RuneQuest Campaign Book (Hero Wars 1602/1625-1655)

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RuneQuest Campaign Book (Hero Wars 1602/1625-1655)

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Edit: en VF ici
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Jeff Richard sur le Campaign Book à venir (pronostic perso: 2023 au mieux, plus probablement début 2024):

The Hero Wars themselves are the wars between Sartar and the Lunar Empire. Here's a super quick overview:

CAMPAIGN OVERVIEW

The Hero Wars are thirty-year conflict that ends the Third Age of Glorantha. The player characters play adventurers amidst a massive, world-wide struggle of magic, myth, and military that spills over from the Mundane World into the Hero Wars, and even threatens the eternal stability of the Gods World. Before the struggle is over the adventures must make decisions that will affect their survival, their society, and indeed the entire cosmos.

The campaign is presented in five phases, with two phases taking place prior to the default campaign start.

Lunar Occupation (1602-1621). This is the period of Lunar domination in Dragon Pass. The end of the phase has the Lunar Empire in seeming final triumph.

Rebellion (1621-1624). During this phase, the Lunar Empire suffers numerous reversals, while its foes seek new weapons against it.

Prince of Sartar (1625-1629)
. This is the default start of the Dragon Pass campaign. The phase begins with the destruction of the Lunar Army in Dragon Pass with the Dragonrise. Sartar is liberated and Argrath rises to power. The phase ends with Argrath marrying the Feathered Horse Queen and becoming the King of Dragon Pass. This is the default starting point of the Hero Wars campaign.

King of Dragon Pass (1630-1643). This phase sees Argrath as ruler of Dragon Pass. After nearly destroying itself with a civil war, the Lunar Empire desperately tries to recover its position but is defeated. In the end, Argrath adds the former Lunar Provinces to his empire.

Twilight of the Gods (1644-1655)
. The Lunar Empire strikes back with a vengeance, using Chaos and weapons taken from strange realms. Sartar is defeated, and a desperate Argrath performs a mad Lightbringers Quest that changes the world. Nightmares awaken, sheets of ice cover much of the world, and mutual enemies recognize each themselves as mirrors of each other. The phase ends with the destruction of the Red Moon and the rise of the White Moon.

MAIN CHARACTERS OF THE HERO WARS

Argrath, Harrek the Berserk, Jar-eel, the Feathered Horse Queen, and the Red Emperor shape the end of the Third Age of Glorantha.

Argrath - the Prince of Sartar and leader of the White Bull society in Prax.

Harrek the Berserk - the King of the Wolf Pirates and a destructive Hero with a capital "H". Skinned a god and wears it on his back.

Jar-eel the Razoress - the Incarnation of the Red Goddess and another Hero with a capital "H". She just defeated a Pentan invasion and crushed the White Moon movement.

The Red Emperor - ruler of the Lunar Empire. The most powerful ruler in the world. Having a rough couple of years though.

Feathered Horse Queen - the highest Earth Priestess in Dragon Pass and an incarnation of the Earth Goddess. She is the sacred ruler of the Grazeland Pony Breeders, a sister-priestess to the Shaker Priestess, and - if she chooses a husband - the sovereign of Dragon Pass.

The relationship between these five characters defines the structure of the whole Hero Wars campaign. Glorantha pivots and changes according to these characters and no one can entirely escape their influence.

The affairs of the main characters are often far removed from the everyday life of the adventurers. Rarely will your players’ adventurers personally interact with the Red Emperor, Argrath, Jar-eel, or the rampaging Harrek (although they may certain make cameo appearances). Yet they are the engine that drives the Hero Wars.

Handling these main characters can be tricky for a gamemaster, but their presence adds to the epic feel of the campaign.

Think of them like having Julius Caesar, Crassus, Pompey, Cicero, Marc Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian in your 30 year game about the end of the Roman Republic. They are as much a part of the setting as Rome, Alexandria, and Gaul.

So the Hero Wars forms the backdrop of the setting. There are events in motion that your adventurers can participate in, suffer from, exploit, or ignore entirely - it is all up to them. But the end of the Third Age is a dynamic setting - things should change.

And of course it is entirely possible to treat it purely as background scenery - like the US Civil War in the Good the Bad and The Ugly.

CHANGING HISTORY

We encourage you to include well-known Gloranthan characters and events in your campaign. Their presence adds to the players’ experience and lends authority and authenticity. However, their inclusion always threatens the worst. For instance, what if Gunda the Guilty is facing the adventurers in battle and happens to roll a 00, while the adventurer rolls a critical success. What should you do? Here are some suggestions:

You can fudge: “Well, a blow like that would have killed any normal mortal twice over, but not the mighty Gunda!”

You can invoke a deus ex machina: “Gunda reels, but a spectral armed woman rides down from the sky. Everyone make a Cult Lore lore – it is one of Humakt’s choosers of the dead! She kneels over Gunda to tell her that it is not yet time to join Death, and kisses her gently on the lips. Gunda wakes, slightly dazed.”

How about surprise: “Gunda’s body falls to the ground. When you move forward to loot the body, make a Homeland Lore roll – made it? You realize this isn’t Gunda! Someone is wearing her armor and carries her weapons, but it is definitely not her!”

Or do nothing. Change history. “The terrible Gunda the Guilty, boon companion of Harrek the Berserk, is dead.” And we pity the killer – as Harrek the Berserk will stop at nothing to avenge her death.

You can even resurrect the character! Some characters like Argrath, the Feathered Horse Queen, Sir Ethilrist, and Jar-eel have escaped the Place of the Dead before and can do it again, others might be resurrected by their followers or community. “Sometime after the battle, you hear that Harrek traveled into Hell to rescue Gunda the Guilty and fought Death himself to do so. Despite bringing her back to the world of the living, the White Bear has announced that he shall kill everyone involved in Gunda’s death, and that he intends not only to kill them, but their families, and even their neighbors!”

Most characters are dispensable anyway. Only the death of one of the five main characters would extensively change the campaign plot. And even that is not inviolate – although it does create additional work for you as your campaign will go in a very different direction without much guidance or support from published materials.

Changing history requires some forethought, but nothing requires you to follow the campaign to its predestined end. You may decide to throw predestination to the wind, let any player-character become the Prince of Sartar, and maybe even allow someone else to marry the Feathered Horse Queen and become the King of Dragon Pass.

In the end, this campaign is yours to decide what you make of it.

[notes 7T: bref, la campagne proposée (calquée sur King of Sartar V2 et avant lui White Bear & Red Moon) n'est gravée dans le marbre que pour les livres officiels de Chaosium et n'est qu'une proposition pour les joueurs. Le Jonstown Compendium est d'ailleurs là si quelqu'un désire publier des versions alternatives. Et les rééditions de White Bear & Red Moon / Nomad Gods sont là pour tester d'autres résultats "historiques".]

Notes:
. Think of the Campaign Book like something similar to Pendragon's Boy King.

. Right now your best sources are Glorantha Sourcebook, Guide to Glorantha.
Later this year the Sartar Book is out and it gives a Sartar perspective on this.
And hopefully once that is gone I can cut the RQ Campaign book down to size and kick it out.
But the real best way to get a feel for the possibilities of the Hero Wars will be the original source material for it - the board game White Bear & Red Moon, which will be re-released this year.

. If you play a game set around the Fall of the Roman Republic, you are unlikely to play Julius Caesar - you are far more likely going to play Vorenus and Pullo.
Which is frankly way more fun. It is no fun being Caesar - the fun is being Mark Antony (obviously a player character), or Labienus (again, only a player character chooses to oppose their patron), or Titus Pullo and Vorenus.
Or if you are playing Gauls, you don't want to be Vercingetorix - you want to be Ambiorix (he succeeded - killed 15 cohorts and survived).

. Andrew Logan Montgomery:

“Poets have told it before, poets are telling it now, other poets shall tell this history on earth in the future...”
Adi Parva, Mahabharata
The Hero Wars are, in a nutshell, the Epic.
Now that everyone has given the practical answers there is nothing I can add to the great responses you have received but this;
The “Hero Wars” is a pretty apt description of the whole Indo-European Epic tradition. Basically, you have myth cycles, stories of gods and the conflicts between them, and what comes after then is a story about mortal conflicts that really are just continuing what the gods started.
The Mahabharata is a terrific example. Its protagonists are literally gods who have incarnated as men. But the Iliad is much better known I expect to most of us here.
Everywhere the Indo-Europeans went they dragged around this notion of a Great War that dragged all the gods and heroes into it. The case has been made the Arthurian and Ring cycles (both Tolkien and Wagner) are manifestations of it.
What is really remarkable about these epics is how they became a backdrop for other stories. Not so much with Homer—that became somewhat crystallized—but clearly with the Mahabharata and Arthur. The Mahabharata continues to be added to to this day, and the Matter of Britain has been retold constantly in the English speaking world.
So I would add to all the above that what the Hero Wars are are a framework, a saga of gods and heroes, into which any story you might wish to tell can be woven. Greg created a sort of gaming table reflection of the Indo-European Epic tradition.

Recommended version:
Mahabharata: A Modern Retelling by Carole Satyamurti is abbreviated (the full Mahabharata is 16 times the length of the Bible) but captures the core of the story and is surprisingly faithful to the Sanskrit;

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https://www.amazon.fr/Mahabharata-Modern-Retelling-Carole-Satyamurti-ebook/dp/B00L4HAVG6/ 
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En français, on peut lire
Le Mahâbhârata: Conté selon la tradition orale de Serge Demetria

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https://www.amazon.fr/Mah%C3%A2bh%C3%A2rata-Cont%C3%A9-selon-tradition-orale/dp/2226149139/
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complété de l'analyse
Le Mahabharata de Jean-Claude Carriere

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https://www.amazon.fr/Mahabharata-Jean-Claude-CARRIERE/dp/2266208861
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