The Obligatory Introduction
Over the many years, around gaming tables, in Internet chat rooms, here on this blog, and anywhere else one might find me flapping my gums, RuneQuest 3 has endured an unwarranted amount of abuse from me.
Understand: I met RQ2 the year before RQ3 replaced it. I had fallen in love with Glorantha, with the mechanics, and suddenly here was this new edition that committed all sorts of unspeakable sins. The mechanics were different--the calculation of skills and hit points, and what in the world was fatigue--but the unpardonable sin was that the default setting was...ugh...Earth. The gods were generic. Prices were listed in pennies. Rurik was replaced with some idiot Pict called Cormac. And my gaming group decided they hated it. Twelve year old me did too.
(Bonus rant: the Runes are the integral building blocks of Glorantha and the source of all magic...why in the name of Sheng Seleris are you calling the game RuneQuest when in Fantasy Earth there are no longer Runes to quest for? Drew shakes his fist in indignation, frothing at the jaws.)
Insult was added to injury when Earth-based products like Vikings and Land of Ninja began to appear. We had been spoiled in those halcyon RQ2 days with products like Cults of Prax, Trollpak, Cults of Terror, Griffin Mountain, Borderlands, Big Rubble, and Pavis. Now we were getting vikings and samurai? Weren't there already other games doing that? Yes, I am conveniently ignoring Gods of Glorantha and Genertela: Crucible of the Hero Wars, two boxed sets that were Glorantha-based and pushed the setting forward, but this is my rant so I am allowed. Generally speaking, there was throughout the 80s, a real fear that Glorantha had been abandoned.
There is more to the story, a lot more, but when you buy your copy of Sun County you can read Shannon Appelcline tell it. Trust me, he tells it better than I do. The point is that for nearly a decade I associated RQ3 with the neglect of Glorantha.
And then, out of nowhere, salvation came.
The First (and Second) Coming of Sun County
Again, buy the book and let Shannon tell you the story, but the gist is that in the early 90s publisher Avalon Hill seemed to realize that RQ was on life support and something needed to be done. The solution was, as it always should have been, "focus on Glorantha." Ken Rolston was brought in as line editor (yes, that Ken Rolston) and saddled with the task of bringing the game back from the brink. No easy task. It was going to take a game-changing product, something absolutely phenomenal, to pull this off.
Well, miracles do happen.
Michael O'Brien and Trevor Ackerly's Sun County (1992) hit Glorantha fans like sunstroke, just in a good way. I was a senior in college, and had been playing RuneQuest for a decade (though sticking with RQ2). At this point I was now GMing rather than playing, and the first version of Six Seasons in Sartar was being formulated. When I saw a copy of Sun County in my local game store, my jaw literally dropped. For the most part, Avalon Hill had served Glorantha to us in boxed sets, and there is simply no polite way to discuss the art. But here was Sun County, a thick softcover book, and it had that Roger Raupp cover. People lie when they say you can't judge a book by its cover. You can. And in that painting we had the most realized image of Glorantha we had ever seen. You could feel the hot sun on the back of your neck. You felt you could almost just step through the cover like a doorway and be there.
Poor struggling student that I was I bought it on the spot (heck, I could skip a few meals). And as soon as my group finished proto-Six Seasons I was looking for ways to lure them to Prax's Sun County.
It feels a bit ridiculous to sit here in 2024 and have to say nice things about Sun County. Telling you Sun County stands shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the greatest RQ game books (or heck, game books in general) feels like explaining that water is wet and chocolate is really good. It feels like something we just all know. Yet RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha has initiated a lot of new members into the Glorantha Tribe, and they need to know how good this book was (and now "is"). So let me talk first about the book in general, and then about this bright, shiny new release of it.
For starters, Sun County threw open the doors on a culture that we had all heard of, but never really explored. RQ had long lingered in New Pavis, but Sun County took us south into the lands of the Praxian Sun Dome. These were the followers of Yelmalio, Son of the Sun. We had met him much earlier in Cults of Prax, but this was a deep dive into the culture of the Sun Domers, how they lived, their customs and laws, their outlook and beliefs. Up until that point, Avalon Hill had largely been content to recycle what we had seen before, Sun County was proof that the setting was alive and still growing. In fact, alongside Griffin Mountain, it was early proof that Glorantha had more cultures to explore than the one around Pavis.
The book starts with general information, describing the land, its key figures, and its people. We are given an overview of the history of the region, its laws, customs, and governance, trade and currency, and the military. Attention is given to the "contraband euphoric herb" hazia, and how it is illicitly grown, smuggled, and sold in the region. Statistics are provided for the movers and shakers of the area.
In the tradition of Biturian Varosh and Paulis Longvale, "Jaxarte's Journal" is next, giving us a first-hand look at the region through the eyes of a young Lunar official. Unlike the "flavor text" that haunted so many game products in the late 80s and 90s, these are in-world documents, with their own provenance and history. They take on the task of not only adding verisimilitude, but introducing us the culture of Sun County through the eyes of someone new to it.
There is a write-up of the cult of Yelmalio, which in the original edition mainly served the function of updating the RQ2 cult to RQ3, but as the religion is to integral to the culture of Sun County it needs to be here. In the current 2024 re-release, it should easily hold fans over until the official RQG version of the cult appears. But more on that in a bit.
Next we have detailed maps and descriptions of the Sun Dome, the central temple and seat of governance. These are accompanied by selections from another in-world text, Hector's Yellow Book, working to flesh out and bring the setting to life. This is followed by a detailed chapter on Sun Dome Templars and their militia, much needed and appreciated given the long tradition of the Sun Domers as being famed mercenaries.
It is then that we get into the real "meat" of the book (were the initial chapters not meal enough!), Sun County encounters and scenarios. This is where I have to get vague, so as not to spoil anything. But the adventurers in Sun County are legendary in the RQ community. "The Garhound Contest" is a terrific bit of culture building, detailing an annual competition held at the Harvest Festival the adventurers can participate in. "Melisande's Hand" expands and builds on this with a full scenario.
"Rabbit Hat Farm" brings the taint of Chaos to the sun-drenched lands of the region, and has long been a fan favorite. It sets the stage for two more chilling scenarios, "The Old Sun Dome" and "Solinthor's Tower," both of which dig deep into the history of the region. Both of these are "gothic" in the finest sense of the tradition, the power of a shadowy past to haunt the "enlightened" present. I have written about both of these before, particularly "The Old Sun Dome," which stands out in my mind as a contender for one of the finest RQ scenarios written. The curious can scour my blog if they want spoilers. But I am going to assume that a lot of you reading this are new players, so I won't ruin the thrills or chills. What I can say is that they are both models for RQ scenario building. They tell stories without being railroady. They show that the setting can stretch into more genres than just epic fantasy. And they are unforgivingly brutal, which the best RQ adventures tend to be.
The New Remaster
The new release is not just some simple scan of the original text, but remastered from the ground up to be clear, crisp, and up to modern industry standards. As of this writing I only have the PDF, but comparing it to my battered original copy you can see how necessary the remastering was. The text and art "pops." Text sections are hyperlinked. It is easy to read.
As I mentioned previously, the book includes a history of Sun County, and the role in played in the "RuneQuest Renaissance" of the early 90s, by renowned game historian and author Shannon Appelcline. This introduction puts the book into the greater context of RuneQuest publications and the relationship between original publisher Chaosium and RQ3 publisher Avalon Hill.
But new players and GMs need to be aware this is a classic product written for the 3rd edition. This is not an updated text for RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha. Given the tremendous backward compatibility of RQ products, and with the "Conversion Guide" provided in the core rules, this should not be too much of an issue.
Available now as a PDF from DriveThru.RPG, with print on demand copies imminent, Sun County is a must for Glorantha fans, particularly those who enjoy its spiritual successors like the Sandheart series or Life and Traditions under the Sun Dome. With any luck, this might open the door for the eventually re-release of other classic titles as well
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