We resume our series on the People of Glorantha with, according to our guest, the very best people that there is on Glorantha. Our guest is indeed Nick Brooke!

Among his many hats, Nick is:

• A community content ambassador for Chaosium, where he promotes fan creations and helps fans put out Print-on-Demand books
• An author and collaborator on many Jonstown Compendium books (Sandheart, Life of Moonson, A Rough Guide to Glamour, Duel at Dangerford, Black Spear, Crimson King, and more)
• His Gloranthan Manifesto is available on the Jonstown Compendium too, although you can get the “naked” version from the BRP Central forums (volumes one and two)
• His old website still has plenty of Gloranthan content

We talk about Nick’s history with the Lunar Empire, which starts with David Hall’s Reaching Moon Megacorp and the fanzine Tales of the Reaching Moon, which had a very pro-Lunar editorial leaning. This was perhaps in response to the Storm Bull leanings of the Pavic Tales fanzine.

Nick talks about the way British people are great for playing evil imperial people. He points to the 2022 RRR movie, although Ludo points out that the practice goes way back, with for instance Ben Hur specifically hiring British actors to play evil Romans.

While players are concerned with Dragon Pass adventurers, the GM often wants to understand the Lunar Empire better, at least to portray the evil NPCs. But Nick reminds us that it’s all just a game in a make believe world, and there’s no need to get upset online. Given the number of threads on the topic that routinely get locked down on BRP Central and elsewhere, I’m sure more people need to hear this.

What the PCs know about the Lunars

We go through the core RuneQuest homelands and Nick explains what is their knowledge and opinion of the Lunars is.

For Sartarites and Praxians:

• They killed your grand-parent, made you pay taxes, and got eaten by a Dragon (good riddance)
• For older RuneQuest players, they were the Roman-like occupiers of Sartar
• Using Romans is a good model for the Lunars… see the many Roman-featuring movies and TV series in existence, including the classic Spartacus movie and more recent TV series

For Esrolians:

• There was a recent civil war between the Red Earth and Old Earth alliances (pro vs anti Lunars)
• Nick talks about the God King Belintar of the Holy Country as the “Pharaoh”, a term used in older RuneQuest material, but that Chaosium doesn’t want to use anymore for obvious reasons (such as the fact that there aren’t any pyramids in the Holy Country). Joerg tells me that at least Nick didn’t say “Pharoah”, as it was mispelled as such in the RuneQuest Companion.
• Nick also quickly mentions some “Old Earth” rituals, featuring the sacrificing of a “year king”, that were “cut” from the Glorantha Sourcebook
• There are parallels between Belintar, who dies and comes back, and the Red Emperor, who does the same
• Nick likes to use Cleopatra and Anthony or Caesar as a reference for Lunars flirting with Esrolian queens. And yes this includes their depiction in Asterix comics

For the Grazelanders:

• They generally love the Lunars because they often employ them as mercenaries and they pay well, although there is a minority of Grazelanders who doesn’t like the Lunars
• The Grazelanders don’t convert to the Lunar Way, they have their fundamental ways
• The current Feathered Horse Queen is a daughter of a Lunar King of Tarsh

For the Old Tarshites:

• They hate the Lunars, but they’re just embittered losers of the old Orlanthi Tarsh Kingdom
• Palashee Longaxe was a rebel leader who, for a time, manage to retake the kingdom from the Lunars, but he was put down eventually

For the Lunar Tarshites:

• They live under the Glowline, and their kingdom is centered on Furthest
• Furthest is a very Lunar city, planned and well designed, a beacon of civilization in the middle of Tarsh
• The benevolent temple of the Reaching the Moon extends the Glowline here

A Short History of the Lunar Empire

Nick takes us on a historical tour of the Lunar Empire:

• The birth of the Red Goddess in Torang (although we’re supposed to say “Blessed Torang”)
• The Seven Mothers and their ability to bypass the Great Compromise
• The Moon Goddess “should” have been in the Compromise… was there a patriarchal conspiracy at play from Yelm and Orlanth?
• At Castle Blue she proved her place in the God Time and ascended in the sky
• The Red Goddess can be seen from most of Glorantha, fixed in the sky as the Red Moon
• Glamour is founded next to the crater left behind when she took a chunk of the earth and ascended in the sky
• The Lunar Empire is governed by the ever reincarnating Red Emperor. Nick talks about whether they’re the same person or not after each reincarnation. Ludo makes a 1984 reference.
• Nick touches upon the evil Carmanian empire, and the Dara Happan patriarchs that were there before. The Lunar Empire has liberated everyone with a much more feminist, open, and egalitarian society.
• At some point, the Lunar Empire almost gets destroyed by Pentan Solar-worshipping noamds. They were led by the “madman” Sheng Seleris, a sort of a magical Genghis Khan. He’s now tortured in a Lunar Hell.
• Nick explains the “wanes” used (or not) for Lunar history.
• After the Pentan invasions, the great Hon Eel reconstructs the empire and invades several southern barbarian kingdoms. Later, the Empire invades even more areas like Sartar, Prax, and for a short time the Holy Country.
• During the RuneQuest character creation (the Family History section), you see all of this progress being undone, as the Lunar Empire gets kicked out of Dragon Pass.
• Nick explains what the Glowline is, and what the Lunars might have planned for Sartar if the Dragonrise didn’t happen.

The Lunar Empire’s current concerns are:

• Financing the Red Emperor’s parties. Nick uses Nero and other Roman emperors as inspiration for this.
• Jar-eel is busy “talking” to the White Moon movement, a bunch of pacifist anti-imperialist hippies.
• The Pentans are back, and almost got into the holy city of Torang. Jar-eel thankfully stopped them, riding the mighty Crimson Bat.
• The Dragonrise in Sartar is only a small annoyance to the Lunars at this point.

The Lunar Empire is organized between the Heartlands and the Provinces:

• Nick goes over the pendantic history of using “satrapy” vs “sultanate” to designate the different administrative regions of the Lunar Hearlands. Once again he diverges from Chaosium terminology.
• Incestuous noble families lead the Satrapies… errr, I mean Sultanates.
• Provinces are former barbarian kingdoms that were conquered and converted to the Lunar Way.
• The Lunars need to deal with the “natural state of rebellion” of the Orlanth cult
• Nick makes fun of the Orlanthi beliefs and hypocrisy
• We look at the difference between an Orlanthi from Sartar and an Orlanthi from Lunar Tarsh
• Nick wants it to be known that the Empire lets anybody worship anyone.
• Ludo is misled by rebel propaganda about how the Dara Happan became part of the Lunar Empire, so Nick explains all about it.

The Seven Mothers

We take a closer look at the Seven Mothers cult, which isn’t very well explained in the RuneQuest rulebook, and might be hard to grasp:

• Nick recommends getting Cults of Prax for the longer (albeit slightly outdated in some places) write-up for RuneQuest 2nd edition
• Nick explains who each mother is:
  • Teelo Norri is the outreach cult, with free food and orphanages and such
  • Irripi Ontor is a sage and astronomer, like Lhankor Mhy but with better libraries and no silly beards
  • Yanafal Tarnils is like a government-backed version of Humakt
  • Queen Deezola is for nobles, poets, and civilized people in general
  • Jakaleel the Witch deals with mad people (including making non-mad people mad)
  • Danfive Xaron is a cult for thieves who get captured and are “rehabilitated”
  • She Who Waits… let’s not talk about her
• While explaining all this, we do a small aside about how Lunar taxes fix all the problems the Empire causes… no worries!
• Nick talks about the similarities between the Seven Mothers and the Lightbringers, and the parallels with the Roman vs Greek gods
• Nick explains how the Seven Mothers pacify and convert the people that the Empire conquers. The Seven Mothers are “closer to the people” than the old gods, and have many other advantages to the everyday person.

Dart Competitions

Joerg brings up the Dart Competitions, the Lunar Empire’s sanctioned way of doing spy operations and assassinations between nobles

Unlike the bickering of Orlanthi clans and tribes, these can’t interfere with the general population and the collection of taxes.

There is no “civil war” in Tarsh. Just people losing the ongoing Dart Competition.

Playing Seven Mothers Initiates

We go through a few possible backstories for a Seven Mothers initiate joining a party of Dragon Pass adventurers:

• A Lunar Tarshite whose patron is on the losing side of a Dart Competition in Tarsh or some other province, and needs to lay low for a few years, out of reach from his/her enemies
• Playing someone doing some “groundwork” in Sartar for a noble family’s Dart Competition (although this might require some work to manage that character’s agenda vs the other characters)
• Families initiated into the Seven Mothers cult during the Lunar occupation of Sartar, and you could play an adventurer that comes from these families
• Pelorian traders settled in Sartar or Prax generations ago for business reasons, since commerce between the Lunar Empire, the Holy Country, and Prax has been quite lucrative for everybody. You could therefore play someone who comes from one of those merchant families.
• Playing a Lunar merchant who worships Etyries, the Lunar goddess of trade. Nick even shares his own head-canon for Etyries merchants, as compared to Issaries merchants.
• Playing an Irripi Ontor scholar doing research in Dragon Pass.

The C Word

Nick brings up the topic of Chaos and then tries to run away from the podcast:

• Ludo compares the Lunar’s use of Chaos with the US’s militaro-industrial complex and nuclear weapons
• The Lunar Empire uses Chaos “for the benefit of people”, we are told
• We discuss more Chaos-related matters, including what to do with Chaotic races

Other Lunar Cults and Lunar campaigns

• Nick is looking forward to the “recognition and adoration” that the Lunar cults deserve with the upcoming “Lunar Way” cults book
• Playing the glorious conquests of the Lunar Empire would be fun!
• At the moment, playing a Lunar campaign is tricky and requires a lot of work: you need the Guide and the Sourcebook, and some work to model the Lunar cults into RuneQuest mechanics… but use common sense, and re-use what’s already in the rulebook.
• You can use the Rough Guide to Glamour, Citizens of the Lunar Empire, Life of Moonson, Nick’s Glorantha Manifesto to build something.
• Harald Smith’s Edge of Empire (we had an episode on it) is a great example of building a campaign framework in the Lunar Provinces.

Illumination

Ludo asks about Illumination:

• Nick explains what Illumination is… shortly.
• Illuminated people can use Chaos, and know that the Compromise can be changed
• The Seven Mothers cult is looking for people that would be good for “Illumination training”
• Illuminated villains can be either mad sorcerers or “dangerously sane” people.

Finally, Nick does a mic-drop by reading the Guide to Glorantha, giving the final summation of what the Lunar Empire is.

Credits

The intro music is “The Warbird” by Try-Tachion. Other music includes “Cinder and Smoke” and “Skyspeak“, along with audio from the FreeSound library.

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This episode starts with Jörg pronouncing our guest’s name wrongly! We welcome James Coquillat of Chaosium to talk about RuneQuest actual play and gamemastering.

James is both on the digital content team and on the editorial team for Call of Cthulhu. You can find James at the following online places:

• James’ personal website
• Twitter
• The Chaosium Youtube channel, and in particular:
  • The Chaosium video interview series
  • The RuneQuest Starter Stream (ended)
  • A New Hero (ongoing)
• The Stream of Chaos Discord server (invite link here)

Show Notes

James tells us about his gaming and professional career. AD&D 2nd edition, Call of Cthulhu, screenwriting turning into video game production, and finally changing over into tabletop RPG production. Living in Melbourne brought him into contact with Michael O’Brien aka “MOB” (Chaosium’s vice president), Mark Morrison (Chaosium community embassador and part of the awesome Campaign Coins), and other notables from the Down Under roleplaying community. From there to Chaosium was not a big step.

James’s first work for Chaosium was helping with the translation of Khan of Khans. And while that is a Gloranthan game, it took some diving into the Chaosium back catalogue to familiarize himself with RuneQuest and Glorantha.

RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha was the first experience of both the game system and the world through play.

Ludo asks how much Gloranthan knowledge James had accumulated when he had the courage to present both the system and the setting publicly.

James explains that, to the folks at Chaosium (many of whom have been involved since before there were the Tales of the Reaching Moon in the early nineties), he fits into the demographic of young new players and GMs that they want to target with the new edition of RuneQuest. This is one reason why he was chosen to run the game between himself and his colleague David Naylor, who is a player in the RuneQuest stream along with Bridgett Jeffries, who we interviewed recently.

Jörg asks about how much James profits from the interviews with Jeff Richard (Chaosium’s vice president, creative director, and Glorantha lead designer). James confesses to have led the discussion towards upcoming features in his game every now and then.

Asked about his stumbling blocks with RuneQuest and Glorantha, James describes how coming from the typical Tolkienesque fantasy in most fantasy roleplaying games made the encounter with Glorantha something of a new territory. It was weird to encounter these tropes from the early days of the hobby. The beastmen were strange, not just the ducks but also creatures like scorpionmen or anthropomorphized animals. Chaos was a concept that was different from previous experiences.

To understand the big opponents of the Sartarites, James used the advice to think of the Lunars like the Roman Empire, and of the Praxian beast riders like the Mongol hordes invading Europe. Ludo commiserates that long-time Gloranthaphiles tend to use historical parallels that you may never have heard about before, like e.g. Thracians.

Another stumbling block for James was the multitude of gods that would pop up in the gaming material and the lore.

When asked whether James got to play RuneQuest Glorantha before running it, he explains that he was the GM for his local group.

As a long time Call of Cthulhu player and contributor James was familiar with the Basic Roleplaying system that was based on the original RuneQuest. Features specific to RuneQuest, like the different success levels or Strike Ranks, were alien and needed to get used to.

David Naylor gets another shout-out as being a great GM’s assistant (looking up rules on the fly when needed), and also for running the technical side of the streams.

Ludo asks where to get advice as a new GM if you don’t happen to be able to call Chaosium old-timers like Jeff or MOB. James suggests to start really small, isolating the initial setting enough so that the lore of the greater world is not yet required.

Jörg asks what material James used when he started GMing RuneQuest (for his friends). James started with the core rule books, but things came together when he got his hand on the Starter Set material (before it was published, as James and Dave designed the solo adventure in Book 3 of the Starter Set).

James describes how Dave and he had submitted a scenario for RuneQuest to Chaosium, which had gone through editorial feedback (and which was pending publication) before getting tasked with creating the Starter Set’s solo-adventure. Part of James and Dave’s approach was to make sure that the solo-adventure would work online as well.

James points out that the designers being relatively new to Glorantha was considered an advantage for creating the first contact for many players with both the rules and the setting.

Jörg asks about the ceremonies in the Starter Set’s SoloQuest which do require quite a bit of familiarity with the background, but those resulted from James and Dave rather than direct demands by the editors.

James talks about the feedback he got from his playtesters in his gaming group, including one player whose SoloQuest run ended in the protagonist dying in the decisive combat against Vostor after a long iteration of combat rolls, leading to another mechanic inserted to bring such a gridlock to a narratively pleasing end. That player ended up playing Vostor in the Starter Set scenarios!

James talks about his two previous GMing experiences. The first one was about a village facing the demands of both a Lunar tax collector and a Praxian warband, each demanding half the year’s production (which obviously could not be satisfied for both). The other one was more experimental, riffing on the Apocalypse Now upriver journey into hostile territory. Jörg remembers MOB’s scenario “Hut of Darkness” from Tales of the Reaching Moon which uses the same inspiration.

Ludo shifts the topic to the evolution of the shelves behind James in his videos. James talks about his growing collection, and shares how he moved three times during his work on the Chaosium YouTube channel. One time he dismantled and re-populated the shelf at a new home between a Sunday Call of Cthulhu recording and a Tuesday RuneQuest recording.

Ludo talks about his appreciation of the A New Hero stream and feels empowered by seeing James struggle with some of the crunch of the system while James still keeps the game flow. James talks about dealing with the crunch, again by keeping it focused, with deeper dives delayed while applying the principles of Maximum Game Fun and Your Glorantha Will Vary to the current game.

The New Hero stream doesn’t use published scenarios but uses original adventures. James explains that each of the streams has a focus on one specific product in the game line, and that would be the core rules book after having played the Starter Set scenarios on the previous stream.

The first theme would be the clan rivalry, and feedback from Jeff Richard suggested Greenstone as a suitable starting point for that kind of setting. Greenstone has one of the most important Earth temples in Sartar, which gave a logical backdrop for the characters’ backstory. The proximity of the Upland Marsh and its undead led to a follow-up on that theme, and so on.

Ludo asks about the sources used to research the region. James lists his sources, which included the Guide to Glorantha, the RuneQuest Glorantha Bestiary, the RuneQuest wiki, and the fan-maintained (and often not quite correct) Glorantha wiki for a general overview and for an idea what specifics to look up, and then using his access to the previously published material on the setting.

Ludo points out that the Bestiary is a lot more than just a catalogue of monsters: it also contains a significant amount of world-building, worth a read-through rather than just skimming for single monster stats.

As the only grognard in the podcast, Jörg cannot help but reminisce his experience playing in a Freeform set in the Greenstone region around the time the current tribes were formed, and how the rivals of the resident Orleving clan were the first presentation of clan life in Sartar in the RuneQuest 3^rd edition Genertela box, still available in the free collection called “HeroQuest Voices“. These are in-world instructions to young adults in the various cultures and regions of Glorantha. They are excellent as player-facing hand-outs to get an idea about the setting. The individual content is available for download at the bottom of this page.

When asked for advice to get started, James first points to the online version of the Starter Set SoloQuest.

James’ next tip is that the new GM should select the pre-generated characters in the Starter Set that they feel comfortable with, and offer that selection to the players as the group composition will be influential on the style of the game.

James suggests to take the Strike Rank system not so much as a fixed turn order but just as an aid to determine who goes first after all the actions have been announced.

James then suggests that, to get a feel for the style of the setting, look at the real-world inspirations for cults, like ascetic monks for Humakt or fertility goddess and rites for Ernalda. Also look at the religions and try to make sense of interactions and parallels. Just asking whether it is coincidence that there are seven Lightbringers and Seven Mothers can lead to insights, for instance, and comparing it to the Roman re-interpretations of Greek mythology in their own pantheon.

Ludo asks about the Session Zero and determining the style and orientation of the campaign. James talks about setting the mood of the game (like leaving silly jokes at the door for a game of the Alien RPG), along with extra demands when running a game on a public stream. For the New Hero stream, they initially kept it small and focused, while for the Starter Set stream they would just jump in to get the general experience.

Jörg asks about the players derailing the original ideas for the session, and James tells about a whole subplot that was avoided by the players involving a fight against zombies inside a horse stable with horses trapped, and then centaurs coming to the rescue. That did not happen, and neither did the players return to a village on the edge of the Marsh to get more information on the undead, leaving a whole set of small subplots unplayed.

Ludo asks about personal favourite and least favourite aspects of the setting. James starts with confessing his love for the ducks of Glorantha, a concept that initially seemed alien, 1970ish, but resonating with his love for Duck Tales and an early tabletop roleplaying experience with a DIY game called Duckromancer (not the commercially available game by the same name, but a game where you play ducks and have skills like Duckplomacy and other puns galore). He also likes the Mostali, thanks to exposure to an enthusiastic fan at a convention. Stuff James enjoyed less were the big spanning political story arches as those are hard to make a connection with for new players unfamiliar with these struggles.

Ludo talks about how GMs coming from Call of Cthulhu are used to deal with rather ordinary people being tossed into stuff way beyond their pay grades, and how they (might) return from their adventure still as normal folk rather than big heroes. Switching to stories where the player characters are expected to be or become recognized heroes means a change in narrative style. James mentions how his academic background as a screenwriter ingrained all the narratological story-telling tropes, which mean that the hero emerges from a community, and at the end of the hero’s journey returns to that community.

We close the interview with our usual silly questions, like the favourite steed (bolo lizard), favourite culture (Orlanthi over Lunar or Praxian, with Sartar on the Praxian border possibly the ideal mixture), favourite cult (Humakt for the swords and asceticism, Urox the Storm Bull for the bad-ass boisterous guys), trollkin or ducks (ducks, of course), scorpionmen or undead (undead), favourite undead villain (Delecti over Brangbane), most interesting character homeland (Lunar Tarsh), and favourite runes (Death, Water, Truth, Fire).

Credits

The intro music is “The Warbird” by Try-Tachion. Other music includes “Cinder and Smoke” and “Skyspeak“, along with audio from the FreeSound library.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (29.6MB)

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