Glorantha Commentary: How the Lunar Empire is Evil
(no they are not just misunderstood)
How To Fix Glorantha Series
Introduction
This is an article supporting my “How To Fix Glorantha” series, since I do not want half of the last article to be a rant on the evils of a fictional country.
To those unaware, the Lunar Empire is a vast imperial nation in the world of Glorantha, founded under the Red Emperor. The Red Emperor is the continually reincarnated son of the Red Goddess. The Red Goddess gave the Lunar Way, which is a method of integrating Chaos (a hurtful and monstrous thing) into reality with the belief that it would heal the world.
The Red Goddess is in violent opposition to Orlanth, a storm god.
Orlanth’s (very distant) descendants are in a group called the Orlanthi who worship him and a pantheon of other deities associated with him. The Orlanthi give power to Orlanth through worship and take power from him with miracles that they gain by mimicking his actions.
Functionally, the Orlanthi are an ethnoreligious society where ethnicity and religion are inherently linked.
So closest real world equivalent would have the Lunars as the Romans and the Orlanthi as the Jewish people of Israel and Judah, with the destruction of the Second Temple and the utter devastation of the faith.
Anyway, all the below points are blatant examples of how the Lunar Empire within Glorantha is evil, using the Guide to Glorantha (GtG) as a source. I grabbed the three I thought most appropriate. If you need anything more than these to decide, I actually cannot help you.
These also do not include potentially interpretable things like I reference in my main article.
1. Rape Monster Army
Source: GtG p. 292, “Chaos in the Lunar Empire” sidebar
The Lunar Empire has an explicitly stated “Broo Regiment Headquarters”.
In case you don’t know what a Broo is, they are described within the Guide to Glorantha (GtG p. 700) as being a scar on the universe and a wound on the world. They were born from the incestuous union of Thed (herself the Goddess of Rape) and the Devil, in order to more greatly wound the world.
The Broo are rapist monsters with the bodies of men and the heads of goats. Whatever they mate with has another Broo burst out of it, like the chestbursters from the Alien franchise.
Their sole reason for being is to destroy, and wound, and hurt.
There is no idea of the size of this regiment, or if there is more than one, but this is an integrated part of the Lunar military.
There are other things mentioned in the sidebar such as the “Third Hand Illumination Town”, “Undragon Land”, “Vampire Town”, and the “Madness College”. The sidebar also references the Mad Sultanates, Dorastor and Beyond Nightmares as being “officially” outside the Empire, implying they are within the sphere of influence.
Most of these receive no mentions outside of this sidebar, leaving the worst to the imagination. However, the Mad Sultanate (there appears to only be one) is referenced on GtG p. 330 where “the Chaos-crazed army of the Mad Sultanate killed the King of Tarsh and destroyed most of his army”.
2. Imprisonment of Religious Dissidents
Source: GtG p. 328, “Religion”
The Lunar Empire is referenced as only permitting open Orlanth worship in the western provinces and wild parts of the eastern provinces. There is not a lot of detail on this in the GtG, but other sources as referenced on the wiki mention that Orlanth worshippers are persecuted.
I do not have these sources to hand, but I do not think they are needed for my point.
3. The Soul-Eating Bat
Source: GtG p. 300, “People of Note”
The Crimson Bat is a giant Chaos demon in the service of the Red Goddess (who the Lunars worship). It is served by a “cruel Chaos cult” that “keeps it fed with human victims” (GtG p. 296, “Magical Units in the Lunar Army” sidebar).
Victims taken by the Crimson Bat are simply not. They no longer exist. (GtG p. 700) This is different, and much more terrifying, than if they were simply killed or even tortured. Their souls are consumed, and they reach no afterlife known to Gloranthans.
There is no mention in the GtG of the number of people fed to the Crimson Bat, but I have been told by a member of Chaosium that it is 100 sentient creatures per week. So 4,200 sentient creatures per year in Glorantha. Every year the creature eats a city worth of people, at minimum.
There are two separate events in two separate areas for the Crimson Bat entering a region and the land being “scoured for criminals and foreigners” to feed its hunger. (GtG p. 322, “Carmania Regional Activity Table” & GtG p. 324, “Lunar Provinces Regional Activity Table”)
Final Word
So, to summarise, one of the things the Lunar Empire does is:
Invades your people with an army that includes rapist monsters
Imprisons you for your beliefs that are inherently linked to your ethnicity
Feeds you to a soul-eating bat that prevents you from going to good Orlanthi heaven
Which, in any real world situation, would be considered an act of genocide so heinous that your name would be (rightly) cursed for centuries.
Meanwhile, the community usually excuses this by saying that not every member of the Lunar Empire is complicit in the apparatus of the Empire itself, or that this isn’t indicative of the Lunar Way or similar.
Except the Lunar Way is instrinsically linked to the Empire, as the Red Emperor is the child of the Red Goddess. The Emperor is continually empowered and renewed by the Goddess.
So her approval of his methods and the actions of the Empire are implicit in the continued support.
Also note that this does not include the “rumoured” vampire legions, the tenuous alliance with a unicorn broo emperor, the destruction of the pacifist White Moon Movement or the other many throwaway atrocities committed by the Lunar Empire
† All images from the Guide to Glorantha.
the lunar broo regiment are not normal broos. there are nonrapist regular ass broo, some even illuminated. the vampire regiment really is different than upland marsh vampires. the orlanthi are not comparable to a real world ethnoreligious group, they're more like a nation state. the basis of the conflict is mythological, not ethnic or racial biases
it's the earthly version of the contest for the middle air, which the red goddess is attempting to invade. the lunar empire is definitely evil in its ways, but the end result is demonstrable in king of sartar. all the gods are killed and mortals are free from their sins. even the red goddess dies. the lunars are not evil for evil's sake, they're occluded and don't even realize their descent into murderous fascism. anyone who openly discusses opposition to the current regime is probably bat food or trapped eternally wailing in the apparatus that powers the reaching moon temples after being tortured to death
the lunar empire is evil, but its end goal is arguably noble. that doesn't redeem or justify anything, but it's vastly more interesting motivation than "lunars are racist nazis"
My experience with Glorantha is limited because I only recently started reading about it. So I have an outsider's perspective.
It seems to me that the creators of the game tried to make a different moral framework, one that is pre-Christian. The idea is that characters act according to that. This has led to the alienating effect that the people in Glorantha commit rape, cannibalism, murder, and ethnic cleansing while the word "evil" is meticulously avoided in the text.
This is difficult to get into, but I don't think it's an error. The game appears consistent in this regard. If a king conquers some land and has lots of civilians killed, he can still be a hero. Just get into the mindset.
But the problem here seems obvious: we're asked to be okay with stuff that is atrocious. And this is presented as a fun passtime. This doesn't automatically imply moral relativism - maybe everyone in Glorantha is just misguided or morally underdeveloped - but dressing a sadistic murderer in bronze armour doesn't suddenly make him any more sympathetic as a hero.
Players are still modern people who, hopefully, have empathy and aren't in favour of just killing others because they belong to a different religion or a different tribe. Because that's what RQG is trying to tell us: rather than good and evil, characters are motivated by what cult or tribe they belong to.
In spite of how we tend to define good and evil nowadays, I actually see quite a lot of "my tribe is better than your tribe" in the modern real world. It's not something I particularly care to act out in a fantasy world.
I'm really more fond of treating the story as a symbol for resisting evil in ourselves and in society. So I prefer to play Runequest with clear baddies, and a BBEG who has an evil plan that will bring him great power and a lot of destruction to everyone else. My Glorantha is allowed to vary. The Lunars are good candidates for the baddies, especially if you treat the soldiers and politicians as "evil", as well as some cults. Maybe they are different from the standard evil guys in the sense that they are not as oppressive to their own people.