Lands of RuneQuest: Dragon Pass

I was late to the party.

In 1975 game designer Greg Stafford and his fledgling company Chaosium (technically "The Chaosium" at that point) released a war game, White Bear & Red Moon. I might have bought a copy, but being four years old, did not.

WB&RM introduced the world to Stafford's Glorantha, a trippy technicolor Bronze Age fantasy setting, more Moorcock than Tolkien, leaning Leiber and inclined Iliad. This was the Mahabharata with a metal soundtrack, an Odyssey gone glam. There is nothing like Glorantha. It is equal parts insanity and anthropology. There are dinosaurs and sentient ducks. The world is flat. Science? Ha! Diseases are caused by spirits and spiritual discord, not mere microbes. Gravity? Nonsense. Mortals are pulled to the ground by the power of mother earth's love. Yet the paradox of the setting is a relentless, tireless drive towards anthropological realism. We have all read fantasy settings where the societies are total bullshit. They could never exist. But author and game designer Robin Laws nailed it when he wrote, "(i)n its mythic power, phantasmagoric imagery, and trenchant understanding of human nature, Glorantha stands as a founding text of the roleplaying genre..." It is that third element that ignites the setting. Any time the setting seems off-the-rails weird you are grounded by the realism of the human element. You believe the weirdness because the cultures are organic, breathing things.

I met Glorantha through White Bear & Red Moon's companion RPG, RuneQuest. This was in 1982. A year later, WB&RM received a new edition, but this time under the name of the region the game took place in, Dragon Pass. RuneQuest had moved the focus of the setting from Dragon Pass to neighboring Prax, the locale of Chaosium's other war game Nomad Gods. Sure, RQ had a map of Dragon Pass, but I didn't really get details of the setting until I played Dragon Pass. 

The current edition of RuneQuest (Roleplaying in Glorantha) wisely moved the focus back to Dragon Pass. Prax and Pavis are fine, but the timeline has now advanced to the Hero Wars, a world-engulfing conflict whose trigger lies in the enmity between the princedom of Sartar and the Lunar Empire, and this ignites in Dragon Pass. Most campaigns want to be where the action is. 

To date, most of the releases for the new edition have leaned phantasmagoric by necessity. The rich mythology of gods and spirits is the heart of the setting, and so the Cults of RuneQuest series has kept the Chaosium team busy unfolding that. One notable exception was the woefully misnamed Weapons & Equipment guide, a brilliant book that explores all the nooks and crannies of the setting's material culture.  Now, however, we have the first release for the new Lands of RuneQuest line, Dragon Pass: Site of the Hero Wars. This is a deep dive into the geography, flora, fauna, weather, locations, and societies of the region.

Full disclosure, I am mentioned in the 'additional credits' of the book, but was not hired to write for it, and the copy I am reviewing I purchased myself.

On the other hand, I have done a great deal of writing about Dragon Pass, both for the Jonstown Compendium and Chaosium, so this was a release I was very much looking forward to seeing. To a certain degree, I have been a spiritual resident of Dragon Pass since I was 12. And this is the book that would have made my life a lot easier. It is, simply, the most detailed and exhaustive treatment of Dragon Pass RuneQuest has ever seen. Before some of the grognards take issue with that, note I said "RuneQuest." Sartar has been detailed in previous games, and HeroQuest had a gazetteer, but in the breadth and depth of coverage of the entire region Dragon Pass has them beat.

Let's start with the contents...

After an introduction that gives a broad overview of the region, Dragon Pass looks at the separate subregions. Sartar, the area around Far Point, the kingdom of Tarsh, Wintertop and Old Tarsh, the Grazelands, the Wilds. We finish with a bestiary. The highlight of the introductory chapter, to my mind, is the exhaustive history. Glorantha's "timeline" (for want of a better word) can be divided into Myth (the age of the gods, before Time began) and History (after the first Dawn and birth of Time). Myth was the making of the world. The actions of the gods formed the patterns of existence. The sun, Yelm, died and fell into the Underworld before his glorious re-ascent. Thus the sun rises and falls each day. History is the unfolding of the world, its developments, the rise and fall of empires, the coming of heroes. The focus thus far in RuneQuest so far has been Myth. Unless you own the Guide to Glorantha (any why don't you, you mad thing?), History has been more obscure. No longer. There is a brilliant and detailed History here of the three Ages of Time in Dragon Pass, complete with maps and timelines.

Mentioning the maps, it is time for me to almost obligatorily comment on the extraordinary art of Dragon Pass (yes, including the cartography, shout outs to Matt Ryan, Glynn Seal, and Tobias Trannell). Anyone who has been paying attention to the development of the line understands Jeff Richard's commitment to the look of this edition, and Dragon Pass does not disappoint. My sense is that in the Cults books, the style leans Katrin Dirim and Loïc Muzy, more stylized and heightened to reflect the mythic themes. Weapons & Equipment and now Dragon Pass lean towards the gritty realism of artists like Ossi Hiekkala, who provided the cover. To my mind no one has ever depicted the world of Glorantha the way Ossi has. Looking at his work you can almost smell the sweat and taste the dust. This is not to shut out the rest of the art team--there is not a picture in this book that those of us writing for the Jonstown Compendium would not give our eyeteeth for. But overall, Ossi seems to represent the style of "History" Glorantha.

There is one piece I need to spotlight.

Page 61 gives us a location, the Hill of Orlanth Victorious. The accompanying art simply took my breath away. A great temple to the king of the gods and lord of storms, it is a pilgrimage site for his woad-wearing worshippers. This piece was so raw, so ecstatic, it gave me gooseflesh.

   

Each subregion gives an overview, discusses adventurers from that area, gives sample NPCs, and then details the key locations. With this book you could fuel a Dragon Pass campaign for years. The sample NPCs are a terrific touch, giving you templates to tailor your own. One thing you will not be getting however are stat blocks for the great movers and shakers like Kallyr Starbrow, Cragspider, Fazzur Wideread, etc. They are detailed, but not given statistics. I have seen some disappointment with this online, but I have to say I approve of the omission. These should be the province of the GM. If you want to run a campaign where Kallyr is an unstoppable badass, you should design her to be so. If you want a campaign where your players overthrow her, you should be able to build her appropriately too. Stats for these movers and shakers ventures too far into the straitjacket of "canon" for my tastes.

In the final analysis, Dragon Pass finally channels the spirit of White Bear & Red Moon back into RuneQuest. When I wrote my ode to WB&RM, The Company of the Dragon, I would have had to do a lot less work had this book existed. It is a counterweight to the Cults series, grounding the mythic setting in a tangible reality. It delivers a feel for the region and its people that makes it real, not just an Elf game with magic, but something that tells stories about people who live, bleed, and die. It brings the anthropology to the eschatology of the Hero Wars.    

Fire From the Sky: Thoughts on the Pantheon of Yelm

The Rigveda, the oldest extant Indo-European scripture, begins with a hymn to Agni.

Agnimīḷe purohitam yajñasya devamṛtvijam, hotāram ratnadhātamam.

(Agni I worship, the first before the Lord, he who illuminates Truth, the warrior who defeats darkness, and is the giver of Light.)

Why Agni? Why is he given pre-eminence? Agni is the god of fire, but more importantly, he is the sacrificial fire, the central element of ancient Vedic worship. The ancient priests offered their prayers before Agni, and cast their sacrifices into his flames, and Agni carried these up to the other gods. Without Agni there could be neither worship nor sacrifice. he is the bridge between Earth and Heaven.

The Heavens of Glorantha, p. 12, Mythology

This is on my mind for two reasons. The next book being released in the Cults of RuneQuest series is devoted to the Fire/Sky deities of Glorantha, and I look forward to it immensely. The second, I attended a fire sacrifice ritual last week at a Buddhist temple here in Japan, a ritual that can be traced directly back to the Vedic sacrifices of three millennia ago. This was at Enoshima Daishi, a temple devoted to an esoteric Buddhist sect, the central figure of which is Fudō Myō-ō, a terrifying red-skinned demonic looking figure armed with a noose and a sword. The interior of the temple is blackened and always smells of wood smoke. On nights when they perform the fire ritual, a massive bonfire blazes in the center of the temple, surrounded by chanting monks. To participate, you write your prayer or a situation or sin you would like to be rid of, on a piece of wood. The monks cast these into the fire as the grim visage of the towering Fudō Myō-ō statue is illuminated by the firelight. It is a powerful experience.

So lets circle back to Agni, and then Glorantha. 

Fudō Myō-ō is essentially the Japanese incarnation of the Hindu Acala. Without going too far into the weeds here, the Vedic religion and modern Hinduism are not the same, and don’t focus on the same deities, but the vedas remain central to Hinduism. At the risk of oversimplifying, a very rough analogy would be the connection between Christianity and the ancient Hebrew scriptures. Acala is a fiery warrior god who first appears around 700 CE, but he clearly embodies one of the aspects of the Vedic Agni, “the warrior who defeats darkness.” This “darkness” is both physical (the night) and spiritual (sin, evil). Once again we get a glimpse of Agni’s deeper significance, the bridge between Earth and Heaven. The physical darkness he banishes is earthly, the spiritual darkness is celestial.

One of the things that makes RuneQuest and its setting Glorantha extraordinary is the way they reflect the themes of mythology without (in most cases) simply copying real world myths. Greg Stafford’s decision to name the Rune Fire/Sky is a perfect example of this. Once again, we see the duality. Fire is down here, on Earth. Heaven is in the Sky.

Imagine, for just a moment, you are one of the nomadic Indo-Aryans of four thousand years ago, when the Vedic hymns were being chanted and passed down orally. Imagine being on a wide plain at night. There were likely dozens, if not hundreds, of camps clustered together, each around a fire. These fires flicker and twinkle, just like the stars above you. They are earthly campfires, could not the stars be the campfires of the gods?

Fire rises, while the Sky descends. The heat they felt beating down on their backs from the sun was the same as the heat they felt on their faces around the fire. So clearly the fire and the sky are one. Fire, then, becomes the link to heaven. It rises back up to it. 

“The Lord” mentioned in the hymn I quoted above is Yajna, the Master of the Universe. Agni is an emanation of him. In Glorantha, the most direct analogy is Enverinus, god of fire and sacrifices (Prosopaedia, pp. 34-35), who is himself a portion of Yelm, the Master of the Universe. Like Agni Enverinus is present at all sacrifices, and has to be. This remains true in the Lunar religion, which itself is a development of the religion of Yelm in a similar manner as Hinduism and the Vedic religion. Enverinus’ priests oversee all sacrifices performed by other Lunar cults. 

When I wrote the “The Elements of Heortling Ritual” section of Six Seasons in Sartar, I leaned into this as well. The Heortlings burn their sacrifices, or at least portions of them, to offer them to the gods. This time the sacrificial fire is Oakfed (Prosopaedia, p. 90), who “was tamed in Prax by Waha, and in other regions by their ruling deities. Oakfed now sleeps, but he can be awakened by priests who need his help.” Oakfed is one of the Lowfires, along with Mahome (the hearth fire), and Gustbran (the forge and kiln fire). The Prosopaedia describes Oakfed as the wildfire, but notice the difference between that description and the one given in The Lighbringers (pp. 10-11):

The Lowfires—Mahome the Hearthfire, Gustbran the Workfire, and Oakfed Wildfire—serve men. They are the fires that cook our food, work metal, bake clay, and send our offerings to the gods.

This is not a change so much as The Lightbringers being more explicit about Oakfed’s function. It is already implied in The Prosopaedia when Oakfed is associated with Enverinus. This means that in the Orlanth and Prax pantheons, the sacrificial fire is as central as in the religions of Yelm and the Red Goddess. Of course, this was true in our world as well. The ancient Vedic peoples were not the only ones make fire sacrifices. The ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans all did as well. Note however that for the cultures following Orlanth and Waha, the fire was essentially tamed and stolen from Yelm. There is a bit of Prometheus to this twist, which only makes sense given the Orlanthi and Praxians are raiding cultures. Yet fire remains as the bridge which carries sacrifices to the gods (though I strongly suspect the Earth Goddesses received buried offerings rather than burnt).

We’ve talked a great deal about sacrifice, and the role of fire as a bridge between worlds, but the attributes given to Agni in the hymn are relevant to other Fire/Sky deities as well.

As the “warrior who defeats darkness” we see a number of deities. Let’s pick out four.

Preeminent I think is Polaris (Prosopaedia, p. 100), who commanded the armies of the Upper World during the Gods War. When the Spike was shattered, Polaris built a fortress around the hole keeping back the dark.  A point to consider here. We are talking here about the “spiritual” darkness we mentioned above. This would be the entropy and moral evil of Chaos. Gloranthan mythology speaks of the time of Chaos as the Lesser and Greater Darkness, but this is not physical darkness, which is the Darkness Rune. There is a relationship between the two—notably the Chaos Rune looks like the Darkness Rune but with the addition of horns—but I think that deserves its own discussion. Still, the Fire/Sky pantheon is also at odds with the Darkness gods, again showing that duality between fire’s physical and spiritual aspects. 

Shargash—the most Acala/Fudō Myō-ō of these Glorantha deities—is another prime example. His  entry in the Prosopaedia (p. 110) talks about his creation by Yelm to keep order (disorder being another type of moral or social darkness). Yet it also talks about his “purification” of the world by fire. This occurs after Orlanth has killed Yelm, making the world “impure” by cutting it off from heaven. 

This is a major theme of the Fire/Sky mythology of Glorantha. Heaven is “pure.” Earth is “impure.” As the Sky deities descend into the world they gradually become less pure. Dayzatar, who sits in the highest heaven and is furthest from the Earth, is the “Master of Purity.” Lodril, who dwells in the Earth, is the most indulgent, sensual, and impure. This has to do of course with “light.” The light of the stars and sun is a pure light, a clean light. A wood fire produces smoke and burns. It blackens things around it and leaves ash. Yet conversely, dual-natured fire is also light. Purification is a vital function of it, and this is why it is central to sacrifice. Whatever offering you make to the fire, it is purified and made fit for the gods. The smoke rises towards heaven. Flames leap up.

Shargash then might conceivably be seen as burning the world to return it to the gods. It is what my old mentor Alf Hiltebeitel called “the ritual of battle,” comparing the war in the Mahabharata to a Vedic sacrifice to restore the befouled world. 

The god who best embodies the concept of light keeping away physical darkness is Yelmalio (Prosopaedia p. 139). Polaris is defending the heavens against spiritual darkness, Shargash is redeeming the world by fire, but Yelmalio is the pure light of heaven down here, at least in the mythologies of the Orlanthi. With Yelmalio, things get complicated.

Yelmalio is one of the deities associated with the planet Lightfore, which is the same color as the sun and follows the same path as the sun, rising as the sun sets and setting as the sun rises. The key difference is that Lightfore is smaller than the sun, and thus does not give as much light. We see this in the name, I think. “Yelmalio” clearly evokes “Little Yelm.” During the Gods War, when Yelm was absent from the sky, Lightfore continued to illuminate the world, though dimly. In Glorantha, before the ascension of the Red Moon, we can imagine the soft golden light of this planet illuminating the night almost like a full moon. 

We see this association with Lightfore reflected in two of Yelmalio’s titles, the “Cold Sun” and the “Preserver of Light,” and his counterpart in the Yelm pantheon is Antirius. Their respective mythologies depict both as “carrying on” for Yelm after he was killed, but in notably different ways. Yelmalio preserves physical light in the world, making him beloved by the Elves and accepted by the Orlanthi, while Antirius rules in Yelm’s place. Both suffer a successive series of setbacks (try saying THAT three times fast) that robs them of their fire powers and leaves them only with light. Both suffer a loss at the Hill of Gold (Antirius is killed, Yelmalio struggles on). BOTH of these mythologies parallel that of yet another version of Yelmalio, the Orlanthi Dawn Age deity Elmal. Elmal—whose name is so clearly a mistranslation or mishearing of Yelmalio—is a son of Yelm who becomes steward to Orlanth. Orlanth puts him in charge of the world when he descended into Hell for the Lightbringers’ Quest (as Yelm leaves Antirius in charge). He too suffers a series of injuries and losses that weaken him, but like Yelmalio he endures, keeping a last spark of light alive in the dark. 

If we went looking for Earth mythological parallels to Yelmalio, the one that jumps out to me is the Indo-Iranian deity Mitra, and his eventual Roman incarnation Mithras. Both the Vedic Mitra and the Iranian Mitra were gods of light. They were both associated with the sun but not worshipped as the sun. This was also true of the Roman Mithras. One of the deity’s most common epithets was “sol invictus,” the unconquered sun, but his worship was distinct and separate from the Roman Sol Invictus, the actual sun god. Regardless, both Mithras and Sol Invictus were associated with the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, but also the turning point when nights start to get shorter, the very Yelmalio notion of “the last light before the return of the Sun.” All three of these deities were associated with honor, promises, endurance and duty. In both Avestan and Sanskrit, mitra meant “promise,” “covenant,” and “brother” (as in band of brothers and not blood relation). The Iranian Mitra was associated with soldiers. Interestingly, the Roman Mithras was a secret fraternal order, a brotherhood, and called themselves syndexioi, those "united by the handshake.” This is very evocative of the name’s Avestan and Sanskrit meanings, though it is very unlikely the Romans were aware of that. The worship of Mithras was very popular among the Roman legions, to the point he was called “the soldier’s god.” All of these qualities remind us of the cult of Yelmalio and the Sun Domes.

The last “warrior who defeats the darkness” has to be, of course, Yelm himself. 

Yelm (Prosopaedia, p. 138-139) is the middle brother between aloof Dayzatar and worldly Lodril, and as such embodies the quality of duality we have talked about several times. He is the bridge between Heaven and Earth. As the brightest object in the sky, he is also “the giver of light.” As the Celestial Emperor he “illuminates the truth” by revealing what is good and naming all things. Also as Emperor he defeats spiritual darkness by giving order and purpose to the cosmos. As the god who died and returned from Hell, resurrected, he defeated that ultimate of physical darknesses…death. He so perfectly embodies all the aspects we started with in the hymn to Agni that it only makes sense to finish our discussion with him.

And yet clearly Yelm is not a parallel of Agni, but instead of “the Lord” mentioned in the hymn. That Lord, Yajna, is like Yelm “Master of the Universe.” While Yelm embodies so many of the traits possessed by other gods in his pantheon, the one no one else possesses is his centrality, authority, or rule. He is the Emperor, a title not even Orlanth usurped and that the Red Goddess—who is not afraid to challenge Orlanth for the Middle Air—does not contest. In this he is the ultimate embodiment of a Rune that depicts a single center to the sky. 

In the end, all of Gloranthan mythology is about him. His death triggers the Gods War. He is the Light the Lightbringers quest to bring back. Time begins with his return, etc.

It is hard to find quite anything like Yelm in terrestrial mythologies. There are no solar deities that are, really. The Indo-Europeans preferred their tribal/chieftain storm gods. The Egyptians had several successive solar deities, but none of them with emperor of heaven status. The late Roman Sol Invictus became strongly linked with Empire, but this was a case more of monotheism than imperialism. The closest we come, I think, is China. Here we find the Emperor of Heaven, or Jade Emperor, who is the center of a celestial order mirrored by the one on Earth. The imagery here however equates authority more with heaven than the actual sun…heaven is “above” us all.

SKULL RUINS -- Tusk Riders Need Blood!, a Review

Léonor Jean Soulas d'Allainval (1696-1753) died unknown and penniless at the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris, a public hospital with the distinction of quite perhaps being the oldest continuously running hospital in the world. The author of more than a dozen plays, d'Allainval never had any real success with any save the first. That play, though barely remembered, gave d'Allainval a sort of immortality by contributing a phrase to the English language, one still in use today. It was called L'Embarras des richesses, or in English, an embarrassment of riches.

We start there because the expression is an apt description of the Jonstown Compendium, Chaosium's community content program for its RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha RPG. Like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, the Jonstown Compendium allows authors to use the Glorantha setting and the RuneQuest rules to publish their own scenarios, sourcebooks, and related projects. Chaosium maintains a fairly laissez-faire relationship with these publications, beyond a few guidelines, and this gives authors tremendous freedom in what they create. I have said before, the move was a smart one. It ensured that before Chaosium was able to publish any scenarios for RuneQuest, the community was publishing their own. I happen to know a little about this, ahem.

But the Compendium is, by the estimation of numerous RQ fans, an embarrassment of riches. Both in quantity and in quality, the Compendium contains almost too many treasures to count. I have blogged about many of them here, but this has been just the tip of the iceberg. And the treasures keep coming. Like Ilmarinen's Sampo in the Kalevala, the Compendium keeps churning them out.

Ricardo Shankland's Skull Ruins - Tusk Riders Need Blood! is a terrific example of what the Compendium offers. Gloriously illustrated by Dario Corallo, this 76 page PDF (Compendium books do not qualify for print until they reach Electrum status, so if you want a copy you can hold get over there and buy a copy pronto) this is a rip-roaring, RQG adventure with a very classic feel and a distinctly classic villain. Hint...the title gives them away.

Queen Leika of Sartar's Colymar tribe has managed to take a Tusk Rider alive. "A Tusk Rider," you ask? Dating all the way back to White Bear and Red Moon, the Tusk Riders are "half-trolls" who ride giant, savage boars. Think of them as Orcs, yet like everything in Glorantha infinitely cooler than that. To maintain their bond with these giant mounts, the Tuskers perform blood sacrifices to Gouger, the Divine Boar. They are renowned for their savagery, their combat skills, and most of all the secret paths and roads they use to seemingly spring out of nowhere and fall upon their prey. With this captive, Leika has a chance to learn these paths, as well as other Tusker secrets, for the good of the Colymar. 

There is a catch.

Penjurlhi--the captured Tusker--is losing control of his giant boar mount. To maintain it, he needs to perform a blood ritual at an appropriate temple. He knows of one, the Skull Ruins. Leika charges the adventurers to escort him there, perform the ritual, and bring him back.

This sets up a trek across Sartar, along various potential routes, with a number of challenges and enemies. There is combat (including a large scale battle and rules to conduct it), there is new magic, there is diplomacy, there is a new cult, and a lot more. As with any review of an adventure, the less I say about the particulars the better, but there is a goldmine of ideas, NPCs, magic items, and lore in here.

Go here for more detailed information (I will share the back cover just below as well). Instead of repeating all that, which is the limit of what I can say without getting spoilery, this is simply a terrific RuneQuest adventure that could easily be dropped into any Dragon Pass campaign with very little work. Swap out Leika for any other patron and you are ready to go. Skull Ruins exemplifies what makes RuneQuest scenarios great...it has well thought-out characters, believable complications and motivations, unique magic items and treasures, and multiple consequences for player choices. There is nothing railroady about it.

The writing, the editing, the lay-out is polished AF as the kids say. Shankland knows Glorantha and knows how to write an adventure for it. Where I tend to lean maudlin (what Nick Brooke likes to call "schmaltz"), Shankland's writing is clear, concise, and helpful. The scenario itself is a challenging one, but there is so much support that an inexperienced GM would feel in good hands and confident to run it. For long time Glorantha fans, the author's treatment of the Tuskers, the new ideas this book brings to the table, is, well, an embarrassment of riches.

Please people. Buy this book so it can hit Electrum and I can get a print copy on my shelf. You are going to want that too.  

 

Chaosium Con Australia: A Personal Report

Chaosium Con landed in Australia for the first time on June 8th and 9th this year. Bridgett Jeffries, Mike Mason, and I had the pleasure of being the “International Guests of Honor,” joining local guests of honor as well. From all reports it was a success, and fingers crossed we get to do it all again next year. The event was held at the Moonee Valley Racing Club (fellow Yanks, that is horse racing and like the Brits our cousins down under do horse racing with panache) in lovely Melbourne. It drew Chaosium fans from across the continent. The Stars Were Right under the Southern Cross.

I will leave general accounting of events to others. Here I will just talk about my experience. I was scheduled to run two VIP games—the final chapter of Six Seasons in Sartar and (for the first time in public ever) an episode from the yet unpublished The Final Riddle—and to lead three seminars. Two were RuneQuest specific, “Bringing RuneQuest to Life” and “Writing for the Jonstown Compendium.” The other was more general, as many attendees were Call of Cthulhu and Pendragon fans. “Running Long Campaigns” was the topic, where I focused on my own Six Seasons-Company of the Dragon-Seven Tailed Wolf, my experiences running Masks of Nyarlathotep across three editions, and having run The Great Pendragon Campaign twice. The seminars were recorded and are due to go up on YouTube. Here I will publish my notes for each over a couple of blog posts.

In this installment, I will talk about my journey there, the first game I ran, and my first seminar.

A Word Or Two About My Journey (Skip if you just want to hear about the Con)

I would be flying into Australia from Tokyo, Japan. There are two airports that service Tokyo, Haneda (which is a stone’s throw from where I used to live in Shinagawa) and Narita, which is just over an hour northeast of the city in Chiba. I left Tokyo about a month ago to live out on the coast, an hour southwest of the city, but since Narita was less expensive by far than Haneda, and had a greater selection of airlines, I chose it to depart from. I went with Qantas rather than a Japanese carrier. “When visiting Rome,” right?

There is an express train that runs to Narita and luckily it stops at Ofuna, a station just two stops from mine. It is a reserved seating train with all the works…beverage service, wi-fi, luggage racks, large seats with fold down trays. Since it was two hours to the airport for me, I took that despite the price. The flight was going to be ten hours, so I wanted to get there as comfortably as I could.

Check-in went swiftly, and there was plenty of time for a pre-flight beer (or two). The flight was an all-nighter. We left at 9 PM and landed  7:30 AM. Melbourne is almost due south from Tokyo, so there is only a one-hour time change. I was impressed by Qantas. The food and service was first rate despite my Economy seat. The only complaint I had was with the Airbus we flew down on. It was tighter and more cramped than the Boeings I usually fly on, and

I was met by the Notorious MOB (Chaosium’s Michael O’Brien) and his wife Susan at the airport. Because it was early morning and check-in at my hotel was later, they took me for (much needed) coffee first. You can always tell you are on a new continent by the trees. The trees in North America look nothing like those in South America, or Asia, or Africa, or Europe. Seeing the trees in Australia I knew I was really there. Spotting a group of kangaroos (amusing Google tells me they are called a “mob,” given my host) only underlined the realization.

I didn’t see much of Melbourne, as the airport, Con, and my hotel are all sort of north central, but what I did see immediately reminded me of San Francisco and the Bay Area circa 25 years ago or so when I lived there. A lot of this was the architecture (the two cities were built around the same time) and the eucalyptus…native to Australia of course but unwisely imported to Northern California where as an invasive species rapidly took over the local ecosystems. But despite the chill in the air from winter Melbourne was a warm, inviting place. Once I got situated in my hotel, I had several hours to myself so I wandered the streets, checking out the shops, the parks, and the venue. The hotel, incidentally, was amazing. With a full kitchen, living and dining room, office area, bed and bath (including a dishwasher and washing machine) I was ready to ditch my room in Japan and move in.

Day One

There was a welcome dinner on the eve of the Con (Friday the 7th) for the guests of honor. We ate, drank, and mingled. I was able to finally put faces to several names. One of them was Chaosium’s events coordinator and community content ambassador Bridgett Jeffries, and another was Call of Cthulhu creative director Mike Mason, my two fellow international guests of honor. 

The Con opened its doors at 10 AM the next morning, and I had a busy day ahead of me. I had a three-hour VIP Six Seasons in Sartar game at 10:30, with a seminar about “Bringing Glorantha to Life” at 2:30, another about “Writing for the Jonstown Compendium” at 3:30, and a book signing at 4:30.  

Six Seasons in Sartar: “The Turning”

(spoilers ahoy if you have not read or played the entire campaign, feel free to skip down to “Bringing RuneQuest to Life”)

Three hours is NOT a lot of time to run a session, especially when you are running the epic finale to a campaign and have to introduce the player characters to the setting. I did not, however, want to hand out pre-generated characters (I did for The Final Riddle, but have always felt Six Seasons should have originals). Instead I made a truncated character creation system tailored to the setting. Since the VIP games were limited to four players, I keyed the system for that number.

The first step would determine core personality and statistics:

Step One: How Do You Solve Problems?

1. You like to solve problems with physical force. 

STR: 18    CON: 14 SIZ: 16 DEX: 12   INT: 10 POW: 12 CHA: 10

MP: 12 HP: 15 (Arms 4, Chest 6, others 5) HR: 3 DSR: 3 SSR: 1

SCD: 1D6 DB: 1D6 AGL: +5 COM: - KNW: - MAG: - MAN: +5

PER: - STL: -5

2. You like to solve problems with charm and persuasion. 

STR: 10    CON: 12 SIZ: 10 DEX: 12 I   NT: 14 POW: 16 CHA: 18

MP: 16 HP: 12 (Arms 3, Chest 5, others 4) HR: 2 DSR: 3 SSR: 2

SCD: 1D6+3 DB: - AGL: +5 COM: +10 KNW: +5 MAG: +10.      MAN: +10

PER: +5 STL: +5

3. You like to solve problems analytically and thoughtfully. 

STR: 10    CON: 10 SIZ: 12 DEX: 12   INT: 18 POW: 16 CHA: 14

MP: 16 HP: 12 (Arms 3, Chest 5, others 4) HR: 2 DSR: 3 SSR: 2

SCD: 1D6+1 DB: - AGL: - COM: +10 KNW: +10 MAG: +5.        MAN: +10

PER: +10 STL: +10

4. You like to solve problems quickly and deftly.

STR: 10    CON: 12 SIZ: 10 DEX: 18 INT: 16    POW: 12 CHA: 14

MP: 12 HP: 12 (Arms 3, Chest 5, others 4) HR: 2 DSR: 1 SSR: 2

SCD: 1D6+1 DB: - AGL: +10 COM: +5 KNW: +5 MAG: - MAN: +15

PER: +5 STL: +15

The next step had the double duty of base skills and family history, introducing key NPCs:

Step Two: Your Father/Mother Is…

Your father is Gordangar, the Clan Chieftain... 

- Starting Skills: Ride (any) +10%, Insight (Human) +10% , Intrigue +10%, Read/Write (own) +10%, Orate +30%, Manage Household +30%, Speak Own Language +10%, Cultural Weapon (pick type) +30%, Customs (own) +10%, Shield (pick type) +30%.

- Standard of Living: Noble

- Ransom: 1000L

Your father is Harvarr, the Smith…

- Starting Skills: Art +10%, Evaluate +10%, Bargain +10%, Craft (primary) +30%, Insight (Human) +10%, Craft (secondary) +20%, Lore (any) +10%, Devise +15%, Manage Household +30%, Cultural Weapon (pick type) +15%.

- Standard of Living: Free

- Ransom: 500L

Your father is Savan OR your Mother is Morganeth…

• Starting Skills: Any cult skill +10%, Lore (Cult) +30%, Dance +10%, Read/Write (own) +10%, Orate +10%, Manage Household +10%, Sing +30%, Worship (deity) +30%, Meditate +10%.
• Standard of Living: Noble

- Ransom: 1000L

Your father is Jorganeth Bladesong OR Erinina Copperaxe…

• Starting Skills: Sing +10%, Scan +10%, Battle +30%, All Unit Weapons (including shield) +25%, First Aid +15%, Other Weapon (pick type) +25%, Listen +10%, Tertiary Weapon +15%.
• Standard of Living: Free

- Ransom: 500L

Magic and Runes was next, and an opportunity to introduce the Black Stag and the wyter cult. As Six Season characters are in their first year of adulthood and not yet pledged to cults, there was no need to dig into all that:

Step Three: Your Runes and Magic

Select four Elemental Runes at 70, 50, 30, and 10. Divide 100 points between paired Runes as you like (max 75 in any Rune).

You are all members of the Wyter cult, the Black Stag. You have 3 Rune Points. You have access to all common Rune spells plus three unique clan Rune spells. I explained the Black Stag’s Rune spells here.

All male characters are lay members of the Orlanth cult. All female members are lay members of Ernalda’s. Males pick up to 5 points of the following spirit magic; Bladesharp, Demoralize, Detect Enemies, Disruption, Fanaticism, Heal, Mobility, Protection, Strength. Women pick up to 5 points of Befuddle, Demoralize, Heal, Second Sight, Shimmer, Slow, Strength, Vigor.

Finally we did quick selection of equipment and extra skill bonuses…

You have any weapon your character is proficient in. Assume 3 APs in all hit locations (cuirboilli, layered leather armor, etc). Add 25% to any four skills on the character sheet. Add 10% to five more. 

We ended up with two players—a brother and sister—as the children of Earth priestess Morganeth, one as the son of Storm Voice Savan, and one as the son of Erinina Copperaxe (being a Babeester Gori, we decided she had her son before she changed course and swore to Babeester Gor). 

Another change from the full campaign is that I removed all mention of Kallyr Starbrow and Shah’vask from the episode. Kangharl was attacking because the Haraborn had been aiding rebel warbands in the mountains and evading tax payments. It was enough to have them absorb the Black Stag, the dire situation the clan was in, and all the new NPCs in two and a half hours without all the rest of the campaign’s complexities.

After the game it was time for the first seminar, “Bringing RuneQuest to Life…”

Seminar One: Bringing RQ to Life

(Note: these are my prepared notes, not word for word verbatim what I actually said. Nor does it include the Q&A portion of the seminar. Please watch the Chaosium video when it comes out for the full seminar)

This is a funny little hobby we find ourselves in. Watch a movie or a stage play, pick up a novel or stream something, and you become a participant in a story. A passive participant, however. An observer. Arguably of these only the novel lets you approach active participation, because you are required to create the setting, the characters, and the story in your mind’s eye. But not even the novel comes close to a roleplaying game. Because in an RPG, the act of creation is all on you. As a player you are responsible for bringing your character to life. As a GM, you have to animate all the NPCs and the setting. The story does not exist until collectively you summon it, breathe life into it, give it shape and texture and a voice. No other form of entertainment is quite like it.

About 65 million years ago, when I was 17 years old, I won something called the New York Young Playwrights Competition. The prize was that my play would be produced by a professional director and theater company, and I was to be part of it, to learn the craft. So I met with the director, and he shared his interpretation of the script. Then I attended the casting sessions and rehearsals, watching the actors give their interpretation of the characters. I had written a fair bit of prose by then, including two painfully adolescent novels, but THIS was so much more exciting. Because this was a collaboration. I put the words on paper but they took those words in new directions. I recognized this, because I had been a role player and GM for about 7 years. They were doing a version of what we do at the table.

Far more recently, watching groups like DMs After Dark or the Old Ways Podcast with their play sessions of Six Seasons in Sartar, it was deja vu. Because they were taking my script and re-interpreting it. Changing it. Bringing it to life. More so, in fact. When you write for RPGs you surrender ownership. Your only role is to assist the GM and their players to bring their Glorantha to life.

And that is what I would like to do here with you today.

There are two parts of this, really: bringing RuneQuest to life and bringing Glorantha to life. They dovetail—because RQ was created as a vehicle for bringing Glorantha to life—but are still separate things. Some of the things I’d like to talk about are more player-specific, and some more GM-specific, but useful I think for both to hear.

Bringing RQ to life is reverse statistics. A statistician looks at life and turns it into numbers. You have to turn numbers into life. All the numbers in the game tell a story. Especially the dice rolls. But it is up to you to find the story through all the numerals.

For example, characteristics. 

Your character has a 16 STR…but what does that look like? Feel like? Is it upper body strength, or do you have massive thighs and calves? SIZ and CON can help form a clearer picture. SIZ 10 and STR 16 and maybe you are lean and wiry…or maybe you are built like a fire hydrant, short and thick. CON 10 and STR 16 you can produce fair bursts of strength but get easily winded. 

What about DEX? With your DEX 18 are you a gymnast or the equivalent of of a master pianist? Is it agility or hand-eye coordination? How do you maintain that DEX? Practice the equivalent of Glorantha yoga? Or what about a low DEX. Were you injured as a child falling from a tree and the joints never really healed? Just naturally clumsy?

The same goes for the mental and spiritual traits. High POW and high CHA and maybe you are just naturally magnetic. High INT and high CHA and maybe you are a master manipulator, able to get inside people’s heads. 

Building a character starts with letting the characteristics tell you their story.

And what about Passions? In my upcoming The Final Riddle I have a set of pre generated characters for players who want them. Two of them, an alcoholic Humakti and a young thief both have the Love Passion for each other. But what does that mean, beyond the numbers? Are they romantically involved, or do they love each other as brothers? Your character loves their spouse at 80%…okay, but why? What about them do you love? How did you meet? Same goes for Loyalty. Are you loyal to your chieftain because he inspires you, or because that is what is expected of you? What has he done to inspire your loyalty?

Basically you can sit down with any characteristic, trait, or skill on your character sheet and find a story in it. The more you do this, the more alive the character feels. 

And GMs…all this is true for NPCs too.

But lets ease into the Glorantha part of the conversation by talking about Rune affinities. As we all know, the Runes are the building blocks of Glorantha, the essence. They define and inform every facet of the setting. A fish is Beast and Water. A bird is Beast and Fire/Sky. Seaweed is Water and Plant. Fungus is Plant and Darkness. Etc. When I design NPCs, I start with their Runes. This is good practice for players too. Think about how the Runes inform the character’s personality and appearance.

Let’s say you are playing a Sartarite. They tend to be dark-eyed, dark-haired, bronze-skinned. But a Sartarite with a high Fire/Sky Rune might have pale eyes, grey or even blue. Their might be gold highlights in their hair. With high Air and Fire/Sky Runes they might be proud and violent, but also more thoughtful and idealistic. They employ violence for a cause, an ideal. They are freedom fighters, anarchists, out to reshape the world. Compare this with a character who has high Air and Darkness Runes. Just as violent but cold, cruel, and patient. Pure serial killer material.  

So much can be done with the Runes. What colors does the character wear? What sort of things are they attracted to? What foods do they like? Water people like fish. Fire/Sky people prefer poultry. Air Rune folk are beef and mutton eaters. Earth Rune people—the sensualists—are the gourmands. Darkness Rune people tend to be gluttons…they eat and eat and eat. Moon Rune people are the most likely to fast, or forgo food, seeking liberation from the demands of the body. There really is no end to things you can discover about your character by plumbing the depths of the Runes.

GMs…think about Runes as overall themes for adventures, as well as defining settings. A forest with the Plant and Water Runes is swampy, wet, damp. A forest with Plant and Darkness is brooding, dark, and full of fungal growths. A village with a strong Harmony Rune will be ordered and peaceful. A village with a high Disorder Rune is full of division, crime, and infighting. Superman’s Metropolis has the Harmony Rune, Batman’s Gotham has Disorder (and Darkness!). Stories themselves can be defined by Runes as well. If you are having trouble coming up with ideas, write the Runes on index cards and use them as Tarot-like story seeds. Draw three. Movement, Water, and Disorder suggest a story about piracy on the high seas. Movement, Water, and Truth implies a voyage of discovery and exploration instead. Man, Mastery, and Stasis might suggest a story were a stubborn chieftain or leader must be persuaded to act. Fertility, Disorder, and Fire/Sky might inspire a story about drought. Earth, Disorder, and Movement a terrible earthquake. Single card draws are useful for adversaries and specific scenes. Draw Fire/Sky and the Sun Domers show up. Draw Moon and its the Lunars. 

The more you bring Runes into play, the more the game lives up to its name and the more Glorantha comes alive. Let the Runes define everything from the gods to the landscape. Make their influence omnipresent. Sorcerers already get Runic bonuses (and penalties) for their spells, but why stop there? Fire/Sky is associated with INT, Perception skills (particularly Scan), spears, and bows. On Fireday do these get a little +10% boost? On Fireday in Fire Season is it 15%? If that seems too generous, maybe Fire/Sky Rune affinities get a boost instead, making it easier to augment. Still too mechanical? Tough crowd. Then ask yourself…doesn’t Fireday tend to be the warmest, driest day of the week? Aren’t the shadows just that much deeper on Freezeday? On Wildday, are weird, random events more likely to occur? If the answer to this is “yes,” you are bringing the game to life by making the Runes a constant, consistent presence.

Now, the one thing I am going to spare you is ideas on how to make combat more vivid. 

First of all, I think this falls under turning the numbers into a story, and RuneQuest is already very, very good at helping you do this. In D&D, thirteen hit points is an abstract concept. In RuneQuest, thirteen points to your right leg when you have only four points of armor there is how the game got the nickname “LimbQuest.” The only thing I would suggest, GMs, is to let the players interpret and narrate the damage both that they inflict on opponents and that they take themselves. Let the player decide if that nine points of damage shattered his knee cap or mangled his ankle. You handle the game, let the players provide the gore. Second, bringing combat to life has been discussed time and time again into a thousand RPGs. Let’s discuss something far more interesting.

Breakfast.

You want your players to inhabit their characters? Tell them what their meal is and what it tastes like. Weapons & Equipment—the most woefully misnamed book in the history of gaming—is your Bible for this. Tell your players often enough that they are having flatbread for breakfast fresh from the hot stones and they will soon take over for you. I once had a player, his character discussing battle plans over breakfast, tell me “I pick at my flatbread absentmindedly and think.” I had not mentioned the flatbread in that scenario, but he knew. Don’t stop there. What kind of flatbread? “The maize flatbread is lighter and thinner than the einkorn you grew up eating, and somehow less filling.” Make sure they players know that the barley wine in this inn is watery, or sour. Make sure they know they are drinking it out of bowls. It is tempting to want to breeze past these things. Don’t. Food is where people live. The way to a character’s heart is through their stomach.

Don’t stop with food. How are the drinking bowls painted in this tavern? What toy is the child on the street corner playing with? Describe the character’s bed rolls when they travel. Ask them where they dig their latrines. Connect the characters with as many aspects of their lives as you can. Once players become familiar with these details, they will adopt them, expect them, and inhabit the world when they play, having enough of a sense of it that they can add details themselves.