Under a Waning Red Light

Since 1979, what has been fundamental to RuneQuest and to the world of Greg Stafford’s Glorantha, has been the integration and prominence of its myths, pantheons, and their worship into the setting and as part of everyday life for the Player Characters. Although the original RuneQuest—more recently published as RuneQuest Classic—mentioned the importance of cults, it only detailed three of them, offering limited choices for the player and his character. That changed with the publication of Cults of Prax, which presented fifteen cults and their myths and magics dedicated to fifteen very different deities. Fifteen very different cults and deities which held very different world views and very different means of approaching problems and overcoming them. Fifteen cults which provided their worshippers with a link to their gods and in turn their gods with a link from god time to the real world. Fifteen cults which provided their worshippers with great magics granted by their gods and with paths to become Rune Lords and Rune Priests and so bring the power of their gods into the world. Cults of Prax provided the RuneQuest devotee or Gloranthaphile with a framework via which his character could enter the world of Glorantha, giving form and function to faith and above all, making it something that you could play and something that you wanted to play. For at its most mechanical, a player and his character’s choice of cult works almost like a character Class of Dungeons & Dragons, giving the character benefits and powers in terms of what he can do and how he does it. However, to reduce the cults of Glorantha to such mechanical simplicity is to ignore the ‘why’ of what the character can do, and it is this ‘why’ where the world of Glorantha and its gods, myths, and cults comes alive. Cults of Prax did not ignore this ‘why’, but introduced it, and that is arguably why it is the most important supplement ever for both Glorantha and RuneQuest. However, in 2023, some forty-four years after its publication, Cults of Prax has a successor—or rather, a series of successors.

Cults of RuneQuest is a ten-volume series of supplements each of which is dedicated to the different pantheons of Glorantha. Each entry in the series details the gods—both major and minor—within their pantheon, along with their myths and cults, magics, favoured skills, requirements and restrictions for membership, outlook and relationships with the other gods, and more. Each book is standalone, but because each of the gods and pantheons has connections and often entwining myths with other gods and pantheons, the series will together provide a wider overview of all the gods of Glorantha as well as differing approaches to them. This is further supported by the two companion volumes to the series—Cults of RuneQuest: The Prosopaedia and Cults of RuneQuest: Mythology. The standalone nature of the series means that the Game Master or the player—and it should be made clear that each of the ten volumes in the Cults of RuneQuest is intended to be used by both—can pick or chose their favourite pantheon and use the gods and cults from that book. However, some volumes are quite tightly bound to each other and some are, if not bound geographically, have strong ties to certain regions of Glorantha. So, for example, the first two entries in the series, Cults of RuneQuest: The Lightbringers and Cults of RuneQuest: The Earth Goddesses are tightly bound to each other as the myths of their gods often combine and cross paths, not least of which is the fact that the heads of the pantheons in both books are married to each other. Geographically, Cults of RuneQuest: The Lightbringers and Cults of RuneQuest: The Earth Goddesses provide support for the region of Dragon Pass, including Sartar, Esrolia, Prax, and Tarsh, whilst Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way provides similar geographical support for the Lunar Empire and its client states. This is not to say that the presence of the cults in these volumes will not be found elsewhere, but rather that these are the regions where their worship is most prevalent and if a Game Master is running campaigns in these locations, then the relevant geographical volume will be very useful. Lastly, of course, the Gloranthaphile will want all of these volumes because he is a Gloranthaphile.

Each of the entries in the Cults of RuneQuest series is well-organised. The introduction explains the purpose and subject matter for the book, highlights how the book is useful for player and Game Master alike, and examines some of the book’s themes and both their nature as myth and mature treatment of subject matters including death, sex, gender, survival, vengeance, and unconscious fears given form. It also notes that the artwork throughout the book is divided between depictions ‘in-Glorantha’, seen within the world itself, and those seen from without in reading the book. All of this is tailored slightly to the pantheon presented in the particular entry in the series. This is followed by a group depiction of all of the gods of the pantheon—which the book notably returns to a few pages later with a labelled version—and a hymn to them all, and then an overview of the pantheon, answering questions such as, “Where does the world come from?”, “Where do I come from?”, “Why am I here?”, “How do I do magic?”, and more. Lastly, there is a discussion of the relationship that the pantheon has with other pantheons and a listing of all of the gods in the pantheon or associated with it.

The bulk of each book though is dedicated to individual entries in the pantheon. Each of these follows the same format. They begin with the Mythos and History of the god, the Nature of the Cult and its Organisation, its membership at various levels—lay member, initiate, God-Talker, Rune-Lord, Rune-Priest, and Chief Priest, and continue with subservient cults, associated cults, and subcults, and more. This will vary from god to god and from cult to cult. This follows the format seen in RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, but in every case greatly expands what is included in the core rulebook, whether in terms of individual entries or additional entries. The number of pages dedicated to each god and thus each cult will also vary. A god whose worship is widespread—and also a popular choice for players to select for their characters to worship—is explored over the course of multiple pages whereas a less popular and less worshipped god many only receive two or three pages. All gods though, receive a full colour depiction at the start of their entry that includes their runes too, in addition to their being depicted elsewhere.

Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way is the third examination of a pantheon in the series. It is a slimmer volume than the previous two, detailing some just fifteen cults in comparison to the nineteen of Cults of RuneQuest: The Lightbringers and the sixteen of Cults of RuneQuest: The Earth Goddesses. More importantly, it addresses a fundamental issue with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. Since it published in 2018, the roleplaying game has been pitched as the one which would take Game Masters, players, and their campaign into the Hero Wars, the tumultuous conflict between two radically different cultures, worldviews, and pantheons that would profoundly change both and change Dragon Pass. Much anticipated and much anticipated for decades, RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha still has not got there yet, but its publisher, Chaosium, Inc., has been laying the groundwork for it. What has been missing up until this point, is details of one of those participants in the Hero Wars—the Lunar Empire. Of course, details of the Lunar Empire and the Lunar pantheon have been published previously, but not for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. Details about the other, the Orlanthi and their allies, and their cultures, worldviews, and pantheons were given in the core rules and have been greatly expanded upon since with both Cults of RuneQuest: The Lightbringers and Cults of RuneQuest: The Earth Goddesses. With the release of Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way, we get to learn all about the ‘enemy’. Except that ‘enemy’ is not entirely accurate.

In the Hero Wars and in the events leading up to them, both the Orlanthi and the Lunars are enemies. After all, the Lunar Empire invaded Sartar, the home of the Orlanthi, and attempted to annex it as another province of empire, whilst the Orlanthi put up fierce resistance that would lead to the Dragon Rise. Also true is the fact that the barbarous—and the book specifically refers to them as such—Orlanthi rebelled again and again, rejecting the civilising spread of the Lunar Way and the beneficence of the Red Goddess. It is also a matter of perspective, culture and belief. Fundamentally, what Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way does is allow the creation of both Player Characters and NPCs who belong to the cults it details. This expands greatly upon the single cult, that of Seven Mothers, given in the core rulebook. It opens up the possibility of more nuanced characters with different magics and different outlooks, though still loyal to the Lunar Empire, and it also provides a more detailed overview of the Lunar Empire.

The fact that the Lunar Empire invaded Sartar and the Sartarites rebelled is not the only reason why they and their gods hate each other. The primary reason is that the Red Goddess and the Lunar pantheon accept and tolerate Chaos as part of the natural order of the universe whereas the gods of the Storm and Earth pantheons do not and violently oppose Chaos. Worse, the Red Goddess has even harnessed the one the worst creatures of Chaos as her personal mount—the Crimson Bat, which has its own cult detailed in Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way. The people of Sartar know this Chaos demon all too well, many having served as sacrifices to keep it bound to the Middle Kingdom, their souls permanently lost.

This acceptance of Chaos is not the only major difference between the Lunar pantheon and the gods of the Air, Earth, and many other pantheons on Glorantha. The main difference is one of Time. The gods of the Air, Earth, and other pantheons are trapped out of Time in God Time, whereas the gods of the Lunar pantheon are not. Before Time, there was a Moon Goddess, but she killed and dismembered, her parts scattered. Some four centuries ago, seven men and women came together to search for those parts and having found them, resurrected her. Though born a human, she would ascend to divinity as the Red Goddess and the Lunar Empire was founded. Other men and women would follow in her footsteps, becoming gods and demi-gods in their own right, part of the Lunar Way. The first of these would be the Seven Mothers, those who had resurrected the Red Goddess. There are other differences too, many of which will influence the outlooks of the followers of the Lunar Way.

Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way begins with an introduction to and overview of both the Lunar pantheon and the Lunar Empire. This includes a full list of the pantheon members, a description of the Red Emperor and the major Imperial families, and of the Red Moon. This hangs over the Lunar capitol, Glamour, and being actually accessible to followers of the Lunar Way, its full geography is detailed. There is some background information on the Moon Goddess and her faith, and the recovery of her fragmented mythology in the modern era. The bulk of the volume, though, is devoted to the fifteen cults of the Lunar Way. These are The Seven Mothers, The Crimson Bat, Danfive Xaron, Deezola, Etyries, Hon-eel the Artess, Hwarin Dalthippa, Irrippi Ontor, Jakaleel the Witch, Nysalor/Gbaji, the Red Emperor, the Red Goddess, Teelo Norri, Yanafal Tarnils, and Yara Aranis.

The examination of the cults in Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way begins with the cult of the Seven Mothers. This is the cult that will be familiar to most people outside of the Lunar Empire. It is not only the first cult dedicated to the Red Goddess, it is the “[o]fficial state organ responsible for keeping foes of the Empire out and for letting friends of the Empire in.” as well as spreading the Lunar Way far beyond the borders of the empire. It is also the cult that will be the most familiar to players of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, since it is the only cult described in its pages. But as much as Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way expands upon the Lunar faith and its associated cults from just the Seven Mothers in the core rulebook, the supplement expands greatly upon the Seven Mothers. This is because the cult is not so much one, but seven subcults—in actuality, most of them cults in their own right—that contribute towards the whole. The seven consists of Danfive Xaron, once an unrepentant murderer, now the god of redemptive suffering whose cult accepts criminals of kind and places them on a grim path to absolution; Deezola, favoured by Lunar nobles, poets, and healers, and the Lunar Goddess of Women, who shows that physical suffering and life are connected and in understanding this, one can be released by the Red Goddess into divine euphoria; Irrippi Ontor, the ‘Brown Man’, an outlawed priest of Lhankor Mhy who became the Lunar god of literacy, learning, and celestial lore; Jakaleel the Witch, the ‘Spindle Hag’, shamanic in nature and source of the Lunes of the Lunar pantheon, who serves mortal realm and the hellish world of spirits, insanity, and the dead; ‘She Who Waits’, a figure of mystery whose secrets and powers are known only to the Illuminated initiates of the Red Goddess; Teelo Norri, cupbearer to the Red Goddess, source of the Poor Fund movement, and Lunar goddess of youth, acknowledged more than worshipped; and Yanafal Tarnils, the ‘Ram and Warrior’, an exiled nobleman who still ruled his lands, and who would later defeat his master, Humakt, in battle before becoming the god of war.

It then goes on to look at the other gods in turn, from Etyries, the goddess of trade, roads, and merchants and also the Messenger of the Red Goddess, to Yara Aranis, goddess of the Glowline—the furthest reach of the Red Moon’s light, and patron goddess of the seven Temples of the Reaching Moon, who was born to terrorize and slay the horse nomads of Pent. Chief amongst these are the Red Goddess and the Red Emperor. Hers is the longest entry in the book, delving deep into her history and her seven steps to becoming a god within Time, able to bring about direct change when her enemies locked in God Time cannot, and so more readily and directly spread her spiritual freedom. Her initiates need to be members of another cult, Illuminated, and willing to accept the Chaos Rune! Just as the magics of all the gods of the Lunar pantheon wax and wane according to the phases of the Red Moon, the power and influence of the Red Goddess waxes and wanes over the course of a twenty-seven-year period. The Red Emperor is her son, resurrected over and over done the centuries, who is worshipped as a god in his own right. His initiates were also initiates of the Red Goddess, but highly loyal to him, so there is a path of worship through the Lunar Way, from the Seven Mothers, both the spiritual and geographical borders of the Lunar Empire, through the worship of the Red Goddess and her required Illumination to that of Red Emperor.  The Red Emperor is the supreme high priest for the Lunar faith and for the Yelm cult in the empire and his mother’s representative in the middle world. The path is also one of greater complexity in terms of play, the cults of the Seven Mothers being easier to roleplay and portray, whereas the inner workings of the Red Goddess, the path to Illumination, and then the Red Emperor, less so.

Although one aim of Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way is to counter the claims by the Storm gods and the Earth gods that the Lunar Empire is evil, but two of the entries in the supplement confirm it, each in their own way. One is the entry on the Crimson Bat, the chaos demon that Red Goddess rides as a beast of war and which its cult feeds twenty-five souls a week. When not used on the field of battle, it is used as a weapon of terror on the border. Monstrously evil, it is fully detailed in terms of stats in RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary, much like the Aldryami and the Mostali are for their respective cults detailed in Cults of RuneQuest: The Earth Goddesses. However, the cult dedicated to the Crimson Bat is not one that a Player Character should casually consider initiating himself into, and further, the book recommends that no Player Character start out as an initiative, since it is a Chaos cult.

The other entry is dedicated to the Nysalor and Gbaji, the Bright One and the Deceiver, respectively. This is not a cult, but rather a philosophy that asks questions of the universe and in answering them, shifts the thinking of those that seek the answers onto the path to Illumination. Once Illuminated, such a person accepts the role of Chaos in the universe, seeing it neither evil or a threat. This is not the only thing that Illumination can change in a person—he can also overcome his own Runes and Passions, embrace Runic opposites and rise above them, and ignore restrictions on cult membership with reprisal from any god—but it is the most notorious. This is because Chaos is evil is a given fact by almost every Gloranthan bar Lunarites and the Illuminated. To say otherwise would be profoundly shocking. Worse, the sense of enlightenment is accompanied by a detachment from morality that can lead to selfishness and tip over into immorality. The Red Goddess is Illuminated, which enables her to summon and control the Crimson Bat, as difficult as it is, and use as a weapon of war and a means of punishment. She also encourages her worshippers to follow the path to Illumination. The chapter on Illumination is accompanied by some example fiction that engagingly illustrates the path, but it is not accompanied by mechanics or rules. This is intentional. “The writers despair of capturing the flavor of a revolutionary mystical philosophy in any game mechanics.” and “Illumination is less significant as a mechanical set of rules and far more important as a source of roleplaying opportunities—especially when it comes to heroquesting.” Helped by the examples, this is a very well written and engaging piece, providing a brilliant explanation of not so much how it works, but how it should be roleplayed.

In addition to the descriptions of the various cults, Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way also does provide a fair amount of information about the Lunar Empire. This is in addition to the overview at the beginning of the book. There is a more detailed, personal history for several of the daughters of the Red Emperor, such as Hon-Eel the Artess or Hwarin Dalthippa, and then again of the Red Emperor. It adds a great deal of flavour and feel to the Lunar Empire, but Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way is not a sourcebook for the Lunar Empire and is not intended to be. Perhaps that is the issue with this sourcebook, in that whilst it can easily be used as is, it is waiting for that sourcebook as a companion volume. Despite that, the book could have done with a broader glossary, since it does in places without explanation.

Physically, Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way is very well written and presented, but needs a slight edit here and there. As with the earlier Cults of RuneQuest: The Prosopaedia, Cults of RuneQuest: The Lightbringers, and Cults of RuneQuest: The Earth Goddessess, the artwork in this supplement is of an extremely high quality. From the incredible power of the Red Goddess riding the Crimson Bat to the rich depictions of the gods and demigods at the start of each cult write-up, this is a great looking book. Further, the illuminated seven steps of the Red Goddess, as well as other pieces of art in the book, would also serve as great handouts in play.

In comparison to the mythologies of the previous two books, that of Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way looked to be daunting, even impenetrable. Yet, with this volume, that is very much not the case. It brings to life the gods, their worshippers, and their beliefs, making then highly accessible and easy to grasp, even a subject as potentially difficult as Illumination, whilst also making clear the contradiction of the Lunar Empire’s willingness to bring its civilisation to others and also use a Chaos tool like the Crimson Bat to enforce that civilisation. Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way is the essential guide to the Lunar pantheon and outlook, that no RuneQuest: Roleplaying In Glorantha Game Master should be without.