Excerpt of the cover fir the upcoming Return to Snake Pipe Hollow scenario by Ossi Hiekkala
Revised RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha
RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha (RQG) was published in 2018. Some years later, I recall Jason Durall mentioning on BRP Central that there were plans for possibly doing a revised reprint of the rulebook, that is, with the errata corrected and some sections better explained. This was probably due to the amount of rules questions asked by the fans and painstakingly addressed at the Q&A for RuneQuest on the Well of Daliath website.
At Chaosium Con UK 2026 Brian Holland and Michael O'Brien revealed the revised rulebook will be published on the first quarter of 2027. It will be the same rulebook, only with less material, better explained rules to avoid confusion, and with a small bestiary. It will have only 60% of the extension of the current rulebook. Meanwhile, RQG will still be available, it won't be discontinued. Therefore, this revised edition is basically an easier entry point for new players. When these new players feel confident to add more rules to their games, they can purchase the original RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha.
Slide in the presentation Chaosium gave at Chaosium Con UK 2026 depicting some of the cultures available in character creation
The revised rulebook will not include:
- Family history generation
- Chariots and phalanx rules
- Some rune cults. It will only include: Orlanth, Ernalda, Issaries, Chalana Arroy, Babeester Gor, Storm Bull, Yelmalio, Humakt, and Lanbril.
- Some homelands for playing characters: Esrolia, the Grazelands, Old Tarsh, and Lunar Tarsh.
- Shamanism rules
- Sorcery rules
What the revised rulebook will include that is not already in the current RQG rulebook:
- Quicker character creation
- Baboons, minotaurs, and ducks as player character options, on top of human Sartarites and Praxian bison riders
- The cult of Lanbril (god of thieves)
- A short bestiary
- Reformatted spell descriptions focused on clarity
- Optional rules for playing combats with miniatures
- A short introductory adventure "The Mouth of Chaos" (it is unclear if it will be released as a separate PDF)
- New art by Ossi Hiekkala (possibly new pregens)
Slide in the presentation Chaosium gave at Chaosium Con UK 2026 depicting some of the cults available in character creation
Since the revised rulebook will be 100% compatible with the current RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha (it's the same game) and they will keep selling that, Chaosium will keep publishing supplements for it. The Sartar book is coming in September, The Apple Lane Campaign in October (99% identical to the GM Adventures booklet in the GM Screen Pack). On the 2nd quarter of 2027 Chaosium will publish a book with short scenarios (including a mundane world heroquest), and the new GM Screen. In the 3rd quarter, the Return to Snake Pipe Hollow mega dungeon bash with totally new denizens, and in the 4th quarter a book of encounters with adventure seeds, and the Cults of RuneQuest: Gods of Darkness, which will also include rules for creating troll player characters (as in the old Trollpak supplement).
Upcoming releases for RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha until the end of 2027, some with mock-up covers.
RuneQuest Fantasy Roleplaying
At Chaosium Con UK 2025, Jeff Richard revealed the mock-up cover of the upcoming RuneQuest Fantasy Roleplaying rulebook. This will be a parallel edition with streamlined rules so they are faster to learn and play. It will also be focused on new players, and the setting will be the city of Pavis in Prax. The aim is to present new players with faster rules to get started playing in Glorantha the same way most RQ veterans started playing: by exploring the ruins of the Big Rubble next to the city of Pavis (but in 1625 after the Lunar Empire is out). This way new players can get started with a more recognizable form of adventuring in Glorantha, and then learn more about the setting little by little as they play. Jeff Richard recruited Mike Mearls (co-designer of D&D's 4th and 5th editions) to help him streamline the RuneQuest rules, and organized a big open playtest at the start of 2025. In fact, the results of that playtest is what prompted Chaosium to create the Revised RuneQuest, as some veteran fans expressed misgivings about some of the planned changes. In June that year Mearls left Chaosium for Asmodee, but apparently he has been helping finish off the rulebook since then, and Jeff Richard and his team have been doing extensive playtests with new players at many conventions. The rulebook will be as thin as RQ2. Other tidbits Jeff Richard shared on the BRP Central forum:
- It will be about half the size of RQG.
- Quicker character generation focused on Sartar, Prax, and Pavis.
- Also duck, dark troll, dwarf, and elf options for player characters.
- 20 fewer skills, mostly due to skill consolidation, for a total of around 40.
- Easier to run combat.
- No Strike Ranks
- More robust social conflict system
- A small bestiary
- More relevant spirit combat
- No shamanism or sorcery rules (but shamanism will be added in a future supplement).
They plan to publish it together with supplements, such as a 4-part campaign with extra material and cults, and a player-aid-pack with standees to make the game more visually appealing. Afterwards, more scenario books, and the GM Book with advice on how to make adventures and campaigns, dealing with downtime, threat ratings for adversaries, and rules for heroquesting and how to run them, among other contents. There will not be another separate GM Book for RQG, as doing so would be rather repetitive.
This parallel edition will be compatible with RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha, and Chaosium will release a conversion guide so you can use materials from one product line with the other (check out the FAQ). The rulebook will be released at some point in 2027, perhaps later.
Some commentary
It is good news that Chaosium is focusing on making RuneQuest more accessible for new players. Apparently, there are not enough newbies playing the game, so for this RPG to have a future, Chaosium needs to attract more of them. Both plans, the Revised rulebook and the new RuneQuest Fantasy Roleplay may address this. One is more conservative and the other more daring. Both share the design goal of making the first contact with the game and setting be much more clear, with less rules, and less lore. In fact, these two new rulebooks will work similarly to how RuneQuest 3rd ed. was published in the UK and Spain, back in the 80s, where a «basic» RuneQuest book was published first, followed by another "advanced" rulebook with the rest of the rules.
Part of the cover by Ossi Hiekkala for the upcoming encounters supplement for RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha
Still, Chaosium needs to walk a fine line and also offer exciting releases for experienced RQ players (like me!). New scenarios and campaigns are a good way to achieve that, as these books will be interesting for both audiences. New campaigns set in Sartar in Prax are nice and well. After all, not everyone has played the old Pavis scenarios, or the Sartar Rising! campaign, the Colymar campaign, or the The Coming Storm campaign that were published for the HeroWars and HeroQuest rulesets. There have been some mentions to a Great Argrath campaign for RuneQuest that could do for the game the same The Great Pendragon campaign did for Pendragon, taking inspiration from the epic saga outlined in the original wargame White Bear and Red Moon and the saga in King of Sartar. That would be really great. A campaign so epic and cool that draws players to the game just so they can play it through.
It would be even better if they published campaigns set outside Sartar and Pavis. For example, a campaign about Argrath's (and Harrek's!) circumnavigation of the ocean would show how diverse Glorantha is. Or setting books including a short campaign, like Sun County, but with more scenarios. For example, an Esrolia supplement with a 5-scenario-campaign in it would be great. The same goes for a Grazelands, Tarsh, or Heortland campaign book. There might be something along those lines in store, and it would be great because, since these lands are close to one another, you could even connect them all together to play a macro-campaign. That is also why some of the planned releases, like the Return to Snake Pipe Hollow are not that exciting for me, because that is already available in the old scenario to a degree. In short, as an experienced RQ player, I am mostly looking forward to the totally new campaigns, heroquesting rules, and the social conflict rules.
What about you? And what do you think will be best for new players: the Revised RQG or the streamlined Fantasy Roleplay? 🤔 Please let me know in a comment below! 😀🙏👇
