Our third proper session was yesterday, and my and my duet buddy’s Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha game is starting to heat up.
Backdrop and Situation
We settled on a backwater Orlanthi stead for setting, close to the road to Whitewall. ‘Our’ clan are the Maul-Mouths, Olontongi who stubbornly held onto their ways (and their rivalry with the Keen-Teeth clan across the road) against the Lunar invasion. They have fairly close ties to the Praxian horse-riders, so there’s a mixture of Praxian and Orlanthi customs. Farangara, the elder of ‘our’ longhouse (inhabited by the Wood-Glory family) is a Daka Fal Shaman, the last of her generation to survive the invasion.
My buddy’s PC, Narmeed, is a vet. An initiate of Storm-Bull, probably aiming for Rune-Lord status. His battle-scars scarified into cult Runes. His warrior mother left the Wood-Glories to marry a Praxian in the city of Pavis. Now her son is coming back to ancestral ground and (thanks to a successful Reputation roll) finding his place among the Wood-Glories.
Unfortunately, the Maul-Mouths are not prospering. They suffered many losses during the invasion. If a Maul-Mouth isn’t missing a hand or an eye, they’re missing a sibling or a spouse, and odds are they’re missing both.
The Wood-Glories are further divided: They lost a champion, Hastur Dagger-Skull, a Storm-Bull Rune-Lord who took in a motley band of orphans, the Dagger-Skull Boys. He was not kind. In his absence, the Dagger-Skull Boys have been restless trouble, teenagers with spears and swords who idolize a brutal, abusive man.
A young Wood-Glory, Darrald Younger, fought with distinction in the war. He’s well on the path to Rune-Lord of Orlanth Adventurous. However, he and the Dagger-Skull Boys hate each other’s guts because Darrald’s mother is an ex-Lunar colonist. She converted to Orlanth when she married Darrald’s father, changed her name to Darralda. The Dagger-Skull Boys’ viewpoint is “Once a Lunar, always a Lunar.” In their eyes, it doesn’t matter how many imperial warriors Darrald Younger brought low: he and his still stink of Chaos.
My duet buddy has entered this minefield and played Narmeed honestly, unafraid to have real consequences on the family’s social fabric. Long stretches of our first three sessions have been in conversation between characters, descriptions of living conditions, performing ceremonial acts. I think the setting demands this. We’re trying to enter a very alien, occasionally scary bronze-age headspace.
Two scenes have had serious, unpredictable impacts on the story. Neither of us have any idea where this will go.
Trial by Magic
The first (from last week) took place the morning after Narmeed’s arrival on the stead. The Dagger-Skull Boys, led by their just-barely-adult ringleader Vernharl, took Narmeed out to the pasture. Vernharl cast the only Rune spell he knows, Berserk, on his younger brother Olav, who commenced to defeat the other, stronger boys in practice combat. After this demonstration, Vernharl demanded to see Narmeed’s magic.
Narmeed called upon Storm-Bull to go Berserk.
This was our first time engaging RQG’s combat system. It was, to put it mildly, brutal. Narmeed put down three of the Dagger-Skull boys before the rest fled. Each young warrior went down in a single round. Even wielding a wooden sword, Narmeed hurt Vernharl badly enough that it later required Rune magic to mend. When the group scattered, he managed to run down one more and lay him out from behind.
For us as players, this scene drove home how dangerous violence is in RQG. A battle cannot be controlled. The scene highlighted, too, how the crossing of various sub-systems can impose unforeseen consequences. Narmeed failed his attempt to snap out of his Berserker battle-trance, and when he had no more enemies to defeat, he still had fourteen minutes before the spell wore off. He came to himself in the mountains north of the stead, unsure of whether or not he had unintentionally murdered a kinsman.
For Narmeed, this scene was key to him taking Hastur’s place at the head of the Dagger-Skull Boys, and also to him understanding his own capacity for violence. He aspires to lead the fledgling cult with a gentler hand than Hastur did, but this runs counter to the boys’ expectations and his god’s.
This tension within Narmeed’s personality drove the second pivotal scene (from yesterday’s session).
“Did you learn something today, Vernharl?” “Yes sir. I learned never to make a bet you can’t win.”
Narmeed had invited Vernharl, Oav and Darrald Younger to ride horses together into the mountains. The simmering tension between the Storm-Bull worshippers and Darrald boiled over quickly into an argument. Darrald blames Storm-Bull impetuousness for getting friends of his killed during the war. Narmeed followed his worst instincts and kept on needling.
Narmeed challenged Darrald to a hunting competition to see who’s cult gets bragging rights. Darrald agreed and suggested a bet—if he won, he got the enchanted dinosaur skull revered by the Dagger-Skull Boys as a last gift from Hastur. If Narmeed won, he’d get Balk-Sky, Darrald’s beloved warhorse.
Deciding how to run the hunt took riffling through the book and looking at Skill descriptions. After settling on a procedure, Narmeed went for a Rune augment to supplement his hunting skill. Darrald called upon Orlanth for the Rune spell Raise Wind, hoping to decrease Narmeed’s odds with his bow.
Both rolls failed. RQG does a great job at adding texture to failure with Rune augments: The character is out of tune with their Rune and loses a % from their score. I rushed over Darrald’s failure in the moment—his casting was happening off-screen, and my buddy was eager to roll. However, in hindsight, I’m curious to explore what that failure means to the NPC: does he interpret it as a sign of Orlanth’s will or displeasure? Will it have consequences for his relationship to his cult or his god?
A couple of Ability checks covered the day-long hunt. Narmeed returned with a scrawny stag. Darrald returned late and empty-handed. He gave a tearful farewell to Balk-Sky before walking off alone, murder in his eyes.
Narmeed gifted Balk-Sky to Vernharl’s younger brother Olav.
Narmeed and Darrald are the Wood-Glories’ most capable warriors. Their rivalry has the potential to tear the frayed webs of kinship apart. Neither of us have any capability (or desire) to predict where this will go.
15 responses to “Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha Sessions 1-3”
Yeesh!
First, the influence of the King of Sartar video game on the new RuneQuest is evident, including the core influences of Norse and Celtic sagas. This is like the start of Njal's Saga, which ends up breaking apart a whole way of life and taking many dozens of lives in a horrible, three-generations feud.
I confess I kinda think Narmeed's an asshole – although that is certainly fine when it comes to this sort of story, or nascent-story. One thing about this game, and as I've found based on its most important influences, earliest-RuneQuest and Pendragon, is a freeing quality of being able to play as widely as one pleases, per person. Also, characters can change, or hey, one might even simply be playing the bad guy or partly-bad guy, when the dust clears enough for judgments. At this point, does he have likeable qualities, or perhaps a better question is, what does Fano like about him?
Speaking of Pendragon, what sort of Passions and Rune mechanics are coming into play, if any?
Yes! Our situation emerged
Yes! Our situation emerged from reading the descriptions of Orlanthi society in HeroQuest: Thunder Rebels, then imagining those structures bending and breaking under Lunar occupation, then that pressure suddenly disappearing in the Dragonrise. I think the core question RQG poses to its characters is "What will you do with your freedom?" With the real possibility that exercising that freedom will mean the traditions the Orlanthi fought to preserve will vanish or be irrevocably changed.
I agree that Narmeed isn't a very nice person, though I've also witnessed him acting in more positive ways. I admire my buddy's commitment to exploring characters' least admirable impulses. Their nobility is often hard-won. I think my buddy is drawn to Narmeed's protectiveness of the Dagger-Skull Boys—we'll see if he's up to the challenge of raising them with more care than Hastur. Narmeed also wants to be of use. He wants to find a purpose that will benefit his new family. I believe my buddy's compelled by those possibilities, and genuinely interested in discovering if Narmeed can live up to them.
And to be fair, I've been taking what Cults of Prax has to say about the Storm-Bulls pretty seriously, so it's also been interesting to see characters be surprised that Narmeed isn't more uncouth and unrestrained!
(Oh, and quick note, I believe Fano is James's duet buddy for Marvel Heroic. I haven't posted my partner's name yet, though I'm hoping they'll get involved with Adept Play in the near future)
The Runes and Passions have been coming into play quite often. Narmeed's been reaching for augments quite often, generally more for Passions because we're both still internalizing the Runes. The game ensures that, even with scores of 75 or 80%, going for an augment feels risky. They create a space for intensely emotive moments. Roll a crit and an apprentice has a shot at standing up to a master. Roll a fumble and you're looking at the scene in The Iliad when Hector's courage fails him and Achilles pursues him around the walls of Troy.
The GM offering Checks works well to highlight how a character's choices sculpt their personality. I really like using the Passions as a prep tool. All my NPCs have 3-4. There are no abstract Passions. Pointing a Love or Hate Passion at another character implies action.
After lots of Imp of the Perverse, I do feel that Runes and Passions could fluctuate more rapidly. Unless you fumble, a roll won't lead to a permanent change in the percentage, and it may only be a few points. However, the game is geared to dedicated long-term play. I'm curious to see how radically these drips and drops sculpt a character sheet over time.
Damn. Sorry about the name. I
Damn. Sorry about the name. I know some anonymity is necessary when people don't want their names used, or if the posting person doesn't know whether they do, but it's always disastrous for me during multiple discussions.
I think I get what you mean about Narmeed as a person, or character, or agent. The RuneQuest game I played and presented here beginning with RuneQuest 1980: Brambly hick coming-of-age fantasy also includes the troubled youngsters, toxic adults, taboo/difficult cultural context, and – the reason I'm bringing it up – at least one player-character who by simple story-models veered close to being a villain, at least inadvertently so.
The rules version we were using was surprisingly supportive of moral choices of this kind, despite lacking specific mechanics. I think that's because we were using and playing cults intensively, as well as paying a lot of attention to every possible application of Charisma and Power. I can definitely see the new rules (augments and the concept of affinities from HeroQuest, Passions and the equivalent of Traits from Pendragon) jumping right into position, as if there were a niche waiting for them.
No worries on the name. I
No worries on the name. I haven't yet had a chance to listen to those actual plays, but they are on my list. I'd be curious to see how POW and CHA are put to use in them. This question regarding morality is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, the backdrop of our setting implies that Narmeed and the Dagger-Skull Boys are coming from a uniquely toxic background. A lot of Wood-Glories are carrying around trauma from the invasion, but it feels like our Storm-Bull characters are especially conditioned to seek catharsis in violence.
Second, the Passion mechanics give a view of the internal psychology of a character. To the two of us at the table, Narmeed didn't come off quite as badly in the Trial by Magic scene because he successfully Augmented his chances of snapping out of his Berserker state with his Love (Wood-Glory) Passion. He missed the subsequent INTx5 roll by a close margin. We could see his better instincts warring and aaaaaalmost winning against his worst ones.
That is a really good point
That is a really good point about perceiving a given conflict differently based on the known odds or the knowledge of "almost" regarding the outcome. Giving some sympathy or some moral credit on that basis to Narmeed makes a lot of sense and is very familiar to me from play.
It raises a lot of important points about role-playing in general, for example, that an "outcome" is not unaffected by how it came about, numerically speaking.
Here's an example which adds a third vector of dramatic intention as well, especially for some kind of induced state rather than a physical act.When character A falls into a berserker rage vs. when character B falls into a berserker rage may refer both cases to the same "box" of text in the rules, but if character A only had a 10% chance and really wanted to, and character B had a 90% chance and really didn't want to … well, all of a sudden, there's a big difference in "what happened" despite using that same rules-box that describes the effects and rules of being berserk.
I used the word "numerical" rather than "probability" on purpose, because the latter is a subset of the former, and the former includes more than quantities or percentages. It includes ordering, for example, so in some systems with no dice or any similar devices, the ordering of speaking (who says what, when) will play the same experiential role in adding meaning to what happened.
It’s a feature of dice
It's a feature of dice procedures that I haven't heard discussed very much, but in the right applications, I've seen it add a lot of texture to play. Near misses or almost but not-quite failures in tense situations have a way of heightening the drama. They practically beg for the slo-mo camera treatment. And I'll also be curious to ask my fellow player how this moment with Narmeed influenced his later characterization…if he'd fumbled his Meditation roll, instead of missing by a hair, I wonder if it would have led to Narmeed indulging more deeply in the violent side of his personality.
What a great set-up
I have zero knowledge of Glorantha, but I just want to say how much I like the initial conditions here.
One question: WHY does Narveed want to lead these guys? Aside from glory and prestige, is there something he wants to accomplish with them?
I made a little video that
I made a little video that may factor into the topic: Storm Bull thoughts.
That’s a great question,
That's a great question, James! As we're still finding out feet in Glorantha, my buddy hasn't much articulated or explored what his long-term goals are. In fact, he wanted to start his character as lost, as looking for a purpose.
I think his reaction to the Dagger-Skull Boys is strongly emotional. I certainly didn't prep them with the intention of them being Narmeed's retinue, and (depending on how Narmeed's actions) they could just as easily have turned hostile. Hell, they still could.
I wanted to explore some of the loss the Wood-Glory family has suffered, and how that might affect these young characters, particularly if they were brought up in a toxic environment. My buddy perceived this (rightly) as an opportunity to step into the vacuum left by Hastur. So far he's been working to set a more circumspect, less violent example for the Boys. I'd guess that right now his long-term goal is to train and nurture these children in a way that prepares them for adulthood, and possibly find a way for the band to serve the community.
Ron, it was quite exciting to wake up and see Storm Bull in my video feed this morning. I whole-heartedly concur with your reading of our game—in fact, I can't really imagine running the game just based on the RQG book. The two Cults books and some HQ material seem like required reading. I haven't read Cults of Terror very closely, but I'm excited to see the further nuance it adds.
One thing your post helped me notice is that, RAW, PCs start with 75% in a Rune and a Passion. They can't be 'overtaken' by a Passion or a god until the score is at 80%. An emergent property of this is that it lets players explore their characters (and possibly even shift cult membership) before they have to reckon with the more intrusive aspects of these Abilities.
Oh great Lorespeaker, thank you for your post!
Noha, I just wanted to say that I found your post deeply inspiring. I've been following your Runequest reports with pleasure, and I'm still impressed with how this game system has managed to convey the danger of violence, the relationship with the divine, and the importance of community. As a player relatively new to the hobby who has never been able to experience Runequest/Heroquest firsthand, I wanted to let you know that you have contributed greatly, along with Ron's fine post on Glorantha, bringing me closer to this mysterious and fascinating world. Unfortunately, the RuneQuest system has been deemed too heavy and somewhat "old" by my group; you'll need to wait some more for an equal exchange of opinions.
I'm particularly interested in this first session, and how you created such a thorough yet unstable relationship map. Could you describe in more detail what prompted you to develop this initial play situation? Do you think the character creation phase actually inspired your contributions? And, if you were to recommend how to structure this kind of map, would you have any texts or sources that you found particularly helpful?
– Adriano
Adriano, thank you for your
Adriano, thank you for your kind words! I am happy that my posts (alongside the large corpus of Runequest APs on Adept Play) have fired your interest in the game.
You ask a great question, and frankly I don’t think I have a great answer for it. I found that getting from backdrop (which in the case of Glorantha is vast) to situation (which for RQG can start as small and intimate as you like) was an arduous creative task that I am a long way from mastering, and the character creation process didn't help as much as I thought it would.
Likewise, I am still learning to balance the lonely fun of creating backstory (like customized cults, character origins, and family histories) with awareness of how little of that backstory may get taken up and actualized in scenes.
So this is how we did it, but this could be as much a cautionary tale as a set of best practices:
Session 0s –
I think it took us three (short) sessions total to create characters and sketch out a situation. The character creation process told us that Narmeed’s mother had moved to Prax from Sartar, been a follower of Argrath, and was now deceased; that Narmeed had spent time in Prax (suggesting Storm Bull, Daka Fal, and Waha as potential deities). My buddy picked Storm Bull as his cult. We figured he was going back to his mother’s family to find some stability after the war.
Together, we selected a location to build our stead (careful to stay away from any areas that had been detailed in any supplements we knew of), then brainstormed the Maul-Mouth clan. We knew the clan wasn’t particularly urban, probably not very wealthy, and quite faithful to traditional Sartar ways.
Because the stead was north of Whitewall, we knew the Maul-Mouths had had lots of contact with the Lunars, much of it violent.
My buddy also wanted a rival, which is where the character of Darrald was suggested.
GM Prep –
On my end, I initially approached the material from the perspective of questions I was curious to explore:
Storm Bull seemed to me like a volatile cocktail of toxic masculinity and proto-fascism; the Dagger-Skull boys with their missing, abusive father-figure Hastur (plus the creepy image of a teenager wearing a dinosaur skull) popped into my head. Organizations like this can leave a trail of damage behind them, and I was drawn to Olav as a character who didn’t live up to the cult’s extreme ideals and was injured as a result.
The tension between the wayward Dagger-Skulls and the rest of the family suggested enmity between Darrald (and his ex-Lunar mother) and Vernharl.
I really like the Daka Fal cult, and I knew that Narmeed’s grandmother was still alive. Farangara leaped to mind as a badass, ghost-talking old shaman trying to hold her family together and maintain their link to the mighty dead, even as the old world fell apart around her.
Jareen emerged from the necessity of an Orlanthi stead to have sacred herd animals. I didn’t get a chance to play her as much as I’d like, but while looking over Ernalda’s Rune Magic the “Bless Pregnancy” spell caught my eye for its mention of increasing the chances of twins. Balk-Sky and Lune-Trampler, gifts to the two up-and-coming warriors of the family, emerged from that.
The final layer was mapping out how everyone related to each other, giving each named character 3-4 Passions, and possibly granting them a Rune Spell or two. This is the one element of my prep I’d recommend as a ‘best practice,’ as it gives every character’s internal world and cult identity a way of interfacing with the rest of the game system.
Looking back, I think I hit upon two techniques that helped my prep not overwhelm the actual play, and which might be helpful to others: First, I didn't preprogram anyone's reactions to Narmeed, instead letting social skill and reputation rolls determine initial dispositions. For instance, even though Farangara developed into a grandmotherly figure, this was largely because Narmeed made his first Reputation roll when meeting her, leading to her welcoming him into the family.
Second, I approached the material as a player, not a GM or storyteller. If I wasn’t emotionally grabbed by a character, or looking forward to exploring some inner turmoil, or excited to see them in action, I didn’t bother developing them. While the whole process was time-consuming, this approach guaranteed that prep was play, not labor.
(I’m also curious to try an in media res approach: You’re all Orlanthi siblings. You’ve been cornered in a mountain valley by a band of Humakti hired to kill you by the neighboring tribe. Go!)
Books That Continue to Help Me –
Cults of Prax – Can’t imagine playing Runequest without this book.
Hero Wars: Thunder Rebels – Helped me get an idea of what ordinary life in Sartar looks like. Also
has a huge list of Orlanthi names that I pull from every session.
Champions Now – This game helped me see the GM as “just another player,” and it’s influenced the way I play everything.
The Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction by Amanda Podany. Helped me wrap my head around what a stateless, noncapitalist society might look like.
Encyclopedia of Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia – Found a PDF somewhere online. It has great write-ups on religious practices and hundreds of pictures of art, architecture and religious objects. I dip into it whenever I need to get into a trippy Bronze Age headspace.
That’s a very good reply,
That’s a very good reply, thank you! I must confess that I feel equally fascinated and terrified by the amount of prep this game seems to require, considering that, as you noticed, a large portion of the character generation process doesn’t seem to feed the development of the current situations you’re experiencing. You must have scored a critical success on your Harmony rune inspiration though, because I feel compelled to ask you more questions and add some comments/reflections on some of your great thoughts:
That’s a fascinating point of view, and it surely sheds new light for me. Personally, cults like Humakt, Storm Bull, or Babeester Gor seem to offer plenty of material when you think about their conflicting nature: they are strangers, so close to the definition of Georg Simmel, in that they offer services that are vital to the community, even if they’re not technically part of it. They’re familiar, yet despised, and you want them to be around only when is strictly necessary. The way they cross the line between insiders and outsiders inspires me when I think about them; I’m sure they’ll find a way in my preparation when I’ll have the occasion to try the game.
Yes, that’s what I was thinking when I looked at the manual rules! I haven’t had the occasion to read Circle of Hands yet, but according to what it was described to me it seems very similar to the same mechanic adopted by Ron. I can definitely see the use of Reputation and CHAR vs. CHAR to establish emergent relations in a non-planned, “must-challenge-my-players” way. Tell me, did you have any occasion to test the Customs (all) skill as well? Its description actively suggests this kind of use, but I’m not sure when it would be wiser to call for such rolls.
Finally, a question: I've always found it difficult, when it comes to detail-rich settings, to transfer the copious amount of background information to my players, and that seems like an even bigger problem in the face of the complexity of Glorantha and its cults. Did your friend already have some knowledge of Runequest, and if not, how did you transfer your prep without the risk of falling into the infodump trap? Personally, I'm thinking that a lot of what we develop between sessions has to be transferred visually, insisting a lot on trivial details like the diversity of tattoos, clothing, beards, in differentiating the cultures going on. Just a passing idea though, haven't had a chance to see if it works yet.
I wasn’t familiar with Simmel
I wasn’t familiar with Simmel’s concept of the stranger, thank you for introducing it to me Adriano! Having only read the Wikipedia definition thus far, this strikes me as an inspiring way of thinking about Storm Bull and similar cults. Looking back, much of Narmeed’s development as a character was centered around the conflict between his insider-outsider status.
When this game kicked off, I viewed Storm Bull as a dangerous element in the setting. However, Ron’s video on the cult made me reconsider how (in Sartar at least) their marginal status cuts them off from the political power that might make them threats to others’ liberty. In our Glorantha, this certainly doesn’t keep individual Storm Bulls like Hastur from inflicting their cruel values upon those within the cult, but it also means Hastur will always be “one guy,” not a government.
That’s a great question! I don’t think we ever used the Customs skill. Because the events so far have been centered on a single location, Narmeed only had occasion to interact with the Olontongi, and we already knew he wasn’t familiar with their ways. The Skill list is long enough that we went through periods of using a small subset, then reviewing the list and realizing we’d missed some fun Skill entry, then adding that to our list of favorites. I do think, however, that I gave out a couple of Customs (Olontongi) XP checks as Narmeed became more familiar with the Stead. Customs and Honor are both subsystems that we haven’t fully explored yet.
I completely agree! Are there visual elements of the setting that you're particularly excited to see in play?
One unexpected source of visual content has been magic use. The spell descriptions are quite abstract, primarily relating to spells’ mechanical effects (a bit like Champions power descriptions). This leaves a lot of space for different visual and ritual content – Storm Bull’s Divination spell can look totally different than Lhankor Mhy’s. Even within the same cult one warrior’s Disruption might look different than another’s. The stunning art in the RQG core book does an amazing job, too, of providing inspiration. My duet buddy was not familiar at all with Glorantha before we started the game, but flipping through the book got him into the gaudy, psychedelic headspace right away.
I guess the only thing I’d say here is that, while getting the game off the ground can certainly be a heavy lift, I also don’t want to oversell the difficulty. Reading the books while also playing has made me appreciate how much the classic Runequest materials were designed to be played, not read. The cult descriptions and Rune Magics brim with implied dramatic situations, fraught social contexts, and amusing weirdness. And the structure of the game does provide space to explore the lore within scene. Worship ceremonies (necessary to regain Rune Points) are a great place to experience the myths while meaningfully engaging the system through Worship rolls.
Last session brought our starting situation to a satisfying conclusion. In a couple of weeks, my buddy and I will be trading roles and I’ll get to see him playing as GM. He might have additional wisdom to share as he finds his own way to navigate Glorantha.
Last session brought our
Awesome! I'm eager to find out his perspective as well when he'll have time to write about it.
A ridiculously simple element, but one that particularly fascinates me, is the emphasis on bronze as the predominant metal in Glorantha. Somehow, as I read about this feature in the setting, I feel a deep connection to those emotions I felt when I first read the Iliad: the weapons glinting in the sun, the almost heroic emphasis they possess, and at the same time the fact that they appear more primitive, more crude than metal.
I'm also fascinated by the magic of shamans, and how spirits look like in play – though, I admit, I sometimes have trouble separating them from deities in the proper sense, and understanding how they can manifest themselves with their own distinctive aesthetic. I absolutely agree with you in noting how the text leaves plenty of room for customization in regards to spells; it leaves a lot of freedom that, I'm sure, can help even beginners approaching a shared aesthetic at the table.
I was also wondering how much a player belonging to a specific cult can elaborate details of the setting, acquiring a specific authority normally delegated to the master. To be clear: as a Storm Bull follower, has your buddy been able to introduce unexpected elements normally delegated to the master's description, such as the way one dresses, what tattoos are typical of a cultist or, more deeply, rituals or customs you didn't expect from your preparation?
We must be inspired by the
We must be inspired by the Harmony Rune! Believe it or not, I've suggested that our next chapter of RQG focus on a shaman or shaman's apprentice arriving on the Wood-Glory stead to learn from Farangara.
I've been perusing the "Spirits and the Spirit World" chapter of the corebook and the the Spirits in the bestiary, getting more and more excited as I go. It's amazing how the rules for shamans offer an entirely different way of viewing the world, other characters and unfolding events.
I hear you on the small detail of braonze. For me, it was the omnipresent Rune and cult tattoos. Those seemingly insignificant visual bits go a long way to making the setting come alive. I'm looking forward to playing this vast game with other people in the future, just to see what angles their individual imaginations bring to the material.
Regarding cult lore, we didn't invent much mythology or ritual practices at the table. This is certainly an aspect of the game I'm looking forward to exploring more, but the Dragonrise Cult and the Hammer-and-Bellows were my first foray in this direction. I think it may be hard to dig beyond the surface of Glorantha's mythology until the Spirit World and the Other Side become aspects of play—after all, myths and cult secrets are maps for HeroQuests and essential components of communities' magical resources.
At present, Divination castings, worship rituals and holy days have been our primary contact with the myths.