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The Monomyth

Posted on December 8, 2022

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 overall story – popularly called the Monomyth. All that really means is that discrete myths have been assembled to tell a consistent narrative.

And the monomyth works. Pretty much every greater and major god fits into place in the monomyth, although many stories contradict each other and many deeds are claimed by several deities.

But with the Greater and Major gods, the monomyth works very well. The stories of Orlanth are known even where the cult does not exist and even where the god is not known by that name.

The minor gods are fit into the monomyth when they interact with the important characters or where they were favorites of the compilers, but many minor gods are simply ignored by the monomyth. In some cases, minor gods might have such regional importance that they largely block out the greater and major gods, and claim an importance far beyond their real role, but that is to be expected.

Still it is always worthwhile to understand that there is a unifying structure to Gloranthan mythology. Just as the world is flat from Valind’s Glacier to the Nargan Desert, the basic structure of the monomyth applies regardless of whether you are in Umathela or Vormain.

Jeff Richard

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