Jonstown Jottings #108: The Tax Collector’s Oxen

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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What is it?
The Tax Collector’s Oxen is a scenario for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is a twenty-two page, full colour, 1.44 MB PDF.

The layout is tidy, but there are no illustrations and the text does need an edit in places. The maps are representational rather than exact.

Where is it set?
The Tax Collector’s Oxen is set in Lunar Tarsh in an area known as Three Hills. (Alternatively, it could be set in any Lunar province on the edge of the Lunar Empire.)

Who do you play?

The Tax Collector’s Oxen is designed to be used with any Player Characters who might find employment in a mercenary company in Lunar Tarsh. There is no advice as to who that might be and the Game Master may want to conduct further research herself.

What do you need?

The Tax Collector’s Oxen requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

However, if the Game Master wishes to develop the NPCs further, then Cults of RuneQuest: The Lightbringers, Cults of RuneQuest: The Earth Goddesses, and Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way may all be useful.

What do you get?
The set-up in The Tax Collector’s Oxen is very simple. When forty-seven head of cattle go missing from trading post of Garan in the Three Hills region, Derenos Varro, the Lunar field administrator, hires a mercenary company to recover them. As it appears to be a simple matter of theft, the most inexperienced members of the company, that is, the Player Characters, are assigned to deal with the issue. Derenos Varro wants the matter to be solved as peacefully or with as little bloodshed as is possible, and the cattle returned.

The trail quickly points to the east to the village of Orvandor and when the Player Characters arrive, it is clear that that the missing cattle are in the village. However, as the village’s spokesman, Harmast Baranson, explains, Orvandor is actually owed a debt by Garan. The nature of the debt and how it might be settled lies at the heart of the scenario.

The Tax Collector’s Oxen is designed to test young warriors by placing them in a social situation and have them conduct some kind of negotiation. There is potentially scope for combat in the scenario, but approaching any situation with weapons brandished and being too willing to use sword rather than speech will land the Player Characters in trouble. There are NPCs who accompany the Player Characters who will likely make this clear.

Although The Tax Collector’s Oxen is set in Lunar Tarsh, the Three Hills region is the creation of the author. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but there is not a lot of detail about Lunar Tarsh that is readily available, so the Game Master may have difficulty researching the setting and making it feel different to other regions in Dragon Pass. Also, none of the NPCs are given cult affiliations, so they feel slightly flat. This is not helped by the writing which tends to be succinct and not as easy to grasp as it should be. That said, the situation itself is easy understand and a Game Master will have no problems in actually running the pleasingly low key scenario once they get a feel for the writer’s style.

Is it worth your time?

Yes—The Tax Collector’s Oxen is a solid enough scenario that can be run as is, but will be better with some development to add detail and/or move it to another location.

No—The Tax Collector’s Oxen requires too much development in terms of the NPC details and the setting to be really useful.

Maybe—The Tax Collector’s Oxen is a solid enough scenario, but how useful it is depends on the amount of development that the Game Master wants to undertake.