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That Chaosium seminar from Chimériades


Dimbyd

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So I took a few notes from the Chaosium seminar at Chimeriades convention in the beautiful South of France countryside.

There was some discussion on Runequest core book- which they hope to open pre-orders later this month- which is as detailed a date they were willing to commit to; with the aim of a Gen Con launch. A black and white print out of the laid out book was circulated at the con and it does look beautiful and evocative. The core book will have a conversion guide as an annex for previous edition adventures to be adapted and run under the new rules.

Jeff believes that the RQG core book looks more beautiful than the Guide, and that there were more artists available with a feel for Glorantha. The art is designed to reflect and enhance the uniqueness of Glorantha.    

The Bestiary is entering layout- it is a simpler layout than the core book, so it will go to production at a faster pace. One challenge is making stat blocks more interesting The Bestiary will allow you to play a number of different Gloranthan races including Trolls, elves, Telemori, and the most noble of all Gloranthan races- the ducks. (Hoorah!)  Some 150 different RQ creatures are covered including dinosaurs & mega-fauna

Next up is the GM pack- which is really a setting pack- a Colymar sandbox setting with 3 adventures which can be linked or play separately. Some 100 pages with lots of stated NPCs which can give GMs template for what a Clan Chief may look like stat wise. An impressive map of Clearwine by Oliver Sanfilippo was circulated to help GMs and players visualise locations. Boldhome appears in Dragon Pass campaign pack.   

No rolled maps will be produced by Chaosium- shipping costs to blame

Apple Lane will be a default base for players for post 1625 setting, reflecting the power vacuums following Dragonrise. Apple Lane buildings have housing maps to help give the feel of a base for players.

12 books in advanced production to support RQG- reflecting the work of the past 2 years. The new edition will be well supported to help time pressed GMs to run adventures for groups. Source books are likely to be statted for RQ, as it will be easier for Heroquest Glorantha GMs to adapt than the other way round.

GM book magic items, treasures guidance- Heroquest & hero rules

Gods of Glorantha will feature 50 gods with 8-12 page write ups of each cult. Orlanth will be expanded in coverage. The Red Goddess will be featured, with new Lunar magic. It will be a very God Learner book and designed for GM  to use. Issaries is a god/ cult which will see little expansion. The invisible God will be covered in a separate project. More regional gods will be covered in regional sourcebooks- such as Pavis- Jeff ran a Big Rubble scenario at the convention.

Art is being ordered for the book.

Jeff explains that he goes back to the oldest Greg sources & then work out what to keep & reject. Keen for returning players feel comfortable with Glorantha.

Chaos gods are not PC gods so not in the upcoming book - A separate gods of chaos pack with scenarios being worked upon. Therefore GM only.

Default 1625 early 1626 setting for the line

Sarah Newton is at the advanced draft stage for Barbarian Town - Wild West themed bronze age- opens up mixed group of PCs.. Another project by Sarah will be announced when it is further along.

Steve Perrin is writing old school feel scenarios to contrast with Sarah’s more modern approac

And finally on RQG, Jeff opened up a little on the heroquest rules-

 

  1. Getting the feel.. River of Cradles campaign is a Heroquest- they are looking to get a toolkit of myth structure/ special effects to reflect hero-questing
  2. REWARD- Guidance how to handle that hq gifts & Levels wider than a cult...  needs a Mythic restriction power with obligations. The hero should be embarrassed to use the power outside of the key needs. (Ken Rolston was animated on this point)
  3. Building package of rules after Heroquesting & becomes Hero with capital H. The Hero not super skilled not always effective- eg various Greek myths. Developing immortal self- 2 different things. Hero & shaman archtypes. Two different stat blocks. Fetches are always on hero plane. Gifts & powers come from that. Depletable resource- that be recovered through GM tasks & they have to develop cult to be worshiped. Develop a community eg Harrek is worshipped by communities who don’t want a visit from the Beserker(!)  Switch of perspective Dragonewts don’t want the obligations....

 

Finally, Q-Workshop will be producing official Runequest dice- which look both stylish and legible- even on the mobile phone pictures I saw.

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That’s a lot of good news. 

One of the many things I’m looking forward to is having a really strong feel for the Orlanthi of Dragon pass. Strangely past RuneQuest didn’t really flesh out a strong visual identity for the region. Ironic as it was such key place in Glorantha. I remember finding it quite difficult to get my head around at times as there were conflicting depictions, or at least depictions (RQ3 glorantha boxed set) that didn’t marry with my expectations that were informed by RQ2 rulebook, prax and Pavis. The new art I’m seeing is spot on and of a brilliant imaginative standard. Accessibility is key with Glorantha. Once you find an artist who gets it, it’s going to sell itself. Glorantha is such a rich world. 

@Dimbyd has an image of the new map of  the Clearwine settlement on twitter. It’s quite something, worthwhile checking out. Lovely to see Dragon pass coming alive in such ancient style. 

Great idea to have the RQ2/3 conversion notes in the appendix 

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49 minutes ago, Dimbyd said:

Oliver Sanfilippo has produced a number of evocative maps in the new core book, with a new take on the classic maps. 

:)  It's like you guys have never tried that world-wide web thing:

Oliver Sanfilippo (general, not Glorantha) work: http://shosuroakae.wixsite.com/sanfilippo/a-propos2

Link to dimbyd's tweet: 

Both are well worth a visit.

Edited by styopa
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1 hour ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

The new art I’m seeing is spot on and of a brilliant imaginative standard. Accessibility is key with Glorantha. Once you find an artist who gets it, it’s going to sell itself. Glorantha is such a rich world.

So much this. Though there's a lot of pondering about why Glorantha can be difficult to get into, I do think that that is a great point and that good and consistent art will help a whole new generation of fans to potentially get into this.

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1 minute ago, Grievous said:

 pondering about why Glorantha can be difficult to get into

I think that's pretty self-evident: it's deliberately far from the bog-standard pastiche of Fantasy Medieval Europe, thus, people have no internal visualization to work from.

That's the source of the (imo, overly-) excoriated identification of various aspects of Glorantha with IRL historical analogues.  You can make as novel a setting as you like, but people CRAVE visualizations. 

Yes, people have historically imagined the Orlanthi as (variously) Teutono-Celtic-Norse Northern Europeans.  They have a god that throws lightning bolts, live in steads, and are sword-swinging, cow-thieving barbarians....thus the pretty natural analogy to N.Euro primitives.

The massive amount of work Jeff, Jason and crew have put into making sure these products (seem to be now) heavily art-laden is a great, necessary move and will do a lot for spurring players' visualizations and really, comfort level with the setting.  I'm sure it wasn't cheap, but it'll be worth it.

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8 minutes ago, styopa said:

The massive amount of work Jeff, Jason and crew have put into making sure these products (seem to be now) heavily art-laden is a great, necessary move and will do a lot for spurring players' visualizations and really, comfort level with the setting.  I'm sure it wasn't cheap, but it'll be worth it.

Yep totally.

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11 hours ago, styopa said:

They have a god that throws lightning bolts, live in steads, and are sword-swinging, cow-thieving barbarians....thus the pretty natural analogy to N.Euro primitives.

As an occasionally stead-living, sometimes cow-thieving N.Euro barbarian who regularly swings swords... I resent being called a primitive! Look, I have an Apple lightning bolt in my hand and I know how to use it! 

That Clearwine map is awesome, but definitely a bit of a paradigm shift. Looks like it could house more than 1500 people too, though. Now I wonder how unique is Clearwine/the "Clearwine-style" intended to be among the smaller Sartarite towns/tribal centers? 

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35 minutes ago, Grievous said:

As an occasionally stead-living, sometimes cow-thieving N.Euro barbarian who regularly swings swords... I resent being called a primitive! Look, I have an Apple lightning bolt in my hand and I know how to use it! 

That Clearwine map is awesome, but definitely a bit of a paradigm shift. Looks like it could house more than 1500 people too, though. Now I wonder how unique is Clearwine/the "Clearwine-style" intended to be among the smaller Sartarite towns/tribal centers? 

The Clearwine style of architecture is pretty common in Dragon Pass (especially the areas settled from Esrolia and Hendrikiland). It is modelled on the hill villages of Southern France, Italy or the Balkans (the artist actually lives in a hill village of about 1000 people) - and actually is appropriate for a city with about 1500 residents, that is also a significant religious/political center. 

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Yea. what pleased me about Clearwine is that it WASN'T a wall around some wattle huts.

There is so much potential in Dragon Pass. It seems that every step you take, there are crazy magical features merged into the landscape - a Rainbow Mounds and  Snakepipe Hollow at every turn. I don't want it to be about Migration Period clans stealing cows from each other. (Though a bit of that is fine).

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