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Gloranthan Beastiary?


mdomino

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34 minutes ago, mdomino said:

Greetings. What is the best Gloranthan beastiary for a group who may play the RQII reprint or the new RQIV? Thanks much.

Mike D

Outside of the rule books, there is really only one. That is Anaxial's Roster. The problem with this is that its for HW/HQ.

SDLeary

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I thought that the creating the stats for all kinds of beasts and monsters could be done in RQ3 after you had a look at the beasties in the rules book and the Gloranthan Bestiary booklet - the hit points per location followed a simple math (a fraction of the general HP), and there were a lot of different hit location anatomies spread over the rules, the bestiary and the Book of Uz (providing insect data).

Anaxial's Roster provides the biggest collection of creatures inhabiting Glorantha, and even that is only a list of examples. It is valuable for RQ games too, giving tactics and standard behavior for the creatures.

A few notable beasties like e.g. the Lopers are missing from any of these sources, too.

I think the most extensive collection of Gloranthan creatures at the moment is the RQ6 collection by Hannu Kokko at his Notes from Pavis blog.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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I think you'll be fine with just the regular RQ2 rulebook. I think this rulebook was way before it's time. It had everything you needed to get started, creatures, spells, combat, etc. I guess you may need cults, like from Cults of Prax, but the rulebook had enough to get you started with the Orlanth and Kyger Litor cults (and Black Fang). Anyway, back to beasties, you're fine with just the rule book. i'd get a copy of Foes though... it's convenient. I wish they would just add that to the kickstarter as an add-on pdf.

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With the RQ6 encounter generator you currwntly have more than 2100 enemy templates plus some hundreds of party templates. They are done for RQ6 but should be usable in many other rq implementations with some fudgingIt should contain (almost) all Gloranthan beasts from any publication that has been published. If something is missing it is easy to create. If you would like me to create one - drop a note...

https://notesfrompavis.wordpress.com/2015/01/25/rq-encounter-tool-101-generating-encounters-guide/

 

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20 minutes ago, 10baseT said:

I think you'll be fine with just the regular RQ2 rulebook. I think this rulebook was way before it's time. It had everything you needed to get started, creatures, spells, combat, etc. I guess you may need cults, like from Cults of Prax, but the rulebook had enough to get you started with the Orlanth and Kyger Litor cults (and Black Fang). Anyway, back to beasties, you're fine with just the rule book. i'd get a copy of Foes though... it's convenient. I wish they would just add that to the kickstarter as an add-on pdf.

Yes, between the core and whatever specfic setting books you are using (Griffin Mountain, Borderlands, etc.), you have all you need. At a quick count, the RQ2 book has over 60 stat blocks in the Monster chapter. 

In addition to raiding hkokko's excellent encounter generator, you can also take a look at Tooley's free monster guides on this website. Yeah, they are for Magic World, not RuneQuest, but if you want to use a D&D monster in your game, its an easier starting point than the using original D&D stats. 

With all the mechanical bits and pieces in those resources, you should have an idea of how to put together any monster you want for RQ. And it you still get stumped on how to represent something, asking the collective wisdom of this forum will likely solve the problem. 

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To correct - the encounter generator is not mine. It is the creation of skoll (a fellow Finn from designmechanism forums) I am part of the team and am producing a lot of content (enemies, parties, features for both, guides) and have promoted the tool and the contents. Without skoll there would not be this tool to help me and others to GM - for this I am very grateful. He has also created Magic World generator based on same engine...

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11 minutes ago, hkokko said:

To correct - the encounter generator is not mine. It is the creation of skoll (a fellow Finn from designmechanism forums) I am part of the team and am producing a lot of content (enemies, parties, features for both, guides) and have promoted the tool and the contents. Without skoll there would not be this tool to help me and others to GM - for this I am very grateful. He has also created Magic World generator based on same engine...

My apologies to skoll then, and thanks for all content you add to it. 

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6 hours ago, mdomino said:

Greetings. What is the best Gloranthan beastiary for a group who may play the RQII reprint or the new RQIV? Thanks much.

Mike D

Hi Mike, I'd say it depends on where you are going to play and what you want to encounter.

 

Other replies have covered most of these, but here's my list:

RQ2 - probably has the bulk of common stuff you would want to use.

RQ2 Supplements - Individual books have details on local encounters,e.g. Traskers in Pavis.

RQ3 Bestiary - Has world spanning creatures, so depending where you want to play may be of use.

RQ3 Supplements - likewise with RQ2 supplements

Anaxials's Roster plus the extra bits on the web - Good descriptions of (nearly) everything, but no RQ stats.

Sartar Companion & Pavis: GtA - The encounter sections have the most up to date descriptions of creatures, but no RQ stats. But they include creatures local to those areas.

HeroQuest Glorantha - the most up to date creature descriptions, but no RQ stats.

The RQ encounter generator - the above with RQ6 stats.

In conclusion, there is no one ideal book.

A side question to others - has anyone produced a definitive canon list of Gloranthan creatures with references to all their sources - now that would be useful!

 

-----

Search the Glorantha Resource Site: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com. Search the Glorantha mailing list archives: https://glorantha.steff.in/digests/

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...and no - it will not be canon, it will contain all that I know but you can probably weed the canon and non canon as they seem tomvary year by year. AiG has a good list as well but it is not complete - missing many of the elder races

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Thanks all. Would the RQ3 beastiary be useful for a River of Cradles campaign? I have these so far:

RQII kickstarter

RQ companion

Trollpack

River of Cradles

Pavis/Rubble Gloranthan Classic

Borderlands Gloranthan Classic

Cult Compendium

GW Monsters hardback

A related question. For my speculative River/Pavis campaign, are there any other must have books you would recommend? I'm finding it a bit daunting trying to figure out what info exists in what book for what edition? My apologies for the newbie questions. 

Mike D

 

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43 minutes ago, mdomino said:

Thanks all. Would the RQ3 beastiary be useful for a River of Cradles campaign? I have these so far:

RQII kickstarter

The main Praxian use of the RQ3 Gloranthan Bestiary is to get stats for the Praxian steeds - these are already in RQ2. Not sure about the newtlings (but those would be in Borderlands). Little of the other content of the Bestiary is applicable there.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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