THE SACRED TIME, An Episode

Every year, in the final weeks of Storm Season, the tension grows. The violence of the weather intensifies. Days range from sudden thunderstorms and gales to fist-sized hail stones, flash floods, and the occasional cyclone. Even earthquakes are more frequent. Then, as Sacred Time dawns, a stillness falls over it all. A silence. And in that silence, there is an intensity. Every adult Sartarite knows the danger. They know the sudden stillness does not mean peace or salvation from the violent weather, but rather the triumph of entropy. The silence that comes at Sacred Time is the silence of the Void, the silence of Death. At the end of the year the cosmos itself ends, and it is up to the gods to make it anew. 

Mortals must help them. The two weeks of Sacred Time bear the names Luck and Fate, because it will take both for the new year to dawn.

The Seven Tailed Wolf, p. 18

In anthropology, liminality (from the Latin for "threshold") denotes the middle stage of a rite of passage. In a liminal stage, you are no longer what you were, but not yet what you will become. This lack of definition is ritually disorienting and  dangerous. Order has been suspended and you are in a chaotic state. In coming of age and initiation ceremonies, this is where the candidates face trials and ordeals, often with a serious chance of harm or failure. In folklore this is when the infant--born but not yet baptized--is at the greatest danger of being snatched by fairies, and it is at liminal times (midnight) and places (at the crossroads) that the Devil appears.

Liminality manifests in Glorantha in all sorts of ways. Cults have their initiation rites, shamans confront the Bad Man, the Orlanthi perform the Summons of Evil in their worship rites. They, like us, have their rites of passage: birth, adolescence, marriage, death. Yet these experiences are personal or local rather than collective and universal. The single greatest example of liminality in Glorantha, when the entire cosmos enters the liminal state, is the Sacred Time. 

Sacred Time is a two-week period when normal activity halts, and the world ritually and really re-enacts the death and rebirth of the cosmos to replenish the world, for incorporating the entropy of Chaos into the world is part of the Great Compromise. To live, one must descend into death and be reborn. The participation of all beings in these annual ceremonies and their commitment to them integrates the participants with unconscious understanding of the cosmic balance—a major factor in the high level of magic generation and use in Glorantha.

RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha, p. 420

Time and Sacred Time

One of my favorite things about Glorantha is the calendar.

There are several out there--the Brithini, Lunars, Dara Happans, Kralorelans, and Pamaltelans all have theirs--but I refer specifically to the Theyalan calendar spread by the Lightbringers with the Dawn.

While many players and GMs don't give it much thought, it is very clear that Greg Stafford did. It is, first and foremost, a timekeeping device, and I invite you to think about that word a little differently. We use it to mean something that lets us know what time it is. But in Glorantha, the only thing holding the world together, the only thing keeping the Devil out, is Time. Keeping Time takes on a whole new meaning. The world had died. Chaos had conquered it. But the Great Compromise bound the cosmos and themselves in the Web of Time. The calendar tells you that story.

The week. Look closely at any given week. 

  

What you see here is a microcosm of the Gods Age. Darkness emerges from Chaos (Freezeday), then come the Waters. Gata the Primal Earth emerges from these. Waterday and Clayday. Now as we know, Fire/Sky came next, but when Umath was born the Primal Air ripped Earth and Sky apart to make a place for himself, thus the week has Windsday between Clayday and Fireday. But look what happens next...

Wildday is marked by the Luck Rune. No right-thinking Orlanthi is going to mark something with the Chaos Rune. But this is the day of the full moon in Dragon Pass, and the day when the powers of Chaos are strongest, and it falls after Fireday. Luck, like Chaos, suggests randomness. It falls here because Chaos entered the world after Orlanth slew the Sun. 

The final day, Godsday, embodies the Great Compromise that held Chaos at bay. It is marked by the Fate Rune, largely thought to be the Web of Arachne Solara, the Web of Time.

Each week then is a talisman, a ritual ordering of Time that repeats the story of the Gods Age and the salvation from Chaos.

The year. The five seasons of the Glorantha year tell the exact same story, just a tad differently because it focus on the Ages of the God Time rather than the emergence of the Runes. Sea Season is the Green Age, the birth and youth of the world. Fire Season and Earth Season are the Golden Age, their reign of the Solar Emperor. But his murder brings the Lesser and Greater Darknesses, Dark Season and Storm Season respectively. The destruction of the world. 

We are being told a story here. The same story. The only story that matters.

Sacred Time. The five seasons each have eight weeks marked by members of the Celestial Court. This gives the Gloranthan Year 280 days. 

I do not think that is a mistake. 280 days is the average gestation of a human being, and at the end of the Gloranthan year we witness a birth, or rebirth. The birth of Time. This occurs--hopefully--during the two-week period known as Sacred Time.

Sacred Time does not belong to one year or the next. It is outside of them, outside of Time, a cosmic and universal liminality. The previous year has died, and the world with it. The next year is not coming...it needs to be brought. Shoulder to shoulder you stand with the gods performing the rites that will ensnare Chaos and lead the world back to the light.

The two weeks of Sacred Time are unique. While all seasons have weeks marked by the same Runes, only Sacred Time has Luck Week and Fate Week. Thus the end of a year and the beginning of the next is marked by the same Runes that mark the end of the week and the start of the next. Again. We are being told a story. Luck and Fate. In Sacred Time, the Devil must be bound.

Just a quick word on "Sacred Time"

In our world, the term "Sacred Time" was coined by Romanian philosopher and historian Mircea Eliade. Building on the work of French sociologist Emile Durkheim, Eliade proposed that "traditional man" (i.e. humanity prior to the Enlightenment period and industrialization) recognized two levels of existence...the Sacred and the Profane. The Sacred was the realm of gods, myths, and heroes. It existed outside of time and was eternal. Sacred Time was the essential, the hub around which the cosmos turned. The Profane was the mundane, everyday world, the world of history and time. Through rites and rituals, through hearing myths, traditional man could "return" to the Sacred Time, and experience timeless, universal truths first hand. In other words, in Glorantha Eliade's "Sacred Time" is in fact the "Gods Age." 

It is probably not coincidence or error that Greg Stafford borrowed the term to apply to the two weeks between Gloranthan years, however. Gloranthan Sacred Time exists, just like the God's Age, outside of time. Here the Web of Time unravels, here the veil between worlds is thin. This is why so many heroquests are performed in this two-week period...it is easier to reach the Other Side. The gods and their world are closer to Mundane Glorantha in this period, standing together with mortal beings to save the world from Chaos once more.

Playing Through Sacred Time

The core RuneQuest rules abstract Sacred Time in the "Between Adventures" chapter, pp. 420-427. But there is no reason, given their prominence in the life of the adventurers, not to play through the rites and rituals of Sacred Time. This is probably more true if the adventurers are community leaders, and would take a more active role in leading this ceremonies.

The rituals of Sacred Time are all heroquests. Broadly speaking participation in them can be divided into two roles: the heroquesters, who take on the roles of gods and heroes, and the worshippers who provide magical support. As a frame of reference, I will be using the heroquest rules from The Company of the Dragon (pp 164-170) but those in Six Seasons in Sartar can be used as well.

Communities spend the entire year preparing for these rites, setting aside offerings and sacrifices, building up magical resources, making costumes and props, practicing the dances, the piping, the drumming, etc. 

 

In the week leading up to Sacred Time, people engage in ritual purification, abstaining from sexual congress, the use of intoxicants, etc. This varies from culture to culture and cult to cult, however. I like to imagine the worshippers of the Storm Bull having a Mardi Gras like orgy of sex and intoxication before the final battle with Chaos comes. 

The entire adult community takes part in the rituals, unless they are too infirm or injured. Children are excluded. They witness the rites, but do not magically contribute to them. The solemnity of these rituals are impressed upon them, however, and they watch wide-eyed and in wonder as they are performed. 

For the entire two weeks the myth of "how the world was saved" is re-enacted. Among the Orlanthi this is the Lightbringers' Quest. Yet among the Dara Happans and Pelorians we might imagine the murder of Murharzarm, Yelm's descent into Hell, the Rebel Gods coming and begging at his feet, the trials and tests he set for them, and his glorious re-ascent replacing the Lightbringers' tale. In the Lunar Empire, local myths are likely observed, but in the most Lunarized and urban eras the quest of the Red Goddess might be re-enacted (she saved the world by "reinventing" Time). Yet universally what is being re-enacted is the saving of the world. For simplicity, we will focus on the Lightbringers here.

The Orlanthi day begins at sunset, not midnight, so the Sacred Time rituals are performed then. In Disorder Week they are conducted each night from sunset to past midnight, symbolizing the descent of the Lightbringers into the Underworld. In Fate Week, they are conducted from before dawn to late morning, symbolizing the return. A number of cults have their holy days here, and these usually happen from midday into the afternoon. Adventurers who participate in both Sacred Time rites and worship rites probably end the day exhausted!

Mechanics & Procedures

Sacred Time rituals are "community" level heroquests, designed to bring a boon to the community. The success of each individual community contributes cumulatively to saving the world, but for the sake of your gaming table, focus on your clan, neighborhood, or community.

The Boon: the Boon being sought during Sacred Time is continued existence. Time has died and you are rebirthing it. Succeed and the world is reborn. Fail, and entropy reigns. 

To model this, replace the "Omens" table on p. 421 with the following. The community will perform a heroquest. Successfully passing each stage results in a cumulative +5% bonus. Failing a stage results is a cumulative -5% penalty. These cancel each other out, so if you pass four stages and fail two, you end up with a +10%.

This number replaces the Harvest modifier on the Omens table. If you are using the Community Characteristics rules from The Company of the Dragon, this modifier is additionally applied to all Community Characteristic rolls made the next year. For example, a clan with a Community CHA of 12 is negotiating with a neighboring clan. Unfortunately, they have a -15% penalty from Sacred Time. Instead of rolling against 60% (12 x 5) they now role against 45%.

If none of the stages are passed, disaster befalls the community. For example, the harvest is threatened by grain blight. Heavy rains cause flooding and landslides. Lack of rain threatens famine and drought. The cattle are plagued by particularly powerful disease spirits. The community wyter falls silent and cannot be contacted. No children are conceived that entire year, etc, etc. This is in addition to the penalty mentioned above. 

If all stages are passed, the community is blessed. Add 1D3+1 to three Community Characteristics. Add the bonus to all "Childbirth" and "Child Survival" rolls for community members that year. The GM may add any other blessings they desire.

The Myth: for simplicity's sake we will assume our community is an Orlanthi clan and the Myth being enacted is the Lightbringers' Quest.

There are several versions of this now available in print. For example, pages 12 and 13 of The Lightbringers or pages 45-47 of Mythology. It is critical to understand, however, that different tribes, different clans, different cities, will all have slightly different versions, and the episodes of the myth they re-enact will differ. Feel free to embellish, modify, and alter to create a version unique to your community.

The Hero's Journey: as described on page 169 of The Company of the Dragon, your heroquest will begin with "The Call to Adventure," a series of trials and tests, a "Supreme Ordeal," and "The Return." 

On pages 19 to 25 of The Seven Tailed Wolf I present a version of this, portraying Kallyr's disastrous attempt at a nationwide Lightbringers' quest. On Freezeday of Luck Week, the "Call to Adventure" begins with Orlanth recognizing the danger the world is in and vowing to set it right. On each subsequent day I stage a different episode drawn from the myth. 

For your Sacred Time re-enactments, I recommend starting the same. "The Call to Adventure" can simply be Orlanth vowing to set things right. After, you will want about 4 scenes or episodes from the Lightbringers' Quest to provide the trials and tests, each performed on subsequent days. Then comes the Supreme Ordeal, the gods confronting the Devil in the Underworld, the forging of the Great Compromise, and the birth of Time. The Return is the final day, with the Lightbringers returning through the gates of Dawn.

This totals 7 scenes. Obviously Sacred Time is 14 days in length, but unless you are feeling really ambitious or really masochistic, I don't suggest 14 full scenes. Assume that other re-enactments are going on the other 7 days, but don't weigh yourself down (particularly at first). Note also that in Mythology, in the description "What Happens in Sacred Time?" (pp. 51-52), the Lightbringers' Quest lasts only 7 days. The other days are given to other gods. If you wish to conform to that outline, you can still use all of the following to portray the Lightbringers' Quest. 

Also, focus on the player characters. If you have an Orlanthi, a Lhankor Mhy, and an Issaries in the group, make sure to pick episodes from the Lightbringers' Quest that showcase these deities. 

Following the Lightbringers' Quest as presented in Mythology, your re-enactments might look something like this:

Day 1: The Call to Adventure. Orlanth looks upon his blasted and empty hall and vows to set the world to rights.

Day 2. Orlanth heads west and gathers the Lightbringers. They cross the sea on the back of the Turtle God and confront the purple-skinned Luathelans and the bloody goddess of Dusk, finally finding the entrance to the Underworld.

Day 3. They descend into the Underworld, facing terrible trials and ordeals.

Day 4. The Lightbringers seek the Halls of the Dead, confronting wraiths and shades, darkness spirits, and finally King Griffin, who they must challenge to enter.

Day 5. Orlanth confronts Yelm at last. The Lightbringers endure the requirement of Proof, and Trial by Combat.

Day 6. The gods swear the Great Compromise and perform the Ritual of the Net. The Devil is faced, defeated, and devoured by Arachne Solara.

Day 7. The gods make the dangerous return journey, this time with Yelm and other dead gods. They endure further tests and challenges before returning victorious through the Gates of Dawn. 

This is the structure. Now let's focus on the performance.

Performance: at sunset on Freezeday, Luck Week, the entire clan gathers. Community leaders and important members have been selected to portray the roles of the Lightbringers, Yelm, and other important characters. They will be costumed, painted, and dressed as these gods. For the next two weeks they will not be referred to by their names. Instead they will be called by the name of the god they embody.

The rest of the community will lend magical support, watching the re-enactment of the quest, singing along with the verses of the story, performing ritual gestures at critical moments, and the like.

On that first sunset sacrifices are offered. A prized bull. Jewelry. Beloved possessions. Locks of hair. If the last year was particularly bad omened, they might even sacrifice a horse. 

Following the sacrifice, prayers are offered to the gods. Player characters must make Worship rolls. If you are using the Community Characteristic system, Community POW and CON are rolled to represent the magical and material sacrifices being made. The entire community sings and dances. If the player characters are supporting the rites, and not playing the roles of gods, they must all make Dance and Sing rolls, and sacrifice at least 2 magic points.

Start keeping track of who succeeds and who fails. Those who succeed most of their rolls should be awarded a blessing at the end of the day. Those who fail most of their rolls gain a bane. See the boxed text on page 171 of The Company of the Dragon for details. Keep track of the total number of rolls as well...do most pass or fail? This is important to test and see if the community passes the stage. 

If player characters are portraying the gods, they must come out, costumed, and deliver their lines. Have them make Act, Sing, or Orate rolls (the myths are ritually chanted along with drumming and piping). They cross over to the Other Side and now speak and think as the god they portray.

As a very general rule, I have the group face 2 or 3 tests each stage (day) of the quest, 1 or 2 if there is a combat. This is because I run following the "1 Season 1 Adventure" rule and am counting all of Sacred Time as a single adventure. Further, I like to play one adventure per game session, so I try to keep things moving. There is no reason why you cannot increase the number of challenges faced each day, however. Also, I try to think of broad tests that everyone can face, but also ones that spotlight specific cults and characters. Give Chalana Arroy, Issaries, Lhankor Mhy, Eurmal, and the others a chance to shine. 

Looking back at our myth what is being re-enacted here is "Orlanth Vowing to set the World to Rights." I presented a version of it in The Seven Tailed Wolf  page 19, drawn from Stafford's Book of Heortling Mythology with my own elaborations. Present it however you like, but this opening session should be briefer and less challenging than the trials ahead. You are merely setting the stage, and a number of rolls have already been made, enough to calculate the results of the day.

If the majority of rolls pass, the community gains +5% that day. If not, -5%.

The second day (assume Clayday, Luck week, skipping every other day) we have "The Westfaring," Orlanth heading west and gathering the Lightbringers as outlined in the myth above. The community gathers at sunset, and after songs and prayers are offered, the quest resumes.

This is the first of the trials and testing stages of the heroquest. In Company of the Dragon I broke these down into three: facing a foe, making an ally, and beating a challenge. There are plenty of opportunities to make allies as Orlanth encounters and recruits each of the Lightbringers. They then must convince the Turtle God to carry them across the sea. This is probably beating a challenge. They confront the Luathelans, leading to either facing a foe or beating a challenge, and then the bloody goddess of the Dusk, whom they must convince to let them into the underworld. This is probably beating a challenge. 

At this point, however, it might be best if we digress for a second. Consider the following a "sidebar."

What is actually happening here?

Always keep in mind that this is a re-enactment, a performance. The performers have one foot in this world and one in the Other Side, so they actually see and experience the myth as if it were real. For example, in confronting the Luathelans above, the questers see towering, purple-skinned demigods looming over them on the God Plane. When they fight, Orlanth hurls his Lightning Spear at one with a terrible flash of light and crash of thunder...

...but at the same time, those "Luathelans" are fellow clansmen painted purple, and the Lightning Spear Orlanth carries is a prop. The entire clan is looking on, chanting, cheering, lending magical support to the gods. 

You are not, then, actually testing the character's Javelin or Spear skill. They are not attempting to wound or kill their clansmen! So what are we testing then?

As a general rule, you primarily want to test Rune affinities, performance skills like Act, Dance, Orate, and Sing, and knowledge skills like Cult Lore. Passions come into play when appropriate (Devotion to the god you are personifying, Hate of an enemy you are facing). Magical skills like Worship and Spirit Combat are also common. Most other skills are irrelevant. This is a magical and religious ceremony, not a physical adventure. 

Continuing our example, then, when Orlanth throws the Lighting Spear at the Luathelan, the character might...

...test Orate, as they declare "And lo He Who Wields the Thunderbolt did unleash his Spear of Lightning, and smote his enemy in wrath."

...test Dance as in the performance they dash gracefully around the Luathelan in circles, tapping them with the Lightning Spear prop.

...test Act as the performer bellow and roars so convincingly that the audience sees Orlanth before them.

...test the Air Rune affinity or Devotion Orlanth, as the performing calls upon their god's magic to smite the enemy on the God Plane.

There are exceptions to this. In The Seven Tailed Wolf to simulate the Turtle God bearing the Lightbringers over the sea, clansmen portrayed the Turtle by carrying the Lightbringers on shields raised over their heads, while other clansmen played the roll of the sea (!!!) throwing buckets of water at them trying to make them drop the Lightbringers. Meanwhile the Lightbringers had to stand on the shields and try not to fall. These were tests of STR, CON, and DEX, with a few other physical skills as well. But the primary thing is that it was a ritualized game, not an actual fight.

Also, there may be times (as we will see when we reach "The Supreme Ordeal" stage below) that actual fighting may occur. In The Company of the Dragon I talked about a Storm Bull initiation ritual in which the initiate had to act out Storm Bull's destruction of the Devil. This was done by placing the initiate into a ring with a captured Chaos creature (typically a Broo) and having them fight. There are similar episodes in The Seven Tailed Wolf. Further, the Orlanth use of "Summons of Evil" also brings real danger to the test.

To sum up, 90% of the time you want to test magical and performance skills. There will be times, especially in those who focus all of their attention on their character's weapon skills, when players complain about this. I like to remind them characters in RuneQuest are not only fighters, they are also magic-users, and that even the deadliest samurai practiced poetry, noh, and flower-arranging!

Now back to our quest...

Day three falls on Fireday, Luck Week. Again, at sunset, the clan gathers at the ritual space around the performers. Prayers are sung, and the drumming and piping begins.

In this stage, the Lightbringers descend into the Underworld, facing trials and tests as they go. There are any number of options here. The safe path must be found (Issaries or Eurmal might test Devotion to their god, Issaries as the Pathfinder and Eurmal as the one who knows the way into Hell). The Lightbringers might be attacked by Underworld demons or the Dead. The performers may have to test their Darkness Rune affinities to not get lost in the blackness, or their Water Rune affinities to cross the Styx. They might meet Darkness spirits they might ally as a guide (Orate, Act, etc). 

Day four falls on Godday, Luck Week. As usual, the clan gathers at sunset, prayers are offered, the music begins. On this day the Lightbringers cross the Underworld, seeking the Halls of Yelm, and must pass King Griffin to enter. Perhaps Chalana Arroy must heal the blind and hungry dead so that the Lightbringers may pass (Devotion or Worship Chalana Arroy, or test the Harmony or Fertility Rune). Maybe Eurmal must trick the way past them. Maybe Flesh Man finds his father amongst them and must convince his father to aid them (test the Man Rune affinity). Whatever the case, the journey ends with King Griffin. They must persuade him to let them pass (Orate, Act, Sing) or answer his riddles (Cult Lore).

Day five falls on Waterday, Fate Week. This time the clan assembles at dawn, and will for the rest of the days. After the usual opening, the re-enactment begins. At this stage they must face Yelm in his Halls. 

Mythology is pretty specific here (p. 47) in what they face, and it is mostly Orlanth centered. It beings with a tense series of negotiations with Yelm, and these could be re-enacted by having the Orlanth performer and a fellow clansmen skilled in oratory "orate" against one another (a rap battle!). Or a clansmen with a high Fire/Sky Rune and the Orlanth performer might have a Rune Affinity contest.   

After this Orlanth endures the "acidic hatred" of his assembled enemies. Perhaps the Orlanth performer is splashed with a bucket of lye water (yes, we know it is a base and not an acid, but I doubt the Orlanthi make such a distinction) and must dodge it (a time the actual Dodge skill is used) or suffer a certain amount of actual damage (a low amount, say 1D3...the performer has failed the test which was the point, not blinding or burning them). Alternatively it could be handled the usual ways (contests of skills such as Orate, Sing, or Act against one another). 

Then comes trial by combat. Again this could be pure performance (a Dance contest), or non-lethal fighting to first blood using Fist or Grapple). If Orlanth is wounded, give Chalana Arroy the chance to heal him (another test).

Day six comes Windsday, Fate Week. This is the Supreme Ordeal, the confrontation with the Devil in Hell, his devouring and binding, and the swearing of the Great Compromise. The clan gathers at dawn and after the usual rites the tests begin. 

This is a perfect example of when actual combat might occur. "Summons of Evil" might be used, or a captured Chaotic foe might have to be fought and defeated to re-enact the defeat of the Devil. Once defeated, the ritual of the Net might be performed, with each performer holding threads, weaving in and out of one another to form an elaborate web (all must pass Dance tests). 

The seventh and final day falls on Wildday, Fate Week. It begins again at dawn. After the opening rites and rituals the performers re-enact the return of the Lightbringers, with Yelm, to the world.

The final day of Sacred Time, Godday, Fate Week, is a time for celebration, feasting, and rejoicing (tempered by how well the rites were performed!).  

Final Notes

None of this, of course, is a full scenario, just an outline to give individual GMs ideas. As mentioned, I give full scenario examples in The Seven Tailed Wolf (though these are Kallyr's larger pilgrimage version of the rites) for further ideas. 

Also this post focuses solely on the Lightbringers' Quest, and if your group is made up mainly of members of other cults, take a look at Mythology, "What Happens in Sacred Time?" (pp. 51-52) for ideas on things they might be doing. 

Trial and Tribulation: A look at Kalayde Waters

Over the years I kept a binder full of what I would eventually call "episodes," reusable mini-adventures and encounters for RuneQuest that could be used to fill in gaps between adventures or add color and texture to campaigns. Many of these made it into Six Seasons in Sartar, and others into The Company of the Dragon. "A Battle," "A Birth," "A Cattle Raid," "A Funeral," "A Marriage," "A Raid," "A Rescue," etc. One of the episodes that never made it into print was called "A Trial," and was meant to show the Orlanthi system of justice. I am pleased now that this particular episode fell through the cracks, because Sean Fitzgerald just published an entire scenario about an Orlanthi trial, and it blows my episode out of the water. 

Kalayde Waters is a new scenario for the Jonstown Compendium that digs deep into the subject. An 81-page PDF, it is organized into six episodes, three of which are an Orlanthi trial in which the adventurers represent the defendant. Two lovers, engaged to be married, have vanished and are believed by their kin to be dead. The problem is that these are Orlanthi we are talking about here, so of course the families of the two lovers have been engaged in a long and volatile rivalry, and now blame each other for these deaths. Demands for compensation are high, and could spiral out of control into an open feud and kinstrife.

Kalayde showcases what I enjoy about both Glorantha and the Jonstown Compendium. It takes advantage of the rich "anthropological" aspects of the setting, using the quirks of Orlanthi culture as a spring board for adventure, but while offering plenty of opportunities for traditional whacking things with weapons also lets you play the equivalent of Law & Order: Sartar. To that end, Kalayde offers complete rules on running and participating in an Orlanthi trial, rules that will have great replay value beyond just this adventure. I can easily imagine a legal drama campaign with players in the role of Lhankor Mhy lawspeakers, for example. More pragmatically, these rules will be valuable in any Orlanthi campaign where the adventures get into trouble, or clans have disputes...so basically any Orlanthi campaign. There is also an expanded section on Orlanthi hospitality and greetings drawn from Stafford's writings but not yet included in any Chaosium RuneQuest publications.

My general policy on reviewing scenarios is to avoid all spoilers, so if you want to know what "Kalayde" is buy the book. But what I can talk about is the writing, the layout, and the art.

Sean Fitzgerald wrote the text and laid out the entire book (Joshua Wright and Brian Duguid supplied the editing and proofreading). This is impressive enough, but the art credits go to Fitzgerald and Hunter Fitzgerald, and there is a lot or art in this book, and it is good. Add to this that they also produced a VTT edition and you can see how much work went into this. It is a fairly long adventure (I had the chance to run it, and it took a half dozen sessions), but meticulously explained and detailed, full of all the player handouts you would need. Even beginning GMs could run Kalayde with the amount of support given. I spoke about this in a recent interview, but compared to a lot of community content out there, so many Compendium offerings look, read, and play like professional efforts. Kalayde is one of them. 

In the end Kalayde Waters is a scenario with a memorable twist, and the kind of "fairy tale" elements that I am partial to in my own work. The trial portions were my favorites, and great fun to play out. This is yet another Jonstown offering that you are going to want in your collection.

   

The Return of "Sun County" The Re-Release of a Classic

The Obligatory Introduction

Over the many years, around gaming tables, in Internet chat rooms, here on this blog, and anywhere else one might find me flapping my gums, RuneQuest 3 has endured an unwarranted amount of abuse from me. 

Understand: I met RQ2 the year before RQ3 replaced it. I had fallen in love with Glorantha, with the mechanics, and suddenly here was this new edition that committed all sorts of unspeakable sins. The mechanics were different--the calculation of skills and hit points, and what in the world was fatigue--but the unpardonable sin was that the default setting was...ugh...Earth. The gods were generic. Prices were listed in pennies. Rurik was replaced with some idiot Pict called Cormac. And my gaming group decided they hated it. Twelve year old me did too.

(Bonus rant: the Runes are the integral building blocks of Glorantha and the source of all magic...why in the name of Sheng Seleris are you calling the game RuneQuest when in Fantasy Earth there are no longer Runes to quest for? Drew shakes his fist in indignation, frothing at the jaws.)

Insult was added to injury when Earth-based products like Vikings and Land of Ninja began to appear. We had been spoiled in those halcyon RQ2 days with products like Cults of Prax, Trollpak, Cults of Terror, Griffin Mountain, Borderlands, Big Rubble, and Pavis. Now we were getting vikings and samurai? Weren't there already other games doing that? Yes, I am conveniently ignoring Gods of Glorantha and Genertela: Crucible of the Hero Wars, two boxed sets that were Glorantha-based and pushed the setting forward, but this is my rant so I am allowed. Generally speaking, there was throughout the 80s, a real fear that Glorantha had been abandoned.

There is more to the story, a lot more, but when you buy your copy of Sun County you can read Shannon Appelcline tell it. Trust me, he tells it better than I do. The point is that for nearly a decade I associated RQ3 with the neglect of Glorantha.

And then, out of nowhere, salvation came.

The First (and Second) Coming of Sun County

Again, buy the book and let Shannon tell you the story, but the gist is that in the early 90s publisher Avalon Hill seemed to realize that RQ was on life support and something needed to be done. The solution was, as it always should have been, "focus on Glorantha." Ken Rolston was brought in as line editor (yes, that Ken Rolston) and saddled with the task of bringing the game back from the brink. No easy task. It was going to take a game-changing product, something absolutely phenomenal, to pull this off.

Well, miracles do happen.

Michael O'Brien and Trevor Ackerly's Sun County (1992) hit Glorantha fans like sunstroke, just in a good way. I was a senior in college, and had been playing RuneQuest for a decade (though sticking with RQ2). At this point I was now GMing rather than playing, and the first version of Six Seasons in Sartar was being formulated. When I saw a copy of Sun County in my local game store, my jaw literally dropped. For the most part, Avalon Hill had served Glorantha to us in boxed sets, and there is simply no polite way to discuss the art. But here was Sun County, a thick softcover book, and it had that Roger Raupp cover. People lie when they say you can't judge a book by its cover. You can. And in that painting we had the most realized image of Glorantha we had ever seen. You could feel the hot sun on the back of your neck. You felt you could almost just step through the cover like a doorway and be there.

The cover that launched a thousand campaigns

Poor struggling student that I was I bought it on the spot (heck, I could skip a few meals). And as soon as my group finished proto-Six Seasons I was looking for ways to lure them to Prax's Sun County.

It feels a bit ridiculous to sit here in 2024 and have to say nice things about Sun County. Telling you Sun County stands shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the greatest RQ game books (or heck, game books in general) feels like explaining that water is wet and chocolate is really good. It feels like something we just all know. Yet RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha has initiated a lot of new members into the Glorantha Tribe, and they need to know how good this book was (and now "is"). So let me talk first about the book in general, and then about this bright, shiny new release of it.

For starters, Sun County threw open the doors on a culture that we had all heard of, but never really explored. RQ had long lingered in New Pavis, but Sun County took us south into the lands of the Praxian Sun Dome. These were the followers of Yelmalio, Son of the Sun. We had met him much earlier in Cults of Prax, but this was a deep dive into the culture of the Sun Domers, how they lived, their customs and laws, their outlook and beliefs. Up until that point, Avalon Hill had largely been content to recycle what we had seen before, Sun County was proof that the setting was alive and still growing. In fact, alongside Griffin Mountain, it was early proof that Glorantha had more cultures to explore than the one around Pavis.

The book starts with general information, describing the land, its key figures, and its people. We are given an overview of the history of the region, its laws, customs, and governance, trade and currency, and the military. Attention is given to the "contraband euphoric herb" hazia, and how it is illicitly grown, smuggled, and sold in the region. Statistics are provided for the movers and shakers of the area.

In the tradition of Biturian Varosh and Paulis Longvale, "Jaxarte's Journal" is next, giving us a first-hand look at the region through the eyes of a young Lunar official. Unlike the "flavor text" that haunted so many game products in the late 80s and 90s, these are in-world documents, with their own provenance and history. They take on the task of not only adding verisimilitude, but introducing us the culture of Sun County through the eyes of someone new to it.

There is a write-up of the cult of Yelmalio, which in the original edition mainly served the function of updating the RQ2 cult to RQ3, but as the religion is to integral to the culture of Sun County it needs to be here. In the current 2024 re-release, it should easily hold fans over until the official RQG version of the cult appears. But more on that in a bit.

Next we have detailed maps and descriptions of the Sun Dome, the central temple and seat of governance. These are accompanied by selections from another in-world text, Hector's Yellow Book, working to flesh out and bring the setting to life. This is followed by a detailed chapter on Sun Dome Templars and their militia, much needed and appreciated given the long tradition of the Sun Domers as being famed mercenaries. 

It is then that we get into the real "meat" of the book (were the initial chapters not meal enough!), Sun County encounters and scenarios. This is where I have to get vague, so as not to spoil anything. But the adventurers in Sun County are legendary in the RQ community. "The Garhound Contest" is a terrific bit of culture building, detailing an annual competition held at the Harvest Festival the adventurers can participate in. "Melisande's Hand" expands and builds on this with a full scenario.

"Rabbit Hat Farm" brings the taint of Chaos to the sun-drenched lands of the region, and has long been a fan favorite. It sets the stage for two more chilling scenarios, "The Old Sun Dome" and "Solinthor's Tower," both of which dig deep into the history of the region. Both of these are "gothic" in the finest sense of the tradition, the power of a shadowy past to haunt the "enlightened" present. I have written about both of these before, particularly "The Old Sun Dome," which stands out in my mind as a contender for one of the finest RQ scenarios written. The curious can scour my blog if they want spoilers. But I am going to assume that a lot of you reading this are new players, so I won't ruin the thrills or chills. What I can say is that they are both models for RQ scenario building. They tell stories without being railroady. They show that the setting can stretch into more genres than just epic fantasy. And they are unforgivingly brutal, which the best RQ adventures tend to be.

The New Remaster

The new release is not just some simple scan of the original text, but remastered from the ground up to be clear, crisp, and up to modern industry standards. As of this writing I only have the PDF, but comparing it to my battered original copy you can see how necessary the remastering was. The text and art "pops." Text sections are hyperlinked. It is easy to read.

As I mentioned previously, the book includes a history of Sun County, and the role in played in the "RuneQuest Renaissance" of the early 90s, by renowned game historian and author Shannon Appelcline. This introduction puts the book into the greater context of RuneQuest publications and the relationship between original publisher Chaosium and RQ3 publisher Avalon Hill.

But new players and GMs need to be aware this is a classic product written for the 3rd edition. This is not an updated text for RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha. Given the tremendous backward compatibility of RQ products, and with the "Conversion Guide" provided in the core rules, this should not be too much of an issue.

Available now as a PDF from DriveThru.RPG, with print on demand copies imminent, Sun County is a must for Glorantha fans, particularly those who enjoy its spiritual successors like the Sandheart series or Life and Traditions under the Sun Dome. With any luck, this might open the door for the eventually re-release of other classic titles as well

   

 

Apocrypha Now: A look at Dark Side of the Moon

IN THE DVD EXTRAS FOR PETER JACKSON'S The Fellowship of the Ring, Ian McKellen (Gandalf) talks about working with Ian Holm (Bilbo). Holm would intentionally play each take a little bit differently than before, varying his line delivery or mannerisms, so that Jackson could then look at each variant and chose which "Bilbo" was right for his film. 

I mention this because it is how I think about the Jonstown Compendium. Official Chaosium publications are "canon," inasmuch as anything in Glorantha can be, but the Jonstown Compendium is the place for alternate "takes." Here creators can present different versions of Glorantha, and GMs and groups can use these variants, or the mainline canon versions, as they see fit to fashion their very own Gloranthas. Both Nick Brooke and I have presented alternate takes on the Battle of Dangerford, for example, he is his The Duel at Dangerford and myself in The Company of the Dragon. Both are very different takes, and when Chaosium gets around to theirs it will be different as well. But all are out there for gamers to pick which they like best. Likewise, I know my portrayal of the Dragonrise presented in The Company of the Dragon is not the canon version of events. My Kallyr Starbrow spends six years planning the awakening of the Brown Dragon. The canon version woke the Dragon by accident. Yet this is the joy of the Compendium. Back in June, one of my talks at Chaosium Con Australia was for aspiring Compendium writers, and this was a point that I emphasized. Don't try to do canon, do something different and give the tables out there a choice.

Dark Side of the Moon is a brand new release from many of the people who brought you A Rough Guide to Glamour, including Chris Gidlow, Mike Hagen, and Nick Brooke. Other writing credits include Margaret Gill and Jeff Erwin, as well as a lengthy piece from the late Greg Stafford. The stunning wrap-around front and back cover comes from John Sumrow, with the interior art provided by the tireless Katrin Dirim, whose work turns up in so many books I suspect she might have clones of herself working at the same time.

Dark Side is a case study of what I have been talking about. Billing itself as a "compilation of heretical Lunar apocrypha," arguably the only "canon" document in the entire 141-page pdf is Stafford's own "The Life of Sedenya." With the recent release of The Lunar Way, however, Dark Side of the Moon doesn't need to adhere to canon, and does what Compendium books are good at, offering personal and alternative takes on the Lunar religion. Some of this material has been around awhile, going back to Tales of the Reaching Moon, but all of it has been updated for RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha and a lot of other material here is new.

Let's start with what Dark Side isn't, other than canon I mean. This is not a replacement or stand-in for The Lunar Way. There is not, actually, a lot of "crunch" here (some, less than the Cult books). It also isn't a a book for beginners. What I mean by this is that if you are new to RQ and want to know what the deal is with the Lunar Empire and the Red Goddess, start with The Lunar Way. Likewise, there are no adventures here, no new monsters or NPCs.

However if you love the Lunars, and you want some deep, fascinating Lunar content, this is the book for you. I hesitate to call it either an "art book" or "coffee table book," because there is a meaty amount of content here. But it is a book that is designed to be flipped through, repeatedly, and absorbed in small bites. Dark Side is not a text so much as inspiration. Case in point, throughout the book Katrin Dirim's work accompanies passages from Stafford's Zero Wane History. Now, you could just go read most of this elsewhere, but the passages combined with Dirim's work make it a meditation exercise. No, there are not "kewl powerz" to buff your adventurer, but these passages and images will get you into the headspace of your Lunar adventurer.

The same can be said for Gidlow's "Seleric Verses," which with a trick near and dear to my heart is in-world literature that critiques current Lunar policies by comparing modern Lunar figures to heroes of the Zero Wane. No one eats up the use of invented books and scriptures more than I (and perhaps that eccentric fellow from Providence). 

Notable too are Jeff Erwin's "White Moon & Blue Fox" & "Ulurda Fragments," and Margaret Gill's "The Seven Sayings of Sedenya." These are, essentially, "flavor text." Now, I have a bizarre relationship with flavor text. 90% of the time, I skip it (the White Wolf books of the 1990s were the worst offenders). Unless it is illustrating a rule or a mechanic, I can do without it in my game books. But the point I am driving at here is Dark Side is not exactly a game book as it is a setting book, a "Glorantha" book. These separate pieces are all deep dives down the Lunar rabbit hole, but so long as you go into the book knowing this, and Sedenya is your vibe, you will derive a great deal from these. In this way, Dark Side has more in common with the books in the Stafford Library than it does the main game line, and I was fine with reading (and re-reading) those over and over again.  

However you also get alternative write-ups for each of the Seven Mothers cults, and this brings me full circle back to the beginning. Having the versions from The Lunar Way, and having these, is what the Compendium offers...alternatives. These alternate takes might offer the most to the most "game-oriented" reader.

A Rough Guide to Glamour and The Lunar Way are more foundational texts for the Lunar religion than Dark Side of the Moon. For example, if you wanted your Lightbringers to go visit the Lunar capital, or just wanted to know what those Lunars you are fighting believe, they are the first places to go. Dark Side is a bit more focused. It is for Lunar fans looking for more lore and myths, and in this respect Dark Side serves its audience particularly well. It is also for those of us who dig The Book of Heortling Mythology, The Glorious Re-Ascent of Yelm, and similar examples of in-world Gloranthan writings. It is a book you think about, talk about, ponder, and puzzle over. Less a meal and more a feast. And I think the Compendium needs more of this, particularly as the Cults books and Lands books come out and lay down the canon. The Compendium is for flights of fancy and alternate takes, and that Dark Side of the Moon does very well. 

 

    

      

Lands of RuneQuest: Dragon Pass

I was late to the party.

In 1975 game designer Greg Stafford and his fledgling company Chaosium (technically "The Chaosium" at that point) released a war game, White Bear & Red Moon. I might have bought a copy, but being four years old, did not.

WB&RM introduced the world to Stafford's Glorantha, a trippy technicolor Bronze Age fantasy setting, more Moorcock than Tolkien, leaning Leiber and inclined Iliad. This was the Mahabharata with a metal soundtrack, an Odyssey gone glam. There is nothing like Glorantha. It is equal parts insanity and anthropology. There are dinosaurs and sentient ducks. The world is flat. Science? Ha! Diseases are caused by spirits and spiritual discord, not mere microbes. Gravity? Nonsense. Mortals are pulled to the ground by the power of mother earth's love. Yet the paradox of the setting is a relentless, tireless drive towards anthropological realism. We have all read fantasy settings where the societies are total bullshit. They could never exist. But author and game designer Robin Laws nailed it when he wrote, "(i)n its mythic power, phantasmagoric imagery, and trenchant understanding of human nature, Glorantha stands as a founding text of the roleplaying genre..." It is that third element that ignites the setting. Any time the setting seems off-the-rails weird you are grounded by the realism of the human element. You believe the weirdness because the cultures are organic, breathing things.

I met Glorantha through White Bear & Red Moon's companion RPG, RuneQuest. This was in 1982. A year later, WB&RM received a new edition, but this time under the name of the region the game took place in, Dragon Pass. RuneQuest had moved the focus of the setting from Dragon Pass to neighboring Prax, the locale of Chaosium's other war game Nomad Gods. Sure, RQ had a map of Dragon Pass, but I didn't really get details of the setting until I played Dragon Pass. 

The current edition of RuneQuest (Roleplaying in Glorantha) wisely moved the focus back to Dragon Pass. Prax and Pavis are fine, but the timeline has now advanced to the Hero Wars, a world-engulfing conflict whose trigger lies in the enmity between the princedom of Sartar and the Lunar Empire, and this ignites in Dragon Pass. Most campaigns want to be where the action is. 

To date, most of the releases for the new edition have leaned phantasmagoric by necessity. The rich mythology of gods and spirits is the heart of the setting, and so the Cults of RuneQuest series has kept the Chaosium team busy unfolding that. One notable exception was the woefully misnamed Weapons & Equipment guide, a brilliant book that explores all the nooks and crannies of the setting's material culture.  Now, however, we have the first release for the new Lands of RuneQuest line, Dragon Pass: Site of the Hero Wars. This is a deep dive into the geography, flora, fauna, weather, locations, and societies of the region.

Full disclosure, I am mentioned in the 'additional credits' of the book, but was not hired to write for it, and the copy I am reviewing I purchased myself.

On the other hand, I have done a great deal of writing about Dragon Pass, both for the Jonstown Compendium and Chaosium, so this was a release I was very much looking forward to seeing. To a certain degree, I have been a spiritual resident of Dragon Pass since I was 12. And this is the book that would have made my life a lot easier. It is, simply, the most detailed and exhaustive treatment of Dragon Pass RuneQuest has ever seen. Before some of the grognards take issue with that, note I said "RuneQuest." Sartar has been detailed in previous games, and HeroQuest had a gazetteer, but in the breadth and depth of coverage of the entire region Dragon Pass has them beat.

Let's start with the contents...

After an introduction that gives a broad overview of the region, Dragon Pass looks at the separate subregions. Sartar, the area around Far Point, the kingdom of Tarsh, Wintertop and Old Tarsh, the Grazelands, the Wilds. We finish with a bestiary. The highlight of the introductory chapter, to my mind, is the exhaustive history. Glorantha's "timeline" (for want of a better word) can be divided into Myth (the age of the gods, before Time began) and History (after the first Dawn and birth of Time). Myth was the making of the world. The actions of the gods formed the patterns of existence. The sun, Yelm, died and fell into the Underworld before his glorious re-ascent. Thus the sun rises and falls each day. History is the unfolding of the world, its developments, the rise and fall of empires, the coming of heroes. The focus thus far in RuneQuest so far has been Myth. Unless you own the Guide to Glorantha (any why don't you, you mad thing?), History has been more obscure. No longer. There is a brilliant and detailed History here of the three Ages of Time in Dragon Pass, complete with maps and timelines.

Mentioning the maps, it is time for me to almost obligatorily comment on the extraordinary art of Dragon Pass (yes, including the cartography, shout outs to Matt Ryan, Glynn Seal, and Tobias Trannell). Anyone who has been paying attention to the development of the line understands Jeff Richard's commitment to the look of this edition, and Dragon Pass does not disappoint. My sense is that in the Cults books, the style leans Katrin Dirim and Loïc Muzy, more stylized and heightened to reflect the mythic themes. Weapons & Equipment and now Dragon Pass lean towards the gritty realism of artists like Ossi Hiekkala, who provided the cover. To my mind no one has ever depicted the world of Glorantha the way Ossi has. Looking at his work you can almost smell the sweat and taste the dust. This is not to shut out the rest of the art team--there is not a picture in this book that those of us writing for the Jonstown Compendium would not give our eyeteeth for. But overall, Ossi seems to represent the style of "History" Glorantha.

There is one piece I need to spotlight.

Page 61 gives us a location, the Hill of Orlanth Victorious. The accompanying art simply took my breath away. A great temple to the king of the gods and lord of storms, it is a pilgrimage site for his woad-wearing worshippers. This piece was so raw, so ecstatic, it gave me gooseflesh.

   

Each subregion gives an overview, discusses adventurers from that area, gives sample NPCs, and then details the key locations. With this book you could fuel a Dragon Pass campaign for years. The sample NPCs are a terrific touch, giving you templates to tailor your own. One thing you will not be getting however are stat blocks for the great movers and shakers like Kallyr Starbrow, Cragspider, Fazzur Wideread, etc. They are detailed, but not given statistics. I have seen some disappointment with this online, but I have to say I approve of the omission. These should be the province of the GM. If you want to run a campaign where Kallyr is an unstoppable badass, you should design her to be so. If you want a campaign where your players overthrow her, you should be able to build her appropriately too. Stats for these movers and shakers ventures too far into the straitjacket of "canon" for my tastes.

In the final analysis, Dragon Pass finally channels the spirit of White Bear & Red Moon back into RuneQuest. When I wrote my ode to WB&RM, The Company of the Dragon, I would have had to do a lot less work had this book existed. It is a counterweight to the Cults series, grounding the mythic setting in a tangible reality. It delivers a feel for the region and its people that makes it real, not just an Elf game with magic, but something that tells stories about people who live, bleed, and die. It brings the anthropology to the eschatology of the Hero Wars.    

Fire From the Sky: Thoughts on the Pantheon of Yelm

The Rigveda, the oldest extant Indo-European scripture, begins with a hymn to Agni.

Agnimīḷe purohitam yajñasya devamṛtvijam, hotāram ratnadhātamam.

(Agni I worship, the first before the Lord, he who illuminates Truth, the warrior who defeats darkness, and is the giver of Light.)

Why Agni? Why is he given pre-eminence? Agni is the god of fire, but more importantly, he is the sacrificial fire, the central element of ancient Vedic worship. The ancient priests offered their prayers before Agni, and cast their sacrifices into his flames, and Agni carried these up to the other gods. Without Agni there could be neither worship nor sacrifice. he is the bridge between Earth and Heaven.

The Heavens of Glorantha, p. 12, Mythology

This is on my mind for two reasons. The next book being released in the Cults of RuneQuest series is devoted to the Fire/Sky deities of Glorantha, and I look forward to it immensely. The second, I attended a fire sacrifice ritual last week at a Buddhist temple here in Japan, a ritual that can be traced directly back to the Vedic sacrifices of three millennia ago. This was at Enoshima Daishi, a temple devoted to an esoteric Buddhist sect, the central figure of which is Fudō Myō-ō, a terrifying red-skinned demonic looking figure armed with a noose and a sword. The interior of the temple is blackened and always smells of wood smoke. On nights when they perform the fire ritual, a massive bonfire blazes in the center of the temple, surrounded by chanting monks. To participate, you write your prayer or a situation or sin you would like to be rid of, on a piece of wood. The monks cast these into the fire as the grim visage of the towering Fudō Myō-ō statue is illuminated by the firelight. It is a powerful experience.

So lets circle back to Agni, and then Glorantha. 

Fudō Myō-ō is essentially the Japanese incarnation of the Hindu Acala. Without going too far into the weeds here, the Vedic religion and modern Hinduism are not the same, and don’t focus on the same deities, but the vedas remain central to Hinduism. At the risk of oversimplifying, a very rough analogy would be the connection between Christianity and the ancient Hebrew scriptures. Acala is a fiery warrior god who first appears around 700 CE, but he clearly embodies one of the aspects of the Vedic Agni, “the warrior who defeats darkness.” This “darkness” is both physical (the night) and spiritual (sin, evil). Once again we get a glimpse of Agni’s deeper significance, the bridge between Earth and Heaven. The physical darkness he banishes is earthly, the spiritual darkness is celestial.

One of the things that makes RuneQuest and its setting Glorantha extraordinary is the way they reflect the themes of mythology without (in most cases) simply copying real world myths. Greg Stafford’s decision to name the Rune Fire/Sky is a perfect example of this. Once again, we see the duality. Fire is down here, on Earth. Heaven is in the Sky.

Imagine, for just a moment, you are one of the nomadic Indo-Aryans of four thousand years ago, when the Vedic hymns were being chanted and passed down orally. Imagine being on a wide plain at night. There were likely dozens, if not hundreds, of camps clustered together, each around a fire. These fires flicker and twinkle, just like the stars above you. They are earthly campfires, could not the stars be the campfires of the gods?

Fire rises, while the Sky descends. The heat they felt beating down on their backs from the sun was the same as the heat they felt on their faces around the fire. So clearly the fire and the sky are one. Fire, then, becomes the link to heaven. It rises back up to it. 

“The Lord” mentioned in the hymn I quoted above is Yajna, the Master of the Universe. Agni is an emanation of him. In Glorantha, the most direct analogy is Enverinus, god of fire and sacrifices (Prosopaedia, pp. 34-35), who is himself a portion of Yelm, the Master of the Universe. Like Agni Enverinus is present at all sacrifices, and has to be. This remains true in the Lunar religion, which itself is a development of the religion of Yelm in a similar manner as Hinduism and the Vedic religion. Enverinus’ priests oversee all sacrifices performed by other Lunar cults. 

When I wrote the “The Elements of Heortling Ritual” section of Six Seasons in Sartar, I leaned into this as well. The Heortlings burn their sacrifices, or at least portions of them, to offer them to the gods. This time the sacrificial fire is Oakfed (Prosopaedia, p. 90), who “was tamed in Prax by Waha, and in other regions by their ruling deities. Oakfed now sleeps, but he can be awakened by priests who need his help.” Oakfed is one of the Lowfires, along with Mahome (the hearth fire), and Gustbran (the forge and kiln fire). The Prosopaedia describes Oakfed as the wildfire, but notice the difference between that description and the one given in The Lighbringers (pp. 10-11):

The Lowfires—Mahome the Hearthfire, Gustbran the Workfire, and Oakfed Wildfire—serve men. They are the fires that cook our food, work metal, bake clay, and send our offerings to the gods.

This is not a change so much as The Lightbringers being more explicit about Oakfed’s function. It is already implied in The Prosopaedia when Oakfed is associated with Enverinus. This means that in the Orlanth and Prax pantheons, the sacrificial fire is as central as in the religions of Yelm and the Red Goddess. Of course, this was true in our world as well. The ancient Vedic peoples were not the only ones make fire sacrifices. The ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans all did as well. Note however that for the cultures following Orlanth and Waha, the fire was essentially tamed and stolen from Yelm. There is a bit of Prometheus to this twist, which only makes sense given the Orlanthi and Praxians are raiding cultures. Yet fire remains as the bridge which carries sacrifices to the gods (though I strongly suspect the Earth Goddesses received buried offerings rather than burnt).

We’ve talked a great deal about sacrifice, and the role of fire as a bridge between worlds, but the attributes given to Agni in the hymn are relevant to other Fire/Sky deities as well.

As the “warrior who defeats darkness” we see a number of deities. Let’s pick out four.

Preeminent I think is Polaris (Prosopaedia, p. 100), who commanded the armies of the Upper World during the Gods War. When the Spike was shattered, Polaris built a fortress around the hole keeping back the dark.  A point to consider here. We are talking here about the “spiritual” darkness we mentioned above. This would be the entropy and moral evil of Chaos. Gloranthan mythology speaks of the time of Chaos as the Lesser and Greater Darkness, but this is not physical darkness, which is the Darkness Rune. There is a relationship between the two—notably the Chaos Rune looks like the Darkness Rune but with the addition of horns—but I think that deserves its own discussion. Still, the Fire/Sky pantheon is also at odds with the Darkness gods, again showing that duality between fire’s physical and spiritual aspects. 

Shargash—the most Acala/Fudō Myō-ō of these Glorantha deities—is another prime example. His  entry in the Prosopaedia (p. 110) talks about his creation by Yelm to keep order (disorder being another type of moral or social darkness). Yet it also talks about his “purification” of the world by fire. This occurs after Orlanth has killed Yelm, making the world “impure” by cutting it off from heaven. 

This is a major theme of the Fire/Sky mythology of Glorantha. Heaven is “pure.” Earth is “impure.” As the Sky deities descend into the world they gradually become less pure. Dayzatar, who sits in the highest heaven and is furthest from the Earth, is the “Master of Purity.” Lodril, who dwells in the Earth, is the most indulgent, sensual, and impure. This has to do of course with “light.” The light of the stars and sun is a pure light, a clean light. A wood fire produces smoke and burns. It blackens things around it and leaves ash. Yet conversely, dual-natured fire is also light. Purification is a vital function of it, and this is why it is central to sacrifice. Whatever offering you make to the fire, it is purified and made fit for the gods. The smoke rises towards heaven. Flames leap up.

Shargash then might conceivably be seen as burning the world to return it to the gods. It is what my old mentor Alf Hiltebeitel called “the ritual of battle,” comparing the war in the Mahabharata to a Vedic sacrifice to restore the befouled world. 

The god who best embodies the concept of light keeping away physical darkness is Yelmalio (Prosopaedia p. 139). Polaris is defending the heavens against spiritual darkness, Shargash is redeeming the world by fire, but Yelmalio is the pure light of heaven down here, at least in the mythologies of the Orlanthi. With Yelmalio, things get complicated.

Yelmalio is one of the deities associated with the planet Lightfore, which is the same color as the sun and follows the same path as the sun, rising as the sun sets and setting as the sun rises. The key difference is that Lightfore is smaller than the sun, and thus does not give as much light. We see this in the name, I think. “Yelmalio” clearly evokes “Little Yelm.” During the Gods War, when Yelm was absent from the sky, Lightfore continued to illuminate the world, though dimly. In Glorantha, before the ascension of the Red Moon, we can imagine the soft golden light of this planet illuminating the night almost like a full moon. 

We see this association with Lightfore reflected in two of Yelmalio’s titles, the “Cold Sun” and the “Preserver of Light,” and his counterpart in the Yelm pantheon is Antirius. Their respective mythologies depict both as “carrying on” for Yelm after he was killed, but in notably different ways. Yelmalio preserves physical light in the world, making him beloved by the Elves and accepted by the Orlanthi, while Antirius rules in Yelm’s place. Both suffer a successive series of setbacks (try saying THAT three times fast) that robs them of their fire powers and leaves them only with light. Both suffer a loss at the Hill of Gold (Antirius is killed, Yelmalio struggles on). BOTH of these mythologies parallel that of yet another version of Yelmalio, the Orlanthi Dawn Age deity Elmal. Elmal—whose name is so clearly a mistranslation or mishearing of Yelmalio—is a son of Yelm who becomes steward to Orlanth. Orlanth puts him in charge of the world when he descended into Hell for the Lightbringers’ Quest (as Yelm leaves Antirius in charge). He too suffers a series of injuries and losses that weaken him, but like Yelmalio he endures, keeping a last spark of light alive in the dark. 

If we went looking for Earth mythological parallels to Yelmalio, the one that jumps out to me is the Indo-Iranian deity Mitra, and his eventual Roman incarnation Mithras. Both the Vedic Mitra and the Iranian Mitra were gods of light. They were both associated with the sun but not worshipped as the sun. This was also true of the Roman Mithras. One of the deity’s most common epithets was “sol invictus,” the unconquered sun, but his worship was distinct and separate from the Roman Sol Invictus, the actual sun god. Regardless, both Mithras and Sol Invictus were associated with the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, but also the turning point when nights start to get shorter, the very Yelmalio notion of “the last light before the return of the Sun.” All three of these deities were associated with honor, promises, endurance and duty. In both Avestan and Sanskrit, mitra meant “promise,” “covenant,” and “brother” (as in band of brothers and not blood relation). The Iranian Mitra was associated with soldiers. Interestingly, the Roman Mithras was a secret fraternal order, a brotherhood, and called themselves syndexioi, those "united by the handshake.” This is very evocative of the name’s Avestan and Sanskrit meanings, though it is very unlikely the Romans were aware of that. The worship of Mithras was very popular among the Roman legions, to the point he was called “the soldier’s god.” All of these qualities remind us of the cult of Yelmalio and the Sun Domes.

The last “warrior who defeats the darkness” has to be, of course, Yelm himself. 

Yelm (Prosopaedia, p. 138-139) is the middle brother between aloof Dayzatar and worldly Lodril, and as such embodies the quality of duality we have talked about several times. He is the bridge between Heaven and Earth. As the brightest object in the sky, he is also “the giver of light.” As the Celestial Emperor he “illuminates the truth” by revealing what is good and naming all things. Also as Emperor he defeats spiritual darkness by giving order and purpose to the cosmos. As the god who died and returned from Hell, resurrected, he defeated that ultimate of physical darknesses…death. He so perfectly embodies all the aspects we started with in the hymn to Agni that it only makes sense to finish our discussion with him.

And yet clearly Yelm is not a parallel of Agni, but instead of “the Lord” mentioned in the hymn. That Lord, Yajna, is like Yelm “Master of the Universe.” While Yelm embodies so many of the traits possessed by other gods in his pantheon, the one no one else possesses is his centrality, authority, or rule. He is the Emperor, a title not even Orlanth usurped and that the Red Goddess—who is not afraid to challenge Orlanth for the Middle Air—does not contest. In this he is the ultimate embodiment of a Rune that depicts a single center to the sky. 

In the end, all of Gloranthan mythology is about him. His death triggers the Gods War. He is the Light the Lightbringers quest to bring back. Time begins with his return, etc.

It is hard to find quite anything like Yelm in terrestrial mythologies. There are no solar deities that are, really. The Indo-Europeans preferred their tribal/chieftain storm gods. The Egyptians had several successive solar deities, but none of them with emperor of heaven status. The late Roman Sol Invictus became strongly linked with Empire, but this was a case more of monotheism than imperialism. The closest we come, I think, is China. Here we find the Emperor of Heaven, or Jade Emperor, who is the center of a celestial order mirrored by the one on Earth. The imagery here however equates authority more with heaven than the actual sun…heaven is “above” us all.