Nick Brooke

Who says it isn't?

Here’s what Jeff said last summer on the RuneQuest Facebook group.

Re: the lost legions, the Netflix show Barbarians is all about them! And my notes on Tarndisi’s slaughter-grove in the back of The Duel at Dangerford were inspired by Joerg’s pagan ancestors’ excesses.

I’m only doing my job, @Agentorange. When people seek clarification about the programme I help to run, don’t be surprised when I turn up. When the FAQ says, in so many words, “please don’t waste our time with niggling hypotheticals,” don’t be surprised if I sound irritable when I learn that’s exactly what you’re doing. The other link @Rodney Dangerduck was asking after is the Jonstown Compendium FAQ. A third useful resource is the community content agreement itself (inc. the checkboxes you tick when you publish). Handy reference copies of those three documents are at the back of my reasonably-priced Jonstown Compendium Catalogue 2021, or you can of course look them up online for nowt. Here’s something you can do that would be completely A-OK by us: write a scenario where Orlanthi woodworking is involved. Introduce a NPC Orlanthi carpenter. Say in their intro or statblock or wherever that [Name] is an Orlanth initiate in the minor subcult of Orstan the Carpenter. Stick in a footnote saying “For everything we know about Orstan, see Thunder Rebels p.235f and the Book of Heortling Mythology p.38ff.” Job done. Anyone interested can pick up those books, in the store or on eBay or wherever. Don’t all rush at once. Then introduce the extra details that are relevant to your scenario: they’re a friend of the local Aldryami (who have gone feral), or they’re the master crafter needed to raise a new barn in the next valley over (but those bastards are feuding with us), or their tools have been stolen by those wicked chaotic Broo or Lunars or whoever (who are using them for perverted non-carpentry-related purposes of their own). If you want to include a heroquest, expand any of the existing Orstan myths (such as they are) into fully-detailed heroquest stations. If you want to introduce a magic item made from wood by Orstan, just go for it: “Legends say that the Throne of Colymar was carved by Orstan himself.” If you want to assert that Orlanthi carpenters have magic that lets them straighten wood, or smooth away knots, or whatever, or have ritual obligations they undertake on behalf of the community, just narrate it. My Gloranthan Manifesto has a top tip on how to bat away annoying player questions about NPC magic. (“No, the only way you could learn to do that is if you were working full-time as a carpenter, which you aren’t (yet). Let me know if you want this character to retire and spend the next decade learning carpentry battle-magic spells.”) To the extent that you are creatively engaging with this earlier, albeit now non-canonical material, Chaosium is likely to smile on your efforts. To the extent you are trying to reissue chunks of our older books via the community content programme, Chaosium is likely to frown on them. That’s why I keep urging creators to write something that’s new, original, creative and playable, rather than “updating“ prior publications for different rulesets. The latter is not what the community content programme is for, and we have frequently said so, to get the message across. I hope this is clear. I’ll happily answer specific questions if you can show me what you’re working on.

This is why the FAQ includes a comment about time-wasting rules-lawyers who have no intention of publishing but enjoy wasting other people’s time. In both cases the intent of the programme is clear (“don’t just copy our books/games, write something original instead”), but for some reason folk like to pretend they’re going to invest time and effort in exploiting a perceived edge case. If anyone spots a genuine question or concern in the rest of this thread, let me know.

You can give your own original stuff away via the Jonstown Compendium. We don’t recommend it, as a rule, but you don’t have to commercialise what you’re creating. You just have to create something original.

They’re all acceptable sources. You can’t just copy or paraphrase any of them. You have to write something original, instead.

Well, other examples are possible. I used a moderately-obscure myth from the Glorious ReAscent of Yelm in my Black Spear mini-campaign, and Michael O’Brien kindly allowed me to reprint that myth, in its entirety, as part of my book. I asked; I got permission. That’s how it works. (Same goes for everything else I got permission to use. The whole list takes up two pages at the front of the book) Pro tip: to screen out those niggly-wriggly types, you’ll most likely need to demonstrate what you’re intending to do with our stuff, at least until you have a track record of successful community content publications. And we’ve told you not to “update” Hero Wars books, so please don’t show us that that’s what you’re planning to do. You surely know how to contact us by now.

That’s for you to answer, not me.

Of course you can. But you can’t do it by simply copying or paraphrasing someone else’s book. We aren’t stopping you using those obsolete names that nobody will recognise in your original community content creations. You just have to write something original that uses them.

To be clear: when we said "don't update or convert our books," we are ruling out lateral conversions from Hero Wars / HeroQuest 1e or 2e / QuestWorlds to (either supported version of) RuneQuest or to 13th Age Glorantha, and vice versa, as well as vertical conversions in any direction (e.g. from Hero Wars to QuestWorlds, HeroQuest 1e to QuestWorlds, RuneQuest 1e / 3e / [Mongoose / Mythras] to RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha or RuneQuest Classic, etc.). I'm including the Mongoose & Design Mechanism editions for clarity: you can't use any of that on the Jonstown Compendium. Please don't waste your time rewriting Thunder Rebels as a RuneQuest supplement, or Barbarian Adventures as a RuneQuest campaign, or anything along those lines. Write something original, creative and new instead! You can use names and cross-reference material from older Chaosium and Moon Design books, including obscure stuff like the Stafford Library or decanonised and no-longer-available stuff like the Hero Wars and HeroQuest books, but you can't quote or paraphrase it at any length. We don't want you to do that; it's not what the community content programme is for. I hope this is clear. If you have any other questions, just ask. I'd hate anyone to get the wrong end of the stick.

As well as simple cut’n’pasting, excessive paraphrasing is also out. You need to write a lot of original, creative material without quoting or rewriting Thunder Rebels. (You can cross-reference it, of course, or not bother doing that: it’s your book, after all.) Some extra guidance: The limit on duplicated text includes paraphrasing — that is, restating or summarizing the ideas and content from an existing work in your own words. If you find yourself summarizing a single work for more than one or two standard-length paragraphs in a row, you are paraphrasing too much. Instead, point the reader to the original work you’re referencing and move on to your own material building off that source. You can spread your paraphrases around in your project, but if all the summaries of any single source add up to more than a full page or two in your book, you are summarizing too much from that one source. Cut the summaries back and point the reader to the original. “Originally published by Issaries” makes no difference, here. Like all of Greg Stafford’s Gloranthan IP, the old Issaries, Inc. books are owned by Moon Design, and you can’t simply copy or paraphrase them into your JC title. (Please don’t do the wriggly thing, I hate to see it.)

Oh, I thought your example spell was meant to be a bad example. (“Like a crap version of Mobility plus a highly-limited Coordination spell, only it’s variable, so you can break your game with a large enough version.”)

Spirit cults are more varied, but also much less reliable and consistent, than formalised temple cults. If you were somehow to worship Chalana Arroy via a spirit cult, you would certainly have to take taboos matching the usual cult restrictions, and you wouldn't get access to the full range of Chalana Arroy's Rune spells. (And no, you wouldn't "just" get the most powerful Rune spell, either). I think it's more likely a shaman would worship a CA cult spirit or entity via spirit cult worship ("an aspect of Chalana Arroy," if you like), to get the one Rune spell their congregation was after at that particular point in time. And yes, while a shaman can teach any spirit magics they can teach to their followers, there's only one shaman heading up each spirit cult congregation, and they aren't exactly dependable people. If you want to learn a spell they aren't already set up to teach you, they'll have to go hunting for it in the Spirit World, and you will owe them big time for that favour -- if they decide to put in the effort, that is. And if the shaman dies, or cuts you off, or loses interest in maintaining the spirit cult and does something else instead, then you've got nothing. The depth and resilience of an established cult could start to look more attractive under those circumstances. Simon @soltakss points out that knowledge of Auld Wyrmish was originally a stolen cult secret. I'll just mention the "eradication of all human life in Dragon Pass"-level consequences that resulted from it. And the OP @Agentorange asks "Can I make up new spirit magic spells?" (Yes). "Can any new spirit magic spells I make up be taught by shamans, whether it's done via a spirit cult or otherwise?" (Yes). "What if I make up a silly new spell and it breaks my game?" (Then it sucks to be you). Your Glorantha Will Vary, remember? Embrace it!

If you mean “can a shaman steal a unique cult spirit magic spell - like Chalana Arroy’s Sleep spell, say, or the Lunar College of Magic’s Meteor Swarm - and teach it to all and sundry via a spirit cult,” the answer is “not without serious consequences.” Apart from that, knock yourself out. Spirit cults are an opportunity to be creative. If you do something silly, that’s your fault.

In my Glorantha, you don’t necessarily have to be a full shaman (with a fetch etc.) to end up running a spirit cult. Sometimes you just need to be very lucky (or unlucky) following a chance spirit encounter. (But my Glorantha will vary, and I do like spirit cults and accidents)

Adamantine = over 5,000 sales on DriveThruRPG. Thresholds.

Yes. Shamans can access all sorts of Rune spells through spirit cult worship. You’re reading this right.

By popular demand*, you can now pick up a cheap paperback edition of the Collected Thoughts of Chairman Nick. (The PDF version is still free, of course.) Packed with my profoundly un-canonical ramblings about playing RuneQuest, the wonderful Lunar Empire, those good chaps in Sun County, that terrible Argrath fellow, some songs, and my memories of Greg Stafford. 212 page 6x9 inch B&W paperback for $6.95. * I'm popular, and I demanded it.

Final update. The Miskatonic Repository Catalogue now contains all releases from the community content store's first five years, with over 1,030 items listed, and will no longer be updated.

I done did do that, and they’ve been approved, so now they’re on their way to the printers. (Naturally I saw a typo immediately afterwards: it is the way)

I’ll be sending the print files off to OneBookShelf tomorrow.

That's the map I always use (by Darya Makarava, after William Church). It's a shame it doesn't show any roads or the Glowline (or indeed any less visible borders), but it's gorgeous and legible and takes me back to my roots in RQ2. You can buy it as a poster print or in any number of other formats at Chaosium's RedBubble store: LINK. The royal roads of Sartar are as shown here: LINK. And there's a northern map extension* that covers the Lunar Provinces, Sylila and most of Balazar: LINK. * I'm an old Civilization boardgame player, forgive me.

1. That’s hunting, not warfare. (Usually.) Honour isn’t relevant. 2. That’s about honourable Yanafali using the Crimson Bat. Not about fighting it. People often get hung up on “not honourable” vs. “dishonourable.” Nobody is going to celebrate the Praxian khans who cut deals with Chaos Broo to take down their rivals, but they haven’t acted with dishonour by doing so.