Jonstown Jottings #89: Eyes’ Rise

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, the Jonstown Compendium is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s mythic universe of Glorantha. It enables creators to sell their own original content for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, 13th Age Glorantha, and HeroQuest Glorantha (Questworlds). This can include original scenarios, background material, cults, mythology, details of NPCs and monsters, and so on, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Glorantha-set campaigns.

—oOo—

What is it?

Eyes’ Rise is a supplement for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha which details the sandbox setting of the village of Five Eyes and its surrounds and its factions, as well as the River Folk of the River of Cradles.

It is a thirty-one page, full colour 2.80 MB PDF.

The layout is tidy and it is lightly illustrated. It needs a slight edit.

There are notes on how to use it with QuestWorlds.

Where is it set?

Eyes’ Rise is set in the Grantlands along the banks of the River of Cradles after the Lunar Empire has been driven out of Pavis and fled the area.

Who do you play?
Eyes’ Rise does not require any specific character type. The main hook for the supplement has the Player Characters hired to protect the village, so combatants will be useful.

What do you need?
Eyes’ Rise requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary.

What do you get?

Eyes’ Rise presents a settlement facing an uncertain future. This is the village of Five Eyes, a former River Folk settlement renowned for the nearby ancient carvings on the cliffs which look like eyes and from which the village takes its name. Following the Lunar invasion, the village was selected as town and administrative for the surrounding grantlands. Circumstances that begin the Dragon Wise forced the Lunar Empire to flee the area, leaving the would be town partially completed, but without protection or direction as to its future and in danger of imminent collapse and abandonment by the remaining population. The villagers need to find a way to finish building the fortifications which will protect them from raids by bandits, grow the population, train the militia, and establish it as a viable stopping point along the river. In the immediate future, the villagers need to find a way to protect the village and train the militia. This is where the Player Characters, hired for their services. (Other reasons are given for visiting Five Eyes, but this is the primary one.)

Both the village and its inhabitants are described in some detailed, including detailed backgrounds, with eight of the Grantlanders or newcomers and three Riverfolk given full stats as well as a number of outsiders. The former includes five teenagers that the Player Characters will have to train into a serviceable militia. The latter includes a scholar, a bandit, and more. Each NPC is given one or more aims or motivations and several have reasons why they might hire the Player Characters.

A last part of Eyes’ Rise is devoted to the River Folk, their society, culture, governance, and religion. There is the means too to create Riverfolk characters. This is useful to create characters local to Five Eyes and up and down the River of Cradles.

Eyes’ Rise is essentially the set-up for a mini-campaign. This can be one of simply providing protection to the village, but there is scope too for the Player Characters to settle here and use Five Eyes as a base of operations or a home. How either will play out is outside the scope of the supplement, as it does not provide details of the threats facing the village and its inhabitants. The Game Master will need to create these and build in events and happenings to keep the campaign moving and the Player Characters involved. There is thus potential here for a campaign in the style of Seven Samurai or The Magnificent Seven, or given the upheaval of recent events in the region for a bunch of vagabonds, deserters, mercenaries, and the like to redeem themselves and hopefully keep the village safe.

Is it worth your time?

Yes—Eyes’ Rise can form the basis of a solid mini-campaign though one that the Game Master will need to further develop to make her own.

No—Eyes’ Rise is not developed enough for the Game Master to use easily and it is set well out of the way.

Maybe—Eyes’ Rise has potential as a campaign, but not without a high degree of effort.

Jonstown Jottings #54: Black Spear

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, the Jonstown Compendium is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s mythic universe of Glorantha. It enables creators to sell their own original content for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, 13th Age Glorantha, and HeroQuest Glorantha (Questworlds). This can include original scenarios, background material, cults, mythology, details of NPCs and monsters, and so on, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Glorantha-set campaigns.

—oOo—

What is it?
Black Spear: A Hero Wars Saga for RuneQuest is a campaign for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is a one-hundred-and-seventy-two page, full colour hardback.

It needs a slight edit in places.

Maps and illustrations are done in full, glorious technicolour.

Where is it set?
Black Spear: A Hero Wars Saga for RuneQuest begins in Apple Lane (as written), but is primarily set along the length of the Zola Fel River in the Valley of Cradles, as well as beyond.

Who do you play?

Player Characters of all types could play this scenario as it involves a mix of social interaction, investigation, and action. Ideally (as written), they should have played through the scenarios in the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack and thus hold a position of power and trust. Player Characters who worship Orlanth or Yelm will find parts of the campaign entertaining, whilst Helerings will have a high old time of it.

Black Spear: A Hero Wars Saga for RuneQuest is set in 1627 ST after the death of Kallyr Starbrow.

What do you need?
Black Spear: A Hero Wars Saga for RuneQuest requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary, and the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack.

Access to the campaigns and supplements, Borderlands, Pavis, Sun County, River of Cradles, and/or Pavis: Gateway to Adventure may also be useful, but are not necessary to run Black Spear: A Hero Wars Saga for RuneQuest.

What do you get?

Imagine if you will that upon his retirement, Professor JRR Tolkien was chosen to adapt and direct Heart of Darkness rather than Francis Ford Coppola, but do so as a Bronze Age myth and do it for the small screen as a Saturday morning cartoon—a Saturday morning cartoon with all of the mythology and the naughty bits left in. If you can imagine that, then you have a pretty good idea quite what Black Spear: A Hero Wars Saga for RuneQuest is like. Black Spear is a truly epic campaign which connects the Dragonrise and the Hero Wars, and does so in two ways. Materially, it will see the Player Characters sent to Pavis to inform Argrath White Bull that now is the right time to return to Sartar. Mystically, it will see the Player Characters involved in the reverberating consequences of the Dragonrise, the ongoing confrontation between Orlanth and Yelm, chart Argrath’s ascent to power and prominence, and rescue him from Darkness—and more. Along the way, the Player Characters will have the wildest ride of their lives, get insulted by Baboons, go to the weirdest and wettest disco they could ever imagine, get involved in Sun Dome politics and heresies, confront themselves, attack and protect a dragon… and much, much more.

Which is not to say that the author of Black Spear: A Hero Wars Saga for RuneQuest is Tolkien in this analogy. Definitely not. Most obviously because in no way is his ego in need of such polishing, but also if we have to have a Tolkien figure, it would be Greg Stafford. Which would probably make the author of Black Spear: A Hero Wars Saga for RuneQuest here Christopher Tolkien. Which is enough of an ego buff. Anyway, let us put an end to this Tolkien talk.

As written, Black Spear: A Hero Wars Saga for RuneQuest is initially tied into the storyline established in the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack, in which the Player Characters defend Apple Lane and one of their number becomes its Thane. As trusted subjects with a reputation for being able to get things done, Queen Leika, leader of the Colymar Tribe, requests that they travel as quickly as they can to the far city of Pavis, and there call its King, Argrath White Bull, back to Sartar. So begins a rip-roaring ride that will take them by air, by river, and ultimately, by means mystical upon their very own journey into Darkness, as well as that of Argrath White Bull himself. In the process, the Player Characters—the majority of them likely to be loyal Sartarites—will be pulled far out of their comfort zone and up the Zola Fel river, as well as deep into the myths of Glorantha. Make no mistake, this is a deep dive into the mysticism of Glorantha.

Throughout, Black Spear is heavily annotated by the author. Here he adds both side notes and asides, references much of his personal library devoted to Glorantha (thankfully the Game Master does not need access to this to run the campaign), gives staging advice for particular scenes, tells you how his players tackled this situation and that, provides references to appropriate illustrations, and occasionally admonishes bad and/or reluctant players. The latter can come across as patronising, but this is a campaign which needs fully embracing by both Game Master and players if they are going to get the most of it and its weirdness. Accompanying this are pieces of poetry, sermons, music suggestions to be played at the appropriate time—everything from O Fortuna! from Carmin Burana and Sunrise from Also Sprach Zarathustra to Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood to Football Fight by Queen from the film, Flash Gordon, and more. There is even alternative staging advice for each of the campaign’s seven acts if the Game Master prefers not to use some or all of the author’s version of its events.

For the most part, Black Spear is relatively light in terms of stat blocks. They are there as is necessary, but in the main, the mechanics emphasise the Player Characters’ Runes and Passions and how they influence and interact with the story told through the campaign. In fact, Black Spear is fairly light in terms of combat too, mainly keeping it for the big set scenes. (If the players relish their combat, a corollary comes with the PDF version of the campaign, ‘Violence is Always an Option!’, which suggests possible combat encounters in each of its seven acts.)

After all that, if Black Spear is lacking anything, it is advice as to what to reward the Player Characters with. They have just gone on an epic journey, if only inadvertently, and if Queen Leika has no reason to reward them for actually completing a simple task that went awry, arguably, Argrath White Bull does because the Player Characters do much more than simply deliver a message. Another issue with Black Spear is the sheer amount of information and myth which the author splurges on the Game Master. In the author’s defence, he does his very best to make it accessible and entertaining. So whilst there are innumerable references to out-of-print books, these are asides and he always sticks to core sources that are in print or readily available. Further, when the inevitable wodges of exposition need to be delivered in order to impart the degree of detail and depth behind the events in Black Spear from the Game Master to her players, the author provides both staging advice and the means to break it up and make the delivery that much more palatable. 

Mention should also be made of the fantastic artwork in Black Spear. It matches and enhances the cartoonishly epic nature of the campaign, giving it much of its character.

Is it worth your time?

Yes—Black Spear: A Hero Wars Saga for RuneQuest is an unforgettably epic fabulation of  Gloranthan myth which takes a RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha campaign into the Heart of Darkness prior to the Hero Wars. 

No—Black Spear: A Hero Wars Saga for RuneQuest is too fantastic a campaign, too much a case of ‘Your Glorantha May Vary’, and perhaps too much information for some, and not every campaign will be running a campaign which runs up to the Hero Wars.

Maybe—Black Spear: A Hero Wars Saga for RuneQuest contains much that is ‘Your Glorantha May Vary’ and whilst the Game Master may not want to run it as a whole or a campaign set in Sartar, there are scenes and ideas here which can be explored or adapted as is her wont.