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So I took a few notes from the Chaosium seminar at Chimeriades convention in the beautiful South of France countryside. There was some discussion on Runequest core book- which they hope to open pre-orders later this month- which is as detailed a date they were willing to commit to; with the aim of a Gen Con launch. A black and white print out of the laid out book was circulated at the con and it does look beautiful and evocative. The core book will have a conversion guide as an annex for previous edition adventures to be adapted and run under the new rules. Jeff believes that the RQG core book looks more beautiful than the Guide, and that there were more artists available with a feel for Glorantha. The art is designed to reflect and enhance the uniqueness of Glorantha. The Bestiary is entering layout- it is a simpler layout than the core book, so it will go to production at a faster pace. One challenge is making stat blocks more interesting The Bestiary will allow you to play a number of different Gloranthan races including Trolls, elves, Telemori, and the most noble of all Gloranthan races- the ducks. (Hoorah!) Some 150 different RQ creatures are covered including dinosaurs & mega-fauna Next up is the GM pack- which is really a setting pack- a Colymar sandbox setting with 3 adventures which can be linked or play separately. Some 100 pages with lots of stated NPCs which can give GMs template for what a Clan Chief may look like stat wise. An impressive map of Clearwine by Oliver Sanfilippo was circulated to help GMs and players visualise locations. Boldhome appears in Dragon Pass campaign pack. No rolled maps will be produced by Chaosium- shipping costs to blame Apple Lane will be a default base for players for post 1625 setting, reflecting the power vacuums following Dragonrise. Apple Lane buildings have housing maps to help give the feel of a base for players. 12 books in advanced production to support RQG- reflecting the work of the past 2 years. The new edition will be well supported to help time pressed GMs to run adventures for groups. Source books are likely to be statted for RQ, as it will be easier for Heroquest Glorantha GMs to adapt than the other way round. GM book magic items, treasures guidance- Heroquest & hero rules Gods of Glorantha will feature 50 gods with 8-12 page write ups of each cult. Orlanth will be expanded in coverage. The Red Goddess will be featured, with new Lunar magic. It will be a very God Learner book and designed for GM to use. Issaries is a god/ cult which will see little expansion. The invisible God will be covered in a separate project. More regional gods will be covered in regional sourcebooks- such as Pavis- Jeff ran a Big Rubble scenario at the convention. Art is being ordered for the book. Jeff explains that he goes back to the oldest Greg sources & then work out what to keep & reject. Keen for returning players feel comfortable with Glorantha. Chaos gods are not PC gods so not in the upcoming book - A separate gods of chaos pack with scenarios being worked upon. Therefore GM only. Default 1625 early 1626 setting for the line Sarah Newton is at the advanced draft stage for Barbarian Town - Wild West themed bronze age- opens up mixed group of PCs.. Another project by Sarah will be announced when it is further along. Steve Perrin is writing old school feel scenarios to contrast with Sarah’s more modern approac And finally on RQG, Jeff opened up a little on the heroquest rules- Getting the feel.. River of Cradles campaign is a Heroquest- they are looking to get a toolkit of myth structure/ special effects to reflect hero-questing REWARD- Guidance how to handle that hq gifts & Levels wider than a cult... needs a Mythic restriction power with obligations. The hero should be embarrassed to use the power outside of the key needs. (Ken Rolston was animated on this point) Building package of rules after Heroquesting & becomes Hero with capital H. The Hero not super skilled not always effective- eg various Greek myths. Developing immortal self- 2 different things. Hero & shaman archtypes. Two different stat blocks. Fetches are always on hero plane. Gifts & powers come from that. Depletable resource- that be recovered through GM tasks & they have to develop cult to be worshiped. Develop a community eg Harrek is worshipped by communities who don’t want a visit from the Beserker(!) Switch of perspective Dragonewts don’t want the obligations.... Finally, Q-Workshop will be producing official Runequest dice- which look both stylish and legible- even on the mobile phone pictures I saw.

Jeff and Jason have passed on some exciting news: layout and proofreading of RQG is all-but-done ("we're just doing some final finishing up and tweaks"). The book is truly both a thing of beauty, and also a very easy-to-use reference when playing the game. Stay tuned for an announcement soon about preorders! Art credit: "Binding an Earth Elemental" by Andrey Fetisov

I thought it be fun to Replicate some of the items out of RQG. My kids will be will be using them As part of their outfits at GenCon. Still have a lot of work to do but I think they look pretty neet when they’re done.

The new Chaosium edition of RUNEQUEST is coming soon! Sign up to be informed the moment the PDF comes on sale*. SIGN UP HERE And as a special bonus for signing up now, we'll also give you exclusive early access to downloadable RQG content (art, wallpapers, the RQG character sheet) over the coming weeks! *The PDF will be made available immediately so you can start your RQG adventures in Glorantha straightaway! And you will receive a coupon for the full cost of the PDF off the price of the hardback version when it is released later this year. Art credit: "Kallyr's Funeral Pyre" by Andrey Fetisov

I can't answer the question completely as I have never played Ringworld though I have read the rules for Superworld. I think what Stormbringer did for Chaosium was to bring a set of SIMPLE, medium crunch rules to the fantasy genre in a way that RuneQuest wasn't able to do. The Stormbringer books are concise with just what you need to run a fantasy setting with nothing extra. It wasn't that RuneQuest was unsucessful it was just aimed at a player that wanted a more gritty and realistic approximation of fantasy. Add to that the unique demon magic rules offered by Stormbringer and the great playability of the Young Kingdoms and you had the perfect game. If Chaosium would take those same rules and put them into a high quality generic fantasy (as they did with Magic World - but higher quality) I would scoop it up in a second.

Hello all, I have been summoned. I'm hoping to work with the rest of the team to get ourselves in a position to have some very definite announcements at UK Games Expo. We will obviously share by all the channels after that. To clarify one point above, we are looking at 3-4 'books' every two years. The 'book' is notional, and probably best viewed as a 'project' because we might split a project into multiple volumes for reasons of pipeline, shipping costs, time-to-market etc. That said, I can say reasonably certainly that the projects will include: Non-Gloranthan HQ genre packs, The 'rebel' story from Sartar Rising (i.e. Battle of Iceland, Dragonrise) that you can weave as additional events into your 'clan' campaign. This was material that we considered off-stage for 11L, partially due to space requirements. A goal here would be that between TCS, 11L, and this book you would have the information to run a complete Sartar Rising period campaign A Fonrit book Of course, the usual warning apply, projects may never turn into actual books etc. as the road of trials is fraught with dangers. But we have an active line and we hope to get new material to you. We do need to decide how to dovetail into the material coming for RQG. For now, we will focus on Sartar Rising era campaign material in and around DP. Once the smoke clears on RQG's releases to establish their post 1627+ material we will look to our best approach to Argrath Rising era material and how we mesh with it. The Fonrit material opens up a new area, that we hope comes with less weight and is attractive to those who don't want to delve into DP's richness. Of course if it succeeds we may build on that line. Harrek is nearby in that period for example.

All this RoH Talk has got my creative juices flowing... so I'm a few days away from a first draft of my own fan adventure...

Hi guys, if you’re looking for the Bray Map of Heortland, just say hi. I think I can get hind of the map. I may still have the original art files. I have got several of the original maps and copies of them in my studio. We did Heortland, Imther, Pavis County, Tarsh, Dagori Inkarth, The Wastes, Esrolia, Mirins Cross and Pamaltela in total. Oh and of course the Lunar Empire. I still have a few of these available. Ask me if you’re interested. Simon Bray

I find it helpful to have abilities in this format, even if I don't necessarily keep to those ratings very strictly. It is important to note that we hopefully have a few players who play HeroQuest, but not RuneQuest etc, and so don't immediately have a good sense of the 'attributes' of any uniquely Gloranthan creatures. Without having a sense of scale of how challenging HeroQuest creatures etc are supposed to be, it can be quite difficult. I think this is a flaw in the beastiary pat of HeroQuest Glorantha - a lot of creatures are not described in enough detail to get any idea of how dangerous they usually are, and sometimes not even the physical size, and this is a problem most of us tend not to notice because we already know from other (eg RQ, or even HW) sources, but I think could be a real issue for some new GMs. I think it would be helped by adding notable weaknesses, if any. And for HQ Glorantha purposes, maybe notating some magical abilities with a Rune. And yes, I know the 'difficulty depends on story' mantra, but even if you stick to that rigidly, you need to know which choices of opponent make the level of difficulty plausible, and/or appropriate story framing eg want to make an encounter with a minotaur easy? Make it a contest of wits.

In our latest Kickstarter update, backers of our MU board game are getting a sneak peek at some of Victor Leza's amazing new art for the forthcoming Masks of Nyarlathotep:

Must. Resist. ............

Yeah the lizards Would be a no go, but maybe I could find a Barney the dinosaur suit out there and have it attack people that would be scary.

The new edition has conversion notes in the appendices for RQ2 and RQ3. Both versions are very easy to adapt to the new rules, so all the RQ Classic (and indeed all the RQ3) releases are usable.

ok, I did it, without stirrups and with a fitness ribbon. I'm untrained (I already shoot a little bit with the bow -I even have a self-built one- but I'm far away from being a true bowman), I am not a great rider, I have an estimated STR of 08 (*) and my horse was staying (I didn't want to take a risk). I was able to aim my ribbon at 180°, so I guess it is not a problem for a trained horse archer, even at gallop which is a rather comfortable pace. I noticed that, while when turning left your right leg applies a pressure on the right flank as expected, you push at the same time on the left leg to help the rotation (which explains why you can rotate so much), which seems to compensate the pressure from the right, and helps holding the horse. My conclusion is that the Parthian shot is highly plausible - with all the limitations such an experiment may have. (*) I estimate the draw at at least 50lbs, which, considering my ridiculous muscular mass, should correspond to 80lbs for a trained warrior

Ok here's the latest on the River of Heaven Companion. The book is currently in final editing/art commission but hasn't gone as quickly as I had hoped. I'm away this weekend at North Star, a new small convention dedicated to sci-fi rpgs, where I'm actually running River of Heaven, a scenario of my own devising called HOPE (which will get published at some point). When I'm back I'll be sticking my head down and gently pushing to get the Companion out. I want it out by early June, and definitely, early August when I'm off to Continuum. As for commissioning more material, that's coming to along with commissioning scenarios for both OpenQuest and The Company. I'll be making a proper announcement when I'm less busy, but if interested please drop me a line at newt@d101games.com.

OK, here are some initial thoughts on the other 3 clans of the Dinacoli. Ian - one thing which really struck me about the 4 clan locations in the Coming Storm is that they leave an awful lot of Dinacoli land to be occupied by the remaining 3 clans. I've dealt with this by doing 4 things: Considered the Woods of the Dead to be claimed by a clan, but in reality they haven't cut a sod there since Brangbane took up residence. Thought a similar situation to be prevalent in the southwest lands which border the Dragonewt Wildlands. Occupation of the land there is considered valid, but it's largely hunting territory rather than occupied and cultivated land. Extended the Vanstach into that southwest corner, taking the reference to them as monopolising Theatre Tradethink Market in King of Sartar as my cue. Considered the extent of Dinacoli control in Chalk Man Vale and towards Alone to be questionable post-Righteous Wind Rebellion, and instead suggested bloody strife between tribes as control of those areas remains under dispute. Given those things, here's an idea of how it''s looking so far: Donalf (Golden Plow) The fertile lands between the Bone Hills and the Donalf Stream are home to the Donalf. Chief Vadkalarg Ruddycheeks resides at Journey's End, which got its name because many of those who first migrated here from Tarsh saw how rich the land was and decided they needed to travel no further. Their belief proved auspicious, for only a generation later Carostar Cuts-the-land found the Golden Plow. Lodril is worshipped heavily, and the Donalf were first among the Dinacoli to recognise the Golden Spearman as Yelmalio. Well fed and settled, there are those who accuse the Donalfi of being slovenly and indulgent. They are certainly comfortable in their fertile lands, but the existence of Sword Hill in their land means there are many Humakti drawn from the clan, and the Bone Hills and dragonewt settlements within their lands have required significant magical resources to resolve. Ixobri The wealthy settlement of Herongreen is the seat of Ixobri Chief Eosardes Open-Arms, who has welcomed Lunar Imperial influence and the rule of Harvar Ironfist with alacrity. The Ixobri profit enormously from both. Herongreen's position at the junction of the Pavis Road and King's Road has seen its market increase massively and wayfarer's inns open in the land around it. Like Blue Boar Fort it is becoming a small town. The village is famed for the Heron Green Dancers, who dance on stilts. Chalk Man Vale is a melting pot of tribes. Ixobri lands extend up its southeast flank as far as Loch Lake, with the Vantaros on the other side and the High Vale occupied by the Tovtaros. Since the Righteous Wind Rebellion the newly formed Tres have claimed part of the vale beyond the lake, a claim vigorously denied by the Ixobri. All four tribes wrestle over this area, and the disputes over its ownership become more bloody and intractable as the years move on. Korolain Occupying the dangerous territory between Aroka Lake and the Woods of the Dead, the Korolain are custodians of the Pavis Road between the Creek and Herongreen and defenders against the horrors of the Woods of the Dead. Though they claim the Woods of the Dead as clan lands no steads have been cut there since Brangbane's awful occupation. Chief Hoftar the Gruff leads this bloody clan, whose fierce countenance is conditioned by the ever present threat of Brangbane's ghouls. They are the most uncompromising of the Dinacoli, and hold to traditional Orlanthi ways in the beleaguered defence of their land. Extended families live in highly fortified stone steads, much like those in parts of the eastern Far Place. Hunting is important, for the depredations of the undead render agriculture and herding difficult. The high tariff they exact from those who seek aid through their lands helps to feed the clan. Vanstach Lands extend west of the Donalf stream. They have a monopoly at Theatre Tradethink Market where they trade foodstuffs, especially black-eye peas and beef from red cattle. Known for Dragon Bread which may be imbued with many qualities from the strange things which the dragonewts trade. Other than the market there are few steads east of the Donalf Stream due to incursions of quakebeasts from the Dragonewt Wildlands.

We'll be sharing Andrey's full image sans the logo in high-res with people who sign up for the pre-release list.

A few of the runes can be depicted reversed, but I’ve never seen any separate explanation for it. When it comes to depicting runes in any visual form they can be placed any way round. Have a look at the Gammadion / swastika for a good example of a reversible symbol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gammadion . One of the main problems is of course that fonts usually only present letters one way up. I did toy with the idea of having reversed and rotated symbols when I made the Glorantha Core font, just to mix it up a bit, but I was under a time constraint. Some runes will tessellate as well, making well known patterns. The Earth and fertility rune is a well known pattern.

Moderator Hat: this forum is not the place to discuss the merits of US laws about weapons, or lack thereof. So let's stop right there. Meanwhile, here are some great well-armed Khan of Khans cosplayers from Gen Con last year: And @Belgath - looking forward to seeing yours this year!

I loved the Eternal Champion novels, but utterly missed Elric!/Stormbringer (played a lot of D&D in high school, then graduated and put gaming in the rear-view mirror for more than a decade). Magic World wasnt the first D100 game I looked at (Mythras and OpenQuest) but it was the first one I fully grokked. It felt like a revelation; hitting a sweet spot of complexity and flexibility. It's an incredibly easy game to teach and it runs fast at the table and I can pull in things from other D100 games with ease. My only complaint is that MW is kind of an ugly book when it comes to layout and reference at the table. Elric! on the other hand is an exemplar of design and ease of use, and I tend to use it when I need to look something up.

The ratings are actually from HQ2, page 104. Exceptional abilities can be used as High or Very High resistances. (Note that Very High in HQ2 was +9, rather than +W) Legendary abilities are +1W (Which would be Very High in HQ:G terms) to Nearly Impossible resistances. Significant abilities would presumably cover Low to Moderate resistances.

While I'm not taking part in FreeRPG day as a publisher, I'll have to see what I can do to support it. I've got a one hour demo on my notepad that could do with typing up ;) I'm not going to be stopping with the Companion, which has a new punchy title (see the cover image below). There's more support in the pipeline to get existing rulebooks out in the field off bookshelves and into play, as well as encouraging new sale bought.