Tell me about Runequest / Glorantha

[Faraer]

Basically, Glorantha is the fantasy world a brilliant Californian hippie shaman who hadn't read Tolkien would create. I think it's unrivalled among secondary worlds except by Middle-earth and Tekumel.

Glorantha the game world was originally designed around RuneQuest the game and much of the early material has a lot of RQ rules. Since the publication of HeroQuest (which is completely incompatible with RQ) the game world material contains a lot of HQ rules.

This isn't quite true. Glorantha predates Steve Perrin's RQ rules and its development was never closely tied to them. The (excellent) HeroQuest books contain almost no additional rules, and since HeroQuest stats are all in the form [Verb or Noun] Number, their material is easily usable in any game system.

 

[fusangite]

Basically, Glorantha is the fantasy world a brilliant Californian hippie shaman who hadn't read Tolkien would create.

I think that's a trifle unfair. One of the most striking aspects of the real world sociological fidelity of RQ is the way it handles polytheistic systems of thought (as opposed to shamanic, philosophical or religious). If I wanted to recommend a game that conveyed the structure of Roman religion well, RQ would be at the top of my list.

I think it's unrivalled among secondary worlds except by Middle-earth and Tekumel.

Glad you like it so much despite your pejorative characterization of the creative process. But I think like Tolkien's world, it shares the property of being filled with real-world correspondences so deftly presented that few notice them.

 

[Patman21967]

The Glorantha world actually stems from the board game, Dragon Pass. I played in a Glorantha/RQ2 game for about 8 years. The only thing I would suggest about the setting, which is my all-time favorite, is playing with someone who knows it first. The game Runequest, which happens to be my favorite system, is easily adaptable to any campaign.

Glymis knows his stuff. We have been freidns and have gamed together on many occasions. Jeez, the stories of the campaign I played in reverberate in my head as I type. We used to have 9-10 players at a time, and game from 5 in the evening until 3-4 in the morning. We recreated the Lightbringers Quest, and the Hill of Gold Quest, and turned the country known as Balazar into "Storm County" a refuge for Sartarites and Praxians...

Blaine Stormblade: Lord/Priest of Orlanth, Priest of Issaries, initiate of Mostakos.

 

[Turjan]

The Glorantha world actually stems from the board game, Dragon Pass.

Dragon Pass was already the third board game playing in Glorantha. The first one was White Bear and Red Moon.

Glad you like it so much despite your pejorative characterization of the creative process.

*chuckle* I thought that was some loving description of a somewhat exotic friend . But that's probably a question of the personal view of the world .

 

[Ysgarran]

Side Note:

Side Note:

There is a comic book series called 'Artesia' (Artesia Afield, Artesia Afire) done by Mark Smylie that fans of Glorantha would enjoy. Mark has stated that he found some of his inspiration for the 'World of Artesia' by some of the old RPG worlds including Glorantha.

There is a very nice emphasis on the role of Myth and Religion in the everyday lives of the characters.

later,
Ysgarran.

 

[Glyfair]

Dragon Pass was already the third board game playing in Glorantha. The first one was White Bear and Red Moon.

Well, Dragon Pass is the updated version of White Bear and Red Moon. The other game is Nomad Gods. The third game in the trilogy was supposed to be Masters of Luck and Death, but it was never officially produced. A fannish version was released in Europe, IIRC.

 

[Turjan]

The third game in the trilogy was supposed to be Masters of Luck and Death, but it was never officially produced.

At least the names live on. HeroQuest is good at recycling

 

[haakon1]

Glorantha has talking ducks . . . don't mess with them.

From the computer game of it, I think called King of Dragon Pass, I get the idea that Glorantha is vaguely Celtic, with a lot of it revovling around remember and repeating myths. Maybe that's just the computer game version (which is fun, but the myths are annoying to memorize).

Harn is more like detailed medieval world. I recommend highly that you purchase 100 Bushels of Rye. I'm not sure if that's D20 stat'd now, but the stats are irrelevant -- it's just that the plots are "real" medieval. The castle maps and detail of the kingdoms and villages is fun. Harn Manor, Dead of Winter, and Trobridge Inn (dual stat'd) are also fine stuff.

No talking ducks in Harn, though . . .

 

[Glyfair]

From the computer game of it, I think called King of Dragon Pass, I get the idea that Glorantha is vaguely Celtic, with a lot of it revovling around remember and repeating myths. Maybe that's just the computer game version (which is fun, but the myths are annoying to memorize).(

The Sartarites are vaguely Celtic. The Lunar Empire is vaguely Roman. The west is vaguely medieval.

There are a variety of cultures in Glorantha. Most of them have similarities to real world cultures.

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

I don’t want to get into a ‘which is better Hârn or Glorantha?’ argument, because I still referee in each setting.

The Sartarites have been described as Celts and also as Saxons, certainly the illustrations seem to guide you towards early British Cultures, the soldiers of the Lunar Empire used to be depicted as Roman Legionnaires, though this seems less prevalent these days. But, you have The Praxian Nomads who are what? American Plains Indians who ride Antelopes, Rhinos etc. depending upon their tribes. Glorantha is a world defined by its myths and has some very peculiar and sometimes anachronistic (or simply weird) cultures living side by side. That said, I still think that it’s a great game world. Though having barely escaped from an enforced enslavement by the Uz, I’m not sure that my players would agree.

Hârn is much more straight medieval. While there are some cultural differences between the civilised kingdoms of Hârn, they are all fairly recognisable as being medieval and European. Hârn is much more low key. Kings may be old and frail, young and naïve, desperate & scheming, but they are men, not 15th level fighters, or Wind Lords, just men. The strength of this is that on Hârn if you want to make King Miginath a vampire, you can. I’ve recently read a campaign write-up where, basically, a load of high level adventurer types arrive on Hârn, beat up the locals, cause chaos across the island, fight lots of powerful monsters, steal all the treasure, and leave. It’s not the sort of campaign I run (one small scale combat every 2-4 sessions is about my average) but it seems to be a lot easier to import high magic into a solid world background than it would be to remove it.

The real strength of Hârn is that you can easily use the rules system of your choice. I don’t think that that is the case for Glorantha.