The Runequest 1/2 Rulebook cover art has three main versions, as others have detailed. Chaosium did the cover in full color and 2 color, while GW did their own similarly themed full colour picture. Chaosium did their 2 color covers in several colors. RQ1 was a brown based one. While the RQ1 cover picture is basically the same picture as the one used on the RQ2 version, it is NOT the same picture. It was redrawn in color by Luise Perrin, and there are subtle differences between the two pictures. This color picture was used for both the Chaosium 2" thick box and their 1" thin box covers, as well as the hard and softcover rulebooks sold separately. Even though it was always used on the box cover, the 2" boxed set did not have a full color cover rulebook included inside it. So far, I have found those rulebooks to be two color ones, with the main color being red, brown and green. The thin 1" box always had a full color covered rulebook inside. One last factor that I am not sure o!
f the distribution for is whether the softcover rulebooks sold separately were always stapled, while the ones in the boxed sets were always square bound. In the end, there are lots of subtle variations out there for all you completists to get. The GW boxed set has no such variations that I know of.
Many of these cover pictures are on my website at:
http://www.glorantha.info/runequest/chaosium/rqrules/rqrules.html
One other recent discovery, for me at least, concerns the three Soloquest books that GW reprinted. The GW versions are not straight reprints of their American counterparts. The GW versions are substantially cleaned up and proof read. All kinds of typos were fixed and a few of the steps in the solo instructions were changed to correct errors. The GW versions are readily identifiable by the GW dice logo in the lower corner in place of the Chaosium draconic logo. They have shinier covers too...
I'll be documenting this on my website when I know more. Fortunately, I have both the Chaosium and GW versions of each of the three soloquests.
Happy collecting,
Rick Meints
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