THE KRAKEN 2018 Report

the Schloss! Ⓖ

Here is my traditional post-Kraken report. As written on its web-site, The Kraken is an annual ‘gathering of international gamers, game masters and game creators to play, develop and test fine quality games’, organised by the über-efficient Fabian Küchler and his small team of volunteers. This year The Kraken was held between 19 and 22 October, as always at the incredibly isolated Schloss Neuhausen, which is in the least populated area of all Germany. One of the first conventiongoers described driving to the Schloss like the opening of a horror movie: “Every fibre in you tells you to turn around and drive back but you keep on going not knowing why.” That sums it up pretty well.

Anyway, apparently Fabi likes my inept write-ups, and he has requested a particularly detailed one for this year, so please bear with me as I shall start from the very beginning.

THURSDAY 18 OCTOBER, late afternoon

We (my daughter and I) jump into the car right after work and off I drive northwards. Travelling to The Kraken with my daughter means the car’s audio system is playing Baroque music, rap, System of a Down, and the Jesus and Mary Chain. Can’t really complain.
We now stop every year at the same place: a super cheap roadside hotel at the border between Belgium and Germany. The place is ugly and not particularly comfortable but it’s close to the motorway and to a very good patisserie – always a good place to start your day.

FRIDAY 19 OCTOBER

After an early wake-up and some excellent custard pastries and an OK espresso, we’re soon on the autobahn, in the vain hope of getting to the Schloss for lunch (ha ha). Well, even though it’s a mere 600km from the hotel to the Schloss, we only got there at about 5 pm because of the bloody Baustellen. Heed my advice, dear readers: don’t drive to the Schloss— fly! and take advantage of the shuttle bus between the Berlin airports and the Schloss. Alternatively, you can take the train to Karstädt; it’s only 12km from the Schloss, and someone will come and pick you up.

FRIDAY 19 OCTOBER, late afternoon

Anyway, once at the Schloss we immediately feel both welcome and at home. We greet our friends and start cutting the elements (counters, cards…) of a boardgame prototype we want to demonstrate (It’s a well-established tradition at The Kraken of always being late with boardgame prototypes and RPG props).

Conventiongoer's material! Ⓖ

Our room. Ⓖ

After a hearty vegetarian dinner (The Kraken provides an option for vegetarian or vegan catering), I get to chat (in Italian) with my Maltese friends from Malta’s Wargaming and Roleplaying Society – The Kraken truly is an international gathering.

Tired but happy. Ⓐ

FRIDAY 19 OCTOBER, evening

After the opening ceremony, I catch up with further friends, amongst whom Jason Durall, with whom we reminisce about Greg Stafford, who passed away on 11 October. The shock and pain we experienced one week earlier are now giving way to pleasantly remembering Greg and his incredible kindness.

one of the programme boards Ⓖ

sample minis from Petersen Games' Gods War Ⓐ

Then I go to bed early to get some much-needed sleeeeep.

SATURDAY 20 OCTOBER, morning

I have already mentioned catering at The Kraken. It’s not only compassionate, it’s also GOOD. At breakfast, for instance, we had home-made preserve. Now, I don’t know how many conventions serve home-made preserve at breakfast but I bet you can count them on the fingers of one hand.

German breakfast! Ⓐ

SATURDAY 20 OCTOBER, 10:00

Panel: ‘Building A Horror Scenario The Sandy Petersen Way’

The cool thing at The Kraken is that you have these panels with luminaries from the RPG industry with a scarce attendance, meaning you get to ask your questions and to directly chat with the host without any hassle.
Anyway, this was a really cool interactive panel with Sandy, in which he built a horror scenario only using input from the attendance. Sandy has actually adapted the ‘Sandy Petersen Way’ from the three rules of M. R. James, which the English author had established with regards to ghost stories:
1) the ghost must be malign
2) no jargon (jargon becomes dated quite easily; it also gets in the way of suspension of disbelief) Sandy—> importantly, this applies to in-game terms, keep them minimal!
3) set it where the reader can imagine themself
The above was adapted to Call of Cthulhu as follows:

1. Setting
2. Monster
3. Scene

And we did it interactively (audience/Sandy)
1. Setting: submarine
2. Monster: undead
3. Scene: banquet
I won’t transcribe the whole scenario here. I will simply advise you not to go treasure hunting into an abandoned Soviet submarine at the bottom of the Norwegian Sea…

Saturday morning panels Ⓖ

Sandy's panel Ⓖ

SATURDAY 20 OCTOBER, 11:00

The traditional Chaosium panel, hosted by Ian Cooper & Jason Durall

In this age of social networks and internet forums, there is no need any longer to precisely write down everything that has been said. However, I am transcribing here the salient points of the panel.

Ian: Still working on the ‘Open Game Licence’ version of HeroQuest, which is forking from HQ 2.0, and concentrating on rules-only stuff —> basically, it will be a System Reference Document (SRD).
In print form, however, it will be a new core book, with new sample genre packs (rather than Glorantha), and it will be followed by standalone genre packs (of approximately 32 pages each).
A famous indie designer is working on an HQ-based game, which is currently in its playtesting phase.
So if you also want to pitch a genre pack to Chaosium, please contact Ian!

At the Gloranthan side, the third Red Cow book is nearing completion. It should contain some mind-boggling revelations about some Gloranthan secrets (e.g., the Boat Planet). It will be possibly followed by a pre-1625 Fonrit book.

Jason: The RQ:G Bestiary and GM Pack are at the printer (with the crowdsourced errors fixed). So don’t start asking when they will be available, because they will be available… when they’re back from the printer. (OK, if you really want to know, that should be Q1 2019).

The next books in the pipe are (and this is a non-Euclidean pipe since work is progressing in parallel on several titles):

• The gigantic Gods of Glorantha (Jeff Richard keeps adding pages to it...).
• Then a scenario book by established authors (Ken Rolston, Steve Perrin, Penelope Love...).
• A book taking older out-of-print resources and adapting them to RQ:G.
• A book of introductory short adventures for starting RQ:G referees and players.
• In parallel to the main line of RQ:G books written by Chaosium authors, Robin Laws has been contracted for two Pavis & Big Rubble books, and the first drafts look very satisfactory.
• And the 800-pound gorilla is always ART— what happens is that fully-fledged books are lying idle because there isn’t any art yet.
• RQ Fantasy Earth. Pedro Ziviani has been commissioned for the first one (a rewriting of Mythic Iceland)

Q&A Session
1- Wyrms Footnotes
There’s lots of material (enough for 120 pages —> reduced to 64 pages, so enough material for two issues)
They have art for the next issue, which isn’t a themed issue but contains a little bit of everything (adventure, GM advice, NPCs, creatures...)
Looking for contributions!

2- Hero questing rules that will be in the upcoming GM book
Jason: they will enable any GM to create hero quests without being Greg or Jeff, or a fan of Jung’s writings.

the Chaosium panel Ⓖ

SATURDAY 20 OCTOBER, 11:00

Whilst I was attending the Chaosium chat, there was the traditional horror lottery to draw the lucky names who would get to play with the Only Old One himself… and my name was drawn (at last! after all these years!).

the traditional lottery... Ⓐ

SATURDAY 20 OCTOBER, noon

At lunch time I had a great chat with Ian Cooper and the Runeblogger about the behind-the-scenes movers and shakers of my Chern Durel campaign, and possible connections with Lunar cults, Sheng Seleris, etc. (which I’m not revealing here because my players read this blog).

SATURDAY 20 OCTOBER, afternoon

Sandy’s lottery game: The Monster of Poznań

Very satisfactory adventure with a pivotal twist (note to self: never trust an NPC in a CoC game ever again... the enemy of my enemy also usually ends up being my enemy!)

Puzzled investigators Ⓐ

Note that for the very first time in the history of Sandy's Call of Cthulhu adventures run at The Kraken, not a single investigator died. Hooray for us!

We did it! We survived! Ⓖ

SATURDAY 20 OCTOBER, afternoon

Replaced my daughter at the Harlem Unbound game because she had conflicting schedules. Harlem Unbound is a very interesting Call of Cthulhu offshoot, in which you play a person from an ethnic or racial minority in the canonical 1920s Call of Cthulhu setting. The second, updated edition of this indie game is going to be published by Chaosium, so hopefully it will attract more attention (well, Harlem Unbound won three Gold ENnies at the 2018 ENnies so it is already well-known amongst hardcore gamers, but I’m not sure about the larger public).

my friend Jean-Christophe refereeing Harlem Unbound Ⓐ

SATURDAY 20 OCTOBER, late evening

The Kraken provides an opportunity to test out one's prototypes of boardgames or role-playing games with seasoned players. On Saturday night, I found three players to play my four-player historical boardgame Siebenbürgen, and we played a very tight game until 3 a.m. The players provided great feedback, which I have now incorporated into the rules. Can’t wait to try out the new version.

situation at the start of the game Ⓟ

situation after the third turn Ⓖ

SUNDAY 21 OCTOBER, 10:00

Mythos Q&A with Sandy

This being Sandy and the Lovecraft mythos, it was mostly a display of knowledge, wits and humour, so I didn’t take notes… just enjoyed the time with Sandy. The best part of the Q&A was when Sandy’s wife asked him “Why do you love me so?” and he blushed!

Sunday morning panels Ⓖ

SUNDAY 21 OCTOBER, 11:00

Good Game Design Q&A with Sandy

Again, this was mostly us wannabe boardgame designers asking Sandy stupid questions and getting extremely valuable advice in return. Well, I certainly did.

Sandy's Good Game Design Q&A Ⓖ

SUNDAY 21 OCTOBER, 14:00-16:00

Impromptu seminar by Jeff Richard and Ian Cooper about Gloranthan mythology & running hero quests  (basically about next year’s book)

an impromptu seminar! Ⓖ

[Note: as a referee running hero quests using RQ:G, this certainly was one of the most valuable panels of the con.]

Jeff: Up to now, the usual approach was “let’s write a myth ahead of the game session”.
New approach: no real difference between a hero quest and a good story using Campbell’s archetypes.
How to present that information to GMs? Treating mythology as a sandbox, and using myth maps!
E.g., at the 2018 Gen Con (running RQ:G for newbies), Jeff improvised the following hero quest:

• Get to the troll underworld
• Get passage
• Find the snake cave
• Bring back the blue woman— not the yellow man!

All run in the context of a Gloranthan sandbox

Jeff expatiating upon hero quests & mythology Ⓖ

Other parts of the book will address the following:

• what cool powers does my character get? (because this is what players are really interested in)
• how to mechanically represent the “hero part” of the player’s character at the Other Side? (concrete rewards)

traditional Sunday Finnish pancakes Ⓐ

SUNDAY 21 OCTOBER, 16:00

‘Gated!’ a RQ:G adventure set in Prax, run by Andrew Wood from New Zealand (who had travelled all the way from NZ!!!)
As mentioned at the beginning of this report, it is an established tradition to always be late with props, and we had to wait quite some time for our character sheets. Once the wait was over, however, we enjoyed a classical but lively RQ:G adventure with lots of nice props, which saw my first use ever of the RuneQuest Strike Rank Tracker by Infinity Engine. The pregen characters were quite seasoned, with many Rune Points, and I enjoyed being able to cast lots of Rune spells! By the way, did I already mention on this blog how much I liked the new RuneQuest rules?

traditional axe-throwing session Ⓖ

traditional axe-throwing session Ⓐ

SUNDAY 21 OCTOBER, evening

Nice chat with Graeme Murrell about East Asian rock bands.

friends playing Petersen Games' Evil High Priest Ⓐ

SUNDAY 21 OCTOBER, night

I usually do not attend Sandy’s late night film showings because, well, the films are bad. This Sunday, however, he played a black and white Mexican horror film: The Brainiac (1962), which, except for the mucho cheapo latex max of the monster, was reasonably good.

Ooooh, inquisitors! Ⓖ

MONDAY 22 OCTOBER, 10:00

Closing ceremony… sad, sad, but we all pledged to reconvene next year in October!

We Are All Us! Ⓖ

Pictures by: Ⓐ Aliénor Perrard - Ⓖ yours truly - Ⓟ Pedro Ziviani

Art Snippet from New Glorantha

This was posted by Jeff on MeWe. I am weeping with tears of joy— this is so much how I envisage Gloranthan art.

a fresco from the Holy Country

Tunnels & Trolls Bundle of Holding

For some reason, Tunnels and Trolls has become intimately associated with solo role-playing. Personally, I have always used T&T to run 'normal' adventures (i.e., with a group of players) but I know that, for a lot of RPGers, "T&T" and "solo play" are almost synonymous.

Anyway, if you click here, you will be magically transported to a 'bundle' offer that will let you purchase 12 T&T solo adventures for a mere USD 7.95.

Amongst the 12 PDFs are well-known classics such as Naked Doom, Sewers of Oblivion and Deathtrap Equalizer.

I love T&T's Old School art

If you pay above the threshold price of USD 18.93, you also get the following:

 - the deluxe Tunnels & Trolls rules, my favourite incarnation of the T&T rules
 - Monsters! Monsters!, a spin-off of T&T that lets you play 'the bad guys' — it's really hilarious
 - the Adventurers Compendium, an 88-page collection of twelve classic adventures from the 1970s/1980s — Old School at its best
 - four extra 'GM' (i.e., non-solo) adventures

At USD 18.93 it's a steal. It's a shame I already own 90% of the stuff listed above.

RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha News

Short blog post about the latest news with regards to RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, the latest incarnation of our favourite Bronze Age fantasy role-playing game.

RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha is at last available in dead tree. It comes in two formats: the normal hardbound, and a leatherette edition. If you have purchased the PDF from the Chaosium web-site, you should have received the e-mail with the discount coupon by now.

The RQG Gamemaster Screen Pack is available as a PDF. Despite its name, it is much more than a mere GM screen since it contains an updated gazetteer of Sartar and the Dragon Pass area, three adventures tailored for Colymar starting players (which can be easily altered for other groups of PCs), and much more.

The RQG core book, the RQG Bestiary and the GM Screen Pack are designed to fit in the slipcase that Chaosium will release later this year.

RuneQuest Dice by Q-Workshop

Want...... (especially those on the right)!

from a GenCon pic by Ellie Akers

Worlds United

The Design Mechanism, publishers of Mythras (formerly known as RuneQuest 6th edition), have announced a new source book for H2 2018, whose title is Worlds United, and that will enable you to play 50s Pulp SF planetary romance adventures.

The book should contain approximately 128 pages. I have no further details at the moment, as there isn't anything about Worlds United on TDM's web-site or on their forum.

The funny thing (well at least for me) is that the announcement has been simultaneous with my re-reading my fabulous Flash Gordon hardcovers by Titan Books. The books feature the admirably restored full-colour Sunday strips by Alex Raymond, which are incredibly evocative of the marvellous atmosphere of Flash Gordon's adventures on the mysterious planet Mongo, with its many villains, astonishingly beautiful queens and princesses, and monstrous creatures!

Glorantha Bestiary Announcement

I guess most of my readers already know about this, but just in case I am reproducing the announcement about the upcoming Glorantha Bestiary for the last edition of Chaosium's RuneQuest.

Of course, 20 July 2018 is the release date of the PDF; the dead tree version will be available 3 to 4 months later (i.e., by November 2018).

And here is the contents page of the Bestiary to further tease you:

Note: the Bestiary will also contain all the character generation rules for the Elder Races, as well as their main cults; but no family genealogies.

Gods War - The Final Rulebook

I have already mentioned the Gods War boardgame on this blog, since it has prominently featured at THE KRAKEN gaming retreat during all the stages of its creation and its playtest. Glorantha: The Gods War (full title) is a large, intense boardgame similar to Cthulhu Wars (but much better in my opinion) that pits the major factions of Glorantha against each other at the time of the, er, Gods War† — hence its name. The game was successfully kickstarted but, alas, I did not participate because I don't know where I'd store the huge box and its many expansions. It appears that some Texan people do not realise what the average size of a Parisian flat is. And I do not have a cellar. Anyway, Sandy Petersen has just announced that the final version of the Gods War rulebook was available (from here).

Even if you are not interested in overly-sized boardgames please do download it, if only for the incredibly evocative art, and for the scores of ideas that will inevitably pop up in your mind whilst reading it.

†For a description of the events of the Gods War and of the destructions it has wrought, please refer to the Guide to Glorantha, p116-117 and p684-693.

An Excerpt from our Ongoing RQ:G Campaign

I have a RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha campaign set in Chern Durel and northern Kralorela that has been going on for about a year (since the time we received the RQ:G playtest pack).

Last Wednesday's session was so good one of the players (Hervé) wrote it down to share it with anyone curious about our RQ:G game. Warning: this is a GONZO game, YGWV.

in Tzu Ling

Chern Durel Campaign - Session 12GM: Gianni. 3 players: Patrick (Xu), Teva (Skull Sucker), Hervé (Kro Tal). 4-hour game

After escaping from the Slug-Men’s prison, Xu and Kro Tal go to the Black Sun Temple in the Ignorant Quarter of Tzu Ling. It is still Sacred Time and they pray to regain all used Rune Points (success). They also convince some of the younger priests to send them to the Other Side again, to establish contact with Blackstone, the God [GM: more like a Demi-God] who killed a Dragon long ago; they want to learn its secrets to help Ignorance fight against the Kralori dragon-lovers.
They are led into the Temple’s inner sanctum and wreathed in Basko’s black flames. The roof disappears, and a black sky appears, with the Black Sun in its full glory. It opens its maw and swallows both characters. Inside its mouth, they see its teeth change into stalagmites. They realise they are back to the entrance of Blackstone’s Temple of Bones, which they visited in their dreams a short while ago.

Inside the Temple of Bones, they invoke Blackstone with the sacrifice of a Kralori portrait of their Dragon Emperor Godunya, which they tear and spit upon. (Worship Blackstone 5% + sacred time /major temple / sacrifice bonuses). It is a success and “somewhere, a dragon whines” because of the outrage we commit upon Godunya’s effigy. Yet Blackstone is not to be found. It is Not Here. By focusing deeper and further, Kro Tal feels a great pain in the chest (loss of 1 HP) and realises Blackstone’s Heart is gone.
Using Spirit Travel (despite not being shamans, with the huge lingering bonuses), they set after the Heart, following its cold trail. On the way, they stumble upon the prone form of Skull Sucker, an Uzko warrior of Zorak Zoran with whom they have already co-operated in the Dream World (he has been dispatched there to fight the returning God Learners). He says Blackstone called him for help in his dreams; he came and fought off Kurix the God Learner lich, the eponymous master of the city of Kurix in the Dream World. It seems that the sorcerer’s magics got the better of him.

Further along the way, to their distress, they find a pool of the dark godling’s Blood and drink from it, also filling their water-skins with it. The Blood aids them to track the Heart and even gives some energy (Magic Points) back to Skull Sucker. They are then attacked by an earth demon rushing under the ground and trying to trap them in a pit it opens under their feet, but they jump or climb their way to safety. Upon entering a large cave, they must fight off a pack of Kralori zombies which they pulp. But the earth demon returns and swallows Xu, crushing the life out of him (12 point damage to ALL hit locations, enough to kill him outright despite 5-point armour and a 4-point Protection spell). It immediately rushes away.

Both Kro Tal and Skull Sucker rush to his aid and call upon their Gods with Heal Wound rune magic spells, barely bringing Xu back to life at the cost of their whole psychic energy (2 or 3 Magic Points left at this stage). By limping around to find a safe spot to recover, they realise the earth demon always follows the same “track” and pass its end.

After having somewhat recovered in the Darkness (both Xu and Skull Sucker have Darksense, and by now Kro Tal is developing something like it too), they notice the cave tapering at its end, with a chasm in the wall leading further ahead. Skull Sucker goes to investigate by Sneaking and Hiding and fails. He is speared by two light crossbow bolts and dies (one crit and one impale, both legs crippled). The mad race against death starts again but this time Kro Tal uses his False Healing spell, allowing Skull Sucker to limp back to safety and to call again on Zorak Zoran to heal his wounds. Some First Aid is also applied, but by then all characters are down to 1 MP each†.

They retreat in a side tunnel and after a long exhausting march (roll of CON×5 to press ahead), find themselves back among the Green Dragon’s bones, the one which Blackstone smothered and petrified! They decide it is a safe place to sleep or Meditate (Xu recovers about 10 extra MPs in 8 hours’ Meditation), but the place’s magics begin altering their Runes after a few hours, augmenting Disorder and Life. Both Skull Sucker and Kro Tal are Death worshippers and they leave the place, yet noting they now know a way out: the Dragon’s resting place leads to the ziggurat connected to the bottom of Tzu Ling’s cesspit, a way they went through before.

This time they call on Subere’s and on the Black Sun’s powers and use Dark Walk to approach the chasm and kill the crossbowmen, which turn out to be trollkin wearing the same colours as the servants of their Slug-Man captor! Pressing ahead, they find Blackstone’s Heart, levitating above ground, wrapped in many ropes and pulled by fifteen trollkin led by a Slug-Man. While Skull Sucker mows down the trollkin, Xu casts Attack Soul on the Slug-Man and keeps him too busy to notice Kro Tal jumping on the Heart, then close to him, then punching his skull off. The remaining trollkin scatter. Victory belongs to the characters, who immediately try to commune with Blackstone.
What they learn is… surprising.
Blackstone, whom we thought was bound by the Slug-Men and eager to break free and ravage the Kralori city, is actually happy with the current state of things, growing fat on the sacrifices his servants and clergy, the Slug-Men, siphon off the Kralori! He says this is in continuity with his battle against the Dragon and does not want the status quo to change. He also says the trollkin were pulling back his Heart to its rightful place, among the dragon bones where the characters slept! He explains a sorcerer called Kurix and his warriors had surprised him and beaten off his guards before he could chase him off, rescued by his Slug-Men worshippers.

After much doubt from Kro Tal, all three characters initiate to Blackstone, learning his special spell‡. The God marks them for recognition and acceptance from his Slug-Men servants. The dark godling reveals that his power over dragonkind could be given to them if they re-open his old and forgotten temple in Karaköse, the City of the Dead, many “li” to the west of Tzu Ling. For this, they would need his sacred book, which is now held by the sorcerer Kurix. Kurix seems stranded here, in this Dark Place, and most of his soldiers have been killed or wounded. They have taken refuge in a nearby Ziggurat.
The characters set off to hunt the Sacred Book, unsure whether they will kill Kurix or try to ally with him against their mutual enemy, Sturm Martex the talking head, dread sorcerer from Orathorn.

†upon reflection, this save should not have worked. A character at 0 general HP or below dies at the end of the melee round in which he was hit. But we did not remove the impaling bolts from Skull-Sucker’s legs, which should have been necessary BEFORE healing him. Yet this rule was forgotten by everybody, GM included; too many years of HeroQuest have made us less regarding of rules. 

‡it was decided on the spot that Blackstone’s Runes were Darkness and Stasis, and that a special, stackable spell would be designed, something like Coils (from the Book of Drastic Resolutions volume  Darkness) or Suppress Lodril, but working against Dragons and dragon-kin, including anyone with at least 1% in Draconic Mysticism, i.e. any Kralori.

News from UK Games Expo 2018

Alas, I was not able to attend this British con, but there was a Chaosium panel and Ian Cooper (HQ line editor) tweeted about it. Since it contains a lot of HeroQuest-related information that had only vaguely been hinted at during Chimériades and the Eternal Con, I thought it would be of interest to my readers if I copied Ian Cooper's tweets here:

Chaosium will be delivering an SRD of the HeroQuest engine, licensed under the OGL. We want you to use this engine for your own genre packs and games.

We'll keep the HeroQuest brand for Glorantha and the SRD will have a new name, as we think the brand makes more sense as a Gloranthan name than a generic system.

We are going to release some new genre packs for the game (ways to play a given genre). Ron Edwards is working on cosmic superheroes for us, we have discussions about a pulp setting, we will probably do a SF one, and touch something a little more left-field.

We want to show what the engine can do.

We will continue to tackle Glorantha. In Dragon Pass we will focus on 1625— to distinguish from the RQG 1625+ period. We want to cover the Dragonrise and how your players can lead that great event, the key to the liberation of Sartar.

And we are going to tackle Fonrit. We think it is an ideal Sword & Soul setting, presentable with all Glorantha's richness bit will no publication history before now, a great opportunity for folks to get in on the ground floor of a Gloranthan setting.

Back from the Eternal Con 2018

Yet another great convention. This one was a mere fortnight after Chimériades, resulting in a very weird 'embarrassment of riches' situation. I wish cons were regularly interspersed throughout the year...

the pathway to Burg Stahleck

As always we were welcome at beautiful castle-turned-youth hostel Burg Stahleck and given our room numbers. I ended up in the notorious snoratorium but since I had wisely added earplugs to my luggage everything went perfectly well.

Burg Stahleck - the Tower

I have already mentioned that the Eternal Con was a very family-friendly con, with many families with kids attending; I think this is the year when we saw most kids... If you have never been to a gaming con and have a family— honestly, this is the con to be!

the view from the castle

FRIDAY 18 MAY, 19:00, Grand Opening Ceremony

This year Franziska presented us the schedule and the activities under the form of a choose your own adventure book. As a long-time T&T fan, I really liked the idea!

FRIDAY 18 MAY, 21:00, Chaosium Panel

I won't bore you with the general RuneQuest stuff because (a) it was pretty much the same Jeff had already talked about at Chimériades, and (b) there was a dedicated RQ panel on Sunday (q.v.). As a result, I will focus on the non-RQ news that struck me as interesting.
First of all, we shall witness the return of two old favourites: the Credo card game, and the Nephilim role-playing game. The new edition of Credo is pretty advanced, whereas the new Nephilim is still under development.
There will also be a new edition of HeroQuest that will be non-Gloranthan in content so as to enable third-party publishers to publish games using the HQ engine.
As for Wyrms Footnotes, there should be a new issue soon (?) for some of the stuff that won’t get into the new RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha (RQG) books.

SATURDAY 19 MAY, Morning

I just spent the morning relaxing with friends— after all these years, and with pretty much the same people attending, the Eternal Con has really become a gathering of friends!

relaxing with friends

Then I prepared the pregen PCs for my afternoon game (see below).

busy busy

SATURDAY 19 MAY, Afternoon

This was quite interesting. I have been running an RQG campaign set in Eastern Genertela in Paris as one of the playtesting groups for about a year, and two of my Parisian players were also attending the con. So I ran a one-shot RQG adventure that I also managed to include in the overall story arc of my RQG campaign game. That showcased to the new players (4 of them) how deeply intertwined with Glorantha the new rules were.

weird artefacts at the castle

SATURDAY 19 MAY, Evening

Played Massive Darkness, an incredibly daft miniature boardgame: open door, kill monster, take treasure... Jesus, are we still playing this in 2018??? The cool thing, however, is that the material is fantastic, and the miniatures quite evocative. Alas we got killed at about 3/4ths of completing our Quest.

SUNDAY 20 MAY, Morning

Played Maria, an AWESOME three-player wargame by Histogame about the War of the Austrian Succession. I was playing Maria Theresa and had to face two enemies on two different fronts: the annoying Louis XV of France on the Western front, and the sly Frederick II of Prussia on the Northeastern front. Louis XV was trying to prevent my husband Whatsisname to become Holy Roman Emperor whilst Frederick II was quietly stealing large swathes of land from my northernmost estates. The first extraordinary idea of the game is that the same player who plays my enemy Frederick II on the Northeastern front plays my ally George II on the Western front, which led to... interesting developments. The second extraordinary idea of the game is that everything (battle results, diplomatic achievements, purchase of supply trains and/or reinforcement troops for the armies...) is fuelled by the use of cards so you're always hesitating as to how you should use them (obviously you never have enough of them) and, as we all know, a good game is about difficult choices.
And in the end I got to crush Louis XV and to slightly come ahead of Frederick II, so I was elated.

the perfidious Franco-Bavarian attack

in dire straits — luckily I managed to keep a cold head

make Alsace deutschsprachig again!

the political board

SUNDAY 20 MAY, Afternoon

I got to play Illuminati for the first time in my life— can you believe that, the game has been around since 1982! I was playing the Servants of Cthulhu (whose aim is to destroy cards rather than to control them) but I think I exaggerated on the 'not controlling any groups' side and as a result I was always cash-strapped. Anyway, a good starting impression of this classic game.

my game (with four destroyed cards)

the winner's game

Then I played an old favourite of mine, Nations the Dice Game, a very fast game of civilisation-building with a pleasant 'rolling dice' aspect (we gamers do love dice).

SUNDAY 20 MAY, Early Evening

The sad, sad Closing Ceremony. I want to let you know that next year is the 10th Eternal Con and the 30-year jubilee of the cons in Bacharach, so there should be some special events. Be sure to attend!

SUNDAY 20 MAY, Late Evening

The dedicated RQG panel. Here are a few news on top of the ones I've already mentioned in my Chimériades blog post. The triptych books should be available in hard format by Christmas 2018.
We had looooots of discussions about art, in the core book as well as in the future books. Jeff wants all of the future RQG books to look as good as the core book; e.g., Gods of Glorantha is fully written but work on art hasn’t started yet. And it’s going to take time because it will be good.

another RQG-playing table

supplies for the late-night singalong

the songbook of the singalong

definitely not Volvic water

excerpt from the singalong book

all the beautiful pics are by Heinrich Helms — all the ugly ones by yours truly

Back From Chimériades VI

Back from the first con in con season! Funnily enough I was re-reading my 2016 report from Chimériades V, and at the time I was complaining that I had had too much work and hadn't been able to prepare anything for refereeing. Well... apparently April is a bad month for me because I experienced a much similar situation. As a result, the following is also going to be a very short report.

welcome

I will refer you to past blog posts for information about the incredible location, the beautiful château, the breathtaking views... The first piece of news is that this was officially the very last Chimériades con, as organisers extraordinaire Camille and Philippe expressed their desire to do something else in the future. There were various rumours circulating about other people organising a similar con in the future in the same area (Provence) but nothing your favourite sleuth could get any firm confirmation about.

True to its roots (and, to be honest, also due to Mark Rein·Hagen's accidental absence), the 6th edition of Chimériades was very much Glorantha- and RuneQuest-centred. It was heartening to see that, even though the last widely-distributed French-language RuneQuest edition set in Glorantha (the Oriflam one) dates back to 1987 –more than 30 years ago!–, there is still a large fanbase, and younger RPGers are still attracted to the game (the amazing art and maps for the upcoming RuneQuest:Glorantha that were being shown around probably helped).
Also, I felt more French gamers than usual made an effort to play in English.

As a result, maybe up to 1/3rd of the gaming tables were RQ:G tables. This bodes well for the future. Speaking of the future, we had several informal chats with the Chaosium staff present at the con: Jeff Richard (Vice President and Creative Director), Jason Durall (RQ line editor), Neil Robinson (COO), and also with several freelancers and/or 'old sages' who are currently helping Chaosium on the gigantic effort to rekindle our favourite game, plus there was a big panel on Monday morning about the future of the RuneQuest line.

I guess the news everyone is most eager to hear about is with regard to the new core book. Well, we had a physical printout of the core book and it looked really finished, i.e., it included layout and art. The PDF should be available around mid-June, and the dead tree version around early August. The next books in the pipe are the ones that will complete the initial RQ:G triptych, namely the Bestiary and the GM Pack. These should be available around early December, although it wasn't clear if that would be in PDF or dead tree format.
The Bestiary is not only a Gloranthan creatures book (over 150 creatures, with stats and with a piece of art for each creature); it also contains everything needed to play non-human characters (chargen, cults, etc.). The GM Pack is really a setting pack, a Sartarite sandbox centred on the Colymar clan, with an astonishing map of Clearwine that was circulated, several scenarios, and a heavy emphasis on statted NPCs with a comprehensive background. Early 1626 Apple Lane will be the default base for player characters, in a kind of Wild West atmosphere of lawlessness after the demise of the Lunar Empire.

Many other books are currently being worked on, including some that are in an extremely advanced state of completion (i.e., they are not vapourware) like the Gods of Glorantha book, of which a printout was available for our perusal. The book contains lots of extended writeups or even entirely new ones, all in the familiar format from Cults of Prax. The cults in the Gods of Glorantha book are mostly player character-oriented cults; Jeff is working on a Cults of Terror-like book for the Chaotic cults. This latter book will probably include scenarios since it will be supposed to be read by GMs only.

Next in the pipe is a GM Book with rules for heroquests, magic items, and 'high-level' characters that is currently being playtested, and several other exciting ones, about which I have alas sworn an oath of secrecy.

the Chaosium panel

But Chimériades is not only Glorantha.  My first game was in Jason Durall's Lone Star, a new RPG set in the independent Republic of Texas (1836-46, much smaller than today's state). The game uses the Pendragon engine, and, surprisingly enough, runs really well. As someone who really likes the Old West genre and its tropes, I am looking forward to this game, as there is a glaring absence of West-themed role-playing games WITHOUT magic/undead/whatnot in them.

My other two RPG games were both RQ:G games, one also by Jason with a short incursion into the Dream World, and the other one by Andrew Jones, which was a Runequestification of the introductory HeroQuest Red Cow scenario.

playing the introductory Eleven Lights adventure

And, last but not least, I played two games of GMT Games' Command and Colours: Napoleonics on a giant table with painted miniatures, all created and refereed by the immensely resourceful and talented Grégory Privat (with help from Jean-François Bounes). We played with four people per side: one commander-in-chief, who played the command cards and who was not allowed to touch the miniatures or the dice, and three generals, one per battlefield section, who ordered and moved the units, and rolled the dice. Each commander-in-chief had 5 command cards and could use two cards per game turn that were given to two of the generals, the third general only being allowed to order a single unit (the one stacked with their leader). The orders also had to be sent at the end of that side's previous turn, in order to simulate the time it took for orders to reach the leaders from headquarters. As a result, we were always one turn late in term of reaction possibilities, which realistically enhanced the fog of war impression, and which basically added fun.
This being a game by Grégory, we also had fun objectives such as retrieving Wellington's ale barrels (for the British player) or the marshal's favourite caterer (for the French) for extra victory points.
A beautiful gaming table, fun rules, nice fellow gamers, two victories in a row— this was definitely my favourite part of the con ☺

pictures by Andrew Jones and Jean-François Bounes