Nick Brooke

I've reviewed your book (⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐), and added it to the Jonstown Compendium Index: A second collection of plunder for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. All of these treasures originated in the fabled Second Age, being creations of the sorcerous Middle Sea Empire, the draconic Empire of the Wyrms Friends, or stranger powers yet: a handful even come from distant Pamaltela. An opening chapter has rules allowing any adventurer to swear mighty vows and gain powerful boons, effectively creating their own gifts and geases or heroquest rewards. After that are thirty new magic items, each described using the classic Plunder format. Every item is woven into Gloranthan myth and history: many are unique (e.g. Alakoring’s sword Dragonbreaker; Tolat’s Red Sword of Victory), some are more common (potions of Liquid Hate, brewed from distilled tears; Mythographic Wheels, running permutations of mythology as they spin), others can vary in power (did you merely inhale the breath of a True Dragon, or the greater Inner Breath of Arangorf?), and most bring as many potential complications as advantages to their users. Reading this collection provides many valuable insights into the wonders of the lost Second Age, the abuses of the God Learners and the perils of Draconic self-mutilation. The book is beautifully illustrated throughout, comparable to Chaosium’s own publications; one picture of the Machine God Zistor is a work in progress sketch, and I can’t wait to see it finished!

Updated again: Treasures of Glorantha, Volume Two: Relics of the Second Age, by Austin Conrad & Friends. A second collection of plunder for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. All of these treasures originated in the fabled Second Age, being creations of the sorcerous Middle Sea Empire, the draconic Empire of the Wyrms Friends, or stranger powers yet: a handful even come from distant Pamaltela. An opening chapter has rules allowing any adventurer to swear mighty vows and gain powerful boons, effectively creating their own gifts and geases or heroquest rewards. After that are thirty new magic items, each described using the classic Plunder format. Every item is woven into Gloranthan myth and history: many are unique (e.g. Alakoring’s sword Dragonbreaker; Tolat’s Red Sword of Victory), some are more common (potions of Liquid Hate, brewed from distilled tears; Mythographic Wheels, running permutations of mythology as they spin), others can vary in power (did you merely inhale the breath of a True Dragon, or the greater Inner Breath of Arangorf?), and most bring as many potential complications as advantages to their users. Reading this collection provides many valuable insights into the wonders of the lost Second Age, the abuses of the God Learners and the perils of Draconic self-mutilation. The book is beautifully illustrated throughout, comparable to Chaosium’s own publications; one picture of the Machine God Zistor is a work in progress sketch, and I can’t wait to see it finished! 71 pages for $19.95 (PDF).

Black stars, darker than the surrounding Darkness.

Greg used to call this “heroforming,” didn’t he? Great Khans do it, Masks of Moonson do it, and I’m sure there are plenty of others.

Updated today with a new release: Holiday Dorastor: Risklands, by Simon Phipp & Anders Tönnberg. The latest Holiday Dorastor release massively expands and reimagines the Risklands campaign setting introduced in Dorastor: Land of Doom (RQ3, 1993). As the authors explain, “Talastar is a buffer region between the Lunar Empire and Dorastor, the Kingdom of Bilini is a buffer region between Talastar and Dorastor, and Riskland is a buffer region between Bilini and Dorastor.” The Red Emperor has generously allowed his enemies to resettle this borderland region, free from imperial oversight, and folks from many homelands have availed themselves of the opportunity. The highlights of the book are the exploration of factions and tensions among the Renekot clan, 63 pages of detailed personalities (each with RuneQuest stats and an illustration by Dario Corallo), and 77 pages of scenario outlines, one-page episode seeds and campaign suggestions. Two further campaign expansions are teased: Foulvale and Hahlgrim’s War: one of the last scenarios in Risklands, Exodus, lays the groundwork for the latter. 203 pages for $20.00 (PDF).

The major releases so far this year: The Tower of the Elder Sorcerer, by David Millians: an abandoned sorcerer’s tower for adventurers to investigate and plunder. As well as the somewhat discombobulated surviving inhabitants of the tower, this adventure includes statblocks for two rival adventuring parties plus a host of suggested political complications that could follow any successful incursion. 70 pages for $5.00 (PDF). RPG Writer Workshop RuneQuest Adventure Collection, by various authors: a print edition of six scenarios by 2022 graduates of the Storytelling Collective's "Write Your First Adventure" course. Contains The White Upon the Hills, by Sacha Gauthier and Reece Dyer; Died in the Wool, by Braeden Harpool; A Lamp for Esrola, by Sven Lugar; The Indagos Bull, by Rob Marcus; The Lottery, by Robert Stoll; and An Orlanthi Wedding, by Ian Straus. 124 pages for $19.95 (standard softcover). Vrok Eye Views, Volume I, by Roy Duffy: seven high-quality maps of New Pavis locations, designed for use on Virtual Tabletops: Gimpy’s Tavern (ground floor, upper floor, basement and “Vrok’s Eye View”), Geo’s (basement and ground floor), and Bob’s Bison Burgers (inc. Mostali meat-grinding contraption). Previously published in New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever (Pavis & Big Rubble Companion, volume 1), this collection includes high-resolution PNG downloads of every map. Future volumes will include settlements in the Big Rubble and along the River of Cradles. 7 maps for $9.95 (PDF and PNG). A Glimpse of Pamaltela: Exploring Tarien & Hornilio, by Paul Baker: a campaign setting for adventures set among the Doraddi people of Tarien, on Glorantha’s distant southern continent of Pamaltela. As usual with Paul Baker’s books there’s a grab-bag of useful stuff: adventurer creation, short-form cult writeups for an entire pantheon, a detailed home setting (the lineages of the Sunset River tribe), NPCs, a bestiary, two scenarios, what my aunt and uncle told me, and even a short soloquest at the back. 289 pages for $22.00 (PDF). Visions of Myth, by Martin Helsdon and Katrin Dirim: a beautiful artbook collecting most of Katrin Dirim’s illustrations for Martin Helsdon’s book Ships & Shores of Southern Genertela: each picture is accompanied by new descriptive text pointing out details and symbolism that would otherwise go over our heads. Due to a bug in the new DriveThruRPG website, you might not have seen this print-only product in the store: don't miss out, it's incredibly lovely! (The digital edition is bundled as free bonus content with Ships & Shores). 52 pages for $19.95 (premium softcover) or $24.95 (premium hardcover).

Here is the Jonstown Compendium Index 2024: an index to the new RuneQuest & Glorantha scenarios and sourcebooks (and sundry other releases) available from Chaosium's Jonstown Compendium community content web store on DriveThruRPG. The index includes full details for every product released after 1 October 2023: for details of earlier releases, see my Jonstown Compendium Catalogue 2023. Detailed listings analyse content (pages split between scenario, stats, maps, etc.), characters, settings, ratings and price per page of content for each major release. Releases are categorised as RuneQuest Scenarios, Gloranthan Sourcebooks and Shorter Releases (including maps, artwork and random stuff). Three Where in the World? maps show every scenario, sourcebook and map's location. There are notes on when each scenarios and campaign is set (by year and season, inc. Chaosium RQG scenarios), and a best-seller chart at the back. The index will be regularly updated following major releases in 2024. All updates in 2024 are free; the price of the index may increase each quarter as new content grows, so don't wait too long to get on board! If you bought it earlier, get the current version of the index from your Library (top right menu) or from this product page while you're logged in to DriveThruRPG.

Please remember that I want to lay this book out. If you let someone else do it, or do it yourself, I will be very jealous.

If you want a huge New Pavis map to print out, don’t miss this one: Well of Daliath

I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but I massively appreciate the pun.

Don’t feel stupid: it’s not obvious, and I’m happy to help!

The two books you named are available as DriveThruRPG print-on-demand editions; lots of others, too. The Innsmouth Cycle The Hastur Cycle

PLUNDER: POL-JONI HATS FRIENDLY: Orlanth HOSTILE: Heler, Waha, Yelm. The distinctive sun-hat of the Pol-Joni herders is a variant of the common rustic Sartarite Síðhöttr or Pelorian πέτασος (petasos), usually made of wool felt, leather or straw, with a high crown and a wide brim. Always durable and hard-wearing, some are additionally reinforced with metal or leather, becoming what the laws of Heort refer to as “hard hats” or helmets. These light-weight, often waterproof hats have a wide brim (to shade Yelm’s rays from the wearer’s eyes and hold off Heler’s rain), a high crown (which keeps a cooling pocket of Orlanth’s air on top of the wearer’s head), and can be used to carry water. (Cheap straw hats, of course, are not waterproof and cannot hold water.) The few Yelmalians among the Pol-Joni prefer the crowns of their hats to retain a pure dome-shape, and the flat brim to form a perfect circle, but the more numerous Orlanthi commonly wear hats with a creased crown and a rolled brim. Hat-bands (woven, braided, knotted, etc.) may be added, in personal, clan or tribal colours, to adjust the fit of the hat. Some groups have their own distinctive styles or colours. For example, Black Hats are commonly worn by Humakti, bandits and outlaws among the Pol-Joni, and White Hats by the Horse-lords' appointed Sheriffs. It's a special blessing of Orlanth that one's hat stays on one's head even in a high wind, and a special curse that it flies away.

From my notes on the Pol-joni POL-JONI MUSIC The Pol Joni musical tradition is formed from two distinct roots: plangent tribal odes harking back to their western origins in Dragon Pass; and upbeat ranching tunes celebrating the country where they have made their new home, the plains of Prax. One distinctive form is the lyrical outlaw ballad, retelling deeds of heroes and villains of the frontier. Songs celebrate love and courtship, spiritual immanence, death and war, the rigours of life on the cattle-trails, and the manifold splendours of nature. Pol Joni music is played on stringed instruments (most notably the kithara, lute and bowed lyre), supplemented occasionally with vocalised humming on pocket devices of Mostali origin akin to the harmonica and kazoo. It can follow one of three rhythms, derived from the gait of their steeds: music is traditionally played at either the walk, the trot or the gallop, and can therefore be used to augment Ride skill on the trail. The choruses of campfire songs can involve war-whoops, yells, ululations and glossolalia, reminiscent of Praxian spirit-cult chants but hopefully deprived of all context and meaning. This appropriation is yet another reason for Praxians to despise the Pol Joni and call them “Cattle Bastards.” (Yes, of course country and western music is an anachronism, but what else would the Mycenaean Viking Cowboys of Glorantha sing round their campfires?)

The third Pavis & Big Rubble Companion, Pavis County: Secrets of the Borderlands by @Ian A. Thomson and friends, contains local history (inc. family history tables) for the settlers, character creation guidelines, a detailed map of Pavis County, loads of information about the Zebra Tribe (inc. character creation), and maps and gazetteers for several local settlements, plus some new adventures and guidance on adapting classic scenarios for a Pavis County campaign. It's an Electrum best-seller (over 250 copies sold), with 13 five-star customer ratings, available in printed and digital formats from the Jonstown Compendium community content store. And I agree with @g33k that it could dovetail beautifully with the Sandheart campaign: six more adventures with that Praxian post-apocalyptic vibe.

Obviously literary executors see things differently. That’s the only reason we know about Tinfang Warble and Trotter the Hobbit, after all.

All six graduate pieces from the 2022 RPG Writer Workshop's "Write Your First Adventure" RuneQuest path are now available from Chaosium's Jonstown Compendium community content programme, in a collected print-on-demand edition with a refreshed layout: RPG Writer Workshop RuneQuest Adventure Collection 124 page softcover standard colour print-on-demand book: $19.95; digital version $8.00, or $4.00 when bundled with the print edition. I am really happy that we could make this happen, and am eternally grateful to all of the authors and Storytelling Collective staff (especially Ashley Warren and Kayla Cline) who supported us to create this beautiful book!

And there's a new edition of The Pastores, but you might already know that.

In general, I view these things as the Tinfang Warbles and Trotter the Hobbits of Glorantha: discarded first drafts. Greg Stafford was a publisher, he could easily have shared this stuff with the world if he thought it worth doing, and he never did. But YGWV, of course.

Illumination, Ian. The secret anti-statist agenda of the White Moonies. Opening moves in a Dart War against the Eel-Ariarsh Clan. This stuff writes itself (which is why you don’t need to spend time writing it).

If the Ernaldans belong(ed) to the Esrolian Red Earth faction, I suppose fanatical anti-Lunar types might try to disrupt their peaceful worship ceremonies. Think of Storm Bulls, Orlanthi, or other barbarian foes of fertility, harmony, peace and prosperity.

Quite the reverse. We are opening their (third) eyes, liberating them, emancipating them. (Spiritually speaking, of course. Terms and conditions apply.) The Lunar Way teaches people to throw off the hidebound constraints imposed by the Old Gods’ Old Ways and achieve their ultimate potential. (Yes, sometimes that means tentacles: that’s cosmic liberation for you.)

Here's a video interview I did with Kat Clay at PAX Aus on Getting Started in Community Content. It's a bit Cthulhu-esque (she's a Miskatonic Repository author), but lots of stuff will be relevant for Jonstown Compendium creators as well.

Most Lunar citizens/subjects don’t want or need to be illuminated. But the Seven Mothers teach useful lessons about how the world works, and those who take them on board have an easier time fitting into the imperial system.

Potatoes grow in Darkness. I relish the idea of desperate Sun Domers turning to the potato goddess for aid...