Brian Duguid

Just five days to go and people will be able to read the Etyries write-up in The Lunar Way. But I think it's fair to say now that it is presented very differently from Issaries. At a purely magical level, only Issaries has the magic to protect Markets, Etyries does not. Instead, her worshippers are the trade agents of the Empire: they run the caravans, they establish trading posts in other territories, they coordinate the trading bureaucracy inside Lunar territory. So from a character perspective, I'd suggest they always have the interests of the Lunar Empire in the back of their mind, and that will inform what they do.

I don't imagine anyone has an index of where various significant personalities are illustrated across the great mass of published Gloranthiana?

Because that would be marvellously helpful.

2 hours ago, David Scott said:

You can find their origin by consulting Rune Magic by Cult and Associate Cult and Master Lists: Rune/Divine Magic in the MIGIII.

What are the odds that at the end of all this there may be some spells in the RBoM without a published cult that uses them?

I'm thinking specifically of the Sofali spells here, noting that it isn't on this admittedly non-definitive list.

It will be via discord text channel. Someone will post a set of page numbers each week, and then people have all week to chat about it as they wish. So time zone doesn't really matter.

For anyone who is interested, we will be running a week-by-week group read of The Glorantha Sourcebook on the Glorantha discord server, starting 26th May and running into mid-September.

It doesn't matter which version you have, although note Nick's confirmation above that if you want the new version, you don't need to wait for it to come back into stock in print in the US.

This invite link will expire after 7 days: https://discord.gg/vUEUBBHN

These aren't gods, but I'm hoping we'll also get a mini-bestiary for all the various sea races that were left out of the RQG Bestiary.

I've made another small update to this book:

• expanded the entry on Rapier Miniatures from 1 page to 3 pages, with more images and a more comprehensive list of their Gloranthan figures

That takes the book up to 66 pages, of which 9½ are now devoted to various ranges of miniatures.

As always, if you have comments or additions - contact me at the email address given in the book, not here or anywhere else.

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And if you found the book interesting or enjoyable - please add a star-rating, and a review if you are feeling particularly kind.

http://tiny.cc/rq-buyers-guide

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

It is not that the Arkati customs officers are tough (there are none), it is that the characters don’t really understand how their world works. I think people are resistant to the idea that Gloranthans understand their world poorly, but just think how poorly we understand our world — who promoted them above us?

Gloranthans clearly remember a time when there were actual experts with a deep understanding magic and cosmology. They called these experts the "God Learners".

But now the Third Age Gloranthans boast of their distrust, even hatred, for these "so-called experts", and instead they promote adherence to "myths". Even some kind of flat-earth theory is popular amongst them.

They are very much like "us".

From discussion elsewhere, quite a few GMs simply house-rule out the magic points bonus (or if you wanted an intermediary result - just limit it to personal magic points).

I've used the Worship skill for other purposes i.e. to determine how well a ceremony is performed, such as the ceremony that invokes the beginning of a heroquest. A good roll on the ceremony then establishes an augment to certain tasks during the heroquest. This makes choosing the time, place and nature of sacrifices something worth tracking.

19 hours ago, FredKiesche said:

Hoping WB & RM and Nomad God's gets a update/reprint.

2025 will be the 50th anniversary of the release of WB&RM. Just sayin'. 😉

9 hours ago, Jason Farrell said:

Late?  Oh, that's sad.  😞 

That's a charming little scenario, and it only came out a year or two ago...

See: https://www.chaosium.com/blogjourney-to-jonstown-68-rpg-writer-workshop-runequest-adventure-collection-celebrates-new-creators-for-runequest/

A wise sage once said: "In Glorantha, we can say that cult is the source of culture". But the Great Sister-shaped hole in The Lunar Way is an opportunity to say: no, it isn't, or at least not the only source.

Perhaps this is one of those spaces where defining what someone is not is more useful than defining what they are. A sort of blank land within our understanding of a Gloranthan Culture.

The Great Sister is not a significant object of worship, nor is she the head of a cult. She is not the wielder of temporal political authority. She does not continue the line of Dara Happan emperors. She is not a patriarch. She does not control any kind of battlefield army.

We know she is "tasked to teach everyone something of the truth of Nysalor". She establishes the "Sisterhood of New Consciousness". She commands a troupe of fantastically glamorous magical dancers.

Even in the most religiously zealous real-world communities, much of what defines society does not arise from religious beliefs, nor from the top-down directives of the state. Maybe it's better to leave that space open to our imaginations, than to chisel away and over-define.

This isn't an RQ session report, but with permission of @Divadllah I can share this photo of (most of) the attendees in the Home of the Bold freeform.

(David asks that the participants please don't give anything away about the content of the game itself!)

3 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Really just here though to find out if the phantom "Erona" is still a land goddess separate from her near-identical-twin Frona. Cool if so, just want to know.

I think the map in question (showing Eronela) has been eliminated, and replace with the map from page 22 of Mythology.

Your framework for heroquesting arises out of your understanding of the metaphysics of the setting.

Vs

Your framework for heroquesting attempts to describe what arises from the story you are telling or experiencing.

Vs

You cannot ever define how heroquesting works because its power is in the mystery, and if it is not mysterious, it is no longer heroquesting. Add words here like "numinous", "liminal" etc to justify whatever bullshit you want to get away with. 

All of the above, but I prioritise them in reverse order. But nor would I allow time travel. 

I have uploaded a second update to this book, which includes:

• added reference to the 2nd edition Glorantha Sourcebook
• expanded the entry on Mad Knight Miniatures from 1 page to 3 pages, with full details of all their previous Kickstarters, and information on what may appear in their next Kickstarter

As always, if you have comments or additions - contact me at the email address given in the book, not here or anywhere else.

If you want to be automatically alerted to future updates: click the FOLLOW button on this thread.

And if you found the book interesting or enjoyable - please add a star-rating, and a review if you are feeling particularly kind.

http://tiny.cc/rq-buyers-guide

5 hours ago, Tatterdemalion Fox said:

Quick question for anyone who has the new printing. Gods of the Lunar Way, list of the Seven Mothers, pg. 148-149 in the first printing: which lunar phases are Deezola and Jakaleel associated with?

Note that in contradiction to the above, The Lunar Way has Jakaleel as Crescent-Go Moon, and Deezola as Dying Moon, both in the Seven Mothers write-up, and in their own chapters.

I played Died in the Wool, a scenario by the late Braeden Harpool, GM'ed by @Andrew Cowie, which was good fun, with a splended final trollball scene that Andrew had modified a little bit from the original. The scenario is available on the JC: https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/product/419385/Died-in-the-Wool?affiliate_id=1107865, and as part of the collection: https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/product/468235/RPG-Writer-Workshop-RuneQuest-Adventure-Collection?affiliate_id=1107865.

I was also in Market Day, GM'ed by Terry Belles, a seemingly simple visit to Jonstown to sell an heirloom and buy trade goods, which was certainly not as simple as it seemed, and was also enjoyable. We were completely fooled by what was going on throughout most of it!

My final RQ game was a session of RQ Classic, Family Dinner, run by @RQStaffan. This had a slow and fairly straightforward first half, ramping up into a properly thrilling climax with some very memorable foes. We greatly enjoyed the old-skool feel, especially with the chance to use now-deprecated spells like Harmonise.

I was Old Herb in Home of the Bold - I didn't get the chance to tell any of my shaggy dog stories (not even my Shaggy God Story), but had come armed with plenty of bad Gloranthan jokes. It was indeed fairly hectic, with a huge amount going on that any one character (there were 50) could not possibly take in. Tremendous fun all round, tons of memorable moments, and I'm looking forward to hopefully playing it all over again in July at Continuum! As with the others, I'm avoiding saying too much to avoid spoilers. Perhaps @Divadllah will share the group photo and other details here.

1 hour ago, theconfusingeel said:

are there illumination mechanics in the book?
No spoilers if there are though please.

Yes. Several pages of both mechanics and more general discussion about what Illumination is all about.

Multiple pages throughout: incorrect apostrophes - lefthand curly when it should be righthand curly (e.g. Yelm's, page 3; Sedenya's, page 23); and the same issue with quotation marks (e.g. "Young Life" and "Spindle Hag" on page 27).

On 4/20/2024 at 11:08 PM, Akhôrahil said:

1. One of the players made a temporary Voralan PC to use while his main one is off fighting in Hahlgrim's War. It seems INT 22 gives you a lot of solid skill category modifiers...

2. You missed the opportunity of calling this RuneQuest: Mycology.

It's always good to hear about stuff actually being used rather than just read, so thanks for that!

Not sure where best to put this, but I'll try here. I know this may be difficult with nervousness around large file sizes, but it would be really nice to get a higher-resolution PDF of the new 2nd edition Glorantha Sourcebook - I'm particularly looking at Katrin's coin images in the various royal genealogies, where both the images and the text would benefit from being rendered at a higher resolution. Because, you know, who doesn't want to zoom in and admire Jar-Eel, Sorana Tor et al more closely?

Many thanks to everyone who has bought this book and has now made it a COPPER BEST-SELLER.

I have uploaded the first updated version, which includes:

• added Redbubble art from DMs After Dark / Katrin Dirim
• added The Greatest Tournament in the World freeform booklet availability (German language version)
• updated link to the free Rune Hearts game, which now has its own dedicated web page
• added the Quest Portal VTT, with first impressions of its content including its AI assistant used in an RQG context

As always, if you have comments or additions - contact me at the email address given in the book, not here or anywhere else.

If you want to be automatically alerted to future updates: click the FOLLOW button on this thread.

And if you found the book interesting or enjoyable - please add a star-rating, and a review if you are feeling particularly kind.

http://tiny.cc/rq-buyers-guide

And also take note: SPECIAL OFFERS! For a limited period and in limited numbers only, I'm providing exclusive discount codes to purchasers of this book: $2.49 off each of my other two books, The Children of Hykim, and The Voralans. I think that's pretty great value: if you use just one of those discount codes, you've essentially got this $2.49 buyer's guide for free. And if you use both: you're quids in, as they say round my way. You'll find the discount codes in a separate file alongside the book in the DTRPG library.

So ... if you are a creator of RuneQuest and/or Gloranthan product and you want to share more detail with me about your stuff, or correct any mistakes - buy the book, check what's there, and please get in touch on the email address included in the book. I hope to update the book irregularly, and will be checking that email for notifications - not Facebook or anywhere else. Thanks!