I’m thirty years old this August in convention Game Mastering terms. Thirty years ago, I went to my first convention, Gen Con UK 1996 at Loughborough University, and ran my first game as a convention GM.

I went on my own, and all the games were signed up by the time I got to the boards (it was the days when you went in person to a sign up board). I got into a Cyberpunk 2020 tournament on Saturday, which is a tale in itself, and a small and intimate Live Action Ars Magica game on Thursday afternoon, but Friday was “sold out”, so I was left to my own devices. So rather than cry into my beer, in the morning I took myself back to my room and got out my RuneQuest 3rd Edition (RQ3) books and my home campaign write up, which I had brought for just an eventuality.

In the space of that quick writing session, I made something from my home RQ3 campaign. Not only showed the value of D100 fantasy gaming at a predominantly D&D convention but also showed off my take on Glorantha. Which, unlike the canonical take, isn’t based on Dragon Pass, deliberately so to give me free creative reign. I was doing Your Glorantha May Vary, before it became official parroting 😉

The adventure was called the Temple of Evil. Set in the campaign’s main city, a new temple had been established in the district of the disenfranchised poor. As far as the priests of the established local cults were concerned, it was gaining worshippers at an alarming rate. This sense of unease comes to a head when a local woman’s dead body is found dumped by the side of the temple, and her young daughter has gone missing. The PCs are the local movers and shakers, who are the leaders of the communities around this new temple. So, part 1 was basically the investigation in which the PCs not only found clues about the temple’s true nature from people in the poor district but also turned to their own communities for advice and aid. Part 2 was an actual assault on the temple and its dark under chambers, where a nasty concretion to the temple’s true deity was occurring.

I used a simplified version of RQ (which became OpenQuest ten years on). Characters were written quickly on an index card, and just characteristic scores, their role in society, significant skills (everything else was a default of 20%) and Magic, based on their cult. It kind of predated HeroQuest/Quest Worlds by a good three years. We had a great time, despite it all being held together by string and in the glowing aftermath, I thought “That was fun, I can do this again”.

Fast forward to now, and at its base Karn is a 100+ page write up, of the setting info and players guide that underpinned that convention game and my home campaign at the time. I took to that to Gen Con UK, thinking that Chaosium would be there, not knowing that it was dealing with the extinction level event of Wizards Attic (a US based distributor) going bust, and leaving them and many other RPG publishers majorly out of pocket.   It’s been thoroughly “de-Glorantha” and converted to my own World of Maia setting, of which the Empire of Gatan in the main OQ Rulebook is part. I’m really happy with that. It means that I can keep the early medieval analogs that the culture uses, rather than convert it all to the rather strange bronze age setting that modern Glorantha follows. Also I get a second pass, during the clean up, and can focus and develop the ideas I found to be fun, which came from me.  This all very creatively satisfying, because the OpenQuest rules emerged from all the house rules I used, so its only appropriate that the setting is linking to those rules. There’s a sense of completion, plus it will be fun to play!

Karn, or the Duchy of Karn, is an isolated province of the Empire of Gatan, that since the invasion of the Burning Heart Horde at the end of the reign of the First Emperor has existed well beyond the Empire’s borders. In this book the Emperor’s representatives send the player characters there as agents to help Imperial interests fight off the surrounding enemies, and firmly establish it as a strong centre of Imperial culture. Whether or not the characters do this, or pursue their own goals and take their Saga in a completely different one than foretold by the Emperor, is up to the players.

So, in its current draft, it takes the form of.

A general introduction to the setting. What everybody knows. Geography, History, and a quick overview of the playable cultures.

Three playable cultures, each of which gets a write up.  

• Dornite. From the Kingdom of Dorn, a confederation of tribes who have recently been united by a strong King in response to being threatened with invasion by The Empire of Gatan. (quick take: Fantasy Anglo Saxons)
• Norscan. Inhabitants of the Duchy of Norsc, an isolated part of the Empire of Gatan. Originally, mercenaries from the Savage North, Drakar warriors who fought for the Empire against the monstrous Burning Horde, and whose leader was given the Duchy as a reward. Have already butted heads with Dornites (quick take: Normans)
• Orcs of Black Rock.  A whole city of Orcs who converted to the religion of the Empire of Gatan, and allied with the Norscans, during the Burning Time.  Took part in the Empire’s First Crusade against Dorn.

Each write up has Ready Made Concepts, Religious and Magical write ups, and a What my Elder Told Me (a Q&A from the viewpoint of a member of the culture).

A GMs Guide of setting secrets and Events/Encounter tables, locations and reoccuring npcs.

The Watchgod City Guide. The settings major city, with each of its districts detailed, with major NPCs and encounter/events tables.

A new version of the Temple of Evil renamed the Temple of Lies is being written. Rather than being a big end of campaign event, I’m rewriting it to be the introduction to the setting. Instead of the characters being drawn from the city’s movers and shakers, like in the original, they are fresh off the boat and hired by the concerned city council to investigate the murder of the woman and the missing daughter. Through their investigation, they are introduced to the setting’s background, which they can delve into as deeply as they want. Unresolved leads can then be explored in future adventures, in a setting that will be presented as a Sandbox, something that my recent experience running the BRP-based Wyrd Sword has convinced me is the way to go with adventure write ups.

I’m planning to get this published, but with everything else going on with OpenQuest releases (more about this in a post soon), it’s likely to be next year. In the meantime I hope to get Temple of Lies in front of a convention audience (face to face or online) sometime this year to celebrate my anniversary!