This is a note of concern for the future of official German (language) RQ - its unofficial future seems quite save, with the current backbone of people from German RQ society actively propagating the game and the world of Glorantha. However, the German publisher of RQ (3) has successfully copied Avalon Hill's publishing schedule from the mid-eighties, only leaving out the non-Gloranthan products... This means that so far the rules (DeLuxe, without the Glorantha intro and the bestiary), the bestiary from DeLuxe, a GM screen with the monster digest from Monster Colliseum, Gods of Glorantha and finally a (quite nice) poster map of Genertela have appeared since the start of German RQ in 1991. The World of Glorantha was announced for Spring this year, was rumoured to look excellent, but has not appeared so far.
Now rumours of staff changes with the publishers (WDS) indicate that the only people there who cared somewhat for both system and setting have left the company. We still hope that at least the already translated (and likely even typeset) material will see publication, but we are far from certain.
This leaves the German market almost completely devoid of any Chaosium style games. Stormbringer and Cthulhu had a very active life until the company publishing both went bankrupt. Now the company which has bought the bankrupt remains of the previous publishers has not taken over the Stormbringer series (to my knowledge), and while they have bought Cthulhu about two years ago, _nothing_ has been published, not even the almost finished 1920s Germany background material, nor have the rulesbooks (3rd edition, which sold out around spring '94) have been reprinted. German Pendragon has died off around 91. Nor is there any German language Elric!, Nephilim, or Elfquest available.
The English language versions of these games do sell in Germany, even AH's RQ is stocked by every major seller of roleplaying games. These games have some support with Free INT, which has 3 (to 4) issues per year dedicated to all of these games.
However, with the current licensing policy of Chaosium, the (up to 94) very popular Cthulhu and its related games might well be forgotten by next summer. We are currently looking into ways to bypass this dilemma, and will appreciate suggestions.
Sorry for this bleak interruption, now back to directly Glorantha-related discussion.
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