Welcome to a new issue of the Journal of Runic Studies, the premier Malkioni publication for studies into the nature of Glorantha. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please consult with the spirit bound to the appropriate electronic page.
Last week was GenCon and Continuum! Chaosium and Chaosium contributors won some Ennies for various works around the Call of Cthulhu franchise, so congratulations to them! Hopefully we’ll see Glorantha come back to the Ennies in 2023 when (hopefully) the Cults book is out and eligible for something…
Chaosium News
Here are this week’s Chaosium news!
RuneQuest Weapons & Equipment is Out in Hardback
The RuneQuest Weapons & Equipment guide is finally out in hardback, after having been released in PDF last December… this shows you how messed up the printing and shipping industry is right now.
If you already bought the PDF, you should have recently received your discount code for the hardback version. If you’re going to order multiple physical books from Chaosium’s recent releases (like, say, Cults of Cthulhu or Time to Harvest), don’t forget to contact customer support and ask for a combined discount code, since Chaosium’s website doesn’t support more than one code. Also, don’t forget to check that the books you’re ordering are in the appropriate warehouse for more efficient shipping… for instance, I’m waiting for Weapons & Equipment to reach the Canadian warehouse before ordering it.
Remember that this is probably the last book that received the “early PDF release” treatment. Chaosium communicated over the last few weeks that they would stop doing it for now.
The White Bull Campaign Returns
After a long hiatus, the White Bull campaign has returned to YouTube! This is Jeff Richard’s RuneQuest Glorantha game featuring several designers and collaborators from the Chaosium sphere. If you want to get back up to speed quickly, BRP Central has an episode list for both season one and season two, which ended after the Battle of Queens, when Kallyr Starbrow’s body is burned and the adventurers return to Argrath in Pavis.
Jonstown Compendium
The Jonstown Compendium is Chaosium’s community content program for all Gloranthan games, hosted on DriveThruRPG. Disclaimer: all the relevant links are affiliate links that hopefully will let us cover some of the hosting and maintenance costs for the website and podcast! Thanks for using them!
Duckpac Book 2: Duck Adventurers
It’s here! The second book of the Duckpac series it out and will let your create Duck adventurers in way more detail than what you had in the Glorantha Bestiary. This includes a custom Family History, duck-tastic boons and heirlooms, a sample Duck community to start from, some pre-generated Duck adventurers, and more.
The fist book on Duck Lore, Legends, and Myths is available here and is a Silver Best Seller. Books 3 and 4 will respectively be a soloquest and a set of scenarios.
The Seven Tailed Wolf
The trilogy of campaigns started in Six Seasons in Sartar and continued in Company of the Dragon is finally complete with the release of the Seven Tailed Wolf! The Company returns to Black Stag Vale but they’re immediately pulled into many defining events of the meta-plot: Kallyr’s Lightbringers Quest and her brush against Jar-eel the Razoress, the Battle of Queens, and more!
The Lottery
This scenario by Robert Stoll takes part in the Lunar Provinces, at the edge of the Glowline, and sends your adventurers up against some “terrifying cult” that threatens their family and the entire region. It includes pre-generated characters, so you could run it as a one-shot interlude or convention game!
An Orlanthi Wedding
This “small adventure” can be slotted into any campaign where “one experienced Orlanthi male initiate adventurer” gets married to an NPC. If things go according to plan (for a certain definition of “plan”), the players will go into some unplanned heroquest!
The Howling Tower is Available in Softcover
What it says in the title! Grab it here and go treasure hunting in the Upland Marsh!
Cover Preview of the Periplus of the Mirrorsea Bay
Martin Helsdon’s next Jonstown Compendium project is an exploration of the Mirrorsea Bay, and it’s being illustrated by the excellent Mark Smylie. Martin shared a preview of the cover on Facebook and it looks amazing!
Here’s a bit of description from Martin:
A round ship is towed by tugboats towards the quays of Nochet. A patrolling triaconter exchanges news with her crew, as two merfolk also talk with a sailor. Beyond rises the temple of Issaries, with the Great Market before it, and behind lies the massive bulk of the Grace Temple. The temple of Dormal is off to one side, and a floating shrine used in festivities sits at anchor nearby.
Community Roundup
The community roundup is our highlight of interesting things being mentioned in the Glorantha-related Facebook groups, sub-Reddits, and other similar online places.
Escalation! Issue 10
Escalation! is a magazine for 13th Age, the unholy child of the 3rd and 4th editions of D&D, plus some other stuff thrown in. You might be familiar with 13th Age: Glorantha, the game that lets you play epic heroes in Glorantha with a D20.
Well, anyway, Escalation! only had one issue that I know of that was dedicated to Glorantha, but it looks like they’ll have another one with issue 11, as announced here:
The Escalation team’s next project is the Red Moon and Warring Kingdoms book, describing how to play Lunar characters in 13th Age Glorantha. It may be a while before we come up for air, so please be patient with us in the meantime.
Evan Franke, of Exploring Glorantha’s fame, announced that the Lunar-focused issue is indeed next, after years of work involving several other authors and editors and such. He even shared the Spotify playlist he uses to get inspired about Fronela, with a piece of art representing the great Lunar City of Riverjoin.
The next issue of Escalation! might not be out until early next year, but I’m still looking forward to it!
Partidas Vetustas
The actual-play channel “Partidas Vetustas” has run a bunch of RuneQuest games (among other systems), which I think start in Apple Lane, then go to Snakepipe Hollow, and then return to Apple Lane. I have no idea if this is good, since my knowledge of Spanish is “half-forgotten high-school education”, and, well, did I mention this channel is in Spanish? It’s in Spanish.
Anyway, if you understand Spanish and you have watched it, please tell me what you thought about it!
Elsewhere on Arachne Solara’s Web
Not everything is about Glorantha, although most things are! Here are loosely relevant things that we found on the interwebs.
The Lady of Elche
The Lady of Elche is a limestone bust discovered in the late 19th century in Spain. It dates back to the 4th century BCE, and is considered to be Iberian with strong Hellenistic influences. I could see it used as a visual inspiration for an Ernalda priestess or, with a bit more imagination, a Maran Gor priestess (although it’s not too far fetched given the actual goddess this bust was supposed to be associated with).
You can easily find many people dressing up with the iconic Princess Leia-looking coils (known as “rodetes”), although these coils aren’t specific to the Lady of Elche per se. But unless I’ve missed some other cultural significance, I guess the Lady of Elche is quite famous in some circles. In fact, you can even get a glimpse of her in the latest Marvel movie, Thor: Love and Thunder! (along with a bunch of gods and goddesses from all kinds of pantheons… one of the only good things about this movie, if you ask me)
Wind Shaman
This “wind shaman” from Karl Simon could be a great inspiration for a Kolat shaman or any other Gloranthan shaman for that matter! Thanks to Thomas Iverson for bringing it up.
Concretion
Concretions are… well, some weird-ass rock things (if you’re really interested in how they form, you can start here). What you need to know is that they’re mostly round, they’re a bit strange, and you can of course use them as inspiration for a weird landscape in Glorantha. Are they sleeping Earth elementals? Are they Maran Gor’s necklace pearls? Are they Lodril’s balls?
Either way, thanks to Susen Saha for bringing them to our attention!
Thank you for reading
That’s it for this week! Please contact us with any feedback, question, or news item we’ve missed!