I'm playing a Roll20 game in Imther that is absolutely wild. The GM, who didn't know Glorantha year ago, fell in love with it partly through reading Harald's Edge of Empire.
I don't think it's necessarily true that realism makes things more boring or mundane. Gorantha and Runequest are famously weird and surreal yet gritty and "realistic." It's the same with Cthulhu. It isn't made less weird because it's set in a realistic 1930s. The realism highlights the weirdness.
Pakistan had a large role in fostering the Taliban, who overthrew the original, less crazy Mujahedin: the people who actually defeated the Soviets. The Pakistani ISI or military could also have hidden Osama Bin Laden. Finally, the Pakistanis undermined the democratically elected Afghan government.
Yeah, oddly enough, the boardgames are one of the best entryways into Glorantha. It's strange that they were never rereleased during the boardgame renaissance. They're still very highly rated by boardgamers.
I played the new White Bear Red Moon at Chaosium Con Australia and it was a blast.
Yeah, I'm playing it at the moment and I like that, but I admit that I'm also a fan of Glorantha's history and immersing your character in it. I just think the current process is too time-consuming and confusing for newcomers. Several shortened, culture-specific family histories would be great.
*Reposts appreciated”
My webstore heycentaur.com is finally up!
This took so many months of labour (mostly my partner’s), but it is all ready and running.
Physical copies of Kala Mandala are now available, shipping to most of the world.
I must admit that doing Duck and Troll versions of the family history section would be hilarious and cool. Doing separate but much shorter family histories for Sartar, Prax, Pavis, Trolls, and Ducks would actually be cooler and less time-consuming than the current family history process.
Yeah, canon anxiety, and more broadly, just lore anxiety, is the biggest reason that Runequest, etc remain venerable, cult RPGs that lots of people admire from afar, but few people play.
Nitpicking over what is and isn't canon makes the tendency for paralysis even more acute for new GMs & players.
It's been six months for me with my (formally) regular group! Thankfully, my other group is about once a week.
As with so much in life, you're better off having low expectations, so you're never disappointed!
I have no idea whether he didn't like dwarves at all, but I suspect he was the sort of person who, if he didn't like dwarves, just wouldn't have put them in at all. From his comments, I also think he didn't want to rip off other people's IP. So he wouldn't copy and paste the Tolkienian Gimli trope.
Stafford was a real cliché hater. His dwarves weren't Gimli knock-offs. They're alien, sinister, and casually genocidal.
Lots of good answers here. I fell in love with Glorantha somewhere between reading Griffin Mountain and reading Trollpak. Unlike a lot of RQ books, Trollpak details the entire history of the world, in one long, fascinating narrative. Except from a troll perspective.
www.chaosium.com/trollpak-sof...
Sad to hear. I hope it doesn't spread to more Russian banks.
I swear I've seen that face on late 70s British TV.
The Hero Wars as the Bronze Age Collapse:
Canon-worship is a terrible attitude that needs to be discarded from Glorantha. YGWV for me represents the true spirit of Greg, Sandy, etc's creation: unbridled and unrestrained creativity. Not worrying about whether something is "canon" or not. Who cares?
Ransoming prisoners is also probably the fastest way to develop your character. Which means power gamers have an incentive to raid the neighbouring clan, the Lunar Empire, the trolls that are eating your clan's cattle, etc. It adds a lot of potential for politics, intrigue, and negotiation.
Maybe the swampy, jungly areas of the Rightarm Islands. I can imagine a Capybara cavalry charging through the rainforest.
It's the only fantasy setting as good as Tolkien. And Glorantha is far deeper, far crazier, more thought-provoking, far more-"grown-up," morally ambiguous and occasionally dark.
The problem is that, unlike Middle Earth, it doesn't have a great novel to hook people in to the setting.
Ahh, I might be mixing it up with The Coming Storm.
... my players as Dundealos kids in the Valley of Plenty. How satisfying would it be for them to witness the Dragonrise when the Lunar temple is the reason their tribe was destroyed, and their family murdered or enslaved? It has crazy emotional potential for a story.
Everyone has different tastes, but one thing I like about SSiS is that you only play one scenario a year, so you can just use it as part of a broader campaign with lots of other scenarios. If I was starting a grand campaign that allowed my players to see all the political , I'd probably start with..
... the route that the campaigns Six Seasons in Sartar or Valley of Plenty take. Start in your village, surrounded by your family and friends, and gradually, as the campaign goes on, the greater world intrudes. Maybe reading a bit of these campaigns will give you a better understanding of the world.
If the lore seems overwhelming, the two easiest ways to start, I'd say, are to either get the Starter Set adventures and just start playing, learning the lore as you go (if you want to). Or secondly, start small, in a little part of the world, maybe with your clan and family around you. This is...
It's great! The first scenario hides its light under a bushel a bit, so this is my advice:
bsky.app/profile/danr...
I want to roleplay with a cheese spirit, and discuss curing times, proper cheese storage, and mixed milk cheeses.
I was just reading this today. Glorantha is very influenced by imperialism, colonialism and colonialism-resistance stories. Retelling old stories in a relatively realistic way can give a setting a certain amount of heart.
wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/prax-the-lun...
The actual game is pretty smooth once you get it. The big thing to get your head around is Strike Ranks. They're a realistic initiative system, but they take a bit of getting used to.
The RQ Starter Set scenarios are good fun. The first one seems simple, but if you read it closely, it has a lot of little details that can be used to freak the players out. So it can be run as horror with the players being hunted by unknown foes late at night, almost like a Bronze Age 'Alien.'
