Tag: Glorantha

Cult of Gark the Calm (Hombori Tondo)

Here is an unofficial version of Gark the Calm cult for Mythras. There are now also new or revivified versions of its servants in MeG.

““Why suffer, when peace awaits? Why toil in agony when there is labor without pain, service without burden? Gark the Calm offers you eternal rest—where the body finds purpose and the soul finds serenity. Join us, and see that death is not an end, but a tool of harmony. Gark’s path is calm. Gark’s peace is eternal.”


Pantheon: Chaos Pantheon, Fonritian Pantheon

God of Eternal Peace, Eternal Life, and Zombies

Pantheon:: Chaos Pantheon,Fonritian Pantheon Chaos God of Eternal Peace, Eternal Life, and Zombies


Gark’s priests travel the world in many guises, promising the seemingly impossible to the impoverished people of all civilizations: peace and solace from the miserable world. Gark’s worshipers call him by many names, but every crowd of hopeful pilgrims disappears into ancient ruins or forbidden places. No one knows the fate of these souls, though a terrible odor rises from the zombie populations of those places.

Gark is depicted in whatever form is most pleasant to potential worshipers.
Source: Prosopedia

An extreme offshoot of Fonritian religion comes from the philosophical belief that the physical body must be maintained at all costs. The members of the popular cult of Gark the Calm donate their corpses to the temple of the god. For a period of time, anyone can visit the corpses as they do labor for the temple. After that period expires, the corpse is packed away, supposedly to holy temples high in the mountains. The cult gives out amulets that will let the corpse’s descendants know if their ancestor has slipped away, despite the tender ministrations of that silent god.

Source: Guide to Glorantha

The Cult of Gark the Calm thrives in the shadowy corners of Hombori Tondo, exploiting the city’s disparities of wealth and power to recruit desperate followers. In a city teeming with intrigue and unrest, the cult offers a seductive promise: eternal peace, freedom from life’s burdens, and the utility of uncomplaining, undead servitude. Gark’s followers—known as Garkists—are practical necromancers who use corpses as tools of labor and societal function, particularly as tireless workers for the city’s ambitious building projects, trade enterprises, and even menial labor.

The cult has a hidden, sacred place known only as “The Island”, an eerie shrine reached by raft across an underground lake or one of the remote swampy waterways around delta near Hombori Tondo . Rafts, rowed silently by zombie servants, carry pilgrims and the corpses of the newly dead to the Island, where the dead are consecrated into the service of Gark. The Island serves as a central hub of the cult’s operations and a place of pilgrimage for its faithful.

Though the cult claims to promote harmony through the elimination of suffering, their practices are deeply unsettling to most. The streets of Hombori Tondo whisper of pilgrims disappearing into hidden crypts or ancient ruins, only for their bodies to reappear as tireless, unfeeling laborers. The cult’s power lies in secrecy and a chilling pragmatism that belies their outwardly peaceful doctrine.

Runes

  • Harmony: The cult seeks to bring “peace” by turning death into utility, masking chaos with order.
  • Magic: Gark grants mastery over the mystical processes of necromancy and zombification, his followers wielding potent spells to bend the dead to their will.

Mythos and History

The myths of Gark trace back to the God Time, where he is said to have emerged from the Black River of Stillness, a cursed waterway that lies hidden in the depths of the world. According to legend, Gark brought peace to a land torn apart by war and famine, not through battle or negotiation, but through the gift of Eternal Rest. He visited a great city suffering from plague and starvation, where rulers struggled to maintain order among the living. As death swept through the streets, Gark appeared, calm and serene, offering to “ease the burden” of their dead.

He raised the fallen with a wave of his hand—not as vengeful, mindless creatures but as silent, tireless workers who could toil endlessly for the benefit of the living. The city flourished under Gark’s guidance, its fields tended by the dead, its walls repaired by uncomplaining hands. Gark taught the living that peace could be found by accepting death’s utility, unburdening both the soul and the society from the weight of suffering.

But the myth takes a darker turn: as the city’s prosperity grew, so did its reliance on the dead. Soon, they began offering their own sick and weak to Gark in return for his blessings. The living were outnumbered by the dead, and the city fell into eerie silence. When outsiders came, they found no living souls—only a city of perfect order, populated entirely by zombies who continued their work in grim, lifeless perpetuity.

In the myths, Gark is depicted as neither good nor evil. He is the embodiment of peace and purpose through the relinquishment of life. His followers interpret this as an eternal gift, though others see it as a chilling curse.

Nature of the Cult

The cult justifies its use of the dead through a twisted form of utilitarian logic:

  • The Body as a Tool: The body is a lifeless shell once the soul departs, and its purpose can be repurposed to benefit the living.
  • Harmony through Labor: Garkists see zombies as perfect slaves, uncomplaining and tireless, useful for tasks deemed beneath the living. This aligns with Fonritian traditions of slavery, though the undead serve even more efficiently.
  • Avoidance of Waste: Corpses are seen as a wasted resource unless utilized. The cult often resorts to grave-robbing or quietly collecting the bodies of the poor, promising families that their loved ones are being “honored” through service to the city.

Organization

The cult operates in congregations, each led by a Priest of Gark, who oversees the rituals and manages the supply of corpses. In Hombori Tondo, the cult has deep connections with several key institutions:

  • Builders and Merchants: Garkists offer cheap zombie labor for construction projects, caravans, and dock work.
  • Graveyards and Funeral Rites: They clandestinely acquire bodies through agreements with corrupt officials or outright theft.
  • The Island: A hidden shrine accessible only by raft. Zombie rowers ferry pilgrims and corpses to this eerie sanctuary, where the dead are consecrated and new followers undergo initiation rites. The Island is rumored to house ancient relics and forbidden knowledge, protected by both magical wards and undead guardians.

The cult maintains a strict hierarchy:

  • Initiates learn basic magic and serve as labor organizers or corpse collectors.
  • Acolytes master zombification spells and oversee small-scale projects.
  • Priests lead major rituals, manage sacred sites, and ensure the cult’s secrecy.

Membership 

  • Initiation Requirements: Candidates must donate a corpse (preferably fresh) or their own body upon death. Many members join out of desperation, lured by promises of peace or economic opportunity.

Social Role:

  • The cult provides a tireless workforce to the city through its zombie labor, filling roles that others avoid, such as construction, heavy lifting, and menial tasks. This has made the cult indispensable to certain merchants and builders.
  • Lay members are drawn in by the cult’s promises of eternal peace, freedom from suffering, and the promotion of social stability, which appeals to the desperate poor.

Folk Magic

Befuddle
Calm
Might
Shove
Slow
Vigour
Voice Used to command the zombies

Rune Magic

Initiate Level

Cancel Light
Chill
Labor’s Accord (Modified City Harmony): A spell that inspires cooperation and suppresses resistance among laborers, including zombies and living workers, for a short period.
Doleful Chime
Draw Human
Reflection
Spirit Block
Synchronize

Acolyte Level

Create Zombie
Sacred Band

Priest Level

Ageing
Turn Blow

Gifts and Compulsions

  • Gifts: Horde
  • Compulsions:
  • Members develop an obsessive fascination with corpses and the undead.
  • Higher-ranking members (Acolytes and Priests) often seek to have their own bodies animated upon death, sometimes taking extreme risks to achieve this sooner.

Cult Skills

Brawn
Craft (Masonry or Construction)
Endurance
Lore (Cult)
Lore (Human)
Perception (to locate fresh corpses or assess structural weaknesses)
Stealth (to acquire bodies and evade authorities)

Allies and Enemies

  • Allies:
  • Corrupt merchants and builders who benefit from cheap zombie labor [[Into the Heart of Darkness/Factions/Cults and Brotherhoods/Orange Guild|Orange Guild]]
  • Desperate poor families who see the cult as a means of survival.

Enemies

  • Humakt Cultists: The cult of true death sees Garkists as a blasphemy against the natural order.
  • Leopard Secret Police: Their grave-robbing and hidden activities have drawn the attention of Hombori Tondo’s secret enforcers.
  • Brotherhood of Behemoth: The Behemoth Guild, which dominates beast-handling and work animals, fiercely opposes the cult. They see zombie labor as a direct threat to their livelihood and traditions, often leading to violent clashes.

The Cult of Gark the Calm has deep roots in the shadowy corners of Hombori Tondo, with its eerie rafts crossing to The Island and its relentless pursuit of death as utility. Its chilling practices place it in direct conflict with those who see life—and death—as sacred, making it both feared and sought after by those desperate enough to embrace its morbid promises.

Update on Adventures in Glorantha Take 4: Spirit Societies

In my previous post I presented a version of spirit societies for AiG as part of Gloranthan Cult One pagers for AiG. There were some questions in various forums that caused me to revisit the societies. Now most of the Bless spirits have aspects (skills, mechanisms etc) mentioned that what they might bless or boost. Curse spirits could use the same list. The totem animals have also been updated to provide some totem animal specific skills that bless spirits could boost. All of these are my view and nothing official. Feedback is welcome.

These are the spirit abilities by rune spirit (every spirit has a rune) – some of the abilities are different from RQ6 and then there are new ones. Spirit society has spirits from the runes it holds. I have made assumption that all of those spirits are friendly. Each rune has a list of the kind of spirits it ‘handles’. Each spirit can have multiple different kind of abilities – for example curse spirits are very similar to ones from RAW. Disease spirit is similar to sickness spirit. A spirit can sometimes have multiple abilities. I am somewhat hesitant to go deeper into describing the spirits as the rulebook is meant for that.

Without rulebook it might be just possible to map the names of the spirits to similar ones in RAW. Spirits in AiG are really cool…

So we have a new version of the Glorantha One Pagers for Spirit Societies in AiG 

Timinits and Nymphs – RQ Encounter Finds Some Odd Couples

There were few missing timinits as well as most of the nymphs.

You will find Arachans those spidery carnivores now created here

The nymphs are done according to AiG. Dryad given is a young one – the rest of them will be updated in due time.  I left the original Hag as is and created a new one named Hag of Darkness according to Adventures in Glorantha.
Some animals were missing as well from the edges of the world. Polar Bears are the largest of the bears and great swimmers.  Sting worm scuttle wherever there are Uz habitations and the smallest of the great sand worms has found its way here as well.

More Sea Monsters of Glorantha

Here is a taste of more sea monsters for RQ Encounter Generator  inspired by the excellent Hearts In Glorantha Collection, volume 1

There are many more monsters in the Hearts in Glorantha Collection – like Geysers, Whirlpools, Tentacled things and boatloads of enemies in the sea and scenario seeds.

More Sea Monsters are available here

Adventuring in Sartar – Encounters for RQ6

Here is a collection of few ready made encounters in Sartar area for Runequest 6. More can be found by going to the RQ Encounter Tool and selecting Parties with filter Sartar or selecting enemies with filter Sartar. Most if not all of the encounters from Sartar Companion by Moon Design are available. There is also a set of encounters for Apple Lane

At a village

On the road

Lunars

Walk down the memory lane – where it all began – Apple Lane – Encounters for Mythras

I still remember the first time I GM’d Runequest. It was sometime February 1981 and the scenario was Apple Lane. We had played D&D for a few years and I wanted to try something new.

It was love on first game – everything clicked – the combat – the milieu – the crunchy style, the tactics for the attackers, spells. I searched thru my garage and found my original Apple Lane set, still containing the markings of hit points going down, skill percentage changes and fallen marks.

Here are the stats for Rq6 for those who would like to try to help Gringle and Quackjohn. May your game with these create as good memories as mine did.

The young baboon troop contains

Xarban’s gang has

Added some villagers of the Apple Lane

A map for the village is nowadays available here . The Return to Apple Lane scenario there is for Heroquest and very different than the original and could be run as a follow-on to the original even.

Plants for Glorantha – RQ Encounter Tool study

Sometimes it is good to find enemies that you can actually run away from. Plants usually cannot run after you but they might have other ways to persuade you to stay with them- sometimes forever. The generation will be done with RQ Encounter tool with the direct links below.

Perhaps you want to invoke your inner Rodin Greenbeak – here are few of the plants that he was so fond of studying. This garden has been selected from the ones who have unfriendly instincts towards moving life forms. There are thousands perhaps millions kinds of plants which bear no ill will towards the two or four legged.

Here are plants that have been seen in Prax and Tunnelled Hills but may grow in other areas as well.

Prax Daily Event contains as additional features Plants – Wastes
  • Bronze Rust
  • Bull Reeds
  • Cherry Bombs
  • Dreamweed
  • Tori’s Bane
  • Deathspine Cacti
  • Gagarth’s Gifts (Scrub Burss)
  • Gutwrack
  • Sneezeweed – Blisterweed – Blindweed
Delecti’s swamp and many other swamps contain deadly plants. Blackthorn trees have so far been seen only at Delecti’s swamp.
Monster Island Daily Event contains occasionally the swamp plants also prevalent at Delecti’s marsh. Their effects are found as additional features in category Plants – Swamp
  • Darkdart bush
  • Wailing trees
Loral Island or Monster Island has many plants for example
Kulamyu pods and Mantithorn Cacti have close relations to some plants in Wastes.
Sources for the above have been the old issues of Tales of The Reaching Moon, Tradetalk, RQ Adventures and the wonderful supplement called Monster Island.  If you know other sources for plants that you would like to see in RQ Encounter tool – inform me.

Guest Post: Back Under the Glowline

A long time gaming buddy of mine Tom Zunder wrote such a great post on his Gaming Tavern forum that I asked his permission to reblog it also here. There is so much choice that we friends of Glorantha have now. So here is his post. 

So, time to return to Glorantha I feel. It’s been years, maybe a decade or more, since I’ve gamed under the Red Moon, faced the terrors of Thanatar and charged with my Enlo against Blue Moon Moth Riders. You know what, I kinda bloody miss it, and purged of all the accumulated cruft of the Glorantha nerds and the mismatch between myself and Hero Wars, it’s time to worship the Dark Mother, riddle with Nysalor and embrace the endless history of Darra Happa.

But, and this is lovely, there are so many choices.Firstly, and I don’t mind saying this, there is HeroQuest with the tailored match between the the recent setting books, all redolent in simple d20 keywords and meshed neatly between culture and game. There is some truly lovely stuff in the sources that meshes with HQ, and yet.. I’ve never really enjoyed a game of HQ, although a lot of that might be from the Hero Wars action point economy that bored me to tears. Also, and although I can enjoy the depth of Glorantha cultural minutia, it has been what turned me off the setting for so long. I am, and always have been, more of a greatsword swinging Zorak Zorani than a Lhankor Mhy, and so I don’t think it’s HQ for me.

Secondly there is RuneQuest. We approach a time of possibly the best moderately complex version of RuneQuest that we’ve ever had, one that fixes the old issues about divine magic, montheism in a polytheistic world, makes a bloody good stab at sorcery and delivers a folk magic that actually feels folksy and useful to a carpenter or potter. We don’t have Adventures in Glorantha yet, but Hannu Kokko and the Finns are making a very good stab at it with their proto-cult write ups and the joy that is the RuneQuest Encounter tool online.. a party of Chaos cultists heading out from SnakePipe Hollow, I don’t mind if I do. Only problem, I think RQ6, like earlier RQs, doesn’t scale to Heroic, which is, after all why HeroQuest was first conceived.

Thirdly, and this isn’t as mad as it sounds, is OpenQuest. Combined with the RuneQuest Classics RQ2 reprints from Rich Meints, or a selection of RQ3 adventures, one can run an OQ game in Glorantha with barely a flutter. The spells have the same names, the stat blocks are very similar, and OQ is lighter and involves less rethink that RQ6. I know Simon Bray runs all his Glorantha with OQ these days and if that isn’t a recommendation I don’t know what is. So, possible and do-able, but one also can’t help wondering if maybe a copy of RQ2 or RQ3 might also fit in this camp, they’re easily pickupable in the UK on ebay, if you haven’t already got them all on the shelf, which I have.

Fourthly, and here the ZZ beserker in me wails in joy, 13th Age Glorantha! This riot of a d20 game that won me over to D&D after 34 years just made me think of Orlanth, the Red Goddess, Kyger Litor, Yelmalio, etc. as I turned the pages. This is a game for the Heroic, and by setting it in the Hero Wars when Argrath wages devastation on the Lunar Empire, and the Red Moon wages it back in an apocalyptic frenzy that cracks Glorantha from Choralinthor Bay to Valind’s Glacier, is the time for the power and crazy that is a 13th Age player character. So, and this is a defininte, the d20 will come to my Glorantha table, but it will be rolling high and not low.

But that’s not all.

Oh no.

I have a steadily growing collection of skirmish minis and skirmish rulesets. I know Sandy Petersen is playtesting a Gloranthan Gods War game, and I suspect that like his earlier Cthulhu boardgame, this may lead to a big fat bunch of 28mm Gloranthan minis.

So how to skirmish in Glorantha?

Well the Glory Geeks, that brave band of Gloranthan wargamers, have valiantly field Hordes of the Things Gloranthan armies in the HOTT fields of war, and indeed Rich Crawley’s Goranthan HOTT bands are great to play. Just ask him, or Jane, for army lists and where to get the rules and you too can be playing Gloranthan battles in under an hour a time on your dining room table. I am odd though, I don’t like to base my figures in blocks, since I am a roleplayer first I like them singly based. So, not HOTT for me, although always up for a game.

Rich and I have been enjoying Song of Blades and Heroes from Ganesha Games in recent years. A fast 28mm/15mm/any scale skirmish game free of any tie in with any minis maker, SoBH or SBH is enjoyable, wonderfully generic, quick to learn and play, and leaves your minis free for any other use since it has no basing needs. I know Rich has done Glorantha with it and I was almost there until I saw..

Of Gods and Mortals, or OGAM. Published by Osprey this is in fact a superset of SBH, where gods (40mm+), avatars (28-40mm) and their forces (28mm) battle it out on the field of war. What could be more Gloranthan? Cacodemon and his warband facing down Storm Bull and his? It’s appealing isn’t it, and I think I shall have to lay down the ten quid to get OGAM and see how it’ll work if and when some good Gloranthan minis come out, so come on Sandy!

And that’s not all.. after all, if Sandy P does get the Glorantha boardgame going, is there any chance of resisting that?

Must go, Cragspider is calling..

The Troll

HQ: http://www.glorantha.com/product/heroquest-glorantha/
RQ6: http://www.thedesignmechanism.com/runequest.php
OQ: http://d101games.com/books/openquest/
13th G: http://www.13thageinglorantha.com/

SBH: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3080 … and-heroes
OGAM: http://www.northstarfigures.com/list.php?man=159&page=1

Tom Zunder: tom at zunder.org.uk
Encourage the Awesome!

Bring Out Your Dead

In the honor of All Hallow’s Eve (long gone now) here are a few new and tuned Undead mostly for Glorantha.  Here are some new or more strongly tuned enemies.

The usual suspects are there – Skeletons, Mummies, Vampires, Zombies, Ghouls but there are also parties for Vivamort and Gark the Calm and a Hag or two but also some rare ones like the Skeleton of Than or even Firebrand the Flaming Skeleton. There are now Skeletons for Dream Dragons and Minotaurs but quite a few others. Careful with the Zombies as they mostly are of the variety that reproduces well.

On the party side there is also a Ghost ship, Ship of the Dead and Mummy and Zombie parties…

All of the undead can now be found with the keyword Undead on the Enemies or Parties filter.

In addition to the Undead there is also a Lamia looking for more company.

http://skoll.xyz/mythras_eg/

Force Is Strong In This One – The Guide to Glorantha has arrived

Today I received my copy of Guide to Glorantha. 12 kg’s worth of Gloranthan goodness. This is the book that we have been waiting for all these decades.  Extensive information on all of lozenge in the two volumes of Guide and 1 of maps. Additionally all of Genertela in 6 maps and all of Lozenge in 24 maps.

Attached are few pictures before sharing the loot. The Herbert’s science fiction paperback shown as a size comparison.

The Guide is just gorgeous and full of info just on the right level at multitude of aspects of Glorantha so it can be used and extended for a multitude of campaigns and scenarios. Perhaps later a small review after I have had enough time to digest all of it. The guide can be bought as PDF’s but the print version really does justice to the contents.

IMG_0140 IMG_0141 IMG_1489 IMG_1490