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).

RuneQuest 6 Previews

Loz knows we're mad at him for being late on RQ6, and so he's trying to appease us through these previews... But no sir, it won't work! We want the real McCoy!
[just joking, Loz... keep honing the game to perfection...]

I especially like the Magic preview; it gives me the impression that Magic in RQ6 will be heavy in tone and cultural immersion rather than in game mechanics (the older I get, the more bare game mechanics bore me).

An Interview with the Trollgod

Grognardia features a lengthy interview with the Trollgod himself. Always an interesting reading.

Of particular interest is the fact that Ken has always been first and foremost a fan of the swords & sorcery genre — no wonder then that my system of choice for swords & sorcery role-playing has always been T&T: HeroQuest is great for Campbellian explorations in mythology; RuneQuest for gritty adventuring, the Basic Role-Playing System for historical immersion, but when it comes to one vs many the pleasure of having lots of 6s showing up on the gaming table is hard to match :)

The interview is also interesting for yet more insight about the early days of our hobby and its giants: Greg Stafford, Steve Perrin, and Rudy Kraft.

A Malki Monastery in the Wilderness

The Monastery of Lofty Exploration was founded in the early days of Malki Umathela by the Order of Otherworld Exploration. At its peak, it housed hundreds of Malki monks tasked with exploring the Otherside, especially with regards to Olodo and Umathing myth pillaging.

After the big purge of Malkioneran orders in the past century, the monastery fell in disuse. Paradoxically enough, it has been revived after the breakup of the Umathelan Coalition, more as a place for retiring God Learners than anything else. Although it only numbers tens rather than hundreds of monks nowadays, the monastery is quite rich because of the donations it receives from wealthy Malki families. Rather than exploring the Otherside, the monks today are involved in the very mundane task of brokering Byzantine alliances between the powerful Malki families who are constantly struggling to gain the upper hand in the feudal anarchy of western Umathela.

The monastery is perched high atop the cliffs of the Tarmo Mountains and is only accessible through a rudimentary lift. This enables the monks to control who is present within the monastery at all times, and explains why the monastery is so sought after a place for organising secret meetings, in spite of its location deep in hostile wilderness.

The Monastery as seen from the north

A Malki Fort in the Wilderness

Despite the demise of the Middle Sea Empire, the Malki cities of the Umathelan Coalition try to retain their grip on the land. Whilst this is quite true in eastern Umathela (Cerngoth is firmly under Malki rule), western Umathela is mostly in a state of feudal anarchy where each Malki city controls but a tiny stretch of arable land in its vicinity. Varanswal, as both the largest and the most landlocked Malki city in western Umathela, still retains delusions of grandeur and devotes much income and manpower to try and maintain control over what it perceives as its rightful fief.

Above: a Varanswal fort located in the upper course of the River Quarni.

(art stolen from A Wizard in a bottle)

RQ6 News

From Loz:

Thought I'd share with you a little of where RQ6 is at.

First, several chapters are now in layout. Some artwork is still to come in, but the design and structure of the book is taking shape. Others chapters are still being edited, and the final chapters are in the hands of the playtest crews, but we're nearing the home straight.

What this means, in terms of publication, is clearly not the 'Early 2012' we'd promised. Real Life intervened for both Pete and I which slowed some things down. What we're now looking at is 'Early Summer' - and the vague goal I've set is for RQ6 to be available, in print, for GenCon (which I'll be attending), if not a little before. So we're still shying away from specifying a particular release date, because a whole mountain of things could happen to cause it to slip: but I am hoping that June/July is reasonable. It should be. A great deal of work is being done and we want to make the best book possible, which will mean detailed proofing and final error-trapping before I send finals off to the printers.

We will open pre-ordering before publication. Once the book is fully laid-out we'll know its complete size, and can therefore price it accurately. How pre-ordering will work is dependent on a few background factors, one of which is how well the e-commerce facilities from our Site Provider work. They have new tools that I've yet to test, and it could be that we plug into Moon Design's e-commerce facilities instead. But rest assured you'll be able to order RQ6 from us, in advance, using a variety of payment methods.

So we're chugging along nicely. I know its frustrating waiting for is to say 'Guys, it'll be out on X of N, send us yer money...' but it will be worth the wait. We said from the start that we wanted to deliver the most complete and best edition of RQ that we can, and we're sticking to that goal.

But we do appreciate your patience and are looking forward to rewarding it. We will post some layout previews soon.

Loz is scheduled to attend the Eternal Con at the end of May. I'll try to get you more news!

Art for Umathela (3)

Ivan Bilibin (Иван Яковлевич Билибин) is yet another Russian artist whose works have fascinated me for a very long time, actually since high schol. Here are a few inspiring pictures:

Nontraya

A Malki Knight and a Brown Elf

A Fonritan Visitor

Art for Umathela (2)

I have already mentioned that I feel myself greatly inspired by (faux) Slavic mythological paintings for my Umathelan campaign.

Viktor Vasnetsov (Виктор Михайлович Васнецов) was a brilliant Russian painter who specialised in mythological subjects. Here are a few paintings, along with my own Gloranthised comments.

A Malki Knight at a Crossroads

Nontraya wooing Ernamola

Riding through the Elf Forest

Zistorite on Horseclaw

My Glorantha Varies — but then Greg said it was OK.

Races and Creatures of Umathela

Some of the many races and creatures of Umathela have already been mentioned on this blog:

• Iqari
• Lascerdans
• Plant-Men (Dryads, True Elves, Black Elves [Voralans], and Red Elves [Slorifings])

Other sentient races:

• Dwarfs. Umathelan Dwarfs are vegetarian.
• Grey Giants.
• Timinits (several sub-species); they are allied with the Westerners.
• Trolls (Dark Trolls and Trollkin) in the Tarmo Mountains. Hot Trolls do not live in Umathela but further south in the jungles.

Animals:

• Boars and hogs; both domestic and wild. And sheep. Swine and sheep are almost the only domesticated meat animals of Umathela. Fowl/poultry are uncommon; cattle non-existent.
• Horses are not native to Pamaltela and hence extremely rare. Only Westerners own horses, which are exclusively used as mounts, and never as beasts of burden.
• The Middle Sea Empire tried to introduce mules, but for some reason they all died out in Pamaltela.
• Draught animals: the standard Umathelan draught animal is the giant hog used to haul carts. In other parts of Pamaltela, wagons are simply dragged by teams of men.
• Although Theyalan in origin, Umathings do not keep alynxes as companions but dogs (that are similar to  the Catahoula cur).
• Wolves of various sizes and types. Large wolves may be used as mounts by some monsters.
• It is rumoured that the Zistorites have managed to domesticate large flightless birds called horseclaws, which they mount much in the same fashion as the Dragonewts mount the (larger) demi-birds.

Monsters:

• Giant arthropods.
• Giant insects. Trolls raise and breed all kinds of giant insects.
• Undead.

From the Gloranthan Bestiary:

• Charnjibber; a highly chaotic predator whose size and shape are constantly changing. Greatly feared throughout Pamaltela.
• Gargoyle; lives in the mountains.
• Grue (large chaotic monster; bipedal, huge deformed head; their blood is corrosive); lives in eastern Umathela near rivers
• Mountain Trolls (low intelligence)
• Sabre-toothed Cat
• Skybull
• Succubus
• Titanothere

Mottled Condies

From Trotsky's site:

Animals

• Vangono's Horror (a kind of larger hyaenodon created by Vangono, the Pamaltelan God of War)
• Uintal (the only pachyderm living in cool Umathela)
• Mottled Condy (the most common herd animal of Umathela)
• Manatee (in the Dashomo and Jorkar Seas)
• the Umathelan crocodile, small and swift
• Pteranodon
• Green Mamba, deadly venomous tree snake

Monsters

• Fright (a degenerate, trollish ape-like creature).
• Hoon (again, a degenerate, trollish bat-like large monster); lives in the mountains.
• Shadowstalker (darkness-related, wiry ape-like creature with a long neck); lives in forests.
• Watchwere (hulking ape-like chaotic horror); have the ability to see through any object as if it were transparent.

T&T: New French-Language Edition - More Impressions

(still reading T&T 8th ed)

There is a large section devoted to advice for the GM, and another large section that explains when to award experience points, and in what amount.

This latter section is really detailed and provides many many examples. I believe it should be really useful for anybody using the rules as written — which is not my case: I tend to award a set amount of experience points at the end of each session so that the players can improve their PCs by the time the next gaming session starts.

T&T: New French-Language Edition - First Impressions

OK, after having perused the new French-language edition of Tunnels & Trolls, I must agree that calling it "8th edition" is somewhat of an exaggeration. What Patrice Geille has done beyond translating the rules is mostly re-organising them in a more logical, structured way (7th ed was such a mess!).

Combat is the part that has received the most in-depth treatment, and indeed I can see a rule that I don't remember having seen in other editions (but then I'm not a big T&T expert): any damage inflicted through spells and/or missile weapons at the beginning of an encounter is added to the rolled damage total of the first round of combat, which is actually tantamount of keeping track of said damage twice. Now the rules say this is to reflect the 'shock' value of that damage; however, I don't think I'll apply that rule.

There is also quite an extensive part dedicated to poisons and their various effects, which I don't recall having already noticed in previous incarnations of the rules (possibly as an extra in the 30th anniversary CD).

More in future posts as I continue reading the rules and writing down small notes.

Voralans in Timinits & Trolls

The following is almost a direct rip-off of Scott's Mushroom People but hey, Scott said it was OK :)

Pamaltela is notorious for its dangerous forests and its death-filled jungles. Many delvers have tried to explore them, few have ever returned, and usually to die a horrible death as plants would burst out of their ears and eyes.
Unbeknownst to most adventurers, deciduous trees and evergreens are not the only perilous plants in Pamaltela — there are fungi of all sizes too! And just like True Elves are basically sentient trees, Voralans are sentient fungi.

Although smaller than True Elves and misshapen, and despite their being loth to combat, Voralans can be just as dangerous opponents as True Elves because of their mastery of noxious spore-based attacks. Whether these attacks are "biological", as claimed by the God Learners, or magical, as assumed by sane people, is beyond our knowledge. Whatever the truth, these spore attacks are destructive and unpredictable.

Voralans
STR×1, CON×0.75, INT×1, POW×3, DEX×1, CHR×1.5, KNW×0.75, PER×1.5, SPD×1, LK×1.5

Average SIZ: 1.35m

Special Rules:

• Voralans thrive in the night, so during the day (between dawn and dusk) any SR level is increased by 1.
• While Voralans are able to use any kind of spell, they are forbidden by their culture to use anything other than metabolic magic, which costs 1 fewer POW per spell level than in the spellbook. Other magic types cost an extra 2 POW per spell level.
• Voralans are able to take an hour of uninterrupted meditation to heal 1D6 CON on themselves or one other person.
• Voralans may not wear helmets. They simply won't fit over their mushroom head.

T&T: New French-Language Edition Available (cont'd)

T&T 8th ed. is at last in my grubby hands! I've only had time to quickly skim through the book. It has 137 pages, a very clear lay-out, numbered paragraphs, and a real character sheet. And of course new illustrations by Liz Danforth on top of the classic ones. What it is still lacking is an index.

T&T: New French-Language Edition Available

T&T 8th edition (in French!) is available on Lulu at last, apparently in dead tree only, for £17.21. More on this much-expected product as soon as I can lay my grubby hands on it.

Here's the blurb of the French edition of T&T:

Tunnels & Trolls 8e édition
La présente édition française du livre de règles pour le jeu de rôle Tunnels & Trolls est basée sur la 7e édition de langue anglaise. Toutefois, certaines lacunes et incohérences de la version originale ont été corrigées après consultation de l'auteur, Ken St André. De plus, nous avons ajouté certains passages de la 5e édition du jeu qui nous ont semblé utiles, voire indispensables. Cerise sur le gâteau : l'édition française comporte de nouvelles illustrations de la mythique Liz Danforth...

And here's the foreword, by Ken St André himself:

Plant-Men

As implied by their name, Plant-Men are sentient plant beings. While some may appear to be of very human-looking appearance, most feature completely vegetable traits. Some may have leaves or vines for hair, or a greenish hue to their skin, others are covered in bark or have non-animal twists to their limbs. Their eyes have neither white nor pupil. This latter trait renders their gaze particularly alien and unsettling to other humanoids. Cool sap circulates through the body of a Plant-Man, not warm blood. Plant-Man religion is likewise alien to other sentient races; Plant-Men hold animistic beliefs yet a number of named deities are known to outsiders. This is has proved extremely puzzling to the ever-cataloguing God Learners.

Plant-Men are called Wort-Men by the Umathings, and Elves by the Westerners with a further, finer distinction based on colour, as there are several types of Plant-Men. Three of these sub-species (brown, green, and yellow) are called True Elves by the Westerners. Plant-Men obviously do not use these exonyms but refer to themselves with a variety of different endonyms that depend on their plant association (see names in green below).
Plant-men have almost disappeared from Umathela proper, but are quite numerous in the forested lands around it.

Embyli by Dario Corallo

As mentioned above, Plant-Men come in an array of forms and sexes:

Dryads
Dryads are the female Nymphs of the woods, and are far more magical than other Plant-Men. Each Dryad is the protective spirit of a given grove of trees, which she may control under certain circumstances. The role of Dryads in the reproductive cycle of Plant-Men is often of paramount importance.

• Green Elves don't rely on them for reproduction, as they have their own females. When a Green Elf mates with a Dryad, no offspring results.
• Brown elves sometimes rely on them, sometimes not.
• Yellow Elves completely rely on them as they are all males.

Pregnant Dryads give birth to a large seed, not to a living being. The seed is planted, and it grows into a shrub. After two years, the shrub bears a fruit, which contains the child.

Brown Elves [Mreli]
They are associated with deciduous forests, and with trees such as aspen, birch, and oak.
They hibernate in the Dark Season, looking for a hollow tree or a comfortable hole in the ground in which to remain comatose until the Storm Season.
Brown Elves are both male and female, and also interbreed with Dryads, who hold important positions in brown elf society.

Yellow Elves [Embyli]
They are associated with rainforests, jungle evergreens, and palm groves.
They are wholly male and breed with Dryads for procreation.
They are quite aggressive vis-à-vis humans, especially Westerners. In Pamaltela, Embyli are organised in Dryad-ruled queendoms that resist the encroaching human civilisation. These bellicose Yellow Elves are particularly present in the lands to the east of Umathela, where they have fought many deadly wars against the Middle Sea Empire.

Green Elves [Vronkali]
Of the three races of true elves, the Green Elves are the most human-like, having for instance a similar sleeping pattern to the humans', and living in village-like communities with males and females. Vronkali are taller and stronger than any of the other Plant-Man species.
They are associated with coniferous forests, with trees such as fir, pine, and spruce.

Black Elves or Voralans
Hermaphrodite, diminutive squat humanoids with grey skin, and swollen limbs or heads, who inhabit the rare toadstool forests. They are shy, keep to themselves, and avoid combat. However, they can be formidable opponents because of their strange spore-based biological weapons to which they are immune.

Red Elves
Also called called Slorifings by the Umathings, and Goblins by the Westerners. They are small and stunted Plant-Men who inhabit the great swamps to the west and to the south-west of Umathela, thus far from human civilisation. They are associated with ferns and mosses rather than with trees.
Goblins are known to eat humans and to obey a cruel Sorceress Queen. All Slorifings are male, and need diminutive vile-looking Dryads called Olarians to mate.

The Lascerdans

The Lascerdans are a mysterious race of sentient reptiles from the ancient past of Glorantha. As with most little-known elder races, information about Lascerdans is scant.

What little information I have managed to scavenge is as follows. Lascerdans inhabited Umathela before and in the Dawn Age, when they were exterminated by the elves of Pamaltela. Lascerdans descended from the pel-mre of the distant, mythical past of Pamaltela, reptilian life created by Pamalt and Balumbasta. That would have made them distant relatives of the Slarges.

Physically, Lascerdans looked like muscular lizard-men with a gaping mouth. One description mentions their having the head of a basiliscus. Although Pamaltelan humans remember them as coming "from the mountains", Lascerdans were at least semi-aquatic, preferring river-bottoms and swamps.

The Lascerdans dammed the rivers to make shallow lakes and swamps, which destroyed forest land, though it did create some mangrove forests. However, the elves of the woods at the time were mostly green elves, and could not survive in mangroves.
The Lascerdans farmed and fed on pens of freshwater manatees (and probably other aquatic livestock), and their infamous slash-and-burn practices were not true slash-and-burn. Rather, the Lascerdans chopped out huge tracts of forest, burnt the wood, and hauled the greenage back to the rivers to use as cheap and fast manatee fodder. They recognised that they got more useful fodder from cleared areas than from the huge tree-covered portions, so they became tree-enemies. That might explain why the elves fought a genocidal war against them. The last Lascerdans were exterminated along the Palau River in 475

It is believed that the Lascerdans worshipped a fire god (a volcano god like the Olodo?), the Mother of Manatees (a herd goddess), and, more importantly, the River Gods of Umathela. They left some mysterious ruins in the forests of Umathela, called Lascerdan Stones.

Canonical sources mention the Lascerdans as being 'extinct' in Second Age Pamaltela but, hey!, my Gloratha varies...

The Iqari

The Iqari are mentioned, en passant, in The Abiding Book, a Mongoose supplement for MRQII. They are not really part of the Gloranthan canon, as they are a race originally developed for Gwenthia and added to Second Age Glorantha by Pete and Loz, who are involved as developers in both gaming worlds. The following has been communicated by Loz:

Back when Pete was working on the Mongoose Races books he asked Greg if there were any rules about creating new sapient races and Greg said, I believe, that Pete could invent new ones if he wanted to.

They were originally created for our Gwenthia book and are a particular favourite of ours, so we threw them into a few places.

They're part human, part raptor. Quite ferocious, but also with a developed civilisation.

According to The Abiding Book, Iqari are found in the upper peaks of Jrustela, and as an allied colony in the God Learner city of Arstranwal, which has been built in the high crags overlooking the Umathelan plain. There is little more information about the Iqari in the Mongoose supplements, so I shall copy the description found on the Gwenthia wiki:

With human bodies and the head and wings of an eagle, Iqari are formidable hunters, possessing the keen sight and instincts of raptors, and the strength and size of humans.

Iqari are social amongst their own kind, but are antagonistic towards most other species, and any who venture too close to their mountain colonies. Certainly they are intelligent, with tool-making and building skills. No one has yet been able to venture successfully into the mountainous reaches they inhabit to view first-hand what kind of settlements they occupy, but the common view is of great collections of nest-like structures that form crude versions of cities, high in the mountain peaks.

Iqari can fly far and wide, but seem to prefer the areas around their home mountains. Iqari hunting flocks regularly attack the settlements clustered in the fertile lower reaches of the hills and mountains, taking livestock and the occasional human victim - either as prey or simply for the joy of the kill.

Iqari communicate through a complex series of beak-clicks, sqwawks, feather-ruffles, head-tilts and hand signals. Some have noted that they can understand certain languages but lack the ability to speak them. As yet, negotiation with Iqari has been futile: they are unwilling to communicate openly or offer any respite from their attacks.

As well as their natural hunting abilities, Iqari employ long, barbed spears when hunting or attacking. These two-metre long weapons are dreadful in use, being either hurled from on-high or used as lances in the feared Iqari death-plunge.

Edit: The Iqari have both arms and wings, so the picture above does not correspond to how they actually look like.