Austin

Hey all! My review for The Grey Knight is up now, too! 😄

Ooh, that dice-rolling animation is fun. Running notes while making a test character. When adding bonus points (if your stats are too low), I believe RAW you can only add up to a base of 18. I had a really lousy statline but got CHA 17, and it let me add over 18. Heavy infantry doesn't list Orlanth as a common cult for the occupation? Scrolling in the blue side parts of the web page doesn't make the center move. Don't know if that's on purpose or a bug. Might be worth noting which Rune spells are from the god, and which are associate cults. (Yes, this is super trivial, but could be useful info - I can see a player going "What do you mean Lhankor Mhy is pissed at me?" not knowing they're probably a lay member because Analyze Magic is available from the starting Orlanth cult list.) I don't see a way to sacrifice POW during character creation for additional spells, though I assume adding them later is pretty trivial. Should the cult skill drop-downs include Cult Lore, Meditate, Worship? I've always allowed players to put the bonuses in these but TBH I don't actually recall if they're allowed RAW or not. I really like the drag-and-drop interface for personal skill bonuses. That's a really handy way to create them. Ooh, I also like that it auto-generates family members with ages and names. That's really good. I often don't end up including them in my games because convincing players to spend even more time in character creation tends to be difficult. I'm not sure if the names given are gendered as usual - I think Gara is that old priest in the RuneQuest Starter Set? the awakened companion's reference is correct to the text in the core rules, but the Weapons & Equipment book actually has the statblocks. The Glorantha Bestiary does not have statblocks for tiny critters. Heh, the loading messages amused me. Overall, this is really slick. Nicely done! I can't wait to hear about how it goes for people with new campaigns. Kudos to Chaosium for licensing you to do this - w/ the recent bundle I hope it helps a lot of new people try out the system. As a starting point for material from the Glorantha Bestiary, maybe integrate the hit location tables from the front of the book into the character sheet attack section? That way players can just go to the correct table and roll for damage. I think this could implement a new feature quickly, rather than trying to get whole NPC sheets into the platform. The details describing the weapon when you focus on it are really cool. Same with details for other Runes, Passions, skills, etc. There's oodles of playability here. I could see including Dodge over with the "combat stuff" making sense. I like that the skills are alphabetical. I've watched a number of newbies struggle with finding skills on the paper sheet. Is there a way to add new/custom skills? I don't see the awakened familiar from character creation in the "Magic & Magic Items" tab. (Family heirloom) Should that have been added automatically? Graphically, I overlooked the "Edit Character" button for about 10 minutes because it's red, not blue. 😅 That may just be me, though. I'm looking forward to fiddling with this. Gotta put my trickster shaman in to try out how putting in an established character feels. I'm curious how well this will run on tablets/phones etc. too. Well done!

Hey all, it's Christmas in July on DriveThruRPG! So I figured why not, let's discount a wee bit further. 😉 The POD + PDF combo for both Treasures 1 and Treasures 2 adds just +$5.00 to the softcover's cost for the duration of the sale. (Or until I remember to switch it back…) I want to see more pretty copies on shelves and at tables! Don't forget to check out the other great Jonstown Compendium offerings on sale as well!

This is absolutely awesome—I hope it helps support a good cause, and also helps more people check out the game! Well done Chaosium.

Hey all! I've finally finished reading through the Pendragon Core Rulebook, and a review is available over on my site. If you're still mulling over the new edition, I think it's worth checking out! 😄

If you're still on the fence about this one, this week's article on my site takes a look at the piece! TLDR: recommended. 😄 https://akhelas.com/2024/06/21/review-skull-ruins/

The Wild Hunt of Gagarth rides forth! I'm delighted to share I've finished edits on my next RuneQuest book: "Howl of the Wild Hunt." Within is included Gagarth's cult spirits, the Clearwine Necropolis adventure site, Chief Colymar's ancestor cult, and more. This anthology will be available in Print on Demand (POD). It collects three adventures never before available in POD: "The Throat of Winter," "Clash with the Quacken," and "The Queen's Star." Remastering the first two will bring their presentation into line with my more recent work. There may be some new art (not sure yet). In total, I expect the anthology to be 150–175 pages. At the moment my remaining work is art direction, graphic design, and layout. It's "Coming Eventually" because I can't yet make a good release estimate. Absolute minimum is a month, "several months" seems probable, and wouldn't be weird if something happened and it took longer. Would y'all like me to release a text-only Beta? I could release a text-only PDF of "Howl" fairly quickly. This will, of course, update to the full PDF when I uploaded the completed book. A Beta PDF this time would probably follow a "pre-order" model, not a discounted "early access." The Beta PDF will contain everything needed to play the "Howl of the Wild Hunt" and to explore Clearwine Necropolis. (I'd include the old PDFs of the other adventures too, so new purchasers have everything before I'm finished with the remaster.) I'm on the fence, and would love to hear your thoughts & feedback. Luparth art is by the magnificent @Lordabdul!

Reddit in general, or the RuneQuest/Glorantha Reddit groups? I don't use much Reddit, but I feel like I've had positive interactions in r/RuneQuest. I can't speak about TTRPG spaces at large on the platform.

Hey all, interested in what the new books look like? I remembered to hit record and tried doing a short unboxing vid (plus a lot more rambling). Includes my cute and slightly obnoxious kitty.

FWIW Facebook is by far the best spot for marketing JC stuff, if you're looking into writing for RuneQuest. There's a significant enough difference in engagement that I do suspect authors who aren't active over there sell noticeably fewer books.

Ditto. Adding new spirit magic spells looks like "I'm going to go seek out a spirit with stuff I don't know about." It's worth noting that creating spirit magic spells is a necessity, per the core rules: Considering none of these spells are in the Red Book of Magic, it's a logical necessity that they'd need to be invented by the gamemaster and/or the players.

Huh, I never thought to compare the two. Thanks! This is interesting and useful information.

And line edits are wrapped up! Now to get all that blue ink into the Word document of my next draft… 😅 Still, working by hand helps me think! Once I've got my third draft collated, my next task is graphic design to prep for art direction and layout. I'm going to be using Affinity Publisher for the first time on this project—finally trying to divest myself of Adobe—so I'm choosing to build a template file from the ground up to help me get to learn the program. The template file ought to be useful for future projects too, of course. (Well, so long as I do it right.)

Yup! One of this work's sections is a bestiary collection (kind of MOTM style) describing luparths, the cult spirits of Gagarth which hunt on the Spirit World's winds. In addition to the adventure I hope that section will be easy to grab and use for GMs as they see fit in their own campaigns. Nah, I'm just teasing the next thing I've got coming along. 🙂 Thanks for offering advice! I've made enough stuff that I do have this handled, but I appreciate the helpful spirit. 😄 As I mentioned in the OP, it's hard to define a timeline until I've completed the edit. After that, the schedule just depends on how busy I am (or am not) with other stuff.

Huh, I like that quite a bit. Intriguing idea.