The Articles of Dragon: "Even Orcish is Logical"

I've been fascinated with languages and alphabets since I was a young child. Consequently, when I discovered roleplaying games in late 1979, it didn't take me long to start including snatches of made-up languages and scripts into my games. By the time I'd created my Emaindor campaign in high school, I was ready to try my hand at a full-on constructed language – which I, in fact, did, complete with a script imagined for me by a friend of mine in college. That language, Emânic, wasn't very good, as conlangs go, but I was nevertheless pleased with myself and used it primarily for place names in certain regions of the setting.

A major catalyst in my decision to do this were articles in Dragon, especially the pair that appeared in issue #75 (July 1983), the first of which I'll discuss in this post. Entitled "Even Orcish is Logical" and written by Clyde Heaton (who'd previously written another inspirational language article), it offered excellent practical and theoretical device to the novice constructor of fantasy languages. That's important and big reason why the articles in this issue had such an impact on me: they were more than high-minded musings about language; they provided lots of advice and examples on how to make your own languages.

In the case of "Even Orcish is Logical," Heaton spent a lot of time talking about the "feel" of a language, from its sounds to its grammatical constructions to its vocabulary. His thoughts would probably not pass muster with actual linguists, but that was beside the point. Heaton was providing useful guidance to referees who wanted to make languages that are suitable for use in RPG campaigns rather than ones that could withstand the scrutiny of professional academics. So, for example, Heaton notes that the Orcish language, which he uses as is his example, has "mostly harsh, guttural sounds." While he attempts to ground this in something "real" – the protruding fangs and tusks of the Orcish mouth – that's not his main concern. Rather, it's that the Orcish language sounds "right" for the language of savage humanoid enemies in Dungeons & Dragons.

Heaton opts for a similar approach when looking at the grammar of Orcish. Orcs are not a refined people, so the grammar of their language is simple and direct. Again, this approach wouldn't stand up to careful study by a scholar of languages, but it works well enough for fantasy RPGs. At least, that's the lesson I took from it: establish a frame or lens through which to imagine the language you're planning to create and then make decisions about its sounds, grammar, and vocabulary that fit that frame or lens. Unless you're very dedicated and want to follow in the footsteps of Tolkien, this is a reasonable way to proceed, I think. Heaton also points out that there's no need to create an extensive vocabulary for game purposes, since even real languages use only a very small number of words for everyday communication. The number needed in a RPG are probably even smaller. This is important to point out, particularly to readers like my youthful self, who might otherwise have spent weeks or months coming up with words for all sorts of things I'd never need for my campaign.

"Even Orcish is Logical" is a terrific article, one of my favorites from the period when I was reading Dragon regularly. When paired with the other language article from the same issue (about which I'll write next week), it played a significant role in my development as a referee and roleplayer more generally. Re-reading it filled me with a lot of memories and good feelings from that summer just before I started high school. It was a frightening but heady time for me, as I made a transition from one stage of my life to another. Having RPGs and magazines like Dragon available to me made it much less scary than it otherwise might have been and, for that, I'll always be grateful.

Where Did You Buy Your First Tabletop RPG?

(This is a repost, because I am an idiot. I thought I'd included "bookstore" as an option, but obviously didn't. I am now reposting the poll with that option. My apologies to those of you who previously voted. You may now do so again.)

For this week's poll, let me offer a few clarifications. First and most importantly, I'm asking this question about the very first tabletop RPG you bought for yourself and owned, not played. In some cases, these may be different. I want to know about the very roleplaying game for which you had a personal copy. Second, if you didn't buy your first RPG yourself but were given it as a gift, there is an option for that in the poll. Please use it, because I am curious to know how common it was to give roleplaying games as gifts.

For the five main options, I chose places of business that I can recall selling RPGs during my youth. I have undoubtedly neglected to include some possibilities. If you bought your first tabletop roleplaying game somewhere I didn't specifically mention, please choose "Other" and explain your answer in the comments. I'd love to know about some of the more unusual places where RPGs have been sold over the years. 

Rules, Rules, and More Rules

I'm currently refereeing three different campaigns at the moment: House of Worms, using Empire of the Petal Throne; Barrett's Raiders, using the Free League edition of Twilight: 2000; and Dolmenwood, using the rules of the same name. Of the three, only two – EPT and Dolmenwood – can be called "old school" in the usual sense of the term, though T2K has a lot in common with many old school games, specifically its focus on hexcrawling and resource management. That said, I wouldn't really call Twilight: 2000 "old school" without some big caveats. That's no knock against it, since my players and I have been enjoying ourselves with it for more than three years now, but I think it's important to note these things, particularly in light of the topic of this post.

Empire of the Petal Throne is a very early RPG. Released in 1975, it's a close cousin to OD&D in terms of rules, meaning that it's not very mechanically complex. Dolmenwood is a little bit heftier, being largely derived from Moldvay/Cook Dungeons & Dragons (1981), itself a clarification and expansion of OD&D. Twilight: 2000 (2021) uses a variation of Free League's "Year Zero" rules, versions of which can be found in most of the company's games, like Forbidden Lands or Vaesen. The T2K variant is a bit more complex than the others, owing to its inclusion of modern firearms and vehicles.

In each campaign, I rarely use the game's rules as written. I don't mean that I've introduced lots of house rules (though I have in a few cases). I mean that I often ignore the rules. When playing, I often don't want to slow down the flow of the session by having to refer to a rulebook or a chart. Instead, I prefer to rely on my memory and that of the players, which means that we're more likely to strictly apply those that we remember than those we don't. I call these kinds of rules "sticky" rules, because they stick in your memory. 

One of the reasons I prefer old school RPGs like D&D is that I find their rules much stickier than those of newer games. To some extent, that's simply a function of familiarity. I've been playing D&D and Traveller for more than four decades; I know them almost like the back of my hand. I lack this familiarity with games I learned more recently. On the other hand, there's no question that most older roleplaying games are much more mechanically simple than those that came later. Again, this is a generalization and there are plenty of counterexamples. My point is that, as both a referee and a player, I'm much more comfortable with fewer and simpler rules, since I'm much more likely to remember and, therefore, use them.

But, as I already noted, even in games like EPT or Dolmenwood, I regularly handwave or outright ignore rules in the heat of play. For example, Empire of the Petal Throne includes spell failure rules. Depending on a character's level, psychic ability, and the type of spell, there's a chance a spell might not function. At mid to higher levels, this chance is minute, but there's still a chance of failure. Despite this, I don't always make the players roll, since there are many occasions when I feel it unnecessary or disruptive to the flow of the action. I defer to my own judgment here rather than the rules and the players have never complained. Were they to do so, I wouldn't hesitate to use the rules as written, but I like to think that, after a decade of play, we've built up enough trust that that no players worries much about how I'd adjudicate in-game situations.

I think about this question a lot, because many aspects of the new Twilight: 2000 rules, chiefly the combat system, are more complex than I like. There's nothing wrong with them and, by many measures, they're much simpler than the original GDW T2K combat rules. However, I'm not fond of them and I frequently dispense with many persnickety aspects of them in the interests of speed and simplicity. Again, the players rare complain about this and accept my judgments. Had I the ability to start this campaign over again, I might have opted for simpler, more straightforward rules, but, after more than three years, it's too late for that, so we muddle through. 

That's more or less where I am with rules these days: when give the option, I prefer simple, even simplistic, rules over more elaborate and complex ones. I'm not opposed to trying to model complicated situations and activities mechanically and, under the right circumstances, could even find that enjoyable. However, as a referee running a weekly game over the course of many years, I have come to find that rules I can't keep in my head without recourse to a book or a chart or a table don't hold a lot of appeal for me anymore. Consequently, my latest drafts of the rules for Secrets of sha-Arthan are decidedly much simpler than earlier ones. It's yet another way that my experiences as a referee have colored my own design work – and for the better, I hope.

Hope Among the Ruins

Owing to scheduling conflicts, my Barrett's Raiders Twilight: 2000 campaign didn't meet this week. While we've striven to meet every week over the course of the three years and three months we've been playing, such hiccups aren't uncommon. Still, I can't deny I was a little bit disappointed, because this week would have been the first session in the campaign to take place on American shores. After three years of war on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the characters are finally home. 

The reason I was disappointed is that playing Twilight: 2000 in post-war America is something I've wanted to do since the late 1980s. In a very real sense, bringing Barrett's Raiders to this point is the culmination of a nearly forty(!) year-old dream of mine. Back when I originally played T2K, I only owned the first four adventure modules – The Free City of Krakow, Pirates of the Vistula, The Ruins of Warsaw, and The Black Madonna. These are all set in Poland, so my campaigns stayed in Eastern Europe rather than venturing elsewhere. 

Clearly, though, GDW had a great interest in seeing Twilight: 2000 characters return to the USA. After 1986's Going Home, the company produced nine modules set in America. With the exception of the first, Red Star, Lone Star, which dealt with a Soviet-backed Mexican invasion of Texas – think Red Dawn but a little more grounded – the modules were all notable for their focus on rebuilding the country after the nuclear strikes of 1997 and the chaos that followed. 

Granted, the modules still offered plenty of opportunities for violent mayhem, but it was generally directed toward opportunistic warlords and authoritarian New America cells, forces that need to be swept away before any kind of rebuilding might be possible. And while MilGov and CivGov are most definitely at odds with one another, neither side is demonized or reduced to a caricature. It's a messy situation that creates lots of scope for interesting situations and scenarios.

And that's what most excites me about Barrett's Raiders finally making the transition to the Not-So-United States of America. As American soldiers brought home from Europe by the US Military Emergency Administration, the characters are put in a difficult situation: continue to obey the Joint Chiefs despite their extra-constitutional assumption of authority or put themselves at odds with their former comrades in arms. It's a situation made all the more complicated by the equally dodgy authority of President Broward and the reconstituted Congress – to say nothing of the threat of New America and others taking advantage of the breakdown in civil society.

Twilight: 2000 got a reputation in some circles as an immoral power fantasy RPG that made light of the deaths of millions in nuclear war. I think only the most superficial reading of either the game or (especially) its adventure modules could support such a false conclusion. This is most definitely not a game about reveling in the collapse of civilization but rather one where the characters can actively participate in helping to reconstruct that civilization. As campaign frames go, that's a truly worthy one in my opinion, one I've wanted to explore with some friends for decades. Now that I'm finally getting the chance to do so, my enthusiasm is high. Expect increased posting about Twilight: 2000 and the events of the Barrett's Raiders campaign. 

Retrospective: The Complete Book of Elves

By the early 1990s, AD&D 2nd Edition was in full swing, and one of its defining features was the proliferation of entries in the Player's Handbook Rules Supplement (PHBR) series, commonly called the Complete books. These were player-focused supplements initially aimed at expanding the options for various classes that were eventually expanded to other topics, including races. The series is mixed bag, with most volumes following in the footsteps of The Complete Fighter’s Handbook – solid and unremarkable. However, a few stand out for how bad they were, The Complete Book of Elves, published in 1993, being my candidate for the worst (feel free to nominate your own in the comments).

Written by Colin McComb, The Complete Book of Elves is, at its core, an expansion of the already-powerful elf race in AD&D. But whereas earlier material presented elves as skilled but balanced adventurers with unique strengths and weaknesses, this book instead leans hard into the idea that elves are just better –smarter, faster, more artistic, more magical, more attuned to nature, and, of course, longer-lived – than virtually every other playable race in the game.

This emphasis is the start of where the book runs into trouble. It doesn’t just provide players with more options for elven characters; it actively reinforces an attitude of elven superiority, sometimes to an absurd degree. Take, for example, this passage:

No elf will ever simply perform a function when he can do it with flair and style. If a human forges a sword, he creates a piece of metal that cuts and slashes. If an elf forges a sword, he creates a masterpiece of balance, beauty, and power.

That's more or less the tone of the entire book. Elves are naturally superior to humans and other races in virtually every way that matters. Their weapons are better, their magic is more refined, their civilization more enlightened, their senses sharper, their emotions deeper. Even their music is better! 

If it were merely a matter of tone, The Complete Book of Elves would simply be remembered as insufferable. However, the book follows suit with its rules expansions as well and this, in my opinion, is where it reaches a new level of egregiousness. The new elven kits, which are supposed to offer distinct roleplaying options, tend to be overloaded with benefits and underweighted on drawbacks. The bladesinger, for instance, is a combat-ready spellcaster with virtually no downside beyond its limitation to one weapon. The wilderness runner is an elf so in tune with nature that he can literally run faster than a horse. Even some of the purported elven disadvantages, like the elves' reluctance to use heavy armor, are framed as virtues rather than limitations.

It’s not as if the book is poorly written. McComb has a decent grasp of language and some of the information he presents, particularly concerning elven philosophy and their approach to magic, is interesting. However, it is so unbalanced in its portrayal of elves that it feels almost like a work of in-game propaganda rather than a neutral sourcebook. I don't think that was McComb's intention, but, even if it were, I think he went a bit overboard in his approach. I distinctly recall that, during the '90s, The Complete Book of Elves was the butt of frequent jokes by all but the most dedicated elf fanboys. In my local group, we referred to it as "The Complete Book of Gods," because of its overpowered kits and supercilious prose.

Despite this, The Complete Book of Elves still holds some interest today, if only from a historical perspective. It's an artifact of a time when AD&D was leaning much more heavily into the "story" or "narrative" approach that was pioneered almost a decade earlier in Dragonlance. The book has less concern for mechanical balance than it does for presenting a nonhuman race in sufficient detail for maximum player immersion. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing – I'm a longtime fan of Roger E. Moore's "Point of View" series in Dragon, for example – but I can't help but feel as the racial Complete books, especially this one, go too far in this direction. 

Ultimately, I think The Complete Book of Elves serves as an object lesson in the dangers of overindulging a single race or concept in a game. I prefer it when a supplement expands options, not elevates one choice as obviously better than all the others. Based on my undoubtedly biased experience, this book simply exacerbated an existing problem: players already drawn to elves didn’t need more reasons to see them as superior. It's a flawed and indulgent book, worth a read only if you want a window into some of the worst tendencies of TSR and AD&D during the early to mid-1990s. 

REPOST: The Articles of Dragon: "The Nine Hells (Part I)"

(The original post appeared here.)

And so we come, once again, to an excellent article written by Ed Greenwood – "The Nine Hells, Part I," which appeared in issue #75 (July 1983) of Dragon. In retrospect, it's easy to see why Greenwood would enjoy such success; he was not only prolific but also imaginative. Plus, his articles were memorable. Even now, nearly three decades later, I clearly remember the first time I read this issue of Dragon, filled as it was with information about the lower planes, thanks to both Gary Gygax's extensive preview of new devils from the upcoming Monster Manual II and the first part of Ed Greenwood's tour of the first five layers of AD&D's version of Hell. I was absolutely blown away by what I read, much to the chagrin of my players at the time, several of whom found themselves on unexpected visits to the domains of one or more arch-devils.

Like Roger E. Moore's "The Astral Plane," "The Nine Hells, Part I" is a work of remarkable scholarship, mining the entirety of the AD&D corpus available at the time for hints as to what the planes of Hell might be like. Also like "The Astral Plane," this article wasn't content to simply regurgitate what we already knew. Rather, it expanded on that information in clever and sometimes surprising ways, painting a picture of the Nine Hells that was both true to its gaming source material but also evocative of other works of fantasy and myth. Greenwood doesn't present his Nine Hells as canonical for anything other than his own Forgotten Realms campaign, but it wasn't long before it received Gygax's blessing, which gave it a status it enjoyed until comparatively recently, where books as recent as 2006's Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells continued to make use of ideas laid down in 1983. That's a degree of influence that few articles (or authors) can match.

In addition to giving names to each of the Nine Hells and discussing their locales and points of interest, Greenwood also devotes a fair bit of space to their inhabitants, in particular unique devils. Prior to this issue of Dragon, the arch-devils were the only unique devils described in AD&D. Now, both Gygax and Greenwood provided a coterie of such personalities, which, as a referee, I found a terrific boon. Unique devils gave me the opportunity to pit the PCs against powerful devils that weren't rulers of entire planes. This not only gave the PCs a fighting chance to defeat them but, in the event that the PCs did defeat them, the multiverse wouldn't resound with their victory the way it might if they bested Dispater or Geryon. Greenwood also found a way to work Astaroth from "The Politics of Hell" (from issue #28) into his depiction of the Nine Hells, which I know endeared him to many older gamers of my acquaintance who adored Alex von Thorn's article from way back when.

"The Nine Hells, Part I" (and its sequel, which I may well wind up discussing next time) are in a rare class of Dragon article: ones I actually used. Ever since I started playing AD&D, I desperately wanted to run adventures in the Outer Planes, but I rarely did, in large part because the game gave so little information on them. That's why articles like this and "The Astral Plane" were so useful and inspiring to me. And, unlike "The Astral Plane," Greenwood's Nine Hells articles were remarkably concrete, describing people and places one could encounter in addition to providing rules for how magic worked differently in this plane of ultimate Lawful Evil. I liked that a lot; I still do.

Musings on Poll Results (Part II)

With two more polls closed, let's take a look at the results, starting with when were you first introduced to roleplaying games? When I posted this poll on March 3,  my initial guess was that most of my regular readers were introduced to tabletop RPGs sometime between 1979 and 1983. As you can see, my prediction was very close to the truth.

The period between 1980 and 1982, corresponding to the tail end of the Holmes Basic Set's run and the launch of Moldvay/Cook accounted for just shy of one-third of all votes, while 1977–1979 accounts for nearly one-fifth. Taken together, they represent almost one-half of respondents. Interestingly, the period between 1983 and 1985, during which the Mentzer's BECM boxed sets were released (I didn't appear until 1986) is a close third. Altogether, then, the nine-year period between 1977 and 1985 represents two-thirds of those who voted.

The fourth place period of 2000+ is worthy of separate mention. Though only 10.66% of respondents chose this option, it's still larger than the other remaining options. This proves, I think, that Third Edition was a consequential edition of Dungeons & Dragons, one that introduced a lot of people into the hobby who have continued to participate in it. Though 3e is far from my favorite edition of the game, I also think it gets a much worse reputation in old school circles than it deserves. (As an aside, I think it's even more notable that the reign of 2e seems to have garnered so few votes, but perhaps that's just a quirk of my readership.)

The next poll, which originally appeared on March 10, asked: how old were you when you first started playing tabletop RPGs? My prediction was that the winning answer would be somewhere in the 10 to 14 age range – and I was correct.

A little less than three-quarters of all correspondents chose either 9–11 or 12–14, with the latter winning by just two votes. This doesn't really surprise me. Most of the roleplayers I met in my youth were within a year or two of my own age – I started in late '79, having just turned 10. What does surprise me, though, is how much smaller than other age cohorts are, especially the 18–20 and 21+ categories, both of which are smaller than the 6–8 category. As ever, that may simply be a quirk of my readership, who largely seem to be middle-aged men who were born in the late '60s to early '70s. Even so, I remember older guys who roleplayed, like my friend's high school-aged older brother, for instance, and the college kids who hung around hobby shops. Where are they now?

Was Your First Tabletop RPG Dungeons & Dragons?

We've got a very simple poll this week: was your first tabletop RPG Dungeons & Dragons? I suspect that the vast majority of people who read this blog entered the hobby through D&D, but I'm nevertheless curious about the number who didn't. If you answered "no," please use the comments to indicate the tabletop RPG that was your first instead and, if you can recall, the year when you first played it. I'm very curious about the other games that might have served as gateways to roleplaying and when they did so.

 

Campaign Updates: Change of Course

This was a week when all three campaigns shifted gears to varying degrees – in significant ways for both the Barrett's Raiders Twilight: 2000 campaign and the House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign. 

Barrett's Raiders

This week, there wasn't much actual play. Instead, we devoted ourselves to tying up any loose ends in Europe, as the characters were about to head home aboard the assembled vessels of Task Force 34 (its flagship, USS John Hancock, depicted above). Chief among these loose ends was Private Ronnie Baxter of the British Army, who'd joined the characters in Kraków several weeks before. The British wouldn't be evacuating until the new year, so he bid the Americans farewell and rejoined his countrymen in Braunschweig, which served as the winter headquarters of the First British Corps. Several other player characters would also be departing upon arrival in Norfolk: Private Lou "Oddball" Guida (honorable discharge and returning home to Brooklyn); Seaman Jimmy "Aquaman" Jones (transfer to an actual naval unit), and Sergeant Jess "Cowpoke" Gartmann (other duties – the character of a player who dropped out of the campaign and stayed on as an NPC up till this point).

Much of the session was devoted to developing replacement characters for those departing, as well as the expenditure of experience points accumulated but not spent in previous sessions. I wanted to be sure that, when we resumed next week, everything was in place to pick up and play on the other side of the Atlantic. Lt. Col. Orlowski, the characters' commander, made a request to his superiors that his men be kept together for detached duties as needed in America. He argued that, having survived several months behind enemy lines in Poland, they'd formed a bond that would serve them and the Army well. This will form the new frame for the Barrett's Raiders campaign: the characters will be initially operating in Virginia and the surrounding areas during the period (December 2000–March 2001) when Naval Station Norfolk is still operational. After that, only time will tell.

Dolmenwood

Marid Aventi having joined the party, the characters spent the day in Shagsend, conferring with Windore Hoblewort, a breggle magician who acts as Lord Malbleat's representative in the town. It was soon apparent that Hoblewort didn't think much of his master, but he was a great source of information about him and his activities nonetheless. For instance, Malbleat was presently preparing to host an annua festival called the Hlerribuck, said festival being a commemoration of the life and deeds of his illustrious ancestor, Wrygott Gnarlgruff. Since the characters were already interested in Gnarlgruff and his supposed involvement with the recent intrusion into Fairy, this news caught their attention. Surely this could not be a coincidence.

The group then said their farewells and made their way southward toward Redwraith Manor, the estate of Malbleat. They weren't head there: the Hlerribuck would be held at Shadholme Lodge, which sits atop the mausoleum where Gnarlgruff is interred. Still, they were fascinated to see that the way to the Manor was barred by a wrought-iron gate and further secured by heavy chains. Malbleat clearly didn't want unexpected guests to show up on his doorstep. They then continued on toward the festival grounds set up around the Shadholme, directed to the right place by a grumpy groundskeeper, who, like almost everyone in the High Wold, deferred to Falin, since she's a breggle (the High Wold being "breggle country"). Though this continues to make her uncomfortable – she's used to being ignored in human lands – her companions urge her to make the best of it as they prepare to mingle with the aristocracy and well-to-do of the region.

House of Worms

Toneshkéthu is a student at the Colllege at the End of Time, a institution that literally exists at the end of Tékumel's timeline – and not just one Tékumel but every possible version of Tékumel, of which there are many. She's been an ally of the characters for many years, though, because of the nature of her "location," they often encounter her out of temporal order. This makes dealing with her complicated, as she sometimes remembers things that, from the characters' perspective, haven't happened yet (and vice versa). She gave Keléno a device to communicate with her when necessary, but he's loath to use it. The other characters are not quite so reticent, which is why he contacted her at the end of the last session.

Keléno queried her first about the mind-bars placed on Nebússa and Kirktá. She brushed off the one placed on Nebússa, "It's just ordinary sorcery; you can deal with that yourselves." The one placed on Kirktá, she admitted was unusual and powerful. However, she cautioned against trying to remove it. "The mind-bar will come down on its own in time. Parts of it are probably already breaking down – or soon will be. It's there to protect him from things it can't yet handle. Removing it ahead of time would like shatter his mind." Keléno then asked about Prince Dhich'uné and his plans, specifically whether or not they should try to avoid involving themselves in them further. Toneshkéthu replied, "Oh, so you've reconciled yourselves to the fall of Tsolyánu, then? Interesting." 

Needless to say, this horrified the characters. Were they supposed to aid Dhich'une, as Ki'éna suggested they would, or were they supposed to oppose him, as they preferred? They had no way of knowing, as Keléno declined to ask further questions of Toneshkéthu. He worried it might unduly influence their decisions one way or the other. He thanked her and bid her farewell. Before she severed communication, she told him to remember these words: The Inevitable of the Ineffable. The words meant nothing to him, but Kirktá immediately remembered reading a book of that title when he was younger. It was a polemic from Bednallján times, written by Artúkko Ala'á, a foe of the priest Pavár (whose divine revelation established the pantheons of Change and Stability). Ala'á argued that Pavár's religious reformation wold spell the end of the Bednallján imperium, as people abandoned the daily sacrifices to the One Other that sustained the empire.

What, if anything, this had to do with their present circumstances, the characters didn't yet know. They soon decided that the time had come to make Kirktá's existence known to the wider world. They would publicly announce his presence in Béy Sü and his status as an heir of the deceased emperor. By doing so, they hoped to draw out any who might be alarmed by his presence, including other heirs and factions vying for control during the interregnum. It was a dangerous gambit, of course, but they no longer wished to skulk around the edges of imperial politics. Now was the time to play their hand and see more clearly who their friends and enemies might be.

My Top 10 Favorite Traveller Images (Part II)

Part I can be found here.

5. JTAS #13 Cover

The Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society was GDW's in-house periodical for supporting Traveller (until it was replaced by Challenge in 1986). With a few exceptions, the covers of JTAS weren't notable, but issue #13 is one that really captured my imagination. Drawn by William H. Keith, it depicts a member of the Hiver species, one of the most interesting – and weird – nonhuman aliens of the official Third Imperium setting. Few of the subsequent depictions of the Hivers ever looked as good as this one in my opinion, not even those in the Alien Module devoted to them. Consequently, this particular piece has stuck with me for years as a high point in Traveller art, particularly of alien species.

4. The Traveller Book Cover

William H. Keith returns (for the last time) with his cover art for The Traveller Book. Its placement so high on this list is at least partially due to nostalgia, because I've used it as my go-to Traveller rulebook for decades. I readily acknowledge that, from a technical perspective, the cover is slightly amateurish. However, I care more about its grounded vibe. It's just a merchant crew warily disembarking their 200-ton Far Trader, armed and ready for anything. It's a terrific encapsulation of Traveller as a game and I love it, for all its weaknesses as a work of art.

3. Alexander Lascelles Jamison

OD&D had Xylarthen the Magic-User and Traveller had Alexander Lascelles Jamison. This 38 year-old merchant captain has been the game's sample character since 1977, but his portrait got a significant upgrade in The Traveller Book over its original version. Drawn by David Dietrick, who provided a lot of great artwork for Traveller during the mid to late 1980s (and in Thousand Suns, too, come to think of it). Dietrick's reimagining of Jamison isn't just how I imagine this particular character; he's my mental image of the default Traveller character. You can't get much more iconic than that.

2. Charted Space Map

I've raved about my love of this map before, so I won't say much more here. I will add that this image is very near and dear to my heart, both because of what it depicts and how it depicts it. The map is peak classic Traveller – elegant and evocative with just enough information to inspire. I had this map pinned to my wall for years, so it will always be very special to me.

1. Regina Subsector Map

If D&D is defined in part by graph paper, Traveller is defined by hex paper, or rather by its 8×10 hex-based subsector maps, the foundations upon which the game's conception of the galaxy are built. Regina subsector is subsector C of the Spinward Marches and the example subector presented in in many GDW products. Regina is thus like the Grand Duchy of Karameikos, the Dalelands, or Lakefront City – an example that grows beyond its original purpose to have a life of its own. Every time I look at this map, I quickly find myself imagining situations and adventures on its worlds, especially those located outside the main travel routes. Looking at this map makes me want to play Traveller, which is exactly what a good RPG image should do.

Situation Report

United States Military Emergency Administration (USMEA)

DATE: 15 September 2000

LOCATION: Virginia Theater of Operations

CLASSIFICATION: SECRET

1. SITUATION OVERVIEW

Virginia remains a highly contested region, with multiple factions asserting control over key locations. USMEA-aligned forces maintain a presence at certain military installations but face increasing pressure from Free State militias, the unrecognized civilian authority (UCA) in Omaha, and lawless elements. The CIA now actively supports the UCA, while the DIA functions as the primary intelligence agency for the USMEA.

Of particular concern are reports that some Free State communities are rallying around a new movement known as “New America.” This ideology is gaining traction in multiple regions, with increasingly authoritarian rhetoric and signs of organized militarization.

2. FACTIONAL CONTROL

(A) USMEA CONTROLLED AREAS

• Naval Station Norfolk (Partial Control) – Severely damaged by a 1 MT nuclear blast but undergoing limited reconstruction. Remaining personnel scheduled for evacuation to Fort Dix by March 2001.

• Fort Pickett – Largest intact USMEA installation in Virginia, serving as a hub for sustainment, logistics, and refit operations.

• Fort Eustis – Hosting a reduced command staff. Limited aviation assets available, primarily for reconnaissance.

• Fort Lee – Supporting logistical operations but vulnerable to disruption by external factions.

• Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Operations – Now the primary intelligence service for USMEA forces, focused on counterinsurgency efforts against the Free State militias and intelligence gathering on the UCA.

(B) UCA CONTROLLED AREAS

• Northern Virginia Enclave (Reston, Falls Church, McLean) – Acts as a regional capital of the UCA, housing remnant federal officials, intelligence personnel, and security forces.

• CIA Support – The CIA is actively supporting the UCA, providing intelligence and covert operations against USMEA and Free State-aligned factions. Reports indicate attempts to secure international recognition and foreign aid.

• Raven Rock Mountain Complex (Site R) – Essential to the UCA's intelligence network, coordinating communication security and strategic analysis.

My Top 10 Favorite Traveller Images (Part I)

Before I start, a couple of caveats and explanations. First, you'll note that I say "images," not "illustrations." That's because Traveller is rather (in)famous for its dearth of artwork, especially prior to the publication of The Traveller Book in 1982. However, the game never lacked for images, by which I mean maps, deck plans, and the like and many of these helped define the game and its approach to science fiction every bit as powerfully as did more "traditional" RPG illustrations. Second, I've purposefully limited my selection of images to Traveller products published by GDW between 1977 and 1986. There's a lot of third-party Traveller material published during that time, many with superb imagery, but, in the interests of focus, I've limited myself to only the main Traveller line. If there's sufficient interest, I might do a second series of posts that expands the scope a bit.

10. Diagram 1 from Shadows

Shadows is one of my favorite Traveller adventures, one I've refereed numerous times over the decades. One of my favorite things about the adventure are its maps and diagrams. All of them serve to describe the alien ruins found on the backwater planet of Yorbund that forms the location in which Shadows takes place. While several of them could easily have been chosen as an entry in this post, I think Diagram 1, pictured to the left, is by far the best and most interesting. As you can see, the diagram depicts the central shaft of the ruins, descending from a hidden entrance at the top of a surface pyramid tens of meters below the surface of Yorbund. It's a very practical image, enabling the referee to get a handle on how the various parts of the ruins relate to each other. It's also very atmospheric, establishing Shadows as a literal descent into the underworld. 

9. Snapshot Deck Plans

Another entry in this list and still no illustrations! Instead, gaze upon these deck plans from Snapshot. They depict two iconic starships from Traveller – the 100-ton Type S Scout/Courier and the 200-ton Beowulf-class Free Trader. These are probably the two most common "adventuring" starships in the game, in large part due to the fact that Scout and Merchant characters stand the chance of mustering out with one of them. They're also the perfect size for a band of characters. Though there are many other versions of these deck plans, it's these from Snapshot that are seared into my brain, thanks to having used them repeatedly in my youth.

8. Entering Jumpspace

Our first "proper" illustration and by William H. Keith, no less (a name that will appear several more times in this post and the next). In case the flash of red isn't enough to give it away, this piece appeared in The Traveller Book. That's the aforementioned Type S Scout/Courier as it prepares to enter jumpspace. Though very simple, it's a favorite of mine and has colored (no pun intended) my conception of what it Traveller interstellar travel looks like. Though I can't prove it, I suspect it was inspired, at least in part, by how the Millennium Falcon entered hyperspace in Star Wars.

7. Zhodani Battle Dress

The psionic Zhodani are the main rivals of the Third Imperium and were described in detail in the fourth Alien Module produced for Traveller. One of many great things about that supplement is the way it firmly established the esthetics of the Zhodani Consulate and their citizens and military forces. I particularly like this illustration (by Bryan Gibson) of Zhodani battle dress, complete with notations pointing out its various features, such as its distinctive clamshell helmet. This piece occupies a halfway point between being a traditional illustration and being a diagram, I think, but it's all the more effective for it.

6. The Patron

Another William H. Keith piece from The Traveller Book (note the red highlights), it depicts a distinctive element of Traveller – and one about which I'll be posting soon – the patron encounter. Many a Traveller adventure begins with meeting Space Sydney Greenstreet over drinks in the darkened corner of a startown bar, his bodyguard looming over the proceedings. Ironically, it's not a scene about which I can recall many illustrations in GDW products, which is probably why this one has stuck with me over the years. In many ways, this is the defining image of Traveller, or at least the way it was played back in my youth. If I didn't have other even more representative images, I'd probably rate this one even higher.

Retrospective: Twilight's Peak

First published in 1980, Twilight’s Peak is the third stand-alone adventure released for Traveller and one of the longest. At 64 pages, it surpasses both of its predecessors, The Kinunir and Research Station Gamma, by about 20 pages. Research Station Gamma in particular serves as something of an introduction to this adventure, both in terms of content and theme. Furthermore, because Twilight’s Peak was written by Traveller’s creator, Marc Miller, it holds particular significance for understanding his early vision of both the game itself and its official Third Imperium setting.

At its core, Twilight’s Peak is a treasure hunt in space, but one that leans heavily into the speculative and enigmatic side of science fiction. Unlike the mission-based structure of earlier Traveller adventures, which typically placed the characters in the service of a specific patron or mission objective, Twilight’s Peak assumes that the characters have a vested interest in the mystery itself, whether for profit, knowledge, or personal curiosity. This makes it one of the first Traveller adventures to fully embrace the potential of sandbox-style play in a science fiction setting.

Rather than offering a linear plot, the adventure provides a framework that encourages players to uncover clues from disparate sources: government records, old ship logs, academic research, and the accounts of independent traders, among others. This structure rewards careful and methodical play, allowing the characters to choose how they gather intelligence and when they advance the story. In contrast to other early Traveller modules, Twilight's Peak is not a "dungeon in space" but an investigative experience that unfolds gradually.

What makes Twilight’s Peak especially memorable is its connection to the Ancients, the long-extinct starfaring race whose relics and technology appear sporadically throughout the Third Imperium setting. While the adventure doesn’t explicitly spell out every connection, the discovery of a powerful and inexplicable alien base – complete with alien artifacts – forms its climax. This resonates with one of Traveller’s most important themes: the universe is vast and indifferent. While humanity (or humaniti, to use the game’s spelling) may rule an empire, it exists in the shadow of something immensely older and greater. This theme of humans as inheritors of a cosmos shaped by lost civilizations was a crucial part of Miller’s vision for Traveller. It aligns with the works of many classic sci-fi authors, such as Arthur C. Clarke, Larry Niven, H. Beam Piper, and Frederik Pohl, all of whom influenced Traveller to varying degrees. Later Traveller adventures would either downplay or over-explain the Ancients, but in Twilight’s Peak, they still retain a sense of mystery and grandeur.

Beyond its themes, Twilight’s Peak is an excellent sandbox adventure with just enough structure to guide players without forcing them down a predetermined path. The scenario is filled with red herrings, bureaucratic obstacles, and misinterpretations of historical data, making the information-gathering process more dynamic and engaging than a simple fetch quest. However, it also demands a lot from both the referee and the players. The adventure lacks an immediate action hook and takes time – a lot of time – to develop. Groups accustomed to more straightforward scenarios may struggle with its slower pace and its emphasis on research and deduction over direct confrontation.

For those who enjoy peeling back the layers of an ancient (or Ancient) mystery, however, Twilight’s Peak is among the most rewarding scenarios of Traveller's early years. As the third stand-alone adventure published for the game, it set the tone for much of what followed. Later Traveller adventures started to move away from ship-based conflict and small-scale tactical engagements, embracing exploration as an equally important, if not necessarily dominant, mode of play. Moreover, Twilight’s Peak helped cement Traveller’s reputation as a game of mystery and discovery rather than just interstellar heists and mercenary work. The best Traveller campaigns balance all of these elements, but Twilight’s Peak demonstrated that a non-combat, investigative adventure could be just as compelling as a military operation or corporate intrigue plot and, for that reason, is among my personal favorite Traveller adventur.

Star Frontiers Commercial (1983)

The Articles of Dragon: "The SF 'universe'"

Anyone who's read this blog for any length of time knows that I'm a Traveller man. I first encountered GDW's game of science fiction adventure in the far future, sometimes in late 1981 or early '82 – my memories are hazy – and it very quickly became my go-to SF RPG. Heck, it still is today and this is despite the fact that I've written my own science fiction roleplaying game about which I remain proud. Traveller is nearly perfect in every way that matters to me, from the elegance of its rules to depth of its official setting. That a version of the game is still in print also means that it's easy to introduce new people to the game (though, to be fair, there are many other options available as well).

Even so, as a diehard TSR fanboy in my youth, there was no way that I could pass up Star Frontiers when it was first published in 1982. Star Frontiers was no replacement for Traveller, but it was a fun game, one my friends and I enjoyed. In fact, I'm pretty sure many of my friends preferred it to Traveller, because of its more "wahoo!" approach to science fiction. That's not a knock against it by any means, just a statement of my own feeling that Star Frontiers has a much stronger action-adventure orientation than Traveller. If that's what you're looking for, Star Frontiers delivers.

Issue #74 of Dragon (June 1983) included a lengthy article, "The SF 'universe'" by Tony Watson that came to a similar conclusion. Over the course of seven pages, Watson presents an extensive review of the game, examining the setting, artwork, components, rules, and introductory module. The review is quite thorough and, I think, fair. Even though it appeared in the pages of Dragon, TSR's house magazine, Watson's review is not slavish in its praise. If anything, it errs a bit on the side of being occasionally too critical of the game and its decidedly different approach to science fiction than Traveller or Universe, to which Watson frequently compares Star Frontiers and not always positively.

Watson's main criticisms of Star Frontiers are that it's strongly combat-focused, lacks starship rules, and that its overall tenor is more like Star Wars than 2001: A Space Odyssey. Of these criticisms, the lack of starship rules largely ceased to be an issue once the Knight Hawks expansion was released (ironically, not long after these article appeared). The other two criticisms are related, in my opinion. As I said earlier, Star Frontiers is more an action-adventure RPG than is Traveller. It's about adventures in space, fighting alien saboteurs and space pirates and surviving on a weird, inhospitable planet and the game's rules and presentation reflect that. 

Watson understands this, which is why I appreciated this article when I first read it and still do. He does something I very much appreciate in reviews: he judges the success or failure of a game product on the basis of its intended goals rather than on what he might have wanted it to be. Star Frontiers wasn't trying to be Traveller or Universe but something else entirely and it deserves to be judged accordingly. It's a good standard and one I try to emulate (even if I don't always succeed).  

Musings on Poll Results (Part I)

The first three polls are now closed and I'd like to share the results. The first poll was How many people – players + referee(s) – were there in your gaming group at the time you first started roleplaying? yielded the following, based on 342 votes:

These results were a little bit of a surprise to me. Remember that the question was about your first gaming group, not your present one. When I entered the hobby in late 1979, my gaming group had seven players and that didn't seem to be all that unusual. Most of the other groups I encountered had more than six players, with quite a few having 10 or more. However, based on the results above, that wasn't quite as common as I had imagined, with 4–6 players being far more so.

The second poll was How many people – players + referee(s) – are in your gaming group at present? and yielded results consonant with the first one, based on 417 votes:

As you can see, the numbers aren't much different, with 5–6 players representing almost half of all voters. The biggest shift is at the high end, where the number of voters whose gaming group has 7 or more players has grown from slightly less than 15% in the first poll to slightly more than 20% in the second one. I'm actually rather heartened by seeing that, as I think larger groups are generally better than smaller ones.

The third and final poll I'll discuss today is How long are your RPG sessions?, which yielded the following, based on 467 votes:

These results did not surprise me. Slightly more than two-thirds of the votes were cast for 2–4 hours, which has been the typical length I've observed for the last decade or more. In my youth, we used to have marathon sessions that lasted 8 hours or more, but I'm far too old to do that anymore and have been for some time. In addition, lots of us play online nowadays, so anything longer than 4 hours staring at a screen is generally too much. That said, there were still people who voted for sessions of 6+ hours, so not everyone is as lacking in stamina as I.

This is all useful information to me, if only to get a better sense of Grognardia's readership. It's also helped me formulate some additional questions that I'll post in the future, such as "How often do you get together to play?" and "In how many campaigns are you currently participating?" If there are other questions you'd like me to ask in polls, please let me know in the comments.  

How Old Were You When First Started Playing Tabletop RPGs?

This is another poll whose results whose results will greatly interest me. I had just turned 10 when I discovered Dungeons & Dragons during the Christmas break of 1979, but all my neighborhood friends, who formed the group with which I regularly played, were younger than I was, by a year or two. I eventually came to know roleplayers who were older, like a friend's brother and his buddies, but we never gamed with them very often. 

Like previous polls, this one is necessarily limited. I lumped anyone under the age of 6 into a single category on the assumption that very few people first play tabletop RPGs at that age. Likewise, anyone age 21 or older gets put into a single category. In both cases, that's a function of my own experience of entering the hobby. If enough people vote for either of those categories, I may do a subsequent poll that expands upon them, but my gut tells me that most people who read this blog probably started roleplaying between the ages of 6 and 20, with the vast majority being somewhere in the 10 to 14 range. We'll see if I'm correct in this assumption.

 

Campaign Updates: Ten Years

Because of unexpected real life distractions, I didn't referee either Barrett's Raiders or Dolmenwood this week. Despite that, I wasn't about to cancel this week's House of Worms session, since it marked the tenth anniversary of the campaign, which began on Friday, March 6, 2015. As I've written numerous times, I never, in my wildest dreams, imagined that this campaign would prove so durable. When I started it, I expected that it would probably last several months, maybe a year at most. After all, Tékumel is a hard sell to most gamers and Empire of the Petal Throne, the rules I elected to use to run the campaign, were very old, among the oldest ever published. Furthermore, I had no plan or expectations for House of Worms. I began the campaign simply as a way to scratch an itch and nothing more. In retrospect, it's quite possible that all of these supposed negatives actually worked in the campaign's favor and contributed to its longevity.

That said, House of Worms is winding down and has been for some months now. A combination of factors has contributed to declining player attendance throughout 2024, something I can completely understand. When we all first gathered a decade ago to play, no one present had any reason to imagine we'd still be going so many years into the future. None of the players, including those who remain from the original six, is under any obligation to keep at this indefinitely, especially when so many of the larger threads of the campaign have either been tied up or are in the process of doing so. Even if attendance hadn't been getting spottier, it's just as likely that House of Worms would have wrapped up any way. How does one top the death of the emperor of Tsolyánu and the choosing of his successor from among his heirs, one of whom is a player character?

On that front, the characters have continued their investigations into the unusual circumstances of Kirktá's early life, as the entire empire prepares for the funeral of emperor Hirkáne Tlakotáni, the "Stone Upon Which the Universe Rests." Armed with the information recently obtained, Nebússa called upon a contact in the Omnipotent Azure Legion, the secret police of Tsolyánu, which, among other duties, looks after the imperial succession. His contact was a man who acted as a liaison between the OAL and the Court of the Purple Robes, the court bureaucrats of the emperor. He listened to Nebússa's request and told him that he could probably find out more but that it would take time. He also warned that doing so would probably draw attention to the characters and their activities. "This close to the ascension of a new emperor, many people will no doubt be looking into these matters."

Later that day, a non-descript young man came to Nebússa and the other characters, who were lodging at the Golden Bough clanhouse. The man gave the name of a priest at the Temple of Belkhánu in Béy Sü, saying that he would know more about Kirktá's early life. He also said that there was already an OAL agent in place, keeping an eye on him – someone who's been with him for years and is very close. He would not elaborate, adding only that "Others are also curious about Kirktá. You should be careful." Nebússa then began to ponder just who this OAL agent might be, with suspicion falling on Keléno, his long-time mentor. When confronted, Keléno replied, "So far as I know, I am not an OAL agent – which probably increases the likelihood that I am, in fact, one." 

The matter unresolved, they visited the Temple of Belkhánu and sought out the priest, who was old and seemingly infirm. He claimed to know nothing of Kirktá. When Kirktá attempted to use ESP on him, it did not work, due to some kind of mind bar placed on him. When informed of this, Nebússa surreptitiously made use of sorcery to dispel the mind bar, which enabled Kirktá to then read the priest's mind. His thoughts were incredibly disciplined, making him still hard to read. What he could discern was that the priest was pleased to see Kirktá. "He has finally returned to us," he thought. "I should tell the others. They will be pleased." Nebússa and Grujúng then tailed the priest, to see if he did anything suspicious. When he did not, they returned to the Golden Bough clanhouse.

There, Nebússa used his magic to see if anyone else had been tampered with in any way. He discovered that he himself had been – certain of his own memories were blocked – and the same was true of Kirktá. However, the mind bar placed on Nebússa was "normal," whereas the one on Kirktá was both powerful and "wrong," which is to say, unlike any sorcery he'd encountered before. It was also "leaky," with "holes" in it, suggesting it was in the process of breaking down. This troubled the characters, who decided they needed to seek out someone more knowledgeable in sorcery than they. Keléno suggested reaching out to Toneshkéthu, a student at the College at the End of Time, whom they've known for years and whose existence is temporally out of sync with their own. Upon contacting her, she immediately said, "Oh, wonderful! You're finally getting to the good part."

And that was how we spent our tenth anniversary session of House of Worms. 

REVIEW: Sun County

When RuneQuest burst upon the roleplaying game scene in 1978, it quickly became known for both its percentile-based skill system (which would later become the basis for Chaosium's house system, Basic Role-Playing) and its rich Bronze Age fantasy setting, Glorantha. Glorantha is steeped in mythology, both real and fictional, which not only distinguishes it from other fantasy RPG settings but has also made it one of my favorite imaginary settings of all time. 

Between 1979 and 1983, Chaosium released numerous superb supplements, many of them boxed sets, fleshing out Glorantha to the delectation of its growing legion of fans. Then, in 1984, Chaosium entered into a deal with wargames publisher, Avalon Hill, who'd publish a new edition of RuneQuest but stripped of Glorantha. Though the company reversed this decision later, its support for Glorantha was desultory at best, much to the disappointment of long-time devotees. 

I wasn't one of these devotees. I knew of RuneQuest, of course, but I was a diehard player of Dungeons & Dragons and indeed somewhat skeptical of RQ at the time. Consequently, I largely missed out on the game until the early 1990s, when Avalon Hill hired Ken Rolston to revitalize its version of the game. This he did through a renewed focus on Glorantha. His tenure kicked off a RuneQuest renaissance that gave birth to multiple excellent expansions of Glorantha, many of which are still regarded as classics. This was the period when I first fell in love with the setting, a love that has only grown in the three decades since. 

Currently, RuneQuest and Glorantha are undergoing what might well be called a second renaissance. Since the publication of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha in 2018, Chaosium has released a steady stream of excellent new material for the game and its setting. Just as importantly, the company has made a lot of its older material available again in electronic and print-on-demand form, both through its own store and through DriveThruRPG. Its most recent classic re-release is Sun County, written by Michael O'Brien, with contributions from Rolston, Glorantha creator Greg Stafford, and others. 

Before discussing the contents of the book itself, I'd like to briefly comment on the 2024 remastering. The book's interior layout is clear and straightforward. It makes use of two columns and splashes of column – titles, headers and footers, tables, etc. It's been years since I saw the 1992 original, so I can't say if the use of color is new, but it's attractive nonetheless. There's a new foreword by Shannon Appelcline, which contextualizes Sun County within the larger history of RuneQuest (some of which I've mentioned above). As someone who enjoys learning about the history of the hobby, I love this sort of stuff and am glad it was included. 

Originally published in 1992, the 2024 re-release of Sun County is a 124-page sourcebook, packed with detailed setting material, rules expansions, and adventure scenarios. The first half of the book is dedicated to fleshing out the region of Sun County itself – its geography, culture, and history – while the second half presents a series of interconnected adventure that showcase different aspects of the rigid society of the Sun Dome Templars, a militant theocracy devoted to Yelmalio, Son of the Sun. As a setting, Sun County is one of isolationism and decline. The Sun Domers are a proud but stiflingly conservative people, desperately clinging to a past that has long since left them behind. Their deity, Yelmalio, is cold and indifferent sun and their stiff hierarchy, strict moral codes, and inflexible traditions make them an excellent counterpoint to the vibrant and increasingly chaotic world around them. Sun County leans into these themes, both in its descriptive text and in the several included scenarios.

From a presentation standpoint, Sun County stands out for its strong authorial voice. This is not an encyclopedic setting book filled with dispassionate information but rather a living, breathing culture, conveyed through in-character documents, legends, and anecdotes (as well as game mechanics). This has long been a hallmark of the better Gloranthan materials, but Sun County does it with a degree of clarity and usability that makes it, in my opinion, much more accessible than other books of this kind. The reader still needs to be already familiar with Glorantha, of course, but Sun County does a good job of explaining itself without too many references to other products.

The reader is treated to details about the cult of Yelmalio and related subcults, as well as the Sun Dome Temple itself, the seat of both religion and government within the County. Equally well detailed are its elite soldiers and citizen levies, which play significant roles here. A collection of random encounters and events serve both as sparks for adventures and to highlight unique aspects of Sun County, like the Yelmalian beadles who deal with unlicensed beggars or succubi who prey upon the sexually inhibited Sun Domers. These sorts of details flesh out the setting in straightforward, practical ways that I appreciate.

As I mentioned earlier, slightly more than half the book consists of adventures set in and around Sun County. Two of these pertain to a Harvest Festival in the town of Garhound, just beyond its borders. Garhound makes a great starting point for non-Yelmalian characters to visit the land of the Sun Domers. Another scenario affords characters the opportunity to become landowners in the County, while two further adventures concern the locating of lost artifacts associated with Yelmalio. There's also a collection of ideas for the Gamemaster to flesh out on his own. Taken together, these scenarios cover a lot of ground, though I do wish there'd been a few that dealt more directly with navigating the ins and outs of Sun County's often-strict society. 

The book features strong black-and-white illustrations by Merle Insinga and Roger Raupp (the latter of whom also did the cover) that reinforce the setting’s stark, sun-bleached aesthetic. The imagery depicts the militaristic and hierarchical nature of Sun County, though there are also plenty of pieces that highlight other sides of the setting, like the contests of the Harvest Festival and the hidden threats to the region. The maps, though functional, are generally not as evocative as those found in earlier, Chaosium era products like Pavis or Big Rubble, but they serve their purpose well enough.

Sun County is a great setting book. It captures something rarely seen in RPGs: a genuinely believable culture, shaped by its environment and history, filled with tensions that make it ripe for adventure. This is precisely the kind of supplement I like, where cultural and philosophical conflicts drive the action as much as physical threats. More than thirty years after its original release, Sun County holds up very well. Its portrayal of the Sun Domers is compelling but nuanced, like the best Gloranthan supplements, then or now. It makes a great addition to any campaign set in or near New Pavis and the River of Cradles. Sun County's main downsides are that it was written for RuneQuest's third (Avalon Hill) edition and, as such, its game statistics and the political situation depicted within it will need to be updated if used in conjunction with the current version of the game. That's a small criticism of what is otherwise an excellent and well-presented supplement. I hope its publication is a portent of more to come in this vein from Chaosium.