Lunar Empire

As our team of intrepid explorers enters the capital of the Lunar Empire, we are joined by a team of professional historians..

Sit back, get a snack and something to drink, this may take a while.

First a short word about our tribe: at the time of publication, there have been more than 1111 downloads of the first three episodes in total. (That’s 1111 in decimal.)

The Herald’s Podium

As Corona Virus remains looming over us, we have to report more cancellations of conventions. This time it affects the two biggest ones of the year:

GenCon 2020 is cancelled.
- A virtual option is investigated
- Chaosium’s COVID19 May Update (also on BRP Central)
Essen Spiel 2020 is postponed tp 2021

Chaosium News
- The Pegasus Plateau and Other Stories is aviailable as pdf
  - A supplement for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.
    As always, buying the PDF from Chaosium gives you a discount when buying the printer version later (although only from Chaosium too).
  - Designers’ Blog Posts on Pegasus Plateau
    - Jason Durall on the Chaosium Blog
    - Art Director Kalin Kadiev and various artists ninterviewed on the Chaosium Blog
  - John Wick’s personal blog on his first foray into Glorantha as a designer
- Last Faction Hero, a board game by Gianni Vacca
  - A print and play Gloranthan board game, playable in ~45min. (The funding action has run out on Monday, 31st of may, after which the item was hidden on itch.io)
  - Chaosium has been donating 100% of all proceeds until 30th May 2020 to the World Health Organisation’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.
- Less postage cost for Canadian customers as there is a new sulfillment warehouse in Canada
New(s) on the Jonstown Compendium
- OneBookshelf updates on COVID-19
- Tokens for Virtual Tabletop by Dario Corallo
  - An ongoing series of tokens for use with VTTs, by Dario Corallo. So far we have 2 batches of tokens for trolls and trollkin, one for chaos monsters, one for “flying trollkin”, one on giant baboons, one for Antelope Lancers, one for Tusk Riders.
- Six Seasons in Sartar by Andrew Logan Montgomery
  - A sandbox with a campaign spanning six seasons, with local maps, notes on heroquesting, NPCs
  - It has glowing reviews, was featured on the Chaosium Blog, and has topped the Community Content bestseller list on DriveThruRPG
- Elgar’s Blade (Red Deer Saga part 2)
  - Continues the Namoldin campaign begun in White Rocks
- Monster of the Month: Hunters of the Sky by Austin Conrad
- A Print on Demand option is available for select publications on Jonstown Compendium
  - First item available is the Rough Guide to Glamour
  - If you already bought the pdf, contact DriveThruRPG’s customer service and upgrade to the hardback edition for just the cost of printing and shipping!
  - Comments on how to make a publication POD-ready on Facebook
Roleplaying in Glorantha: How to Get Started by Runeblogger
Interview with Ian Cooper on Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff

Rumours

Hearts in Glorantha #8 this June, breaking the hiatus announced end of last year.
Ducks, Ducks And More Ducks by Stewart Stansfield may surface this year
A first look at the crowd-funded French edition of RuneQuest:

Main Topic: A Guided Visit of Glamour

As a premiere, we welcome guests to our podcast, the team of authors behind the Rough Guide to Glamour, all long time RuneQuest veterans who met studying history at Oxford university:

Nick Brooke; long time contributor to Tales of the Reaching Moon, host of etyries.com, an award winning Glorantha website, co-author of the freeforms How the West was One and Life of Moonson, and co-author and publisher of both the original and the new, revised and expanded Rough Guide to Glamour
Mike Hagen: contributor to Tales of the Reaching Moon, co-author of the Rough Guide to Glamour
Chris Gidlow: designer of Credo, the game of dueling dogmas, author of Tarsh War, a mini-freeform published by Reaching Moon Megacorp, co-author of Life of Moonson and the Rough Guide to Glamour

After a warm-up exercise ducking rapid-fire questions, our guests relate a tale of how their bestselling publication came to be, with lots of behind-the scenes information.

How does the Lunar Empire work, and how does it fail to work? Chris talks about making the Cult of Yelm work as the cult of the Red Emperor, Nick explains the interaction between the Lunar Empire and the Lunar Way, and Mike mentions the cycles and the weakness of the Empire.

The city of Glamour does get a closer look – the movers and shakers, the cosmopolitan milieu, real world influences on the design, how a joint visit to Rome by our guests shaped their exploration of the imperial city, how the Junta boardgame influenced the design process, the shape of the Moon Rune as the dominant pattern of the city

We learn about the origin of the Life of Moonson freeform, from its origins as a mini-freeform “The Hunt for Red Storm Season” which was then expanded to a 50-person freeform.

There is a collection of the Life of Moonson characters on Nick’s Website – check them out. Mike, Nick and Chris expand on their favourites.

Ludo asks about the humour in Glorantha, and then we get to the influence of pop music to Glorantha, and especially Pelorian Rhapsody. After some evasion wherein we discuss why the Red Emperor resembles Elvis rather than Freddy Mercury, Michael O’Brien’s inspiration, Mike Hagen suggests a cyclical change of his appearance due to massive intake of Moon Rock, and Chris on MOB’s Maximum Game Fun principle, we get a musical interlude:

The Red Army Choir performing the first lines of Pelorian Rhapsody. Roll for Sanity.

Bill asks about which module our guests wished they had written. Nick offers his admiration for MOB’s Sun County for RQ3, Chris gets poetic about Griffin Mountain, and Mike Hagen reminisces about his first contact with RuneQuest through the early White Dwarf article on Dealing with Demons.

Our investigative reporting goes on to ask “What is the most Gloranthan thing you have ate”. Mike submitted a dish called Corflu Surprise as a winner to the first Eat at Geo’s contest at Convulsion (3 tbs cream of coconut, 1 tin of tuna, and 1 tsp Sambal manis, plus perhaps some black pepper. Adjust quantity of coconut and spice to taste. Garnish with seaweed if desired.). Nick tells about Walktapus seeds, and Chris celebrated the publication of the new Rough Guide with a most Lunar dinner consisting of ostrich steak (a type of bird that has been extinct in Peloria for centuries and may be illusionary), maize and pink gin.

We have a few more rapid-fire questions, sowing some dissent among our guests. and we let our guests answer the questions we failed to ask them.

Nick gives an account of the experience of publishing on the Jonstown Compendium. We learn why The Tide is High to Call Her, the goddess Glamour bearing a stunning similarity to Debbie Harrie. Mike gives an account on the art acquisition for the Rough Guide. Chris answers why one would explore the Lunar Empire.

As we ceremonially eject our guests, getting information on the sales numbers and a hint at the next project we can expect from our guests, learning about the banned Seleric Verses and what really happened in Torang in 1220.

Credits:

The lovely image detail of Mucha Blondie Glamour is by Antonia Doncheva. View the full image on p.99 of the Rough Guide to Glamour!

The performance at 1:27:20 is a parody of Bohemian Rhapsody, by Queen. Nick Brooke’s lyrics to Pelorian Rhapsody were inspired by Freddy Mercury’s original work. His group may have sung it better, but our version makes more sense as a Lunar hymn to the Seven Mothers and the Red Goddess.