Brian Duguid

My copy arrived this morning. A gorgeous looking production, and a fantastic tribute not just to the indefatigable efforts of @Rick Meints but to all the creativity of the cast of thousands who appear in it.

As always @KungFuFenris @Crel @Jason Farrell and any others: your star ratings and reviews on DTRPG are appreciated almost more than gold itself!

Later in the book, a method is presented which could be used to deal with a black elf (or indeed anyone) who has come to know the unknowable.

The Voralans is now available in PDF. I must repeat my thanks to Ludo, Simon, Elizabeth, Dario and Lee for their excellent illustrations, and also to Nick Brooke for (as always) his helpful advice along the way. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/439149/The-Voralans-RuneQuest?affiliate_id=1107865

If any AI imagery was used to inspire some of the art drawn for the book by the actual living, breathing organisms that I had chained to their art desks, then I'm not sharing it, not even in any "making of the art" that might be produced as supplementary content (in the unlikely event that more than a handful of people purchase the 'shroom book). I think most people know, but for clarity: AI art is forbidden by Chaosium not only in their own books, but also in what they allow under their community content programmes. (PS: I thought I should respond, but please let's not let this lovely publicity thread slip off topic into another AI imagery discussion.)

Here's another preview illustration from the book, again by @Leeoconnor. As well as Lee's contributions, there will be lots of great art by @DarioCorallo, Simon Bray, @Lordabdul and Elizabeth Kirshtein,. Dario's pieces are mostly used to illustrate short texts showing what other races and cultures think of the black elves. Simon's art illustrates the cult and mythos section, while Ludo (Lord Abdul) has contributed images for the voralan bestiary, and chapters on fungi / fungal products, and fungal diseases (yay!) Elizabeth has provided the family tree chart for the voralan deities, and one other piece. Fingers crossed that the book will still hopefully be available by the end of May.

There were three in Apple Lane (and in the RQ Starter Set). Five in Trollpak. A further three in Troll Gods. And there have been well over a dozen more in various Jonstown Compendium releases. I was going to include a big list in the book, but edited that out. If there's demand, I can edit it back in for an updated version!

Is Jorthan's Rescue old school enough? It's not a dungeon bash, but it did originally appear in White Dwarf! Of the Beer With Teeth material, Rocks Fall can be set pretty much anywhere and is short, straightforward and likely to be combat-oriented. Stone and Bone is also probably fairly easy to run (and can lead into some of their other scenarios). Both have classic RQ monsters. All the Sandheart books have a Praxian connection, with several similarities to things like Borderlands (sandbox setting with a range of scenarios that can be run independently or in sequence). At even bigger scale there are Ian Thomson's updated versions of his Pavis & Big Rubble Companion material, starting with City on the Edge of Forever. Plenty of scope to start a pretty epic Pavis-based campaign there. I'm sure there are plenty more: there's a whole load of more recent scenarios from "new" writers that I've not dug through properly yet. My strong recommendation would be to get the Jonstown Compendium Catalogue 2022, and the Jonstown Compendium Index 2023, as these give a great overview of the JC content, colour-coding it by the area they are located in, and with a helpful map of scenario locations.

Shawn Carpenter? He can be found on Mastodon: https://dice.camp/@Shawn

To ask the question another way: what is the Gloranthan mechanism by which ancestral sin is transmissible, yea - even unto them beyond the third and fourth generations? The Trollkin Curse was sent against the trolls by Gbaji, but it was its harm to Kyger Litor that affected their fertility, just as it was defeat by Yelm that had earlier affects Korasting, the mother of many. Trolls inherit the curse because it is a harm to the essence of what makes them who they are, personified as their goddess. I think perhaps Nysalor's blessing on the wolf-folk was similar; it was on the Telmori as a tribe, and so it changed Telmor himself in some way. The Cursed Ones inherit their magic from that part of Telmor which was polluted with Chaos (and then cursed by Talor). The Pure Ones inherit their magic from that part of Telmor that was not. These "parts" of Telmor could be different bloodlines (and hence the issue of ancestral sin); but if they are different faces of the corrupted or uncorrupted Telmor, then that holds out an easier prospect of change. A Cursed One could heroquest to become a Pure One by discovering a pathway to the uncorrupted Telmor; rather than having to "heal" the whole tribe by somehow cleansing Telmor of Nysalor's blessing entirely. That all feels like fertile ground for YGMV, to me. It doesn't resolve the question of whether the children of Cursed Telmori are chaos-afflicted, but it allows a different answer to the question at the top of the thread: Nysalor's blessing was offered to all the children of Telmor. It manifests itself as an alteration to Telmor himself and so is inherited by Telmori initiates. However, as with the case of Elmal and Yelmalio, we know worshippers can have different experiences and understandings of the same god, both of which are valid in terms of their effect within the mundane world. Perhaps Telmor is like that.

There are Pure Ones outside Ralios, but not many. It's not impossible that you could find one in Dragon Pass. Do Cursed Telmori children transform every Wildday? Even the babies?

Twenty pages in the RQG core rulebook is hardly "completely forgotten". But in any event, Chaosium are working on an Invisible God book which will presumably tell us more on the sorcerous culture of the west, or maybe even expand the sorcery system. The details haven't been shared yet, but Andrew Logan Montgomery on Facebook has told us he is working on it with Jeff.

The scenario A Short Detour by @Lordabdul on the Jonstown Compendium has a 7-page appendix giving rules and ideas for what happens when an adventurer acquires a Chaos taint i.e. Chaos Rune affinity. It covers Chaotic Passions that can then arise; corruption of other Runes; how this manifests through changes in the character's behaviour; and rules for resisting / reducing the affinity over time. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/385037/A-Short-Detour?affiliate_id=1107865

I have included a couple of ways, magical and physical, for the voralans to control insects in the book. One face of Gorakiki (the termite mother) is a particularly close ally to the voralans.

Just waiting on the last batch of art, then some final changes to the layout, and final proofreading. I'd expect it will be out before the end of this month.

Out now! https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/439149/The-Voralans-RuneQuest?affiliate_id=1107865 Coming soon to the Jonstown Compendium, this is an in-depth (I suspect many will say too in-depth) survey of the voralans a.k.a. the black elves, the fungus humanoids of Glorantha. It will be around 80 pages examining the black elves, their peculiar culture and society, myth, magic, creatures, fungal diseases, fungi and fungal products. It includes a re-imagining of the Mee Vorala cult, previously only published (in much shorter form) 35 years ago in Troll Gods. This image shows a black elf shaman, one of several great illustrations by @Leeoconnor.

Sorry for reviving this very old thread, but ... Chaosium have now made the RQG core book Boldhome map available as part of the digital version. And it looks really, really nice in giant JPEG form (21MB). The Dragon Pass map has also been added, for anyone who doesn't have that as part of the GM Screen Pack. Here is what was stated on Discord:

Jeff said last year: Other things he has posted more recently (numbers of members of specific cults) seem to line up with that.

Getting increasingly off-topic, but there are many hells (uz believe in at least seven), and the big shiny sod may not have ruined them all. Its Gregginess is unclear (it was stated to be "by or based on material by Greg Stafford"), but there was a piece in Drastic/Darkness which explicitly split out the Hell ruined by Yelm from the Hell where Kyger Litor now resides (yes, no longer Wonderhome, but still the troll afterlife). All seven Hells known to the trolls are described there. There was an indication in a previous thread on this forum (by whoever was working on the new troll pack) that even these are just a small number of many more Underworld Hells. Regardless of its Gregginess, that's broadly my working model. Of course, there is an easier way into the Underworld than by heroquesting, but that may not provide access to the more obscure parts of the Underworld.

Unless, of course you enter it on a troll or black elf heroquest, in which case it is a deep, dark, beautiful paradise which fills you with a sense of happiness and security?

I'm all for skydiving brians, sounds great!

Am I the only one who is very slightly dreading the publication of Heroquest rules? Fingers crossed that they don't give the impression that Heroquests must be run in only a certain way: that you can only interact with the Hero Plane (etc) using particular attributes; that success and failure are only measured in a certain manner; that there is a preferred "exemplar" of what a quest is for, how it progresses, etc. I'm looking at running a this-world Heroquest in an upcoming session (won't say more in case players are reading) and what I want with that is flexibility to do it however I want: whatever suits the characters, their stories, and the background material that will inform it. What I really don't want is a set of rules that reduce that flexibility.

Just dropping in to say that this is one of the absolute best products now available for the Jonstown Compendium (and there is obviously some stiff competition). The production quality and use of art set a new bar for community content, and there is just loads of gameable material in here. I've only had a quick skim through but I think much of the content will be adaptable for other purposes as well. Top notch.

No doubt people will whine and quibble, but yes, we are clearly having a Gloranthan Renaissance. Since the end of 2021 we've seen published (in no particular order and apologies for omissions): The Seven-Tailed Wolf New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever Old Pavis: The City That Time Forgot Pirates of the East Isles Duckpac: 3 volumes The Lifethief Temple of Twins To Hunt a God Crimson King Hero Wars in the East Isles: 2 volumes Holiday Dorastor: 3 volumes The Six Paths The Children of Hykim Edge of Empire Adventurers from the Lunar Provinces and bucketloads more great RQ/Glorantha material. "But I'm talking about Chaosium". "But that's non-canonical". "But I need my cults (even though I'm a grognard with them in umpteen formats already)". The world has shifted. We are not constrained by the bottleneck of just one author, or one graphic design team, or whatever. Our Gloranthas are Varying more rapidly than ever. I'm as keen to see the new Chaosium output as anyone. And I think a coherent and active product line is vital to attract new players. But as someone familiar with the existing product line plus quite a bit of the JC material, I'm really not finding that I'm short of things to do in my actual RuneQuest game, or that I'm waiting for any Chaosium book to do what I want to do.

You're remembering they are all off at a convention right now, yes? 🙂 I don't see what you're looking for. We often see "Community Content" like Jonstown Compendium or Miskatonic Repository as if it is some kind of shop window that helps us easily find the content we want. But it's first and foremost an IP licensing scheme. JC and MR creators pay Chaosium a royalty on all our products to use their IP, within the broad set of guidelines issued for the specific CC programme. That's on top of a royalty we pay to DriveThruRPG to act as the actual shop window. Added together, it is a 50% cut of all sales. Chaosium police (with a pretty light touch) how the content is used so that JC creators don't duplicate what is in the copyright products, or detract from it, but complement it in a way that hopefully drives sales for the entire product line. Importantly, Chaosium are the publisher of this Community Content. It carries their branding and they will undoubtedly take something down that they feel is detrimental to their image. With BRP UGE, there is nothing to license and no royalties to pay, unless you wanted to try and cross-license some other Chaosium IP as well, and then they'll ultimately treat you exactly the same as any other licensee, like the French publisher of RQG. They'll be very selective, as this is more closely related to their valuable core IP and the associated branding. Sure, there are advantages to the support with publishing that the CC programs provide, and the shop window aspect, but with the ORC licensed systems you're out of the playground and into the wilderness. You don't need to ask, you just create, and sell. Plenty of people already do this on DTRPG, ORC just lets them adapt an existing rules system if they prefer to do so, or to sell add-ons to it. Maybe you could articulate more clearly exactly what you'd want from a BRP CC program that would justify the loss of freedom that BRP UGE under ORC has already provided?