You're right, commercially it's dead. I don't like it any more than you do.
However, I don't rely much on commercial products for my gaming. Who around here does, BTW? Usually I find it more bother to include a bought scenario into my campaign than to sketch out a scenario of my own, maybe based on input from other sources. As someone stated recently, Western movies do well.
You still want scenario ideas presented for immediate use? There are enough for even intensive gaming, and are fairly easily available through Reaching Moon Megacorp, or by joining the mafia of loaning OOP (out of print) material.
Several Peter Maranci's scenarios are available on the WWW. Other peoples' are as well, AFAIK. There are several campaign pages on the web which provide a lot of information to play with, like Loren Miller's House Zemady, or David Dunham's East Ralios notes. In print there are (were?) the 5 issues of RQ-Adventures, which are another peak in RQ-Glorantha. Last not least Tradetalk has quite a bunch of scenario and background material in its queue (which doesn't mean we don't look for more, our aim is to appear regularly). Since Tradetalk is a product of the German RuneQuest society and its sister-organisations Chaos Society US/Down Under, a society "sworn" to further RuneQuest and related games and settings, the use of RQ as a tool to play Glorantha will continue. When (if?) Glorantha the Game comes out, and requires gaming stats, these will probably be provided _in addition_.
>As all you know RQ3 was a disaster.
Wasn't. The only disaster with it was the time lapse between the products. The idea to provide non-Glorantha settings (like the excellent Vikings box) appeared already as RQ-Gateway in dem good ole days of RQ2.
>On the digest there are long talks about multiple gods. Having different
names for the same god for each region seemed silly, confusion for the sake
of it, as did having muliple version of the same god, especially all those
fucking suns.
Oh well. So you play the world-spanning style of campaign, today Mirrorsea Bay, a few Guided Teleports later a raid in Dorastor? (no offense meant, I've been through this as well)
In that case I can see why you want the same cults everywhere. Logistics for the PCs for spell regaining would be hell otherwise. My reply: have it that way. Play a game where Tradetalk is the daily language between the characters, and where it doesn't matter whether the clan temple you visit really is the same name and deity as your native one. There is a rules term for this: Associate worship. This keeps on working even if the background descriptions imply differently.
You object to having a fire deity or more in Orlanthi society. I suppose you have fully-fledged Yelmites instead. Wrong? In that case I apologize in advance. I know people who have, and this is how I (admittedly of the maximum variety school) remain in touch with their views of Glorantha.
>While the growth of gods was interesting to the those taking part, it shows
just have far the gap between those who want to play RuneQuest in Glorantha
and those who want to experiment with Glorantha has widened. I can't imagine
how the Godmakers would fit all their gods into a RQ cults book.
You need about as much space as Cults of Prax for Cults of Heortland, one of maybe three volumes of Cults of the Holy Country (the other ones being Troll Gods, and Gods of Esrolia, including Caladraland). I'm working on such a thing, but slowly, and in no way with any official backing. Already Cults of Prax states that the cult of Orlanth (Adventurous) published there differs from the cult of Orlanth in Orlanthi mainlands. (p.78, top of the second column, details how the other aspects of Orlanth as worshipped in neighbouring lands have no place in Prax, without giving much info on them.)
>Generally the Godmakers seem very anti-rules. Does anyone remember when
that chap published the Onslaught stats, they got very aggressive and bitchy.
Actually, the complaints were rulesy complaints. I _like_ Onslaught existing in Glorantha, I like to dislike him deeply. The aggressivity was about rulesy issues, and the bitchy part about his bite attack.
>What upsets me, is that much of new work contradicts or invalidates what
could be called the old testament (Cults of Prax, the Monomyth in general).
In my view of Glorantha the "old testament" isn't invalidized, only regionalized. As long as your campaign stays in the Zola Fel Valley, all the stuff ever written remains official truth. Differences in name can be dismissed as local dialect, the Yelmalio debate can be ignored - whether there is an Elmal or not, the cults are "interchangeable" for wandering adventurers. Same for Balazar, and for the border to Dorastor.
>I know that the way forward is not quoting some out of print RQ2 supplement
or fanzine, but why does all the new stuff have to be so radical and alien.
What is radical about my Heortland stuff? The Aeolian Church?
This was written with Cults of Terror in mind, the only somewhat complete info on Arkat and his combination of western chivalry and Orlanthi theism. Already RQ Companion states that the Orlanthi in Heortland are radically influenced by Western Trader Princes. Troll Pak did mention his Western and chivalrous origin, too.
Do you hate the idea of sorcery in Glorantha? There is a patch (well, mostly new "code") for the RQ3 system by Sandy Petersen which irons out most of the creases between RQ3 and the way Glorantha works as a consensus opinion of the people attending the digest.
>I admit that I'm old fashioned - favouring the authoritarian and enjoyable
old myths over the subjective and exciting new myths.
On a player character basis, the authoritarian myths may remain true. Especially where they are confusing or (IMO) wrong when putting non-compatible myths into one cult write-up, as happened with the full Yelm write-up for RQ3 (IMO, again).
>Also so much of the talk is about the gods, rather than the world of
Glorantha itself, but then again people talk about what interests them -
which is fair enough.
The discussion is about minutiae of the gods. Whenever background information is presented, few people niggle about minutiae. Most seem to swallow whatever gets written, and adapt what makes rough edges for their private campaign where they don't ignore these. Unless most people don't read what is available :-(
>With the death of RuneQuest my interest and thus how much I care about
Glorantha has dropped. My interest was RuneQuest and Glorantha, not just
Glorantha as a stand alone product.
David Hall has stated that Tales will continue to support RQ with their Glorantha material. So will Tradetalk. While these aren't commercial products, they are available. Do you need a game company to take your money?
I hope this was just a venting of frustration, not a goodbye letter for good.
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