Jonstown Compendium Index 2023 - updated 30 May

[Nick Brooke]

Here is the Jonstown Compendium Index 2023: an index to the new RuneQuest & Glorantha scenarios and sourcebooks (and sundry other releases) available from Chaosium's Jonstown Compendium community content web store on DriveThruRPG. The index includes full details for every product released after 1 October 2022, plus summary listings for everything else in the store (for full details of earlier releases, see my Jonstown Compendium Catalogue 2022 or earlier indexes and catalogues).

Detailed listings analyse content (pages split between scenario, stats, maps, etc.), characters, settings and complexity of each scenario. Includes best-seller and ratings charts, RuneQuest Scenarios, Gloranthan Sourcebooks, Questworld Resources, Shorter Releases (inc. maps, tokens, artpacks and random stuff), three Where in the World? maps showing every scenario, sourcebook and map's location, and notes on when scenarios and campaigns are set (by year and season, inc. Chaosium RQG scenarios).

The index will be regularly updated following major releases in 2023. All updates in 2023 are free; the price of the index may increase each quarter as new content grows, so don't wait too long to get on board! If you bought it earlier, get the current version of the index from your Library (top right menu) or from this product page while you're logged in to DriveThruRPG.

Edited Tuesday at 06:30 PM by Nick Brooke
New version (tenth update, 30 May 2023)

[Nick Brooke]

The first new release of 2023 is Beer With Teeth's gorgeously-illustrated scenario The Temple of Twins, by Erin McGuire and Diana Probst, featuring art by Kris Herbert, Lai Suk Yin, Rhys Passafiume and Diana Probst. These Praxians need help! Tribal taboos have forced them to turn to outsiders, who will face the greatest challenge in Prax: surviving as a woman. Success leads to tribal shenanigans and plot-hooks aplenty. Like The Gifts of Prax, the scenario includes 15 pages of evocatively Praxian encounters, including a terrifying peccary swarm and the vicious honey badger. The book can easily be linked with other Praxian adventures from Beer With Teeth. $8.00 for 52 pages (PDF).

[Nick Brooke]

Updated on 8 January 2023 with two new RuneQuest adventures:

• Crimson King, by Nick Brooke, is a game of intrigue and conspiracy in the highest echelons of the Lunar Empire! Players take on the roles of the heroes and rulers of this Gloranthan superpower, confronted by treachery and betrayal on all sides. This lavishly-illustrated scenario is a sequel to The Duel at Dangerford and Black Spear, and can be used as a stand-alone adventure or in an ongoing campaign. It builds on the Lunar Empire as presented in A Rough Guide to Glamour and Life of Moonson, but GMs do not need either book to run their game. $11.95 for 71 pages (PDF)
• In Search of Baroshi, by Marc Robertson. Adventurers must rescue a kidnapped godling and his devotees before a fate worse than death befalls them in a cave complex off Snake Pipe Hollow. $2.95 for 27 pages (PDF)

Also, to celebrate the release of Crimson King, the two volumes of our freeform game Life of Moonson have been reduced in price by five dollars in all formats, both print and digital. Book One: The Characters, Book Two: The Freeform.

[Nick Brooke]

Updated on 27 January 2023 with details of three recent print releases: Crimson King, my Gloranthan Manifesto and the Jonstown Compendium Catalogue 2022. Plus the usual little updates here and there (sales badges, ratings charts, etc.).

[Nick Brooke]

I just shared this analysis over on Facebook. Here's a breakdown of best-seller medals earned by Jonstown Compendium releases (excluding free and low-value Pay What You Want sales, which don't count towards medals):

• Platinum (over 1,000 sales): 1%
• Gold (over 500 sales): 4%
• Electrum (over 250 sales): 10%
• Silver (over 100 sales): 32%
• Copper (over 50 sales): 24%
• No medal (1-50 sales): 29%.

Of the products with no medals: 72% are maps, 11% are foreign language translations, 8% are art packs, 5% are virtual tabletop token sets, 3% are indexes, and one uses an exotic setting. If that's not what you're making, you are practically guaranteed 50 sales.
 

Same analysis for Copper medallists: 11% of them are normal releases, 26% tokens, 17% short/expensive, 12% recent (last three months), 9% exotic, 9% indexes and play aids, 5% maps, 5% QuestWorlds, 3% random stuff, 1.5% art and 1.5% foreign.
 

Again, it looks as if 90% of "normal" releases for the Jonstown Compendium (i.e. "none of the above") will hit Silver (100 sales), and the ones that don't will get to Copper.
 

And combining both analyses, for the 53% of Jonstown Compendium releases that aren't yet Silver best-sellers, here are some common features: maps (41.7%), tokens (14.6%), short and expensive (7.6%), foreign language (6.9%), index or play aid (5.6%), recent (last three months) (5.6%), artpack (4.9%), exotic setting (4.9%), QuestWorlds (2.1%), random stuff (1.4%), none of the above (4.9%).

Edited February 1 by Nick Brooke

[Nick Brooke]

Updated on 6 February 2023 with A Vale Ablaze, Vivien Prigent's sequel to In A Merry Green Vale (and don't miss the bundle letting you buy or complete the set at a discount). This has four RuneQuest adventures for members of the Lysang clan, all set in the Arfritha Vale as described in the earlier sourcebook. The first three are relatively straightforward (a cattle raid, chaos baddie and rescue mission); the fourth is a more complicated, politically-charged heroic monster-hunt. Each adventure is designed to have numerous loose ends and long-term consequences, making them excellent fuel for a long-running campaign. Originally written for campaigns set during the Lunar occupation of Sartar, there are thoughts on how to rework each adventure for the post-Dragonrise timeline. Appendices include rules for staging cattle raids, running skirmishes and simplifying NPC statblocks. The author is translating three more scenarios set Beyond the Vale. 137 pages for $11.50 (PDF).

[Nick Brooke]

Updated on 1 March 2023 with the truly impressive Elkoi Expansion from Anders Tönnberg, a massive set of maps plus detailed descriptions expanding on the Lunar-occupied citadel in Balazar and its surrounds. This is a snip at 9 euros for 34 pages plus more than 60 maps (variants on 8 locations, from area maps to VTT interiors).

Also! Recent art resources from Dario Corallo (Artpack #5, the Personalities of Dorastor collection) and Zed Nope (two watercolour Wind Lords: Cheerful Vingan & Thunder Caller); Drew Baker's first Rubble Redux book is now available in print, as is the new Spanish translation of Sandheart Volume One: Cuentos de la milicia del Condado Solar, translated by El Runeblogger.

Also also! The GM's Day Sale just started, with 15-30% discounts on several Jonstown Compendium digital titles for the next fortnight.

Edited March 17 by Nick Brooke
GM's Day Sale!

[Nick Brooke]

Updated on 17 March 2023:

• Old Pavis: The City that Time Forgot, by Ian Thomson and friends. A Silver best-seller in a few days, this eagerly-awaited second volume in the reissued Pavis & Big Rubble Companion series moves into the Big Rubble big time: the first half of the book describes the people and places of Old Pavis (with adventurer creation, new cults and organisations, and oodles of local colour), while the second half concludes the epic adventure from Volume One (plus plenty more). Highlights are the map and gazetteer of the Real City and the fully-detailed New Flintnail Temple, with 13 pages on Dwarf Drinks! $19.75 for 242 pages (and some extra bits).
   
• Applefest 2, by Graeme Atkinson. A sequel to the well-received Applefest. If you’re familiar with that adventure, you won’t be surprised to hear that this follows a three-day festival, introduces a colourful cast of VIP guests and strangers, and rings a few changes on the expected sequence of events. Whichever poor player is Thane of Apple Lane will have their hands full stopping anybody from upsetting the proverbial apple-cart...
   
• Plus: two stock art packs by Zed Nope: Tula Landmarks and Call the Fyrd!

In other news, there's a new "standard colour" hardcover edition of Six Seasons in Sartar for $29.95. (The premium colour edition is still $37.95, discounted). Andrew Logan Montgomery's Platinum best-selling coming-of-age saga has been called "a deeply moving story about a community that does a magnificent job of blending together many of the elements that make RuneQuest and its world of Glorantha unique" (Shannon Appelcline). It's probably the best on-ramp for introducing new players to Greg Stafford's bronze age fantasy world of living mythology and RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

[Nick Brooke]

Updated on 23 March 2023 with some recent developments:

• Three new print-on-demand releases: Edge of Empire is out in hardcover, with new cover art and a refreshed digital edition ($44.99 for 224 pages); there's a combo edition of DuckPac Books 1&2 in hardcover ($24.95+ for 140 pages), and DuckPac Book 3 is out in premium softcover ($34.99 for 136 pages). We hope to have copies of all these books at Chaosium Con next month, but it's in the hands of the printers and postal service now: wish us luck! 
   
• Also, Citizens of the Lunar Empire by Chris Gidlow is now a Gold best-seller! Hail Moonson!

Edited March 23 by Nick Brooke

[Nick Brooke]

Updated on 18 April 2023: 

• Caravan Alley, another Praxian sandbox from Jamie Revell, which details two oases along the route that begins at Day's Rest: Tourney Altar (Humakti!) and Biggle Stone (Fungi!). Nobody is ever going to mistake a Humakti for a Fun Guy, just saying. (37 pages for $4.50.);
   
• The long-awaited final release of To Hunt A God, Austin Conrad's Esrolian monkeyquest (139 gorgeously-illustrated pages for $19.95);
   
• A photo-report showing the print-on-demand community content pop-up stores at Chaosium Con 2;
   
• Charts showing the best-selling products and new medals awarded in the first quarter of 2023; and...
   
• Crimson King's just been awarded its Electrum best-seller medal, w00t!, while Dangerford is teetering on the brink of Platinum!

Edited April 18 by Nick Brooke

[Nick Brooke]

Updated on 26 May 2023:

• The Queen's Star by Austin Conrad: a beautifully-presented sandbox adventure in which adventurers encounter various fallen denizens of the Sky World in a smouldering crater on the edge of Colymar lands. A very cool, partly-mythic Gloranthan “dungeon” with some fascinating inhabitants, that presents interesting opportunities for exploration, discovery and resolution, and the potential for return visits. (34 pages for $10.00); 

• Valley of Plenty by Shawn and Peggy Carpenter is back on sale! A childhood saga for QuestWorlds set among the Dundealos tribe of eastern Sartar (the Horse-Orlanthi), we are promised an update and at least one sequel in due course.
   
• The Duel at Dangerford is a Platinum best-seller, w00t!
   
• Plus a clutch of new Maps by Mikael Mansen:  the Quivin Mountains, Heortland, Skyfall Lake, Leskos and Solung. Usual mix of summer/winter, day/night, labels/none.

And finally, I'll be taking $2,000-worth of print-on-demand community content books from Chaosium's community content programmes to UK Games Expo next week, and hope to see some of you at Chaosium's stall (1-1035, on the corner of Chaosium Street and Cubicle 7 Avenue). 

[Nick Brooke]

Updated on 30 May 2023:

• The Voralans by Brian Duguid is another ethnographic tour de force. This book takes an in-depth look at the fungal Black Elves of Glorantha. Ironically, this most elusive subspecies of Aldryami (if they are even Plants!) are now the most-detailed, with a full cult writeup, bestiary of related creatures, plunder items and more. The author merges science with Runic essentials to bring us the mycelial master-race. “What the Shaman Says” is a particular delight. (83 pages for $11.99.)
   
• The Queen's Star is already a Copper best-seller (more than 50 copies sold, and six ⭐ ⭐⭐⭐⭐ reviews already!).
   
• And the Jonstown Compendium Index 2023 itself is now a Silver best-seller! (Still only $1.50 for 70 pages.)