Playing 3rd Age Glorantha with MRQ2

[Belintar]

I just bought the hardbound MRQ2 rules, I'm very pleased. I am especially liking how Common magic works, the new rules for the 3 Staffordian modes of Gloranthan magic, and the cleaned up character creation and skills systems from when I was last involved in BRP style games. It almost seems as if the best of the stuff from Hero Wars has been translated into some BRP Mongoose sweetness. Great work, Mongoose!

Now, I understand that Mongoose will be supporting their 2nd Age line, which is fine, although I would be thrilled if they supported 3rd Age Glorantha. However, what would experienced MRQ fans recommend in terms of products that would save me time in creating my own 3rd Age material? The worship of Orlanth, for example, seems more or less the same, as do the other Storm Tribe cults. I would assume that various Sorcery schools/Grimoires that survive from the 2nd Age would be easily usable in the 3rd, changing details of the school for current circumstance. I just want to buy the right books so I don't have to recreate for MRQ2 versions of the Storm Tribe/Lightbringers or the cult of Kyger Litor I'll be too busy detailing the exhaustive Lunar religions, for example.

Any recommendations?

 

[kintire]

If you buy the Hero Quest sourcebooks for the Third Age you will findd them strangely compatible. Its almost as if they are deliberatly trying to move the systems together or something...

 

[Deleriad]

At the moment I would stay away from the MRQ1 cults books as a source of information that could be adopted for 3rd age Glorantha because basically everything's changing. I do know a revised version of these books is in the pipeline and, as you say, mechanically most of them would work in the third age. The big lack would be the lunars and I suspect that although you could just graft on the RQ3 mechanics, I suspect that would be short-changing them.

The new HeroQuest publications (so far Sartar Kingdom of Heroes) ought to be useful. They won't give you straight RQ mechanics but they way they are written makes it easy to see how to describe them in RQ terms.

The new Glorantha Cults book will, presumably, give short form write-ups of all the old favourites in the Second Age. I would not be surprised if Kyger Litor et al get massively revised in order to better capture their mixture of theistic and animistic worship.

The new Glorantha 2nd age book, out next month, on the other hand probably won't be that useful. You would probably get more use out of Sartar Kingdom of Heroes for HeroQuest as that'll give you all the 3rd age Dragon Pass background you could want.

The Lunars you'll have to do yourself...

So my recommendation would be Sartar KoH and then the new Glorantha Cults book will be enough to be getting on with.

 

[PrinceYyrkoon]

Id get a copy of Gods of Glorantha on eBay. (Avalon Hill/Chaosium 3rd edition supplement). Its remarkably cheap considering its age and theres usually one or two for sale. It lists a huge amount of cults, including the Lunar pantheon.

It would take a few minutes to convert each cult you need from that source, to MRQ ll. The mechanics for both are obviously similar, and you could even do it on the fly. In fact, I wouldnt be surprised if someone has done it already.