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The God Learners

The God Learners

By: The God Learners
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A podcast about gaming in Glorantha in which we cover news and discuss topics about RuneQuest, QuestWorlds, and other related games such as 13th Age Glorantha, King of Dragon Pass, Six Ages, The Gods War, or Khan of Khans.Glorantha, RuneQuest, and QuestWorlds are copyright Chaosium Inc.
Episodes
  • Episode 37: Life and Traditions Under the Sun Dome

    Episode 37: Life and Traditions Under the Sun Dome
    May 13 2026
    Our Guests For this episode we welcome Malin and CJ, which Ludo met in person at ChaosiumCon UK 2025. The book we’re talking about is “Life and Traditions under the Sun Dome”Ludo also took so long to edit this episode that Malin and CJ’s next books are already out: “Three Doors to Your Heart” and “Uleria Loves You”Malin is on Bluesky and has a PatreonCJ is also on Bluesky Show Notes Things we discussed in this episode: Malin and CJ published a book about Life and Traditions of the Sun Dome because they’ve been playing there for a while.Malin got into Glorantha via CJ, and became fascinated by stuff in Cults of Terror.CJ got into Glorantha via some people talking about RuneQuest and its cultures, religions, weird spells, and “walking tapirs”.After playing in Pavis and the Big Rubble, CJ bought RQ3 and some RQ2.The Dragon Pass board gamePlaying near Sun County in HeroQuest, with the Cradle scenario.CJ bought the RQ3 Sun County book, reading it directly in the post office.It was hard to get a group going.The “Life and Traditions” book is a “more detailed” Sun County, compatible with previous official material (Sun County) and JC material (Black Spear, Sandheart).Many people have written stuff in that area, it’s important to honour that.Back in the day, it felt like Sun County was more “bronze age” and exotic than Sartar, which felt more “celtic” and common.Research for the book included a lot of Bronze Age history.Big spears, shield walls, and hoplites!Back in the day, there wasn’t much material on Sartar. A lot of books were out of print, and in piracy was the only way to access them.Very trusting people who mail their copy of Griffin Mountain to strangers to read and send back!Sun County was a “standalone” book and setting, easier to grasp than other places in Glorantha.To secular Sweden, religious fanaticism is exotic!The reason for the “Life and Traditions” book is that many players have questions… sometimes weird questions…Malin wanted to emulate the “Daily Life in ” children books about ancient Egypt or Greece: what is it to live in these places and times? Also, a desire to answer questions to the players who didn’t know Glorantha.Malin loves making house rules and handouts!A character wants to get married? Write a handout about property rights! “It escalates so fast!”Between different regions of Genertela there are different rules and cultures. Sun County should feel different from Sartar.“RuneQuest is a game for over-thinkers”CJ is a sociologist, so how does the class system work!?“Life and Traditions” has a bibliography! It’s serious work!It’s a xenophobic and misogynistic place but they have nice beaches.CJ looks at other countries with the same problems for reference, in addition to historical Bronze Age and Iron Age, and previous Gloranthan material.People are still people, and it’s interesting to see how people would react and behave in a place like Sun County.How to use this book? As an academic description of Sun County, or as a collection of articles to be skimmed and picked from as needed?“It should be read but not memorized”.“It’s a confidence builder”.Instead of adding more history and names and places, the book tries to just add more context to one already established place.Joerg likes the tables to “look around the house”.Ludo likes the random event table.Players can read the book, there is not much “secret information”.The bad stuff in Sun County: patriarchy, xenophobia, etc. How is that fun to play? Depends on the group… it can be treated as background vibe, or as the main theme.The book also shows how to play other types of characters.CJ tried to lean into the set parameters of the place, as established by prior material: Yelmalio is patriarchal, Ernalda is made into a subservient wife, and Zola Fel provides a good part of the fertility magic that Ernalda usually provides elsewhere, etc.Still had to “address the elephant in the room and make everyone feel welcome at the table”.CJ and Malin had several women characters in their campaign. What does that mean for them? How do they live in this society?CJ makes the good point that it’s like playing Call of Cthulhu in the default era of the 1920s, which is a “horribly racist” time in America.“The gamemaster has to address this with the group”, deciding how much to lean into it or address it.Ludo mentions Harlem Unbound as an example of leaning into the racism of the 1920s for Call of Cthulhu.Cool stuff in Sun County: as a foreigner, you interact with a very weird and insular society!An excuse for sending your PCs to Sun County is that the River of Cradles is strategically important!Do your players enjoy being “administratively frustrated”?The absurdity of Glorantha.The cool thing about Yelmalio is that he is NOT cool!“He’s a poser guy wearing shitloads of bling for compensating about all the things he cannot do!”...
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    1 hr and 21 mins
  • Episode 36: The Reminiscences of Paulis Longvale (Part 2)

    Episode 36: The Reminiscences of Paulis Longvale (Part 2)
    Dec 11 2025
    Our Guest We welcome once again Austin Conrad to the show! His website is AkhelasGet Treasures of Glorantha: Volume 2, one of the finest books on the Jonstown Compendium! (which we talked about in episode 31)Austin hopes to be “done soon” with his upcoming “Wolves of the Wild Hunt” book… that was a couple months ago and it’s not done yet The book will include slightly remastered previous materials such as The Quacken, and The Queen’s Star, plus new stuff about Gagarthi monsters! Show Notes Things that happened in this episode: Joerg reminds us what the Reminiscences of Paulis Longvale are… Listen to episode 34 if you haven’t already!Cults of Terror is “the gamemaster’s best friend”Also listen to episode 35 with Simon Phipp, specialist of Dorastor!Yes, YOU too can play a Thanatar cultist!Ludo summarizes the previous episode’s storyAustin mentions the old Dorastor book, plus gives another shout out to Simon Phipp’s booksLudo goes on a short tangent about the name “Bilini”Austin lays down another argument about the Orlanthi really being VikingsWe discuss the various motivations of the characters regarding Chaos, Dorastor, and the Lunar EmpireLudo has made a spreadsheet! He tries to figure out what are the chances of the Bilini king’s army against Razalkark’s armyHow cute are baby broos? Or baby Scorpion Men? Apparently Diana Probst has one of those in Stone and Bone, go check it out!We talk about battle tactics and “broo walls”How the hell do you recreate this story using RQ rules? Should we play using HeroQuest/QuestWorlds? (again)The phalanx rules suck?Is dual wielding better than using a shield? (We fumble around the convoluted RQG dual wielding rules)Rules terms inside the narrative text… what to make of it?Would you abstract the things we see in this story to “just a few rolls” in RuneQuest?Austin is being an asshole (his words! not mine!)How much plunder do you get from Chaos creatures?Giving a “personal touch” to plunder and gifts… or just add some jewels!Reselling gifts to buy actually useful stuff, like skills and spells!“WHERE IS MY MONEY?” and other things players sayAncient cultures versus transactional culturesEa-Nasir name drop!Storm Bull cultists as a biker gangAustin mentions “A Short Detour” and the way we tried writing Chaos cultists as nuanced peopleAre Illuminates crazy assholes? Or are they people with feelings?Uleria is more powerful and bad-ass than we give her credit forBody horror with Uleria! Play Limbo!Austin has more conspiracy theories about the Celestial Court on his website!Vampires in Dorastor… do they have enough to eat?World of Darkness vampires vs Dresden Files vampires (also, Ludo mixes up Dresden Files and Laundry Files)Austin’s Harrek campaign, and the shenanigans the PCs are up toGive player characters cool or embarrassing epithets!The interesting framing of a Chaos-based narrative with a Lunar perspectiveTelmori vampires! Or vampires feeding on Telmori! Maybe both!The lost power of RQ2 vampires that can steal Rune magic when feeding off someoneRituals to get your magic items to trust youFear mechanics in RuneQuest?There’s a difference between improvising and off-the-rails-improvising!RQ2 silver magic collars… they’re in every RQ2 storyHow do you keep prisoners?Suspicious tricksters! (aren’t they always?)Joerg tells us about Jojo The Bobo. Also, Bugs Bunny and the Puppeteer Troupe“We’re in Dorastor, but we’re getting…. human drama???!” Credits The intro music is “The Warbird” by Try-Tachion. Other music includes “Cinder and Smoke” and “Skyspeak“, along with audio from the FreeSound library.
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    1 hr and 37 mins
  • Glorantha Initiation: Benjamin, Podcasts, Wikis, and Looking for the One Truth

    Glorantha Initiation: Benjamin, Podcasts, Wikis, and Looking for the One Truth
    Oct 27 2025
    We are back with a long overdue Glorantha Initiation interview featuring twice the amount of French accents! We talked to Benjamin, aka Dasfynx, who is the webmaster of the (French) RuneQuest Wiki, and co-hosts the (also French) “Runecast” podcast with Gianni Vacca. Le Wiki du JDR RuneQuestLe Runecast (you can of course find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on whatever app you use to listen to podcasts!) Show Notes Here are the things we talk about in this episode! Ben’s podcast “Runecast”This is one of the three known “talk show” podcasts about Glorantha right now, the other one being the Finnish Dayzatarin tähtien alla (“Under the stars of Dayzatar”)Ben also runs the French RQWiki which started as a translation of Chaosium’s wiki. It started as just figuring out what tech was powering Chaosium’s websiteThen it was a small translation for Ben’s playersAnd then other fans joined the effort… there are now extra things compared to the Chaosium version Any extra material on the wiki that is from the published material is reproduced with the approval of Studio Deadcrows, the French publisher for RQGWatching old adventure/sci-fi movies on VHS, and being pitched the Warhammer Fantasy RPG (WFRP) as similar to those moviesBen’s first purchased RPG books were from the Call of Cthulhu and World of Darkness lines, but we was busy playing sports and listening to rap, so he read the books but didn’t play them! This may be called “lonely fun” Only years after that one WFRP game did Ben finally find another gaming group playing the WEG Star Wars RPGBen offered to GM Call of Cthulhu after that, which lasted for a handful of years, going through the Spawn of Azathoth campaign You too can learn geography and history by GMing Call of Cthulhu! It’s hard to find English or French RPG books while living in China, so Ben loaded up on many books whenever he would come homeAs a Roliste TV watcher (YouTube channel here), Ben learned that one host (Mathieu) is a big fan of RuneQuest, so Ben bought the latest edition… and didn’t like it! This is because the world wasn’t described enough for Ben to picture, so he bought the Glorantha Sourcebook… and didn’t like it either! Too many names and lists of things!It was the Bestiary that made Ben “get it”: each “monster” is actually coming from somewhere and have their place After that, Ben was deep into Glorantha and started reading more and more books about it Glorantha: a steep curve followed by a rabbit hole! Books are expensive so Ben got Gianni Vacca to explain things to him for free! Gianni is Ben’s co-host on the Runecast podcastGianni is Ben’s Joerg, an old hands of Glorantha… actually even older than Joerg, since Gianni started with RQ2!Ben’s wiki and podcast are geared towards beginners Favourite thing about Glorantha: Dorastor, to make players suffer! See Simon Phipp’s “Secrets of Dorastor” (and other related books), and his interview episode on the show Sartar, because it’s an interesting place Next on Ben’s reading list are the Red Cow campaign books (book 1 and book 2) See also Ian Cooper’s Questworlds interview on the show Things Ben doesn’t like: the gray areas, because he likes to feel like he understands everythingBen asks Joerg what is the nature of the great compromise? Joerg explains how gods can break the compromise and act in TimeWe talk about avatars of gods also manifesting gods enough to endanger the Compromise, and how Chaos allows gods to get involved in Time Greg’s narrative framework of writing “in world” texts that give contradictory views and accountsThe annoyance of “no answers” vs “multiple answers”King of Sartar is… a dense and complicated bookGMing the French campaign “Children of the Flame” (Gianni is an author on it) This campaign helped show Ben what is possible in GloranthaIt’s about the Dundealos tribe, near Swenville, after they have been replaced by the Lunar Entalos tribe… until the Dragonrise gives an opportunity to retake their landsFaction play, with various tribes, the Lunars, etc.There’s a map of Swenville! A good way to start in Glorantha is a good example: a scenario, a campaign, etc. The Sourcebook isn’t a good idea for beginnersThe GM pack or a campaign are better! (classic RQ2 campaigns, or newer ones from the Jonstown Compendium)Basically, start small! The French edition of RQG has one scenario in the rulebook, and one in the bestiary… something the English edition is lacking!Ludo briefly talks about his similarly failed encounters with GloranthaBen reiterates how Glorantha is consistently deep and how he loves that about itBen started just with the books for a while, but later discovered there are so many things about Glorantha on the internet! Shout-out to 7Tigers, who translates all the news and Well of Daliath content to FrenchAlso shout-out to Olivier from “Les Fils du Chaos” for helping correct the French RQWikiAnd ...
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    1 hr and 21 mins
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