Skip to content
The Well of Daliath
Menu
Menu

A Year Ago

Posted on October 10, 2019

A year ago I got the terrible news from Suzanne that Greg passed away. It seems fitting that I’ve been spending this week reconstructing his old master maps of Glorantha – some of which were lost, some of which were never finished. Among his many talents, Greg was an amazing cartographer – his maps of Arthurian Britain are simply works of art.His maps were often the basis of his stories. He’d draw a map and then look at how it fits together. The myths and stories underlay the setting, but usually the maps came first.

So here is a reconstruction of his map of Tarsh. He water painted the back of his originals but I am reluctant to do so at this time.

I also include a version with a big blue Orlanth figure atop Kero Fin for reference.
The final picture shows how far away Dragon Pass is from Glamour, the capital of the Lunar Empire. That is the little grey ziggurat in the foreground. That huge Orlanth sure looks tiny in the distance.

That’s part of the reason Glorantha or King Arthur Pendragon feels so real. Greg worked out spatial relationships very early in the creative process. The broad contour setting usually came first – and then came the stories to fill it up.

It does raise the question for me whether the Lunars have north up or south? Their maps are of course centered on the Crater – but which way does it look? Towards the Valind’s Glacier? Or towards Dragon Pass?

Pre-Lunar maps would be centered on Raibanth of course. Raibanth is to the southeast of Glamour. Not very far.

But more than anything, that helps me visualise the Red Emperor as ruler of almost everything he sees. From atop the Crater he can see through the haze but then sees the Rebel God in the distance. It must be maddening. He is so far away that he is barely a blue speck, but he refuses to scrape and bow to the Lord of the Middle World.

Most of the time the Red Emperor has more important things to deal with closer to home. Nomad hordes, Mad Sultans, rebellions, harvests, irrigation systems, heron dances, court intrigue, Dart Wars, etc. But one day – ONE DAY mark you – he’ll wipe that smile off that blue bastard’s face.

And of course the followup image is that of a 2 cm long dragon spiralling around Kero Fin! YIKES! Thankfully the Red Emperor stopped the Dragon from coming here!

Here’s an old post of mine that helps with a sense of scale:

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/websites/moondesign-com/jeffs-old-blogs/a-sense-of-scale/

But by the time you get to Dragon Pass, that influence from the Lunar Heartlands is largely dissipated. There’s a much richer, and much nearer source of influence on Dragon Pass. But that will have to wait until I am finished with the fourth map of the series.

Jeff Richard

Next
Previous
Kero Fin, Maps, Tarsh (homeland)

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

  • The Grasslands of Prax

    Something to keep in mind about Prax. The grasslands of …
  • Praxian Kinship Groups

    Praxian tribes are divided into smaller kinship groups or clans, …
  • Lunar Resettlement of Tarsh after 1460 ST

    After 1460, large sections of Peloria (especially east of the …
  • The Spread of the Lunar Way

    In the Lunar Provinces, about 26% of the total population …
  • Gods of Fire and Sky and the Lunar Way

    The Gods of Fire and Sky co-exist alongside the Lunar …
  • How Much Land is a Hide?

    So in RQ, a “hide” is a unit of accounting …
  • Agricultural Data for RuneQuest

    Back in the late 70s and early 80s, Greg‘s only …
  • Farming in Dara Happa

    In anticipation of the Fire/Sky Book, here’s a few notes …
  • Farming in the Big Rubble

    There are some 1600 humans in the Big Rubble, with …

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

  • Thoughts on running an Animal Nomad/Praxian game
  • Fillable excel RQG character sheets?
  • Where is there a list of temples in Dragon Pass?
  • New on the Jonstown Compendium: Many Suns
  • control entity spirit spell question
  • creating a spirit cult of Fralar
  • Subcults vs Associated Cults
  • Gorgorma and Dendara's Chess Game
  • Merged deities
  • Elf plant ships and dwarf stone ships

Popular Tags

Boldhome (large city) Chaosium Colymar (Sartar tribe) Contents Cult demographics Cults of Runequest (preview) Ernalda Esrolia (homeland) FRA Furthest (large city) G+ post Gods Wall Greg Stafford Guide to Glorantha (preview) Humakt 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) RQ3 RQG Sandy Petersen Sartar (homeland) Spirit Cult Star Subcult Tapatalk post Tarsh (homeland & Lunar province) Troll Pantheon Yelm Yelmalio Yelm Pantheon Youtube

Recently added or updated

  • Spirit Magic by Cult and Associate Cult

  • ISS1102 Glorantha: Introduction to the Hero Wars (2000)

  • Dragon Pass – A brief outline (2013)

  • Some Fronelan Population And Cultural Details

  • Notes on Fronela III

  • Notes on Fronela II

  • Notes on Fronela I

  • Hon-eel Temples and Shrine

  • Seven Mothers Temples and Shrines

  • Ernalda Temples and Shrines

  • Barntar Temples and Shrines

  • Babeester Gor Temple and Shrines

  • Voria Shrines

  • Ty Kora Tek Temples and Shrines

  • Asrelia Temples and Shrines

  • Maran Gor Temple, Shrines and Site

  • Odayla Shrines

  • Humakt Temples, Shrines and Sites

  • Orlanth Rex Temples, Shrines and Sites

  • Hippoi Shrines

©2025 The Well of Daliath | Design: Newspaperly WordPress Theme