Jeff

In Sartar it is closer to this (total population): Air Rune 36 Earth Rune 36 Fire/Sky 5 Lunar 5 Others (including more of the above) 18 In Esrolia it is more like this: Air Rune 19 Earth Rune 44 Darkness 6 Water 4 Fire/Sky 6 Lunar 1 Others (including more of the above) 20

I'd say RQG has done a very good job of holding on to more of the old RQ base (better than we estimated), and has had great cross-over with the Call of Cthulhu fan base. Flavour of the month would be if I started putting in all sorts of 5e elements in RQG.

I find the Facebook group far more representative of the newer players, whereas forums are much more reflective of the concerns of grognards who still want to gripe about which long-out-of-print edition of the game should have been the basis for the new system - the one from the Carter Administration or the one from the first Reagan Administration.

As an aside, Mongoose's absurd release schedule destroyed their line. Although the core rules sold ok (although much fewer than RQG has sold during the initial release period), each supplement sold about 50% of the sales of the previous book, until sales were less than 100 units for books. Which meant the line was dead.

This is a good example why I increasingly dislike forums. Someone wants more product faster and WITHOUT A SINGLE SOURCE OF INFORMATION, blames someone (in this case me) for being the hold-up. Frankly, I find this objectionable and insulting. Cthulhu had several years of backed-up manuscripts to release. Berlin is arguably the first completely new book that has been done since we took over management of Chaosium four years ago. RQ has already had four completely new products despite the book not even existing in draft form until 2016 - and a new core rules book requires play testing, lots of rewrites, etc. Until the core rules were done we couldn't commission new material for a rules system that was a moving target. So that means new material didn't get commissioned until last summer. Art, as always, is the hold-up. Right now we are just waiting on The Smoking Ruins to get through layout (art and text done - last I checked layout is about 1/3 done) and then Pegasus Plateau goes in. The Starter kit is in a holding pattern until a key map is finished. None of these have any holdup for me (I do need to do some more work once the map is done, but that is easy). After that is the Gamemaster Guide, unless Jason decides to move out one of the several other completed manuscripts first. My focus has been on the Cults of Glorantha and the RuneQuest Campaign - two huge foundational books. There is not going to be a Cults of Glorantha Kickstarter. We will be releasing it in the normal manner once art is done. Cults is two volumes of material and requires a LOT of art. It also has required a lot of feedback and revision because it is a foundational book for the entire cosmology of everything. The RuneQuest Campaign is essentially Boy King for RuneQuest.

The Coders are out of Pavis by late in 1621. They have bigger and better things to do.

But not, interestingly enough, the people who wrote it - most emphatically Greg. Greg strongly believed that RQ2 was the superior system to RQ3 and that although RQ3 had some useful rules fixes (like magic points instead of temporary POW), it went too far in many areas and that its "generic" approach was a huge step backwards.

RQG has an awful lot of RQ3 rules - those rules that were originally developed as fixes for RQ2. But lots of other things were added to RQ3 that Greg (and Sandy) recommended jettisoning. I agree with Greg that overall RQ2 was better built than the final RQ3 - although there were specific Rule Fixes that ended up in RQ3 that were good (and they pretty much all show up in RQG). And RQG reflexes that perspective.

They aren't necessarily villainous. They are imperial overlords. Sometimes you get somebody decent (like Sor-eel), sometimes you get somebody motivated by avarice and ambition (like Halcyon). Think of Halcyon as a Gaius Verres type. But this is always the fate of conquered territories - to be at the mercy of their overlords. Neither the Lunars nor the Sartarites are the "good guys" - and neither are they the "bad guys". Your take on their actions is going to depend on where you stand. Both have admirable qualities, both have their negative qualities. Pavis was very lucky to be ruled by a member of one of the most prestigious and important families in the Lunar Empire for over a decade. Sor-eel didn't need to make his family's fortune or name with this appointment. He's a blood relative of the Red Emperor, and his kinswoman is the incarnation of the Red Goddess on earth. He could afford to be liberal and benevolent, except when it came to things that really mattered (like the Cradle). But when Fazzur was toppled due to internal politics, so fell Sor-eel. The governor for Pavis was more the sort of person who gets that sort of backwaters post - someone of minor family who views this post as the opportunity of a lifetime (the other archetype is the important person appointed there after a life of screwups). As the Lunar position in Dragon Pass came under challenge, long-term Provincial interest in Pavis was one of the first things to go.

A thing worth keeping mind - the Lunar rule of Pavis became far more oppressive in 1622 after Sor-eel was forced out and a new governor (Halcyon var Enkorth, a creature of the Provincial Overseer) arrives. Sor-eel genuinely liked many of the barbarian peoples, whereas Halcyon views his job as little more than an opportunity to squeeze out a fortune. As the Lunar situation gets worse in Dragon Pass, the regime in Pavis gets far more tyrannical. As another side, everyone and their dog loves to quote Life of Brian about "What did the Romans do for us? Aquaducts, etc.". Well in Pavis that is not the case. The Lunars didn't bring better government than Dorasar and his family. The Lunars weren't builders - that's Pavis and Flintnail. The Golden Age of New Pavis was during the good rule of Dorasar and the City Council. When Pavis was a sister city of Sartar, but not caught up in the wars with the Empire. The decline began with the fall of Boldhome but really ended in 1610 with the Lunar conquest. By 1625, the Golden Age has been over for a generation. And Pavis is thoroughly entangled in the wars between Sartar and the Empire, and about to get even more so. The Praxians now dominate Prax, but Pavis and Pavis County are protected by the White Bull. But Argrath is a warlord and a mystic adventurer - he's got his priorities and governing Pavis is not very high on that list. A final observation - I doubt there was much rape when Argrath took the city. Much of his army was Storm Bull cultists, who hold rape to be a Chaotic act.

He has Fire, Disorder, and Life. His Fire Rune is without Light and so is sometimes called the Heat Rune.

Actually Lodril is not an Earth god. He is a Fire god who lives within the Earth.

There's no requirements that a Storm Khan be male. They can only marry Earth priestesses, but may freely take concubines.

The clan council can of course demand compensation to be paid within the clan. Or can take land and herds away from one family and give it to another. This is fraught with dangers, so is unlikely to happen unless there is a fair amount of consensus within the council. When there isn't, a common solution is for the clan to divide itself into two.

The whip that is mentioned in the core rules is for a chariot driver. These whips aren't really combat weapons (you crack the whip to make noise, not strike the horse).

Replace the word "bloodline" with "extended family" and it helps to clarify things. Close kin are responsible to and for close kin. So if Jon Jaranosson kills someone from another clan, his brother Jaran Jaranosson is just as responsible as him as far as the law is concerned. But if Jon steals from or otherwise harms Jaran, there is no outside group Jaran can go to for compensation - it is up to Jaran and his extended family to deal with their wayward brother. At least until Jaran harms someone outside of the kinship group. The two things an Orlanthi court can do is: 1. Order payment to the victim (aka ransom, life price, restitution, etc.); or 2. Exiles the perpetrator. The first can be in whatever amount the judges decide is appropriate and it is up to everyone involved in the court to enforce that. Usually the perpetrator's kinfolk immediately pony up the amount to minimise the dangers inherent in enforcement. Exile opens the perpetrator up to being killed by those he injured, without the protection of his own kin.

Yes. Extensive deforestation took place in the Neolithic - and basically everywhere where farmers settle. In Glorantha there has been extensive deforestation in Dragon Pass, Peloria, and elsewhere thanks to human activity. One of the main reasons that the aldryami don't like humans.

It is an expansion of Greg's Master Map into Esrolia, drawn at 1 cm = 4km scale (which is much much higher resolution than we made the Guide) There's a hierarchy of maps - at the top is Greg's Master Map of Dragon Pass. This series expands that into Prax, Kethaela, and Saird. Some of this will be in the RQ Campaign, some elsewhere.

So I have been working on a master map of Dragon Pass, Kethaela, and Prax, as part of the RQ Campaign. The map is two A0 posters in size and consists of four A2 maps each. Here's some drafts of the A2s, complete with labels and vegetation layers. Some explanation of the colors: Dark green: heavy forest Light green: mixed woods and grassland Yellow: Either rich grasslands or SPECIAL (in the case of the print) White: Grasslands or cultivated land. Or areas that we haven't figured out a color for, like the top of the Shadow Plateau. Square with a dot: large city Square: city Circle with a dot: tribal center or other fortified settlement Circle: Settlement Dot: Place of interest Three dots (Illusion Rune): Ruins Enjoy!

I'd ask at the RuneQuest FB group - they are very active and far more numerous!

Canyon.

Glorantha is built on archetypes that are eternally recurring and present. The conflict between Air and Fire. The competitions for Earth. The twins dividing the powers between Maker and Grower. These archetypes are built upon by the eternally recurring deeds of the gods. We mortals interact with the gods through worship, ceremony, and heroquesting, and join with the gods for brief moments of Time, only to fall back into Time. We know the gods exist - we see them, dance with them, try to follow in their footsteps, and even wield fragments of their power. But as mortals we are separated from them by Death and thus our experience of the divine is limited and subject to the inherent limitations of mortal understanding. These are all objective truths in Glorantha.

As with the Miskatonic Repository, submissions to the Jonstown Compendium need to use RQG. They can come up with additional material, such as new spells, new sub cults, etc., but not rewrites of existing cults, etc.

As an aside, I don't find Mythras's organization & Presentation particularly approachable and comprehensible. Our experience was very much the opposite.

Robin Laws was at my place this week, and he's about 70% done with the new Big Rubble book, and moving forward on Pavis as well. And I think it may well be Robin's best work ever.