Jeff

For most humans, INT and SIZ are 2D6+6. That was introduced in RQ2 Trollpak. After much feedback, we are using the RQ2 skills category bonuses. Characteristic x 5% as in RQ2. Yes. It is used primarily for magic resistance. A weapon skill includes attack and parry, and, where appropriate, the ability to use a shield with that weapon. Maintaining three different skills for something that would always be trained together proved to be a degree of granularity too much for too little.

I don't forget about RuneQuest Slayers. As we've said many times, internally we just track the Chaosium editions - 1, 2, 3, and now 4.

There will be sorcery rules in the book (the cult of Lhankor Mhy uses limited sorcery), but sorcery will get much deeper exploration with the Malkioni.

The core rule book is focused on the greater Dragon Pass area - Sartar, Lunar Tarsh, Old Tarsh, Grazelands, Esrolia, and Prax. The cults presented include Ernalda, Orlanth, Seven Mothers, Yelmalio, Storm Bull, Waha, etc. I would rather present a region in some depth than try to cover much wider areas with paper-thin superficiality. So if I was the rules for gaming set during the Peloponnesian War, I'd likely include Greeks, Thracians, Scythians, Persians, and maybe even Phoenicians, as cultural groups, but am unlikely include Egyptians or Etruscans or Latins - let alone the Vedic peoples or the Zhou Chinese. I'd much rather present the Malkioni with their own book so we can really explore their materialist humanism in depth. I certainly don't want to do a half-baked treatment that results in me revising away those portions of the core rules once I seriously play around with working out the mechanics for that setting.

Jakob - That is exactly the point of it. It is intended to be an entry point that also introduces some major Gloranthan figures and event (at least awareness of them) to the player at the start of character generation. And given that the new default setting is 1627, your character is going to be aware of quite a few major events (Great Winter, Pennel Ford, Jaldon's Return, Liberation of Pavis, Dragonrise, the Tarshite Civil War, and the Liberation of Sartar to name a few) that might have a huge influence on what sort of character you might want to play.

Although there are similarities with the Traveler life-path, what will be in the new RQ is much closer to what is in Pendragon. And the player always has the option of picking the event their character or ancestor participated in and even the result of that event. The rules emphasize that the gamemaster and player should be willing to improvise, modify, discard, or otherwise manipulate the results of the Family History table in the interest of creating a more interesting or relevant background for the adventurer. The purpose of the Family History is to be a pedagogical tool to help with character creation and player immersion into the setting. It is NOT intended to be a straightjacket.

We're disinclined to call it RuneQuest: Glorantha, since for us RuneQuest=Glorantha. Other published settings get their own tailored rules. For example, RuneQuest's magic - which in our opinion is a big part of its distinctiveness - is tailored for Glorantha, and frankly doesn't make a lot of sense in other settings (that's why Stormbringer didn't use it). So if we want to do a game set in the Byzantine Empire, the RuneQuest magic system would need to be entirely stripped out and replaced. Combat would need modifications, and so on. That isn't RuneQuest anymore but its own engine - similar but not the same. BRP is a family of related, but not identical, rules systems - RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu, Mythic Iceland, Stormbringer, Ringworld, ElfQuest, Nephilim, etc.

We don't call this RQ7 because we find that very misleading. MRQ1, MRQ2, and DM's RQ6 share a common design thread from MRQ1, and going on to MRQ2 and DM's RQ7. The new RQ is simply not from that line of development. It stems from RQ2 (with elements of RQ3) and then moves on, but does not build off the MRQ line. Calling it RQ4 (or RQ2.5) makes that point. Calling ti RQ7 is, in our opinion, more confusing.

That is in fact one of the goals - I would love to see plenty of official and fanmade variants of this for different homelands, even different tribes.

There is a quick gen provided - I personally do not like it as I find that using the family history results in far more interesting characters. But it is there. The family background in the core rules is tailored to the six homelands presented in the core rules, but really helps show how interlinked these homelands are.

It is very compatible with RQ2. For playtesting, I've just been using RQ Classics material. There's some conversion material you need to do with Rune Magic (you add up the spell points of all the spells to determine the Rune Points of the NPC), and you should probably add a few passions to key NPCs, but that is all very easy. It is actually far easy to use the RQ2 material with the new rules than it was converting the old RQ2 material to RQ3.

It is similar to the process of making a clan in King of Dragon Pass (and takes about as long as that does if you do it by reading it out loud). It is a quick crash course into the setting and takes about as long to explain as most people's explanation of the setting to new players. Jeff

Selenteen of Alampish was a Teshnite hero who led an expedition into the Wastelands in 1250, seeking the Red Sword. Selenteen failed to find the sword, but established a colony at the mouth of the Zola Fel that lasted several generations before disappearing, the likely victim of the Animal Nomads of the Wastes. Guide, page 429. Seleran Empire is a name used by some scholars for the empire of Sheng Seleris. I'm pretty sure it called itself the Celestial Empire (and before that the Great Horde).

Just a warning - for my sanity I tend to use the most prevalent name for a god, even if the god is commonly called something else in a particular location. Thus Orlanth is called Orlanth is Safelster, Junora, etc., even if the local name for him is likely something else. Just like in our world, gods have many names and titles. Yelmalio - the "Little Sun" - is the prevalent name for the god of the Sun Dome Temples, although I am sure he has many more.

I wouldn't go down to the shrine level. Minor temples only exist where Yelmalio is the main god of a clan - which appears maybe twice in Sartar (maybe three times, but not much more than that). Other holy sites would include Sun Elf Hill in the Grazelands. There's a few others in the Old Woods and Arstola Forest, as well as at least one in Rist.

Keep in mind, that this tracks only retail sales through game stores. These do not take into account online sales, Kickstarter, direct sales, Amazon, or anything other than hobby retail sales. So for example, 99% of our Glorantha sales are not through retail hobby stores. Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?1984-Top-5-RPGs-Compiled-Charts-2008-Present#.V1EcslfYNOg#ixzz4AUeGRiWv

Tylenea is often considered the cosmic patroness of art as a concept. Individual guilds (that may specifically be limited to painters, or may have painters included within a broad craft such as pottery) may have their own patron deity as well.

I will be showing off the new RQ at GenCon. We are having a panel to go over it, walk through the rules, etc. I'm not going to run a session of it, as running games at GenCon is not a very good use of my time (much as I'd like to do it).

The terminology used is that of the God Learners, who identified three basic approaches to magic - Rune magic (sacrificing to gain some part of a god's Runic power), Spirit Magic (use of the spirits who embody the animals, plants, places, and objects), and sorcery (manipulation of the cosmic laws to create an effect). Most human cultures have at least a vestigial acknowledgement of the spirits that reside everywhere in Glorantha - and the term has broad applicability.

The presence of spirits are recognized by all Gloranthans, not just those who practice shamanism. Even a Brithini atheist acknowledges that there is a magical energy that surrounds everything "living" thing (I use that term very broadly) and that there are savages who specialize in communicating with and bargaining with those senseless forces. Such magic is limited, crude, and vastly inferior to sorcery, but it is definitely there. Now many of those spirits serve the gods, and most spirit places are also important holy places to various cults. Priests and Rune Lords have rites by which they can teach any spirit spell they know to an initiate of their cult. And so on. I think people are making more of a rigid distinction here than actually exists. Pretty much every culture and religion in Glorantha practices some variety of spirit magic, except the most radically materialist or transcendent philosophies.

Spirit magic concerns communication with the spirits that reside in the natural energy currents of the world and involves the forceful alteration of the fabric of reality by temporary expenditure of one’s POW, expressed as Magic Points (MP). One concentrates on the focus, unlocks the spell in one's mind or spirit or however it is understood by you, and you temporarily alter the natural energy currents of the world. An animist might understand this as "the spirits aid my sword" while the materialists might understand this as "the natural energy flows briefly favor my sword" or whatever. Since the spiritual energy currents don't make Spirit Combat attacks, Spirit Screen would be totally useless for the purpose you described. Spirit magic does not require a shaman to learn - most cults have ways to pass on spirit magic from one person to another. It is used in all Gloranthan cultures and religions.

Spirit Magic in Glorantha is exactly what it says it is. It is a spell to get a spirit to create an effect. And pretty much every Gloranthan culture uses spirit magic. It is not the same thing as shamanism (which is a type of spirit specialist).

If you required rolling for everything yes - but most players *picked* the occupation they wanted to play (which is allowed), and their age (if permitted by the gamemaster, which nearly everyone associated with the various house campaigns did). So in truth, if you wanted to have a combat character, most players could just choose a warrior occupation and probably their age as well.

Yes. That is more or less the range that I have seen people make with the new rules. One skill in the 80+% range (depending on whether they put the maximum personal interest points into their best occupational skill), one or two around 75%. Then three to five skills around 50-60%. As I wrote above: [M]ore often what I see is characters picking one skill they want to be really good at, and then a cluster of 2 or 3 skills in the 65-79%range. Then a bigger cluster in the 55-65% range, with the rest being in the under 50%. So frex, a Lunar dart warrior character started with one skill at 92% (2H Spear), two skills at 77 (Dagger and Composite Bow), and a cluster of skills between 51 and 60 (Climb, Hide, Sneak, Scan) [note: previously I wrote 76, but actually none of these skills were above 60]. Her passions were quite strong with her loyalty to the Red Emperor being 85% and her Fear of Dragons being 80.

Max definitely has 90%+ in Drive even in the first film.