Skip to content
The Well of Daliath
Menu
Menu

More New Hrestolism Thoughts

Posted on January 12, 2023

New Hrestolism is arguably a more radical religious movement than even the Lunar Way. I don’t mean the “class mobility” features, that’s just a subset of it. With the Ban, the divine King Siglat the Wise was able to implement a philosophical experiment that would have put Lycurgus and Solon to shame, and made Plato mad with envy. Recall that during the Ban, all of Loskalm was cut off from the rest of Glorantha. No neighbors, no invasions, no war, no trade, etc. It was a closed system, like a university campus.

Siglat proposed a philosophical Republic, with himself as the Philosopher-King. People are to be assigned to the caste they are best for, the rulers need to understand the experiences of the ruled. Old half-measures were gotten rid of, such as personified cults of elemental and power Runes.

So everyone starts as a Dronar – a worker. Those who showed promise as a youth are selected and trained as Guardians. They need to read texts, display physical excellence, spiritual virtues, etc. Of course that meant Loskalm needed schools-gymnasiums for the Guardians, to train them. And so in every city we get one.

The best of the Guardians are recruited to become Men-of-All, who learn sorcery, wander around like sheriffs in the old west, righting wrongs, stamping out lies, and so on. Some of them are recruited to become full-time wizards. Of course this means we have lots of examinations – Guardian Examinations, Men-of-All Examinations, Wizard Examinations, etc.

We can fully rely on the wizards for magical blessings and the defeat of spiritual dangers. They also aid us in our labors – and I suspect many buildings are at least in part raised by earth elementals and spells. We don’t need to offer worship to Frona for grain, the wizards handle that. There still might be the occasional Spirit Cult with a disreputable shaman leading it (who clearly all hang out in Gaema Village), but they are rare.

Source Wikimedia commons

As Men-of-All start learning sorcery much later in life, does it mean that they are less powerful than sorcerers of other sects? some of the sorcerers that trained in SIglat’s First Generation a hundred years ago are still around. But in general the Hrestoli have more sorcerers but of lesser specialisation and skill.

Did any pre-ban sorcerers convert or are those lineages fortuitously extinct? I am sure plenty of pre-Ban sorcerers from different lineages ended up participating in Signet’s experiment. Others might have tried to remove themselves from active participation by living in towers or whatever. Which of course means that the sorcerer in the Lonely Tower is likely very powerful and probably evil. Definitely a heretic.

A last thing – at least until the Opening, Loskalm was pretty poor. I am pretty sure that they had some useless currency like stamped notes, metal rods, seashells, that kind of thing.

Jeff Richard

Next
Previous
New Hrestolism, Siglat

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
  • Role-playing in Glorantha
  • About This Site
  • Get involved!

Latest Posts

  • Defunct Sartar Tribes

    The Dundealos tribe was “destroyed” by the Lunar Provincial Government …
  • CHArisma

    CHA is arguably the most important characteristic in the game …
  • Sartarite Names

    Many Sartarite names combine prefixes and suffixes as per below; …
  • Dragon Pass Map Forest Overlay

    Just because I find it interesting, here’s that composite map …
  • Ramalia

    So the last major polity in Maniria is Genertela’s answer …

Links

  • Chaosium
  • Glorantha on BRP Central
  • RuneQuest on BRP Central
  • RuneQuest Glorantha on MeWe
  • Glorantha Wiki on Fandom
  • Prince of Sartar Webcomic
  • Glorantha G+ Archives on Tapatalk
  • Search mailing list archive

Latest from BRP Central

  • Looking for VTT players for Pol Joni campaign
  • Sorcery Runes and Components
  • the length of spirit magic spells ?
  • 5th session in and Vishi was having a bad night.
  • Clarification sought on Jonstown Compendium
  • Daily life expenses in Sartarite cities
  • What Prevents Dead Trolls from Self Resurrecting by Returning Back to the Surface World?
  • Shargash Crown (not Helmet)
  • Orlanthi crafting
  • The Scared Girl

Popular Tags

2007 Avalon Hill Boldhome Chaosium Chaos pantheon Cult demographics Cults of Glorantha (preview) Deprecated cult Doraddi pantheon Ernalda Esrolia (homeland) FR G+ post Greg Stafford Guide to Glorantha Guide to Glorantha (preview) Humakt HW Issaries Jar-eel Lhankor Mhy Lunar Empire Lunar Pantheon Magazine Map Michael O’Brien Mongoose Nomad Gods Oriflam Orlanth Orlanthi pantheon Prax (homeland) RQ2 RQ3 RQG Sandy Petersen Sartar (homeland) Solar pantheon Spirit Cult Subcult Tales of the Reaching Moon Tatou Troll / Uz pantheon Yelm Yelmalio

Recently added or updated

  • CHA4034 Red Book of Magic – Chapter 02 Rune Magic Q&A

  • Defunct Sartar Tribes

  • CHA4029 RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack – Q&A

  • Red Emperor

  • Notes on The Red Emperor

  • Takenegi

  • Thed

  • Daak

  • Dakkalesilla

  • DonKivis the Aesthete

  • Barntar

  • Yelmalio

  • Entekos

  • Runes (2004)

  • Bagog

  • Shargash

  • Entekos in the Lunar Heartlands

  • Buserian

  • Myth of the Month: Clouds (2000)

  • Welcome to the Glorantha Resource Site

©2023 The Well of Daliath | Design: Newspaperly WordPress Theme