jonstown compendium Out now in Print on Demand - The Voralans: The Black Elves of Glorantha

[Brian Duguid]

Out now! https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/439149/The-Voralans-RuneQuest?affiliate_id=1107865

Coming soon to the Jonstown Compendium, this is an in-depth (I suspect many will say too in-depth) survey of the voralans a.k.a. the black elves, the fungus humanoids of Glorantha.

It will be around 80 pages examining the black elves, their peculiar culture and society, myth, magic, creatures, fungal diseases, fungi and fungal products. It includes a re-imagining of the Mee Vorala cult, previously only published (in much shorter form) 35 years ago in Troll Gods.

This image shows a black elf shaman, one of several great illustrations by @Leeoconnor.

Edited July 3, 2023 by Brian Duguid
Book now out - first post in thread edited to confirm

[Squaredeal Sten]

2 hours ago, Brian Duguid said:

Coming soon to the Jonstown Compendium, this is an in-depth (I suspect many will say too in-depth) survey of the voralans a.k.a. the black elves, the fungus humanoids of Glorantha.

It will be around 80 pages examining the black elves, their peculiar culture and society, myth, magic, creatures, fungal diseases, fungi and fungal products. It includes a re-imagining of the Mee Vorala cult, previously only published (in much shorter form) 35 years ago in Troll Gods.

This image shows a black elf shaman, one of several great illustrations by @Leeoconnor.

When is " soon"?

[Brian Duguid]

37 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

When is " soon"?

Just waiting on the last batch of art, then some final changes to the layout, and final proofreading. I'd expect it will be out before the end of this month.

[Dragon]

I would be interested to see any magics that let them take over the brain functions of insects. Sorry Gorakiki.

[Brian Duguid]

14 minutes ago, Dragon said:

I would be interested to see any magics that let them take over the brain functions of insects. Sorry Gorakiki.

I have included a couple of ways, magical and physical, for the voralans to control insects in the book. One face of Gorakiki (the termite mother) is a particularly close ally to the voralans.

[jajagappa]

11 hours ago, Brian Duguid said:

Coming soon to the Jonstown Compendium, this is an in-depth (I suspect many will say too in-depth) survey of the voralans a.k.a. the black elves, the fungus humanoids of Glorantha.

Looking forward to it! 🙂 

[hasevir]

Mee Vorala struck me as the most laid back cult ever. Its fine to be a shaman or wizard. Betray the cult? Okie heres the punishment: Your food will mold faster than before!! One can wonder what would even be such a heinous deed, maybe eating fellow cultists without their permission? Practically born illuminated in their bioluminiscent paradise gardens. But i hear they are really "fun guys".

Meanwhile the fungal potions. The 3 given already in earlier materiel get all sorts of dark and moldy plans running and hoping for more. The fun guys themselves being so laid back im sure all you need is to carve a cave with a river and just plant them. Theyll be happy to hang around and trade magic shrooms for bison fertiliser while living in your vastly extended cellar.

Edited May 11, 2023 by hasevir

[Agentorange]

I wouldn't be so sure. What's that series -  The last of us ? maybe these funguys are just lulling Glorantha into a false sense of security and then they'll be taking over the world when the mind controlling Cordyceps Voralans appear.

Stuff the Windstop and the death of the gods, the subtle fungal enslavement of Glorantha is the real threat.......

[Brian Duguid]

On 5/11/2023 at 6:31 AM, hasevir said:

Meanwhile the fungal potions. The 3 given already in earlier materiel get all sorts of dark and moldy plans running and hoping for more.

There were three in Apple Lane (and in the RQ Starter Set). Five in Trollpak. A further three in Troll Gods. And there have been well over a dozen more in various Jonstown Compendium releases.

I was going to include a big list in the book, but edited that out. If there's demand, I can edit it back in for an updated version!

[Brian Duguid]

Here's another preview illustration from the book, again by @Leeoconnor.

As well as Lee's contributions, there will be lots of great art by @DarioCorallo, Simon Bray, @Lordabdul and Elizabeth Kirshtein,.

Dario's pieces are mostly used to illustrate short texts showing what other races and cultures think of the black elves. Simon's art illustrates the cult and mythos section, while Ludo (Lord Abdul) has contributed images for the voralan bestiary, and chapters on fungi / fungal products, and fungal diseases (yay!) Elizabeth has provided the family tree chart for the voralan deities, and one other piece.

Fingers crossed that the book will still hopefully be available by the end of May.

Edited May 20, 2023 by Brian Duguid

[Nick Brooke]

15 hours ago, Brian Duguid said:

There were three in Apple Lane (and in the RQ Starter Set). Five in Trollpak. A further three in Troll Gods. And there have been well over a dozen more in various Jonstown Compendium releases.

I was going to include a big list in the book, but edited that out. If there's demand, I can edit it back in for an updated version!

Gimme those Liquified Spore Drinks. What could possibly go wrong?

[mfbrandi]

It is no good, that subtitle has me flashing back to Doris Day. I swear she sang something like this:

Spoiler

Take me back to the Black Elves
The Black Elves of Glorantha
To the beautiful mushroom people
That I love

Lost my mind to the Black Elves
The Black Elves of Glorantha
Their ’shrooms made me so high
That I kiss’d the sky above

And on that psilocybin trip, man
And a million miles from home
I heard the voice of the mystic shaman
Calling me back home

Take me back to the Black Elves
Also called Voralans
To that underground mycelium
That I love

[Akhôrahil]

I like how AI art is good for really alien stuff, like this mushroom herder I found:

[Brian Duguid]

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

I like how AI art is good for really alien stuff, like this mushroom herder I found:

If any AI imagery was used to inspire some of the art drawn for the book by the actual living, breathing organisms that I had chained to their art desks, then I'm not sharing it, not even in any "making of the art" that might be produced as supplementary content (in the unlikely event that more than a handful of people purchase the 'shroom book).

I think most people know, but for clarity: AI art is forbidden by Chaosium not only in their own books, but also in what they allow under their community content programmes.

(PS: I thought I should respond, but please let's not let this lovely publicity thread slip off topic into another AI imagery discussion.)

[Brian Duguid]

The Voralans is now available in PDF.

I must repeat my thanks to Ludo, Simon, Elizabeth, Dario and Lee for their excellent illustrations, and also to Nick Brooke for (as always) his helpful advice along the way.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/439149/The-Voralans-RuneQuest?affiliate_id=1107865

 

Edited May 29, 2023 by Brian Duguid

[Jason Farrell]

If you just handed this book to an RPG fan, they would have no idea this was a fan publication.  Between this and Austin Conrad's recent releases, and books like Temple of the Twins and The Crimson King earlier this year (and Martin Helsdon's book, whenever that arrives), the bar has been well and truly raised.

[Austin]

7 hours ago, Brian Duguid said:

The Voralans is now available in PDF.

Woo! Congratulations, this looks amazing! I'm looking forward to reading through.

[KungFuFenris]

Just finished my first read-through this morning. Pretty great stuff!

[Brian Duguid]

As always @KungFuFenris @Crel @Jason Farrell and any others: your star ratings and reviews on DTRPG are appreciated almost more than gold itself!

[Brian Duguid]

Many thanks to @Crel who has done a very thoughtful and conscientious review of The Voralans on his website here:

https://akhelas.com/2023/06/16/review-the-voralans/

He says some nice things about it, and I think fairly clearly "gets" where I was coming from ...

The book is getting close to Silver seller status and hopefully I can share some bonus content soon ...

[Nick Brooke]

I’ll mention this here, in case it isn’t obvious: the Jonstown Compendium lets you use RuneQuest and Gloranthan material published by Chaosium to inspire your own original creative works. You can reference people, places, things, etc. from those sources without needing to ask anybody for permission: it’s only if you directly copy from or paraphrase an original text that you need to add separate copyright notices and permission statements to your publication’s credits.

And all Jonstown Compendium works are published by Chaosium.

Which means that if you want to write a fungal scenario inspired by and using the original concepts found in @Brian Duguid’s excellent book The Voralans, you can just go ahead and do it. (You would need to ask for his permission if you wanted to copy any text or statblocks into your own work, and obviously it’d make sense to cite your source material, but all the concepts are out there for anybody to use.)

And the same applies to anything else that you find inspirational on the Jonstown Compendium. Stand on the shoulders of giants! (You know it makes sense.)

[Brian Duguid]

In some good news, The Voralans has reached a Silver best seller medal.

I have some bonus content ready to share with everyone who has bought the book ... but it would be nice to get one more star rating and ideally another review first ... if anyone feels like being so kind!

[Brian Duguid]

Well, I didn't hit ten five-star ratings yet, but never mind.

To celebrate Silver best seller status I have uploaded a 27-page bonus PDF, which should be available now to anyone who has purchased the book.

It contains preliminary art sketches, the original art specifications, and associated discussion. Inside the PDF you will find (amongst other things):

• The difficulties of using the RuneQuest SIZ scale to understand how tall black elves (and others) actually are
• Three sketches of types of black elves that didn't make it into the book for budget reasons
• A couple of "easter-egg" type details explaining things in the pictures that the artists didn't even tell me!
• The relationship between black elf weaponry and a dishwasher
• Big heads vs little heads - a (short) discussion
• etc

As always, reviews and star ratings are greatly appreciated, if you enjoyed the book.

[jajagappa]

5 hours ago, Brian Duguid said:

Well, I didn't hit ten five-star ratings yet, but never mind.

You have now! 🙂 From my first skim through, it looks great! Once I have a chance to do a deeper read, I'll target getting a review added too.

[Brian Duguid]

 

I'm delighted to announce that my book about the Gloranthan black elves, The Voralans, is now available on Jonstown Compendium in Print on Demand.

 

It's available in two versions, a standard colour softcover for $16.99, and a premium colour hardcover for $28.99. And, of course, you can still get it in PDF for $11.99.

 

The black elves are walking, talking, magical mushroom humanoids, who have a lifelong telepathic link with one another. The book explains their biology, culture, psychology, technology and occupations (including character generation); mythology; and the cult of Mee Vorala. It also provides a black elf bestiary; fungal diseases; and fungi / fungal products.

 

It is illustrated throughout with some genuinely amazing work from Lee O'Connor, Elizabeth Kirshtein, Dario Corallo, Simon Bray and Ludovic Chabant.

 

http://tiny.cc/voralans