Nick Brooke

Martin @M Helsdon has a toned-down version of the ergeshi in his Armies & Enemies, which is also a great source for variations between Sun Dome Temples.

Well, Jeff reckons he screwed up the helot population numbers, but there was also a lot of pushback. (Remember, this is the guy who put a contemporary cult of Elmal into S:KoH. His track record on Sun Dome related matters isn't that great!)

But is this “the original Yelmalio culture”? It’s a recent invention or discovery by Monrogh, who had visited Sun County in Prax and learned from its Templars before re-founding the Yelmalio cult in Sartar. The Praxian Sun Dome has been there for 700 years or so; the Dragon Pass Sun Dome is only half a century or so old (in its current incarnation, before that it had been a depopulated ruin since the end of the Second Age).

And I’ll mention in passing that Jeff thinks he got some stuff badly wrong in WF#15, most notably the size of the helot “ergeshi” population (of former Kitori).

Wyrms Footnotes #15 (print), Pegasus Plateau, my Gloranthan Manifesto, the old Dragon Pass board game, and some of the Sun County Backgrounds in Tales of the Sun County Militia will help you out.

Moonbroth is a dormant volcano. Very, very dormant. Honest!

Thanks, Harald! Sten, the template generator page is linked from here, you need to be logged in to your DriveThruRPG account to access it. Both hard- and softcovers need their cover art to extend throughout the “bleed,” which is bigger for the case-bound hardcovers.

Identical to the original print run, except for one tiny tweak to accommodate the Lightning Source print spec: if you notice it, let me know. These recent re-releases of older books in POD (so far I’ve prepared three books for BRP, six or seven for Call of Cthulhu and ten for 7th Sea First Edition) aren’t revised in any way. No typos have been cleaned up, no texts have been pored over, no helpful suggestions have been incorporated, and they certainly haven’t been updated to use the latest version of the rules. You need to understand that in many cases Chaosium no longer has editable versions of the original text and layout files; a few titles are reprinted from digitally scanned paper copies (NB: these all get proof-printed and quality-checked before going on sale, and if the quality isn’t good enough we won’t release). These aren’t like the RuneQuest Classics or Call of Cthulhu Classics re-issues, or Rick’s reformatted Orient Express and Antarctic books, they don’t involve OCR'd text and fresh layout. Those are prestigious, high-priority restoration projects for Chaosium; these are nice-to-haves if we can make them work, but each book should only take a few hours to prepare. That’s how we can afford to do this. If you want to wait for a new edition of Magic World, fully compatible with the (not-yet-released) ORC version of BRP, that is of course an option, and I commend your patience. In the mean time, there’s this. I hope you enjoy playing it!

Here’s a couple from the Miskatonic Repository: Nightmare in Providence Through a Dream, Darkly

Updated on 23 March 2023 with some recent developments: Three new print-on-demand releases: Edge of Empire is out in hardcover, with new cover art and a refreshed digital edition ($44.99 for 224 pages); there's a combo edition of DuckPac Books 1&2 in hardcover ($24.95+ for 140 pages), and DuckPac Book 3 is out in premium softcover ($34.99 for 136 pages). We hope to have copies of all these books at Chaosium Con next month, but it's in the hands of the printers and postal service now: wish us luck! Also, Citizens of the Lunar Empire by Chris Gidlow is now a Gold best-seller! Hail Moonson!

Small, but perfectly formed.

Why boast of previous duels, when you can boast while duelling? Inigo Montoya: “You are using Bonetti’s Defense against me, ah?” Man in Black: “I thought it fitting, considering the rocky terrain.” Inigo: “Naturally, you must suspect me to attack with Capa Ferro?” Man in Black: “Naturally, but I find that Thibault cancels out Capa Ferro. Don’t you?” Inigo: “Unless the enemy has studied his Agrippa… which I have.”

Updated on 17 March 2023: Old Pavis: The City that Time Forgot, by Ian Thomson and friends. A Silver best-seller in a few days, this eagerly-awaited second volume in the reissued Pavis & Big Rubble Companion series moves into the Big Rubble big time: the first half of the book describes the people and places of Old Pavis (with adventurer creation, new cults and organisations, and oodles of local colour), while the second half concludes the epic adventure from Volume One (plus plenty more). Highlights are the map and gazetteer of the Real City and the fully-detailed New Flintnail Temple, with 13 pages on Dwarf Drinks! $19.75 for 242 pages (and some extra bits). Applefest 2, by Graeme Atkinson. A sequel to the well-received Applefest. If you’re familiar with that adventure, you won’t be surprised to hear that this follows a three-day festival, introduces a colourful cast of VIP guests and strangers, and rings a few changes on the expected sequence of events. Whichever poor player is Thane of Apple Lane will have their hands full stopping anybody from upsetting the proverbial apple-cart... Plus: two stock art packs by Zed Nope: Tula Landmarks and Call the Fyrd! In other news, there's a new "standard colour" hardcover edition of Six Seasons in Sartar for $29.95. (The premium colour edition is still $37.95, discounted). Andrew Logan Montgomery's Platinum best-selling coming-of-age saga has been called "a deeply moving story about a community that does a magnificent job of blending together many of the elements that make RuneQuest and its world of Glorantha unique" (Shannon Appelcline). It's probably the best on-ramp for introducing new players to Greg Stafford's bronze age fantasy world of living mythology and RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

Unless they’re illuminated, of course. Like Argrath.

Or they're too smart to sign up for his absurd crusade?

Read King of Sartar p.19, David: It's natural to assume that the Wolfrunners in Argrath's Free Army are Telmori, until you read about what Argrath did to the Telmori wolfmen, and how his murderous followers wore the skins of the werewolf folk afterwards. YGWV, of course, and if you want to whitewash Argrath this would be a great place to start!

No they aren’t.

Telmori, like dogs, have a really good sense of smell. They’ve had a long association with the House of Sartar, have even intermarried with it, and can probably recognise a true heir to the line of Sartar by scent alone. Sorry, that was a bit off-topic, I can’t think of any reason why Argrath would want to murder them all.

Wasp Riders can turn up in the first episode of The Company of the Dragon, see p.110 for a description and statblock and p.114f for an encounter.

We know from the Secret History of Sun County that Lady Vega Goldbreath, Guardian of Sun County and head of the Sun County Militia, was best buddies with Kallyr Starbrow, a plucky Orlanthi rebel type (now sadly deceased after royally screwing the pooch in a calamitous Lightbringers Quest). In the Secret History, it was suggested that Vega might therefore encourage the use of other Orlanthi rebel types to do non-traditional police work around Sun County (i.e. give jobs to traditional player character types), possibly getting suitable candidates recommended by Krogar Wolfhelm and other dodgy types from the nearby wretched hive of scum and villainy. Now we know that the Goldbreath Dynasty has its own experimental militia programme in Sandheart District, though... well, you can join the dots as easily as I can.

If you're into community content, I think I remember seeing a writeup of their cult by Simon Phipp in Ian Thomson's New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever.

Well, in my outline the adventurers would all be free, and would have chosen to come to Glamour the way kids IRL travel to London, NYC, Hollywood or Vegas: it’s where they think they can achieve their fullest potential, a place where they think they won’t be held back by their parents’ dull, traditional lack of aspiration. But by all means you do you.

Not “forever,” only until they die (or are otherwise obliterated / mutated / spindled, folded and mutilated). It’s Call of Cthulhu, that shouldn’t take long. NB: If you’re playing Pulp, a bit of protoplasmic weird science / robot limbs / experimental Frankenstein surgery might help. Just putting that out there. I’m sure there won’t be any complications, it’s not as if we’re all telling horror stories here.

I was sketching out a campaign premise -- the adventurers would be young kids coming to the big city from all parts of the Empire, and meeting up for the first time when they become roommates. As well as running errands as a group which take them to different parts of the city (exploring the Glamour map the same way David Scott suggests unpacking Apple Lane: a little at a time, in an episodic TV-series style), they'd also get embroiled in personal stories through their different day-jobs (e.g. the Esrolian political refugee could begin as a make-up artiste and theatrical understudy, only to end up taking a lead role when something happens to the star of the show; the tough Rathori kid starts out in fighting-pit security and clean-up, before achieving gladiatorial greatness); I'd sprinkle the Insula's adventure hooks around generously, and develop relationships with the other residents if players wanted to; there'd have been sundry Carmanian and even Arrolian machinations (because I'm me), but the game would start out very much at street level before the inevitable invitation to provide entertainment at the City of Dreams. For my game, I'd have treated that as like stepping into Faerie, or a heroquest -- visiting an incredibly dangerous party on the Other Side, among a glittering host of the great and good, with lasting, life-warping consequences if you accept any gifts or pleasures from the denizens. Proper Goblin Market stuff. That could then warp the second arc of the campaign, with visits to noble estates and ruined sorcerer's towers in the Horns of the City, political shenanigans in Halfway, the Senate and the Temple of Peace, and the cults of the Emperor and Glamour becoming ever more prominent. And some adventurers might be working towards secret goals (getting access to hard-to-reach people or places). But my lockdown players asked me to run Masks of Nyarlathotep instead, bless' em, which saved me a crap-tonne of work. Thanks, players!