Austin

It's hard to pick favorites, but I'm quite pleased with how "Vows of Power" came out. This article provides a new common Rune spell, "Swear Vow," which any adventurer can cast to petition their deity for customizable boons. This article was the most difficult piece in the new book. Vows of Power entwine roleplay & mechanics. Driven by the adventurer's Passions and structured by their cult obligations, vows offer magical rewards for roleplay. In the days of the God Learners this magic was much-abused. Using myth-warping sorcery to loosen the bonds of one's oaths proved too great a temptation. Thus, in the Third Age failing to honor a Vow of Power is accompanied by dire consequences! "Treasures" will be releasing in just a few days! DMs After Dark will be giving away a free copy on their stream, so tune in Friday at 7PM EST if you're interested!

Interested in winning a free copy of the new release? Actual play group DMs After Dark is giving away a PDF of Treasures of Glorantha 2 on their Twitch stream this Friday. Tune in at 7PM EST if you're interested (and also to enjoy some liveplay hijinx!). I'm planning on hanging out in chat, too, so if you want a bit of Q&A I'm happy to field it - so long as it doesn't distract from the game, that is!

I prefer Harshax, myself. Naturally I need not state the year, for all proper persons know the proper year by the True and Right calendar. Hail Harshax!

(That's February 23rd in 2024, for you pedants. 😉)

Treasures of Glorantha 2 is basically complete! There are two art pieces still in-progress, and I need to give it an actual proofread (rather than fiddling during my second graphic design pass), but the main production is done. I've got a release date in mind, but I want to double-check with artists before committing to anything.

Glorantha Book Club - 1/23-24 Haven't done one of these in a while! I recently finished reading Gary Ferguson's Spirits of the Wild, and it felt especially relevant for brainstorming myths and adventures in Glorantha. The book's a short collection of folktales and myths from around the world rewritten by the author. What made it “click” for me was: The collection's sources are diverse in both time and space. They range from antiquity to around the 18th century, and from the Pacific Northwest to Southeast Asia. Each story explains why the world happens to be a certain way. The stories are generally short and pleasantly written, just a couple pages. Many of them would adapt well directly into a heroquest. The emphasis on explanations is also helpful for getting in the “mythmaking” frame of mind. While not all myths are creation stories, Ferguson's collection provides many variation on that theme. Another perk is that it looks like the book isn't terribly expensive when buying used. 😁 Which is nice because I have no clue where I got it.

I recently finished reading Burial and ancient society by Ian Morris (which is where this post basically came from), and this is a problem he discusses in the burial archaeology of ancient Attica. He makes a fairly plausible argument that a significant chunk of the population must have received a communal, less detectible, burial. Basically calculating sizes and years of use for cemeteries to determine approximate burial community sizes (often family or multi-family communities), and then comparing that to other demographic methods for ancient populations. Worth noting that I am not a specialist - just a nerd that likes academic books. I also don't fuss too much about retention or "realism" because my focus is finding ideas for fiction, not historical accuracy. Among the Orlanthi, I think it's plausible that this would analogize to the Unfree or Semifree having some type of mass interment or grave, with the Free standard of living and upward having more lasting monuments. I get the impression from Morris's book that specific family groups - basically clans - emerge and dissolve with some regularity. So another way to handle it would be that Orlanthi clans typically last just a few generations, while tribes are more enduring. Clans ending not in disaster, but just because the central family figures aren't present to keep generations of descendents returning for family reunions.

God… God dammit. I'm grouchy that made me laugh. 😄

RuneQuest adventurer deaths can involve more than ritually running the character sheet through a shredder. The question of where—and by whom—the adventurer is buried provides a roleplay opportunity. In Sartar, most clan villages have a nearby urnfield in which their members are interred. Tribal centers and cities have a necropolis or other site for burying the dead. Some (like Clearwine Fort) set aside a place of honor for tribal nobility. Adventurers often have both kinship and political ties as a result of their deeds. Who has the stronger claim? Controlling access to graves is a point at which religion and politics intersect. A tribe meets its obligation to the ancestors by feeding them sacrifices. The nobility can restrict who provides the sacrifices yet fulfill their sacred duties. Determining who can participate in the community's ancestor worship helps local leaders remain in power. This also gives the nobility a motive to inter powerful persons—i.e. players—among the elite rather than their kin. In this context adventurers might delve into a necropolis for holy reasons. It's not sacrilege to worship one's gods or ancestors! The classic tomb raiding adventure can have justification beyond treasure hunting. Politically, local leaders might oppose the adventurers—even with force—but in a religious context their actions may well be justified. Of course, this can also lead to the evils of kinstrife…

This helps a ton. I've never tried to preserve dice order in this way (although it's a good idea), but rolling all the dice simultaneously can save 10 to 30 seconds per combat action, depending on play speed. This is also a benefit in the Roll20 game I play in - the platform handles a lot of the combat math and dice rolls in a single click. I've mulled over trying to bring Roll20 to my physical tables just for character sheets. But, I think my friends would be more distracted by phone sheets than assisted. 😄

I vote option E - all of the above!

Ooh, that's good.

This is one I tend to go back and forth on. Lately, I've felt it's more fun to be more restrictive in which Runes can augment what abilities because that encourages Runic diversity among the adventurers. While "Climb" does feel a bit odd for "Water," as a designer I like that adventurers strong in the Water Rune are more likely to succeed with risky or inexperienced Agility skills. Especially in the case of Runes with fewer "high-profile" spells (like the Water or Stasis Rune), I feel this contributes to balancing the "coolness factor" among players at the table.

Hey all! As some of you know, I write articles over on my website, akhelas.com, which are often about RuneQuest. This week's article, "RuneQuest's Unwritten Rules" generated a LOT more conversation on social media than I anticipated. Since I know there's folks over here who don't use social media, I thought I'd share the article's link here as well. I'm working on the assumption that quantity of conversation is proportional to how interesting the material is. If you guys want me to share RuneQuest articles here more often, I don't mind doing so. I mostly don't want to spam the forum too much with promoting my own stuff. I'm aware that most of the time I'm on BRP Central nowadays is spent sharing/teasing my Jonstown Compendium products. I want to stay mindful that the real purpose of a forum is discussion, not showing off. Self-anxious preamble aside, linkety link: https://akhelas.com/2023/12/29/runequests-unwritten-rules/ Edit: second article on bonus stacking here: https://akhelas.com/2024/03/22/unwritten-rules-bonus-stacking/

Short update - I entered Graphic Design Hypnosis last night and hammered out the first draft of layout. Remaining tasks include: Finish editing an article Write remaining art direction Source stock art and other resources as needed Layout pass 2 to fully integrate text and art Proofread, proofread, proofread ?Send out review copies? ?Prep POD files?

Sorala lifts a midnight crystal amidst the Clanking Ruins. This chunk of the Machine God's blood emanates eldritch light. The trollish spirit Babaka Fegh looms behind the trespassing adventurer. Treasures of Glorantha 2 is the essential guide to lost magics of the Imperial Age. This magic item compendium describes wonders from the God Learners, the Empire of the Wyrms Friends, and other conquerors which lie quiescent across the world. Delve into the past and claim tools with which to shape Glorantha's future! Want a peek into the book? A free preview is available on DriveThruRPG to all purchasers of the Gold-bestselling Volume 1. Go to "My Library" to find the PDF! Those who don't have Volume 1 can pick it up here: http://tiny.cc/treasures-v1 Also, I evidently forgot to post the following production update here on the forums: Thus, Treasures 2 is currently coming "whenever I finish it."

I've decided to halt the Eden Fallen playtest for a variety of reasons, mostly involving personal mental/emotional bandwidth. I'd not call the game dead, but we've successfully held one scheduled session since September. Consequently, I haven't actively been working on the game while trying to get playtest feedback. There might be some version in the future focusing on the setting utilizing BRUGE mechanics, rather than iterating from a foundation of BRUGE mechanics. No promises.

Still churning forward on this - here's a spread from the free PDF preview I've uploaded for purchasers of Volume 1. 😄 (http://tiny.cc/treasures-v1) Imperial mosaics by Zed Nope, "Eurmal's Backdoor Key" illustration by Armazém Fantastico.

I believe the sentence "These spirits do not come into action when initiates transfer to an associate cult" is meant to apply to the second paragraph of "Leaving the Cult" as well (Mythology 144).

Ooh, I do find that more compelling... So in my head, that strikes my intuition more pleasantly because the notion of Malkion getting an Invisible God prophesy feels a bit weird to me. But setting it parallel with Flesh Man's madness visions of the End is quite intriguing. And if Flesh Man's a "grandchild" of Grandfather Mortal, that could put Malkion in the right spot depending on who Aerlit is. My thinking being, if Aerlit's the first "man-shaped" storm god then we have 3 generations. Though of course the God Time usually isn't that nice and tidy.

Yeah, I saw someone use "EurMalkion" somewhere for the first time recently, and it definitely did some fun stuff to my "bad ideas generation" part of my brain. Dunno if I buy in, yet, but that won't prevent me from inflicting it on players! 😄 I do not know what you mean by Fifth Action, but I assume it's some sort of dismemberment to create stuff (like the Cosmic Dragon). I don't quite see the total parallel between Gramps & Malkion, in part because I conceive of Gramps as essentially parallel to the Celestial Court - a universal ur-source of the Man Rune - and I conceive of Malkion as loosely a founder deity like Waha or Vingkot. But I do see the echo, now, and that's pretty cool.

As someone without much fluency with the deep/old sources, I found the Introduction very interesting - particularly the brief section on heroquesting. How much of the "Understanding Mythology" chapter originates in prior material? I recognized the "Four Ways to Experience these Stories" section, I think from a Stafford Library book, but much of the rest was new to me. Thanks!

Personally, jury's still out. I know Chaosium's been cooking Mythology for a long time, and I'm trying to put genuine brainpower into dissecting and fiddling with it. Trying to see if it's as revolutionary an approach to Glorantha and/or the RPG medium as the book & marketing implies. At some point I'll emerge from the confusion haze, just not entirely sure when. That said, as a turbonerd who enjoys academic-style research and analysis, I've already got my money's worth from the book, for sure. I'm still trying to muddle through how to use it to play RuneQuest.

What leads you to associate Gramps and Malkion? I haven't got that notion from Mythology or Glorantha Sourcebook. Is it due to the Man Rune/humanist focus of the West?

I don't think backtracking is needed? I think everything is forwardtracking, but maybe forwardtracking in an chronologically atypical direction.