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But the one Iʼve read this morning on reddit made my day:
Children of the Flame must be one of the darkest and most disturbing campaigns ever written.
It features a mini solo adventure by Ken St André himself, a GM adventure, optional rules for T&T/M!M!, fiction, various articles... Just like in my favourite 20th century magazine ❤️
My copy was from the crowdfunding campaign of a few months ago, and I can't seem to find a site from which you can purchase a physical copy of the magazine at the moment. Of course it's available as a PDF on DriveThruRPG.
Also, AI stifles creativity and is tantamount to the theft of other peopleʼs art and literary work.
TL;DR: Fuck Gen AI
'Fuck Gen AI' logo by Łukasz Kowalczuk.
The aim of the players is to reinstate the Dundealos tribe in their lands—which were stolen by the Lunars, and given to the newly-created Enstalos tribe after an ill-fated uprising by the Dundealos.
The adventurers are either former Dundealos hiding amongst fellow Sartarites or relatives of the Dundealos wanting to right past wrongs now that the Lunars are on the wane.
The supplement describes in detail the city of Swenstown, a former trading hub between Sartar and Prax slowly falling into poverty, and then works its way through six epic scenarios of growing difficulty until a final confrontation between militant Dundealos, Lunar loyalists, Praxian nomads, and some other opponents I shanʼt name because I donʼt want to spoil the adventure.
Children of the Flame will soon be available on DriveThruRPG, both as a PDF and as a print-on-demand book.
Note: this supplement is the English-language translation of Les Enfants de la flamme, an official supplement for the French version of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.
Revised RuneQuest is not the same as NuRQ. The latter is Jeffʼs ongoing effort to lure D&D and Pathfinder players to play RuneQuest, whilst the former is a proposed streamlined presentation of the RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha core rules (deemed too long or too complex by people who apparently are literacy-challenged).
Anyway, there was a panel about Revised RuneQuest (lets call it ReRQ from now on) at Chaosium Con UK; Nick Brooke live-posted about it. Here is a summarised version, with my comments:
Revised RuneQuest
Goals: reduce page count, edit rules for clarity, remove barriers to entry for new players, and maintain full compatibility with all RQG products. It is a “polish pass”, not a new game.
Overhauled character generation:
- reduce time to create;
- remove barriers to entry;
- maintain rich, diverse options;
- introduce non-human adventurers in the core book;
- reduce the total number of cults in the core book.
Five cultures, including humans, ducks, minotaurs and baboons. [Minotaurs? Is that for power gamers? I canʼt possibly remember a time when Minotaurs were mentioned as adventurers in Dragon Pass]
Nine cults: Issaries, Lanbril, Yelmalio, Babeester Gor, Orlanth, Ernalda, Humakt, Storm Bull, Chalana Arroy. [Lanbril... thatʼs an ultra-minor cult; again this reeks of ‘let them play D&D-style thieves’. OTOH Chalana Arroy is a good choice; Iʼve had good experiences with the Chalana Arroy pregen, both as a player and as a GM]
New, clearer spell templates (consistent presentation of information). [Good]
What isn’t changing?
The current RQG book is not going away. This is RQG. It’s the same game, fully compatible with the 2018 release. It is a re-presentation of the rules, not a new edition.
What won’t be in the new book?
Phalanx combat; family history (because many new fans bounced off it); sorcery; shamanism. [This is a shame. Greg was an actual shaman! Shamanism is what sets RQ apart from vanilla fantasy TTRPGs. I agree the current rules are poorly written, but all we need is a good edit.] There are simply too many things for somebody who is brand new to RQG to take in. The rules for these things aren’t being changed at all; they just won’t be in the revised core slimmed-down rulebook, so new players won’t hear about them (yet).
Does this mean the Starter Set is obsolete?
No, it's the same game.
Does this mean the old RQG Core Rulebook is obsolete?
No, it's the same game. RQG (2018) is still widely available in print and digital formats, please buy as many copies as you need.
Does this mean stuff cut from the old Core Rulebook will be changed?
(Are we getting new Shamanism, Sorcery, Phalanx rules etc?)
No, you can still use all those, as it's the same game. But new players won't be overwhelmed by options in the revised core rules.
What's next for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha?
Goals: Playable Content: “show, don’t tell”. Let players discover Glorantha through play.
The Apple Lane Campaign: This reworks and expands on material from the GM Screen Pack Adventures Book.
Welcome to Glorantha: Collected scenarios, each highlighting a different, unique aspect of Glorantha. Compatible with the RQ Starter Set (that’s all you need to play them). One of the scenarios will be a mundane world heroquest. The book will show off different things that you can do with the game and setting. It’s designed for new players, like the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set. [Excellent, we need introductory scenarios. But we also need fully-fledged campaigns in the style of the old boxed sets]
Return to Snakepipe Hollow: A new adventure in the same dungeon set after the Dragonrise. This is not a reprint. It’s a whole new campaign dungeon; the denizens have changed since the Dragonrise.
On the Royal Road: A collection of encounters, with full NPCs incl. deep backgrounds, adventure hooks, etc. Use them any way you like in your own campaigns.
Cults of RuneQuest: Gods of Darkness: Including troll adventurer creation [at last] and everything else you expect from the Cults of RuneQuest series. After that, there may be a handful more books (2-3?) to complete the Cults of RuneQuest series. ❌ There are no current plans to publish a "Cult of the Invisible God" book. [Drat it]
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| cover |
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| detail of my campaign map, see p288 of the Guide |
Amateur Press Association (APA) zines were the internet forums/social networks for the SFF nerds of the 1970s: each contributor would write a mini-zine (1 to 10 pages), send it to a central mailer who would collect all the mini-zines in order to produce a massive, 100+ pages zine that he or she would then post back (via snail mail!) to all the contributors. Alarums and Excursions was the main APA zine devoted to pen & paper role-playing games. In Alarums and Excursions issue No.26 (September 1977), Steve Perrin writes that he, alas, will have no time to participate in the APA zine scene any longer because he is
engrossed in RUNEQUEST, the role-playing game based on the world of Dragon Pass (from White Bear and Red Moon, Nomad Gods, etc.). About the ideas in this game, more later, but it has thoroughly eaten up my D&D time.
(...)
RUNEQUEST
The name of the game is my invention, and it describes the basic focus of the game. The characters must improve themselves so as to earn the Runes which will set them on the road to Herodom. (...) It is a long, hard trail to earn a Rune and that does not guarantee a Hero status. (...)
The other principal unique feature of the game is that everyone knows magic, or at least can learn it.
Note how Steve mentions that it is the ‘world of Dragon Pass’, rather than ‘the world of Glorantha’. Also of note (from another part of Steve’s contrbution): at the time flame wars were called fan feuds.
So while I was away in Lyons at Octogônes, running 3-hour RuneQuest adventures for newbies and sitting at an “ask me anything about RQ” table, Chaosium Con UK was happening. The chaps who attended the latter sent the following information about the RQG roadmap (NuRQ was NOT tackled):
Sept 2026: Lands of Runequest, Sartar, with a PDF-only supplement containing three short adventures set in Boldhome
Q4 2026: The Apple Lane Campaign, revisiting the adventures from the Gamemaster Screen Pack (unclear whether it’s merely the same stuff re-published with new art or if the content will have been improved); as a consequence, the current version of the Gamemaster Screen Pack itself will be discontinued, and it will be replaced by a newer version
Q4 2026: Greg’s unfinished novel, A Pyre for Gods and Heroes, with an ending written by Andrew Logan Montgomery
Q1 2027: The streamlined edition of the core rules, thinner, with fewer cults, with simpler chargen, but adding non-human adventurers (minotaurs, durulz, baboons)
Q2 2027: Welcome to Glorantha adventure pack; each adventure will showcase a different aspect of Glorantha:
- Prax
- the Lunar Empire
- disease spirits and Broo
- a hero quest
Q3 2027: Return to Snakepipe Hollow (adventure pack): the Dragonrise has affected the denizens of Snakepipe Hollow in unexpected ways…
Q4 2027: On the Royal Road (encounter collection): dozens of NPCs, each with their own adventure hooks, to be used as a collection of random encounters or as an NPC codex
Q4 2027: Cults of RuneQuest: the Gods of Darkness: as per its title, plus how to create troll adventurers
Chaosiumʼs Rick Meints has written a beautiful, moving obituary.
There is also this piece from a Sicilian daily, amongst many others, as Darioʼs day job was in the publishing industry where he was well-known and liked for his keen humour. He did the layout and drew vignettes for the Giornale di Sicilia daily newspaper until about two years ago when he was part of a massive layoff. This, however, enabled him to spend even more time illustrating his beloved Jonstown Compendium and The Fantasy Trip supplements.
I don’t know who created the Adversaries Generator for RuneQuest (the page doesn’t mention any name), but this tool is fuсking brilliant. I absolutely love the detail of being able to choose the format under which the stats of the adversary shall be rendered. I choose FOES for old times’ sake!
As I have written here, the so-called ‘nuRQ’ has been ditched. In its stead, Jeff Richard is working on a lighter/simpler (but fully backwards-compatible) clarified version of RQG.
Here are some news about the latter posted today by Jeff on basicroleplaying.org:
New core rules book. This is 200-250 pages laid out. It is very focused on Sartar, Prax, and Pavis. Combat is much clearer and easier (what we have found is that a typical 4 round combat with 5 adventurers versus a group of NPCs takes about 45 minutes to run with a newish GM). Character Creation is MUCH faster. You should be able to make your first character in around thirty minutes, with it being 20 minutes or less once you get the hang of it. Faster if you use the PDF worksheet. The cheat sheet for the core rules, magic system, plus all common rune spells description takes up three pages total.
Gamemaster book. This is 250-300 pages laid out. It includes a full bestiary that is focused on being plug and play. It teaches all of the core rule systems, how to create encounters tailored for your characters, how to handle social interactions, spirits, run campaigns in Dragon Pass and Prax and Pavis, between adventures, and how to handle treasure (plus plenty of unique items). It includes the official and complete heroquesting rules and battle rules. This is something that reflects years of discussion between Mearls and I about how people learn how to run games and what they actually need to know.
Pavis and Big Rubble. This is the setting. Fully updated and expanded, with at least a half-dozen brand new adventures, starting with a Welcome to Pavis scenario intended to bring brand new players into the setting.
This was the first official Chaosium Con in continental Europe (after the various unofficial ones in Germany). It was organised as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of Chaosium’s creation by Greg Stafford, and it took place from 30 October to 2 November in the beautiful port city of Gdańsk in Poland.
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| red bricks galore |
The venue was really nice: the Uphagen Manor, a former redbrick manor transformed into a hotel (see the picture). There weren’t that many gaming slots so I only played RuneQuest (twice), Pendragon and Age of Vikings, the latter GM’ed by Pedro Ziviani, its creator. It was still nice to catch up with the ‘tribe’ as I hadn’t been attending any con outside of France since the coronavirus pandemic.
I was very, very positively impressed by Age of Vikings. I initially thought it was ‘just’ the second edition of Mythic Iceland but it is much more than that. The rules are basically a streamlined version of RQ/BRP:UGE in terms of combat, skills, passions... honestly I wish Chaosium had trod this path rather than the inelegant nuRQ. Oh, well.
I shall provide other snippets of news gathered around the many pints of beers that were quaffed at the bar of the hotel—I couldn’t attend any of the panels (because of conflicting schedules with the games or with my wife’s desire to visit Gdańsk) so the following is all hearsay (also, probably old news by the time you read this).
The short term publishing schedule for RuneQuest is as follows:
- the Sartar book,
- the Pavis book,
- a new Starter Set with a focus on Sartar and Pavis,
- a new rulebook (see below),
- the remaining ‘cults’ books are going to be published after all of the above, Darkness then Water then Chaos,
- the cults books for the Invisible God and the Horned God are not in the pipe at the moment,
- the Harmast novel.
Later on, we should expect:
- a reprint of the RQ3 Dorastor supplement (à la Sun County)
- the new White Bear Red Moon wargame won’t be an identical reprint after all; it will feature less wargame-y rules than the original game (but not a reboot as what Chris Klug was working on).
The more general news about RuneQuest is that the ‘new rulebook’ will be a shorter but more streamlined book, less intimidating than the current one, and with bestiary elements and better indexing. Contrary to the tentative “nuRQ” of 2025 it won’t aim at being a ‘new edition’.
We shall also expect more PDF downloads like the Elder Race Adventurers and the Praxian adventure The Hunt for the Storm Calf.
The good news is that the con is back in 2026, also in Gdańsk, but probably a tad earlier in the year.
This is probably less of interest to my non-Francophone readers. Contes d’Automne is a fantastic con set in a former monastery in Provence. What I really like there is the sense of being with your friends during the whole duration of the con: all meals are taken together, whereas at Chaosium Con Europe you had to leave the con’s premises to find something to eat in the neighbourhood, which (1) broke the out-of-time-out-of-everything spell and (2) didn’t guarantee you’d have lunch with the tribe. I hope they fix it for next year.
Anyways, I discovered a lot of games at Contes d’Automne—which is usually what happens because GMs there tend to concentrate on lesser-known games. I played Cthulhu Dark, Blades in the Dark, and Candela Obscura (yes, quite an array of gloomy games), and I ran QuestWorlds, because I purchased the hardcover at Chaosium Con and couldn’t wait to use it.
If you speak French, I really recommend this con.
This is from social media, so I guess it’s OK to share it.
Update on the new RuneQuest
An update on the work on a new edition of RuneQuest. Thanks to the countless hours of playtesting, feedback, and revisions, we’ve realized that we need more time to keep developing a new edition. Consequently we're pushing back the estimated release date to 2027 at the earliest.
However, all that work has made clear to us that the existing RuneQuest rules can be presented in a far more concise and clear manner. The process has also helped us identify where the existing rules need to be clarified to make it easier for newcomers to learn the game mechanics and for us to make VTT adaptations.
So without further ado, what we are going to do is release a Revised RuneQuest core rule book. This will be significantly shorter than the existing RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha core rule book—about a third the size. Combat rules are cleaned up, and the rules are far clearer and better presented than in RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. This book will include a Bestiary, and will focus on Sartar, Prax, and the Big Rubble.
In the meantime, we will continue to roll out new releases for the RQG line; stay tuned for some exciting announcements!
Why? Well, because as a mythical creature, the vampire only appeared in European literary fiction in the 18th century. It’s a creature from the modern era, not from Antiquity, and not even from the Middle Ages. I actually even found vampires lame in D&D.
But we can fix this, because mythical creatures feeding on the vital fluids of the living have been present in myth and legend since... forever. However, their depiction is in stark contrast with the ‘charismatic villain’ type popularised by Bram Stoker’s novel and by classic horror film. Vampire-like creatures from antiquity are almost invariably monstrous and repulsive, resembling ghouls rather than European aristocrats.
Given Chaosium’s current art direction for Glorantha, much more inclusive of non-European influences, I would like to suggest the following as alternate inspiration for the vampire:
First and foremost, the vetāla, a class of spirits in Hindu mythology that live close to charnel grounds and that can take possession of dead bodies as vehicles for movement. These animated corpses then cause mischief in nearby villages.
Bhairava is the god of vetāla. As with many fearsome South Asian deities, he is not ‘evil’— his frightening appearance may indicate that he is a fierce protector of the faithful or that he teaches how to transform anger or hatred into understanding. This being said, the way he is depicted can be a source of inspiration for the ‘new’ Gloranthan vampire, in line with the current art used in the game.
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| Bhairava |
A bit of context first. While the rest of the world, in the late 1990s, was experiencing a dearth of RQ products, Japan had its very own edition of RQ, with a new set of rules, and a slew of supplements.
Since I only have the core book, this post will concentrate on it: ©1992, 160 pages, perfectbound, with apparently everything needed to start playing (so kind of like RQ2).
Summary of the book (note that these are the English-language headings of the chapters):
1. Introduction
2. Character Generation
3. Basic Laws of RuneQuest
4. Melee Combat
5. Power of Spirit & Rune
6. Character Development, Natural Damage, Large Scale Movement, Item Pricelist, and others
7. Game Masters Guide
8. Creatures of Glorantha
9. Introduction to Glorantha or Gate to the Dragon Pass
10. Wings of the Wind [an introductory scenario]
I will try to delve deeper into some of these chapters using my magic item.
Character Generation
Characteristics are the usual 3D6, except INT & SIZ, 2D6+6.
HPs are CON+SIZ halved, MPs are equal to POW, damage bonus is also the usual.
Then choose a cult from the list that starts on page 21.
The cult you choose will determine the skills, equipment, and spells you start with.
Skills: The base percentage of each skill is either INT% (knowledge-based skills) or DEX% (athletic skills). Then for each skill from the cult list, add +40%. Finally, choose three skills from outside your cult list and add +20%. Cults with a ‘*’ cannot be selected in this way.
Spells: An adventurer starts with 2 Spirit Magic spells from the ones available in their cult description.
Cults are listed from page 21 on, they are: Orlanth Adventurous, Yelmalio, Humakt, Storm Bull, Odayla, Bebeester Gor, Issaries, Chalana Arroy, Donandar, Ernalda, Lhankor Mhy, Lanbril, Eurmal.
That is all! Nice and easy. No encumbrance, no fatigue, no useless bookkeeping.
I like Issaries, so let us have a look at the Issaries cult:
Cult - Issaries is worshipped by people who are involved in travel and business. There are many types of faithful, such as shopkeepers, merchants, and monks. They are known for their shrewd negotiation skills and their ability to travel far and wide. They are at their best in negotiations and bargaining siruations. There are temples to Issaries in every city of Dragon Pass.
Myth - In the Gods Age, Issaries was famous for his great wisdom and his extraordinary talents. When the world was destroyed, Issaries was heartbroken so he accompanied Orlanth on a journey to Hell to rescue the Sun God Yelm. Issaries became the eyes and ears of the Lighbringers, guiding them to a successful journey.
Enemies and allies - The followers of Issaries, who govern communication, make no enemies. The followers of Etyries, the Lunar goddess of trade, are rivals with Issaries.
Runes - Harmony, Issaries, Movement.
Symbols - Quarterstaff, Mule.
Skills - Two-handed weapon attack, two-handed weapon parry, Speak Tradetalk, R/W Tradetalk.
Spirit Magic Spells - Mindspeech, Mobility.
Rune Magic Spells - Spell Trading, Lock, Passage [Rune spells are listed because there is an optional rule that lets you start with Rune Magic].
Equipment - Quarterstaff, knife, soft leather armour, sacred items (pen and two parchment scrolls), goods worth 200-2000 L (to be determined with the GM), blanket, waterskin, backpack, tinder and flint, 7 days worth of preserved food.
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| click to enlarge |
Whilst preparing the lastest episode of Runecast and researching through the various rule books and supplements, I realised that the rules of RuneQuest - Roleplaying in Glorantha were not crystal clear in terms of when it is, exactly, that a character dies.
First of all, and contrary to what happens in a lot of TTRPGs (especially fantasy ones, in which combat plays such a predominant role), there is no section titled ‘Death’ in the Combat chapter or ‘Character Death’ in the Adventurers chapter.
You have to read the non-emphasised text beneath the ‘Attributes’ heading of the Adventurers chapter of the core book (page 55) to find the following:
When your adventurer has taken sufficient damage to surpass their total hit points, they will die at the end of the combat round.
(Which is a very convoluted way of saying that the adventurer dies when their hit point total reaches −1 or below [not 0, because of “surpass”]). Honestly, I would have expected a side bar or something similar to make sure how a character dies is crystal clear to anybody who is reading the core book. And by the way, why restrict this to ‘adventurers’... NPCs and monsters will die at the same threshold. Also this is contradiction with the Starter Set, which specifies that a character “dies at the end of the melee round if the total hit points are equal to or less than 0”.
Of course losing all their total hit points is not the only way your player character might die in a RuneQuest game. Excess damage in a vital hit location is probably the main cause of death among RQ adventurers. But to get this kind of information you have to read on and reach the ‘Damage’ heading of the Game System chapter (pages 146-149), to find the following:
p147: Damage Equal to or More Than the Location’s Hit Points
p148: Damage Equals or Exceeds Double the Location’s Hit Points
p148: Damage Equals or Exceeds Triple the Location’s Hit Points
I believe I havenʼt mentioned it yet, but myself and fellow Gloranthaphile Dasfynx have started a French-language podcast about RuneQuest and the world of Glorantha, called Runecast.
There are quite a few episodes online already, with a significant variety in the topics weʼve addressed.
