Month: June 2015

Sea Monsters of Glorantha – Brief Overview

Summer is the time for frolicking in the sea. Here are a few sea monsters for RQ Encounter Generator inspired by an article about prehistoric sea monsters.

There are of course others

and or course Zeech, the Slithering Whale

So you want to generate RQ Encounters for RQ6 but do not want them to be in Glorantha

There are people who want to play in different worlds than in Glorantha but still want to use Runequest 6 and make it easy to create the encounters. That is very straightforward. There is an article on searching but below are few extra tips.

Use the filters

Select either “Fantasy”, “RQ6”, “Sea”. “Plant”, “Jungle”, “Monster Island”, “Chaos” as your filters in enemies or parties page. Most of the results will be non Gloranthan
There is a tag “Rq6” that shows you only the monsters defined in RQ6 rule book. There are a few missing (humans, elves, dwarves but they are described with their Gloranthan counterparts). I added the tag to most my creations but there are some in RQ6 book that I have not created the template but somebody else has.  There is also a tag “Monster Island” which shows all the entries from Monster Island.

Use the home page

Type -Glorantha on the home page and you will get only non Gloranthan results. Currently the minus only works in the home page. for example try typing into the home page (not enemies page, not parties page) Fantasy -Glorantha -Sea and you will see the list which has tags “Fantasy” but not Glorantha and not Sea.

Search with monster names

Search “Giant”, “Zombie”, “Skeleton”, “Lion”, “Tiger”, “Sorcerer”, “Primitive” etc and you will find quite a few entries.

About the tags. 

Tags are personal – so each creator of the encounter can only tag his own entries. There might therefore be differences in how people have tagged their creations over time.

Very short introduction how to map (Gloranthan) RQ Encounters to your generic fantasy world.

Many encounters in RQ Encounter tool are made for Glorantha but you can use all or most of them easily on any world with just a few tips.
 I am really direct and brief here – so forgive me – oh grognards of Glorantha for inaccuracies.
Forget about the names of the gods – think of the aspect below.
If you do not like to use the magic provided – discard it.
If you do not want to think of gods at all – drop them – just use the spells.

Mapping list

  • Orlanth  = Storm god, god of warriors. Worshippers of Orlanth can be used  as your standard barbarians
  • Umathela, Sartar = your standard barbarian areas
  • Afadjann, Fonrit,Kareeshtu = Think of thousand and one nights tales inhabitants
  • Agimori – Very tall dark people
  • Agartha, Akakor, Zerzura = Serpent people tribes from Monster Island
  • Anguri, Gabari, Gamari,Ghidori, Kamacuri, Kangi,Kumongi, Oodaki, Primitive tribesmen from jungle from Monster Island
  • Aranea = Spider god
  • Argan Argar = Troll trader god
  • Pavis = big frontier city
  • Balazaring = primitive hunter gatherers
  • Basmoli = Lion god
  • Broo = Chaos Hybrids with usually goat’s heads
  • Chaos = that unruly evil thing that you must oppose
  • Undead = those that live but do not
  • Doraddi = another tall, dark people tribe
  • Lodril = Volcano god
  • Exiger = excellent fighters
  • Etyries, Issaries = trader gods
  • Humakt = death god for warriors
  • Wachaza = Sea warrior death god
  • Ludoch, Malasp = mermen
  • Lunar = civilized warriors – think Roman, Persian
  • Lankhor Mhy = knowledge god
  • Odayla = hunter god
  • Waha = nomad chieftain god
  • Mallia = Causer of Disease God
  • Chalana Arroy = Healer god
  • Thed, Ragnaglar = Chaos Gods
  • Thanatari = Chaos knowledge god – headhunters
  • Yelmalio = Solar warrior god
  • Yelm = Solar ruler god.

This tackles most common ones in the RQ Encounter parties list.

Putting on my Protection from Flames spell with maximum intensity…

Creating your own encounters

If you do not find the right kind of encounters it is easy to create your own. Use a good tagging strategy when you do – see how others have tagged theirs.