Skip to content
The Well of Daliath
Menu
Menu

3 – The Underworld

2 – The Uncles4 – Meeting the Second Son

Characters: Argrath

The Initiation of Orlanth, continued

Vadrus stirred the Well so rapidly that the gods there streamed into one swirling pool of water, and Vadrus escaped through the seams in the well lid.

Urox confronted the carnivores of the wild, and did not run from them, but stamped them beneath his bloody hooves. Then he broke down the corral and released all the creatures.

The other brother failed, and was driven mad by the demons.

Humakt already knew everyone in the Fighting Pit, and they could not stand before him. They were all disarmed, or surrendered, and Humakt climbed from the pit on their weapons.

Orlanth quarreled at first with the Strange Gods, but some of them were friendly. With them Orlanth prepared a plan, and they escaped from the Prison of the Strange gods.

The successful brothers met, and Orlanth urged them all to help their failed kinsman. They formed the Brothers’ Ring, and they moved into position around the Sex Pit. They made their chants and prayers there, and after a struggle he came out before them, and together they did their best to heal him.

Then they went to the great hall, where their uncles had prepared a great feast. Their hosts were surprised to see them, but realized that they must honor their nephews now as gods with powers. So they held a great feast, and since then all the storm gods and the people of the storm tribes have held victory feasts after initiation.

The Underworld

The Underworld is the irrational ancestress of known Glorantha. It precedes all that can be known, and thus cannot be truly known. It houses mystery, spawns mystery and is a mystery itself. Many Gloranthans think that all the worlds of Glorantha spawned from the Underworld.

Most people of the Middle World believe that the Underworld is the source of their worst enemies – Death, Darkness and Chaos – though not all of these beliefs and connections are correct. The Underworld is also the source of Fertility.

The Underworld is not any one of the Other Worlds, but encompasses them all. For some cultures, most notably the Uz and the Aldryami, the Underworld is their Otherworld. For the Uz, the Underworld is Wonderhome, a place of total darkness until dead Yelm was cast down, accompanied by his weeping and mourning minions. For the Aldryami, the Underworld is the home of Flamal the Father of Seeds and source of the Primal Plasma that animates all Life.

There are many deities of death or of the dead in the Underworld. It was the place where Death was born, and when the God Time was regressing back into Chaos all dead things gathered in the Darkness. Since that mythical act, all things which have died go to the Underworld first, into ignorance and fear and facelessness. Their fate after that depends upon themselves, upon their actions while living, and upon their friends among the deities or spirits. Among the better known places in the Underworld is the Court of Silence, where the Judge of the Dead assigns the dead to their fate.

Hidden deep underneath the center of the bottom of the lowest Underworld is the Chaosium, the Fount of Chaos, which spews forth both monstrosities and raw unformed “stuff” into the world. What no sane Gloranthan really understands is that, without this Chaos entering the world, everything would be locked into Stasis.

Related Pages

  • 1 – The Flame of Sartar
  • 2 – The Uncles
  • 4 – Meeting the Second Son
  • 5 – Argrath Faces Evil
  • 6 – Argrath the Man
  • 7 – Argrath faces the Lunars
  • 8 – The Wrath of Argrath
  • 9 – Exile
  • End of Chapter 1


Page Last updated: 2022-09-19 11:25:07

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
  • Subcults vs Associated Cults
  • Gorgorma and Dendara's Chess Game
  • Merged deities
  • Elf plant ships and dwarf stone ships
  • Do Dwarves have souls?

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