Books are a big deal for the Moon Design team – not just RPGs and fantasy literature, but history, mythology, religion, and classics of literature. You might have noticed that the Guide to Glorantha and HeroQuest Glorantha have bibliographies of sources and suggested resources. We’re going to be expanding on that in our new Gloranthan Readings page. For the time being, books are organized by Classics, Reference Books, Epics and Sagas, and Fantasy. We’ll have a short synopsis of a book, why we think it is worth your time to read, and even a link to Amazon so you can buy it (if you don’t already have it).
You can even suggest books to add to this list – if I haven’t read it, I’ll put it on the stack. Every week or so, we’ll add another book with a synopsis and a few comments. First up, of course, are the books we’ve already recommended, but we’ll adding to that list soon enough.
First on the list is Herodotus, “The Histories”. Seriously, if you haven’t read Herodotus you owe it to yourself as a literate person to stop what you are doing and get it. Now.
Herodotus wrote the first history book – an account of the wars between the Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta against the Persian Empire, written from the perspective of an educated Greek in the 5th Century BC. The Histories serves as a Greek sourcebook for Persia, Babylon, Egypt, Scythia – even India!
For Glorantha-philes, there’s a tremendous amount of inspiration here. The roots of the story of Sartar against the Lunar Empire isn’t “Braveheart”, they are the Persian Wars. Like a good Gloranthan, when Herodotus wants to get down the ultimate cause of the conflict, he goes to mythology and the Trojan War. Like a good God Learner or Arkati, he discusses the religion of other peoples within the constructs of Greek mythology.
Seriously, click on the link and just buy it, and then read it.
So why don’t you go over to Gloranthan Readings and check out what we’ve got up?
We are also enabling Comments on blog posts now so you can do the discussion directly on the site like we do with Prince of Sartar. We would love to hear your comments on The Histories.
Related Pages
- 13th Age in Glorantha Kickstarter News (2014)
- A Little Background on the Stafford Library
- A Visit to the Printers – See HeroQuest Glorantha Covers
- An Ernaldan Festival (2013)
- Announcing the new Prince of Sartar webcomic!!!
- Bina Bang & Lord Lurker in Dark (2013)
- Bronze Age Weapons
- Canon and YGWV (2013)
- Company News
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- Divine Magic: Sacrifice and Prayer
- Draft maps of the Hero Wars
- Dragon Pass on YouTube
- Esrolian Queens List
- Experimental Mapping
- Feathered Horse Queen Dynasty (2015)
- Field School of Magic
- Genealogy of the Earth Gods (2014)
- Gigantic war games of the Hero Wars
- Glorantha cultures: cross-pollination and changes over time
- Glorantha returns to Chaosium
- Gloranthan Art in Berlin
- Gloranthan artifacts
- Gloranthan Magic and Synchronicity
- Gloranthan Readings: Jorge Luis Borges – Collected Fiction
- Gloranthan Readings: Poems of Heaven and Hell from Ancient Mesopotamia
- Gloranthan timelines
- Gods of Fonrit
- Golden Mokato
- Guide to Glorantha News and Previews
- Here’s a question for you all
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- Jan Pospisil selling art King of Dragon Pass.
- Lunar Army List
- Lunar Command Standards
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- Lunar Province of Holay
- Malkioni Wizardry
- Map fact of the day
- Map of Raibanth (2013)
- Master Map of Dragon Pass
- Moon Design Creative Bunker
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- Orlanth & Prax
- Praxian Nomads
- Print the Stafford Library at Lulu.com
- Queen Hendira
- RuneQuest Classic Kickstarter News
- Sartar Free Army (2015)
- Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes Underworld Quest
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- Site & Forum News
- Snippet of Seshnelan History
- Some teases on the Glorantha Source Book
- Some thoughts on spirits and gods
- Some thoughts on the Gloranthan gods, cults, and divine names
- Special ToMA episode: Greg talks about The Future of Chaosium
- Strength of the Lunar Army
- Tapping
- The castes of Seshnela
- The discovery of Glorantha
- The Eight Sons of Yelm
- The Gods War
- The Kickstarter Survey is nigh!
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- The Map Vault
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- Understanding the Malkioni approach to sorcery, runes, and gods
- Understanding the Runes