Since it's unlikely "How the West was One", our Malkioni freeform, will ever be run again, I'll try to assemble some self-contained extracts from the character sheets and background for distribution on the Glorantha Digest. This first batch is the core of the so-called "Arrolian Heresy", the religion of the Fronelan Lunar/Malkioni city-states. Although the Arrolians have been part of Glorantha ever since WB&RM, there has until now been little information on what (if anything) makes them different from the Imperial Lunars of Peloria. I hope these speculations are useful to anyone campaigning in Fronela, or interested in the propagation of the Lunar Way beyond the limits of the Glowline. They are not "official", and I'd be delighted to elucidate or defend them as required. Please ask!
When deciding what makes the Arrolians 'tick', I was above all guided by the need to create an internal dynamic within the Lunar faction for "How the West was One". This led me to construct a far less cosy relationship between the Arrolian and Imperial Lunars than is seen in other Gloranthan sources. (Despite this attempt, both runs of HtWwO ended up with a Lunar Satrap in Arrolia: the just reward for persistent diplomatic efforts on the part of Imperial Ambassador Artaphaestos, played by Chris Gidlow [Convulsion] and Peter Corless [RQCon 2]).
While the Arrolian documents were written by me, they owe a great debt to the enthusiasm, encouragement and persistence of David Hall and Kevin Jacklin, my tireless collaborators on "How the West was One". Without their unrelenting pressure, I would hardly have been awake and writing at 3 a.m. in a City office-block on a hot summer's night... which was the genesis of what follows.
The 'heresies' of the Arrolians include the following beliefs:
That the original Red Emperor died at some point during the Fourth Wane, killed by Sheng Seleris, and he was never the same again. The Arrolians call his heirs the Dead Moon Emperors, and deny that they are in any way related to the original. They also call the original Red Emperor the *lover* of the Goddess, and do not use the name "Moonson": this is one theme of the blasphemous Seleric Verses, inspiring a heresy which was eliminated in Peloria during the Fifth Wane under Emperor Magnificus.
That the Old Moon *died* at the end of the Third (Dying Moon) Wane -- everyone could see that the moonlight had changed. The modern Lunar Empire agrees that something changed: it calls this event the creation of the Glowline. But from outside its confines, interpretations were rather different...
The Arrolian Confederation was formed at the end of the Fourth Wane (the Black Moon or New Moon Wane): the Arrolians see this as the 'rebirth' of the true Lunar Way. Many of its founders had fled political oppression or religious persecution in the declining Lunar Empire: a healthy mix of anarchists, liberals, pacifists and White Moonies. The 'liberation' and freedom from dogma that they preach are a direct reaction to tendencies in the Lunar Empire in the Third and Fourth Wanes. As the Seventh (and final?) Wane ends very soon, they are rapidly slipping into various forms of White Moon hysteria.
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