MOB

Pledge levels are "In the tribe", "Lay member", "Initiate", "Rune Lord", "Rune Priest", "Rune Lord-Priest" and "High Priest". As to what is offered at each level, you'll have to wait until Friday...

As I've just posted over on the Glorantha forum, the Kickstarter launch is this Friday (11/27) - Moon Design is bringing the iconic RuneQuest 2nd edition rulebook back into print, kicking off the celebrations for the 50th Anniversary of Glorantha in 2016!

I think a lot of people will be excited to hear that the Kickstarter launch is this Friday (11/27) - Moon Design is bringing the iconic RuneQuest 2nd edition rulebook back into print, kicking off the celebrations for the 50th Anniversary of Glorantha in 2016!

Maybe it's just the dragon reproductive strategy? Could be like that of sea turtles or other creatures that produce lots and lots of offspring but with only a few surviving all the way to adulthood... Going with Sandy's notion that dragonewts are in fact just manifestations of the eggs' dreams, it's the clutches of eggs in Dragon Pass that the True Dragons care about, not individual dragonewts per se.

This is nice: http://basicroleplaying.org/topic/4125-coc7th-edition-printing-has-commenced/?do=findComment&comment=63782

Such a thing happens at the Sun Dome Temple in Prax at Sacred Time during the Great Winter (aka the Wind Stop). The customary rituals to renew the world utterly fail, the aged high priest collapses at the High Altar, spilling the sacred libation, and the shocked celebrants are unable to symbolically awaken the high earth priestess. Meanwhile, a creeping rot spreads from the spilled libations to the sacrificial food offerings (and is later found to have spread to the granaries). Evil spirits began to assail the assembled worshippers, and in horror they realize some in the crowd are actually the undead of Nontraya; those who had already died of hunger. The Sun Domers only prevail by desperately enacting Yelmalio's Last Light Heroquest. A part of this involves traveling to the Old Sun Dome, where they find the ruins swarming with vengeful wraiths and ghosts of Sun Folk who have died of hunger. In the blackened temple crypt, a host of undead assail the heroquesters: the animated remains of yet others who had starved, who are being driven at them by demons with scorpion whips. Later, the dog-headed god Jajagappa and his pack suddenly swarm into the crypt, seeking to drag the Yelmalian heroquesters to Hell. But Count Solanthos, his light sons and their allies successfully fight off Jajagappa, proving they are indeed worthy of the strongest god of light to live in the Darkness. They move on to the next stage of their quest, leaving the dog-headed Hunter of Souls and his Hell Hounds to gorge themselves on the undead infesting the ruins.

If it's RQ2 you're playing, I heartily endorse Borderlands for a beginning campaign! The sequential nature of the adventures also make it an easy experience for a GM new to RQ. From there, the less structured adventures on offer in Pavis & Big Rubble could follow on (though save the very high-powered Cradle for much later!) "River of Cradles" is RQ3, but its not very hard to switch between the two editions. The Troubled Waters scenario is like Borderlands, actually a set of linked adventures, and also excellent for beginning characters. As noted above, River of Cradles, Sun County, Shadows on the Borderlands and Strangers in Prax all then flow very nicely.

Speaking of the Gods War... Sandy has just posted this on the Glorantha G+ site, worth repeating here: "I am now moving almost full steam ahead on Gods War (there are still some balance tests left for Cthulhu Wars Onslaught Two, but not much). So Gods War is a thing now. Takes place during the Great Darkness, though it starts off in the Lesser Darkness. Usually the Spike explodes during the second turn, occasionally the third. The core factions are Chaos, Darkness, Sky, and Storm, featuiring as their chief gods Raglagar, Kyger Litor, Yelm, and Orlanth. Of course."

"Forgotten Secrets of Glorantha" - the title says it all. This is the chapbook produced by the The Kraken, "the baroque gathering of international gamers" that takes place at Schloss Neuhausen, a Prussian Château (Chaosium was well-represented this year, with Jeff, Neil, Sandy and I all in attendance). This book features an illustrated transcript of Sandy Petersen's wide-ranging and entertainingly discursive seminar from Kraken 2014. Available from Glorantha.com: http://www.glorantha.com/product/forgotten-secrets-of-glorantha

Yep, we'll be announcing it there soon, very prominently, once we have all the right pieces in place to go. But happy to give everyone on BRP Central the inside running...

BTW, Chaosium now has a company page on Linked In. Another way to catch up on the latest developments: http://www.linkedin.com/company/chaosium

Our patient backers get first priority, but we are currently working out the details on a fulfillment and distribution model for Australia and New Zealand which will expedite and reduce shipping costs. This includes supporting FLGSs here.

Shipping will be early in the new year, but we can't be more accurate than that at this stage

But surely you can still talk about all the same non-Chaosium game lines as before? Nothing has changed on that front at all. As Rick said, we don't fear other gaming efforts or other game companies, nor do we want to drive away "evil competition"TM. Saying Greg and Sandy "gave the company to someone else" isn't a very fair or accurate way of describing what happened earlier this year at Chaosium. For a start, Moon Design Publications bought shares to join Chaosium - the company wasn't given away. And Greg and Sandy are still actively involved, as co-owners, creative consultants and board members. Greg - the founder of the company - is also Chairman of the Board. You could hardly call the new day-to-day management team (Rick, Jeff, Neil and myself) interlopers - we've all had longstanding personal and professional associations and collaborations with Greg, Sandy and others at Chaosium; my own go back to the 1980s. And as Rick has also said elsewhere, we're providing the money out of our personal pockets to sort out Chaosium's Kickstarter problems (as well as numerous other debts) in order to save the company we love and grew up with. We admire that Chaosium has always set a high benchmark for artistry and imagination, and this is something Rick, Neil, Jeff and I want to help continue and grow. We're honored to join Greg and Sandy in the band.

Last Friday, Rick was delighted to let our Kickstarter backers know that the presses have now started rolling for Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition! Printing has commenced on the internal pages, with printing of the covers to start next week. The printing process will take at least 6 weeks. Shipping from Hong Kong to our fulfillment centers in the US, Europe, and Australia begins immediately thereafter. We're looking at setting up links to "follow the shipping containers as they sail across the ocean" as other Kickstarters have done. Meanwhile, we haven't forgotten about the other stretch goal rewards, curiosity shoppe add-ons, and their status - Rick will be sending further updates to the Kickstarter backers soon. And - because we know our backers love to see progress in photos more than words - courtesy of the printers, here are some more mock-ups we shared including a demo Keeper Screen and the Slipcase:

And here's Aethercon's Chaosium interview, with Jeff Richard, Mike Mason and MOB (me), discussing recent developments

Chaosium is running two Call of Cthulhu games at AetherCon, the Online Tabletop RPG Convention coming up on the weekend of November 13th-15th: "Force of Will", with GM Mike Mason and "The Haunting", with GM Jon Hook. Jeff, Mike Mason and MOB (billed as "The Chaosium Trio") will also be participating in a Live Publisher Q&A session with a focus on what's happening with Call of Cthulhu 7th Ed and recent developments at Chaosium. Mike is also on the "Save vs Insanity: the Masters of Horror" panel, and MOB is participating in the "Writer's Block: Getting Started as a Writer in the Gaming Industry" panel. It all takes place online, so anyone anywhere can participate and it would be great to see you there! Full details and registration info at the Aethercon website

Well, we can add that the Lunar Coders ("Strangers in Prax") were present during the Cradle episode. They were working in concert with (but somewhat independent of) Sor Eel's command. The Coders were one of the Lunar parties that boarded the Cradle after it was temporarily beached at Pavis. They eagerly wanted to understand the Cradle's secrets for the good of the empire, but also sought to protect the life of the giant baby (after the Cradle was secured, Princess Anderida intended for the infant to be taken into the care of a Teelo Norri orphanage, and raised to serve the Red Goddess). However, they were horrified to discover another Lunar party, sent on board by Sor Eel's intelligence chief Gim-gim the Grim, intended to kill it.After the Cradle was heroically refloated by its defenders, Count Julan and Princess Anderida were seen making their escape from the deck on wyverns, while Maculus was plucked away by a strange pedal-powered hang-glider. Nose Ring and Eslas the Tracker were nowhere to be seen, but all the members of Gim-Gim's party washed up dead on the riverbanks the next morning.In the final battle at Corflu, Maculus led the efforts to animate the Watchdog statue, while Count Julan led the wyvern riders on their aerial assault on the Cradle. When he and Anderida dropped to the decks, Nose Ring and Eslas came up to join them in the fight. Hidden below, they had learned much about the Cradle and its secrets on their journey downriver...[And I will leave the rest of the story for telling later!]

You'll note there's a new BRP Central - Chaosium header here, and a link to Chaosium.com. And now there's a link to BRP Central in the menu over at Chaosium.com too. Many thanks everyone for your helpful feedback and support as we make this transition!

No change to what exists here already. We're no longer maintaining the forums on Moon Design's glorantha.com site; instead, basicroleplaying.org will now serve as one of our primary means of communication, discussion and feedback with fans of Chaosium games. After all, this is where many of them are! Once again, many thanks to Sverre (Trifletraxor) for facilitating such a great site.

BRP Central (basicroleplaying.org) is the new official online forum for Chaosium, company president Rick Meints announced today. "Since day one the new Chaosium team has stated that one of our core commitments is to communicate better with our tribe: our Kickstarter backers, our creatives, our players, and our fans," said Meints. "We want to listen, get your feedback, and be a part of discussing all of our games with you, the people who make Chaosium what it is, and who want to help make it better than ever before." Please note the forums at Glorantha.com will no longer remain active. Instead, (as you can no doubt see here on the site) BRP Central now features a dedicated Chaosium Family of Games section, with forums for Call of Cthulhu, Glorantha, RuneQuest Gateway, BRP, Magic World, and more! "Many thanks to BRP Central guru and adminstrator Trifletraxor for his generous support of this initiative!", said Michael O'Brien ("MOB"), Chaosium VP for Product Development and Community Outreach.