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My advice? Don't worry what Chaosium might or might not publish. If I worried that my material might be the same area as Chaosium's, then I wouldn't have written secrets of HeroQuesting and would still be waiting for the GamesMaster's guide. Publish yours anyway and then people can choose which one they want to use, or can use both.

Earthworks are probably more useful than walls. Stick a fence on top, or a palisade, that's as good as a wall and a lot easier to do.

Ah, you're an old hand, then. HeroQuesting is great fun for a GM, as you can mess with the Players' heads. Obviously, there is more to it than that, but for me that is the best bit. In my experience, the longer you delay running a HeroQuest, the harder it will be to run a HeroQuest. Dive in and run one. Don't take it too seriously, you don't need books of lore to run a HeroQuest (except for Secrets of HeroQuesting, obviously, which you already have), all you need is a myth, a place to hang it and some willing, or unwilling, Adventurers.

As the Binding Enchantment spell often comes from cults, I would say that a cult can only bind whatever elementals the cult can summon. so, Storm Bull can only bind small airt elementals, so it can only bind small air elementals, its binding enchantments are limited. So, perhaps the item was created by a Babeester Gor cultists, as they can only summon small elementals.

In my Glorantha, lots of people make perfumes, but all use some form of alchemy to make them. So, herbalists make scented concoctions to aid healing, Ulerians make candles and perfumes to set the scene, Vorians makes basic perfumes to attract the interest of young men, Ernaldans to make themselves feel good and to keep their men, Yinkini make strong perfumes to make themselves smell good and so on. Most of an alchemist's trade, in my opinion, consists of making perfumes, soap and other mundane items, very rarely do they make and sell magical potions.

Of course, in BRP Toon, you would just swallow the grenade and let it explode inside you. It might blow all your hair off, but that should be OK.

You use the Throw skill to drop the grenade roughly where you want. A Special or Critical gets it closer to the spot you were aiming at. This makes it a bit more random. As a GM, you allow PCs to see the grenade and react, even when perhaps they shouldn't be able to react. Maybe you give them a chance to see the grenade before it is thrown or allow them to stop it being thrown. If they can react, allow them to move away or hide behind something. Sure, the blast effect might not get stopped but it might be reduced slightly. Even putting a waste bin over the grenade might reduce the impact by muffling it or constraining it. Some people carry blast capes that they can throw over a grenade to contain the blast. In my opinion, GMs can say "The NPC throws a grenade at you, it explodes and you all take 4D6 damage", or "The NPC throws a grenade at you, what do you do?". I know which I would prefer to say.

Catch and Throw: Make a DEXx5% roll to catch it and a Throw roll to throw it away Kick Away: Make a Kick roll to kick it away Dodge: Just a normal Dodge, or maybe a jump to get really clear Smother with Body: The body absorbs all the impact, but takes full damage Cricket bats: Make a Mace or Maul attack roll Teleport/Flight: Cast your spell on it and move it out of harm's way Depending on the type of grenade, simply casting a spell such as Extinguish might be enough to kill the fuse. Using RQ-style Strike Ranks, not DEX Ranks, as I am not sure how they work with DEX Ranks. There are three things to think of here, when the fuse was started, how long the fuse lasts, what the SR of the Throw is. I normally measure fuse lengths in SRs, as it makes it easier. So, someone with DEX SR 2 uses a 10 SR fuse, setting it off at SR2 and throwing it at SR 5, it would explode at SR 2 next round. Assuming it lands the next SR, the targets would have between SR6 and SR10 that round to react, or to do something on SR1 next round. Clever NPCs would wait for the end of the round to throw the grenade, as it means it explodes as it lands. However, it might be worthwhile having a fuse time of 1D6+6 or something similar, to make it a bit more random.

Catch and Throw, Kick Away, Dodge, Smother with Body. Hah! The same as mine, just 41 minutes earlier.

Voting is always good. I would encourage everyone to vote, no mater what your political beliefs. Too many people died to make the vote available to all and there are too many people in the world who cannot vote, so why not vote?

If we are talking pre-Argrath, then some of the Priests could have retired. although it could be a job for life, politics comes into play and some of them could be persuaded to live out their lives in comfort to make way for new blood. The various factions all want to get someone onto the priesthood. The Lunars have Cyrillius Harmonious, but always want to increase their influence. The Old Pavisites want all the Priests to be from their background. The Orlanthi Rebels want Priests who sympathise with them or are from Orlanthi background. The old Orlanthi, who come from families associated with Dorasor, might be aligned with the Rebels but would have a different agenda. The River folk want representation from their people. Non-aligned newcomers might want a Priest who sympathises with them. As the events leading up to the Hero Wars start to come into motion, the Priesthood needs to change and react, a bit of a problem for a cult with Stasis in its makeup. Better to change the Old Guard and bring in new Priests who are more suitable to the situation. Falling down stairs is a traditional way of changes to the Priesthood, as is wanting to spend more time with the family.

I wouldn't take the "boardgaming" approach of vectors and speeds and inertia unless that's what my players are into. That's only true if the fun is derived from the actual activity of trying to beat the other racer within the rules of the chase (as in playing an actual boardgame for the sake of playing that boardgame). For RPG gamers, especially younger ones, that's maybe not the case. Players might find their fun in what happens during the race/combat, and what the outcome is. Yes, if I ran something like the Avatar battle, I wouldn't be using vectors at all. I'd have PCs jumping onto airships through cargo doors and fighting, or flying through forests/gaps in mountains, lots of skill rolls with Penalties, high action and low referring to rules. One of the most exciting scenes that I have played was a rowing boat race across a river. The trouble is, it was near a waterfall. So, we had it on graph paper, each success meant that we could move one square, two for a special and 3 for a critical, failure meant that we didn't move and a fumble meant we either capsized or moved towards the water fall. Each round we moved one square closer to the waterfall. The Gm drew the journey onto the graph paper, so that we could see the results of several failures, as we edged closer to the waterfall, but managed to just about escape. To be honest, it didn't matter who won, the joy was in just surviving.

I used variations of the RQ2/Classic Encounter Charts for Secrets of Dorastor, so roll 1D20 and get a result, sometimes you go to a sub-table for more granular results. Due to the expanded monster sets, I tended to use encounters sich as Undead and roll on an Undead table rather than specify which kind of undead in the main table. Also, I tailored the tables for each area of Dorastor, not just for generic Wilderness, Chaos Nest, Aldryami Forest. It was both great fun and a pain in the butt to do them, but worth it in the end. That would be good. I would love one for each of the areas of Sartar, rather than just for Sartar, so one for the Praxian March, one for near Snakepipe Hollow, one for near the Dragonewts and so on.

I get Players to balance their miniatures on stacks of D6es, each D6 representing how high they are. To move, they move the stack of D6es. if they rise or fall, they change the number of D6es. If the stack falls over, Boldhome we have a problem. So, 1D6 is just above the ground, 2D6es are within thrown missile weapon range, 3D6s are within Sling range, 4D6es within bow range, 5D6es within crossbow/arbalest range and 6D6es out of range. They can change the height of a stack by 1 per round, unless diving, in which case they can change by 2 per round. It seems to work reasonably well.

Yes there will. Soon is relative, though. I could use the excellent Classic Layout provided by Master Gollum, but that means that I cannot make amendments to it. If I used the Word-converted version of the Classic Layout, I need to reformat it and work through the off way that me PDF to Word converter has done the conversion. It will take a month to do, I think. But, layout is difficult and boring, at least for me. I have something I need to finish off first, then I will start working on the POD for Secrets of Dorastor.

Reginald Quinton Fogey, if you please.

What is RuneQuest and what is Glorantha? Am I new enough?

I am currently running a Dark Ages Prydain, set in and around Pengwern, the childhood home of Arthur. The PCs are the adopted wards of the local petty king's stewards and a year or so younger than Arthur. So far, they have been to the Cave of Beasts in the Underworld, helped Arthur find a magical sword in a stone, helped crown Arthur, befriended the old Man in the Marsh and gained the aid of his dead warriors, helped a giant, rescued a princess from a tower, defeated a Saxon wizard, defeated a Fae Queen of the Sea, befriended the sons of Lot, fought battles in Pengwern and Rheged, gained the Lost Eagle from Caledonia, brokered a peace between Arthur and many of the kingdoms and founded a Brotherhood of Man set around a circular table. We are using a variant of the Revolution D100 skills/traits (+10% per Trait, multiple Traits allowed) with a little magic, but not a great deal. Probably more like HeroQuest in nature than RuneQuest, more combat than I have been used to having, but not a fight every session.

Another 5* Review for Secrets of Dorastor, bringing it to thirteen 5* Reviews: Bought this a while back and have been digesting it. Full disclosure, I was one of the authors early victims in RQ, but if I didn't love the product I wouldn't rate it, just politely ignore it. The book is not ready to play, and that is a strength. instead the author provides information on creatures, personalities and items, together with scenario hooks that any decent gm would be able to see possibilities in. i knew a few things here already, as I had used them in my campaigns having seen how interesting they were (the spirit warriors are a boon to the time strapped gm). Open the book at random to any page (well amost , i just did it and got a full page picture) and you will have interesting details on something, together with clever scenario ideas, many of which are laugh out loud funny in the deviousness. Dorastor is an awful place. Enjoy.

Another 5* Review for Secrets of Dorastor, bringing it to thirteen 5* Reviews: Bought this a while back and have been digesting it. Full disclosure, I was one of the authors early victims in RQ, but if I didn't love the product I wouldn't rate it, just politely ignore it. The book is not ready to play, and that is a strength. instead the author provides information on creatures, personalities and items, together with scenario hooks that any decent gm would be able to see possibilities in. i knew a few things here already, as I had used them in my campaigns having seen how interesting they were (the spirit warriors are a boon to the time strapped gm). Open the book at random to any page (well amost , i just did it and got a full page picture) and you will have interesting details on something, together with clever scenario ideas, many of which are laugh out loud funny in the deviousness. Dorastor is an awful place. Enjoy.

To be honest, I normally make that kind of thing up on the fly, as they happen, but that is not much help to you. Perhaps a way to communicate with Dragons or draconic creatures, friendship with draconic creatures, gaining the Dragon Rune or Dragonewt Rune, gaining some draconic powers, that kind of thing. Maybe HeroQuesting back to the Dragonewt Dream, if the Dragonkill is too scary for the Adventurers. I like HeroQuesting, so try to include it where I can. A forgotten deity might be a Hero whose followers were killed in the Dragonkill, a demigod who lost favour, an aspect which was shed by a major deity and hidden away. This can be something completely new and made up, or something from history or an old myth, maybe a Hero cult or Spirit cult. There are lots of ways of doing it and it can give the Adventurers an edge. On a basic level, they can get a new Spirit Magic spell or Runespell out of it, but they could develop the cult, bring it into a main cult as a SubCult or run with it and use it as a stepping-stone to a more heroic status. That description begs several questions. Was it there before the Black Glass was ruined? Did it protect the Black Glass and prevent it from being destroyed? Was the Black Glass even part of the Dragonkill or does it have a different origin? It sounds like Dragonkill might have been the cause, though. It certainly sounds like a genius loci, but might be a manifestation of a power, or the Black Glass is a manifestation of the deity. It could provide shadow magic, cold magic, glass magic, maybe something to do with Lodril/Argan Argar/Only Old One. Those are the kind of questions that I would be asking as a GM.

RuneQuest 3 had some prices for buildings etc, but the prices probably need adjusting for RQG economics. If you use a Time and Materials approach, you take the cost of the raw materials plus the cost of the labour, but that means that you need to work that kind of thing out. Using magical experts helps, so a member of a builder cult might be useful, so a Flintnail cultist might speed things up. Buying your way in is a time-honoured way of becoming a noble. It also raises the possibility of being thought as being new money and looked down on my current or hereditary nobility. Sure, I know that Orlanthi don't really have hereditary nobility, but they do have nobles whose parents were nobles and children would be expected to become nobles.

This could be a mixture of normal investigation/clearing out of ruins and some more stuff. What are normally in Ruins? RuneQuest Classic has some pretty nifty D20 encounter tables for different and the ones for Ruins could give you some ideas of what could be there. I would map out the ruins and include various things in the areas, rolling on the encounter tables when setting them up, or choosing what is there. Ghouls and other undead are a challenge, Rubble Runners less so for experienced Adventurers. Black Glass Ruins? Sounds as though a True Dragon breathed over it, so you might have a lot of angry or confused ghosts. There might be Black Glass to mine, or Crystals to find. Maybe some Draconic secrets buried beneath the ruins, or a lost shrine to a forgotten deity. maybe pilgrims come from far away to try to find the shrine, or just to honour the dead, what do the Adventurers do about that? Can they HeroQuest back to the Dragonkill and find out what happened there? Who currently lives there? Do the Adventurers need to kick them out? Do they come back looking for revenge? Do other Adventurers/bandits/outlaws come along and try to take it over? Is it big enough for more than one group to live there? Can the Adventurers fortify it or rebuild it in some way?

Summons of Evil is actually mid-way between a Runespell and a HeroQuest. It ritually summons an enemy of the clan to fight. That sounds awfully like a HeroQuest to me and, as a GM, that's how I would play it. However, I am biased, as i think of lots of things as potential HeroQuests. It works equally well as a spell to summon an enemy.

That sounds really interesting, thanks.