Skip to content
The Well of Daliath
Menu
Menu

Notes on Spirit Cults I

Posted on January 28, 2023

Shamans are specialists in dealing with spirits and the spirit world. They are awakened to the presence of spirits everywhere. Shamans can also establish spirit cults – the shaman contacts the spirit and convinces it to cooperate with the spirit. If successful, the spirit will inhabit the shaman’s body, and lead the cult in worship of the spirit.

Scholars of Gloranthan religion speculate that this was the origin of many now-powerful cults in the Grey and Dawn Ages. These cults succeeded in establishing themselves, and the shaman founders were succeeded by priests and Rune lords.

Because spirits are omnipresent in Glorantha, shamanism can be found in almost every culture, sometimes as a despised or distrusted minority tradition, but sometimes as a revered and hallowed tradition supported by the ruling cults. Many cults have a shamanic element to them, and scholars have speculated on the parallels between shamans and heroes.

Throughout Glorantha. the archetype of the First Shaman is the same – the Horned Man or Woman (sometime depicted as a horned snake or a bird-headed man or woman). The Jrusteli claimed that Horned God is the fetch of Glorantha, severed when she died in the cosmic blast that destroyed the Spike. Thus, the Horned God is the “spirit consciousness” of the world, alive and still in control of itself.

See also:

Notes on Spirit Cults II
Notes on Spirit Cults III

So although we tend to associate shamanism with nomadic or hunter-gatherer cultures, or with the aldryami and trolls, it should be remembered that both the Orlanthi and Pelorians have many shamanic traditions, and some theorise that the Command and Summon Rune spells share some shamanic antecedents.

There is a bewildering diversity of spirit cults out there. Most provide a between one and three Rune spells, but a few provide more. These tend to be long-established spirit cults. Some spirit cults are the result of shamanic contact with more powerful entities with their own established cults elsewhere. Other spirit cults are associated with existing Rune Cults.

Where’s the line between the spirit magic used by rune cults, and the spirit magic used by Shaman? Shamans can simply find spirits in the Spirit World and gain their magic. Rune cults teach the spirit magic their priests know, who they learn from the priests before them, and so on. It tends to be a stable but limited list of spirit magic spells.

Whenever you have spirit magic there are spirits involved. But the priests don’t go looking for them – they contact the spirits they learned to contact from priests before them and pass that connection on to those they teach.

Jeff Richard

Next
Previous
Horned Man, shamanism, shamans, Spirit Cult, Spirit Magic

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
  • creating a spirit cult of Fralar
  • Subcults vs Associated Cults
  • Gorgorma and Dendara's Chess Game
  • Merged deities
  • Elf plant ships and dwarf stone ships

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