We had our first session last week, and here is how we got on. It was a pretty short session. One player was a former RQ3 player with a little Glorantha knowledge. Rest of players was long time RPG player, but rookie to HeroQuest and to Glorantha.
- Started with a five minute skeletal setup of the heroes, before making the Orlmarth clan. Players picked gender and a very basic template from a short list (good talker, knows lots of lore, warrior, etc.). A quick translation to: male "warrior" though he is still more or less a herder, male hunter, male herder with "knows lots of lore," female herder/farmer.
- Worked through the clan questionnaire. The players learned some about the setting through the questionnaire, but a lot of it didn't make any sense (ancient history stuff) and they just started having fun picking the answers that seemed coolest. After they were through, they said that they were hoping to balance fighting with non-fighting in their answers, except for wanting to be anti-Lunar, since they were the current occupiers. I *didn't* let them see the results of their choices as they went along, so they were kind of surprised when they saw that they had constructed a clan with lots of storm, courage, rebellious, war, and short on wealth. "Angry hillbillies"..."Oh, wow, we're really troublemakers." They were current Uz friends, which I like, because I might try to roll in the trip to Crabtown in between episodes (not sure how, but I'm dying to run the old drinking game bit - Powzie!). They really liked that their slogan was "No one can make you
do anything." At first they were confused about how the wyter could have an ability to resist the effects of "No air" but then one decided it meant they had a way to resist suffocating, which was a hit. They started to think about how this could be used tactically, but secretly so that no one else knew.
- We were short on time, so we assigned runes to PCs and the basic keyword for their occupation and launched into the feast of beasts episode. They got the basic gist of what was going on, got the basics on the ducks/Lismelder thing, and then the male warrior PC (Orlanth initiate) went gaga over Ernalsulva. The rest of players joked about "awww, look at the puppy" and then "uh oh" when the hero light and *ting* happened. I gave him the verse about wooing Ernalda, which he read. The warrior's player ended the verse with "Bwunhilda, I wuuuuuuuv you," which was good for laughs. The potential fight with Killer was defused pretty quickly - the warrior picked up his spear and was ready to fight, one of the other male heroes got up to "back him up", the other grabbed the warrior and said, "Dude, I know you could totally wipe the floor with him, but we can't do this here" (ok, not exactly in character, but I got the point). Lismelders got up, Orlmarths got up,
but the female PC jumped in the middle and invoked her Harmony rune to tell everyone that our guy was channeling the god, that this was holy Ernalda ground and a feast day, so no fighting. Good successes all around, and for time reasons I decided that the Lismelders would back down and try to ambush the heroes later, which I telegraphed by a Lismelder telling Branduan that he couldn't kill the PC *here and now*. I also decided that this Lismelder guy got the hint about channeling Orlanth and so maybe taking on the PC while he was glowing with Hero Light was not such a bright idea. I sort of cheated by not making the heroes resist the Orlmarth habit of fighting a lot. Ernalsulva requested her first deed..."Oh, great, the hands were last scene with the Lunar Julius Caesar" and the session ended with the heroes decided to sleep it off with relatives in town and then probably sneak along hunting trails back home in the hopes of catching what they
assumed will be a Lismelder ambush by surprise. I'm hoping to keep Branduan alive, so that he and the PCs can be rivals. They are assuming now that multiple folks will be trying for the hands, so I am going to cook up other teams who will be haplessly failing along the way.
We will put finishing touches on the PCs and the clan next time, and roll through the next part of the scenario. That won't be until early February.