We are back with a long overdue Glorantha Initiation interview featuring twice the amount of French accents! We talked to Benjamin, aka Dasfynx, who is the webmaster of the (French) RuneQuest Wiki, and co-hosts the (also French) “Runecast” podcast with Gianni Vacca.
After too long a hiatus, we are finally back! Well, almost, because Ludo is an idiot and got the time zones wrong while setting up the recording, so Joerg shows up a bit later. Ludo apologizes for messing that up but hey, this is an episode about Chaos, so…
Austin is supposedly being “very polite” in Ludo’s game about NOT becoming an assassin. Spoiler: a month later, Austin did in fact murder a long-standing NPC and initiated into the Eurmal Murderer cult…
We said we were back from our summer break with episode 32, but we lied! Joerg’s laptop died and he was busy growing a moustache, and Ludo was ridiculously busy with work. Either way, we are back again, just in time for the end of the year!
Our Guest
This time we welcome Jon Webb again, who appeared on our show back in episode 6 along with Neil Gibson. Jon is of course the wonderful author of the equally wonderful “Sandheart” series of scenarios:
Disclaimer: the above links are affiliate links of course (please use them to support the show!)
The Making of Sandheart
Our first topic is the Sandheart series of scenarios (see links above) which, although they have been written and published a long time ago, we had not covered on the show before… better late than never!
We chat with Jon about how Sandheart came to be, the strength of its campaign framework, moral choices, “street-level” adventures, designing problems for which you don’t know the solution, culture clashes between characters, custom heroquesting rules, and more.
If you haven’t read or played Sandheart, there shouldn’t be any spoilers for you — only titillating previews of the sort of fun you can expect therein. Note that if you don’t plan on getting all four volumes of the series, we recommend getting volumes 1 and 3. The reason for this is that volume 3 is a scenario that spans multiple years, as the adventurers are tasked with guard duty for a recurring ritual. Getting volume 3 early will let you weave the first couple occurrences of the ritual into the first few adventures.
House Rules and Custom Systems
In the second and larger half of the episode, we exchange all kinds of ideas about tweaking and extending the RuneQuest rules. Among the things we talk about, in no particular order:
Picking rules from different editions of RuneQuest
In this episode we welcome returning guests Evan Franke and J-M DeFoggi (who had to leave early because of Imperial Administration requirements). You would of course know Evan and J-M from our previous episodes with them: Chaos Rises! (episode 26 about 13th Age Glorantha) and Jackals and Ancient Worldbuilding (episode 19 about J-M’s Bronze Age fantasy adventure game, Jackals!)
Our guests for this new episode of the Glorantha Initiation series are Christian and Amber, from DMs After Dark! We chatted with them back in… (checks notes) November 2023! How time flies… you can find DMs After Dark in many places around the internet, including:
Luring Amber with promises of playing a werewolf (Telmori)
Using Chalana Arroy for luring in the cleric-loving player, and shamans for the player who likes weird characters
Animism, the Spirit World, and other gameplay elements that are fairly unique to Glorantha
Starting with the Starter Set, then going to the Sourcebook
Pacing actual play games, making it feel like sitting at an actual table
RuneQuest grognards coming to help with the rules
Christian has a “book problem”… Ludo can relate
Using Six Seasons in Sartar as a way to start small and get all the PCs together
Collaborative storytelling and world-building
Reconciling player-created lore with “canon” lore
Being mindful of players and the audience when preparing storylines, especially cult initiations leading into mythologies like the Unholy Trio, the Sex Pit, etc.
Amber acting as a GM assistant, especially in the early stages of preparation
Joerg is still without a computer, so not only are there no detailed show notes again, but he’s not here to stop me from giving a clickbaity title to this episode! Because, indeed, we have zero news about a Questworld Glorantha book… if anything, it’s the contrary. But what we do have for you is Ian Cooper as our guest!
Ian comes on the podcast to talk to us about the imminently coming Questworlds. We talk about what it is, what it isn’t, how its mechanics work, and what it’s good for.
We also chat about the game’s history as Hero Wars and then HeroQuest (1st and 2nd editions). Ian tells us about his Red Cow campaign books, The Coming Storm and The Eleven Lights, and what happens in the unreleased sequels that he’s played through. We talk about Greg Stafford’s design philosophy and involvement in the early days of the product line, the differences between the other product lines, and more!
Of course, it’s not a zero-sum game, so Ian also makes a point that you can play some games with RuneQuest, and some other games with Questworlds… it’s all about the sort of experience you want for a given story.
This time we interview Gloranthan newcomer Joel Bridge, who thinks we’re intimidating but also nice! Joel is originally from New Jersey but currently lives in San Diego. You can find Joel on Discord as @sirjamesfriendofthecolonel, and also sometimes on the Glorantha-related subreddits r/Glorantha and r/RuneQuest.
For this episode, we have Nick Brooke and Simon Bray as our guests to talk about Simon’s book Furthest, Crown Jewel of Lunar Tarsh, and about what goes on in Lunar Tarsh in general.
Show Notes
There are no fancy show notes for this episode yet: Joerg’s laptop seems to have been blown up by Orlanthi rebels who don’t want the truth to be told… we will edit this post with the final show notes when Joerg has acquired a new laptop. In the meantime, you can go buy Simon’s stuff:
