Skip to content
The Well of Daliath
Menu
Menu

Zzaburi in the West

Posted on January 5, 2023

There are somewhere around 120,000 zzaburi in Seshnela and Ralios. Now of them, about 79,000 adhere to the Rokari school. That’s the approximate number of trained sorcerers in that area. This number may go down (it certainly won’t go up) but it is a good starting point.

Now these zzaburi serve as priests, and to a less extent as scribes, for the Malkioni community (including the Stygian Heresy), so think of them like people with graduate degrees, or clerics and monks in medieval communities.

With some 80,000 zzaburi, it is impossible to know all of them or even most of them. It is also very difficult to manage of them and keep them in line. The teachings of Rokar keeps them working for the community good.

Now many of these zzaburi are in contact with their Knowing God counterparts, at least in Safelster. However, their scripts is Western, a very different script from Theyalan. Nonetheless, I suspect that in Safelster we have transmission of lore between the Theyalans and the Malkioni, back and forth. Sometimes these two groups get along, sometimes I suspect they have violent riots against each other.

Remember there are some 45,000 initiates of Lhankor Mhy in Ralios. So we have this band of 120,000 zzaburi from Seshnela to Safelster, that intersects with a belt of 45,000 sages.

This of course is part of the dynamic that is why Lhankor Mhy has access to sorcery.

is there still the concept of “forbidden sorcery” in the Lhankor Mhy cult? Meaning that they shouldn’t learn sorcery spells beyond the ones detailed in the core book? The main reason to restrict sorcery from a particular temple is so that you as a GM have the ability to say you don’t want to deal with sorcery rules or you would rather not have that player deal with them. The Torvald Fragments are well-disseminated in the Holy Country, Dragon Pass, and Peloria. Presumably more spells are trickling into Safelster and then will make their way on.

I personally imagine that the initiates of the Knowing God are far more.. knowledgable than most zzaburi. But they swim in the same ecosystem as both are knowledge specialists.

What is LM dogma? Obtain and preserve knowledge. Stay out of other people’s fights unless the cosmos is collapsing. PERIOD.

Well given that even in the New Dating system, the Illiteracy Era doesn’t start until after 1820 ST or so,. Given how flawed the New Dating system is, maybe we can say it was as early as 1720 ST.

The Library of Londario was thought to have been built somewhere after 1652, most likely around 1670.

Maybe Argrath is responsible, maybe the Red Emperor. More likely both, although my bet on the collapse is it is a general post-Hero Wars thing.

It is possible that Safelster functions something like Toledo or Sicily in the Middle Ages, as a point where Western texts get translated into Thelayan by diligent LM scribes. It works a little bit the other way, but I suspect nowhere near as much. Those LM initiates are ALL scribes and information specialists, while those zzaburi tend to more narrowly focused.

I expect that most of the transmission is going from West to East, but there is some going the other way. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it is easier to get God Learner materials from Theyalan texts than from Western.

Jeff Richard

Next
Previous
Cult demographics, Lhankor Mhy, Library of Londarios, Malkioni, Ralios, Rokar, Seshnela, Stygian heresy, Torvald Fragments, Zzaburi (caste)

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