Guide to Glorantha Group Read Week 9 - Elder Wilds

[David Scott]

Elder Wilds section discussion here!

Don't forget Colin Driver's epic maps and the artwork.

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/6664-guide-to-glorantha-group-read-week-9

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/6665-guide-to-glorantha-group-read-week-9-deep-discussion/

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/6640-guide-to-glorantha-group-read-week-9-errors/

This is a digital composite of two of Greg's maps showing some of the work that was needed before Colin even started on the maps. If you ever visited Chaosium's offices you would have seen Greg's giant map of Dragon Pass stuck to the wall. This was a tiny fraction of his hand drawn maps that needed scanning and digital stitching. The top left overlay in black and white is part of his separate Lunar Empire maps, part of the Gregarth Atlas that has appeared from time to time at cons. A lot of maps were stitched to form a continuous map colin could work from.

Edited August 21, 2017 by David Scott

[metcalph]

Map p194 Trilus and Dykene are built rather far from Dragon Pass.

Map p195 Orathorn is awfully close to Gonn Orta's pass such that in the final adventure of Borderlands, people could have reached it by making a wrong turning.

Greatway has had an interesting about-face in its trading priorities.

Quote

p191 At the Dawning, [...] Dwarves
were buttressed in Greatway, but their interests
were in Dragon Pass and they sent few patrols
to this region

 

Quote

p198 Although the dwarves were members of the
various Dragon Pass Councils, they disdain
to trade with Dragon Pass, but maintain
some mercantile interests with the primitive
Balazarings to the north. 

 

[jrutila]

This chapter was a description of very rural and distant place. So distant that Lunars only visited there and carried on after seating the puppet king. This is also the place for Griffin Mountain adventure pack.

The Balazaring ritual picture is marwelous and powerful. Finally a dog also. The cat vs. dog thing is really taken to the next level in Glorantha.

Clan Hearth picture is missin a key. The picture has numbers from 1 to 6 but no explanations.

[David Scott]

2 hours ago, jrutila said:

Clan Hearth picture is missin a key. The picture has numbers from 1 to 6 but no explanations.

IIRC, the original in Griffin Island has the numbers removed, but I think @Rick Meints found the original that had the numbers and used that. There is no key. Ive added it to the error page.

[jajagappa]

The Griffin Mountain pack was the starting point for my original long-term RQ campaign and led to the New Lolon Gospel fanzine as well.  My players trekked across this land to go to and from Gonn Orta's castle to recover the Sandals of the Earthwielder.  They may have even stood upon Gonn Orta's knee, IIRC.  The second campaign led to settlement along the Elf Sea and interactions with the local spirits - including a 'marriage' to the river nymph which left a child among them.

So this chapter is sort of a homecoming.

One 'misleading' bit when looking at the two-page map spread in the book is that you don't immediately realize that there should be an offset between the two maps.  It was good to see a couple sites in Garsting noted including the Sun Dome temple of Serene Victory.  I wonder if this location is a source of some of the folk of the Balazaring citadels?

A bit surprised that the two western rivers flowing into the Elf Sea weren't named on the map given they appear in the original source (the West and the Morande).

I liked the Firshala picture - the top down view with Firshala arching backwards was an unexpected and different perspective.

[davecake]

The text says the Great Tree of the Elder Wilds was in the Bear Woods, but was destroyed in the Second Age. But a great tree in the bear woods is marked on the map. A new one created since the destruction of the first?