A Glorantha Campaign Setting Handbook?

[Syam Lantri]

Hi folks,
I am a newbie in the world of Glorantha, and the lot of information delivered is very (too?) important.
Fortunately, I'm not alone to think that way, and I think it could be a good idea to have a book like Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting of DD3, but for Glorantha.
Glorantha is a very beautiful and deep setting, full of details, interesting places, great NPCs, etc....
So, the quality of a book like the FRCS made me think that it'd be a great idea.

What do you think folks?

[Mike Holmes]

There's way too much for one book. There's already a Lunar Empire handbook, and I'm sure many more are coming. The basic book handles the overview well enough - detail will be in the supplements that are coming. In any case, if you can't wait there's about a metric buttload of material available on Glorantha from previous editions, and out on the net. I assume that you've been to www.Glorantha.com?

Mike

[pete_darby]

And, of course, http://www.lokarnos.com.

Anyone not ready for shameless plugging can skip to the last  four paragraphs...

The published guide to Glorantha is very much a systemless whistle stop tour: necessarily very brief on detail.

The Orlanthi books (Thunder Rebels, Storm Tribe) provide the nearest thing yet available to a D&D style setting, though they are much more cultural and don't actively support beginning GM quite as well as, say, a D&D campaign book will. But that may be due to the fact that default D&D play style (kill bad things & take their stuff) is easier to grok than default HeroQuest (become a community hero). That and the Orlanthi books don't contain any scenarios: two scenario / campaign books (Barbarian Adventures & Orlanth is Dead!) fulfill that need though.

All these books are, in my highly biased opinion, possibly the best game supplements I've come across, but the first two are very much detail and description of How Things Are not so much What To Do (especially well covered in BA, though).

But, next on Issaries schedules is the Hero Book, whcih by the looks of things concentrates pretty much on Orlanthi & Lunar characters in Dragon Pass. It's intended to be a book for players (not a players handbook, honest), includes the essentials of the rules, and background for the two factions in more details than the HQ rulebook, but focused on PC motivation.

Oh, and also coming up is Dragon Pass, the Gazeteer & Guide to the Orlanthi lands occupied by the Lunars, and ignition point of the Hero Wars. I think these last two are the sort of thing you're after, with more detail for Orlanthi already available and the beginnings of the same for the Lunars has started with the first in a series of Imperial Lunar Handbooks

Over and above those, their are the excellent Unspoken Word books are excellent guides, mostly to Tarsh, the area to the NW of the previously detailed part of Dragon Pass.

And then Moon Digest Publications make reprints of Gloranthan stuff that was put out for RuneQuest, which needs some conversion, but has fantastic stuff in it, particularly the Griffin Mountain campaign.

Now, that seems a lot to digest already, and that's just the most popular bits from one area of Glorantha. So the next bit of advice ot anyone starting in Glorantha is: keep it personal.

As long as what's going on around the PC's matters to them, you're at the right level of detail. The easiest way to do that as a starting GM in Glorantha is to focus on one area of Glorantha that interests you and your players. The ambiguity of much of the setting at the moment can be as much an asset as the amazing detail available for a small part of it, as you can busk the unknowns without fear of present contradiction. And as for fear of later contradiction: YGWV.

I know that's what I've been doing. I've been dipping into Glorantha for twenty odd years now, and still find myself looking things up for any reference to the world beyond Dragon Pass...

So, a campaign guide to Glorantha? Well, the D&D FRCS concentrates on an area about the size of NW Europe, yes? Not the whole world. A campaign guide to say, Dragon Pass? Well, if they could bind The Dragon Pass gazeteer with the Heroes Book and Barbarian Adventures, that would look kind of similar, but only be a little cheaper to buy than the separate books, and earn less money for Issaries / SJG (using figures plucked form my fevered imagination). So we won't see that, but we've got, or are getting, pretty much all that would be in them and more.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I think a newcomer to the setting would do very nicely to read the first three chapters of Glorantha: Guide to the Hero Wars (linked above as "guide to Glorantha") and then go by the Homelands presented in the HeroQuest book, with perhaps special attention to Dragon Pass in both books. Anything after that is gravy.

It's pretty good gravy, though. Pete, that's a great post.

Best,
Ron

[Nick Brooke]

I think a newcomer to the setting would do very nicely to read the first three chapters of Glorantha: Guide to the Hero Wars (linked above as "guide to Glorantha")

The 2nd and 3rd chapters are available on Issaries' website (in an older version, but only obsessive fans would notice the changes): Cosmology and History.

And the Introduction to Glorantha chapter of HeroQuest is available online, too! (470 kb, PDF)

Cheers, Nick

[Syam Lantri]

Hi folks,
First, thanks very much for all replies, especially Pete.
Next, I think I didn't explain myself the right way. Okay, I'm a newbie in Glorantha, but I already have the Barbarian Adventures, Anaxial's roster, Imperial Lunar vol1, Orlanth is dead!, Uz (from Unspoken Word), but in France, we don't have HQ yet, just HW.

So, I was mean that it'd be a great idea to concentrate these many informations in a book "like" FRCS, with just enought details to stimulate your imagination.

I know there are many books on Glorantha setting, but effectively MANY books!
And lot of these books are the Orlanthi or the Lunars, but what about the others? What about the Kralori? The Mostali? Ralios or whatever...?
The sample way to begin would be to have all characters Orlanthi Barbarians, but my players and me used to have different cultures characters. And Glorantha can offer this diversity.

I hope I explained myself well, and I hope my english's not to bad for you.
Cheers

Mike

[Nick Brooke]

And lot of these books are the Orlanthi or the Lunars, but what about the others? What about the Kralori? The Mostali? Ralios or whatever...?

HeroQuest Voices -- out imminently, free PDF -- will have (usually) four pages of in-character background for seventeen different Gloranthan peoples, including four Elder Races and all ten of the HeroQuest Homelands. I hope it'll be enough if you want to start playing someone from those parts of the world... but you'd need rather more to set your campaign there.

It all comes to c.70 pages, BTW... which helps put the size of book you'd be looking for into perspective. (Add 2 pages of Homeland char-gen plus 2 pages of specialist magic keywords for each of the seven "new" peoples, and that'd be another 30 or so. And you're still not doing all that much re: the geography, history, government, architecture, military, sociology, gender roles, anthropology, mythology, etc. of all these peoples... :-)

Cheers, Nick

[pete_darby]

The one product I don't pimp, and it's the one that best fits the bill... AAARRRGGHH!!!

Must make a bigger sacrifice to Issaries next  god-time...