Second Age Elder Race information coming out

From: Evan Franke <justice94510_at_aft9XIN7qJfyhVgG_FX5t04FUv6s6t-wCmFlOp8Tyn1mrB5gQix6NVG1Sqx4dBN>
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:32:19 -0000

Having decided to get back to Glorantha, at least by stages, I find I have come at a very interesting time. Now, I know that most of the folks on this list seem mostly oriented to Third Age/HeroQuest play
(from my skimming of the last several hundred messages, so my bad if
I have mischaracterized things), but with MRQ it would appear that there are sources coming out on issues never before covered. Now, I have been loaned a couple of the books and am making my way through
(Glorantha Second Age and Magic of Glorantha), but I see that
Mongoose has an entirely ambitious publishing schedule, already has an Uz book out, and is doing Dragonewts and Aldryami in the next few months.

While Uz have received first class treatment ever since Trollpack, Drangonewts were always more than confusing in their various incarnations (RQ2 book, illustrations in Foes, Wyrms Footnotes 14, RQ3 Glorantha Book, Elder Secrets), and the Aldryami just never gelled for me. Although they were always said to be anthropomorphic plants, the illustrations, for example, always were kind of generic fantasy, and the cultural underpinnings and implications were fuzzy to me at best.

For the Dragonewts, given the detailed (and rather creepy, but that's another post) treatment of EWF, an in depth exploration is going to be really key. If there was ever an appropriate setting to allow PC Dragonewts, it would have to be an EWF campaign, so I hope that is handled well. Also, I am very curious to see how the culture plays out. From the early illustrations (especially in Foes), they looked rather Aztec, but then they suddenly became dinosaur riding samurai/Chinese monk types in WF14. It was hard to get a sense of them in the RQ3 descriptions, they still seemed to be evolving in their presentation. Now, at least from the EWF descriptions, the ties to Asian style cultures seem fairly firmly rooted, with marial arts being integral to EWF Dragonspeakers, yet the obsidina/wood/bone Klanth is still around, and more discussed than the bone katana analog (the Korf?, been a long time since I owned WF14). Anyway, interested to see what they do and hear reviews.

As far as the Aldryami, from the illustrations that I have seen, it looks like the Aldryami may get the kind of descriptions and explorations they deserve. The text has to match the art, but it sure seems that someone has finally figured out how to communicate the interesting and alien nature of Aldryami and really made them distinct from Elfs or Elves that have appeared in other game systems/worlds and other fiction (notably of course, in Middle Earth).

So, even though this is 2d age related information, it would seem to be potentially rich material for any Age game, and, it does have the added bonus of being available in glossy print.

What do you all know or think about it?