Lankhmar Unleashed!
- master of reality
- Mongoose
- Posts: 146
- Joined: Sun Mar 02, 2008 4:07 am
- Location: Capitola, CA
Lankhmar Unleashed!
Finally some Lankhmar love! 256 pages of Lankhmar goodness sandwiched between hardback covers. The art work on the cover is fabulous, a vast improvement over the original Lankhmar cover.
I own the original Lankhmar MRQ supplement but I never bothered to pick up Newhon because of rumors about this new edition.
Although I will be unable to resist buying this edition, I'm still curious how the new Lankhmar book differs from the old Lankhmar book. Is it a consolidation of the original Lankhmar and Newhon books into one voulme, or will there be even more background info? Does the new book contain adventures?
I own the original Lankhmar MRQ supplement but I never bothered to pick up Newhon because of rumors about this new edition.
Although I will be unable to resist buying this edition, I'm still curious how the new Lankhmar book differs from the old Lankhmar book. Is it a consolidation of the original Lankhmar and Newhon books into one voulme, or will there be even more background info? Does the new book contain adventures?
-
- Banded Mongoose
- Posts: 301
- Joined: Wed Jun 28, 2006 7:28 am
- master of reality
- Mongoose
- Posts: 146
- Joined: Sun Mar 02, 2008 4:07 am
- Location: Capitola, CA
- MongooseMatt
- Site Admin
- Posts: 15163
- Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2003 4:25 pm
Not at all - Mongoose writer, Simon Beal, currently has his head firmly planted under Lankhmar's bonnet (hood), and is tearing it apart, before putting it all back together. Expect a lot of new material.master of reality wrote:
Yes, 160 + 96 = 256.
So the new Lankhmar book is nothing more than a reprint of the two original books combined into one volume? Oh well. I still don't have the Newhon book.
Oh, and we posted the new cover this afternoon on the web site

- master of reality
- Mongoose
- Posts: 146
- Joined: Sun Mar 02, 2008 4:07 am
- Location: Capitola, CA
Oh good, I was hoping you would reply and straighten this out. Again, I love the cover, and look forward to getting my hands on this new Lankhmar book.msprange wrote:Not at all - Mongoose writer, Simon Beal, currently has his head firmly planted under Lankhmar's bonnet (hood), and is tearing it apart, before putting it all back together. Expect a lot of new material.master of reality wrote:
Yes, 160 + 96 = 256.
So the new Lankhmar book is nothing more than a reprint of the two original books combined into one volume? Oh well. I still don't have the Newhon book.
Oh, and we posted the new cover this afternoon on the web site
It's good to know that the new Lankhmar book will include new content. I hope the author reads this thread...
The old books weren't bad, but they were low on crunch and a tad bloated in the fluff department.
There are plenty of places where to cut to make room for new content, especially in the first chapter. For instance, I do not need overlong and rather uninformative descritptions of what is a slave or a mariner to generate my character, nor descriptions of professions that are almost standard RQ professions. The excellent Hawkmoon and Elric are much more concise in these sections - and they are complete games!
On the other hand I want NPC stats, both for famous people and for generic GM's characters - here Hawkmoon is, again, excellent. I want a reasonable number of spells (more than 4 in any case) - that do not need to come all from the source material, but might be just "inspired or extrapolated" by it, like ...er.. well ...in Hawkmoon.
Did I mention that I like Hawkmoon?
Ah.. another thing. The original author, IMHO, gets the "White Mages" wrong. They aren't just diviners as per the rules. If one reads the "Unholy Grail" story, they come up more like very low power, nature based mages, using subtle magic. For instance, the Mouse(r) casts a spell to make his pursuers lose direction and it appears that the home of Glavas Rho was "protected" by a similar spell.
Something limited like Gloranthan Folk Magic, but with greatly increased casting times would better simulate White Magic.
The old books weren't bad, but they were low on crunch and a tad bloated in the fluff department.
There are plenty of places where to cut to make room for new content, especially in the first chapter. For instance, I do not need overlong and rather uninformative descritptions of what is a slave or a mariner to generate my character, nor descriptions of professions that are almost standard RQ professions. The excellent Hawkmoon and Elric are much more concise in these sections - and they are complete games!
On the other hand I want NPC stats, both for famous people and for generic GM's characters - here Hawkmoon is, again, excellent. I want a reasonable number of spells (more than 4 in any case) - that do not need to come all from the source material, but might be just "inspired or extrapolated" by it, like ...er.. well ...in Hawkmoon.
Did I mention that I like Hawkmoon?
Ah.. another thing. The original author, IMHO, gets the "White Mages" wrong. They aren't just diviners as per the rules. If one reads the "Unholy Grail" story, they come up more like very low power, nature based mages, using subtle magic. For instance, the Mouse(r) casts a spell to make his pursuers lose direction and it appears that the home of Glavas Rho was "protected" by a similar spell.
Something limited like Gloranthan Folk Magic, but with greatly increased casting times would better simulate White Magic.
Fluff is good, even necessary for us who has not read the stories. I agree that some professions are not necessary to be described in very high detail unless they are different from normal MRQ professions. But locations, customs etc. are all good to have.
I love this new cover, now that is something that can sell the book.
I love this new cover, now that is something that can sell the book.
"This is my way to run games. There are many ways to run games but this is mine."
I mostly agree with you. Most of the fluff is well written and evocative, even the synopses of the stories are useful for GMs - but I would read the stories, anyway.SnowDog wrote:Fluff is good, even necessary for us who has not read the stories. I agree that some professions are not necessary to be described in very high detail unless they are different from normal MRQ professions. But locations, customs etc. are all good to have.
I love this new cover, now that is something that can sell the book.
It is just SOME fluff that is superfluous. I mean stuff like 1 full page on the "Mariner" background, which basically does not deliver any hard setting info.
-
- Lesser Spotted Mongoose
- Posts: 781
- Joined: Wed Feb 18, 2004 2:48 pm
- Contact:
If you are interested in the old two Lankhmar books (for a good price... or other BUNDLES of MRQ books), have a look at
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/merchant/rashoran
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/merchant/rashoran
-
- Banded Mongoose
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 7:06 pm
Hi,
I can't wait for this to come out in PDF, I enlarged my map using Poster to A3 which made it more player friendly. I ran the game using Heroquest 2, which allowed for the more daring do of the stories and RQ always does. However I did enjoy the crunch when I ran it with RQ.
Simon
I can't wait for this to come out in PDF, I enlarged my map using Poster to A3 which made it more player friendly. I ran the game using Heroquest 2, which allowed for the more daring do of the stories and RQ always does. However I did enjoy the crunch when I ran it with RQ.
Simon
Simon Bray
Art Director, Moon Design - Glorantha, Heroquest, Excellence.
Co-Editor of the Unspoken Word, the Magazine for Gloranthan Heroes and Heroquesters alike.
Art Director, Moon Design - Glorantha, Heroquest, Excellence.
Co-Editor of the Unspoken Word, the Magazine for Gloranthan Heroes and Heroquesters alike.
-
- Lesser Spotted Mongoose
- Posts: 781
- Joined: Wed Feb 18, 2004 2:48 pm
- Contact:
I am running a mixed CoC/Stormbringer game set in the Hyborian Age. It works way better than our previous d20 games both in terms of feel and of rules.smiorgan wrote:I watched the John Milius movie with Arnie last night. Not authentic Howard, but great stuff, anyway. Great dialogues.rabindranath72 wrote:Now, after Lankhmar, Conan obliges
RQ Conan is something that must happen. But let them first re-launch the excellent Lankhmar setting.
--------------------------------------------------
Williams and Holland law:
"Everything can be demonstrated by statistical methods if you have enough data"
Williams and Holland law:
"Everything can be demonstrated by statistical methods if you have enough data"
- Mongoose Si
- Mongoose
- Posts: 187
- Joined: Thu Mar 04, 2004 2:15 pm
- Location: Stafford, UK
Sorry, not been watching the forums the past few weeks. Lankhmar Unleashed does include much of the material from the previous two books but there is a lot of new information too, including:
More detail on Lankhmar and Nehwon with improved maps, Thieves' House is fully detailed with floor plans, new guilds and cults, new spells and instabilities, a new scenario, and an appendix full of NPC stats.
More detail on Lankhmar and Nehwon with improved maps, Thieves' House is fully detailed with floor plans, new guilds and cults, new spells and instabilities, a new scenario, and an appendix full of NPC stats.
Great news!Mongoose Si wrote:Sorry, not been watching the forums the past few weeks. Lankhmar Unleashed does include much of the material from the previous two books but there is a lot of new information too, including:
More detail on Lankhmar and Nehwon with improved maps, Thieves' House is fully detailed with floor plans, new guilds and cults, new spells and instabilities, a new scenario, and an appendix full of NPC stats.

Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 12 guests