Quantcast
Channel: Glorantha Latest Topics
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 4685

Gloranthan Novel in Disguise

$
0
0

Has anyone read Queen's Heir by John Boyle?

It is billed as 'A fantasy set amongst the Hittites at the end of the Bronze Age', but it's essentially a novel set in Glorantha, with Hittites for Sartarites, Tarhunt for Orlanth, Warrunk for Humakt etc.

Everything mirrors Glorantha, whether it be the landscape (e.g. they travel through a wasteland which includes facsimiles of Pavis, the Block, the Dead Place etc), the people (Darklings are Uz, Lupaku are Telmori, Silmurth seems to be a young Argrath), the magic (spell matrices, Wardings, Power, divine magic, spirits and healing spells all work in a Gloranthan manner), the cities (Nochet is Byzantium with matrilineal royal succession), the temples (Earth temples are partially built underground and protected by giant snake-beings) and even the mythological history (beginning of time, the 'Draconic Empire' instead of the EWF). 

It reads a lot like someone's RuneQuest campaign (plenty of side quests off the main storyline), and spends a bit of time fleshing out Humakti Warrunki training, examinations and temple politics. Worth a read - don't be put off by the lack of proofreading in the first couple of chapters (typos, missing words) as it gets better. 

The main character, Joren, is a something of a Mary Sue, but it's quite good fun figuring out where you are in Glorantha at any particular moment in the text... It's part of a series called the Children of Khetar, and I'm reading the second volume at the moment, which is unfortunately much less Gloranthan and less engaging for it.


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 4685

Trending Articles