Some Love for RuneQuest

Something Old...
While visiting friends in South Carolina recently I was given this soft cover volume of RuneQuest 3rd Edition. The Avalon Hill game company published this version of RuneQuest in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Until I was handed this book, I had only seen the 3rd Edition in boxed form (Deluxe, Standard, Player and Referee versions) or as two hardbound volumes (basic and advanced) printed by Games Workshop for sale in the UK. The box versions of RuneQuest contained paper cover stapled booklets which quickly shed their paper covers. This is a much more sturdy format of the complete game.
Avalon Hill's RuneQuest attempted to support both a magical history version of RuneQuest alongside Glorantha, the original setting for RuneQuest. Two early releases for the historical RuneQuest were the Ninja and Viking setting boxes. While good products in their own right, folks who had associations with Chaosium's Glorantha anxiously awaited new material for that setting.

The Avalon Hill years started slowly for Glorantha RuneQuest, but once the working relationship between Chaosium, the company who retained rights to oversee (and produce) much of the Glorantha material for RuneQuest, and Avalon Hill became settled in, the partnership produced some fine additions to the mythological setting. Many secrets about the setting was revealed as new products were released. The area of Doraster had until the publication of this volume been simply a place on a map with little in the way of available details. This was true of much of the mythical world of Glorantha outside fabled Dragon Pass and the Prax wastelands.

The Avalon Hill/RuneQuest Glorantha publications covered some old ground in the form of new releases of topics that had seen first light under the RuneQuest 2nd Edition publications by Chaosium, but were now revised to bring the material into line with the 3rd Edition rules and were expanded and altered as the creator's concept of Glorantha was evolving. Glorantha is a place where myths are real (and occasionally become altered over time) and religion plays a daily role in the lives of the player characters and NPCs. Chaos sets at the edge of creation slowly unraveling reality with its taint of corruption and waiting for a chance to destroy everything. As these cover illustrations suggest, the boundaries between men and beasts are often blurred as Chaos works its influence.

Something New...
RuneQuest may be a game designed in the late 1970s, but for some its magical appeal has never faded. Chaosium has republished the classic 2nd Edition material this last year and is currently developing an updated edition of the game titled RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha - a name which celebrates the reunion of RuneQuest and its original setting, the world of Glorantha. Attendees at last year's Gencon had the opportunity to purchase an advance copy of the new rules (sans illustrations) at the Chaosium booth and on May 28th Encounter Roleplay will be streaming play of the new RuneQuest on Twitch starting at 8 pm EST.