Nick Brooke

People who insist that "Jar-eel should roll fumbles just as often as my players" will, of course, welcome that prospect. Me? Like Harrek, I consider Jar-eel an essentially unstoppable force of nature, a deus ex machina. If I were putting her into a RuneQuest scenario,* I would decide beforehand what I was doing with her, and give the adventurers clear and achievable goals (inc. "not dying," "distracting her," "escaping heroically," etc.). She isn't a player character,** she doesn't have to be specified as one. Think of encounters with her as scripted boss fights in a MMO. You'll probably have more fun running them that way than you will by diving into attritional melee combat against an overwhelmingly superior opponent while praying for an absurd NPC dice fuckup to save your players. And if I wanted to derail the "future history" of Glorantha, I'd just man up and do it, not keep asking for permission. You're the Game Master, right? You've read the warnings, you know your rights. Go for it! If it goes well, you'll be as famous as Derek the Troll; and if it goes badly, you'll know why all those people were warning you. --- * She does feature in my next scenario, and I seriously considered adding her to Black Spear Act 7, until I noticed I'd hit page-count. ** Usually.

I disagree. The best outcome was shown in Prince of Sartar, chapter 2.

Updated again on 7 June with Michael Paul O'Sullivan's Velhara's Mirror, a sandbox campaign exploring tumultuous events in Beast Valley after the Dragonrise. Presented as a sequel to The Ruins of Bonn Kanach, this outlines the many factions contending for power in the south of Dragon Pass. Six two-page adventure outlines present events in 1627 where the adventurers can get involved, making friends or enemies with any of the factions, while the title scenario is a ten-page adventure that takes place during the Great Hunt at the end of Storm Season. The separate 46-page NPC Roster is an excellent collection of RuneQuest stat blocks for Sun Domers, Kitori, Trolls, Lunars, Sartarites, Beast Men, Grazelanders, Esrolians and Wolf Pirates, as well as NPC adventurers and some scenario-specific creatures. $6.99 for 86 pages.

Updated again on 5 June with Diana Probst & Kristi Herbert's The Lifethief, a sequel to Beer With Teeth's earlier releases Stone and Bone and The Gifts of Prax (aka Stonier and Bonier). This gorgeously-illustrated adventure sends a party into one of the worst places in the world, where something terrible is happening. An appendix of Praxian encounters rounds things off nicely. $10.00 for 47 pages.

Pick up the Awfully Cheerful Engine. Thank me later.

US Library of Congress Prints and Photograph Online Catalog The US Library of Congress's Prints and Photograph Online Catalog is vast! It contains various collections of images which could be of interest to Jonstown Compendium creators. For example, the Frank and Frances Carpenter Collection showcases cultural anthropology and geography in the early years of the twentieth century; and the Historic American Buildings Survey has thousands of images going back to Pre-Columbian times. Images from before 1923 are considered in the public domain, as are certain images after that date. This the Library of Congress's advice about using images from its Prints and Photographs collection. You should review the status of any image you intend to use with these guidelines, and reference the source in your credits page. The New York Public Library Digital Collections The New York Public Library Digital Collections has over three quarters of a million items featuring prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts and more. It is possible to search only the public domain materials in the collection, making it a useful and easy resource for Jonstown Compendium creators. The site also has an in-built feature enabling you to properly attribute anything you use. The British Library on Flickr Commons The British Library has released over 1 million images onto Flickr Commons for anyone to use, remix and repurpose. The images cover a diverse range of topics many of which may be of interest to Jonstown Compendium creators, such as anthropology, mythology and ancient history. The great thing about this resource is you know every item in it has no restrictions on its use! Source: JC Guidelines

Paul Fricker's acclaimed Call of Cthulhu scenario Dockside Dogs is now available to purchase as a print-on-demand softcover from the Miskatonic Repository: $9.99 for 40 pages. The original version was a Platinum best-seller: it's been updated for the seventh edition rules. (Which Paul wrote: just saying) If you buy the print edition, you can email Paul to get the printable handouts. His address is on the product page.

That's not how I read it at all. Argrath is gathering a new army for himself, because his last army got nuked from orbit by the Crater Makers and then munched by Cwim. He has absolutely no intention of getting bogged down in the Valley. The "rival claimant" is indeed Vega Goldbreath. MOB kindly let me use some of his Sun County 1627 material in Black Spear, parts of which are set there, and if you haven't read it I highly recommend it to Sun County fans. Reading between the lines, you'll also see a possible reason for Rurik pushing off to Dragon Pass. (Plus there's loads of stuff about relations between the Dragon Pass and Praxian Sun Dome Temples in my Sun County Backgrounds article in Sandheart Volume One: plug, plug, plug)

Making this an ideal window of opportunity for Ian to go off-piste and do something utterly non-canonical: I like finding those! See also Sylvie's hiding places in Loki. I think it's just as likely that Argrath can't be arsed to do anything to support that weasel Belvani. He has no long-term interest in Pavis, Prax, the Cradle Valley or their inhabitants: they're just stepping-stones for his return to Sartar. I wouldn't assume there is only ever one unit of Antelope Lancers serving the Empire. There are tens of thousands of them up on the Hungry Plateau, after all.

The Second Battle of Moonbroth is in early Storm season, 1624. But your Glorantha does vary.

Updated again on 30 May with Mikael Mansen's Glorantha Up Close: Jonstown Area Map. $7.50 buys you a set of three poster map files (with-text, no-text and winter snow versions) showing the Jonstown region in great detail. The map covers much of the Colymar, Malani, Dinacoli, Cinsina and Culbrea tribal lands. It's executed in the same style as his regional area maps, with "realistic" rugged terrain, forests and scattered trees, etc., looking rather like a satellite view of Glorantha. Resolution is c. 4,300 x 3,040 pixels, or roughly 14 x 10 inches at 300 DPI. The cartographer is keen to work with other creators, so if you need some high-quality maps for your own Jonstown products (or for any other purpose), why don't you contact him at https://www.mikaelsmaps.com ?

The Second Battle of Moonbroth took place before the Lunars lost Pavis, though. The White Bull's victorious army marched from there to "liberate" Pavis. And there was much rejoicing.

It's not as if Sheng occupied and dominated Prax, like the Pure Horse Tribe did back in the Second Age, when so many tribes of honest Waha-fearing beast nomads were exiled from their homeland... "By the serpents of the Greatlands, we laid [our mounts] down and wept for thee, when we remembered Prax..."

And something similar happened after the fall of Boldhome -- "The Pol-Joni Tribe, unsupported by Sartar help, was mauled in a battle against combined Praxian forces. This alliance caused the Lunars to suspect that the demigod, Waha, was likely to return in person again soon..." Luckily, General Sor-eel was able to march on the Paps and stop that nonsense before anything untoward could happen. And, "upon his return, Sor-eel was highly commended for his actions, which had prevented the rebirth of Waha." (King of Sartar, p.118f) We know teaming up to fight horse people can have political and ritual significance to Praxians, under the right circumstances. Maybe that's why they do it? (Also, has anyone got any theories about which Praxian Great Khan(s) in the run-up to First Moonbroth might have been in pole position to become Waha Returned, and what they did next?)

Lame. Here's the thing. Praxians who insist that they totally hate horses -- all horses, all the time -- are usually attempting a shake-down on some poor party of outlanders who've brought horses into Prax. And if that same party had brought mules or zebras or (some other Praxian tribe's) beasts or even (the same tribe's) beasts, they'd be just as shouty. "You're mistreating that bison! You're allied with our Sable-riding foes! You can't fool us, that zebra's just a horse with stripes painted on!" They scream and wave hatchets around until you pay up. If you don't pay up, sure, they might kill your mounts and leave you to die in the Wastes. Whatever you're riding. Things are different when you're signed on with the Sun Dome Temple, or indeed with Argrath's Barbarian Horde. Sure, some of the things the officers order you to do will "make you uncomfortable." March for days on end carrying a heavy pack. Spend the whole campaigning season in some godforsaken troll-haunted wilderness. Cold showers every morning because the commander has a hygiene fetish. Making nice with the Lunar Tarshite contingent, and the Wyrm-loving warlocks, and the zombie support staff. Oh, yeah, and some of the scout cavalry ride mounts you have a ritual obligation not to touch or eat. Man up and deal with it. In extremis, you could end up with an Indian Mutiny situation, I suppose. Order Praxians to take care of horses, or ride them, or eat horse meat, and you're crossing the line. But seriously, what are the odds of that?

They may be canonical, but they're lame, like sparkly vegetarian vampires. "Non-cursed Telmori" are for wimps who hate facing up to the implications of their rashly-held beliefs. YGWV, of course, and maybe this is a story Telmori tell outsiders -- "Oh, don't worry about me, I'm one of the Pure Ones. Not chaotic at all, me. No, siree!"

Heinrich's Call of Cthulhu Guide to Character Creation is now available in print-on-demand from the Miskatonic Repository: $29.95 hardcover or $23.95 softcover for a 156 page book. Link: tiny.cc/mr-heinrich Unboxing video:

Updated again on 24 May with Day's Rest by Jamie Revell. $4.00 buys you a 24-page mini-sandbox setting that details one of the Praxian oases closest to Sartar, the first stop along Caravan Alley and a particularly holy place for the cult of Waha the Butcher. Fourteen fully-statted NPCs with detailed backgrounds (the Bison Tribe overlords, their Oasis Folk slaves and a handful of resident outsiders) bring the setting to life. The last five pages provide a general overview of the easily-overlooked Oasis Folk society, rounded off with character generation guidelines for both RuneQuest and QuestWorlds. Illustrated throughout with public-domain pictures of buffaloes and palm trees. Waha!

Thanks for the compliment, Steve! Could you kindly let me know what those "two small errata" are?

e.g. Piers Morgan.

“He still has a weapon. Ask his victim. I’m here to fix that.”

You're at risk of confusing "not honourable" with "dishonourable." That doesn't help. Ambushing military units won't win you any honour, but it's not strictly speaking dishonourable. Some Humakti won't get involved; they think you're tarnishing their True Death. That's a personal matter. Murdering non-combatants from ambush is always dishonourable, because it involves murdering non-combatants. You'll lose honour for doing it; honourable people will lose honour if they don't stop their associates from advocating it. Some guerrillas DGAF about honour, and they'll likely have problems integrating into Argrath's Free Army and end up bunking with the Tusk Rider mercenaries, Wolfrunners, Zombie hordes and other horrors at his command. I hope this helps.

I think you know this already, but whatevs. When I run heroquests, quite often my players end up rolling vs. their raw Runes or Passions, and augmenting with Skills. You’ll see this in Black Spear and in my first Manifesto. So a 125% Sing skill is dead handy, for augmentation rolls. While that deliberately and disconcertingly reverses the way things work in the mundane world, everything on your players’ character sheets is still available and relevant, and you don’t need to define loads of new abstract skills and techniques (that nobody yet has on their character sheet) to run a fun game. If your GM runs heroquests a different way, more power to their elbow, and I hope they left you a way to use that Sing skill. Because your Vingan rocks.

Hey, we’re all friends here. Thanks for being honest enough to admit you screwed up. (Not many people are) If you want to see how I run my own RuneQuest sessions involving Personalities of the Hero Wars, I’ve published two scenarios so far (The Duel at Dangerford & Black Spear), and I commend them to you. They’re more interesting to read than my theory posts, anyway. Did you pick up the slipcase set, in the end?

YGWV, @icebrand. Knock yourself out. (I'm told Derek the Troll is way tougher than Harrek, anyway)