Signs & Portents issue No.39

Of interest in this issue for us RQers:

• a short description of what the Magic of Glorantha book will feature: 'draconic mysticism of the EWF' and 'heroquesting grandeur of the God Learners', plus 'new runic powers' (uh-oh);
• an ad by Ronin Arts about their supplements à la classic roleplaying (new monsters, new professions...)
• seven rune magic spells — engaging but dispensable.

Signs & Portents issue No.38

It's nice to see that Mongoose support RuneQuest as one of 'their' rolegames. Issue No.38 of S&P features two above-average articles, one about enchanted items (including an interesting ghost bell that could be used in a Chinese setting) and another one about quick character generation through tables (à la RQIII).

MRQ getting popular

Apparently, MRQ is getting popular. I see it mentioned more and more on RQ-devoted fan sites or mailing lists. The books are sold out in Parisian hobby shops. Mongoose's forum is crowded.
MRQ is starting to get its share of fan material on the net. At the moment, Simon Hibbs' site and the MRQ Wiki are among the most interesting.

Inconsistencies in 'Glorantha The Second Age'

One of the 'scholars' from the Glorantha mailing list spotted quite a few inconsistencies in Glorantha The Second Age (I must admit that the only one I had spotted was the fact that Balazar couldn't possibly be named after the eponymous hero before he was even born).

RQ Companion

I'm not sure if the RQ Companion is already available in game shops, but the relevant SRD is already on Mongoose's web-site!

Mongoose RuneQuest Wiki

A Mongoose RQ Wiki has been especially created for this particular incarnation of the RQ rules. According to its creator, everybody is 'free to use it to post [their] house rules, NPCs, monsters, spells, legendary abilites, whatever'. The MRQ Wiki also hosts a formatted version of the Mongoose RQ SRD for easy reference.

More RQ stuff from Mongoose (2)

The free downloads page on Mongoose's web-site has a host of new MRQ previews!

• Arms & Equipment - This looks somewhat interesting: new armour, riding beasts, black powder weapons, etc.; however, frankly, this is the kind of stuff that I would've expected in the main rulebook.
• Cults of Glorantha Book One - Second Age Gloranthan cults. In two books. 'Nuff said!
  
• Glorantha The Second Age - The title says it all. Cultures, races, places of Second Age Glorantha.
  
• Legendary Heroes - This looks completely naff: legendary abilities, legendary artefacts... Mongoose are a company specialised in d20 supplements, and fuck does it show.
  
• Magic of Glorantha - Actually there aren't any previews for this one. The description says this book will feature the magic systems of the God Learners and of the EWF. A dream come true for all us Glorantha buffs.
  
• RuneQuest Companion - Divine magic, sorcery, spirit combat, ships, temples... Looks brilliant but, again, this is the kind of stuff that I would've expected in the core rulebook, not in a supplement!
  
• RuneQuest Monsters - Gloranthan monsters, and rules for creating fully-fledged nonhuman characters. Again, it should've been in the main rulebook.
  

When you think that, at the time, with RQ II and Cults of Prax you had all that was needed to play.....

More RQ stuff from Mongoose (1)

Signs & Portents issue No.37 is out, and it features an article with unusual flora and fauna for MRQ. Nothing particularly interesting and, again, a non-Gloranthan article, but I sure do commend Mongoose for supporting MRQ.

Signs & Portents issue No.36

Mongoose's free house magazine (available here) has two RQ-related articles this time.
The first one is about weapons. The idea is that some GM's and players may want more lethal or less lethal games; new weapon tables replacing the ones in the rule book are provided to cater for this kind of audience.
The second article is a vanilla scenario set yet again in a vanilla village. The only interesting thing is that it gives a good example of a non-Gloranthan spell caster (the main villain).

Kethaela in the Second Age

In issue No.5 of Tradetalk, there is a very long article (7 pages!) about Kethaela in the Second Age. There also is a lengthy article about Caladraland, with details about Caladraland in the Second Age.

Scenarios

There are already two scenarios for Mongoose RuneQuest: one in issue 35 of their house magazine (Signs and Portents), and the other one a published one. Unfortunately, both are generic scenarios, without any established background whatsoever. We're treading the D&D path, gentlemen.

Greg Stafford Interview & Publication Schedule

Here.

Official Rule Clarification

According to the new rules, parrying is resolved by an opposed roll and then looking at a table; meaning that, if you make an attack roll and the parry succeeds, you make another attack roll to compare on the table. Two rolls instead of one!
However, Matthew Sprange published an official FAQ on Mongoose's web site about this, so no double roll is necessary, despite what may be written in the book. Other queries are similarly dealt with in the FAQ.

Previews Available!

Fans have complained about the rules of the new Mongoose RuneQuest, whether because they took part to the open playtest, or because of hearsay.
However, one thing that definitely does look brilliant is the source book for Second Age Glorantha, for which previews are available on Mongoose's site. Yummy!

when exactly in the Second Age is the game set?

Read on the Mongoose RuneQuest forum:

Greg spoke about the Second Age Glorantha setting at Tentacles Convention this weekend and said the setting was something like 895, with the balance already tipping against the empires.

Fourth Post

The quest for information about Second Age Glorantha continues! Today, I salvaged information about the following:

• The History of Carmania
• A History of Karse

Whilst not entirely devoted to events which took place in the Second Age, these pages both contain invaluable information about Second Age Glorantha.

Third Post

Well, Google wasn't too friendly today. I didn't find much about Second Age Glorantha. What I did find was:

• Information about the Pure Horse Tribe
• An Outline of Carmanian History

Unsurprisingly enough, both pieces are from Nick Brooke's website.

I also found out that the German Chaos Society were about to publish a Rough Guide to Pavis City in the Second Age.... He, he, those cunning Germans, they're already churning out stuff for the new Gloranthan setting!

Second Post

Since information on Second Age Glorantha is scant, I quickly turned to Lokarnos, the source for Gloranthan stuff on the web.
I entered 'second age' in their search engine. Uh! No results. Then I tried 'history of Glorantha', got a few results, nothing ground-breaking, here are the most interesting ones:

• Introduction to Mythology and History
• Second Age Empires
• History of Glorantha

Now on to Google.....

First Post

OK, so according to Mongoose's site, their soon-to-be-released version of RuneQuest will be based in the Second Age. My first impression was, wow! that's pretty cool what with all the scheming God Learners and weirdo dragon magics. My second thought was, wait! I don't know fuck about the Second Age....