> I've been buying up the AH stuff, before that goes out of print.
> The only thing I've not got is a GamesMasters box - do I need it?
The GM box was half of the original RQ3 boxed set, so if you have that already you certainly don't need it. As I understand it, the GM box included the Gamemaster's, Creatures and Glorantha Books. If you have the softbound rulebook, or the Games Workshop hardbacks (RuneQuest, Advanced RuneQuest, RuneQuest Monsters), you already have these. But the GM book includes excellent stuff on settlements, costs of living, prices, etc. (and some good tips on writing adventures, but if you're an old hand you may not need these); the Creatures book includes a section on characteristics (and the lack of them) which makes great sense of the RQ3 rules, plus, of course, monster stats for all kinds of creatures/spirits/races; and the Glorantha book has overviews of the world, pantheons, runes, etc. (plus stats for Chaos monsters and Dragonewts which weren't printed elsewhere).
I'd say you'd need this stuff to play RQ3 properly. You'll have a hard time without the Creatures Book, anyway, unless you can find the Games Workshop "RQ Monsters" volume.
> Buying OOP RQ2 stuff is harder. I'm looking for Griffin Mountain,
> Pavis and Big Rubble. Are they worth getting in the light of AH's
> River of Cradles et al.
Yes. Although RoC includes lots of reprinted background from Pavis and Big Rubble, there's loads of stuff that's only in the old boxed sets, including some great scenarios. And Griffin Mountain is far better than the genericised Griffin Island, IMO. If you can get them, do -- but it may cost big bucks. (MIG averages: Pavis $85, Big Rubble $85, Griffin Mountain $60).
> Where would be a good place to look?
Auctions at RQ conventions (Convulsion, Glorantha Con, etc.), or on the Internet. I'm not familiar with how the latter work, but someone here is bound to know.
> Finally, is it worth buying the RQ2 companion? Any other RQ2 stuff
> I should be looking for?
The RQ Companion has good stuff on the Holy Country which isn't in print anywhere else (more than made it into "Genertela Book"), plus the first ever "Jonstown Compendium" excerpts, some golden-oldie fiction from very early issues of Wyrms Footprints, and other odds and sods. Worth getting if you can (MIG average: $35).
The MIG (Meints Index to Glorantha) is a list of products, supplements, zines and other goodies for all editions of RuneQuest. Every item is reviewed and summarised. If you can find a copy, this is perhaps the best way of working out what to get for earlier editions of RQ. My top tip would be to find a copy of "Wyrms Footprints" - all the best stuff from Wyrms Footnotes magazine. That'll give you *loads* of material on the deities and pantheons of Glorantha.
___
Lee writes, rather desperately:
> Is there any reason to think that people from as far away as Sartar,
> Tarsh, etc would not seek to employ the Sun County mercenaries?
Yes. Distance, implausability, lack of any mention in the sources (which include pretty good indications of who's on what side in the major battles of Dragon Pass), and the fact that you're clutching at straws. Since the late sixteenth century, the Dragon Pass Sun Dome would be a better source in any case. And, despite your protestations, there is no evidence to suggest the Lunars gave a hoot about Prax, Praxians, or the Praxian Sun Dome Temple prior to the fall of Sartar.
Now, from 1585 or so (foundation of New Pavis), there's a chance of some degree of commerce between the Cradles Valley and Dragon Pass, plus the existence of a recently-founded "colony" of co-religionists in the Dragon Pass Sun Dome to bolster contacts across the Plaines. But even so I can't see a persuasive argument for the Praxian Sun Dome (xenophobic isolationists, remember?) accepting hire in distant Dragon Pass.
> In SC (pg. 43) it states that the Sun County Templars are the ones
> who developed the hoplite tactics, but tactics similar to these are
> now a mainstay of the Lunar army. I argue that the Lunars must have
> come in contact with the SC hoplites at some point before 1610, more
> than likely in places outside of Prax. They must have seen the troops
> in action and been impressed with that type of warfare. Otherwise,
> why would they have adopted the tactic?
Leaving aside the obvious (the Pelorians have a different origin story
for hoplite tactics, and have employed hoplite warfare throughout history=
),
you now appear to be assuming that the *Praxian* Sun Dome Temple is the
*only* source for hoplites, ignoring all the other Sun Domes around the
lozenge. SC p.43 in fact says that the Sun Dome Temple invented the tacti=
c
- -- reading this as "the Sun County Templars" is a deliberate distortion.
IMG, I see the Sun Dome Templars as closer to a Macedonian phalanx than a=
Greek hoplite formation. Their pikes are longer, their drill tighter, and=
their tactical employment different to that of the professional phalanxes=
of the Lunar Heartland Corps.
If, OTOH, it works in your game to have regiments of Sun Dome Templars marching hundreds or thousands of miles from sunny Prax to participate in=
foreign wars; for the Sun Dome Temple in Prax to be the (recent) origin o=
f
hoplite warfare, previously unheard-of elsewhere in Glorantha; for these
xenophobe isolationists to include a couple of thousand cosmopolitan merc=
- -
enary venturers; then why not play it that way? It sounds rather differen=
t,
but it's your world too.
> Since metal is very rare in Prax, and most of the metal weapons are
traded
> for or stolen, I think it is a jump to assume that the both the rider a=
nd
> mount in a Praxian tribe would be well armored, especially since the
metal
> would need to be reworked to fit the various types of mounts.
Leather and bone make nifty armour, not that a bison or rhino needs much.= =2E.
> Being totally ignorant of military history, I'd like to pipe in on the
> Gloranthan end. As a Glorantha fan, I'm interested in how Gloranthan
> militaries conduct warfare...
Time for a quick plug for our freeform book, "Tarsh War", which includes a six-page essay by a Lunar general on "The Lunar Way of War", along with=
much other material on typical Lunar orders of battle, how Tarshites figh=
t,
troop types for both sides, etc. etc.
> In modern day Carmania they are very dedicated to the ideal of a
> personal balance between Light and Dark are they not?
Often, yes. But with the ancestor-worshipping component in Carmanian religion, heresies of yesteryear have a tendency to reappear secretly (anything a Carmanian House gets up to is normally secret, BTW).
> My impression on ancient Carmania ... was that the Carmanians were
> not dedicated to this ideal but rather alternated between being (as
> it were) darkness aligned or light aligned. Is this perception
> accurate? Especially in regards to the period just before the Dragon
> Kill war.
Yes, pretty correct. The Carmanians were going through a fairly "light" phase under the Golden Lion Shahs, when the Empire was often allied to (and intermarrying with) Dara Happa. They had earlier had a nasty phase of Spolite Darkness (the Dark Shahs, who alternated with nice-but-wimpy Light Shahs for contrast, resulting in fratricidal civil warfare). The Bull Shahs after the Dragonkill by and large lacked the philosophical depth needed to manipulate Carmanian cultic affiliations -- they did, of course, experiment (disastrously) with this at the very end of their rule: cf. the Zero Wane "Battle of Four Arrows of Light" (and perhaps compare to the downfall of the Spolite Empire in "Fortunate Succession"?)= =2E
Modern Carmanian ideals of personal balance, etc., owe a lot to the Lunar=
Way. When you recall that two of the Seven Mothers were Carmanians, it's easy to see elements of continuity and commonality between the religions.=
I'm very fond of the Carmanian Religious Attitudes I drafted for Loren's writeup of Carmanian Orthodoxy, FWIW.
Try some of the resources in the Chaosium's Lhankor Mhy Library, especially the Mythos and History from "Cults of Terror". I'd also recommend the "Gods and Goddesses of Glorantha" articles (reprinted in "Wyrms Footprints") as a fine introductory source.
Chaosium: <http://www.sirius.com/~chaosium/chaosium.html>
::::
Nick
::::
End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #284
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