Gary Norton

Simon, thanks for a lot of input. I hadn't considered Hellpits of Nightfang. I'll be taking a look at that one. I've held off in terms of placing major Chaosium adventures in the campaign while waiting to see which ones Ian that uses. If Ian doesn't use them, I'll certainly look into including those. I also want to look at incorporating some of the Big Rubble encounters from Pavis: Gateway to Adventure. I intend to use them more as vignettes than full-fledged adventures. [Ian has already incorporated three of the four big adventures from P:GtA.] I really appreciate that you brought up the topic of themes. Lots of the thematic elements you mention come up naturally as part of Ian's Grand Pavis Campaign. Those are easily incorporated into the campaign. Another theme that I want to emphasize is the conflict of cultures in Pavis and Prax. I see six major human cultures in the region. In general, they don't like each other and certainly don't trust each other. The first two cultures date to godtime. They are the indigenous peoples (riverfolk and oasis folk) and the animal nomads following the way of Waha. In the second age, the Pavis and Sun Country settlers arrive and establish themselves along the Zola Fel. The fall of the EWF drives both of those cultures into a long period of isolation. Then the third age brings the Dorasings (Sartarites) and the Lunars. These six human cultures are mixing and vying for power along the Zola Fel river valley. Another factor I'm emphasizing is the different ways that the cultures approach the role of women and men in their respective societies. In addition to the human cultures, the Aldryami, Mostali, and Uz cultures add more fuel to this volatile mix. To help emphasize these different cultures, I very much want to have the PCs spend significant time in different cultures. Thus, the PCs head off to Sun County for most of 1617. The PCs will be immersed in this foreign (for most of them) culture and need to deal with those differences. This may be an especially trying time for female PCs. Later on, their work for Duke Raus will provide a different view of Lunars. While the Lunars remain the enemy throughout the campaign, this portion of the campaign emphasizes some of the differences with the Empire that the PCs may be able to exploit later.

One of my primary goals for the overall campaign is to run as many of the other adventures set in Prax; this includes adventures from the Jonstown Compendium as well as adventures from fanzines like Tales of the Reaching Moon. I also intend to include all of the optional adventures referenced by Ian. To make this all fit, I'm starting the campaign two years earlier than Ian's timeline. One year was added to incorporate Tales of the Sun Dome Militia. A second year was added to allow time for all of the pieces of the Borderlands campaign to fit. 1617: PCs arrive in New Pavis in Sea Season. They get a chance to explore the city, but then they have the encounter with the Fine Fellows and they find themselves in the Lunar Empire justice system. In Ian's campaign, the PCs are assigned to Draximedes for the duration of the Ghost in the Darkness adventure. I'm changing this assignment to the Sun Dome Militia for the remainder of the year. The PCs travel to Sandheart and partake in most of the adventures from Jonathan Webb's Tales of the Sun Dome Militia. A good background reference is Life and Traditions under the Sun Dome (Jonstown Compendium). I reordered the adventures to fit the seasonal references: Fire Season: Gaumata’s Vision (Shadows on the Borderlands) and The God Skin (Volume 4) Earth Season: Fortunate Son (Volume 2) and The Corn Dolls (Volume 2) Dark Season: No Country for Cold Men (Volume 1) and Tradition (Sandheart 3) Storm Season: Sins of the Father (Tales of the Reaching Moon #14) and Rabbit Hat Farm (Sun County) Then the PCs partake in Ghost in the Darkness and return to New Pavis. 1618: The PCs begin exploring the Big Rubble. First up is Finding Nymu followed by other rubble adventures that come under the rubric of Ian's self-directed adventures. I plan to use Insula of the Rising Sun and Insula of the Waning Moon (both from Jonstown Compendium). If there's other rubble adventures I can find, I'll try to toss them in here. In Ian's version, Finding Nymu occurs prior to Ghost in the Darkness. I moved Finding Nymu to delay the entry of the PCs into the Big Rubble until they have some more experience under their belts. This also helps lump their initial explorations of the Big Rubble into consecutive sessions. 1619: The events of Rough Business send the PCs off to work for Duke Raus. This year incorporates the many events in the Borderlands campaign. I also want to fit in the Stone and Bone mini-campaign (Jonstown Compendium) along with Ian's expansions of Borderlands. This is also a good opportunity to find other adventures set in this area of Prax. 1620+: Rejoin Ian's campaign starting with the remainder of Volume 3. If some new material gets published on the Jonstown Compendium, I might be able to add them somewhere in the remainder of the series.

My first suggestion is to get Pavis - Gateway to Adventure (published in 2012). While this book was published as part of the HeroQuest line, it is a fabulous resource for New Pavis (specifically) and Prax (generally). This book is my go-to resource for New Pavis as it adds many new NPCs to the campaign; many of whom are referenced in Ian's campaign. This book really helps develop New Pavis. Even more important is the support for running adventures. The most obvious part are the four substantial scenarios, three of which are already included in Ian's campaign. I've found it straight-forward to develop HeroQuest adventures into other game systems because the HQ adventures are heavily focused on the story. As a GM, you then need to add in location maps and create or adapt NPC opponents that the PCs will face. In addition, there are almost 40 one-page encounters set in New Pavis. These can easily be inserted as short role-playing (mostly) vignettes in the city-based part of the campaign. Similarly, there's another 50 pages of short encounters set all over Prax. Unfortunately, this book may be difficult to find. I quickly found one copy online selling for $135.

I'm preparing to run Ian's Grand Pavis Plan campaign and I'm finding this to be the most challenging campaign that I have ever run. I can imagine this will be true for many other game masters considering this campaign. I thought it might be helpful to have a place for GMs to give advice to other GMs. I plan to contribute my own thoughts & ideas. I would love to see contributions from other GMs, especially from any who have already started running the campaign. The Grand Pavis Plan comprises a huge amount of material. This starts out with Ian's series that is currently projected to run to 9 volumes. The series also references a lot of other material from Chaosium and Moon Design. Some of that material is out-of-print and some is in-print. Fortunately, Chaosium is beginning to re-release several RQ3 supplements from the 1990s that are part of the campaign. Once you put all of these documents together, we're looking at thousands of pages of material and dozens of well developed adventures to run. Organizationally, however, it's all a bit of a nightmare. Player facing material, including backgrounds and cults, is spread out over many documents (including Volumes 1-5 of Ian's series). Details on locations and NPCs are spread over two dozen documents. I'm struggling to wrap my head around all of the information so that I'm well prepared to run the campaign.

If you are interested in this campaign, please visit and then register at my Discovering Glorantha location on Warhorn: https://warhorn.net/events/discovering-glorantha This campaign will make use of The Smoking Ruin adventure from Chaosium along with several more adventures from the Jonstown Compendium. All of the adventures are located in or near Beast Valley. The first session begins on January 15th, 2024. We will be using Roll20 for the VTT and Discord for audio. This campaign has several unusual features: 1) Each 4-hour session will be run four times over a two-week period. Players are welcome to remain with one time slot or to move amongst the time slots. The best way to check out the time slots is to use the calendar view within Warhorn; if you have your time zone set up correctly, this will show you what your local time is. 2) This campaign is played with a modified version of the Pathfinder Second Edition rules. The modifications include PCs receiving three runes (as you do in RuneQuest). You then have the opportunity to gain special abilities associated with the runes you selected. All PCs are able to cast spells; all PCs gain Rune Magic and Spirit Magic. Some PCs may choose to replace Spirit Magic with Sorcery. 3) PCs are encouraged to play non-humans. Available choices include Aldryami (elves, runners, and pixies), Baboons, Ducks, Fox Women, Morokanth, Newtlings, and Trolls (in addition to humans). If you would like help with character creation, I am happy to help you turn your Gloranthan character ideas into viable Pathfinder builds.

Page 64 (Caladra & Aurelion): It really seems odd that Mostal gives the Diamond Edge rune spell to this cult since Mostal cultists have no rune magic; nor do the Mostali have a Diamond Edge (or similar) sorcery spell. Mostal also seems to have no Associated Cults, so it seems odd that Caladra & Aurelion have Mostal as an Associated Cult. [Perhaps this is all deliberate, but it seems odd since there is ordinarily some sort of reciprocal relationship with Associated Cults.]

Page 75 (Donandar😞 Associated Cults says that Eurmal provides the Rune Spell of Group Laughter. However, Eurmal doesn't currently grant that spell to his worshipers.

Page 84: "Flamal's Runes are Plant and Life." Life should be Fertility. Page 89: "All Grain Goddesses have the Runes of Earth, Life, and Plant." Life should be Fertility. Page 134: "The Runes of Voria are Life and Earth." Life should be Fertility.

p.138, 1st col, Spirit Magic, "Disrupt" -> "Disruption" p.138, 2nd col, Spirit Magic, "Disrupt" -> "Disruption"

I stumbled across this change while familiarizing myself with Cults of RuneQuest Volume 2: The Lightbringers. The earliest reference I could find preventing Orlanth Initiates from being a Shaman or Sorcerer is in the Avalon Hill magazine Heroes Volume 1, Number 4 (published in 1984). This magazine includes a long-form writeup of the Cult of Orlanth. Page 19, under Initiate Membership, specifies: "Initiates are forbidden to become either shamans or sorcerers." This prohibition is repeated in the Cult of Orlanth writeup in River of Cradles (published in 1992) on page 158; the verbiage was slightly tweaked to read "Initiates may not become either sorcerers or shamans." Why do I believe this is a change? I have a copy of the Preview Edition of Gods of Glorantha from GenCon 2019. Page 265 (under Orlanth Initiate Membership) states: "Initiates are bound by cult likes and dislikes. They may not become either sorcerers or shamans." The official version of The Lightbringers volume (page 26) has removed the second sentence. The change appears to be deliberate. Comparing the Preview Edition to the released version of The Lightbringers and The Earth Goddesses, the following cults have removed the prohibition regarding shamans and sorcerers: Orlanth, Barntar, Heler, Asrelia, and Grain Goddesses. Per volumes 2 and 3, some Babeester Gor initiates are still prohibited from being a shaman or sorcerer. Caladra & Aurelion and Lhankor Mhy prohibit shamans, but allows sorcery. Ernalda, Eiritha, Flamal, Maran Gor, Foundchild, Odayla, Storm Bull, and Waha prohibit sorcerers, but allows shamans. [All of these are consistent with the Preview Edition.] Since it appears that this change is deliberate, I wonder how this is reflected in the lore of Glorantha. Option #1 (YGWV): So far as RuneQuest Glorantha is concerned, Orlanth initiates (along with the other cults) have always had the capability to become a shaman or sorcerer. Option #2 (Orlanth Returns): Orlanth is dead or dying during the Great Winter. With Orlanth's return, Orlanth has decided that his initiates can now become shamans and sorcerers. Unfortunately, this doesn't explain why some gods have changed their philosophy and other gods still maintain their prohibitions. Option #3 (Sartar Magical Union): Argrath White Bull essentially takes over Orlanth worship in the Dragon Pass area and mandates that shaman and sorcerers are now welcome in the cult of Orlanth because he needs the magical power. Unfortunately, that doesn't explain why other areas of Orlanthi worship in Glorantha would allow shamans and sorcerers.

You are certainly correct that no version of D&D (or Pathfinder), out of the box, fits in with the concept that everyone casts magic spells. That merely requires us to be inventive. 13th Age Glorantha solved that problem by creating cult-specific classes. The difficulty of that approach is that you need a lot of classes to cover the playable cults. The core rulebook only had 11 classes (four of which are essentially versions of Orlanth cultists); to my knowledge, they never got around to adding any more. My approach (using 2nd Edition Pathfinder as the chassis) is to award a spirit (or sorcery) spell and a rune spell at every level. This fits in with the d20 paradigm of increasing power associated with gaining levels. Further, a PC can specialize in magic by multiclassing into shaman, acolyte (rune priest), or sorcerer; doing so gives them more spells and flexibility. The initial difficulty was dividing the Pathfinder spells into different groups. But once that was done, it was up to the players to pick the best spells for their characters. Designers could easily come up with other options; these are just two viable approaches. I look at rogues (the class formerly known as thief) differently. In Pathfinder, they are the skill monkey class who also fills a different combat role. I have two rogues in my campaign; one is a Daka Fal Shaman and the other is Lhankor Mhy Sorcerer. While they are both rogues, they very different characters.

Paizo made a significant effort to simplify the game for GMs. In First Edition Pathfinder, every creature was essentially built like a player-character and that could lead to over-complication. For Second Edition Pathfinder, antagonists have simplified stat blocks. Most have some special ability, but they aren't nearly so complicated.

I'm curious what you mean by "exception based" and tightly interconnected. The way I see it is that Pathfinder is a permissive game system where you gain feats and abilities that allow you to do something. For example, the Climb action(within the Athletics skill) requires you to have both of your hands free to climb. The Combat Climber feat allows you to climb with one hand occupied (e.g., with a weapon). It was a lot of work. This campaign is my retirement project to keep me busy. I spent several months working on the rules and several more months running playtest sessions. Then COVID got in the way, but opened new possibilities to run the campaign online.

I’ve been using Second Edition Pathfinder for two years and I love it. I’ve run the PCs through 44 individual episodes and the PCs are now 15th level. We started play in 1617 S.T. and are about to enter 1622 S.T. Second Edition Pathfinder has a number of features that work well with Glorantha: 1) High-Level Play: Pathfinder effectively supports play for beginning heroes all the way up through powerful heroes who can be the equals of the great Gloranthan heroes. 2) Skills: Players can easily direct their PC’s choices of non-combat skills. You choose if you want to become better at physical skills (like Acrobatics, Athletics, and Stealth) or better at social skills (like Diplomacy or Intimidation) or better at something else. As you increase your proficiency in the skills of your choice, you unlock the ability to take cool skill feats. These skill feats allow your character to perform stunts that not every character can do; this allows individual PCs to differentiate themselves. 3) Weapons: Weapons have weapon traits that differentiate their usage. For example, a scythe allows you to trip an opponent while a maul allows you to shove someone away. Further, the critical specialization effects vary depending on the type of weapon. Your choice of weapons matters. 4) Combat: Characters have lots of meaningful choices in combat. Combat tactics will vary from character to character based on the class they have chosen and the various class feats that they choose to select. 5) Balancing Encounters: Pathfinder tightens up the math so that there is less variation in the damage output of the various builds. This allows the GM to better tune the combat difficulty to give the players a solid challenge without creating a TPK. I also made changes to the character building system to make the PCs Gloranthan. 1) PCs choose three Rune affinities. This gives PCs the option to select Focus Spells that allow them to use their individual runes to their benefit. For example, the Air rune gives access to Stormwind Flight allowing you to fly. 2) Everyone has access to Spirit Magic and Rune Magic spells. (Optionally, you can go with Sorcery spells instead.) As you gain levels, you gain more spells and more powerful spell effects. 3) Your choice of cult specifies which Rune Magic spells that you have access to. Orlanth worshipers have access to movement related spells and the ability to use the storm to damage their enemies. Yelm worshipers bring fire down on their enemies. 4) I’ve removed permanent magic items and replaced them with the Automatic Bonus Progression system. This allows PCs to keep up with the underlying math assumptions in the Pathfinder game without being reliant on external magic items. When I hand out permanent magic items as adventure rewards, this really means something. That’s not to say everything is perfect. I’ve learned a lot about what does and doesn’t work. I’m working to significantly change the spell distribution between the Spirit, Rune, and Sorcery magic types. Converting adventures from RuneQuest, HeroQuest, and 13th Age Glorantha into Pathfinder rules takes some effort. The effort I’ve put into this has been well worth it. The current campaign will complete in the next year and I look forward to my next Glorantha campaign starting in 2024

I was fortunate enough to pick up the preview copy at Gen Con 2019. That version has 498 pages; it's all text and no art. At that time, I believe Chaosium intended to add art and release it as a 2-volume set. But now Chaosium has changed the release to 10 volumes comprising around 1500 pages altogether. That's an additional 1000 pages of material! Hundreds of added pages will certainly be lots of beautiful art. But it seems like there must be a lot more additional text coming our way as well. I'm looking forward to seeing what they have for us. I hope the first set of releases will be in time for Gen Con 2023.