Cultist of Sooty

Yes, this is a site where I feel unwelcome and unwanted. I might read here for Chaosium news but I won't be posting here as it stands. I've been a fan of RuneQuest and Call of Cthulhu since 1983. But I don't feel totally comfortable posting here because someone might object if I (horrors!) mention that I'm gay, or if I call out sexism or racism. And it feels like the moderation/ownership would be on their side instead of mine. And, frankly, I'm nervous about sticking my head up and posting this because I feel sure I will be attacked for it. But it's how this forum comes across.

The main reason is a very simple one. It's harder to get new players interested in a game when you say "Let's play Game X, but not the version you can buy in the shops, the one that is out of print and unavailable". It's as simple as that. The other reason is another game came out that looked interesting, I tried it, and I liked it, so I played that. I play more than one game system. I don't have an exclusive contract to play just one game always and forever. But really I don't need to justify why I changed game systems to you or to anyone else. I stopped enjoying HeroQuest. It didn't feel like fun any more so I moved on to something that did feel like fun.

Yeah, that was me. I used Hero Wars and HQ1 for a few superhero games. HW/HQ were my "go to" system for a good few years. I used it for superheroes, spies, Doctor Who, Exalted, Mage: the Ascension, a game about rock bands, angels, and a whole bunch more that I can't remember now. But I'm not fond of the current edition of HQ at all so I've moved on to systems that I enjoy more. We used Icons for our last long-runnning superhero game. That lasted about 4 years of weekly play. We'll likely go back to that system again sometime soon. We liked it a lot.

I have actually done falconry indoors. Well, it was an owl. It was deemed too windy to do it outdoors, so we flew the owl around the function room. No matter who you are, you look wiser if you have an owl standing on your arm.

The game is still going strong, and still making me very happy. We've played 14 sessions of play now, and I think it's rattling along really nicely. I started an "Actual Play" thread about it on RPGnet: https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/runequest-glorantha-apple-lane-at-last.849524/ So I could post writeups of the sessions and witter on endlessly about what happened and what I was thinking. I'm still a very happy chap about this.

"I have never used the Lie spell in Sartar."

I found an interview with him: http://www.castaliahouse.com/john-boyle-the-queens-heir/ He's, er, definitely influenced by Glorantha: "You asked about the possible influence of D&D or other games; well, I don’t really know much about Dungeons & Dragons, but I was heavily influenced by the work of Greg Stafford and Steve Perrin after meeting them in the late 70’s and Sandy Petersen as well. I did some writing for Chaosium Inc., small pieces for the RuneQuest and Stormbringer game systems and the influence of Stafford’s Glorantha runs through Queen’s Heir. I took the idea for the general framework of my world from a book called The Sword of Rhiannon, by Leigh Brackett. When I went looking for a society to hang from that framework, I remembered something Greg Stafford once wrote about the Hittites and I looked them over and was drawn by the phrase “The Thousand Gods of the Hittites” (some sources say 10,000, the Hittites mention gods everywhere and often give nothing more than their names)."

That is exactly what happened in the last session I ran, on Sunday evening. In this case the wolves were chasing a person rather than the herds. But having one wolf zapped right in the head by a lightning bolt and the next one speared discouraged the whole pack very decisively. 😀

We've had 4 sessions of play so far - the first 3 were mostly my own stuff set around Apple Lane and with a lot of stuff about apples in it. Last session was basically the first half of the Rainbow Mounds. They have newtling friends now and they'll tackle the trolls next session.

At the end of our game on Thursday, the PCs had just got into the treasure room. SPOILER ALERT FOR MY PLAYERS JUST IN CASE ARIM & PENRALTAN'S PLAYERS COME HERE ... ... ... I've decided to not define the leaf that hurts you when you touch it any further unless one of us has a sudden inspiration later. It's just one of those mysterious things. I decided not to include the jewelled rod that makes the cave collapse. I felt that three mysterious things (the adamatine pillar, the leaf and the statue) were enough for me. I wanted to tie some of the other stuff into other happenings and give them some connections: The statue, though the players and PCs haven't realised it yet, is a statue of Orgorvale. They'll recognise it if they encounter her at the Queen's Tomb, or if they see another depiction somewhere else. Maybe at Ulaninstead if we end up on a side trek there, as one of the PCs is a Pol-Joni. They haven't touched the adamantine pillar yet. Thanks to the connection to the dragonewt plinth above, which I decided to play up by describing the pillar as inscribed with draconic runes and carvings. Disturbing this will draw the attention of dragonewts. If there is time in the next session, they'll arrive with uncanny speed and be waiting for the PCs when they exit the caves. If not, I'll have them turn up at some inconvenient moment in future. I bet Minaryth Purple would love to get a look at that pillar if he hears about the draconic stuff... If the PCs take a proper look at it, I must remember to give them an experience check in draconic lore. Whether they want it or not! 😉 I also decided to tie in the missing eye of the newtling ancestor idol to the Boat Planet. If ever we play long enough for the PCs to join the Boat Rise heroquest, when they see the blue planet in the sky they will be able to reach up and pluck the newtling's eye from the sky.

Just ordered mine. Can't wait! 😀

This is something I wrote up a while ago for some character background in a non-Glorantha game, but it seems to me like it would fit in well in Glorantha with maybe a couple of changes to small details: Once there was a fire who burned in a grate. When he was damped down to a little spark and he slept, he dreamed hungry dreams of the wood and thatch he saw through the bars of his grate. He dreamed of the wildfires that were his ancestors. "Just set me loose for a moment," he sighed in his sleep. "And I will feed my hunger. I will be an inferno." One day the grate was left open and the little spark was free! He leaped from the hearth to the table, from the table to the chair, from the chair to the curtain. He reached out with fingers of flame to climb to the roof. But a woman spoke and made him pause there. "You should let your hunger be satisfied," she told him. "With what you have already burned." "Why should I? My hunger is powerful and I would fill it." "If you do not temper it, it will control you." "Why should I care?" "Because people will fear you. They will tear down everything around you that could feed you. They will bring water and sand to quench and smother you. Your flame will be extinguished. You will be cold and dead. You know this to be true." The fire flickered with doubt. "If this is as you say, why should I not blaze hot and hungry in the short time I have left?" "You have a choice. If you temper your flame and walk with me, you will be more than a blaze that burns once and goes out. You will be many fires. You will be fire that brings warmth, fire that brings light, fire that gives comfort. You will be fire that cleanses, fire that consumes, fire that kills. When it is needed, little spark, I promise you will run free and hot and wild across the open plain. You will roar and your smoke and flames will reach up to the sky. Just choose." The fire chose. When the woman walked away from the house, flames danced in her eyes.

For what it's worth, I have ridden an ostrich in real life. It felt neither stable nor very comfortable, but then I am not experienced at all in riding so I would probably have said the same if it had been a horse. It was in South Africa. It was an organised thing, I didn't just snag a passing birdie and hop on.

Some more that I thought of: Eureka Miniatures have a lot of ancients - Assyrians, Greeks, Amazons, Persians, etc. That's an Australian site but I know they have distribution deals in other countries. There's Gangs of Rome for lightly-equipped Roman men and women, and quite a lot of civilians too. Brace yourself, though, they're not cheap. Crocodile Games have Wargods of Aegyptus and of Olympus. Bear's Head miniatures have some nice ones, including a great undead rhino which I'm sure everyone would love to encounter somewhere in Prax. I also have a vague memory of someone whose range included amazons riding antelope, but my memory and search fu are failing me.

It's lovely, but it's just a normal llama, not an aepycamelus. I want an aepycamelus for my birthday now. 😀