By Mark Morrison
I had a long sleepless night in 1982: I’d just read RuneQuest after playing it with my friend Mark Holsworth and it was a much, much better game than Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. But everyone played AD&D. What was I to do?
Given that I’m writing this on the Chaosium blog four decades later, you already know how that went.
Recently Nick Brooke did the layout for a brand new set of RuneQuest Pre-Generated Elder Race Adventurers, designed by Jerry Thorpe & Jason Durall, with stat block templates by Simeon Cogswell and marvelous art by Lionel Marty. Non-human player characters go right back to why I fell in love with RQ in the first place: every character and monster has exactly the same basic statistics, so you can play anyone.
I was keen to give the new pregens a spin before publication, so I asked my Pendragon group if they’d be up for trying RuneQuest for one night. We’re at a natural pause in our Pendragon campaign; we’ve reached the end of the Sword Campaign in the Pendragon Starter Set and Grey Knight. The war against the Rebel Kings has been won, Arthur and Gwenivere are about to marry, and the wedding gift will turn out to be the most famous piece of furniture in fiction. So, it’s a perfect time to break for a quick holiday in Glorantha.
I was curious to see what adventurers the players would choose if every single option was available, so I literally covered the gaming table in pre-gens. That’s nuts! It’s almost too much Glorantha, and I perhaps should have started with a curated selection so that the players didn’t get whiplash.* But, I was curious to see what would happen if they were given full choice.
Rhiannon chose Diyak, the baboon. I had a private bet with myself that someone would take the ape. There’s a lotta love for ducks in RuneQuest, but as a fellow primate, baboons are up there with newtlings as my personal favourite non-human choice. Mark gravitated towards Yerema, the green elf priestess-shaman. That was exciting for me as the aldryami (RuneQuest elves) have always been aloof in my game, so it’s a thrill to have one at centre stage.
Jess wanted someone more straightforward so she went through the humans and chose Aranda, the Babeester Gor worshipping warrior: have axe, have horse, will travel.** Scott on the other hand likes to play someone unique, so he chose the pacifist healer Makarios, of the Chalana Arroy temple. Two humans, and two non-humans! Perfect split.
There’s no better place to start a RuneQuest campaign than Apple Lane. The villagers implored the adventurers to protect them from marauding Tusk Riders. I like to use miniatures, so I pulled out all the stops and we made the whole village, and the players chose were to defend it. Before too long, the pigs showed up.
What a fight! Diyak climbed a tree and threw himself into the saddle of the lead Tusker and bit the rider. Yerema took up a position in a tower, went into an arrow trance, and dropped enemies left and right with single shots. Aranda charged around on her horse and alerted everyone to a second attack, and Makarios used Befuddle spells to reduce their numbers. Apple Lane was saved, hooray!
Everyone loved the way that RuneQuest combat is gripping, dangerous and decisive. Our Pendragon break has now been going for two months, it’s all RuneQuest all the time up in here. Scott has changed from playing the healer Makarios to playing Mago, the Storm Bull warrior, because I do like to throw enemies at my players. There are many more adventures ahead.
It’s such a blast to see a new set of players get as intrigued by RuneQuest and Glorantha as I did, forty years ago. It’s so good to be home.
* Lightbringer adventurer pre-gens are a great smaller selection to offer new players: Vasana, Harmast, Sorala, Mago, and Varakos are all dynamic characters who have a similar back story, and are easy to play.
** In truth Jess’ first choice was Vasana, everyone’s favourite cover Orlanthi, but as Penny played Vasana in our last campaign I requested that she be kept aside to allow for a guest appearance. If the party ever get in serious trouble, the ground will shake to bison hooves as Vasana charges in.
*** The model buildings I used are Hagglethorn Hollow, designed in New Zealand by Johnny Fraser-Allen. The set was an astonishing gift from my friend and until recently business partner Andre at Campaign Coins. But, if you’re playing on VTT, here is the same scene using the splendid new RuneQuest Adventure Tokens by Katrin Dirim:
