Sartar Hero wars timeline

[Stephen L]

A quick look at Nick Brookes alternate timeline in Duel at Dangerford, makes me realise I don’t know the Canon timeline as well as I thought.

Whilst I *should* follow Nick Brookes approach, that the Canon is there to inspire and help campaign planning, but what works for a series (or arc) of fun adventures should be paramount, I’d probably worry...

I assumed that Dragon Rise is 1625, Earth Season, Harmony week, Clayday (is that from King of Sartar?).

My assumption is that Kallyr and Leika, already in Sartar fermenting rebellion, fight/walk into Boldhome and Clearwine to reclaim their thrones.  They’ve no reason to wait for the Lunar garrisons to recover, entrench, appoint new leaders, reinforcements, so it would be in the days following Dragon Rise?

Similarly, King Pharandros of Tarsh would react as soon as possible.  I’d *guess* he has standing troops, and/or that bronze age armies are very quick to muster (though Earth Season isn’t good timing for any troops raised from mustering farmers, *if* they’re significant element), so I’d have the gates to Alda-Chur open to him a week or so after?  Similarly, in a rush, not wanting to allow Kallyr to fortify her position, he’d go straight on, to be stopped at Dangerford perhaps some weeks after Dragon Rise?  Both questions, because I'm just making stuff up, and I don’t really know what I’m talking about. 

Then I’m assuming Kallyr’s 1625 sacred time ritual isn’t good, a summons of evil going horribly wrong, leaving her badly wounded.

Then, the next battle is the battle of Queens, which I have down for Fire Season 1626.

Then Argrath arrives liberating Alda-Chur in Sea Season 1627 (presumably being crowned Prince after, but that’s somewhat far off for my campaign still, so I’m a bit vague).

I’m guessing, from Duel at Dangerford (or the preview at least; it’s on the wish list), there’s a timeline for these events in some HeroQuest resource, which details these events? Any pointers? I’m an RQii/iii then straight to RQ in Glorantha, so beyond those, my library’s quite sparse (though I really must re-read King of Sartar).

As an aside, why do I always spell Argrath’s name Agrath, and then have to go back to add in the first r.  Am I just plain wrong, or remembering an ancient spelling?

Thanks,

Stephen.

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, Stephen L said:

I’m guessing, from Duel at Dangerford (or the preview at least; it’s on the wish list), there’s a timeline for these events in some HeroQuest resource, which details these events?

They are in the HQG Eleven Lights book.  They occur post-Dragonrise in 1625. Queen Ivartha leads the Cinsina, and joined by others to stop the push by forces from Lunar Tarsh.

And Jonstown is also liberated.

1 hour ago, Stephen L said:

Argrath’s name Agrath, and then have to go back to add in the first r.  Am I just plain wrong, or remembering an ancient spelling?

I don't recall ever seeing Agrath.  There was the First Age hero Arkat, though.  Both Arkat and Argrath mean "Liberator"

[Jeff]

11 hours ago, jajagappa said:

They are in the HQG Eleven Lights book.  They occur post-Dragonrise in 1625. Queen Ivartha leads the Cinsina, and joined by others to stop the push by forces from Lunar Tarsh.

And Jonstown is also liberated.

I don't recall ever seeing Agrath.  There was the First Age hero Arkat, though.  Both Arkat and Argrath mean "Liberator"

The original name was Argat. Which became Arkat AND Argrath.

[soltakss]

I have a rough timeline of the Hero Wars on my website, as well as Timelines of Pavis including Griselda and another of Pavis with amended Griselda dates that might be useful.

[Jeff]

I have a detailed timeline of the Hero Wars in the forthcoming RQ Campaign Book. Maybe I will post snippets of it,

[Austin]

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

The original name was Argat. Which became Arkat AND Argrath.

Glorantha-original or Greg-original? Or is that a loaded question?

Just curious.

@Stephen L there's a Timeline on Chaosium's Well of Daliath site, although I don't know to what extent it represents in-world guessing at dates and to what extent it is exact to future Chaosium publications.

[AndreJarosch]

23 minutes ago, Crel said:

Glorantha-original or Greg-original? Or is that a loaded question?

Just curious.

@Stephen L there's a Timeline on Chaosium's Well of Daliath site, although I don't know to what extent it represents in-world guessing at dates and to what extent it is exact to future Chaosium publications.

That timeline should be updated: To much purple book King of Sartar still there, nit updated to the hardcover ultimate King of Sartar edition. 

[Sir_Godspeed]

3 hours ago, Crel said:

Glorantha-original or Greg-original? Or is that a loaded question?

Just curious.

@Stephen L there's a Timeline on Chaosium's Well of Daliath site, although I don't know to what extent it represents in-world guessing at dates and to what extent it is exact to future Chaosium publications.

From what I've read here, I believe at least that it's Greg-original, but it might be in-universe as well, I just haven't seen anyone mention that.

[Nick Brooke]

17 hours ago, Stephen L said:

A quick look at Nick Brooke's alternate timeline in Duel at Dangerford, makes me realise I don’t know the Canon timeline as well as I thought.

Whilst I *should* follow Nick Brookes approach, that the Canon is there to inspire and help campaign planning, but what works for a series (or arc) of fun adventures should be paramount, I’d probably worry...

OK, here's what really happened. I started playing RQG with two groups of players late in 2018. We had great fun playtesting Chris Klug's The Smoking Ruin (Sea Season 1626), then playing the published Dragon of Thunder Hills (Fire Season 1626), then playtesting Doyle Wayne Ramos-Tavener's The Flowers of Ronance (Earth Season 1626)... and then I looked at the timeline in the Glorantha Sourcebook and said, "Shit." I'd cruised blithely past one major event (the Battle of Queens, Fire Season 1626), and although my players were fairly interested in what the Lunars were getting up to outside of Colymar lands (given that all the Lunars in Colymar lands had got themselves et, or worse), I'd never talked to them about the Battle of Dangerford (Storm Season 1625), which would have answered a lot of their questions.

So I said "Poke it," and worked out a retconned timetable for my game that would allow me to blast through Queens + Dangerford together at pace, with our adventurers at centre-stage for both, doing big goddamn heroic Bronze Age stuff that they'd never read about in any sourcebooks (because I made it up), with a guest-starring role for some of my favourite troops and leaders from Chris Gidlow's Tarsh War. And now we're all caught up, and I've dropped some plot hooks that could eventually get us drawn into the Tarsh Civil War.

Oh, we've also playtested Jean-Christophe Cubertafon's The Fainting Spirit (Dark Season), and played Helene Nash's published The Rattling Wind (Storm Season), and playtested David Larkins' The Jonstown Palimpsest (Sea Season 1627, and that one's a wild and crazy ride), and my surviving group has just started playtesting what should eventually become my next published scenario, which for now I'm calling Black Spear because it has a black spear in it. (It'll be another wide-screen epic of the early Hero Wars, I'm afraid)

At the moment, the timeline events I care about are the ones set out in RQG and the Glorantha Sourcebook, and as long as I hit the right beats more or less in sequence, my players should be happy and so will I.

[Bill the barbarian]

3 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

OK, here's what really happened. I started playing RQG with two groups of players late in 2018. We had great fun playtesting Chris Klug's The Smoking Ruin (Sea Season 1626), then playing the published Dragon of Thunder Hills (Fire Season 1626), then playtesting Doyle Wayne Ramos-Tavener's The Flowers of Ronance (Earth Season 1626)... and then I looked at the timeline in the Glorantha Sourcebook and said, "Shit." I'd cruised blithely past one major event (the Battle of Queens, Fire Season 1626), and although my players were fairly interested in what the Lunars were getting up to outside of Colymar lands (given that all the Lunars in Colymar lands had got themselves et, or worse), I'd never talked to them about the Battle of Dangerford (Storm Season 1625), which would have answered a lot of their questions.

So I said "Poke it," and worked out a retconned timetable for my game that would allow me to blast through Queens + Dangerford together at pace, with our adventurers at centre-stage for both, doing big goddamn heroic Bronze Age stuff that they'd never read about in any sourcebooks (because I made it up), with a guest-starring role for some of my favourite troops and leaders from Chris Gidlow's Tarsh War. And now we're all caught up, and I've dropped some plot hooks that could eventually get us drawn into the Tarsh Civil War.

 

So error, not necessity, is the real mother of invention... (squints suspiciously) Did Zappa know about this?

[Jeff]

3 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

From what I've read here, I believe at least that it's Greg-original, but it might be in-universe as well, I just haven't seen anyone mention that.

There are SO MANY different "Greg Stafford originals."

[Jeff]

7 hours ago, Crel said:

Glorantha-original or Greg-original? Or is that a loaded question?

Just curious.

@Stephen L there's a Timeline on Chaosium's Well of Daliath site, although I don't know to what extent it represents in-world guessing at dates and to what extent it is exact to future Chaosium publications.

Greg. Recently I rediscovered Greg's the very first Gloranthan writings. Before Jonat even.

[scott-martin]

14 minutes ago, Jeff said:

There are SO MANY different "Greg Stafford originals."

They have a plan. Perhaps separately,

 

 

[Stephen L]

9 hours ago, soltakss said:

I have a rough timeline of the Hero Wars on my website, as well as Timelines of Pavis including Griselda and another of Pavis with amended Griselda dates that might be useful.

Thanks, that all looks very useful stuff.

 

8 hours ago, Crel said:

Timeline on Chaosium's Well of Daliath site, although I don't know to what extent it represents in-world guessing at dates and to what extent it is exact to future Chaosium publications.

I had noticed that, it seemed to corollate with my King of Sartar, with enough leeway/contradictions to allow rearranging and making stuff up.  I was mainly concerned about there being timelines that I didn't know about, since I'd prefer to know what I'm breaking than doing it out of ignorance!

 

7 hours ago, AndreJarosch said:

That timeline should be updated: To much purple book King of Sartar still there, nit updated to the hardcover ultimate King of Sartar edition

What my King of Sartar is out of date.  Where's the weeping emoji! I got it when it first came out.  KoS, that is, I've never yet used an emoji, being quite old school and preferring exclamation marks and such.  Not that I disapprove of their use.  Or shall I stop digging.

 

4 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

At the moment, the timeline events I care about are the ones set out in RQG and the Glorantha Sourcebook,

Good to know.  The timelines in the RQG rules book are excellent (as is everything else, having returned from ages away from roleplaying, I'm deliriously happy with the direction RQ has taken).

Also good to know that Glorantha Sourcebook is good for this, as it's pretty much next on my buy list.

My problem is that there is *so* much good stuff for adventures: the players have rolled up characters with such interesting pasts that just playing those out is a campaign or more.  And also they've got *so* many hooks for people and things in the Colymar setting, and, I suspect, the Smoking Ruin (on my to buy list).  Plus I had one or two campaign ideas of my own.  I'm not sure how I'll be squeezing in the major Hero War events!

[AndreJarosch]

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

Greg. Recently I rediscovered Greg's the very first Gloranthan writings. Before Jonat even.

Before Jonat was Snodal.