At last after months of procrastinating on my part, here’s the second part of my HeroQuest 2 preview. Was it really back in October when I wrote the Introduction? My how time flies

I’ve now got the final laid out with art Pdf courtesy of Jeff Richard from Moon Design.  This is the version that if you are going to Tentacles you’ll be able to pick up and will be available world wide July 1st.  I’m still going to still with this being a preview.  I find HeroQuest 2 is a complex beast and what I’m trying to do here is give you a quick run down of what’s in store. I’m going to try keep personal opinion to a minimum, but it may bleed out since I’m quite an opinionated guy

The basics

A Colour cover (by Jon Hodgson), black and white interior, 130 pages long

Contents of the book (taken directly from Tentacles Pdf with page numbers left in)

Introduction 5
Creating your Character 9
Character Creation Methods 15
Overcoming Obstacles 21
Modifiers 51
Hero Points 57
Relationships 60
Playing Stories 67
Narrating 77
Running Contests 79
Community Resources and Support 87
Gaming in Glorantha 107
Quick Reference 123
Index 127

Layout and presentation: Clear throughout and an easy read as a result.

Art: A mix of Gloranthan and generic art, mainly fantasy.

The main thing about HeroQuest 2 and how you see it is your expectations of what it is.  I struggled with this for a long time and it did colour my opinion of it initially, since depending on what I wanted out of the book on a particular day (us Newts are moody creatures you know) coloured how I viewed the book.

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Just in case you wondered I’ve moved the Hearts in Glorantha blog to my d101games.co.uk domain. This is what triggered the resending of all the comments and posts by feedburner.com for those of you subscribed via email.

If you are viewing this by rss feed you shouldn’t have any disruption to service, since the feed has always been redirected via feedburner.com (a lovely free service you should look into if you run a blog).

Just for completeness the blog is now hosted at

http://heartsinglorantha.d101games.co.uk

Stay tuned part 1 of the HeroQuest 2 preview any second now.

If you are going to Tentacles and want a copy of either the HQ 2 book or Sartar book, pop over to the Moon Designs blog and let Jeff Richard know via a comment.

Lots of info coming out of Moon Designs, publishers of HeroQuest 2.

First off the big one. HeroQuest 2 has a world wide release date of July 1st. If you are going to Tentacles, or have a friend who is, you can pick up a copy there.

Second. The Sartar book has been submitted for editing. This 375 page monster of a book covers everything you want to know about the Orlanthi of the Kingdom of Sartar and even finds room for an epic 100 page adventure (which would probably be 200 pages if it didn’t use the new HQ2 statless approach). The author Jeff Richard has very kindly sent me a copy so I’ll be doing a preview here once I’ve digested its contents.

Third. You’ll never be short of updates on Moon Designs’ activity, since its new Creative Director Jeff Richard has started up a Live Journal. Lots more news on what is in the pipeline for HQ2 Glorantha can be found there

Moon Designs Live Journal

Issue 3 is currently being edited, laid out and art being prepared eta August 2009.

It weighs in at 80 pages and contains the following articles.

• Poison Thorn Forest, One of the two groups of Dorestor Elves detailed by Shannon Appelcline
• Within the Poisonthorn, creatures of Poisonthorn by Shannon Appelcline
• Not Plunder, a series of short flavoursome pieces of equipment by Stewart Stansfield
• The Dragonsnail a part of the Devil, an in-depth look at these Chaos creatures by John Harding.
• Statues, two plunder items by John Harding
• Iron, a look at this magical Gloranthan metal by Jane Williams
• The Three Legs of Vice, details of  the Imperial Army ‘supplies’ by Stewart Stansfield
• Casting a Spell – Part 3 of Greg Stafford’s ‘How to do Magic’ series

Undersea Adventures feature

• We all live in a Brass Submarine, an epic HeroQuest Dwarf adventure from Gemberg to Prax via the Middle sea by Richard Crawley
• Monsters of Magasta, ten sea monsters for RuneQuest and HeroQuest by Nick Davison.

Cover by John Ossoway.

Issue 3 cover by John Ossoway

Ok here’s the scoop on this one.  I initially set up Hearts in Glorantha to help reduce the amount of unpublished material sitting on my hard drive that had accumulated over the years. I got some out in Issue 1 , but I was so overwhelmed by the generosity of contributions for issue 2 I wanted to make sure that everything that was submitted was published , which it was.  Next issue I thought I’ll get some articles in, which I will in the form of some Lunar Herobands, but already there has been large number of articles promised. So this still leaves me with over two hundred of pages of scenarios some of which really are too long to go in HiG.

Yesterday I contacted Greg about the possibility of doing a Gloranthan/HeroQuest Adventures magazine, and the Gloranthadad said YES!!
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Hearts in Glorantha hasn’t been the only fanzine released recently.

The Zin Letters Issue 3 by the Kalikos society is now available via Tradetalk.

• Zin Letters Issue 3

Mongoose Publishing have just put up the preview of Lawrence Whitaker’s Fronela (available next month) and RuneQuest Empires, which although is a RQ generic rules book has copious examples from Glorantha.

• Preview of Fronela
• Preview of RuneQuest Empires

Also recently released the Duck book and Ruins of Glorantha books.

• Ducks: Guide to the Durulz
• Ruins of Glorantha

Issue 2 is now available via our Lulu store.

£6 for Print, via Lulu
£3 for eBook Pdf,  via Lulu

HiG Issue 2 preview – Pdf (1.8 MB)

I’m now accepting contributions for Issue 3 (Summer 2009) . The submission deadline is April 1st, with a release date of early June.

Just a quick note to say Hearts in Glorantha issue 1 is now available via Patriot Games’ online store

Get Hearts in Glorantha issue 1 from Patriot Games

Worth checking out if you want a print copy but were put off by Lulu.com’s rather high postage costs.

For example postage in the UK was £1. If you can get to Sheffield or Huddersfield you can pick it up directly from their shops.

BTW Issue 2 is currently at the printers and will be available in the next couple of weeks.

More Duck themed maddness from the Durlz Master, Stu Stansfield in Issue 2 of the online magazine RPG Review.

• Gloranthan Sacred Time Carol in issue 2 of Rpg Review