And why should it be?
Here are links I've found and enjoyed over the years. Some are for RuneQuest, but if you're looking for definitive lists of RQ links you're in the wrong place—I'm only listing my personal favorites. And not just my game favorites; these links cover everything I'm interested in. Or almost everything. :-)
By the way, since I've always found lists without explanations a bit annoying, I'm including at least a few lines of description or review for each link. As time goes by, I'll add more links and more descriptions. If you have a link you think I'd like, let me know!
01/07/2011 - I've gone through the links and removed the broken ones; unfortunately, there are quite a few good sites that aren't around any more. I updated a link or two and removed one or two more.
Links will open in a new window. After all, I
wouldn't want you to get lost out there!
The RuneQuest Rules Mailing List.The current home of the very long-running RuneQuest Rules discussion list; subscribers include quite a few of the people who worked on RuneQuest I and II (the originals, not the Mongoose editions). The archives are also available here. If you're a RuneQuest fan, you should definitely sign up! Archives of previous versions of the RuneQuest-Rules list are also available.
TONY AND GARYTH'S RUNE QUEST PAGE (aka Runequest.za.org). RQ material by Tony Den, who has written some great stuff for the Chaos Project, and Garyth, who I haven't met yet. It's nice to see a new RQ page starting, and I'll admit that it takes me back! I'm looking forward to seeing how the page evolves. Note: This is Tony's new URL, and the site is looking good!
Ultimate RuneQuest Resources (formerly Realm of the Ultimate RuneQuest Gamemasters)—Okay,
the title of the site could still be considered hubris (
), but
the people behind this RuneQuest site have certainly put a lot of
effort into it. This site is run by four—or actually now it
looks like three—or possibly now two—update, several—separate
RuneQuest GMs. There are sections such as spell and magic weapon
archives, as well as a lot of NPCs.
Basic Role Playing isn't quite RuneQuest, properly speaking, but it's not NOT RuneQuest, either; it was derived from RQ in the early days. Chaosium re-released it in 2002, making it the closest thing to a commercially-available form of the system there is, and probably that ever will be. This link goes to a fan site for the system.
And of course I need to list Chaosium. Their republication and expansion of Basic Role-Playing definitely gives me hope for the future of RuneQuest-like mechanics, if not under that name.
Issaries, no longer gets a link from me beyond the mandatory one to their legalese. I never liked their Hero Wars/HeroQuest systems, and I simply cannot understand why they hold the RuneQuest trademark when they DON'T PUBLISH THE GAME. I do not expect to create new material set in Glorantha.
The same goes for Mongoose Publications.
The Fantasy Library. Joe Teller and Kiralee McCauley's site, which also included the new Interregnum site before the APA ceased publication. Large and filled with all sorts of good stuff.
Rich
Staats' Home Page (AKA "Dr. Games").
Rich may be the hardest working man on the RPG con
circuit—his guide to running a panel should be required
reading at every science fiction convention in the world. How he
manages to combine that with a very busy full-time job
AND a family is beyond me. If his hair was blue-black, I'd
suspect him of wearing a cape and tights under that mild-mannered
exterior. Rich is also One Of Us, one of the dwindling crew of
RuneQuest fans out there, and his site shows it. Oh, almost
forgot to mention that he was one of my most dependable
Interregnum writers!
Charibdis/Epimetheus' Blog. I guess he doesn't want people to link his real name to his blog (although his photo is on the blog, so I'm not sure I understand why), but he's an old friend and we've done a lot of gaming together. This is his new blog, since the old site got too slow to use. He has an in-character blog for one of his RPG characters, too; I don't know if he's linked to it from here, but if not I'll post the link to that, too. He hasn't posted a new entry in many years; unfortunately, that seems unlikely to change.
If you're looking for used books, and don't want to encourage Amazon.com in their ongoing deforestation of independant used book stores, I recommend Alibris. I'm sorry to say that every other used-book site I'm aware of is owned by Amazon.com, or else by some large bookselling chain.
This is a bit of leftover text from a previous version of this page, but it's one of the only mentions online of a wonderful book: "If you're wondering, the rare book I was searching for was The Adventures of Phunsi, an absolutely wonderful book by Alison Mason Kingsbury. It was published in 1946, and is long out of print. It's about the adventures of a young zebra who is captured in Africa and brought to New York City."
The Recommended Fantasy Author List. A very good, very large list of recommended fantasy authors. I've contributed to that list, although I myself don't recommend all the authors on it.
SendPad WAS an extremely useful little online email utility. Unfortunately it's gone now, and I haven't been able to find a similar service online. Sucks. If you know of a useful web site or service, drop me a line!
The Dysfunctiona1 Fami1y Circus. Probably the single funniest cooperative web project ever made, the DFC took cartoons from the horribly saccharine and unfunny Fami1y Circus comic strip, removed the original captions, and allowed viewers to suggest their own. Editors winnowed the results to the funniest only, at least in their opinion. Fortunately their instincts were mostly good, if "sick" "twisted" and "insanely funny" are good. WARNING: If you are easily offended, don't go here. I mean it. There's stuff here to offend almost anybody. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Incidentally, lawyers stopped the DFC and forced the removal of the archives from the original site. A copy of the archives later popped up on another site, and later disappeared from there too; I don't know, maybe the lawyers found it. Recently I found yet another set of archives at the link above. And then it disappeared, and I found yet another. If that goes, I'll keep looking for new ones and will link to them when I find them. However, the currently-linked site has a full downloadable archive.
Space Moose. If the sick, sick humor of the DFC appeals to your sense of humor, I'd recommend looking at Space Moose, too. A remarkably twisted and funny comic strip indeed. Interesting story: I sort of saved this site. That is, I used SiteSnagger to capture a copy, and when the strip went dark in 2003, my copy was used by someone else to put up this archival version. It's not perfect—my snag was screwed up a bit—and I just noticed that the two-part strips are all missing, but that can be corrected. Incidentally, I suppose there's a chance that someday the main site will go up again. But I really, really doubt it.
Bored? Looking for something fun online? alt.humor.best-of-usenet is always good for a laugh. I used to send quite a few things there.
[email protected] Copyright 2000 by Peter Maranci. Revised: October 15, 2014. v.3.32
