Unusual Weapons for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha

As my players might tell you, I love unusual situations in my RQ games, and unusual weapons are an aspect of this. Here are three unusual weapons for your gaming pleasure. Since there aren’t any official statistics for them (yet?), I have created my own, mostly based on old RQ2 publications.

Blowgun

The blowgun is an exotic weapon used in Eastern and Southeastern Genertela. The elf blowgun (also called a dartgun) is described on p22 of the Glorantha Bestiary; the blowgun described below is used by humans, either primitive peoples or assassin cults. Trollkin are also known to use blowguns that are slightly different (they are longer and have 6 HPs).

The blowgun doesn’t do much damage: the reason it is used is because the dart may be poisoned, usually with fast-acting herbal poison (see p159 of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha).

Category	Name	Base %	STR	DEX	Damage	HP	ENC	Range	SR
Blowgun	Blowgun	10	-	11	1D3	4	(3)	30m	2

Net, Trapping

The net will be described in the upcoming Gods and Goddesses of Glorantha. It is favoured by some Darkness and Chaos cults. Here is a simplified version I have used in my games in the hands of NPCs who wanted to capture the player characters.

A trapping net may be of any SIZ but requires one user per 20 pts. of SIZ. A net must have a larger SIZ than its intended target to entrap them whole; if not, roll the hit location as usual to determine the ensnared location.
The STR of the net is 1.5 times its SIZ.

Category	Name	Base %	STR	DEX	Damage	ENC	Range	SR
Net	Net, Trapping	05	9	9	Special†	2/3*	5m	2/1*

†cannot be parried; can be dodged
*the second figure is for a large net (SIZ>20)

A wholly ensnared character may try to rip open the net by rolling their STR v the STR of the net. It will take two rounds to crawl out of the net.
A net may also be cut through, either by the ensnared character or by their comrades, by delivering an amount of hit points of damage via edged weapons equal to the STR of the net. The problem is that, during combat, any damage to the net by a character outside of it is equally shared by the ensnared character.

A partially ensnared character is ‘wrapped’, see the description of the Whip below.

Whip

The Whip is favoured by Water cults and is quite unusual in the Dragon Pass area. I suggest this weapon should be placed in the hands of transient NPCs, possibly from the Mirrorsea bay area. Ideally the transient NPC should be a herder, teamster, caravaneer, slave merchant, or some ‘evil’ Water cultist (as whips provide Maximum Game Fun in the hands of villains).

The whip is a weapon of fixed range. It is useless beyond its range, and it can only be used to attack a target at equal to or more than half its maximum range. Within that range, the whip is useless.

Category	Name	Base %	STR	DEX	Damage	HP	ENC	Range	SR
Whip	Whip	10	9	11	1D4	12	1	5m	1

Wrapping
The whip will wrap around its target on any Special to hit roll. A wrapped victim cannot act. If a leg is caught, the target must roll DEX as a percentage to keep from falling.
The whip will loosen after one round.
If the Special hit is parried with a weapon, or if the hit location was the weapon-wielding arm, the whip encircles the weapon’s shaft and may whip it out of the user’s hand, roll STR v STR to disarm; if the whip user fails to disarm, the target may try a STR v STR roll to pull the whip from the user’s grip.

Whips are unpredictable and have a double fumble range.