It’s Christmas in July again over on DriveThruRPG! This annual summer sale features discounts on RPG products all over the site, including the Jonstown Compendium. We’ve been blessed with an absolute mountain of Gloranthan goodness over the last several years. It can be hard to decide what to pick up! With budgets getting tight—and Chaosium’s new Cults of RuneQuest on the horizon—it can be tricky to make a choice. These sales will last until the end of July.
That said, here’s my recommendations! I think all five of these entries deliver great entertainment for their price (especially when considering that non-sale prices are already pretty low). I’ve focused on products that mesh well with a game set in Sartar using the Gamemaster Screen Pack or the Starter Set, with one notable exception.
Disclaimer: all links in this article are affiliate links. This gives me a slice of anything you pick up—which is awesome, because it helps me afford to keep producing articles, reviews, and other gaming content!
Honorable Mentions
First off, I want to shout out a few great adventures! These adventures are short, affordable, and easy to slot into your Sartarite campaigns. Any of them is a fantastic choice if you’re looking to spend about $5 in the sale.
- A Short Detour: $5.21
- Bog Struggles: $2.25
- The Howling Tower: $2.21
- Lost in the Dark: $1.88
- A Darker Shade of Night: $5.94
- Desire for Knowledge: $2.54
#5: Beer With Teeth’s Prax Adventures
This collection of four adventures from Jonstown all-stars Beer With Teeth (BWT) give the gamemaster loads of tools to play RuneQuest in a classic Homeland—Prax. From personal experience they mesh well with campaigns set in New Pavis & the Big Rubble. Prax is near enough to Sartar that it’s not hard to take an “arc” out that way for a few seasons. Beautifully illustrated and well-presented, BWT’s Prax adventures can each stand on their own, or be played as a mini-campaign.
All told, these four will set you back $21.01, and give you hours of nomadic adventure. Sure would be convenient if you could buy them together in a single bundle… (nudge nudge, wink wink).
#4: Korolstead: Secrets of the Smoking Ruin
This massive expansion pack turns Chaosium’s The Smoking Ruin into an old-school mega-dungeon. In my opinion, Korolstead is a bit of a hidden gem. It’s garnered attention, but I didn’t realize just HOW MUCH playable content was in here until I started running it. If your group likes crawling through dungeons and surviving by the skin of your teeth, you should pick this up.
If that’s you’re playstyle but you’ve already run The Smoking Ruin, Korolstead‘s got 60 pages of loot tables, new plants & animals, and encounter tables which are pretty useful to gamemasters. I actually got my PDF printed out and bound—it’s that useful to have on hand.
Korolstead is on sale for $18.75 (compared to $25 normally), so you’re getting pretty good savings, too!
#3: Fall 2022 RuneQuest Bundle
Four adventures for $5.99? Seriously?
This bundle was already an amazing deal, and it’s even cheaper for the rest of July. I’m stunned that all four of these adventures aren’t already at Electrum, or even Gold. Solid stories, hours of fun with your friends, and for a dirt-cheap price.
If you want to know more about these, I wrote a whole article on them earlier this year. I’m not sure the bundle’s price is actually discounted with the sale. The adventures individually are, but their price in the bundle is still lower. Even if these adventures were mediocre—and they’re NOT—at this price, you’d need more brass than I’ve got to quibble.
#2: Secrets of HeroQuesting
Simon Phipp’s introductory primer to heroquesting—a type of adventure in which the players delve into Glorantha’s myths to change reality and save the world—remains the highest-quality and most accessible material on the topic since its release three years ago. It’s a staple reference for me as both a gamemaster and an indie RuneQuest writer. Using this book does require more work from the gamemaster than other products in this article, but the effort’s well worth it. Phipp’s “go ahead, mess around, have fun with it” attitude really makes Secrets of HeroQuesting a treat.
The PDF’s on sale for $7.50, and though not on sale a print is pretty inexpensive at $20.
#1: BWT’s Clearwine Supplements
If you’re playing a game in Sartar, you should check out BWT’s books detailing the town of Clearwine Fort. Initially described in Chaosium’s Gamemaster Screen Pack, Clearwine Fort is the heart of the Colymar Tribe and the seat of Queen Leika. It’s a central location to adventurers playing both official and indie material. BWT expands the town’s description with additional non-player characters, adventure seeds, setting detail, and two short adventures. They make the town a real place to belong, just like Apple Lane or Renekot’s Hope in Chaosium’s material.
The two books are:
Due to their combination of realistic detail—the team’s even got a freaking archaeologist!—and playable content with charming illustration and clean presentation, these supplements are a must-buy for Sartarite campaigns.
Before signing off, I want to make crystal clear that this article is NOT saying that you shouldn’t consider other products on the Jonstown Compendium. There’s loads of great stuff not just for Sartarite campaigns, but for playing RuneQuest all over Glorantha. My goal here is to highlight a few favorite products that can enhance even a newbie’s game for just $10 to $20.
Basically everything I’ve ever seen on the Jonstown Compendium is a bargain, even when not on sale. Compare how many hours of entertainment you get from an adventure to anything else you might buy for under 10 bucks! If I had one message to the creative community, it’s this—charge more! Your books are amazing, and worth it.
On the off chance you find articles like this useful, consider picking up one of my books! My magic item compendium Treasures of Glorantha and my cult + adventure combo To Hunt a God are both about $5 off during the sale. So of course I went ahead and discounted the physical editions, too!
Followers, affiliate links, book sales, and all that jazz really help me keep creating content about RuneQuest, and tabletop gaming more generally. So thanks for doing the things! It’s much appreciated.
Until next time, then.
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