Glorantha News

There was a recent post by Charles about the pronunciation of Gloranthan names on the Moon Design forum. It prompted me to have an in-depth look into that. I've always thought that linguistics was the weak part of Glorantha. You can easily notice that Greg Stafford is bigtime into religion and mythology, but not languages!

The convention was fantastic, but I'm too tired now to write anything, so have a look at the Saturday pictures, and wait for my next blog entry!

The traditional Moon Design seminar was held on Friday night. Here are my notes.

Guide To Glorantha
This was obviously the 'hot' topic, and first of all the availability of the product. The current ETA is "this year" (i.e., December) — the main reason is that a lot of supplementary art has been commissioned, and the art director has quite an obsession with detail :)

It has apparently become extremely fashionable in the rpg blogosphere to write bad things about Kickstarter-funded projects. They're late. They're only in for the money. They don't even have a draft. It'll never be published. And on and on.

I'm 45 soon. I don't know if it's my age, or all the talk about OSR nostalgia and stuff, but I've been re-reading old issue of the White Dwarf magazine (the original one, not the minis catalogue).

The Forest's Guardian is a large, animal-like plant construct magically animated by the Great Tree of a given Aldryami Forest for purposes of self-defence in times of danger, typically to confront invaders. The Forest's Guardian will remain in the vicinity of the Great Tree to make sure it is unharmed.

Announcing the upcoming Kickstarter campaign to make the Guide to Glorantha into more than just another setting book. With your help, we will make this book into a work of art for anyone who loves fantasy and mythology.

Thanks to Spanish-language bloggerCronista, I have been made aware of a huge treasure trove of Spanish-language gaming magazines.

Frankly, we knew the Guide to Glorantha would be late. With all the stretch goals that just kept being added during the KS phase, this comes as no surprise. But I tell you— I'll take a late, expanded Guide chock-full of new information over an on-time one that is just a rehash of the Avalon Hill material any day !

For the whole time that they held the licence to RuneQuest and Second Age Glorantha, Mongoose did quite a good job in terms of the number of RuneQuest- and/or Glorantha-themed articles available in their free on-line gaming magazine, Signs and Portents (aka S&P).
Not only were these articles free, they were also quite enjoyable and useful, especially the ones written by people with a good grasp of all things RuneQuest-ey like Shannon Appelcline, Loz Whitaker, and Pete Nash.

The campaign is centred around the landlocked cities of Arstranwal and Varanswal. Both are but a shadow of their former glory; both, however, are ruled by a strong-willed ruler who does not accept Malki decadence, and who is doing his best to have his city live up to its past grandeur. Both are also extremely jealous of their neighbour, and the Count of Arstranwal and the Duke of Varanswal are always competing in everything; lately in trying to revive the ruined cities that dot central Umathela, like e.g. Rampart.

I've always loved the sheer beauty and the immediate, evocative power of the Gloranthan runes. I've also found their design, with the clear, thick black line with slightly irregular edges one of the most alluring aspects of Glorantha.

My first contact with Gloranthan runes was obviously with the original 25 runes as presented in the Chaosium RuneQuest 2 rules, viz: