Just more than a month ago, Chaosium Vice President and co-owner Michael O’Brien dropped me a line telling me that Chaosium was producing a “RuneQuest Classics” edition of the RQ3 supplement Sun County (1992) and asked if I’d be interested in writing a short history as a foreword to the book. I was thrilled to do so. That’s partially because I love RuneQuest, but also because RuneQuest is a historic game: one of the few classic survivors in the industry, and almost the only one (other than D&D, of course) that remains as strong today as it was 45 years ago. But I was also eager to write that story for one other reason: Sun County was a historic book all on its own, as it marked the start of a renaissance of RuneQuest publication. That’s what I wrote about for the Foreword, and MOB was kind enough to let me reprint it here.

Foreword: How Sun County Revived RuneQuest and What Happened Afterward

Or: The Rise and Fall of the Gloranthan Empire

When RuneQuest was released in 1978, it massively innovated the fantasy roleplaying market, exchanging already classic tropes of classes and levels for skill-based characters. It also introduced one of the most original worlds every seen in a FRPG: Glorantha. The sky (dome) seemed the limit. Even D&D might fall to the young upstart.

But then James Dalas Egbert III supposedly disappeared into the steam tunnels beneath Michigan State University. (He didn’t.) The media rained publicity on TSR, and D&D’s sales tripled and quadrupled in the years afterward. Never again would another tabletop RPG threaten D&D’s success. Nonetheless, RuneQuest prospered through a Golden Age heralded by legendary publications such as Cults of Prax (1979), Plunder (1980), Griffin Mountain (1981), Borderlands (1982), Big Rubble (1983), and Pavis (1983).

Then in early 1983, an unlikely rumor began to circulate: former wargame leader Avalon Hill was looking to buy a popular FRPG. RuneQuest was mentioned as one of the options. The funny thing is, the rumor was true: before the end of the year, Chaosium announced that they had finalized a “distribution” deal with Avalon Hill after a year of negotiation. A new third edition of the game (1984) would follow, but stripped of the game’s unique Gloranthan setting.

A great business deal offers strong benefits to both sides, and that seemed to be the case here. Avalon Hill got an FRPG that had jousted with Dungeons & Dragons just a few years before. Meanwhile, Chaosium gained access to a large-scale publisher, and more than that to the printing capability of their parent company, Monarch Avalon. Again, the sky seemed the limit.

Things seemed to go well at first. Chaosium Chief Gossip Officer Gigi D’Arn reported that the new RuneQuest’s sales were Avalon Hill’s best since their release of Squad Leader (1977) several years earlier—far surpassing their other new RPGs, Lords of Creation (1983) and Powers & Perils (1983). Unfortunately, Chaosium needed more: the cruel economics of licensing resulted in them earning less money for just as much design work, revealing the first crack in the deal.

There were other problems. The new releases were quite expensive, especially when exported. Fans felt abandoned by the move away from Glorantha, even after Avalon Hill began producing products such as Gods of Glorantha (1985) and Glorantha: Genertela, Crucible of the Hero Wars (1988). Even then, most of Avalon Hill’s “new” Gloranthan products were old material repackaged. There were also complaints regarding the quality of RuneQuest’s boxed booklets and about the artwork of newer releases, which was now being produced in-house.

Due primarily to the financial issues, Chaosium stopped designing for Avalon Hill in 1990, following their work on Elder Secrets of Glorantha (1989). A dark age followed. Over the next two years, the only official RuneQuest publications were a pair of poorly regarded “Gateway” (non-Gloranthan) supplements called Daughters of Darkness (1990) and Eldarad: The Lost City (1991). The only solace for RuneQuest fan was that a new ‘zine called Tales of the Reaching Moon (1989-2002) put out four issues over that same time period. That ‘zine also called Avalon Hill to task: in Tales #5 (Spring 1991), the ‘zine’s staff published an article called “Ruined-Quest?” It noted that in seven years, Avalon Hill had produced almost nothing new for the Gloranthan setting, leaving players using material from 1982-1983.

Then Jack Dott succeeded his father as head of Avalon Hill and said that he wanted to “revivify” RuneQuest. He hired RPG designer Ken Rolston as an in-house editor and also announced an exciting new product. Traditionally, RuneQuest’s most successful setting had been the plains of Prax and the city of Pavis on the banks of the River of Cradles.  The game’s new supplement, Sun County (1992) by Tales associate editor Michael O’Brien, boated downriver to the land of the Yelmalian Sun Domes. It was a totally new setting, never before described, but still near to more familiar lands.

Though Sun County was offered to Avalon Hill about a year before Rolston came onboard, he was the one who shepherded it to publication. By insisting on “professional-standard” freelance artists, Rolston ensured that the look of the new book matched the quality of O’Brien’s deeply knowledgeable take on RuneQuest. Sun County became an instant classic.

It also marked the beginning of the “RuneQuest Renaissance.” Over the next few years, it was supplemented by five other official releases: River of Cradles (1992), Shadows on the Borderlands (1993), and Strangers in Prax (1994), set in the Prax region, and Dorastor: Land or Doom (1993) and Lords of Terror (1994), which opened up a new frontier for adventure in chaos-cursed lands to the north.

But, the Renaissance was short-lived. By 1994, Ken Rolston had left Avalon Hill. Art was pulled back in house. Tension between Chaosium and Avalon Hill bubbled up over a manuscript for a fourth edition of RuneQuest. In 1997, Chaosium and Avalon Hill entirely dissolved their relationship, the divorce leaving Avalon Hill with RuneQuest and Chaosium with Glorantha. The short-lived, six-book RuneQuest Renaissance was dead.

Nonetheless, the Renaissance of 1992-1995 was a second Golden Age for RuneQuest, one that still reverberates. Today, Chaosium’s Jonstown Compendium supports the same creativity found in RuneQuest fandom in the ’90s. It also reflects some of the themes and settings of the RuneQuest Renaissance. Jonathan Webb produced four supplements set in Sun County called Sandheart (2020-2021), including the adventure “Mad Prax: Beyond Sun Dome” by O’Brien himself; Simon Phipp returned to Dorastor with Secrets of Dorastor (2020) and a set of “Holiday Dorastor” supplements (2021-Present), mostly coauthored with Leon Kirshtein; and Ian Thomson expanded his Pavis & Big Rubble series with The Strangers in Prax Companion (2024).

The past never dies; it’s always there. But in some cases, we’re lucky enough to see it returned.

—Shannon Appelcline

October 24, 2024

Sun County is available in print and PDF from DTRPG. My foreword is included. This is the first time Sun County has ever been printed in hardcover and for that matter the first time it’s been officially available electronically, all in a remastered format that’s gorgeous.

If you’re a RuneQuest fan, especially one who came into the game in later days, I can’t commend Sun County high enough. It was a great book in 1992, truly detailing one of the unique cultures in Glorantha, and it’s even greater today because it’s been supported by Jonstown Compendium publications such as the Sandheart series, starting with Tales of the Sun County Militia (2019), and Life and Traditions Under the Sun Dome (2024).

Foreword References

D’Arn, Gigi. 1983. “A Letter from Gigi.” Different Worlds #28.

D’Arn, Gigi. 1984. “A Letter from Gigi.” Different Worlds #37.

D’Arn, Gigi. 1985. “A Letter from Gigi.” Different Worlds #39.

Ehara, Tadashi. 1983. “A Game Forever.” Different Worlds #30.

Hall, David. 1991. “Edict.” Tales of the Reaching Moon #6.

Hall, David. 1994. “Edict.” Tales of the Reaching Moon #11.

O’Brien, Michael. 1990. “Edict.” Tales of the Reaching Moon #4.

O’Brien, Michael. 1992. “Sun County Author Notes.” Tales of the Reaching Moon #8.

Tales Staff. 1991. “Ruined-Quest?” Tales of the Reaching Moon #5.

Uncredited. 1991. “The Greg Stafford Interview.” Tales of the Reaching Moon #5.