Glorantha
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One of the first settings for roleplaying games. It began in 1966 when Greg Stafford was trying to pull some wiccan chicks into his wargaming group. Glorantha is based off of themes found in myth, rather than from Tolkien's works. And given the fact that Greg was a practicing shaman with a degree in Comparative Religion... Well, it's completely batshit. Younger gamers may recognize its influence on franchises such as Elder Scrolls (e.g, the bullshit insane lore) whose lead writers and designers were huge fans and even co-workers of Greg.
Recently a new, gigantic, lore book titled Guide to Glorantha was released —packing 12 ducking pounds of lore— and covers (practically) everything. Sadly, it's only available now as a PDF file, and unlikely to be reprinted. It did make enough money to keep the setting going with new lore, however. So support Greg's retirement fund... the company he left behind, as Greg passed in 2018 (Rest in Peace you glorious crazy man).
Premise
Every truth in this world, no matter how exclusive to that of others, is true to a certain degree aka the world is genuinely formed out of skub. This fact is not helped by Chaosium's adage: "Your Glorantha will Vary" (YGWV). These are practically Greg's ultimate fuck yous to any fan looking out for "the canon" because technically, everything (including the most moronic fan-theory), is canon. This is even backed up in-lore by multiple examples of individuals and even entire civilizations who "commit the crime of Illumination/God-Learnerism" for any ends (including mostly but not limited to: simply wanting to know what the fuck is going on) getting cursed, exterminated, or their souls ripped apart and turned into tortured masses of chao-ARAHBFAFBAYSGDAOL.
The "world" is a cube floating in an endless sea topped with a dome of stars, that is really the underside of a land of gods and myths. As for the other planets, there are the various moons which seem to do little more than fuck everything up. Fortunately, that doesn't happen often (unless other civilizations or cults get in the way).
Everything that occurs in Glorantha generally has some sentient being or magical force responsible for it. For example, all rivers flow in any particular direction because a god had decided, been forced, or been bribed to be there (as the god and the river are one in the same). The people/elements/plants/ducks/lizardmen that inhabit Glorantha are generally religious zealots or ingrates that are more than willing to be extorted by any local gods that they have the poor fortune to witness. Aside from these Neanderthals there are a number of civilizations that seem to get by okay when they pool their efforts and trade off with the stronger gods.
That is, except for the Lunar Empire, which seems to fuck everyone's shit up by using a mysterious magic known as logical reasoning. Aside from the Lunars, there is also the Orlanthi who follow Orlanth (very original guys) and fought the Lunar Empire in order to get their own videogame and spotlight status. Besides these major players, Glorantha contains more individual peoples and places than can be covered in a singular paragraph.
Creation myth
There are multiple, some are complementary and some are completely mutually exclusive. Best I can do that is that there was a ouroboric dragon/pantheistic being/Glorantha herself/primordial pantheon/creation rune/world machine who came out of the ether and spat out/shat out/snorted out/breathed out/puked out/willed into being/built everything else. For a while Elves were ascendant because everything was just algae, forests, and prokaryotes, then the sun (Yelm) came out and gave Elves flowers; now he rules because they loved flowers so much.
Yelm, the sun, was set up to rule a golden age of peace, prosperity, and stasis. A few years/millennia/million years/next tuesday later, a god named Umath got mad at the stasis so he made war with Yelm and got badly beaten. Before this he managed to fuck a mountain and who knows what else that he begets Orlanth and the Storm Tribe. Someone discovered what death is and some trickster tested it on this universe's Adam and/or Eve causing all of their descendants to become mortal. Orlanth, replacing his dad as king of the storm tribe, stole/borrowed/forcefully acquired death and used it on Yelm sending the world into darkness.
Orlanth, now technically ruler of the world in this new Storm Age, still has to fight threats to his domain in the so-called Godswar. These threats range anywhere between manageable (e.g, Yelm's heirs and tribe, rival gods and ideologies) to horrible such as Chaos (Yelm's death left tears in the world for them to dig through) and trolls (when Yelm was sent to the underworld his soul and corpse was so bright and warm they had to GTFO). This all comes to a head when Orlanth's brother Ragnaglar invented the concept of rape on his wife Malia and his mistress Thed to create the literal Devil who darkened the world, sent millions into extinction, and killed a fuckton of gods.
During this Darkness Age, darkness/cold and chaos were rampant (but they fight and hate each other), and only ended when Orlanth decided to man up and accept some responsibility for once in his life. He and his retinue, Issaries, Lhankor Mhy, Chalana Arroy, Eurmal the Trickster, Flesh Man, and Ginna Jar went through a highly difficult and convoluted quest to resurrect Yelm and have him light the world. While trying to make peace with Yelm, the Devil/Devil's brother recently got himself killed just so he can waylay the Lightbringers Quest attacked everyone until the Glorantha herself/Ginna Jar/Universe Itself decided they've had enough and caught Devil/Devil's brother in a web ,using him as material for the legally-binding document: Time.
Yelm was returned to light the world (but only during the day as he had to include the underworld in his daily rotation), and every god of every culture was made to sign the Great Compromise so as they can live eternally in a separate, ever-repeating, but constricting Godsplane while their mortal constituents live in a free middle plane (ideally) protected from the clutches of chaos by time/an actual dating system and so, history starts from here.
Races & Cultures
Humie Kulturs
Orlanthi - known by many names such as Vingkotlings, Theyalans, and Heortlings. Best real-world equivalents are the yamnaya for their olive skin, tattoos, and widely ranging hair and eye colors. You get to play them as the heortlings in King of Dragon Pass (although they look like germanics in this one) and against them as vingkotlings in Six Ages. The posterboy culture of the franchise owing to having the most fluff and that their gods and heroes have had the most effect on Gloranthan history (for better or worse). Is currently (HeroWars era) at a state of war and/or rebellion against the moon. and spiritually led in this endeavor by Argrath who may be one or many. Most notable Orlanthi nations are Tarsh (slavekeeping simps to the Lunars), Sartar (the kingdom you build in KoDP), and Holy Country (the country you escape from in KoDP). Orlanthi men are expected to be fiery, violent, and emotional (manly tears galore) whilst orlanthi women are expected to be cold, calculating, and stoic.
Dara Happans - sun (yelm) worshipping, slavekeeping, patriarchal, egyptian-babylonian fusion who look as white as quakers. So prolific, in fact, that you can tell which cultures are the quite numerous offshoots/cousins of Dara Happans if their art or fluff describes them as midwest american caucasoid. They idealize the city life and the emperor (no matter what form he takes) making them the gloranthan equivalent of the modern, subordinate, weak-chinned, urbanite. They look down upon their rural citizens called Lodrilli (named after Lodril the dara happan earth god) which is ironic as the region that they live in, Peloria, is a breadbasket of the continent. Currently ruled as the Lunar Empire by the Red Emperor, demigod son of the moon, and thus they have subsumed Yelm into a subordinate position.
Hsunchen - just your run-of-the-mill spiritual animists who, interestingly enough, despite being of widely varying races and geographical distribution possess mutually intelligible if not identical languages. Hsunchen are divided into tribes based around their totem animal. Shamans of some of the tribes return from their heroquests as the opposite sex or permanently afflicted with qualities of their spirit animals while some tribes, such as the telmori, are literally just were-versions of their totem.
Agimori - living on the southern continent and widely varied. AKA the black people of glorantha. Ranges between the slavekeeping, wealthy, Fonritians to the technologically advanced (wheels and axle tech) matriarchal sub-saharan hunter gatherers. There are of course Agimori, the doraddi, of the stereotypical bush hunter type but they are TOTALLY COMPLEX, NUANCED, AND NOT ABSOLUTELY RACIST I SWEAR.
Kralorelans - Chinese. Just. Chinese. Led by human emperors who somehow managed to convince everyone (including dragons) that they're dragons..
Vormain - Japanese. Just. Japanese.
Malkioni - the fedora tippers of glorantha. Are characterized by varying pantheistic/atheistic magocratic caste systems wherein they believe that gods are simply entities who managed to "Tap" very strongly into the runes and orders that represent the aspects of the world, and that they themselves can rise to "godhood" by doing the same. Located mostly in the westerly parts of continents. Currently divided into many philosophies and equivalent kingdoms of varying cosmoplitanism and emancipation. Named after Malkion, who can be described as Glorantha's equivalent to a Buddha-Christopher Hitchens lovechild.
Praxians - horse-nomads but not really. Instead they are divided by tribes according to what warbeast they ride. There are the bison tribe, the llama tribe, among others, and even the morokanth tribe wherein the mounts rule and consume unintelligent humans despite not having opposable thumbs. Hates chaos and their pantheon is headed by the chaos-hating bull, Storm Bull (who is the orlanthi's Urox).
Pentans - Sexual egalitarian dara happan offshoots on horses. Probably descended from the horse riders you play in Six Ages and/or charioteers you play against. Worships the sun-horse god Kargzant who may or may not be the orlanthi Elmal. Immensely more successful at being rampaging nomads with gloranthan history fraught with them having to get kicked out or subjugated for anything to move forward. There is even a period in recent gloranthan history wherein a warlord called Sheng Seleris ravaged Kralorela then conquered the Lunar Empire (at its peak in its infancy) and ruled over it for A CENTURY before being sent to the underworld by the moon herself. Currently ruled again by Sheng Seleris after Argrath did a Lightbringer's Quest to resurrect him and is so feared that the moon birthed a goddess specifically for the purpose of keeping him in the underworld. This of course did not work(the goddess even got killed) and Argrath himself had to beat Sheng Seleris (who at that time have just managed to re-conquer the Lunar Empire and the entire east of the continent)
Glorantha is riddled with many other relevant minor cultures such as
Grazers- pentan exclave in Dragon Pass. Were practically the reason why the horse is anathema to Prax during their time as rampaging mercenaries/buffer states there. Now concerned with keeping Dragon Pass healthy with rulers of sartar and tarsh having to win their incumbent queen's hand to be declared King of Dragon Pass.
Votanki/Balazarings - Dog lovers. Just. Dog lovers. They have mastered dog lore to the point that they can even breed and foster absolutely massive dogs (think Clifford the Big Red Dog) on the regular. Worships Votank and of course, you've guessed it, his companion Brother Dog. Besides their tribal hearths, Votankiland is dotted with three citadels dedicated to Yelmalio (an ascetic understanding of elmal/kargzant yelm) and are ruled by Balazaring kings with these citadels basically representing what little civilization there is in this infertile shithole. Named after Balazar, a pentan who tried using the votanki towards his own dreams of kingship dashed by the fact that the land is, as aforementioned, an infertile shithole and that he got killed when dragons ate everyone in Dragon Pass
Jrusteli - mainly known as the origin of the God Learner philosophy. God Learners were the munchkins of glorantha who were cynically collating the world into useful data and minmaxing. They became so good at Powergaming that they've managed to do things such as 1.) Predicting future events such as the HeroWars (theorycrafting), 2.) Swapping the earth goddesses of the Orlanthi and the Dara Happans for a while, and 3.) Making the world rage so hard that it perceptibly moaned and groaned and shook to destroy their empire, their continent in the middle of the sea, sea travel in general, and all trade and communications in a certain area of the main continent.
"Elder Races"
Elves - these elves, as opposed to tolkien's elves, are literal walking talking trees. Created by their goddess Aldrya to assist in her quest to preserve and propagate plant life, these elves are divided into many subtypes depending on their pet tree types. Elves who take care of oaks are called Brown Elves and are typically large and very ent-like while elves who take care of tropical trees are small Yellow Elves and inhabit the vietnams of glorantha, while elves who take care of pines and evergreens are green elves who are deliberately made to look like very attractive humans. DO NOT attempt to sleep with a green elf. Symptoms of elfborne STD include but are not limited to: skin discoloration, itchiness, halitosis, death, miscegenation, vitiligo, allergies, and (in rare cases) apotheosis
.
Mostali - dwarves but not really. made as servitors and maintaners of Mostal, the world-machine, and are divided into many subtypes based on what kind of kiln they were forged in and what they're supposed to do. Rock dwarves are stonemasons, gold dwarves run logistics, and so on. Currently engaged in "maintaining" and repairing Mostal and they sincerely think (lol) that everything that happened, whether disasters or miracles, in Gloranthan history was because of their or someone else's upkeep or breaking of the world-machine. They also sincerely believe that the world will return to its normal stasis, with mostali ascendant over the rogue gods and lesser races, as long as they keep working on the world-machine.
Trolls - grey ungulate-looking motherfuckers ranging from 7 to 10 ft forced out of their beautiful underworld by the brightness of Yelm into the middleworld proper which they call the "Hurtplace". Can eat absolutely anything but has preference for elves as they are delicious and dwarves as they are hallucinogenic and are thus at odds with both these races. also despises chaos for being their main competition during the dark age and would support literally anyone, including the aforementioned races, currently fighting chaos. Once members of the now defunct World Council of Friends (composed of races who survived the darkness against chaos) but left when the council decided to build an artificial god, Nysalor/Gbaji, who subsequently cursed their race and goddess to have 1 out of 2 chance to multiple birth stunted trolls called trollkin that they use as food, slaves, and cannon fodder, weakening the once powerful race. Is a matriarchal society and matriarchs are structured based on the number of non-trollkin births. Worship mainly Kyger Litor the matriarchal goddess and Zorak Zoran the male troll god of violence.
Dragonewts - absolute weirdos who just do what they want. They are the larval forms of true dragons who for some reason take way too long to metamorphose. They do believe that every action they commit contributes toward dragonhood for themselves and the entire world in a philosophy centered around maturing into True Dragonhood. Each nest is ruled by a true dragon who deigned to take dragonewt form called the Inhuman King under which presence they can be reborn in their original eggs when killed, rendering them effectively immortal. Helped form the Empire of Wyrm Friends (EWF) in Dragon Pass until they quit and killed anyone who might know useful dragon lore. The decadence and tyranny of EWF was simply too deeply rooted that it culminated in the Dragonkill wherein fucktons of dragons came out of nowhere and ate every human in dragon pass as well as those who came to crush the EWF. No human lived in Dragon Pass until King of Dragon Pass proper Dragonnewts who fail to take control of their desires and emotions devolve into and are the ancestors of the dinosaurs of glorantha..
Beast men - includes minotaurs, centaurs, and talking walking ducks with arms. Mostly located in the Beast Valley in Dragon Pass and are orlanthi in culture and religion. Swears fealty to the King of Dragon Pass.
Chaos - They are composed of beings ranging from broos, who rape and cough and shit on everything to propagate,to Ogres, a race of Chaos-tainted humans who look normal until they open their mouths to reveal rows of jagged teeth for devouring other humans in cannibalistic murders, to Walktapus which are big naked humans with an octopus for a head, to vampires and undead, to simple amorphous giant blobs of chaos. Hated by almost everyone except the Red Goddess, who is vaguely affiliated with them, and her Lunar Empire. They exist on the rightful basis of kill-on-sight. Chaos as a state thrives on and is spawned by acts committed against the natural order. Notable examples of chaos-creating activities are kinslaying, failing HeroQuests with traditional chaotic villains, and rebelling against a rightful emperor.
Triolini - Bikini Bottom in Glorantha. Composed of warring subtypes such as the Ludoch, who are dolphin-folk, and Ysabbau, who are gloranthan deep ones, among others. They are divided based on descent to hated storm gods and nymphs who were either taken consensually (the cetoi who are friendly to landlubbers) or raped (the piscoi tho would drag you down a trench) by those storm gods. Most of them have to surface to breathe with the exception of the gnydron who are the giant triolini and whose ancestress nymph castrated her storm god to be impregnated with her hermaphroditic mating organs. (there is some references that this was the other way around or that the ancestress was actually male and the storm god was a goddess though)
Digestible History
After the sun came back to the sky, the races of the world formed a UN of sorts based on their shared experience fighting chaos. The council had a falling out with member races leaving the council after they decided to build a blasphemous artificial god to signify their mastery of the world. This god was called Nysalor, later called Gbaji, who defeated Kyger Litor and cursed her children. Gbaji was fought by experienced heroquester Arkat, who was a brithini (the anti-theistic malkioni subsect) in the so-called Gbaji Wars. Arkat got killed and was resurrected through Lightbringers Quest by Harmast Barefoot (an orlanthi descendant of your riders in Six Ages) as an orlanthi (transracial) who worshipped Humakt (the storm god who owns death). Arkat's forays in heroquesting were so numerous that he's managed to map the godsplane quite comprehensively and has brought back allies and treasures to effectively kill Gbaji. Arkat learned that heroquests of all kinds are all truth and can exist in mutualism which is why he then joined the trolls to do their rituals and became their first and only king before beating Gbaji forever.
After Arkat died, people from Jrusteli landed on Malkioni shores with the God Learner philosophy that they then used to great effect, ruling every coastline in the world into an Empire of Land and Sea. At the same time, people from Dragon Pass decided that dragons are cool and formed the EWF. The God Learners added to their own knowledge by conquering Arkat's Autarchy and stealing his discoveries. The God Learners, however, faced a brick wall when they encountered the EWF and have been at war to steal and protect secrets ever since. Both empires did share a mutual burden of having fanatical orlanthi subjects with orlanthi violently opposing the blasphemy of the God Learners and the alien dragon worship of EWF. The human rulers of the EWF were desperate to squash the orlanthi rebellions led by the aptly named Alakoring Dragonbreaker and have fallen off the path of dragonhood in the process, causing the dragonewts to abandon the EWF. The EWF, along with the True Golden Horde sent to defeat it, was crushed and digested by dragons in the Dragonkill. Meanwhile, the God Learners continued to violate the natural order that the world itself moved to expel them with an event called the Closing. The Closing was an invisible wave of force that sunk ships and prevents sea-travel of any kind, and also caused tsunamis and storms that turned the Malkionist lands into a collection of large archipelagos.
With the God Learners destroyed, no sea-travel, and EWF consumed, a man named Belintar swam towards Kethaela shores. Belintar then conquered Kethaela and formed the Holy Country as the Pharaoh, forcing orlanthi who did not approve to migrate to Dragon Pass which has been uninhabited by humans for centuries. At the same time, a woman in Dara Happa apotheosized as the Red Goddess and the Lunar Empire was born. With the opening of Dragon Pass, the people of the continent were no longer isolated from each other. Sartar conquered Dragon Pass and married the grazer Feathered Horse Queen to become its king and built a powerful orlanthi nation in control of the central trade node of the continent with other orlanthi nations Tarsh and Holay as buffer states between it and the Lunar Empire.
The Pharaoh assisted his son Dormal in an attempt to bypass the Closing, opening up sea trade and travel. Tarsh and Sartar was conquered using treachery by the Lunar Empire and left Sartar with a puppet sartarite descendant as king. The Pharaoh Belintar was assassinated by the Lunars and prevented him from reincarnating. This left almost every notable Orlanthi nation weak and leaderless and have allowed Orlanth to effectively die. The Lunars were on the brink of victory until a man named Argrath, a wolf pirate under Harrek the Berserk, landed on the Holy Country and conquered all the way north and along the way have (may be attributed to one or many Argraths) resurrected Sheng Seleris, brought Orlanth back to life, conquered Dragon Pass, and had every Lunar loyalist in Dragon Pass accidentally eaten by dragons. The HeroWars culminate with the Red Moon crashing to Glorantha to vague and dubious results.