Rune MasterS Strong NPCS and Their Use in RuneQuest William R. Keyes ILLUSTRATIONS by LUISE PERRENE TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION THE SEVEN MOTHERS ORLANTH About this Book 2 Partreena 32 Henrik 50 How to Create a Rune Master 2 Quarg 33 Ishomon 51 How to Play a Rune Master 8 Ran-Eel 34 Jemdar 52 Group Melee Tactics 11 PAVIS KYGER LITOR DAKA FAL Suranna 35 Kyola Kagan 53 Abelar 17 Tallin 36 Lormog Libor 54 Boreek Longtooth 18 Ulfaren 37 Merlger Moran 55 Camron 19 YELMALIO ZORAK ZORAN STORM BULL Vandar 38 Norgash Ornag 56 Darnor 20 Wulf 39 Peluk Komaz 57 Elarona 21 Xendar 40 Orziola Danak 58 Felanor 22 ISSARIES ALDRYA WAHA Yulnef 41 Querial the Fair 59 Gortar 23 Zolinda 42 Rohir Oaklimb 60 Hessik 24 Aalaron 43 Selek the Wise 61 Inofar 25 CHALANA ARROY THE DATA SHEETS EIRITHA Beshalla 44 About the Data Sheets 62 Jessica Grey 26 Car-Eel 45 RuneQuest Character Sheet 64 Kassea 27 Doreena 46 Allied & Bound Spirit Sheet 65 Lomena 28 Leader & Followers Sheet 66 LHANKOR MHY Squad Sheet 67 HUMAKT Elamon 47 GM Player-Character Sheet 68 Mondar 29 Felamora 48 Character Worksheet 69 Nelkark 30 Gelmon 49 Party Worksheet 70 Ordomon 31 Classic Edition: Proofreading by Martin Helsdon and Sue O'Brien, Layout by Rick Meints and Nicholas Nacario. Copyright © 1980 and 2020. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this work by any means without written permission from the publisher, except short excerpts for the purpose of reviews or game play, is expressly prohibited. SampleRuneQuest and Glorantha are trademarks of Moon Design Publications. file First Printing - July 2020 ISBN# 978-1-56882-197-9 Would you like to know more about Chaosium? See our extensive website at www.chaosium.com May Arachne Solara bless and protect this book. RuneQuest RUNE MASTERS INTRODUCTION HOW TO CREATE A RUNEMASTER ABOUT THIS BOOK RuneMasters consist of Rune Lords, Rune Priests, and Rune This book contains 45 RuneMasters for use as non-player Lord-Priests. They are leaders in their cults, and are very characters (NPCs) in RuneQuest adventures. There is a Rune experienced and capable men and women with considerable Lord, a Rune Priest, and a Rune Lord-Priest for each of the 15 expertise. With the rare exceptions of Heroes (and even rarer cults examined in Cults of Prax, a separate publication. The Priest Superheroes) RuneMasters are the most powerful characters in is a fairly skilled adventurer with an allied spirit, bound spirits, the cults of Glorantha. To create such strong characters requires and a number of Rune spells. The Lord is a tough adventurer with good knowledge of the cult involved and of RuneQuest itself. mastery of a number of skills, an allied spirit, end bound spirits. The character sheet in the back of this book is designed to assist The Lord-Priest is a truly formidable foe, questing toward Hero in such a creation. status, who has mastered many skills and Rune spells, and who has an allied spirit and bound spirits. This book provides for the FILL IN THE BACKGROUND SECTION first time a large selection of Rune level NPCs fully filled out The first section in the upper left corner of the RuneMaster and equipped, ready to use in a scenario as a set encounter or as character sheet details the character’s background. You should a wandering encounter. Included is a new RuneMaster character choose the name, race, sex, and cult of the new character. Roll sheet and a ‘familiar’ character sheet. The statistics for each for or choose the character’s social class. Your choice of race tells RuneMaster are given in a straight-forward manner so that most you what dice rolls are needed to discover the character’s basic of the sheet can be filled just by copying. Notes are included characteristics. The social class gives insight into the character’s describing each personality and other individual details, and a prior experience between 16-21 years of age. Assume that the brief description of the peculiarities of the cult. character joined the cult at age 16, and that by age 21 (at the end of his prior experience) the character undoubtedly was an initiate A NOTE FROM AZMADIAN TALES #11, of the cult. Make some prior experience choices logically: for PUBLISHED IN ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 67 IN 1981. instance, if the new character is a mounted barbarian, then should When I wrote my supplement to Runequest, Runemasters, the he choose to be a mercenary he will be in the cavalry. Chaosium editors decided to compact the material into a $5 size Similarly, cult requirements will influence prior experience. book instead of an $8 size book. Therefore the Table of Contents, The fledgling mercenary will want to join a mercenary band Index and the descriptions of the cults and characters were dropped. specializing in the same weapons required by his cult, so that he The time pressure was such that much of my material was only gets the best use of his prior experience in helping him on toward briefly edited, so some mistakes that should have been caught made Rune Lord status. Clearly a townsman who joins the Yelmalio it into print. What I really regret was the loss of the description of cult will want to join a mercenary band which specializes in the characters, which gave a personality and background to them spear–as does his cult. A Humakti will want to be in a band that and made them real. For those nice enough to buy my book, I here teaches the use of the sword. In this way the trainings offered by present the lost descriptions of the 45 Rune Masters and their cults, the mercenaries and the cult will dovetail. It is rare, however, for for use with my book. I hope you find them of use. The Heroquest non-humans to join the cavalry, though it is possible. abilities in these descriptions are my own creations and not One must choose also the nationality of the character. If he intended to be considered an official publication. Greg Stafford is is a barbarian, the choice of tribe will dictate his tribal weapons. writing Heroquest and will the one to set the final list of Heroquest In the case of Waha, these also will be his cult weapons. A Lunar abilities. These are, however, possible abilities that he might choose. citizen will tend toward Lunar weapons, and so on. [Ed. When I first wrote my description of the RuneMasters Nationality also influences the choice of cult. Lunar citizens book several years ago I lamented the absence of character will more often join Lunar cults. Sartar citizens will prefer the backgrounds. It is with great pleasure that, with a mere gap of Orlanth cults. A barbarian in Prax has a high chance of joining approximately 25 years, I am able to bring all of the material Waha, if male, or Eiritha, if female. back together as it was originally intended by the author.] Race can also dictate cult choice. Elves almost always join Aldrya, but also favor Yelmalio. Most trolls join one of the HOW TO USE THIS BOOK darkness cults. First read through the book, concentrating on the first two Race, sex, and nationality often can combine to limit the chapters. They tell how RuneMasters are created and how to choice of cult, and those factors plus social standing can channel play these characters effectively. When you need a RuneMaster the choice of prior experience. of a particular cult, you will need only to turn to that cult and The actual birth date of a character is for use in a campaign. select one of the three RuneMasters present. If you want one at In some cults it is important to know the birth date. A Rune Priest random, roll 1D20 and for result 01-15 count down to that cult generally will have spent some years as an adventurer, to train in the Table of Contents. For 16-20, roll again and take two of in various skills before becoming a Rune Priest, and so will the RuneMasters for that cult, ignoring further rolls of 16-20. be at least in his middle twenties. A Rune Lord would need to Once you’ve selected a RuneMaster, copy his or her statistics adventure for some time to gain that status, usually at least five onto a photocopySample of the RuneMaster character sheet. Then read years, and so will be in his/her latefile thirties. A Rune Lord-Priest the section for that cult and for those characters specifically. You generally will be older still. are ready to use them. 2 Rune Masters RuneQuest The RuneMasters in this book are generally in their prime, total hit points and circle the appropriate number under Total Hit but one can have old Rune Priests and Rune Lords as well. This is Points to the right of the bonus section. often the case in Lhankor Mhy, where the characters must spend many years in study before rising in prominence as a scholar. COMPLETE THE AVAILABLE POWER SECTION Remember also that if you want the Rune Priests to have a good This section is to the right of the background and bonus section. selection of cult Rune spells, you have to allow the time necessary Take the character’s POW score and circle this number under to gain and sacrifice the necessary Power for those spells. Own Power Pts. Now roll 3D6 for the INT of the new character’s Allied Spirit and enter this on the small line just to the right of the ROLLING THE CHARACTERISTICS inscription Allied Spirit on the character sheet.