Nick Brooke

Updated again on 20 December, for the penultimate time: now contains 1,018 entries. I hope you've found something you've enjoyed on the Miskatonic Repository this year, whether or not the Catalogue helped. Please consider leaving a rating or even a short review for any title you were particularly impressed by: it's greatly appreciated by authors, artists and other potential customers. I'll wrap up this version of the Catalogue on 31 December 2022, and will be back with something fresh in the New Year.

Updated again, with two new releases: The Way: Paths of Enlightenment, by Paul Baker @Exubae. A supplement to the Kralori Primer, this covers two aspects of Eastern philosophy: mysticism and martial arts. As is his wont, the author expands on previous material, covers a lot of ground via short-form writeups (in this case, monastic traditions and martial arts techniques), and provides a detailed setting inc. local maps, history and customs to show how this works in practice (the Twisting Leopard School and its personnel, statted for RuneQuest). Appendices include a couple of pages of RQ stats for martial arts weapons, which will doubtless appeal to those who are gung-ho for pandybats. $12.00 for 66 pages. A Weather Eye Open, by Drew Baker (no relation). A 38-page system for creating weather almanacs and climate tables, that comes bundled with eight pregenerated examples covering Dragon Pass and Prax, each of which includes two years’ worth of randomly-generated weather tables. At least you’ll have something to talk about... The Indagos Bull and The White Upon the Hills are already Copper best-sellers (more than fifty sold). Note that Matthew Pook @pookie covers many recent Jonstown Compendium scenarios (including these) at his Reviews from R'lyeh blog, with five new reviews already in December.

I’m looking forward to having an “official” set of heroquesting rules, as that’ll give me yet another set of expectations to subvert when I keep on running heroquests my way.

Poison Ivy; Swamp Thing. There you go. They used to be human, but are now part Plant and able to access the collective consciousness of the Green.

As Greg Stafford would doubtless say, "Yes." 😜

Updated again, with details of the new print edition of The Children of Hykim by Brian Duguid @Brian Duguid: $30.99 standard colour or $45.99 premium colour hardcover. The digital edition has been updated to match the (revised and expanded) print edition, so download it again from DriveThruRPG -- and why not leave a rating or even a review while you're doing that? Plus two beautiful poster campaign maps by Dario Corallo: Dorastor (€2.00) and Pamaltela (PWYW / €1.00). Finally, there's less than two weeks to submit your ratings and reviews of 2022 releases to DriveThruRPG before this year's Jonstown Compendium Catalogue heads to the printers... if you picked up something wonderful a while back but didn't leave a rating because you hadn't yet read or played through it, why not do it now? Our authors, artists and potential customers will thank you!

Chaosium's advice to Martin, Scott, Hannu, and anyone else who asks has been to use the twenty pages of Seafaring rules from the Basic Roleplaying book Magic World as a stopgap until something is published for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. Those rules are basically what was in Avalon Hill's RuneQuest 3rd edition Game Master's Book; minor tweaks needn't concern us. And -- unlike RQ3 -- they're readily available in digital format from DriveThruRPG: 272 pages of BRP goodness for just $2.99. The Jonstown Compendium FAQ has useful advice on writing new rules (only where they support playable material, please), borrowing rules from other systems (don't ever do it, they don't belong to you), reprinting RuneQuest rules (don't ever do it, we're in business to sell our own books after all), and so on and so forth.

Heh. There isn’t a King unless he marries the Queen. And if he ignores what the Queen wants, he might not be King for long. But there are things a King can do (wielding sovereignty) that the Queen can’t (embodying sovereignty). Which is a bit gender-essentialist, but those are the toys Greg was playing with. FHQs are intrinsically less dynamic than KoDPs.

There’s already a JC release by Paul Baker called Hsunchen of the East that may have some of what you’re after: it details the Yak, Tiger and Deer hsunchen of the Kralorelan/Teshnan borderlands. I know that Brian reviewed works by Paul Baker, Jamie Revell (Bearwalkers) and others while pulling his own book together: that’s what makes it “magisterial.” (You mean that words… have meaning?? Whoah!)

In the nineties, Greg Stafford clearly thought Sorcery was the magic of the mundane, material, measurable world, predictable and repeatable… which is to say, Science. I’m sure there are exciting new ideas waiting to be discovered, and possibly even a few Issaries-era novelties that haven’t yet been repudiated, but I really enjoyed collaborating with him back in the day, so that’s still where I pitch my tent. YGWV.

He’s painted blue to look like his god.

If you're doing this on the Jonstown Compendium, do not copy the rules from another game: the publishers of Blood and Plunder won't be happy, and nor will Chaosium. Our FAQ clearly tells you not to do this, and if we learn of any violations we will take whatever actions are necessary to protect the programme.

Reconciling the HQ-era sources (at the risk of adding to the confusion), it’s plausible that future king Orlgandi was present in King Korlmar’s army and took a lead role in desecrating the sacred Greydog Inn. The bastard. Unliving Armies erupt from the Upland Marsh every now and again. We’re kinda used to it. The notable thing about the Raid of 1592 is that they trashed our holy of holies, the bastards. That’s when every living Greydog boosted their Hate (Undead) passion. (Apart from the ones who found any excuse to blame those asshole Malani)

If your players routinely mutilate corpses as if any one of them could be Dracula, "eww." Some players have had bad experiences with previous game masters, which lead them to take absurd measures to avoid any form of cooperation with the "enemy." ("Unless we specify that we first feed every enemy corpse through Bob's Bison-burger machine and then dissolve the mince in our off-books vat of Gorp, our GM might... I dunno... do something both entertaining and reasonable to move their campaign forwards: they're forcing us to behave like psychopaths! Incidentally, did I ever tell you how my character killed all his family and friends before the game began, so as not to provide any plot hooks for the guy running it? Good times.")

Updated yet again, with two more new releases: A Lamp for Esrola, by Sven Lugar @Sven Lugar: a light-weight fetch quest to the foot of Shadow Plateau, presented with a fully-statted patron, rival and opposition, a one-page cult writeup (Fufluns, the Jolly Fat Man) and a rare treasure. Bonus: bardic verse! The scenario allows for a negotiated resolution, but violence is always an option, and the rivalries involved could make this a complex political sandbox if that’s what you prefer. $2.00 for 16 pages (PDF). Died in the Wool, by Braeden Harpool: sheep and trollball, greased trollkin and alarm beetles. Things have gone missing; tempers are easily roused; the players can get stuck in, or stay on the sidelines and enjoy the show. A joyful exploration of lore and an organic introduction to troll high culture, with ties to one of the RQ Starter Set scenarios and a surprisingly deep dive into sheep lore. $1.95 for 15 pages (PDF). These four recent scenarios (inc. The Indagos Bull and The White Upon the Hills) are all by graduates of the Storytelling Collective's Write Your First Adventure workshop (Chaosium path, RuneQuest track, November 2022).

It's probably a learning point. It's well-known that in Greg Stafford's own campaign, Starbrow's doomed rebellion kicked off prematurely (and got crushed) when his players got cocky and thought fragging occupation forces was a fun sport with no downside. (Just as the genocidal Duck Hunt happened because of anti-Duck players indulging in casual racism around Greg's table) If your players aren't teachable, it's up to you what you do when they prat around in your game. I don't think the answer is to let them think Tricksters can be relied on (Eurmal famously betrayed Orlanth in the Underworld, and Greg always said that half the time his tricks blew up in his face), or that they should always desecrate enemy corpses in specific ritual ways, because that will screw them up and make your game world an unpleasant place for anyone to inhabit. "Relife Sickness," which @French Desperate WindChild alludes to above, was introduced in the Hero Wars book Storm Tribe: (I have a theory that Arkat is the first recorded victim of Relife Sickness: he was brought back from the dead by Harmast's quest, then converted to Humakt)

One thing to bear in mind: Drew points out in Six Seasons in Sartar that (like most Empires) the Lunars commonly lean on local allies to get things done. You killed a bunch of Provincial conscripts? The Governor-General will task the King of a friendly local tribe (and his army) with sorting you out. "Lunar retribution" doesn't necessarily mean that any Lunar troops or magics are involved: King Kangharl and his trusty Colymar warband can ruin your whole day. If you're hiding out on the territory of a hostile tribe, the Lunars and their allies will lean on that tribe to get them to surrender you to imperial justice. At which point you'll start coming under the same pressure from your hosts that you would if they were your kin, except they most likely feel less of an obligation to keep you safe, now that it's their kin who are suffering for your actions.

Related: my working assumption that the beautiful fantasy city with walls and minarets on the Nomad Gods map that illustrates Corflu — gods-forsaken Corflu, of all places! — reflects a potential future of that settlement.

Updated again, with The White Upon the Hills, by Sacha Gaultier and Reece Dyer: a one- or two-session scenario set in Stael's Hills during the Great Hunt. Adventurers encounter a blighted land and an ancient mystery. Can they piece together legends and lore to trap the monster and lift the curse, or have those asshole Malani screwed everything up yet again?* There are multiple paths through the adventure, several possible resolutions, and advice on speeding up scenes if time is short. $2.95 for 22 pages (PDF). Also, I'm starting to get things in order for the 2022 Catalogue (merging this year's Index with last year's Catalogue, to cover all releases up to the end of 2022). If you want your opinions to count, please remember to rate and review your favourite Jonstown Compendium purchases on the DriveThruRPG site before year-end! My Catalogues list titles by best-seller medal rank and then by the number of five-star reviews each release has racked up, and you've been pretty slack this year... let's give those authors a nice warm cosy feeling to carry them through the bleak Midwinter, eh? * Full disclosure: the author of this Index is a proud member of the Lismelder Tribe. Greydog4Life!

Updated again, with Hydra - Adventurers from the Lunar Provinces, by Peter Hart. This is an adventurer creation supplement focused on characters serving as soldiers in the Lunar Provincial Army. Originally written to support the author’s forthcoming adventure Hydra!, the highlights of the book are the expanded family history tables and timeline covering major events in Provincial history, twenty pregenerated adventurers (each with illustration and background), and a travelogue describing one sage’s journey through the Lunar Provinces from Jonstown in Sartar to Eneal in Aggar. $7.00 for 58 pages (PDF).

Jonstown Compendium community content at Dragonmeet in London, UK: here’s our print-on-demand display, and the creators’ meet-up in the hotel bar. In the group photo, at our table, L-R: Paul Fricker (co-author of Call of Cthulhu 7e & MR creator), Stuart Mousir-Harrison (prospective JC creator), Nick Brooke (Chaosium Community Ambassador & ENnie award-winning JC creator), Martin Helsdon* (Platinum best-selling JC creator & Chaosium author), Jason Durall (RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha line editor), Diana Probst (JC creator & Chaosium author), Chris Gidlow* (ENnie award-winning JC creator), Matthew Cole (prospective JC creator) and Brian Duguid (co-founder of Tales of the Reaching Moon magazine & JC creator). * - back of head

Updated again, with two new releases: The Indagos Bull by Rob Marcus is a one-shot scenario set in Pavis County. Farmer Jyles’ prize bull goes missing just before the Earth Season County Fair, and the adventurers must investigate. The scenario is presented in a loose sandbox style with several suggested resolutions, some of them hilarious. $2.95 for 26 pages (PDF). Rubble Runners, Volume 2 by Jon Hunter is a second collection of NPCs from New Pavis and the Big Rubble. Each character is presented across two pages: typically a column each for description, RQG statblock, notes on associates and plot hooks to draw in your players. $4.99 for 37 pages (PDF).

It was obvious, really: the sixth Lightbringer, a cowardly mortal dragged way out of his comfort zone on an heroic adventure he doesn't really want to participate in, isn't "Flesh Man" -- he's Flashman.

That’s sound advice, except that @Jex wants their scenario to be included in the WYFA bundle, which is a hard deadline: