Skip to content
The Well of Daliath
Menu
Menu

A Few Rules of Thumb

Posted on May 2, 2023

Most to all adults are initiates of a cult, regardless of culture, and around 2% of initiates are Rune levels. Many people are lay members of one or more other cults.

These are not hard numbers of course. Thanks to war, pressure, desperation, or whatever, with some cults the number might be as much as 3% and in others it might be closer to 1%.

For example we’ve got about 1.2 million Lunar initiates (all cults) in the Lunar Heartlands (total population 5.5 million), which gives us somewhere around 20-24,000 Rune levels.

While in Sartar we have 34,000 initiates of Orlanth, but might have somewhere around 1200 rune levels thanks to the pressure of the last few years.

Just about every Gloranthan culture defines adulthood as initiation into a cult. That often takes place over several years and is usually somewhere between 15 and 21.

This is true for just about every human culture – Orlanthi, Pelorian, Lunar, Malkioni, Praxian, etc.

As a general rule about 66% of any listed Gloranthan population are adults and about 33% are children. Compare that to the modern US where only about 18% are under 15. I am really not interested in going more granular than that.

As another aside, I figure most initiates only make the single POW sacrifice and don’t continue going much deeper into the cult mysteries. They are likely concerned about other things like work, relaxation, sex, family, more work, avoiding work, feeding the chickens, etc.

Does this apply to the Elder Races in addition to the human cultures? No, only humans. The Elder Races are all over the map. The dwarves and dragonewts are entirely other, the trolls are bifurcated species, and the elves are plants. Don’t assume they work like humans do.


Jeff Richard

Next
Previous
Cult demographics, Initiate, Lay member, Population demographics

Sections

  • Search Tips
  • Current RuneQuest Glorantha Publications
  • RuneQuest Glorantha Corrections and Q&A
  • Catalogue
  • References for Glorantha
    • Gloranthan Canon
  • Gloranthan Documents
  • RPG Systems & Versions
  • Gallery
  • About This Site
  • Get involved!

Latest Posts

  • Caravans II
  • Cult Membership
  • Creating scenarios
  • The Spread of the Lunar Way
  • Treasure!
  • The Puzzle Canal
  • Solars, Orlanthi, and the Monomyth
  • Orlanth Rex is the God of Tribes
  • Tribe and Clan Structure
  • Some Notes on The Dragon Religion

Links

  • Chaosium
  • Chaosium’s RuneQuest RPG Wiki
  • Glorantha on BRP Central
  • RuneQuest on BRP Central
  • RuneQuest on Discord
  • Prince of Sartar Webcomic
  • Glorantha G+ Archives on Tapatalk
  • Search mailing list archive

Latest from BRP Central

  • Out now and free for RuneQuest! Elder Race Adventurers
  • Out now: RuneQuest Adventure Tokens
  • Books about Heroquests
  • Shamanism and the Shaman Book
  • Scenario recommendations wanted: Big Rubble treasure maps!
  • Teelo Norri's Role in the Ritual
  • Heler and War
  • Mastery, and other Runes
  • Gamara on the Wall.
  • Death Comes for Eiritha

Popular Tags

Boldhome (large city) Chaosium Colymar (Sartar tribe) Contents Cult demographics Cults of Runequest (preview) Ernalda FRA Furthest (large city) G+ post Gods Wall Greg Stafford Guide to Glorantha Guide to Glorantha (preview) index Jar-eel Lunar Empire Lunar Pantheon Magazine Malkioni pantheon Map Michael O’Brien Mongoose MRQ1 New Pavis (small city) Old Glorantha Q&A Orlanth Orlanthi pantheon Photo reference Population demographics Prax (homeland) Q&A RQ3 RQG Sandy Petersen Sartar (homeland) Spirit Cult Star Subcult Tarsh (homeland & Lunar province) Troll Pantheon Yelm Yelmalio Yelm Pantheon Youtube
©2025 The Well of Daliath | Design: Newspaperly WordPress Theme