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.
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It is the first part of The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut campaign.
It is an update of a campaign previously available in the nineties and includes commentary from the author on both the original and current version of the campaign.
It is a full colour, two-hundred-and-twenty-four-page, 105.55 MB PDF.
It is a full colour, two-hundred-and-twenty-page hardback.
The layout is clean and tidy, though a little tight in places, and it is decently illustrated.
The cartography is decent for the most part.
Where is it set?
The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 01: New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever takes place in the city of Pavis and its surrounds (but not the Big Rubble).
It is set in ST 1619.
Who do you play?
The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 01: New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever suggests and even provides a wide range of character types. What it mandates is that the Player Characters are all new to the city of Pavis.
The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 01: New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever suggests and even provides a wide range of character types. What it mandates is that the Player Characters are all new to the city of Pavis.
What do you need?
The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 01: New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary, and the Red Book of Magic. It also requires The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 02: New Pavis: The City that Time Forgot, Pavis: Threshold to Danger, and Big Rubble: The Deadly City.
In addition, Cults of RuneQuest: The Lightbringers, Cults of RuneQuest: The Earth Goddesses, Cults of RuneQuest: The Gods of Fire and Sky, and Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way will all be useful. Sun County: RuneQuest Adventures in the Land of the Sun may also be useful.
The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 01: New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary, and the Red Book of Magic. It also requires The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 02: New Pavis: The City that Time Forgot, Pavis: Threshold to Danger, and Big Rubble: The Deadly City.
In addition, Cults of RuneQuest: The Lightbringers, Cults of RuneQuest: The Earth Goddesses, Cults of RuneQuest: The Gods of Fire and Sky, and Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way will all be useful. Sun County: RuneQuest Adventures in the Land of the Sun may also be useful.
What do you get?
The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 01: New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever is the archetypal release made available on the Jonstown Compendium. It is written by fans for fans. It is messy. It requires a high number of other sourcebooks to fully work. It requires a high degree of knowledge about Glorantha. It contains a lot of information that is extraneous. It is overwritten. It is incomplete. It is set outside the current time frame for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. Of course, this will not be a problem if the Game Master has access to all of the supporting material that she needs to set up and run the campaign, but if not, this is a campaign that the Game Master might want to wait to run or perhaps play it before she does so. Nevertheless, there is the start of an interesting campaign here which is designed for beginning characters and to some extent beginning players. However, whether the players are new to Glorantha or not, an experienced Game Master is needed.
The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 01: New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever is the reconstruction of old campaign created in the nineties that was influenced by conversations with the late Greg Stafford. It does rely upon the Game Master having access to both Pavis: Threshold to Danger, and Big Rubble: Threshold to Danger, as the author did when he first ran it. He puts this in context a historical backdrop to the campaign, both in game and out, the in-game backdrop providing a history of the original Pavis City, its destruction, the founding of New Pavis, and the invasion of the Lunar Empire. This is supported by an introduction to the city, overviews of the region, a discussion of its local languages, and then... Well, then it takes hard turn into a lot of background about Pavis in ST 1619 that is potentially going to confuse the reader and leave him wondering what he has got himself into.
The problem is that The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 01: New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever really opens with a lot of background material that is useful, just not necessarily useful in this first part of the campaign, and content that the players and their characters are very unlikely to interact with starting out. This includes the full details of the New Pavis Knowledge Temple—run jointly by the cults of Lhankor Mhy and Irrippi Ontor—and their various subcults and factions; full details of the Lunar military presence in and around Pavis and their regimental magic and spirits; a history of Pavis, the founder of old Pavis and his cult, as well as the Flintnail the Dwarf Father subcult of the Pavis cult; details of Old Pavic magic and alternative means of a Praxian shaman gaining his magic as well as the Raven as a Praxian spirit cult; the Flintnail Dwarves in Pavis; the Cult of Donandar as full cult rather than a subcult; and details of the the criminal underworld in Pavis. The latter very much expands upon the information given in Pavis: Threshold to Danger, suggesting new criminal occupations such as the Confidence Merchant, Pick-Pocket, Roofer, Strong-Arm Specialist, and even Assassin! Plus, it details various gangs in the city, including details of The Hidden One, a Lanbril subcult worshipped by the Hole Lords Gang. In addition to the various gangs, Jorjar’s Trollkin Nightwatch, almost as criminal as the gangs and all of its members open to bribes, is detailed. There is a section on the general knowledge that any local will have of the Big Rubble and a gazetteer of Pavis County, plus full stats for the numerous NPCs to accompany the descriptions of the various factions and organisations. This includes the notable members of the Knowledge Temple, soldiery of the Lunar regiments present in the city, the auxiliaries and mercenaries found outside the city in Pavis County, the members of the criminal gangs, and Jorjar’s Trollkin Nightwatch.
The problem is that The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 01: New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever really opens with a lot of background material that is useful, just not necessarily useful in this first part of the campaign, and content that the players and their characters are very unlikely to interact with starting out. This includes the full details of the New Pavis Knowledge Temple—run jointly by the cults of Lhankor Mhy and Irrippi Ontor—and their various subcults and factions; full details of the Lunar military presence in and around Pavis and their regimental magic and spirits; a history of Pavis, the founder of old Pavis and his cult, as well as the Flintnail the Dwarf Father subcult of the Pavis cult; details of Old Pavic magic and alternative means of a Praxian shaman gaining his magic as well as the Raven as a Praxian spirit cult; the Flintnail Dwarves in Pavis; the Cult of Donandar as full cult rather than a subcult; and details of the the criminal underworld in Pavis. The latter very much expands upon the information given in Pavis: Threshold to Danger, suggesting new criminal occupations such as the Confidence Merchant, Pick-Pocket, Roofer, Strong-Arm Specialist, and even Assassin! Plus, it details various gangs in the city, including details of The Hidden One, a Lanbril subcult worshipped by the Hole Lords Gang. In addition to the various gangs, Jorjar’s Trollkin Nightwatch, almost as criminal as the gangs and all of its members open to bribes, is detailed. There is a section on the general knowledge that any local will have of the Big Rubble and a gazetteer of Pavis County, plus full stats for the numerous NPCs to accompany the descriptions of the various factions and organisations. This includes the notable members of the Knowledge Temple, soldiery of the Lunar regiments present in the city, the auxiliaries and mercenaries found outside the city in Pavis County, the members of the criminal gangs, and Jorjar’s Trollkin Nightwatch.
It is a lot to take in, and none of the information is actually bad or uninteresting. Rather, it is not easy to tell what is relevant and what is not. Or rather, what is relevant right now and what is not. There is a lot here that the Player Characters are more likely to interact with later in the campaign, including the Knowledge Temple, the Cult of Pavis and the Flintnail Dwarves, and the Cult of Donandar. Initially, it is possible to play a character who worships Lhankor Mhy and wants to join one of the subcults or an entertainer who wants to join the Cult of Donandar—and this is seen in some of the pre-generated Player Characters that the campaign provides. Later in the campaign it will a different matter, as it will be very likely that the Player Characters will have interacted with these various groups and factions and learned more about them. To that end, the campaign makes two suggestions. One is that if Player Character dies, then his replacement can have stronger ties to or even be a native and a member of one of these cults, whilst the other is that each player create a second character who is native to Pavis and be member of one of these cults. Again though, this is for later in the campaign.
The second half of the book focuses on the campaign and its set-up. It is thus more direct and there are elements during the set-up and in the opening stages of the campaign that make use of the content previously presented and so begin to provide some much-needed context. In terms of character creation, beyond requiring that they be new to Pavis, The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 01: New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever does actually suggest a lot of options. Suggestions in terms of Race include Baboons, Crested Dragonewts, Ducks, Dark Trolls, Dwarves, Elves, Morokanth, Newtlings, and more. The creation process is streamlined, there not being available the family history tables for this period as there are for ST 1625 in RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and to this it adds two new skills, Streetwise and Pavic Philosophy, both of which will factor in the campaign. Included here too, are the game details of the local Lhankor Mhy subcults discussed earlier—Cobrin the Reseracher and Marlogh the Investigator,* plus Mercario the Street Entertainer, a subcult of Pavis and Donandar, and Thandros the Trader, a subcult of Pavis and Issaries. This is followed by information about the Zola Fel Riverfolk and their Cult of Zola Fel, the Aldryami of Old Pavis out in the Big Rubble, the Yelmalions of Pavis and Sun County, their associated cults, and if the Game Master and her players wants to cut to the chase, six pre-generated Player Characters. These are very nicely detailed and ready to play as well as offering a diverse range of characters.
The second half of the book focuses on the campaign and its set-up. It is thus more direct and there are elements during the set-up and in the opening stages of the campaign that make use of the content previously presented and so begin to provide some much-needed context. In terms of character creation, beyond requiring that they be new to Pavis, The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 01: New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever does actually suggest a lot of options. Suggestions in terms of Race include Baboons, Crested Dragonewts, Ducks, Dark Trolls, Dwarves, Elves, Morokanth, Newtlings, and more. The creation process is streamlined, there not being available the family history tables for this period as there are for ST 1625 in RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and to this it adds two new skills, Streetwise and Pavic Philosophy, both of which will factor in the campaign. Included here too, are the game details of the local Lhankor Mhy subcults discussed earlier—Cobrin the Reseracher and Marlogh the Investigator,* plus Mercario the Street Entertainer, a subcult of Pavis and Donandar, and Thandros the Trader, a subcult of Pavis and Issaries. This is followed by information about the Zola Fel Riverfolk and their Cult of Zola Fel, the Aldryami of Old Pavis out in the Big Rubble, the Yelmalions of Pavis and Sun County, their associated cults, and if the Game Master and her players wants to cut to the chase, six pre-generated Player Characters. These are very nicely detailed and ready to play as well as offering a diverse range of characters.
* Yes, really.
The campaign proper begins with ‘New Faces in Town’. For whatever reason, the Player Characters have come to Pavis to start afresh and so they arrive with only the barest of knowledge of both the city and the Big Rubble it abuts, unsure of where to start and what to do. The campaign strongly recommends that the very last thing that the Player Characters do at this stage is run off and look for adventure or treasure in the Big Rubble, since their ignorance and lack of skill is likely to get them killed. So instead, the opening sequences all about the mundane steps of settling into a new place—finding food, looking for somewhere to live, and getting a job or two. Several infamous establishments are described here, including Gimpy’s Tavern, Geo’s Inn, and Rowdy Djo Lo’s, as possible places to eat and stay. Here the campaign is grounding the Player Characters in the city, beginning to make it their home, and backs this up with small encounters and small job opportunities that the Game Master will need to tailor to her players and their characters, giving them a slice of life in Pavis.
The first full scenario in The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 01: New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever is ‘Ghost In The Darkness’. It is a classic set-up in that the newcomers to the city get got up in fracas, picked upon by one of Pavis’ many criminal gangs, and find themselves under arrest by the city watch for a breach of the peace. Since they are new here, the judges are surprisingly lenient, sentencing the Player Characters to civic duties befitting their talents and temperament for at least one season. Which is why, with intervention of a priest of the Pavis Cult, they find themselves attached to Captain Draximedes, a Yelmalion officer posted to the city as part of the treaty with Sun County. Draximedes is a solider through and through, but takes the Player Characters in hand and gives them time and money to prepare for their first assignment. This is to ride out into the contested eastern borderlands between Pavis County and the Sun Dome lands where independent settlers have their home in the rough, frontier country. Out towards Vulture Country some of the settlers have organised the building of a sturdier bridge over the White Rock River to facilitate both travel and trade, but there has been a series of deaths at construction site and the work crew have called for aid.
This is primarily a travelogue scenario in which they accompany Captain Draximedes out into the countryside and onto the frontier, interacting with fellow travellers, stopping off at various settlements, solving some of their problems, and so on. The last part of the scenario takes place at the bridge construction site where they can learn what has happened so far and perhaps begin their investigation, but what the Player Characters cannot do at this point is resolve the scenario. This is because the finale is actually contained in the next part of the campaign, The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 02: New Pavis: The City that Time Forgot. There is no denying that this is disappointing, because what it means is that there is no closure to The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 01: New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever and that it is not a complete chapter. And arguably, there is content in The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 01: New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever which could have been saved for the next or a subsequent volume in the series and the resulting space been devoted to enabling the Game Master, her players, and their characters to complete the introductory chapter to the campaign.
The scenario, what there is of it, is a solid affair with opportunities for roleplaying and even some combat. Ultimately, what it is providing several sessions of tempering, both in game and out, as the characters learn to work together under the watchful eye of Captain Draximedes, the players learn about their characters and the rules, and both learn a bit more about the setting.
What this all means is that The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 01: New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever presents the prospective Game Master with not so much problems, as impediments to play: the requirement for a large number of source books, the amount of setting material presented in the first half of the book, and the anti-climactic scenario. Some of these are less of an issue for some Game Masters than others, and get past at least the first two, and what Game Master has in her hands is a very enjoyable introduction to roleplaying in and around the city of Pavis, accompanied by advice and lots of options and help in creating Player Characters and getting them involved in the street life of Pavis. If the rest of the campaign is as decently done as the actual start in The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 01: New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever, then the campaign will be worth investing in.
Is it worth your time?
Yes—The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 01: New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever is a good start to the campaign that will ultimately reward its high buy-in and investment.
No—The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 01: New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever requires too much of an investment and buy-in, falls too much under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’, and it is probably set too far away from where the Game Master’s own campaign is set.
Maybe—The Pavis & Big Rubble Companion – Director’s Cut: Vol. 01: New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever does not make its set-up easy to get to and really get going, but the Game Master willing to make the investment and who wants a campaign away from the roleplaying game’s current focus might want to take a look at it.
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