From: Nick Brooke (Nick_Brooke@compuserve.com)
Date: Wed 03 Sep 1997 - 10:44:13 EEST
___________
Jacent Vick emerges, blinking, from a box:
> I only know the titles of these supplements, I am not sure
> which are scenario Packs and which are source material and
> would appreciate it if someone could identify the following
> items for me...
All five of the supplements you name are combined "scenario packs"
and "source materials", to a greater or lesser degree. Even the
most source-y supplement (Elder Secrets) includes many scenario
ideas; even the most scenario-y ones (Strangers, Shadows) include
Gloranthan background articles, cult writeups, and similarly useful
things.
ELDER SECRETS - Greg Stafford, Sandy Petersen and others
A boxed set containing two booklets: "Elder Secrets" (weird stuff
of Glorantha, inc. big monsters, strange lands and unique places,
plus great material on metals, magic crystals and the night sky,
and a teaser for HeroQuesting), and "Elder Races" (much bigger,
inc. Elves, Dwarfs and Trolls - with the full cult writeups for
Aldrya, Mostal and Kyger Litor [again!] - followed by bare-bones
detail on just about every other Elder Race you can think of, and
the Tusk Riders' Cult of the Bloody Tusk and Ogre Cult of Cacodemon,
*plus* a gaggle of scenario ideas [some inspired, some so-so] for
using them all).
SUN COUNTY - Michael O'Brien and others
The book that kicked off the Gloranthan Renaissance: life in the
uptight, anal-retentive Yelmalion lands of the Sun Dome Temple in
Prax. Includes the Cult of Yelmalio, loads of local personalities
(inc. Melo Yelo the baboon), encounters, and three scenarios - one
festival (Garhound Contest/Melisande's Hand), one dungeon-crawl,
and one amateur archaeology (or temple-robbing, take your pick).
An excellent sourcepack for beginning a campaign set in Glorantha:
the Sun Domers are "uptight Spartans in the Wild West", xenophobic,
stoic, conservative, and very easy to get a rise out of -- whether
as player or referee. Sun County is slap bang in the middle of the
next supplement: "River of Cradles", making it easy to get out of
your parochially-spaced wheel-ruts and see the world...
RIVER OF CRADLES - Ken Rolston, ed.
Well-orchestrated reprints, plus a campaign adventure detailing the
inhabitants of the Zola Fel valley in Prax, from Corflu up to Pavis.
Contains lots of reprinted material from the Pavis box and Border-
lands, sensibly organised and with new stuff added. A lengthy run
of scenarios, "Troubled Waters", takes new players (pregenerated
characters are provided if needed) along the length of the river on
a magical quest. The book also contains the complete cult writeups
for a load of gods not seen since Cults of Prax: Daka Fal, Storm
Bull, Orlanth, Issaries, Lhankor Mhy, Chalana Arroy and Zola Fel.
STRANGERS IN PRAX - Michael O'Brien, Jonathan Tweet, Mike Dawson
More scenarios than background, this time, but they're all deeply
Gloranthan. The book contains three sets of powerful foreigners in
Prax: the Lunar Coders (Imperial not-very-Secret Agents), the crew
of Captain Barran's monster-slaying vessel, and Arlaten the Magus,
a sorcerer from the remote West now house-hunting in Pavis. While
the stats are deliberately gross, the scenarios are entertaining:
in particular, the nautical stuff is hilarious, colourful and has
a good sense of Glorantha's mythic depth.
SHADOWS ON THE BORDERLANDS - Mike Dawson, Ken Rolston, Jon Quaife
> A reprint of the Borderlands RQII campaign?
Nope: a bunch of scenarios, one new, two revised and reprinted from
the old White Dwarf magazine (back before it turned into a miniatures
catalogue). The new one is "Gaumata's Vision", an excellent chance
to see how a Sun Domer militia file copes with Strange Goings On in
the remotest parts of their county. The reprints are "Dyskund Caverns"
(formerly "Black Broo of Dyskund") and "A Tale To Tell", both of which
are expanded and improved from their earlier incarnations. The former
is a dungeon bash, the latter has some Waste-trekking between its own
dungeon-y bits. There's also a revised "Cult of Thanatar". All three
scenarios are set in the same parts of Prax as previous supplements:
Gaumata's Vision may be the best Gloranthan scenario ever published,
bar none, if you want my opinion.
Other "recent" Gloranthan releases from Avalon Hill that you might
have missed include:
Dorastor: Land of Doom chaotic campaign setting
Lords of Terror Cults of Terror, updated
There are also many high-quality amateur publications available from
the Reaching Moon Megacorp, including:
ZINES: Tales of the Reaching Moon #11-16
RuneQuest Adventures #4-5
Codex #2-3
New Lolon Gospel #?
Questlines #1
Tradetalk #1-2
Book of Drastic Resolutions #1-2
Enclosure #1
BOOKS: Tarsh War Lunar military freeform
Wyrms Footprints Wyrms Footnotes reprints
Rough Guide to Boldhome City guide and history
Sog City University Guide Western guide and setting
Meints Index to Glorantha What your "box" needs!
The World's Best Tournament Ralian background book
Heroes of Wisdom (Jonstown) A very detailed library
RQ-Con Compendia, etc. Stories and transcripts
GREGS: The Glorious ReAscent of Yelm Dara Happan (Yelmic) myths
The Fortunate Succession DH & Lunar emperor lists
The Entekosiad West Pelorian mythology
NB: these last three are "work-in-progress" draft manuscripts by
Greg Stafford, containing no game stats or scenario material, but
greatly expanding what we know about Pelorian myth and history.
I can't guarantee the availability of any of the above products:
contact David Hall <Glorantha@compuserve.com> for up-to-date info
on what he's still able to sell you, and to learn who your nearest
Megacorp distributor is. NB: the Reaching Moon Megacorp does *not*
sell any Avalon Hill RQ supplements (the five described above).
Ask your nearest game shop, or call Avalon Hill, to order these.
You can find more product reviews on the Web, including a guide by
me on "what to buy first", at:
<http://www.pensee.com/dunham/glorantha/products.html>
Plus links to loads of other Gloranthan goodies on the WWW.
::::
Nick
::::
------------------------------
End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #141
***********************************
To unsubscribe from the Glorantha Digest, send an "unsubscribe"
command to glorantha-digest-request@chaosium.com. Glorantha is a
Trademark of Chaosium Inc. With the exception of previously
copyrighted material, unless specified otherwise all text in this
digest is copyright by the author or authors, with rights granted to
copy for personal use, to excerpt in reviews and replies, and to
archive unchanged for electronic retrieval.
WWW at http://rider.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Fri 13 Jun 2003 - 20:57:24 EEST