This is an account of my experience running the RuneQuest scenario "No Country for Cold Men" included in Tales of the Sun County Militia: Sandheart Volume 1. I had great fun and I think the players did too. Obviously, below I'm spoiling the hell out of the scenario, so if you are planning on playing it, you'd better stop reading. However, if you are planning on GMing it, I hope it will be useful to know how I ran it, and the decisions my players made.
"Sandheart" is special because player characters are the local "police", so it is their duty to investigate cases and enforce law. This creates some interesting dynamics differing from what usually happens in other fantasy scenarios.
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I ran this scenario on the Roll20 virtual tabletop with a group of four players. We played it in five sessions of 2.5 hours each. Before the first session, in a private chatroom I briefed them on the basics of the scenario and I shared with them the 10 pregens of the Sandheart militia so the players could choose who to play. As the cult of Yelmalio is the most widespread in Sun County, I wanted the group of protagonists to show that, so I ruled that at least half of the PCs had to be Yelmalio initiates. Although 5 of the 10 pregens are initiates of other gods, such as Humakt or Lhankor Mhy, in the end all players chose to play Yelmalio initiates (!). Check them out below (N.B: the token images are not included in the book, every player chose whatever image they wanted to stand for their PC):
- Egistar the Bold, half-file leader in the Sandheart militia. A skilled soldier from a wealthy family, his promsing military career in the capital (Sun Dome Temple) was all but perfectly planned, but a series of misfortunes had him sent to Sandheart. He was excellently played by Emod. Even though he was the party leader, I stressed the fact that the PC's hierarchy did not apply to the players, so the decisions had to be made as a team, but in-game it was Egistar who issued the orders.
- Aurimenas, a young local farmer. This is one of the few characters born and raised in Sandheart who is not a professional soldier, just a farmer. However, in the scenario he is in the militia as part of the two-week cult service to Yelmalio. Thorkrim brought him to life with his roleplaying. I made sure most NPCs in Sandheart considered him a popular guy.
- Dracus Senzar is also a young soldier whose dream was to become a Sun Dome Templar, but political strife had him exiled and assigned to the Sandheart militia. Interestingly, his father is from faraway Teshnos and once held an important post in the County, although nowadays his whereabouts are unknown. Karjedon played this PC brilliantly.
- Owe "Kicking Horses" is a Praxian scout from the Impala Riders who has lost touch with his clan. Aside from being a Yelmalio initiate, he also follows Waha, the Butcher God, and cultural hero of the nomads. He is part of the militia as an auxilliary and, even though the book does not specify it, we took for granted he rarely gets off his impala. Germán played him very well.
1st session - "Those Limp Sables are brute liars"
To begin with, I introduced the background in 30 minutes. I described Sun County in broad strokes, using the great map of the region and its surroundings, but leaving out its history because there was no need. All my players were already familiar with the world of Glorantha and RuneQuest, so I just made a handout of the introduction that I shared on Roll20 in case someone wanted to check it out later. Then I showed them the map of the district also included in the book and told them the scenario is set in the Sandheart district, which has some peculiarities. Some players had forgotten how to use the excellent RuneQuest character sheet, so I went over their questions. Someone asked what is a half-file leader, so I improvised that Sandheart has 16 soldiers at any given time, divided into two groups of eight, one commanded by the file leader and the other by the half-file leader, while both followed orders from the commander of the militia. In this case, Egistar has a lower rank than the veteran file leader (who he hates, as the book suggests). Then I came up with a reason why these 4 characters were patrolling the western half of the district on their own: the commander had taken most of the rest of the militia to patrol the other half in order to train some recent recruits, so our protagonists had to patrol the other half, while the rest garrisoned the hamlet.
When the game was about to start, one of the players messaged he was going to be late. That made me change my plan. Since we were playing short sessions, I decided to start with one of the "tedious tasks" included in the book, otherwise we would have left the first combat half way at the end. These tasks represent some of the more usual activities the militia have to face routinely. They are basically great ways to add a lot of roleplaying, as PCs need to interact with the local farmers, so they are handy to spice up the time between adventures. However, this time it was a disaster. Since I hadn't prepped any of them properly, I had to improvise some facts because I did not notice the first task takes two pages (I only saw the first one!). Even worse, two players took the initiative and started talking with the farmers to find out what had really happened (one for each side), while the other two were left with barely nothing to do! After a while, I started noticing their clear signs of boredom, so I tried to finish the scene as quickly as possible with the first compromise they came up with. In the future, I think I will leave these minor tasks for those times when only two players show up.
In the first "tedious task", the militia must deal with two hamlets that are extremely angry at each other.
After that, we began the scenario proper. Right at the start there is a weak point in the design of the scenario you have to be careful with. I decided to risk it and it played out well, but my players noticed it as well. The scenario assumes the militia will go check out the animal carcasses when they see the condors flying overhead. But if they don't... the scenario can end up right there. Therefore, when I run it again to another group, I'll have the scenario start in media res with the PCs already on their way to investigate the area. This way there is no chance players will disregard the condors. Alternatively, the character with the highest Devotion to the gods may have a warning dream in which she sees the condors, but the first option looks less risky. Aside from this, it is key to stress that one of the duties of the militia is to investigate strangers. In fact, I created a handout listing the duties of the militia so my players could check them out at any moment during the game.
I could have encountered another small problem in this first scene, as the four PCs had very low Track skills. In fact, of all the pregens, only the Praxian huntress has a decent score. So when the book says following the tracks of the mule train is easy, I took it to heart and did not ask for Track rolls: it's a piece of cake, so it does not require any effort. Otherwise they can all fail their rolls, and then the scenario stops in its tracks anyway. You can have your players roll for Scan to see the dust being raised by the mules in the distance, but again, it is best not to risk failed rolls. And yes, that can happen. :-) Next time I run this scenario I will also let players redistribute up to 50 skill points as they see fit so they can assign them to other skills if they prefer (but capping it off at 75%), and customize the pregens a bit.
2nd session - "What are you carrying on those mules?"
In this scene it is crucial to let players know a couple things they may not know. Firstly, the fact that trade in Sun County is monopolized by the cult of Lokarnos, and Lokarnos initiates always travel on wagons. Secondly, that hazia is an illegal plant to grow and sell, as it has "trippy" properties (see the Glorantha Bestiary).
Kicking Horses used his mount to approach the mule train before the rest of the group, but keeping a safe distance. The dealer could have had his mercenaries charge against him right then to try to catch him alone, but he did not because that would have given him up straight away. Later, in the ensuing combat I had two happy surprises. Kicking Horses had taken a long ride to approach the Praxians from the flank. Some big rocks blocked his line of sight so he couldn't shoot them sooner (see picture below), but these rocks also hid him from view somewhat. Even better, the Yelmalians armed with pikes decided it would be cool to brace their weapons against the cavalry charge and try out the RuneQuest rules for phallanxes! There are too little chances of using these rules in your usual Orlanthi-focused RQ campaign, but in Sun County they are a means of survival against the Praxian nomads. And this scene highlighted that fact perfectly! Actually, the rules state you need at least six warriors to set up a formation, but I happily skipped that detail. Still, creating a shieldwall and bracing the pikes is a risky tactic indeed. Yes, your comrade standing on your right protects most of your body with his shield, but you can't parry any attacks! You just trust your opponent will fail or hit one of your protected locations. Therefore, when my players saw the Praxians charging at full speed against them, they felt what any pikeman must have felt when facing a cavalry charge: pure, undiluted fear!!!
Egistar had even more reason to be terrified, as his position meant he was less protected! He was fully aware that, if the nomad charging against him scored a hit, he would be facing 1D10+1+2D6 damage he could not parry. The pikemen prayed to Yelmalio and clutched their weapons firmly. All three augmented their combat skills with his Loyalty passions, and Dracus got a special success by letting his memories of the Sun Dome Templars inspire him (+30% to his combat skills). Egistar then cast a Befuddle spell but was unsuccessful, and Aurimenas spent a Rune point to cast Aegis of Light thanks to his being a member of the local hero cult of Kerani Aethershield.
At the start of combat I had planned to do it all by the book, so I asked for declarations of intent and placed a copy of PC's tokens next to a column with the strike ranks so I could have all my ducks in order. However, after about two seconds I threw this all away and narrated what happened trusting the player playing Kicking Horses to know when it was his turn to shoot with the bow. Since pikes always go first and then it was the Praxian mercenaries' turn, the order of actions was clear enough, which allowed me to speed up the pace of combat. First, Kicking Horses had already cast Multimissile-2 on an arrow, he then proceeded to augment his bow skill with his passion "Devotion to Yelmalio" (a bit far-fetched in retrospect), got a critical (+50%), and shot towards the left Praxian flank. With a 140% skill, it was no surprise that his three arrows hit the mark, one of them a special hit that destroyed the leftmost Praxian rider's leg (12 impaling points of damage!), and another one a critical hit that vaporized a leg of the the sable antelope he was riding (18 impaling points of damage!), so I narrated how, driven by the powerful charge, both rider and mount rolled violently on the floor raising a voracious cloud of dust and blood...! Quite and impressive start.
Then it was the pike-holding Yelmalions' turn. Egistar saw the rider that was racing towards him suddenly bite the dust, so he turned his pike just slightly towards the next Praxian, but failed! Dracus pointed his pike against the same rider and... hit his mount in the face!!! (his skill was now 100% thanks to his passion). Dracus' pike went into the antelope's mouth and through its head, spraying brains and skull fragments all around (21 damage thanks to the animal's damage mod.!), so the rider went flying overhead and rolled on the floor raising a second cloud of dust and blood. Finally, Aurimenas kept his opponent at bay, a raging warrior that had screamt some praise to the heavens and now his kopis shone a bright red, no doubt imbued by the magic of some great spirit of the plains.
When prepping this scene, I decided to buy the tokens of Praxian riders available on the Jonstown Compendium. They are not necessary, but since Roll20 wasn't giving me any antelopes or impalas, I deemed it worth it to spend 5$ on them. Now I can use them in many other online RQ games as well. There are also tokens for Yelmalian spearmen that I may buy in the future.
Back to the fight: Dracus made short work of the Praxian rider fallen at his feet, and together with Egistar, helped Aurimenas finish off his opponent. Meanwhile, Kicking Horses cast another Multimissile (this time with 1 magic point) and shot the fourth mercenary that had stayed behind. This guy had been setting some bushes on fire, and that fire suddenly turned into a living mass of flames, a medium-sized fire elemental he directed towards the militiamen. That was his last move before being peppered by Kicking Horses' arrows, one of them a special success (!). Egistar, Dracus, and Aurimenas then faced the living mass of fire flying towards them, and Dracus was engulfed by the flames. Luckily, he was blessed by a gift of Yelmalio making him fire-resistant, so he only suffered minor burns. After a couple of turns, they managed to destroy the fire spirit.
Seeing how all had gone south for him, the drug trafficker then used his magic to fly away fast, but Kicking Horses was faster riding on his impala and shot him down (since he was now firing while moving, his bow skill was only as high as his Ride skill). Even though the arrow did not cause enough damage to kill the guy, the fall finished him off. And with that, combat ended. All PCs were unhurt except for Dracus. However, after the game we all agreed that they had been very lucky with their dice rolls, and the player playing Kicking Horses most of all. Anyway, I was happy because the combat had been short but exciting, and for having had the chance to see the Yelmalian pikemen do their standard move: auxiliaries harassing from the flanks while the rest braced their pikes and the half-file leader covered the right unprotected side (leaders have to show their worth). It was fantastic. While wrapping up, I recall Egistar telling his men: "OK, so the part about surviving combat, we've performed brilliantly. Now, we sorely need to improve the part about leaving some alive so we can interrogate them!" (haha!).
3rd session - "Tell us the whole truth"
They piled up the corpses on a funeral pyre and took all the loot, mules, requisitioned hazia, and both surviving antelopes back to Sandheart, mostly to burn the illegal herb. Since they had noticed they needed someone able to follow tracks, I told them they could ask Shima (another of the pregenerated PCs) to help them find out what farmstead the tracks pointed to. I also used the occasion to roleplay the file leader who I named Arnakus the Strong and who delights in softly bullying Egistar. I also used this NPC to remind the group that it was key to find out where the hazia had been grown and where the trafficker was taking it to in order to get to the bottom of the matter.
Later on, they reached the farmstead were the hazia had been grown. This scene basically consists of roleplaying and finding clues. I liked it because it was appropriately tense, and the players had to face tough decisions. On top of that, every PC managed to find a different task to do. Kicking Horses rode out to explore the surrounding fields. That player is a veteran RuneQuester, so he is familiar with older supplements, and thus he knew where to look and his dice rolls helped him to boot. Anyhow, it is better if they find out about the hidden field. Meanwhile, Egistar interrogated the hamlet chief in an increasingly harsh way as he lost his patience. Dracus had gathered all the farmers in the center area to have them under control, intimidating them all the way to find out who looked nervous and where their looks went. Aurimenas searched the houses looking for stashes of illegal herbs. In the end, the players had a brilliant idea: they interrogated the farmers individually until one of them broke and spilled the beans. It was interesting to see the players' reactions as they faced the dilemma of condemning those poor people to slavery. They promised them a sentence reduction in exchange for some information about the traffickers, so the chief told them about the corrupt commander. Some sentences I remember being said during this session: 🤣
- "I'm beginning to loathe myself", Dracus Senzar.
- "We hold a KGB-style interrogation... because we are the goodies!", Aurimenas.
- "I think it is now time for me to finally lose my temper in a big way", Egistar the Bold.
- "If we burn the hamlet down they might get angry at us", Kicking Horses.
4th session - "How are we gonna get there?"
At the start of the session there was some confusion about what had happened previously. Some players misremembered the farmers confessing the corrupt commander was Arnakus in Sandheart, but luckily I was able to clear that up before they made any wrong decisions. Still, I was tempted to let it stand and see where it would lead us, but in the end I decided to play the scenario as written to see how it works. I noted down the idea for future games, though.
Afterwards they began the trip to the southwest, and something unexpected happened. I had imagined the local militia patrol would intercept them and take them to their commander. However, before entering the district they stopped on a hill overlooking the fort and the river, and decided to wait until they could see where the patrols were going so they could dodge them. Great idea! I ran this as an opposed Scan roll between the party and the patrol to determine who spotted the other first. The PCs won, so they were able to dodge the patrol (and a whole scene of the scenario). If they had gone to the fort and talked with the commander, I had planned to have them participate in a training game of shieldpush, which I would have ran as a several opposed STR and DEX rolls, and his opponents would have played really tough. Although this scene is very interesting and rife with roleplaying opportunities, it is also very decisive in a way players might not be able to predict, because if the guy tips the traffickers off, they flee upriver and the scenario loses a climactic confrontation. At any rate, we went straight to the scene by the river.
The militia spoke with some of the river people, who feigned ignorance. Finally, my players came up with a couple great ideas. Firstly, they left the river people a message they had taken prisoner the trafficker they had actually killed a day ago. They hoped this would draw the attention of the traffickers and somehow reveal their hideout. Secondly, they hid among the bushes and waited to see if the river people would go inform the traffickers. This would have worked... had they waited until past the sunset. However, Aurimenas came up with the idea of using his magic to speak with a local hawk. In exchange for most of the rations they had left, the hawk agreed to flew over the area, looking for "pens with four-legged animals", according to the Yelmalian's indications. They reasoned that, if the trafficker they had killed had so many mules, the traffickers' hideout had to have a pen with probably other beasts of burden. It was a risky gamble but it paid off, and so they found out the hideout way before sunset. After that, they debated for a long time how to approach the base of the "the baddies". As it tends to happen, from all the ideas they brainstormed, they ended up choosing the worst of them all!
Last session: "We've got a plan"
They reasoned the drug runners must be waiting for their comrade to arrive (correct!), and then they decided to go straight to their isle and announce they had taken him prisoner (mmmh... sure?). They hired some local newtlings upriver to take them on their canoes to the isle (cleverly done). They left all their weapons and armor hidden in a bag so they wouldn't be identified as members of any militia (smart, but risky!). Once there, they told the traffickers that if they wanted to see their associate again, one of them had to accompany them to where they had him (euhhh...!). OK, so I kept thinking whether that apparently crazy plan had any chances of playing out well for them... And in the end I concluded the traffickers were not going to run such a risk when they they had the upper hand on the isle, and could just beat the truth out of their bold visitors. Particularly when they had shown up unarmed and unarmored! At first, the leader of the gang graciously invited them to go sit together in one of their huts, but the PCs kindly (and nervously!) refused. And so, with all the gang members gathered in front of the PCs, the final confrontation started as the leader ordered his men to attack. What would you have done in my place?
First thing the militia did was to rush back to where they had left their pikes, shields, and armor! Kicking Horses had left his impala on the opposite riverbank but shot several arrows with his feet in the mud to slow down the enemy advance, managing to fell their leader (one of the most dangerous adversaries). Still, with no time to don their armor, the three pikemen faced really bad prospects. I let them arm themselves with pike, shield, and helmet (and I keep thinking I was too lenient at that) and they closed files with the river at their back. They were facing 7 armed and armored opponents! While one of the Orlanthi mercenaries guarded the fallen leader, four gangers charged the Yelmalians, and another one (the second in command wielding a rapier) cast Bladesharp and Protection spells on herself to join the fray on the next turn. In the ensuing melée, Kicking Horses suffered a serious wound causing him to fall down, while the other three stood their ground against the gangers.
Since the situation was dire, Egistar decided to risk it all in another gamble: he spent 3 Rune points to summon and control a random cult spirit! This sort of spirits aren't well defined in the rules, and every GM must decide what can be summoned beyond fitting elementals. I told the player there were 3 spirits that could come to his aid, decided randomly: a cult spell spirit, the spirit of an ancient Yelmalio initiate (I planned to use him as a ghost), or a spirit of light (a light elemental that would work like a salamander, only blinding opponents instead of burning them). I rolled 1D3 and the first option came up. It would have been too cruel to have the player sink 3 Rune points in exchange for a spirit who could only cast the Light spell, so I let the player choose the spell taught by the cult of Yelmalio the spirit knew. One player immediately said: "If spells from associate cults count, ask for a Sun Spear!". That is one of the most powerful Rune spells in the game, causing 4D6 damage with no POW roll needed. Here I was again too lenient and not only allowed the Sun Spear, but two uses of it. Part of the reason was I had never ever seen that spell used in any of my games so far. So the spirit manifested as a hovering shining winged warrior in plate armor and cast Sun Spear against a bodyguard of the leader, leaving only a pair of smoking boots behind.
Instants later, both the gang leader and Kicking Horses managed to reenter combat thanks to the Heal Wounds Rune spell. We were not sure whether it takes as many SR to cast as magic points you spend on it, and we ruled it so (I checked out afterwards that it just takes 1 SR). Anyway, the leader attacked Dracus with his intimidating war hammer, but the young militiaman parried the attacks with his big shield. At the same time, Egistar managed to stop the second in command with a Befuddle spell before she managed to join the fray. But then they struck it lucky as she fumbled the resistance roll, so she not only was dumbfounded, but she confused her friends for her enemies, and so started attacking the gang leader from behind!!!
Seeing the tables were suddenly turning, the leader of the drug runners managed to disengage from combat and ran away while casting Mobility on himself. He also summoned a medium water elemental (they are huge!) right behind the militia to cover his retreat. Combat turned then into a thrilling chase involving many DEX rolls. The scene was both tense and hilarious, with the militia (and the befuddled ganger) chasing the leader while a huge undine slithered after them as a living tidal wave!!! The memory still makes me grin. It was both a chase and a flight. Note to self: When you run this scenario in the future, have the gang leader summon the undine so it can flank the PCs instead of chasing them.
Finally, Dracus managed to run faster than anyone else, closely followed by Kicking Horses. He reached the leader of the gang when was boarding one of the newtling canoes, ready to pole away. The guy had reserved his second undine to push the boat upriver at full speed, but he still had to summon it. I told the player playing Dracus: "You see the guy has just got on a canoe before you. You have ONE attack before the gang leader leaves the riverbank and escapes, but you have a -40% penalty because the water level is at your chest". Dracus rolled his dice and... scored a special success!!! The gang leader then rolled his parry and... fumbled!!! Dracus caused him 11 impaling damage on the left leg and the guy splashed back into the river!!!
And so the 5th and last session ended, as we had run out of time. Wrapping up, and against all odds, the four brave militiamen from Sandheart achieved victory against the drug runners, Yelmalio be praised!, and returned to his hamlet having accomplished their mission. Amazingly, the book does not assume the PCs can achieve such level of success, but this time around, this is how it turned out. We all agreed it could have played out very differently!
What do you think? Would you have made the same decisions I did as a GM? Anyway, if you are planning to run this scenario, I hope our experience will help you be better prepared and provide you with useful advice. After the game, the players agreed the scenario may not be exceptional, but it is a great introduction to the area, and they had great fun. One of them commented that playing "policemen" had been a refreshing take on Glorantha, and proof this world can accommodate many different kinds of interesting campaigns. Another said he would like to play a sandbox-style game in the area like the map of the district seems to suggest. I asked them if they thought I had been too forgiving, and awarded me a "forgiving" score of 7 out of 10. Such a shame...! I need to be more cruel next time (and luckier with dice!). Do you think I was too lenient? If you have also run or played this scenario, I would love to read about your experience in a comment below.
Tales of the Sun County Militia: Sandheart Volume One is available on DrivethruRPG both in English and Spanish, in PDF and in print (which includes the PDF). Read my review.
