In my search for ultimate GM screen for RQ6 I gathered together the ranged combat modifiers into one pager. The pdf exists here
Other charts that might be useful for GM Screen are here
Created a brief chart for shields, passive blocking and damage reduction. The chart contains all shield types I could find from various sources – RQ6, Monster Island, Mythic Britain.
Pictures of the shields can be found here
Other useful charts are here
If there are things missing – please comment.
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
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
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
Atyar, Cacodemon, Gark the Calm, Gloomshark, Ikadz, Krarsht, Lemure, Mallia, Ompalam, Primal Chaos, Seseine, Sidana, Than, Thanatar, Thed, Urain, Vivamort
Ancestor Worship, Annilla, Aranea, Argan Argar, Gorakiki, Himile, Kyger Litor, Mee Vorala, Moorgarki, Subere, Tokaz Varaz, Xentha, Xiola Umbar, Zong, Zorak Zoran
Hobimaron, Lumavoxoran, Saliligor
Aldrya, Babeester Gor, Flamal, Grain Goddesses, Mee Vorala, Voria, Yelmalio
Ancestor Worship, Basmol, Hungry Ghosts, Hakim & Mikyh, Telmor
Baraku, Blackfang, Bloody Tusk, Caladra & Aurelio, City God, Dorasta, Flintnail, Lamsabi, Selern, Sun Dragon and Um-Oradin
Black Sun, Dendara, Grain Goddesses, Hakim & Mikyh
Seven Mothers (Danfive Zaron, Irrippi Ontor, Jakaleel the Witch, Queen Deezola, She Who Waits. Tele Norri, Yanafal Tarsils), Annilla, Crimson Bat, Etyries, Lanbril
Dormal and Arkat
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
Ancestor Worship, Babeester Gor, Basmol, Bolongo, Lodril, Maran Gor, Nyanka, Pamalt, Rasout, Ty Kora Tek, Uleria
Ancestor Worship, Basmol, Dark Eater, Eiritha, Foundchild, Gagarth, Hungry Ghosts, Pavis, Storm Bull, Waha, Zola Fel
Annilla, Dormal, Magasta, Triolina, Tsankth, Wachaza
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
Tsankth
Chalana Arroy, Dendara, Donandar, Grain Goddesses, Lanbriul, Lodril, Lokarnos, Shargash, Uleria, Yelm, Yelmalio and Yelorna
Henird, Hiia the Swordsman, Jardan and Yu-Kargzant
Zip of the combined PDF (Cults by pantheon) is available in the directory mentioned above.
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.
Gladiators – Pete Nash wrote an excellent article on gladiators for Swedish Roleplaying Magazine – Fenix He described well the many different forms of gladiators and their tactics which is well worth a look. Gladiators in history were very popular and could be a good source of scenario hooks in addition to forcing the players to arena to participate.
Here are RQ Encounter Generator versions of them. These are all human…
“Returning to the Arena today, after five years in retirement. We are pleased to bring you… the only undefeated champion in Fonrit history: the legendary Doom That Came from Temissrah
Here are all of them at school
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.
Just a brief post as a taster.
So here is the first AiG encounter in RQ Encounter Generator – please meet the lumbering demon of the East Isles – the Arandinni
Here is a taste of more sea monsters for RQ Encounter Generator inspired by the excellent Hearts In Glorantha Collection, volume 1
There are many more monsters in the Hearts in Glorantha Collection – like Geysers, Whirlpools, Tentacled things and boatloads of enemies in the sea and scenario seeds.
More Sea Monsters are available here
RQ Encounter Generator provides you a way to very quickly generate evenings worth of encounters for your RQ6 game session. There are more than 1900 distinct encounter templates for enemies and hundreds of different ready made party encounters. There are multiple ways of using the floor for preparing.
A. Using it on the fly
You need to have internet connection and preferably a printer available.
Find an enemy or party using the search tools
1. filter by category
2. search with any word and/or opponent skill level
3. browse or press “Do you feel lucky”
4. Generate
5. Save to a location of your choice or just print or use the pdf.
This might cause a disruption in the flow of your session so what I do usually is as follows.
B. Preparing for the session before hand
Sometimes you are preparing for a session well before the players come in. Sometimes it is half an hour or even less. The following approach is fit for both but of course you will have more time to think about the results of your preparation if you do it for example in the previous night.
I usually use loopy planning defined by Johnn Four which I have had very good experience so far.
Step 1 – the search
What I have usually done – for an evenings’ game I create pdf’s out of the usual suspects of the area I am playing in – using the filtering and searching. I take care to look at the hanging threads and the plans of the enemies (loopy planning) when I am searching for encounters.
I might mark a few search results as favorites. I might filter with a keyword and press “Do you feel lucky” a few times and create pdf’s out of those.
For example if I would need different kind of plants I would print out the “Not really a rose garden” – same for dinosaurs.
For a city I print out a bar and a market plus some random law enforcement and villains and/or gangs, a temple or two.
Usually it is enough to generate 2 or 3 encounters worth of enemies per terrain type or hanging thread. If the encounters are not rabble or underlings it might be hard to go thru more than a few robust melees or adverse encounters in an evening.
Step 2 – keeping the results
Usually I print the generated enemies out as I probably need to mark hit points down while fight goes on.
I keep a list of recurring enemies (the ones they did not manage to kill the first time round or that have hanging threads from previous session etc) in Evernote or Dropbox or printed out on a folder.
It is quite rare that I cannot live with these printouts as it is difficult during an evening session to go thru more than a few melees
Step 3 – adhoc
Sometimes during a game I need certain kind of enemy that I did not prepare for – I search for it and print it out from my iPad to a local printer.
Notes From Pavis 