Our Glorantha campaign began sometime in February 1981… memory suggests the 4th or maybe 6th, but what remains certain is the season, the cold outside, and the excitement of the first firelit stories.
Forty-five years.
Not merely years of play, but a lifetime spent along the edges of maps, frontiers where ink fades and imagination continues the line.
Characters have come and gone, yet never truly vanished. They have passed forward as sparks carried between hands, catching again, becoming flame in the memories, standing tall.
Among them walked Sekolah the dragonewt, silent and alien; Kefalos and Hog, sons of Orlanth, wind in their blood; Borak and Mahor, Praxian warriors cast ashore on Monster Island; Nemesis of Humakt, blade-bound and unyielding; Auron, steady in war; Mahal of Lanbril, and Kilan the bowman, eyes always measuring distance and a deal to be made, secret to unravel.
They were born in firelight, fell to their destinies in dire places, some retired with high honors and rose again beneath new names. Scarred hands, restless hearts, and the familiar weight of a travel-worn sack over the shoulder… always the next road, always one more story.
The journey began in the shadows of Apple Lane and plunged into the choking darkness of Snakepipe Hollow. The winds of Balazar tore at cloaks. From the vampire-haunted Dwarf Mine the company fled toward the Borderlands, where dust worked its way into leather and bone alike. Along the River of Cradles they drifted onward, drawn toward trial after trial. In the harsh light of Sun County, coins changed hands quickly, taken from Lunars and lost just as quickly in Gimpy’s tavern.
Prax opened wide and merciless. The shadow of Penal Colony 457 stretched long across memory – a traitor got what he deserved in the lowest cells. Pavis rose from the earth, ancient and broken, its ruins swallowing secrets—Chaos temples, forgotten enemies, and echoes that never quite faded.
The hunt for traitors in Orlanth’s inner circles, and the escort of the Cradle toward the sea, carried the company into Sartar. When Whitewall fell, the road curved once more back toward Pavis. It always does. Every long road should remember its beginning.
Across the sea they sailed in storm unyielding—and did not truly choose their landing. Storm and reef broke the hull, and the survivors found themselves cast upon Loral, the Monster Island, a shore that seldom releases what it claims.
There the jungle offered few allies and demanded blood in return. The Mandahis watched from the shadows without mercy. Ancient hatred stirred in the mountains among the serpent folk. Gongs echoed. Wars flared at the edges of maps. And in time, the truth settled in: this was no place one simply left.
And there was the tall grass.
At first it seemed no different from any other stretch of land. Then the signs began to gather: birdsong cut short, as if the air itself had tightened; game trails driven deep into the earth, stamped in panic as though something had lurched through and everything fled at once; bones stripped too clean; grass that stirred without wind. At times a thin whistling carried through it, never from where one expected – and a return whistle, soon after.
Those who learned late did not return. Those who learned early read the land with care, keeping to trees where they could, to water when they must, giving the grass a wide and wary distance. Raptor country earned its name, and no one with sense crossed it lightly.
The Obsidian Rift cut a black wound into the land. And through it all, the jungle pressed close, green, suffocating, patient and ancient.
From there the path led to Fonrit, into the bronze-shadowed vastness of Hombori Tondo. A port city alive with trade, secrets, and tightening schemes. There the Orange Guild cast long shadows. The Black Carnival laughed behind painted masks. The Kunnian Kukko—its doors never fully closed, its dice always rolling, its fortunes bought and lost in smoke-thick rooms—drew in the desperate and the damned alike.
In those years walked Careshdar, outcast of Tarsh; Ibn al Shihab, whose mastery of the sorcery bent fate in quiet ways; and Tyr, among others from the coasts of Pamaltela. There too moved Faisal, healer (he claims) of Burayha Xolani, and Yara of the Brotherhood of Behemoth, whose path would one day lead deep into Hombori Tondo. Uthman followed, a cook by trade, though few who traveled with him would ever mistake him for only that. From distant Laskal came Yeweha, Jaguar Warrior, carrying the jungle’s memory in his stride, wondering at the high walls and streets filled with people. Lately, the tale included the Four Khalids and their unlikely inheritance: the fortunate merchant, the retired pit fighter, the bureaucratic spy-wizard, and the bloodthirsty assassin.
There too moved Fjalar, whose treachery cut deeper for the trust it betrayed, and Kwame the shaman, unmoored in mind yet sharp in purpose, whispering of bulls and upheaval, weaving schemes of revolution that smoldered beneath the city’s ordered surface.
The Orange Guild schemes, Garkites, Thanatari, the mysteries of the Ukam family, and Fiona—fled, but is she really gone—wove threads that refused to break. Even here, the road did not end.
Now the trail forked toward Zzabur’s Book, claimed to be hidden within a fragile God Learner tower, and drew the company deep into the burning desert of Nargan. The sand holds the memory of wars older than any living tongue can name. Each step presses its brief claim upon the world… and each is taken back by the Sikkanos wind.
Forty-five years.
Twenty-two players across the decades, as best as memory allows. Another twenty or more passing briefly through shared stories in one offs.
Dozens of characters.
Thousands upon thousands of rolls.
One continuous journey through a world that grows a bit with every telling.
Systems have changed—RQ2, RQ3, brief interlude with HeroQuest, MRQII, RQ6, Mythras—but the story never broke. Since 2012, Mythras has carried the full weight of the tale. Since summer 2024, the rhythm has steadied into near-weekly play. Before that, weeks some time stretched between sessions, then tightened again. Lives moved outward, abroad and returned. Two of the companions remain from the first table in 1981 Some roots reach back even further, to 1978. One has set the dice aside, at least for now. Another joined in 1988 and never truly left. Now even a second generation sits at the table, sons and daughters of those who began it all, alongside new hands who lately found their way into the story.
In August 2025, a second table formed within the same world, same timeline, same city—another thread woven into the same tapestry.
The road goes on from the door where it began. It stretches ahead – where I cannot see. If I am able, I will follow it—step by step—until it meets a greater road, where many paths come together.
Where then? No one knows.
Forty-five years. Shared stories. That was reason enough to gather. We reached out across the years to those who had been active in recent decades, as life had carried some beyond the gaming table or out of easy reach.
No ceremony. No complication. Just people, stories, and the quiet understanding of something that has endured. And of course, the cake.
Six years had passed since we last met face to face. For some, this was the first meeting beyond voices and screens. Old stories were told again, old materials shared, perhaps differently this time. And of course we played.
Gathering of the tribe brough good spirits and old memories.
We will meet again—at the table, and beyond it—but for a moment, the road gathered us in one place.
Forty-five years. A lifetime of a campaign, carried forward by friends.
Notes From Pavis 