> Where can one find more details on the Lunar pantheon? It seems that people
> have a lot more access to the cults and subcult descriptions and details
> than I do.
From a RuneQuest-player's perspective, I doubt this. If you have a copy of "Cults of Prax" (full writeup of the Seven Mothers) and "Gods of Glorantha" (shortforms of Etyries, Red Goddess, Seven Mothers, plus the *excellent* Talking to Moon Woman piece), you've got most of what's out there. For extras, you could throw in the Cult of the Crimson Bat (in "Cults of Terror" for RQ2 or Tales #8 for RQ3) and the Cults of Glamour and the Granite Phalanx (in Tales #13), but that's just about it for formal cult descriptions.
The draft manuscript for RQ4 (January '94 edition) included a bunch of stuff on the Lunar Schools of Sorcery and some more shortform writeups for Hwarin Dalthippa, Yara Aranis and the like; the sorcery lists given were necromantic assassin magic (the authors focussed on Jakaleel and Danfive Xaron, and IMHO misinterpreted their interests), while the shortforms were distinguished by their tendency not to describe any cult special spells. Still, it was a worthy effort.
The Red Emperor has a cult (I must get round to writing our version some day), so you could claim that Greg's Tales #8 article and his essay in "The Fortunate Succession" (perhaps still available from Wizard's Attic; ask again if you haven't heard of this Chaosium outlet) are "cult writeups". The articles in the "History of the Lunar Empire" series (published in "Wyrms Footnotes" magazine, reprinted in Avalon Hill's "Heroes") include a lot of background for Hwarin Dalthippa, Yara Aranis, Hon-eel the Artess, and the various magical capabilities of the Lunar Empire. There are some Lunar odds and ends in "Wyrms Footprints" (Hon-eel in Tarsh; the Twin Stars), but not even I can claim they're worth buying the book for by themselves (though with everything *else* in Footprints, you'd be an ostrich not to own it already!). Oh, and the boardgame "Dragon Pass" is a good place to go for inspiration (as always).
A lot of stuff has been generated for various Reaching Moon Megacorp freeforms over the years: there were Lunar characters in "Home of the Bold" and "How the West was One", and there'll be nothing but Lunar characters in our next extravaganza. To support these we wrote background sheets for various peoples: the one on the Arrolian Lunar Church (Lunar Malkioni) was distributed on the Digest, and I could send in our one on general Lunar religion if anyone's interested (though it doesn't add much, it could be a useful summary). I also wrote a short piece on "What Lunars Think About Sorcerers" for Tales #13.
And I'm probably forgetting something crucial.
Summing up: to the best of my knowledge there isn't a hoard of unpublished Lunar cult writeups for RuneQuest. There's a fair amount of doctrinal stuff floating around, the best of which is the "Talking to Moon Woman" sheet; this has reached the point where Reaching Moon staff can spontaneously expound the Lunar Catechism to unwitting Germans. There's also *loads* of unofficial speculation. I suspect that the "people who seem to have a lot more access" than you are merely convincing bullshitters and improvisers: I hope I am!
Greg Stafford is still working on a book about Lunar Religion, but this won't be a "Cults Book" for RuneQuest and will (at last sighting) be set a century or more in the past, so it's unlikely to 'Greg' you too heavily as far as cult practice and rune spell availability goes. Unlike dear Robert, I *do* want to learn more about Glorantha from its creator (and influence him wherever I can), so I won't be unhappy if we discover some new stuff in the course of the book. (Greg spoke at RQCon2 in January 95 about the Lunar Worldview, and I believe the Convention Book will include a transcript of his description: any update on when it'll be out?).
If you have any more specific questions, please post them here and we'll see what we can do.
>> Also, Malkion is a god, not a mortal.
> Oh? Everybody on Glorantha seems to think he was a human being.
Balls: Theists think he was a god. Unless you've just redefined "human," as Westerners are prone to do...
> 'Big deal' and 'artificial' are not mutually exclusive concepts. Look
> at Byzantine Theology for an extreme example of artificial hair-splitting
> which was a big deal to the debators involved.
Or play 'Credo!' (shameless plug department).
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