Out now in Print and PDF: A Rough Guide to Glamour (also available in French and Japanese)

[Nick Brooke]

Now available from the Chaosium’s Jonstown Compendium webstore: the revised and expanded Rough Guide to Glamour.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/309765/A-Rough-Guide-to-Glamour?affiliate_id=392988

PRINT ON DEMAND is now available (premium colour hardcover): $29.95, includes the digital version.

A Rough Guide to Glamour is your indispensible companion for any visit to the capital city of the greatest empire the world of Glorantha has ever known!
This book contains:
• A comprehensive map, gazetteer and guidebook detailing the capital of the Lunar Empire;
• Portraits and descriptions of eleven Very Important People who can be encountered there, including Moonson, the Red Emperor, and the Lunar hero Jar-eel the Razoress;
• A description and map of the Sultanate of the Silver Shadow, the throbbing heart of the Lunar Empire;
• Sweeping overviews of the geography and history of the Lunar Empire;
• RuneQuest writeups for the cults of the Red Emperor, immortal wizard-ruler of the Lunar Empire, and the goddess Glamour, the humble nymph who became the First Inspiration of Moonson;
• Insights into the secrets of Kalikos Icebreaker, the Lunar College of Magic and the Imperial Monopolies of the Etyries cult;
• Never republished supporting material from the legendary fanzine Tales of the Reaching Moon;
• Rumours, fiction, poetry, and more besides!
This is a thoroughly revised and expanded edition of the original Rough Guide to Glamour, written by Chris Gidlow, Mike Hagen, Nick Brooke, Michael O’Brien, Jeff Richard, Greg Stafford and friends, lavishly illustrated by Dario Corallo, Simon Bray, Julie Hudson and other artists. 
Foreword by Jeff Richard, Chair and Creative Director of Chaosium Inc.
A Rough Guide to Glamour was first published as a players’ background book supporting Reaching Moon Megacorp’s Life of Moonson, a 50-player live-action role-playing game that debuted in 1997 and ran in the United States, Europe and Australia.

 

Edited October 17, 2022 by Nick Brooke
Japanese translation released

[Nick Brooke]

The beautiful cover artwork is by Dario Corallo and Julie Hudson. Authors include Chris Gidlow, Mike Hagen, Michael O'Brien, Jeff Richard & yours truly. Foreword by Jeff Richard, interior art by Dario, Julie, Simon Bray, Antonia Doncheva, BA Wayne and Daniel Barker. Cartography by Mike Hagen, Julie Hudson, Colin Driver and Phil Anderson. Layout by moi.

Edited March 12, 2020 by Nick Brooke

[Sir_Godspeed]

Elvis Presley, Danny Devito, Margot Robbie, Cate Blanchett, Eva Green(?)... Wow. This is definitely an interesting cover! 

Celebrity cameos aside, I love the composition, the drama that can be gleaned from this is great, and the city below really gives it that epic "game of chess" vibe. 

Edited March 11, 2020 by Sir_Godspeed

[Nick Brooke]

5 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Celebrity cameos aside, I love the composition, the drama that can be gleaned from this is great, and the city below really gives it that epic "game of chess" vibe. 

Thanks! (You missed Sophia Loren, but that’s your loss)

[Sir_Godspeed]

43 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

Thanks! (You missed Sophia Loren, but that’s your loss)

The headdress threw me off! I'm more used to seeing her wear those wide-brimmed sun hats.  (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

[OrlanthRex]

Will this just be digital or will a print version be available?

[Runeblogger]

Good cover!  😍

For those of us who have the original version, could you please post a list of the added material?

[g33k]

4 hours ago, OrlanthRex said:

Will this just be digital or will a print version be available?

Depends on what happens with the JC content, overall.

I think Chaosium is looking into the issue of PoD'ing the JC stuff, but I'm not certain.

[Nick Brooke]

6 minutes ago, g33k said:

Depends on what happens with the JC content, overall.

You seem to be better informed than either myself or MOB.

Cheers, Nick

[Nick Brooke]

All I can tell you is that our friends at Chaosium want to own hardcovers of this book almost as much as we do, and if that means arranging something they wouldn’t usually do for a Jonstown Compendium product, they’re willing to put in the effort to make that happen.

[g33k]

6 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

You seem to be better informed than either myself or MOB.

Cheers, Nick

Uhhh ...  I thought it was either Rick or MOB who had said that print options for the JC were still under consideration & investigation, with no decision made.

If I misunderstood or have misremembered -- apologies!

[g33k]

Just now, Nick Brooke said:

All I can tell you is that our friends at Chaosium want to own hardcovers of this book almost as much as we do, and if that means arranging something they wouldn’t usually do for a Jonstown Compendium product, they’re willing to put in the effort to make that happen.

OK.

TYVM for the update.

[Nick Brooke]

On 3/12/2020 at 6:02 AM, Runeblogger said:

For those of us who have the original version, could you please post a list of the added material?

Sure! The 1998 edition of the Rough Guide to Glamour (with red card covers: the most complete version) contained about 29,000 words. We have cut out a third of the book: sections either reprinted in or made redundant by the Glorantha Sourcebook (eg: The Lunar Pantheon, Dart Competitions & New Year Ceremony) and sections primarily written to support the freeform Reaching Moon Megacorp's Life of Moonson (eg: Recent History; a list of Sultanates, Provinces etc. and their rulers). So there are 20,000 words from the old Guide remaining.

The Jonstown Compendium edition of the Guide contains more than 50,000 words.

Most major sections are significantly expanded (eg: the Gazetteer is 60% longer, detailing 117 locations in Outer Glamour; the Rough Guide itself has two new pages on Holidays and Festivals). We have incorporated material from the Guide to Glorantha (a full writeup of the Silver Shadow Sultanate, with two new maps by Colin Driver), from Tales of the Reaching Moon (Cult of the Red Emperor, Lunar Government, Satraps & Sultans, Letter from a Monopolist, A Visit to Glamour), and from the epic Yolanelathon (three interlinked stories by MOB and myself, presented at various conventions in the nineties but never collected under one cover). There is a new 4,000 word writeup of the Cult of Glamour by Jeff Richard, plus obscure rumours, fragments and oddities scattered throughout (eg: Antiquities of Old Glamour, Red Empire, Pelorian Rhapsody, Annual Dinner at the Lunar College of Magic).

If you liked the original Rough Guide to Glamour, we think you'll like this version even more!

Edited March 30, 2020 by Nick Brooke
Update: there are now two new maps by Colin Driver for the Silver Shadow Sultanate.

[Grievous]

"I am so excited" is both a great song and an adequate description of my current emotional state.

[Runeblogger]

16 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

Most major sections are significantly expanded (eg: the Gazetteer is 60% longer, detailing 117 locations in Outer Glamour; the Rough Guide itself has two new pages on Holidays and Festivals). We have incorporated material from the Guide to Glorantha (a full writeup of the Silver Shadow Sultanate, with a new map by Colin Driver), from Tales of the Reaching Moon (Cult of the Red Emperor, Lunar Government, Satraps & Sultans, Letter from a Monopolist, A Visit to Glamour), and from the epic Yolanelathon (three interlinked stories by MOB and myself, presented at various conventions in the nineties but never collected under one cover). 

Sounds cool. 😄How many words have been incorporated from the Guide to Glorantha?

The epic Yolanelathon: What is it about?

 

[Nick Brooke]

1 minute ago, Runeblogger said:

Sounds cool. 😄How many words have been incorporated from the Guide to Glorantha?

The epic Yolanelathon: What is it about?

The book's currently 109 pages long. The Sultanate of the Silver Shadow chapter takes up four of those pages, including maps (one page), a key excerpt from the Zero Wane History (half a page), and my article on Satraps & Sultans (half a page). There are around 1,300 words from pages 317-319 of the Guide to Glorantha, being the whole of the Silver Shadow section (with one minor edit, to merge the essentially identical Joy Rest and Volthena entries).

My part of the Yolanelathon is about the foiled schemes of a Spolite Witch, with allusions to the darker periods of Carmanian history and some ominous foreshadowing. MOB's parts are mostly crude toilet humour, with a powerful undercurrent of conspiratorial palace politics. Just about what you'd expect from both of us, really.

[Sir_Godspeed]

It's interesting that you've stuck with the phased-out Sultan instead of updating to the now-common Satrap (at least that's my impression of how things've gone), is there any particular reason for this? Personal prefence, legacy nomenclature, etc.? I'm just curious.

[Nick Brooke]

43 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

It's interesting that you've stuck with the phased-out Sultan instead of updating to the now-common Satrap (at least that's my impression of how things've gone), is there any particular reason for this? Personal prefence, legacy nomenclature, etc.? I'm just curious.

It's a strong personal preference: I'm the man who taught Greg Stafford the proper use of the word "Satrap," after all.

There's a half-page article about how you can have fun with this in the Rough Guide, naturally, reprinted from Tales of the Reaching Moon #16; my most devoted acolytes will already be hunting out my seminar transcripts from the mid-nineties.

Edited March 12, 2020 by Nick Brooke

[Sir_Godspeed]

46 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

It's a strong personal preference: I'm the man who taught Greg Stafford the proper use of the word "Satrap," after all.

There's a half-page article about how you can have fun with this in the Rough Guide, naturally, reprinted from Tales of the Reaching Moon #16; my most devoted acolytes will already be hunting out my seminar transcripts from the mid-nineties.

Nice! More to read up on! 🤓 Looking forward to it digging in your thoughts.

[soltakss]

Liked 😀

[Nick Brooke]

Final draft manuscript ToC, just need 1 pic, 1 map and then we’re done.

[Sir_Godspeed]

I've been meaning to ask: those borders and fonts, are they custom-made, or does Chaosium provide access to them for Compendium authors?

[Nick Brooke]

Just now, Sir_Godspeed said:

I've been meaning to ask: those borders and fonts, are they custom-made, or does Chaosium provide access to them for Compendium authors?

The faded runic border and parchment page background are from Chaosium's standard templates (Word & InDesign), which everyone can access for free, here:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/295890/Jonstown-Compendium-Templates

I have a slightly fancier Word template (which automates Tables of Contents, among other things), attached to this post. (The Guide is laid out in InDesign, though)

The header font I'm using is Ignacious -- you can find free versions online, make sure the one you install allows you to embed it in PDFs (some versions don't).

The body text font is Minion Pro, which comes with InDesign -- if you're working in Word, I'd use something like Georgia instead.

Finally, that familiar piece of art is Plague by Gene Day, (c) 2020 by Moon Design Publications and used with permission. (Always ask before using other people's stuff!)

Cheers, Nick

Word Template (NB).docx

[Nick Brooke]

If you're thinking of distributing your own stuff via the Jonstown Compendium, there's an active, supportive and technically knowledgeable Jonstown Compendium Creators Circle on Facebook with about a hundred participants. Let me know if you need an invite.

[Akhôrahil]

On 3/12/2020 at 10:42 PM, Nick Brooke said:

It's a strong personal preference: I'm the man who taught Greg Stafford the proper use of the word "Satrap," after all.

There must have been something about Greg and titles - both "sultan" and "pharaoh" had to get changed.

Should we be thinking that he meant "pasha" when he went for "sultan"?

Edited March 17, 2020 by Akhôrahil