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.

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Our guest for this episode is Harald Smith, aka Jajagappa.

• BRP Central profile
• RPGGeek profile

You can also find Harald on the Facebook RuneQuest group and Jonstown Compendium Creators Circle group.

Introduction

Jajagappa is the dog-headed psychopomp of Saird, known for his net. Harald grew fond of this deity when diving into Saird, the region north of Dragon Pass.

Harald started in the early eighties, in time for the classic RQ2 campaigns, and followed through the RQ3 era until he sort of dropped out in the late nineties. He resumed his activity around the time the Guide to Glorantha was in preparation, and has been one of the more active posters on the forums since.

When he returned, Harald played a few games by forum.

Harald speaks about different pace in that kind of game, how to apply GM techniques, and the technology that a platform like rpg-geek offers. Some of Harald’s game are still on rpg-geek.

RuneQuest Glorantha games:

• The Broken Tower Quickstart play by post game
• The Quest for Colymar’s Vision play by post game (part 1 of 3, see the end of the thread for links to part 2)
• Into the Hero Wars play by post game (this is part 1 of the sequel to the Colymar campaign, or part 4 of Harald’s overall Dragon Pass campaign)
• Smoke and Fire play by post game (this is part 1 of The Smoking Ruin adventure, and fits again in Harald’s overall Dragon Pass campaign)

HeroQuest Glorantha games:

• Colymar Campaign, the Orlmarth clan play by post game (part 1 of 8)
• Harald notes that you may want to see a full heroquest into the Underworld to rescue the goddess Orane… this was the climax of the game in part 8.

Main Topic

Edge of Empire is a supplement for playing RuneQuest in the Kingdom of Imther.

Harald describes Imther as the smallest of the Lunar Provincial kingdoms, and its position.

Imther has been part of the Lunar sphere for centuries and doesn’t have the sense of being occupied by foreign troops that was so characteristic for Lunar occupied Sartar and Pavis.

The mountains of Imther are also home to a colony of dwarfs which used to trade metal with the King of Imther, but that lineage has died out, and for the trade to resume there needs to be a new king who gains tthe trust of the Mostali.

Another main topic is the interaction with the Lunar Empire.

When the Empire still was young, a hero from Imther by the name of Jannisor nearly conquered the empire, but got betrayed on the bridgte to the Red Moon in Glamour.

This was followed by the campaigning of the Conquering Daughter who esstablished the provincial Kingdoms, and who built the branch of the magical road reaching to Hilltown in Imther. She turned the barbarian lands of Sylila into a Heartland satrapy.

North of Imther is the forbidden land of Tork, a land where Jannisor bound the maddened and chaotically tainted followers of the Mad Sultan, survivors of the First Battle of Chaos, and how violating its fluctuating border may release them.

South lie the provincial kingdoms of Holay and Saird with the Provincial administration, an area where Dara Happan and Orlanthi culture have merged over the centuries. Northwest lies Vanch, another sort-of Orlanthi kingdom whose people are adept at “borrowing” things and customs permanently.

Harald’s version of Imther wouldn’t be complete without the local variants of known cults whose cult write-ups are part of this book.

Most prominent is Khelmal, a local take on Yelmalio with a few peculiarities, and local myths. Then there is Nealda, a local name for the Earth Goddess with local myths in addition to known Ernalda myths.

An important role falls to the trickster gods of Imther, the most important of whom is Orlantio, a variant of Orlanth. There are compelling reasons to keep a trickster in your clan.

Then there is the Imtherian pride in their cheeses, shared by the author. Some of the first published texts on Imther (in Codex Vol.3) was about the cheese.

There are many flavour pieces in the book that help get a sense for the region. There are examples of Imtherian sayings and similar commonly used phrases and references to local myths. There is also the “Lunar Survey” which offers an in-game view on Imther through the perspective of the Lunar empire.

We ask Harald about the history of his work on Imther. He originally picked an area of Glorantha that was underdeveloped to do his own thing. Then he pitched the idea of an Imther sourcebook to Chaosium/Avalon Hill but the timing wasn’t right. Harald shared and developed his work through the Glorantha Digest and the gaming conventions of the time.

This eventually led to two issues of the short-lived fanzine New Lolon Gospel (more here). Harald and Joerg even briefly discuss the different covers of various international printings of the fanzine.

Harald also mentions working with Greg Stafford and Jeff Richard, and having some of his creations canonized.

Ludo asks how the Orlanthi of Imther ended up herding goats and making goat cheese.

Ludo follows with how Edge of Empire has a cool clan creation section with many possible foundational myths for your adventurers’ community. This came from the HeroQuest material, which had something similar.

Harald discusses how he portrays dwarfs in his game. Edge of Empire includes several example conversations to be had with dwarfs, and this showcases Harald’s very particular choice of speech patterns for this obscure Elder Race.

Edge of Empire contains many tools for procedural play. Joerg praises the book as being the closest to Griffin Mountain on the Jonstown Compendium, with Griffin Mountain being the gold standard for sandbox exploration games. Harald says that he wanted to provide the necessary tools for people to design their own campaign in Imther. More “proper” scenarios might follow in further sourcebooks.

Joerg says we should talk about Harald’s cartography work. Ludo says that he is mostly interested in Harald’s amazingly complex map of Nochet. Lots of little buildings and, we learn, other maps about underground waterways (because he had an Esrolian game that required knowing about this!)

You can see the map of Nochet here. Harald talks about the various maps he’s done over the years, some of which are visible on BRP Central.

We go into our usual “wildcard questions”, with a few digressions on Borderlands or the evolution of Glorantha’s canon over the years.

Harald teases a few different campaign books he’s considering writing to expand on his Imther sourcebook. Harald also recommends looking at Peter Hart’s Hydra book for resources on playing in the Lunar provinces.

Some of the art in Edge of Imther is done by Harald’s daughter Rebecca Smith. Check out her portfolio. She takes commissions including characters (B&W or colour) and cover designs!

Harald will be at Chaosium Con 2023, and will even be running a panel on Exploring Glorantha beyond Dragon Pass and Prax.

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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In this episode Joerg is still taking a break, but Ludovic is here to welcome Evan Franke and JM DeFoggi (not to be confused with JM DeMatteis!)

Exploring Glorantha

Evan and JM are probably best known to listeners and readers of the God Learners as the hosts of Exploring Glorantha, the YouTube series that presents Glorantha in an accessible manner to the general public. But they are also part of Iconic Production, which does a lot more stuff! It started as a 13th Age actual play, but they now cover many other games.

Ludovic mentions that subscribing to Iconic Production’s Patreon gives you access to the Exploring Glorantha show notes, which are quite useful as a Gloranthan index when you need to look something up.

Jackals

For the main topic, we discuss JM’s bronze age fantasy game Jackals (available from Osprey Publishing), its worldbuilding, campaign framework, system, and what we can learn and apply to Glorantha gaming!

During the discusion, we talk about:

• The Guide to Glorantha
• Ludovic’s Glorantha Initiation episode
• Jackals and its supplements Fall of the Children of Bronze and Travellers on the War Road
• The Sea People and some memes about the Bronze Age Collapse
• Putting the themes of the game and setting into the system (by the way, you can find Chaos corruption rules in Ludovic’s RuneQuest scenario in “A Short Detour“)
• Pendragon
• John Wick (the designer, not the assassin) and his games 7th Sea and Legend of the Five Rings
• Robin Laws
• The One Ring
• The Jonstown Compendium
• Improving “onboarding” into a fantasy setting by making it look familiar to Earth
• GURPS Greece and GURPS Imperial Rome
• Mythic Earth series for Mythras
• Hellenistika
• Harn
• Approaches to building a fantasy setting: linguistics, mythology, history, cultures
• Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and the Dwarf names taken from the Poetic Edda
• The Lord of Spirits podcast
• Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces and The Masks of God
• Carl Yung
• James Frazer’s The Golden Bough
• The Stafford House Campaign
• Don’t read complicated books just to play game… find out by playing
• Adapting Jackals’ campaign framework to Glorantha:
  • Resettlement of Dragon Pass and PenDragon Pass
  • Griffin Mountain
  • The Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death
  • Theyalans at the Dawn
  • Resettlement of Pavis
• Using Jackals’ Clash System in Glorantha
• Call of Cthulhu’s 7th edition
• John Wick’s “Stafford did it first” rule

Where to Find Evan and JM

• Strange Owls games
• Space 1889: After Kickstarter
• Amboria
• Darkly Bright Press and Akboritha
• Escalation! Magazine and the upcoming Red Moon & Warring Kingdoms issue
• 13th Age Glorantha
• Rising Moon Rescue actual play

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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Drew Baker is back on the show to accompany Ludovic on the last leg of Biturian Varosh’s travels. Sadly Joerg could not make it this time, and stayed behind in Pavis to rest.

Introduction

Drew introduces himself and talks a bit about the upcoming book 4 of Duckpac, the last in the series about playing Duck characters in RuneQuest Glorantha. The three first books are available here:

• Duckpac Book 1: Myth, Legends, and Lore
• Duckpac Book 2: Adventurers
• Duckpac Book 3: Redfeather Dreaming

Appropriately for the topic at hand, Drew also wrote “Highways & Byways“, a book on travelling across Dragon Pass. All the other books by Drew can be found here.

Ludovic mentions that the Glorantha Initiation Series has reached the end of its “first season”, so to speak, but that other interviews with newcomers to Glorantha will be scheduled soon.

Drew mentions New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever, by Ian Thomson and friends, which is a reprint of some of the materials from Ian’s old “Pavis & Big Rubble Companions“, which are hard to find these days.

Main Topic

As this is part 5 in our series on Biturian Varosh, Drew and Ludovic tell the story so far.

You don’t need to be an old grognard from the 1970s to get Cults of Prax: it’s available in Print-on-Demand and PDF from Chaosium.

Kyger Litor

Ludovic tries to bring up the fandom in-joke about Kyger Lytor having had more write-ups than any other cult somehow… (RuneQuest 1st and 2nd editions, Cults of Prax, Trollpak, and then in RQ3’s Gods of Glorantha, Trollpak, and Troll Gods, and I might still be missing some other ones)

Where is this Trolltown that Biturian goes to? It’s not on the Argan Argar Atlas or the Guide to Glorantha, so we speculate a bit (including the fact that it might be just about too small to show up on those maps). We also take a quick tour of the region, which has been developed with new landmarks since Cults of Prax was written.

We take a closer look at the troll population in this settlement, and how trollkin are treated.

Speaking Old Pavic to reduce the Bargain skill… it depends on the language rules in play.

How is Bladesharp called in practice in Glorantha? Biturian probably uses God Learner shorthand or Tradetalk terms. Ludovic mentions Austin Conrad’s head-canon about Tradetalk terminology and its use in non commercial contexts.

We looking at the items that Biturian trades with the trolls… and conclude that the trolls are French. Not the Morokanth, which Drew pictured as French because of the RuneQuest 3 Gloranthan Bestiary cover for some reason:

Drew has a theory involving framing trolls for Orlanthi rebel activities.

Next we look at dragon teeth and figure out what size those might be, depending on what kind of teeth they are.

What’s up with animal tails? Ludovic has a “completely bonkers conspiracy theory”. Drew has a much more reasonable one.

The Kyger Lytor priestess is on a heroquest, of course… is everybody heroquesting in this story?

Which ancestor do you get when you trade the Summon Ancestor spell? Drew and Ludovic exchange opinions.

A bunch of trollkin get trampled, which is both awesome and sad.

Zorak Zoran

We revisit the question of whose ancestor spirit shows up when you cast a spell you got from someone else. Ludovic also assumes that Biturian got lucky by not getting a malign ancestor or a weak one.

Biturian is packing good healing magic for RQ2 rules… but healing a severed arm is a lot more accessible in RQG.

Drew thinks about the poor Chalana Arroy (from the last episode) who went on a heroquest with Biturian’s spells inside a Truestone… assuming that things didn’t go very well since she had to cast all these spells for Biturian to get them back by now.

Drew does some forensics on the combat between Biturian’s camp and the trolls, making fun of Biturian’s motivations in the process.

Drew has a problem with Rurik, who is (of course!) heroquesting. Ludovic makes up a stratagem to get more out of Rurik.

What has made the Zorak Zorani to attack the camp? What is Rurik doing around here? Ludovic and Drew have theories.

We look at Biturian’s use of the Lock spell and, again, have a quick thought for the poor Chalana Arroy adventurer.

The Zorak Zorani blood vengeance is mentioned, along with the tricky prospect of having to explain to berserker trolls that Biturian didn’t technically kill any troll.

Aldrya

We reach the Redwood Forest, which was unnamed back in Cults of Prax, but is featured in the Argan Argar Atlas maps.

Drew spots an error in the dates, which is also present in the Cults Compendium. Ludovic mentions some typos in the new PDF version of Cults of Prax, possibly from OCR gone wrong.

Ludovic talks about the bow seeds and how cool it is that Aldryami grow their tools. We actually have an episode on the Aldryami and everything else that’s cool about them.

Drew goes over the increasing foreshadowing of Morak’s true nature by way of the Aldrya cult’s limitation for lay members, which indicates that Morak is most likely a Beastfolk.

It is implied that Biturian and Norayeep eloped, possibly back at the Pairing Stones.

The Beastfolk can be found outside of Beast Valley in elf forests so it makes sense they would be Aldrya lay members at the very least.

Drew has another cynical theory about Biturian’s motivations here, as Morak is taken by the local Minotaurs.

Epilogue

We chat about the travel logistics of Biturian, and his wedding costs.

Drew puts on his “Joerg hat” to mention the “Biturian is on a heroquest” theory, but Ludovic doesn’t buy it… although he is intrigued by the “inception” aspect of a heroquest inside a heroquest.

We take a look at Vareena Coweye, the Bison Rider chieftain’s wife, her role in the wedding, and what magics she could be casting.

Drew goes back to the wedding costs in detail, because, of course, he has crunched the numbers for you! We compare these costs to Biturian’s gifts to the Bison Rider chieftain’s wedding (which we talked about back when the podcast was named “Wind Words”). Ludovic theorizes that the Bison Rider tribe paid for the whole of Biturian and Norayeep’s wedding in return.

Drew thinks that the elves will scam the Bison Riders with their deal on freed elves vs bison tails.

Outro

Drew tells us what became of Biturian in the RQG timeline, and quotes Greg from the letters found in the Stafford House Campaign.

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We are back into Gloranthan anthropology (more or less) for this episode, with our guest Brian Duguid, author of Children of Hykim. By virtue of having literally written a book on the subject, Brian is an expert in the Hsunchen, the stone age people who are each associated with a tribal totem animal.

This topic might be rather unfamiliar to newcomers to Glorantha, since the Hsunchen are only mentioned briefly in the core RuneQuest books — mostly in the entry for the Telmori Wolfbrothers in the Glorantha Bestiary.

Joerg wasn’t available for writing these show notes so they are a lot shorter and less detailed than usual.

In this interview, we talk about:

• Brian’s path from playing RuneQuest in his youth, going through a deep-freeze, and coming back to Glorantha in the post HeroQuest / Guide to Glorantha era… and the massive amount of materials that this brought upon fans.
• Who the Hsunchen are, and what the average RuneQuest adventurer might know about them.
• What does a “stone age culture” looks like.
• Who is this Hykim, and what do Hsunchen myths look like.
• Hsunchen magic and the problem with RuneQuest’s Transform Self spells.
• Bringing Hsunchen NPCs into your adventures set in Dragon Pass, and sending your PCs out into Hsunchen lands.
• Portraying Hsunchen NPCs.
• Playing Hsunchen adventurers, and the themes and locations of a Hsunchen campaign.

To learn more about the Hsunchen, the main two sources are:

• The Guide to Glorantha (especially Volume 1): it’s pricey but it’s a giant pile of awesome information, and a great source of ideas for any gamemaster. The PDF version is a lot more affordable, and the one I personally use almost all the time by virtue of being searchable.
• The Children of Hykim (of course): it’s non-canonical (for whatever that’s worth to you), but not only does it give detailed information on many Hsunchen tribes, it also provides rules for creating and playing Hsunchen characters.

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For this episode we welcome two guests: Katrin Dirim and Claudia Loroff.

The Guests

Claudia is part of Jeff’s house campaigns with notable characters like Gina Gravedancer in the White Bull campaign, Yanioth, and the snake-dancer mystic in the HeroQuest Glorantha examples. Claudia is also the author of an upcoming Gloranthan cookbook. It is about 95% done, and is a travel guide accompanying Yanioth and Sorala, from Boldhome via New Pavis to Wintertop.

The difficulty level is kept rather low. There are recipes for starting your own yeast or sourdough, although you can buy finished starters. The travelogue also takes down their experience, like pub crawls, feasting with Argrath, etc. Kitchen hardware includes a fire-pit, a big cauldron (preferable out of enchanted iron), and the usual cutlery.

Katrin is the sole illustrator of the upcoming Prosoaedia, with two pieces in the Starter Set. Katrin is also prominent in the Jonstown Compendium, as in History of Malkionism, Six Paths, some pieces in Corn Dolls, and a major contribution of map-like illustrations for the travelogue narrative and numerous smaller pieces in Martin Helsdon’s upcoming book on ships and sailing around southern Genertela. That book will also feature quite a number of illustrations by Mark Smylie. See links at the bottom of these show notes.

Ludo talks about the Aztec-like style of representations of deities for the Prosopaedia and the pantheon maps.

Main Topic: Ernaldan Adventuresses

Today’s topic is about Ernalda, the Queen of the Gods.

Claudia as the professional Ernalda player does a short presentation of the Earth goddesses.

We learn about the in-house brainstorming sessions between Jeff Richard, Claudia and Neil Robinson about how to make the Cult of Ernalda playable for adventuring. The Cult has been around for a long time – she only finds mention as associate cult in Cults of Prax, but her cult was the first to be published for the third edition of RuneQuest, in booklet 5 (the short introduction to Glorantha) of the deluxe boxed set. This was presented in the same long cult format that was used by both Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror (and in the other RQ2 products with cult descriptions).

Ernalda and the accompanying Dendara would remain the only full cult write up for a few years, followed by Kyger Litor in the Trollpak reprint and the expanded other Troll Gods (and Kyker Litor again) in that box, and the three major Elder Races cults in Elder Secrets: Mostal, Aldrya, and Kyger Litor (yet again). The RQ3 Renaissance brought us updated  cults of Yelmalio, the Lightbringers from Cults of Prax, Zola Fel, Cacodemon and the Cults of Terror reprint Lords of Terror.

Claudia advocated a course for playing Ernalda cultists that she dubs as “Blood, Sex and Rock’n Roll”. Ernalda is about sacrifices of animals, with the meat being used for feasts giving back to the communities, and her rites also include quite a bit of sex as a healthy community requires a steady supply of children.

Ernalda is at the heart of the Orlanthi communities. Claudia points out that initiates and even more so God Talkers and Priestesses of Ernalda are welcome in any Orlanthi community.

Claudia stresses the importance of the Charisma spell and how her characters tend to solve a lot of problems using the skills Sing and Dance for ritual support of other players or in worship. For conflicts, there are war songs, battle cries, and war dances, possibly intoxicated on drugs or ritual drinks.

In the new treatment, Ernalda becomes an active deity rather than the damsel in distress.

We go through the other Earth goddesses:

• Babeester Gor is the always angry death-wielding daughter of Ernalda. Fairly easy to play, but possibly a bit one-dimensional.
• Maran Gor , the Earth Shaker goddess, who still remains a challenge for an interesting character concept.
• Ty Kora Tek, which lets you play a necromancer in Glorantha. Ty Kora Tek is the twin sister of Asrelia, only mentioned as an associate cult in the core rules. She is the caretaker of the souls of the dead, an Underworld goddess who welcomes the dead as they let go of their mundane lives and rest in her halls waiting to be reborn. This makes her an important part of the cycle of life. Ty Kora Tek provides a good afterlife for the dead, as long as their descendants commemorate them with sacrifices and rites. Her role starts with the proper burials of the dead, putting their ghosts  to rest, etc.

Claudia points out one problem with all the Earth pantheon cults – all the cool spells are usually rune magic. While you need to be careful about spending your rune points, the spells tend to be kick-ass – Claudia riffs off about Earth elementals, Command Ghost, and others.

Ludo addresses the gender (or sex) limitations of many of these Earth goddesses, at least at the top ranks in the hierarchy.

Katrin re-tells the Making of the Storm Tribe and how Ernalda manages and manipulates all those disorganized and selfish Storm deities, giving them a common foe to unite against. At the end of these events, Orlanth asks his wife how the foe knew about where the meeting was to take place, and Ernalda tells him not to worry about that. Which Orlanth wisely does.

Ludo asks about the relationship between Ernalda and Dendara, and Katrin points out that Dendara (who is mainly the wife of Yelm) is mainly the goddess of wives, whereas Ernalda is the Queen of the Gods and the representation of the Earth without which nothing works.

Ludo points towards Esrolia as the center of her cult’s power, but Claudia stresses her importance already in the more male-cult dominated Sartar. In Nochet, she is the absolute ruler, and can dictate what to do, while in Dragon Pass she has to be a bit more roundabout, reminding kings as well as ordinary people that her blessings come with a cost (sacrifice and worship), and that she can become a bit ugly if neglected.

Ludo asks about the importance to have those female avenger cults like Babeester Gor or Maran when Ernalda has all those husband protector cults she can throw into the breach. Claudia reminds us about the scarcity of worshippers of these cults in Sartar. Esrolia may see a slightly higher proportion, or at least significantly higher absolute numbers because of its much larger population.

Maran Gor has her special temple in the Wintertop area, the Shaker’s Temple. Maran is the goddess of the wrathful earth and of earthquakes, with her worship mainly as propitiation to keep her from destroying or disrupting everything. Babeester is the Earth avenger, which is a rather narrow field.

Babeester Gor is also the lost daughter, standing for a lot of things that Ernalda doesn’t do or encompass. Babeester is angry most of the time, something that Ernalda rarely is.

Katrin gives an example how to make worshippers of Babeester Gor less boring or stereotypical, by stressing the investigative aspect of chasing down offenders. Her hot pursuit of such criminals makes her a possible choice for playing a detective. Ludo talks about “Sherlock Holmes with an axe”.

Ludo compares Babeester Gor’s birth to parents losing their temper, and only to regret the outburst five minutes later.

Claudia emphasizes that roleplaying opportunities can be made where others don’t see them. She talks about planning a role-playing session around a funeral feast with mysterious deaths, in the style of Agatha Christie.

Jörg sums up some of the ideas as having Babeester Gor as a James Bond-like provocateur with a license to kill where husband cults may balk at the prospect.

Ludo asks about how to attract more female players to Glorantha, and whether the cult of Ernalda is the vehicle to do that.

Claudia talks about the male and female archetypes available in RuneQuest and Glorantha. She mentions the considerable initial hurdle to overcome when entering the setting, and how having some of these gender limitations may help a player new to Glorantha to identify with the character.

Once you have made your entry into the setting, you can play around with breaking the expectations of archetypes and requirements.

Claudia tells how almost dying in childbirth gave her a different perspective on motherhood and parenthood in the setting.

Katrin agrees that while some aspects of Bronze Age life and how Glorantha works may appear stark and disturbing, dealing with those can make the experience of the setting richer.

Claudia recounts how she played in the Esrolian campaign around (future) queen Samastina, and how the party made sure that the character got pregnant from an important political marriage, and how Claudia’s Ernaldan priestess helped make sure that she became very pregnant, actually resulting in twins being born. There also were processions where the pregnant queen would emphasize her pregnant belly to the onlookers with gold dust, etc.

On a less exalted level, having a big feast in the village when asking for the blessings of the gods, slaughtering the sacrificial animals and making good dishes out of the meat.

With Ty Kora Tek, it is surprising how many ghosts you can control or lay to rest, gaining quite a bit of oomph out of that.

It is OK to be relegated to a support role in battle situations when you lead the social interactions, which can take up more of the game than actual combat.

Ludo brings up the political game, with intrigue, creating a social as well as an information or even spy network, with lots of minions and followers.

Claudia points out that you will find an Ernaldan shrine or better in even the tiniest village, which allows players of Ernalda cultists to have some sway or, at least, contacts anywhere they go.

Jörg points out that Ernalda is the wedding planner of basically everyone, and the networks of exogamous marriages will give you a female kinswoman in every other tribe.

Claudia emphasizes the role of Ernalda as the wise woman, allowing a player to inject her ideas as divine wisdom into the community.

Katrin talks about that little Ernaldan babooshka you will find in every village without whom everything would cease to function.

Ludo laments that RuneQuest combat can hog a lot of game time, making it hard to keep non-combat type characters engaged in such segments.

Claudia suggests being creative about skills and their application, like challenging Jar-eel using her dance skill, hindering her enough to be able to attain a heroquest station objective despite her opposition. This is well beyond the normal scope of the skill, but in the situation (in a magically different environment) it gave her character a handle on the situation. (But then, that is more of a Questworlds mindset of how to use interestingly named skills.)

The rules system is a guidance, not something set in stone.

Claudia also advocates to leave the healing to characters other than the Earth worshippers. We also learn about why Yanioth has a beast rune of 75%.

Katrin points out that there are better things to do than “I hit ‘em with my sword” for three hours. In one of her games, a Chalana Arroy cultist had their snake familiar entangle a combatant’s legs to take them out without actual bloodshed.

Claudia enthuses about Command Swine when facing Tusk Riders.

Jörg points out that all those monstrous swine were ultimately sent against the people of the region as punishment for neglecting the goddess, showing the ugly side of the cult.

Claudia admits that her earth worshippers tend to have some skill with axe and shield, but that is often more fun to stand back and use your skills in a more creative way. Rather than swinging a sharp implement for hours, she prefers supporting the fighters, cheer-leading them or raising the onlookers as a support force to overwhelm the opposition.

Ludo compares the role of Ernalda as a support character with multi-player video games. Claudia points out that while that may be the case in combat situations, the Ernalda player will often take the spotlight in social interaction, possibly having been the matchmaker for a local, being the first to get access to dirty secrets etc., likely side-lining the combat types.

“There is always another way”: Ludo asks about situations where an Ernaldan character would have spoiled a perfectly fine opportunity to have a battle.

Claudia recalls one game that had been very battle-heavy, to the extent that the entire party decided it was too dangerous, leaving the challenge unanswered. That made for a very short game as the GM had prepared mainly for that conflict.

Other GMs including Jeff experience again and again how a game unfolds very differently from what they prepared, often because of group dynamics, so that may actually be “the other way”.

Sometimes this can come about from real world influences. Katrin reminiscences about a case where a player had to leave abroad for two (weekly) sessions, returning to come into the chaotic aftermath of an attack on their community, gracing the other players and their characters with a scathing “I leave you alone for two weeks, and that’s what happens!”

Heroquesting for and with Ernalda and female archetypes: Claudia gives us a small peek into the playtesting of the new heroquesting rules, using Greg Stafford’s old maps of the hero plane (quite likely something like the “spiral map” that is shown in Arcane Lore) which had aspects of the earth pantheon. Meeting Aldryami, stone trees, doing “not very kids-appropriate” adult interaction, playing with the archetypes and the runes and passions. In the end, runes, passions and rune spells are the major elements that you use in the hero plane rather than mundane skills or average spirit magics.

Carrying children into battle? Putting the peace into a battle scene? Or rather putting Darwinism into action, survival of the fittest? Claudia retorts that Ernalda likes (watching) a fight, then marrying the victor.  “Marrying for a year and a day is fine, it’s enough.”

Ernalda has very weird children? “They are all beautiful”. Then Katrin mentions how difficult it was in the catalogue of the gods to fit all of Ernalda’s children into the diagram.

Ludo asks how pregnancies and having kids works out inside the game. Claudia reports how some aspects of real life arrangements getting the grandmother to look after the children crept into the game once, still being easier in game than it would be in real life.

“All the interesting magic is rune magic”. Does Ernalda have a big advantage in that regard? Claudia advocates to go for the throat, dropping the rune spells for good effect, and enjoying failure when it happens as those moments can be the most memorable (and the most fun, at least in hindsight).

Claudia’s favourite spells for earth worshippers:

• Earth Elemental
• Command Ghost (slay first, interrogate later)
• Inviolable
• Charisma

How does use of Charisma work out in the game? Ludo points out that the skill boost is likely minimal, but Claudia answers that you don’t need to roll skills, and just play to the story.

Katrin reminds that RuneQuest is not a game of slow attrition, but of few periods of high tension and glossed over dull everyday life.

Claudia also confesses that the GM may award the players regaining the rune points as a reward.

Jörg asks how to make getting back the rune points fun in the game, and Katrin’s suggestion of sacrifice and rites gets appropriated by Claudia’s “a roll in the field”, which leads to the question how much of a veil you drop onto the resulting sex and drugs and rock’n roll. Unsurprisingly, it depends on the people you play with.

In conclusion, Claudia talks about her two images of Ernalda – one is the voluptuous, broad-hipped fertility goddess, the other are the Minoan snake-dancers. Katrin confirms that those curves are a necessary feature when she is drawing Earth characters.

And with that, we conclude our episode.

References

While quite a few of the projects mentioned above still need to get published, here is a list of works already that feature Katrin’s stunning art prominently:

• The History of Malkionism by Nick Brooke, illuminated by Katrin Dirim, with extensive bonus material on the art direction
• The Six Paths, a sourcebook on gender among the Heortlings, by Edan Jones, art by Katrin Dirim

You can see Claudia play her Ty Kora Tek necromancer, Gina Gravedancer, in the White Bull actual play series.

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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