So, I know its been a year since I last posted anything. Its been a weird year, to say the least, but the important thing is that I am trying to get back into it all. This will hopefully be the start of a long run of articles of various types, but starting here seems like a good place.

I’ve been interested in the setting of Glorantha since I first heard about it 15 years ago (give or take), but I never really learned much beyond “Bronze Age fantasy” until 2018 or 19, when I started doing a little reading of various blogs (primarily RuneBlog, Back to Balazar, and Akhelas). This little taste got me to actually pick up the newest edition of the game (RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha), but I very quickly bounced on the rather opaque and confusing rules. The game dates back to the early days of the hobby, and it really shows (mostly in the presentation of the rules text scattered throughout, I’ve been spoiled by The Black Hack and Dragonbane).

My love affair very nearly flamed out right there, but then I discovered Exploring Glorantha on YouTube and gradually listened to it while cleaning the house, cooking dinner, and driving around town. I really couldn’t give up on this cool setting. My first love was mythology (and one of the first things I bonded with my wife over… not only did she know who Ishtar was, she knew more about her than I did! Definite marriage candidate material, if you ask me). The love affair was back in full swing.

I did still hate that convoluted system, however, and my few tentative pokes at Heroquest was definitely not my cup of tea, either. Thankfully Back to Balazar had my back. They had created a mostly complete conversion of RuneQuest Classic to the old World of Darkness system (specifically the one for Vampire the Masquerade back in the 90s). Now, I was more of a new World of Darkness kinda guy, but it served as a blueprint for how to do it. So I did, and that is the engine for the campaign my players are playing in now. (Technically, the engine is my own hack of nWoD that includes elements of The One Ring and Alien, but that’s not important right now).

Long Intro, Now What

So, all that said, my group and I sat down and walked through the clan creation questionnaire (from Heroquest) and then did the character backstory tables from RQ:G. I had to do some finagling to get these to all work together, let alone in a different system, but so far, so good.

This is what they came up with!

The Blackrock Clan of the Malani Tribe

So, I’m not going to post all of the answers to the questionnaires, because that would be terribly boring. Instead, here are some of the highlights from the results (the parts that actually meant something for us and our group).

• Runes: Earth, Death
• Values: Courage, Rebelliousness, and Vengeance
• Important Ancestors: Garan the Low Star, Humakt
• Feuds: Alkoth, False Friends, Arkat, God King, Lunars, Telmori
• Allies: Aldryami

After we got that done, the players decided what they wanted to play, coming up with a Babeester Gor initiate (Orani Wolf-skinner), a Heler initiate (Harala), a Foundchild initiate (Andivarth), and a Daka Fal shaman (Garmast Crow-shadow).

They were told the were creating cousins, so they all decided to start with their shared grandmother (Erina Kingsblade, Sword of Humakt). This was really short, because she died at Grizzly Peak in 1582 defending the King and Queen. Okay, well. That’s interesting.

The initial idea was that each player would be the child of a different child of Erina, so we started with Andivarth, moving to 1597 (some details were backfilled after the whole family was created, such as the births of kids, etc). Kalorin Fairhair (born 1575) got the following results:

• 1597: Kalorin Fairhair fought in the Holy Country and survived
• 1602: Gravely wounded in the Boldhome Campaign
• 1604: Distraught over the deaths of his sisters, Kalorin traveled to New Pavis and met his wife, Ivarne.
• 1605: Andivarth was born early the next year, while Kalorin fought in the Feint to the Sea
• 1608: Died with great glory in the First Invasion of Prax

We did Harala next. While it had been originally planned that each parent was a different child of Erina, Garmast and Harala actually managed to roll the exact same events on the tables, leading them to declare that they were siblings, so here are the results for Ernala, Priestess of Ernalda (born 1578):

• 1597: Ernala fought in the Holy Country and witnessed the murder of a member of Sartar Royal House
• 1600: Harala born
• 1602: Ernala gravely wounded in the Boldhome Campaign, Garmast is born during Sacred Time
• 1604: Ernala killed by Telmori

Already my players are making connections and hypothesizing about how these events intertwine, given the constraints of them being siblings. Finally, we did Orani. Her mother was Eridani Earth-shield, and these were the events of her life:

• 1597: Eridani was gravely wounded defending a member of the Sartar Royal House
• 1602: Gravely wounded during the Boldhome Campaign
• 1603: Orani born
• 1604: Eridani killed by Telmori

While they could have decided that they were siblings, like Garmast and Harala did, Orani’s player declared “Oh, look, the sisters were best friends! They were obviously inseparable!” And so it was! I will say that, while my players were having a ton of fun with this, the fact that only one of four players got a set of events that were different at all was really frustrating to me. That said, they were very pleased, and the family camaraderie was already becoming strong.

Andivarth rolled the following. We realized later that he was only 15 when he fought in the Heortland Campaign, but we explained it in the compiled fiction version (coming next week):

• 1612: Andivarth returned to the clan with his mother to be with his family
• 1620: Fought in the Heortland Campaign
• 1621: Survived the first year of the Great Winter
• 1622: Joined in the battle of Auroch Hills with his cousins to avoid starving to death during the second year of the Great Winter
• 1624: Was Attacked by the Telmori during the Civil Strife
• 1625: Fought in the Liberation of Sartar and witnessed Kallyr Starbow acclaimed as Prince of Sartar

At this point I told the group that I wanted all of them to actually be there to witness Kallyr’s crowning. Orani went next. Her rolls were insane. I don’t think she could have rolled much better, to be honest. She ended up with a starting reputation of 26% in the RQ:G rules!

• 1620: Fought in the Heortland Campaign and survived
• 1621: Fought in the Fall of Whitewall and escaped with King Broyan
• 1622: Fought in the Battle of Auroch and aided King Boryan in awakening Orlanth before going on to fight in the Civil War in Esrolia, gloriously protecting Queen Samastina
• 1623: Fought in the Siege of Nochet with great glory alongside King Broyan
• 1624: Fought with great glory in the Battle of Pennel Ford before going on to sack the City of Wonders
• 1625: Fought in the Liberation of Sartar and witnessed Kallyr Starbow acclaimed as Prince of Sartar

Harala went next, and again we had a bunch of overlap, but it worked out well, as the players were primed for explaining the similar results, deciding that Harala and Orani were as inseparable as their mothers had been. Its cute, and a fun backstory detail.

• 1620: Fought in the Heortland Campaign
• 1621: Nearly starved to death making sure others were fed during the first year of the Great Winter
• 1622: Fought in the Civil War in Esrolia before taking part in the Siege of Nochet
• 1623: Blessed by Queen Samastina Siege of Nochet
• 1624: Fought with great glory in the Battle of Pennel Ford before going on to barely survive the Sack of the the City of Wonders after being attacked by guardian spirits
• 1625: Fought in the Liberation of Sartar and witnessed Kallyr Starbow acclaimed as Prince of Sartar

Finally, poor Garmast. His luck was entirely the opposite of Orani, meaning he did almost nothing of any interest (other than technically getting sick and dying in 1620, lol)

• 1620: Garmast is gravely sickened by a disease spirit
• 1622: Went with his family to fight in the Battle of Auroch Hills
• 1625: Fought in the Liberation of Sartar and witnessed Kallyr Starbow acclaimed as Prince of Sartar

In Conclusion

So, we are officially up and running (actually a couple of adventures in as I write this)! The players are excited and so am I. I will be starting with the Starter Set adventures and then seeing where we go from there. I will post my conversion document once I am happy with it (as well as the underlying system), but that won’t be for some time now, more than likely, as it is still growing as I find more stuff to convert.

I hope it was interesting to see how the generation systems can be used to create a cool backstory that really gets the players hooked into the world. I didn’t love the sameness of the results, but the concept has inspired me to look into creating something like that for Eberron. As promised, I will have the edited “story form” of the character’s backstory next week, as well as a description of their clan’s ring, which I generated using UNE (note: affiliate link).

Other Parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4