Skip to content
The Well of Daliath
Menu
Menu

Notes on Clans in the Grazelands.

Posted on May 9, 2023

As we know there are about 18,000 Pure Horse People in Dragon Pass. They all belong to one tribal group – with Yelm Sun Lords as the tribal leaders, aided by Yelm Elders and Golden Bow shamans. The total number of these Yelm Rune Masters is probably somewhere around 100 – for convenience, let’s say 60 Sun Lords, 25 Elders, and 15 shamans (there are about 5000 Yelm cultists. 2% of that is 100). The tribal king is the leader of the tribal Yelm cult.

We’ve got a whole bunch of extended kinship groups here, led by Elders. All of the Pure Horse people consider themselves noble, but there are of course kinship groups that are more or less powerful than the others. I suspect we have a number of traditional bands or clans, most of which date back to their acceptance by Ironhoof (so say around 1250). So let’s say there are 9 clans, each with two elders, and then 7 tribal elders that serve the tribal king. That gets us to 25 Elders. Some clans have more Sun Lords than others, and we have the Golden Bow as a cross-kin or tribal magical society.

Now the women worship Ernalda and Hippoi and care for the horse herds. They marry into the patrilineal and patrilocal clans, perhaps bringing horses as a dowry. They raise children, care for the horses, prepare food, manage the households, etc. But as Ernalda cultists, the women also have the ear of the great Feathered Horse Queen, before who even the Elders must prostrate themselves. The Feathered Horse Queen is the indisputable ruler of the Grazelands. She is backed by the Humakt cult, the Lightbringer cults, her sisters at the Shakers Temple, and by the gods and spirits of Dragon Pass.

So our clans might have around 2000 people on average, with some having more, and some having fewer. However these clans – or divisions (which is probably a better word) – are stable and Yelmic, with much greater stability than Orlanthi clans (but also far more ceremonial and far less dynamic).

Now among the vendref farmer communities we have some 14-20 clans and village chieftains, and these follow the Orlanthi norms. They also accept the Feathered Horse Queen as their ruler, but are not part of the Pure Horse People tribe.

It is worth remembering that most of the Humakti come from the vendref communities.

As an aside, remember that the vendref worship Orlanth and Barntar, as well as Ernalda, and those cults number almost as many worshipers as Yelm. The towns are tied to Sartar and Tarsh, and there are over a 1000 Humakti among them. In short, the PHP and the vendref co-exist in a balance that is maintained by the presence of the Feathered Horse Queen.

There are about 5000 Yelm cultists. 2% of that is 100.

Jeff Richard

Next
Previous
Clans, Cult demographics, Grazelanders (tribe), Grazelands (homeland), Population demographics

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

  • Sun County, Prax

    There’s about 19,000 people in Sun County, with some 4350 …
  • Hey that’s cool Jeff, but what the heck am I supposed to do with that in my Runequest game?

    I posted two “deep” background articles on the nature of …
  • Introducing Gloranthan Gods and Cults

    Gaming a lot of RuneQuest in a lot of different …
  • Argat / Arkat / Argrath

    Here are a few more notes for Discord. Now from …
  • The Cycle of History

    Some notes from a discussion on the Chaosium Discord channel …
  • Magic Items and Runequest

    So. Lets think of some of the categories they might …
  • 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 …

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

  • Find Enemy vs Invisibility spell
  • Holiday Dorastor: Scale & Chaos
  • Murder Mysteries in Glorantha (RQ:G Meta Question)
  • No shipping from UK
  • Sun County 2 - Back in the sandals again
  • What Actually Happened at the Dawn?
  • Holiday Dorastor: Scale & Chaos
  • Jonstown Kralori players guide on drivethru
  • Pyramid of Caran - any info?
  • How to define how Orlanthi religion is 'lived' and 'felt' for players who don't get it? Are there any articles or videos about it?

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

  • Sun County, Prax

  • Spirit Magic by Cult and Associate Cult

  • Humakt Temples, Shrines and Sites

  • Ernalda Temples and Shrines

  • Orlanth Thunderous Temples, Shrines and Site

  • Maran Gor Temple, Shrines and Site

  • Barntar Temples and Shrines

  • Seven Mothers Temples and Shrines

  • Hon-eel Temples and Shrine

  • Twilight

  • Nightlight

  • Lunar Deities

  • Petersen’s Campaign Log (1984)

  • Ducks – A Sartarite Tribe

  • Thoughts on The Lightbringers Quest

  • Aronius Jaranthir

  • Iphigios the Crafter

  • Hwarin Dalthippa

  • Part 16 – Chaos Monsters of Genertela

  • Product Index Template

©2025 The Well of Daliath | Design: Newspaperly WordPress Theme