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In Which I Record Gloranthan Memories
It was 25 years ago tonight that RuneQuest-Con began at the Columbia Inn Hotel, in Baltimore, Maryland.
It was a time of excitement and rejuvenation for RuneQuest and for the world of Glorantha. The line had fizzled out in the late '80s, but with the 1992 publication of _Sun County_ by Michael O'Brien, the RuneQuest Renaissance had begun. That same year, _King of Sartar_ had also appeared, suggesting a richer mythic background for the world than we ever could have imagined, but then at RuneQuest-Con, Greg Stafford doubled down with the 1994 publication of the "Vernacular Edition" of _The Glorious ReAscent of Yelm_, which revealed a whole layer of mythology beneath that which we knew.
But those professional publications were only half of the story of Glorantha in the early '90s, and perhaps less. Because the early '90s were the time when the Gloranthan fandom really exploded, starting with the Reaching Moon Megacorp crew in England. They'd been publishing _Tales of the Reaching Moon_ since 1989 and had kicked off the idea of Glorantha conventions in 1992, with Convulsions. The rich creativity of the authors for _Tales_ (and soon: many other fanzines) easily matched that of the professional publications ... and in fact soon those fanzine creators were writing for many of the professional books, starting with MOB's _Sun County_. Meanwhile, the yearly conventions gave this community the opportunity to really come together and for their ideas to multiply and cross-fertilize.
RuneQuest-Con was my first trip as an adult. I'm not sure I'd been out of California since my Washington DC trip in my senior year of high school. Now, five years later, I was making a recreational trip for something that I found enthralling (and with the support and encouragement of my friend Eric Rowe). When I went to RuneQuest-Con in Baltimore, I was a big fan of the system, because I'd played in weekly games throughout most of my college days. But I was less of a fan of Glorantha, because most of those games were set in my friend Eric's world, Erzo. But I did know Glorantha through its publications. I'd happily read through all the Avalon Hill boxes, through _Cults of Prax_ and _Cults of Terror__, through the amazing _King of Sartar_. But the convention was my first time for those abstract learnings to become concrete. And they did.
I happily played in _Home of the Bold_, where I watched over the last days of my doomed Orlanthi tribe while I hid away at Geo's. And I listened to seminars and I talked Glorantha fans, and I became entirely enamored by the setting.
It filled my creative output for a decade thereafter. I talked with Greg about the First Age, and wrote the history of that time for the LARP at RQ-Con 2. I talked about elves with Greg and would eventually write two books on the topic. I used these two expertises to fill the pages of _Tradetalk_ and _Hearts in Glorantha_ and offered other scattered bits for two local fanzines, _RQ Adventures_ and _The Book of Drastic Resolutions_.
The next year, I helped Eric put together RQ-Con 2 in San Francisco. (He did all the logistical work, including stuff I was supposed to do; I did the majority of the writing for the LARP, with support from him and Steven Martin and of course Greg.) And I got to make a trip to England the year after, to attend Convulsions 3D. After that, I faded away from the physical Gloranthan gatherings, in large part because I was now making no money, working for Chaosium (and afterward because working at Chaosium burned me out on roleplaying for a few years thereafter). Ironically, I still supported some of them, such as the day I worked up the original Hero Wars logo in an hour or two, so that Greg could have something to put on t-shirts for Glorantha-Con IV (I think). But even as I stepped back from the conventions, I still felt those connections as I wrote for the fanzines, until they faded away too. (Joyfully, Facebook has brought some of those connections back.)
(Tip of the hat to Rick Meints who wrote some memories about RQ-Con 1 over on his own page.)
It was a time of excitement and rejuvenation for RuneQuest and for the world of Glorantha. The line had fizzled out in the late '80s, but with the 1992 publication of _Sun County_ by Michael O'Brien, the RuneQuest Renaissance had begun. That same year, _King of Sartar_ had also appeared, suggesting a richer mythic background for the world than we ever could have imagined, but then at RuneQuest-Con, Greg Stafford doubled down with the 1994 publication of the "Vernacular Edition" of _The Glorious ReAscent of Yelm_, which revealed a whole layer of mythology beneath that which we knew.
But those professional publications were only half of the story of Glorantha in the early '90s, and perhaps less. Because the early '90s were the time when the Gloranthan fandom really exploded, starting with the Reaching Moon Megacorp crew in England. They'd been publishing _Tales of the Reaching Moon_ since 1989 and had kicked off the idea of Glorantha conventions in 1992, with Convulsions. The rich creativity of the authors for _Tales_ (and soon: many other fanzines) easily matched that of the professional publications ... and in fact soon those fanzine creators were writing for many of the professional books, starting with MOB's _Sun County_. Meanwhile, the yearly conventions gave this community the opportunity to really come together and for their ideas to multiply and cross-fertilize.
RuneQuest-Con was my first trip as an adult. I'm not sure I'd been out of California since my Washington DC trip in my senior year of high school. Now, five years later, I was making a recreational trip for something that I found enthralling (and with the support and encouragement of my friend Eric Rowe). When I went to RuneQuest-Con in Baltimore, I was a big fan of the system, because I'd played in weekly games throughout most of my college days. But I was less of a fan of Glorantha, because most of those games were set in my friend Eric's world, Erzo. But I did know Glorantha through its publications. I'd happily read through all the Avalon Hill boxes, through _Cults of Prax_ and _Cults of Terror__, through the amazing _King of Sartar_. But the convention was my first time for those abstract learnings to become concrete. And they did.
I happily played in _Home of the Bold_, where I watched over the last days of my doomed Orlanthi tribe while I hid away at Geo's. And I listened to seminars and I talked Glorantha fans, and I became entirely enamored by the setting.
It filled my creative output for a decade thereafter. I talked with Greg about the First Age, and wrote the history of that time for the LARP at RQ-Con 2. I talked about elves with Greg and would eventually write two books on the topic. I used these two expertises to fill the pages of _Tradetalk_ and _Hearts in Glorantha_ and offered other scattered bits for two local fanzines, _RQ Adventures_ and _The Book of Drastic Resolutions_.
The next year, I helped Eric put together RQ-Con 2 in San Francisco. (He did all the logistical work, including stuff I was supposed to do; I did the majority of the writing for the LARP, with support from him and Steven Martin and of course Greg.) And I got to make a trip to England the year after, to attend Convulsions 3D. After that, I faded away from the physical Gloranthan gatherings, in large part because I was now making no money, working for Chaosium (and afterward because working at Chaosium burned me out on roleplaying for a few years thereafter). Ironically, I still supported some of them, such as the day I worked up the original Hero Wars logo in an hour or two, so that Greg could have something to put on t-shirts for Glorantha-Con IV (I think). But even as I stepped back from the conventions, I still felt those connections as I wrote for the fanzines, until they faded away too. (Joyfully, Facebook has brought some of those connections back.)
(Tip of the hat to Rick Meints who wrote some memories about RQ-Con 1 over on his own page.)