Nick Brooke

It’s also gorgeously illustrated.

Updated on 9 June 2023: Veins of Discord by "Fimirage" is a beautifully-illustrated adventure which explores the conflict between two Elder Races of Glorantha: the industrious Mostali and nature-loving Aldryami. Over the course of several seasons, adventurers get to decide which (if any) side they will support, as matters escalate from profitable side-missions to open conflict. It’s not a railroad, and there is copious GM advice on how to let the players choose their path as the situation on the ground unfolds. ($6.90 for 33 pages.) In other news, Mikael Mansen has made even more settlement maps (a Metropolis, Tree-Town and Bronze Age City), and there are photos from Chaosium's community content store at UK Games Expo last weekend.

Eff and I left another Gloranthan discussion group when the moderator decided normalising eliminationist rhetoric on Holocaust Memorial Day was absolutely fine and nothing for anybody to get upset about. I don't like the way some people push their own weird fantasies of justified genocide ("but it's authentically Bronze Age!") into Glorantha, and I dearly wish they would stop, but you simply can't reason with fanatics.

I liked the look of Hellenistika, but if it ever happens that'll be for 5e, not BRP. Still, Ken Hite and Handiwork Games make good and beautiful things, so I live in hope...

The Ones Who Walk Away From Glamour.

there is no dark side of the moon really matter of fact it’s all dark

Ahem. The Lunar Empire itself is canonically “probably one of the finest places to live” by the late Third Age. (Possibly not once it transforms into the Monster Empire, but that would depend on who you asked: Moonson Ralzakark thinks it’s dead good.)

You say “usurped,” he says “inherited.” 😈

To the best of my players’ knowledge, Vasana & Co. don’t exist in my game. Why would we care what her Saga says? It’s fiction.

If you like weirder stuff, some of the ideas in Kim Newman's The Man from the Diogenes Club short story collections are inspirational. Not just the stories themselves: there are also throwaway mentions of untold cases, like Holmes's "red leech unknown to science" etc., most of them with a strongly English/London/pop culture/weird crime vibe.

"Your Glorantha Will Vary." Ergo, your players can't ever "gotcha" your Glorantha, because it varies.

Or, if you prefer: in David Hall’s Greydog campaign, our neighbours the Hillhaven clan were old-timers led by Bofrost, a Breath Shaman of Umath. (Nowadays we’d most likely call him a kolating - an Orlanthi shaman working mostly with wind spirits - but this was the nineties and that word didn’t exist yet). One of Bofrost’s assistant shamans would be a perfectly acceptable pregen adventurer (or encounter) down Marshedge way.

Updated on 30 May 2023: The Voralans by Brian Duguid is another ethnographic tour de force. This book takes an in-depth look at the fungal Black Elves of Glorantha. Ironically, this most elusive subspecies of Aldryami (if they are even Plants!) are now the most-detailed, with a full cult writeup, bestiary of related creatures, plunder items and more. The author merges science with Runic essentials to bring us the mycelial master-race. “What the Shaman Says” is a particular delight. (83 pages for $11.99.) The Queen's Star is already a Copper best-seller (more than 50 copies sold, and six ⭐ ⭐⭐⭐⭐ reviews already!). And the Jonstown Compendium Index 2023 itself is now a Silver best-seller! (Still only $1.50 for 70 pages.)

Remember, the Grazelanders used to be the only human beings living in Dragon Pass. So you can find ancient Grazelander burial mounds, totems, wardings and other spirit places all across the region - not just in “the yellow bits on the map.” A Grazelander shaman could have ritual obligations bringing him to what are now Lismelder lands. (And a Grazeland scout can be useful in any part of the Dragon Pass wilderness.)

"I wished for a world uncontaminated by the greed and brutality of man. I wished for a world that was the perfect playground of superhuman minds. And see! It has all come to pass! And here I stand in this dreadful city of endless night. The last man. The last human being, his wishes fulfilled. Watching a black sunset."

“You’ve found a way to survive the Apocalypse we caused… you monsters!”

Thus far, there’s no evidence for that. I mean, it’s a reasonable analogy, but only die-hard Bronze Age genocide-enthusiasts have pretended that everyone in the Empire was personally corrupted by Chaos by the time Argrath’s acts raised Wakboth to the imperial throne. It has unpleasant echoes of the way nasty regimes dehumanise their enemies (“Oh, they aren’t really people, this is just pest control”), and I prefer not to play with folk who like to think that way.

Drew has it on Godsday of Movement week in Fire season in his non-canonical scenario about the Battle of Queens (chapter 3 of The Seven Tailed Wolf), so I’d use that until something better comes along.

What do you think player characters are for? "The Khan has an off-the-books job for you, it might get a bit messy..."

For my part, I adhere to @Eff's (possibly throwaway) line that the Crimson Bat is a living demonstration of how We Are All Us can work, even for the most recalcitrant enemies of the Empire. Once it devours a victim, their soul becomes one with that of the Crimson Bat. It doesn't need to go on to some dubious "eternal reward": it has attained the perfect bliss (citation required) of becoming the Steed of the Red Goddess, and is removed from the mundane cycles of the world.

They bully people they dislike, they occasionally kill people for reasons that seem spurious ("He smelled chaotic to me"), and they routinely violate tribal taboos. It's unpleasant to be around them, because they're violent and simple-minded drunks with PTSD and bad manners. The more sensible side of Praxian tribal society probably breathes a sigh of relief when Argrath marches them all off to die in Dragon Pass and the Provinces... at least, until the bill comes due. Because Chaos in Prax isn't usually "insidious social corruption" (scholars lapsing into Atyarism, criminals allying with Krarsht networks, sorcerers independently reinventing Vivamortism): it's crude and simple. There are breeding swarms of broo! scorpion men! dragonsnails! bad spirits! parts of the Devil! out there in the Wastes! They threaten our good grazing, they defile our herds! So grab your lance, straddle your steed, bellow your war-cry and CHAAARGE!!! Storm Bulls sit around for weeks or months making a nuisance of themselves, but when the call comes, they always answer. (If there are any of them left, that is: cheers, Argrath, me old mucker.)

Updated on 26 May 2023: The Queen's Star by Austin Conrad: a beautifully-presented sandbox adventure in which adventurers encounter various fallen denizens of the Sky World in a smouldering crater on the edge of Colymar lands. A very cool, partly-mythic Gloranthan “dungeon” with some fascinating inhabitants, that presents interesting opportunities for exploration, discovery and resolution, and the potential for return visits. (34 pages for $10.00); Valley of Plenty by Shawn and Peggy Carpenter is back on sale! A childhood saga for QuestWorlds set among the Dundealos tribe of eastern Sartar (the Horse-Orlanthi), we are promised an update and at least one sequel in due course. The Duel at Dangerford is a Platinum best-seller, w00t! Plus a clutch of new Maps by Mikael Mansen: the Quivin Mountains, Heortland, Skyfall Lake, Leskos and Solung. Usual mix of summer/winter, day/night, labels/none. And finally, I'll be taking $2,000-worth of print-on-demand community content books from Chaosium's community content programmes to UK Games Expo next week, and hope to see some of you at Chaosium's stall (1-1035, on the corner of Chaosium Street and Cubicle 7 Avenue).

The newer RQG material is set in Dragon Pass, so of course it also needs a Lunar perspective: everyone in Dragon Pass knows the Lunars. It’s also important not to over-emphasise Chaos, otherwise everyone turns into a D&D Alignment Dude or Warhammer fascist fanboy: the Lunars also know it’s real, and can show you how they have been safely using it for centuries. Sartar and its allies are expansionist, barbaric, and often hubristic. That does not make them “evil” any more than any other barbarian horde in human existence.

I can’t help feeling some people were happier playing D&D, with all the inherent alignment bollocks and “Detect Evil” spells.

Must be a language issue. Carry on!