Skip to content
The Well of Daliath
Menu
Menu

The Man Rune

Posted on December 3, 2022

The Man Rune is the Form of all mortal sentient beings. The races of the Man Rune include trolls, elves, runners, dwarves, ducks, beastfolk, and triolini, as well as humans. It does not include dragonewts, who enjoy an innate immortality. Nor does it include animals (even if they are capable of sentient thought).

Most stories agree that the world was largely made before mortals ever entered the scene. The gods needed a servant who could communicate with every deity and spirit. Every deity and spirit participated in conjunction to create the Man Rune, called Grandfather Mortal.

Once the Man Rune was created, it too was passed around the Celestial Court. The earliest people were made from mud, they say, or dirt and stone. In those days, people and beasts were not yet differentiated from each other, and thus the Hsunchen, or Beast People, were both people and beasts. As had happened before, the Elemental deities soon experimented with their own people of Darkness, Water, and so forth. Many of the children of these Elemental pairings were shaped by the Man form and were the founders of the many tribes of humankind.

Grandfather Mortal is the exemplary model of behavior and decision making for all mortals. He (or often she) was the first entity to experience Death, when Humakt was testing the New Power during a critical turning point in the Gods War.

Do Elves have the Man Rune rather than the Plant Rune? Elves are Man and Plant, all Aldryami have the Plant Rune. Not all have the Man Rune.

What would an elf with a high Man Rune affinity be like? More human looking and behaving.

The essential Mortal-ness of all those who share the Man Rune is what unites humans, elves, trolls, dwarves, triolini, etc. Sure the trolls are Dark People and the elves are Plant People, the triolini are Water People and the humans are Everything People, but they are all People.

The dragonewts are something else though. They are not mortal – they die and are reborn with their memories and consciousness intact. They see Death as a mirage, a mere transitory change, and even embrace it to transform themselves.

Jeff Richard

Next
Previous
Aldryami, Grandfather Mortal, Man Rune, Plant Rune

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
  • Role-playing in Glorantha
  • About This Site
  • Get involved!

Latest Posts

  • Defunct Sartar Tribes

    The Dundealos tribe was “destroyed” by the Lunar Provincial Government …
  • CHArisma

    CHA is arguably the most important characteristic in the game …
  • Sartarite Names

    Many Sartarite names combine prefixes and suffixes as per below; …
  • Dragon Pass Map Forest Overlay

    Just because I find it interesting, here’s that composite map …
  • Ramalia

    So the last major polity in Maniria is Genertela’s answer …

Links

  • Chaosium
  • Glorantha on BRP Central
  • RuneQuest on BRP Central
  • RuneQuest Glorantha on MeWe
  • Glorantha Wiki on Fandom
  • Prince of Sartar Webcomic
  • Glorantha G+ Archives on Tapatalk
  • Search mailing list archive

Latest from BRP Central

  • Looking for VTT players for Pol Joni campaign
  • Sorcery Runes and Components
  • the length of spirit magic spells ?
  • 5th session in and Vishi was having a bad night.
  • Clarification sought on Jonstown Compendium
  • Daily life expenses in Sartarite cities
  • What Prevents Dead Trolls from Self Resurrecting by Returning Back to the Surface World?
  • Shargash Crown (not Helmet)
  • Orlanthi crafting
  • The Scared Girl

Popular Tags

2007 Avalon Hill Boldhome Chaosium Chaos pantheon Cult demographics Cults of Glorantha (preview) Deprecated cult Doraddi pantheon Ernalda Esrolia (homeland) FR G+ post Greg Stafford Guide to Glorantha Guide to Glorantha (preview) Humakt HW Issaries Jar-eel Lhankor Mhy Lunar Empire Lunar Pantheon Magazine Map Michael O’Brien Mongoose Nomad Gods Oriflam Orlanth Orlanthi pantheon Prax (homeland) RQ2 RQ3 RQG Sandy Petersen Sartar (homeland) Solar pantheon Spirit Cult Subcult Tales of the Reaching Moon Tatou Troll / Uz pantheon Yelm Yelmalio

Recently added or updated

  • CHA4034 Red Book of Magic – Chapter 02 Rune Magic Q&A

  • Defunct Sartar Tribes

  • CHA4029 RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack – Q&A

  • Red Emperor

  • Notes on The Red Emperor

  • Takenegi

  • Thed

  • Daak

  • Dakkalesilla

  • DonKivis the Aesthete

  • Barntar

  • Yelmalio

  • Entekos

  • Runes (2004)

  • Bagog

  • Shargash

  • Entekos in the Lunar Heartlands

  • Buserian

  • Myth of the Month: Clouds (2000)

  • Welcome to the Glorantha Resource Site

©2023 The Well of Daliath | Design: Newspaperly WordPress Theme