Peloria is largely a pretty dry grassland. It has several large rivers through it, and some large wetlands. That’s how it has been since Greg’s earliest writings about the Lunar Empire. It is somewhat comparable to the Great Plains of the US or even the Central Valley in California.
Greg, Ken, and I came up with a whole bunch of stuff on weather, above and beyond what ended up in the RQG book.
Orlanth is the premier Air God because he is the main weather system of Glorantha. His body is a vast storm which overlies all of Glorantha. It is a circle of clockwise moving air whose diameter is several thousand kilometers. Call it what you want, it was very easy for the Theyalans to call upon this using their rites almost anywhere in Glorantha. Local weather gods became recognized as part of Orlanth, perhaps another name, a companion, a servant, a weapon, whatever. A few storm gods are clearly outside of this system – Storm Bull, Sikkanos, Veldru, etc – and that is also easy to discern.
Entekos is the goddess of the pleasant, windless and cloudless weather in the Pelorian plains favored by the Yelm cult (at least compared to the thunder and hail storms and howling winds that follow Orlanth).
But most of this you can find in the Guide.
This is pretty much the same reason that the Red Goddess is the premier Moon goddess. Sure other people in Pamaltela or the East Isles might call the Red Moon something else and have their own stories about its rise, but it is very easy for a Red Goddess initiate to prove she has deeper access to the Red Moon and its secrets than anyone else.
Person 7: So when we’re talking Great Plains, are we talking Iowa or South Dakota or Indiana?
Jeff Richards: Depends on where you are in Peloria! But of course it is “like” the Great Plains, not a one to one correspondence. If you imagine the Oslir-Acos-Poralistor-Erinflarth as something like the Mississippi-Missouri-Platte-Arkansas and the surrounding grasslands as comparable, you are going to be on the right page.
You can also think of Eastern Washington if that is easier.
Peloria is quite dry – wet air gets blown from the far west, but needs to go over Fronela or Valind’s Glacier before it reaches Peloria. The immediate foothills of the Rockwoods and Yolp mountains might get 25 to 40 inches or so, but that drops in the plains. The top of the Hungry Plateau might get more rain, but it is a rugged forbidding environment.
Person 7: So precipitation more in line with the drier parts of the Dakotas, but not at the full desert of the Great Basin. (Purely in terms of rain- the Dakotas get a lot more snow, of course.)
Jeff Richards: Correct. And until very recently Peloria used to get a lot more snow. The Kalikos Expeditions are in the last generation.
And is Pent drier, or about the same?
Jeff Richards: Even drier.
Person 7: So has the climate modification aspect of the Kalikos Icebreaker expeditions always been intended to be one of desertification? Or is the reduced snowfall going into rain and things used to be even drier?
Jeff Richards: The purpose of the Kalikos rites is to soften the terrible winters brought by Valind. Their other side effects are an acceptable cost.
This Q&A originally appeared on Discord.