The Lost Willow and the Last Blade

 Clarifications and Explanations

Not everyone is a 100% au fait with the varied and deep Runequest background which has a huge range of packs, publications and articles to draw upon. This page aims, well hopes,  to help clarify and explain some of the issues and facts.

There are some 'house rules' included as well. 

Bronze

“Bronze is used throughout Runequest to refer to the terrestrial metal to which it is most similar. However, Gloranthan bronze can be mined directly from the ground and has some properties dissimilar for our earthly metal. We chose to substitute the familiar term rather than the awkward term of Ga-metal, ze-metal, and so on… Other metals are similarly labelled with terrestrial analogues."

Runequest Second Edition (Games Workshop) 1980: Clarifications, Corrections and Additions

Magical Tattoos

Tattoos are common in Glorantha amongst the various cults from Lunars to Lightbringers. They are a declaration of your beliefs and a visible focus of your devotion to your deity. By sacrificing POW it is also possible to use them as spell matrix for various magics. The disadvantage of a tattoo is that it is always there marking you as a follower of a various god or cause with enemies and friends alike aware of it.   

A hero would go to a temple and purchase the services of blessedtattooist who would use magical inks and act as a conduit for the permanent tattooing of a spell on the body. The hero would sacrifice, permanently, the amount of POW needed for the spell and pay twice the price of actually learning it. The advantage is that you would never have to bring the spell to mind and would merely activate it like a spell matrix.

Flamal is the ‘Father of Seeds’ who was married to Ernalda the earth mother. He was killed and eaten by Zorak Zoran and the earth mother caused winter to come to the land. He was reborn when Time Began.  Flamal is the father of the crop-and plant-goddesses.

Zorak Zoran is the troll god of Hate and the main war god of the Uz Pantheon. He is often depicted as an old three eyed troll holding a mace in one hand and making an incantation or gesture with the other.