Re: New Gloranthan...

From: Andrew Solovay <asolovay_at_...>
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 13:22:50 -0700

Welcome! I've only just gotten the book, and I haven't had time to read it much, but...

Tim Huntley <tim_at_...> wrote:

>

> My question is this - for someone who is a relative
> HeroQuest/Glorantha n00b, the HeroQuest book seems to throw out
> a lot of Gloranthan references very early on via sidebars and
> such. Is HeroQuest self contained enough that after a thorough
> read I'll be up to speed with the state of the world? Or
> should I temporarily shelf HQ and go read over some of the
> earlier HeroWars stuff?

The key thing to remember is--very few people in Glorantha know more than their own community and a very little (probably wrong) about the nearby folks. (e.g. "Trolls: Come out at night and eat people. Lunars: Worship broos. Praxians: Unusually smelly even by Gloranthan standards.") So it won't take long to know enough to run a fairly local campaign. The players know next to nothing about Glorantha, but then, their *characters* know next to nothing about Glorantha.

Ideally, the narrator (aka "GM") should know a bit more than the players, but he doesn't need to know *that* much more. If he tells the players something wrong, he can later tell them "Well, you always *thought* the Lunars worship broos, but now it looks like..."

My impression is, HQ *does* give you enough information to get a game going. If you want more details about any particular area, you can find a lot on the web (try looking at http://glorantha.com ), or in some of the in-print source materials (e.g. "Glorantha: Introduction to the Hero Wars" for a worldwide view, "Thunder Rebels/Storm Tribe" for the Heortling barbarians, etc.). Or ask here![*]

--AMS P.S. Suggested questions not to ask: "Just who is Gbaji?" "What was the Sunstop, anyway?" "What was the God Learner secret?"