Monday, 6 April 2020

Jonstown Jottings #15: Humakt, Raven, and Wolf

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 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?
Humakt, Raven, and Wolf is a short scenario for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha involving a Heroquest to obtain help in searching for something.

It is a fifteen page, full colour, 6.50 MB PDF.

Humakt, Raven, and Wolf is well presented,  decently written, and sparsely illustrated with solid artwork. It needs a slight edit in places.

Where is it set?
On the Hero plane.

It is suggested that if the Game Master wants to run Humakt, Raven, and Wolf as part of the scenarios that form the campaign in and around Apple Lane found in the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack, that she run it as part of the scenario, ‘Dragon of Thunder Hills’.

Who do you play?
The player characters should ideally be heroes of Sartar. One the player characters really should be a Humakti.

What do you need?
Humakt, Raven, and Wolf requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. If being run as part of the Colymar campaign, the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack will be required. 

What do you get?
Humakt, Raven, and Wolf is a short, simple Heroquest which ideally should take no longer than a session to play, although it does involve a lot of combat and that can take time. Based on the myth of how Humakt found a way to track down the dead following the theft of his sword by his brother Orlanth, by enacting the heroquest the player characters will not only enforce the strength of the myth, but gain help in finding what they are searching for. (If run as part of the scenario, ‘Dragon of Thunder Hills’, this will be the location of the dream dragon Yerezum Storn.)

Humakt, Raven, and Wolf gives simple rules for getting the player characters onto the Heroplane and takes them through the six stations or steps of the Heroquest. The majority of these do involve combat and the Game Master will need to take care that she does not overwhelm the Humakti player character and his colleagues with two many opponents before the final encounter. One requirement of the heroquest is that the Humakti test his love of his family, but that immediately raised the question what to do if the Humakti lacks the Passion of Love (Family). Fortunately, the author provides a solution.

Is it worth your time?
Yes. Humakt, Raven, and Wolf presents a short scenario in which the Game Master can pull her players and their characters into of one of Glorantha’s many myths, especially if one of them is a Humakti warrior. It is a particularly good to run as part of the scenario, ‘Dragon of Thunder Hills’, but may be run at any time the player characters need help in looking for something—a person, a thing, information, and so on. 
No. Either because you do not have a Humakti amongst your player characters or because running Humakt, Raven, and Wolf as part of the scenario, ‘Dragon of Thunder Hills’ is just overly specific in terms of time and place.
Maybe. Humakt, Raven, and Wolf is short and relatively easy to slip into a campaign, but really only works if one of the player characters is a Humakti.

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