Back to Glorantha

Back to where, exactly...?

Well, around 30-odd years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I began GMing a role-playing game called RuneQuest, a skills-based fantasy system, without levels or classes. I enjoyed the mechanics of the game, especially the fact that all player characters could use magic to augment combat or heal wounds. But what really got me hooked was Glorantha, the world in which the adventures took place.

Glorantha wasn't your usual medieval fantasy world; it was defiantly Bronze Age in its inspiration, with iron a rare and magical material. This world spoke to my need for something out of the ordinary, something other than the castles, dungeons and wizards of mainstream fantasy RPGs.  Glorantha wasn't even a planet in the conventional sense, but a cube of earth floating in a cosmic ocean, topped by the dome of the sky.

Glorantha spawned many extremely high-quality supplements which have become legendary in role-playing circles for the breadth of their detail and the standard of artwork, especially those released during the 'RuneQuest Renaissance' of the early 1990's.

The rich mythology of Glorantha has been described elsewhere by better writers than I, and the world has been given a new lease of life (after a long hiatus) with the release of the encyclopedic Guide to Glorantha, a massive tome detailing almost every aspect of the world. It's heavy reading. I mean over 5 kg heavy.

And of course, I simply had to get the Atlas as well - no buyer's remorse here!

My nostalgic return to the RPG universe of my youth has led me down some odd pathways, not the least of which is a desire to come up with some figures to populate any hypothetical games down the track, but why stop with role-playing?

Seasoned followers of this blog will know of Simon Miller and his excellent new Ancients rules system, To The Strongest! Well, after having seen Simon's ruleset in action with a tabletop version of a battle in Glorantha, my blolleague Mr Mills (another old Glorantha hand) and I began wondering how we might be able to assemble a couple of armies of our own.

Well, everybody has to start somewhere, and suitably inspired by the efforts of far superior painters, I decided to paint up the handsome chap below; he's still a work in progress, but seems to be coming along quite nicely.

He's a Warlord Games plastic Greek Hoplite, painted up as a Centurion of a Lunar Regiment, and a member of the Seven Mothers cult. He bears the Runes of Death and Life inside the large Moon Rune on his shield (slightly wonky freehand work, but I'll see if I can't get that tidied up a bit). His iron kopis is an indication of the esteem in which he is held by his superiors.

Needs a bit more work, of course, especially on the base, and he's based more for skirmish games or role-playing than being ranked up as part of a bigger unit on the field of battle, but I would like to try out a few more figs for Glorantha. This is my first 'ancient' subject in quite a while, and it's good to get in some practice again.

Stay tuned!

Ev