Sartar is here!!! The books arrived from the printer and they are BEAUTIFUL!!!

Check out our lovely spokesmodel and assistant art director as she shows off the book cover:



The Making Your Orlanthi Character and Clan section:


One of seven full color maps:


And a few more examples of the lovely interior art:




The book goes for sale in just over a week!

Jeff

Sartar Kingdom of Heroes is at the printer and I received the printer's proof yesterday. It looks beautiful! Here's a few photos:

Here's the cover - with Simon Bray's evocative picture of a fight at the Clearwine Earth Temple!


Here's the title page with art by Jed Dougherty:


Here's all 378 internal pages (unlike most publishers, we actually tried to reduce the number of pages by having a layout that left very very few white spaces).


A few sample pages:


More sample pages:


An example of one of the seven full color maps in the book:


All in all, this is the most exciting book I have worked on and certainly the most beautiful. If you are going to be in London next week, you can pick up a copy at Dragonmeet; otherwise, you can buy the book from www.glorantha.com starting the beginning of December.

The worldwide premiere of Sartar Kingdom of Heroes will be at London Dragonmeet on November 28. We will be bringing a limited number of the new books for sale - AND THEY WILL SELL FAST! Your only guarantee that you will be able to get a copy
of the book is to preorder your copy now.

Go immediately to our website and reserve your copy!!!

Save on the shipping costs of a book weighing a full kilo! Get your copy before
anyone else.

Sartar Kingdom of Heroes is the first book of the new Glorantha Renaissance -
the Third Age begins NOW!

Jeff
Moon Design LLC

Howdy all -

Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes is in final layout as we get ready to send it to the printer this week. My word, this book is beautiful! Approximately 400 pages long, this is the best looking and most distinctive Gloranthan book since the original Trollpak. So many pictures, so many maps. Here's a taste:


This page has a wonderful piece by Jed Dougherty, depicting the Orlanthi Pantheon at the High Table of the Gods (and reminiscent of Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper).


I love the Mike O'Connor boxed art with stylized depiction of common Sartarite occupations. I'm a huge fan of Mike's distinctive art. He depicts the Orlanthi as I imagine they would depict themselves.



Finally we have plenty of fantastic pieces from French artist Regis Moulin. And much much more.

These are just a taste of what the final book will look like. Art by a wide variety of professional artists helps provide a distinctive look to Glorantha.

Jeff

We've already posted a cartographic comparison of Sartar to the UK. But I don't live there, so it's a bit abstract. So here's a comparison for those of you who're familiar with the size of Europe:



and with the United States:



Thanks to Colin Driver for the maps. There's lots more in the upcoming Sartar Book!

David

Those who are familiar with Greg Stafford's Glorantha are likely familiar with the problem of scale in previously published maps. One map might say it is 50 miles from Clearwine Fort to Duck Point, another says it is only 30 miles. One map might display the continent of Genertela as being 3000 miles from west to east, but using the scale on another one gets the distance of only 1600 miles.

It is enough to drive a poor cartographer mad.

Fortunately, Colin Driver (our cartographer) is not a poor cartographer and was already mad to begin with. And so after much hard work he has resolved the scale of Glorantha issue once and for all. Genertela is approximately 3000 miles from west to east (which is comparable to the distance from the eastern seaboard of the United States to the western seaboard). It is approximately 50 miles from Clearwine Fort to Duck Point (as the Orlanthi holy man flies) and precisely 68 miles from Jonstown to AldaChur.

Here is a map of England superimposed over a map of Dragon Pass and the Holy Country to give a more local sense of scale:



As you can see, the Kingdom of Sartar is roughly the distance from Nottingham to Durham and is comparable in size to the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumberia.

The Sartar book will contain many maps designed to give GMs and players a much better feel for the exact size of things in Dragon Pass, including:

• A map of Dragon Pass and the Holy Country
• A map of Sartar
• A map showing the boundaries of all the tribes of Sartar
• A map showing the major holy places of the Sartarites
• A detailed map of the lands of the Colymar tribe
• A map showing the boundaries of all the clans of Colymar tribe and their neighboring tribes.

And much more! Last I counted we had more than 20 maps in the Sartar Book.

Jeff
Moon Design

The Book of Heortling Mythology will be available at Convention Chimériades this weekend!

This book contains the entire corpus of Orlanthi mythology known to Greg. At 184 pages it is the largest Stafford Library Book to date (and 50% bigger than the HeroQuest Core Rules).

The Book of Heortling Mythology contains scores of myths never before seen in print:

• When Orlanth was a Prisoner
• Orlanth and Sh’harkazeel
• Orlanth and the Thunder Weapons
• Ernalda’s Other Husbands
• Kodig the King
• Lifebringer variants
• The Three Otherworlds
• The Death of Heort
• The Stampede
• Talosa the Snake Goddess
• The book also contains comprehensive lists of ever Orlanthi god, hero, and demon known to Greg.
• And much much much more!!!!

At 184 pages it is 50% bigger than the HeroQuest core rules, and yet you can get it at Chimeriades for only €27.50. Or find someone going to the convention to act as your mule.

As we announced yesterday, Moon Design is making the HeroQuest rules system available to third party publishers with our HeroQuest Gateway License. The HQ Gateway License allows use of the rules mechanics, but not the Glorantha setting, and imposes no financial costs on those who adopt it.

As with all legal agreements, read the HeroQuest Gateway License carefully. We are happy to answer any questions, concerns, or quibbles you might have. Our goal is to let YOU publish your setting or scenarios using the HeroQuest core rules with minimal fuss. If you are a small publisher, we can even help you with electronic and print sales through our website (or you can do itself).

To quote Robin Laws' blog, "Let a thousand HQ flowers bloom!" Let HQ Gateway be your license to let your imagination run wild!

Spread the word!

Jeff
Moon Design LLC

Part of the Moon Design team were at the Essen game fair promoting the forthcoming Sartar book, checking out games and meeting friends old and new. We bought far fewer games than usual, but Claudia more than made up for it when she found an amazing deal on Confrontation miniatures. A big Dark Heresy presence at the Spiel; Mike Mason would have been very pleased!!

As promised, here's the key team members showing off their "Sartar" t-shirts:

We created the HeroQuest Gateway License to let you do just that.

Here is a very cursory overview:

1. Read the HeroQuest Gateway License Agreement.

2. If you agree to the terms, mail us a HeroQuest Gateway Statement of Acceptance. Attach a short description of what you propose to publish.

3. We’ll email you when we get your Statement of Acceptance. Assuming we have no further questions, you license will become automatically effective fourteen days later. You are in business!!!

4. You need to comply with the terms of the HeroQuest Gateway License, which means – among other things – you will need to put the HQ Gateway logo on the back cover and on the page with all the legalese. Very importantly, you shall not use anyone else’s intellectual property without their permission! Read the whole agreement, since you have to carefully follow the provisions of the licensing agreement (don’t worry it is only six pages long).

No permission is granted under the HeroQuest Gateway License to publish any Gloranthan material!

5. Finally, you publish your product, you will need to send Moon Design three print copies and one electronic copy.

That's it. No royalties. No intrusive editorial checkoff requirements (although we can always request to review your licensed materials before publication to make sure you aren't planning on publishing something that would violate the terms of the agreement). For more details check out our HeroQuest Gateway page to see how HeroQuest Gateway can be your license to adventure!

Moon Design is releasing the first new book for Glorantha HeroQuest next month. Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes is 250,000 words or approximately 400 pages long (depending on how we layout the final internal art) and packedwith material. This is the definitive book about the kingdom of Sartar - that stronghold of the Orlanthi that is destined to be Ground Zero in the Hero Wars.

After a short introduction to Glorantha, the book itself is divided in five chapters:
1. Making your character and your clan. Everything you need to create Sartarite characters and clans.
2. Orlanthi magic and the cults of Sartar. How Gloranthan magic works amongst the Orlanthi and detailed descriptions of the major Sartarite cults.
3. Orlanthi Heroquesting. How the Orlanthi heroquest and narrator guidance for running your own heroquests.
4. Background on the Kingdom of Sartar. Tons of background information on Sartar, its inhabitants, locations and history.
5. The Colymar Campaign. An epic campaign arc stretching from a festival at the Clearwine Earth Temple (depicted on the cover) to the deepest pits of the Underworld.

The book is filled with art and maps. Maps of Dragon Pass, Sartar, the tribes of Sartar, the holy places of Sartar, the Colymar lands, the Marsh, Boldhome, Jonstown, Wilmskirk, Swenstown, and Clearwine. And much more.

Coming November 2009!

Jeff

We here at Moon Design are very proud of the cover that Simon Bray has done for the Sartar Book. In my opinion, the cover does the two things a book cover must do: 1. look interesting and draw the attention of the reader; and 2. tell you something about the contents.

However, reasonable people can certainly differ on questions of aesthetics (although it is interesting that of the 60 different people who have commented on the cover, only 3 were negative).  That's why we have plenty of different artists with different styles working on the book. 

I can't ask you all to have the same aesthetic opinions as I do - I just ask folk to respect the decisions we have made. We at Moon Design work very hard to get excellent art, and we think we have succeeded. Even if not everyone likes every piece.

Jeff
Moon Design

UPDATE: Because of a few really cranky comments, I'm going to start screening anonymous comments.

UPDATE to the UPDATE: Wow, people sure are passionate about their preferences in art!!! I appeciate the concerns of people who believe they are trying to save us from ourselves, and those people who have passionately defended our choice in art. But I think enough is enough. As Mal Reynold's script said, "This ain't no gorram democracy."

We are on track for releasing Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes in time for London Dragonmeet. Approximately 400 pages with everything you need for a Glorantha HeroQuest campaign set in the Kingdom of Sartar (you will still need the HeroQuest Core Rules, of course). Loaded with new art, maps, cults, and an epic campaign, Sartar will be a must-have for anyone interested in Glorantha.

This is not the final text of the cover, but should give you an idea what it will look like:

Coming November 2009!

From Robin's interview with Stargazer's World:

I’m also extremely proud of the freshly released HeroQuest 2. It’s now a generic game and not solely devoted to Greg Stafford’s classic Glorantha setting. It sets out to help GMs tell stories using the same rhythms, devices and decision-making trees employed by authors and screenwriters, while at the same time remaining true to the linear, collective nature of the roleplaying form. The new version, from Moon Design, is what the game was always meant to be, improved not only by a greater focus on its core intentions, but also years of hindsight.

Read the rest of the interview at www.stargazersworld.com/2009/09/30/robin-d-laws-interview/

Howdy all!!!

Sorry it has been so quiet here. The Moon Design team has been busy wrapping up art, maps, and other goodies for Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes. We will be announcing a final release date soon, but suffice to say those of you going to London Dragonmeet will be able to buy a copy (while supplies last) without having to pay shipping! Art has taken longer than we had anticipated - mainly because we managed to commission a LOT more new art than we had originally anticipated.

Here's a few early sketches (I am not posting final images - for those you are going to have to wait):







And here are a few conceptual sketches:



And finally, a few maps:





More soon!

Courtesy of Gregory Molle, here is a French language review description of HeroQuest in Le Grog:

www.legrog.org/detail.jsp

Check it out!

Jeff

Update: Boy you people are picky! It is a lengthy and comprehensive description of HeroQuest. But if you can read French, you should still check it out.

From Fanzine Rolero. This is for all you Spanish language HeroQuest fans!

rolero.net/fanzine/spip.php

Check it out if you read Spanish! Or pass it on to your Spanish language friends!

Jeff

We have an offer for those of you who have copies of the new HeroQuest rules and are willing to write a review of the new HeroQuest Core Rules for RPG.net or another forum. Write an articulate and cogent review of 1000 words or more (and post it to RPG.net or some other popular review site) and we will throw in a free pdf of any title we currently have available as a pdf. We'd appreciate it if you send us a copy of your review with permission to post it on Glorantha.com and this blog.

If you don't have a copy of the new HeroQuest rules but are willing to write a review, write to us and we can get you a copy of the pdf. But you got to show us that you have some kind of track record in reviews or writing, and we will get really really angry if you don't write the promised review. And you wouldn't like us when we are angry (cue the old Incredible Hulk theme music with a shot of Rick's eyes turning green).

How's that sound?

Jeff

Howdy all!

We are still trying to work out a financially satisfying distribution agreement to get HeroQuest into game stores without us ending up completely empty-handed. Unfortunately, the current models of distribution pit the small game publishers against the FLGS, which is extremely frustrating.

However, until we come to a final arrangement with our distributor(s), Moon Design is happy to directly ship copies of HeroQuest directly to game stories. Since we want the game store to make money too, we only charge verifiable game stories 50% of the cover price (plus shipping). We've made arrangements with a number of game shops in Europe and the UK - if your FLGS is interested, please contact us.

Once we have a final deal with our distributor(s) we will likely have to end this offer. But for the time being, this could be a win-win solution for all involved.

Regards -

Jeff Richard
Moon Design LLC

One of the many strong points of HeroQuest is the Community Resource rules written by Robin Laws. This allows your community to play an important role in your campaign. Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes strongly supports a community-centered game (and the Colymar Campaign is a clan-centered campaign).

If you are running a community-centered campaign, it is helpful to have a "character sheet" for the community. So the Sartar book will include a clan profile sheet. Again Matthew Cole put this together with feedback from Robin Laws and others. Here's the current draft: