Over the years I kept a binder full of what I would eventually call "episodes," reusable mini-adventures and encounters for RuneQuest that could be used to fill in gaps between adventures or add color and texture to campaigns. Many of these made it into Six Seasons in Sartar, and others into The Company of the Dragon. "A Battle," "A Birth," "A Cattle Raid," "A Funeral," "A Marriage," "A Raid," "A Rescue," etc. One of the episodes that never made it into print was called "A Trial," and was meant to show the Orlanthi system of justice. I am pleased now that this particular episode fell through the cracks, because Sean Fitzgerald just published an entire scenario about an Orlanthi trial, and it blows my episode out of the water.
Kalayde Waters is a new scenario for the Jonstown Compendium that digs deep into the subject. An 81-page PDF, it is organized into six episodes, three of which are an Orlanthi trial in which the adventurers represent the defendant. Two lovers, engaged to be married, have vanished and are believed by their kin to be dead. The problem is that these are Orlanthi we are talking about here, so of course the families of the two lovers have been engaged in a long and volatile rivalry, and now blame each other for these deaths. Demands for compensation are high, and could spiral out of control into an open feud and kinstrife.
Kalayde showcases what I enjoy about both Glorantha and the Jonstown Compendium. It takes advantage of the rich "anthropological" aspects of the setting, using the quirks of Orlanthi culture as a spring board for adventure, but while offering plenty of opportunities for traditional whacking things with weapons also lets you play the equivalent of Law & Order: Sartar. To that end, Kalayde offers complete rules on running and participating in an Orlanthi trial, rules that will have great replay value beyond just this adventure. I can easily imagine a legal drama campaign with players in the role of Lhankor Mhy lawspeakers, for example. More pragmatically, these rules will be valuable in any Orlanthi campaign where the adventures get into trouble, or clans have disputes...so basically any Orlanthi campaign. There is also an expanded section on Orlanthi hospitality and greetings drawn from Stafford's writings but not yet included in any Chaosium RuneQuest publications.
My general policy on reviewing scenarios is to avoid all spoilers, so if you want to know what "Kalayde" is buy the book. But what I can talk about is the writing, the layout, and the art.
Sean Fitzgerald wrote the text and laid out the entire book (Joshua Wright and Brian Duguid supplied the editing and proofreading). This is impressive enough, but the art credits go to Fitzgerald and Hunter Fitzgerald, and there is a lot or art in this book, and it is good. Add to this that they also produced a VTT edition and you can see how much work went into this. It is a fairly long adventure (I had the chance to run it, and it took a half dozen sessions), but meticulously explained and detailed, full of all the player handouts you would need. Even beginning GMs could run Kalayde with the amount of support given. I spoke about this in a recent interview, but compared to a lot of community content out there, so many Compendium offerings look, read, and play like professional efforts. Kalayde is one of them.
In the end Kalayde Waters is a scenario with a memorable twist, and the kind of "fairy tale" elements that I am partial to in my own work. The trial portions were my favorites, and great fun to play out. This is yet another Jonstown offering that you are going to want in your collection.
