The World’s Best Game of Epic Bronze Age Fantasy!
“Mythology is more than old lies and stories, pseudo-scientific explanations for natural phenomena, or hidden secrets of forgotten lore. It is a state of mind and a way of life. It has a sentience and life of its own: a power. RuneQuest lets you experience that state of mind and explore that way of life through the mythic realm of Glorantha.”
Chaosium Unveiled: Inside RuneQuest
Watch the unveiling video to see the book for yourself. Remember that you get the PDF when getting the physical copy.
RuneQuest is the essential game of sword, sandal and sorcery!
A Female Noble
Enter a Bronze Age world where you are defined by your cult and culture, where you do deadly combat with mythic and fantastical beasts, where everyone can use magic, and where the gods are real.
RuneQuest is an RPG with a difference. It is intuitive and easy to play. All rolls are determined via the roll of percentile dice. RuneQuest has no character classes or alignments; characters are defined by their culture, the gods they follow, and the Runes that inspire them.
We invite you to set aside the mundane world and embark on a journey with your RuneQuest adventurers beginning with your clan and expanding to cross the world of Glorantha and into the Hero Plane.
What’s Inside?
RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha is the essential book for RuneQuest players and Game Masters alike
Character Creation
An Odalyan Hunter
Characters in RuneQuest aren’t ‘rolled’. They are a seed that is planted, and they grow. You’ll determine the family history of your character which in turn teaches you the key events of the setting. Full rules for choosing your characters core traits, cults, and culture allow you to breathe life to a completely unique adventurer.
Characters advance in skills and abilities by using them in course of play. Anyone can try to pick a lock, cast a spell, or decipher some ancient runic script. In RuneQuest, you don’t spend skill points and XP - you slap on your armor and you get good at fighting.
1613 Events
Deadly Combat
A Bronze Age Battle
Combat in RuneQuest is visceral and always potentially deadly; players should be mindful that even the lowliest trollkin can take out an experienced warrior with a lucky blow.
Intuitive rules for combat mean that your character always has a choice in the ebb and flow of battle. From casting spells, drawing your bow, swinging your axe and choosing how to defend yourself - which in turn can be deadly to your opponent!
Combat in RuneQuest is always high-octane, with every choice and dice roll holding the fate of your character on a knife edge.
Critical Table
Magic & Gods
A Priestess
The gods of the mythic world of Glorantha define their followers. Each god has their own cult, which will determine your characters skills, spells, and personality. With many dozens of gods, RuneQuest has a cult and god to suit each playstyle, personality, and personal aesthetic.
Three unique magic systems -Rune, Spirit, and Sorcery- make for dynamic and powerful combinations where no two RuneQuest characters will ever be alike. The simple yet deep rules for each class of magic will see you cultivating your power and defining your epic adventures.
The Cult of Issaries
Family & Land
Between Adventures
RuneQuest is a game about culture. Full rules for dynamic downtime activities such as farming, managing households, marriage & raising children make for a deep and immersive roleplaying experience.
Building your family tree, and indeed your own familial legacy, is the stuff of epic and long-form campaigns spanning many decades and even generations.
Omens for the New Year
A Setting Like No Other
The World of Glorantha
Glorantha is a world made by the gods but shaped by the deeds of mortals. Magic is part of everyday life, and mythology is the basis of reality. Your adventurer is a mortal, destined to die, but through luck, courage, cunning, and sacrifice, can become a hero or even a god! Your adventures might start gritty and realistic, and become fantastic and mythic, only to return to gritty realism.
In Glorantha, people hold allegiance to tribe, city, and cult, not to abstract alignments or ideologies. Although humanity is the dominant species, their dominance is due only to the quarrelling of the Elder Races, who still rule large parts of the world.
Glorantha’s main theme is religion and the magical relation of humankind to the gods. In Glorantha, the gods and goddesses are real, and through their followers and cults they play an active and important part in most major events. The Sun, Earth, Air, Water, Darkness, and Moon have powerful deities associated with them, as do powers such as Death, Fertility, Change, Stasis, Illusion, Truth, Disorder, and Harmony. There are also countless lesser deities associated with things as diverse as cats, cows, boats, vengeance, and volcanoes.
Glorantha is a complete universe. It is self-contained, and from its myths to its molecules it must be taken on its own terms. However, Glorantha is filled with strange and amazing gods, cultures, and creatures both familiar and fantastic, and players should soon be enthralled by the unique features of the setting.
- Version:
- 4th Edition Chaosium RuneQuest
- ISBN:
- 978-1-56882-502-1
- Year Released:
- 2018
- Page Count:
- 448
- Format:
- Full-color Hardback + PDF
- Authors:
- Greg Stafford, Jeff Richard, Jason Durall, Steve Perrin
- Contributing Writers:
- David Dunham, Steve Henderson, Warren James, Sven Lugar, Chris Klug, Rick Meints, Michael O'Brien, Sandy Petersen, Neil Robinson, Ken Rolston, and Ray Turney
- Cover Artist:
- Andrey Fetisov
- Artist(s):
- Rick Becker, Bernard Bittler, Simon Bray, William Church, Miguel Coronado, Gene Day, Andrey Fetisov, Piotr Foksowicz, Lisa Free, Merle Insigna, Tomasz Jedruszek, Kalin Kadiev, Roman Kisyov, Rachel Kahn, Jennifer Lange, Rhonda Libbey, Michelle Lockamy
- Artists (continued):
- Juha Makkonen, Mike Mignola, Christine Mitzuk, Luise Perrene, Kevin Ramos, Roger Raupp, Jakob Rebulka, Alex Ries, Naomi Robinson, Simon Roy, Olivier Sanfilippo, Luoto Sari, Tobias Tranell, Cory Trego-Erdner
- Cartography:
- Olivier Sanfilippo, Darya Makarava, Colin Driver
- Design & Layout:
- Simeón Cogswell, Malcolm Wolter
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Brilliant game and world
This is such a great game from a design perspective and the world is gloriously realised.
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Best RuneQuest Edition Ever
This book is big, beautiful and everything I've ever wanted from RuneQuest.
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A worthy relaunch!
This most recent relaunch of the Runequest system brings in several new and important aspects to the game that fit very well with the concept of Glorantha and the original vision of the game! Most especially is the introduction of runic associations and passions for characters, which both expand and restrain characters and players. The outlay of cults is good, though some of them receive too little attention, and I generally like the many changes to the game's mechanics. The art work is fabulous! My only quibble is in the lay-out of the book, which requires more back and forth than I think should have been necessary. But getting all this into a single tome was a challenging undertaking.
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Best Game I've Ever Played
I'm a relatively late discovered of RuneQuest and Glorantha, and I'm very happy I've found a mature system with an incredibly deep world. This book presents the world in a way that's approachable, but with the full support you need to start playing a campaign that could last for years. I have never seen a game that fits the system and the world together so well. How much do I like it? It inspired me to start an RPG publishing co-operative. That much.
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amazing
Th best game i have read and played this last years. The book is very good with amazing arts inside. And all rules are very well written, there was few minor errors in the first printing, but now all major things seems to be ok.
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The best Runequest yet?
Glorathna is an amazing setting and with this new edition of Runequest i think Chaosium have done an excellent job of weaving Greg Staffords world into the rules. If you like Runequest, Glorantha or RPGs do yourself a favour and buy this.
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Return of a Classic
It's wonderful to have RQ back home at Chaosium, and it's wonderful to see them draw so much on the old RQ2 for inspiration with this present system. The integration of Runes and Passions at a mechanical level give an incredible opportunity for mechanically supported and meaningful roleplaying and character development, dovetailing perfectly with the deadly combat crunch. Visually the book is stunning, and thumbing through for the artwork alone proves to be a near endless wellspring of inspiration and ideas for game sessions and campaigns. There is one star removed because there are some organizational and information layout issues that I personally find odd, and have made it difficult for me and my players to quickly look up relevant information, or clearly see how the collection of parts that is the rules add up to a cohesive structure.
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Runequest
As a fan of the older editions of RQ, the new edition takes all the parts and pieces that I grew to enjoy and delivers a updated version with improved aspects, I am looking at you Passions & Runes! I highly recommend this book for any fan of Runequest and Glorantha specifically.
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RuneQuest at its finest moment
Glorantha is where RuneQuest belongs, and this book has brought the two back together. Beautiful cover, excellent art and layout, and kickass setting and rpg system.
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