Brian Duguid

I'm not clear from this latest Chaosium post whether we are now to expect a two-volume Cults of Glorantha, and a separate Gloranthan Prosopaedia? https://www.chaosium.com/blogartist-katrin-dirim-is-the-2021-recipient-of-the-greg-stafford-memorial-award-for-gloranthan-fandom/?fbclid=IwAR3TD0WIzauWXZWa4JrV8D4QYfke8TsNSiAEtt-OzJ5wucUZ6v70BeLNUbg

Yes, if only there was someone in the Storm Tribe who could guard the stead. Whatever happened to that guy?

But also in GS (page 118): "The Elmal cult in Dragon Pass came under tremendous influence from the solar religion of Dara Happa, until Monrogh Lantern revealed their god to be another name for Yelmalio. The Yelmalio cult has now eclipsed the native Elmal cult". There's an astronomical clue there to how this solar influence may all be a dastardly Lunar plot to eliminate Orlanth's loyal thane ("eclipsed" is usually down to the moon obscuring the sun). But more seriously, this is the existing canonical reference confirming that for most Sartarites, Yelmalio is their sun deity. It might add to the confusion, by implying that the Heortlings consider Elmal/Yelmalio to be both the sun-disk and also to be Lightfore, but never mind.

Should the "What cult should you join?" item in Journal #14 have a link to anything?

Back in December 2020 @Jason D shared this working contents list on the FaceBook RQ group, with a comment that expected page count was 112-128pp. At that point it was just going into art production. An update at the beginning of July 2021 said it was going into layout "soon".

An addition to the list on the 1st page of the thread: "Elf pack", being worked on by Shannon Appelcline (obviously!), who reckons he'll finish the writing in a couple of months time. More detail in his latest Patreon newsletter.

Bumping it here will keep it visible to anyone new who stumbles into this forum and wasn't previously aware of it. 👍

And .... #7: https://godlearners.com/journal-of-runic-studies-7/

In case others missed it because, like me, they were watching for an update to this thread: #6 of the Journal was published a few days ago. https://godlearners.com/journal-of-runic-studies-6/

Some updates courtesy of @Jason D on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/RuneQuest/posts/2010008249175164/?comment_id=2010056065837049😞 - my reading of his post suggests that the Cults books is ahead of the Sartar Book in the queue - Grazelands release (Chris Klug) mentioned that's not in the pinned post, but stalled - Esrolia book mentioned, this is expanded from the Nochet book previously mentioned (Harald Smith) - Heortland/Hendrikiland book - manuscript nearing completion, presumably this is the same as the Heortland sourcebook in the pinned post, but it would be promoted from "mentioned" to "coming later on"

It feels like some of this discussion just resolves around the limitations of the rules construct to simulate reality in a way which leads to "credible" outcomes. Eliminating the weapon from the system is simpler than over-complicating the rules to create constraints on the mini-maxers. Why *are* shortswords popular historically compared to longer swords? Setting aside the risk of breakage (which could be easily modelled with lower weapon HP for longer weapons). I'm no swordsman, but I'm guessing the lower inertia of a smaller weapon in real life is a significant bonus - you can be jabbing a second time before your opponent can bring a very large sword back into position to parry. In the real world, lower levels of armour when shorter swords were popular may have made that an effective choice. In RQ, with easy availability of magical blessings to deflect weapon strikes, there will be fewer reasons to choose a shorter, lighter weapon. Larger weapons must also be significantly more tiring to use in one hand, even before considering the risk of injury to a wrist or of having the weapon knocked out of hand. Luckily, the history of RQ offers an easy mechanism to let players use longer swords one-handed without them becoming the only choice: Fatigue Points! Let them use a larger sword (subject to minimum STR), at the cost of a rapid loss of FP. Sure, you may need to extend the RQ3 FP rules to get the right balance of permission / discouragement, but, hey, totally worth it, yes? Just kidding. It's unavoidable that the game system drives player choice even at the cost of credibility of outcome; but worth noting that in the real-world people frequently make choices that are not rational, and that perhaps this is worth reflecting in the game. People don't choose cult loyalty in the real-world based on a utilitarian evaluation of the magical benefit, otherwise nobody would support Coventry FC. People are stubbornly loyal to failed concepts long after they have been shown to be actively harmful to their own interests. Likewise, it might be worth considering how to encourage players to make choices that are sub-optimal in game terms e.g. sticking loyally with Elmal even while the solar propagandists are promoting Yelmalio's palpably more convincing magic; or choosing a sword that is credible in terms of real use rather than maximised solely in terms of game stats.

Also not listed in the first post, "The Dragon's Eye", which Jonathan Tweet has reportedly finished the manuscript for: https://www.chaosium.com/blogchaosium-announces-runequest-the-dragons-eye-is-in-development/

Possible update to the future product listing in the first post: Jeff mentions that he and Jon Webb are working on a Sun Dome County book:

Wow, well spotted 😉

Seem to be quite a few things missing from the RQ Classics section? https://www.chaosium.com/trollpak-pdf/ https://www.chaosium.com/runequest-companion-pdf/ https://www.chaosium.com/soloquest-classic-collection-pdf/ https://www.chaosium.com/pavis-pdf/ https://www.chaosium.com/gateway-bestiary-pdf/ https://www.chaosium.com/big-rubble-pdf/ Plus Wyrms Footnotes 1-14: https://www.chaosium.com/wyrms-footnotes/