RuneQuest Glorantha: Redemption Blues

 
The RuneQuest Glorantha Bestiary and the Gamemaster Screen Pack hardbacks are out at last and available for order from the Chaosium web-site.

If you have already purchased the corresponding PDFs, you may redeem their price from the new order. However, the Chaosium online shop only accepts one coupon per order so if you have — like yours truly — already purchased the hardback rulebook and the Bestiary and GM Pack PDFs, you will want to order the empty slipcase and the Bestiary and GM Pack hardbacks, and no combination of the coupons you've received by e-mail will cover this.

Despair not! Simply send an e-mail to customerservice@chaosium.com to request a combined coupon, and only place your order once you have received it.

Chromatic Soup and Other Old School Zines

art by Evlyn M

Evlyn M has just put PDF versions of her zines online for free. All the zine are lavishly illustrated. One of these zines, Chromatic Soup issue No.1, describes a swampy* area full of weird monsters and cults, sandbox-style. Yours truly has provided a RuneQuest conversion appendix at the end of the zine, meaning you can have a fully-fledged swamp sandbox at your disposal for your RQ games. At the time, RQ:G wasn't available yet so the stats are for RuneQuest Classic Edition, but I think they can be used with RQ:G with minimal effort (I'd had the prescience to include Runes and Passions).

The swampy sandbox is probably ideally situated in Western Pamaltela, between the Swermela Sea and Yedidrya, but YGWV.

Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15uisPoVVbS2ztNHSmkrkn4-YQ7r-HAzE

*or maybe marshy. I've never really understood the difference between 'marshy' and 'swampy'.

MSPE Crowdfunding Campaign

Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes, the classic espionage / sleuth / contemporary military operations role-playing game of the 1980s will be soon back in print thanks to a crowdfunding campaign by Flying Buffalo, the publisher of the 1st edition.

This new edition will keep its iconic cover and its original interior art; there may be however some extra text depending on the completion of the stretch goals.

MSPE uses an elegant, streamlined and universal system of Saving Throws (actually more like attribute rolls) to solve situations — it is actually very similar to the one I have used for my own Timinits & Trolls game, as both are based on an improved version of the ST system at the core of Tunnels & Trolls.

For a mere $6 you will get the complete PDF of the 3rd edition of the game, and for $18 you get both the PDF and the dead tree version. PLEASE FUND IT, we need an old school rpg to play contemporary adventures!

Gods and Goddesses of Glorantha book - a Heads Up

This is from Jeff himself on social media; I reckon it is of great interest to readers of this blog.

“I am wrapping up the final text of the Gods and Goddesses of Glorantha book, while making sure that it all ties into both the new Heroquesting chapters in the GM Sourcebook and into the Hero Wars Campaign. It is increasingly looking like this will be a two-volume book, as it includes the long form of more than 70 cults.

It is perhaps easier to say what the book does not have:

1. The Invisible God of the West. This needs its own book, as my notes keep expanding. Additionally, the Invisible God needs to provide a materialist and humanist interpretation of the Gods and Goddess book – and serve as the Sorcery Book. So this one gets pushed into its own book.
2. Godunya and the East. Same deal as above.
3- Pamalt and the South. Same deal – I toyed around with including Pamalt in this book, even wrote up his cult. BUT I've concluded that it would make far more sense to include Pamalt and his version of the pantheon in a Pamaltela facing book.
4. Minor gods of purely local importance, such as Pavis, Lanbril, Flintnail, other city gods, etc. These are better placed in their settings.
Deities that can be better handled as masks or variant names of other deities, e.g., Elmal, Buserian, etc.

So what is left? Well the book is more than 50% bigger than what was previewed at GenCon and has been pretty intensively revised. Here's the current list of cults that are definitely in it (cults are listed by elemental grouping and not alphabetically):
1. Kyger Litor
2. Annilla
3. Argan Argar
4. Gorakiki
5. Xiola Umbar
6. Zorak Zoran
7. Magasta
8. Choralinthor
9. Dormal
10. Engizi
11. Oslira
12. Ernalda
13. Aldrya
14 .Asrelia
15. Babeester Gor
16. Caladra & Aurelion
17. Donandar
18. Eiritha
19. Flamal
20. The Grain Goddesses
21. Hykim & Mikyh (includes Telmor and Basmol)
22. Maran Gor
23. Mostal
24. Ty Kora Tek
25. Uleria
26. Yelm
27. Dayzatar
28. Dendara
29. Gorgorma
30. Lodril
31. Lokarnos
32. Lowfires
33. Polaris
34. Shargash
35. Yelmalio
36. Orlanth
37. Chalana Arroy
38. Eurmal
39. Issaries
40. Lhankor Mhy
41. Daka Fal
42. Foundchild
43. Heler
44. Humakt
45. Mastakos
46. Odayla
47. Storm Bull
48. Valind
49. Waha
50. Yinkin
51. Seven Mothers
52. Danfive Xaron
53. Deezola
54. Etyries
55. Hon-eel
56. Hwarin Dalthippa
57. Irrippi Ontor
58. Jakaleel
59. Nysalor
60. Red Goddess
61. Yanafal Tarnils
62. Primal Chaos
63. Bagog
64. Cacodemon
65. Crimson Bat
66. Krarsht
67. Krjalk
68. Mallia
69. Pocharngo
70. Thanatar
71. Thed
72. Vivamort
I am still debating about whether to add Horned Man, Triolina, Subere, Wachaza, and Voria to the list.

For me this has been comparable to writing the Guide – especially realising how these various groupings of gods overlap, intersect, and form a magical whole. Even in the West, South, and East, these are the deities that form the cosmic foundation (although often with different names and different stories).”

RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha Accelerated Character Generation

RQ:G Accelerated Character Generation

Creating a character with the new RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha rules can be quite time-consuming. It’s actually a kind of little game in itself, in which you relive the adventures of your forebears throughout Dragon Pass.
I can understand, however, that some players may want a shorter induction into the game. Here I suggest how to bypass some of the lengthier steps.

According to the core rulebook, the necessary steps for character generation are as follows:
1. Homeland choice
2. Family history
3. Rune affinities
4. Characteristics
5. Occupation
6. Cult
7. Personal skill bonuses
8. Misc.

I will use the same steps here, but they will be much more streamlined.

1. Homeland choice

Just write down your choice of homeland. The core rulebook provides six homelands: Sartar, Esrolia, Grazelands, Prax, Lunar Tarsh, Old Tarsh, which have an impact on your starting skills (p60-63). You may ignore all the flavour text and concentrate on those tables.
You may even skip the homeland choice step and decide that your character is some kind of Old School vagrant. Or maybe he’s from outside Dragon Pass [theoretically the new RQ rules only let you create player characters from within Dragon Pass].

Passions: just choose three passions at 60%, irrespective of your homeland. If you’re undecided, or unfamiliar with RQ:G’s passion system, use the following:

• Love (Family) 60%
• Loyalty (whatever the referee says will be the core organisation of their campaign) 60%
• Hate (whatever the referee says will be the main opposition in their campaign) 60%

or even leave the choice open for later; you can pick ‘em up during the game as you start having a feeling for what the character’s background will be.

2. Family history

This is the most time-consuming chunk in the core rulebook. It is admittedly great fun and provides a deep immersion into the history of Dragon Pass but, again, some players may find it too daunting and/or time-consuming.
Just use the following:
+1D6 reputation OR 1D6×100 L
+1D20 to a given Passion
+10% to a Communication or Knowledge skill of your choice

3. Rune affinities

3a. Elemental Runes

Roll 3 dice for your primary, secondary, and tertiary Elemental Runes:
D6 – Elemental Rune
1 – Darkness
2 – Water
3 – Earth
4 – Fire/Sky
5 – Air
6 – Moon
If the result of the second roll is the same as the result of the first roll, re-roll. Ditto for the third roll re: the first and the second rolls.

Apply the modifiers listed on p45 depending on your choice of a homeland. If you chose the ‘Old School vagrant’ background, roll for a fourth Elemental Rune at 10%.

3b. Power/Form Runes

Roll two dice to determine which of your Power/Form Runes start at 75%:
D10 – Power/Form Rune
1 – Fertility
2 – Death
3 – Harmony
4 – Disorder
5 – Truth
6 – Illusion
7 – Stasis
8 – Movement
9 – Man
10 – Beast
Note: if your first roll was 1, the second cannot be 2, as they are opposing Runes; re-roll the die. Same with 3, 4 – 5, 6 – 7, 8 – 9, 10.

4. Characteristics

Roll 3D6 for STR, CON, DEX, POW, CHA, and 2D6+6 for SIZ, INT, or use whatever method you’ve always used as long as the referee is OK with it.

In RQ:G, the character’s Elemental Runes have an influence on their characteristics. Modify the characteristics as follows:
Darkness – if primary then SIZ +2 – if secondary then SIZ +1
Water – if primary then DEX +2 – if secondary then DEX +1
Earth – if primary then CON +2 – if secondary then CON +1
Fire/Sky – if primary then INT +2 – if secondary then INT +1
Air – if primary then STR +2 – if secondary then STR +1
Moon – if primary then POW +2 – if secondary then POW +1
Either the primary OR the secondary bonus may be applied to CHA instead.

Attributes & Skill Category Modifiers

Compute them per the rules.

Homeland Skill Bonuses

Apply the bonuses listed on p60-63 depending on your choice of a homeland. If you have chosen the ‘Old School vagrant’ background, you must at least decide whether your vagrant hails from a town or from the country and, if from the countryside, whether they’re more of an unmounted or a mounted type of adventurer:

Urban background
Bargain +5
Dance +5
Intrigue +5
Sing +5
Speak own language (50)
Speak Tradetalk +10
Customs (own) (25)
Farm +25
First Aid +5
Spirit Combat +15
Dagger +5
Battle-Axe +5
1H Spear +15
Sword/Rapier +10
Bow/Sling +10
Javelin +5
Thrown Axe +5
Small shield +5
Medium shield +15
Large shield +15

Generic rural, unmounted
Ride +5
Dance +5
Sing +10
Speak own language (50)
Speak Tradetalk +10
Customs (own) (25)
Farm +20
Herd +5
Survival +5
Spirit combat +15
Dagger +10
Battle-Axe +15
1H Spear +10
Sword +15
Composite bow/Sling +10
Javelin +10
Medium shield +15
Large shield +10

Generic rural, mounted
Ride +35
Speak own language (50)
Speak Tradetalk +10
Customs (own) (25)
Herd +35
Peaceful cut +5
Spirit combat +20
Dagger +10
Lance +15
Sword +10
Composite bow +10
Small shield +15
Medium shield +10

5. Occupation

Choose an occupation and receive further skill bonuses. Just apply the modifiers on p65-73.

6. Cult

In RQ:G, your adventurer starts off as already being an Initiate of a cult! Just choose the cult your character belongs to. Your adventurer receives 3 Rune points dedicated to their cult. Just like their profession, their cult belonging will bring further skill bonuses. Just apply the modifiers on p74-79.

You also get to choose 5 points of Spirit Magic amongst the available spells listed under your cult.

You receive an extra Passion at 60% amongst the ones listed under your cult.

7. Personal skill bonuses

Add +25 to any four skills, and +10 to five more. No skill may be raised above 100%.

8. Misc.

Choose Gender, Name

Determine Age (21±1D4)

Add +5 to reputation.

Note: RQ:G starting characters are way stronger than their RQ2 counterparts!

Worlds United Sneak Peek

This blog is officially devoted to Sword & Sorcery, and Worlds United is The Design Mechanism's soon-to-be-published planetary romance role-playing game. So maybe you think I shouldn't be mentioning it. However— isn't planetary romance really just a sub-genre of sword & sorcery?

Anyway, Worlds United lets you play in a 1950s where Herbert George Wells' books are not fictional but true recountings of actual events... Venus and Mars are inhabited planets and, if Venus is amenable to peaceful space trade, Mars definitely isn't, and there is an oppressing militarised atmosphere of Cold War with the Martians.

Contact with the Martians has sparked the development of psi powers, and the latter enable the 1950s depicted in Worlds United to make up for their lack in hard sci-fi technology. There is a lengthy preview PDF available here, which I believe gives a good overall idea of the setting.

Oh, and there are dinosaurs!

Darktongue 101

Xoroho Hellspeaker

We sometimes need to make up names or words in Darktongue. Obviously in the absence of native speakers or Teach Yourself Darktongue books, all we can do is look at the few words and nouns in the canonical publications and use them as a basis to figure out new words.

The many examples of Darktongue words and nouns found in the canonical sources show that Darktongue follows a familiar pattern of (mostly) CV and CVC syllables. In terms of pronunciation, all we have is American English approximations, for instance here on the glorantha.com web-site. Initial “X”, for instance, looks like it is pronounced [z], and most words are paroxytones, so the name of our friend Xoroho here is probably pronounced zo-RO-ho.

So, anyway, what I have done is I have taken all Uz names and words I have been able to find in the various canonical sources and I have broken them down into syllables. The syllables are listed here. The idea is to freely recombine them so as to create new Darktongue names and words.

A few elements are personal additions, like:

• Making a distinction between initial x- and initial z-, which induces a slight pronunciation difference
• Considering that many finals are actually the same sound, and that Greg Stafford has transcribed them differently because of the difficulty of transcribing Darktongue into American English
• Transforming the expected sound into something else (for fun)
• Considering that Darktongue <s> is slightly different (again, for fun)

Some sounds and/or syllables are hapax legomena, e.g., <f>; you may want not to use them.

Darktongue Sound & Syllable List

a [a]
Ca    CaC    ar    Car    Cang    Can    aC    az    a                               

b, initial [b]
ba    bang    bar    bas    be    beer    bi    bo    bom    boom    bor    boz    bu                   

b, final [b]
ab    clob    glob    zub                                                           

ch, initial [t͡ʃ]
chak    chur                                                           

d, initial [d]
da    dag    dar    de    dee    dem    den    do    dol    dood                                       

d, final [d]
dood    glod    ud                                                           

e [e]
e    en    eC    Ce    Cem    Cen    Cer    CeC    Ceッ                               

ee [i:]
ee    beer    meel    Cee                                                   

f, final [f]
zaf (hapax legomenon)                                                               

g, initial [g]
ga    gag    gan    gar    ge    ger    gic    gig    go    gor    gork   gu                                   

g, final [g]
dag    gag    gig    kag    kog    rag    trag    twag    xag    xig                                               

h, initial [h]
han    he    hi    ho    hom    hor    hy                                           

i [i]
i    in    gic    yil    Ci    Cig    Cik    Cing                                                   

j, initial [d͡ʒ]
jak    jes                                                               

k, initial [k]
ka    kag    kan    kang    kar    karth    kat    ke    kee    ker    keッ    ki    ko    kog    ku    kurz    ky   

k, final [k]
chak    drok    gic    jak    lak    mook    rak    ric                                           

gl/kr, initial [ɢ/q]
clob    cro    gla    glob    glod    kro                                                       

ch, final [q]
gork    tuch                                                               

l, initial [l]
la    lak    lar    le    lee    len    li    lo    loッ                                   

l, final [l]
dol    mal    meel    ol    yil                                                       

m, initial [m]
ma    mal    man    mar    mee    meel    mi    mo    mon    mook    mor                                   

m, final [m]
bom    boom    den    han    hom    um    xem                                           

n, initial [n]
na    nee    no                                                       

n, final [n]
an    den    en    gan    in    kan    len    man    mon    oon    ran    ron    xen                   

ng, final [ŋ]
bang    kang    ting    zong                                                   

o [o]
cro    kro    ol    xio    Co    Com    Con    Cong    Cor    CoC    Coッ                               

oo [u:]
boom    dood    mook    oon                                                   

ow [o:]
tow                                                   

p [p]
pa    pand    pi                                                           

qu, initial [kw]
quar

r, initial [r]
ra    rag    rak    ran    ras    re    ree    rer    ri    ric    ro    ron    ror    ruz                       

r, final [r]
ar    Car    Cer    Ceer    Cor    Cur                                           

s, initial [sˤ]
sli    so    su                                                       

s, final [sˤ]
bas    jes    ras    tas                                                       

t, initial [t]
ta    tas   ting    tor    tow    tuch                                                   

t, final [t]
et    kat                                                           

th/tr, initial [tˤ]
drok    tha    trag    tro    twag                                                   

rth/rz, final [tˤ]
karth    kurz    pand                                                           

u [u]
chur    kurz    ruz    tuch    ud    um    uz    zub    Cu                                   

v [v]
va    var    vo    vu                                                       

x, initial [zˤ]
xag    xem    xen    xi    xig    xio    xo                                                   

y, consonant [j]
ya      yil                                               

y, vowel [aɪ]
hy    ky                                                           

z, initial [z]
zaf    zar    zo    zong    zu    zub                                               

z, final [z]
az    boz    ez    ruz    uz                                               

zh, initial [ʒ]
zha                                                               

gemination, final†
keッ    loッ                                                           

†Notes
Square brackets [ ] indicate the IPA pronunciation
ッ means the following syllable starts with a double consonant; cannot occur at the end of words
C indicates any consonant
V indicates any vowel           

The following don't sound particularly Darktongue, I have considered them as hapax legomena:
 - Gothant, Iverd, Orshad (three trollkin names from Pavis and Big Rubble)
 - Syllables with an initial w- (Degla Wat and Heka Iwog, Dark Trolls, Griffin Mountain) 

Old School Bits and Pieces for RQG

I have just received, as a late addition to its crowdfunding campaign, the 'Referee repository' supplement for Blueholme, an old school RPG. As befits an OSR game, the supplement contains lots and lots of tables!

Some of them are really interesting and have spurred to me to adding a few bits and pieces to the RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha rules.

Movement Rates

p102 of the RQG core rules lists the various movement rates depending on terrain. However, only terrain typical of Dragon Pass is listed, leaving out other terrain types the adventurers may travel across. I am hence offering the following:

Terrain	km per day
River	60
Royal Road in good weather	50 / 40 / 25*
Royal Road in bad weather Trade road in good weather	40 / 30 / 15
Trade road in bad weather Herders' path in good weather	30 / 25 / 12
Herders' path in bad weather Wilderness	20 / 15 / 5
Forest Desert	10 / 8 / 3
Swamp	8 / 5 / 2
Snow storm Mountains	8 / 5 / 0

*pls refer to p102 of the RQG core rules for details

Drowning

p156 of the RQG core rules says:

If the adventurer is taken by surprise by the immersion, the player must determine by a roll of POW×5 or less on D100 whether the adventurer has instinctively taken a breath.

(if not, the adventurer starts drowning)

Well, I would like to factor in the kind of armour the adventurer in wearing. So instead of having the player roll POW×5, have them roll:

• POW×5 if the adventurer is wearing no armour
• POW×4 if the adventurer is wearing leather armour
• POW×3 if the adventurer is wearing cuir-bouilli
• POW×2 if the adventurer is wearing ring/scale armour
• POW×1 if the adventurer is wearing bronze plate

Navigation

Strangely there is no Navigation skill in RQG. I reckon one could use Homeland Lore, Shiphandling or Survival, depending on the exact locale, in lieu of the Navigation skill.
Anyway, when the leading adventurer misses such a roll, the party gets lost. Here a few suggested modifiers to the roll:

• Forest: −20%
• Mountains: −20%
• Swamp: −30%
• Desert: −30%

“Delusions are lies that tell the truth”

I went to see Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 film Suspiria* and had my mind blown away. So rich, so intense, and it resonated with many of my own fantasies and fears.

First of all, this is not a horror flick. I repeat, this is not a horror flick. At the end of the show, when the lights came back, I noticed two young guys who looked disappointed, and I could hear them mutter that it hadn’t been what they had expected. Yeah sorry tossers, Hostel part XVII was showing in the other theatre.

Suspiria is actually more like cosmic horror à la Lovecraft. Sara’s character, for instance, is a lot like most protagonists in Lovecraft short stories: they deny the evidence of bad shit happening until it’s too late.

And, just like Lovecraft short stories were deeply ingrained in their time, Guadagnino has managed to perfectly fit Suspiria in the mood of 1970s Europe, at a time when the wounds of WWII hadn’t healed yet, and European youth was rebelling.

The above doesn’t mean that Suspiria is a Lovecraftian film though. It is not. Lovecraft did not understand (and probably feared) women and female sexuality. Suspiria’s cast is 100% female** and the plot revolves around [mild spoiler] the fact that a foremost, all-female dance institute in Berlin is actually a coven of witches; the pupils live at the school and there are innuendos about Sapphic love.

For me, Suspiria is a film that explores a part of our psyche and culture that is usually overlooked in our patriarchal society: the role and place of womanhood, of female sexuality, of the three visages of Woman: the virgin, the mother, the crone. And just like “kung-fu” movies celebrate the male body, Suspiria, with its breath-taking dance scenes, celebrates the female body.

So what’s in there for the RPG buff?

The obvious answer is, inspiration for a contemporary horror RPG***. This is so obvious that I won’t expand. Depending on the maturity of your players you may emphasise the female sexuality aspect, or the political one, neither, or both.

Gloranthan fans will find food for thought aplenty:
a) First, the whole film is a great illustration of why the Dance skill is actually super useful. And, based upon the already-classic “Olga scene”, you could even devise a whole magic system based upon dancing moves. Think of the implications for matriarchal societies… How cool is that?
b) There’s also quite a lot to be salvaged in terms of dreams, how they are suggested to one’s victim, how they influence reality, etc. Great stuff for a game set in Eastern Genertela.
c) And, last but not least, there’s also a profound reflection on illusions. “Delusions are lies that tell the truth” is a phrase the Doctor says. I can see implications on Eurmali hero quests.

If Suspiria is not a horror film, it certainly is a weird one, as in: weird as a genre. So if you like Lamentations of the Flame Princess, you will find tons of gameable ideas in this film. I reckon you could actually transpose the whole film to the same milieu as Better Than Any Man, as a sister or alternate adventure, the coven of witches being allies or nemeses of the ones in Jim Raggi’s adventure.


* Luca Guadagnino says his film is not a remake of the classic 1977 giallo, but a re-telling.
** Even the only male protagonist of the film, the Doctor, is played by a female actress with prosthetics, Tilda Swinton
*** Because horror RPGs are not the same “horror” as horror films.

RQ:G Roadmap

The following is from Jason Durall himself on Facebook. Note: Jason is the line editor for the RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha line, meaning he did not provide any information vis-à-vis the upcoming RuneQuest Fantasy Earth books.

As there seems to be some degree of interest in what we’re working on, I thought I’d post a (nearly) complete list of what’s been announced and in development.

These are presented in no particular order, so don’t assign any importance to the sequence.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Gamemaster Sourcebook - a guide to running games in Glorantha, from soup to nuts.

Gods of Glorantha - Jeff’s big compendium of gods

Gods of Chaos (temp title) - the other half of that book

Adventure Book 1 - a collection of intro/starter scenarios and points of interest.

Adventure Book 2 - a collection of scenarios by established and veteran RQ designers and writers

Adventure Book 3 - a collection of scenarios written in collaboration with Sandy Petersen

Adventure Book 4 - a collection of adventures along a particular theme (to be announced when contracts are locked down)

Spell Cards - card decks with Rune spells, spirit magic spells, sorcery, and other useful references

HeroQuesting - this section has grown so much that it’s likely to be broken out of the GM Sourcebook

Adventurer Journal - a journal-style character booklet

Adventures in the Troll Lands - the first part of a sourcebook that serves as the spiritual successor to Trollpak

The Upland Marsh - a sourcebook with adventures

Dragon Pass Campaign Sourcebook - a guide and sourcebook to Dragon Pass

Glorantha Cookbook - recipes and a culinary travelogue

Barbarian Town Sourcebook - source material and adventures

Big Rubble - source material and adventures

Pavis - source material and adventures

Grazelands - source material and adventures

Kralorela - source material and adventures*

Nochet - source material and adventures

Seapolis - a sourcebook and adventure

“Troll Book 2” - the other half of the Trollpak sourcebook

There will be Gloranthan fiction in various shapes and sizes.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The following are things we have talked about but have no solid plan about. They may go somewhere, or be in development for years. Or be vapour.

• Elder Races Adventurer Pack
• RuneQuest Grimoire
• “The Great RuneQuest Campaign”
• Lunar Empire Sourcebook
• The Invisible God Sorcery Book

*Note: I have received an early draft of this book, and I can guarantee it’s top-notch mind-boggling stuff.

Yet Another Excerpt from our Ongoing RQ:G Campaign

This is several sessions after Hervé’s session report from 15 June. Again, he liked the session so much he produced a write-up. Enjoy!

Chern Durel Campaign - Session 15
GM: Gianni. 6 players:

Hervé / Kro Tal the wallball champion,

Valentina / Belia the (former) God Learner warrior,

Patrick / Xu the black mystic,

Eric / Janar the Spolite sorcerer,

Teva / Skull-Sucker the uzko berserker,

Jean-Paul / Furfur the enlo bush alchemist 

“I am Kro Tal the Invincible, champion of the Tulufan arena, who crushed one hundred foes on the black sands. I bathed in the Red Light of Zerel Fan, glory to the Blood Sun. I served Can Shu the wise, true incarnation of Basko Black Sun, who would lead all Ignorants to freedom from the hated Kralori. Well, that is what I believed until my last caper.

As soon as we landed in Zhi Ti, I ran to Can Shu’s palace to tell him – or, in this case, of one his servants – of our plan to wake Black Stone up in Karaköse, to make him strong enough to kill the dragons. I and my comrades were immediately thrown into the palace dungeons by too many guards to resist. We were left to rot there for several days and my comrades were pissed off at me.

Yet I believed this was some clever ploy by glorious Can Shu, and when guards came to lock us up in rolling cages and we set northwest, away from the city, I thought we would be brought to proper authorities. It happened, but not as I expected. The caravan guards were attacked in the night, half of them killed and the other half taken away. Someone opened our cages and left our gear next to them. We decided to follow our liberators and ran across the land, for the dark holds no terror for the Black Sun.

The chase led us high in the Zeedian Hills, all the way to the ruins of Zakarath, whose king insulted Zerel Fan. We had to fight off some hopping zombies, strength-draining vampires and blue ghosts, one of which possessed Xu. The Spolite cast some sorcery spell at it* and it drained the blue ghost out of him. We hacked and bashed away at the monsters, though the vampires did weaken the Spolite and the enlo much.

After regrouping, we met several very surprising people: a circle of six six-breasted priestesses, maybe demigoddesses, all human [GM’s note: well, not really], invoking the powers of the six directions to destroy Can Shu! My comrades kept me from attacking on the spot, for they looked powerful and had many supporters gathered here.

The first was Can Ta, daughter of Can Shu and his eternal enemy; she wore black. With her was the Guardian of Treasures (earth woman), Daughter of the Storm (a wind child), River Mother (with a fish tail), Moon Daughter and Western Sun. They all cast powerful curses at Can Shu, calling him “enemy of our friends”, “betrayer” and “vile”, while sacrificing the captured guards. Each wore a mask with six glowing gems, except Guardian of Treasures who had only five. Her curse failed and stopped the whole ritual.

Can Ta then turned to us and explained that Can Shu’s ambition was to become… the new dragon emperor, master of all Kralori! He was using the Ignorants as mere cannon fodder to reach his goal and would gladly wipe out Chern Durel without a second thought. She spoke words of Power and made me See. As she had freed us from slavery, I offered her my services** on the spot, hanging to her every word. My comrades followed suit, more or less enthusiastically.

Can Ta had a task for us: find the missing green gem, lost to Guardian of Treasures, on the Other Side, immediately, while the stars were still right. We were each empowered by one of the six women. I became Zerel Fan (Fire/Sky Rune); Xu was Moon, the Spolite was Air, Belia was water, the enlo was Earth and Skull-Sucker, naturally, darkness**. Our mission was to ‘bring free the Potter but NOT THE GOLDSMITH and finish the task to be done’. We walked through the veil and came to the Other Side, in some immense green plain. There were SIX SUNS on the same path in the sky: red, blue, black, gold, green and orange! We knew we were back in the time of Heroes, before Ignorance struck our people.

We crossed a mighty river over a bridge of Light I created and reached the village on the other side. The locals told us both their potter and goldsmith had been taken away by “evil snake-men”, in a city to the east. We checked their workshops and found a nearly-finished woman’s mask with five green stones in the potter’s so this was the right path. We set towards the snake men city.

It’s hard to keep track of time on the Other Side. We walked long but made it to the city. Full with Zerel Fan’s power, projecting a blinding and burning corona around me, I scattered a snake-man patrol who tried to interrogate us and we descended into the crater that held the city. There were no defences and the snake-men (upper bodies and heads of men but legs like snakes) fled. We could read the petroglyphs and went to the Prince’s palace, using our Runic Powers to fly over / burrow under / slip through its wall, leaving the guards powerless.

We went straight to the throne room and the enlo earth-sensed that the Prince and Princess sitting there were of the Dark Earth, hungry for our blood. Their glances turned the flying Spolite to stone and he crashed to the floor. So I shot them with a Bolt of SkyFire****, blasting the princess to ashes and seriously burning the prince. He began spouting threats, so Belia / River Mistress filled him with her waters until he blew up. She kept his head as a trophy. Yet we still had no information about where the Potter could be.

After much searching*****, we found the palace’s library, where all information is recorded on snakes as the patterns of their scales. I had seen such sorcery before: snakes are put inside a glass tube and the information becomes clear to who can read. Xu could. The enlo cast Command Snake and both the Potter’s and Goldsmith’s snakes came to us. I wanted to keep the Goldsmith for myself but my comrades deterred me. We brought the Potter’s snake to his village, but he did not change back.

Moon Woman asked her mother what could be done. She found out that the potter was inside the snake’s belly! We had to go back to the snake-men’s city, inside their Dark Earth temple, and to use a ritual I forgot to make the snake big enough we could open it so the Potter could be pulled out. We did but it turned out the Potter was in fact copulating with a snake woman; both were so entangled it seemed impossible to tear them apart. Then Skull Sucker cast a cold cloud of darkness at them and managed to tear the potter away from the snake girl’s embrace.

The enlo darksensed the snake’s belly and found out it held a gem, which Xu delicately pulled out, even Healing the snake after his surgery. He said “no use in making more enemy that needed of the dark earth” and we all agreed. Then we walked back to the village, set the potter back to work, collected the six-gemmed mask for Guardian of Treasures, and walked back to Our World without difficulties.

This time the ritual was fully successful and all of Can Shu’s guards died from the different elements. Can Ta explained she is now ready for the “Hero War” with her father and that she would lead Ignorance to Glory again. She and her followers fed us and sent us away to Karaköse, to finish what we had started. She said there were no Huan To there, it was Kralori propaganda, but there would probably be Kralori sorcerers waiting to ambush us.

Best of all, this time spent as Zerel Fan on the Other Side unblocked my soul and let me worship again Blood Sun, not the Basko Black Sun weakling I had been forced in following. I can’t wait to rip the Kra Lor sorcerers to bits ! Hail Blood Sun. Death to Kralori. Death to Can Shu the Dragon.”

*Spolite sorcery at its best: a 12-point Drain Soul spell, with full augments applying to the POW vs POW roll against the blue spirit. It worked and it lost 13 magic points, driving it out of Xu and attacking the sorcerer instead. Now this was effective exorcism!

**immediately gaining a “Loyalty (Can Ta)” at 70%

***each of us had a Runic rating between 65 and 95% (depending on their success during the ceremony), and 6 Rune points

****my first Sunspear in 30 years of Glorantha gaming! It did 13 points damage (4d6) to both of them

***** using Darksense, Rune points for Find Gold, etc.

NOTE: all participating characters got +6% to their Reputation, a POW check, +15% to a single skill used in the Quest and normal skill checks.

THE KRAKEN 2018 Report

the Schloss! Ⓖ

Here is my traditional post-Kraken report. As written on its web-site, The Kraken is an annual ‘gathering of international gamers, game masters and game creators to play, develop and test fine quality games’, organised by the über-efficient Fabian Küchler and his small team of volunteers. This year The Kraken was held between 19 and 22 October, as always at the incredibly isolated Schloss Neuhausen, which is in the least populated area of all Germany. One of the first conventiongoers described driving to the Schloss like the opening of a horror movie: “Every fibre in you tells you to turn around and drive back but you keep on going not knowing why.” That sums it up pretty well.

Anyway, apparently Fabi likes my inept write-ups, and he has requested a particularly detailed one for this year, so please bear with me as I shall start from the very beginning.

THURSDAY 18 OCTOBER, late afternoon

We (my daughter and I) jump into the car right after work and off I drive northwards. Travelling to The Kraken with my daughter means the car’s audio system is playing Baroque music, rap, System of a Down, and the Jesus and Mary Chain. Can’t really complain.
We now stop every year at the same place: a super cheap roadside hotel at the border between Belgium and Germany. The place is ugly and not particularly comfortable but it’s close to the motorway and to a very good patisserie – always a good place to start your day.

FRIDAY 19 OCTOBER

After an early wake-up and some excellent custard pastries and an OK espresso, we’re soon on the autobahn, in the vain hope of getting to the Schloss for lunch (ha ha). Well, even though it’s a mere 600km from the hotel to the Schloss, we only got there at about 5 pm because of the bloody Baustellen. Heed my advice, dear readers: don’t drive to the Schloss— fly! and take advantage of the shuttle bus between the Berlin airports and the Schloss. Alternatively, you can take the train to Karstädt; it’s only 12km from the Schloss, and someone will come and pick you up.

FRIDAY 19 OCTOBER, late afternoon

Anyway, once at the Schloss we immediately feel both welcome and at home. We greet our friends and start cutting the elements (counters, cards…) of a boardgame prototype we want to demonstrate (It’s a well-established tradition at The Kraken of always being late with boardgame prototypes and RPG props).

Conventiongoer's material! Ⓖ

Our room. Ⓖ

After a hearty vegetarian dinner (The Kraken provides an option for vegetarian or vegan catering), I get to chat (in Italian) with my Maltese friends from Malta’s Wargaming and Roleplaying Society – The Kraken truly is an international gathering.

Tired but happy. Ⓐ

FRIDAY 19 OCTOBER, evening

After the opening ceremony, I catch up with further friends, amongst whom Jason Durall, with whom we reminisce about Greg Stafford, who passed away on 11 October. The shock and pain we experienced one week earlier are now giving way to pleasantly remembering Greg and his incredible kindness.

one of the programme boards Ⓖ

sample minis from Petersen Games' Gods War Ⓐ

Then I go to bed early to get some much-needed sleeeeep.

SATURDAY 20 OCTOBER, morning

I have already mentioned catering at The Kraken. It’s not only compassionate, it’s also GOOD. At breakfast, for instance, we had home-made preserve. Now, I don’t know how many conventions serve home-made preserve at breakfast but I bet you can count them on the fingers of one hand.

German breakfast! Ⓐ

SATURDAY 20 OCTOBER, 10:00

Panel: ‘Building A Horror Scenario The Sandy Petersen Way’

The cool thing at The Kraken is that you have these panels with luminaries from the RPG industry with a scarce attendance, meaning you get to ask your questions and to directly chat with the host without any hassle.
Anyway, this was a really cool interactive panel with Sandy, in which he built a horror scenario only using input from the attendance. Sandy has actually adapted the ‘Sandy Petersen Way’ from the three rules of M. R. James, which the English author had established with regards to ghost stories:
1) the ghost must be malign
2) no jargon (jargon becomes dated quite easily; it also gets in the way of suspension of disbelief) Sandy—> importantly, this applies to in-game terms, keep them minimal!
3) set it where the reader can imagine themself
The above was adapted to Call of Cthulhu as follows:

1. Setting
2. Monster
3. Scene

And we did it interactively (audience/Sandy)
1. Setting: submarine
2. Monster: undead
3. Scene: banquet
I won’t transcribe the whole scenario here. I will simply advise you not to go treasure hunting into an abandoned Soviet submarine at the bottom of the Norwegian Sea…

Saturday morning panels Ⓖ

Sandy's panel Ⓖ

SATURDAY 20 OCTOBER, 11:00

The traditional Chaosium panel, hosted by Ian Cooper & Jason Durall

In this age of social networks and internet forums, there is no need any longer to precisely write down everything that has been said. However, I am transcribing here the salient points of the panel.

Ian: Still working on the ‘Open Game Licence’ version of HeroQuest, which is forking from HQ 2.0, and concentrating on rules-only stuff —> basically, it will be a System Reference Document (SRD).
In print form, however, it will be a new core book, with new sample genre packs (rather than Glorantha), and it will be followed by standalone genre packs (of approximately 32 pages each).
A famous indie designer is working on an HQ-based game, which is currently in its playtesting phase.
So if you also want to pitch a genre pack to Chaosium, please contact Ian!

At the Gloranthan side, the third Red Cow book is nearing completion. It should contain some mind-boggling revelations about some Gloranthan secrets (e.g., the Boat Planet). It will be possibly followed by a pre-1625 Fonrit book.

Jason: The RQ:G Bestiary and GM Pack are at the printer (with the crowdsourced errors fixed). So don’t start asking when they will be available, because they will be available… when they’re back from the printer. (OK, if you really want to know, that should be Q1 2019).

The next books in the pipe are (and this is a non-Euclidean pipe since work is progressing in parallel on several titles):

• The gigantic Gods of Glorantha (Jeff Richard keeps adding pages to it...).
• Then a scenario book by established authors (Ken Rolston, Steve Perrin, Penelope Love...).
• A book taking older out-of-print resources and adapting them to RQ:G.
• A book of introductory short adventures for starting RQ:G referees and players.
• In parallel to the main line of RQ:G books written by Chaosium authors, Robin Laws has been contracted for two Pavis & Big Rubble books, and the first drafts look very satisfactory.
• And the 800-pound gorilla is always ART— what happens is that fully-fledged books are lying idle because there isn’t any art yet.
• RQ Fantasy Earth. Pedro Ziviani has been commissioned for the first one (a rewriting of Mythic Iceland)

Q&A Session
1- Wyrms Footnotes
There’s lots of material (enough for 120 pages —> reduced to 64 pages, so enough material for two issues)
They have art for the next issue, which isn’t a themed issue but contains a little bit of everything (adventure, GM advice, NPCs, creatures...)
Looking for contributions!

2- Hero questing rules that will be in the upcoming GM book
Jason: they will enable any GM to create hero quests without being Greg or Jeff, or a fan of Jung’s writings.

the Chaosium panel Ⓖ

SATURDAY 20 OCTOBER, 11:00

Whilst I was attending the Chaosium chat, there was the traditional horror lottery to draw the lucky names who would get to play with the Only Old One himself… and my name was drawn (at last! after all these years!).

the traditional lottery... Ⓐ

SATURDAY 20 OCTOBER, noon

At lunch time I had a great chat with Ian Cooper and the Runeblogger about the behind-the-scenes movers and shakers of my Chern Durel campaign, and possible connections with Lunar cults, Sheng Seleris, etc. (which I’m not revealing here because my players read this blog).

SATURDAY 20 OCTOBER, afternoon

Sandy’s lottery game: The Monster of Poznań

Very satisfactory adventure with a pivotal twist (note to self: never trust an NPC in a CoC game ever again... the enemy of my enemy also usually ends up being my enemy!)

Puzzled investigators Ⓐ

Note that for the very first time in the history of Sandy's Call of Cthulhu adventures run at The Kraken, not a single investigator died. Hooray for us!

We did it! We survived! Ⓖ

SATURDAY 20 OCTOBER, afternoon

Replaced my daughter at the Harlem Unbound game because she had conflicting schedules. Harlem Unbound is a very interesting Call of Cthulhu offshoot, in which you play a person from an ethnic or racial minority in the canonical 1920s Call of Cthulhu setting. The second, updated edition of this indie game is going to be published by Chaosium, so hopefully it will attract more attention (well, Harlem Unbound won three Gold ENnies at the 2018 ENnies so it is already well-known amongst hardcore gamers, but I’m not sure about the larger public).

my friend Jean-Christophe refereeing Harlem Unbound Ⓐ

SATURDAY 20 OCTOBER, late evening

The Kraken provides an opportunity to test out one's prototypes of boardgames or role-playing games with seasoned players. On Saturday night, I found three players to play my four-player historical boardgame Siebenbürgen, and we played a very tight game until 3 a.m. The players provided great feedback, which I have now incorporated into the rules. Can’t wait to try out the new version.

situation at the start of the game Ⓟ

situation after the third turn Ⓖ

SUNDAY 21 OCTOBER, 10:00

Mythos Q&A with Sandy

This being Sandy and the Lovecraft mythos, it was mostly a display of knowledge, wits and humour, so I didn’t take notes… just enjoyed the time with Sandy. The best part of the Q&A was when Sandy’s wife asked him “Why do you love me so?” and he blushed!

Sunday morning panels Ⓖ

SUNDAY 21 OCTOBER, 11:00

Good Game Design Q&A with Sandy

Again, this was mostly us wannabe boardgame designers asking Sandy stupid questions and getting extremely valuable advice in return. Well, I certainly did.

Sandy's Good Game Design Q&A Ⓖ

SUNDAY 21 OCTOBER, 14:00-16:00

Impromptu seminar by Jeff Richard and Ian Cooper about Gloranthan mythology & running hero quests  (basically about next year’s book)

an impromptu seminar! Ⓖ

[Note: as a referee running hero quests using RQ:G, this certainly was one of the most valuable panels of the con.]

Jeff: Up to now, the usual approach was “let’s write a myth ahead of the game session”.
New approach: no real difference between a hero quest and a good story using Campbell’s archetypes.
How to present that information to GMs? Treating mythology as a sandbox, and using myth maps!
E.g., at the 2018 Gen Con (running RQ:G for newbies), Jeff improvised the following hero quest:

• Get to the troll underworld
• Get passage
• Find the snake cave
• Bring back the blue woman— not the yellow man!

All run in the context of a Gloranthan sandbox

Jeff expatiating upon hero quests & mythology Ⓖ

Other parts of the book will address the following:

• what cool powers does my character get? (because this is what players are really interested in)
• how to mechanically represent the “hero part” of the player’s character at the Other Side? (concrete rewards)

traditional Sunday Finnish pancakes Ⓐ

SUNDAY 21 OCTOBER, 16:00

‘Gated!’ a RQ:G adventure set in Prax, run by Andrew Wood from New Zealand (who had travelled all the way from NZ!!!)
As mentioned at the beginning of this report, it is an established tradition to always be late with props, and we had to wait quite some time for our character sheets. Once the wait was over, however, we enjoyed a classical but lively RQ:G adventure with lots of nice props, which saw my first use ever of the RuneQuest Strike Rank Tracker by Infinity Engine. The pregen characters were quite seasoned, with many Rune Points, and I enjoyed being able to cast lots of Rune spells! By the way, did I already mention on this blog how much I liked the new RuneQuest rules?

traditional axe-throwing session Ⓖ

traditional axe-throwing session Ⓐ

SUNDAY 21 OCTOBER, evening

Nice chat with Graeme Murrell about East Asian rock bands.

friends playing Petersen Games' Evil High Priest Ⓐ

SUNDAY 21 OCTOBER, night

I usually do not attend Sandy’s late night film showings because, well, the films are bad. This Sunday, however, he played a black and white Mexican horror film: The Brainiac (1962), which, except for the mucho cheapo latex max of the monster, was reasonably good.

Ooooh, inquisitors! Ⓖ

MONDAY 22 OCTOBER, 10:00

Closing ceremony… sad, sad, but we all pledged to reconvene next year in October!

We Are All Us! Ⓖ

Pictures by: Ⓐ Aliénor Perrard - Ⓖ yours truly - Ⓟ Pedro Ziviani