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Thunder Rebels is the player’s supplement for the Orlanthi Barbarians (or more correctly, for the Heortling branch of the Orlanthi barbarians) of the world of Glorantha, the setting of Issaries Inc.’s Hero Wars rpg and also the now-defunct Runequest rpg from Chaosium.

We’ve been waiting for this supplement for a long time, arguably ever since we were introduced to Glorantha twenty-odd years ago. RQ supplements like Cults of Prax and River of Cradles made it clear that these were an important people in the Dragon Pass region, but we only got to see the edges of their society, refugees and ne’er do well types (like adventurers) who had left their homeland of Sartar for the Zola Fel river valley. We always were left to wonder just what their culture was like. The earliest information seemed to indicate something like heroic age Greece, but this idea seemed more and more wrong as we gained new information over the years, and they began to resemble a Celt/Viking/Anglo-Saxon mixture. We knew who some of their important gods were, but there were hints that they were worshipped somewhat differently back home than they were in the displaced environment of the Zola Fel. Thunder rebels at last gives us information on these people.

First off, the physical appearance of the book. Unlike most rpg products, Thunder Rebels and the other Hero Wars books are trade paperback sized. I personally find this both a convenience and an inconvenience, on one hand it’s easier to carry the books around, on the other you can’t just leave them lying open to the page you’re reading. The artwork seems good to my admittedly untrained eye, especially Simon Brays woodcut style drawings of various divine beings.

A brief introduction gives information on how text conventions are used in the book, a guide to the iconography of the aforementioned woodcut images, a glossary, and a an explanation that when the Orlanthi say “all” they actually mean about 85%. The first chapter is written from the Orlanthi perspective, the questions Who are we, how do we live, where do we come from, who lives near us what makes us special are all answered as though they were being asked by a youngster of an older Orlanthi.

The second chapter is written from a gamers perspective and details how Orlanthi society works. There are sections on how kinship is defined, what kind of houses they build, the structure of a clan, law, social ranks, how they practice warfare and the lands belonging to and surrounding the Orlanthi.

The next chapter is called the Storm tribe and it describes the religion of the Orlanthi. Communal worship, initiation rites to both the pantheon (which are also the adulthood initiation rites) and individual gods, devotees, initiation to multiple gods, changing what god is worshipped, divination, divine retribution and the spirits that carry it out and funeral customs are given. Ending this chapter are two lists, one of the Orlanthi gods and one of gods from other pantheons. A new wrinkle has been added to the latter, not all the deities on it are named the same thing as their worshippers call them. For example, the trolls call their goddess Kyger Litor, but the Orlanthi call her Deloradella. I notice this does not seem to extend to all deities, Yelm is still called Yelm for example (or maybe his worshippers in Dara Happa call him something else?)

Call the Lightning is the next chapter and it describes the magic used by the Orlanthi. It overlaps the last chapter to a degree, it describes how ancestors and Wyters, lesser gods that patronize a community, are worshipped. Wyters are especially important to the game, as any community, including hero bands, will have one. A calendar of the five season Orlanthi year is given, with the holy days of the gods marked. Brief generalized descriptions of sacred places and ceremonies are given. Dragon Pass weather is also described here, as the Orlanthi gods are the gods of storm.

Chapter 5, Inside Orlanth’s Hall describes the part of the God World ruled by the Orlanthi gods and called the Storm Realm. The God World is somewhat difficult to explain, it consists of the time before time began, and has different ages were the Gods are still performing the actions that they performed in their myths. Thus there is a Stagnant Age, were everything is ruled by the unchanging sun god Yelm, Umath’s age, were the first storm god tore apart heaven and earth to make a place for himself, A Storm age were the young storm gods made their place in the world, a Chaos Age were the Devil entered the world and many other ages.

Not everyone who enters the God World sees it in the same way, were an Orlanthi from Sartar will see the mountain Kero Fin, one from Ralios would see the mountain Top of the World.

Chapter 6 Become the Thunder gives the cultural keywords (skills everyone from a particular culture gets) and professional keywords (skills gotten by members of a certain profession.) used in character creation. These have been somewhat changed from the keywords in the core Hero Wars game, most significantly men and women get different cultural keywords. Keywords for non-adventuring professions such as Farmer and Steadwife have also been included.

Chapters 7 and 8 give the magical keywords, (the magical skills that characters of a certain magical tradition get) for the cults of Ernalda and Orlanth respectively. These are particularly important chapters because every adult in Orlanthi culture is an initiate of at least one god, so everyone gets access to magic. These two deities (Orlanth for males and Ernalda for females) are worshipped by “all” (85%) Orlanthi. Other gods’ cults will be given in the forthcoming Storm Tribe supplement.

Orlanth and Ernalda are said to be so great that few people worship them directly, instead worshipping a part of them called an aspect. These major aspects each provide two magical affinities such as Storm and Wind or Combat and Movement, and are further divided into smaller subcults, which provide a third magical affinity. For example, Orlanth has three major subcults, Adventourous, Allfather, and Thunderous which roughly represent the warrior , man of society, and weather (in practice there is some overlapping). Orlanth Adventurous has subcults to Finovan the cattle raider, Tatouth the scout, Orvanshagor the dragonslayer, Vanganth the Flyer, and others. Each of these is a son or name of Orlanth who gives magic relevant to his abilities to members of his subcult. Rules are given for worshipping one aspect and a subcult belonging to different aspect. These are somewhat confusing IMO, but not likely to come up much.

One surprising bit of information in this section is that the Lunar Empire, which Conquered Sartar about twenty years ago, has outlawed the cult of Oralnth. The Sartarites, of course, get around this by hiding their worship of Orlanth in the ceremonies to other deities, and it is unlikely that they have significantly affected Orlanth worship so far. Also given in this chapter a description of the various holy days of these gods.

The book closes with an excellent index, a feature that was unfortunately missing from the core rules.

Overall, I found this to be one of the best rpg supplements I’ve ever read. A culture is described in three-dimensional detail, giving both it’s virtues and flaws, and although this can seem overwhelming at times, one is ultimately left wanting to know even more about them, not because of omissions but because they are so fascinating. Which is a good thing as Issaries Inc plans two more supplements on the Orlanthi, Storm Tribes for the minority religions and Sartar Rising for the GM.

Thunder Rebels
Thunder Rebels Capsule Review by Mark Mohrfield on 17/03/01 Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 5 (Excellent!) A great supplement, nearly worth the 20 year wait. Product: Thunder Rebels Author: Greg Stafford, Robin D. Laws, Roderick Robertson, and John Hughs Category: RPG Company/Publisher: Issaries Inc. Line: Hero Wars Cost: 19.95 Page count: 256 Year published: 2001 ISBN: 1-929052-03-0 SKU: ISS 1301 Capsule Review by Mark Mohrfield on 17/03/01 Genre tags: Fantasy	Thunder Rebels is the player’s supplement for the Orlanthi Barbarians (or more correctly, for the Heortling branch of the Orlanthi barbarians) of the world of Glorantha, the setting of Issaries Inc.’s Hero Wars rpg and also the now-defunct Runequest rpg from Chaosium. We’ve been waiting for this supplement for a long time, arguably ever since we were introduced to Glorantha twenty-odd years ago. RQ supplements like Cults of Prax and River of Cradles made it clear that these were an important people in the Dragon Pass region, but we only got to see the edges of their society, refugees and ne’er do well types (like adventurers) who had left their homeland of Sartar for the Zola Fel river valley. We always were left to wonder just what their culture was like. The earliest information seemed to indicate something like heroic age Greece, but this idea seemed more and more wrong as we gained new information over the years, and they began to resemble a Celt/Viking/Anglo-Saxon mixture. We knew who some of their important gods were, but there were hints that they were worshipped somewhat differently back home than they were in the displaced environment of the Zola Fel. Thunder rebels at last gives us information on these people. First off, the physical appearance of the book. Unlike most rpg products, Thunder Rebels and the other Hero Wars books are trade paperback sized. I personally find this both a convenience and an inconvenience, on one hand it’s easier to carry the books around, on the other you can’t just leave them lying open to the page you’re reading. The artwork seems good to my admittedly untrained eye, especially Simon Brays woodcut style drawings of various divine beings. A brief introduction gives information on how text conventions are used in the book, a guide to the iconography of the aforementioned woodcut images, a glossary, and a an explanation that when the Orlanthi say “all” they actually mean about 85%. The first chapter is written from the Orlanthi perspective, the questions Who are we, how do we live, where do we come from, who lives near us what makes us special are all answered as though they were being asked by a youngster of an older Orlanthi. The second chapter is written from a gamers perspective and details how Orlanthi society works. There are sections on how kinship is defined, what kind of houses they build, the structure of a clan, law, social ranks, how they practice warfare and the lands belonging to and surrounding the Orlanthi. The next chapter is called the Storm tribe and it describes the religion of the Orlanthi. Communal worship, initiation rites to both the pantheon (which are also the adulthood initiation rites) and individual gods, devotees, initiation to multiple gods, changing what god is worshipped, divination, divine retribution and the spirits that carry it out and funeral customs are given. Ending this chapter are two lists, one of the Orlanthi gods and one of gods from other pantheons. A new wrinkle has been added to the latter, not all the deities on it are named the same thing as their worshippers call them. For example, the trolls call their goddess Kyger Litor, but the Orlanthi call her Deloradella. I notice this does not seem to extend to all deities, Yelm is still called Yelm for example (or maybe his worshippers in Dara Happa call him something else?) Call the Lightning is the next chapter and it describes the magic used by the Orlanthi. It overlaps the last chapter to a degree, it describes how ancestors and Wyters, lesser gods that patronize a community, are worshipped. Wyters are especially important to the game, as any community, including hero bands, will have one. A calendar of the five season Orlanthi year is given, with the holy days of the gods marked. Brief generalized descriptions of sacred places and ceremonies are given. Dragon Pass weather is also described here, as the Orlanthi gods are the gods of storm. Chapter 5, Inside Orlanth’s Hall describes the part of the God World ruled by the Orlanthi gods and called the Storm Realm. The God World is somewhat difficult to explain, it consists of the time before time began, and has different ages were the Gods are still performing the actions that they performed in their myths. Thus there is a Stagnant Age, were everything is ruled by the unchanging sun god Yelm, Umath’s age, were the first storm god tore apart heaven and earth to make a place for himself, A Storm age were the young storm gods made their place in the world, a Chaos Age were the Devil entered the world and many other ages. Not everyone who enters the God World sees it in the same way, were an Orlanthi from Sartar will see the mountain Kero Fin, one from Ralios would see the mountain Top of the World. Chapter 6 Become the Thunder gives the cultural keywords (skills everyone from a particular culture gets) and professional keywords (skills gotten by members of a certain profession.) used in character creation. These have been somewhat changed from the keywords in the core Hero Wars game, most significantly men and women get different cultural keywords. Keywords for non-adventuring professions such as Farmer and Steadwife have also been included. Chapters 7 and 8 give the magical keywords, (the magical skills that characters of a certain magical tradition get) for the cults of Ernalda and Orlanth respectively. These are particularly important chapters because every adult in Orlanthi culture is an initiate of at least one god, so everyone gets access to magic. These two deities (Orlanth for males and Ernalda for females) are worshipped by “all” (85%) Orlanthi. Other gods’ cults will be given in the forthcoming Storm Tribe supplement. Orlanth and Ernalda are said to be so great that few people worship them directly, instead worshipping a part of them called an aspect. These major aspects each provide two magical affinities such as Storm and Wind or Combat and Movement, and are further divided into smaller subcults, which provide a third magical affinity. For example, Orlanth has three major subcults, Adventourous, Allfather, and Thunderous which roughly represent the warrior , man of society, and weather (in practice there is some overlapping). Orlanth Adventurous has subcults to Finovan the cattle raider, Tatouth the scout, Orvanshagor the dragonslayer, Vanganth the Flyer, and others. Each of these is a son or name of Orlanth who gives magic relevant to his abilities to members of his subcult. Rules are given for worshipping one aspect and a subcult belonging to different aspect. These are somewhat confusing IMO, but not likely to come up much. One surprising bit of information in this section is that the Lunar Empire, which Conquered Sartar about twenty years ago, has outlawed the cult of Oralnth. The Sartarites, of course, get around this by hiding their worship of Orlanth in the ceremonies to other deities, and it is unlikely that they have significantly affected Orlanth worship so far. Also given in this chapter a description of the various holy days of these gods. The book closes with an excellent index, a feature that was unfortunately missing from the core rules. Overall, I found this to be one of the best rpg supplements I’ve ever read. A culture is described in three-dimensional detail, giving both it’s virtues and flaws, and although this can seem overwhelming at times, one is ultimately left wanting to know even more about them, not because of omissions but because they are so fascinating. Which is a good thing as Issaries Inc plans two more supplements on the Orlanthi, Storm Tribes for the minority religions and Sartar Rising for the GM.