The Lunar Empire rules somewhere around 410,000 square km, including the Heartlands, West Reaches, and Provinces. That’s about the same size as Iraq or a little larger than the state of California….
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Worshiping Heroes
As a general rule, heroes (or superheroes) that are active doing stuff in the mundane world are rarely able to provide their worshipers with Rune magic (although they might be closely linked…
Thoughts on The Lightbringers Quest
The Lightbringers Quest can be thought of as the monomyth of heroquests. It contains within it many quests – the Westfaring, the Descent into the Underworld, the Tests of Proof, etc. In…
Harmast’s “Lightbringers’ Quest”
I personally think it a little ironic that we still refer to Harmast’s “Lightbringers’ Quest” when after all it turned out to be a “Darknessbringer’s Quest”. Those Lightbringers were pretty shocked when…
Sartarite communities
One way of thinking about Gloranthan communities is as confederations of local temples. So for example, most Sartarite communities can be viewed as a tight alliance of the Orlanth and Ernalda temples,…
Broken Empires, Gods, and Ideas
Arkat was the most terrifying mortal to walk the world. He built no new empires, ruled nothing but his companions, and built little. Instead, Arkat broke empires, gods, and even ideas. Think…
The Sea Gods
We tend to underestimate the Sea Gods. In Dragon Pass, the main water cults are Heler the Rain God (practically a subcult of Orlanth Thunderous), Engizi/Sky River Titan (because of the Skyfall…
The Red Moon from Sartar
The Red Moon hangs some 3000 km directly above the Crater, which is about 800 km from the Quivin Mountains. If I were standing atop Quivin Mountain, the Red Moon would be…
Prehistoric Moons
In the God Time, Glorantha had a moon or moons, sometimes described as blue, red, or even purple. Most give a celestial origin for this Lunar Goddess, calling her the daughter of…
The Loper
One of my favorite Gloranthan critters is the fabled Loper, the mount of the Loper People, who once caused havoc from Slontos to Teshnos. They have the ability to teleport to any…
The Origin of Belintar
Greg and I both agreed never to publish a definitive answer as to the origin of Belintar. If the Only Old One couldn’t learn his origins, your player characters sure as heck…
Top Five favorite Elder Races
My personal Top Five favorite Elder Races: 5. Black elves. The Dark Plant People are fungi – they are concerned about the recycling of death into life. Everyone ignores them, or assumes…
Origin of Rune traits
As you all know, the Runequest character sheet sets the various Power Runes against each other as opposed polarities, e.g., Death-Life, Movement-Stasis, etc. It also sets up Man against Beast. The use…
Machine City and God Forgot
As we all know, magic is the result of drawing upon the timeless and eternal “God Time” to affect the material world of Time. And so sorcery as a magic system is…
The Kingdom of Sartar is hardly paradise
So after pointing out some of the horrors the Lunar Empire is built upon, I think it is also worth pointing out that living in the Kingdom of Sartar is hardly paradise….
The Moonburn
Of all the many crimes of the Third Age perhaps the worst was the Moonburn. As we all know, back in the First Wane, Dara-Ni was refuge for the River People and…
The Dragon Pass
Dragon Pass is the name often applied to the broad 180 km wide pass between the Rockwoods and the Skyreach Mountains (which are a subrange of the Western Rockwoods). Those ranges have…
The Stitched Zoo
Among the stranger ruins from the Empire of the Wyrms Friends is the Stitched Ruins in Dragon Pass. You can still see the ruins of corrals and prison cells, and the whole…
Solar Pentans
There are 600,000 Solar Pentans. A crude breakdown of the cult numbers would suggest that they have about: The remaining 200k are children so they are not in a cult? Yes Those…
The Size of a Tribe
Let’s try a little to get a sense of scale of an Orlanthi tribe. Let’s start with one of the biggest – the Colymar. The tribe has about 13,000 members. Most are…
Solar Book – Yelmalio description
Here is a nice description of Yelmalio from the Solar religion materials: Yelmalio is the Solar deity found where Yelm’s imperial rule does not reach. Associated with the planet Lightfore, his cult…
Zola Fel Valley
This is another one of those posts about scale. Pavis County and Sun Dome County are where New Pavis, the Big Rubble, and the Sun Dome Temple of Prax are located. It…
Minor Gods
Among the more interesting (and culturally important) minor gods in Glorantha include: Additionally, most Chaos gods rate as minor – Bagog, Krarsht, Krjalk, Pocharngo, Tyram, Vivamort, Xamalt, etc. Now some of these…
Lunar Occupation of Sartar 1622-1625
I posted elsewhere a few thoughts on the Lunar Occupation, and I thought they might be of interest here. Remember that the Lunar Empire is not all powerful or all knowing. So…
Minor Gods in the East Isles
So my recent post on greater and major gods of Glorantha caused a few stirs, so let’s go a little further with it. One question is what are the Greater and Major…