GM Screen Pack coming in PDF on September 14

[AndreJarosch]

12 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Then there is dragonglass - also widely available in the Pass region.

A blade like this would likely be a weapon dedicated to fight special foes.

Yes, like White Walkers!... wait-a-minute... wrong setting...

[Joerg]

2 minutes ago, AndreJarosch said:

Yes, like White Walkers!... wait-a-minute... wrong setting...

Not quite - the Humakti hunt undead on a regular basis, and the winter giants are ancient foes of many clans in the region. Unfortunately neither would be specifically vulnerable to stuff made from rock (or architecture) melted in the Dragonkill.

[Yelm's Light]

7 hours ago, David Scott said:

IMO, of all the items in the pack, it's the coolest.

I forgot to add:

https://www.artofishi.com/shop/flint-knapped-stone-knives-for-sale/obsidian-roman-short-sword/

handle not obsidian.

Nor ancient.

[goldenwheeldancer]

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

Obsidian or flint make astonishingly good short swords. The terms "Saxon" is derived from the stone-blade knife-sword that had been used in the region for millennia.

 

Seax's were made from metal. The blade in the picture has been knapped so it will definitely chonchoidally fracture in all directions if it impacts with anything hard. I'm guessing Gloranthan obsidian is magic.

[David Scott]

29 minutes ago, Yelm's Light said:

Nor ancient.

But still hand made. I’ve done a lot of knapping myself, none of the items I made were ancient, but they still had the same form and function. 

[g33k]

32 minutes ago, goldenwheeldancer said:

Seax's were made from metal. The blade in the picture has been knapped so it will definitely chonchoidally fracture in all directions if it impacts with janything hard. I'm guessing Gloranthan obsidian is magic.

Not all knapped blades are as fragile as glass, but I'm inclined to agree that a mundane obsidian blade would be highly fracture-prone.  I don't think "all" obsidian would necessarily be magically tough... Recalling that lead and copper &c can be made as durable as iron, I see no reason obsidian couldn't be enhanced similarly (specially by the cult of a volcano-god!).

Also, Orlanth's storm-glass, and glass made via Dragonfire, would (I expect, YGMV) be amenable to all sorts of additional enchantments.

Also, I see no.reason to believe that Our Heroine would be wielding a mundanely-feeble blade in this scene; or at least, not without very good reason!

Edited September 11, 2018 by g33k

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, goldenwheeldancer said:

Seax's were made from metal.

When metal became widely available. The same shape of the blade was present worked in flint deep into the Bronze Age, metal being a rare commodity in the region.

1 hour ago, goldenwheeldancer said:

The blade in the picture has been knapped so it will definitely chonchoidally fracture in all directions if it impacts with anything hard. I'm guessing Gloranthan obsidian is magic.

In all directions? That strongly depends on the point of impact. I have seen flint blades (spear and arrow tips) with nicks from impacts on hard targets like bone when just the thin blade struck.

Yes, any kind of glass - whether obsidian, opal, flint, or jade - has a tendency to break conchoidally, lacking the splittable layers of a crystal structure. This still allows the shape of the blade to account for mechanical stress, reducing the chance for breaking.

In addition to knapping, heat treatment of the raw piece of mineral glass may provide additional tensile strength which may survive subsequent knapping. Do you know those glass bottles which you could use to hammer a nail into a piece of wood, which then will fall apart into a thousand shards if such a nail is dropped inside the bottle? Never under-estimate glasses. I surely struggled with them during work for my diploma thesis on silicates.

Glorantha might know cast obsidian, with some control over cooling speeds, too.

Given the magical associations, I would suggest Obsidian for spear tips rather than sword or axe blades. Klanth blade inlays are fine, though. Stormglass from lightning strikes is magically pre-destined to make sword blades.

Dragonfire might even have produced glass with bronze metal backs in the Dragonkill, not by design, but by accident. A skilled knapper might be able to create a special weapon from such composite material.

[SDLeary]

8 minutes ago, Joerg said:

When metal became widely available. The same shape of the blade was present worked in flint deep into the Bronze Age, metal being a rare commodity in the region.

Joerg, do you have a source sir? I have never seen a blade in bronze in the shape of a seax, much less anything in stone that was that long or that shape.

SDLeary

[Joerg]

12 hours ago, SDLeary said:

Joerg, do you have a source sir? I have never seen a blade in bronze in the shape of a seax, much less anything in stone that was that long or that shape.

Not exactly the shape of a seax, but here is a dagger from the Baltic region dating around the time of the collapse of the Mediterranean Bronze Age cultures:

The blade is thin at the bottom and considerably thicker at the back.

The accompanying explanation in German translates roughly thus:

"Towards the end of the Stone Age, at the onset of the Bronze Age, the silex knappers successfully managed to reciprocate bronze daggers with flint (due to lack of available bronze). The result were the so-called fishtail daggers, mostly produced in northern Europe. Blade and handle made from a single piece of silex. The picture shows one such dagger (owned by a private collector from Cuxhaven, Germany). Even the seam from casting the bronze blade has been reproduced in the stone material. The dagger dates roughly into the supposed era of the Trojan War."

 

Here is a blade from Norway with a more rounded back:

https://digitaltmuseum.no/021026856692/flintdolk

[SDLeary]

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

Not exactly the shape of a seax, but here is a dagger from the Baltic region dating around the time of the collapse of the Mediterranean Bronze Age cultures:

The blade is thin at the bottom and considerably thicker at the back.

The accompanying explanation in German translates roughly thus:

"Towards the end of the Stone Age, at the onset of the Bronze Age, the silex knappers successfully managed to reciprocate bronze daggers with flint (due to lack of available bronze). The result were the so-called fishtail daggers, mostly produced in northern Europe. Blade and handle made from a single piece of silex. The picture shows one such dagger (owned by a private collector from Cuxhaven, Germany). Even the seam from casting the bronze blade has been reproduced in the stone material. The dagger dates roughly into the supposed era of the Trojan War."

 

Here is a blade from Norway with a more rounded back:

https://digitaltmuseum.no/021026856692/flintdolk

OK, so using "seax" in its definition of "knife", rather than the Germanic long fighting knife/shortsword that it has come to signify.

SDLeary

[Rick Meints]

You can buy it now.

https://www.chaosium.com/runequest-gamemaster-screen-pack-pdf/

[styopa]

Rick, ok if I list everything downloadable here?  MOB listed it collectively, but I mean the specifics?

[MOB]

 

The newly-released RQ Gamemaster Screen Pack PDF package is a lot more than just a screen (though a very fine screen it is) - it contains the following:

• A beautiful four-panel full-color gamemaster's screen
• 128-page full-color adventure book
• 20-page full-color reference booklet
• 16-page full-color Gloranthan calendar
• Amazing full-color maps (some fold-out) - Apple Lane, Clearwine, Colymar Tribes, Dragon Pass, South Peloria
• Special "artisan" (full color) and regular (suitable for B&W printing) adventurer sheets
• Non-player character and squad character sheets

Available now from Chaosium and DriveThru RPG.

(remember, if you buy the PDF from Chaosium, you get the full price of the PDF off the physical product when it is released later in the year.)

 

Edited September 15, 2018 by MOB

[Psullie]

the screen looks fab!

[Narl]

Wow, great looking stuff! Looking forward to the adventures and the third one will be especially fun!

I did notice the art character sheet has a weird page setup that I am not really sure how to print. It would probably be better if it were four pages.

[Jason D]

29 minutes ago, Narl said:

Wow, great looking stuff! Looking forward to the adventures and the third one will be especially fun!

I did notice the art character sheet has a weird page setup that I am not really sure how to print. It would probably be better if it were four pages.

Noted. This was a mixup between the print and the download version of the sheet. We're taking notes about all glitches/typos, etc. and will be fixing them and updating the download. 

 

[7Tigers]

Who is the trampled god(?) on the right of the screen please?

[Narl]

A one page map of Apple Lane suitable for printing would be really helpful.

[Yelm's Light]

4 hours ago, 7Tigers said:

Who is the trampled god(?) on the right of the screen please?

Not trampled, supporting the rest.  I'm guessing Gata, Primal Earth.

(Appropriate that the GM screen is the Gods Wall, btw.)

[metcalph]

5 hours ago, 7Tigers said:

Who is the trampled god(?) on the right of the screen please?

On the wall or on the banner?

The figure on the Wall is supposedly the Pillar Goddess upholding the Emperor although it looks more like KetEnari, the City Goddess instead.

The trampled figure on the banner is the Devil as the scene is the Full Victory, the sixth step of the seven steps of the Red Goddess (cf Pavis: Gateway to Adventure p396-397)

[Mac]

I seriously hope they are being e-mailed immediately.  Having waited sooooo long for the paper copy, I hope no one is saying I have to wait two more weeks for a coupon to arrive?

On 9/9/2018 at 1:11 AM, 7Tigers said:

Coupons are being sent only when physical book is available on Chaosium site. So no issued yet. But "soon"!

 

[g33k]

7 hours ago, Mac said:

I seriously hope they are being e-mailed immediately.  Having waited sooooo long for the paper copy, I hope no one is saying I have to wait two more weeks for a coupon to arrive?

"Coupons" are just discount codes for the books; the physical RQG books aren't shipping yet... As I understand it, the coupons get e-mailed the moment the books are available...

[Dragonsnail]

Bought the GM Pack just earlier. Just some initial reflections. The illustrations are once again super. The b/w character portraits are great with lots of variation, and they feel right out of Glorantha to me. The Colymar map is great, and the Colymar background and adventures in the book also seems great (I've not had much time reading yet). Thanks to Chaosium for producing more great Glorantha material.

 

[Mac]

On first run through....this looks excellent and just what is needed to accompany the release of the hard copy rules.  Of course, that being said, I cannot open the adventures until our GM has decided if he will run them!  I suspect I will love it.

[Tindalos]

On 9/14/2018 at 4:35 PM, MOB said:

 

 

Is that the Red Moon in the sky on the left hand side?

 

Isn't that too far south compared to the Gods Wall?