Skip to content
The Well of Daliath
Menu
Menu

The Guardian Hills

Posted on November 28, 2022

Swenstown, like most of Eastern Sartar, is in the rain shadow of the Quivin and Storm Mountains (and of course the Rockwoods as well). No gentle summer rains there – on average Swenstown receives no rain at all in Fire Season, and only 8 cm through the middle of Dark Season. By middle Dark Season, it is dry indeed. Instead, Swenstown receives over 80% of its precipitation from Storm through Sea Season.

You can see this dry period throughout the Guardian Hills. The Quivin River is normally nothing more than a trickle in Toena in late Earth Season/early Dark Season. This is enough for the grasslands around Swenstown to look fantastically rich to the Praxians, but it is semi-arid country.

Remember, Swenstown is on the edge of Prax. Pimper’s Block is only about 20 km away, Moonbroth 48 km, and the Dead Place a little over 50 km away. We usually say Pimper’s Block is in Prax (even if it is politically part of Sartar), but the Nomad Gods map ends one hex before Swenstown.

The western side of Sartar gets much more rainfall – some places (like Clearwine) get twice as much precipitation as the Guardian Hills. So even though Clearwine and Swenstown are only about 75 km away (as the dragon flies), they are in very different biomes.

Photo, Jeff Richard

Swenstown is closer to the Dead Place than it is to Clearwine.

Remember, many of the rivers in eastern Sartar are seasonal. The Jorazi (which drains the Dundealos Valley) dries up every fall, and the Quivin past Toena Fort becomes a trickle in Autumn. The Dozalin dries up every fall. And even the Lorthing River becomes a trickle in Fox Hollow.

But in Sea Season and early Fire Season, the Quivin River runs all the way to the Dead Place! All that rain and snowmelt comes down and makes it all the way to the salt flats.

Past Swenstown is the Pol Joni March, good rangeland for cattle and horses. Think of it as a belt of open range, about 100 km long and maybe 10-15 km wide. Traditionally, that’s been the home of the Pol Joni, although post 1608 they’ve had to contend with Sable dominance in the Good Place and Better Place, and many Pol-Joni had to take to the rangelands around Barbarian Town.


Jeff Richard

Next
Previous
Guardian Hills (Sartar), Photo reference, Pol-Joni (Praxian tribe), Sartar (homeland), Swenstown (small city)

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

  • So what are the Thunder Brothers?

    Now I rather thought the description in the Lightbringers book …
  • Humakt and Orlanthi society

    The relationship between the cults of Orlanth and Humakt also …
  • The Size of Sartar

    At the time Argrath is acclaimed Prince in 1627, Sartar …
  • Sun County, Prax

    There’s about 19,000 people in Sun County, with some 4350 …
  • Hey that’s cool Jeff, but what the heck am I supposed to do with that in my Runequest game?

    I posted two “deep” background articles on the nature of …
  • Introducing Gloranthan Gods and Cults

    Gaming a lot of RuneQuest in a lot of different …
  • Argat / Arkat / Argrath

    Here are a few more notes for Discord. Now from …
  • The Cycle of History

    Some notes from a discussion on the Chaosium Discord channel …
  • Magic Items and Runequest

    So. Lets think of some of the categories they might …

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

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

  • So what are the Thunder Brothers?

  • Humakt and Orlanthi society

  • The Size of Sartar

  • Sun County, Prax

  • Spirit Magic by Cult and Associate Cult

  • Humakt Temples, Shrines and Sites

  • Ernalda Temples and Shrines

  • Orlanth Thunderous Temples, Shrines and Site

  • Maran Gor Temple, Shrines and Site

  • Barntar Temples and Shrines

  • Seven Mothers Temples and Shrines

  • Hon-eel Temples and Shrine

  • Twilight

  • Nightlight

  • Lunar Deities

  • Petersen’s Campaign Log (1984)

  • Ducks – A Sartarite Tribe

  • Thoughts on The Lightbringers Quest

  • Aronius Jaranthir

  • Iphigios the Crafter

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