Skip to content
The Well of Daliath
Menu
Menu

The Grazelanders

Posted on March 17, 2022

So when thinking about the Grazelanders, it is perhaps best to think of them as a duopoly headed by the Feathered Horse Queen. That means two groups:

Semi-nomadic horse herders. These folk call themselves the Pure Horse People but would be barely recognizable to their distant kin in Pent and Erigia. Others call them the Pony Breeders. They raise and defend their horses, moving them around from pasture to pasture, supplemented by hay grown by the farmers. They are provided with additional foodstuffs, crafted goods, and so forth from the towns and villages, but in amounts set by the Feathered Horse Queen and acceptable to both groups. They worship Yelm and Ernalda.

Farmers and townsfolk. These folk are Orlanthi farmers, crafters, and merchants. They also include the Humakt cultists, who are the ferociously loyal bodyguards of the Feathered Horse Queen. They farm their fields, make craft goods, and run the markets – and give a percentage to the Feathered Horse Queen and to the Pony Breeders. They worship Orlanth Thunderous/Barntar and Ernalda, as well as the other Lightbringers and Humakt. Many have commercial or even kinship ties with Tarsh and Sartar.This sort of co-dependence between farmers and nomads was pretty common in the real world. Farmers cannot easily become Pony Breeders, but are not slaves either. Disputes between the two groups are resolved by the Feathered Horse Queen who is above both groups, as the living incarnation of the Earth Goddess. The Feathered Horse Queen dynasty is closely related to the Sartar Dynasty and since 1605 or so to the Tarsh Dynasty in Furthest.

The Feathered Horse Queen is very much the ruler. And she protects the farmers from the Pony Breeders AND the Pony Breeders from the farmers! The local Humakt cult is pledged to her service (likely as part of their initiation rites), and she controls the fertility of the lands and the herds. Life served by Death.

There are in total about 40k people in the Grazelands. 18k are Pony Breeders, 18k are farmers, and 4k are urban townspeople.

It is also worth keeping in mind that Grazeland society has been half Orlanthi farmer and half Yelmite horse herder for over a century or more. Both cults compete for the favour of Ernalda (the Feathered Horse Queen).

Jeff Richard

Next
Previous

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 Nine Good Giant Mountains

    The Nine Good Giant Mountains are about 60 km or …
  • Why Most Sartarites Hate the Lunar Empire

    From time to time it is worth reminding people why …
  • Suntown and the Eiskolli

    Suntown has always been in the hands of the Sun …
  • A Few Notes on the Grantlands

    To the south of Sun County are the former Grantlands, …
  • Sartar Cities

    Sartar can be thought of a confederation of small cities …
  • Catalogue of the Gods revisited

    This piece from the Mythology book is among my absolute …
  • Thunderbolts in Art

    One of the things that really got me down the …
  • RuneQuest Art

    So let’s talk RQ art for a moment. For the …
  • Top Five RuneQuest Cults

    So it is absolutely no surprise to me that in …

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

  • Odayla Initiation Heroquest
  • Did anyone get a good look at WB&RM?
  • Clearwine Assembly Hill and Orlanth's High Holy Day
  • Sun County pdf is drivethrurpg’s Deal of the Day for July 1st
  • Permission to use exerpt from map in Starter Set in a Jonstown Compendium release?
  • Sun County T-Shirt
  • Summon of Jaldon
  • Jonstown Compendium: Spawn of Molokka - The Cephalopods of Glorantha
  • Runelords and Retirement
  • Hospitality Hearth spirits - what are they ?

Popular Tags

1625 ST 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 Tarsh (homeland & Lunar province) Troll Pantheon Yelm Yelmalio Yelm Pantheon Youtube

Recently added or updated

  • Reaching Moon MegaCorp

  • Griselda Stories by Oliver Dickinson

  • CHA4037 Dragon Pass – Q&A

  • CHA4034 Red Book of Magic – Chapter 02 Rune Magic Spells Q&A (A-M)

  • CHA4043 The Lightbringers – Q&A

  • CHA4029 RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack – Q&A

  • CHA4036 RuneQuest Weapons and Equipment Q&A

  • The Garden, Big Rubble II

  • The Garden, Big Rubble I

  • Half-folk

  • Orlanth Rex and Sartar’s Lineage

  • The Triceratops Queen

  • 1557-1600 Conflict with the Lunar Empire

  • Why Most Sartarites Hate the Lunar Empire

  • The Nine Good Giant Mountains

  • Trolls of The Big Rubble

  • Dorastor (FRA-1993)

  • AH8592 Dorastor: Land of Doom (1993)

  • Rynglorem

  • Hobimarong

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