Skip to content
The Well of Daliath
Menu
Menu

Polytheism

Posted on December 18, 2023

In most of Glorantha, polytheism is the norm. Gods and spirits are acknowledged and worshiped at temples and shrines throughout the land. The same deity might be worshiped at different places, with different names (e.g., Orlanth, Ernalda, Yelm, Yelmalio, etc.), or the deity might be of purely local significance (e.g., Pavis, Zola Fel, Geo, etc.).

For most cults, there is no central religious authority to declare a local cult to be heterodox, let alone heresy. This is a hard thing for us moderns – who love to proclaim things as heresy – to get our heads around. Orlanth can be present at the Hill of Orlanth Victorious, and in Boldhome, and on Kero Fin simultaneously. He can be an agricultural weather god married to Ernalda AND a wandering warrior adventurer who romances goddesses and nymphs simultaneously. If you can wield Orlanth’s power, you have the proof that you are doing it right.

A few cultures have political institutions capable of declaring certain worship heterodox or even heretical. The Red Emperor does so with the Lunar cults – and several Lunar religious and philosophical movements have been declared heretical by the Red Emperor, most recently the White Moon movement. Previously, several schools of Illumination were declared heretical by the Red Emperor.

Same thing in Malkioni societies. Groups of talars and zzaburi regularly proclaim other groups to be heretical variants. The Rokari and New Hrestoli accuse each other of heresy, and both accuse the Safelstran city states of embracing all sorts of doctrinal wrongs.

But to most Gloranthans, this makes little sense. The proof of rightness is whether the god lends the worshiper his power. Beyond that it is merely a matter of local norms or the experiences of a hero who straddles the worlds of gods and men.

Is an initiate of Heler specifically an Orlanth worshipper who leans into Heler’s lore for aid and magic? (In other words much of their worship is expected to go to Orlanth as well as Heler.) Or is the initiate centering Heler at some cost to their worship of Orlanth? In Dragon Pass, Heler receives most of his worship as part of the Orlanth cult – probably 95% of all his worship is as an associate of Orlanth. But a very small number of people initiate directly to the Rain God. Heler gets maybe 5% of his worship from this. A Heler initiate is going to be subordinate to the Storm Voices and Wind Lords, and likely to the Orlanth initiates who are on their way to Rune Master. But as specialists in a minor deity they likely rank more highly than ordinary initiates, simply because they are more devoted to their god (and thus more magically useful).

Jeff Richard

Next
Previous
cults, Heler, Heresy

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

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

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