Anyone want to help steer my campaign direction?

[Super Thunder Bros.]

So I’m gearing up to run my first RQ:G game and the amount of choice has left me second guessing what direction to go in.

I’m not too bothered about canon or dates, and am more of the kind to create my own adventures rather than pre written. YGMV and all that, players will inevitably change the world and I don’t mind changing things for them.

I thought a clan game may be a good shout, possibly young members to learn about the world (though that’s got me second guessing too), so instructed my players along those lines. I have: a teenage Stormbull herder, Issaries diplomat, Orlanth Thunderous farmer (all 3 are cousins, family history means they’re pretty anti-Lunar) and a loner Heler hermit of sorts.

So I just don’t know where to go from here? I have ideas about the game being about plains and riding animals but nothing seems to fit, and am willing to drop that if it doesn’t go anywhere. I do want to explore an Egyptian/Indian vibe with this game so am drawn towards Holy Country and it’s cities (Esrolia and Heortland)

I also wanna explore Lunar occupation, Beast valley and chaos remnants. The residents of Prax appeal to me the most: Baboons, the block, Morokanth and their herdmen, half giants, the Dark Sun-post-apocalyptic atmosphere. I thought Pavis had simply too much going on lorewise and factions however but I could be wrong.

So to boil it down what I love about Glorantha: the real bronze age weirdness with bizarre cities, the multiple apocalypses, spiritual metaphysics and community-centered adventures where you deal with the troubles related to being people who live in a place so saturated with magic that random things just can't help but keep happening.

But what does this look like as a campaign? Looking at my group can anyone give me any steer? Much appreciated

Note: usually when I’m stumped for ideas I turn to something like Frank Herbert’s Dune for inspiration . Could this be an option here? Anyway I can use the Atreides and they’re tale as a skeleton for some clan adventures? Lunar game would be ideal I know but I don’t have that option 

[scott-martin]

Love it. Frank Herbert is always an option. 

What I'm hearing here is that you want them to move around and the game will help pick where if anywhere they settle down. The cousins are easy, they can wander through life together. A hermit needs a reason to travel in their company. How would you feel about giving the hermit some kind of dream or visionary mission, a reason to get on the road and experience the wider world? Just pick a few of these elements that you've listed and make a kind of verbal "movie trailer" out of them, then hand it to that player. Coming attractions. That's your promise you make to yourself and them, the game will go there.

Maybe the vision showed him that one or more of the other three needed to be there too at key points. This gives the hermit a motive to convince them to come along. It sounds like they're relatively malleable in terms of immediate goals so this can start out as a job for one or more of them. The others can get pulled along or pushed in from outside . . . someone can get outlawed, someone can have a vision of their own, you know how to do this. 

They don't have to wander forever. There are a lot of oases in Prax that could use a rain man's attention. Maybe that's what the vision wants. On the way they see amazing things and if they ever pick a community they'll know it when they see it.  If the vision thing is too much woo woo you can make up an oasis town under brutal oppression (imperial entanglement, bandits, chaos) and the rain man can gather outside muscle to shift the liberating scales. A little more Magnificent 7 than the 3 Amigos. That's okay. This way, the town picks them and they're stuck with it. Downside, they're stuck there unless they lose and need to run like an Atreides to gather additional support. 

You should at least let the Storm Bull see the Block.

[Squaredeal Sten]

If you are in a pre 1625 ST game then you have several Prax choices.  Decide which you like best.  If necessary have them get in trouble with the Lunar occupiers and decide or be told to make themselves scarxe from a couple of years.

Borderlands

Pavis & Big Rubble

Sun County (Sandheart   4 books)

and most recently Sacred Earth Sacred Water.

All are in printing and in PDF, all are good buys.  Just plan in what sequence you want to do them. or move back and forth.

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, Super Thunder Bros. said:

I turn to something like Frank Herbert’s Dune for inspiration. Could this be an option here?

• Hermit = “Paul”
  Storm Bull = “Fremen jihadi”
  Issaries = “John the Baptist”
  Thunderous & Heler => as a theme
   
• I have seen a baboon city in the wastes, its fountains filled with swimming horses.
  The morokanth seem to be herding … hyænas.
  A wave of green is sweeping over the land!

[Runeblogger]

That sounds like a cool campaign! Just remember to introduce topics to your players little by little. So f.ex.:

- You can start with the PCs as kids nearing their initiation, having low-scale adventures, learning about their society and the lay of the land and their immediate neighbours. They could be from the Dundealos tribe. You can introduce them to several adults who work as examples to look up to. These can sometimes introduce neighboring lands. F.ex. the clan's champion returns from a successful adventure in Prax. This has your players perhaps interested in exploring that land when they grow up. Or maybe they want to go to Esrolia because a friend was sent to Nochet's Great Library to be trained? Let them choose what hook to follow. This "season" ends when they become adults.

- Now they're adults. They have to prove their worth. Maybe they have some adventures in which they help their clan. Then later maybe they are attracted by something in Prax or Esrolia and they travel to that place and spent some time there. At some point they return and their clan is no longer there. It has been wiped out by the Lunars and now someone else is living in their lands, and their relatives... Wait, is this starting to look like Paul Atreides'/Argrath's own story? At any rate, don't force it into your players! Just feed them hooks they can decide to pursue or ignore.

 

[Joerg]

Getting full use of all the weirdness in Glorantha takes some traveling. There are some places like the Skyfall Lake, the Block, the Footprint or the Eternal Battle where Godtime still interacts with the world, creating quite fantastic environments. There are important holy places with slightly less dramatic Godtime presence that you can visit, or you can roam the unusual geography like ginormous skeletal pieces of dragons, impossibly tall mountains like Kero Fin.

When it comes to cities worth admiration, there is Pavis next to the Big Rubble, there is Boldhome high up in a mountain valley with parts of the city sculpted out of the mountains, there is Furthest as the closest center of Lunar culture, and there is the metropolis of Nochet. Boldhome is supposed to get an official description this year, the other three have descriptions in the Jonstown Compendium, with Pavis also having the RQ Classic treatment and quite a bit of lore to absorb - but that's a possibility for any city you might play in.

I had not thought of using Indian influences for Esrolia yet, but Punjab might indeed serve as a role model for the riverine lowlands of Esrolia.

Using the Dune theme might require a maguffin similar to the Spice, indispensible and unavailable outside of the (newly assigned) Atreides holdings. Hazia doesn't quite cut it, even though it may be an integral ingredient for the magical regiments on both sides of the hero wars. Something draconic hasn't manifested yet.

A clash of houses and imperial institutions is a very Lunar Empire theme, with moonrock a possible unique resource.

 

Have you used the family history in character creation leading up to 1625? In that case, without contradicting the timeline, experiencing the Lunar occupation would be possible a clan in the Far Place, as that portion of Sartar still is occupied by Lunar forces. Unfortunately, that makes Prax a little more distant than one of the tribes bordering the chaparral. Still, if you are anywhere near Alone, then possibly the Griselda stories might give you an inroad to Pavis, although no description of Pavis after the liberation/conquest by the White Bull brotherhood has been published yet. Being anti-Lunar might well result in seeking help from that warlord in Pavis, especially if your party experienced some trouble with Lunar occupation officials, which might be a starting adventure.

My own games usually try to hook on something from the players, who may have a shared goal, or who may have to defend or increase something under their immediate daytime job.

Herders dealing with cattle raids (on either side), diplomats striving to keep the aftermath of such raids gone wrong within acceptable terms might go together.

With some buy-in from the player of the Heler hermit, you could have the Heler initiate captured and the onset of a drought "until the dragon is slain" in a light version of the Aroka quest. Or perhaps the Heler hermit getting trapped in a flooded cave, needing the others to rescue them by ripping something apart (a beaver dam?) in another such variation of the myth. Draconic upgrades are a possibility, e.g. a stray dinosaur involved in the mishap.

They could chance on a bunch of Praxians chasing or escaping from some Lunars, introducing some of the weird steeds of the plaines. While your Issaries character is a diplomat, he might get involved in some hyena skin business which might lead him into Prax to find a Desert Tracker to pass this item on to.

[radmonger]

Pick a move, adapt the plot. For example, following:

 

 

Casino Rex:

• opening action scene: fight some raiders, capture a strange box of brass tokens
• the scary clan grandmother briefs you that the tokens you captured bears the mark of the Talar of Casino Town.
• further investigation shows that the leader of the raiders was a notorious Wolf Pirate, Harrek's right hand man.
• turns out he is heavily into gambing at Casino Town, which has sorcerous means of collecting debts from even the most powerful.
• a plan is formed to ensure the Wolf Pirate loses money he doesn't own to the Casino.
• the clan shaman gifts you some new spirit magic
• You meet with an unexpectedly young and glamorous Asrelian widow,  carrying the 20% of the clan's wealth that will bankroll your gambling.

And so on.

 

[Super Thunder Bros.]

Oh wow so many reply already! I'll give everything a ready a reply but thank you already folks 🙏

[Super Thunder Bros.]

@scott-martin

Oh visions are definitely something I should use! Will be making notes on this

Despite wanting to explore a lot of the land I don't want to start them off wandering, contradiction I know. I'm hoping to start them off embedded in they're community? Aged 16-20 I think we have between them

 

[Super Thunder Bros.]

1 hour ago, Runeblogger said:

- Now they're adults. They have to prove their worth. Maybe they have some adventures in which they help their clan. Then later maybe they are attracted by something in Prax or Esrolia and they travel to that place and spent some time there. At some point they return and their clan is no longer there. It has been wiped out by the Lunars and now someone else is living in their lands, and their relatives... Wait, is this starting to look like Paul Atreides'/Argrath's own story? At any rate, don't force it into your players! Just feed them hooks they can decide to pursue or ignore.

 

I think this is a great way to start them off: they're young members of a clan; they need to prove themselves to they're community; just got to make sure this doesn't turn into MMO style "go here, kill that" etc

[Super Thunder Bros.]

6 hours ago, Joerg said:

Using the Dune theme might require a maguffin similar to the Spice, indispensible and unavailable outside of the (newly assigned) Atreides holdings. Hazia doesn't quite cut it, even though it may be an integral ingredient for the magical regiments on both sides of the hero wars. Something draconic hasn't manifested yet.

A clash of houses and imperial institutions is a very Lunar Empire theme, with moonrock a possible unique resource.

Yes I think I'm gonna have some kind of very important resource in the clan's homelands, that will instantly make some Dune parallels. The question I suppose is where?

 

I will look into Moon rock, thank you for the suggestion! Playing as Lunar's would be appropriate but looking at the party won't work. I'm wondering if there's any way I can get this angle with an anti Lunar party. Something with Duke Raus? Esrolian Houses? Maybe a clan forced to fight like the Romans used Germanic auxiliaries?

 

6 hours ago, Joerg said:

Have you used the family history in character creation leading up to 1625?

Yes I pushed the timeline back to keep Lunars about

Edited February 23 by Super Thunder Bros.

[radmonger]

7 hours ago, Super Thunder Bros. said:

Anyway I can use the Atreides and they’re tale as a skeleton for some clan adventures? Lunar game would be ideal I know but I don’t have that option 

House Atreides would actually be a pretty good match for Duke Raus from RQ2 Borderlands. 

Also, by far the most valuable substance in Glorantha is Truestone, the mineral sacred to the Praxian nomads. Long exposure to truestone gives the tribes their characteristic hatred of chaos. 

 

[svensson]

In the RQ3 Griffin Island box set there is a wonderful 'get to know the mechanics' scenario called 'Initiation Day'.

The young people of the tribe are gathered together for the great day of testing. Succeed and you are made an adult, with all the rights and responsibilities thereof. Fail and you remain a child for another year.

So what I would do in your shoes is look at the skills list on the character sheet and select one skill per category that's important to the clan... Does Orlanth hold primacy in the clan? Then for the Agility category you might pick Climb or Jump, for an example. What are the clan's main weapons? Obviously those will be tested and so forth.

The tricky part will be the actual initiation test for each deity. A Humakt is gonna have a whole different experience than an Ernalda, right? For this I suggest reading the same information the players have on the god of their choice [probably the one-page description in the Core Rules]. Then actually ask the player if they know some of the god's worship points. If they have trouble remembering, they can try a Cult Lore roll. Then test specific cult skills... Orlanthi will test Speak Stormspeech for example and the Worship [Deity] skill.

You will decide what the success criteria are for the whole experience. If a character didn't have a completely successful day simply because of bad die rolling, they might pass the tests. After all, there are times when you learn more from failure than success.

And if a character fails, THIS ISN'T ALTOGETHER BAD! A pretty solid game can be made from the newly adult friends helping their childhood buddy to learn what is needed next year. Let me note though that cult secrets are supposed to be secret. Revealing the specifics of the Initiation examination might very well be cause for a visit from the Spirit of Reprisal as a warning.

Last thing: Whatever you choose to do IS NOT 'WRONG'. It's your game and it became yours the day you opened the rules and decided to run a game. That game has a 1000% chance of being very different from mine or from anyone else's. That's the way it should be. Maximum Game Fun is always the goal, and everything else is secondary to that.

Good luck, have fun, and may Orlanth's breath favor you.

 

[Super Thunder Bros.]

47 minutes ago, radmonger said:

House Atreides would actually be a pretty good match for Duke Raus from RQ2 Borderlands. 

Also, by far the most valuable substance in Glorantha is Truestone, the mineral sacred to the Praxian nomads. Long exposure to truestone gives the tribes their characteristic hatred of chaos. 

 

Truestone added to my research list!

As for Raus I could put someone more aligned in his position, but I'm intrigued. Trying to think why some cousins who lost two parents to the Crimson Bat would be working alongside an (exiled) Lunar?

[EricW]

Encourage roleplaying. Everyone power gaming is just tedious. Encourage players to explore unusual cults like Trickster or shaman, even though they are not necessarily that good at killing things. If you end up with a monoculture party of Humakti death lords, every scenario is "we draw our swords and kill it" - then they get stuck when more subtly is needed. 

[soltakss]

18 hours ago, Super Thunder Bros. said:

I thought a clan game may be a good shout, possibly young members to learn about the world (though that’s got me second guessing too), so instructed my players along those lines. I have: a teenage Stormbull herder, Issaries diplomat, Orlanth Thunderous farmer (all 3 are cousins, family history means they’re pretty anti-Lunar) and a loner Heler hermit of sorts.

So I just don’t know where to go from here? I have ideas about the game being about plains and riding animals but nothing seems to fit, and am willing to drop that if it doesn’t go anywhere. I do want to explore an Egyptian/Indian vibe with this game so am drawn towards Holy Country and it’s cities (Esrolia and Heortland)

I also wanna explore Lunar occupation, Beast valley and chaos remnants. The residents of Prax appeal to me the most: Baboons, the block, Morokanth and their herdmen, half giants, the Dark Sun-post-apocalyptic atmosphere. I thought Pavis had simply too much going on lorewise and factions however but I could be wrong.

So to boil it down what I love about Glorantha: the real bronze age weirdness with bizarre cities, the multiple apocalypses, spiritual metaphysics and community-centered adventures where you deal with the troubles related to being people who live in a place so saturated with magic that random things just can't help but keep happening.

This sounds like Sartar, so playing as members of a Sartarite Clan makes sense. Also, playing as a Dorasing Clan in Pavis County might fit, and you can throw in Praxian Nomads as well, which seems to suit you.

Or, as a bit of a challenge, look at the Dorastor series of supplements. Now that Holiday Dorastor: Risklands is out you can easily start in the Renekotling Clan, so that gives you a detailed clan with lots of clan politics. It has Lunar Occupation, of sorts, as it is near the Lunar Empire and is really part of a Lunar Client State. Dorastaland could be your Esrolia analogue. Beast Valley might be a problem, though, as there isn't that kind of thing outside Dorastor itself. Then Dorastor is nearby, with all the splendid danger that it represents.

[Super Thunder Bros.]

@EricW Thank you! Exploring cults is certainly a big draw for me. The characters are beginning to get fleshed out so this is more of me unsure where to set things geographically/thematically and how to start.  

[Super Thunder Bros.]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:Or, as a bit of a challenge, look at the Dorastor series of supplements. Now that Holiday Dorastor: Risklands is out you can easily start in the Renekotling Clan, so that gives you a detailed clan with lots of clan politics. It has Lunar Occupation, of sorts, as it is near the Lunar Empire and is really part of a Lunar Client State. Dorastaland could be your Esrolia analogue. Beast Valley might be a problem, though, as there isn't that kind of thing outside Dorastor itself. Then Dorastor is nearby, with all the splendid danger that it represents.

Gotta say this is the first time I’ve heard if Doraster, looking into it now but could you give me the basic rundown?

[soltakss]

5 hours ago, Super Thunder Bros. said:

Gotta say this is the first time I’ve heard if Doraster, looking into it now but could you give me the basic rundown?

Dorastor, arguably the most dangerous Chaos Nest, or set of Chaos Nests, in Glorantha. Site of a lost God Time civilisation and re-energised in the First Age, it became the site of the God Project, whereby the participants created a new God, at the Sunstop, Osentalka, which didn't turn out as expected. It cursed the Trolls and Dragonewts that had withdrawn from the project, then showed two faces to the world, the benign face of Nysalor and the malign face of Gbaji. Arkat the Destroyer fought with Gbaji for two generations, even going so far as being brought back from Hell on a Lightbringers Quest, whilst the inhabitants of Dorastor took on more eldritch and Chaotic powers to fight Arkat, then Arkat destroyed Gbaji at the Tower of Dreams in Dorastor. Arkat cleansed Dorastor of Chaos, putting a curse on it for years. In the Second Age, Dorastor was reawakened and was ruled by Ralzakark, Demon-King of the Broos. Since then it has burst from its bounds several times, vomiting chaos into Peloria. In the Third Age, the Mad Sultan was ricked in his rampage across Peloria and was taken to Dorastor where he has lived ever since. Recently, the Red Emperor made a trade deal with Ralzakark and agreed that the local Orlanthi could worship freely as long as they founded a new Clan to guard the borderlands of Dorastor. 

The Risklands campaign details the people of the Risklands, or Renekotling Clan, as they guard the border. Other areas of Dorastor have been detailed, generally in Chaosium's Dorastor Land of Doom and Lords of Terror, in the Book of Drastic Resolutions (Chaos) fanzine, and in the very non-canonical Secrets of Dorastor and the Holiday Dorastor series of Jonstown Compendium supplements.

Some people say that it is a very dangerous place, but they probably haven't been there.

The following broadsides from Dorastor Land of Doom give a flavour of Dorastor and the Risklands.

We even have a map of Dorastor.

[Super Thunder Bros.]

@soltakss Ooh thank you for the rundown. So the basic vibe is a lot of Chaos remnants and the danger that brings. So I'm getting the vibe that it's home to exiles and new starters. Is it more of a colonization, taming a frontier vibe, or a place for criminals/a backwater to be exiled or feel to?

(I only ask as I'm already running a D&D game that's all about reclaiming lost ruins in the wilderness)

Seems interesting though, it looks like Doraster and the Zola Fel are in the running for me

Edited February 24 by Super Thunder Bros.

[EricW]

10 hours ago, Super Thunder Bros. said:

@EricW Thank you! Exploring cults is certainly a big draw for me. The characters are beginning to get fleshed out so this is more of me unsure where to set things geographically/thematically and how to start.  

Keep it low powered. Like a whodunnit, with a secret Malia worshipper spreading disease in the village (just as well one of your PCs chose to be a shaman right? Shaman characters have special abilities to fight disease spirits). Even worse, some villagers are protecting the Malia priest, because the priest has convinced them he/she is actually working in their best interests, placating the goddess of disease, rather than a futile attempt to engage costly healers to properly root out the problem. 

There are plenty of other low powered threats, like someone in the village who is secretly collaborating with the Lunars - though you could make it morally ambiguous, when they finally find the traitor, the traitor could explain they only cooperated because the Lunars are holding their son hostage (are they telling the truth?!). Perhaps if their son is being held, he is being illegally detained by a corrupt local commander.

Obviously the PCs can't take on an entire garrison, but just as well one of the PCs is a trickster - and can use invisibility to sneak in and rescue to hostage.

Or maybe the Sage PC (just as well one of your PCs chose Lhankor Mhy) realises they can mount a legal challenge to this illegal detention, and use the Lunar courts to expose a commander who is using corrupt means to accuse wealthy locals of sedition, so he can enrich himself by looting their goods. They might even meet a Lunar official who is concerned about the corruption, and the effect corruption is having on local acceptance of imperial rule, and is grateful for the help of the PCs in exposing and rooting out corrupt officials.  

Eventually when characters gain power they could take on more powerful enemies, and begin to interact with great events.

If you start too powerful, in the first session "OK, I swing my sword of ultimate permanent death at JarEel the Razoress, the greatest living Lunar hero, and the Lunar empire is defeated". So what do you do next? 

Edited February 24 by EricW

[soltakss]

14 hours ago, Super Thunder Bros. said:

So the basic vibe is a lot of Chaos remnants and the danger that brings.

Yes.

14 hours ago, Super Thunder Bros. said:

So I'm getting the vibe that it's home to exiles and new starters.

Yes.

14 hours ago, Super Thunder Bros. said:

Is it more of a colonization, taming a frontier vibe, or a place for criminals/a backwater to be exiled or feel to?

Yes. 🙂

It is both. The Lunars use it as a dumping ground for troublemakers - Come to the lovely Risklands or die as a rebel. They have a policy of open and permitted worship of Orlanth and Storm Bull in the Risklands as they assume that members of those cults will probably die soon anyway, due to the proximity of Dorastor. However, the Risklands is also about the taming of a frontier, and all the settler tropes will fit in nicely. It can be thought of as a colonization, especially as part of the aim is to reclaim parts of Dorastor itself, something that will be covered in Hahlgrim's War.

[Super Thunder Bros.]

Cheers for the suggestion all, going forward I’m hoping to speak to my players and offer them the following:

Keep the characters they’ve made and play young members of a clan. Said clan will be in Doraster or the Zola Fel, ruled over by relatively benevolent Lunars. Descended from criminals and exiles the clan are freely allowed to practice their cults. Things will get interesting when the Emperor orders a change of rulership in the area, meaning changes to worship and the rare local resources 

or

Tweak the characters and play a Lunar focused game, an assassins war and political manoeuvring. Full on Dune

 

Edited February 25 by Super Thunder Bros.

[Sir_Godspeed]

A bit late to the party, but keep in mind Orlanthi culture is clan-based. Use extended families, in-laws, cousins, aunts & uncles, third-cousins twice removed, etc. for all it's worth. Do you want a reason for the PCs to go somewhere? They've got a relative there. Or they can accompany a relative there, a well-connected adult who's got business or a mission, or is on a pilgrimage or virtually anything.

Combine this with the differing cultic affiliations to add a secondary dimension. Do you want the PCs to get involved with something in an area? Someone there is active in the same cult as one of the PCs relatives. "Oh, you're Ghirrigan's kin? I know him well, we both spent a good deal of time financing and building the shrine to our god here. C'mere, I know somewhere you can stay. Tomorrow we will talk with my sister, she'll know about that thing you're looking for."

And of course, sometimes this will be a sham. 😉

Edited March 4 by Sir_Godspeed

[pachristian]

So the one thing I didn't see anywhere here is:

Hold a session zero. Sit down and talk to your players, as a group, and find out what kind of adventures they want to have. What do they consider "success" in a game? Do they want to deal with politics or just hit things and take their money?  

Never, ever, force Glorantha lore on them. I've met too many GM's who say things like "you need to read Cults of Pray before we play, and let me give you (the first of many) hour-long lectures about how the world works and your place in it." That's the quickest way to turn them off. Let them just play and learn the world as they go along.