The Book of Heortling Mythology is an amazing bit of secondary world creation that reveals a mythology that is deep and many faceted. Stafford takes the same tactic that he used in King of Sartar of offering myths from lots of different viewpoints, though it's not as refined here (likely because this book was collated from the contents of several other works, rather than being created as an original piece). Nonetheless, it's an amazing work that depicts a mythological cycle that has the depth and verisimilitude of something from a real culture.

If you want HeroQuests, they're here. If you want to understand the foundations of Orlanthi society, it's here. If you just want a good, dense volume of new myths, it's here.

The most amazing thing when I first read GRoY twenty-five years ago was the way in which it presented an orthogonal view of religion (and history and mythology) in Glorantha, not exactly discrediting the previous stories of the Third Age, but showing that there was something deeper there. That a single culture could present a different point of view that could still be lined up when you squinted.

Greg's creations of artifacts, especially the Gods' Wall, also did a lot to make his world feel lived in.

Fundamentally, GRoY is an emperor's list, and in some ways its core storytelling is very limited as a result. But it's when you understand the larger stories of Glorantha, and what it might be presenting in a different way, that this book really shines.

This is not a classic RuneQuest adventure, full of delves and fights (though there is a mini-delve! and more than one fight!). Instead it's a deeply moving story about a community that does a magnificent job of blending together many of the elements that make RuneQuest and its world of Glorantha unique.

One moment it's a story of young initiation, another it's about mythic quests. One moment it's a political story of oppression and rebellion, another it's about historical treasures unearthed. Somehow, Montgomery makes it all blend together seamlessly, creating a whole that's much greater than its parts.

The result? One of the best RuneQuest adventures ever.

There are also some great nuances here. The adventure's "supporting cast" stat boxes break away from the number-heavy stats required by RuneQuest and provide just what you need for supporting characters, including a really nice interrelation between runes and characteristics. (I wish Chaosium would adopt them.) The section of "Episodes" at the end is a nice way to integrate a lot of story seeds (and shows how the adventure is pretty thoroughly not a railroad despite its narrative foundation; in fact, Montgomery goes out of his way to give GMs and players meaningful choices and the ability to meaningfully change the narrative). Meanwhile, the HeroQuests come across as an entirely organic expansion of RuneQuest play.

Finally, the book is physically attractive. The art is nice, the boxes are good additions to the book, and the layout is neat and attractive. (I've a slight qualm with double-spacing after periods which tends to open up big spaces in the justified text, but we each have our hobgoblins.)

Unfortunately, Six Seasons in Sartar sets an almost impossibly high standard for other RuneQuest community content — and for Chaosium's own RuneQuest content for that matter. It's a superb release.

It feels like the Gamemaster Adventure Book is the heart of this package, and that's a workmanlike book, containing a good description of the default peoples for RQ:G, plus a few adventures all in the same style that flesh out the standard area.

But it turns out that it's the rest of the pack that's extraordinary: a series of gorgeous maps, a breathtaking character sheet, a horizontal style GM screen (a style that I think Chaosium themselves trailblazed in the '90s, albeit after a crenellated screen from Judges Guild a decade earlier) that shows Glorantha's famous God's Wall in full color, and a full color calendar. It all not only shows off the modern Chaosium's high level of design, but also the capabilities of modern printing.

This could have been just another roleplaying sourcebook. At the hands of Gidlow, Brooke, Hagen, and others it still would have been brilliant. But instead of taking that staid, traditional route, the group did something entirely different and better.

A Rough Guide to Glamour is a hodge-podge of materials about the capitol of the Lunar Empire that, like the best material on Glorantha, tells its stories through both the intersections and the absences in a series of overlapping materials. (At one point, I thought this could have a been a 21st issue of the long-gone and much lamented Tales of the Reaching Moon magazine, a Lunar Special, but it's actually something much more than that.)

The major article is a rather extensive Gazetteer of Glamour, but rather than being the sort of thing you'd find in LE1: The City of Glamour, it instead reads more like a tourist guide — and it turns out to be a pretty wonderful way to view a roleplaying city, because it's full of plot seeds and ideas that you could turn into real gameable moments if your players somehow make it all the way out to Glamour.

The other most gameable part of the book is a pair of cults. The Red Emperor is one of the most extensive cults in all of RuneQuestdom, while Glamour is a fine example of a mischievous, rebellious city god. These materials could easily be used for any RQ game.

The rest of the book is made up of the rather joyfully overlapping stories that give all of this depth. There's some fiction that provides some rather interesting insights into the Lunar Empire and the Red Emperor. There's a bit of song that's more of an ode to the Queen than the Emperor but is still hysterically funny. There's also information on history, peoples, governance, and the nearby regions that's everything you wanted to know about the Lunar Empire but were afraid to ask.

Overall, a wonderful bit of Glorantha lore, highlighting the Lunar Empire as seen by its biggest fans in the '90s.

Oh, and it's wonderfully produced with beautiful art and great design. Get the POD, it's a great looking hardcover.

It's RuneQuest! The real RuneQuest, the original RuneQuest, back for the first time since Avalon Hill killed the line over twenty years previous.

To a certain extent, you know what you're getting here, this is the classic simulationist system. Oh, it's been nicely updated, integrating the passions from Pendragon, adding in runes as skills much like the now non-canon Mongoose RuneQuest did. There's also great Glorantha background in the character creation. It took decades, but it's great to finally have it recognized that a setting strengthens a game, it doesn't weaken it. (Oh, we had a shot at this with the original RQ4 back in the late '80s, but that got killed, and that's a whole other story.) And we get a nice set of cults to add to the setting.

And this book also looks very nice. Take a look at the cover, and that's pretty representative of the level of art within the book.

Generally, I'm thrilled to have a real RuneQuest again, and to have it be such a high-quality book that innovates just enough to be interesting.

I'd expected a Monster Manual for Glorantha, but this book is so much more.

Oh, there are monstrous listings, including chaos monstrosities, giant arthropods (an Uz favorite!), animals and spirits. The breadth is rather stunning and will support a lot of different sorts of adventuring in Glorantha. They're all well-written and many are attractively illustrated; they have good details on the critters. They'll be a wonder to torment adventurers in any RuneQuest game.

However, the real surprise in this book was the section on the Elder Races, which took up about a third of the book. Want details on Aldryami (elves), Mostali (dwarves), and Uz (trolls)? It's all in here, in very nice depth, and alongside that is material on many of the lesser Elder Races, from Beast Men to Maidstone Archers. There's also a bit on the Terrors of Glorantha, which is another nice section that's pretty unusual for a Monster Manual.

Old fans of the game may be familiar with some of this material from the Gloranthan Bestiary and Elder Secrets of Glorantha, but this is the best compilation ever of the material, with so much new stuff (and of course compatibility with RQ:G) that I think any fan would want it.

Amazing little booklet, codifying everything currently available from the Jonstown Compendium (with promises of updates). This attractively laid-out book steps through every adventure currently on the Compendium (with attention also paid to sourcebooks and accessories) and tells you whether you'd want it or not by highlighting adventure location, book size, book price, and basic information about the product. The fact that this is all written by a Gloranthan sage makes it all the more useful.

If you are interested in making purchases from the Compendium, this is obviously the first thing to pick up, especially as it continues to grow.

Fighters and Small Craft is a very good book of small craft for Traveller despite its stylistic issues. It's biggest obstacle will probably be that Mongoose has already produced a lot of small craft designs in its own Supplement 2--though these new designs could surely complement the ones already in print. This summary is drawn from a more complete review available at RPGnet: http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14676.phtml

Does it job. Not particularly exciting, but if you want a nice lizardfolk tribe, this is the resource to buy.