Ian Cooper

One question that has come up verbally is how you use this material with an existing campaign (and particularly the Colymar Campaign). There are a number of good options: The Red Cow and Orlmarth are friends, and share some history (the Red Cow's ancestors were amongst those who originally tried to settle lands taken from the Ducks by the Colymar). So there are connections that easily allow storylines where Orlmarth characters visit the Red Cow and vice-versa. So your PCs can visit the Red Cow and Red Cow NPCs can visit the Orlmarth. If you already have your own campaign you could pull a similar trick - create some reason why the two clans have a debt or connection. If you want to migrate characters from an existing campaign to the Red Cow, the easiest route is in service to Queen Ivartha. The Queen's household often has 'outsiders' as they are not bound to clan loyalties within the tribe, but to the queen herself. You can then directly use the material, but the PCs will have different allegiances. An alternate route is to have the PCs join up with one of the rebel bands in the area - in essence you are joining a very small clan. You can just strip mine this for your own game, taking the personalities you like, the locations even, and placing them within your campaign. Clans are small parts of Glorantha where canon should always take a back seat to YGWV (Your Glorantha Will Vary), so stealing these groups is easy. Use it as inspiration for how to create your own clan, but don't directly use the material in case you want your PCs to 'visit.'

Ah that makes sense. Ta.

Some folks have picked up The Coming Storm, some have not. I wanted to create a thread where folks could ask questions, either about what they are reading or about whether they should buy. First of all, let me capture the answer to a few common questions: Why is this in two books? There are a number of pragmatic reasons: it would be cheaper to ship and the first volume would be completed faster, and could be interleaved more easily with other priorities as a result. In addition there is a natural divide between the two volumes. The Coming Storm (Red Cow Book I) is the setting material. You can use this as a sandbox campaign setting without the other volume (although we do provide some 'template' episodes there that will help with a sandbox campaign. In addition, players can read this volume as it represents what most people know of their local area (there are one or two secrets, but nothing players should not know if they can be trusted to only use that knowledge for MGF). With a more complex setting like this (we have over 60 NPCs) then having the PCs armed with knowledge of the NPCs and places can actually help with gameplay. The first volume focuses on the Red Cow clan of the Cinsina and includes details of their clan lands and primary settlement, Red Cow Fort. It also includes details of their rivals and neighbors, the Dolutha, and the settlement of Dangerford as well as the Red Cow's enemies the Emerald Sword clan of the Dinacoli, and the Two-Pine clan of the Culbrea. There is full detail of the Cinsina tribe, and their history as well. Finally we detail the Rebels in the area, Telmori, and the settlers of Wulfsland, including the settlement of Stonegate. The heart of the material is the description of over 60 NPCs, all fully illustrated. It is intended to form a sandbox campaign setting. The second volume, the Eleven Lights provides a campaign that runs from 1618-1625 and takes the PCs through the darkest years of the Occupation to the Liberation. It allows the PCs to take part in one world-shaking event (that has not been previously detailed in print, although the Guide alludes to it), which gives the second book its name. The presentation format is similar to that of the Great Pendragon Campaign. For each year we detail events of the Hero Wars that reach Sartar (by news or direct impact), local reaction to those events, and suggest scenarios that could occur in that year. We detail specific scenarios for key local events. These can be used as inspiration in a sandbox campaign, or interspersed with your own organic episodes to 'tell the story' of the Red Cow clan in the Hero Wars. The material is open to diverging based on player action and support is provided for managing that. (In playtest nearly all campaigns 'go their own way' by about 1623 so we provide more scenarios for early years to 'introduce' the setting and less later.) Can I use this with System X? The advantage of Heroquest for gamers using other systems for Glorantha (both official or home-brewed) is that it has very little need for system material in a campaign book such as this. Beyond a line for keywords for NPCs, which can easily be treated as inspiration for stating them for other systems, there is little 'game' text. So you get value for money, by comparison to using many products with a ruleset you don't play. Of course in play you have to provide the stats for those NPCs. However, in most cases the PCs will not 'fight' with kin so you only need to decide on the level of their social skills, as and when you need them, reserving fuller stats for 'enemy' NPCs as and when you need them. (We may do a stat pack for other supported systems, such as RQ2/4 and 13thAge - no promises though). But a Heroquest book looks much like a system-less book. When is Vol II coming? Soon. We are in layout (having finished the text and art). Once that is complete it joins the queue for printing. It's hard to give exact dates, because other Chaosium products compete for resources, but rest assured that the book exists in an advanced stage that this will be sooner rather than later. it's not just a piece of advertising copy in the back of RQ2 ;-) Is Broddi supposed to annoy the players? Yes. The key struggle is between the 'Three Rivals' to replace Broddi, whose hour is done. We trigger that in the campaign in 1623, but in your campaign it could occur earlier. One reason for the rivals is to force the PCs to take sides amongst the different factions vying for control of the soul of the clan. The 'situation' is built as a 'tense' status quo, ready for the PCs to throw things out of balance (it might even be a PC who replaces Broddi). Although it's worth noting that in one of my playtests one or more PCs decided to be loyal to Broddi 'right or wrong.' But fire away and I'll seek to anwer PS I don't expect there to be 'system' questions, so I am posting it on the Glorantha thread. If system specific questions come up, just post a link here to a question on a more appropriate forum.

Thanks Christopher. It might help me to highlight the decisions you made on the fixes but this seems to be a good summary.

p. 17 Agreed. Orlen Many Mood's Distinguishing Characteristic of Vengeful should be 17+2 =19 not 13+2=15 p. 18 Agreed. Londrorl's Movement rune should be 17, and his Rattle Born should 1W p.19 Agreed. Maklarni Friend of Heores should have Earth at 17 and Harmony at 1W p.20 Agreed. Koschei's Distinguishing Characteristic of hard Bitten shouldbe at 17+2=19 not 13+2=15 p.35 Disagree. Farandar holds the Barntar position on the ring, but does not worship Barntar. Many of the farmers are unhappy about this. Just because someone holds a position on the ring identified with a god, does not mean they have to worship that god, although the clan's magic is stronger if they do. p.35 Disagree. Borngold worships Heler but is not a member of a Voriof sub-cult. Note that no Voriof sub-cult is listed on p.203 of SC. Although he appears in Storm Tribe, he is best thought of as the boys god as Voria is the girl's god. p.101 Partial. The heading for Rostakus's stat block is incorrectly identified as Kallesra. Other details of the block are correct though. p .101 Partial. The heading for Korlmyhor's stat block is incorrectly identified as Kallesra> Other details of the block are correct though.

And much of the depiction of a 'household' in TCS consists of a walled group of buildings, i.e. a courtyard surrounded by long-halls, outbuildings, and barns. (It came from some archival notes of Greg's). So I expect actual difference between the two is minor. As I say, TCS pre-dates some of the 'square house' thinking though.

BTW Villanovan culture, which is Urnfield and Halstatt with a growing Greek influence, and gives way to Etruscan is perhaps a more period appropriate culture than the Etruscans themselves. They lived in northern Italy, which is not a bad DP analogue. Their houses looked more like a 'longhouse' than a square house:

I'd agree btw on the RQ2 bronze age feel being much more Greek. I would say that both Greece and Rome could be Orlanthi cultures (Rome would not be Lunar), though the usual Hellenic period depicted in that era was probably a little off, except for the more civilized regions. The issue with square houses in Sartar goes like this. I want to put a roof on my house, because no one who lives anywhere with high rainfall or snowfall is going to have a flat roof unless they enjoy catching drips in the helmets of their enemies (or even having the whole thing collapse). Now I'm not a structural engineer but although you can build a sloping roof on a square house you need a box frame, and its easier to build one using an A-Frame. So all things being equal an A-Frame makes more sense at this technical level in wet and cold climates for a typical rural house. In the cities, folks may have the money for a box frame. In addition, if you have a cattle byre in the building then its akin to slapping a barn onto your house, which will tend to lengthen it. I don't think this is quite a viking longhouse though, more wattle and daub walls, and tiled roof than 'log cabin' or turf walls. I still think S:KoH gets it right for Sartar, here and here. This definitely isn't a viking longhouse but was the model used for descriptions in TCS. Pavis might well have flat-roofed square houses by contrast, built with brick or stone. I expect people sleep on the roof in the heat of summer. As a rule, houses reflect environment - unless there are strong cultural reasons not to change.

Some newer ideas about house shape post-date The Coming Storm. So we tend to use the older term of long-house, and would concieve them as being as depicted in Sartar:Kingdom of Heroes. Some things to note. The first is that it is hard to depend too-heavily on terrestial analogues. However, in Europe, Dragon Pass is climatically most similiar to areas like Translyvania and you can think of the Esrolia in the model as equivalent to the settlements around the Black Sea. I'll let Jeff offer up the US equivalents. Jeff and I argued back and forth on analogue cultures. I tend to see Orlanthi is more Central European and on the cusp of the Iron Age, he tends to see them as more Mediterranean and earlier in the Bronze Age. But the best conclusion I think you should draw is that the Orlanthi represent Indo-European Bronze Age peoples, particularly from Cental and Southern Europe. The north is less of an influence than it was in past thinking. I'm fond of looking at a couple of 'mixed' culture when considering the Orlanthi. Bronze Age Romania: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistory_of_Transylvania#Bronze_Age and the Etruscans: With that said I would offer that house shape tends to depend both on available local building materials, climate, as well as custom.

Thanks for all the posts guys. I'll check through this weekend, and start compiling an official list. I need to figure out where to post that, but bear with me.

Hi all, First, thanks for setting this up so that we can pick up the issues that crept through and respond. I want to assure you that we spent hundreds of man hours attempting to error trap but things do creep through. Second, I want to be clear about what Chaosium considers errata. It does not consider errata to be typos, spelling or grammatical issues that do not present issues with using the text, however annoying you or I may find them. Whilst you might wish to compile a list of those, I suggest that you do so seperately. Unfortunately it is too late for us to crowd-source changes to the printed version, and I could not give you any commitment to when those issues would be corrected in a new PDF or edition. I know some of you may disagree with that, or be dissappointed, but that is just how it is and I don't want you to expend effort on false pretenses. With that, errata where things need noting such as: " Both Olend Many-Moods on page 17 and Koschei the Weary on page 20 have distinguishing characteristics at 15 instead of 17," is very useful as we can address what those values should be. I would suggest two lists if you want to pick up typographic errors, for that reason. I'll try to respond to the errata (not the typographic issues) from the list as I can.