Episode 10 of the Glorantha Initiation Series is with Chris Webb, who played RuneQuest 2nd edition once in the early 1980s, and gave up after saving Gringle’s Pawnshop from baboons. Him and his friends played without cults or magic because it was too weird and obscure.

This was with the British version of RuneQuest, which was a boxed set containing Apple Lane and a few other supplements in addition to the rulebook.

Much later, Chris was brought into a game of RuneQuest Glorantha by his younger brother Jonathan Webb, which you might know as the main author of the excellent Praxian police procedural campaign Sandheart.

During this episode, we discuss the following various things:

• The importance for a fantasy setting to have references players can fall back on
• Cults as football teams
• Playing outcasts, children, or other characters that “allow” players to not know much about the campaign’s setting
• The “house version” of the RuneQuest rules, and the value of being introduced to a game by someone who already knows how to play it
• The difficulty of reading and using the RuneQuest Glorantha rulebook
• Griselda’s tales and White Dwarf magazine
• The most powerful spell in RuneQuest!
• The Grogmeet online convention and the “Grogpod”, also known as The Grognard Files
• The Good Friends of Jackson Elias podcast
• Rules light RPGs and emergent settings: Troika!, Into the Odd, Ultraviolet Grasslands, Mausritter

And finally, Chris talks about putting Runes on a roof… well it actually happened recently!

Credits

The intro music is “Dancing Tiger” by Damscray. The outro music is “Islam Dream” by Serge Quadrado. Other audio is from the FreeSound library.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (24.3MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | More

We talk to another Scott this month for our Initiation Series. This one was recorded back in November 2021, which is why we still mention the very imminent release of the RuneQuest Starter Set.

Scott is a newcomer to Glorantha who couldn’t wish for better guides to navigate Strike Ranks and Sartarite tribes.

Some of the things mentioned in this episode include:

• D&D BECMI
• RuneQuest 2
• Bud’s RPG Review YouTube channel
• Pookie’s Reviews From R’lyeh blog
• The RuneQuest Quickstart (free in PDF), which contains the adventure “The Broken Tower”
• The Glorantha Sourcebook and the giant Guide to Glorantha
• The King of Dragon Pass video game
• Wyrm’s Footnotes
• The Duckduckgo search engine (Ludo’s primary search engine!)

And now, for some super professional links to Scott’s many places:

• HailOrcusdorkus on Twitter
• Orcusdorkus’ RPG Shenanigans YouTube channel (including his “completely unprofessional unboxings”)
• The Titterpigs podcast (with Keith, from Rollingboxcars)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (26.0MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | More

The new Initiation Series interview features Scott Rinehart, and was recorded back in October 2021. Scott is new to Glorantha, having only played in a couple of one-shot games, but he has flipped through the new RuneQuest slipcase books, and the Glorantha Sourcebook.

Things mentioned in this episode include:

• Rankin/Bass animated films “The Hobbit” and “The Return of the King“
• Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (second “Moldvay” edition, 1981)
• RuneQuest 2 reprints, financed through a Kickstarter campaign
• Cubicle7’s The One Ring (which is now discontinued… the second edition is now with Free League)
• The Prince of Sartar webcomic
• King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages video games
• Empire of the Petal Throne and novels set in the world of Tekumel (see also the Tekumel Foundation)
• John E. Boyle’s Queen’s Heir, a Hittite fantasy novel originally supposed to be set in Glorantha
• The Griselda short stories set in Glorantha
• Cults of Prax and the travels of Biturian Varosh (which we started covering in our old podcast, and continued with the current podcast most recently here)
• The RuneQuest Quickstart, including the adventure “The Broken Tower”
• Lou Zocchi’s rant about dice manufacturing
• The Grognard Files podcast
• Elfquest, and the Elfquest RPG

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (25.9MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | More

This episode was recorded in November 2021.

For this Initiation Series interview we welcome back Diana Probst, the totally biologically human member of Beer With Teeth, which we already had on the show with some of her collaborators in Episode 6: Gamemastering RuneQuest.

Diana talks about her obsessive approach to RPGs and RPG settings, and her early years playing Amber Diceless Roleplaying and its offpsring Lords of Gossamer & Shadow, from Jason Durall (now line editor for RuneQuest). She mentions the “fractal gaming” of Glorantha, and the “constructive cosmology” that she engages in with her RuneQuest groups, including inventing many things related to the cult of Humakt and general YGMV approach. We also brush upon her move from a rules-light narrative system to a crunchy simulationist system.

In the last stretch of the episode we talk about physical play aids, stolen webcams, and tea bribes. To wrap things up we usually go into short and simple “wildcard questions” but the first one sends us on a giant digression about Gloranthan sports and “dwarf spotting”, so we figured we wouldn’t ask a second one.

Other things mentioned in this episode:

• Road to Amber MUSH
• Ice Shinty
• Custom drowning rules
• Diana’s group’s campaign log (note that wikidot is currently down after a massive hack.) Episode 8 has the first ice shinty game. Episode 18 has a damaged dwarf.
• Diana’s art patreon
• Beer With Teeth website
• Beer With Teeth titles on DriveThruRPG

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (17.1MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | More

For episode 6 of the Glorantha Initiation Series we welcome Wayne Peters, who played RuneQuest once in the 80s and hated it. More than 30 years later, Wayne returned to Glorantha with the Broken Tower, the adventure from the RuneQuest Quickstart. He talks about riding Praxian mounts, making miniatures, YGMV, ducks, silly location names, and more!

• Wayne Peters on Twitter
• Picture of Wayne’s High Llama rider miniature
• Andy (Wayne’s GM) on Twitter

Things mentioned in this episode:

• Snakepipe Hollow
• RuneQuest Quickstart (includes The Broken Tower)
• Borderlands
• Pavis & The Big Rubble
• Chaosium’s Cult of Chaos program
• The Prince of Sartar webcomic
• Les Enfants de la Flamme (French campaign from Studio Deadcrows)
• Sandheart: Tales of the Sun County Militia
• The Armies and Enemies of Dragon Pass
• Harn
• GURPS Banestorm
• SketchUp modelling software
• Matthew Cole’s New Pavis
• Mouse Guard
• The High Llamas

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (25.6MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | More

In this new episode of the Glorantha Initiation series, we welcome Steinar, aka Felix, aka Coffeemancer. We talk with him about convincing players to try RuneQuest, getting started with King of Dragon Pass, stealing Lunar officials’ sandals, and adapting funny internet memes to Glorantha. Also: Steinar gives us his “Elmal rant”!

Mentioned in this episode:

• The BRP Central thread that drew Steinar out of Pinterest anonymity
• Steinar’s “coffee-stained sketchbook“
• The Duel at Dangerford

Here are examples of Steinar’s art, although there’s a lot more to it than these stupid memes:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (14.3MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | More

For this fourth episode of the Initiation Series, we chat with Discord regular Skulldixon, which is apparently how everybody actually calls him except for his parents. Skull (let’s call him Skull for short?) talks about his campaign, all the numerous things he likes about Glorantha and the RuneQuest system, how to deal with mountains of lore, and more.

Of course we also talk about Skulldixon’s art (which features such pieces as the ducks above) and his own RPG products, all of which can be found on his website, and on DriveThruRPG. The cover image for the episode is of course also by Skulldixon, and used with permission.

We also mention:

• Kraken chapbooks are currently unavailable due to licensing around the trademark “HeroQuest”. More information here.
• Robin’s Laws of Game Goodmastering, available from Steve Jackson Games, among other fine places.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (23.6MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | More

For our third episode of our Initiation Series, we interview Erin McGuire, who was only supposed to play RuneQuest for one night, but hasn’t stopped for the past couple years, and is now possibly an heir to the throne of Sartar. These things happen, you know.

Throughout the episode we talk about this campaign. You can read the vast amount of game logs and lore information that Erin’s group has gathered on their Journey of Heroes wiki. In particular, you can read the crazy Gloranthan archeological articles that Erin has written, such as the Excavations Notes on Harbour Street Tower, the Skokkrafell Monolith, or a study of Rites of Passage in Ancient Esrolia. Note the bibliographies. Amazing, I tell you.

Erin is part of the Beer With Teeth collective, who has published numerous supplements for RuneQuest on the Jonstown Compendium, and now works with Chaosium on “official” books.

Erin is also part of the Society for Creative Anachronism, which most of the creators of RuneQuest were also part of themselves a long time ago.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (18.3MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | More

On this second episode of the Glorantha Initiation Series, we interview Russano Greenstripe.

Russsano discovered Glorantha with King of Dragon Pass, a game by A-Sharp, available on pretty much any platforms you’d want to play on.

If he could start a Gloranthan game, Russano would pick QuestWorlds as a ruleset. In the meantime, he has brought Eurmal to his in D&D game. We also discuss 13th Age: Glorantha, available from Chaosium. The core system is available from Pelgrane Press.

D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths is available on Amazon and most probably in your friendly local bookstore.

The music album Carmen Miranda’s Ghost is on YouTube.

Information on Greg Stolze’s REIGN is available here, including access to PDFs and Print-on-Demand of the first edition. Information on GODLIKE is available from ArcDream. Unknown Armies is available from Atlas Games.

Visit the Wyvern’s Tale in North Carolina!

The (unofficial) Chaosium Discord is found here. The Cult of Chaos Discord is for members of the (free and easy to join) Cult of Chaos.

Archives of old Gloranthan discussions are on Tapatalk (such as here), but there’s also a lot on Chaosium’s Well of Daliath. The old mailing lists are archived here by a good Samaritan.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (18.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | More

This is the inaugural episode of the Glorantha Initiation series, where we talk to members of the tribe who recently joined the God Learner studies. The God Learner Podcast wants to investigate how people comparatively new to Glorantha experience the world, what are the rewards, what are the hurdles when approaching this setting.

To test the concept and the questionnaire we plan to use on our volunteers, Joerg interviews Ludovic, who actually only discovered Glorantha around the time the new RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha was released.

Ludovic’s first roleplaying game was The Dark Eye, also known as L’Oeil Noir in France.

The Havena city box also had a big early influence on him. For more nostalgia, see Ludovic’s “RPG DNA” article.

The French HeroWars and Glorantha books whose covers Ludovic talks about are visible above.

The Broken Tower RuneQuest Quickstart is available in print and POD here. It’s also available for free in PDF here.

You can find Ludovic all around the interwebs. For more information, see his God Learner wizard profile.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (21.1MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | More