Please bear in mind that I am a Glorantha newbie, and all of my games are currently on the other side of the planet. I have _no_ reference material to back up what I'm saying. Once G:tG comes out, I will start deciding what I need and what I don't.
I agree with the various comments regarding the detailed location books being the best format for new products. I also agree with the many people who said that the best resources are the 'what my parents told me/ what the overseer beat into me' sections.
In the RQ campaign I played in for 2 years, I often found myself listening to the two Glorantha gurus debate obscure and arcane lore. The gamemaster told me once that they both knew more about Glorantha than he did, but I'll get back to this. Not long before I moved and had to leave the game, someone (I believe it was TotRM) printed an article on DX. Well, I was playing an acolyte of DX, so this was great! Of course it was contrary to everything I had been doing so far, but we retrofit it in very nicely. Using 'What the overseer beat into me', I suddenly was having religious and philosophical debates with the carmanian wizard and the Yanafil Tarnils Scimitar. I had solid grounds to back up what I said, and I don't think I ever said anything stupid or _wrong_. I believe these resouces are invaluable to any player, but particularly to new players.
The other point I would to make is about learning Glorantha lore. As I mentioned earlier, my gamemaster claimed that two of the players knew more than he did, and yet they accepted his version of everything. Usually, when I asked a question about Gloranthan history, legend or some other piece of lore, the two gurus started with "Well, it's not really clear, but...."
So I guess I'm saying that no one really knows everything about Gloantha, and in some ways, the more you know the less you know.
My final point and question is this. As a crack team of lunar heroquesters, we frequently entered the hero plane or the god plane or something (I don't really know, it was all just weird places where anything could happen, and things we did had world- affecting results...). My impression was that by heroquesting, we could alter Glorantha to some degree. I personally had taken this belief to the point that we (well maybe not us, but a crack team of heroquesters who weren't a bunch of bumblers) could actually change history etc. and that this was related to the way that the god-learners switched gods around etc. How far off base am I? Cuz if I'm even close to right, then it's even more clear that no one can know everything about Glorantha, and IMHO allows both the Sun Domers and the Lunars to have invented the phalanx, and the reconciliation of many other historical contradictions.
Part of my belief in how this worked was that reality in Glorantha was more a reflection of peoples faith than anything. Heroquesting was a _strong_ act/force of faith, which could be used to overcome someone else's faith. Perhaps I've played too much TORG...
I do apologize if this has already been discussed to death prior to my joining the list, or if there is some reference everyone has that disputes or confirms these things, but I don't have _anything_ right now, except you folks....
Craig Shackleton
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