Something people often get tripped up on – many gods have different names and some different stories known to different cultures. Orlanth is called Rebellus Terminus among other names in old Dara…
Tag: Mythology
The Cosmic Buildup to the Hero Wars
Let’s talk a little about this: It really all starts with the Seven Mothers, a desperate conspiracy that gathered to perform the most incredible ritual ever attempted by mortals. They searched the…
Some thoughts on Gloranthan religion:
The Gloranthan deities fulfill psychological or cosmic needs, if they are to be worshiped. Even Zorak Zoran and Storm Bull has their place in the cosmos and in the needs of their…
Gods are Contradictory Archetypes
After having written some million words covering more than one hundred RQ cults, I can confidently say that I find all of them fascinating in their own way. Each represents an archetype…
Mythology is Not Set in Stone
It must be emphasized that mythology is not set in stone. Each myth, endlessly retold and re-experienced, has countless variations. The name of a god will change from one story to the…
Cosmos & Chaos
As I have been exploring and detailing Gloranthan mythology for the last several years, I’ve been struck by how the cults of Chaos represent those evils that are simply contrary to the…
Into the 4th Dimension – Magic
I’ve been thinking of Glorantha as a four-dimensional setting. So three dimensions is pretty easy to get – we have geography, culture, and time, right? I’ve done a lot of posts about…
The Monomyth
Glorantha is a unified setting – by that I mean that all of its pieces fit together to form a whole. The cosmology of Glorantha can be fit together to tell an…
Four Ways to Experience these Stories (re-post)
See also: As Cults gets closer and closer to some big and exciting announcements, here’s a little passage that I think is particularly important for this forum: Four Ways to Experience these…
Deep Lunar Synthesis
One of Greg’s deep background notes that I refer to an awful lot when I think about Glorantha is this chart that he put together to try to think about the basic…
Pamaltelan Mythical Age Maps (2003)
The Pamaltelan mythology divides history in Periods: the Creation Period, the Artmali Period, the Demon Period etc. You can read more about the Pamaltelan mythic ages in the pre-finished work Revealed Mythologies.
Western Mythical Age Maps (2003)
The western mythology divides history in Actions, after the Actions of Malkion. You can read more about the western mythic ages in the pre-finished work Revealed Mythologies.
Vithelan Mythical Age Maps (2003)
The Vithelan mythology divides history in Cycles, named mainly after who ruled the world: the Creation Cycle, the High Gods Cycle, the Gods Cycle, the Demigods Cycle and now the Human Cycle….
Catalogue of the Gods
Most Gloranthan religions list hundreds, even thousands of gods. Some of these gods are clearly localized phenomena, deified rulers, or tribal ancestors. Others are alternative titles for gods already worshiped under a…
The Mythology panel at ChaosiumCon 2022
Jeff Richard, Jason Durall, & David Larkins
Understanding Mythology
Here’s a snippet from what I consider to be one of the most important essays in the Cults Book. Readers will see that many of these stories in these volumes seem to…
Manifestations of Gods
The Loki television series has me thinking about the Gods of Glorantha. One way of looking at the cults is they are groups of people who gather around to worship the named…
Gloranthan gods are not moral exemplars
As an aside, most Gloranthan gods are not viewed as moral exemplars by their worshipers. Orlanthi readily acknowledge that when Orlanth used Death on Yelm that was a Bad Thing (although we…
The Esrolian Monomyth
Some of you might find this interesting – it is a common version of the myth cycle told in the Holy Country. You might consider this the Esrolian version of the monomyth….
Play around with Gloranthan myths
Dan Zappone asked a very good question about how to get your players to play around with Gloranthan myths, especially in hero quests. Here are some thoughts of mine that I thought…
Core mythological secrets
One might view the entire Hero Wars as an extremely costly way of the Orlanthi and the Lunars teaching each other their core mythological secrets.
A Sketch Map Centred on Genert’s Garden
And here is what I was working on during the week. Note that the month and year of this post are correct, just not the date.
A few notes on the God Time history of mortals
Glorantha in the God Time progressed from a Green Age to a Golden Age to a Storm Age and then to its near destruction in the Great Darkness. Mortals experienced this as…
Excerpt – Cosmology (1981)
Originally published in Cults of Terror Before Creation In analyzing the mythos of Glorantha, four streams of belief prevail. They sometimes mingle and sometimes flow in separate channels, but they all flow…