Glorantha - History of The Gloranthan Game World

History of The Gloranthan Game World

Unlike Dungeons & Dragons, the other approach to fantasy role-playing which traces its roots back to the 1960s and which derives from the wargaming scene, the roots of Glorantha lie in experiments with mythology, storytelling, and recreation and blending of ancient societies.

Stafford's first imaginings of Glorantha date back to 1966, when he began his studies at Beloit College, as a vehicle for him to deepen his own understanding of mythology by creating his own mythology, and also (so he says) as a way of getting to know girls. Stafford was greatly influenced by the ideas on mythology of Joseph Campbell, and echoes of Campbell's work are to be found in many aspects of Glorantha; for instance the story of the "God Learners" can be seen as an exercise on the implications of Campbell's idea of a unifying monomyth, and the story of Prince Argrath an exploration of Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. More abstractly, Campbell's idea that myths are how we shape our lives deeply informs the picture of life in Glorantha throughout the game world's publication history.

The first game system set in Glorantha was the board game White Bear and Red Moon. Stafford first tried to sell the game to established publishers, but despite being accepted by three different game companies, each attempt ended in failure; eventually he founded his own game company in 1974, the influential Chaosium, to publish his game. The game detailed the rise of the barbarian Prince Argrath to defend his homeland of Sartar against the red tide of the civilized Lunar Empire, and filled out the area of Dragon Pass; the game has undergone several reissues since that time.

The next publication was also a board game, Nomad Gods, published by Chaosium in 1978, which detailed the raids and wars between the beast-riding spirit-worshiping tribes of Prax, a cursed land to the east of Dragon Pass. A French language edition was published by Oriflam under license from Chaosium under the name Les Dieux Nomades in 1994.

The first edition of the role-playing game RuneQuest was released in 1978. In this edition of the game, the game world is "Glorontha" (sic). Several later editions were made; RuneQuest II in 1979 introduced many sophisticated game aids, such as Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror, and highly polished game scenarios, such as Griffin Mountain. Using materials such as Cults of Prax, players aligned their characters with any of several distinct religions, grounding those characters in the political, cultural, and metaphysical conflicts of Glorantha. Each religion offered a distinct worldview and cultural outlook, none of which are objectively correct. This approach of offering competing mythical histories and value systems continues in current Glorantha material. Cults of Terror focused on the worship of evil gods and adversaries, such as Vivamort, a vampire cult, and Lunar and Chaos cults. It did not review as well as its companion volume, being given 6 out of 10 in White Dwarf magazine. This review score was later corrected to 9 out of 10 in a subsequent issue to reflect the very positive nature of the original review.

In an attempt to leverage the power of a much bigger gaming company, RuneQuest III was published with Avalon Hill in 1984. This edition both loosened the connection between RuneQuest and Glorantha, introducing 'Fantasy Europe' as the principal game world for Rune Quest, and much broadened the scope of Glorantha, which was treated as an alternative game world. Unfortunately, RuneQuest did not prosper with its association with Avalon Hill, and the relationship between Chaosium, who held the rights to Glorantha, and Avalon Hill, who held the rights to RuneQuest, finally broke down completely in 1995. A draft of the RuneQuest IV rules, called RuneQuest:Slayers, was written but never published. It has since been renamed RuneSlayers and released as a free download. It had little to do with the Glorantha setting.

During this period of breakdown, Glorantha continued to evolve. The advent of popular use of the internet caused a boom in fan creations in Glorantha, supported by some unofficial business ventures, such as Reaching Moon Megacorp, and a lively convention scene. Loren Miller proposed his Maximum Game Fun principle as a basis for gaming, which soon became a game system in its own right, David Dunham proposed his PenDragon Pass system, a nearly freeform game system, and several ambitious freeform games were played at conventions, such as Home of the Bold with up to 80 participants. The video game King of Dragon Pass was released by A Sharp, allowing the player to play an Orlanthi hero who seeks to unite the clans and tribes of Dragon Pass in a kingdom; the game features exceptional depth of coverage of the area of Dragon Pass, and featured the first compelling public view of Stafford's ideas about the hero quest. Also Stafford was at this time publishing material about the history and mythology of Glorantha in non-game form as books such as King of Sartar and The Glorious (Re)Ascent of Yelm.

Today, new official material is appearing for two game systems, the HeroQuest game system and RuneQuest II, originally produced by Mongoose Publishing but now available from The Design Mechanism.

The HeroQuest game system, written by Robin Laws in collaboration with Greg Stafford, is radically different from RuneQuest in that it emphasises narrativist aspects of role-playing; in contrast, RuneQuest emphasised simulationist aspects. Because of this change in approach some RuneQuest fans found it difficult to adjust to HeroQuest. However, other long-term fans felt that the game fit Glorantha far better than RuneQuest. A rewritten second edition was published in Spring 2009 by Moon Design Publications.

Mongoose Publishing obtained rights from Issaries to publish material concerning the world of Glorantha, focusing exclusively (and for the first time) on the little-explored Second Age of Gloranthan history. Their new edition of Runequest debuted in August 2006, and the first Gloranthan supplement for it was released in October 2006. The Runequest II rules were released in January 2010, but Mongoose Publishings licence for Gloranthan material was not renewed. The 'Runequest II game system was retitled "Legends", and Gloranthan material removed from the re-released rules. A new company, The Design Mechanism, was formed by writers who had worked on the game line, and ownership of the Gloranthan supplements produced for the "RuneQuest II" line was transferred to them (and PDF versions continue to be sold). A new version of the RuneQuest rules, now titled "RuneQuest Sixth Edition" has been produced in August 2012, but Gloranthan material has not yet been updated specifically for this edition.