The RuneQuest RPG Wiki

The RuneQuest RPG Wiki is online at long last! Not to be confused with the fan-created Glorantha Wiki, which tackles Gloranthan lore, the RuneQuest RPG Wiki has been created and is maintained by the Chaosium and is solely about the game’s rules.

The RuneQuest RPG Wiki can be seen as an online extension of sorts of the RuneQuest Starter Set: since the latter does not contain a character generation chapter, or the full details of all the RQ weapons, etc., you can now find them online on the wiki.

from the RQ wiki

You can now spend a mere €25 for the RuneQuest Starter Set and have anything else missing available at your fingertips via the RuneQuest RPG Wiki. No more excuses for playing inferior role-playing systems!

Ultra-Fast Aldryami Character Generation

The day before yesterday, I wrote that the RuneQuest Starter Set contained all the rules needed to play RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha except for character generation.

So if you’re not particularly interested in the intricacies of Gloranthan lore, but rather in RuneQuest as a TTRPG engine, you may well purchase the Starter Set and simply use my character generation posts to create your RQ adventurers. You will also need the PDF of the Classic Edition (for weapon stats and for critters), and the Red Book of Magic if you fancy a larger choice of spells.

I have already blogged about the generation of human adventurers. Today we are creating Aldryami player characters in eight easy steps:
1. Passions
2. Rune affinities
3. Characteristics
4. Starting Skills
5. Occupation
6. Cult
7. Personal skill bonuses
8. Misc.

1. Passions

Choose three starting Passions at 60% amongst the ones listed on p17 of Book 1: Rules of the Starter Set. Elves would typically have at least two of the following passions: Hate (Dwarves), Hate (Trolls), Loyalty (Elder Sister), and Loyalty (Great Tree).

2. Rune affinities

2a. Elemental Runes

Male adventurers start with the Fire/Sky Rune at 60%, females with the Earth Rune at 60%. Choose another Elemental Rune (except Darkness) that starts at 40%, and yet another at 20%.

2b. Power Runes

You may choose a Power Rune (it cannot be Death) that starts at 75%.

2c. Form Runes

All Elves start with the Plant Rune at 75% and the Man Rune at 25%, meaning that the Man-Beast axis on p1 of the adventurer folio is replaced with a Man-Plant axis.

3. Characteristics

Do not roll for characteristics but freely assign the following values: 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17 to your characteristics, +4 extra points.

INT and DEX cannot be among the four lowest characteristics. STR cannot be among the three highest.

4. Starting Skills

Use the values on p2 of the adventurer folio, with the following changes:

Agility
Climb 70%
Swim 05%

Knowledge
Elf Lore 25%
First Aid 25%
Plant Lore 50%

Magic
Spirit Combat 50%
Worship (...) 30%

Manipulation
Conceal 20%

Perception
Elfsense 40%
Listen 45%
Track 25%

Stealth
Hide 25%
Move Quietly 25%

Attacks - Weapon
Elf Bow 35%
Short Spear 20%
Shortsword 20%
Sing 25%
Small Shield 25%

5. Occupation

Choose an occupational category for your adventurer, and add the relevant skill bonuses:

Artisan
Communication: Bargain +10
Knowledge: Evaluate +5, Lore (...) +10, Plant Lore +30, Speak Other Language (Tradetalk) +10
Manipulation: Conceal +10, 1st Craft +30, 2nd Craft (can be the same) +10
Perception: Elfsense +5, Insight (Elf) +5
Attacks - Weapon: Elf Bow +10

Dignitary
Agility: Dodge +5
Communication: Orate +5
Knowledge: Animal Lore +5, Elf Lore +10, First Aid +5, Homeland Lore (own forest) +5, Plant Lore +25, Speak Other Language (Tradetalk) +5
Perception: Elfsense +15, Listen +5, Scan +5, Search +5
Attacks - Weapon: Elf Bow +20, Short Spear +10, Shortsword +10

Fighter
Agility: Dodge +20
Knowledge: Homeland Lore (own forest) +20
Perception: Elfsense +5
Stealth: Hide +15, Move Quietly +15
Attacks - Weapon: Elf Bow +25, Short Spear +20, Small Shield +15

Sage/Priest
Communication: Dance +5, Sing +15
Knowledge: Alchemy +5, Cult Lore (...) +15, First Aid +15, Lore (...) +5, Plant Lore +25, Treat Disease +15, Treat Poison +5.
Magic: Meditate +5, Spirit Combat +10, Worship (...) +15.

6. Cult

Your adventurer starts off as already being an Initiate of a cult. Elf adventurers are overwhelmingly initiates of Aldrya, which brings the following benefits:

You receive an elf bow, a living plant-weapon that provides you a source of 2D6+2 extra magic points in spellcasting.
The elf bow has the same stats as the composite bow from the pregen folios (except that it has 6 HPs).

You distribute +45 skill points among three or four of the following skills:
Agility: Climb
Communication: Sing
Knowledge: Cult Lore (Aldrya), First Aid, Plant Lore, Read/Write Aldryami
Magic: Meditate, Worship (Aldrya)
Manipulation: Conceal
Perception: Listen, Search, Track
Stealth: Hide, Move Quietly
Attacks - Weapon: Elf Bow, Short Spear

You also get to choose 5 points of Spirit Magic amongst the cult’s available spells: Befuddle, Countermagic, Dispel Magic, Extinguish, Heal, Light, Mobility, Multimissile, Repair, Second Sight, Shimmer, Silence, Speedart, and Vigour. Your adventurer receives 3 Rune points dedicated to their cult and is taught the Rune spell Arrow Trance. You also choose an extra Passion at 60% amongst the following ones: Devotion (Aldrya), Loyalty (Great Tree/Elder Sister).

7. Personal skill bonuses

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

8. Misc

Choose the character’s gender and name.

Determine Age (21±2D8)

Add +1D6+6 to Reputation.

Add +1D20 to a single Passion.

Add +10% to a single Perception or Stealth skill of your choice.

Equipment: leather armour, a small shield, a short spear, a shortsword, and any equipment appropriate to your occupational category.

RuneQuest Starter Set

The RuneQuest Starter Set is available at last. Chock-full of Gloranthan goodness, it is an absolute must-buy for any serious TTRPG player and/or collector.

chock-full of gaming stuff, for €25 only

I'll point you to someone else's blog post for a ‘standard’ review of the RuneQuest Starter Set. Since this blog is mostly followed by seasoned Gloranthaphiles, I am going to concentrate on what a grizzled Gloranthaphile will find of interest in it and on why you too should purchase it. First and foremost, the RQ Starter Set has been written with years of feedback from newbie and veteran players and GMs, and it shows in how the rules have been clearly laid out, re-organised, and re-written. Honestly, except for character generation (which has been left out of the Starter Set and replaced with 14 pre-generated characters), Book 1: Rules of the Starter Set contains all the rules needed to play RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. In this aspect, it is completely different from most TTRPG starter sets that only give you an inkling of the fully-fledged game system, and which require you to purchase the various manuals later on. With the RQ Starter Set, you can skip the purchase of the rulebook if you are happy not to go through the fully-fledged character generation procedure (the one with the adventurer's family history, etc., from the core rulebook) and if you are willing to use a simpler system like, for instance, my accelerated character generation or my ultra-fast character generation.

In some areas, I feel the Starter Set is even superior to the core rulebook. The tricky parry/dodge mechanisms with regards to success quality (fumble, failed, normal, special, critical) are clearly explained, with a very detailed table that details all the various cases with the relavant results. Spirit combat and the shaman–fetch relationship are also expounded upon in a much more unequivocal way than in the core rulebook.

Obviously, Book 2: the World of Glorantha does not attain the encyclopedic depth of the Guide of Glorantha, nor does it give the same overview of the myths and of the religions of Glorantha that the 220-page Sourcebook does, yet it does solve the eternal GM problem of ‘how am I going to quickly introduce Glorantha to my players’. In a mere 21 pages of (dense) text, it manages to give a satisfactory overview of the history of Glorantha, both mundane and mythical, of the Runes and of the Elder Races, of what makes Gloranthan magic and religion different from your vanilla TTRPG setting, and of what organisations your adventurer will gravitate to; it also includes a mini-gazetteer of the Dragon Pass area with the added benefit of it all being for GMs and players alike (which means you can safely pass on the booklet to your players for reading).

This is followed by what can only be described as a mini-campaign setting of Jonstown and northern Sartar. Again, in a mere 39 pages you have everything you need as a GM to run your games in the Jonstown area: city map, gazetteer, guilds, cults, major NPCs, sample NPCs, etc.

Book 3: SoloQuest is a Tunnels and Trolls-like solo adventure that has the double aim of teaching you the rules and of making you familiar with the situation in the Dragon Pass area in 1625. As a seasoned Gloranthaphile, you probably don't need to be taught the rules. However, if you've only played the adventures that were published for RQ2, RQ3 and HeroQuest, you won't be familiar with the new situation (the Dragonrise, the end of the Lunar occupation of Sartar, Argrath's conquest of Prax and Pavis, etc.), and going through the Battle of Dangerford with your player character will brush you up on your Know Glorantha skill.

As implied by its title, Book 4: Adventures presents three adventures set in Jonstown and northern Sartar. The interest for the seasoned GM is, again, to make you familiar with the new political landscape of the Dragon Pass area; the second adventure, A Fire in the Darkness, is particularly useful in this regard. As for the third adventure, the Rainbow Mounds, your players will certainly be extremely surprised if they try and go through it using whatever they may remember from the original RQ2 adventure— the times they are a-changin'!

Last but not least, the Starter Set contains several reference sheets, amongst which a handy ‘Strike Rank Tracker’ with helpful SR-related information directly printed on it such as spell casting times & SRs, held actions, spirit combat, aimed attacks, etc. Again, this should prove useful even for grizzled players & GMs.