Category: AiG

Some forgotten beasties from AiG, Mythic Constantinople and Monster Island

Noticed that I have not published some creatures in the generator.

Here are few of the unpublished ones, some of them from AiG:

From Mythic Constantinople

For Monster Island

Lunars have Adventures in Glorantha

Here are the bringers of civilisation, the light of the goddess, the sharp edge of the empire, the thin line between chaos and the world, the word that cannot be spoken, the collectors of the coin that shall be emperor’s, the foot that stomps, keepers of order that must be kept, the long shadow of the bat to come. RQ Encounter Generator welcomes the updated Lunar Provincial troops – the troops that stoutly sacrifice all in the name of the Emperor and the goddess to protect the innocent – and protect above all the interests of the empire from those who would defile it.  Convert and serve the goddess – it is in your best interest… You cannot stop the onslaught – empire (and you) can generate these encounters in unlimited numbers.

These now take into account passions towards locals and the Empire, expanded skill sets from Rq6 and AiG, the Lunar combat styles (Sagittarian Peltast, Lunar Corps Hoplite, Pelorian Cavalry, Antelope Lancer and new weaponry (Moon sword, Khopesh, Kontos and the new shields)). You can also add to your own Lunars a cult which has the common Folk magic spells for Lunar Provincials.

You will see these in Pavis, Sartar and Esrolia.

Lunar Agent

Lunar Peltast

Lunar Peltast Officer

Lunar Peltast Officer on a city patrol

Lunar Peltast on a city patrol

Lunar Hoplite

Lunar Hoplite Officer

Lunar Hoplite Officer on a city patrol

Lunar Hoplite Officer, Danfive Xaron Acolyte

Lunar Hoplite Officer, Danfive Xaron Devotee

Lunar Hoplite Officer, Danfive Xaron Initiate

Lunar Hoplite on a city patrol

Lunar Hoplite, Veteran

Lunar Hoplite, Veteran, Strong one

Lunar Antelope Lancer

Lunar Antelope Lancer Officer

Lunar Cavalry

Lunar Cavalry Officer

Lunar Agent

Lunar Tax Collector

The parties have been updated as well

Lunar Antelope Lancer Party

Lunar Cavalry Patrol

Lunar Hoplite City patrol

Lunar Hoplite City patrol – first response

Lunar Hoplite Field Patrol

Lunar Hoplite Field Patrol, Danfive Xaron

Lunar Peltast City Patrol

Lunar Peltast City Patrol – First Response

Lunar Peltast Field Patrol

Lunar Tax Collectors

 

The rabble and the nobles (and followers of the bat) will likely follow in the footsteps of the forward troops – they always do.

 

 

Spirits in The Night – Beast, Darkness, Death, Chaos and Mastery Spirits in AiG

Spirit societies for Adventures in Glorantha was presented in a previous post. Here are the first adaptations of that for RQ Encounter Generator. Spirits in the Night indeed – the new rules for spirits in Adventures in Glorantha give lots of variation for the spirits to the already great rules for spirits in Runequest 6. The aspect of Runes is shown to much greater extent in the new spirit rules. The rules there are not final yet – so they could change in the Runequest Glorantha book.

Spirit combat can look less deadly with the new rules but variation for the spirits is significantly greater. There are new rules there but here is an adaptation of the AiG spirits that can be used both with or without the new ruleset.In this first set there are spirits for just a few of the runes.

You can find all new spirits in the Spirits in the Night Party if you want to generate just spirits. All the work has been done for you – just generate away…

Spirits who are of Grand status are usually intensity 4 which can be interpreted as run away – fast as you can and hope they do not notice you.

For Mastery rune

  • Mastery Curse Spirit
    • Lesser, Typical, Major, Grand
  • Gloranthan Blessing of the Mastery Spirit
    • Lesser, Typical, Major, Grand
  • Gloranthan Mastery Spirit
    • Lesser, Typical, Major, Grand
  • Ruler spirit – Mastery

For Death rune

  • Death Curse Spirit
    • Lesser, Typical, Major, Grand
  • Disease spirit
    • Lesser, Typical, Major, Grand
    • These are now separate from Sickness spirits. Disease spirits carry only have Gloranthan diseases currently
  • Death Curse Spirit
    • Lesser, Typical, Major, Grand
  • Death Passion Spirit
    • Lesser, Typical, Major, Grand
  • Gloranthan Death’s Blessing Spirit
    • Lesser, Typical, Major, Grand
  • Gloranthan Death Spirit
    • Lesser, Typical, Major, Grand
  • Gloranthan Death Spell Spirit
    • Lesser, Typical, Major, Grand
    • Larger varieties of these can have Rune spells
  • Ruler spirit – Death

For Chaos rune

  • Gloranthan Chaos Spirit
    • Lesser, Typical, Major, Grand
  • Ruler Spirit – Chaos

For Beast rune

  • Gloranthan Beast Spirit
    • Lesser, Typical, Major, Grand
  • Ruler Spirit – Beast

For Darkness Rune

  • Gloranthan Darkness Spirit
    • Lesser, Typical, Major, Grand
  • Darkness Passion Spirit
    • Lesser, Typical, Major, Grand
  • Ruler Spirit – Darkness

Malia initiate, acolyte and high shaman spirit societies have been updated with the new spirits. You can get the new spirit society into use just by generating any of the current foes who use that – for example: this nice Broo Shaman. The other way is just to attach one of the ranks of Malia spirit society into your template. Same goes for Waha (initiate, shaman and high shaman). With Waha I have retained the earth and law spirit association even though Waha does not have Runes for those. I have also retained the ancestor spirits here for the meanwhile. The rest of the spirit societies will come later.

New additional features

  • Spirit Abilities for all the Runes
  • Blessing of the spirit abilities for Death, Mastery
  • Spells for Death rune
  • Gloranthan Diseases contains only the Gloranthan Diseases.

 

Update on Adventures in Glorantha Take 4: Spirit Societies

In my previous post I presented a version of spirit societies for AiG as part of Gloranthan Cult One pagers for AiG. There were some questions in various forums that caused me to revisit the societies. Now most of the Bless spirits have aspects (skills, mechanisms etc) mentioned that what they might bless or boost. Curse spirits could use the same list. The totem animals have also been updated to provide some totem animal specific skills that bless spirits could boost. All of these are my view and nothing official. Feedback is welcome.

These are the spirit abilities by rune spirit (every spirit has a rune) – some of the abilities are different from RQ6 and then there are new ones. Spirit society has spirits from the runes it holds. I have made assumption that all of those spirits are friendly. Each rune has a list of the kind of spirits it ‘handles’. Each spirit can have multiple different kind of abilities – for example curse spirits are very similar to ones from RAW. Disease spirit is similar to sickness spirit. A spirit can sometimes have multiple abilities. I am somewhat hesitant to go deeper into describing the spirits as the rulebook is meant for that.

Without rulebook it might be just possible to map the names of the spirits to similar ones in RAW. Spirits in AiG are really cool…

So we have a new version of the Glorantha One Pagers for Spirit Societies in AiG 

Adventures in Glorantha Take 4: Spirit Societies

Adventures in Glorantha Preview brings us rich variety of spirits for shamans.

Full list of spirit Societies have not been released yet for AiG – they will come later on in Chaosium Runequest but that is still far away in time. For the time being I have created as a fan contribution my view of the spirit societies in one pager format.

Here are now 26 spirit societies made from Runes usually associated with those. This is how I view them. This is a first cut. This should help those few who have the preview but also any others as most of the spirits are available in RQ6. Only some neutral spirits are mentioned here. None of the spirit magic is mentioned on this round.

Format is now somewhat different as we do not have acolytes anymore in AiG.

The original one-pagers will still be available in their location. The new ones will be in Aig directory and have in small print on upper right corner “Aig Preview version”. I expect I need to tune these still – so I added print date and time info on bottom of the page.

This of course meant that I need to change later on the stats in RQ6 Encounter Generator as the spirit society members there have been so far my interpretation of RQ6 Glorantha without Aig. The spirit societies that have been changed are still my interpretations of the AiG as they are based on the Preview and the rules are not fully complete yet. Like noted in my first look at Adventures in Glorantha elder races are not yet described in AiG Preview.  I remain in gratitude that I got permission at GenCon to do this upgrade to the Gloranthan Cult One-pagers under the normal Fan Policy.

Feedback is welcome.

I will likely not be updating the original one pagers but will be working on this AIG preview version until Chaosium Runequest comes out – I will likely update the one pagers at that time for it as well.

So we have the Glorantha One Pagers for Spirit Societies in AiG 

Spirit societies that exist now are

  • Aldrya
  • Bagog
  • Blackfang
  • Daka Fal
  • Dark Eater
  • Eiritha
  • Foundchild
  • Golden Bow
  • Horned Man
  • Hungry Ghosts
  • Jokotu
  • Kolating
  • Kyger Litor
  • Mallia
  • Oakfed
  • Odayla
  • Pamalt
  • Rasout
  • Stormbull
  • Thed
  • Waha
  • Zola Fel
  • Zong

Hsunchen societies here are

  • Telmor
  • Pujaleg
  • Basmol

The Hsunchen, Pamalt and the hunter gods (Ragout, Odayla, Zong, Foundchild) still have their theistic side as well. At least for Hsunchen it should fade away in the future – so for these cults it would be good to use only the spirit society side. Others would probably stay as a mix of theistic (rune magic) and animistic cults & spirit societies.

Adventures in Glorantha Take 3: Gloranthan Cult Onepagers Come for AiG

The new main page for the Gloranthan Cult One Pagers is here. The page you are reading contains additional information about the One Pagers for AIG.

Adventures in Glorantha Preview finally brings us official RQ6 versions of multitude of Runespells in Glorantha. So far we have 35+ years of history of different versions of spells in various versions of Runequest and magazines.  AiG gives us an unified view of the spells.

Cults have not been released yet for AiG – they will come later on in Chaosium Runequest but that is still far away in time. For the time being I have created as a fan contribution my view of the cults in one pager format.

This is how I view them to be now that we know what the spells will be and how the general structure will look like. I have crawled thru the original one pagers and all the supplements that I could get my hands on and created my view of the cults based on the view given by AiG. This is a first cut and contains 140+ cults in the one pager format. This should help those few who have the preview but also any others as most of the spells are available in other material. There are many spells that are from older versions of RQ and supplements – you can see the descriptions of the spells there or from Gloranthaphiles conversion. If a spell is missing from AiG – it is missing on purpose. The common spells are different.

Format is now somewhat different as we do not have acolytes anymore in AiG.  There is now information about spells given by allied and subservient cults. All the spells that are cult specific should now have rune signs in front of them. Progressive folk magic spells have been marked as such.  There are still a few spells there that are either fan created or directly from RAW Runequest 6.

The original one-pagers will still be available in their location. The new ones will be in Aig directory and have in small print on upper right corner “Aig Preview version”. I expect I need to tune these still – so I added print date and time info on bottom of the page.

There are now couple of previously missing cults available : Ancestor Worship and Tokaz Varaz – the trollkin cult.

This of course meant that I need to change later on the stats in RQ6 Encounter Generator as the cult members there have been so far my interpretation of RQ6 Glorantha without Aig. The cults that have been changed are still my interpretations of the AiG as they are based on the Preview and the rules are not fully complete yet. Like noted in my first look at Adventures in Glorantha elder races are not yet described in AiG Preview.  I remain in gratitude that I got permission at GenCon to do this upgrade to the Gloranthan Cult One-pagers under the normal Fan Policy.

Feedback is welcome.

I will likely not be updating the original one pagers but will be working on this AIG preview version until Chaosium Runequest comes out – I will likely update the one pagers at that time for it as well.

So we have the

in rough pantheon format

Arkat

Chaos – Genertela with

Atyar, Bagog, Cacodemon, Devil’s Hand, Gark the Calm, Hungry Jack, Krarsht, Krjalk, Lemure, Mallia, Pocharngo, Primal Chaos, Ragnaglar, Seseine, Sidana, Taeterisus, Than, Thanatar, Thed, Tyram, Ulforg, Urain, Vakalta, Vivamort

Chaos – Pamaltela with

Atyar, Cacodemon, Gark the Calm, Gloomshark, Ikadz, Krarsht, Lemure, Mallia, Ompalam, Primal Chaos, Seseine, Sidana, Than, Thanatar, Thed, Urain, Vivamort

Darkness

Ancestor Worship, Annilla, Aranea, Argan Argar, Gorakiki, Himile, Kyger Litor, Mee Vorala, Moorgarki, Subere, Tokaz Varaz, Xentha, Xiola Umbar, Zong, Zorak Zoran

East Isles

Hobimaron, Lumavoxoran, Saliligor

Elf

Aldrya, Babeester Gor, Flamal, Grain Goddesses, Mee Vorala, Voria, Yelmalio

Hsunchen

Ancestor Worship, Basmol, Hungry Ghosts, Hakim & Mikyh, Telmor

Independent

Baraku, Blackfang, Bloody Tusk, Caladra & Aurelio, City God, Dorasta, Flintnail, Lamsabi, Selern, Sun Dragon and Um-Oradin

Kralorela

Black Sun, Dendara, Grain Goddesses, Hakim & Mikyh

Lunar

Seven Mothers (Danfive Zaron, Irrippi Ontor, Jakaleel the Witch, Queen Deezola, She Who Waits. Tele Norri, Yanafal Tarsils), Annilla, Crimson Bat, Etyries, Lanbril

Malkion

Dormal and Arkat

Ompalam

Burayha Xolagi (the Good Doctor), Calari the Hunter, El-Jazuli (the Earth Witch), Ennung, Ernamola, Evukindu, Garangordos the Wise, Hanjethulut (the Angry One), Ikadz, Jokotu the Liberator, Karkisso the Seer, Ompalam, Orjethulut

Pamalt

Ancestor Worship, Babeester Gor, Basmol, Bolongo, Lodril, Maran Gor, Nyanka, Pamalt, Rasout, Ty Kora Tek, Uleria

Praxian

Ancestor Worship, Basmol, Dark Eater, Eiritha, Foundchild, Gagarth, Hungry Ghosts, Pavis, Storm Bull, Waha, Zola Fel

Sea

Annilla, Dormal, Magasta, Triolina, Tsankth, Wachaza

Storm

Ana Gor, Asrelia, Babeester Gor, Chalana Arroy, Donandar, Dormal, Ernalda, Eurmal, Gagarth, Grain Goddesses, Heler, Humakt, Hykim & Mikyh, Issaries, Lanbril, Lokarnos, Maran Gor, Mastakos, Odayla, Orlanth, Storm Bull, Ty Kora Tek, Uleria, Valind, Vinga, Waha, Ygg of Threestep and Yinkin

Vormain

Tsankth

Yelm

Chalana Arroy, Dendara, Donandar, Grain Goddesses, Lanbriul, Lodril, Lokarnos, Shargash, Uleria, Yelm, Yelmalio and Yelorna

Yu-Kargzant

Henird, Hiia the Swordsman, Jardan and Yu-Kargzant

Zip of the combined PDF (Cults by pantheon) is available in the directory mentioned above.

Timinits and Nymphs – RQ Encounter Finds Some Odd Couples

There were few missing timinits as well as most of the nymphs.

You will find Arachans those spidery carnivores now created here

The nymphs are done according to AiG. Dryad given is a young one – the rest of them will be updated in due time.  I left the original Hag as is and created a new one named Hag of Darkness according to Adventures in Glorantha.
Some animals were missing as well from the edges of the world. Polar Bears are the largest of the bears and great swimmers.  Sting worm scuttle wherever there are Uz habitations and the smallest of the great sand worms has found its way here as well.

Adventures in Glorantha Take 2: RQ Encounter Generator Previews All The World’s Monsters

Adventures in Glorantha Preview finally brings us official RQ6 versions of multitude of beasts in Glorantha. So far we have 35+ years of history of different versions of Runequest and magazines.  AiG gives them an unified view of the stats and skills. This of course meant that I needed to change the stats in RQ6 Encounter Generator as these have been so far either direct conversions or my interpretations of the monsters. The enemies that have been changed are still my interpretations of the AiG as they are based on the Preview and the rules are not fully complete yet. Like noted in my first look at Adventures in Glorantha elder races are not yet described in AiG Preview.  I remain in gratitude that I got permission at GenCon to do this upgrade under the normal Fan Policy.

All the enemies in RQ Encounter Generator that have been presented in AiG have now been gone thru and the skills, stats, hit locations, armour, movement rates, weapon damage and abilities have been revised and updated. Many new entries also exist in the additional feature tables but they contain also many of the previous entries. In many cases the skills have gone up, new skills added and abilities added or even removed – in many other cases the characteristics are different than originally. There are also new additional features like Gloranthan Snake Venom types.  For example Dream Dragons are far more deadlier and versatile opponents than originally.  As the AiG preview does not contain the cults yet – my versions of the entries have versions of Glorantha One Pager cults – like Aranea. This is a first cut and I may need to tune them still in future and the changes may reverberate to other monsters that are similar to these. All the changed monsters have a tag Aig on them so they can be easily found.

Textual descriptions in AiG feel in most cases richer than original entries in the original book or magazine. There is advice on tactics in many cases. Some of the entries in AiG are very rich indeed (like the Vampire or Dream Dragon). I can feel the sense of care being put to the bestiary as unified whole and can only imagine the moments of cackling madness of joy that the creators must have had in creating and writing the monsters. This is Glorantha brought to the 2015’s.  I am looking forward to final version of AiG in Chaosium Runequest as an indispensable aid for GM in Glorantha.

Here is the list of updated monsters.

Adventures in Glorantha Preview (RQ6) First Look

This is a first look at Adventures in Glorantha – Special GenCon 2015 Preview. I got my copy at GenCon booth from the hands of Pete Nash. The first look is based on one reading thru and then looking at high points on each chapter. I will be posting more comments as I delve deeper into and use the material later on.

The preview is spiral bound, hard copy only and only 50 copies have been printed for sale – the last two items are due to contractual agreements.

This is preview only with final set coming as a Chaosium Runequest by next GenCon. The Chaosium Runequest will be Glorantha based version of RQ6 – not a (near) generic one that the Runequest 6 is. The writers of the Chaosium Runequest will be the indomitable Loz and Pete so no worries there. Jeff said there will be art so this looks promising. RQ6 rules will not change but there might be slight tunings – so it will still be Runequest 6 that we have grown to love. You will see during the rest of the “first look” that it might not be so hard to use those rules elsewhere – pure speculation on my part of course as I intend to use mine in a Gloranthan campaign.

Executive summary: 

It is 212 pages of Gloranthan Runequest goodness – totally worth it.

More detail

Preview does not contain yet cults, elder races, heroquests, Lunar magic, mysticism, the runes, appendices or the scenario. Adventures in Glorantha refers to standard RQ6 rules so you will need those as well.

We have (page count is approximate) introduction ( 1 page), the world of Glorantha (16 pages), character creation (26 pages), money and equipment (11 pages), magic (4 pages), folk magic (6 pages), rune magic (54 pages), sorcery  (11 pages), all the worlds monsters (57 pages), appendix C Chaos (4 pages).

World of Glorantha gives you a standard, canon and up to date look at Glorantha – history, geography, technology base, monetary base, description of the races and succinct description of the main areas: Balazar & Elder Wilds, Dragon Pass, Esrolia, God Forgot, Maniria, Prax, Pavis, Sun County, Corflu and Lunar Empire.

Character creation has tweaks to the standard RQ6 generation made for Rune Affinities (needed for cults) and the ubiquitous languages and folk magic.  There are Gloranthan combat styles which can be more varied than in base RQ6 and guidance how the styles are used in Glorantha. These rules will give more flavour to character creation.

You can generate characters for Balazaring, Esrolian, God Forgot, Lunar Heartland, Lunar Provincial, Praxian, Sartarite,Tarsh and Telmori Hsunchen cultures. All of these are given enough colourful information to make the choice of background interesting. Each of the backgrounds contain language, standard skills, professional skills, careers, combat styles, folk magic and passions typical for that background. Some of the areas have not been touched earlier on in popular Runequest material and everything has been brought up to date with GtG at least to my eyes and deepened to contain RQ level crunch. To me the material is evocative.

Background creation also has a Gloranthan version of the unique background events.

Money and Equipment

This chapter contains excellent and quite detailed information on the values of things in Glorantha. What was very useful from my point of view was the info on land and property and transport and shipping costs and trade goods. You could very easily whip up a Trader campaign on this information alone and especially combined with the Trade route chapter on GtG.

There is also a chapter on new weapons for Lunars and a variety of shields for various common cultures. The metal chapter contains among other things the rules for iron – the magic dampening deadly metal against trolls and elves.

Magic

The preview points at terms in Rq2,Rq3,Rq6 to make it easier to convert scenarios and material from earlier versions of Runequest. There is a background advice how to deal with existing campaigns.

There are several kinds of magic available in AiG. Folk Magic is progressive – as it should be in Glorantha. Rune Magic (called Theist Magic outside Glorantha) is using Runes instead of Devotion.  Spirit Magic is called Animism outside Glorantha. Sorcery – you can use RQ6 sorcery or a new form of sorcery emerging in Glorantha. We remain waiting for the Lunar magic and Dragonic Mysticism. In my campaign in Glorantha I will continue using the RQ6 Sorcery and RQ6 Mysticism until they are further revealed.

Acolytes and Adepts do not exist in Adventures in Glorantha so initiate and devotee rules regarding available magic have been modified to take that into account.   If your Glorantha varies so that you want to have acolytes, I see no reason why it could not use standard RQ6 here.

Progressive folk magic is optional and different than what has been proposed with generally available RQ mod – progressive folk magic. The one described in AiG is smooth mechanic much more in line with folk magic being not as powerful as Rune Magic. There are 5 pages worth of folk magic spells – almost all of which could be used in non-Gloranthan campaign as well.

Rune Magic chapter has a mention of the new mechanics related to casting the rune Magic with runes instead of Devotion even though the Devotion is still used. For devotees it will be possible to use even more powerful magic act called feat that is cult or hero quest specific. Feats will likely be revealed when more cults are revealed.

There are 384 (three hundred eighty four) (give or take some) Rune Spells described with their effects making it the largest collection of official Rune Spells in a single place I have seen so far in Gloranthan and Runequest history. This is real Magical Mystery Tour – grimoire of extraordinary proportions – more than 50 pages of spells. In comparison RQ6 base rules have 65 or so Theist spells (many of which are included in the above 384).

The descriptions contain the runes that can use the spell, cost, duration and effects and whether the spell is still available (there are some old spells that are marked either withdrawn or replaced by a new one). According to Pete it should contain new version of all or almost all the rune spells published in ‘official’ publications since the Dawn and some completely new ones as well. None of the spells have cult association but it has rune association so we will need to populate the cults with spells that have appropriate runes. Glorantha is full of magic.

Sorcery is very different in Glorantha. Gloranthan sorcery is now brought up to date with GtG approach but there is an also an option to use the standard RQ6 sorcery or even a mix. I will need a bit more time to think about Gloranthan sorcery approach which looks to be much more free form than standard RQ6 sorcery.

Spirit Magic has a new way for doing spirit combat in Glorantha and loads of spirit abilities and how to work with spirits in Glorantha and eight pages on Gloranthan great spirits like Dark Eater, Father of Independents and Oakfed.

All the world’s monsters has close to twenty creature abilities for Glorantha several of which add to ones on RQ6 and Monster Island. The chapter then dives into describing a cornucopia of Gloranthan monsters – more than 80 of them depending how you count described over more than 50 pages. Many of the monsters are new to RQ6 but old foes to Gloranthan players but there a few completely new. Now we have the official RQ6 version of many of the  commonly known monsters (Dream Dragon, Dragonsnail, Gorp) – several exotic ones (Charnjibber, Headhanger, Glarg, Nakasa). The descriptions are full of usual goodness and use both new and old abilities in nice combinations. Dream dragons will be even more deadly foes than before – and your desire to meet a Walktapus or Jack’o’Bear is even less than before. With elder races missing we are missing trolls, dwarves, elves, scorpion men and even broos. No – there are no ducks (or keets)…

What I liked most: Rune magic, Progressive folk magic, Trading, Character Backgrounds, Monsters.

What needs time to sink in: Gloranthan Sorcery

What’s not to like: the final version is coming next summer

For non-Gloranthan GM’s: take a look at the spell and monster list and see – you could use those or parts of those in non-Gloranthan fantasy worlds – quite easily.

This is truly worthy preview of things to come in Chaosium Runequest and it was pure enjoyment to read thru. Now to update the RQ Encounter Generator to support it and start using the preview as my campaign rules.  Can’t wait for the final version that is coming next summer.

RQ encounter Generator take on Aig monsters is here