A sneak look inside the forthcoming THE PEGASUS PLATEAU...

[MOB]

Our next RuneQuest release is the scenario collection THE PEGASUS PLATEAU, and layout is almost done! It's going to be a fine-looking book; to whet your appetite here are a few layout spreads:

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

This looks brilliant. 

[Crel]

I love the illustration of Three Emeralds Temple.

[Psullie]

and 131+ pages too, I love the pic of Zhoulshia - using a great troll as shade!

[Sir_Godspeed]

That temple is awesome.

[Lordabdul]

Consider my appetite whetted! This is all absolutely gorgeous.

I was also under the mistaken impression that all the adventures were taking place near Colymar lands... it's interesting to see the Woods of the Dead and Alone featured here... especially because that's where I'm basing my current Gloranthan work. Looking forward to it!

[AndrewTBP]

Looks really sweet!

[allenowen]

RuneQuest is starting to become my favorite fantasy setting. It's got a depth that even Tolkien never had. I realize that might be blasphemy. 

Edited April 25, 2020 by allenowen

[g33k]

40 minutes ago, allenowen said:

RuneQuest is starting to become my favorite fantasy setting. It's got a depth that even Tolkien never had. I realize that might be blasphemy. 

The focus is just different.

Greg Stafford started with the mythology & anthropology, and was looking for a storytelling vehicle.

Tolkien started with the languages, and was looking to explore linguistic evolution.

 

 

Edited April 25, 2020 by g33k

[Dragonsnail]

I really love how well produced the RQG products are. Fantastic art, great looking maps and layout that is also uniform and easy to read. Not to forget the amazing new content. My humble thanks to all involved for making RuneQuest look this good.

Edited April 25, 2020 by Dragonsnail

[Sumath]

@MOBLooks awesome. But I can see an error on the Woods of the Dead map - Valley of the Chack Man instead of Chalk Man.

[Lordabdul]

3 hours ago, Sumath said:

But I can see an error on the Woods of the Dead map

You've got good eyes!  Me, I was mostly surprised to not see any little village drawing/icon under "Amadhall". But then I was distracted by the awesome Sun-worshipping warrior painting and started thinking about looting that mask from his corpse.

Edited April 25, 2020 by lordabdul

[AndreJarosch]

The Great Troll has only 45% in Intimitate?

I would feel very much intimidated if i had to stand near him... and that already without making him a successfull Intimidate-Roll. 

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, AndreJarosch said:

The Great Troll has only 45% in Intimitate?

I would feel very much intimidated if i had to stand near him... and that already without making him a successfull Intimidate-Roll. 

I would expect you to be hardened by exposure to me.

[soltakss]

4 hours ago, AndreJarosch said:

The Great Troll has only 45% in Intimitate?

I would feel very much intimidated if i had to stand near him... and that already without making him a successfull Intimidate-Roll. 

In our RQ2 Campaign, Masher was a SIZ 40 Great Troll who used a giant's thigh bone as a maul. He was the Complaints Department of DDT Enterprises.

[French Desperate WindChild]

15 hours ago, AndreJarosch said:

The Great Troll has only 45% in Intimitate?

I would feel very much intimidated if i had to stand near him... and that already without making him a successfull Intimidate-Roll. 

As GM you can decide that he is intimidating any human by default but has only 45% when "negotiating" with trolls or people familiar with trolls

[Joerg]

Trolls have a society built on intimidation. Fear is a manifestation of the Darkness rune, much like Madness is one of the Moon rune and overbearing arrogance of the Fire rune.

All trolls fear and worship the Hell Mother and her greater spawn. That fear may be part of the worship they offer, and it may be a familiar fear, even a protective one - a form of cultural Stockholm syndrome. Maybe the hunger inside a troll isn't that dominant while surrounded by the hungry Darkness, either.

In troll society, Great Trolls usually aren't intimidating on their own. They make their presence intimidating on orders from above, which could be a troll matriarch or a Zorak Zoran Death Lord or his deputy. (Karrg's Sons are only the voice-pieces of the troll matriarchs behind them.) Much of the time, their intimidate will be augmented by Loyalty (Matriarch) or Fear (Matriarch). Using their Darkness rune for augmenting Intimidate should work, too.

A few exceptional Great Trolls are known, most notorious among these Vamargic Eye-Necklace, a most charming fellow that I had the opportunity to incarnate for the freeform  "Between the Dragon and the Deep Blue Sea". A similar breed though highly autonomous is another mixed breed male from a Dehori father and a dark troll heroquester mother, Pikat Yaraboom, Bina Bang's son from Lord Lurker in the Shadow, and coincidentally another Freeform character of mine, from the "White Bear and Red Moon" freeform. These guys are scary because they can choose whom (or whether) to follow. Most Great Trolls are quite docile in the presence of even Dark trolls, and may be ranked equally with superior/value trollkin and well-trained cave trolls. If coming from a prestigious matriarch, such individuals (including values and cave trolls) may outrank low status dark trolls.

 

[MOB]

Almost there with THE PEGASUS PLATEAU! 

Here are a few more layout pages to pique your interest in this new scenario collection:

(Please note these pages are w-i-p, the book hasn't been finished yet. We will set up a tribal edit thread in due course - once the book is out in PDF release. Then all suggested corrections are located in one place for our reference.)

[Crel]

Thanks for sharing these, @MOB. The Truestone rules are really interesting! I'm curious to see what the "Egregious Munchkinnery" thread makes of them after release...

[Rodney Dangerduck]

On 4/26/2020 at 6:23 AM, Joerg said:

Trolls have a society built on intimidation. Fear is a manifestation of the Darkness rune, much like Madness is one of the Moon rune and overbearing arrogance of the Fire rune.

And being a boastful blowhard is a manifestation of Air.  🙂

[PhilHibbs]

3 hours ago, Crel said:

Thanks for sharing these, @MOB. The Truestone rules are really interesting! I'm curious to see what the "Egregious Munchkinnery" thread makes of them after release...

I honestly can't see any way of even using them sensibly, let alone abusing them. Other than as a reasonably large MP storage, they're practically a cursed magic item.

If yoiu want to screw over another character, you persuade them to put a spell in it and then throw it overboard in the ocean. I can see my Trickster doing that to someone, 'cos it's totally his idea of hilarious, but not munchkinnery.

There might be some extreme tricks that you could pull, depending on precisely how they work, like if casting the stored spell is instant or just DEX SR and not based on the MP in the spell.

Edited May 4, 2020 by PhilHibbs

[Joerg]

50 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

I honestly can't see any way of even using them sensibly, let alone abusing them. Other than as a reasonably large MP storage, they're practically a cursed magic item.

They are basically an item that you can give to a heroquester to boost that quest's chance at succeeding without having to go yourself. See the Horngate episode of Biturian Varosh's travels.

Pass this stone around to the community supporting your quest. A rune point here, a spirit spell there, and the onus on the individuals is not that bad.

 

The potential can of worms is of course if I put in Bladesharp 3, and relearn that spell, and then the Bladesharp 3 from the stone has been used, do I know Bladesharp 3 twice (which doesn't make much sense, unless I keep donating that to the Truestone), or do I know Bladesharp 6?

For a band of murder-hobos, this donation as a form of extortion of the villagers might be worth the trouble. For a community-based quester, a Truestone can be a force multiplier. And for the community, it can be a feedback about the questers' progress and well-being...

 

Edited May 4, 2020 by Joerg

[Akhôrahil]

57 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

I honestly can't see any way of even using them sensibly, let alone abusing them. Other than as a reasonably large MP storage, they're practically a cursed magic item.

It's a kind of Spell Trading, but in a way where the donor can get horribly victimized. It might be used for putting a single character at peak performance, though, like for a duel or other single-person activity, or to project an effect beyond where the caster goes.

The slingstone magic penetration effect is superb against Counterspell (and nothing else). Would be a lot more useful if it worked as some kind of Dispel effect on the target instead.

All in all, not entirely useless, but definitely trade it in for something that's a lot better.

[PhilHibbs]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

They are basically an item that you can give to a heroquester to boost that quest's chance at succeeding without having to go yourself. See the Horngate episode of Biturian Varosh's travels.

Pass this stone around to the community supporting your quest. A rune point here, a spirit spell there, and the onus on the individuals is not that bad.

Yes, I can see that, it's like an all-in-one flexible combo matrix, but it does come with serious drawbacks. I guess if you want to get rid of those drawbacks, you have to spend POW to make matrixes.

[HeartQuintessence]

WEll I might have to get this.. and the other book The smoking ruins.