Dear Team Moon Design: About All the Sourcebooks

[Christopher Kubasik]

I have a question:

I picked up HeroQuest: Glorantha the day it was released. I already had Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes, Sartar Companion, and Pavis: Gateway to Adventure. I’ve enjoyed the pages of HeroQuest: Glorantha I’ve read so far that I caved a couple of days ago and bought The Guide to Glorantha. (It is on the way even as we speak. Along with the copy of King of Sartar I ordered, I might well have a metric ton of Glorantha show up on my doorstep in two weeks.)

Now I see you clever folks have not only made more books from the Stafford Library available (including one focused on hero quests), but that they can be POD over at Lulu.

And I have to ask: How much material in the Stafford Library is NOT in all the materials I have already. That is, given all the books I have listed above, is there really valuable material that didn’t make it into the Guide that would be lovely to have in various volumes of the Stafford Library?

I understand this might be a difficult question to answer. But I think it’s a fair question to ask.

[Scott Martin]

Just a fan, not Moon Design at all, but that outsider status might soothe potential conflicts of interest . . .

I hate to say the books you’ve already absorbed barely scratch the surface of the Stafford Library, even in places where you might expect a fair amount of crossover as with the Sartar books and the History / Mythology of the Heortling Peoples. They are dense and they are beautiful.

Also a good moment to shout out Wyrms Footnotes 15, which I was looking at again last night and is really an unsung star in the canon. I will say the heroquesting book is the probably the most esoteric and least canonical of all, so I might grab that one last.

So . . . congratulations on the opportunity to convert that metric tonne into the long variety? (Your other post is awesome but trickier.)

[Harald Smith]

A few things to note re: Stafford Library.
1) It’s all work-in-progress to one extent or another, so it won’t have a polished feel to it.
2) Much of it is intended as deep background in shaping how the present is actually formed.
3) Depending on what you’re interested in, some will be of more use than others.
4) If you love Gloranthan material, you’ll probably want most/all of them regardless of the 3 points above.

In terms of the specific books:
– The Missing Lands – majority incorporated into the Guide. Probably of least value at this point.
– Revealed Mythologies – describes magic/mythic background for the West, Pamaltela, and East Isles/Vithela. Some bits reflected in the Guide (mythic ages appendix), and will probably form some of the background/content for Gods of Glorantha.
– Arcane Lore – compiled stuff about heroquesting going back to RuneQuest-related ideas. Some useful, some not – kind of a mixed bag, and you’ll need to translate into HeroQuest terms (if you’re running that).
– Middle Sea Empire – background/history of the God Learner Empire (i.e. 2nd Age). Some background in the Guide. If you’re running anything related to Jrustela/Slontos, could be useful background.
– Heortling Mythology – lots of Orlanthi myth/stories. Some bits reflected in Sartar books, but also lots of useful material to build heroquests around.
– History Heortling Peoples – Orlanthi history, particularly Heortland. Some in the Guide or Sartar books, but plenty you could draw on for campaign background.
– Esrolia – lots of myths/stories/history for Esrolia. Some descriptive bits in the Guide, but if you want to run something in Esrolia, definitely useful.
– Glorious ReAscent of Yelm – lots of myths/stories for Dara Happa. Gods Wall material is in the Guide. If you want to run something in Dara Happa, you’ll want this.
– Fortunate Succession – history of Dara Happa and the Emperors. Includes quite a bit on Red Emperor and Lunar Empire. Again, if you’re running something in Dara Happa or heartland of the Lunar Empire, you’ll want the background to go with the material in the Guide.
– Entekosiad – myths/stories for Pelanda (part of the Lunar Empire that comprises Carmania, Doblian, and Oronin). Some background bits in the place descriptions in the Guide, but otherwise useful if running campaign in those areas.

Overall, the ones for specific areas have the most useful material, and lots that is not in the Guide.

[Jonathan]

Awesome responses! Thanks!

[Christopher Kubasik]

Thanks for the replies!

[Adam Schneider]

Oh, my god, Revealed Mythologies is in PDF now?!

[Dominic]

That was a great reply from Harald.

Does anyone know how different the various printings of the Stafford Library sourcebooks are? For example, does a first printing of Esrolia have materially different content to the current versions?

Is the answer different for different sourcebooks?

[Joerg Baumgartner]

I have yet to find any discrepances between my print copies of the more recent volumes and the pdfs. The volumes that underwent the most changes are the oldest ones, Glorious ReAscent and Fortunate Succession, but those changes are at least a decade old.

[Harald Smith]

As Joerg notes, Glorious ReAscent and Fortunate Succession had a number of early editions which continued to expand on the material so if you happen to find a first edition GRoY copy, it will not be as rich as the current version/pdf.

[Author]

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