My wine vs beer debate with @Jeff made me realize we have a fundamental disconnect about the weather in Peloria. While of course, YGMV, he describes Peloria as similar in climate and plant life as the Upper Mississippi/Missouri Valley, and I've always thought of it being more akin to Spain or Southern France. Both are about the same latitude, but obviously there's a pretty big difference in the weather, both in terms of temperature range and humidity. My Peloria is more temperate and drier, Jeff's (I believe) is wetter with a more extreme range of temperatures.
Now based on geography, Jeff's view (and by extension the official Chaosium POV) makes a lot of sense. Peloria is the north central part of a continent roughly the size of the United States. There's a glacier sitting just off the map. The White Sea is ice-locked, etc. And Sartar is just to the west of a hot dry wasteland and could easily be a high desert, given the Rockwoods' significant rain shadow.
But... but... I don't know. That doesn't feel right to me. Dara Happa doesn't feel like it should be a cold place, normally. Nor does Darjin or Pelanda. I see ziggurats and togas and flat-roofed adobe and sandals and formation dependent infantry and none of that makes much sense in places with long cold winters, ample forests, and tons of rain. Dara Happa feels like a classic river flood plain civilization, dependent on the reliable Oslir for their water, not even bothering to sacrifice to any sort of rain or cloud god. In Dara Happa (and I think much of Peloria) river water + earth + sun = food.
Meanwhile Sartar is boots and cloaks and long pants and forests and rain and storm gods. For Sartarites storms + earth + a bit of sun = food. They propitiate a god of winter (Peloria doesn't), they have a goddess of spring (does Peloria?), they seem to experience the full range of seasons. In Dark Season, they make no war (unless they honor Valind and then it's raidin' time!)
So my justification for my version of Glorantha is that the gods make the difference.
In my Dragon Pass, Orlanth and Heler do not give two shits about a rain shadow. It rains a lot because they say it does. Valind doesn't care about latitude. Valind hides in the mountaintops most of the year, then claims his kingship in Dark Season because that's the deal Orlanth made with him.
In my Peloria, Yelm shines bright. He sends more heat to his beloved Dara Happa and the surrounding lands than the rest of the world. He's always moderated the climate there, except when he was dead. He does so still. Now from time to time, perhaps once a decade or so, Valind would beat Yelm back in a reenactment of the Lesser Darkness and Peloria would have a snowy winter. But even that doesn't happen anymore, because Yelm has now has help. The Lunar Icebreaker cult, for the last 30 years, has made sure that Valind never wins. Even while snow covers Pent and Fronela and Ignorance, Winter never truly comes to Peloria. (Well except Talastar, and Yelm doesn't love them, so there.)
The point is, in my Peloria, hoplites can march in sandals and togas make perfect sense and I get my Lunar wine and olives and posca.
Because really it's all about the posca.
So how's the weather in your Peloria?