Lordabdul

The Journal of Runic Studies #38 is out! French RuneQuest overview, details on the upcoming Culbrea campaign, Jonstown Compendium sales, annotated information on the Lunars, Coeur de Runes, Mycenae, and more!

Oops indeed! Thanks.

Apologies, I missed a couple of the last journal issues... meanwhile, the Journal of Runic Studies #37 is out! A return to the RuneQuest Starter Set, CHA bonuses, alcohol in Glorantha, trolls, ducks, kitbashing, an improved rulebook index, mythology in movies, wave rocks, and more!

Oh of course 🙂 In fact, while I'm very bad at tactics, half of my players are pretty good at it, so I wasn't joking when I said I generally learn tricks from my own players. And more seriously, having PCs or NPCs organizing their order of attacks sounds like pretty decent tactic to me.

Funny how it didn't even occur to me to do that until you mentioned it 😄 Like @JustAnotherVingan says, it's a quid-pro-quo kinda thing. Maybe it would have occurred to me to do it after the players did it to one of the boss monsters. Who knows. Plus, unless I don't understand what you're talking about, the alternative seems more complicated to track at the table, and doesn't work in some cases. Imagine the player says they'll keep their "best parry" for the Great Troll (on SR 11), and then their -20% parry for Trollkin 1 (on SR 6), and -40% parry for Trollkin 2 (on SR 4). The -40% parry goes badly and the adventurer gets wounded. But then on SR 5 one of the other adventurers kills Trollkin 1. There's no attack coming on SR 6 anymore. So the first parry against Trollkin 2 shouldn't have been at -40%, and the adventurer maybe shouldn't have been wounded. Unless it's actually fine that we had one parry at -40% and one parry at full skill? I don't know? My head already hurts. And maybe a GM munchkin will now start having multiple trollkin feint attacks and change their SOI mid-round, to fuck with players and only attack against reduced parries. I don't know. I'm not a GM munchkin. I just like combat to flow quickly with cool things happening. RPGs aren't a "GM vs players" affair, I'm not here to kill the PCs (in fact I'm pretty bad at combat with my NPCs), I'm here to have a good time in dragon-elf-fantasy-land.

I personally wouldn't let players "reorder" their parries, if that's what you mean. That is, if SRs dictacte that the attacks come in the order of Trollkin 1, Trollkin 2, Great Troll, then either the player parries both trollkins and suffer -40% for the Great Troll, ignore one trollkin and get -20% for the Great Troll, or let both trollkin hit "for free" to be at full skill against the Great Troll. Some GMs might let the player decide on parrying or not only after seeing if the trollkin hit, so that you don't "waste" your parry for nothing. Other more severe GMs might want their players to declare whether they're defending against an attack before they know if the attack is successful.

Our Initiation Series continues with @skulldixon, who talks about his recent discovery of RuneQuest, everything he likes about Glorantha, some unnecessary severed limbs, how to deal with mountains of lore, and ducks! Listen now!

AFAIK from published sources and posts from Jeff, the Alone Confederation has historically largely been left... well.. alone by the Lunars. Harvar Ironfist (who is backed by the Red Emperor) put everybody in line when he violently took power in 1611, and got the Alone tribes to pay a heavy tribute until 1625. But there was never a permanent Lunar garrison in Alone, because the Lunars had more important business in Sartar, where all the real money is. Harvar didn't bother having hoplites there either on a permanent basis IMHO. All there is (in my game) is a Seven Mothers shrine, for good measure, and for a bit of local recruitment (with little success). Lunars and Harvar's soldiers would however wander the lands around Alone on occasion to chase leads about Sartar rebels hiding there... which there was quite a few of since it's a nice place to lay low when you can't get to Prax. So by and large, the local tribes were mostly keeping their heads down, paying their tribute, and sneaking around to clandestine Orlanthi temples with some occasional rebels. After the Dragonrise, Harvar Ironfist is supposedly dead (he was present at the Lunar temple in Chaosium's Glorantha) but the Lunars (through their Tarsh king) take no time moving in to Alda-chur, which is an important trade site, and which is pro-Lunar at this point anyway. Again, Alone is not very important: the trade routes to Prax or to the Holy Country don't go through it (but they go through Herongreen and Alda-chur). They also need to make sure the new warlord who liberated New Pavis isn't going to go through here, and that the Sartarites (disorganized and in turmoil but nonetheless newly free) aren't going to move either. Kallyr, Broyan, Argrath, that's what concerns the Lunars. They keep an eye towards the east and south.... which means they have potentially a blind spot for the Alone tribes. These tribes aren't wealthy or big enough to pose any military danger, but an alliance with Sartar to do a pincer move on Herogreen might be worrying enough. I imagine that the tribal kings in Alone are thinking about it, and that the Lunars in Alda-chur will be reminding them who's the boss, and who has been the boss for the past 14 years, and what happened last time there was a rebellion in the Far Place. Wildcard: the trolls of the Indigo Mountains, who might be convinced to act one way or another, and can largely tip the scales. In Chaosium's Glorantha, it's Argrath who eventually comes here and conquers Alda-chur and the Far Place, but who knows what is left out of the history books. The Lunars attempting to enlist Brangbane's help is a great idea for an adventure IMHO. The Bachad clan centered around Day's Hope (which I call the "ghoulwatchers") has a big Humakti cult (they have temple nearby) who specialize in undead fighting. They know the area very well compared to any Lunars, so stopping the Lunars would probably rely on help or information from those in that clan.

Thanks a lot! Much appreciated.

The Journal of Runic Studies #34 is out! Chaosium anecdotes, RuneQuest dice, annotated Jeff Notes on Belintar, Argrath, Moonson, and Safelster, Pavis Companions, eagle hunting, Joerg's thoughts on Baz & Gaz's recent podcasts, and more!

Episode 8 of the God Learners is out! We are joined by Andrew "Doc" Cowie who talks about his 40 years of RuneQuest experience, and how the game and world have changed along the way. Plus: fancy shield, Greg Stafford anecdotes, index cards, donating loot, and more! If you have tales about playing RQ2 back when the product line was being released, we'd love to have you on air! Send me a PM.

Two days after release, A Short Detour is still in the top 5 of all community content on DriveThruRPG! Yay! (I suppose that's good, right?)

Oh hey did I miss the one from last week? Sorry about that! (it's here!) The Journal of Runic Studies #33 is out! My first published RuneQuest adventure, characteristic vs skill rolls, annotated notes from Jeff on Grazelanders, Lunar cults, Holy Country cities, and more!

My first RuneQuest adventure is live on the Jonstown Compendium! Grab it now it still has plenty of typos! When the adventurers stumble upon a mother and her son being attacked by wild boars, they are thrown into a tricky situation in which multiple powerful factions are on a collision course. What will your players do when they can decide who lives and who dies? A Short Detour is a straightforward adventure for RuneQuest Glorantha that will take about one big or two short sessions of play. It can be placed anywhere around Sartar, with the text assuming that your campaign is based in or near Colymar lands. In addition to the adventure, A Short Detour provides an insightful look at the nature of Chaos, with rules for Chaotic corruption. A copy of the Glorantha Bestiary and Red Book of Magic are recommended to run this adventure, but not totally necessary. Buy it now! Thanks!

Yeah, agreed -- and if you check Leika's other skills, it tracks: she's got a bunch of other skills at 90%+ and a bunch more at 100%+ . She's not the best fighter but she's damn good. And she's damn good at a whole bunch of other things too. I'm less interested in whether Broadsword 125% would make more sense than 105%, and more interested in getting a general idea of what the NPC is about. In Leika's case, she's a fighter, a speaker, a tactician, a singer, a horse rider, a musician, and an Orlanth cult expert. Similarly, Nameless is quite quite good at more than one weapon, and has a few other notable skill specialties (90%+). And if an NPC isn't powerful enough for a specific bunch of PCs, adjust the stats.

A new episode of our Initiation Series is out, where we interview newcomers to Glorantha and learn what they think of it! Erin, resident archaeologist of the Beer With Teeth collective, is up this month! We talk SCA, Runemasters, and old fandoms! If you're subscribed to our podcast, the episode should already be on your device of choice, waiting to be listened to!

The Journal of Runic Studies #31 is out! Rick Meints' Chaosium history classes, Alda-churian population, keeping your PCs prisoners, miniatures, and more!

Thanks! It's always great to hear, since otherwise it feels a bit like blogging into the void 😅 And yeah it takes a few hours along the week -- I tend to time-box it, so if you spot a lack of annotations on a Jeff Note, or a link to a video with only very minimal commentary, it means I didn't have time to do any research or watch the video or whatever 😋 By the way, if anybody wants to help, I'll gladly take it! Pick a post from Jeff or a Glorantha-related video or article from anywhere, and write a couple paragraphs on it. It would show up as "guest entry by..." -- the only editorial line so far is that it needs to be newbie friendly (i.e. someone who only has the RQG slipcase), and needs to be positive or constructive. How do you picture the difference?

The Journal of Runic Studies #30 is out! New gamemaster month, lots of annotated Jeff posts on everything Malkioni, some nice art and miniatures to look at, and more! Disclaimer: I didn't know much about Malkioni lore until this weekend, so feel free to correct me or add to my annotations here!

Really nice, thematically, and mechanically appropriate abilities! Thanks for sharing.

Episode 7 of the God Learners podcast is out! We're looking after the people who got the RuneQuest Starter Set during the holidays! With guest @Diana Probst we discuss ideas for more adventures in Jonstown after the 3 scenarios found in the box. Plus: some exclusive news!

From a snow lodge somewhere in northern Fronela, the Journal of Runic Studies #29 is out! Several miniatures-related news and pictures, the last Monster of the Month, annotated Jeff notes on Jrustela, Harrek, heroquesting, a new RQG podcast, and more!

The Journal of Runic Studies #28 is out! Seasonal correspondences between Glorantha and Earth, an in-dept RuneQuest Starter Set review, LOTS of Jeff notes, where to find Phoenicians, and more!

The Journal of Runic Studies #27 is out! A new #Glorantha newbie interview, Jonstown Compendium releases, lots of notes from Jeff with the usual (hopefully insightful!) annotations and commentary, and more!

Book 1 (Rules), page 18: Failure when rolling Passion Inspiration says it results in -20% from all further rolls, when page 11 says it's -10%. I assume page 11 is correct since that's also what the core rulebook says.