Skip to content
The Well of Daliath
Menu
Menu

Evolving the Setting

Posted on December 30, 2023

In the last month, I’ve been posting a lot of notes about the Hero Wars and how it changes. Couple of reasons for it – most important is that I am trying to finish off the RQ Campaign Book, which gets the setting moving into the Hero Wars. More on that later.

But it is also important to understand that Glorantha is dynamic. The setting is going to change over the next 30 years of setting time. Here are some obvious examples:

Your community is going to change. It may include people that are now foreigners, and it may lose people who are now members.

Your tribe is going to change. Maybe even collapse and reform as something else.

There’s going to be war. Lots of it. Sometimes it will take place in your home, other times it will take place in somebody elses.

Where your center of activity is may change. There’s a good chance a Sartar-centered campaign may end up spending years in Tarsh or even the Lunar Provinces.

Loyalties and passions are going to get tested. And sometimes they will fail.

Even the cults may change. New subcults may be formed. New cults may appear. Your cult might decide that talking to dragons is a good idea – which will change things a lot. Your cult might decide that Illumination is fine – which will change things a lot.

Your favorite feature may turn out to have been temporary.

For me this is critical for Glorantha to stay alive as a setting, and not ossified. But it is also critical that we let you know that basic story so that you can decide to use it or not. And for you Jonstown Compendium folk, I think this is particularly important.

As might be obvious, the blueprint for this is with Pendragon. In Pendragon, the prime engine for turning the wheels is the story of Arthur. But your characters can also seize the wheel and change the setting. Same thing here with RQ – of course the Red Emperor, Argrath, Jar-eel, and Harrek are important engines. But so are your characters, who are the stars of their stories.

For me Glorantha is a five dimensional setting. We have the usual three spatial dimensions, time as a fourth dimension, and the God Time as a fifth. All intersect with each other.

Jeff Richard

Next
Previous
Hero Wars, RQ Campaign (preview)

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 Nine Good Giant Mountains

    The Nine Good Giant Mountains are about 60 km or …
  • Why Most Sartarites Hate the Lunar Empire

    From time to time it is worth reminding people why …
  • Suntown and the Eiskolli

    Suntown has always been in the hands of the Sun …
  • A Few Notes on the Grantlands

    To the south of Sun County are the former Grantlands, …
  • Sartar Cities

    Sartar can be thought of a confederation of small cities …
  • Catalogue of the Gods revisited

    This piece from the Mythology book is among my absolute …
  • Thunderbolts in Art

    One of the things that really got me down the …
  • RuneQuest Art

    So let’s talk RQ art for a moment. For the …
  • Top Five RuneQuest Cults

    So it is absolutely no surprise to me that in …

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

  • Odayla Initiation Heroquest
  • Did anyone get a good look at WB&RM?
  • Clearwine Assembly Hill and Orlanth's High Holy Day
  • Sun County pdf is drivethrurpg’s Deal of the Day for July 1st
  • Permission to use exerpt from map in Starter Set in a Jonstown Compendium release?
  • Sun County T-Shirt
  • Summon of Jaldon
  • Jonstown Compendium: Spawn of Molokka - The Cephalopods of Glorantha
  • Runelords and Retirement
  • Hospitality Hearth spirits - what are they ?

Popular Tags

1625 ST 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 Tarsh (homeland & Lunar province) Troll Pantheon Yelm Yelmalio Yelm Pantheon Youtube

Recently added or updated

  • Keraun

  • Pamalt

  • The Tales of the Reaching Moon – Index

  • Best of Tales of the Reaching Moon

  • Tales of The Reaching Moon #03 (GBR 1990)

  • Tales of The Reaching Moon #05 (GBR 1991)

  • Tales of The Reaching Moon #06 (GBR 1991)

  • Tales of The Reaching Moon #07 (GBR 1992)

  • Reaching Moon MegaCorp

  • Griselda Stories by Oliver Dickinson

  • CHA4037 Dragon Pass – Q&A

  • CHA4034 Red Book of Magic – Chapter 02 Rune Magic Spells Q&A (A-M)

  • CHA4043 The Lightbringers – Q&A

  • CHA4029 RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack – Q&A

  • CHA4036 RuneQuest Weapons and Equipment Q&A

  • The Garden, Big Rubble II

  • The Garden, Big Rubble I

  • Half-folk

  • Orlanth Rex and Sartar’s Lineage

  • The Triceratops Queen

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