A Fulcrum in Stasis

The Coming Storm: The Red Cow Volume I is a supplement for use with HeroQuest: Glorantha. Published by Chaosium, Inc., it is the first part of The Red Cow duology, providing the setting and background details for the campaign, The Eleven Lights: The Red Cow Volume II. This setting and background is that of the Red Cow clan, famed for the red cows that it breeds and trades which make it the envy of many of its neighbours. The Red Cow clan is part of the Cinsina tribe, itself part of the Jonstown Confederation, which firmly places it in the Kingdom of Sartar in Dragon Pass. The time frame is between 1618 and 1625, so the early years of the Hero Wars that mark the end of the Third Age. The supplement details the Red Cow clan, its leaders and notables, its allies, enemies, and their aims, laying out a rich tableau which the player characters can explore and influence. They will take the role of clan warriors, hunters, herders, healers, farmers, priests, and more, their role and position becoming more important and prominent as they become involved in the events detailed in The Eleven Lights: The Red Cow Volume II. It is important to note that although The Coming Storm: The Red Cow Volume I is set during the Hero Wars and the events of The Eleven Lights: The Red Cow Volume II take place against the background of the Hero Wars, neither the player characters nor the Red Cow clan will become directly involved in the Hero Wars. Rather they will become involved in events on the side-lines of the Hero Wars or in the consequences of those events.

As of 1618, the Red Cow clan, like most of Sartar, is under occupation by the Lunar Empire, the consequences of which are to divide the clan into several factions. Some like the Moon Winds, dominated by the Sardaling bloodline, have not only accepted Lunar rule, but also been converted by missionaries to worship of the Seven Mothers and welcomed the riches the Lunar presence brings. The Free Sartar faction sees those of the Moon Winds faction as traitors and would not only punish them, but see all Lunar presence driven out of Sartar. The Free Sartar faction supports those who rose in rebellion against the Lunar Empire and continues to support the surviving rebels who now conduct a guerilla war against the Lunar occupation. Its members also support the Orlanthi priesthood which has been forced into hiding since the Lunar administration outlawed worship of Orlanth. The Conquering Storm concerns itself with more local matters, in particular, old feuds and slights, wanting the tribe to keep the tribe itself strong and its neighbours weak, whilst the Wolfskinners fear the Telmori, the werewolves who live with their wolf brothers to the east and whose skin in wolf-form can only be cut by magical or iron weapons. The Wolfskinners would even co-operate with Jomes Hostralos, the Lunar General who has been given a land grant which was owned by a rival clan destroyed by the Telmori and who has led raids against the wolfmen. Lastly, there is Eye of the Hurricane, the faction which does not want to involve the clan in affairs beyond the borders of it lands, avoiding all talk of the Hero Wars and rebellion against the Lunar Empire. It is the clan chieftain, Broddi Strong-Kin, who leads both the clan and the Eye of the Hurricane faction, and so must keep a balance between the rivalries and politics of the factions, the clan, and the tribe.

Interestingly, the Red Cow slogan is ‘No one can make you do anything’ and that lies at the heart of The Coming Storm: The Red Cow Volume I and presumably, The Eleven Lights: The Red Cow Volume II. So at the point when the player characters enter the story the situation in the clan is one of a status quo between the faction and the clan and the external forces, and this will not change without the agency of the players and their heroes. As the young men and women of the clan, the player characters can be hunters, warriors, healers, thanes (household heads, merchants, craftspersons, housecarls, and other persons of note), mercenaries, cattle raiders (the tribes of Sartar have a tradition of raiding rival tribes and clans for their cattle), and more. An example of each of these five options is given as pre-generated characters, either ready to play or useful as inspiration for the players in creating their own. One interesting option particular to the Red Cow clan is to play one of the ‘Rattle-Born’, the warriors grown to full adulthood with a shake of Orlanth’s Rattle, a Red Cow clan treasure, one of several treasures possessed by the clan. Muscular and martial, the ‘Rattle-Born’ are capable warriors, but emotionally immature having missed out on a normal childhood. Other options might include merchants or priests to Ernalda or Heler.

The support for and background to the campaign begins with a clan sheet and a clan questionnaire taken from Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes and filled in for the Red Cow clan, which nicely summarises the clan, its history, attitudes, treasures, and so on. It expands greatly on this, going into some detail about the contents of both sheets before presenting a gazetteer of both Red Cow Fort—the clan’s principal settlement—and the Red Cow lands and a who’s who of the notables in the clan. This includes the inner circle of the clan council, the clan chieftain’s bodyguards, the Housecarls, the priests, the leaders of the clan’s bloodlines, the Headmen, the Women’s Circle, and the craftsmen. Of note amongst the latter is Willandring the Giant who has been hobbled so that clan can retain use of his iron working skills, and Erinala Goodale, who runs the inn at Red Clan Fort, a recent and Lunar addition to the settlement which the clan sees as an affront to its traditions of hospitality. Lastly, the leading members of the Lunar garrison are presented. In addition, the clan’s previous chieftains are listed, with those of living memory described in further detail, nicely personalising the clan’s recent history.

The Coming Storm: The Red Cow Volume I then expands upon the description of the Red Cow clan to detail the Cinsina, the tribe to which the Red Cow belongs. Primarily this is a history of the tribe, in particular its encounters and dealings with the Telmori, but again, it includes the tribe’s leading figures, notably Ivartha the Skinner, the Queen of the Cinsina. She is no distant figure, for she makes a regular progress through the tribe’s territory, staying at clan after clan. So when playing The Eleven Lights: The Red Cow Volume II, the player characters are likely to encounter her, especially as spends a great deal of time with the Red Cow clan. Rivals of the Red Cow are also presented, including the Dolutha, riven by the crime without compensation—kinstrife and the Two-Pines clan which would war on the Red Cow. Beyond the Red Cow clan, the supplement examines both the rebels and the efforts of the Lunar Empire to track them down, the holdings of Jomes Hostralos, and those of the Telmori and the ghouls, the lands of the dead.

Now none of the other clans, rivals, allies, and enemies are presented in quite as much detail as the Red Cow clan, which is understandable, since the players and their characters are going to be involved in the events surrounding the clan as presented in The Eleven Lights: The Red Cow Volume II. Yet there is information enough—and even some suggestions to that end—for the Game Master to develop into games that present the Red Cow clan as a threat rather than home. So the Game Master could use the material to run a game in which the player characters are the Lunar occupying forces prosecuting the Sartarite rebellion, members of the Dolutha clan attempting to restore their reputation and assuage their sorrow and woe, or even Telmori wolfbrothers, raiding the clan lands and surviving clan raids. These ideas are not the focus of The Coming Storm: The Red Cow Volume I or The Eleven Lights: The Red Cow Volume II, nor really within its remit—as the authors do point out, and whilst possible, would need a fair degree of development by the Game Master.

Of course, much of the contents of The Coming Storm: The Red Cow Volume I will be familiar to Gloranthaphiles, but having it all detailed here makes it accessible in readiness for The Eleven Lights: The Red Cow Volume II—and more so if the Game Master and his players are new to HeroQuest and Glorantha. That said, the supplement is not complete and the Game Master will probably want to refer to two other supplements for further information. One is Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes, with its guide to creating Sartarite characters and to the Orlanthi faith, as well as the events of the Hero Wars which form the backdrop for The Eleven Lights: The Red Cow Volume II. The other is the Startar Companion, which provides information on Heler, the rain god favoured by one of the clan’s bloodlines. Of all this information, it is a pity that the character generation guide and the details on Heler are not included here as that would have made The Coming Storm: The Red Cow Volume I and for The Eleven Lights: The Red Cow Volume II more of a complete pair.

Physically, The Coming Storm: The Red Cow Volume I is a decently presented colour hardback, if a little slim. The content is well organised with a lot of supplementary information packed into separate side boxes. The illustrations of the very many individuals are also good, though some are a little scrappy. Their arrangement in tableau works here very much better than it does in recent Call of Cthulhu titles from the publisher. The maps, especially those of Red Clan Fort, Dangerfort, and similar, are excellent, though those of the Cisina lands and their historical movements would have worked better if they had dates on them. The book does need an edit in places though, but the index is both full and useful.

By focusing on the one clan and its situation, The Coming Storm: The Red Cow Volume I does a fine job of bringing the setting of Dragon Pass and the political situation just before the Hero Wars to life. It has the feel of a land under occupation, very like Celtic Britain under the Romans, but of course with much more sense of the fantastic and how that fantastic is part of everyday life. Although there is some flexibility in how its content can be used, The Coming Storm: The Red Cow Volume I sets everything up ready for the events The Eleven Lights: The Red Cow Volume II and the saga that the player characters will become involved in, and does so in pleasingly readable and engaging fashion.

HeroQuest in Glorantha

HeroQuest Glorantha reunites Glorantha—the Bronze Age setting in which the player characters aspired to join the great religious cults of the Lightbringers and other gods and become heroes in the war to come against the invading Lunar Empire, with HeroQuest—the narrative, drama driven roleplaying system first seen in Hero Wars. Published in 2000 by Issaries, Inc., Hero Wars would be developed into HeroQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha into 2003, with a third edition, simply called HeroQuest, being released in by Moon Design Publications in 2009. This version of HeroQuest presented the rules as a generic set of mechanics with relatively little reference to Glorantha.

Published in 2015, HeroQuest Glorantha integrates the mechanics of the third edition of HeroQuest with the setting of Glorantha to present a roleplaying game in which the faithful worshippers of the Lightbringers and other gods and demi-gods in the area known as Dragon Pass campaign against the occupying forces from the Lunar Empire to the north. The Lunar Empire is regarded as aberrant because it worships Chaos and because it wants bring all lands under the glare of the Red Moon. Whilst it is possible to play Lunar characters—and play them as the heroes rather than the villains—this is not focus of player characters in HeroQuest Glorantha. Rather, the player characters are of heroes to be in the uprising against the Lunar Empire, who in worshiping the gods are allowed to wield part of the power granted to the gods by the Runes, the underlying elements of the universe. Each Rune grants power over a particular aspect of the universe—Air and Fire, Movement and Truth, Man and Spirit, Luck and Mastery, and so on—to bring about great effects and power great changes and so help achieve their objectives. In doing so, they will come to embody the very gods themselves!

HeroQuest Glorantha is supported by the narrativist, storytelling driven mechanics of HeroQuest created by Robin D. Laws, under which the possible outcomes of any action—sneaking past the palace guard, seducing the governor's daughter, rifling the governor’s safe, persuading the governor to support your cause, and so on—are explicitly framed and set before any dice are rolled. Both the player undertaking the action and the Game Master will be rolling the dice. The player will be rolling against one of his character’s abilities, which can be an ability, his homeland or culture, an object, an occupation, a relationship, a Rune, and so on. Each ability is a rated by a number between one and twenty. For example, The Gift of Tongues 17, Esrolian 16, The Glittering Eye 13, Gruff Farmer 17, Loyal to the Chief 18, Air 19, and so on.

Although the Game Master might be rolling against similar abilities for an NPC—especially if he is an important NPC that the Game Master has created—the likelihood is that he will be rolling against a Difficulty Level representing an obstacle or abstract force, for example, a great height that needs scaling, a community’s unwillingness to go to war, or a raiding party from a rival tribe. The value of the Difficulty Level is determined not by some pre-set value, but by the needs of the story and whether it is dramatically appropriate for the character to succeed or fail at that point. The Difficulty Level begins at a base of fourteen and will rise as a campaign proceeds, but will constantly be adjusted up or down according to the needs of the story.

The GM and player will each roll a twenty-sided die and compare the results to their respective abilities, results of twenty being a fumble and one being a critical success. In some contests, a simple success/failure outcome will suffice. 

For example, Farnan, son of Venharl, is a Sartar rebel who has sworn vengeance against Hurbios Crestfallen, a Lunar commander with a reputation for the harsh treatment of the Sartarite peoples under his control, including Farnan’s parents. Farnan has heard rumours that Hurbios is hiding in a nearby villa until he can make his escape north. Farnan decides that he wants to get into the villa and find out if the rumours are true. The GM decides that it would be easy for Farnan to get into the villa, the dramatic challenge should be whether he gets noticed or not. He decides to set the Difficulty Level at moderate or equal to the current base, which is 14. They frame the contest that if Farnan succeeds, he enters the villa unnoticed and finds Hurbios, but if he fails, Farnan will be found by some guards before finding Hurbios. Farnan’s player decides that he will use Farnan’s ability of Clan Huntsmen 17. The GM rolls 15 and fails, but Farnan rolls 12 and succeeds. This enough for Farnan to get into the villa and locate the rooms where his quarry is hiding. 

For other contests, though, it will be important to know what the margin of success will be—Marginal, Minor, Major, or Complete Victory. So, in the previous example, Farnan’s Success would be compared to the GM’s Failure to give a margin of success of Minor Victory. This would be narrated as Farnan succeeding, but noting that the guards will find signs of his entry into the villa. Just not yet though…

One of the aspects of HeroQuest is that it is scalable, so ability ratings can go above twenty. This is expressed as degrees of Mastery or W—the W representing both the Mastery Rune and the ability rating above twenty. So 3W is the equivalent of 23. Masteries are important, because along with Hero Points, they can be used to affect, or ‘bump’, the results of a die roll up or down—bump up to improve a die roll and bump down to weaken an opponent’s die roll. This can be done with Masteries or Hero Points. 

Continuing the previous example, Farnan, son of Venharl has sneaked into a villa where the man he has sworn vengeance against for killing his parents, Hurbios Crestfallen, is hiding. Farnan confronts Hurbios and Farnan’s player declares that he will attempt to capture Hurbios and bring him before the tribe for judgement. Looking over Farnan’s abilities, his player can see that he has Air Rune 1W and Sartarite Rebel Warrior 3W, having fought several battles against the Lunar invaders. The GM knows that capturing the killer of his parents and bringing him before the tribe would be a major achievement for Farnan. Therefore, the Difficulty Level should be dramatically appropriate. The GM sets the Difficulty Level for capturing Hurbios at a Hard resistance, which is equal to the base +6. Since the base is currently fourteen, this sets the Target Number at twenty. Both Farnan’s player and the Game Master rolls a twenty-sided die. As Farnan has a Mastery of 3W in Sartarite Rebel Warrior, his player is rolling against 3. He rolls 2, which is a Success. The GM rolls for Hurbios and gets a 19. This is under 20 and is also a Success. Because Hurbios has the higher roll and both contestants have the same level of success, Hurbios would win, but Farnan’s Mastery grants him an advantage. Farnan has 3W and Hurbios has 20, so Farnan has one level Mastery over Hurbios, which enables his player to bump Farnan’s Success up to a Critical Success. Comparing Farnan’s Critical Success versus Hurbios’ Success gives the result of a Minor Victory. The Game Master Farnan gets the stakes as framed—defeating his opponent—and no more. (Had the outcome given a better Margin of Victory, Farnan might have been able to force a confession from Hurbios at spear point.) Farnan’s player narrates how Farnan confronts his parents’ killer, shouting that the Lunars have lost in Sartar and demanding that Hurbios Crestfallen give himself up. The Lunar soldier at first refuses, but he cannot defend himself against the flurry of blows that Farnan delivers before they drive him to the floor. 

At its heart, HeroQuest is a simple enough system and its core mechanic covers physical actions, tests of knowledge, social interaction between player character and NPCs, as well as combat. Mechanically, the rules do get more complex with group and extended tests, both used in key, dramatically appropriate scenes. These might include negotiation between an Issaries merchant and a Praxian tribal chief for trading rights, a major clash between Sartarite militia and an uppity Trollkin raiding party, or participating in a heroquest to both prove your worthiness to your god and to reinforce the validity of his mythology. For the most part though, simple contests are used unless it is dramatically appropriate, in climatic confrontation, for example.

Further mechanics define the creation and handling of communities in HeroQuest Glorantha. This can be a tribe, kingdom, temple, mercenary company, clan, guild, and so on, and represents the organisation that the heroes belong to or have ties to. Each community possesses five types of resource—wealth, communication, morale, war, and magic—that the heroes can draw upon, but other times bolster and support. At other times, they are great sources of roleplaying. As is the guide to heroquesting, in some ways the eponymous point of the game in which the heroes journey into myth and after facing a number of great challenges and tests, bring back magic of the Gods Age, the period before Time was imposed on the world.

HeroQuest Glorantha supports and explains these mechanics with some very nicely done examples, many of them drawn from the ongoing backstory of the HeroQuest period as detailed in Prince of Sartar. These examples also show how HeroQuest can handle certain situations and scales, so there is not only a negotiation, but also political manoeuvring on a city scale, a heroquest, and a military battle. These examples are also entertaining as well as showcasing how the rules work.

In comparison to HeroQuest, advice for the GM in HeroQuest Glorantha is actually quite light. Primarily, this consists of advice on handling conflicts and action in a dramatic effect, especially with a view to climatic resolution, and structuring scenarios and campaigns to that end using a pass/fail cycle. This is a chain of dramatic obstacles that the characters will have to overcome in the course of an adventure, with passes giving the heroes an advantage in facing the next obstacle and then again, with failures giving them a disadvantage and then. Ultimately, the chain of failures will be overcome and the player characters will be able to build back up with passes. There is also a good section on gaming in Glorantha and creating adventures that includes a scenario outline or two, but most of the advice pertains to HeroQuest rather than Glorantha specifically. Much of this advice is explored at greater length in HeroQuest—which is worth referencing for that reason—but ultimately, the advice for the GM (and sometimes the players) in HeroQuest Glorantha comes down to ‘Five Principles of Gaming’, one each from the luminaries of Chaosium, Greg Stafford, Sandy Petersen, Jeff Richard, Neil Robinson, and Rick Meints. In fact, there is very little in HeroQuest Glorantha that the players should not know because as players they will benefit from knowing the rules and because their characters will know about the world of Glorantha.

To create a Hero in HeroQuest Glorantha—and it is a Hero rather than a character—a player assigns a number of values to various keywords and abilities. These begin with a distinguishing characteristic and an occupational keyword before adding a cultural keyword, determining the hero’s community, adding some flaws, and so on. Three of them are the Runes which reflect the hero’s personality, how he does magic, the god he worships and the cult e belongs to. Some of these keywords can be ‘Breakout’ abilities, specialised abilities keyed off a broader ability. Whilst mechanically it is an easy enough process, conceptually, it is more challenging because of its freeform nature. That said, the process is helped by examination of the possible Cultural, Community, and Occupational Keywords, Runes and how they reflect a character’s personality, abilities, flaws, and so on. At each step, it presents one more aspect of the setting and how it relates to a character, so drawing the player and the character into Glorantha and preparing both for play. The process is helped by several examples of character generation, again drawn from Prince of Sartar.

Hero: Heidrik of Prax, Appraising Merchant
Runes
Trade Rune 2W
        Gift of Tongues +1
Movement Rune 1W
        Maps show the way +1
Air Rune 13

Keywords & Abilities

Merchant 2W
        Read & Write +1
        The Value of Everything +1

Heortling Culture 13

Distinguishing Characteristic
        Fair Minded 17

Reluctant Praxian Militiaman 13

Remaining Points: 2

As to Glorantha itself, a large amount of HeroQuest Glorantha is dedicated to the setting, specifically that of Dragon Pass during the period of the Lunar invasion and the Sartarite uprising. It starts off with an overview of Glorantha before explaining the nature of the various types of Runes—elemental, power, form, and condition—before delving into the geography and history of Dragon Pass. The importance of the Runes comes into play with a lengthy examination of magic and cults in Glorantha. The discussion looks at three types of magic—Spirit, Rune, and Sorcery, but tends to favour the first two, although it possible to play a Sorcerer. It is here that the importance of the Runes and Cults comes to the fore, an importance that cannot be underestimated since much of a hero’s fate and beliefs are strongly tied to both. Six allied cults—Ernalda, Issaries, Humakt, Lankor Mhy, Orlanth, and Waha—are presented in detail, examining in turn each cult’s Runes, its mythos and history, how it is organized, what it likes and dislikes, who its enemies are, the requirements to be a lay member, an initiate, a devotee, and so on, as well as the feats commonly associated with the cult. These feats replicate a god’s mythic deed, for example, ‘The Thunderer’, associated with Orlanth via the Air rune brings thunder and gales with each step as the devotee literally channels Orlanth.

A notable inclusion alongside the discussion of the six allied cults is that of Lunar magic employed by the Lunar Cults such as the Seven Mothers cult. It is reviled outside of the Lunar Provinces because of its willingness to use the powers of Chaos—the powers of entropy and the void. This enables the Game Master to present the enemy on a footing equal to that of the player characters, in both mechanical and narrative terms. It also allows a player to create a Lunar player character should he so desire and should a campaign allow for it, but both Lunar magic and Seven Mothers Cult are more complex than the other magical and cultic options presented in HeroQuest Glorantha. They are probably best played by more experienced players rather than someone coming to Glorantha for the first time.

Rounding out HeroQuest Glorantha is a short bestiary which covers the creatures of the setting, Dragon Pass in particular. These are primarily the Elder Races—the Aldryami (Elves), Dragonewts (Draconic Lizardmen), Mostali (Dwarves), and Uz or Men of Darkness (Trolls), but a number of the Lesser Elder Races and other creatures are also mentioned. The former include Baboons, Ducks, and Tusk Riders, the latter dinosaurs and dragons. None of these have stats since how the Game Master uses them is as obstacles that the player characters can overcome. Unfortunately, the level of detail accorded to each is light, so creating more interesting obstacles and NPCs will be a challenge for the Game Master.
The appendices cover goods, a glossary, a bibliography, amongst other things.

Physically, by contemporary standards, HeroQuest Glorantha is a slim rulebook. Its layout is clean and tidy if plain, but this is leavened by some lovely pieces of artwork, many of them in full colour, that help bring Glorantha and Dragon Pass to life, including several pages taken from Prince of Sartar. Initially, the book feels a bit ponderous, but it quickly settles down into a readable fashion. Physically—and conceptually—there is one aspect of HeroQuest Glorantha that does irk and that is the line on the back-cover blurb which states that “Glorantha is the most elegant, original, and imaginative fantasy setting since Middle Earth.” It is not that Glorantha is not elegant, is not original, is not imaginative. There is nothing wrong with these terms or with the description. Rather that it should be amended to “Glorantha is one of the most elegant, original, and imaginative fantasy settings since Middle Earth.” just as “Tékumel: The World of the Petal Throne is one of the most elegant, original, and imaginative fantasy settings since Middle Earth.” is also a reasonable claim.

What issues there are with HeroQuest Glorantha, are really only minor. The most obvious one is that it is very much a humancentric roleplaying game, both in terms of what you can play and what the NPCs will be. This is understandable because it ties the player characters into the magic and the cults, but some players will be disappointed that they cannot play Aldryami or Mostali, for example. Likewise, the Game Master’s options in terms of foes are limited by the lack of means for fleshing them out and detailing such creatures beyond obstacles. Another issue is the lack of information about Glorantha and Dragon Pass. What there is though, is broad in nature and does at least provide a more than serviceable introduction to the setting, especially when coupled with the background about the cults and the gods, but the reader cannot escape the feeling that there is much, much more to know and learn about the setting. Of course, HeroQuest Glorantha cannot equal the gargantuan and definitive The Guide to Glorantha, but there is no easy next step to learn more. This is not to say that there are no supplements for HeroQuest Glorantha. Both Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes and Pavis: Gateway to Adventure are available and are possible next steps, but they are both lengthy, daunting tomes. Hopefully, the release of The Coming Storm: The Red Cow, Volume 1 will serve as that next step, especially in support of the forthcoming The Eleven Lights campaign. Lastly, as a ‘Culture’ game, a roleplaying game where a player character’s background, upbringing, and attitudes play as much a role as his personality, HeroQuest Glorantha could have been stronger, especially in terms of providing the cues and attitudes for the cultures offered in its pages.

The HeroQuest rules are a solid set of narrative mechanics which given their origins have always felt as if they should be tied to Glorantha and in HeroQuest Glorantha, they are. Of course, HeroQuest included a chapter on Glorantha, but in HeroQuest Glorantha, the setting benefits from the greater space given to it, whilst the mechanics benefit from being applied to the one setting and from being supported by the numerous applied and well-executed examples. Best of all are the presentations of Glorantha’s Runes and cults, the latter in particular providing an accessible means of stepping into the Glorantha and its background. Above all, HeroQuest Glorantha brings together everything that a game set in Glorantha needs to get started, especially in terms of the cults—something that Glorantha has not always benefited from—and does so in one well written book.

—oOo—

With much thanks to Ian Cooper, Tim Ellis, and Dan Happens for their advice and input on this review.

Quest for a Story

The traditional generic or multi-genre RPG is an attempt to provide an all-encompassing set of rules and mechanics that allow a GM to create and run, and the players to play, a roleplaying scenario or campaign in a setting of their choice. It can be set in any time, any place, and any genre, and the rules will often reflect this. This is either by trying to cover every detail or by trying to cover everything in broad swathes; the former approach often threatening to overwhelm the game in those details, whilst the latter can lose flavour as the details are glossed over. HeroQuest is a generic RPG with a difference. Published by Moon Design Publications, its approach is anything other than traditional, for it does not approach roleplaying in any genre mechanically, but instead approaches it narratively. At its heart is not the question,”Can I roleplay in this genre or setting?” Rather it is, “Can I tell a story through roleplay in this genre or setting?”

Designed by Robin D. Laws, HeroQuest originally appeared as Hero Wars and then HeroQuest, each in their own way strongly tied to the Glorantha of the RuneQuest setting. Indeed, this version of HeroQuest continues this association by including a “genre pack” for Glorantha – a genre pack being an information kit for the players about the setting or world that they will be gaming in – as an example. For the most part, this version of HeroQuest is divorced from Glorantha to give a generic set of rules, or as the rules state explicitly, a set of tools to tell a story.

HeroQuest’s primary means of approaching storytelling is changing how everything is defined. Although numbers do play a part of this definition, they only come after the important aspects of a character, a thing, or other part of the world is described in words. Just about anything can be described in this way and not necessarily in absolute terms, as in HeroQuest a player is encouraged to be more imaginative in terms of what his hero can do. So instead of “Fight with Sword,” a hero might have “Flashing Blade” or “My surroundings are my weapon.” During the game, the player is free to use the abilities however he wants if his GM accepts that his suggested use is applicable. So instead of the player saying, “I hit him with my sword,” he might instead say, “I try to impress Lady Beatrice by defeating Captain Raymond with a display of swordsmanship that humiliates him rather than hurts him, using my Flashing Blade ability.”

Also important here is the fact that the player explicitly states what he wants to achieve before his character attempts the action. This can be as simple as climbing up a rock face, as lengthy of setting out to woo the governor’s daughter, or as complex as “banging the bodyguards’ heads together before drawing their guns and emptying each weapon into their gangland boss.” All can be settled with a roll of the dice that quickly help both GM and player determine the outcome and move on. Relatively slight steps up in terms of complexity enables both GM and player to determine the degree of failure or success in Simple Contests and then Extended Contests, the latter actually a series of Simple Contests.

Once a player has set his objective, he decides upon the ability he will use and the GM will choose what will resist it. Both player and GM will each roll a twenty-sided die and compare the results to their respective abilities, results of 20 being a fumble and 1 being a critical success. For example, Gordon is playing “Delaware” Miller, archaeological adventurer, who is chasing his rival, the Belgian treasure hunter, Bernard Monami, and got aboard his lorry. Next he wants to reach around to the cab, pull open Monami’s door, and sock it to the Belgian across his smug jaw. “Delaware” is using his ability of “Determined Action” 3W – actually an ability rating of 23, but each point above 20 represents a level of Mastery – whilst the GM, Stef, decides that Bernard’s ability of “Escape the Clutches…” 1W is suited to the situation.

Both Gordon and Stef roll the dice. “Delaware” Miller gets a result of 5 and Stef a result of 11. Both rolled Successes, but although neither rolled a 1, “Delaware” Miller rolled lower than his rival and thus achieved a marginal victory. With this result, the GM could say that although has managed to swing into the cab, he did not land his wanted blow on Monami. Such a result is not good enough for “Delaware” and so Gordon brings into play the levels of Mastery that “Delaware” has in “Determined Action” 3W. Since Bernard also has a level of Mastery in “Escape the Clutches…” it cancels a level of Mastery that “Delaware” Miller has in “Determined Action,” reducing it to “Determined Action” 2W.

With the first level of Mastery, Gordon raises his result from a Success to a Critical Success, but with the second, he lowers Bernard’s Success to a Failure. With that result, the GM agrees that “Delaware” Miller has achieved his aim and narrates that into the story. Similarly, a character can use Hero Points to alter contest results in the same fashion.

If this was an Extended Contest, then this might just have been the first exchange, the aim for both “Delaware” and Bernard being to take control of the lorry and drive off with the artefact. In this case, Successes and more would gain each participant Resolution Points, the exchanges continuing until one side had acquired five or more and won the Extended Contest. As a general rule, the more interesting a contest is and the greater its importance as part of the story or scenario, the more the need for the more complex contests.

As in any RPG, in HeroQuest the loser in a Contest takes damage. It is usually expressed as levels of Impairment, and depending upon the nature of the Contest, this Impairment can be physical, mental, and social. Impairment can also affect a character’s relationships, whether that is romantic, business, political, criminal, and so on. Further, Impairment can have an effect on not just the relationship that a character has with his Community, but with the Community itself. HeroQuest goes into some detail about the creation and running of Communities, the creation process usually being conducted by the players collectively. Primarily, a Community is a resource that the characters can add to and draw upon, but it has a life of its own and if the characters use its resources badly, the characters can fall out of favour and have to find their way back into its good graces.

So far, so good. HeroQuest is clearly geared towards both imaginative play and players, and this continues with character generation. Three methods of character generation are given: Prose, List, and “As you go,” each one being easier than the former. Under the Prose method, a player writes a hundred word statement and underlines his character’s abilities and keywords; under the List method, the player chooses his character’s keywords and abilities; and with “As you go,” the player adds keywords as play progresses.

Of his character’s starting Abilities, a player choses one as his best and assigns it a score of 17, with the rest being set at 13. A player can then divide further 20 points between these abilities. It is possible to raise an ability’s rating above 20. In doing so, for each point above 20, the ability gains a level of mastery, represented by a notation using an orthogonal “W.” In fact, this symbol is the Mastery Rune from Glorantha. So if a player gave his character the ability Flashing Blade 23, he would actually have Flashing Blade 3W.

Our sample character is my current one from the Legends of the Five Rings campaign I am playing in, called The Silken Knot. To give you some comparison, I include his Legends of the Five Rings stats for comparison.

Yasuki Kiosho, Crab Courtier
Air: 3 (Awareness 3, Reflexes 3), Earth: 3 (Stamina 3, Willpower 3)
Fire: 2 (Intelligence, Agility), Water: 3 (Strength 3, Perception 3), Void: 2
Honour: 2.3, Status: 0.8, Glory: 1.0, Infamy 1.0 (Mantis), Insight: 157
School/Rank: Crab Courtier, Rank 2
Advantages: Clear Thinker (3), Forbidden Lore: (Cult of Ruhmal) (5), Inner Gift: Empathy (7), Language: (Rhuumal) (1), Seven Fortunes’ Blessing: Daikoku’s Blessing (4) Disadvantages: Black Sheep: Crab Clan (3), Black Sheep: Mantis Clan (3), Hostage (3), Lechery (3), Lost Love (3), Pyrophobia (1)
Skills: Art: Painting 1, Athletics 1, Calligraphy 1 (Crab Cipher), Commerce 3 (Appraisal), Courtier 3 (Manipulation), Defense 3, Etiquette 2, Intimidation 2 (Control), Investigation 1, Jiujitsu 1, Knives 1 (Kukri), Lore: Ivory Kingdoms 1, Lore: Mantis Clan 1, Lore: Cult of Ruhmal 1, Lore: Underworld 1, Sailing 1, Sincerity 2 (Deceit), Temptation 1 (Seduction)

As part of the campaign set up, it was necessary to create a background that in part explained his current situation. Some of this is implied in the character’s advantages and disadvantages, but to make it more explicit and to get his keywords and abilities for HeroQuest, I describe him in exactly one hundred words. As part of the process I underline the important aspects of him, thusly:

Yasuki Kiosho, Crab Clan courtier, is a mannered, but wily, sharp tongued and perceptive merchant. A Mantis Clan hostage, he sailed to the Ivory Kingdoms, there learning to use the flexible steel sword, the Urumi, and the Kukri knife to defend himself, and of the evil Cult of Ruhmal, a new threat to Rokugan. Back home, his lechery almost dishonoured him and Sayomi, his host, Yoritomo Chikao’s daughter, resulting in his being cast out. Now he works the underworld as a smuggler and hunts for the cult to redeem himself. Sometimes controlling, he can easily lie or spot a lie.

From this I derive his abilities and assign the points as described above. His key ability is “perceptive merchant,” which is set at 23 or 3W. The remaining fourteen points are distributed to reflect what the player feels to be important about Kiosho.

Yasuki Kiosho
The Job: mannered Crab Clan courtier 1W
Doing Stuff: perceptive merchant 3W, sailed to the Ivory Kingdoms 13, works the underworld 15, hunts for the cult 13, can easily lie or spot a lie 15, redeem himself 13
Social: Mantis Clan hostage 13, smuggler 13, lechery 13, almost dishonoured 13
Knowing Stuff: evil Cult of Ruhmal 13, Rokugan 13, Sometimes controlling 13, wily & sharp-tongued 13
Stuff I Own: flexible steel sword, the Urumi 13, Kukri knife to defend himself 15
People: Yoritomo Chikao 13 and Kisosho’s lost love daughter Sayomi 13

Despite HeroQuest’s simplicity, the rules that support that simplicity are explored in some depth. Whether this examining how modifiers work with character abilities, how healing works, or how to bring relationships into a game, the rules never really stray from helping the reader how they affect both the core Contest mechanic and the story. In fact, the author and thus HeroQuest is at its best when it discusses how the game should be played and how it should be narrated.

What HeroQuest does is make clear the differences between the story found in literature and that found in roleplaying. With a single controlling author, the story in literature rarely veers away from being a direct series of obstacles that the protagonists either overcome or fail to overcome. Whereas because the story in roleplaying has several authors, in other words, the fickle players, and because the use of dice to resolve obstacles, it can split away from the direct series of obstacles into branches of them. To counter the fickle nature, HeroQuest suggests adjusting the difficulty of the Contests according to the number that the characters have overcome so far. So the more Contests that they fail, the easier the GM needs to set the difficulty of the next Contest.

The concept that the story in roleplaying has multiple authors is continued in HeroQuest’s approach to narration. As is traditional in storytelling games – traditional in the sense that they have been around for more than a decade – HeroQuest suggests that narration should be a collaborative process involving the players as well as the GM. He is encouraged to look for opportunities to involve his players to the point of actually leaving gaps in the story so that the characters can pursue their own agendas. The advice takes a further step in suggesting that the GM be prepared to break the narration to rewind and re-interpret the outcome of a Contest if the players are unhappy with it. This is possibly narrative roleplaying at its more radical, and it is open to abuse by a domineering player. Still, as a means of re-writing the outcome of overcoming an obstacle is in keeping with the story based nature of HeroQuest.

Unfortunately, for a generic or multi-genre RPG, HeroQuest is disappointing in its treatment of actual genres. It discusses how to create the technical elements that would go into a genre pack for any setting, the ones that you would find in many roleplaying settings – occupations, creatures, cultures, magic, powers, religions, species, technologies, and so on. This is done through keywords, under which can be grouped a number of abilities. Keywords can also be used during character generation if the GM allows players to select cultures, occupations, and species. In each case, a fully worked sample is provided. Powers and magic require extra explanation for each genre pack, this explanation being organised into a framework that neatly sums the origins, limitations, and requirements of each power or type of magic. Whilst this is all technically useful, it still does not address any one particular genre.

Similarly, when it comes to the Glorantha genre pack, HeroQuest comes up short. The problem is that it focuses entirely on the magic of Glorantha and how the runes associated with that magic are interpreted along with a description of the various deities in Glorantha’s pantheons. Since many inhabitants of Glorantha understand these runes and many of them can cast magic, this is useful. Yet it does not offer any information beyond this. Which for an information kit that a genre pack is meant to be is decidedly disappointing.

The reason for the inclusion of the the Glorantha genre pack is to provide a means for players of Hero Wars and the previous edition of HeroQuest, which were both specifically tied to the Glorantha setting, to convert their games to the new edition and thus the more recent HeroQuest sourcebooks for Glorantha. Which is laudable, but it does not offer any information beyond this and that means that the last thing that anyone can do with this genre pack is start playing.

And the fact that neither the GM nor the players can get playing very quickly with a copy of HeroQuest is its main problem. For a generic or multi-genre RPG, the lack of sample genre packs that showcase how the game can do various genres seems an odd omission. Whilst HeroQuest has an abundance of examples throughout its pages, fully worked up genre packs in say the Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction genres would have helped cap all of those examples for the GM and given him something that he could have worked with right away.

Physically, HeroQuest is well written and in general, simply and clearly laid out. If there is a problem with the presentation it is in that some of the artwork is disappointing. Still, it is the writing that shines and that is profusely supported with innumerable and always useful examples.

At the heart of HeroQuest is the art of telling stories, an art that it supports with simple rules and mechanics that are illustrated with copious illuminating examples. In return, it asks more of both GM and players alike, not just in the act of telling a story, but also in trusting each other when the focus of the game is the narrative rather than absolute numbers. In removing those absolute numbers, HeroQuest is more flexible and more encompassing in the genres that it could tackle, and even though the genre support in this rulebook is itself weak, the rules themselves are pleasingly clear and easy to grasp. HeroQuest gives you the rules to which you only need to add your imagination to roleplay the story that you want to play.