Skip to content
The Well of Daliath
Menu
Menu

What is Magic?

Posted on January 2, 2022

From time to time, it is worth bringing some material you likely already have to your attention – here’s an explanation of what Gloranthan magic is from the RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha core rules:

To grossly oversimplify, Gloranthan magic is the interaction of mortals existing within Time with the timeless and eternal powers of the God Time. In the God Time, there was no division between the worlds of men and gods, between life and death, or body and spirit. The Gods War introduced the power of Death, which separated all with violence, death, and entropy. War entered the world and the endless beauty and harmony of the universe was destroyed. Reality was fractured. The eternal gods themselves would have ceased to exist but for the Cosmic Compromise, whereby the gods that still existed abdicated their free will within the temporal world voluntarily, rather than lose their All into the maws of nonexistence. The gods remained eternal, at the cost of being restricted henceforth to only the deeds they had performed during the God Time, which are now fixed and unchanging in the world of Time. If the gods were ever to transgress their fixed and allocated positions in the Cosmos, they would enter the shifting world of Time and would be destroyed by Death and entropy.

Mortals exist within Time. The necessity of Death in the world of Time is another result of the Cosmic Compromise. Mortals are separated from the gods, are subject to both Life and Death, and upon death their spirits are separated from their physical bodies.The dualistic worlds of eternal God Time and mortal Time are the basic polarities of Glorantha. From these opposing poles comes all known reality. Magic is the result of the interaction of these two worlds; drawing upon the timeless and eternal God Time to affect the mortal world of Time. With magic, a priest of Orlanth can call down thunderbolts from the sky, a Praxian warrior might call upon a spirit to guide his arrow true, or a sorcerer might command the waters to seize and capsize an enemy trireme.

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

Latest Posts

  • Spirit Cults

    Shamans are specialists in dealing with spirits and the spirit …
  • Soap Opera themes

    Feuds, royal intrigue, temple politics, angry spirits and the grasping …
  • 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; …

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

  • The Mastery Rune
  • Subcults, Hero cults and Associate cults.....
  • Applying Damage Boosting to Missiles
  • The Legacy of Greg Stafford - An Interview with Rick Meints
  • Looking for VTT players for Pol Joni campaign
  • Antirius runes?
  • Jonstown Library hierarchy 1625
  • The Legacy of Greg Stafford - An Interview with Rick Meints
  • Daily life expenses in Sartarite cities
  • What Prevents Dead Trolls from Self Resurrecting by Returning Back to the Surface World?

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

  • Runes & Glyphs (2004)

  • Antirius

  • Hungry Ghosts

  • ISS1610 Gloranthan Classics Vol IV: Borderlands and Beyond (2005)

  • ISS1604 Gloranthan Classics Vol I: Pavis & Big Rubble (1999)

  • ISS1606 Gloranthan Classics Vol II: Griffin Mountain (2001)

  • ISS1608 Gloranthan Classics Vol III: Cult Compendium (2002)

  • CHA4028 RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha – Chapter 05 Game System Q&A

  • CHA4038 The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories – Q&A

  • Shanassee

  • Seraba

  • Tales of The Reaching Moon #09 (1993)

  • Hungry Jack

  • Hechkoth of Vistur

  • AH8595 Lords of Terror (1994)

  • Dorasta

  • Ragnaglar

  • Ronance

  • Robber

  • River Horse

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