Episode 32: The Lunar Way

Our Guests

In this episode we welcome returning guests Evan Franke and J-M DeFoggi (who had to leave early because of Imperial Administration requirements). You would of course know Evan and J-M from our previous episodes with them: Chaos Rises! (episode 26 about 13th Age Glorantha) and Jackals and Ancient Worldbuilding (episode 19 about J-M’s Bronze Age fantasy adventure game, Jackals!)

Our guests are also found in these fine places:

The Exploring Glorantha Series on YouTube

Lots of Iconic Production endeavours, including YouTube and Patreon.

As we release this episode, Evan’s Red Moon and Warring Kingdoms is officially out! Go grab it now, it’s FREE!

Show Notes

Things we mention during this episode, in vague chronological order, include:

TORG

Shadows of Esteren

The Arms of Nargash-Tor (for Palladium Fantasy)

The Cults of RuneQuest books and, of course, The Lunar Way in particular

You can read Ludo’s own reviews of these books here

As always, we mention the usual Gloranthan sources:

The Glorantha Sourcebook (or in PDF, or on DTRPG)

The Guide to Glorantha (or in PDF, or on DTRPG)

Our episodes on Furthest and Imther, and their corresponding books:

Furthest: Crown Jewel of Tarsh

Edge of Empire

Are you using The Lunar Way mostly for PCs or NPCs?

Themes of a Lunar scenario or campaign

Citizens of the Lunar Empire

Xena: Warrior Princess featuring many Greek gods

The Red Goddess as a guest star in your campaign

Glorantha, where everybody’s an Illuminated asshole, and nobody’s the good guy

The Empire’s trading, culture, politics, etc.

Star Wars

Glorantha as a Manichean settings vs a nuanced setting

The problem of the “simple” settings of our youth becoming more nuanced as we grow older

RIFTS and the Coalition States

The X-Men, Magneto, and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants

Memorable Lunar villains

The morality of the Lunar Empire

The Lunar Empire as a pretty great place to live in, actually

There’s no fairness and civil rights in the Bronze Age

The Lunar Empire as the Roman Empire

The human flaws and administrative weight of the Lunar Empire

The Crimson Bat was self-defence!

Struggling to show the Lunar Empire as a nuanced faction

Using the USA as a model for the Lunar Empire

The editorial history of the Lunars in RuneQuest publications

White Bear & Red Moon

Harrek the Berserk is “not a great guy!”

Beatpot Aelrwin

Argrath is up to no good, meddling with stuff he shouldn’t

Evan is available for rent as a guest Argrath

Black Spear, and Nick Brooke’s take on Argrath

Alexander The Great

Sartar

Griffin Mountain and Strangers in Prax

Our favourite cults in the Lunar Way

The Seven Mothers as the “Justice League cult”

The awesomeness of the Crimson Bat cult

The Nysalor/Gbaji chapter and its fourth-wall breaking aside

Crimson Bat feeders publishing city rankings for their “visits”

The demonic cult of Yara Aranis, which is pretty much as bad as the Tusk Riders

Maran Gor is bad too!

Sheng Seleris, the Gloranthan Ghengis Khan

The Carmanian Empire roughly explained

Lunar Magic, and how to use it in play

Getting the Glowline to fail, so you can land your Stormtroopers and AT-ATs

Ghost heist at the Lunar Temple!

Harry Potter and the Lunar College of Magic

Questworlds and 13th Age Glorantha as alternate game systems for certain campaigns

The fine points of Lunar phases

There are no physics in Glorantha

Dragon Pass is a distraction for the Lunar Empire, which is mostly worried about the Pentans

Dart Competitions as a Jason Bourne spy-thriller

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.