Back again, after an exciting time away in LA, London and Germany (and then a week in Adelaide, which if you've been there, you'll understand doesn't really rate in comparison...)
I had a great time at the LA con and, a week later, at the German RQ Con at Bacarach. Hero Wars looks like a blast, and seemed to get a favourable reception both from the die hard inveterate Gloranthaholics and the generic GameX punters who wandered in for a playtest. Robin Laws is a witty, droll and persuasive advocate of his new system, which I think has a very strong Gloranthan feel. At the German con I took part in a hilarious panel in which Nick got the audience to create Orlanthi clans using the HW rules: we split the room in half and created two clans, one which ended up toad-eating Lunar collaborators and the other inveterate rebels! This is a very strong part of the rules, and light years away from the "Poor Noble", "Barbarian" backgrounds in RQ2.
Fabian did a fantastic job organising the German con, and the German crowd are a great bunch. Because I was unconscious in my room at the time last year, to my regret I missed the final night "Daughters of Darkness" book-burning, so this year I kept my Sunday evening boozing to a minimum and got to witness "The Lost City of Eldarad" suffer a similar fate. Daniel Fahey, who couldn't find anyone brave enough to sample his 90 percent proof Root Beer, consumed about a quart of it by himself and doesn't know how close to death he came when he danced about on the edge of the castle battlements waving the burning Eldarad map book in his hands.
My most fun experience at the German con though, was either the Secret History of Sun County panel (in which Nick and I spontaneously came up with a Godzilla vs Mothra ending for the saga that began with that article in Questlines II) or the first chaotic run-through of my new MGF tournament "The Getting of Wisdom". If you're coming to Convulsion next month, you'll get a chance to experience both: unfortunately, at LA my tournament got mixed up in a scheduling clash (when it appeared I was meant to be in three places at once), and though I did run the Secret History panel there, it wasn't the same without the Nickster to bounce off, and I got a bit tongue-tied trying to do a NC-17 seminar with kids in the audience.
These kids were the youngest Glorantha fans I've ever come across, aged 8, 10 and 11, who came with their equally-keen mom. Their allowances didn't stretch to the kind of sums the auction was drawing, so afterwards the Megacorp loaded 'em up with booty, and I ended up giving away my copies of Apple Lane, Rune Masters and The Lost City of Eldarad (lest you accuse me of cruelty to children, just think about it - if I was a 10 year old, Eldarad, with its dungeon crawling, witless monsters and piles of loot, is just the sort of place I'd love to game in!) In return, the kids presented me with a copy of their own "Strangers in Packs", their own home made version of Strangers in Prax, complete with a mock-up colour cover, wild graphics and more. I'd say this is a prime example of people with *way too much* time on their hands, but they're kids dammit, they *ought* to have too much time on their hands to get up to this sort of stuff! Look out for their line of densely-plotted, well-scripted Hero Wars supplements in say, the year 2008...
While I was away the Aussie dollar sunk to a record low (a year ago the Aussie dollar got you US$0.85; it's now down to US0.58 and dropping!) and to our nation's shame a party of reactionary racist gun-nut hillbillies got 23% of the popular vote in the recent elections up in Queensland, our own "Deep North". I'd be glad to be getting away again next month to Convulsion, were it but for the fact a cup of coffee in England is going to cost me about $19 in Australian money.
Wow, there's a lot of it about! Apart from the latest, most gorgeous looking ever issue of Tales, also on offer there's the GloronthaCon IV Book, Enclosure II, The Book of Tentacles (the German con fund-raiser), Tradetalk #3 and RuneQuest Adventures #6!
Best of these is, of course, Tales, with fabulous stuff about the Holy Country islands, Vorumain and the East Isles. And there's also the remainder of the Lunar material, including the cult of Yanafal (though you'll now have to wait until issue #18 to see "Jaxarte Meets Moonson"). With lavish illustrations, zippy artwork and glossy paper, I think it's the nicest-looking issue we've ever produced.
Enclosure II is a weighty tome, with articles ranging the length and breadth of the lozenge, and more magnificent artwork by Mike O'Connor.
The Tentacles and GloronthaCon IV books both contain seminar transcripts, and in Tentacles, you'll also find Sandy's Sorcery Rules, a piece I've written about the Sun County salt mines at Pent Ridge (with much much fodder for fuel in our Secret History of Sun County explorations), a number of other articles including a great piece on the City of Wonders by Simon Bray, and some wonderful artwork by Dario Corallo. The GCon IV book has some intriguing notes from Greg which demonstrate that the Lunar Empire's titanic struggles with Sheng Seleris were but a mere sideshow in that Hero's story-arc.
RQA #6 is said to be the final issue of that mag, though hopefully it might be back one day as "Hero Wars Adventures". I haven't much of a look through it yet.
Wow! Has there ever been so much new material available at the one time before? (not to mention the forthcoming computer game) Get it all while you can!
Cheers,
MOB
End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #660
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