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What do you love about Glorantha? (Glorantha Quickstart)


MOB

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For the Glorantha Quickstart, currently underway, we'd like to include some short comments from Glorantha fans, talking about just what it is about Glorantha that you find appealing or special?

We've got similar such comments from some established gaming writers, but we think it would be cool to include the views from across the Gloranthan tribe. 

So—what do you love about Glorantha? Why does it appeal? What got you hooked on Glorantha as a gaming world? Post your comments here, and we may feature them in the Quickstart. Even a sentence or two is fine, up to 200 words.

Cheers,

MOB

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In the many years of playing games in Glorantha I've always been most fascinated by the ability of players to learn more about themselves and their personal "runes" by exploring, through roleplaying, how myth is part of one's personality.

Edited by Septimus Kendaro
clarification and typos
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--

Doorkeeper to cats.

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I think a large part of the appeal of Glorantha is that it is a world that is ancient not just in its window dressing, but in its attitudes and philosophies. The people in it are not modern day individuals with modern views and concerns dressed up in chainmail and studded leather armor.

There's weirdness, too. Like the time a huge empire was founded on a pyramid scheme in order to turn part of the world into a giant dragon, or when comparative anthropologists almost destroyed the cosmos, or when the United Nations decided to create a god and was torn apart by the civil war which followed.

There's ancient magical artifacts, wars of gods and men and heroes, dragons, demons, dinosaurs, magic, sorcery, beautiful priestesses and cruel necromancers. Everything has a history and a place in the world, and a reason for existing.

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6 hours ago, kaydet said:

Like the time a huge empire was founded on a pyramid scheme in order to turn part of the world into a giant dragon, or when comparative anthropologists almost destroyed the cosmos, or when the United Nations decided to create a god and was torn apart by the civil war which followed.

This is brilliant and spot on. How would you describe the Lunar Empire?

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Glorantha attracted me by having things 13yo me would love (ducks, dinosaurs!) as well as things 30yo me loves (inspiration from real ancient cultures not often seen in games or fantasy art. I furiously looked into King of Dragon Pass after randomly seeing artwork from it online, clearly depicting horsemen drawn after the finds from Pazyryk burials.).

And the fact there are points of view for almost every culture, showing the world from their own perspectives (happily embracing contradictions!), inspiring the players to do the same.

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Quite simply the most immersive fantasy world setting that has ever been written for roleplaying in

Edited by Mankcam

" Sure it's fun, but it is also well known that a D20 roll and an AC is no match against a hefty swing of a D100% and a D20 Hit Location Table!"

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Many settings are highly detailed but ultimately generic. What use is so much detail for something that never breaks with genre conventions? When you dig into the details of Glorantha, however, you find something both unexpected and highly gameable. 

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I love Glorantha because it is simultaneously wildly fantastic and yet profoundly grounded. A game in Glorantha can be about stealing cows one day, and then using those cows to power a world-bending ritual quest the next.

Edited by Scott A
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After accidentally playing a game of RQ2, I went and bought a copy asap. Even the layout and art were a breath of fresh air having come from D&D. Inside was a brand new fantasy universe detailed as a game. I never looked back.

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Search the Glorantha Resource Site: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com. Search the Glorantha mailing list archives: https://glorantha.steff.in/digests/

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What I liked was:

#1 non-Tolkein (great author, but too many bad adaptations/pastiches)

#2 RQ1/2 battle magic was similar to Plains Indian magic, rather than Hermetian or worse, Vancian

#3 no monsters, just non-humans that we might not like, but weren't cardboard cutouts evil just because.  They had actual motives that weren't mere justifications for their extinctions

#4 dragonewts were cool and weird, ducks were absurdist but cool (at the time of Howard The Duck, but before George Lucas ruined it with live-action)

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My first contact was the Dragon Pass boardgame which gave a glimpse of a world of army-shattering magics. It took me some time to get the Glorantha vibe from the RuneQuest 3rd edition publications, but King of Sartar opened the way. Then came the RuneQuest Daily, and the addiction.

Glorantha encourages me to take part in the world building, with a community of extremely well-informed people to discuss ideas and concepts. It allows deep research just as much as it allows to jump in and play many kinds of game - whether troubleshooters for your clan, high magic and heroquesting, deep cultural immersion or enjoying a parade of exotic foreign places.

 

 

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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15 hours ago, JanPospisil said:

And the fact there are points of view for almost every culture, showing the world from their own perspectives (happily embracing contradictions!), inspiring the players to do the same.

This was a big draw for me.  No 'alignments' per se.  But there were pantheons, and they were in conflict, and yet they were all correct in their own views.  And even other species had their own perspectives.  And these all tied into myths that were both coherent and contradictory.  And Cults of Prax connected all these bits together: myths, cults, stories, people interacting in the world in ways that spoke to social connections, not just dungeon crawls.  It felt real.

And then there were ducks, and bearwalkers, and weird chaos like broo, gorp, walktapi, and the Clawed Hands.... 

 

Edited by jajagappa
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22 hours ago, Hyperlexic said:

This is brilliant and spot on. How would you describe the Lunar Empire?

Sadly, I don't have anything quite as glib to describe the Lunars.

Maybe something about imperialist hippies turning the world into Tang?

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For most of my teenage years I wondered through the harsh hills of Dragon Pass, toured the steppes of Prax and settled on the banks of the Zola Fel. These great landscapes of imagination populated by a richly described weird creatures and people is the place I love to return to with my friends thirty odd years later. Your Glorantha will vary; ours definitely does. 

Dirk, the Armchair Adventurers 

 

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I like the 'otherness' of it, both from our world and other fantasy settings.

I like the depth of background.

I like the high availability of magic, but the everyday nature of it.

I like the work that's gone into the different humans cultures, pantheons and mythologies, and that they matter to characters.

I like a game world defined by cults, and belief not class and ability. 

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On 8/4/2017 at 9:06 PM, soltakss said:

Rich, deep mytholody, detailed cultures and a fun place to game, for the last 35 years, for me.

Wow, soltakks, it has been a long ride, there are still many grognards here, 36.5 years for me. Do you still have players from your original group - I have three of them and a fourth who joined a bit later.

 

one of the reasons I like Glorantha is the tribe we have formed over the years.

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