Given how traditionally ingrained medieval Europe (and to a lesser extent the Roman Empire) is in our conception of fantasy, from time to time it is worth looking elsewhere for our images of Glorantha. Since the American West was a big source of inspiration for Glorantha, here are some fascinating artefacts and snippets of information from the Pueblo, Ute, Arapaho, and Cheyenne peoples courtesy of the Colorado History Center in Denver. Be inspired!
And before someone says this is Oasis People or Balazarings – I see much of this as an inspiration for Peloria and even the Lunar Heartlands.
Note that the Praxian tribes are much closer connected than the tribes I mentioned above. Praxians all speak dialects of the same language, worship the same gods, recognise the same holy places.
The Ute, Arapaho and Cheyenne, and Puebloans represent three completely different language families, as different from each other as German is to Arabic.
Besides the Bronze Age and the American West with the indigenous Native Americans, what other influence would be fitting for Glorantha? There’s countless. I personally am heavily influenced by Vedic and Classical South Asia, the ancient Near East, the Persian empires, the Hellenistic kingdoms, the Abassids, Ottomans, and to a much lesser extent by Mesoamerica. But loads of other cultures and times could be equally good sources of inspiration and ideas.
So for example, the Orlanthi concept of sex and gender is inspired by the Bugis people of Indonesia.