Charles :-)

Week 6, the Cosmology inherited from Cults of Terror, and hardly any mention of the Green Age in the correct context. The text Charles is referring to is not in the Guide.

[David Scott]

1 hour ago, Steve said:

Too hard to make it look anything other than silly without seeing him in real life

One of the things that I've discovered with very powerful characters, is that when encountering them, it's in their interest to pull you into their other side. So on initial encounter Harrek seems like a normal if powerful fighter. As you fight him, and he starts to use his inherent magic, you are drawn in his case more into the spirit world where you start to perceive him more as the polar bear god. One of the descriptions of Superheroes with the infinity rune was that they had total control of the power around them. This is how I feel the images of powerful beings work in PoS. you can see it happening in the sequence starting here:

http://www.princeofsartar.com/comic/36-release-the-kraken/

[JonL]

Re. Painted Ships:

The Rule of Cool says painted ships are great, so various sailors' cults, Waertagi, Vadeli, and so on have ritual practices that maintain the decorations their ships need need to embody sea spirits, appease Magasta, etc. 

[David Scott]

11 hours ago, metcalph said:

The coins p12 were interesting and I wasted time in trying to work out the legends.

These are the original concept sketches for the coins:

does this help Peter?

Edited June 27, 2017 by David Scott
Added the pictures

[Joerg]

3 hours ago, JonL said:

Re. Painted Ships:

The Rule of Cool says painted ships are great, so various sailors' cults, Waertagi, Vadeli, and so on have ritual practices that maintain the decorations their ships need need to embody sea spirits, appease Magasta, etc. 

Didn't I say so? The ritual practices being renewing the paint in a rite, whether it is optically necessary or not.

The Rule of Cool also says that no protective measure is without weaknesses. If the seas batter a ship thus protected, life on board gets complicated, and you get story potential.

In Star Trek terms, you cannot beam because of Macguffins like ion storms, mineral deposits or whatnot.

[Bryon1187]

6 hours ago, Steve said:

See, again no human-head-peeping-through-bear-jaws.

Too hard to make it look anything other than silly without seeing him in real life? I like Joerg's input on this:

 

Try removing the lower jaw so his face is more visible.

[David Scott]

10 hours ago, Bryon1187 said:

I was hoping for more new artwork,

There was so much new artwork, it was amazing. 

[jajagappa]

12 hours ago, Steve said:

it's a shame that we don't have some art to illustrate this

Try p.256.  Not everything, but does provide some sense of the harbor market of Nochet.

Some other notes on final pages:

p.14-15 - while I use the pdf for day-to-day entries, if I really want to read I prefer the book.  And if I really want to investigate the art, I definitely prefer the book.  This is one of those pictures where you really, really want to take in the two-page spread that the book offers.  The whole layout of this page really frames the battle of heroes, the clash of White Bear and Red Moon.

p.16 - Bones of the Gods.  While I've seen this repeatedly over many years, I like this comment "are analogs, not duplicates, of Earthly metals" as it emphasizes that just because the document uses certain English words, it doesn't mean that things behave like the earthly item.  That applies not only to metals but even political concepts.

p.16-17 - Adventurers in Glorantha.  Very useful comments connecting the world to roleplaying.  I like how it also links the discussion in its way back to some of the core RQ adventuring concepts: "a player character can be anyone who leaves home to seek their fortune".  This was a reason I found RQ (and Glorantha by extension), so appealing.  The adventurer can be the farmer giving up the plough to save his clan, or the learned sage who explores the caverns of the Devil's Playground so that she can keep chaos at bay.

"Adventurers have become public figures in many cultures in Glorantha." - I'm not sure how often this has occurred in gaming over the years, and it's tough to build scenarios around, but I do think it would be cool to get to this level, particularly in the latest RQ incarnation.

[Oracle]

6 hours ago, jajagappa said:

... The whole layout of this page really frames the battle of heroes, the clash of White Bear and Red Moon.

...

I've just realized: That's, where it all started! The release of White Bear and Red Moon (the board game) was the first time, that Glorantha became visible for the rest of the world. And look, what I have now sitting on my reading desk: two huge tomes, which you could measure in pounds as well as in page count, which are the result of 50 years of collective research. What an amazing achievement!

[Rick Meints]

Here are my thoughts on the Guide. I decided to focus more on what was going through my mind as I did the 800 pages of layout, while also bringing up some "how things developed" notes. Doing the layout was something I truly enjoyed, even though it took far longer than some other projects.

Credits Page: We always fret over the credits, mainly with the fear of accidentally omitting someone who should have been included. One of the reasons we chose the Calicos picture for this page, along with being awesome, is that it allowed for text to be on top of it that was readable, while also not covering too much of the picture. It also harkens to the herculean effort involved in putting the volumes together. The Lhankor Mhy protective phrasing at the bottom is something we always want to include, although we don't always customize it for each book. We also usually debate having alternate valid spellings for Lhankor and Lankhor, if only just to see if it sparks some debate.  :-)

P2-4: For the uber list of credits we fretted mainly over forgetting to include someone, or misspelling their name (which happened). We had to wait on compiling these credits until the very end because some backers were quite late in letting us know what name to use for them (via the backer survey). 1300 backers still amazes us. Many thanks. The top backers were on page 4, and we rounded out the page with a "festive" picture to help capture the festive mood we were in. While it is a recycled picture from one of the HQ Sartar books, we didn't hesitate to use it again here. Filling 750 pages of text with all new art was too daunting for the budget.

TOC: Such a span of info was impressive. We would have preferred to have all of the continent of Genertela in the same volume, but the amount of info was way too much to make that work. In one way, the approach we took makes you want to keep going on into volume two and not see the two books as easily separate.

FOREWARD: Greg wrote his foreward like a real pro and with plenty of time to spare. He asked us for feedback, but we loved it as is. I always love historical perspectives from authors. Seeing the date of 2012 makes me feel that these last 5 years have gone by in a blink...

P7: The World of Glorantha map has a wonderful 3D effect which isn't always easy to achieve. Pamaltela looks massive when compared to Genertela. I like the short overview text at the bottom of the page, although balancing those three columns was not an easy task.

INTRODUCTION: Once I forgive myself for not centering the H in the drop cap at the beginning I always enjoy this section. Much of the text has been slightly updated from previous publications, and still does the job quite well. I especially like the "Life and Death" info. The cosmology map on page 10 is something I frequently open to when explaining "what is Glorantha" to newcomers who stop by the booth at conventions. It captures how different it is quite well, and quickly. 

COINS OF GLORANTHA: This special page was something we wanted to really help set the tone of the book with. It expands what was known before, and in a very visual way. For a while we debated making the coins look more metallic, but "metallic" colors are actually rather tough to achieve if you aren't using photographs of real metals. I love the Troll Bolgs having bite marks in them. We debated what weight scale to use (metric/imperial/other) but our imperialistic metallurgic urges won out in the end. More on these coins in another forthcoming announcement...

HARREK and JAR-EEL: Doing a new picture of such iconic persons is always daunting. Rick Perry channeled a bit of Lucy Lawless in this picture. We don't normally prefer to split pictures over two pages, but we wanted this one as big as we could get it, while still leaving room for the sidebar art text boxes. 

BONES and CRYSTALS: These are two of my favorite bits of what Gloranthan geology is different to the real world. These sorts of touches are elegant, detailed, and make gaming in glorantha all the more fun. In the crystals text we mention Falangian Diamonds... (great blurry bit of Glorantha I like being blurry) 

[jajagappa]

58 minutes ago, Rick Meints said:

I decided to focus more on what was going through my mind as I did the 800 pages of layout, while also bringing up some "how things developed" notes. Doing the layout was something I truly enjoyed, even though it took far longer than some other projects.

Fun to hear about the layout perspective!

59 minutes ago, Rick Meints said:

We also usually debate having alternate valid spellings for Lhankor and Lankhor

I've always enjoyed these alternative spellings.  Makes me think there are great debates in the temple of Nochet over this (or perhaps it's just spilling invective at each other).

[lokamayadon]

High level discussion here ! Good to se it again

First, sorry for my english, it is not my mother language

Nothing seems really new on this first pages but all is very clearly written and it is a pleasure to read it

I will try not to repeat what has been said before

1) what will impact my current campaign

One sentence : "These deities are palpably real, and the certainty of a life after death means that behavior is more important than survival for most people"

seems obvious but I have never understood this so clearly before

It means that finally I understand what means the “personality traits” associated to runes and so on. I always thought it was here only to give a specific “role play flavor”, but now I understand it is more deep and it is really part of glorantha. It is important, not only for player’s fun. It is important because glornathan ARE really like this

2) except the point before, here is the list of what I have particularly liked

• The several examples of how magic change the life in glorantha, from day to day to geographical impacts

• The description of an “international market”

• The clarity of the introduction even if quite nothing is really new

• The coins of glorantha page which I have shown to my players. It gives a particular flavour and has started some fun discussions on the best shape for the purses 

Edited June 29, 2017 by lokamayadon

[AlbertG]

Maybe this will be answered on a future weekly read, but each time I see The Cosmology of Glorantha image in page 10, I wonder how long are the days and the nights in a Gloranthan day.

For instance, does it take Yelm the same time to travel acroos the Earth than it takes to cross the underworld? Does he speed up at some point? The image gives the idea that both paths are more or less the same length, but is this real? Could the Underworld's Sun Path be shorter, giving more hours of day than hours of night?

What about seasons? Does Yelm change his speed according to season?

Question, questions...

[David Scott]

Thanks for your input @Rick Meints, good job that no one noticed that veiled announcement.