City of Lei Tabor

cover

City of Lei Tabor is a “gateway” (i.e., non-Gloranthan) supplement for RuneQuest 2 by Paul Nevins and Bill Faust published by the Judges Guild in 1980.

It is a typical Judges Guild supplement of that time: the cover is of the same flimsy paper as the booklet itself, the layout is non-existent, most of the content (illos, maps) is b&w and whenever there are some colours they seem to have been haphazardly chosen. The authors are not even amongst the ‘greats’ that published both for the Chaosium and for the Judges Guild: a short search on the internet shows that they only published for the latter. Yet for some reason I have a particular fondness for this supplement, probably because of the implied (vaguely) Oriental background of the city. However, my friend 𐌘𐌄𐌓𐌔𐌖 aptly remarks on his blog that the mix of Oriental names (incl. real Chinese deities), Gloranthan cults, and vanilla fantasy illustrations by Kevin Siembieda is completely unconvincing. And yet I have a particular fondness for this supplement.

Within its 96 pages, City of Lei Tabor presents the titular city (or rather city-state), its inhabitants, major NPCs, politics, cults, and businesses in quite some detail—even if, for the most part, it is uninspiring. And yet I have a particular fondness for this supplement.

The best part of the supplement is the many NPCs. You don’t have to create any on the spot, or to name them... they’re all in there, down to the lowliest constable—as Anders Swenson wrote in issue No.11 of Different Worlds: “RQ referees will never have to write out an NPC soldier again, ever.”.
Again, some Western/Oriental name mixtures are really weird, like the captain of the City Wall Guards who’s called Graham Fiendfeller and who is a Rune priest of Lei Kung (also: shouldn’t he rather be a Rune lord?).

One thing I like is that many of the guilds mentioned in RuneQuest 2, which disappeared from all subsequent editions, are present in Lei Tabor.

Lei Tabor, despite its small size, is the seat of the Ducal House of Lei. The cult of Lei Kung is the main cult in the city. It is unclear to me whether the authors took the name of the Daoist god of thunder from the Deities & Demigods manual (I have sold mine years ago) or from some book about Chinese folk religion, but the fact that he is a thunder god somehow makes him related to the Storm Tribe in my eyes, which is a welcome change to the mostly Solar gods of the Kralori pantheon. The cult of Lei Kung is associated to the Runes of Air and Movement.

Other local gods are the Lightning Goddess, Tien Mu (her name really means ‘Celestial Mother’ in Chinese), and five powerful associated Spirits of Thunder, the Wu Lei Shen (whose name really means ‘Five Thunder Spirits’). Given that these deities have real Chinese names, they probably also stem from a book about Chinese folk religion the authors must have had access to.

There is also a thieving cult which is based on the worship of three apotheosised thieves of the past, which is actually a pretty neat idea. The worship of these apotheosised thieves is intertwined with the local Thieves Guild.

The many inns and taverns are neatly fleshed out, with a few nice NPCs I have used in my RuneQuest games, with rumours, with adventure seeds, etc. My favourite is Imal’s Inn.

The various members of the ruling family, the Leis, are also well fleshed out and the details of their backgrounds can lead to several adventure seeds if built upon by the GM.

In My Glorantha, I have placed (and used) Lei Tabor in northeastern Pent. The Leis are former Kralori nobility, who fled Kralorela when it was ruled by the False Dragon Ring but who did not return to Kralorela when the rightful ruler was reinstated because their lands in northern Shiyang province were given to other aristocratic families. They have been brooding their discontent since then. This makes Lei Tabor a useful urban centre to place conspirators in. With its many inns and dangerous wilderness, it is also a good area to have your adventurers wander through.

detail of my campaign map,
see p288 of the Guide