First off, when I got into this hobby I asked for a place that was considered to be one of the biggest cities in Glorantha. Than I was forwarded to this book.

First off, I can tell Herald Smith gave this book his all, and I very much enjoyed the information presented. It really gave me a feel for the City of Nochet/Esrolia and just how special it truly is. The layout is great, the information is easy to find, and the adventure seeds are very thought out. I could see myself walking through the city and exploring its many walks of life and architecture. The maps are a must because they help give context to each location in the city. You can view Nochet in its entirety from entire area to blocks with more detailed maps.

Overall if you want to explore a huge city that doesn't follow the general tropes of many other fictions, check this thing out! It could probably be used in Non-Glorantha setting, and feel extremely unique and together.

Alright, this book has lead to many great discoveries that I can use at my table. Goes great with the Jonstown Compendium Index. I think I've already bought 2-3 things I found in the book. Sometimes I'll just look at it when I'm bored and think about what would be great on my shelf.

Ran this adventure during Six Season In Sartar. With a few changes to locations and timeline this adventure can be used anywhere. Its encounters a fairly tough, and will give the players a real challenge. Overall don't pass up on this short adventurer.

I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars because I felt it was probably one of the most well written introductions to a setting I have read. A story from zero to hero you could say. Its great as a stand alone or to be used with its sequel, Company of the Dragon. In this review, no spoilers, I will give my observations and opinions on a 10 month campaign I ran 5 players through using this book.

First things first, it does not use the traditional character creation of Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. The PC are initiated into adulthood, then goes through an entire year of exploring both the setting and want it means to be an adult in Haraborn culture. This is its strongest feature. The game takes place in a valley, a very excluded spot, so the PC will not need to know the broader setting that is Glorantha. It can be used to explore the game and not feel the need to learn its entire setting. My players really felt like they were developing and changing as the story went on. Not many games can say that as most have pre-established badasses rather than just regular folks. We just finished our campaign of SSiS and all I can say is they are extremely hype to see more of Sartar and the setting. The campaign itself fostered this interest in learning more.

NPCs and the location are extremely rememberable. There are a few key locations besides steads and the village, but Montgomery makes them reoccurring locations in the story with plenty of content around them. The NPCs themselves are all very rememberable. I have a couple that the PCs have fallen in love with and none of them feel like they are just filler. The Vale, home of the Haraborn, lives and breathes.
Guaranteed no ones SSiS will be the same. First things first, each PC will pick a profession, a stead and do a write up on their family. Then latter they found sponsors and began training to join there chosen cults. THIS WAS HUGE! Each player really developed their bonds and homes based on these decision. I even had a couple of twists for the PCs because during character creation they had rolled up professions that connect themselves to the chieftain of the tribe and one person ended up in a very strange situation because of the stead they picked, no spoilers but it was dangerous.

The story flowed very well with in-between adventure’s allowing for RP, character development along with mechanical changes to the PCs, and chances to learn up on the setting. Its extremely flexible it allowed me to integrate other adventurers from the Jonstown Compendium in-between the actual story. The option scenes in the back of the book are extremely useful and I plan to use those in the Company of the Dragon Campaign I plan to do. But on a day or two when I didn’t have a full table I pulled out the optional content and was satisfied with the table. There are subsystems in the book as well that includes quick NPCs stats, relationship meters and so on to add mechanics behind story driven content.

Combat, though sparce if PCs roleplay well, seems like good introduction with slow build up of game mechanics near the end. I decided to give my Players there cults/cult rule spells just before the final conflict, and since their opponent had them to, it felt more dynamic. Besides that each conflict felt very cinematic with a very satisfying conclusion. For the bigger conflicts the book has included rules for resolving thoughts without turning into a 5-hour combat slog. I feel like with any reviews I would do injustice to the book if I did not try to critique. My biggest issue with the book was integrating the character development from the Core rulebook into what is in the SSiS book. You might miss the information cause its tucked away on pg 17 under Initiate membership into the Haraborn clan. I think a small write-up on development to show how to go about it would be extremely helpful. I think as good as the book is, if you are a new Game Master and new to Runquest: Roleplaying in Glorantha the book might set different expectations from the rest of the RQ product line since SSiS takes place before the official setting current time. This might lead to some confusion down the line, but this is a minor. Ultimately, I still gave the book 5 stars as I felt these issues were resolvable after rereading and writing my own notes on character creation and development phases. Again some of this might be because of the Core Rulebook layout.

Overall, I give this book my seal of approval for experiences Game Masters or new GMs of the Glorantha setting. Its flexible for any rule set and is extremely well written. If this is your first run through Runequest than this is a good start but if you are an experiences RQ Game Master than this would be a different experience too. Customize it and make it your own. Andrew Logan Montgomery has truly created an adventure my players will remember for years to come!

Another great game by Stygian Fox! This game was the first Call of Cthulhu game I ran for my consistent group. First thing first, this is actually a fairly easy scenario to run, and because of this, the scenario allows for easy-to-learn play. It is on par with Edge of Darkness found in the Starter Set scenario. I can honestly see myself using this scenario at local conventions cause of ease of use and the combination of multiple Call of Cthulhu mechanics to help players fully explore the system. Below is what to expect if you pick up this game:

Options for light sandbox, where players get to explore an area of Manhattan and gather information. Plenty of information gets the story moving but plenty of opportunity for the gamemaster to add their own flairs or change details here or there. For example, I ran my game as a Holiday special and shifted everything into December.

The game explores multiple aspects of classic CoC Scenarios: information gathering, unnatural creatures, opportunities for conflict, and chases. Wonderful set pieces along with a unique premise for the Investigators that I haven’t really seen before and it's written very tastefully.

In all pick this one up, give it a good read, and run it for those uninitiated players or for those Veterans who need something different. In either case you are bound to have fun!

The only thing I wish this scenario had was pre-generated characters who might have prebuilt contacts in the scenario itself but I ultimately just found some interesting modern characters and removed there Credit Ratings to make it work.

Looking for a rules light gameplay but with a bunch of character customizations/options? Than GG Games d10 system got you covered. With all the extra crunch behind it allows the GM to concentrate on the story and encounters be in enviromental or NPCS or foes. In all it has plenty of content to suggest and help build there games setting while also allowing flexibility. Wanna make a Walking Dead campaign? Boom got you covered. Wanna play around with rules light fallout game? Yup, has rules for that too. Combat is simple and streamed into 3 stats + armor, social interactions can be resolved using a Parley system and options to include mutations which act like supernatural powers to give your characters and setting a bit of weird.

Things that I didn't care much for but not enough to lower the score; Combat balancing is pretty well written out but took a minute to put together and creating a balance fight on the fly might be more difficult if your not willing to pause your game to math it out. Best you can do is have encounters ready for each tier of play and throw them at your adventurers as needed. Book size is great and format is wonderful but id have liked to have seen the bestiary/creature creation alongside the combat encounter builder. One is listed near the back of the book while the other has been placed next to enviromental encounters. Lastly, though this has been done by a few published works, references additional information the book are bold letter but no page numbers are given. Either have to search function PDF or scroll until you find what its refering too. Oh and love to see Print Friendly fillable character sheets. Don't want to drop lots of money on printed character sheets.

All in all its solid rules light system that has potential for more content and revisions.