> I'm reading Sartar Kingdom of Heroes and it states that becoming
> an adult involves traveling to the Otherside to "find oneself".
Yes, it does say that.
Basically, you do a little HeroQuest, meet aspects of the gods, have a little adventure and come back as men and women. There's a bit of god-choosing as well, where you choose which god you want to follow, or the god chooses you. You sre deciding on what path you want to follow as an adult.
> What does this God World look like?
The same as ours only better.
Orlanth's Halls are like a Herotling Stead but bigger, brighter, better. Imagine living your whole life in black and white TV and then seeing something in 3D Colour, that's what it is like.
But, you see the God World as it was at the time that you are visiting. So, you might see Prax as a verdant forest or a blasted wasteland or a chaparral.
> I have no idea on how to describe this to my players.
Just describe it as it is. Orlanth's Hall is a typical barbarian long house. Wonderhome is a vast dark plain full of feeding trolls and juicy fat beetles. Mostal's Halls are great workshops full of whirring machinery and dwarves overseeing it.
> So basically you'll need to know the history/myth of Orlanth to
> understand what the otherside is like?
You need to know the myths of your cult/pantheon to go to YOUR otherside. They are different, or in different places. It is possible to go to someone else's otherside using their myths or by tagging along with them on a HeroQuest.
So, an Orlanthi could use his knowledge of Orlanth's Myths to travel to Stormstead and visit Orlanth's Hall. Or, he could use knowledge of the Lightbringer Quest to go to Argan Argar's Hall. A Storm Buller (Uroxi) could use his knowledge of Storm Bull's Myths to go to The Eternal Battle or to Eiritha's Herd.
> I assume there is ritual to get there. What happens to your body?
> Do you disappear or does your body stay here in the real world and
> your soul go to the otherworld?
The jury is out on this one.
There are examples in the stories of Glorantha where the HeroQuestor physically enters the Other Side (The most famous is the Red Goddess who returns riding on the Crimson Bat).
There are also examples of people being in a trance while journeying on the otherside. The one that springs to mind is an example in the myths behind Snakepipe Hollow, where a king springs up in defence of his temple having been asleep and sending his mind out to the other side.
My personal opinion? You can do it both ways.
Temple Rites definitely have people being present and performing ceremonies while on the other side. I see that as the whole congregation, or at least the initiates, being moved to the other side during the temple ceremony. To a certain extent, the Other Side is being brought into the Temple but the Temple is also moved to the Other Side.
Minor HeroQuests, on the other hand, have the questors physically doing things in this world. Whilst they are on the other side, to an extent, they are in both worlds. However, they are physically performing actions whilst in both worlds.
The Short Lightbringer Quest is viewed as people dressing up in sacred clothing and standing in a temple as they perform, or act out, the stages of the HeroQuest. In a special sense, they are on the other side as they are HeroQuesting, but they are also in this world.
All these examples have the person's body being shared between the normal world and the other side.
The Red Goddess Quest, however, had her physically disappearing and going onto the Other Side. The historical Lightbringers Quests also had the participants physically going into Hell (whether their bodies were in the actual Hell or the Other Side Hell is a moot point).
> What happens if you are killed there?
In my opinion? You die.
It isn't a dreamworld where you wake up afterwards wondering what kind of cheese you ate last night. Whatever happens on the Other Side happens to you physically.
However, dying isn't all bad. You can continue onto Hell and carry on your Quest, possibly returning to life at the end. You can meet your ancestors and do deals with them.
Most of the time, though, you can bug out of the HeroQuest without physically dying.
> Is the god world and the spirit world the same?
> Are there spirits floating around everywhere?
Depends who you ask.
Realist old-timers like me say they are similar, but overlap.
Many people believe in the Three World Model, something that I am not entirely happy with, and think that the Theist, Spirit and Sorcery Worlds were separate and collided, forming Glorantha as we know it. They think that the Theist and Spirit Other Sides are separate.
Whatever the case may be, there wouldn't necessarily be spirits everywhere. Cults of Terror (I think) described how Daka Fal separated those spirits who had lived but had died from the living. So, there may well be some parts of the other side where the spirits are present and others where they are not.
> Where is this essence plane?
On the other side. It is the other side of sorcerers, usually Malkioni. It is a strange place, full of nodes and things. Personally, I have a hard time thinking of it as an other side. Instead, I see it as a place where the powers of logic and sorcery originate. As others have said, it shouldn't concern any right-thinking Orlanthi anyway.
> What about all of your dead ancestors? If there are there, that
> would be a lot of fricken people!
Not that many. Given a 20 year generation, there are only 80 generations since Time began. Most Orlanthi clans have intermarriage, so your ancestral lines would probably share a fair number of ancestors. At the start of Time there weren't that many people alive, numbering in the low thousands, perhaps.
> How do you determine which rune affinities that your character has?
> What makes him pick mastery over fire?
Main Runes come from your culture, should you wish to have them. Other Runes come from your backstory.
However, in game terms you get whichever runes you want.
> Many more questions to come.
Good!
See Ya
Simon
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