We have just posted previews of Jrustela and Granbretan - you can find them on the books' own pages.
Preview - Jrustela & Granbretan
- Thread starter MongooseMatt
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Mongoose Gar
Mongoose
There are a few references to White Wolf's Son in there, all right.
gamesmeister
Banded Mongoose
Rurik said:
Not sure yet - I just got the book last night so I haven't had a chance to compare them.
However, I did notice that at least one of their examples is wrong
112 - 66 is 46 in my book, not 66! :?I've just bought Jrustela and it's prety good, although it could be better.
It's an overview of the land of Jrustela and, as such, doesn't go into anything in any great depth, but covers a lot of things. Such are overviews and I'll not criticise or praise it for that.
There's a pretty picture omn the front of 2 ships being guided into port by an array of undines and some nice pictures inside. However, there is no single map of Jrustela, which is a gross error, in my book. If you have a source book, the first thing you need is a single map of the area covered. Bad Mongoose.
What's in it? Well, chapter by chapter:
History gives a fairly detailed history of Jrustela from the Godtime (Nothing is mentioned) through to the present day. These are arranged in sections covering different people or eras and contain a lot of things I had not read before. There is a Timeline and a List of Kings, which are noth useful. So, this is a pretty good chapter, not exessively detailed nor annoyingly brief, it gets the balance about right.
Gazetteer covers the geography and cities of Jrustela. There are sections on Geography&Travel, Cultures&Beliefs and Caste, then covers each of the Provinces and the towns and lands contained in each Province. Each city gets between a quarter and half a page and ends with a Reasons to Come Here sentence that summarises what is there and which is an excellent idea. Each Province is accompanied by an abysmal map, so dark it's almost unreadable and so disjointed it's hard to tie the maps together. So, Bad Mongoose for the maps and Good Mongoose for the content. The descriptions themselves are done third-party (Hooray!) and are very clear, with an awful amount of possible scenario hooks buried in the text.
Magic covers Jrusteli/Middle Sea/God learner magic and is split into several sections. The cleverly entitled God Learning 101 consists of a lecture by Haalabrim the Expositionist, a Jrusteli Scholar. Normally, I hate this kind of approach, preferring a factual third party description, but here it works and works well, I liked this section quite a lot. Here he goes into the different types of magic, how magic is used, how HeroQuesting is used and what it's effects are and so on. It has rules on Violating a Quest, Overpowering, Masking, Short Cuts, Shadowing, God Binding, Gate Switching and God Engineering, has 5 new spells for malipulating HeroQuests and rules for really blowing a HeroQuest and suffering a Backlash. So, it is a Godlearner Masterclass and very welcome it is, too. God Learner Orders contains four orders, each described with School Skills, Rune Spells, Sorcery Grimoire Spells and different levels of membership. These are good, but they blur into each other, so it's not always easy to see where one begins and where it ends. But, four orders is good, although I'd rather have seen a dozen here than four in three books, which I suspect will be the case.
Religion covers Godlearner religion in general. It has sections on The True Malkioni Church with 5 new Orders and New Spells, with 15 new spells. These are pretty good and each order has a shorrt description and membership details as above.
Politics isx a letter from an EWF spy detailing the politics of Jrustela and is as biased a view as can be expected. It does describe the politics of the various cities, but just touches on them and describes each one in terms of his own views, opinions and perceptions, which is really annoying, for me in any case.
Trade describes Jrusteli Trading in a very easy to understand way. There are rules for creating Trading Companies and examples of 4 Companies and 5 spells.
So, is it any good? Well, yes, actually, it is. The descriptions are clear, the book is easy to read and goes into enough depth to be useful but not too much to be boring. If it had a single map that was legible, it would be even better.
Should I buy it? Well, if you want to know about the Godlearner Orders or want to know how they handle HeroQuesting or want to know abou tthe cities and lands of Jrustela then yes. It has enough spells to be interesting to someone who collects spell descriptions.
What are it's weak points? Well, it has no single map, as I mentioned before. It could have done with more Orders, although it does have 9 so perhaps I am being unfair, it doesn't really cover the interior and only skips over the Earth Spirits, it doesn't mention the Aurelian Cult or the Breakwater cliffs or Volcano and, most importantly, IT DOESN'T HAVE A MAP OF THE WHOLE OF JRUSTELA and the maps it does have are so dark as to be virtually unreadable.
And, did I mention the maps? They're rubbish. And there's not a map of the whole of Jrustela, or did I mention that?
So, I'd give it an A-, Pretty Good, and a Buy It 85%, although if it had a good map of the whole of Jrustela and readable maps, I'd increase it to A and Buy It 95%, but it doesn't, so A- and Buy It 85%.
Bad Mongoose on the Maps.
It's an overview of the land of Jrustela and, as such, doesn't go into anything in any great depth, but covers a lot of things. Such are overviews and I'll not criticise or praise it for that.
There's a pretty picture omn the front of 2 ships being guided into port by an array of undines and some nice pictures inside. However, there is no single map of Jrustela, which is a gross error, in my book. If you have a source book, the first thing you need is a single map of the area covered. Bad Mongoose.
What's in it? Well, chapter by chapter:
History gives a fairly detailed history of Jrustela from the Godtime (Nothing is mentioned) through to the present day. These are arranged in sections covering different people or eras and contain a lot of things I had not read before. There is a Timeline and a List of Kings, which are noth useful. So, this is a pretty good chapter, not exessively detailed nor annoyingly brief, it gets the balance about right.
Gazetteer covers the geography and cities of Jrustela. There are sections on Geography&Travel, Cultures&Beliefs and Caste, then covers each of the Provinces and the towns and lands contained in each Province. Each city gets between a quarter and half a page and ends with a Reasons to Come Here sentence that summarises what is there and which is an excellent idea. Each Province is accompanied by an abysmal map, so dark it's almost unreadable and so disjointed it's hard to tie the maps together. So, Bad Mongoose for the maps and Good Mongoose for the content. The descriptions themselves are done third-party (Hooray!) and are very clear, with an awful amount of possible scenario hooks buried in the text.
Magic covers Jrusteli/Middle Sea/God learner magic and is split into several sections. The cleverly entitled God Learning 101 consists of a lecture by Haalabrim the Expositionist, a Jrusteli Scholar. Normally, I hate this kind of approach, preferring a factual third party description, but here it works and works well, I liked this section quite a lot. Here he goes into the different types of magic, how magic is used, how HeroQuesting is used and what it's effects are and so on. It has rules on Violating a Quest, Overpowering, Masking, Short Cuts, Shadowing, God Binding, Gate Switching and God Engineering, has 5 new spells for malipulating HeroQuests and rules for really blowing a HeroQuest and suffering a Backlash. So, it is a Godlearner Masterclass and very welcome it is, too. God Learner Orders contains four orders, each described with School Skills, Rune Spells, Sorcery Grimoire Spells and different levels of membership. These are good, but they blur into each other, so it's not always easy to see where one begins and where it ends. But, four orders is good, although I'd rather have seen a dozen here than four in three books, which I suspect will be the case.
Religion covers Godlearner religion in general. It has sections on The True Malkioni Church with 5 new Orders and New Spells, with 15 new spells. These are pretty good and each order has a shorrt description and membership details as above.
Politics isx a letter from an EWF spy detailing the politics of Jrustela and is as biased a view as can be expected. It does describe the politics of the various cities, but just touches on them and describes each one in terms of his own views, opinions and perceptions, which is really annoying, for me in any case.
Trade describes Jrusteli Trading in a very easy to understand way. There are rules for creating Trading Companies and examples of 4 Companies and 5 spells.
So, is it any good? Well, yes, actually, it is. The descriptions are clear, the book is easy to read and goes into enough depth to be useful but not too much to be boring. If it had a single map that was legible, it would be even better.
Should I buy it? Well, if you want to know about the Godlearner Orders or want to know how they handle HeroQuesting or want to know abou tthe cities and lands of Jrustela then yes. It has enough spells to be interesting to someone who collects spell descriptions.
What are it's weak points? Well, it has no single map, as I mentioned before. It could have done with more Orders, although it does have 9 so perhaps I am being unfair, it doesn't really cover the interior and only skips over the Earth Spirits, it doesn't mention the Aurelian Cult or the Breakwater cliffs or Volcano and, most importantly, IT DOESN'T HAVE A MAP OF THE WHOLE OF JRUSTELA and the maps it does have are so dark as to be virtually unreadable.
And, did I mention the maps? They're rubbish. And there's not a map of the whole of Jrustela, or did I mention that?
So, I'd give it an A-, Pretty Good, and a Buy It 85%, although if it had a good map of the whole of Jrustela and readable maps, I'd increase it to A and Buy It 95%, but it doesn't, so A- and Buy It 85%.
Bad Mongoose on the Maps.
weasel_fierce
Mongoose
I hate you bastards 
I wasnt going to buy this. but now I want to.
Bastards
I wasnt going to buy this. but now I want to.
Bastards
duncan_disorderly
Mongoose
soltakss said:
I'm not sure Simon's review really covers the awfullness of the Maps. There is no map of the whole island. The Four Provincal maps are all of a different scale (and the scale is not marked) and are spectacularly lacking in detail - they use the same symbol for towns and cities - some of which appear on more than one map, and some of which don't (although they should...) At least one settlement doesn't appear on the province map for the province in which it is described, but does appear on a different province map.
A number of geographical features that are described in the text are either missing and/or unnamed on the maps, which again makes it difficult to relate the descriptions to the map.
(There is one settlement called both <something> Fold and <something> Ford - The Text mostly disagrees with the map, although it does use both - THe name is obscure though as the map shows it sitting in the middle of a featureless plain...)
Mongoose - Please can we have a proper, usable map of Jrustela, and a commitment to include better maps in future regional supplements please?
Lord High Munchkin
Mongoose
Dear All,
I used to work as a professional cartographer and several years ago offered my services to Mongoose, I even sent a show-reel of widely various and different styles of maps to them.
I heard absolutely nothing back... zip.
Sadly, I am no longer able to spend the time producing maps (due to other time restraints and demands) - but am ever appalled at how "piss-poor" Mongoose maps, if they bother at all, are.
The only good map that Mongoose have ever printed is the 'Conan' one (and even then it is almost impossible to read the contour lines in some places).
There appears to be emerging a real "dumbing down" effect in the RPG industry regarding maps, mostly it seems as a result of the icon-type maps produced by a pair of well known computer programmes. The sorry little doodles in 'Jrustela' being prime examples.
Come on Mongoose - aren't you embarrassed at all?
Regards
I used to work as a professional cartographer and several years ago offered my services to Mongoose, I even sent a show-reel of widely various and different styles of maps to them.
I heard absolutely nothing back... zip.
Sadly, I am no longer able to spend the time producing maps (due to other time restraints and demands) - but am ever appalled at how "piss-poor" Mongoose maps, if they bother at all, are.
The only good map that Mongoose have ever printed is the 'Conan' one (and even then it is almost impossible to read the contour lines in some places).
There appears to be emerging a real "dumbing down" effect in the RPG industry regarding maps, mostly it seems as a result of the icon-type maps produced by a pair of well known computer programmes. The sorry little doodles in 'Jrustela' being prime examples.
Come on Mongoose - aren't you embarrassed at all?
Regards
duncan_disorderly said:
I tried, I really did. But it's hard to get across how bad they are.
Now, I am fully aware that someone has probably spent a lot of time on the maps in Jrustela and Clanking City and probably doesn't appreciate bad feedback or criticism. I hasten to add that I cannot draw to save my life - any attempts in a gaming session are normally met with howls of derision - but I do like good quality maps in supplements.
I would photocopy the maps in Jrustela and post them here to show how bad they are, but I doubt very much if they'd actually photocopy, being very dark. The photocopy would be darker than the map, which is not a good thing, believe me.
It's a shame because previous editions of RQ had excellent maps. Look at the ones in Pavis/Big Rubble or River of Cradles/Borderlands, or Balazar or Trollpack. Truly awesome maps, clear, detailed and, above all, useful. I still use all of those maps in my weekly gaming sessions.
I can't see myself using the maps from Clanking City or Jrustela in a single gaming session. Never.
There might be a map in the Stafford Library/Unfinished Work Jrustela, as it covers much the same period. I can't remember one, though. If there is, I might have a go at filling in the bits from the maps in Mongoose's Jrustela. Although I shouldn't have to as THERE SHOULD BE A GOOD MAP IN JRUSTELA.
Lord High Munchkin
Mongoose
Dear All,
There is always the Steve Leib map at: www.glorantha.com/greg/jrustela.jpeg
It's not great (like the MRQ, no scale) - but is stratospherically better than the Mongoose ones.
It is part of the David Dunham article on Jrustela in the 700's, two hundred years earlier than the Mongoose setting. Too early - but a map you can sort-of use.
Regards
There is always the Steve Leib map at: www.glorantha.com/greg/jrustela.jpeg
It's not great (like the MRQ, no scale) - but is stratospherically better than the Mongoose ones.
It is part of the David Dunham article on Jrustela in the 700's, two hundred years earlier than the Mongoose setting. Too early - but a map you can sort-of use.
Regards
RosenMcStern
Mongoose
Okay, let us face it. Even in the RQ "Dark Age" of Avalon Hill, there was a decent, usable map in every boxed supplement. Even in those illustrated by Mr Dobyski. And the last line of non-boxed supplements had a decent map in each "setting" book (Dorastor, River of Cradles, Sun County).
The quality of the MRQ supplements is rather high, I think higher than the HeroQuest line so far. But they share the same problem as the books by Issaries and Moon Design: no map but the ones in the text. And even when the maps in the text are well drawn, in 90% of cases there is an issue with resolution or size. For instance, the maps in Blood over Gold are printed on two pages, making the central part unreadable, or printed in low resolution. Now I happen to know that there is a very very nice map of Maniria and Fay Jee, for Rick Meints showed the bloody thing, in all of its coloured glory, at Castle Stahleck. It is just that it does not come with the book, as it used to happen back in the days. I think this has to do with the fact that the books are neither boxed nor packaged in cellophane nowadays, making it impossible to include maps in them.
One question now: would gamers be willing to pay more for a "packaged" book that included a map?
Rosen McStern (who was almost starting to feel guilty for not including a map in Stupor Mundi).
The quality of the MRQ supplements is rather high, I think higher than the HeroQuest line so far. But they share the same problem as the books by Issaries and Moon Design: no map but the ones in the text. And even when the maps in the text are well drawn, in 90% of cases there is an issue with resolution or size. For instance, the maps in Blood over Gold are printed on two pages, making the central part unreadable, or printed in low resolution. Now I happen to know that there is a very very nice map of Maniria and Fay Jee, for Rick Meints showed the bloody thing, in all of its coloured glory, at Castle Stahleck. It is just that it does not come with the book, as it used to happen back in the days. I think this has to do with the fact that the books are neither boxed nor packaged in cellophane nowadays, making it impossible to include maps in them.
One question now: would gamers be willing to pay more for a "packaged" book that included a map?
Rosen McStern (who was almost starting to feel guilty for not including a map in Stupor Mundi).
d(sqrt(-1))
Mongoose
RosenMcStern said:
I believe that the much maligned Mr Dobyski was in fact a cartographer by training, so his maps were pretty good. He was not an illustrator, but AH requested that he do the illustrations as well as the maps, hence the - well, "not very good" is about the best thing I can say about them - poor illustrations.
Mark
RosenMcStern
Mongoose
Yeah, we all know that. In fact Mr. Dobyski's maps were of excellent quality. It was the product manager at AH who was under all standards. The arrival of Ken Rolston changed things a bit for some time.
duncan_disorderly
Mongoose
I'm less concerned with the Clanking City Map. While not exactly beautiful, it did cover the whole Island, and certainly seemed to place all of the areas described in relation to one another. My conception of the Clanking City is a bit like a factory with lots of gantrys, walkways, etc, together with tunnels and large gates that allow routes to be closed off (A bit like a Dr Who set). This means that you can't always guarantee being able to take the same route between two locations (not quite like the Harry Potter moving staircases), and navigating between locations and/or avoiding obstacles is more a question of clever skill use/dramatic necessity/GM Fiat than the ability to trace a route on a map...
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