Well, the month’s just wrapped up, and that means we’ve released another issue of Monster of the Month! This series for Chaosium’s RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha highlights a new monster (with a rather loose definition of the word) each month, often including bonus content such as magic items, new spells, and so on, in addition to the staple bestiary entries.
July’s issue is titled Petty Spirits 2. The follow-up to Petty Spirits from last year’s volume of MOTM, this supplement explores Glorantha at the smaller scale. Petty spirits are just one way that terrestrial “common sense” can be explained within a mythic fantasy world. Rather than oxidizing, bronze tarnishes because Bronze-Biter spirits chew on it. Texts get lost in the stacks of libraries because Bookwyrms eat them. This approach to worldbuilding allows your players to retain their basic assumptions about the world, while giving those phenomena purpose, and new meaning.
Petty Spirits 2 presents three new spirits for use by players and gamemasters alike: Bookwyrms, Children of Daga, and Child’s Fortune. You can get it now, over on the Jonstown Compendium.
Behind the Scenes
Petty Spirits 2 sees a return to shorter format for MOTM. As I’ve discussed in recent posts on the site, I love the results of the first six, more elaborate, issues of the series published this year. However, the response hasn’t been strong enough to justify continued publication of similar-length supplements. By reducing the length of Petty Spirits 2, and future issues this year, I hope to conserve time and energy to be put toward longer projects.
I’ve had some success with this. I’m continuing to keep plenty busy this past month. I got a good bit of work done on my Esrolia project describing the religion of the city-goddess, and I’ve begun writing a commission adventure. The latter is quite exciting for me – I haven’t done an enormous amount of freelance work as either editor or author, and I’m happy to have the opportunity. Completing this project is currently my main focus, followed by catching up on a mixture of works needing editorial attention. Some are Akhelas projects, while others are freelance for other creators. I’m reticent to share information about the freelance work, but I can share that one of my own projects is a broo-filled dungeon bash adventure, written by a friend.
(Broo, by the way, are extra nasty beasties which thrive on disease and hate. Think orcs, but nastier.)
August’s issue of MOTM is written, but needs a fair bit of editorial attention before taking it into production. The title is The Bad Winds, and the premise is “What happens when a player rolls a fumble, while casting Summon Air Elemental?” It’s a fun monster with a dash of spirit interaction and religious purpose, which I think my readers will enjoy.
In other Akhelas news, the playtest campaign of my Esrolia material has kicked back up again, after a hiatus caused by some scheduling hiccups. I’ll be posting a writeup on the site of sessions four and five either later this week, or perhaps sometime next week. The adventurers delved into a spooky forest, interacted with a friendly giant spider, then returned to the city for some downtime and daily life vignettes.
Until next time, then.
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