Cults of RuneQuest: The Earth Goddesses Review

As mentioned in my previous review of Cults of RuneQuest: The Lightbringers, I was also lucky enough to be given a copy of the The Earth Goddesses. Third in a series of books covering the various gods and cults of the Glorantha setting, The Earth Goddesses brings the focus towards the goddesses (and gods) relating to the Earth Rune.

If anything I was looking forward to digging into this book a little more than The Lightbringers, if only because as a GM, I was determined to get myself to a level of comfort with Glorantha’s setting and vibe so that I could start running it with confidence. The Lightbringers’ focus on the most player-friendly set of gods was a great start, but I was interested to see how Chaosium was going to make these gods equally (if not more) compelling to players.

Structurally, the book sticks with the same format as The Lightbringers, with a primer on the Earth Goddess religions and their tenets, along with a mini encyclopedia of the Earth Pantheon. This book features sixteen cults:

• Ernalda
• Aldrya
• Asrelia
• Babeester Gor
• Caladra & Aurelion
• Cult of the Bloody Tusk
• Donandar
• Eiritha
• Flamal
• The Grain Goddesses
• Maran Gor
• Mostal
• Pamalt
• Ty Kora Tek
• Uleria
• Voria

Out of this list, the three “heavy hitters” would be Ernalda, the preeminent Earth goddess, Aldrya, the goddess of the Woods and Elves, and Mostal, the god of the Dwarfs. Each of these gets an extra number of pages to go through their natures, as well as their religious institutions, practices and worship.

What’s more valuable is the fact that the Elves and Dwarven history, myths and society are given extra attention in the entries for Aldrya and Mostal. This is a huge deal for someone like me who is relatively new to the setting. I’ve honestly been avoiding a lot of the Elder Races in RuneQuest as I felt I was unprepared to run them and didn’t have much to go on outside of the Bestiary, but the information found in The Earth Goddesses is worth the price of admission.

With regards to the artwork, the books continue to be utterly beautiful, and I find myself quite compelled to collect the entire set in physical form as it feels shameful to not at least have this completed and on my shelf.

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Cults of RuneQuest: The Earth Goddesses is a powerful follow up to The Lightbringers. While the first book is a splendid onramp to the wonders of the various Cults for new players and GMs, The Earth Goddesses is where you really get the sense that the writers decided to really showcase the grandeur and depth of the fictional mythology at the heart of the game.

Not only do I recommend it, I’m also very excited to see the rest of this splendid line to completion, and will gladly pay for it.

If you’re interested in getting the Cults of Runequest series, you can order a PDF or Physical Copy over at their website when it releases later this month!