Skip to content
The Well of Daliath
Menu
Menu

Art and Culture and a Fantasy World

Posted on May 8, 2012

Submitted by Jeff on Tue, 08/05/2012 – 16:07

I’m posting this as a discussion piece, and a lot of this is in shorthand that makes sense to the writing and artistic group, and possibly is total nonsense outside of that discussion. But I figured I’d let other people into the discussion even if it is total nonsense.

As part of putting together the Guide to Glorantha, we’ve been thinking a lot about the look of the fantasy setting and how the various cultures have influenced each other. Reduced to bare bones, there are essentially three major cultures in central and western Genertela: Orlanthi, Pelorian, and Western. Each culture has several “core areas” which have spread out and created satellite centers. These centers interact with other centers, producing artists and crafters, and consuming artists and crafters from elsewhere.

This quickly done crude map depicts that. Dark Purple is the core Orlanthi cultural centers, Light Purple is the satellite centers. Bright Yellow is the core Dara Happan cultural centers, Light Yellow the satellites of Pelanda and Rinliddi. Light Blue is the core Loskalm/Sog City center, Dark Blue its Janube River cultural satellites. Dark Brown is Safelster, which is a weird combination of Orlanthi and Western and Something Else. Light Brown is Seshnela, which is a Western Core but with a lot of ancient Safelstran influences. Red is Lunar, which is Peloria but also something new.

You can see that in a lot of places the colors line up against each other – presumably resulting in a mixture of cultures. And black arrows show primary lines of strong cultural influence and the direction it goes.

It was a quick map and in the upper Janube River it is wrong, as there should be some red dots for Arrolia and some light purple dots as well, but heck we made this for discussion purposes.

Here’s another way of looking at it:

This map actually provides more info, although I think it is harder to read. You can see that Tanisor is an area of a lot of mixture, as is Saird, Carmania, and the Upper Janube.

So if we wanted to have a terrestial comparison for various artistic styles, here’s a quick cheat sheet:

Pelorian: Mesopotamian, Syrian, and Iranian, with a few bits of Classical Greek thrown in (especially from Carmania). The last bit got widely disseminated by the Lunars after rebuilding their empire after Sheng Seleris. Cultural centers: Dara Happa, First Blessed, Oronin Valley, and Darani.

Orlanthi: Bronze Age and Archaic Age Greek, Amaravati School, Hittite, Hallstatt Celt, and La Tene Celt. Stir them all together in a nice heroic pot. Cultural Centers: Esrolia, Heortland-Sartar, Vesmonstran, Jonatela, East Ralios, Talastar-Brolia, South Peloria.

Safelster: Hodgepodge collection of Orlanthi and Western influences with a LOT of Hellenistic and Roman Greek wigginess.

Western: Classical Greek (especially the Severe style), Greco-Indian, and Gandharan. Seshnela has more of the Greco-Indian and Gandharan styles because of the heavy Theyalan and Safelstran influences. Cultural Centers: Seshnela, Loskalm, and Sog City.


Jeff Richard

Next
Previous
Genertela, Guide to Glorantha (preview), Maps, Orlanthi (culture), Pelanda, Pelorian (culture), Rinliddi, Safelster, Seshnela, Western (culture)

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

  • creating a spirit cult of Fralar
  • 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
  • Secular and religious hierarchies
  • 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