What's Gone On...

From: Nick_Brooke_at_deloitte.touche.co.uk
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 96 10:53:45 GMT



Matthew Saroff asks "What's going on with RuneQuest and Glorantha?"      

> RQ, but not its core system Basic Role Playing, got sold to Avalon Hill,
> and then seemed to vanish from the face of the earth after the Glorantha
> aspects were removed from the game. Can someone out there give a brief
> history of this entire chain of events?
     

OK, always pleased to oblige. I may be wrong about some of what follows (it's an opinion, guys), but this is how it felt to me...      

In a nutshell, Chaosium sold RuneQuest (but NOT Glorantha) to Avalon Hill during a cash crisis in the early eighties. (If they hadn't done so, they wouldn't be in business today). Greg Stafford retains all the rights to Glorantha, and Avalon Hill can't publish anything Gloranthan without his approval. (They still produced the crap which wouldn't get approval, but did it as "Gateway" generic-background stuff: cf. "Eldarad").      

Avalon Hill, who had never previously been RPG publishers, proceeded to neglect and abuse the game for many years, producing boxed sets of flimsy paper booklets, usually with cruddy artwork. Their magazine "support" for their games was mostly shite, too. After many years, they started to bring out some Gloranthan material. Many of the core Gloranthan source materials were produced in this unusual format: the "Gods of Glorantha", "World of Glorantha" and "Elder Secrets" boxed sets. But people weren't satisfied by this trickle, after such a long wait, and there was NO new campaign or adventure material for Glorantha, only reprints (Apple Lane, Snakepipe Hollow, Trollpak). Dave Dobyski's 'artwork' was the last straw...      

In the early nineties, under the newly-appointed "Rune Czar" Ken Rolston, Avalon Hill began to produce new quality Gloranthan supplements: two interlinked campaign settings, MOB's "Sun County" and Ken Rolston's "River of Cradles"; two scenario packs, "Shadows on the Borderlands" (by Mike Dawson, Ken Rolston and Jon Quaife) and "Strangers in Prax" (powerful NPCs and adventures for Praxian games); Sandy Petersen's long-awaited "Dorastor: Land of Doom", and "Lords of Terror" (a reworked "Cults of Terror" for RQ3 and Dorastor). This was hailed as the "RuneQuest Renaissance", while it lasted. For a brief time, it looked as if a fourth, Gloranthan edition of RuneQuest might be produced (compiled by Oliver Jovanovic, Carl Fink and Mike McGloin). But then Greg vetoed the draft, Ken left Avalon Hill, and the new products kinda dried up...      

Most new RuneQuest/Gloranthan material these days is fan-produced. The longest running fanzine is "Tales of the Reaching Moon", now at 15 issues (two or three per year) and still going strong. Tales usually includes articles (by Greg Stafford, Sandy Petersen and others); at least one full adventure and several cameo scenario seeds (by MOB, Carl Pates, Jon Quaife and others); official (and often previously-unpublished) Chaosium cult write-ups; news and reviews; rumours and letters; rulesy bits and trivia. Recent issues have included the Western Special (#13) and two Prax Specials (#14 and #15): the next issue will be the long-awaited Lunar Special. For more information on "Tales" and other Reaching Moon Megacorp productions, please drop me a line, or contact David Hall <100116.2616_at_compuserve.com>, who edits "Tales" and is a leading light of Gloranthan fandom.      

Other recent RQ zines (which mostly appear to be moribund) have included "Codex" (technical Gloranthan essays), "RuneQuest Adventures" (gameable RuneQuest scenarios) and "New Lolon Gospel" (background for the authors' variant Gloranthan campaign). Copies of these may still be available through Reaching Moon Megacorp (publishers of Tales) or other specialist distributors: ask David Hall for details, or look at the ads in "Tales".      

There's a surprising amount of good-quality Gloranthan material on the World Wide Web: you can find links to *huge* lists of links from my own homepage at <http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Nick_Brooke/>. And this Glorantha Daily is definitely the place to be if you want to keep up to date -- when its archives get restored, you'll find there's *way* too much material out there to assimilate!      

RuneQuest/Glorantha fandom is well served by specialist conventions these days. Inspired by an English event, "Convulsion", first held in Leicester in 1992, there have been RuneQuest-Cons every year since 1994 (this event has recently been retitled "Glorantha-Con", after Avalon Hill objected to the use of their game's name to popularise it - go figure!). Cons have been held in Leicester (July 92), Baltimore (Jan 94), Leicester (July 94), San Francisco (Jan 95), Melbourne (Jan 96) and Leicester (July 96). The German RQ Society also holds an excellent and convivial convention each May. The next few RQ-Cons are in Chicago (Jan 97), Germany (May 97), Vancouver (July 97), and Melbourne (Jan 98).      

The centrepieces of most conventions are "freeform" role-playing games for fifty to eighty players: rules-light, live-action games with Gloranthan settings. These have included "Home of the Bold" (Lunars vs. Sartarites in occupied, rebellious Boldhome), "How the West was One" (Malkioni bishops from every sect meeting in Sog City), "The Broken Council" (Genertelan leaders on the Second Council trying to build a God), "Heroes of Wisdom"

(German: skullduggery in the Jonstown Library) and "The Rise of Ralios" 
(Machiavellian intrigues at a Western peace conference). Spin-off products 
(players' guides, background books, etc.) were generated by most of these: 
Reaching Moon Megacorp distributes many of them, and will also shortly be publishing "Tarsh War", a Lunar Army freeform for a dozen players, which you can run in the comfort of your own home.      

There are also some "Official" non-Avalon Hill Gloranthan sources. Reaching Moon produced "Wyrms Footprints" for Chaosium, a collection of reprints and new articles from the sadly defunct "Wyrms Footnotes" magazine. Also, Greg Stafford has recently been delving deep into the sources of Lunar and Solar mythology, and his publications "The Glorious ReAscent of Yelm" (mythology of Dara Happa), "The Fortunate Succession" (history of Dara Happa and the Red Emperor) and "The Entekosiad (mythology of Peloria) are available as "working drafts" (i.e. they're cheaply produced photocopies, not proper books, and Greg reserves the right to change his mind about the contents later). He's also written one "proper" book, the paperback "King of Sartar" about the history of Dragon Pass and King Argrath's wars with the Lunar Empire. It's an exercise in one-sided historiography, as the sources are various and confusing, forcing readers to read carefully and make up their own mind about "what really happened". Be Warned: there's not much directly gameable material in any of these products.      

Recently, Chaosium have licensed an Italian company, Stratelibri, to produce Gloranthan miniatures rules and figures. And you'll have read in Rob Heinsoo's recent post what their plans for the future now look like: Chaosium want to restart Gloranthan role-playing, publish new Gloranthan fiction, etc. -- but not just yet. (Rob is Chaosium's new Glorantha rep).

     
     

> BTW, does "White Bear Red Moon" still exist?

The revised edition of WB&RM was called "Dragon Pass", and was printed by Chaosium and later by Avalon Hill (though with no attempt to cross-market DP and RQ). There is a recent, beautiful French edition called "La Guerre des Heros" (The Hero Wars). The French have also brought out a translation of the sequel to WB&RM, "Les Dieux Nomades" (Nomad Gods): English-language rules for this are available from Chaosium. The French publisher, Oriflam, have produced RQ and Gloranthan material to put Avalon Hill to shame: look at their hardback of "Les Dieux de Glorantha" or "Genertela" and weep for the missed opportunities...      



Nick

End of Glorantha Digest V4 #9


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