Crikey, its been almost a year since I blogged here. What’s been going on? (Warning self indulgent post about me and Glorantha coming up).
Well quite simply in Real Life ™ I’ve been overwhelmed since the pandemic in 2000, although ironically it kicked in firmly in 2002 when my mother in law died. I had at one point five family crisis (one for each of my family members, one for me and a shared family one). So my attention rather grudgingly had to shift from hobbies, which RuneQuest/Glorantha is most definitely at this point, to dealing with all that. My my fun set issues I was learning to cope with, is that I’m the wrong side of fifty. Now almost three years on, I stand TRIUMPHANT! Each of the Deadly Five has been resolved, with happy endings and in ways that are much better than I had imagined. So suddenly even with a mound of D101 Games work crack on with, I have time again for hobbies, hence the thought, hmmn what about RuneQuest has been doing the rounds of my diseased brain recently.
So that’s me, what’s been going on with Glorantha?
While the blog was deactivated, and I wasn’t doing Glorantha in any way shape or form (because REASONS), things have moved on in the world of official Gloranthan publishing (never mind the mountains of good stuff that’s been coming out via Jonstown Compendium).
RuneQuest is getting a new edition. Whoa, where did that come from? So RuneQuest Glorantha has not sold as well to new players as hoped and basically Chaosium has got the Mike Mearls, one of the architects behind D&D 5th’s success, to co-designing it with Jeff Richard. Apparently it is focused on the classic Pavis and Big Rubble setting, with a simplified RQ system to appeal to players more familiar with D&D 5th. Its called RuneQuest the Roleplaying Game. And oh its not a new edition, its a different version, in the same way that Call of Cthulhu has its little family of linked games (Pulp Cthulhu, Cthulhu by Gaslight and of course Call of Cthulhu itself). I see the rationale behind it, but the Glorantha fan in me is somewhat cynical (it leans into RQ2 nostalgia too heavily for my liking) and my current view is I’ll stick with RuneQuest Glorantha, and read explore the pile of books I’ve got for that first. But I may suddenly do a 180 degree turn when its out in 2026, and it my become my favoritest version of RQ to run at cons!
Questworlds is well and truly out. The main rulebook is here, and its a healthy telephone directory sized 6 by 9 book, which goes into all aspects of this narrative game, that powered Glorantha in the 2000s-2010s. A companion volume, with example settings (or Genre packs) is planned but there’s no release date. While bringing back the Gloranthan self contained version ( which was released as HeroQuest: Glorantha) hasn’t publicly been announced, even if its being worked on, probably because Chaosium very wisely doesn’t do so until they are almost ready to ship, apparently Ian Cooper’s two book Red Cow clan adventure (The Coming Storm and Eleven Lights) is coming back in 2025 in POD format.
Meanwhile in terms of supplements, not only is the first of the region guides, or Lands of RuneQuest, for Dragon Pass and the latest Cults of RuneQuest volume, The Gods of Fire and Sky, out but Chaosium have re-released and updated the classic RuneQuest 3 setting/adventure book Sun County. By Michael O’Brien (and Friends) this is credited by a lot of people as being what helped them work out how to run Glorantha. Plus its a cracking adventure pack, full of fun and colourful characters.
