T&T: New French-Language Edition - Spell Glossary (Part Two)

This is a companion post to the 7 September post.

Should an English-speaking person try and use a French-language T&T supplement, here's the French-to-English spell glossary:

Abeilles porte-malheur    2    Unlucky Bees
Abracadabra    1    Hocus Focus
Allez, hop !    4    Upsidaisy
Allez, Va-t'en (AV)    1    Oh Go Away (OGA)
Antidote    4    Too-Bad Toxin (TBT)
Autométamorphose    8    Imafrawg
Bénédiction du dieu troll    5    Trollgod's Blessing
Bien fermer    1    Lock Tight
Bling-bling    1    Sparkle
Bon esprit    5    Dear Lord
Bouge pas ! (BP)    1    Hold That Pose (HTP)
Bouge-moi    10    Blow me to…
Bouge-toi    11    Blow you to…
Ça c'est de la barbe !    1    That's a Natty Beard (TNB)
Casse    5    Breaker Breaker
Confusion    3    Befuddle
Conjuration    3    Dis-Spell
Contrôle des esprits    2    Spirit Mastery
Coup du sort    8    Patterns of Fate (PoF)
Coup dur    2    Whammy
Coupe le cordon    11    Cut the Cord
Crème de la Kremm (CdK)    1    Crème de la Kremm (CdK)
Debout les morts ! (DLM)    1    Dem Bones Gonna Rise (DBGR)
Déflecteur de magie    5    Resist Magic
Démon invisible    12    Invisible Fiend
Double vue    5    Second Sight
Double-double    4    Double-Double
Drelin    2    Ding-a-Ling
Ékremmage    1    Suppress Kremm
Envol    3    Fly Me
Et on reprend couleur    6    Blue Shirt of Life (BSL)
Exométamorphose    9    Yerafrawg
Exorcisme    12    Banishing
Expertise    3    For What It's Worth (FWIW)
Explosion de puissance infernale (EPP)    10    Hellbomb Burst (HB)
Fais dodo    3    Rock-a-Bye
Feu à volonté    3    Fire at Will
Feu follet    1    Will-o-Wisp
Flaire magie    1    Detect Magic
Fluide glacial    2    Dura-Spell Battery
Guérison    3    Healing Feeling
Guimauve Infâme    3    Slush-Yuck
Indic    3    Find Person
Invocation    12    Summoning
Invocation de l'eau    1    Call Water
Invocation du feu    1    Call Flame
Lame de Vorpal    1    Vorpal Blade
Lame infaillible    2    Unerring Blade
Langue universelle    10    Wizard Speech
Maximus    11    Bigger is Better
Méduse    9    Medusa
Mini-portion (PP)    10    Smaller is Smarter
Mirage    2    Mirage
Mur invisible    7    Invisible Wall
Nécromancie    12    Nefarious Necromancy
Nuage de malheur (NDM)    3    Devoted Rain Cloud (DRC)
Œil de chat    2    Cateyes
Œil omnipotent    2    Omnipotent Eye
Pains de glace    3    Freeze Please
Passe-passe    5    Zingum
Patauge    2    Glue You
Pentagramme protecteur    4    Protective Pentagram
PES    5    ESP
Pieds ailés    2    Little Feets
Planque    2    Hidey Hole
Prends-Ça (PC)    1    Take That You Fiend! (TTYF)
Prise rapide    3    Hard Stuff
Prof    1    Teacher
Protège-moi    3    Shield Me
Puissance explosive    3    Blasting Power
Pygmalion    9    Pygmalion
Qui est là ?    1    Know Your Foe
Qui va là ?    1    Who's There?
Raclée    7    Zappathingum (ZapT)
Radiesthésie    2    Find Object
Remaniement    12    Omniflex
Renaissance    13    Born Again
Revers de fortune (RdF)    6    Reversal of Fortune (RoF)
Sang-Dragon    8    Zapparmor (ZapA)
Smog    4    Smog
Sort Mortel n°9 (SM9)    9    Death Spell #9 (DS9)
Souffle bobo    2    Poor Baby
Source mortelle    9    Mortal Source
Tiens, le voilà (TV)    1    Oh There It Is (OTh)
Toc toc    1    Knock Knock
Toqué    4    Dum-Dum
Vérole mentale    5    Mind Pox
Vision animée    6    Porta-Vision
Visions mystiques    6    Mystic Visions
Voyage astral    11    Ghostly Going
Zizanie    3    Firestorm of Protest (FOP)
Zombi    8    Zombie Zonk

Yay! Second Age Gloranthan Travelogue in the Works!

Pete Nash of BRP Rome and RuneQuest 6 fame is working on a "field guide"-like bestiary for Second Age Glorantha written in the manner of the real world bestiaries of yore. Rather than paraphrasing his post from the Moon Design forum, I'll simply re-post it over here:

For those of you who have an interest in Gloranthan monsters, the good news is that the Bestiary has been finished for quite a while now. In fact I completed it more than a month ago, but due to the release of Pavis and my own hectic workload for RuneQuest 6, I haven’t gotten round to posting anything about it.

So to help out Jeff, I thought I’d write a bit about the book and the design concept behind it.

When Jeff first approached me with the concept of writing a Bestiary I was somewhat wary. My enthusiasm was jaded by the work I’d previously put into Monster Island, which due to certain circumstances I ultimately did not submit to Mongoose. Jeff’s irrepressible enthusiasm however, soon got me to change my mind. What he envisioned was not yet-another splat book full of characteristics and combat skills, but something in homage to the Sandy Petersen’s Field Guide publications.

For those of you who have never seen one of these Petersen’s Field Guides, they are stat-less but very evocative descriptions of the weird creatures of the Dreamlands and Cthulhu Mythos, supplemented with stunningly beautiful, full page art. After Jeff posted me his own personal copy to wet my appetite, I was hooked and began to think about how the text of the book should be presented.

Since Jeff knows that I’m an armchair classicist, he suggested I write the book as if it the author was a Second Age God Learner, in the style of Herodotus, Pliny and Aelian. That is to say, philosophical discourses well peppered with entertaining anecdotes. That sealed the deal and I agreed to write a Gloranthan Bestiary, with Jeff’s proviso that I come up with a truly insane explanation of Jack-o-bear ecology.

I had foolishly imagined that tossing this off would be a matter of six week or so of solid writing. Yet the more I considered just what exactly should be included in the book, the deeper my anxiety about the level of research would be required. I quite literally sat around for a couple of days considering the different approaches I should take.

There are, as with any work which has to fit into a huge body of established lore, issues concerning accepted canon. Glorantha has several ways of sidestepping this problem, not least the fact that there are very few objective truths in the world. However, a book which simply regurgitates the same old myths and information which have been published a dozen times before, won’t win it any fans — no matter how good the art!

To make this a worthwhile purchase then, I would have to create new material or present known knowledge in an exotic or wildly misinterpreted way. That is a dangerous path however, especially if my imagination took things so far into left field that even Greg would baulk.

So I came up with an idea I pitched back to Jeff. I would deliberately exaggerate the theories and observations of the God Learner author (after all, that’s what makes reading Pliny fun), then Jeff and Greg could append footnotes decrying everything recorded as wrong, in the most sanctimonious style of Minaryth Purple, the Third Age Lhankor Mhy scholar transposing the work. This would not only avoid messy editorial revisions, but also add to the whole entertainment.

My next thought was how to come up with so much material. With an average of 1,500ish words required per creature, I was going to run out of ideas pretty quickly and the text would indeed descend into bland psuedo-scientific categorisations. I flipped back through some of the early RQ2 publications and decided what was needed was a on-running narrative, in the style of Biturian Varosh. Not only would this ease the creative workload, but it would allow the bestiary to become more akin to a compiled travelogue.

Thus, with those two concepts in mind I began to sketch out the epic explorations of Danakil Thesager, early God Learner naturalist, explorer and exile of Jrustela. I decided his records would present creatures in the order he encountered them, which would preserve the timeline of the anecdotes. I then looked at Gloranthan history to search out the most famous events which occurred during the early empire, so that the narrative could provide brief eye witness accounts.

This took several more weeks of planning, but I finally decided on beginning in 823 with the expedition against the Umaliath fireberg and ending in 843. During that time Danakil would unwittingly embark on several Heroquests, participate in the Too Tall Battle and even witness the destruction of Duke Dorvis at Ezel — and these would not even be the most spectacular events he would have a hand in. At the conclusion of his journey he would have circumvented the world, visiting most of the major land masses and written about an awful lot of creatures.

Thus it began. I re-read all my books written by famous 19th and early 20th century British explorers. Watched lots of Ray Harryhausen movies. Delved deep into certain forbidden tomes of the Stafford Library.

Now nearly 100,000 words later, we have the epic and sadly fragmentary accounts of a God Learner explorer whose light hearted, almost comedic experiences, slowly change from wonder, to astonishment, incomprehension and finally growing horror. We see his thoughts and attitudes evolve as his grasp of myth grows and we see how his Runic Sight colours his opinions. There’s also a lot of fun stuff about all the creatures he meets too — and yes, he does come up with an explanation of Jack-o-bear ecology.

Are his wild tales true? Did he accidentally awaken the Faceless Statue, sail the Worm Sea on a mile wide raft of living Timinits and witness the greatest monster of Loral Island? Are Aldryami really carnivorous, do Mostali actually exist? Was there a fundamental objective truth to his reports which has been revised out of existence with the re-weaving of Arachne Solara’s web? That is for the reader to decide and for me to shut up about...

T&T: New French-Language Edition - Spell Glossary (Part One)

It is extremely nice and helpful to have a French-langage edition of Tunnels & Trolls. It is particularly handy to introduce the younger generation to role-playing games, since they usually do not master the English language well enough [although I did start with the Holmes Basic Set myself at age 12...]

Anyway, even though French-speaking people now have a French-language edition of Tunnels & Trolls, most published adventures are in English. This is not a problem since there aren't that many technical terms, and you needn't be a genius to understand which English term corresponds to which French one.

Spells, however, are quite a different matter. The English-language spells have zany names, whereas the French-language ones are much more serious. Compare Yerafrawg with Exométamorphose...

I hence provide a useful English-to-French glossary of spell names. French-speaking T&T players can refer to it whenever they are using an English-language T&T adventure or publication. Enjoy!

Banishing    12    Exorcisme
Befuddle    3    Confusion
Bigger is Better    11    Maximus
Blasting Power    3    Puissance explosive
Blow me to…    10    Bouge-moi
Blow you to…    11    Bouge-toi
Blue Shirt of Life (BSL)    6    Et on reprend couleur
Born Again    13    Renaissance
Breaker Breaker    5    Casse
Call Flame    1    Invocation du feu
Call Water    1    Invocation de l'eau
Cateyes    2    Œil de chat
Crème de la Kremm (CdK)    1    Crème de la Kremm (CdK)
Cut the Cord    11    Coupe le cordon
Dear Lord    5    Bon esprit
Death Spell #9 (DS9)    9    Sort Mortel n°9 (SM9)
Dem Bones Gonna Rise (DBGR)    1    Debout les morts ! (DLM)
Detect Magic    1    Flaire magie
Devoted Rain Cloud (DRC)    3    Nuage de malheur (NDM)
Ding-a-Ling    2    Drelin
Dis-Spell    3    Conjuration
Double-Double    4    Double-double
Dum-Dum    4    Toqué
Dura-Spell Battery    2    Fluide glacial
ESP    5    PES
Find Object    2    Radiesthésie
Find Person    3    Indic
Fire at Will    3    Feu à volonté
Firestorm of Protest (FOP)    3    Zizanie
Fly Me    3    Envol
For What It's Worth (FWIW)    3    Expertise
Freeze Please    3    Pains de glace
Ghostly Going    11    Voyage astral
Glue You    2    Patauge
Hard Stuff    3    Prise rapide
Healing Feeling    3    Guérison
Hellbomb Burst (HB)    10    Explosion de puissance infernale (EPP)
Hidey Hole    2    Planque
Hocus Focus    1    Abracadabra
Hold That Pose (HTP)    1    Bouge pas ! (BP)
Imafrawg    8    Autométamorphose
Invisible Fiend    12    Démon invisible
Invisible Wall    7    Mur invisible
Knock Knock    1    Toc toc
Know Your Foe    1    Qui est là ?
Little Feets    2    Pieds ailés
Lock Tight    1    Bien fermer
Medusa    9    Méduse
Mind Pox    5    Vérole mentale
Mirage    2    Mirage
Mortal Source    9    Source mortelle
Mystic Visions    6    Visions mystiques
Nefarious Necromancy    12    Nécromancie
Oh Go Away (OGA)    1    Allez, Va-t'en (AV)
Oh There It Is (OTh)    1    Tiens, le voilà (TV)
Omniflex    12    Remaniement
Omnipotent Eye    2    Œil omnipotent
Patterns of Fate (PoF)    8    Coup du sort
Poor Baby    2    Souffle bobo
Porta-Vision    6    Vision animée
Protective Pentagram    4    Pentagramme protecteur
Pygmalion    9    Pygmalion
Resist Magic    5    Déflecteur de magie
Reversal of Fortune (RoF)    6    Revers de fortune (RdF)
Rock-a-Bye    3    Fais dodo
Second Sight    5    Double vue
Shield Me    3    Protège-moi
Slush-Yuck    3    Guimauve Infâme
Smaller is Smarter    10    Mini-portion (PP)
Smog    4    Smog
Sparkle    1    Bling-bling
Spirit Mastery    2    Contrôle des esprits
Summoning    12    Invocation
Suppress Kremm    1    Ékremmage
Take That You Fiend! (TTYF)    1    Prends-Ça (PC)
Teacher    1    Prof
That's a Natty Beard (TNB)    1    Ça c'est de la barbe !
Too-Bad Toxin (TBT)    4    Antidote
Trollgod's Blessing    5    Bénédiction du dieu troll
Unerring Blade    2    Lame infaillible
Unlucky Bees    2    Abeilles porte-malheur
Upsidaisy    4    Allez, hop !
Vorpal Blade    1    Lame de Vorpal
Whammy    2    Coup dur
Who's There?    1    Qui va là ?
Will-o-Wisp    1    Feu follet
Wizard Speech    10    Langue universelle
Yerafrawg    9    Exométamorphose
Zapparmor (ZapA)    8    Sang-Dragon
Zappathingum (ZapT)    7    Raclée
Zingum    5    Passe-passe
Zombie Zonk    8    Zombi

Art for Umathela (7)

two Slorifings in front of an idol of Olaria

Source: Hors du chaudron de Koscista Noga

Varanids

Varanids are intelligent, large lizard creatures from western Pamaltela, moving on four legs. They can rear up on the hind legs, and are able to use simple tools. The leaders are even more intelligent, with some magical powers.

God Learners haven't had enough time to study them and to ascertain whether they were related to Slarges, to Lascerdans, or both. The general opinion amongst Umathings is that they are related to Slarges and are hence monsters. People living in the wild, however, like hermits and fur trappers, have been known to befriend Varanids. Female Varanids are especially curious of human tools and implements.

Illustration from Cédric's Hors du chaudron de Koscista Noga blog.

Maggot Lamia

A maggot lamia is the offspring of a mortal woman (usually Fonritan) and a succubus in male form. Maggot lamiæ resemble beautiful women from the waist up, but have a bloated, white, wormlike body. For some strange twist of fate, a maggot lamia hasn't inherited the lamiæ's magical talent for illusion, and hence cannot modify its appearance. The maggot lamia has also lost the chaotic taint associated to her lineage.
As a result of their inability to hide their appearance, maggot lamiæ are cast off their home land and end up wandering in the remotest parts of Pamaltela. Ironically enough, the chaotic 'standard' lamiæ remain in civilised lands, whereas the non-chaotic maggot lamiæ must live far from them.

Despite their appearance and their unlucky life, maggot lamiæ aren't aggressive vis-à-vis humans on the whole. On the contrary, a lone maggot lamia will welcome human company in the hope of alleviating her life of seclusion. A maggot lamia will be especially keen on receiving news of any relatives she may still have in the land whence she comes.

As written above, maggot lamiæ have lost their species' illusion powers. Instead of it, they have another power to be randomly rolled (or chosen by the GM) on the following table:

1. Bestow Luck
   
2. Detect Chaos
3. Detect Lies
4. Divination 
5. Exceptional Intelligence
6. True Sight

Just like the kiss of a 'standard' lamia, the kiss of a maggot lamia will drain magical energy from a person. However, there obviously aren't as many people willing to kiss a maggot lamia as there are to kiss a 'standard' lamia disguised as a lovely human female...

Art for Umathela (6)

Hors du chaudron de Koscista Noga is one of my favourite blogs. Cédric, the blogger, posts his amazing black-and-white ligne claire fantasy drawings inspired by Slavic mythology. My own Second Age Umathela being also much inspired by Slavic art and legends, Hors du chaudron de Koscista Noga has obviously struck a chord with me.

Cédric also being a nice guy, he's allowed me to use his drawings to illustrate my posts, so be prepared to see a lot of his art over here.

The Problem With Maps

Apparently, up until the beginning of the 20th century, people had no idea what the shape of their country was. As an example— the ultra-jingoistic book Le Tour de la France par deux enfants (1877), which narrates the travels through France of two young boys, had the aim of instilling a sense of French grandeur and unity in its readers; yet it didn't even feature a map of France. The map only came with the 1905 edition of the book.

Now we all know how prominently maps feature in RPG supplements. Even though supplements describing a given locale are normally restricted to the GM's eyes, it is a fact that players often have access to them— and to their maps. As a result, players have a good sense of the geography of the GM's world, or at least of the part where their adventures take place. I for one am a maps buff, and I love supplements such as Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes with its beautiful, full-colour maps. Heck, even the 14-page Player's Primer has a nice map of Sartar on p.5. Now I'm not suggesting these maps be removed, but how can you give the players a sense of wonder at the size of the Lunar Empire or at the complexity of the navigation in the Rightarm Islands if they know the geography?

The Uz of the Tarmo Mountains

There isn't much official information available about the Uz of the Tarmo Mountains. The following is from Races of Glorantha, Volume One (Mongoose, 2010):

The Uz of the Tarmo Mountains are not Muri but are Uzdo. The mountains are high and snow-covered, well suited for the cold loving dark trolls. The trolls of this region were not followers of Moorgarki, arriving on the surface in a separate exodus from Wonderhome, however many still worship him for his powers to fight against the Pamaltelans. Kyger Litor is most beloved of the Tarmo Tribes but her worship is done in a manner unrecognisable to the trolls of Genertela. The Tarmo Trolls delight in raiding and devouring the oases of Tarien. Other monsters also dwell in the region such as the monstrous Grey Giants and flying Hoon, which the Trolls have learned to drive into battle against their foes. By great irony the Tarmo Trolls are as equally affected by the Trollkin curse as the Genertelan Trolls, however the trolls rarely entertain their runt offspring and cast them out into the wilderness. Hordes of hungry trollkin sometimes ravage as far as southern Umathela.

In my Glorantha, the Tarmo Trolls are nomads. The cold mountains do not produce enough food to sustain a sedentary population of hungry, healthy Uzdo (remember— the Enlo are cast away). As a consequence, the Tarmo Trolls are always on the move, exploiting what little food they can find in the mountains, and sometimes raiding the Tarien oases.

The Tarmo Trolls have tamed giant wolf-spiders, which they use as beasts of burden to carry their belongings whenever they move across the mountains from campsite to campsite.

Giant Vronkali

The southern slopes of the Tarmo mountains are covered with Sequoioideae, the tallest and largest trees in the world, which thrive in this peculiar ecoregion, usually hot, but sometimes receiving the Umathelan storms from the north in Storm Season. It's also kept moist by the fogs of the Dark Season.

Just as Vronkali relate to coniferous forests, Giant Vronkali relate to Sequoioideae, and the southern slopes of the Tarmo mountains are their natural home. They are so large and strong that they have no foes. However, for some peculiar reason, they fear birds, even though the latter cannot harm them. Well, we humans are also afraid of cockroaches, which cannot harm us, so let us not mock the Giant Vronkali.

Cleverly enough, the Uz of the Tarmo Mountains have managed to raise flocks of birds that they use to open their paths when travelling through the redwoods of the southern slopes.

Timinits & Trolls (Rules) ‒ Part One

This is my happy month :)

After the publication of my Planet of the Apes article in issue 16 of the RPG Review, I am proud to announce that issue 13 of Rule One Magazine features Part One of my Timinits & Trolls rules to game in Second Age Umathela using the Tunnels & Trolls engine.

Part One actually only contains a brief introduction to the Tunnels & Trolls engine, and a short time-line of Second Age Umathela.

Parts Two and Three — the actual flesh and bones of the system — will be published in issue 14 of Rule One Magazine, some time in the autumn of 2012.

Planet of the Apes rpg

Issue 16 of the RPG Review is out. The RPG Review is a free, downloadable Australian gaming magazine devoted to RPGs, be it reviews, gaming theory, adventure supplements, gaming aids, industry gossip... Each issue has a central theme. The latest was science fiction.

Why am I mentioning this on a Gloranthan blog? Well, the reason is that issue 16 of the RPG Review features my very own Planet of the Apes rpg (check pages 55-56), which is really a mere adaptation of the T&T rules to my style of play. It might be of interest to those following this blog because the Planet of the Apes rpg is the foundation upon which I've built my more elaborate T&T-based Second Age Glorantha games.

Hornilian Encounters

The 1D100 table below the picture has, yet again, been shamelessly stolen from Jack Mcnamee's terrific blog, and slightly adapted to Second Age Pamaltela by yours truly.

Hornilio is described on the glorantha.com web-site as "a complex concatenation of salt marshes, swamps, bogs, and mud flats, inhabited by goblins and monsters. The land is less often visited than even the wastes of Porlaso across the sea, mainly because the goblins of Hornilio seem to be organised.
Here are only marshland and swamps, so low and level that tides wash far inland and the rivers flood far to the sea. Huge monsters from earlier ages inhabit this place."

Why would any delver want to go there? Who knows! But in case they should, you as the GM are ready to make their life miserable!

Horrible insects, leeches, bog water — a gross, clinging place that you just want to get out of as soon as possible.

–5 to all skill checks without something to get rid of the constant insects.

1-2: Reed eels. 3D6 Sentient reeds with bulbous suckers at head. Wait for animal to wade into them, then latch of from all sides and drain it of blood.

3-4: 2D4 Ooze fish: Massive, heavy fish attach themselves onto feet of wading party, use weight to drag them down to depths/under mud. Can be removed instantly by plunging sharp object into special spot beneath their blowhole.

5-6: Halitoad (large frog-like reptile), belches toxic gas.

7-8: Horrible Insects! Roll 1D4: (1) Insects that make all your intestines come out your orifices, (2) insects that secretly eat your tongue, replace it and then speak for you, (3) insects that make you come out in boils that then burst into more insects, (4) Insects that get in your stomach and make you give birth to their insect child.

9-10: Newtling witch. Can cast leech swarm; skin+organs turn to 3D6 leeches, attack party.

11-12: Swamp octopus. 2D8 tentacles drag delvers into swamp.

13-14: 2D4 leeches cling to party. If not found, leech 2 points of CON per day.

15-16: 1D6 Bloated bog corpses. Explode with gas that causes vomiting and attracts all insects in large range to you.

17-18: Sentient fungoid mastermind, controls all plants that are coated with its slime.

19-20: 1D4 Ticks. Paralyse you as you sleep.

21-22: Amphisbæna. Check wikipedia page for ideas.

23-24: Chaotic Gnome — Intelligent, telepathic, eats gold, lives in small specially-made vial, when released can only tunnel straight down super fast.

25-26: Bog hag (Anaxial's Roster, p222-223), will perform haruspicy.

27-28: Wrecked ship in tree fern. The tree fern is home to an Olarian, which must be defeated if the delvers are to explore the wreck.

29-30: Swarmhaven. A small Olodo village, besieged by insects. No-one's willing to go out to find and kill the insect god.

31-32: More horrible insects! Roll 1D4: (1) Insects that burrow into your brain and control you, (2) insects that cause massive bloated swellings that release toxic gas when popped, (3) insects that tear through the area devouring all food, (4) insects that get under your fingernails and make you lose control of your fingers at bad times.

33-34: Old shack. Newtling shaman keeps flasks in river with spirits; will sell them. Roll 1D6 for spirit contained in flask:
(1)- Amnesia Spirit (INT-based skills are reduced by the spirit's POW)
(2)- Confusion Spirit (Befuddles victim)
(3)- Disease Spirit (Anaxial's Roster, p224-230)
(4)- Fear Spirit (Demoralises victim)
(5)- Greed Spirit (Victim is enamoured of a specific item)
(6)- Idiocy Spirit (INT of victim reduced by ½ the spirit's POW)

35-36: Tameable giant alligator. Resting — sore tooth.

37-38: Hunting band of dinosaur-riding Slarges from Wongarissi. Remember: they hate humans.

39-40: Friendly black slime ghost.

41-42: Glade of massive, dark red mushrooms; when properly prepared, can be used as nerve poison; paralyses victim for 2 hours, give or take 1D8×10 minutes.

43-44: Quicksand bog, fore-runners are trapped. Sink 30cm per round.

45-46: Even more horrible insects! Roll 1D4: (1) insects that give you uncontrollable shakes, (2) insects that get in your body and slowly grow like a strangler fig until the entire inside of your body is nothing but a giant coiled worm, (3) insects that get right up in your junk, (4) unstoppable army ant insects that swarm over and devour anything in their path.

47-48: 2D4 strangling vines.

49-50: Will o' wisp, attracts party into holes, mud or quicksand against their will.

51-52: The Mere of Dead Faces: Lord of the Rings-like corpses all around water, fires on them, attract anyone who looks at them.

53-54: Poisonous river.

55-56: Alligators pretending to be log in middle of river that needs crossing.

57-58: 2D6 Mosquito women. Emaciated women with wings and proboscides.

59-60: Big marshy lake.

61-62: River.

63-64: Bog everywhere. Movement halved. There's a small safe path hidden in the mud.

65-66: Fog.

67-68: Insects intensify; –10 to all skill checks unless delvers can get them off.

69-70: Party of travelling Timinits. Willing to barter with party.

71-72: Party of travelling Uz looking for giant insects. Humans are considered as good insect-bait.

73-74: Still, stagnant pool. Sentient.

75-76: Slorifing wedding/funeral on barge, everyone in white and silent.

77-78: Slorifing party off to pay homage to their Queen. Severed human heads would certainly constitute a nice present to her.

79-80: Grey giant fishing. Low intelligence (INT 2D6), wary of strangers.

81-82: Holy fuck kids it's even more horrible insects! Roll 1D4: (1) Insects that bind you up and fill you full of their young, (2) insects that were inside you the whole time, (3) insects that eat your eyes and other vital organs from inside, (4) insects that know no god or king rise from the earth. The sky turns black. There is nothing but the swarm.

83-84: Hungry Gulper (Gloranthan Bestiary, p22-23).

85-86: Lesser Hydra, 2D6 heads (Gloranthan Bestiary, p24-25; Anaxial's Roster, p179).

87-88: Puffball smoke ghost mushrooms give advice from dead friends.

89-90: Black slime ghosts haunt party. Will arise from their bodies at inconvenient times, making them bleed from eyes. Can be banished temporarily with rum + fire.

91-92: Midget Slashers (Gloranthan Bestiary, p30-31) hiding in ambush until party nears.

93-94: Giant demon toad with fat Orveltor (Gloranthan Bestiary, p34-35) in mouth.

95-96: Gigantic hole in the swamp, all water rushing into it. Leads to Voralan-inhabited underground swamps.

97-98: Drunk Gorakiki Insect Lord.

99: Malevolent Timinit wizard, slowly turns party into plants.

100: Insect god. The party is on its back.

RuneQuest 6 Free Download: Games Master's Pack

The dead tree version of RuneQuest 6 is still on its way, yet the Design Mechanism have already churned out their first free download!

The RQ6 Games Master's Pack is downloadable for free from the web-site. At 76 pages, it's a massive free supplement. Kudos to Loz and Pete for their dedication!

It contains:

• A nice Hellenistic-themed cover picture
• A map of the (again) Hellenistic-looking city of Meeros
• A 17-page introductory scenario set in the city of Meeros
• A 14-page action-packed swords & sorcery scenario set in a high fantasy milieu
• All the charts, tables, and sheets from the rule book in one convenient location
• Condition markers (yes! now isn't this the epitome of old school role-playing??)
• A 2-page player character sheet

Issue 15 of Wyrms Footnotes Available

Issue 14 of Wyrms Footnotes was published by the Chaosium in April 1982. Now Moon Design have announced the availability of Issue 15 of Wyrms Footnotes... Why, that is a mere 30-year hiatus between two issues.

Anyway, even if the former Wyrms Footnotes was a RuneQuest magazine and the new incarnation is a HeroQuest magazine, the continuation of the numbering reveals a sense of continuity between the 'old' and the 'new' Glorantha, which warms the heart of the grognard in me.

Here's the announcement by Moon Design:

After a short rest, Moon Design Publications announces that the legendary flagship Gloranthan "magazine" [at this size and general awesomeness, Wyrms Footnotes is better thought of as a regular Glorantha Companion] Wyrms Footnotes is back with Issue 15! Articles and scenarios by Greg Stafford, Sandy Petersen, Jeff Richard and Rick Meints, including:

• Adventure Time with Sandy Petersen!
• The Upland Marsh!
• Sun Dome County (in Sartar, not Prax)!
• The Far Place!
• War in Glorantha!
• Magical Regiments of the Hero Wars!

And much much more! In all, some 88 pages of pure Gloranthan gold!

The prices are announced as follows:

• Bundle of Paperback and Electronic Download, $20.00
• Electronic Download, $10.00

Aldryami Forest Umathelan Encounters

In 950, a noted Jrusteli scholar wrote a book proving that the Elves of Enkloso were extinct. That was, however, wishful thinking on the Malki scholar's part... The Wort-Men were not extinct — they had merely retreated into the deepest recesses of the forests.

Should your party have survived the Dark Forest encounters from yesterday's post, here are further encounters for the deepest, Aldryami-inhabited part of the Umathelan forests. As was the case with  yesterday's post, this table has been stolen from Jack Mcnamee's blog extraordinaire.

1-2: 2D10 tiny glowing fairies slowly circle party in ring, singing. Paralyse on touch, then cut out heart and enter cavity.

3-4: 3D6 Bush Babies (T&T: MR 15; RQ: use Trollkin, SIZ 4, CON 9; Original RPG: AC 10, HD ½). Paralyse on touch, then climb up adventurer to eat. Vulnerable to caring words.

5-6: 2D10 Voralans [Mushroom-men] (T&T: MR 30, DEX 16; RQ: use Voralan, SIZ 6, CON 11; Original RPG: AC 8, HD 1) shoot poison darts from the trees. They will use guerilla warfare, shooting and then vanishing into the trees, laughing. Roll 1D10 for each dart. (1) Trip out, (2) suffer a horrible slow rotting disease that will make you lose a leg, (3) Massive swelling around affected area, (4) Massive rainbow boils swell to burst with hallucinogenic gas, (5) Blood won't clot, even smallest wounds will continue to bleed until death, (6) Sweaty areas sprout with corrupting fungus, (7) Paralysis, one limb at a time, over a period of days, (8) Mind rots away, lose memories and points of INT, (9) Extremities curl and turn black, (10) Extremities - fingers, toes, etc - split off you to become Mushroom-man. All effects will take a day or two.

7-8: Great shambling mossy tree-beast in the mist. Anyone it turns its gaze on begins to sprout flowers, turning into a plant. Make it gross and debilitating — eyes burst and bloom into orchids, legs root into ground, mouth chokes on blossoming fruit.

9-10: Princess Mononoke. Masked girl with poison dagger, two massive white wolves, painted with red markings. Will stealth and stalk the party until their guard is down, then race in and strike.

11-12: 2D6 Butterflies flutter from trees — some brown, some multicoloured with eye markings. Land on people and suck up their life-force, gaining colour. Those with full colour can use it to emit a blinding flash attack.

13-14: Wind chimes hang from trees. Tiny wires strung everywhere will set them ringing when crossed. Shaman above will summon Dagger-storm if he hears the chimes ring; makes knives fall as rain in a mile radius.

15-16: Stream flows over mossy rocks. Moss covers all of ground for miles. Many patches of moss are just thin camouflage stretched over the mouths of the moss-beast.

17-18: Voralan village visible through trees. Voralans have laced the surrounding ground with tiny poison spikes.

19-20: Thin, trailing vines hang from trees like curtains. Will latch onto adventurers with tiny mouths and begin to suck out blood, excreting poison that leaves them slow and lethargic.

21-22: Heavy leaf-litter conceals poisonous snakes.

23-24: Edible mushrooms. Roll 1D5: (1) Hallucinogenic, (2) make you grow to gigantic size temporarily, (3) shrink to tiny size, (4) poison, (5) revelatory dreams, (6) go blind.

25-28: Lumberjack camp — tons of tools for sale.

29-30: A massive white stag. Will help the pure of heart. Kill it, and a massive black horror-ooze will emerge from its corpse.

31-32: Fairy ring of mushrooms, portal to Aldryami grove.

33-34: Hollow tree with tiny family living inside.

35-36: Troll village, friendly.

37-38: Forest floor covered with leaf-litter; uncovering it reveals that you're walking on massive piles of Leprechaun gold, will all vanish three days after being taken.

39-40: Travelling Aldryami party. Will give party food and rest for coin, but disappear at inconvenient time.

41-44: Woods whisper faint phrases.

45-48: Flower fields, with big bee hives hanging from the trees around. Bees buzzing around pollinating.

49-50: Close trees — carts and cars have trouble. Dark even at mid-day.

51-54: Mist and rain. The trees start to shiver, spraying raindrops everywhere.

55-58: Warm day. Snowflakes fall. Some of them are in the shape of pictures, and some of those foretell future events.

59-62: Forest fire.

63-64: Trees part to reveal clearing around lake choked with lilly-pads. Small island in centre.

65-66: Ancient, beautiful ruins. Statue of lovers in centre surrounded by rare roses. Passage underneath leads to hidden underground bathing pool.

67-70: Babbling brook in path, must ford or go around.

71-72: Massive amounts of birds congregate here, all different varieties.

73-74: Olarians having a picnic. Have only a front — hollow rot behind. Can cure or cause diseases.

75-76: Cliff in path. Steep and overgrown.

77-78: Ground takes sudden, steep turn downwards. Slippery with leaf litter and treacherous with tree roots.

79-80: 1D3 Maggot Lamiæ twined around tree — beautiful blind women with giant maggots for legs. Ask the party riddles. Correct answers rewarded with good luck.

81-82: Thin black shadow-men stalk party, feed from their dreams. PC's will lose memories — spells, weapon training, etc — as shadow-men grow fat.

83-84: Chaos-tinged men follow the party stealthily. Devour any corpses they leave behind, gaining the powers of each.

85-86: Glisters follow along with party; bright will-o'-the-wisps that feed off emotions. Change colour depending on emotion PC's display, emotions in their presence are heightened to the point of insane outbursts. Gather to strong emotions.

87-88: Tree with single bulbous purple fruit. Closer inspection reveals that the fruit is skeletal human head. Eating will give you +1 INTelligence, but give you a split personality.

89-90: Wide river. Those who travel down it will see ghostly cities of incredible beauty appear on the shore at night. Men and women with glowing eyes will stop and beckon to the travellers. Anyone who lands on shore will never be seen again, obviously.

91-92: Wedding between a Hollow Bride and a giant wolf, with fairies presiding as priests and revellers. PC's invited to attend.

93-94: Plant labyrinth with 2D4 Timinits in its centre.

95-96: Beautiful glowing part of woods in eternal twilight. Idyllic; full of edible food and water. Party will begin to lose memories and minds the more they stay. Days will secretly pass in hours.

97-98: Maiden sits on lilly throne in pond surrounded by weeping willows. Storks everywhere, spike-things come from her elbows and knees. Takes a liking to PC, offers to take him down into pond with her. If they accept, she will give them a stork afterwards - the stork will die instead of them if they reach 0 HP. They will not remember what happened down there.

99-100: The Wild Hunt charges through and captures the PC's. They will be hunted for the pleasure of the Fairy King.

Dark Forest Umathelan Encounters

OK, today's post has been directly ripped off the fucking brilliant post on the Rotten Pulp blog...

This is Second Age Umathela, so there aren't any hostile Elves in the forests... which does not mean the forests are safe, though. Here's a nice D100 encounter table for those unwary parties who have adventured into Umathela's Dark Forest.

1-2: 3D6 Bush Babies (T&T: MR 15; RQ: use Trollkin, SIZ 4, CON 9; Original RPG: AC 10, HD ½). Paralyse on touch, then climb up adventurer to eat. Vulnerable to caring words.

3-4: 1D6 crows follow party, gain 1D4 crows per day. Dive-bomb when party is distracted. 5 or more crows can try abducting party member - roll under DEX (T&T: LVL1 DEX SR; RQ: Agility roll; Original RPG: roll under DEX×5%) or be carried off.

5-6: Vangono's horror with cub. Attacks if angered.

7-8: Skin Kin. Skin flaps hanging from branches. 2D6 detach and float after party discreetly; attack by stripping flesh off party members to replace it with themselves. If someone is killed in this manner, the stripped skin becomes another Skin Kin, and the dead man will be puppeteered by the skin kin. Will retreat if party cuts themselves.

9-10: Blood-Oak blocks path. Vine tendrils around it grapple, takes 3 rounds to drop grappled hero into concentric teeth that go through center of tree. If a vine is severed, three more grow in their place (prevent this by cauterising wound). Its wood is super valuable, screams when burned.

11-12: Snicket swarm — 4D6 rat-bird things tear through area, leaving everything exposed at head height stripped bare. Listen check to hear them coming, reflex save to avoid.

13-14: Snake-Armed Ruby Brain Beast. 5 snake arms; each can grapple or claw.  Placing palm on gem in back will instantly kill it.

15-16: Patch in middle of road is covered trapdoor, leads to underground webbed cavern with Trapdoor spider. Spider pops out to grab nearby enemies and bind them in its web below, injecting them with paralysing poison to eat later.

17-18: 1D6 Olodo robbers lay trap in road — front party members will be swept into rope trap, robbers will make demands of remaining members from trees.

19-20: 1D4 Black vines twined in shape of humans, white masks in place of faces. Touch transfers your face to them, stealing your mind. Vulnerable to mirrors. Mask can be transferred back by use of a mirror.

21-22: Find a wolf in a trap. Will struggle at first, but if released and healed will become loyal to party.

23-24: Broken-down cart with carcasses of draught hogs. 1D100 guilders worth of Gems, baby in basket under wreckage — seems to be from wealthy Malki family.

25-26: Tiny Umathing village. Distrustful of strangers, but have food. All old women in town currently out on hill putting old iron knives in the ground. Twin brothers are making a furrow around the village. They're preparing for an undead attack after a Nontrayan cultist died in childbirth.

27-28: Gigantic multi-layered cake in the middle of the forest. Unattended. Delicious.

29-30: Olodo camp. Friendly, lots of music. Will take party onboard in return for odd-jobs.

31-32: Lightning storm. Builds in intensity, starting a fire, until one bolt slams down near the PC's as a solid, bright crystal, surrounded by shrapnel of the same material. In light, the crystal becomes volatile and explosive; in darkness, becomes incredibly heavy.

33-34: Massive, recently-vacated cocoon hanging from tree, warm and protected. Will give all who sleep within it revelatory dreams.

35-36: Lake with bathing Rusalki - water-nymph ghosts. Beautiful, will lead travellers down to underwater village. Breathing is fine as long as you hold their hand.

37-38: Travelling explorer investigating rare animals, will accompany PC's or buy any corpses they have.

39-40: Old shack with saws, tools, etc. Woodsman owner will return soon.

41-42: Razorleaf wood. The leaves here draw blood when they touch. Trees begin shake, shedding more and more leaves.

43-44: Chasm with river at bottom. Rotting ropes show where bridge used to be. Might be just wide enough to jump.

45-46: Daggerslash. Resembles dead piece of wood, attracts party with distressed moaning sounds then latches onto them like beartrap with 40 rows of sharp claws.

47-48: Glade of massive, dark red mushrooms; when properly prepared, can be used as nerve poison, paralyses victim.

49-50: 1D4 Bear traps surrounding tied basket of food, money and goodies.

51-52: Path cuts out, rocky outcrop on one side, thick forest on other.

53-54: Skull butterflies flutter to party, play music. Land of the dead slowly opens up between tree trunks around them.

55-56: Deep fog falls. Party is likely to loose their way.

57-58: Bushfire.

59-60: Tree trunks fallen in way, must go around.

61-62: Smoking crater with shiny glimmer in center.

63-64: Flock of birds fly off at parties approach, screeching wildly. Everything nearby is aware of parties presence

65-66: Idyllic clearing with clear brook going through it.

67-68: Stream, must be forded or bridged.

69-70: Multiple skeletons stuck together into horrible beast - horseclaw, vulture, man and Vangono's horror.

71-72: A wooden puppet skeleton hands from a tree with offerings around it. It's a horrible idol, will offer advice if given food to eat.

73-74: Man entirely covered in tattoos hung from tree; if touched, tattoos will transfer to toucher, move slowly, whisper strange demands.

75-76: Trap in ground covered by leaf-litter. Falling in it leads to a banquet table, with chairs that will bind around PC's. Other guests in increasing stages of being transformed into plants. Log-man offers food and wine.

77-78: Witch trapped in Ice, six hands, holding a silver dagger in each. Seven gold-encrusted rubies frozen around her head. Lots of burnable tinder around.

79-80: Sleeping children in glade.

81-82: Statues cowering away from chasm - an invisible bridge leads over it.

83-84: Ghost Funeral procession.

85-86: PC's meet party of hungry ogres. Will pretend to be friendly travellers, and will try to kill and eat the PC's during the night.

87-88: Baba Yaga's hut. "Fou, fou, fou! I feel the Russian Spirit!" Hut on Chicken legs surrounded by skulls with glowing eyes. Baba yaga makes constant unreasonable demands or devours you, but her servants will help you stop her if you treat them kindly. May give guidance in rare cases.

89-90: Secret Timinit hive.

91-92: Thorn queen on throne, surrounded by dead children, can tell prophecies by pulling out eyes. Has power over all children, vulnerable to objects with five sides. Will ask riddles, attack with children and thorn vines from throne if angered.

93-94: Crystal guardian; as many heads as party members, each head copies one party members attributes and actions.

95-96: Forest is sentient, breathes.

97-100: A quiet, peaceful day. Birds chirp. The party feels at ease.

RuneQuest 6 available for pre-order now!

And here's the link!

RQ6 Stats for HeroQuest Publications

Someone on the Glorantha Yahoo list asked the following:

[We] wished that HeroQuest books, especially campaigns, had RQ stats added. Once RQ6 is out, wouldn't that be cool? I don't know how difficult it would be to achieve this, I'm sure there are many legal problems or other technicalities I'm not aware of, but if this could be done, even as just an appendix, I'm pretty sure it would be good for sales.

To which Loz answered:

We're way ahead of you.

We're intending (that is, Design Mechanism and Moon Design) to release PDF files with appropriate RQ6 stats and notes to accompany HQ books. Books won't be dual statted; that would inflate page count horribly. However RQ players will be able to use HQ books as fully as possible with these PDF stat packs. And, many GMs like their stats separate from the core text anyway, so it makes sense to adopt this approach.

It will take some time to put these together of course; time we don't have right now. But it's All Part of the Plan.

This is just über cool. And, as mentioned by Loz, it would keep the stat blocks [let's admit that stat blocks are a pain in the arse] separate from the juicy text of the HQ books.

The Look of Second Age Westerners

OK, today's post is straight out of the HeroQuest forums out there at Moon Design's web-site.

The original poster wrote:

I am really enjoying the Look of Glorantha blog Moon Design is doing for the lead up to the Big Glorantha guide.
While waiting for RQ6 I am reading the Abiding Book for MRQ2.
Does a Second Age Westerner look different from a Third Age Westerner?
Is it only a matter of worldview that was changed by the disasters between the Second and Third Age, or did it also set them on a new path of cultural development?

To which Jeff replied:

I fear the Mongoose artistic accuracy was almost always very bad (Dara Happa Stirs is a notable example) and Greg and I really have no idea how they depicted Second Age Westerners. However, this article does give correct information as to the look of the Second Age Jrusteli:

http://moondesignpublications.com/blog/jeff/quick-summary-gloranthan-cultures-part-two-westerners

Cool link. I especially like this picture by the immense Ivan Bilibin:

it fits in well with my own view of the Umathelan Malki people.

RuneQuest 6 available for pre-order soon

RuneQuest 6 will be available for pre-order soon for £32/€40 from the 'Products' page of the Design Mechanism web-site. Here's the relevant announcement by Loz:

Today I sent the production files to the printers.

I'm therefore hoping that pre-orders can start next week. Here are the details.

Moon Design will be handling all print and electronic orders via their website. There are several reasons for doing this.

First is synergy. Part of our business model was to integrate with Moon wherever we could. By partnering with Jeff and Rick we can offer package deals on both RQ6 and Glorantha titles (for those that want them).

Second is expedience. Moon already has an established e-commerce gateway and it makes sense to take advantage of that. Plus, Moon can host PDFs for immediate download once payment has been processed which benefits Design Mechanism because we get a far higher portion of the cover price than relying simply on Drivethru - although Drivethru will still be used for PDF sales and Print on Demand options.

Our Products page at The Design Mechanism will have a link to the RQ pages at Moon, so clicking on our 'Order Now' button will take you to their site. Moon still have a little work to do before all that goes live, but it shouldn't take too long.

The PDF edition of the book will also be fully bookmarked and hyperlinked. We have to finish that work, but once its done then you'll be able to order the PDF immediately. If you order the print copy you also get the PDF free of charge, so you'll at least have the electronic content while you wait for your book to ship.

RQ6 is being distributed by Alliance, the largest distributor of hobby books and games in the world. They are also handling direct fulfilment for us, so that's where your book will ship from once it reaches their warehouse from the printer. I'm anticipating that stock will be available from about the 20th July, but its possible this date will shift a little. I will keep you notified.

Pre-order cost of RQ6 is $50 (US) + $10 shipping in North America, or $15 shipping elsewhere in the world. And you get the PDF free, which on its own is $25.

We will be maintaining the pre-order price until 22nd August. Two reasons for this. First, it takes into account Gencon US, and second its my birthday. Seemed like the right date. After 22nd August the price is $62, but this still includes the PDF if you order direct.

Some people have asked me if RQ6 will be available for Continuum (20th - 23rd July). Unfortunately, we won't be able to ship stock to the UK in time. However Pete will be there with a couple of sample copies so Continuum attendees will be able to whet their appetites.

Other than that, its great to be able to say that RuneQuest is firmly on its way. Stay tuned for pre-orders going live and the final release date.

Snow White and the Huntsman

I've seen the film Snow White and the Huntsman yesterday and I've quite enjoyed it. Now, this being a role-playing blog, I'll gloss over its cinematographic qualities (or lack thereof), and concentrate on the inspirational parts of it, along with what 'improvements' I would imagine I would have brought to the film, had I been the director. Inspirational in terms of an Umathing campaign game, yes... Read on to see why.

By the way, the following may contain 'spoilers' but since everyone including little children already knows the story of Snow White, this shouldn't be an issue.

Characters
The stepmother is portrayed as a kind of [literally] life-sucking lamia or vampiress. Throughout the film, which spans several years in the life of Snow White, the Queen has most of the young females in the kingdom abducted so that she can remain young and beautiful by sucking their life force. Now this is shown by her "sucking" their breath through her open mouth. This actually reminded me of Oriental tales of qì-stealing vixen spirits. Pretty cool, but in my opinion it would have been more fitting with the faux European milieu of the film to depict the stepmother as a kind of Erzsébet Báthory, the notorious Hungarian countess who bathed in virgins' blood to keep her youthful looks, and thus to depict her bathing in blood. But then I guess the film would have lost its 12A rating...
The Queen got her cool qì-stealing power through her mother. This is shown in a flashback type of scene, although the mother looks like an unassuming peasant woman. How on earth could she possibly have been able to bestow this power on her daughter? In my version of Snow White and the Huntsman, the Queen's mother is a puissant God Learner who found the qì-stealing power in the Otherworld, and who passes it on to her daughter instants before she's taken care of by the Gift Carriers who are wiping out the God Learners.

The Huntsman, played by Thor, looks like a solid Umathing. Good.

Snow White is a wee skinny for an arse-kicking fighting princess, although she does look good in her armour at the end of the film. I wish she'd kept it on during the whole film.

The river folk are a nice addition. They don't look particularly faux European though. Too bad most of them get wiped out half-way through the film. I would make them a lost Umathing tribe who worships the river spirits rather than the Storm pantheon.

The Duke, his son, and their retinue look like nice faux European knights. That's OK with the old Gloranthan way of portraying the Westerners, but obviously they aren't aware that the canonical view on Westerners has changed. Bring on the new art!

Creatures
The dwarfs are OK. What kind of wilderness-dwelling creatures could have taken care of a Malki princess on the run in Umathela, though? Durulz? I don't think there are any in Pamaltela. Olodo? Yes, I think Olodo would do. They would keep Snow White in their inhospitable mountains and train her to become a kick-arse warrior. In which case she should fight half-naked rather than in a Malki armour.

The troll that the Huntsman and Snow White meet in the wilderness is obviously an Aldryami. How uninformed of them.

Overall Atmosphere
The meeting with the white deer is a rip-off from Princess Mononoke. Shame on them.

Again, what with Erzsébet Báthory, the 18th century settig of Snow White, etc.... I think the film should have looked more like it had been cast in the 17th century, with crude firearms. Imagine at the end of the film the Queen would have used bombards rather than trebuchets against the forces of the Duke. Also the son of the Duke would be a master musketeer rather than a bowman.

Hollywood: next time, drop me a line :)

Art for Umathela (5)

Today's artist, contrary to all the previous ones, is not a Russian but a German, albeit pretty much from the same period of time as Ivan Bilibin, and drawing in a similar fairy-tale style.

Actually Franz Jüttner (1865-1925) is particularly remembered for his illustrations of German fairy tales such as Snow White, even though he also draw political cartoons, and, supposedly, comics, even though the latter seem to have been lost.

Snow White fleeing in the dark forest -- you can see the huntsman in the distance

The Queen asks her magic mirror

The End of the Middle Sea Empire and its Consequences

I have been watching a lot of Rome lately and, although the TV series is set at the end of the Republic and at the beginning of the Empire, it has spurred me to read more about Roman history. By the way, if you want to play at the time of the TV series, I heartily recommend the Rome role-playing game.

Anyway, an interesting article I have stumbled upon is the Wikipedia article about the so-called Crisis of the Third Century: The Crisis resulted in such profound changes in the Empire's institutions, society, economic life and, eventually, religion, that it is increasingly seen by most historians as defining the transition between the historical periods of classical antiquity and late antiquity. I would add that it also prefigures  the key changes between antiquity and the Middle Ages.

Seeing how the end of an empire brings about social changes that deeply impact the areas formerly managed by the declining empire, I have excerpted and commented a few key sentences from the Wikipedia article.

a new Malki manour

In the years following the emperor's death, generals of the Roman army fought each other for control of the Empire and neglected their duties in preventing invasions from foreigners.

I believe the Middle Sea Empire likewise becomes the scene of many localised, small-scale wars to control the various now-independent (and isolated, because of the Closing) parts of the former Middle Sea Empire. This being a fantasy setting, though, these small-scale wars are as likely to involve powerful wizards as military commanders.

Dozens of formerly thriving cities, especially in the Western Empire, had been ruined, their populations dispersed and, with the breakdown of the economic system, could not be rebuilt. Major cities and towns, even Rome itself, had not needed fortifications for many centuries; many now surrounded themselves with thick walls.

This is in my opinion one of the most mediaeval-ish parts. The God Learner cities of the Umathelan coast, who used to be large, open, and without walls, are now partly destroyed, and their remnants of population have regrouped in the most easily defendable quarter of the city (possibly the one on a hill), and are busy building up defensive walls.

Internally, the empire faced hyperinflation caused by years of coinage devaluation. This had started earlier under the Severan emperors who enlarged the army by one quarter and doubled the legionaries' base pay. As each of the short-lived emperors took power they needed ways to raise money quickly to pay the military's "accession bonus" and the easiest way to do so was by simply cutting the silver in coins and adding less valuable metals like bronze or copper.

No-one trusts Umathelan coinage any longer... The metal therein is too debased. This is a further incentive for "dungeon delving" by the way: delvers hope to find caches of non-debased metal in the abandoned dungeons of the God Learners.

One of the most profound and lasting effects of the Crisis of the Third Century was the disruption of Rome's extensive internal trade network. Ever since the Pax Romana, starting with Augustus, the empire's economy depended in large part on trade between Mediterranean ports and across the extensive road systems to the Empire's interior. Merchants could travel from one end of the Empire to the other in relative safety within a few weeks, moving agricultural goods produced in the provinces to the cities, and manufactured goods produced by the great cities of the East to the more rural provinces.
[...]
With the onset of the Crisis of the Third Century, however, this vast internal trade network broke down. The widespread civil unrest made it no longer safe for merchants to travel as they once had, and the financial crisis that struck made exchange very difficult with the debased currency. This produced profound changes that, in many ways, would foreshadow the very decentralised economic character of the coming Middle Ages.

Roads aren't safe any longer — where they still exist, since no-one is able to maintain them any longer. Banditry is rife. Whatever trade caravans are left must hire various mercenaries and swords-for-hire to accompany them, and to protect them. This provides further adventure seeds in post-imperial Umathela.

Large landowners, no longer able to successfully export their crops over long distances, began producing food for subsistence and local barter. Rather than import manufactured goods from the empire's great urban areas, they began to manufacture many goods locally, often on their own estates, thus beginning the self-sufficient "house economy" that would become commonplace in later centuries, reaching its final form in the Middle Ages' manorialism. The common free people of the Roman cities, meanwhile, began to move out into the countryside in search of food and better protection.
Made desperate by economic necessity, many of these former city dwellers, as well as many small farmers, were forced to give up hard-earned basic civil rights in order to receive protection from large land-holders. In doing so, they became a half-free class of Roman citizen known as coloni. They were tied to the land, and in later Imperial law their status was made hereditary. This provided an early model for serfdom, the origins of mediaeval feudal society and of the mediaeval peasantry.

Oh yes, former proud citizens of the Middle Sea Empire. If you haven't been strong or scheming enough to live through the upheavals of your cities, you must have fled to the countryside and started up eking out a living toiling the earth. Glorantha being Glorantha, country-dwelling Malki labourers must somehow have included worship to Ernamola in their once-monotheistic cults. They also need a protector in case of war, strife, or invasions. Hence the Malki manours that are appearing in the Umathelan countryside (whereas the Malki used to be concentrated on the coast before the Closing).

The Tarmo Mountains

The Tarmo Mountains are the southernmost limit of Umathela. Here is how they look like:

(according to Greg himself!)

Height and Weight Table

There is a single table in the T&T rules to roll a delver's height and weight. Yet one may want to have a thin player character. Or a fat one. And even beyond delvers, the game master may want to have a diverse array of NPCs!

The following table will enable you to roll a delver's or NPC's height through a random 3D6 roll, and then to assign a corresponding weight depending on the overall body frame the delver/NPC is supposed to have.

Enjoy.

A: Severely Underweight (kg)
B: Underweight (kg)
C: Normal/Healthy (kg)
D: Overweight (kg)
E: Obese (kg)

3D6	Height (m)	A	B	C	D	E
3	1.22	23	26	32	41	52
4	1.30	26	29	37	46	59
5	1.35	28	31	40	50	64
6	1.42	31	35	44	55	71
7	1.47	33	37	47	59	76
8	1.55	37	41	52	66	84
9	1.60	40	44	56	70	90
10	1.68	44	49	61	78	99
11	1.73	46	52	65	82	105
12	1.80	50	56	70	89	113
13	1.85	53	59	74	94	120
14	1.93	58	64	81	102	130
15	1.98	61	68	85	108	137
16	2.06	66	73	92	117	149
17	2.11	69	77	97	122	156
18	2.18	74	82	103	131	166

Obviously the table above is for humans, and it uses real world body mass indices. Depending on how you envision non-human sentients in your campaign, it must be modified accordingly...

Also there is no reason why this table couldn't be used with other role-playing games.

Art for Umathela (4)

As already mentioned in previous entries, I am a big fan of both real and faux vintage fairy tale/mythological Russian illustrations as inspirational sources for my Umathelan campaign game.

Today I am presenting you some inspiring illustrations by Mikhail Fedorenko. I haven't been able to find any details about this artist, despite his works being widely available on the internet.

A Malki Noble

The Gates of Yoranday

The Closing

T&T: New French-Language Edition - Character Sheet

A nice, professional-looking player character sheet is available on-line for free at this location. I believe you must have a valid login to download it, but it's worth it because the sheet is really beautiful.

Given the simplicity of the T&T stat blocks, I believe you can safely use this player character sheet even if you're not familiar with the French-language terms.

If you're really, really linguistically challenged, here are a few tips:
FOR is STR; CH is LK; VIT is SPD; FLU is WIZ.
I believe that Attaque normale is where you'd inscribe your usual attack dice.
Défense totale is the total hits blocked by your character's armour (I usually call these Protection Points in English — not sure how canonical it is).
Arme is Weapon; Portée is Range.
Sorts is Spells.

Design Mechanism Seminar, 27 May

Your chronicler with the poster of the panel.

The Sunday panel of the Eternal Convention was dedicated to RuneQuest 6, the latest incarnation of the classic "D100" role-playing game (and sytem); the speakers were Loz and Pete of MRQII fame, who started their own company to write, publish, and sell RuneQuest 6. Loz and Pete were unable to make it to the con this year, so they participated through a G+ hangout. It worked out pretty well despite the unreliable connection; Nick Brooke acted as the local speaker, often 'translating' questions from the audience to Loz and Pete who couldn't always hear them well.

First of all, Pittel (Andreas Pittelkow, one of the organisers of the Eternal Con) had received extended preview printouts from Loz and had prepared a nice board with all the sheet laid out for us conventiongoers to read before the panel actually started. This enabled us to prepare our questions for Loz and Pete. Mysticism, the new magic system featured by RuneQuest 6 on top of the regular ones, obviously attracted special attention.

Now on with what I have been able to transcribe from the seminar.

First, the name. After all the abbreviations for the various editions of RuneQuest, RuneQuest 6 will simply be called 'RuneQuest'.
The Design Mechanism holds exclusive rights to the 'RuneQuest' name for 5 years.

The upcoming book— it will be as complete as possible in terms of rules, magic, creatures, and GM advice. Expect a softcover book with a total of 456 pages. A hardcover book is not in the works, except maybe as a future collector's item.

Amongst the novelties:

• In terms of magic systems, it will feature the usual RQ magic systems plus mysticism.
• Passions: each character starts with three passions (see the preview)

Expect a sword and sorcery feeling in the way the rules are presented, e.g., in the character examples in the side bars.

Of course, the new RQ is generic and not tied to Glorantha any longer — although the various magic systems can obviously be used to replicate Glorantha. Sorcery has been streamlined and should be more easily usable than in RQ3. Combat has an added level of complexity compared to RQ3; however, the way combat works, it should be over il less time than it used to mostly because you don't want to fight to death: you would either surrender or flee.

(The following stems from questions from the audience)
Opposed skill resolution: under your skill but as high as possible (so-called 'blackjack' mechanism).

Mysticism is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and jedi knights, but it will be magic point-hungry. Possibly similar to the super powers section in the BGB.

Compatibility with other D100 games: high, not only with former RQ versions, but also with D100-based games in general.

In the works/future plans:

• Monster Island, by Pete: trying to capture the feeling of King Kong and sword and sorcery, with oodles of monsters, much in the style of Griffin Island.
• Book of Quests, by Loz: loosely related sword and sorcery scenarios.
• Mythic Greece
• Mythic Britain
• Mythic Constantinople
• Mythic Mesopotamia
• Glorantha will be supported, even though it's not yet a priority. Possibly, the first book will be Adventures in Glorantha, with advice as to how to use the rules in Third Age Glorantha; the book might also contain RQ statistics for already-published HQ books, e.g., Pavis.
• There is also a licence in the pipe. Unfortunately nothing further can be revealed.
• Also expect a free online downloadable magazine à la Signs & Portents.

The price of RuneQuest 6 will be approximately 48 euros. It should be available in July. You will soon be able to pre-order a hard copy directly from the Design Mechanism web-site. Pre-ordering it from the Design Mechanism web-site should entail a discount and/or the free PDF, and it is a nice way to support Loz & Pete.

Foreword by Steve Perrin. Only fitting. Shame on Mongoose for not having mentioned Steve in the MRQ books!

Moon Design Seminar, 26 May

The panels are one of the highlights of every Eternal Con. During these seminars, we get a glimpse of what our favourite rpg publishers have in the pipe.

Jeff prophesying

On Saturday night, I attended the Moon Design seminar. Here is a summary of what Jeff et al revealed to us mere mortals.

The next available product should be issue 15 of Wyrms Footnotes: the text is finished, but the illos and the layout are incomplete. Issue 15 of Wyrms Footnotes will contain a scenario by Sandy Petersen.

The next big phat sourcebook will be the Guide to Glorantha. At the moment it's 500+ pages of text only. It has been proofread thrice, including by someone who is not into gaming. The book is actually so big that it will be simultaneously published as two books, divided as (a) overview of Gloranthan cultures and religions, and (b) a gazetteer. The books cover everything until 1630-ish Third Age Glorantha. All regions are covered, including Pamaltela and the islands. Jeff guarantees very detailed coverage, especially of the Lunar Empire, down to the smallest village. The only regions with less coverage are the Eastern areas, i.e., east of the Shan Shan mountains [note: not 100% true: I've had access to the draft, and Umathela isn't much more developed than in already-existing sources]. Regional maps are going to be beautiful and to the same level of focus as the ones in the Sartar book, plus there'll be 10 city maps by Gillian Pearce, plus mythical time maps by Éric Vanel. There won't be as much art as in the Pavis book. The Guides to Glorantha are written from a Third Age perspective. Material which refers to events that took place in the Second Age is purposely contradictory: Third Age people, including scholars, do not want to know much about the Second Age because it is thought of as a terrible age. God-Learners for instance are presented as much more evil than in the Chaosium or in the Mongoose books.

Sample map

Upcoming Moon Design projects (from most to least likely/complete):

• The Coming Storm, a Cinsina campaign book by Ian Cooper;
• The Harmast Saga, fiction by Greg Stafford;
• Gloranthan Bestiary, intended to be more like a field guide than a monster manual, by Pete Nash;
• Big Rubble book, companion to the Pavis book, possibly by a non-historically Gloranthan writer;
• a Gloranthan board game, possibly through Kickstarter;
• Harreksaga, by Loz.

Eternal Con 2012

I'm just back from the Eternal Convention. This is the one con I attend every year at Whitsun... simply unmissable. The Eternal Con is the successor to the Tentacles convention, also held every year at Whitsun, and also in beautiful Burg Stahleck, a former castle that saw action during the Thirty Years' War, and which is now a youth hostel.

The Eternal Con has kept much of the focus of Tentacles: role-playing games tracing their descent from RuneQuest, such as the Call of Cthulhu and other Basic Role-Playing System-based games, and HeroQuest; and freeforms. The main difference between Tentacles and the Eternal Con is less emphasis from the latter on inviting 'big names' from the rpg industry, even though Jeff Richard from Moon Design was present this year, and Loz and Pete from the Design Mechanism were available through a G+ hangout — more on Jeff's, and Loz and Pete's panels later.

Yet another characteristic of the Eternal Con is its family atmosphere, and its friendly ambience, possibly due to the fact that many attendees have attended for years and know each other well.

I'll also mention the food, of excellent quality for a mere youth hostel, the incredible view over the Hunsrück and the Rhine (just look at the picture above!), and the glorious weather.

T&T: New French-Language Edition - Abridged Rules

The French editor of the 8th edition of the T&T rules has just published an abridged version of the latter. Although my home rules (Timinits and Trolls) are substantially modified compared with the official, published rules, I have thought that providing this link could be useful, if only to give an idea of the T&T rules to those who may not know them (yet).