The Hanging Garden, Issue No.1

Lookin' dandy

I have wanted to publish a free gaming zine for a long time. Some zines focus on a given game engine or game world; some others on adventures; others yet on a given company's products. I wanted mine to actually not focus on the content itself but rather on its presentation: text-only and literary in style.

After much hesitation, I have eventually settled for the EPUB format. This format can be viewed on most e-readers, tablets, and also on a computer via dedicated software such as Sumatra and calibre.

The idea behind a format that primarily targets e-readers (as opposed to, say, PDF) is to give gamers something to read on their commute. This is also why the articles are quite long.

Anyway, should I have made the wrong choices I guess no one will download and read The Hanging Garden. In the meanwhile, I aim at publishing an issue every second month. I hope you will enjoy the maiden issue, which features:

• “Lady Sunflower”, a beautiful cover by Cédric Plante
• Flower Knights, by Benjamin Baugh
• The Genesis of Wind on the Steppes, by Olivier Dubreuil
• a scenario for both WotS and TCE, by O. Dubreuil and yours truly
• Back Under the Glowline, by Tom Zunder
• The Heroes’ Voyage, a HeroQuest scenario by imaginos
• Uprising at the Buzzard's Gulch Monster Rez, the first instalment of a Monsters! Monsters! campaign by Thessaly Chance

Enjoy!

[D101 Games] The Book of Glorious Joy on Offer!

(from D101 Games' blog)

The Book of Glorious Joy by the noted scholar of Western Gloranthan lore Jamie ‘Trotsky’ Revell is currently on offer on DriveThruRPG. The PDF, for instance, is at a ridiculous USD 5.00.

The book describes the culture of Western Genertela, the part of the northern continent that is home to the monotheistic Malkioni, with a particular focus on the idealistic Kingdom of Loskalm, whose inhabitants follow an egalitarian brand of Malkionism called New Hrestoli Idealism.

But quick, quick, the book won't be available any longer after the end of this month. Last chance to pick up a 176-page beaut of a book with fantastic art, with heaps of saintly cults for HeroQuest, and with an original Malkioni calendar that I am using for my Umathelan games. The book is non-canon but YGWV so what the heck.

Giant Pamaltelan Rodent

the following has been inspired by a BBC article shared by Dr Moose on the Gloranthan G+ community

The largest ever rodent used its huge front teeth like tusks, defending itself and digging with them instead of just biting food. The bull-sized cousin to the guinea pig died out around two million years ago. It has been surmised that its bite was as strong as a tiger's - but its front teeth were built to withstand forces nearly three times larger. This suggests that its 30cm incisors were much more than eating implements.

Only a single fossilised skull has been found belonging to this 1,000kg South American rodent, known as Josephoartigasia monesi. Unearthed in Uruguay in 2007, the animal lived in the Pliocene period - a warm era when large mammals were relatively abundant, including the first mammoths. It remains the largest rodent ever discovered.

Researchers believe the front teeth must have been used for tasks that required extra muscles, like the neck, as well as the biting action of the jaw muscles themselves. "We concluded that Josephoartigasia must have used its incisors for activities other than biting, such as digging in the ground for food, or defending itself from predators," said an anatomist. "This is very similar to how a modern-day elephant uses its tusks."

the extinct rodent (right) pictured in comparison with a human and a pacarana, its closest living relative

Josephoartifasia, or the bull-cavy by its Pamaltelan name, would naturally find its place in Pamaltela amongst the other Pliocene- and Pleistocene-like creatures.

Early Draft of 13th Age in Glorantha

This is an epochal moment! As a backer, I have just received the very first draft of 13th Age in Glorantha (13G) by Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet. Since RuneQuest Adventures in Glorantha for RQ6 is still in the works, at the moment this is the only other in-print official role-playing game set in Glorantha (the other being obviously HeroQuest).

The draft document, titled Playtest Packet, is 42 pages long. It is text-only, without any illustrations, but with a bit of layout.

From the latest Kickstarter update (trying not to reveal any secrets because we were asked not to):
The file begins with short playtest instructions and continues with six pre-generated 1st level characters, runes, rules, and the introductory adventure. 

The playtest instructions are really just a few paragraphs.

The pre-generated characters take up fifteen (15!) pages. This is quite comprehensive, because each character description actually also contains the rules pertaining to the relevant character class.

The first three pre-generated characters are:
1) a Storm Bull
2) a Humakti
3) a follower of Orlanth Rex
These three characters are all variations on the original 13th Age fighter or barbarian character classes. Let us say that they're quite 'expected'.

The following pre-gens are:
4) a follower of Orlanth Adventurous; this is possibly the most versatile of all the playtest characters
5) a Storm Speaker (this would correspond to a Wind Voice in RQ2 parlance)
6) a Trickster. This is really a class onto its own, with lots of fun and cool and disrupting effects. It was by far the funniest character profile to read.

Runes are supposed to replace the 13th Age Icons, although I think a relationship with a Non-Player Character like the Emperor or the Diabolist is quite different to a relationship with an abstract concept like Stasis or Luck. I wish I had time to playtest the adventure and see how the interaction between the runes and the world works out (if we're lucky maybe Rob Heinsoo et al. will succeed where Mongoose had miserably failed).

Edit: here is a link to stuff that it is apparently OK to reveal.

RuneQuest 6 Auf Deutsch

The Design Mechanism posted the following on social media:

The RuneQuest Gesellschaft eV, the group behind the excellent Gloranthan Tradetalk fanzine from the 1990s and 2000s, have licensed the rights to produce the print edition of the German language version of RuneQuest 6.

Like the Spanish edition, this will be a crowdfunded campaign. No news yet on the platform that will host it, but watch this space for more details.

RuneQuest Dice.... W A N T !

W A N T !

Apparently these über-fantastic dice were part of the Spanish RuneQuest 6 crowdfunding project. Augggh, I so much WANT them. I hope they will be available for non-backers.

I particularly crave the white dice in the bottom left part of the photograph.

The Kraken in 2015?!

The Kraken is a biennial gaming vacation held in the former GDR. The last one was held in August 2014, meaning the next one will be held in the summer of 2016.

However, Fabi, the organiser of The Kraken, has just advertised the fact that there will also be a “shorter, less expensive Kraken” this year, from 2 to 5 October. Instead of being a gaming vacation, it will be a gaming retreat.

The registration will go on-line in early February. Watch the web-site!

Deluxe T&T − The End Is Nigh

The end is nigh, but that's actually quite a good piece of news because it is the end of a long wait: the wait for deluxe Tunnels & Trolls!

This KS project started two years ago, at the beginning of 2013; it was quickly funded at 500% of its initial goal, and it had an initial delivery date of August 2013.

There were plenty of nifty add-ons and options, which I unfortunately had to waive given the shipping costs to Europe, so I just stuck to the core PDF. Which doesn't mean I wasn't excited! T&T is one of my go-to system, so I am really following the updates very closely.

Well, the latest one says the finished text is complete! It's on to the final layout phase now.

Also according to the latest update, the book is going to be over 300 pages, meaning we'll get our money's worth. ETA is now end of February for the PDF, and end of March for the dead tree versions.

Old School Hexcrawl (Cont'd)

About two years ago, I posted an island sandbox/hexcrawling suggestion that I had stolen from Konsumterra's ever mind-blowing blog. Well, Konsumterra has updated the island map, which I am repurposing here as the detailed map of the unnamed island off the Umathelan coast north of Fengwal in the Dashomo Sea. That's in the upper part of map No.65 for those of you who have the Argan Argar Atlas. Konsumterra has named the island Exile Island but I like to call it Forbidden Island.

My suggestions for using this sandbox in a Second Age Umathelan game are as follows:

☠ Barony Humans/Humanoid Kingdoms/Highland kingdom ⁃ These are squabbling polities founded by God Learners that have been exiled from the mainland and who are self-styled 'kings' and 'barons' (hence the names of the polities).

☠ Beastmen Land ⁃ These hills are the refuge of a group of victims of some mad God Learners' experiments who are half-human half-animal. They try to stay aloof from the other islanders, and are known to deal quite harshly with trespassers.

☠ Bright/Dark Faerie Woods ⁃ The adjectives 'bright' and 'dark' do not refer to the inhabitants of the woods themselves, since both woods are inhabited by Aldryami, but to their relationship with the neighbouring humans: the 'bright' Aldryami are friendly, the 'dark' ones are not.

☠ Bright/Dark Troll Land ⁃ The adjectives 'bright' and 'dark' do not refer to the troll themselves, since both lands are inhabited by Uzko (dark trolls), but to their relationship with the Storm worshippers from the north-eastern peninsula: the 'bright' Uzko are friendly, the 'dark' ones are not. It is unclear whether the Uzko here are originally from Jrustela or from the Tarmo Mountains.

☠ Cave folk Tribal Lands ⁃ This area is inhabited by a clan of Jaskali Stone Age hunters (see the Guide to Glorantha p517-519) who belong to the Pteranodon tribe. Nobody knows how they got stranded on Forbidden Island, but they probably flew in on their pteranodons who later died or left .

☠ Dwarf Land ⁃ The Mostali here are from Curustus in Jrustela but obey the dwarves of Slon. Whenever a stone ship arrives on Forbidden Island to trade with the Malkioni settlers, the dwarves from Dwarf Land come and greet their brethren and help with anything the Slon Mostali may need.

☠ Elemental Cult Lands ⁃ This area has been settled by a clan of Himile-worshipping Uzko. As a result, this valley is always much colder than the rest of the island.

☠ Elf Land ⁃ Some Green Elves have been living in these forests for centuries. They are the second-oldest dwellers of the island after the Grey Giants, and resent being encroached by other races. However, there aren't many elves and so they cannot strike back. Yet.

☠ Empire humans ⁃ The Malkioni exiles here are still loyal to the Middle Sea Empire, hence their name.

☠ Giant Land ⁃ Home to a scattered clan of Grey Giants, who are possibly the only indigenous inhabitants of Forbidden Island.

☠ Gnome Land ⁃ This peninsula owes its name to the fact that, despite the proximity of the sea, it has a very strong connection with elemental Earth. There is a large temple dedicated to Ernalda.

☠ Goblins ⁃ This lowland is inhabited by a clan of goblins (red elves) from Porlaso who remained blocked on a reed island that broke off the coast of Porlaso and drifted on the seas until they were stranded here; they are puny and not very dangerous because they do not have a Queen to lead them.

☠ Reptilian Lads ⁃ Lascerdans (who just want to be left alone) live here. They have a very bad relationship with the Malasp.

☠ Swamp Land ⁃ This area has been cleared of any nonhuman dwellers by the God Learners.

☠ Viking Land ⁃ Some Storm worshippers from central Umathela have settled here and decided to remain— the sea is full of fish and sea life and, as long as they pay tribute to Terthinus, the Malasp leave them alone (see GtG p461).

RuneQuest 6 In Italian - Further (Good) News

The Christkind (or rather his earthly representative, Alephtar Games) has brought us an excellent piece of news for Christmas: the Italian version of RuneQuest 6 will be published next year, and it should be available by the time the 7th edition of the Play! gaming convention begins in Modena on 11 April.

As announced during the (failed) crowdfunding campaign, the Italian edition of RuneQuest 6 will be published as a three-book set. Watch this place for further news.

Bookshelf-Based Random Adventure Generator, v3.2

It's that time of year again. Two years ago, I devised a simple, bookshelf-based random adventure generator. This generator was dubbed 'Giannirator' by imaginos, who also greatly expanded on it, until what we may consider its final version, v3.2, which he used to create forty, count 'em, forty original scenarios that he published on his blog.

Since v3.2 is in French I am translating it to English here, and obviously adding an example along to show how it works.

First, get hold of 1D6, 1D20, 1D30, and 1D100. Each adventure seed is based upon a mix of random results from two tables and from information randomly extracted from within six actual books of your bookshelf using the results of the dice rolls.

[NPC1 - from Book One] asks the PCs to go to [Location1 - from Book Two] to [Action - from Table One] [Person/Object - from Book Three]. Motivated by the [Motivation - from Table Two], the PCs will end up confronting [NPC2 - from Book Four] in [Location2 - from Book Five]. During the course of the adventure, [Element - from Book Six] will feature prominently.

For each of the aforementioned books, roll five dice, in the following order:

• Roll 1D6. Check the results of the roll: 1-3: use the top shelf; 4-6: use the bottom shelf. Of course if you have more than two shelves use a different die.
• Roll 1D6. Check the results of the roll: 1-3: start counting from the left; 4-6: start counting from the right.
• Roll 1D30. Count as many books from either the left or the right, depending on the previous die roll.
• Roll 1D6. Check the results of the roll: 1-3: start from the beginning; 4-6: start from the end. Ignore covers, indices, empty pages, etc.
• Roll 1D100. Count as many pages. Using the guidelines from the blueprint above, choose the relevant element from within the page.

The random tables-based elements are to be rolled on these two tables:

1D20 Result	Action
01	Retrieve
02	Deliver
03	Free / Liberate
04	Survive / Escape / Evade
05	Reach / Enter
06	Explore / Study / Discover
07	Investigate / Elucidate / Enquire
08	Avenge
09	Sell / Get Rid Of sb~sth
10	Humiliate / Bully
11	Protect / Defend
12	Convince / Convert / Recruit
13	Create
14	Hide
15	Blackmail
16	Destroy / Cull
17	Deceive
18	Sacrifice oneself
19	Conquer / Invade / Raid / Pillage / Plunder
20	Other / GM's Choice

1D20 Result	Motivation
01	Obeisance (to a hierarchy, to one's master...)
02	Material Reward (e.g., money)
03	Intangible Reward (e.g., glory)
04	Spiritual Reward (e.g., blessing)
05	Survival
06	Obligation
07	Revenge
08	Pleasure
09	Fanatism
10	Succour
11	Selflessness
12	Excitement
13	Self-Inflicted
14	Curiosity
15	Malice
16	Sloth
17	Inevitability
18	Fear and Loathing
19	Mind Alteration
20	Other / GM's Choice

Example

NPC1 (from Book One)
1D4 --> 4. Shelf No.4.
1D6 --> 6. Start counting from the right.
1D30 --> 2. Second book from the right: Carcosa.
1D6 --> 3. Start counting from the beginning.

1D100 --> 24. Space Alien.

Location1 (from Book Two)
1D4 --> 1. Shelf No.1.
1D6 --> 2. Start counting from the left.
1D30 --> 2. Second book from the left: Sorcerer's Apprentice, issue No.16.
1D6 --> 6. Start counting from the end.

1D100 --> 27. the darkened streets towards the Palace.

Action (from Table One)
1D20 --> 3. Free/Liberate

Person/Object (from Book Three)
1D4 --> 1. Shelf No.1.
1D6 --> 3. Start counting from the left.
1D30 --> 12. Twelfth book from the left: Imagine, issue No.22.
1D6 --> 4. Start counting from the end.

1D100 --> 52. Greater Vampire.

Motivation (from Table Two)
1D20 --> 20. Other/GM's Choice --> I think I'll decide that the PCs have been tricked into what they have to do.

NPC2 (from Book Four)
1D4 --> 4. Shelf No.4.
1D6 --> 2. Start counting from the left.
1D30 --> 4. Fourth book from the left: Casus Belli, issue No.4.
1D6 --> 2. Start counting from the beginning.

1D100 --> 63. Harlequin.

Location2 (from Book Five)
1D4 --> 1. Shelf No.1.
1D6 --> 4. Start counting from the right.
1D30 --> 28. 28th book from the right: Les Érudits de l'Ambigu, issue No.3.
1D6 --> 4. Start counting from the end.

1D100 --> 11. Dagori Inkarth.

Element (from Book Six)
1D4 --> 3. Shelf No.3.
1D6 --> 5. Start counting from the right.
1D30 --> 21. 21st book from the right: The Middle Sea Empire.
1D6 --> 3. Start counting from the beginning.

1D100 --> 56. tsunami.

Result: A Space Alien asks the PCs to go to the darkened streets towards the Palace to free a Greater Vampire. Tricked by the Space Alien, the PCs will end up confronting Harlequin in Dagori Inkarth. During the course of the adventure, a tsunami will feature prominently.

Ouch, this is a tough one. Given the disparate elements, I think the best setting for this scenario seed is Glorantha In Space:

A Space Alien meets the PCs in whatever shady town they're currently located. He has some metamorphosis powers that allow him to pass for human. He has a close relative who is a Rune Lord of Vivamort (a 'Greater Vampire'), and who is currently a prisoner in the Obsidian Palace on planet Esrola. The space alien tricks the PCs into believing that he is a quiet human space trader whose brother was kidnapped by rival Argan Argar merchants and who is detained in the cells beneath the Obsidian Palace on planet Esrola.
Whilst travelling towards planet Esrola, the PCs are caught in a geomagnetic storm (the 'tsunami'), and are blown off course to planet Dagori Inkarth instead, where they will have to defeat an Eurmali trickster (the 'Harlequin') before being able to leave the planet. The trickster being a trickster, he will reveal the PCs that the phoney kidnapped brother is actually a chaotic cultist.
The PCs will then probably want to take care of the space alien OR — should they not believe the trickster — they will have to fight their way through the dungeons of the Obsidian Palace and ultimately confront the Vampire, possibly on their spacecraft during the return trip!

Alephtar Game News

Alephtar Games is a discreet but constant publisher of high-quality games and supplements. There are two pieces of news regarding them:

1) Wind of the Steppe, a BRP-based historical role-playing game that will enable you to adventure into the harsh world of the steppe nomads should be out by the end of the year (i.e., soon!)

2) The Italian translation of RuneQuest 6, despite its failed crowdfunding campaign, should be available in March 2015.

Deluxe T&T − The Last Hurdle?

Back in June, I expressed my sense of elation at having received a draft PDF of deluxe Tunnels and Trolls in such an advanced state of completion. Much more than the usual draft PDF one receives at the various stages of a Kickstarter project, the PDF file we backers of dT&T received was almost as good as the final product — except for one area: Magic.

Now without Magic, you can't really talk about a fantasy role-playing game, so this was really still a big hole in the project. In September, we received word that Steve Crompton was about to start laying out pages for the much revised section about Magic.

Well, a few days a go we finally received a link to download the dT&T chapters about Magic, all 73 pages of them. Basically, this latest PDF corresponds to the missing 'Section 9' from the summary of the draft version of deluxe Tunnels & Trolls.

Detailed contents of the PDF:

• Magic IQ & DEX requirements per Spell level,
• Generalities about spells,
• Generalities about kremm (Power/mana in T&T parlance),
• Technical intricacies about spells (damage, learning, stacking…),
• Schools of Magic — This is pretty new stuff if I'm not mistaken. There are ten Colleges of Magic; each spell may be taught in one or several of these colleges. My understanding after having merely skimmed through the PDF is that these colleges are only there for added flavour. There is an optional rule, however, to allow magicians to specialise in a given college of Magic; basically, this functions as a Talent that enables a Conjurer, say, to cast Conjuration spells at a reduced cost.
• Spell Book (35 pages),
• Equipment for magicians (staves, wands…),
• Creating magical items (amulets, potions, talismans…),
• Kremm batteries — I believe these are new. They basically function like the original RuneQuest's crystals and matrices, so this is über cool,
• Creating new spells.

The ten Colleges of Magic are (notice how they all start with the letter 'C'):

• Clairvoyant [it should be called Clairvoyance, by the way]
• Combat
• Communication
• Concealment
• Conformation [all spells related with metamorphoses]
• Conjuration
• Construction
• Conveyance [all spells related with movement]
• Cosmic [catch-all category]
• Curative

Each college comes with a neat icon used to illustrate the relationship of the various spells with the ten colleges throughout the Spell Book.

At this point, I believe we backers have received everything related with Magic, except the Elaborations section (again from the summary of the draft version of dT&T).

Guide to Glorantha (AT LAAAAAAAST)

13th Age in Glorantha Madness!

OK, so the 13th Age in Glorantha Kickstarter project has ended with an incredible grand total of pledges at $116,150. Wow... that's more than €90,000!

Jeff and Rob have just kept adding stretches to entice us fans into parting from our hard-earned cash... Which we are grateful for :)

Because:

• The Trickster† as a character class!
• Uz characters in, and in particular Zorak Zorani
• Duck characters in
• The magicians of the Sartar Magical Union as a secret society for the PCs
• The Crimson Bat and its evil attending priests as NPCs
• Further evil Lunar‡ NPCs: the Comet Seers, the Blue Moon School, the Spell Archers, and the Crater Makers
• Cults of Chaos: Bagog, Krarsht, Thanatar
• Plenty of new, additional, full-colour art!
• Three adventures

† The Hero Wars has let Eurmal free from his bindings and slip openly into the world. Prince Argrath has placed those initiated to Eurmal under his protection and his magical societies are havens for Tricksters, outlaws, and other holy madmen. Some rumours claim that the new prince is himself a Trickster.  Others claim that Harrek White Bear is the physical incarnation of the Destroyer aspect of the Trickster. Still others claim that the entire Hero Wars is orchestrated by the Trickster. [Jeff on G+]

‡ You will notice that 13th Age in Glorantha is, alas, heavily slanted in favour of the Sartarite hillbillies. I hope a future Lunar book will enable us to play normal civilised people.

Gagix, the Scorpion Queen of Jab (2)

Gagix, the Scorpion Queen of Jab

Why is 13th Age in Glorantha kewl?

Because Gagix:

Woman body: Gagix has the chest, head, and arms of a queenly woman. She has long black hair, yellow eyes, and wears a golden diadem with the Runes of Chaos, Beast, and Man given to her by the previous Lunar Governor-General of Dragon Pass. Her teeth are sharp and there is blood around her mouth.
She wears a vest or bodice (note: she is NOT busty - she is not truly mammalian). Her arms are covered in jewellery taken from her dead victims, and she has many necklaces draped around her neck. She is NOT tattooed. Around her waist (which connects to her scorpion body), she wears a loose girdle of human heads.

Scorpion body: Gagix has the abdomen, tail, stinger, and eight legs of a gigantic, bloated, black scorpion. She does not have pincers or Chelicerae. Her scorpion body is over 8m long.

13th Age in Glorantha Interview Podcast

Idle Red Hands is a blog that features podcasts on various gaming-related issues.

Episode 171 is titled ‘Interview: 13th Age in Glorantha’; the Idle Red Hands team interview Rob Heinsoo & Jeff Richard, who are currently managing a Kickstarter project called 13th Age in Glorantha [but you already know this if you read my blog...]

The podcast of the interview is available here.
Its duration is 1hr 33min 24s, which is quite long, so read on if you don't have the time to listen to it.

Highlights of the interview
As we already know, 13th Age in Glorantha (13G) is going to be set in 1627-28, during the Hero Wars. The player characters will be heroes embarking on heroquests (called "mythcrawls") to save the world from Chaos. Apparently, at the core of 13G will be the fact that PCs from various conflicting backgrounds need to co-operate, with the common goal of defeating Chaos and/or the Lunar Empire†, whilst having to overcome their differences at the same time.

Since the 'Uz' stretch goal has been reached, there will be Uz character classes, and since heroquests will strongly feature in the game, all-new myths centred on Uz and Wonderhome will be added to 13G.

One way the Uz might be played (this is still being playtested) is that a troll character starts as a trollkin, then at around 4th level it gets eaten by a dark troll, and then you play the dark troll who's eaten your trollkin...

Interesting part @ 37min 30s: “What's in for us [hardcore Gloranthan fans]?”

☞ Chiefly, “play a D20 system game and like it”

☞ The “One Unique Thing” mechanism of 13th Age will basically enable players to tell the GM in what direction they want the campaign to go

Icons
Rob says that Gloranthan icons will be implemented differently to the Dragon Empire, without giving much further detail, except that there will be clearer explanations for the various results of the icon relationship die roll.

Magic
That was an interesting question from the hosts, who stressed the huge difference between D&D- and RQ-type magic. Unfortunately, Rob flatly said that 13G Magic would be 13th Age magic, period, and that they wouldn't try and implement Glorantha-style magic, except for the fact that your magic will be a combination of who you worship and what your class is. Essentially, the system remains 13th Age.
Anyway, since 13G will focus on Dragon Pass and the Holy Country, and not the West, there won't be many wizards. On the other hand, sorcerers will probably feature prominently.

Future Books?
At the moment Jeff & Rob have two adventure packs in mind:

☞ The Upland Marsh, ruled by Delecti the Necromancer

☞ Snakepipe Hollow, a dungeon crawl with mythic elements


PS
† Can someone please tell Rob that the Red Goddess is not a Chaos goddess, it's more complex than that...

An Alternative Combat System for T&T

TrollsZine is a free PDF 'zine for Tunnels & Trolls. Being a zine and being fed by contributors, and thus basically a labour of love, TrollsZine has a very irregular publication schedule, and it also shows, I am afraid, quite an uneven quality in terms of content.

The latest instalment, issue No.8, however, is a great issue! Amongst the highlights:

☞ A 33-page space-fantasy solo adventure set in New Khazan, consisting of 141 paragraphs of gung ho adventure, with outer space random encounters such as mining drones and space syrens, basic spaceship stats, a simple space travel system, etc. Lots of material that you may fruitfully scavenge for your own space-fantasy games!

☞ A 16-page GM wilderness adventure. This is particularly noteworthy as T&T adventures tend to stick to the dungeon bash model.

☞ A fully-fledged alternative combat system for Tunnels & Trolls, by Dan Hembree (TrollsZine's editor), based on the T&T Saving Rolls (SR) mechanism. At 9 pages, this is quite a hefty article. Now, since I have myself got rid of the standard T&T mêlée combat system for my own T&T homebrew, I have read Dan's article with utmost interest. Here are my thoughts.

Dan's alternative combat system is based on man-to-man combat, and not on T&T's seminal "each side totals all" mechanism. As a result, each combatant needs:

• an attribute to base the SR upon,
• a difficulty level for said SR

There is indeed a new attribute, Combat Ability (CA), which, for player characters, is calculated on the average of STR, LK, DEX, and SPD. For monsters, Dan suggests to base the CA on their Monster Rating (MR) but to "raise or lower it as necessary". This is my first criticism of the system. The CA should be clearly defined for monsters; if Dan thinks CA = MR yields too strong opponents, as in the case of the MR 50 ogre in his example on p30, then why not settle for CA = MR/2 or MR/4 or whatever. Obviously, in other cases, CA = MR yields too weak opponents, as in the case of the MR 15 goblins in his example on p32. Basically, what this shows is that it is wrong to equate a monster's MR with its fighting prowess. This is also why I have removed the standard T&T mêlée combat system from my homebrew. I think a monster's CA should be assigned independently from its MR— which is more or less what Dan ends up suggesting through the sentence "raise or lower it as necessary".

The difficulty level for the combat SRs is based upon the opponent's level or upon a monster's MR/10. I really don't like this— in almost all frp games, determining whether a combatant hits or not is based on their fighting capability, not their opponent's: in classic fantasy, it's based on the combatant's level, in D100-based games, on the combatant's skill, etc. In my homebrew, the SR actually doesn't have a difficulty level: each combatant rolls their SR, and then the actual difficulty levels reached are compared, so as to create a kind of opposed SR mechanism.
The cool thing, however, is that Dan's system allows for simultaneous combat results with weapon-dependent damage, part of which is stopped by armour, whereas my system does not take weapon and armour into account: I have opted for a more abstract system, à la HeroQuest.

Anyway, whatever criticisms I may have, I still think Dan's system is definitely worth a try, even if it kind of makes T&T mêlée combat closer to the D&D approach, where armour class (which depends on the opponent and not on the combatant) does influence the combatant's hit probabilities.

Umathelan "Grain" Goddesses

Cereal or Legume?

Another gem from the Google+ Gloranthan community.

Umathela is an Orlanthi land, and all Orlanthi lands have their Grain Goddess. So I asked the following on the Google+ Gloranthan community:

Who is the Grain Goddess of Umathela?

To which I received quite a number of interesting comments; here are some of them:

 - The old Gods of Glorantha supplement doesn't list a Grain Goddess for Umathela as a whole, but does list Vrala for Vralos and lists her main cereal as being peas (which aren't actually a cereal)
 - I feel such sorrow for those poor tribesfolk of Vralos as they struggle to make an acceptable flour out of dried peas... :-)
 - [Jeff]  The Land Goddesses of Umathela are Enklosa and Vrala. Note that Ernalda is also worshipped in Umathela and is associated with barley and wheat.
Enklosa was a daughter of Gata and Pamalt and a lover of Flamal; she welcomed Aldrya. When trolls killed Flamal, Enklosa went into mourning and withdrew into the Underworld. She was guarded by High King Elf until the world was revived with the Dawn. She is associated with broad beans and lentils.
Vrala was another daughter of Gata and Pamalt; and like her sister she welcomed Aldrya. She took many lovers, including Flamal, Pamalt, Umath, and later his son Orlanth. When Flamal was slain by the trolls, Vrala followed Ernalda into sleep, and the land slept until the Dawn, guarded by High King Elf.