Some food for thought – Almost all of the Lunar temples outside of the Lunar Heartlands are unusual in that they do not have a ready connection with the history or mythological landscape of the area. When Dragon Pass was resettled, the settlers knew that Orlanth, Ernalda, the Lightbringers, Yelmalio, etc. all “resided there”. In many cases, temples were built on the old temples from before Dragonkill. Boldhome was built in a valley sacred to the Orlanth cult since First Age. Clearwine Earth Temple had been an active place of Earth worship since the Second Age at least, and the Shaker Temple has been the home of Maran Gor since before the Dawn. The physical structures might be new, but the place has been connected to the god since forever.
Not so with the Lunar temples in Dragon Pass. The Red Goddess lived in Time and her myth-creating deeds were all in the Lunar Heartlands. The Seven Mothers get temples first, and they conceptually relate to the Seven Lightbringers – but they were mortals in Time. Their temples are places where the Red Moon (visible in the sky) can be contacted, not necessarily where the Seven did anything in Time or mythology. This is tied to the whole God Time paradox of the Red Goddess cult. Go to the God Time and you aren’t going to see the Red Moon – it isn’t there! But you can go to the Red Moon in the Hero Plane through secret paths Lunar heroquesters have discovered/made. And even stranger, sometimes the Red Goddess herself is encountered in the Hero Plane – even though she didn’t exist then!
Chapter plate for The Redline history of the
Lunar Empire in the Glorantha Sourcebook
The Red Goddess is not “just too subtle for hillbillies.” It requires a mystical Illumination to get it – but that is not an urbane thing (the Red Goddess herself was from a village in the sticks). Her Myth-Self does not properly sit with how the God Learners theorised how the God Time functions. It slices through it at a right angle like Pluto’s orbit.
This is fantastically disturbing to anyone who is not Illuminated. Most Lunar apologists and scribes don’t get this either – being unilluminated themselves. And so they rely on the tropes of “superior knowledge”, “secret wisdom”, “more civilised”, and “world-conquering empire” – much to the disgust of actual Red Goddess Illuminates.
There’s a reason that the bulk of the Lunar religion consists of more practical and prosaic cults like the Seven Mothers, Hon-eel, and Hwarin Dalthippa. You can get to the Red Goddess from there, but the path is difficult and arduous – but that is fine you don’t have to!
The Malkioni, Orlanthi, Doraddi, Trolls, and the Praxians all have the same basic objection to this – it is a deliberate embrace of Chaos into the world. Horrors like the Crimson Bat or the Moonburn cannot be justified with mystical mumbo-jumbo about “world healing.” All of these religions conclude that the Red Goddess used Chaos to achieve Goddesshood and that her presence between Time and the God Time threatens the cosmos.
The Blue Moon is well known in Gloranthan mythology. But the Blue Moon was killed in the God Time and fell to earth. Everyone knows that. The Red Moon is not blue. Everyone knows that.