Is D100 Dead?

For various reasons, chief amongst which the fact that I have been directly impacted [my book The Celestial Empire cannot be sold any longer, see below], and yet I strive to remain impartial on my blogs, I haven't blogged much about the latest news in the small world of D100-based role playing games. For those of you who are unaware of the latest developments, here is a short summary of what has happened during this eventful summer.

• Moon Design has taken control of Chaosium and announced that they wouldn't publish the 404-page Big Gold Book any longer. Instead they will publish a 32-page booklet called BRP Essentials. 32 pages? That's tantamount to setting the clock back to the 80s and the slim Chaosium BRP booklet :-(
• Ben Monroe, who was the driving force behind Magic World, has left Chaosium.
• The Design Mechanism's RuneQuest licence — which has made gateway (i.e., non-Gloranthan) RQ products such as Luther Arkwright possible — has expired and will not be renewed. Loz and Pete will now work on an upcoming fully Gloranthan version of RuneQuest for Chaosium (ETA mid-2016).
• Third party licences (e.g., Alephtar Games') have also been rescinded. As a result, celebrated historical RPGs such as Rome (which had won a silver ENnie) aren't available any longer.

Except for D101 Games' OpenQuest, this doesn't leave us with much non-Gloranthan D100-based gaming left. Is D100 gaming dead?

Forgotten Secrets of Glorantha

I have already mentioned Sandy Petersen's excellent panel about Gloranthan secrets, called “Elder Secrets of Glorantha”, that I had the privilege to attend during last year's The Kraken convention, er, gaming vacation. I believe that much of the information divulged by Sandy at his panel was quite novel.

Well, Fabian Küchler has made the transcript available as a ‘chapbook’, i.e., a fundraiser booklet for The Kraken. The PDF will probably be publicly on sale, but the dead tree version is only going to be available for attendees; it will have art by Jon Hodgson and be a limited and numbered print run.

If you want to pre-order a print copy of this chapbook, write to fabian [at] the-kraken [dot] de. More information here.

Future of RuneQuest [6]

This is a follow-up to yesterday's blog entry.

The Design Mechanism has posted the following statement earlier on today, both on FB and on their forum:

The recent news that Moon Design Publications’ management team (Rick Meints, Jeff Richard, Neil Robinson and Michael O’Brien) would be taking over at the helm of Chaosium has naturally created a lot of interest and speculation. It has clear implications for the Design Mechanism, and Pete and I would like to issue a statement of making clear where we stand as a company and where RuneQuest stands as a game system. We cannot and will not speculate or discuss Chaosium’s existing game systems such as Call of Cthulhu, Basic Roleplaying or Magic World.

We (Design Mechanism) license the RuneQuest trademark from Moon Design Publications. We entered into a licensing agreement that comes up for renewal around this time next year and part of the contract and business plan I proposed when first negotiating the licence was to insist in a full review and assessment of our progress with RuneQuest as a property. Our licence is not perpetual, and that review process had already begun before the recent announcement.

With Moon Design now becoming part of Chaosium, the RuneQuest trademark transfers to Chaosium – its place of birth. Until the licence we have expires next year, RuneQuest will continue to be published by the Design Mechanism and the core rules will remain in print. From July 2016, the following will take place:

1. RuneQuest reverts to Chaosium.
2. Pete and myself [Loz] will become the new lead writers for RuneQuest as a Chaosium brand line with specific responsibilities for developing the system and its supplements.
3. The Design Mechanism as a company will continue. Chaosium and Design Mechanism have signed a new contract whereby we can continue to write, produce and distribute our own RuneQuest supplements, and can continue to support the lines we have already started to develop.
4. The RuneQuest 6 mechanics remain the core of the system, but as the trademark is now held by Chaosium, we have been contracted to develop a new version of the game based in Glorantha called, simply, ‘RuneQuest’. This game will appear in July 2016 (or possibly earlier). This new version will roll together all the work we have done on ‘Adventures in Glorantha’ into a standalone RuneQuest game.
5. At that point, RuneQuest 6 will go out of print as its own title. Design Mechanism will find ways of ensuring full compatibility across our supplements, the new version and RQ6.
6. Effectively immediately, Chaosium will sell Design Mechanism’s existing (and future) books through its various channels. Indeed, this increases Design Mechanism’s exposure, extends its reach and removes a huge administrative burden from the shoulders of a two-man team.

Pete and I are delighted to be working with Chaosium. We are pleased to be able to return RuneQuest to Chaosium stronger than it has been since it left home for Avalon Hill back in the mid 1980s. Even better, it comes back to a revitalised Chaosium that carries a clear mandate of excellence, transparency and commitment to its fans and creative contributors. We are especially happy to have the opportunity to work closely with Rick, Jeff, Neil and Mike and to become part of the Chaosium family. But what makes this even more special is that the Design Mechanism carries on as a company, continues to publish and support RuneQuest, and will always engage with its loyal and faithful fans.

More details will emerge as various pieces come together. We will communicate and discuss them with you just as we always have. Pete and I really are excited and happy with the new direction and we hope you will share our enthusiasm and optimism for the future!

Long Live Design Mechanism!
Long Live Chaosium!
Long Live RuneQuest!

New Ownership at Chaosium — Implications for RuneQuest 6

It's been a hectic year in our industry... It's been slightly over a month since Charlie Krank got ousted from Chaosium and replaced by Greg Stafford and Sandy Petersen, and now it's been announced that Moon Design are the new owners of Chaosium. It's been all over the internetz now so I won't go into the boring details (which are here).

This is tremendous good news for Moon Design, for Chaosium, for the world of Glorantha, and for the Call of Cthulhu line. However, after reading the various press releases, announcements, FB and G+ posts, etc. etc., I was really really concerned and worried about the future of RuneQuest 6 and of its Adventures in Glorantha supplement because they were not mentioned anywhere.

So I was really relieved this morning when I read the following by Loz on The Design Mechanism's forum:

[All] this has implications for RQ and Design Mechanism and I will be posting a fuller discussion/news piece as soon as time permits. I can assure all our fans, however, that Design Mechanism isn't going anywhere, the RQ6 system continues, all our books will remain on sale and we will be continuing to release our own RuneQuest material.

But Pete and I will be working very closely with Chaosium, in official capacities, and we'll explain more as soon as time permits.

I can assure you all that this is Good News.

People tweeting from Gen Con, however, wrote that 'a new version of RuneQuest' had been mentioned during one of the Chaosium panels. So I guess at the moment the best we can do is wait for further official announcements from the various parties after the dust has settled.

Guide Gets 2015 Diana Jones Award!

Moon Design wins the 2015 Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming for the Guide to Glorantha.

That makes Greg Stafford a twice-winner, as he had already received the award in 2007 for The Great Pendragon Campaign.

Kudos to Greg Stafford, kudos to Moon Design, and kudos to all my friends who were involved in the project, and in particular to illustrators extraordinaire Dan Barker and Éric Vanel. We are all Us!

Priests as Characters in TnT

This is an old quandary, possibly as old as the game itself: should there be Priests as a character class in Tunnels & Trolls?

The discussion has recently popped up on the Let's Talk About Tunnels & Trolls Facebook group. The Trollgod himself, Ken Saint-André, has explained that “there are no real gods in [Trollworld] T & T—just a bunch of very high level wizards pretending to godhood.” However, “priests, acolytes, monks, priestesses, temple girls, etc. are all common enough in Trollworld T & T. They are job descriptions, just like sailor, baker, tax man, attorney, shopkeeper, etc. If they use magic they can also be wizards, rogues, paragons, specialists, or citizens. If they don't use magic they can also be warriors or citizens. That's a big difference between That Other Game and T & T. TOG classifies character types by appearance; T&T goes by ability/function.”

I can agree with the explanation above. However, if you're not playing in Trollworld but in a fantasy world where gods are real, how do you manage that? Various ideas have flown round the FB group, mostly about having priests as a mere 'skin' for wizards or rogues. I have mentioned that I use T&T in Glorantha and that, true to the RQ2 feel I try to emulate, ‘priest’ in my games is a title and not a character class.

And then the article titled Mirabile Dictu!: Priests as Characters in T&T, by Dorothy V March, which was published in issue 17 of Sorcerer's Apprentice (1983), was mentioned again. This article gets mentioned each and every time the quandary is tackled, yet I still have to find someone who's really used it in actual play.

Anyway, since I'm tired of people e-mailing me and asking for a scan of said article, I will summarise it here.

There is a new prime attribute to be added to the other ones at character creation: DEVotion, and there is a new character class, the Priest, that uses DEVotion to fuel their spells — much like wizards use WIZardry to fire off theirs.
As explained earlier, priestly spells (called ‘miracles’) cost a given amount of DEV to be fuelled; when the priest's DEV is low and casting a miracle would require more DEV than available, the excess may be made up by drawing upon STRength at the cost of 2 STR points for 1 DEV point.
DEV regenerates through at least one full hour of prayer and meditation; lost STR will only regenerate after DEV is completely restored, at the rate of 6 ST points per hour.
Priests may only use one class of weapons, the one favoured by their patron god(s).
A priest may have a holy symbol that functions just like a wizard's staff in terms of focus and cost reduction.
Minimum attribute values to cast miracles of a given level are the same as the wizard's but replacing IQ and DEX with DEV and CHR.
The Acolyte is to the Priest what the Rogue is to the Wizard; he doesn't have any weapon restrictions.

The article then ends with a long spell list that takes up 4.5 pages, from the 1st to the 20th level. The spells are not whimsical and quite D&D-ish in their scope.

Summer Teaser

[dT&T] It's Here!

I have actually just finished downloading my copy of deluxe Tunnels & Trolls. At a whopping 385 pages, I gather it'll take me some time to digest it...

The Hanging Garden, Issue No.3

Howdy dear readers. The third issue of The Hanging Garden is available for your perusal and enjoyment. This issue had been scheduled to be a “Vikings” special and it ended up being a Mad Max: Fury Road special instead, complete with a fully-fledged post-apocalyptic role-playing game: Maximum Road!

To fully savour Maximum Road, you may first want to download the following:

❧ Atomic Highway (free post-apocalyptic rpg Maximum Road is based on)

❧ Maximum Road Player and Vehicle Sheet

 Enjoy!

Return of the Great Old Ones (cont'd)

Now another podcast sheds more light on the whole Chaosium affair.

Apparently, the change in management was slightly less rosy than the fairy tale that has circulated on social media...
Sandy, quite candidly, tells it all in the podcast: after Lynn Willis (the majority shareholder of Chaosium) passed away, his shares were divided amongst the surviving members of the board of directors: Charlie, Greg, and Sandy. All of a sudden, Charlie and Greg ended up having exactly the same share, and Sandy became the kingmaker, so he sort of organised a coup to oust Charlie because he considered that the latest CoC-related Kickstarters had not been well managed. As a result, Charlie and his relatives have all left (his shares will be bought by Greg and Sandy); all the other employees have remained on board.

Future Chaosium plans as revealed by Sandy:
 - Manage the CoC Kickstarter failings
 - more Basic Role-Playing books (woot!)
 - Keep the Chaosium fiction line strong

Return of the Great Old Ones

Based on all the blog posts dedicated to this event that I have seen round the web today, I guess I'm late in jumping onto the bandwagon, yet I still want to mention this...

Greg

Sandy

Greg Stafford (as CEO) and Sandy Petersen are back to Chaosium! Obviously this won't affect us Gloranthan gamers since all the rights to Glorantha and to RuneQuest were sold to Moon Design. This having been said, Jeff Richard of Moon Design has mentioned on G+ his willingness to continue his close work with Greg and Sandy.

On the non-Gloranthan side of things, I presume we can expect renewed production in the 7th ed Call of Cthulhu lines and, hopefully, some more Basic Role-Playing publications.

Back from The Eternal Con

The Eternal Con takes place every year round about Pentecost in Burg Stahleck, a castle-turned-youth hostel overlooking the Rhine. We've had a nice surprise upon arriving there: the castle has been refurbished! All clean, lots of new furniture, new decoration, new windows.

the castle

Bacharach

The Eternal Con — this was the 6th edition — has become so dense in events (we even had academic events this year, see below) that, just like last year, I will only concentrate on the ones I managed to attend.

FRIDAY 22 MAY, 19:00, Grand Opening

After the usual check-in, emotional meeting with old friends and exaggeratedly early German dinner, we took part in the traditional Grand Opening ceremony. Despite some initial blunders, it was better than the previous years. Franziska and Charlotte were our delicious hosts and entertained us with their witty humour and — this was a novelty this year — very funny shorts that were projected on a big screen and which explained the 'rules' of the con and of the Jugendherberge in an easy to understand way. It was the very first time the con went digital!

Grand Opening — picture by Heini

FRIDAY 22 MAY, 20:00, Presentation of the German version of HeroQuest

Robin Mitra of Humakt eV gave a presentation (auf deutsch) of what HeroQuest was, how it was different from other role-playing games, and why people should buy it. Unfortunately, no physical copy of the German version of HeroQuest was available yet ☹

Humakt ♥ ✝

the manuscript — picture by Heini

FRIDAY 22 MAY, 21:00, Moon Design panel

with Rick Meints, Jeff Richard, Neil Robinson talking (well... it was mostly Jeff doing the talking); Jan Pospíšil and Kalin Kadiev were showing their art.

The hottest piece of news:
King of Sartar (hardback, first in a new line of 'fiction', see below) is at the printer!
It will be followed shortly by HeroQuest Glorantha.
It'll probably take some time to ship them.

What comes next?
The Coming Storm (a huge Sartarite sandbox-cum-campaign covering 1618-25) by Ian Cooper is SO big it'll be published in two volumes. Moon Design will try and make them available as soon as possible (i.e., in 2015 — the first volume will hopefully be available in time for Gen Con).

Also for Gen Con: the first three chapters of Prince of Sartar out as a kind of trade paperback comic book.

Volume 2 of The Coming Storm will hopefully be out in time for Essen, where Moon Design want to have a greater presence.

Sandy Petersen's mammoth boardgame, The Gods' War, will be Kickstarted at the end of 2015/beginning of 2016. At the time, they are all super busy working on the miniatures for the game.

Kyger Litor concept art

In the pipeline:
- TrollPak vol 1 (of 3!) by Dan McCluskey - all about Trolls
- Big Rubble
- 13th Age in Glorantha ~ aiming at the end of the year. This will be in 2 volumes: a rulebook, and a generic source book set in 1627, heavily focused on Gloranthan myths.
- Gods of Glorantha - this will be Kickstarted so as to have fantastic art in it.
- Riders of the Storm - Nomads of the Wastelands (formerly known as PraxPak), a supplement about the Praxian Nomads and Genertelan shamanism, by David Scott

You may have noticed that Moon Design are much more active than in the past. Their new target is 4-6 books a year. They're also looking at having older products available via Lulu.

What comes later? What are their projects for the future?
- TrollPak vol2: Uz characters
- TrollPak vol3: a big campaign for Uz characters set in the Redstone Caverns
- A campaign pack with six scenarios set in the six parts of the Holy Country; at the moment, tentatively containing:
   Casino Town
   New Crystal City
   Sacking the City of Wonders
   ...
 - A city guide for Nochet with a map as detailed as New Pavis'
 - A Pyre for Gods and Heroes - a novel by Jeff Richard based on Greg Stafford's Harmast Saga. The idea is to have a 'fiction' line, with one book out per year.

FRIDAY 22 MAY, 22:00, Rabbit Hat Games panel

Rabbit Hat Games' very own MOB was in from Australia and presented us his card game UNFamy. It was hilarious, especially since the losers had to eat a piece of Vegemite-flavoured chocolate bar.

SATURDAY 23 MAY, morning

We prepared our HeroQuest characters for Hervé Carteau's Harreksaga in the afternoon using a nice questionnaire. I really love this character generation method.

SATURDAY 23 MAY, 14:00, Gifts to the Gods (Religion in Bronze Age Europe)

This is one of the academic events mentioned above. Dr Christine Reich presented us the latest findings in the field of Bronze Age religion. As incredible as it may seem, despite the lack of written records, and without many new findings, scholars such as Christine are still able to find new facts about Bronze Age religion by comparing findings, by analysing the way they were buried and the area they were buried in, by comparing pieces from different museums and trying to find common patterns... A very informative and mesmerising conference!

SATURDAY 23 MAY, afternoon, Harreksaga

This was actually but an episode from the Harreksaga, a series of interconnected adventures inspired by Harrek's saga in Glorantha. This was started by Lawrence Whitaker a few years ago, and has then been continued by Hervé Carteau. The present episode was set in Tarahorn and in the Inland Sea against the evil Kareeshtan empire. The emotional high point of the adventure was at the Oenriko Rocks, where the Vadeli and the Kareeshtan had fought a naval battle 30 years ago. The bottom of the archipelago there is full of dead drowned sailors.  At the top of the largest rock, a coven of 17 Kareeshtan socerers were enacting a necromantic ritual... We plunged underwater and ended up fighting 17 Kareeshtan liches who were protecting the underwater cemetery whence the undead sailors were about to be summoned!

Harrek couldn't resist the Vingan's sword dance

While we were playing our game, we could get glimpses of an ongoing Asterix freeform mostly aimed at kids.

der berühmte Pittelix

und der berühmte Philippix — picture by Heini

SATURDAY 23 MAY, evening, Pendragon

After all these years attending the Eternal Con, I played in my very first game of Pendragon, which was set... in a castle above the Rhine! It was a quite mysterious adventure with its faire share of false leads. Kudos to Louis Kolkman for keeping a straight face whilst we spurted out the craziest theories for the strange behaviour of the Baron. Siegfried and Etzel were also in. As one of the players said, "A Pendragon dungeon crawl?!"

SUNDAY 24 MAY, morning, Trollball

The traditional Trollball game. It was VERY wet, even at some distance from the field.

the trollkin — picture by Heini

the dreaded two-headed trolless — picture by Fischl

SUNDAY 24 MAY, 14:00, The Mystic Wood

Watched as some friends were playing the Mystic Wood (1980). Nice little exploration game.

SUNDAY 24 MAY, 15:00, Into the Gloranthan Odd

Yours truly GM'ed Into the Gloranthan Odd.

advertising the games

This was the blurb that I had posted to advertise my game:

The Guide to Glorantha says: "The [evil ruins of the Machine City] sit atop a high cliff by the sea, and no matter what the tide may be, there are waves which still reach hungrily up the cliff face far above the sea level, aching to destroy once again. The trolls left a cursing shadow which slowly rolls over the ground, even at full noon. The dwarves left fiendish traps for the overly curious. Now, even approach to the site is forbidden by the local rulers."

Somehow your party has managed to pass through the local guards and to avoid the Mostali traps. You start your descent into the mysterious ruins of the God Learner city...

Into the Gloranthan Odd is my Gloranthicised version of Odd Dungeons by Éric Nieudan, which itself is a hack to render more mediaeval the very, er, odd late modern role-playing game Into the Odd by Chris McDowall.

into the odd gaming room

SUNDAY 24 MAY, late afternoon, Nations the Dice Game

A super fast "build your own civilisation" game. Perfect as a filler.

Third Age, but not in Glorantha

SUNDAY 24 MAY, 20:00, Gloranthan Q&A

Gods' War well underway, Kickstarter later this year. Now working on the miniatures that go with the boardgame. 3D is a big challenge, compared with 2D.
Realised there was no "in-Gloranthan" depiction of Gloranthan gods.
The 'illumination' picture in HeroQuest Glorantha is one of Moon Design's first conscious attempts.

New, improved prosopaedia. The draft is being used a lot internally as source material. This will be the basis for Gods of Glorantha.
Lots of new gods, esp. in Fonrit. (Followed by a lengthy discussion about Chaos in Pamaltela, and how everybody's used it, the Fonritians, the Artmali, the Vadeli). Followed by a short history of the Artmali and their fleets (used Mastakos' powers).

Q: difference between sorcery and veneration?
A: Sorcery uses the laws of the universe to bend reality.
Veneration is simply when you recognise the importance of ascended masters.

Q: differences between Genertelan & Pamaltelan shamanism?
A: Not many. Pamaltelan shamans may be stronger but that's mostly for historical or demographical reasons.

Side remark: ancestor worship is actually probably the most prevalent worship in Genertela. It's just not mentioned much in the rule books because they are... gaming books, and not anthropological treatises about a make believe place!
By the way ancestor worship would be better represented by the Man rune than by the Spirit rune.

Q: how many [core] runes are there?
A: around 30 to 40
Minor runes (e.g. the Yinkin rune) are not really "runes" as classified by the God Learners.

SUNDAY 24 MAY, 21:30, Grand Closing Ceremony

So sad. Too sad. See you next year, everyone!

Farewell — picture by Heini

SUNDAY 24 MAY, 23:00, Singalong

Uh oh. This was definitely not like the one at the Kraken last year. Too many people, some of them quite besoffen. Ah, well.

TradeTalk - Comprehensive Index

TradeTalk was a (now apparently defunct) dead tree Gloranthan magazine published by the RuneQuest Gesellschaft eV.
I have skimmed through my collection of TradeTalk magazines just before leaving for the Eternal Con, and I was so impressed I decided to publish a comprehensive index to the 17 issues of this German contribution to Gloranthan fandom.

BACKGROUND

A Lunar Patrol: The Silver Shields - TT09
The Closing - TT04
Fencing Schools [of Ralios] - TT02
Flintnail's "One Day House" - TT09
Hurrlanth, the Storm Lion - TT11
Legends of Genert - TT09
Legends of the Arstola - TT10
Legends of the Embyli - TT14
Legends of the Tarinwood - TT11
Legends of the Westwood - TT07
Legends of the Winterwood - TT15
The Lore Guards [of New Pavis] - TT09
Mraloti Characters - TT10
Orlanth's Ring - TT01
The Otter Clan [in Delela] - TT03
The Pharaoh - TT05
Sinful Amazon Practices - TT13
The Twelve Birds' festival [of the Rightarm Islands] - TT04

CREATURES/CULTURES

Aulorings - TT15
Beastmen - TT07
Broos! - TT01
The Broos of the New Fens - TT11
Deadly Denizens of the Big Rubble - TT09
Elurae, the Foxwomen of Dragon Pass - TT07
The Elves of the Stinking Forest - TT07
The Esvulari - TT12
The Harandings - TT11
Hsunchen - TT03
How Dog and Wolf Became Enemies - TT07
The Mraloti - TT10
Newtlings - T11
The Pralori Hunters of the New Fens - TT11
Slarges - TT13
Spears of the Telmori - TT07
Spirits of Glorantha - TT01
The Vadeli - TT13
Vuskarasa - TT07
The Wolfbrothers' Bond - TT07
The Zebra Tribe - TT09

CULTS/GODS

A First Age Galanini Myth Cycle - TT03
The Boristi Church - TT02
The Church of Handra - TT11
The Guild of Chaos Monks - TT02
Elandra - TT11
Gods of Laskal - TT14
Jalmar Ironsword, Lieutenant of Arkat - TT09
Lanbril - TT06
Mralot, the Boar Spirit - TT10
The New Stygian Church of Naskorion - TT03
[Rightarm] Island Spirits - TT04
Roleplaying Gods, Cults and Religions in Glorantha - TT01
Thief Cults of Kethaela and Kerofinela - TT06
Uleria - TT16
Vinga the Adventuress - TT05
Vinga: the Pavis Temple - TT08
Wenel - TT10
Yelorna Temple in Pavis - TT17

GAMING AIDS

Alchemy Rules for RuneQuest - TT06
Gloranthan Calendar - TT01
Ritual Magic - TT08, TT10

GLORANTHAN GAZETTEER

Caladraland - TT05
Caratan - TT15
The East Wilds - TT03
Errinoru Jungle - TT14
Felster Lake - TT02
Handra and the New Fens - TT11
The Holy Country - TT04, TT05
The Isle of Giraine (Seshnela) - TT15
Istakax - TT06
Jruztela - TT13
Kareeshtu - TT14
Kingdom of Night - TT04, TT05, TT06
Korola Islands - TT13
Kumanku - TT14
Kustria - TT02
Laskal - TT14
Loral - TT13
The Marthino Sea - TT14
Naskorion - TT03
Nochet - TT04
Pavis - TT08
Ramalia - TT10
Rightarm Islands - TT04
Rivers of Maniria - TT10
Slontos - TT10
The South Coast of Genertela - TT10
Tiskos - TT02
The Tower of Xud - TT06
Trowjang - TT13
Umathela - TT14
The Upland Marsh - TT07
The Vale of Flowers - TT17
The Wasp Nest of Dragon Pass - TT07
Wenelia - TT10
Zoria - TT15

HERO BANDS/NPCs

Characters of Love - TT16
The Dark Doom - TT12
The Gardeners of Pavis - TT09
The House of Black Arkat - TT12
The Live-Life League - TT16
Love Communes - TT16
The Path of the Damned - TT16
Rush's Bachelors - TT16
The Sun Seekers - TT16
The Uz Mercantile Association - TT09
Walkers of the Straight Path - TT16
Waves in the Wind - TT17
Zorgur Belk - TT16

HEROQUESTS

Joraz Kyrem Gains an Ally - TT09
Unicorn Quest - TT17

SCENARIOS

The Aldryami Planting Song (an adventure set in Pavis) - TT09
All Quiet on the eastern Front (an adventure set in Eastern Sartar) - TT01
The Abduction (an adventure set in Western Sartar) - TT01
Bad Omens and Bangles (an Auloring scenario) - TT15
The Beast of Gren Dahl Moor (an adventure set in the Barbarian Belt) - TT01
Black Wave Channel (a Jruztelan adventure) - TT13
Caldvale Manor (an Esvulari setting) - TT12
Crimson Shadows Over Prax (an adventure set in Prax) - TT07
Don't Lose Your Head (a campaign in the style of Shadows on the Borderland) - TT17
Dry Hard (an adventure set in Northern Heortland) - TT12
The Ever-Burning Torches (a scenario in the style of Strangers in Prax) - TT17
Growing Pains (a mini-campaign in the East Wilds) - TT03
Krang's Table (an adventure set in Pavis) - TT07
Into the Dragonland (an adventure set in Dragon Pass) - TT07
The Three Blind Rubble Runners (an Eurmali shrine encounter) - TT16
Three Flowers (an adventure set in a Heortling village) - TT05

MISCELLANEOUS

The Money Chase - TT03

Note: Fiction and non-Gloranthan articles are not listed.

Gloranthan Podcasts Galore

I usually do not blog about podcasts. Not that I don't like them; on the contrary; when the recording has been done properly and the sound is nice, I really enjoy them. It's also nice to discover the real voice of the authors of our industry/hobby. It's simply that I usually don't have the time to listen to a whole podcast episode in a single session, and I hate it when I have to find at what exact point I had interrupted it. However, since I am on holidays, I have the luxury to listen to podcasts — and to blog about them.

1) The Iconic Podcast is a podcast that is normally 100% devoted to 13th Age. Now, because of the upcoming 13th Age in Glorantha product, they have recently made available a 'Gloranthan special' podcast. At almost 50 minutes, it is longer than usual and just chock-full of interesting information for us Gloranthan fans, especially since there haven't been any Gloranthan panels at cons for a long time (but fear not, the con season is about to start, and your faithful sleuth will be investigating about the next releases).

Anyway, episode B17 of The Iconic Podcast has all the latest information about Moon Design's projects, upcoming Gloranthan products by other publishers, and even insight about future episodes of the Prince of Sartar web-comic.

2) Moon Design have started their very own podcast. It's called Tales of Mythic Adventure, and it is available for free on iTunes. Episode 1 is already available. Here are the topics tackled:

 - Presentation of MOB and of what he's done in the past (most famously Sun County, and also the 'MGF' (Maximum Game Fun) fast-play rules, which had been published in a fanzine, and which are apparently going to be re-released later this year)
 - Killing eastern grey kangaroos in the state of Victoria
 - Presentation of Jeff and of Moon Design
 - Reminiscences about Tales of the Reaching Moon and Herschell Gordon Lewis' films
 - Upcoming projects/products:
    - Apparently the White Bear Red Moon board game will see a reprint
    - The Gods' War (Sandy's new board game, which yours truly playtested last year) should be Kickstarted this year
 - 'Crunch' getting in the way of GM'ing

All in all, this podcast is, er, quite erratic in its conduction and a good glimpse into what convention panels feel like :-)

HeroQuest 2 Auf Deutsch

After the news back in February that RuneQuest 6 would be available in German, your favourite blog can now reveal that HeroQuest 2 will also be available in Hochdeutsch, and probably even earlier than RQ6, since its publisher, Humakt e.V., has mentioned that printed copies of the book would be available at the next Eternal Con. The book comes with a beautiful front picture by my friend Éric Vanel.

The contents of the tome should be a translation of HQ2, with some additional/updated information with regards to sorcery. If you want to pre-order the book, simply send an e-mail to info [at] humakt [dot] com.

More information here.

The Hanging Garden, Issue No.2

Howdy dear readers. The second issue of The Hanging Garden is available. I wanted to make this issue available to you one week ago but Real Life struck.

As with last issue, the idea is to have a text-heavy 'zine to read on the commute, hence the literary parts (including the English-language translation of an award-winning Italian short story).

And again, as in last issue, I have tried to keep a good balance between already-published (but maybe overlooked) material, and new stuff.

Anyway, here are the main features from issue No.2 of The Hanging Garden:

• D100 Towers, by kONSUMTERRA
• Formosus, the Lich Who Ruled Rome, by Cronista
• The Distance Between Eternities, fiction by Massimiliano Malerba
• Qelong, a review by the RPGPundit
• The Itako (or Blind Medium), by yours truly
• a scenario for LotFP, by yours truly
• Uprising at the Buzzard's Gulch Monster Rez, the second instalment of the Monsters! Monsters! campaign log by Thessaly Chance

Enjoy!

HeroQuest Glorantha

The much-awaited new edition of HeroQuest, specifically tailored for Gloranthan play, is available for pre-orders at USD39.95. As soon as you've placed your pre-order, you can download the PDF.

Here's what Moon Design have communicated on the Gloranthan G+ community about HeroQuest Glorantha:

HeroQuest Glorantha is a stand-alone rules system that lets you run games set in Glorantha WITH NOTHING ELSE REQUIRED! It lets you create Esrolian, Praxian, and Tarshite characters, as well as Sartarites. It is updated for the 1627 setting. It has far far clearer rules than HQ2. It gives a lot more explanation into the nature of Gloranthan magic so you can run HQG games more easily. It not only updates cults that have appeared before, but includes cults that have not (such as Waha). Lots more material on running hero quests (including a breakdown of Eringulf's hero quest to get the Vanak Spear). ILLUMINATION. Did I mention that? Information on Gloranthan monsters. Plus a self-contained starter adventure that could take place anywhere in the Dragon Pass/Prax/Holy Country area and includes a pretty major hero quest right off the bat?
How's that for starters? Plus lots of snippets of information to make it easier to take the Guide or King of Sartar and start running HQG adventures.

Can't wait to get mine, but it's actually much more because of the amazing art than because of the rules themselves as I am only a HeroQuest player in Glorantha; I do not GM using the HQ rules.

The Stafford Codex

Greg Stafford, the father of the fantasy world of Glorantha, of the Pendragon role-playing game, of the Prince Valiant role-playing game, of the D6 System, and of mucho more rpg-related goodness, is probably the most influential rpg designer alive now that Gary Gygax is dead.

Well, as is his wont, Greg forgot to renew the url of his previous web-site (or something like that), so he had to start everything all over again, and he now has a brand new personal web-site called The Stafford Codex.

The site also has a short ‘links’ section and, believe it or not, Timinits & Trolls is amongst the few sites and blogs that are listed. Man, am I elated.

Revamped Perrin Conventions

To me, Steve Perrin is the most important rpg designer, ever. Since the very beginning, he has epitomised what I like in a role-playing game: an old-school feel, but with more unified, more logical mechanisms than D&D. To me, his maiden oeuvre, the original Chaosium version of RuneQuest (1978), is simply perfect, and has remained my favourite rpg to this day.

As you may know, the origins of RuneQuest lie with the Perrin Conventions, a set of xeroxed sheets of paper that were passed on from avid gamer to avid gamer in the Bay Area and then all over the US which "improved" the original D&D combat rules with a more streamlined approach to them. The Perrin Conventions are available here, but they are the later version that appeared in Chaosium's All The World Monsters vol.2, not the original ones from the xeroxed copies. There were many differences between the original xeroxed version and the one that ended up being published within All The World's Monstes vol.2: the latter concentrated on the combat rules, whereas the former had a lot of magic rules and other stuff.

Anyway, there's been talk round the internet that the complete Perrin Conventions would soon be republished, possibly in a revamped form. This new publication would be as a digest-sized illustrated game rule book. Unfortunately, no ETA at the moment.

All I can reveal is that Steve Perrin is currently working on the "new" Perrin Conventions, which will be heavily annotated and include details on the campaigns they were used in, including the campaign world he has been running under a dozen different systems since Steve first started role playing in 1974. Huzzah!

RuneQuest 6 in italiano

After the unsuccessful crowdfunding campaign of last year's summer (very bad timing for a crowdfunding campaign in Italy.... everybody's at the beach), Alephtar Games is back with an Italian version of RuneQuest 6. No more crowdfunding-related shenanigans; this time, the product has been translated and is about to be made available; actually part of it is already available, see below, and the fully-fledged product will be available on 11 April 2015.

Player's Manual

Alephtar Games is going to release the game in three books. I guess the idea is to have players only spend money for the Player's Manual whereas the referee buys all three books. Moreover, the PDF version of the Player's Manual is currently pay-what-you-want (i.e., free if you're stingy) from this site. Hopefully, this will make RQ6 popular in Italy.

Anyway, here's a partial English translation of the announcement available on Alephtar Games' web-site:

Alephtar Games is happy to publish the 6th edition of RuneQuest in Italian.

To increase the convenience of the game, especially for newcomers, the A4 450-page English-language book has been repurposed as three convenient A5 appr. 200-page booklets: Player's Manual, Magic Manual, Game Master's Manual. Each manual will cost €19.90 if bought separately. However, the full bundle will only cost €49.90, just like the English version of RQ6. The manuals will also be available in electronic format, with a layout specifically designed for screen and tablet perusal.

The PDF version of the Player's Manual is currently available as “pay-what-you-want”. The dead tree manuals will be available at the next Modena Play! convention (11-12 April 2015), during which a RuneQuest 6 tournament will also take place, organised by La Stanza dei Sogni.

But, wait!, there's more. The advance sale of three manuals has already started at the incredible price of €39.99. This offer ends 31 March.