Sun County: RuneQuest Adventures in the Land of the Sun is a campaign book for RuneQuest 3rd edition (the one Avalon Hill sold) describing a region in Prax where Yelmalio is the main cult. This supplement provides an overview of Sun County and 4 scenarios of varying quality and length plus other material to help you start a campaign there, or have the PCs go there in search of adventure. Its main authors are Michael O'Brien and Trevor Ackerly, with some help from other contributors and some texts by Greg Stafford. Below you can read my review of the newest reprint.
History
After holding the RuneQuest license for 7 years, Avalon Hill finally published the first Gloranthan scenarios for its 3rd edition of the game that were not a reprint from earlier edition materials. This was mainly due to Avalon Hill changing its RuneQuest line editor for Ken Rolston (also famous for later writing the video-game Elder Scrolls). The publication of Sun County in 1992 heralded a period of basically new, high-quality materials for RuneQuest that was later called "the RuneQuest Renaissance". Unfortunately, it was short-lived, as after 6 publications the relationship between Avalon Hill and Chaosium ended. A mere 32 years later, Sun County was made available again as Chaosium reprinted it in 2024 through DrivethruRPG.
Look
The original 132-page-long softcover book had the usual two-columned text layout with some text boxes, and... Wait, wait, have you had a look at that wonderful cover??? The stunning cover by Roger Raupp is not only a great piece of art, but it has a super RuneQuesty feel due to its realism and attention to detail. It brings Glorantha to life straight away in that sweet Bronze Age style that had been lacking in official publications since RQ2. This is shown mainly in the armor the three characters on the foreground are wearing: a bronze Corinthian helmet, bronze muscle cuirasses, and linothorax. You can tell there was some careful art direction. For example, the arm ring with the Fire rune on it shows the character knows the Lantern spell (as indicated in the description of the cult of Yelmalio in the book), and the same goes for the yellow feathers on the helmets. Also, the three main characters seem to be hawking, which the book describes as one of the main pastimes of the nobility. The other amazing half of the cover is the depiction of the Sun Dome temple. It is a powerful image, with the realistic architecture matching perfectly the temple layout as shown in the book. Finally, the light being reflected on its golden dome is another excellent detail, as that includes the "sun" on the Sun County book cover while allowing the artist to portray a lot of detail of the capital. All in all, the cover sums up what Sun County is about: hoplite warriors who worship the sun in an arid region. Moreover, it is a great cover to show to players, as it saves a thousand words: "You get to the Sun Dome temple on a clear day, and it looks exactly like this". Whoa!
The interior art is black and white by Merle Insinga and Roger Raupp, although there is some color in the decorations, section titles, and text boxes. The illustrations are good, but scarce. They include three of the notable personalities like Count Solanthos and Lord Invictus, which are useful to show to players. On the negative side, they are much rougher than the cover, and some details do not match the setting as closely as the cover, such as the presence of chain mail on some characters. The maps are also good, particularly the one of the Sun Dome temple complex, which radiates verisimilitude for its chaotic disposition, and the one for the Garhound village. Finally, the map of Sun County is fairly good, but the color is confusing, as I associate green with fertile fields and yellow for arid regions, but here it looks it is the other way around. Moreover, it would have been great for it to include the exact borders of the county, and the limits of its districts.
As for Chaosium's reprint, it has a new layout and includes yellow in some text boxes. The interior art is black and white like the original edition, except for one piece that used to be on the back cover. It includes a remastered map of Sun County that looks better and clearer than the original (first published in Sandheart Vol. 1), although the colors are still confusing. In the print version this map graces the back cover, making it more accessible during play. This new map includes the hamlet of Sandheart, which is a nice addition. The book is now available in PDF, softcover, and hardcover! The stats and game data are still for the 3rd edition of RuneQuest, they have not been updated to the current one, which may look like a missed opportunity for some fans, but it is easy enough to do. After all, the book is a reprint, so it is exactly what was originally there, only with the remastered map, a preface added, and all errata corrected. Still, it would have been great if they had added an extra PDF containing the updated game stats for the current edition. But, maybe they decided not to do that because there is a future RQ book in the works dealing with Prax and Pavis that will include those...?
The background information
True to its noble goal of offering playable material for the Glorantha-starved RuneQuest fans of the 90s, this 125-page-long book is divided into background information (54 pages) and 4 scenarios together with some ideas for further adventures (68 pages). I'm tackling the background first and then I'm reviewing the campaign material and each of the scenarios (with spoilers!).
The background information about Sun County starts with an introduction that lays out the basics of the place. Most men worship the god of Light Yelmalio, and most women the goddess of the Earth Ernalda, Soldiers fight like phalangites in closed ranks with sarissas, and they live in an arid place called Prax, specifically in a river valley akin the Nile or the Mississippi, surrounded by hostile nomad tribes.
Being the first in a series of long-awaited supplements, it was a good decision to publish a book about a region that is close to the city of Pavis: one of the most played areas of Glorantha at the time. It therefore offered something yet unexplored, but familiar. In fact, the first details on Sun County were presented in the Pavis supplement for RQ2 published in 1983. The Sun County book includes all that information, like the brief history section, the list of the 42 counts, the Sun Dome Temple map, and other bits, and expands on it. For example, it describes how the county is governed, the importance of the military, and how the Yelmalio cult is central. It is filled with cultural details such as the region being patriarchal and sexually repressive, a popular game they play, or the fact that only Yelmalio initiates can own land, and that the cult controls all brewing. It also briefly describes 10 of the notable personalities, like several of the main priests and rune lords, and provides stats for 4 of them. I love reading stats of powerful NPCs, as they usually have grand magic items and combat skills, and you can compare them to the PCs of your players.
The portrait of the culture is striking because many adjectives are negative. Yelmalians are described as aloof, isolationist, and prudish, the women in Sun County have a subordinate role, and the county has arbitrary and cruel laws or leaders. Their redeeming facet lies in the fact they stand united, so unlike their Orlanthi cousins, the Yelmalians do not form clans or tribes and they do not raid each other constantly. Thus, their society is more stable, but also more boring in terms of adventure. I love it because it mirrors the good and bad aspects of the sun powers they worship, the same way the Orlanthi are as turbulent as their storm gods. Religion shapes society in a mythical coherent way.
Important NPCs of Sun County together with RQ3 stats for the chief of the army
Some of the information is presented at separate points in the book as diegetic (or "in-world") texts. For example, there is a brief chronicle of a Lunar official who visits Sun County on behalf of the Lunar Governor of Pavis. This is great to see the place from "inside", as it brings the text details to life, and is also a good way to show how an audience with the count might look like, in case the PCs in your campaign get one. Still, even after adding the second short piece about his visit to the town of Harpoon, it is all too short. I wish there was more Gloranthan fiction like that. The out of print The Widow's Tale and the Griselda short stories are not enough! Moreover, in the section dealing with campaigns you can find a one-page overview of Sun County from the point of view of a Lunar scribe that GMs are encouraged to print and share with players, so they get a feeling of the region. However, this would have fit better in the introduction. Finally, the brief episode in Cults of Prax in which the Orlanthi trader Biturian Varosh narrates his unfortunate meeting with some Yelmalians is also included, which offers clues for "The Three Blows of Anger" ritual GMs can use in their campaigns.
The realistic Sun Dome Temple map originally published in the Pavis supplement is expanded with the sanctuary custom that allows anyone to seek refuge in the temple grounds (this was already in the Yelmalio cult description of Cults of Prax). It also describes the current refugees, which offer some scenario hooks. This reminded me of the "claiming sanctuary" custom of the Middle Ages, but it looks like it also existed in Greek and Egyptian temples, so it makes perfect sense as it reinforces the Bronze Age feel of Glorantha. The author also details all the magic defenses of the temple, including the magic items stored in it, and all the powerful spirits dedicated to guarding it from intruders. This was the first time any Gloranthan temple defenses were described in an official publication, and they are an example of the magical capabilities a great temple has at hand. They are interesting to devise similar defenses for other temples in your campaigns, and they offer most of the details you might need for devising a heist scenario in which the player characters try to steal a valuable item from the temple.
As the cult of Yelmalio is so important in Sun County, the book includes a long cult description basically copied from the one in Cults of Prax for RQ2, but with some slight changes. Some of these had already been published in the shortened cult description in the Gods of Glorantha supplement for RQ3. For example, Aldrya provides the Heal Body Rune spell instead of Sunripen, and the Togtuvei subcult provides the spirit spell Find Sun Dome instead of just teaching the RQ2 skill of Map Making.
This is complemented by some new information about the cult, such as the yearly River Ritual, whereby the leaders of the county reinforce the crucial centuries-old pact between Yelmalio and the Zola Fel river that fertilizes their land. This is a "this world" heroquest (the reenactment of a myth that takes place in the mundane world) and it is very versatile and easy to use because the river god asks the participant to fight a particular enemy that is polluting or annoying the river in any way, and that becomes the adventure. Since the enemy or problem changes every year, it can be anything that suits your campaign. For example, I ran this in my campaign when the PCs were working for Duke Raus further downriver in the Lunar grantlands (as described in the Borderlands campaign). The duke wanted to forge the same pact with the river to fertilize his lands, so he asked the PCs to accompany him while he performed the ritual. The PCs had previously had trouble with a powerful Mallia shaman (Muriah), but had managed to foil her first attack against Raus Fort. During the ritual, the river nymph directed the party towards the most immediate source of danger for the river. This happened to be an old ruin in the Great Bog where Muriah was breeding newtling-broo hybrids capable of crossing the river swiftly to perform a second assault against Raus Fort. For the ruins and the Chaos band in charge of the breeding program, I used the scenario "Dead Reckoning" from an old Scottish magazine (Last Province #5). The River Ritual was great to introduce some Solar myths in my campaign, and my players loved it.
Still, I wish the book had included more myths of Yelmalio. As it is, it only describes the Hill of Gold in one brief sentence in the cult description, the Three Blows of Anger, and the River Ritual. Since Yelmalio is so important in Sun County, it would have been great to know what myth is reenacted during the High Holy Day of Yelmalio, and what exactly happens during Sacred Time in Sun County. Hopefully the Solar cults book coming in early 2025 will illuminate us on that.
One of the most interesting sections is the one about the Sun Dome templars and the Sun County militia. Even though RuneQuest 3rd edition never had any mass combat rules, the book describes the templars' battle formations, and provides rules for phalanxes (these are the rules now present in the current edition of RuneQuest). It also describes the rules for fighting with pikes (sarissas) like the Macedonian phalanxes, with the shield hanging from the neck so the soldier can grab the pike with both hands. My players used them when I ran the scenario in Sandheart Volume One (read the writeup) with 4 Yelmalian PCs and they worked great. Still, I wish this section had included some more information about how the auxiliary troops like skirmishers and cavalry protect the phalanxes' vulnerable flanks. I guess when they face mounted enemies without any support, they change into a square or round formation to cover all flanks. On the same note, the included Sun Dome Templar and militia profiles are useful, but I wish other profiles had been included as well, like an Ernaldan priestess, a Lokarnos trader, and so on. Finally, the background section is missing a gazetteer of the whole region, which is essential for running campaigns.
The scenarios and campaign material
Sun County includes 4 scenarios of varying quality and length. Melisande's Hand and Rabbit Hat Farm are suitable for beginning RQ3 characters, while Solinthor's Tower and Old Sun Dome are best left for experienced ones. As for suitable PCs, the book offers a range of possibilities. Three of the scenarios can be used for existing PCs from outside the county, and several hooks are provided for each scenario. The book also suggests creating a group of local Yelmalian PCs to run a campaign in Sun County, with some notes on cultural weapons and available occupations. Finally, 8 pregenerated characters are provided to start playing immediately.
These pregens are great for a variety of reasons. Firstly, they offer a wide range of occupations and cultural points of view of the setting: there is a Sun Dome Templar with high combat skills and lots of magic, two Sun Dome militiamen, a shady Lokarnos trader, and four outlanders: two sable antelope riding nomads (one Storm Bull warrior and one Eiritha initiate), and two Sartar exiles (one humakti mercenary and one Lhankhor Mhy explorer). Secondly, they are specifically tailored for the Rabbit Hat Farm scenario, as the book includes secret notes for each character, so each of them has different extra information before the start. Finally, they have nice roleplaying notes attached with 3 defining personality traits each, and what they each think of the other PCs. This is an excellent approach to make it easy for players to roleplay these characters. Most importantly, the interplay of the different cultures, personality, goals, and points of view can foster great roleplaying scenes. All subsequent publications for RQ3 included the 3 well-explained defining personality traits for important characters or pregenerated PCs and it was a great way of fleshing out characters and making them more than just a bunch of stats.
Melisande's Hand: This scenario was originally published by Michael O'Brien in the Tales of the Reaching Moon magazine. It deals with a series of contests during the harvest festival of an Orlanthi town in Pavis County. The winner will gain much prestige and the right to marry the chosen local Ernalda initiate for a year, but there are also prizes for winning each contest. You can participate with your own PC, or play one of the provided NPCs. Aside from that, the scenario involves some subplots PCs can entangle themselves with in the meantime, such as a serial killer, or some intrigue between the visiting dignitaries of the Lunar occupation force and Sun County. I had a ton of fun with it, even though we played the provided NPCs as contestants instead of our own existing PCs. Since that time, I have always been fond of staging this sort of "town festival" scenarios, but this one is a great example because it is rooted in myth. It would have been even better if it had been set in Sun County proper, though. Although there are ways to have your Yelmalian PCs participate, they would need to have a wealthy sponsor, since the entry fee for contestants is expensive.
Rabbit Hat Farm: This scenario starts with the PCs exploring a ravaged farm in Sun County, and ends up turning into a dangerous dungeon-bash. While it is not exceptional, the hooks and GM notes are well made, and it does have some interesting points. The fact it begins as an investigation is cool, and some of the enemies have clever (as in deadly) tactics. It has a similar structure to a Call of Cthulhu scenario, with way more combat and no "Search Library" rolls, because Chaos creatures are creepy and downright dangerous. For example, one creature looks invulnerable, and another one almost annihilated the whole party of PCs when I played it, because it managed to paralyze all but one of us with its POW 18! Unlike "Melisande's Hand", this scenario works best for local Yelmalian characters, but as the pregens show, some outlanders like Praxians and Orlanthi can also be included. Their presence should have been better explained though, particularly after the background section reminds you at several points how Yelmalians disregard outsiders. Finally, this scenario has a link to the Pavis material, so you can connect it with a Pavis campaign, and there is a treasure item that may lead to further adventures as several factions are looking for it.
The Old Sun Dome Temple: This scenario uses the cool Sun Dome Temple map to create a strange, mostly empty dungeon. However, it is clearly not what the usual player might expect. Players will explore the ruins expecting a normal dungeon-bash... but it is not. It is a big, dark, forsaken place, with almost nothing to interact with except for some undead, evil spirits, and two NPCs. One will stalk and try to kill them, and the other might either also do that or follow them with curiosity. I confess I found it underwhelming when I played it, but maybe my GM at the time did not know how to get the most of it. When I run it, I will make sure the atmosphere is more like a Call of Cthulhu game, with eerie ambient music, and minimum light. I think it works best as a "survival horror" scenario. If the adventurers manage to get out alive, the amount of treasure they can get is staggering, so I would scale it down.
This scenario also includes a weird portal that may take your players into the heroplane. But, back then, as is still the case now, there were no heroquesting rules for RuneQuest yet, so it was a bold move by the author to include this. It basically means the GM will need to improvise wildly, or far more likely, that the PC going through it will go back immediately rather dumbfounded. It offers a confusing glimpse of the cool adventures you could have if there were some solid rules for heroquesting. But since there aren't any yet, it will often be frustrating. Honestly, most GMs will just ignore this encounter in their games. Perhaps the author included this as a complaint, the message being: "RuneQuest could be so much more, but we don't know how to do it yet". Still, if you have the out-of-print RPGs HeroWars or HeroQuest Glorantha, or have checked Jeff Richards' articles on heroquesting on the Well of Daliath, you might want to riff off a heroquest out of this, with maybe the PCs wandering the Celestial Realm and meeting some of the sky gods and celestial beings there. Why not?
Solinthor's Tower: This 3-page-long scenario plays out like a one-room dungeon, where you just get in and fight the "final boss" in a tight space. If the PCs manage to survive the magic defenses, they can get a lot of treasure. They can also access the Celestial Realm as with the portal in the previous scenario, but the problems associated with it remain. At least here the author provides a reward. I also don't get why the NPC has access to fire elementals, since the Yelmalio cult description does not include any spells to summon them. The only cool thing is that you learn about the Yelmalian retirement towers, and that the loot will have consequences for player characters. OK, my PC died when I played it, so that might have biased me. :_) I also remember it felt wrong breaking in the tower to beat a poor hermit. Anyway, this scenario would work better as a scene in a larger scenario. For example, the PCs need to find an item to accomplish something somewhere else, and first they need to find out in which retirement tower it might be, then get it, and then use it in the final scene. Otherwise, it is too simple.
Summing up, Melisande's Hand is the best of the scenarios, Rabbit Hat Farm is OK, and the other two need more work on the part of the GM to make them good. Aside from this, the book also includes some old-school encounter tables with a reaction table, plus some ideas for further adventures. I'm not fond of using encounter tables as presented other than as suggestions on what the PCs may find in rural or wild areas. For example, you may roll on the town encounters and oh! the PCs come across some townsfolk. Who could have guessed, right? The list of special encounters is more interesting. It reminds me of the encounters in Griffin Mountain, which can develop into brief scenarios, although some are just decoration, or inspiration for creative GMs who are good at improvising. The best one is a peculiar character PCs can come across: Melo Yelo, a tragicomic baboon who longs to be accepted into the Yelmalio cult. The ideas for further adventures are divided into several categories, such as the common, uncommon, and rare events (as in the Genertela box set), but also as events that may take place in a bad year, a good year, or at religious festivals.
The special encounters include Melo Yelo, an unusual baboon who has shaved his skin and dyed it in yellow
Since 1992, further materials have been published you can use in a campaign in Sun County. The scenario Gaumata's Vision from the later publication Shadows on the Borderlands would have been a perfect scenario to include in the Sun County book, as it is set in the county. The same goes for Fortunate Sun, which was on Michael's O'Brien personal website for years (and also included additional details about the county), and is nowadays included in Sandheart Volume 2. These two would have made Sun County easier to play with local PCs at the time of publishing. Luckily, now it is perfectly easy to play a Yelmalian campaign with the 6 scenarios in the Sandheart series, and the background in Life and Traditions under the Sun Dome and Black Spear, and that is what many GMs running RuneQuest are doing (me included!). But none of this would have been possible without the baseline Sun County provides.
In summary
Sun County shines because of its great presentation, and because it details a region next to a major adventuring area (Pavis and the Big Rubble), which makes it easy to incorporate into a campaign set there. Moreover, half the book is devoted to playable material and scenarios, which is great. Also having another human culture detailed is great, because at the time it was published only Orlanthi towns like Pavis and Apple Lane had been described in official publications (if you skip the aerial view of the Genertela box set), and the Praxian culture to some extent in Cults of Prax.
However, there are two tensions making the supplement not as good as it might have been. One is the tension between background and scenarios. The combination of background material and scenarios is my favorite kind of supplement for any RPG. It is great that half the book is devoted to scenarios, but that also means Sun County does not get all the cultural detail it deserves. For example, the history section is rather short, and it is not expanded from what was already present in the Pavis supplement. More importantly, the book is missing a gazetteer of the region with information about the major towns, temples, and other areas of interest; and the map should have included the borders and the districts. A map of the capital (Sun Dome Temple) would also have been useful to have. We do get a map of the temple grounds, but it is missing the town next to it. The second tension is the one between foreign PCs visiting the region, and local PCs. The book makes an effort to be useful for both approaches, but it clearly leans on the former, because it rightly assumes that most GMs will use it for their Pavis campaigns with PCs from Pavis. For example, the basic premise of two of the scenarios is doing something illegal in the county, which is more palatable for outlander PCs.
One of the "in-world" narratives and the only piece of interior color art which used to grace the back cover
In spite of that, the book remains a great example of how to expand Glorantha by taking a small region and fleshing it out from the crumbs Greg Stafford left. Its content and some of the scenarios are top-notch, and so it deserves a place in any RuneQuest fan's collection. As mentioned, together with the other books on Sun County, it is perfect for adventuring and roleplaying in a rich, peculiar Gloranthan culture.
The best:
- The awesome cover.
- It describes an interesting region in Prax for adventuring.
- Very easy to connect with a campaign set in Pavis and the Big Rubble.
- The pregenerated characters are described with detailed personality traits and goals.
- It kickstarted the brief RuneQuest Renaissance in the 90s.
- It inspired the Sandheart series of scenarios available at the Jonstown Compendium.
The "I wish they had done that differently":
- The scenarios are mediocre except for "Melisande's Hand" (which is not set in Sun County!).
- It is missing some details to help run a campaign, like a detailed gazetteer of the region.
- Trying to accommodate scenarios both for wandering PCs and local PCs makes it lose focus.
Sun County: RuneQuest Adventures in the Land of the Sun is available in PDF (12$), and also in softcover (24$) and hardcover (36$) from DrivethruRPG. The book in print includes the PDF for free. Questions: What do you think about this book? Do you agree with my review? Have you run or played a campaign in Sun County? How did it go? Please let me know in a comment below! BTW, have you seen the Japanese cover for Sun County?
