Toronto itself was cold. Bloody cold. The sort of -26 degrees c, highish humidity thanks to an adjacent lake kind of cold that made sightseeing an endurance test and leached the heat out of your bones and your bedroom. The kind of cold that begins to make you understand what the whole 'Orlanth is Dead' fimbulwinter was about. Most Torontans seemed happy to live indoors and underground, an observation which got me thinking. A people seemingly happy to settle in an arctic waste, living a semi-troglodytic existence. A people of disproportionately shaggy large men, nonetheless dominated by their fiercer womenfolk. A people who use some near-worthless currency derided by others (it was largely being called the 'Canadian rouble' or the 'zloty', as I recall).
Of course, the Canadians are an uz tribe! It all makes sense now...
Having - depending on personal taste - insulted or flattered our hosts, on to the actual con. Jeff Kyer did a splendid job in reviving this series, a feat made especially difficult by the fact that most events gain much of their membership through momentum, by being part of a regular cycle. Restarting from scratch was a major challenge. Admittedly, it would have been nicer if there had been able to hit the 100-person mark, both for financial reasons and also in terms of creating a critical mass better able to support multiple and overlapping events. On the upside, though, this was a friendly and intimate event, with lots of opportunities to chat and just bump into people, from the one-man hurricane of enthusiasm which goes by the name of Sandy Petersen, through to unpublished and list-lurking but nonetheless welcome Gloranthaphiles.
The ICEBREAKER event saw the participants divided into three teams, each spreading the word for one of the Seven Mothers. Nick Brooke's Yanafali regiment tried to overawe the barbarians with some drill, while Ken Rolston's Xaroni relied on cool shades and the admittedly compelling slogan that 'it is better to hit than be hit.' They were, however, put to shame by our erudite Ontorians, who presented an infomercial showing the Orlanthi how much more effective their cattle-raiding would be thanks to us, and then a song underlining how much cleverer we are, leading a student life instead of boot or prison camp, and then becoming the bureaucrats, secret police and eminences grises. Well, I found our line convincing, anyway!
Then the LORE AUCTION saw the panel fielding a range of questions, from the seven forms of Chaos through to the best ways to introduce new players to Glorantha (Nick Brooke's excellent answer: focus on cults, culture and mythology - they give you the basic structure to understand Glorantha and also to show its uniqueness).
Following that, I joined GREG'S HUSCARL'S HEROQUEST GAME, as trusty
(well, deeply dishonest - but at least reliably so) Vanchite servant
to Rick Meints' Sylilan aristocrat. A bizarre meal in a lethal Lunar
restaurant led to our taking the Crimson Bat into the Ban. A deadpan
Robin Laws, playing a death-seeking Humakti, became briefly
acquainted with the Bat's insides, the Bat got de-ticked and we got
to find out what was behind the Ban. But we ain't saying nuffing.
Very strange.
The Saturday kicked off with the traditional game of TROLLBALL,
albeit with a suitably white-furred northern enlo, but I didn't get
to see it as most of the day I was busy getting ready for THE BIRTH
OF THE GODDESS, a 30-player freeform/LARP I was running for the
first time. Running freeforms is the opposite of running a normal
roleplaying session - the GM knows *least* of what is going on.
Thanks to Michael Schwartz and Brian Pinch, who helped GM it, the
game ran, despite numerous occasions of chaos and confusion. It's
hard to know quite which moments or images to highlight (though you
can also see Roderick's photos in the Files section of the list).
There were the Darjiini and their guests getting down 'n' dirty at
the Dorkath Sex Hunt, to the delicate tones of Frankie Goes to
Hollywood (an inspired notion by David Cheng). There was Michael
Schwartz's (NPC) Great Shah going loudly and precipitately from
menace to melancholia during the annual rites (thanks to Jakaleel -
Suzanne Courteau - and her madness spirits). There was the massive
mustering of the armies of the Empire to crush Rinliddi, aided by
Nick's enthusiastic desertion. Greg, as Khasventos of Raibanth or
rather, having carried out a successful heroforming, Raiba himself,
nonetheless being sacrificed and skinned by a vicious Pentan warlord
(David Millians). I could go on, but ultimately the Moon Goddess was
born, and despite any efforts to create variation, it was Deezola,
Jakaleel, IO, DX and YT who birthed her (albeit using a Rinliddi egg
as a vessel instead of a slave girl) so the natural order of things
was restored...
Well, the important thing is that *I* had fun ;-)
That evening, the (sumptuous) GTA BANQUET saw members being given a preview of HQ of a size related to their level of membership, and the announcement of the Best of 2002 awards. As no UW products won, it was clearly a fix, but nonetheless I'll not kick up a fuss...
Following the banquet came the HEROQUEST LAUNCH which also featured 'Virtual John Hughes' via webcam feed. This was a cute idea which didn't really work out that well - it's no one's fault, as the tech guys did their best with an unfortunate connection and John is always great value, but we ended up with a jerky picture and no audio feed, and predictably that had quite a deadening effect on any dialogue. Nonetheless, a great idea to have tried.
The launch also saw discussion of future products. Once HQ is out, which will take up to 3 months (as SJG works on a 3-month cycle between advising vendors of a future product to actual shipping), the next book will be the HERO'S BOOK. After this will come - not necessarily in this order - KEROFINELA, ILH-2, SR-4 (GATHERING THUNDER) and HEROBANDS. All these books are nearly completed, at least to text level, and many already have art commissioned. Issaries then plans to maintain a good tempo of production - a book every 2 months (Greg in 'there are no bastions we cannot storm' mode) or 3 (me in 'be cautious and hope to giving people nice surprises' mode). Other products in the works include LUNAR SCENARIOS 1 (set in Raibanth), UZ, MOSTALI and ALDRYAMI guides, further SR scenario compendia, ILH-3 (on the Solar cultures), as well as further local adventure and culture books, set in lands from PRAX to the TRADER PRINCES. On the whole, though, Greg was keen to say that Issaries would concentrate on *adventures* rather than background/location books, so that the world comes through the stories.
For Martin Laurie and I, Sunday started with our BEHIND THE ILH panel, which was a nice chance to chat about the Empire, its people and gaming opportunities. Of course, Martin for some strange reason does not accept that the Darjiini and Vanchite cultures are the finest within the Empire and seemed to have some bizarre fascination with those wretched Alkothi, but I find it had to hold it against him. Of course, ILH-1 was released at Gloranthacon (and a very fine book it is too), but in most cases people understandably hadn't had the chance to do more than glance through it. Nonetheless, it was heartening to hear people saying nice things about it, and we look forward to hearing more.
(Nice things, that is...)
Then there was just a little time for a brief expedition into the arctic outdoors (the hotel was right next to a bookshop endearingly if not entirely credibly called 'The Biggest Bookshop in the World' - I assume Canadian Argan Argari don't see a role for subtlety in advertising) before Martin's interesting IMPERIAL ARRAY panel on the Lunar military. Lots of interesting ideas about how magic and myth re-shape war - and when they don't.
Another quick break before I ended up sitting on three back-to-back panels. The first, HOW TO WRITE A FREEFORM, was more correctly 'sit back and marvel at Sandy's games' - I certainly learned far, far more than I could have imparted in that hour.
The second, SHADOWS OF THE EMPIRE, was my slot to talk about crime, policing and espionage in the Empire and I had decided to be a little silly and present it as a PowerPoint 'briefing' - to my relief, the technology worked, and I hope it was of some interest to the audience!
Then the SELF-PUBLISHING PANEL brought Roderick, Rick and myself
together to discuss options for others to share in the current
Gloranthan renaissance. Moon Designs has one more of its collections
to produce before it has worked its way through all the RQ2 material
(the Cults Compendium, incidentally, won a well-deserved Best
Licensed Product 2002), but Rick is also setting himself up as a onestop
North American vendor of Gloranthan goodness, also selling
Tradetalk and UW materials. As for UW, we will continue to produce
our books and, depending on the reception on the market, perhaps
more Paper Wars CDs. The first was, incidentally, launched at
Gloranthacon, as well as a surprise extra, a full-colour A3 map of
Southern Heortland, to go with one of our future books: 'Esvulari:
the Word, the Sword and the Mountain'.
And then it was time to end. There is much I haven't had the chance to mention (like the bondage gear stall - are Gloranthaphiles really a key market, or did they also think it was GorCon?). There is even more that went on outwith my own experience, such as the numerous games of HW, Nick's raucous 'Young Thrax' session, Ken Rolston's 'Morrowind' demo, Roderick's 'Lawn Dart Wars' miniatures tourney, the singing, the auction, the storytelling... And then there was the drinking, the talking, the arguing, more drinking. But above all, it once again proved just what a unique and unforgettable experience a gathering of the Gloranthan tribe can be.
All the best
Mark
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