When I first started playing RuneQuest, I thought that Blank Lands were the best thing I had ever seen. Now we could use Glorantha and add our own ideas and lands without fear of being contradicted. What more could you ask for?
After playing for a while, I found that it was far more fun to use the published areas extensively and to use villages or areas within those lands as places to add more detail, so I did not need Blank Lands. After all, we could set so much in The Big Rubble, Snakepipe Hollow, Prax, Dagori Inkarth, Dorastor or Balazar that we did not need to look at far away places.
Now, however, I look at Glorantha, especially the well-known areas, and see that there are several holes which will never be filled. One of my players has a character who has managed to unite Balazar and is looking to establish contacts with surrounding lands. He has asked about the lands of Jarst and Garsting, for example. Now, I can spend many hours developing a culture, a map, a society and a mythological background for those lands which means that I have a non-standard non-Gloranthan area next door to Balazar, or I can wait for the published words of wisdom. However, as these are Blank Lands, nothing will be forthcoming.
As you can probably tell, my opinion of Blank Lands has changed from "what a fantastic idea" to "what an awful concept" in the space of 14 years or so.
As far as I can tell, the "Blank Lands" concept is a RuneQuest one - the publishers will not produce game supplements for these areas. However, does this stop work on these lands being published as part of Glorantha? I have a copy of the Gloranthan Encyclopedia which gives a couple of lines on Jarst and Garsting, nothing much but more than I had seen before. Is it not time for the Gloranthan settings to be detailed, especially for areas of importance such as Jarst and Garsting which will become important in the Hero Wars?
What I would like to see is a sketch of all the areas of Central Peloria, from the Wastes through to the other side of the Lunar Empire, similar to the Gebnertels pack, though perhaps not as detailed, with maps of those areas not yet covered. Is this too much to ask? (Probably)
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