Glorantha???

[howardfanatic]

Can someone describe for me the default setting?
I have never actually read a book on Glorantha, despite being a BRP nut. The closest was the RQ3rd, and it didn't do much.
Tell me- how is different from, say, ye olde D&D Tolkein-clone. And I know the elves are trees. I'm wondering, what is the level of technology/era of play most similar to? What, if any, is the central conflict (like Warhammer's Chaos vs us)?
I, of course, am a Conan fanatic and I think Warhammer has the best game-only game world. How does Glorantha compare to those 2? What works of literature inspired it?
Any help?

 

[StephenT]

It's a world where myths are real and magic is all-pervasive. A farmer invokes the magic of the plough god before hitching up his team. A mother summons a spirit of healing to mend her child's grazed knee. A merchant casts a Silvertongue spell on himself before bargaining with a customer. A priest calls down fire from the sky to incinerate his enemies; a hostile army is buried beneath falling hills. A Chaos Demon in the form of a giant bat consumes the entire population of a city, but then is itself consumed by a five-mile long dragon that was woken from its slumber by all the noise. (Previously, people had thought the dragon was just an oddly-shaped mountain...)

Technology is generally Bronze Age or early Iron Age, although some tribes are still in the Stone Age. The God Learners and Dwarfs have more advanced science, but this is viewed as sinister and unnatural by everyone else. There are lots of central conflicts in the world depending on the place and time, but Chaos is always an enemy. Other than Chaos, Glorantha is notable for its lack of obvious white hats and black hats: every culture believes it's in the right and everybody else is deluded or evil.

Glorantha derives from Greg Stafford's writings, which he began in the 1960s and has been adding to and changing ever since. There are some obvious sources and parallels - I'm pretty sure the character Harrek the Berserk was originally inspired by Conan, for example; but in general, what started off as derivative 30 years ago has since been elaborated on and altered by both Greg and fan writers that now it's all uniquely Gloranthan.

 

[howardfanatic]

Thanks for replying.
Greg Stafford is a freakin' genius, and so is Joseph Campbell, whose writings, I understand, help to inspire Stafford.
I am dismayed at the commanilty of magic, though. I like my magic like I like my women- rare and dangerous. :twisted:
Still, I like Bronze-Iron Age tech far better than medieval.

 

[Deleriad]

In the way that Tolkien created Middle Earth to explore language, Stafford created Glorantha to explore mythology. He wanted to figure out how the world would work if it worked the way myth did. However, he did not sit down with a big book and plan Glorantha from the start, rather he made up stories and ideas to amuse himself and, when he started in game design, developed Glorantha to fit boardgames then RuneQuest.

Much RQ Glorantha feels like a cross between Lhankmar and Elric. There are huge mythic forces at play yet most published material is quite low-life.

MRQ is set at the end of the second age of Glorantha and seems to have a bit of a "Mythpunk" feel. Remember that Glorantha works on the laws of myth, not physics. In everyday life, it pretty much works the same but one of the two great empires - the God learners - can myth-engineer with the use of much steam, clanking and extreme wierdness. If you can engineer myths then you can change reality. You can even change the way reality has always been. If you want an enormous floating castle then build a castle, find the local myth about why things fall down and change the myth - hey presto your castle floats.

The beauty of Glorantha is that it is so wildly imaginative that there's something interesting for most people but it also tends to be quite grounded in blood, dirt and staying alive.

In my opinion, the commonality of magic is misunderstood. In a world where the gods are real and where reality is mythic, commonality of magic is simply a way of saying that mortals are immersed in a world where the gods talk back to you. Despite older versions of RQ, it doesn't mean that everyone walks around with 12 points of battle magic to cast. Those who do have some magic think of it in terms of culture, history and myth. Of course, as they say, your Glorantha will vary, but it is perfectly possible to run Glorantha where magic is specialist and the everyday use of magic - common magic - consists of lucky charms, superstitions and so on.

 

[soltakss]

For me, the beauty of Glorantha is in its depth, consistency and, to a certain extent, its mythic nature.

It is deep for several reasons. A lot of the game world has been described, at least partially. Many regions have been described in depth, both in official and fan publications. The backgorund covers nearly 2000 years if history and a huge amount of other, pre-Time history. Each culture has a store of history, myths and legends and the interactions between them are fascinating.

Glorantha is generally consistent in that not a lot is retconned out of existence. Having said that, Gregging describes when an idea has been changed to make the original idea no longer valid, so things do change. However, to a large extent, what was written 30 years ago still has a lot of validity.

Glorantha is mythic in nature because it has a Pre-Time history of mythology and legend that has effects on the world. Gods, Demigods, Demons and Heroes were real, existed and can generally be contacted. Normal people can take the Hero's Journey and become Heroes themselves. Gods are personal, to an extent, and have their own natures, personalities and aims. Worshipping a god or goddess not only defines you as a person, it tends to indicate what career you follow, how you live, what you can do and how you act. Memebrship of a cult brings a new richness of flavour that is lacking in many games and settings.

Personally, I'm not that keen on some of the touchy feely Glorantha - myths affecting every level of life, people acting ritually all the time and that kind of thing. It's fine but should be kept at a distance, in my opinion.

The technology is said to be Bronze or Iron Age, but that is really misleading. The common metal is Bronze and Iron is a very special magical material, but so what? You still have metal weapons that do damage, it doesn't really matter that these are bronze not iron. Praxian nomads move around the Wastes using some metal but not a lot; Sartarite hillsmen live in small clans and family groups and use metal, herd cattle and raid each other; Western townsmen live in cities, worship in cathedrals and have a higher level of civilisation. But, what has this got to do with Stone/Bronze/Iron Age technology? Not a jot. Dwarves have steam technology and firearms and Malkioni have flying ships, so what level of technology is that?

Above all, Glorantha is what you make it.

 

[Mark Mohrfield]

Can someone describe for me the default setting?
I have never actually read a book on Glorantha, despite being a BRP nut. The closest was the RQ3rd, and it didn't do much.
Tell me- how is different from, say, ye olde D&D Tolkein-clone. And I know the elves are trees.

It's definitely not just another pseudoTolkienian world. It has very diverse and detailed cultures, some of which resemble earthly ones and some of which have no earthly analog. The non-humans differ greatly from the standard rpg fare, with elves as pointed out being sentient mobile vegetibles, Trolls being darkness beings exiled to the surface world and dying out due to an ancient curse on their fertility, dwarfs being mechanistic-minded marxists and dragonnewts weird mystics.

I'm wondering, what is the level of technology/era of play most similar to? What, if any, is the central conflict (like Warhammer's Chaos vs us)?

there really is no single central conflict. Rather there are a great many different conflicts (Empire vs. empire, traditionalists vs. new-fangled weirdness, etc.) The central theme of Glorantha, on the other hand, is the interaction of the mundane and mythical worlds.
The technology level varies greatly depending on the time and place. The God Learners have highly advanced magical technology, while others such as the Hsunchen beast people and the eolians are stone age. Note that the Second Age, when MRQ is set, is actually more advanced than the Third Age, when HeroQuest is set due to the collapse of the God Learner Empire and the Empire of Wyrms Friends.

I, of course, am a Conan fanatic and I think Warhammer has the best game-only game world. How does Glorantha compare to those 2? What works of literature inspired it?
Any help?

While Glorantha has many literary inspirations, it isn't really deriviative of them in the way that say (i gather) WH is of Moorcock, Tolkien and Lovecraft. It is really it's own beast, which to me is part of it's charm.

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

It's difficult to pin down exactly what Glorantha is as - as others have said - there are no real analogs or touchstones elsewhere. Best I can do is describe what it is to me:

Rewind the clock to when your favourite stone/bronze age culture (Native American, Celtic, Ancient Greek, whatever) was prevalent, then examine all their myths and legends. Assume the premise that those myths and legends were real, a true working description of their history and of the world. How would people in such a society function? How would they relate to each other and to their surroundings on a daily basis? When the tribal Shaman invokes the spirits to make his warriors stronger, what happens when it actually does work?

That's Glorantha to me, and that's Greg's experiment with mythology to me - setting up a situation where these things are as real as the chair you're sitting on, then exploring how things develop from there.

Of course, the whole "mucking around with myths" thing in Glorantha can be offputting if you have more traditional tastes, but it needn't be. Even myths have their common folk (just trying to get by) as well as their heroes, and RQ seems to me to be engineered for telling the stories of the common folk caught up in the big stuff. OK, so the heroes are tossing their thunderbolts around over the next hill, but you don't care - you're going to try clear some trollkin out of that tower nearby, and you might get paid enough to be able to have a full stomach tonight.