Review: The Glorantha Soucebook
Jun. 20th, 2019 08:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gridlore
The Glorantha Sourcebook by Greg StaffordMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
An essential entry into the Gloranthan canon, this book contains no rules, just detailed information about the now fifty-year-old world of Glorantha.
Set up as a series of scrolls presented by a Lhankor Mhy priest to a young ruler, the book starts with an overview of the geography of the world. Then comes a detailed history of Dragon Pass, essays on the four Elder Races, a long section on the Gods and their history, a history of the world since time began, The Gods of the Lunar Empire, a history of the Lunar Empire, Glorathan magic and the Runes, a section on Gods and heroes that includes a listing of Heroes recently involved in the world, and finally details about the Sartar Magical Union bands that have helped defeat the Lunar Empire, for now.
The entire thing is filled with rich illustrations supposedly taken from temple walls and palaces illustrating that various events. This really helps reinforce the Late Bronze Age feel of the setting. There are numerous maps, but many of them aren't overly clear and as such are of limited use in understanding how they relate to the text at hand.
If you love Glorantha, this book is for you. If you are running a Runequest game, this is a book you can use to no end as everything in it is information that can be learned with some ease by player-characters. Highly recommended.
May Lhankor Mhy protect and keep this information.
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Well, wow.
Date: 22 Jun 2019 01:38 (UTC)I spoke before of a “RPG Heaven,” and how somewhere in the omniverse a college-aged Gary Gygax is sitting in a smoky iron-age tavern with a grin as wide as his skull… And think of all the people who’d want to live in the Star Wars universe!
Just so, it seems like it ought to be possible to have a setting as detailed as this, be Pinocchio’d into reality.
[The simplest solution to all of this is, of course, the Ringworld (speaking of RPGs), where there’s room enough for everything and everyone ever! If there’s an Afterlife, it might well be on such a structure. And not limited to humans either; there’s millions of worlds’ worth of land out there…]