Refreshing my memory on the God Learner activities in Esrolia, I noticed a slight inconsistency in the date of the Goddess Switch.

This experiment is mentioned in the history of the rise of the God Learners and their experiments, and the date given there is 849. (Guide p.135, p.135 timeline)

Later in the same text, the catastrophes are listed, beginning with the Goddess Switch. (p.136)

Quote

In one of the two lands involved in the Goddess Switch all fruit plants ceased bearing. In the other, the divorce rate became phenomenal – no marriage lasted over two or three years.

The history of the Holy Country (p.236) names 849 as the year when the Switch causes great famine in Esrolia, and the history of Maniria (p.352) names 849 as the year when two lands in Slontos (one of these probably part of Esrolia) suffered both the catastrophes named on p.136.

From these four mentions of the Switch, it appears that the catastrophic result occurred immediately when the spell/quest/ritual was completed, although the second effect with the 3-year divorce couldn't have been noticed within the same year the ritual was done.

I used to have the impression that at first, the fertility and familial harmony of both lands remained unaffected, and that the catastrophe occurred several years or even decades later.

Comparing to the Middle Sea Empire king list clearly marks 849 as the date when the spell was effected in the reign of Emperor Brailach, and this was only seven years after Slontos had conquered at least parts of Esrolia.

The overall timeline of the Malkioneran activities, Middle Sea Empire p. 38, names 849 as the year of the proof of interchangeability and remains silent about any negative consequences.

Now a famine in Esrolia outside of Slontan influence wouldn't be regarded as a negative outcome of the spell, but a famine in the lands conquered seven years earlier probably would have been regarded as a counter-proof. And like I said, the divorce rate, even if starting in 849, wouldn't have had the information of marriages lasting only three years on average within a single year of separations, and while possibly notable to an observer, wouldn't have been connected to the switch until later. Even if God Learner "evidence" was anecdotal rather than scientific in nature, this result could not have been observed before 852.

Hi all, I went for a hike this past weekend in what to me looks like Dragon Pass. I took some photos to share with you. Does this resonate with your Sartar? if not where?

Picture taken by artist on Moonboat from 10,000 feet.

Hello all, I'm a long time dabbler in things Gloranthan but more recently have started getting into it properly via HeroQuest. I've been toying around with a character idea but I'm not sure how plausible it is so I was hoping to get some wisdom from the more experieced!

Basically are there any such things as 'civilized' Spirit Talkers and Shaman? By civilized I don't mean in terms of morality but just in the sense of coming from an urban, cosmopolitan background like Esrolia. I understand that those cultures are overwhelmingly theistic and that men and women with the Spirit Rune are going to be uncommon, but could an individual born to say a family of merchants in Nochet find a way to use Spirit Magic without abandoning his cultural identity or upbringing? Would he have to take up a wandering life in the wilderness permanently forsaking the luxuries of the city?

Hello, everyone!

Our group with me as their GM have started going through the harvest festival related (trying to avoid any spoilers here) scenario from the old RQ Sun County book using HQ rules, as described in this thread:

There are three players, all Orlanthi characters, two of which are taking part to the festival activities. The third one, a female Issaries merchant, can not participate, but has been asked by a local town leader to investigate some Lunar activities in the town. However, the player also clearly was interested in doing some merchant business, too, which makes total sense and is something I absolutely want to encourage.

Unfortunately there was a lot going on during the first session and I came up short with providing her some trading related leads for her to follow and I would like to do better next time. However, I'm drawing a bit blank here. I would like to tell her that "oh, you also notice there is this and that going on" without too much forward planning and see where it goes, so that she would have something small but interesting going on during the festivities (lasting a week). Also, if possible, I would like it to be something, that teaches the players something about Glorantha, which they are not very familiar with.

Any ideas, oh you wise people? Garhound is not a very big city, only less than 1000 people, but it is the time of the most important event of the year, so there are lots of people visiting the town, including those trying to make some business there, legally or maybe planning something shadier. Governor Sor-Eel from Pavis and Count Solanthos from Sun Dome are both also present, with their delegations and soldiers, and things may be heating up...

Andrew Logan Montgomery says RQG is the “heroquest” version of RQ2; like Kallyr or Harrek it vanished for awhile and came back with new, mythic powers. Check out his comprehensive 7000 word review of the new edition!

https://andrewloganmontgomery.blogspot.com/2018/05/runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha.html

Has anyone put together a list of all Glorantha related products across different game lines according to the historical years each product covers.

Examples:

• Sartar Rising: Orlanth is Dead (1613-1625)
• Red Cow: The Eleven Lights (1618-1625)
• RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha (1625-  )

And so on.

i ask because there is an incredible amount of material scattered across many books. And if someone wants inspiration for setting up games in different time periods it would be very useful to have.

i believe some books are no longer "canon" -- but for the purposes of this thread I'm ignoring that. 

Does such a list exist? Could such a list be cobbled together?

Please post any errors/typos spotted in the Glorantha Sourcebook to this thread. Please take care to note the page number where you've noticed something!

We'll keep this tribal edit open until March 6th. We'll then review the thread and make any necessary changes to the files before sending to print.

Please note there is a separate thread for the 13th Age Glorantha rule book here.

Many thanks!

Ok, so "Don't lick the duck!" is Twitter's valiant effort at translating the Japanese, but come to think of it that is probably sensible advice too... #DontMessWithTheDucks 

I'm planning a short beginner-friendly campaign on HQG of a group of Rathori bear people waking up in 1607 as a part of the second awakening. I'm imaging the Rathori family community as a band of 5-20 individuals including men, women and children in both man and bear form. The community would roam the forest from Sea to Earth season, gather together with the tribe into semi-permanent dwellings in late Earth season for their rituals, and sleep through the winter.

For runes, I'm thinking of recommending my players a combination of any elemental rune, the spirit rune and the beast rune, but from a purely gaming system perspective I'm questioning the utility of recommending the beast rune to players who already have the spirit rune. While the beast rune will allow them to turn into bears and be bear-ish, the spirit rune will also allow that plus a ton of other stuff. Do you see any reason why a player might want to emphasize the beast rune over the spirit one?

For spirits societies, I'm thinking about improvising along the Balazarian lines but without any pig, dog and hawk spirits (I'll probably need to add in a warrior spirit society open to both sexes) and with the (still living) Great White Bear as the tradition spirit. I imagine that the eventual death of the Great White Bear in the hands of Harrek the Berserk will cause the descendants of the Great White Bear to wrestle for supremacy of the Tradition, plunging the Rathori into internal strife and intensive heroquesting.

As a side note, I'd also like your opinion on one facet of the Uncoligns, the reindeer people. It says on the Guide that the "Uncoling reindeer folk believe that they are reindeer who just happen to be able to turn into humans". What, then, should one make of the fact that the human members of the Uncoli eat the reindeer members of their flock while the reindeer Uncoli do not? This is something else than the Praxian Covenant because the Uncoli believe man and reindeer to be one and the same. I like to imagine that the Uncoli have a great deal of myth and ritualization surrounding this  "interspecies cannibalism" and draw some of their great magical powers from it. The Uncoli are badass. I bet they secretly consider the rumors of Wolverine tribe's cannibalism as cute.

Hello. I've been a fan of Glorantha for decades but I've only lately become active in the wider community. This is also my first (though not last) post on this forum.

I'm normally pretty shy at starting forum topics, but it so happens that I'm going to hold a talk at Ropecon, a Finnish role playing convention held on July 2018, on the subject of illumination: how it works in the real world on one hand and in Glorantha on the other. For the real world I'm mostly focusing on Japanese buddhism since that's what I'm most familiar with.

Just to make things clear (disclaimer time), my practical purpose for establishing this thread is to ask the fine people of this forum to help me sound out some ideas and gain tips and insight for the talk, although as a Gloranthist I'm also otherwise extremely interested in what will come up. In my talk I will publicly give credit and my heartfelt thanks to the participants of this thread, and post a link to the video of the talk here if it ever gets uploaded (some of them do). Please understand that some of the ideas you post here may end up in the talk, so if you don't want that to happen, please say so in your comment. And of course, no comment posted after the end of July 2018 will even make it in. I am not getting a monetary compensation for holding the talk, although it will gain me a free entry to the event.

Now, as I understand, enlightenment in Glorantha comes in two basic flavors: Nysalorian and Draconic illumination. Because Nysalorian revelations give you the power to ignore cult restrictions and embrace chaos with few repercussions, I've always had the understanding that the revelations themselves are chaotic in origin, or more accurately transcend the dichotomy between gods and chaos. I guess they are probably based on some insight that all stuff is fundamentally made of primal chaos or such. This form of illumination seems to hold up with the buddhist view that the world is based on nothingness and that the world is ultimately a chaotic and random existence.

At least Heroquest Glorantha treats draconic enlightenment as something similar to Nysalorean in terms of gaming rules, but I think the two are quite different. First, where Nysalorean illumination features a dichotomy of gods and chaos, the Draconic kind only focuses on dragons and how to become one. Godunya doesn't seem to do any chaotic or otherwise anti-draconic stuff while meditating to become a dragon (although who knows...), nor is chaos a big part of the Kralorean setting when compared to the lunar one. It's also hard to imagine Argrath's Dragonically illuminated warlocks sprouting tentacles. In short, if you consider all this and the stuff that draconewts and EWF do and did, draconic enlightenment seems to hold up better with another facet of real world enlightenment: the liberation of the soul, or the reaching of a transcended state of existence through meditation. As a side note, although the runic goal of illumination seems to be the gaining of the infinity rune, Orlanthi mystics are also doing something similar with the mastery rune high up on the mountains.

In short, it seems to me that the different Gloranthan traditions of illumination are drawing from different aspects of real world enlightenment, and that they are actually quite different from one another. What are your thoughts on this? Also, does anybody know where the illuminated Riddlers and draconic mystics go in the afterlife? Not the primordial chaos, I bet.

The material below is in part derived from material previously posted by Jeff and Harald, and inspired by a book on the logistics of the Assyrian Army... May seem like a very dry topic, but armies have to be fed and paid, and tribute and tax caravans are potential targets for 'adventurers' after the Liberation of Sartar...

[Other sections detail the Orlanthi system, and Cities and Temples.]

Tribute and Taxes

Whilst armies in the field can enrich themselves with plunder and loot, this is rarely a means of financing and equipping a professional army. Instead, soldiers and mercenaries are paid for their service, by means of taxes and tribute, and booty is treated as supplementary income.

In Solar (and Lunar) societies, soldiers are granted land upon retirement; in Storm societies (and the Sun Dome Templars), professional warriors are generally supported by the land granted to them by their liege, worked by tenant farmers or members of their own family.

Lunar Provincial Kingdoms

Each of the Provincial Kingdoms of the Lunar Empire is expected to provide a yearly tribute to the Provincial Overseer at Mirin’s Cross.

To pay this tribute, the Provincial Kings often impose forced collections, such as an extra tenth of the harvest, or a tax on land, herds, and other goods.

A similar system operates in each of the Lunar Satrapies, with a tithe in crops and herds, and taxes. Each satrapy includes tribute collection centers.

Permanent and temporary toll collection points may also be set up on roads, and at river crossings to impose transit taxes on traders and travelers.

On a smaller scale, tribute gatherers collect tribute from peripheral and client states. Until 1625 the Grazelands provided horses (mostly destined for the Provincial Army), and the tribes of Sartar, cattle. Much of the tribute collected is in the form of herd animals; these booty columns require an escort. Tax collectors have numerous opportunities to enrich themselves.

A tribute caravan is escorted by an armed retinue, but as the Hero Wars progress, professional soldiers drawn from the Provincial Army are utilized.

At one time the rulers of each kingdom were expected to present themselves and their tribute to the court of the Overseer, but in recent Wanes their envoys and other emissaries travel with the tribute caravans to Mirin’s Cross. These are either officials such as eorls, or senior Etyries merchants.

The tribute supports the offices of the Provincial Government: Procurement and Disbursement which collects taxes; the Provincial Army; the Guide for the Lunar Way. Each office is staffed by Buseri scribes.

The Office of Procurement and Disbursement is then responsible for collecting and collating the tribute and taxes sent downriver to the imperial heartland. It also distributes material to the other offices.

The Provincial Army, commanded by the Imperial Provincial General, uses its share of tribute to support the army. Foodstuffs are stored in depots; horses are distributed to cavalry regiments; metals are stored or worked into weapons and armor to fill the arsenals; coin is used to pay the scribes, artisans and other free workers.

Each Provincial Kingdom is expected to recruit, equip and pay the troops it contributes to the Provincial Army. The exact system varies, with some regiments being raised and maintained by cities or temples, and some effectively being hired mercenaries. When they are deployed, the Office of the Provincial Army takes responsibility for their wages and other logistical requirements. The same is true for imperial regiments serving with the Provincial Army. Traditionally, this changeover occurs when they march through the gates of Mirin’s Cross.

 As the Seventh Wane comes to a close, the flow of tribute is interrupted by turmoil in several of the Provincial Kingdoms: Aggar has been in civil war since 1620, reducing the flow of tribute; the supply of metal from Imther ended in 1623, and other tribute is reduced by upheaval in the kingdom; the successful rebellion in Sartar in 1625 reduces the level of tribute from Tarsh (especially curtailing the slave trade from Sartar and Prax), with agricultural tribute also decreasing as a result of the civil war in Tarsh from 1627 as the king loses control of Kordros Island, the breadbasket of his kingdom.

This unrest makes the transport of tribute increasingly hazardous, diverting additional military resources to protect it.

Glorantha is the mythical world created by Greg Stafford that first made its appearance with White Bear and Red Moon boardgame and later grew to fame as the default setting for the original RuneQuest role-playing game system. The setting has been used for several board games, novels, comics and several different role-playing game systems. The following is a list of products for Glorantha still in regular sale, in electronic or dead tree form. Older OOP collectors items have been excluded from this list. Fanzines and fan fiction at the end, together with computer and board games.

The Guide, the Atlas & the Sourcebook (system-less)

• Guide to Glorantha
• Argan Argar Atlas
• The Glorantha Sourcebook

RuneQuest

• RuneQuest - Rolepaying in Glorantha
• RuneQuest - Roleplaying in Glorantha - Quickstart Rules and Adventure

RuneQuest Classics

• RuneQuest - 2nd Edition
• RuneQuest - 1st Edition
• Gloranthan Classics Vol. I - Pavis & Big Rubble
• Gloranthan Classics Vol. II - Griffin Mountain
• Gloranthan Classics Vol. III - Cult Compendium
• Gloranthan Classics Vol. IV - Borderlands & Beyond
• Apple Lane
• Snakepipe Hollow
• RuneQuest Old School Resource Pack (Balastor's Barracks, Militia
• Cults of Prax
• Cults of Terror - Nine Dangerous Deities for RuneQuest Role-Playing 
• Plunder - Book of Treasure
• Rune Masters
• Griffin Mountain - A Complete Wilderness Campaign for RuneQuest

HeroQuest Glorantha

• HeroQuest - Glorantha
• Sartar - Kingdom of Heroes
• Sartar Companion
• Pavis: Gateway to Adventure
• Wyrms Footnotes 15
• Sharper Adventures in HeroQuest Glorantha
• Gloranthan Adventures 1 - New Beginnings
• Gloranthan Adventures 2 - Red Sun Rising
• The 2nd Kraken Chapbook - Forgotten Secrets of Glorantha
• The Coming Storm - The Red Cow Volume I
• The Eleven Lights - The Red Cow Volume II

HeroQuest

• Dragon Pass - A Gazetter of Kerofinela
• Sartar Rising Vol. 3 - Gathering Thunder
• Imperial Lunar Handbook Vol. 1 - The Lunar Empire
• Imperial Lunar Handbook Vol. II - Under The Red Moon
• Champions of the Reaching Moon
• Masters of Luck and Death
• Men of the Sea - Sailor Heroes of Glorantha
• Blood Over Gold - Trader Princes of Maniria

Hero Wars

• Glorantha - Introduction to the Hero Wars
• Storm Tribe - The Cults of Sartar
• Thunder Rebels - Player's Book for Orlanthi Barbarians
• Anaxial's Roster
• Sartar Rising Vol. 1 - Barbarian Adventures
• Sartar Rising Vol. 2 - Orlanth is Dead

13th Age

• 13th Age Glorantha

The Stafford Library (system-less)

• Vol. I - King of Sartar
• Vol. II - The Glorious ReAscent of Yelm
• Vol. III - The Fortunate Succession
• Vol. IV - Entekosiad
• Vol. VI - Revealed Mythologies
• Vol. VII - Arcane Lore: Heroquests & Heroquesting
• Vol. VIII - The Middle Sea Empire
• Vol. IX - History of the Heortling Peoples
• Vol. X - Esrolia: The Land of Ten Thousand Goddesses
• Vol. IX - The Book of Heortling Mythology

_________________________________________________________

Fanzines, con compendiums, comics & fan fiction!

• Tradetalk
• Hearts in Glorantha Vol 1 Issue 1-5 Collected
• Hearts in Glorantha Issue 6
• Rule One
• The Path of the Damned
• The Complete Griselda
• A Day at the Races - A Griselda Story
• Ogre Hunt - A Griselda Story
• No Way for a Lady to Behave - A Griselda Story
• Meet the Parents - A Griselda Story
• The Widow's Tale
• Eurhol's Vale & Other Tales
• It's Not Easy Being Grim & Other Tales
• Prince of Sartar
• The Zin Letters
• Forgotten Secrets of Glorantha
• Sharper Adventures for HeroQuest Glorantha
• Mother of Monsters

Computer, mobile and board games

• King of Dragon Pass
• Khan of Khans
• Nomad Gods

Please post it in this thread if you find a Glorantha publication missing from this list!

Note that to keep this thread focused on the product list, all but the latest posts will be deleted after they have been responded to.

So, the discussion in that thread above veered off towards lineages. This is the thread to continue that discussion.

I have a couple of observations and ideas for additions to jajagappa's ErrioUnit family tree. This information is incorporating Life of Moonson (where applicable, so ignoring the now non-canon origin for Appius Luxius himself) and Coder stuff. So, Johanna, the child of Princess Anderida of the Coders, called Appius Luxius uncle. This would make sense if Anderida had a previous husband who was the (likely younger) brother of Appius Luxius. This way Appius would still have a relationship with Anderida (and Johanna), and would fit neatly with him bringing in his brother's widow into the Coders. Of course, Johanna isn't actually related to Appius, because she is the child of Prince Joh, the second husband of Anderida, but since he died in 1604, it would make sense for them to have a relationship.

The second idea is based on Life of Moonson, which I'm not really suggesting needs to be incorporated, but just pointing out as interesting.  There a Pardidas (b. 1588) is Satrap of Sylila and has a sister called Gerra, who is married to Gul-Taran, Satrap of First Blessed. She dies in an an attack on Gul-Taran's household in 1631. Not necessarily an impossible incorporation with minor changes, if someone was so inclined.

As a bonus, here's my very rough lineage of the Eel-Ariash (hope you can read the text based family tree style):

TakenEgi, Red Emperor, m. common woman in Doblian
----- Hon-Eel the Artess (1445-1506), the Dancer, the Third Inspiration of Moonson
----- ----- m. unknown male
----- ------ ----- [EelAriash Clan]
----- ------ ----- ------ ...
----- ------ ----- ------ ----- Unknown male (d. 1592), Satrap of Oronin
----- ------ ----- ------ ----- ----- Kar-Eel, presumably dead before 1592 (since Var-Eel leads the house)
----- ------ ----- ------ ----- ----- ----- Jar-Eel the Razoress (b. 1588), m. King Moirades (1558-1610)
----- ------ ----- ------ ----- ----- ----- -----  Phargentes the Younger
----- ------ ----- ------ ----- ----- Var-Eel (b. 1565 in Life of Moonson), head of the family, Satrap of Oronin
----- ------ ----- ------ ----- ----- ----- -----  marriage to unnamed woman
----- ------ ----- ------ ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- Euridice
----- ------ ----- ------ ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- unnamed son
----- ------ ----- ------ ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- unnamed son
----- ------ ----- ------ ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- Jaxarte Whyded
----- ------ ----- ------ ----- ----- ----- -----  marriage to unnamed woman
----- ------ ----- ------ ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- Sor-Eel (b. 1576 in Life of Moonson), "Short", Count of Prax and Governor of Pavis
----- ------ ----- ------ ----- ----- ----- -----  marriage to unnamed woman
----- ------ ----- ------ ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- Bor-Eel
----- ----- m. with King Pyjeemsab
----- ------ ----- Phonostres (1490-1535)
----- ------ ----- ----- [Tarsh]

An update on the follow-on game to King of Dragon Pass - Six Ages progress update.

Has anyone written any notes or have any thoughts on what the ceremonies for each of the Orlanthi marriage styles look like

...what do people wear?...

what happens?

what sacrifices are made? 

what do they eat ?

https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?825601-Glorantha-Good-setting-How-the-!-do-you-play-it

"[Glorantha] Good setting. How the @#%! do you play it?"

The longer version, from the thread:

Quote

I've dug into multiple versions of Glorantha, and it really is very good, just a very excellent world. 13G finally convinced me to start exploring it, and RQG is pretty much on my instant pull list if we get it this Gen Con. I just wanna know:

How the fuck do you play a game in Glorantha?

By and large, Glorantha is -in no way- connected to modern day morality, or even culture. It's not a case of "everyone is horrible" like, say, 40k, but the cultures are so bizarre and alien and /insistent/ that you follow according to their laws, that without having a literal encyclopedic knowledge of the culture that would be gained from actually living in it (or reading about it since it came out), portraying an accurate version of the setting would be impossible, and playing it at all would be an exercise in madness. Unless you really dumb it down, this would be such a hard world to portray that you'd be better served just...playing something else, I guess? I don't know.

Here is a link to the scenario I wrote to introduce some friends to Roleplaying in Glorantha in the River of Cradles, based on my home campaign:

https://d-infinity.net/game-content/runequest-thursday-188-cattle-raid-koli-complete-gloranthan-adventure-river-cradles

The Lead-in:

While the masters and mistresses of Brightwater are waging war in the plains of Prax, others must protect the settlement and keep the herds. When a dozen or more herd-beasts are driven off, something must be done to return them and the young herders and their friends decide to make the attempt before the knowledge becomes public – and they get a scolding from old Master Theudulf!

Join a group of young heroes as they adventure on their own for the first time in the Great Marsh of the River of Cradles during Fire Season! Returning the herd is the difference between good times and lean for Brightwater. But getting back alive is never assured in the lawless wasteland of the River of Cradles . . .

Three sample PCs, and all NPCs are included as attachments.

You can also watch the playthrough here for a taste of how three experienced gamers who are entirely new to RQ and Glorantha did with it. We did have fun!

https://d-infinity.net/live/d-infinity-plays-runequest-d-infinity-live-series-7-ep-21