We are back with a long overdue Glorantha Initiation interview featuring twice the amount of French accents! We talked to Benjamin, aka Dasfynx, who is the webmaster of the (French) RuneQuest Wiki, and co-hosts the (also French) “Runecast” podcast with Gianni Vacca.
Le Wiki du JDR RuneQuestLe Runecast (you can of course find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on whatever app you use to listen to podcasts!)Show Notes
Here are the things we talk about in this episode!
Ben’s podcast “Runecast”This is one of the three known “talk show” podcasts about Glorantha right now, the other one being the Finnish Dayzatarin tähtien alla (“Under the stars of Dayzatar”)Ben also runs the French RQWiki which started as a translation of Chaosium’s wiki.It started as just figuring out what tech was powering Chaosium’s websiteThen it was a small translation for Ben’s playersAnd then other fans joined the effort… there are now extra things compared to the Chaosium versionAny extra material on the wiki that is from the published material is reproduced with the approval of Studio Deadcrows, the French publisher for RQGWatching old adventure/sci-fi movies on VHS, and being pitched the Warhammer Fantasy RPG (WFRP) as similar to those moviesBen’s first purchased RPG books were from the Call of Cthulhu and World of Darkness lines, but we was busy playing sports and listening to rap, so he read the books but didn’t play them!This may be called “lonely fun”Only years after that one WFRP game did Ben finally find another gaming group playing the WEG Star Wars RPGBen offered to GM Call of Cthulhu after that, which lasted for a handful of years, going through the Spawn of Azathoth campaignYou too can learn geography and history by GMing Call of Cthulhu!It’s hard to find English or French RPG books while living in China, so Ben loaded up on many books whenever he would come homeAs a Roliste TV watcher (YouTube channel here), Ben learned that one host (Mathieu) is a big fan of RuneQuest, so Ben bought the latest edition… and didn’t like it!This is because the world wasn’t described enough for Ben to picture, so he bought the Glorantha Sourcebook… and didn’t like it either! Too many names and lists of things!It was the Bestiary that made Ben “get it”: each “monster” is actually coming from somewhere and have their placeAfter that, Ben was deep into Glorantha and started reading more and more books about itGlorantha: a steep curve followed by a rabbit hole!Books are expensive so Ben got Gianni Vacca to explain things to him for free!Gianni is Ben’s co-host on the Runecast podcastGianni is Ben’s Joerg, an old hands of Glorantha… actually even older than Joerg, since Gianni started with RQ2!Ben’s wiki and podcast are geared towards beginnersFavourite thing about Glorantha:Dorastor, to make players suffer!See Simon Phipp’s “Secrets of Dorastor” (and other related books), and his interview episode on the showSartar, because it’s an interesting placeNext on Ben’s reading list are the Red Cow campaign books (book 1 and book 2)See also Ian Cooper’s Questworlds interview on the showThings Ben doesn’t like: the gray areas, because he likes to feel like he understands everythingBen asks Joerg what is the nature of the great compromise?Joerg explains how gods can break the compromise and act in TimeWe talk about avatars of gods also manifesting gods enough to endanger the Compromise, and how Chaos allows gods to get involved in TimeGreg’s narrative framework of writing “in world” texts that give contradictory views and accountsThe annoyance of “no answers” vs “multiple answers”King of Sartar is… a dense and complicated bookGMing the French campaign “Children of the Flame” (Gianni is an author on it)This campaign helped show Ben what is possible in GloranthaIt’s about the Dundealos tribe, near Swenville, after they have been replaced by the Lunar Entalos tribe… until the Dragonrise gives an opportunity to retake their landsFaction play, with various tribes, the Lunars, etc.There’s a map of Swenville!A good way to start in Glorantha is a good example: a scenario, a campaign, etc.The Sourcebook isn’t a good idea for beginnersThe GM pack or a campaign are better! (classic RQ2 campaigns, or newer ones from the Jonstown Compendium)Basically, start small!The French edition of RQG has one scenario in the rulebook, and one in the bestiary… something the English edition is lacking!Ludo briefly talks about his similarly failed encounters with GloranthaBen reiterates how Glorantha is consistently deep and how he loves that about itBen started just with the books for a while, but later discovered there are so many things about Glorantha on the internet!Shout-out to 7Tigers, who translates all the news and Well of Daliath content to FrenchAlso shout-out to Olivier from “Les Fils du Chaos” for helping correct the French RQWikiAnd shout-out to everybody else helping in their own wayBen asks Joerg about the Sky World and Joerg obliges!Ludo adds his take about the multi-shaped Sky WorldBen still wants one final answer on everything!Joerg mentions the “blind men touching the elephant” tale, and Ben wants to see the elephant, not be one of the blend menWe devolve into Jungian archetypes, and other tangents…We end with some quick-fire questions… Ben loves ducks!Credits
The intro music is “Dancing Tiger” by Damscray. The outro music is “Islam Dream” by Serge Quadrado. Other audio is from the FreeSound library.