And it is Jörg’s time again to write about the news and related stuff about the world of Glorantha, the publishers creating stuff for that, and a selection of fan-written stuff dealing with the world and the games for it.
Yes, Bill told you everything about this contest in last week’s Wind Whispers. Or did he?
Work behind the scenes continues while we are talking to our judges and listening to the first contributions. Watch the threads on BRP Central for tidbits on the contest. So send in your material! Surely you can do better than Bill and Jörg with their examples in the last two podcasts!
Chaosium News
Illustrator Loic Muzy has been showing off some work-in-progress on Twitter – an illustration of a bare-chested Ernalda lounging with a snake on one arm and a bushel of grain in the other.
GenCon Online RQG Sessions on YouTube
Watch these videos to learn how the folk at Chaosium run a convention adventure, especially if you are a GM who might wish to run the scenarios for other players.
In Jason Durall’s session “The Forest on the Waves” from GenCon Online the pregen characters Vasana, Sorala, Harmast, Nathem and Vastor are sent on a mission from Clearwine to Nochet by Argrath, carrying gifts for Queen Samastina.
Michael O’Brien ran “The Getting of Wisdom“, an initiatory scenario for Lhankor Mhy apprentices, with his usual MGF approach showing through.
Bill says he his sorry that his plans to attend as our on-site reporter suffered from too much work to do for our podcast and connection problems.
Remembering Caroman by Michael Paul O’Sullivan is an adventure building on the last field battle of the Lunar conquest of Sartar. In a situation not unlike the Spartan defense at the Thermopylae, the Lunar invaders bypassed Prince Salinarg’s defensive position in the Sambari Pass, and this story starts with the funeral of a widow of one of the glorious but defeated guardians of the pass. Meet their restless spirits, and lay them to rest?
This is the expanded version of a scenario from one of the scenarios provided by the Cult of Chaos to volunteer GMs at conventions.
Other News from the Community
Roleplaying History presented by Shannon Appelcline
Shannon is the author of the definitive work on the history of roleplaying, Designers and Dragons, and he keeps putting out the results of his research on rpg.net.
As a former employee of Chaosium, Shannon has a good idea on what went on with our favourite publisher of Glorantha material, and his recent article on The Chaosium Connections comes with a chart showing the interactions of Chaosium with other companies.
There is hardly anything on the history of licensees in other languages, though. I appreciate that it is hard to do research in a language that you don’t read yourself, but maybe there are people from those countries who could contribute and share their experiences.
In similar news, Shannon published an interview with the people behind Pavic Tales, the first known fanzine for RuneQuest. This British fanzine was the predecessor to the well-known Tales of the Reaching Moon, and it amounted to nine issues in the years 1987-1989. Originals are hard to find, and probably collectors’ items these days.
Both Pavic Tales and Reaching Moon Megacorp are going to get more detailed attention in Shannon’s next project in the series, named “The Lost Histories”.
Glorantha fans keep surprising us with the topics they discuss. One of the most recent explorations goes almost skin deep, as people are discussing Gloranthan underwear.
We have now posted a ton of info and rules for our contest, Glorantha has Talent?. We have not been shy. So, we won’t rehash it all, except to say we are on BRP Central with rules, info, advice as well as a place where you can post your opinions. We are also on the Wind Words site with all of that. except the public opinions. You can post your entries on the site (to post an entry, go to the site’s home pageand click on the envelope icon in the upper right corner and attach it to an email). So, pop over to one of our two presences on the web for opinions or entries, to read the rules, get advice from your peers and soon even drool over the prizes (which we will have a sneak peak at right away in this very newsletter! A great reason to subscribe)!
Prizes
To begin with, we will list Glorantha Has Talent?’s prizes in alphabetical order? Why? Well, we don’t have a first second or third place prize! We are well aware that one man’s treasure can be another man’s, “been there done that, already got the `Tee-Shirt!” kind of deal.
So, no sequential order of prizes, for us. We all know how a Prince, Chieftain, or Thane will be chosen, right? No? Well, head right on over to the our contest’s site in the Cloud and check out the Rules as pertains to Judges.
The Prince, as chosen by our wonderful judges, gets the first and the fourth choices of the prizes. The Chieftain gets the second choice and The Thane (number one in our hearts, but number three in the selection process) chooses—well, 3rd!
So let’s gave lo look at our prizes…
The Booty!
Chaosium, Nick Brooke, and Austin Conrad of Akhelas have graciously donated the following wonderful PDFs of their works as prizes and in the case of Austin and Nick they have said they will specially mod the PDFs for the contest. These publishers have been at this for a while so I will let them describe their treasures in their own way! Mind you, I have been working with Austin on his great collection for 3/4 of a year, so I am honoured to put in a bit of a kind word for our prolific genius and his oeuvre.
“One of our great prizes is a unique digital edition of A Rough Guide to Glamour, the Jonstown Compendium’s first Gold best selling title. It’s your indispensable tourist guide to the capital city of the Lunar Empire, and much more besides, including a city map and gazetteer, two RuneQuest cult write-ups, history, art, fiction, poetry and more.”
Monsters of the Month – January to August!
That’s right! Eight months worth of terror, wonder, awe and cuddly cuteness—all at once.
Austin Conrad has offered the first 8 issues of his wonderful series, Monster of the Month as his treasure to be chosen to by our worthiest and the wisest competitor! He says that those who chose his treasure will also get a special memento from him! Hmm!
His cute, horrible, and awesome pets, all created from his fevered imagination, are in order of appearance:
“Set in the mythic fantasy world of Glorantha, The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories features seven complete ready-to-play adventures, taking you from ghoul-haunted catacombs, into mystic ruins, across the arid deserts of Prax, and up to the rocky pinnacle of the Pegasus Plateau!
“Additionally, The Locaem is a new tribe for use by gamemasters and players, and the lonely village of Renekot’s Hope, perched between the Lunar Empire and its enemies in Sartar, provide refuge… or a springboard for adventure!”
“TheSmoking Ruin & Other Stories contains ready-to-play adventures for RuneQuest, taking adventurers across the untamed South Wilds, a region filled with reclusive villagers, ancient ruins, beast folk, troll spirits, undead, wolf-brothers, dinosaurs, monstrous mercenary companies, living trees, surly river spirits, and worse!
“The book also offers a closer look at some significant locations in the South Wilds, and some more adventures – there’s the Wild Temple, a massive open air holy site, the Lost Valley which offers an interesting little community, and the adventures Urvantan’s Tower in which the fate of the Lost Valley relies on quick action from the player characters and Grove of Green Rock, in which the player characters can get hired to help a massive elven project to establish a new sacred grove in Dragon Pass.”
So we look forward to hearing your entries and giving you your choice of these great prizes. Record your work of art, and enter soon!
Jonstown Compendium News
What is it?
Amazingly, we have not described what the Jonstown Compendium is, in all of our Wind Whispers to date! As we intend to visit it often, I will attempt to describe this great library of Glorantha Fan products. Here goes.
After the fantastic success of the Miskatonic Repository, DriveThruRPG–OBS and Chaosium have again created a marketplace in the cloud for fan created goodness. This time for Gloranthan products, and it is known as the Jonstown Compendium. While this is great for most of us product hungry Glorantha-philes, alas, 13th Age Glorantha is not yet supported. Soon, we hope.
At the moment, new products are sold as PDFs but if enough sales are reached a POD may be offered by the publishers. When buying a Jonstown Compendium product, remember, the author’s Glorantha may well have varied!
So, what do ours gods say? Orlanth gives it 4 very blue thumbs up
This bad boy is too new to have a lot written on it, hell, even the authors acknowledge this, and let us know right away that it is very much a WIP. Still this is the first work on Glorantha’s mystic east by fan or pro, so we had to mention it.
Quoted from the Authors Blurb
“A source book for the far east of Glorantha. Warning: This document is a work in progress and not a finalized product.
It forms the basis of a house campaign and will be updated and amended as the campaign progresses. The Document as mentioned is a work in progress and may contain typos and inconsistencies, which I will up date at a regular interval. The regularity, depending on how my campaign runs and personal commitments.
It should be noted, Chaosium will be producing a Kralori Source book in the future and much of the information contained within these pages may well be superseded.
This supplement to the much loved Six Seasons in Sartar helps convert the RQ stat blocks to your 13th Age Glorantha and HeroQuest Glorantha gaming tables. With rules and guidelines on character creation and converting NPCs you can easily enjoy Six Seasons in Sartar with whatever game system you prefer. But there is more than that inside!
“For hundreds of years, one day in every year, braziers have been lit in a cave near Sandheart and left to burn for the night. No one can remember why, but it is recorded as an important cult duty and that seems a good enough reason for the tradition to be upheld.
“Another year passes and the militia are sent on their annual pilgrimage to light the braziers. Just the same old same old… but not this time.”
Tradition: Sandheart Volume Three is a mini-campaign set in Sun County and can be played on its own or integrated with Sandheart Volumes One & Two. At 82 pages / 30,000+ words (not counting preface, credits, handouts, etc.), it includes over thirty bespoke illustrations. The scenario is bundled with a 24-page supplement containing printable versions of all the maps and handouts.
—From the authors
Return to the land explored in RQ’s last renaissance back in the 90’s by luminaries like Michael O’Brien and Ken Ralston, This time out Jonathan Webb and friends explore the “6th Great Tribe of Prax”.
The other books in the series are:
Tales of the Sun County Militia: Sandheart Volume 1 The Corn Dolls: Sandheart Volume 2
Heort’s Legacy
Heorts Legacy` From Alistair Jones, Edan Jones PDF $5.00
And again, I will turn to the authors own words:
“Contained within are several series of questions to add even more variety to Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes’ clan questionnaire: providing variants for Orlanthi of solar, earth, darkness or water tendencies, and others from less orthodox members of the storm pantheon.”
So for use with HQ, we get an expansion to fill out clan myths and adventurer’s history beyond the Orlanthi norm. Great show boys!
From the Spider’s Web
News of Glorantha caught in our webs from elsewheres in the cyber realms.
Today we head to BRP Central to find a truly great free resource to navigate the crowded lands of Dragon Pass to locals where one might find adventure of the Jonstown Compendium sort under every tree and in every alley.
Andre Jarosch has answered both questions by undertaking the task of displaying where published scenarios can be found in these beautiful Dragon Pass maps,
In his own words:
“Inspired by the map in “The Pegasus Plateau”, and with the kind permission of Chaosium Inc., i made my own “Adventure Locations” maps.”
The following list of maps is just a start, he has since added and amended the maps a few times. Visit here before visiting The Jonstown Compendium for the latest on info on where the scenario takes place and in what rules systems.
Map I. Adventure Locations in official RQG publications: Map II. Adventure Locations in Jonstown Compendium publications Map III. Adventure Locations in official RuneQuest 2 and RuneQuest 3 publications Map IV. Adventure Locations in official HeroWars, HQ, HQ 2 and HQ Glorantha publication
Thanks Andre!
Rumour Tables
The Company of the Dragon
Rumour says this might be by Andrew Logan Montgomery. I tend to believe such rumours.
Hmm suspicious, a great roll and a rumour that comes with very professional looking cover art. I have a sinking suspicion this might rate a T on the Rumour Table. Well, let’s see what this rumour says… A first look at a nominal sequel. Well that is intriguing and enigmatic, hmm.
From Andrew Logan Montgomery
“IN WRITING THE COMPANY OF THE DRAGON, the one thing I didn’t want to do was a sequel. Six Seasons in Sartar is a self-contained story; it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It struck me as silly to just have “continuing adventures” tacked on, as if the ancient Third Age poet Usuphus of Jonstown just kept cranking out additional epics like some Gloranthan Jerry Bruckheimer. So from the start I knew The Company of the Dragon had to be something different. It would have to be 100% compatible with Seasons, but also a stand-alone project.”
Well that’s it for the Rumou…hey what was that crash and bang… what odd critter is that butting it’s way into our Newsletter? AGAIN?
Austin, is this one of yours? Huh, what’s that? A runaway MotM? A Storm Ram? You don’t say! Hey. stop that, aw man, who gets the job of cleaning up after him?
Darn monsters, wait for your month!
Dragon Pass On Pennies A Season!
Gloranthan Goodness even a stick picker can afford
“So. work is irregular, discretionary income is shrinking faster and faster, but damn it, We want to try this Glorantha thing and see what all the fuss is about. After all, we have plenty of time.”
Well, believe it or not, a large amount of Gloranthan exploration is possible for free… yes, let me repeat that, a large amount of fun can be had evaluating Gloranthan Goodness for free!
Oh, if you are like the Wind Words’ cast you will want to invest a few shiny gold Wheels into the hobby but, if reality does not allow for this and you exist on a bolg budget with golden dreams, well… what is a curious adventurer to do? Over the next few months on an irregular basis when they turn Wind Whispers over to me, I will look at a few free or cheap items of Gloranthan Goodness to bring to you attention.
From Chaosium
RuneQuest Evaluation for Free!
Our friends at Chaosium are helping the bored and broke “want to be adventures” with quite a few items but let’s go back to before the start of the modern era of RQ.
“Sherman, set the wayback machine for the heady days of 2017.”
Way back when Chaosium was giving away the only version of RQG it had… Free! Let me quote from their blurb of today.
“Try the Ennie-Award-winning RuneQuest Quickstart Rules & Adventure for free! This 48-page booklet provides all the info you need to begin play, from basic rules, five pregenerated adventurers, and a full adventure, letting you step right into the world of Glorantha!
GMed this after having it for only a couple of days at my FLGS’s free game-day for four Glorantha newbies back in ’17 and it was great (a few problems were had, but they were ones that everyone noted at the time and they led to official rule changes since!). Yeah, Chaosium said if first and probably best in the above blurb… I have nothing to add. Click download, read, evaluate and then—enjoy!
All Glorantha on your hard drive! This will cover your big picture view for a long time to come in more maps than you will need… Though the year is fixed at 1625 it is still useful to all Gloranthan RPGs to a greater or lesser degree. There will be a few discrepancies if you flavour of Glorantha does not hew to the RQ G canonical timeline but nothing to invalidate the maps usefulness. To be really complete one will still need to draw or buy the local maps (this freebie does not do it all. But we all like to do the local maps, no?).
From the ad
“The Argan Argan Atlas is the perfect companion to the Guide to Glorantha with all of the regional maps of Glorantha collected in a single reference volume. The enchanted world of Glorantha is fully illuminated with over 120 full page colour maps by Colin Driver and Jeff Richard based on Greg Stafford’s original hand-drawings.
The AAA is the complete atlas of the entire Middle World in astonishing detail. The whole of Glorantha is mapped in amazing detail, including all of Genertela, Pamaltela, Jrustela, the East Islands, Vormain, and more.
Details include:
every human settlement of 1000 inhabitants or more
So let’s see, a free book of rules that includes a scenario and an atlas of the world and no money has changed hands. What can be better? How about another free scenario? One that is a tribute to Glorantha’s founding shaman, Greg Stafford? This one was done in memory of Greg Stafford’s passing. Before playing this, give the page at the above URL a read . #weareallus – Play a Tabletop Game to Remember Greg Stafford.
“The world of Glorantha was Greg’s creation in 1966; and is now one of the oldest, most detailed, and most influential roleplaying settings ever published. The Rattling Wind is a brand new RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha adventure by Helena Nash, suitable for four-to-six new or moderately experienced adventurers. It is a preview chapter from The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories, a forthcoming adventures anthology.”
So, that’s it for Glorantha on Pennies a Day and for that matter also for Wind Words #5. Thank you ever so much for having us on your computer or device!
See y’all next issue in about a week!
One More Peek
drool!
It’s just so frickin’ beautiful, I needed one more look! Thanks for the pic MOB!
May Orlanth toss those that profane these rules from his cloud May Vaneekara cast those offending souls into the maw of oblivion Worse yet, may Eurmal detune these curs’ lyres at the worst possible moment Should malfeasance be their goal!
Glorantha Has Talent? is a contest running on our Wind Words podcast until Late September/Early October or to put it another way, until our 8th episode is published). We will receive entries until the 21st of September 5th of October, midnight PDT (later at the judges discretion, only) (the deadline has now been extended). We are looking for short (no more than 3 minutes) audio files with Gloranthan content that are entertaining, evocative, and that sound nice (or at least memorable), ideally all at the same time.
Things we would like to hear include, but are not limited to: jokes, short oral myths, filk songs, or more nerdy stuff that could help a player get into character… like traditional Gloranthan greetings, Heortling boasts, a memorable gaming scene reenactment, or similar stuff you may have done for your gaming table’s entertainment. Surprise us, the judges and our audience with yet more ideas brimming with Gloranthan Goodness!
Let’s keep it all in the spirit of maximum game fun, so treat the judges and their decision with respect as well as your fellow contestants.
We will funnel your works on to our judges after a quick vetting. The judges will cull the entries down to our finalists and then will vote on our Prince, Chieftain, and Thane (first, second and third prize). Please note that the above Sartarite titles are unisex.
Your contribution may be made public (in MP3 format) on godlearners.com where it will be on display for all to hear, in its full glory. Beyond this use of your recordings to benefit our website and podcasts, the copyright on the entries remains with the content creators. The content creators can reserve the right to withdraw an entry from publication at any time, removing it also from “Glorantha Has Talent?”.
To be considered a victor we will need the rights to your work for the duration of the contest guaranteed (including for advertising, posting, and then possible broadcasting). Future rights remain with the copyright holder and must be renegotiated for further use.
Copyright held by third parties will hold sway.
“Let‘s take the assumption that you happen to do a beautiful rendering of Boris Mikey‘s filk song “The Day the Flame Died Down” to the melody of Don McLean’s “American Pie”, possibly with the slight re-arrangement to fit the words better to the melody by Nick Brooke. Any of the people listed here plus the performers receive the right to demand a withdrawal of the recording from publication. If necessary leave it to us to edit an already broadcasted episode of Wind Words if we need to remove copyrighted material.
“In order to avoid such bummers, the less material copyrighted by third parties you use, the less chance of losing that work.”
The judges will talk about your submissions, and possibly why they chose them. Bear in mind we don’t bite, They will treat your quirky pieces, badly thought out ideas that come to naught, or half page of scribbled lines with care and sensitivity, be assured.
Record your entry digitally, somehow—everybody reading this has a cell-phone or a computer capable of recording sound. Good sound quality will be a quality of its own, but content and ideas will balance that and bear in mind lo-fi is a thing that might be used to your advantage.
Upload your sound file from your device memory either as an e-mail attachment to tribe@windords.fm or upload it to https://www.dropbox.com/request/aORt2e9DPOg7RqEHnput. The Wind Words team will take it from there. If you want to add some corroborative material (a photo or video of you performing, a cover image, a transcript, sheet music, an animation), feel free to do so. It may sway the judges, but remember that the presentation of your entry is on an audio only format.
Guide for the Judges
Use
1. entertainment 2. Gloranthaness 3. production values
,,,as your guides. And then add in your own values. Be ready to defend these on air.
Principles
Ludo’s notes that he penned for the judges, above are a great guide, but we do have a few more principles we would like to introduce to you as well. They are briefly mentioned below.
Fun
Fairness
Simplicity
Nice Judging
Glorantha-ness
The Contest Rules
Entries have to be follow these constraints (Judges might tend to leniency)
Audio-media must be sent to “our dropbox in the clouds” in most modern audio formats
Must allow us publishing rights for the Podcast and Web-Site for the duration of the contest. Further rights may be negotiated.
Entries will be received until the 21st of September, midnight, PDT (later at the judges discretion, only).
Judging
First vetting done by Podcast Crew
Those that make the cut go onto the judges for the finals, Each judge gets three votes to distribute as he or she sees fit and may divide these in any way they choose or give all three to one entry. We will cull half the entries at this time to those with the most votes. Ties will be decided by Bill, Jörg and Ludo as above (3 votes, etc).
And then for those who advance, three then will be chosen to be our Prince of Entertainment, our Chieftain of Mirth and our Thane of Good Humour (first, second and third).
In disputes or disagreements, Ludo, Bill, and Joerg’s joint decision will be final!
Who may not enter
The podcast hosts and the podcast crew, judges, and those who have given prizes for the contest Glorantha Has Talent?, AND their families.
May we wish you all the best of luck!
Bill, Jörg and Ludo!
The Prizes
To begin with, we will list Glorantha Has Talent?’s prizes in alphabetical order? Why? Well, we don’t have a first second or third place prize! We are well aware that one man’s treasure can be another man’s, “been there done that, already got the `Tee-Shirt!” kind of deal.
So, no sequential order of prizes, for us. We all know how a Prince, Chieftain, or Thane will be chosen, right? No? Well, look up to the top of this doc to check out the Rules as pertains to Judges.
The Prince, as chosen by our wonderful judges, gets the first and the fourth choices of the prizes. The Chieftain gets the second choice and The Thane (number one in our hearts, but number three in the selection process) chooses—well, 3rd!
So let’s gave lo look at our prizes…
The Booty!
Chaosium, Nick Brooke, and Austin Conrad of Akhelas have graciously donated the following wonderful PDFs of their works as prizes and in the case of Austin and Nick they have said they will specially mod the PDFs for the contest. These publishers have been at this for a while so I will let them describe their treasures in their own way! Mind you, I have been working with Austin on his great collection for 3/4 of a year, so I am honoured to put in a bit of a kind word for our prolific genius and his oeuvre.
“One of our great prizes is a unique digital edition of A Rough Guide to Glamour, the Jonstown Compendium’s first Gold best selling title. It’s your indispensable tourist guide to the capital city of the Lunar Empire, and much more besides, including a city map and gazetteer, two RuneQuest cult write-ups, history, art, fiction, poetry and more.”
Monsters of the Month – January to August!
That’s right! Eight months worth of terror, wonder, awe and cuddly cuteness—all at once.
Austin Conrad has offered the first 8 issues of his wonderful series, Monster of the Month as his treasure to be chosen to by our worthiest and the wisest competitor! He says that those who chose his treasure will also get a special memento from him! Hmm!
His cute, horrible, and awesome pets, all created from his fevered imagination, are in order of appearance:
“Set in the mythic fantasy world of Glorantha, The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories features seven complete ready-to-play adventures, taking you from ghoul-haunted catacombs, into mystic ruins, across the arid deserts of Prax, and up to the rocky pinnacle of the Pegasus Plateau!
“Additionally, The Locaem is a new tribe for use by gamemasters and players, and the lonely village of Renekot’s Hope, perched between the Lunar Empire and its enemies in Sartar, provide refuge… or a springboard for adventure!”
“TheSmoking Ruin & Other Stories contains ready-to-play adventures for RuneQuest, taking adventurers across the untamed South Wilds, a region filled with reclusive villagers, ancient ruins, beast folk, troll spirits, undead, wolf-brothers, dinosaurs, monstrous mercenary companies, living trees, surly river spirits, and worse!
“The book also offers a closer look at some significant locations in the South Wilds, and some more adventures – there’s the Wild Temple, a massive open air holy site, the Lost Valley which offers an interesting little community, and the adventures Urvantan’s Tower in which the fate of the Lost Valley relies on quick action from the player characters and Grove of Green Rock, in which the player characters can get hired to help a massive elven project to establish a new sacred grove in Dragon Pass.”
Legion
Thanks to the generosity of Neil Gibson, we have an extra prize!
Legion is the silver best-selling Broo NPC supplement for GMs running RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha games.
Broo are a prolific and varied adversary. This supplement provides 94 pre-rolled Chaos enemies from the aspirant lay members to deadly Rune Lord / Priests as well as new deadly diseases that will challenge even the most dedicated Chalana Arroy priestess. Includes 4 beautiful, full colour, full page Broo portraits.
So we look forward to hearing your entries and giving you your choice of these great prizes. Record your work of art, and enter soon!
We announce our contest for audio takes on Glorantha.
A Ludoch Story
02;10
Another example (after last episode’s joke at the end of the podcast) of how such a 3 minute audio entry could sound
The Herald‘s Podium
05:25
Starting with an interruption announcing Wind Whispers, a newsletter collecting the news of the week (convention news, new products, new rumors, and occasional looks at cool topics on the interweb, current and older).
The RuneQuest Live-Play videos on Twitch and YouTube Should an official live-play be free of house rules?
Orkenspalter TV meets Chaosium
15:40
With Lynn Hardy, John Wick, Jeff Richard and sorry, not Mike Mason, but Jason Durall—bad Jörg, bad!
Some Jonstown Compendium products now available in Print on Demand
Only electrum sellers are going to get a Print on Demand, talking about the catch22 when some buyers hold back on supporting a new title hoping for a PoD bundle and electrum status possibly delayed or not reached.
Talking about reading in the bathroom (don‘t try that at away from home, folks)
John Wick‘s Blue Moon, White Moon John Wick? No, not the one played by Keanu Reeves!
The Rumour Table
29:50
Mark Baldwin releasing some marble statue depictions of Sun County? There are some uncanny similarities with certain folk at Chaosium.
31:40
Campaign Coins – get your hard Gloranthan currency! (No, not live cattle, but actual bolgs, clacks, lunars and wheels.)
Feedback
33:40
BrentS on Cults of Prax and Biturian‘s Travels, and getting sweet on us
37:40
Pookie from Reviews from R’lyeh on how he listens to us on his walks, and a nod to our Cattle Raid proposals
Biturian’s Travels revisited – Part Two
40:00
A letter home to Esrolia, from a traveler in Prax
Bill gives one of our intrepid explorers a voice, dictated to a scribe at a Praxian Oasis.
Introduction
42:28
A thank you to Martin Helsdon of Armies and Enemies of Dragon Passfame for letting us use his imagery of the Paps, on the cover ofTemplesand Towers, his exploration of the architecture of central Genertela.
A Dark Season Ritual at the Paps
43:30
Starting with Bill‘s comments on the Eirithan Dark Season rites at the Paps, we take a look at various things on and off topic.
The Respected Elder (and Most Respected Elder) of the cult of Eiritha at the Paps
A digression about the Morokanth
The holy nature of the Paps and its importance to Prax, and how this is similar to real world earth worship for Earth worship in an underground location. Bill brings out the Hopi using the Grand Canyon as the hole in the ground around which their earth worship was centred.
Rituals and Heroquests, and how much Other Side is involved. What do observers see?
Little love lost between trolls and the Earth worshipers of Prax.
Darkness attackers in the most holy place—why do we have Morokanth attackers? Similarities between Morokanth and trolls We mention Steve Purcell’s image of a Morokanth on the cover of RQ3 Bestiary, and how Jörg managed to mis-interpret it as a dark troll for way too long – illustrating an uncanny similarity between these Darkness Rune creatures of Eiritha and the Men of Darkness.
Ritual foes, and how heroquesters from all over Glorantha may be drawn into your quest (and vice versa). We discuss worshipers taking on the ritual role of a foe of the cult.
Biturian making a profit out of his worship Lay membership, joining other cults’ ceremonies
Bill points out the similarities and differences with the Paps scene in Vasana’s Saga in the RuneQuest Glorantha rules book.
A Humakti Duel at Tourney Altar
1:06:00
Ludo introduces us to Tourney Altar, where we get to witness a Humakt Duel. Naimless— Sword of Humakt from the Temple of the Wooden Sword, and accompanied by dark troll worshipers of Humakt.
Troll initiates of Humakt Digressing about the Chaosium RQ2 (and RQ1) house campaigns A history of the Temple of Wooden Sword with the Sazdorf Clan
Breaking the stereotype of your cult (and we didn’t even mention 13G’s “One Unique Thing” that each character has).
Fairness in Humakti Duels
Discussing the limitations of Divine Intervention and how gods interact with their worshipers
Ludo has us tell about and then make up unusual specimen of cultists.
Bill’s mentions a duck character that worships Polaris, “a bit of an odd duck”!
Jörg “in memoriam” of Onslaught (a Humakti character invented by Martin Laurie) and his antithesis
“The Bodyguard” – a Humakti dilemma, in Ellie Akers’ campaign
Rolling a random cult – we improvise on Waha and Maran Gor.
The Etyries Market at Moonbroth
1:33:20
Biturian’s description of Moonbroth, and thoughts on why it spouts water every Wildday.
Like the oasis, Jörg spouts illuminating nonsense about “it washes away the red Chaos from the Red Moon”.
The nature of Rune Spells (e.g. Charisma) in Glorantha
A High Fantasy version of Glorantha, envisioned by Bill
The inevitable comparison of Charisma with Axe or Sword Trance
What’s the dark secret about the horned children in the Empire? Tell us your theories at tribe@godlearners.com (hell, tell us your theories of anything and if it comes as an audio file that runs for about 3 minutes, it might double as your contest entry).
And with that we sneak out at the break of dawn, just like Biturian…
First, the supplement is written by Jonathan Tweet, whose name should be familiar to anybody who played at least a few RPGs. We’re not going to list his entire resume but let’s just say he co-wrote the old RQ3 Strangers in Prax, and the more recent 13th Age: Glorantha, being also the co-author of 13th Age itself. Of note, he is also the co-author of Ars Magica, which drew inspiration from RuneQuest and, later, influenced RuneQuest back with its innovative sorcery mechanics.
Second, this new supplement will allegedly showcase the “variability” of Glorantha, as per the saying “Your Glorantha May Vary” (YGMV):
Originally conceived as “Your Glorantha May Vary”, this collection of locations demonstrates the versatility of the setting, putting that phrase to work by showing new and veteran gamemasters alike how to customize and make the world of Glorantha their own.
David Scott and Ian Cooper on The Rolistes podcast
David Scott (one of Chaosium’s convention coordinators, and an underrated source of Gloranthan knowledge) and Ian Cooper (the line editor for HeroQuest/QuestWorlds) were interviewed by The Rolistes podcast during the Chaosium UK Meetup that happened just before the COVID-19 lockdown in March. In this episode they chat with their host about the (then upcoming) QuestWorld SRD, the guests’ origin stories, and many other interesting things.
Chaosium seems to have been expanding a bit on their online play resources lately. There’s probably nothing new for the experienced players in the audience, but it might be worth pointing to the newbies in your entourage. In particular, Chaosium now has separate pages for each game. Here’s the RuneQuest page, and here’s the HeroQuest page.
RuneQuest en Français
Note quite Chaosium news, but close enough: the French version of RuneQuest: Glorantha seems to have come back from the printer. Does this cover look like it has some embossing?
And let’s not forget that this version of the rulebook contains rule fixes (like some occupation skill bonuses) along with an original scenario!
Jonstown Compendium
There’s nothing to report on the Jonstown Compendium this week.
Remember that if you’re wondering which PDF(s) might be interesting to you, Nick Brooke has a cheap but well maintained index of all Jonstown Compendium scenarios and sourcebooks. For only half a Lunar, you get some solid information that will let you decide what to buy next… it even includes a map of where each PDF is set!
Convention News
Glorantha Games 2020 is happening online
Glorantha Games is a one-day gaming convention dedicated to, well, roleplaying in Glorantha, and that usually happens in Birmingham, UK, for the enjoyment of all the lucky people who happen to live in this hotbed of tabletop gaming. This year it was supposed to happen in April but agents of Mallia had other plans, and the event was understandably cancelled.
Well, as we’ve learned these past few months, COVID-19-related cancellations are not always all bad news, with conventions moving online and, therefore, being accessible to a broader and more diverse audience! Glorantha Games 2020 is therefore open for anyone that can get online on October 3rd. You can register on Warhorn to be notified when further information is revealed.
Ian Cooper, line editor for QuestWorlds (the new generic line that came out of the HeroQuest rules), has been quite active on the QuestWorlds Facebook group, encouraging community members to participate in the design process for the SRD and upcoming rulebook. This is what he had to say about a Gloranthan sourcebook for QuestWorlds:
For now, HQG is the main published text for Glorantha. QuestWorlds is available but still in development. So the SRD will undergo some revisions before being final. One design goal is the make it more rules-lite, yes.In addition it will be a generic presentation. In the medium term, for Glorantha you are probably best of grabbing HQG and incorporating any rules changes from QW you are comfortable with. That may end up, for you, with only really using the ‘genre pack’ elements of HQG such as the magic, keywords etc.A “QuestWorlds Glorantha” will come at some point, and will probably be more than just a reprint of HQG with the new mechanics. But that is a way off.
Ian Cooper, QuestWorlds Facebook group
About RuneQuest 3 remasters
Rick Meints, president of Chaosium and expert archivist, gave us some behind-the-scenes information about the state of RQ3’s catalog with regards to seeing it re-released in the same vein as the RQ2 catalog:
I have said this on other threads, but there is no rights issue with the vast majority of RQ3 material. If you look at the credits page of almost ANY RQ3 supplement your will see that it is copyrighted by Chaosium and not by Avalon Hill. Greg made very sure that they retained the copyright, and when he left Chaosium his part of the split was taking all of those copyrights with him. Moon Design Publications owns all the rights to RuneQuest and Glorantha, both in terms of trademarks and IP. So why haven’t we reprinted more RQ3 product? It’s just down to time and resources. We do not have electronic copies of any RQ3 material in a laid out form. Those layouts were all done as cut and paste until late in the life cycle of RQ3, and Avalon Hill deleted the layout files for whatever they had for the last books in the RQ3 line several decades ago. That said, a few RQ3 books may get released as “Classics”, but they haven’t even been started yet. To be fair, getting a copy of Dorastor, Sun County, and similar isn’t that hard on eBay, and you probably wouldn’t have to pay more than $30-$40 for any of them if you have a bit of patience. I know a few sellers have copies listed for far more than that, but those don’t sell. If you are based in the US, feel free to send me your want list of RQ3 items you are looking for.
Rick Meints, BRP Forums
Elsewhere on Arachne’s web
Griselda’s bedtime stories
Friend of the show Pookie, from Reviews From R’lyeh fame, has an ongoing YouTube series where he reads the Griselda Tales, written by Oliver Dickinson. That’s a great way to relax before going to sleep, or something nice to listen to while cooking or working out… after you’ve finished listening to the latest Wind Words episode of course!
Jason Durall, Chaosium’s line editor for RuneQuest: Glorantha, is a very busy man, as he’s also a line editor for the Conan RPG at Modiphius. Since this RPG is based on the quintessential sword & sorcery tales of Robert E. Howard, RuneQuest players might find some interest in learning more about it…. and what best for this than Jason being interviewed by Dirk The Dice on the ever excellent Grognard Files podcast?
Back in Wind Whispers #3, we mentioned that Campaign Coins, makers of fine RPG related tokens, had announced Clacks, Lunars, and other familiar types of coins. If you want to see what they look like in video, Loscha has you covered with the coins he recently received.
Timothy Brannan’s RPG blog and publishing outlet “The Other Side” recently had a review of Trollpak, the classic RuneQuest supplement that made it possible to play as everybody’s favourite munchers (including recipes for better roleplay!). The review goes over the contents of the books, adds a touch of context and a history, and overall highlights how innovative Trollpak was, especially in terms of showcasing non-human factions as something else than purely one-dimensional monsters.
Timothy is also an RPG author, and you can find his stuff, among other places, on DrivethruRPG and the DM’s Guild (and note that these are affiliate links for him, not for us!).
WayneBooks, a fine purveyor of used and out-of-print games, has recently posted a blog article about Dragon Pass (the old board game) and its history. For those of you who not lucky enough to own a copy, the article contains many pictures of what’s in the box. Note that WayneBooks has several Glorantha-related items for sale, including Dragon Pass itself.
Interview with Pavic Tales founders
Shannon Applecline, the RPG industry’s most prominent historian, recently ran an interview with Mark Corbett and Jim Mozley over at RPG.net. Mark and Jim are two of the founders for Pavic Tales, the first known RuneQuest fanzine, which ran between 1987 and 1989.
If you want more RPG history, you can visit Shannon Applecline’s website and purchase the awesome “Designers & Dragons“, a series of books that each cover a decade of industry news and gossip in detail. This includes, of course, a history of Chaosium’s early years.
The Dice are Screaming: A Rough Guide to Glamour
RPG podcast “The Dice are Screaming” did a review of “A Rough Guide to Glamour“. We’re pretty sure there wasn’t any live performance of “Pelorian Rhapsody” in there, unlike on our own podcast, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t just as interesting and entertaining.
New research on the origins of human population in the Americas
The evidence is a bit strenuous, and therefore still hotly debated, but some new discoveries in Mexico could indicate that humans have been living on the American continent for a lot longer than previously thought. This date has been steadily pushed back since the Clovis culture theory of the 1950s, but we are now possibly looking at as far back as 33,000 years ago.
As I am preparing this for publication, Gencon 2020 is happening online. All the games are full, but there is streaming of “stage events”, using the “Looking Glass” and other activities you’d usually do in person. There is discord to chat with other convention visitors, and more.
“We are gearing up for #GenConOnline so here is our first new release: RuneQuest Coins, straight from the pages of Chaosium Inc’s The Guide to Glorantha. Find them at www.campaigncoins.com on Thursday 30th July 10 AM EDT, as soon as Gen Con Online begins. May Issaries bring you good fortune!”
Chaosium at PaxOnline
“PaxOnline is taking place from 12th-20th September. No, that’s not a typo. This is indeed a nine day long event! With content running 24 hours during those days. Or “24/9” as they call it over at PAX.
Our convention coordinator Todd is working with PAX on the program for pre-registered tables of RPG events. So it’s now time to start recruiting GMs!
At this stage, just email todd@chaosium.com with the following details:
Full name.
City/Timezone you live in.
Game system(s) you want to run – Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, Pendragon, 7th Sea, HeroQuest/Questworlds, Prince Valiant.
The online system(s) you prefer to use to run games, e.g. Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, Astral, Zoom, etc.
Chaosium Unveiled: RuneQuest – Roleplaying in Glorantha
Here’s the latest Chaosium Unveiled video: take a look inside RuneQuest – Roleplaying in Glorantha.
“Greg Stafford’s supreme creation brought fully up to date with the presentation it deserves and tremendous added depth. A fitting memorial. STYLE – 5/5. SUBSTANCE – 5/5: Can it go higher than 5?”—Paul StJohn MacIntosh, RPGNet review.
“One of the most stunning RPG books ever made”—Games Vs Play.
Chaosium Staff on Orkenspalter TV
Four Chaosium staff members (Lynn Hardy, John Wick, Jeff Richard and Jason Durall, in the sequence of their introductions) met with the German role-playing channel Orkenspalter TV for a video-conference which went on lively for almost two hours, starting with the question “What makes a game a Chaosium Game?” The English language episode is available on youtube. I watched it live and thought it could have gone on longer.
“Orkenspalter” translates as “Orc Cleaver”, btw. The channel has been around for many years, and has produced German language movies alongside with reports on various forms of the hobby. Maybe you have some German language skill that could use a little training?
Jonstown Compendium
Glorantha keeps rocking the Drivethru community content, with the first six entries all Jonstown Compendium items. The current 25% rebate on many of the JTC items may have something to do with that, but this is still quite the achievement.
I had started my writing with “No new items this week”, but being late proves me wrong.
Who would have thought that we would ever read that complaint “no new items this week” for RuneQuest or Glorantha publications? Many of us remember periods when seasons or entire years went by without anything new.
“Set in the tribal city of the Colymar, The Dregs of Clearwine is a sourcebook for Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, covering the mini slum that lies north of the Ram’s Head Inn. It features ten households, 25 fully explored NPCs with stats for RQG, and a host of minor characters. There are dozens of plot hooks and community events to help link characters to this area, and the people and even animals within. From potters to charcoal carriers, drunken ex-initiates to well fed butchers, the people who support Clearwine and the Earth Temple live, love, and die here. Some leave only to go to their vineyard work. Others vanish for months on end, and return with new scars.”
A sad creature that may be roaming Dragon Pass, by the indomitable Austin Conrad:
“Dolorous Edd is a new bestiary entry which describes an odd creature for use in your game of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha—a giant beast ruled by inscrutable instincts. Included in this supplement are:
A description of Dolorous Edd’s appearance, behavior, and abilities
A collection of rumors and scenario seeds to help introduce him to your Glorantha
How adventurers may establish a spirit cult honoring this creature
Several folktales illustrating Dolorous Edd’s behavior, and what Gloranthans of the Dragon Pass region believe about him”
News from the French language RQG
The talented cartographer Thomas Rey is currently working with Deadcrows Studios on the French version of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. He has posted a teaser of “Vert-Cuivre” (the Ernaldori village of Greenbrass?)
Hello! Welcome to my first time taking our new “Newsletter’” out for a cruise and it’s also our second edition! Now to start, this issue will be similar to our premier issue but not quite the same, After all, Ludo and I might also be called similar but not quite the same. Even better, I expect Jörg’s 1st kick at Wind Whispers’ tyres (scheduled for next week) will also differ. Fantastic! Three opinions for the price as one—cheap and worth every single bolg!
Fer a start, I am not sure this is a newsletter. I see it more as an ever changing series of weekly Hot Link’s pages embedded on our website—with the emphasis on HOT! Although I can also see it as a form of “community newsletter.” You know, the kind that North Americans know and love! The kind that shows up in our mail boxes on a regular schedule with lots of ads, not the annoying kind, but the ones that are really meant to be of use to their chosen communities, sandwiched around and between a few articles of interest to that very same community (granted, we do not get paid to tell you of items of interest to our community nor are we asking to be, so these really aren’t your usual ads). Hmm, a cool email newsletter you said, Ludo?
We hope to surpass that lofty mark and whether we are cool or hot at the end of the day it’s just a point of view! We look forward to hearing your points of view. Write or send us your 2 Bolgs Worth in an audio file to tribe@godlearners.com.
Time to head into the wild… a collection of ready-to-play scenarios for RuneQuest!
Well that is what the ad says. It’s for the new print copy of one of Chaosium’s early RQG PDF modules and one of their first forays into the lands just south of Sartar.
You can open to any random page and find proof that–yes Toto–you aren’t in Thedas, or Middle-earth, or Faerûn any more.”
Now if you bought the PDF from Chaosium, you get the price of the PDF off the price of the hardcover! Check for a coupon in your email or ask for yours from customerservice@chaosium.com.
Heroquest Glorantha Sale
Three Great Gloranthan Treasures!
HEROQUEST GLORANTHA Narrative gaming in Glorantha and a must have for a game of HeroQuest Glorantha. 260 page full color hardcover +PDF, was $39.95 now $14.99
THE COMING STORM A great game supplement, written for HQ G but definitely much of it usable for RQ G. 134 page full cooler hardcover + PDF, was $34.95 now $14.99
THE ELEVEN LIGHTS “If The Coming Storm was the perfect sourcebook, The Eleven Lights is the perfect campaign”—RPG.Net. The RQ usability remains in this great conclusion to the HQ classic, the Red Cow Saga, but there will be a little work needed to be done by the GM to make it so. 180 page full color hardcover +PDF, was $34.95 now $14.99
No date is given for when this sale ends.
White Bull | Episode One on YouTube
Those disappointed in missing this live game with Jeff Richard GMing his intrepid band last week because it was restricted to customers of Twitch will be happy to know it is now available on Chaosium’s YouTube Channel for free. Did not have enough tine to fact check this next note before publishing but Ludo has said that episode 2 is now available on Twitch, and says it seems to be viewable by all. Give it a check..
Jonstown Compendium News
Glamour goes gold!
“They said it wasn’t possible, that would violate ancient compacts and disturb the fundamental balance of the universe. And as ever, we Lunars have proved those pitiful nay-sayers wrong. As a special “Thank You!” to all our devoted subjects, every Illuminated buyer will find a couple of dozen extra pages – “directors’ cut bonus features” – added to their Library on DriveThruRPG.“ Hail Moonson! We are all Us!
“Now, what do we do for an encore…?”
Nick Brooke (who claims to be an Illuminated Master) was obviously chuffed to announce that “A Rough Guide to Glamour” is the first Gold Best Selling product on DrivethruRPG’s Jonstown Compendium.
Jonstown Compendium Best Sellers!
Want to know who to cadge a beer from when we finally get to return to our “in-real-life” conventions? Chaosium’s Michael O’Brien lets us know the standings of the many Jonstown Compendium items in terms of their sales. For the scoop on who leads the pack, so click here to visit this page on the famed BRP Central for all the details.
Okay gang, skill testing question; who’s the first JC Gold Best Seller? No-prizes will be awarded!
Gen Con Online will be hosting many great Chaosium events. Please note that some are already sold out. You’d better hurry and register for your favourites before it’s too late! More info can be found on Chaosium’s blog post @ Chaosium’s Blog Cloud!
Of course there is a rumour that there are other events at Gen Con Online besides Chaosium oriented ones, On the of chance this is true (neither Jörg are lending this much credence), can someone check it out and let us know. No-prizes might or might not be awarded.
Many Chaosium and Jonstown Compendium items are on sale at this cool event and there may even be items from other companies! Click on the link above and then search for your favourite Gloranthan Goodies.
The Rumour Table
Printers Proofs for The Pegasus Plateau!
Shaking the dice, (clatter clatter clatter) and roll (click, clack click)… 62%, consults table and reads…
The printer’s proofs have arrived for The Pegasus Plateau – the presses will be rolling soon!
Order the PDF from Chaosium now, and you get the full price off the printed product when it’s out later this year (October). T: I believe that we will have to award this rumour a T for true!
An Austin Conrad Rumour?
And with a flick of the wrist the dice rhythmically reveal an… 11%
Hmm, I smell a rat, or a leak at the very lest
To the tribe:
I’ve got some news for Wind Whispers! (or maybe a rumour?)
A print on demand edition of Treasures of Glorantha: Volume One — Dragon Pass will be available in the near future on the Jonstown Compendium. The files have been approved by Lightning Source (the printer), and a print proof has been ordered. This is a 64-page softcover book printed with Lightning Source’s “Premium Color” setting.
In the future, I plan to provide simultaneous PDF and POD releases to longer works from Akhelas.
Best Austin
Okay, so Bernstein and Woodward we ain’t! A: I believe we might just have to give this the other A, the rare one… A for Awesome… or Austin! Not sure how he will deal with MOB’s announcements just below, though.Sell more?
Please note that until further notice OneBookShelf, who run DriveThruRPG, has asked us (Chaosium) not to approve and pass on to them any further Print-On-Demand requests for community content. This is for operational reasons at their end.
You may not be aware, but the process to create each POD test print is time-consuming and sometimes problematic for OBS. For those reasons the practice was discontinued outright for the DM’s Guild. We are fortunate it is allowed on the Jonstown Compendium, but that is by their discretion.
Chaosium has a very long-standing and successful partnership with OBS/DTRPG, which we are not going to take advantage of. Not every JC community title needs to be or should be available as POD. So, going forward, we have advised creators that only titles that have achieved Electrum seller status in PDF format (250 sales) shall be eligible for consideration for POD.
The Electrum threshold comes from us (Chaosium), not OBS. We have instituted this to help our community content programs stay in OBS’s good graces. We have to be mindful of how often we approve titles to get processed for POD publishing on DTRPG. They have a limited capacity to add POD titles on their site.
—Thanks Ludo! Good catch.
Digital Maps of the Ancient World
and another note from Ludo…
The reference website Digital Maps of the Ancient World (who mostly focuses on the Roman Empire and Ancient Greece) is going to hold a live Q&A session on July 30th with historian Greg Woolf for the release of his newest book “The Life and Death of Ancient Cities”. As such, people are encouraged to send their questions via Twitter, so they can be answered during the Q&A. There may be a lot of good stuff to learn during the Q&A that we can apply to Gloranthan games and stories!
time sensitive info above date to be noted is in bold
and now… a trip to the BRP Central Fora
Starting with Notes from Ludo (part 3)
Kabaddi
“You can learn about Kabaddi, a sport that might originate from Bronze Age northern India (thanks to the keen eye of Sir_Godspeed). It’s definitely suitable as a past time in Dragon Pass… for more entertaining activities to put in your Gloranthan (or otherwise Bronze Age) games, our own Bill has a whole thread on the topic for you!”
and now back to our weeks compiler—that rascally Bill! … and its my turn shoutout one of our own…
Jörg has many interests and beer and metallurgy are but two of them He explores the latter in a series of links found in his topic on BRP Central @ the long-named topic: Iron, Steel and Swords – a very readable hyperscript for material science Though the first link is devoted to steel, Jörg avers that it is useful to us bronze age devotees). Some of the works are “Nerd Core”, and they ain’t pretty but it is as advertised, very readable (and interesting as well)!
for convenience we’ll place some of the pertinent links below. Just click on the coloured words.
Native Copper: “Who used the first metal (copper or lead), when and where?”
Luristan: “The correct spelling for this region in Persian would be Lorestãn but I’ll stay with the popular Luristan. It qualifies as “sword place” because the remarkable iron…”
The Greek Age of Bronze: “In contrast to Anatolia and Near East, the earliest stages in the development of Mediterranean metallurgy appear only after about 5500 BC. During the late Neolithic of Aegean (ca. 5500-4500 BC) pins of copper turn up at Dikili Tash, Paradeissos, and Kitsos Cave, while two small daggers have been recovered from Aya Marina in Phocis. It was only during the following, Final Neolithic period (ca. 4500-3700 BC) however that Aegean metallurgy began to flourish…”
Oh and about that beer!
Sumerian Beer: The Origins of Brewing Technology in Ancient Mesopotamia
So, Salut, Auf Wiedersehen and Farewell
…and thank you for your kind attention! Stay tuned to your favourite Bat Channel at your favourite Bat Time for our next instalment of Wind Whispers.
Here is our very first issue of Wind Whispers, our (hopefully) weekly Gloranthan news. You can register via RSS or via email to get these news delivered directly to your feed reader app or email inbox! Yes, email newsletters are cool again!
The White Bull Campaign actual play has gone live on Twitch! This is a RuneQuest game GMed by Jeff Richard himself, and featuring a handful of other Chaosium players. Right now you have to be a subscriber on Twitch to view it, but it should be posted soon on Chaosium’s YouTube channel.
The printing proofs for The Pegasus Plateau have been approved, which means that this collection of adventures and settings for RuneQuest is going to print soon.
Finally, we were apparently so awesome with our Gloranthan podcast ramblings that Chaosium decided to join in the fun: they started their own podcast! Their first episode is an audio live play of “The Dead Within”, an upcoming Call of Cthulhu adventure, but they promise many other things in upcoming episodes such as developer interviews and news!
Sadly it seems to be only available on Spotify at the moment… we hope they will offer an RSS feed soon, along with adding themselves to the other popular podcast repositories.
Jonstown Compendium News
With the Jonstown Compendium releases routinely popping up in DriveThruRPG’s top community sales and even, sometimes, overall top sales, RPG news website ENWorld decided to take a look at it. You’ll spot many usual suspects taking a day off from the BRP Central forums to talk to the masses here!
New Releases
Secrets of Dorastor, written by Simon Phipp, provides everything you need to run a campaign in the Chaos-filled region of Dorastor, arguably the most dangerous place in Glorantha.
Speaking of Chaos, Dario Corallo continues producing Gloranthan themed “tokens” for use with Virtual Tabletops such as Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds. His newest creation is focused around Chaotic creatures, so I guess that could come in handy when your party gets stuck in Dorastor.
Volume 3 of Sandheart, subtitled Tradition, is the newest entry in Jonathan Webb’s Praxian police procedural campaign. This time Jon went all out on the art budget, and this book is significantly prettier than the previous ones (disclaimer: Ludovic did one illustration in this book).
The Rostakori Clan, by Paul Baker, extends on the clan already presented in The Red Deer Saga books.
Petty Spirits is the new entry in Austin Conrad’s Monster of the Month series. It describes four spirits one could encounter in around Dragon Pass, complete with a bestiary-type write-up and stat block.
Trinkets from Dragon Pass is a very short (two pages!) list of small items one can encounter in the central part of Genertela. What the title says, basically.
Heort’s Legacy collects additional questions to add the HeroQuest (now QuestWorld) clan questionnaire featured in Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes. This allows players to make clans that vary from traditional Earth and Storm alignments.
Ever wanted to know what Bronze Age cuisine tasted like? Bill Sutherland, over on twitter, has tried a Mesopotamian recipe from 1750 BCE, and written about this culinary experience!
The recent launch of The Last of Us: Part 2 triggered a debate around the portrayal of “buff women” in video games. Jan Popisil, artist of Gloranthan video game Six Ages, shared his favourite relevant illustrations, such as these:
Find someone who loves you as much as how Babeester Gorites love severed hands!
Ian from Fenris Games has shared several pictures of some cool Gloranthesque miniatures on Twitter… the pumpkin bear is especially cool! Here’s one of the pictures:
In this fifth episode of Wind Words, we come back to Sartar to look at every Heortling’s favourite past time: cattle raiding. Why do they like cattle so much around here that they need to go and steal them from their neighbours on a regular basis?
But first, we look at this month’s Gloranthan news.
Bill has registered for Gen Con Online: https://www.gencon.com Look for him and his mic at the con. His user name will be Bill of the Wind Words Tribe!
The grandpappy of them all. Gen Con falls to the rampaging Covid-19 virus but, like the phoenix consumed in the flame—emerges alive! This time online! Events will be announced on July 6 and registration begins on the 13th.
Errata: In our recording we gave incorrect information. Events will be announced on July 6 and registration begins on the 13th as is noted above. Mea Culpa!
Jeff Richard AMA
(located at 1:44 minutes)
The boys look at a Jeff Richard’s interview that happened when a bunch of German fans took over a Schloss as “socially distancing individuals” instead of a conventioneers and in lieu of the non-existing con’s usual “Ask-Me-Anything” panel by Jeff, they recorded this. Many highlights, rumours and easter eggs are discussed.
We discuss this HeroQuest/QuestWorld book that starts players off as children of the Dundaelos tribe. The book is from Shawn and Peggy Carpenter, a.k.a. Troupe Games.
More information is available on Troupe Game’s blog:
This is the final instalment of the three part series which finshes up at the Battle of Queens. We find ourselves astounded by Paul Baker, the author, and his rapidity in publishing—as we are with our next item’s author…
Austin’s at it again with MotM #6! Ludo introduces this months monster as the most dangerous of them all!. From the BRP forums to you… at the speed of sound!
…also by Austin Conrad who is joined by Shawn Carpenter, Gil Cruz, Simon Phipp, and Jerry Thorpe (and Ludo!). This work starts a new series filled with storyful items to tempt—with an eye to the old RuneQuest Classic “Plunder” as inspiration!
By John Wick (yay!) The adventurers encounter a Blue Moon Assassin from the Lunar Empire. What is she doing out here in Dragon Pass? And what is she running from? Will prejudices and superstitions overcome empathy and curiosity? It’s up to your players (and their moral compass) to decide.
James Chambers, aka “JamesCORPTV” is a video streamer who does RPG-related videos and, mostly, actual plays. He has recently organized games of RuneQuest Glorantha (“The Broken Tower”) and 13th Age Glorantha (“The Beard of Lankhor Mhy”), which we rejoice about as we don’t see enough of that game around.
The live plays feature a few RPG personalities like Paul Mitchener, Bud, Pookie, and Seth Skorkowsky, but most importantly, Bill isn’t bored!
Main Topic
(located at 30:18 minutes)
Cú Chulainn in battle, from T. W. Rolleston, Myths & Legends of the Celtic Race, 1911; illustration by J. C. Leyendeckerw
The twin topics of Clan and Cattle in Sartar
(This is located at 30:18 minutes)
Clan
(This is located at 31:18 minutes)
What is a Sartarite Clan?
What binds them?
What separates them?
Cattle and clans
(This is located at 36:35 minutes)
What cattle do for one’s resources and self sufficiency.
Hillbillies? Cultured folk?
Cows provide that certain “je ne sais quoi”, a little Gloranthan Bronze Age flavour…
Cattle and myth
The Raid
(This is located at 43:25 minutes)
Cows and how to find them.
Cows and how to get them.
Beginning/Preparation of the Raid
(This is located at 47:12 minutes)
When does a raid actually begin?
Getting permission for a raid
Who does one raid? The answer might surprise.
Ramifications that later impact our raiders or defenders may be foreshadowed here.
Recon/Scouting (spiritual and mundane)
Tactics Leadership (politics again)
Charging over the hill (crazy but…)
Diversions
Politics, negotiations, borders, hospitality (boon or bane).
Military preparations: mundane and spiritual, arming, praying and sacrifices.
The realities of limited resources is introduced, as is the wyter.
The role (or necessity) of a hired expert.
Use all these some or all of these ideas to have several excellent challenging and fun games before combat even begins (so that’s what all those other skills are for)!
Splat Note Jörg mentions a name I was unfamiliar with in conjunction with charging over the hill, Read the entry about the character and his actions that created the meme in honour of Leroy Jenkins @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leeroy_Jenkins
Execution of the Raid
(This is located at 1:06:37 hours)
The moment ya blood thirsty barbarians have been waiting for…
Raiders: Overt? Covert? Distractions, magical or mundane?
Defenders: Observing invaders magically or mundane
Hospitality rears its ugly head again.
How much magic should be used in defence and attack? Resources vs needs vs wants.
When to use this magic (and what does filibustering have to do with magic?).
To use aggressive/lethal magic or not?
More complications
(This is located at 1:14:48 hours)
No plan survives contact with the enemy
…and yet, more story seeds are provided!
Aftermath
(This is located at 1:19:08 hours)
Division of spoils {See the beginning of the raid for decisions already made that were said to have possible ramifications).
No spoils—things go south, now what?
Is this bad or can it be negotiated? (more game nights that leave the need for combat behind).
So are we now at the end of this raid or the beginning of the next raid
What to do with the cattle (why don’t the villains win once in a while and get the cattle home?) (“It’s what Orlanth did…”)
Cue the poets and skalds to tell the heroic tales…
Conclusions
(this is located at 1:28:43)
You want more notes, nah. You got the time listed above. Anymore would be telling. Go and give it a listen for our final thoughts on the matter.
(Psst… although I could sell you a copy of Cole’s Notes to this episode in a sealed mylar package with the sealed and signed copy of our podcast to boot… Mint condition, perfect for collecting!)
A joke
(this is located at 1:37:02)
A teaser and special announcement not to be missed. This special announcement is located about 2 and a half minutes after the joke begins (for those with enquiring minds)…
As our team of intrepid explorers enters the capital of the Lunar Empire, we are joined by a team of professional historians..
Sit back, get a snack and something to drink, this may take a while.
First a short word about our tribe: at the time of publication, there have been more than 1111 downloads of the first three episodes in total. (That’s 1111 in decimal.)
A supplement for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. As always, buying the PDF from Chaosium gives you a discount when buying the printer version later (although only from Chaosium too).
John Wick’s personal blog on his first foray into Glorantha as a designer
Last Faction Hero, a board game by Gianni Vacca
A print and play Gloranthan board game, playable in ~45min. (The funding action has run out on Monday, 31st of may, after which the item was hidden on itch.io)
A first look at the crowd-funded French edition of RuneQuest:
Main Topic: A Guided Visit of Glamour
As a premiere, we welcome guests to our podcast, the team of authors behind the Rough Guide to Glamour, all long time RuneQuest veterans who met studying history at Oxford university:
Nick Brooke; long time contributor to Tales of the Reaching Moon, host of etyries.com, an award winning Glorantha website, co-author of the freeforms How the West was One and Life of Moonson, and co-author and publisher of both the original and the new, revised and expanded Rough Guide to Glamour
Mike Hagen: contributor to Tales of the Reaching Moon, co-author of the Rough Guide to Glamour
Chris Gidlow: designer of Credo, the game of dueling dogmas, author of Tarsh War, a mini-freeform published by Reaching Moon Megacorp, co-author of Life of Moonson and the Rough Guide to Glamour
After a warm-up exercise ducking rapid-fire questions, our guests relate a tale of how their bestselling publication came to be, with lots of behind-the scenes information.
How does the Lunar Empire work, and how does it fail to work? Chris talks about making the Cult of Yelm work as the cult of the Red Emperor, Nick explains the interaction between the Lunar Empire and the Lunar Way, and Mike mentions the cycles and the weakness of the Empire.
The city of Glamour does get a closer look – the movers and shakers, the cosmopolitan milieu, real world influences on the design, how a joint visit to Rome by our guests shaped their exploration of the imperial city, how the Junta boardgame influenced the design process, the shape of the Moon Rune as the dominant pattern of the city
We learn about the origin of the Life of Moonson freeform, from its origins as a mini-freeform “The Hunt for Red Storm Season” which was then expanded to a 50-person freeform.
There is a collection of the Life of Moonson characters on Nick’s Website – check them out. Mike, Nick and Chris expand on their favourites.
Ludo asks about the humour in Glorantha, and then we get to the influence of pop music to Glorantha, and especially Pelorian Rhapsody. After some evasion wherein we discuss why the Red Emperor resembles Elvis rather than Freddy Mercury, Michael O’Brien’s inspiration, Mike Hagen suggests a cyclical change of his appearance due to massive intake of Moon Rock, and Chris on MOB’s Maximum Game Fun principle, we get a musical interlude:
The Red Army Choir performing the first lines of Pelorian Rhapsody. Roll for Sanity.
Bill asks about which module our guests wished they had written. Nick offers his admiration for MOB’s Sun County for RQ3, Chris gets poetic about Griffin Mountain, and Mike Hagen reminisces about his first contact with RuneQuest through the early White Dwarf article on Dealing with Demons.
Our investigative reporting goes on to ask “What is the most Gloranthan thing you have ate”. Mike submitted a dish called Corflu Surprise as a winner to the first Eat at Geo’s contest at Convulsion (3 tbs cream of coconut, 1 tin of tuna, and 1 tsp Sambal manis, plus perhaps some black pepper. Adjust quantity of coconut and spice to taste. Garnish with seaweed if desired.). Nick tells about Walktapus seeds, and Chris celebrated the publication of the new Rough Guide with a most Lunar dinner consisting of ostrich steak (a type of bird that has been extinct in Peloria for centuries and may be illusionary), maize and pink gin.
We have a few more rapid-fire questions, sowing some dissent among our guests. and we let our guests answer the questions we failed to ask them.
Nick gives an account of the experience of publishing on the Jonstown Compendium. We learn why The Tide is High to Call Her, the goddess Glamour bearing a stunning similarity to Debbie Harrie. Mike gives an account on the art acquisition for the Rough Guide. Chris answers why one would explore the Lunar Empire.
As we ceremonially eject our guests, getting information on the sales numbers and a hint at the next project we can expect from our guests, learning about the banned Seleric Verses and what really happened in Torang in 1220.
Credits:
The lovely image detail of Mucha Blondie Glamour is by Antonia Doncheva. View the full image on p.99 of the Rough Guide to Glamour!
The performance at 1:27:20 is a parody of Bohemian Rhapsody, by Queen. Nick Brooke’s lyrics to Pelorian Rhapsody were inspired by Freddy Mercury’s original work. His group may have sung it better, but our version makes more sense as a Lunar hymn to the Seven Mothers and the Red Goddess.
