Welcome!
> So, I purchased HeroQuest last night.
Good to know somebody other than the hard core fans are buying it, despite the uh, interesting, cover art.
>
> 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?
I don't think that reading the Hero Wars stuff would give you any better intro than will reading the HeroQuest book. If you haven't found it by now, near the back is a section on Glorantha, giving probably all the background you need to go play a game. Oh, just based on that your game wouldn't perfectly match up to cannonical Glorantha, but who cares?
If you do want more deep background, I'd go look for Thunder Rebels. It is a bit of an effort to hack through it all, but once you do you'll have plenty of background for running a Heortling based game. Storm Tribe will give you a whole pile more gods that your players can worship (although what is in Thunder Rebels is certainly plenty to create many unique heros with). Barbarian Adventures was disapointing in many ways, but it does give some useful information about the tribes of Heortland.
Personally, I think the best introduction to the Heortlings is the "King of Dragon Pass" computer game (a very vaguely Civilization type game, set some 200-300 years before the hero wars). It is available from A-Sharp (www.a-sharp.com). I've been playing it on and off for close to four years and still find it interesting.
There is all sorts of other Gloranthan background material of varying availability, accesibility, and usability. If you look at Issaries site (www.issaries.com or www.glorantha.com) and look in the product section, you can find a complete list of everything that was ever printed, and it is an imposing list. I've certainly not read the majority of it, but I feel I have a decent grasp on Glorantha, so I'm certainly not suggesting you go chase it all down.
Best of luck, and have fun!
--Bryan
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