Episode 36: The Reminiscences of Paulis Longvale (Part 2)

Our Guest

We welcome once again Austin Conrad to the show!

• His website is Akhelas
• Get Treasures of Glorantha: Volume 2, one of the finest books on the Jonstown Compendium! (which we talked about in episode 31)
• Austin hopes to be “done soon” with his upcoming “Wolves of the Wild Hunt” book… that was a couple months ago and it’s not done yet The book will include slightly remastered previous materials such as The Quacken, and The Queen’s Star, plus new stuff about Gagarthi monsters!

Show Notes

Things that happened in this episode:

• Joerg reminds us what the Reminiscences of Paulis Longvale are… Listen to episode 34 if you haven’t already!
• Cults of Terror is “the gamemaster’s best friend”
• Also listen to episode 35 with Simon Phipp, specialist of Dorastor!
• Yes, YOU too can play a Thanatar cultist!
• Ludo summarizes the previous episode’s story
• Austin mentions the old Dorastor book, plus gives another shout out to Simon Phipp’s books
• Ludo goes on a short tangent about the name “Bilini”
• Austin lays down another argument about the Orlanthi really being Vikings
• We discuss the various motivations of the characters regarding Chaos, Dorastor, and the Lunar Empire
• Ludo has made a spreadsheet! He tries to figure out what are the chances of the Bilini king’s army against Razalkark’s army
• How cute are baby broos? Or baby Scorpion Men? Apparently Diana Probst has one of those in Stone and Bone, go check it out!
• We talk about battle tactics and “broo walls”
• How the hell do you recreate this story using RQ rules? Should we play using HeroQuest/QuestWorlds? (again)
• The phalanx rules suck?
• Is dual wielding better than using a shield? (We fumble around the convoluted RQG dual wielding rules)
• Rules terms inside the narrative text… what to make of it?
• Would you abstract the things we see in this story to “just a few rolls” in RuneQuest?
• Austin is being an asshole (his words! not mine!)
• How much plunder do you get from Chaos creatures?
• Giving a “personal touch” to plunder and gifts… or just add some jewels!
• Reselling gifts to buy actually useful stuff, like skills and spells!
• “WHERE IS MY MONEY?” and other things players say
• Ancient cultures versus transactional cultures
• Ea-Nasir name drop!
• Storm Bull cultists as a biker gang
• Austin mentions “A Short Detour” and the way we tried writing Chaos cultists as nuanced people
• Are Illuminates crazy assholes? Or are they people with feelings?
• Uleria is more powerful and bad-ass than we give her credit for
• Body horror with Uleria! Play Limbo!
• Austin has more conspiracy theories about the Celestial Court on his website!
• Vampires in Dorastor… do they have enough to eat?
• World of Darkness vampires vs Dresden Files vampires (also, Ludo mixes up Dresden Files and Laundry Files)
• Austin’s Harrek campaign, and the shenanigans the PCs are up to
• Give player characters cool or embarrassing epithets!
• The interesting framing of a Chaos-based narrative with a Lunar perspective
• Telmori vampires! Or vampires feeding on Telmori! Maybe both!
• The lost power of RQ2 vampires that can steal Rune magic when feeding off someone
• Rituals to get your magic items to trust you
• Fear mechanics in RuneQuest?
• There’s a difference between improvising and off-the-rails-improvising!
• RQ2 silver magic collars… they’re in every RQ2 story
• How do you keep prisoners?
• Suspicious tricksters! (aren’t they always?)
• Joerg tells us about Jojo The Bobo. Also, Bugs Bunny and the Puppeteer Troupe
• “We’re in Dorastor, but we’re getting…. human drama???!”

Credits

The intro music is “The Warbird” by Try-Tachion. Other music includes “Cinder and Smoke” and “Skyspeak“, along with audio from the FreeSound library.