Glorantha Initiation: Konrad & Antoni, Polish RPGs, Nysalor as ChatGPT, and Solar Fanboyism

For this new Glorantha Initiation interview, we have two guests, which explains the unusual length of this episode… we welcome Antoni and Konrad!

Konrad studies Bronze Age history, does LARPs, and runs games for teens and children. He has been running RPGs for about 11 years, and RQG for 4 years. You can catch him on Discord as @SpellcastingKisiel
Antoni studies geography. You can find him on Facebook as Antek Bartoszko.

Show Notes

Antoni introduces himself:
- Started RPGs with D&D 3e in high school. Then Warhammer 2e, which is “the most patriotic Polish RPG”. Gothic is the most patriotic Polish computer game.
- Antoni has opinions about the “drama kids” school of RPG and modern games.
- He’s a novice GM, and has more fun as a player.
- Recent games Antoni likes are Fabula Ultima (a TTRPG inspired by JRPG video games) and Vaesen (a Scandinavian 19th-century folk-horror TTRPG).
- Apparently Antoni broke Vaesen with min-maxing!
Konrad introduces himself:
- He discovered RPGs in a summer camp, watching kids playing Warhammer 2e… but they never let him play! Booo!
- The following year he started playing and GMing, notably a post-apocalyptic Polish game.
- Konrad feels more comfortable as a GM, and likes faction play.
Warhammer is very very popular in Poland!
Poland didn’t have any particular printing of any RPG at first, so people smuggled hastily translated rulebooks. Warhammer was a good fit. It was one of the very first officially released RPGs in Poland.
Then, the only Polish RPG magazine at the time broke everyone’s mind about Warhammer because everyone was pretty much taking Warhammer at face value, instead of the comedic game it’s supposed to be. The pun names weren’t translated!
Antoni got Konrad into Glorantha.
- He discovered Glorantha with King of Dragon Pass through a video game streamer playing it.
- He loved the cultures and vibrant world.
- He later discovered that there was an RPG, but was turned off by the “realistic combat” that RuneQuest boasted about having.
- After playing Six Ages, Antoni started ranting to Konrad about Glorantha.
We talk a bit about heroquesting as Antoni misunderstands a question about HeroQuest/QuestWorlds as an alternative system with no “realistic combat” in it. Since these books weren’t really available in Poland, it wasn’t on his radar.
Konrad realized that he tried playing Six Ages, as he was interested in bronze age gaming, but didn’t get very far. So when Antoni mentioned Glorantha, he was vaguely familiar with it. He had heard about RuneQuest as a “classic RPG”.
Konrad started researching the setting and realized he loves it.
Glorantha has “hard worldbuilding”.
Konrad likes granular mechanics, so RuneQuest’s system looked good. He also appreciates that he can make his own subsystems easily.
Konrad still hopes to run a “proper long campaign” soon.
Glorantha is “doing good work” about representing the clan, tribal, city state, and god king mindset that might look alien to a modern reader. It’s not a “historic documentary” game, but it’s a “good approximation”.
Glorantha might help later understanding real history.
Konrad specializes in Levantine late bronze age (15th to 12th century BCE). He’s also interested in European bronze age. He studies social dynamics, people living outside of temple/city-state systems, etc.
Joerg on the other hand started looking into European bronze age first, and didn’t look into the fertile crescent until later.
Ludo got into Glorantha first, and then looked into Earth history later.
Konrad loved the lore and the societies that “feel alive”. There’s a lot to play with when you’re a GM who loves faction play. He notes how Jonstown is described in the Starter Set, and how it contains multiple groups with multiple motivations and agendas, interwoven with their religious beliefs.
In RuneQuest, even the monsters are people.
Ludo talks about subsystems for political negotiations, as his players are trying to take over the Alone Confederation.
Konrad likes the RQG sorcery rules!
Joerg says sorcery is like shamanism: you need to min-max a lot to be useful.
Konrad doesn’t seem very interested in shamanism, whereas Ludo thinks it’s one of the unique interesting features of the game.
“There are now 7 RuneQuest players in Poland!”
Konrad tries to run RuneQuest at every convention in Poland, and in the summer-camps he’s working at… basically trying to kick-start a Polish fandom for RuneQuest.
The reception of RQG in Polish conventions seems pretty good. Most players are new to RuneQuest as far as Konrad can tell.
Chaosium fans in Poland know and play Call of Cthulhu, which Antoni suspect is the biggest TTRPG in the country right now. Or at least one of the “Holy Trio” (CoC, WFRP, D&D 5e)
When Ludo asks if Pendragon is known in Poland, Antoni explodes with laughter. He can’t believe anybody would play this game.
There is a Polish edition of Pendragon, which Konrad claims is better-looking than the English one. So Polish people know about the game, and the Polish editor released the translation almost at the same time as the original version.
Ludo says that Pendragon is probably not played that much in the grand scheme of things, and probably not in the “top 20 games”, but Joerg ask the rhetorical question of what “top 20” means anyway? (I probably meant “top 20” in terms of number of players)
Antoni says that, just like Mage: The Ascension, Pendragon, to him, is more meant to be read than to be played. Ludo mentions he played Mage in his youth, having been a big World of Darkness fan back then.
Ludo’s first couple TTRPG purchases were Cyberpunk 2020 and Vampire: The Masquerade, which Konrad says are “very Polish tastes”.
Ludo asks Antoni what he doesn’t like about Glorantha. Antoni talks about the various “phases” he had with Glorantha.
He mentions the “Dukaj-Stafford” effect (from Jacek Dukaj and Greg Stafford… Dukaj is a Polish science-fiction and fantasy writer). This is when a settings is so good that it makes you give up trying to expand it, because you can’t make anything half as good.
Antoni’s “second phase” was discovering the Mongoose RuneQuest books, and the cool aspects of gaming in other places and times in Glorantha.
Antoni’s Glorantha will definitely vary, and he wants to give a shout-out to Nick Brooke for enabling that. Antoni’s Dara Happans are cool and awesome, and he has hot takes about them.
Antoni talks about the different scopes and takes on Glorantha between the editions, or between the TTRPGs and the video games.
Konrad agrees, especially since he discovered Glorantha with Six Ages, so “his boys” are the Solar people.
Konrad appreciates “well written barbarian cultures” in Glorantha, but he is more interested in the various types of Solar cultures, or about Orlanthi people in Peloria (“solarized Sartarites!”)
Konrad has strong opinions about Elmal vs Yelmalio! He doesn’t buy the “wide scale replacement” of one cult by the other, and gives his reasons for it.
Antoni doesn’t really like some of the Gloranthan authors’ approach of pretending that they are “translating” some “actual” Gloranthan texts, instead of just writing a game book.
Ludo talks about HeroQuest/QuestWorlds as the thing Antoni and Konrad may look into as they mentioned having trouble doing “bigger things” in RuneQuest.
Konrad mentions his “biggest issue” with RuneQuest: how the game and the world are presented. Gloranthan and RuneQuest are “absurdly hard to get into”.
The best way to get into this game is “finding a GM”. Konrad says that getting into it by yourself is much harder.
Konrad mentions the video games (King of Dragon Pass, Six Ages, RuneQuest Warlords ) as good first steps but admits they are niche games and not for everyone. He’s looking forward to the first official Gloranthan novel (A Pyre for Gods and Heroes).
We play the game of “what gets released next year?” Joerg is rather optimistic about it. Ludo is pessimistic… and probably right, since this interview was recorded 6 months ago and nothing Joerg has mentioned seems to be happening soon.
Antoni mentions that Konrad often compared Glorantha to the Elder Scrolls video game series… and so he argues Gloranthan needs a Skyrim-like game. No biggie.
Ludo mentions The One Ring TTRPG (second edition), trying to make a point about games introducing deep lore to players, and once again the guests immediately laugh. Konrad and Antoni apparently have both very strong, and very opposed, opinions about it.
- Antoni doesn’t like TOR 2e because of its default place and time.
- But he likes the progression from easy to hard between The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and the Silmarillion.
- “With Glorantha, you start with the Silmarillion”.
Konrad agrees about that, and mentions how even the RuneQuest Starter Set floods the reader with too much information. How much information is needed to start? Probably a lot less than what the Starter Set gives.
- Konrad thinks the Starter Set has a good setting and adventures, but not a good presentation of the setting.
Antoni gives praise to the fan community, especially the Glorantha groups on Facebook. He also praises the “Prince of Sartar” webcomic as an entry point into the setting.
Antoni ask why there’s not Malkioni-Solar syncretism, when there is Malkioni-Orlanthi syncretism that exists?
- Joerg explains it with the timelines of when Greg Stafford and Jamie Revell were working on this or that across Glorantha.
- Jamie’s books are available on the Jonstown Compendium. But these books offer an old vision of Malkioni society that isn’t “canon” anymore, for whatever that’s worth.
Antoni asks if the Moon Rune existed before the Red Moon appeared?
- Joerg says the Moon Rune isn’t needed for being a mystic or achieving some kind of transcendence.
- Joerg also argues the Moon Rune always existed. Ludo has a different take, about the Moon Rune having mostly disappeared at the Dawn, and the Seven Mothers having brought it back.
Antoni asks why the Lunars didn’t share the fate of the God Learners.
Konrad has many conspiracy theories. For instance: Orlanth can’t read. Also: Nysalor is basically the ChatGPT of Glorantha. You have to listen but his arguments are pretty sound. Joerg even adds another layer…
Going back to Malkioni-Solar syncretism, Ludo and Joerg add more ideas.
Antoni asks what’s the deal with reincarnation?
- Ludo had totally missed that there was reincarnation in Glorantha in the first place… we argue a bit about it, and what that means for talking to ancestors.
- Then we argue some more about interpreting some of the writings, until we end up on the Ty Kora Tek cult write-up, which Ludo says is bullshit, agreeing with Antoni.
Antoni’s favourite conspiracy theory is about the role of Brithos in the rebirth of the world in Time.
- Joerg says “Brithos might have been the backup”. And it makes Zzabur a bit more right.
- We start gushing about Zzabur and entertaining he is.
Konrad hopes to be able to publish some RuneQuest books in the next couple years.
We finish with a round of quick-fire questions! Including Konrad’s surprising take on Newtlings!