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Six Seasons in Sartar

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SARTAR. 1619 ST.  

A group of young people come of age in an isolated mountain clan. They are the first generation born and raised after the Lunar Conquest, and saw their people bleed and die in Kallyr of Kheldon's failed rebellion. Yet Kallyr still believes she is the one destined to liberate Sartar, and Fate--or Luck--is about to put these young Sartarites in her path...

INSIDE THIS BOOK YOU WILL FIND"

"Six Seasons in Sartar," an epic six-scenrio campaign written for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha but easily adaptable to other systems. Based on the Third Age epic poem of the same name, the campaign plays like a novel, with character arcs, plot twists, and themes, but is still completely driven by players' choices and group tastes.

"The Riddle" and "Rites of Passage," a pair of female and male adulthood initiation rites usuable in any Heortling campaign.

"Episodes," a dozen "side quest" or "mini-games" usable in this or any other Sartar campaign. These episodes include rules for cattle raids, courtships, mass battles, initiations, heroquests, weddings, funerals, feasts, and much more.

"HeroQuests," a chapter on running these in RuneQuest.

"The Starbrow," a version of Kallyr of Kheldon ready for use in RuneQuest.

Based on the popular blog series of the same name, "Six Seasons in Sartar" has been completely rewritten, revised, and expanded for this book.

Winner of the 2022 Greg Stafford Memorial Award for Gloranthan Fandom

NOTE: Material in this book deals with mature themes. GMs are advised to adjust their presentation of this subject matter in accordance with their own and their group’s comfort levels.

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Reviews (40)
Discussions (10)
Customer avatar
Michael G September 08, 2023 6:26 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Arguably, one of the most important documents of the first quarter of the 21st Century.
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Bill E May 03, 2022 3:59 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Is there a chance of a "printer friendly" version that removes the background?
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Matt K July 22, 2021 8:38 am UTC
Hi, with the recent Premium Color price hikes, are there any plans to offer a more affordable Standard Color POD option?
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Andrew M July 22, 2021 10:17 am UTC
CREATOR
In the next couple of weeks, the sequel, "The Company of the Dragon," will be released in both Standard and Premium color. Based on those sales, I'll make a decision about "Six Seasons." I would have to contract the work out again, so I just want to make sure the demand is there.
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Brian D November 08, 2021 5:44 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hi Andrew - just wondering if you've had a chance to reflect and are likely (or not) to do a Standard colour version of Six Seasons?
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Andrew M November 09, 2021 4:47 am UTC
CREATOR
We are less than fifty copies from Platinum now, and have been discussing ways to make it more accessible to those who haven’t purchased it. We are debating softcover vs. standard color at this point. Softcover would be the most affordable option and we are leaning that way.
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Christoph K November 26, 2021 12:28 am UTC
PURCHASER
Hi Andrew,

I have just received the hardcover of "The Company of the Dragon" in standard color & with no PDF. It's gorgeous! Had it been available in softcover, I might very well have bought it in SC. I would very much buy a hard copy of "Six Seasons in Sartar" in something else than Premium Color! I'm more interested in your prose anyway, than in pretty pictures. ;o)

I have no idea whatsoever how the production of those jewels works, but shouldn't everything be available in all available formats (SC & HC, standard & premium, with & without PDF) to maximize sales?
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Andrew M November 26, 2021 1:25 am UTC
CREATOR
First, thanks for buying Company!

Back when Six Seasons was released the Jonstown Compendium was pretty new. SS was one of the earliest releases, so I just went with premium hardcover. It is a long process. The Armies and Enemies of Dragon Pass still has not been released in POD and it came out months before SS.

With Company I had two versions produced—standard and premium—because of the price hike. I didn’t prepare anything for SS because I assumed it had already sold all the copies it was going to buy that time. I was wrong. We are thirty copies from Platinum now.

I cannot do the work myself, so I contract others to do it. I have been thinking about either a softcover or standard color, but TBH I am not sure either would have the number of sales to justify commissioning them. But…I have been getting requests and am seriously thinking about one or the other.

Thanks for the input!
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Christoph K November 30, 2021 11:49 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Author & all around good guy, Andrew Logan Montgomery here forgot to add that Six Seasons in Sartar is now on sale... thanks to him! $5 off the PDF & $10 off the PoD until Christmas I presume, wow, just wow!

This is a class act, sir, thank you very much. I have now pulled the plug for the hardcover in premium color even though I would probably have bought it in HC standard color or softcover if it had been available.

More & more I think I may have missed something the one & only time I was in Tokyo (see my picture taken in its harbour).
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Andrea R December 21, 2021 10:37 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I've purchased the PDF and I'd definitely be interested in standard color print version.
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Don H May 19, 2021 5:26 pm UTC
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I was very unsatisfied with this adventure. The character creation chapter differed from the core book, but never outlined exactly what was different leaving lots of confusion from our players. The adventures themselves were disappointing. In one case making a series of rolls that had no point, and the outcome was the same regardless of the dice results. There was no clear explanation of how Shamans worked with the White Stag and the Orlanth cult. The initiate options were very limited and made no provisions for bringing in new characters after the others had completed the initiation. Was surprised that characters could die in the initiation, and never make it to the table...so the player would do it over again? How many times? The White Stag tribe is very cool with some great personalities. Its a nice supplement, but left a lot to be desired. For me any way.
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Andrew M May 20, 2021 12:38 am UTC
CREATOR
Thanks for your comments, Don! While I am immensely grateful for the overwhelmingly positive reception of the book, as an author I know one size never fits all, and I never expected Six Seasons to be everyone's cup of tea. I am sorry it was not yours.

I am a bit puzzled, however. Pages 20-22 walk you exactly through how character creation differs from the core RQG book, set by step, with page references. I am sorry that was confusing, but I am not sure how it could have been any more clear. As for the initiation, again, page 20 points out this is not the standard RQG campaign and that characters are five years younger (it even references the "Playing Inexperienced Adventurers" guidelines on page 25 of RQG). I also explained that while standard characters begin as adults who have been initiated, that is not the case here. So of course there is a chance of dying in "Rites of Passage." It is a scenario, not part of character creation.

Again, very sorry the rest was not...See more
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Aarón David C August 06, 2020 10:21 am UTC
PURCHASER
Answering to author's comment in my review:

Hey, Andrew! regarding my review of the book: it's bad news you don't want to make POD available for future releases. I'd very much like see anything else you write printed. What I am saying is that softcover may be better than hardcover for your book for the reasons explained. Please don't get discouraged by my review regarding availability in print for anything else you write! If the book had been only available in PDF I would not have purchased it, and I think I'm not the only one.
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Andrew M August 06, 2020 10:48 am UTC
CREATOR
Oh no Aarón, far from it! I really do appreciate your review. To be honest, I haven't seen my own book yet, LOL. I had the proof copy set to a friend in the States because it would have taken too long to get to where I am in Japan. So I have only seen the PDF. At any rate, it is certainly not your review. Yours was well-written constructive criticism. No, just looking at sales, I sold a LOT of PDFs but after months of extra work very few print copies. I don't think the market is there. Pricing also concerned me. There is, as I mentioned, a $20.00 US print cost, so if I sell the PDF at 19.95 it has to be 39.95, unless i charge even less for the print than the PDF, which doesn't make any sense on my end (not to mention people expect it bundled with a free PDF). I will consider your suggestion on softcovers, though. I am a writer, and this was an experiment. So far I think the PDF paid off but not the print. Thanks so much for taking the time to review!
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Jonathan G August 08, 2020 9:24 am UTC
PURCHASER
I went for the PoD option but no PDF. I am not sure why the PoD doesn't come with a 'free' PDF but that was the call.
Anyways, I am very much looking forward to this and grateful that you took the time to make it a dead Aldryami version.
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Andrew M August 09, 2020 2:34 am UTC
CREATOR
Thanks Jonathan! I appreciate your patience. I just received my first copies yesterday, and they look great in dead tree.

Let me answer your question, because I think all customers have a right to know. Bear in mind the Jonstown Compendium is NOT Chaosium. It is DriveThruRPG. DriveThru is a PDF vendor, not a publisher. I give them a PDF, and they sell it.

Now, DriveThru *does* offer print on demand for select titles, but they do this by outsourcing to another publisher, Lightning Source. But the key in that sentence was "select titles"; going forward NO Jonstown Compendium title will even be eligible for POD until it first reaches Electrum Bestseller status. This means, until we sell 250+ PDFs, we cannot promise a print version.

What this means is that customers who wait for a POD copy and don't buy a PDF actually hold us back from reaching a print version.

Now, Chaosium of course has an excellent voucher system. If you buy a PDF from their...See more
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Erin M August 02, 2020 6:00 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I was going to edit my review to expand it in reply to the author's reply, but because I had my money refunded, I am no longer a purchaser and can't alter the review.

Like many women, I have been a victim of sexualised violence and stalking. A warning would have allowed me to make a choice about whether or not I wanted to read this content for fun.

I also bought this intending to run it, but my gaming group includes minors. The story of Esrola is not the only issue. The rape of a teenage boy in a sex pit is a problem for me. Yes, I know it has mythic roots, but that's a part of the myths I avoid as it's not suitable for my audience. A warning would have told me that this wasn't something I could run at my table.

Finally, it never crossed my mind that I might need to disclose to a GM the things that happened to me. But, if a GM had hit me with this and chosen the "dramatic" route without warning, that GM could very well have found me falling apart at their table,...See more
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Andrew M August 03, 2020 5:49 am UTC
CREATOR
Erin, you do not know me. You had absolutely every right as a customer to return the book. I applaud you and I support you. You have no right to make assumptions about my character or motivations, however.

I am sorry about your experience. I was raped at the age of ten by my father's business partner and have spent my adult life very active in organizations like RAINN. You may think me ill-informed and callous. But you do not know me.

The book alludes to rape, but no where is it explicit. There is, however, violence. Should I warn the reader about this? Animals are hunted. Should i include an animal cruelty warning? There are gay characters. Should I warm religious readers they might be offended? Where, exactly, does this end?

You have exercised your rights as a reader and rejected the story. But that is the limit of your rights. You do not get to tell a writer how his or her book is to be written or what the cover must say.

Again. I support your...See more
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david S October 17, 2021 3:57 am UTC
1) Explicit content warnings are common courtesy and see common use. Your arguments are spurious, and as a survivor of sexual violence it's really surprising you'd use those kind of fallacious comparisons.
2) It take no effort at all to pop a warning on the cover and a paragraph in the book. Claiming some kind of magic authorial powers as a barrier to this effort indicates you're either lazy beyond imagining, ideologically opposed to making efforts to prevent others being harmed, or you just didn't think to do so and lack the common grace to admit it and then apologise rather than acting 'artistically offended' when pulled up on it.
3) Her rights certainly do allow her to tell you how your book should be written and what the cover should say. Your rights allow you to disagree with her assertions. Bearing in mind of course that 'rights' are entirely imaginary constructs in this situation, unless you happen to live in a legal jurisdiction where you can bring suit for someone suggesting you do things...See more
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Andrew M October 18, 2021 4:46 am UTC
CREATOR
Well David you will be pleased to know then there has been a mature content warning on the product for well over a year now. Of course had you looked at the product you would have seen that. But that was never your goal, was it. Rest assured my friend I have been sufficiently scolded and your virtue duly noted and signaled.
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Customer avatar
david S December 21, 2021 11:09 am UTC
It's almost like you don't understand I am directly addressing your patronising and self-aggrandising response to someone brave enough to speak up about how your poor choices impacted them based on their previous trauma.

You probably also want to take on board that as a middle aged white male I understand the term 'virtue signalling' is very much du jour for you but if you're going to use it, at least find out what it means - or don't hypocritically do it yourself while trying to use it pejoratively against others.

It's good that you say you've been sufficiently scolded, but I'm gonna bet the money I'd potentially spend on your product that no, you have not.

Customer avatar
David T May 30, 2020 4:12 am UTC
PURCHASER
Andrew, as a fan of the original series on your blog, I was surprised to see that you reversed the order of the first and second scenario. Could you share why?
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Andrew M May 30, 2020 9:35 am UTC
CREATOR
Actually it goes much deeper than that.

"Rites of Passage" now falls at the beginning of the campaign instead of towards the end. This effectively makes it a campaign about your first year of adulthood as opposed to the year before your adulthood.

RuneQuest demanded these changes. It is not a system your characters can survive without magic. But I was happy for it. I think in retrospect it works better with adult characters.

People will read this as slander, but it is not. I rewrote the campaign for RQ because it made it a better campaign. Period. Inasmuch as I love HQ, RQ's structure can encourage deeper storytelling. It forces you to think about characters, situations, plot in ways deeper than HQ does. This Six Seasons is to me so much deeper and richer. And it will be a better story in HQ. But the change from the year before adulthood to the year of adulthood was forced by the mechanics.
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David T May 30, 2020 3:36 pm UTC
PURCHASER
What slander! ;)

I'll have to think more about the mechanical question you mention. I've played RQ2, RQ3, RQ:G, and HQ, so I can appreciate the differences in each game's approach to story and conflict.

I confess to preferring the pre-adult framework because it will usually help the players connect more readily with their Gloranthan characters. I base this preference on the idea that most new RQ:G players these days will be newcomers to both RQ and, especially, Glorantha. I've seen several groups of players over the years scrabble ineffectually against the cliff of Gloranthan lore, especially the cultural differences between Heortling/Orlanthi culture and a standard D&D setting like the Forgotten Realms.

In a sense, most new RQ/Glorantha players *are* teenagers with respect to the game and setting. Smart enough to look after themselves, but ignorant of many parts of Sartarite culture. Unless the GM has assigned a bunch of homework (and the players have done it), a RQ/Glorantha...See more
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David T May 30, 2020 3:43 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Let me add this.

What's so great about Six Seasons is that it does a great job of doling out Sartarite and Orlanthi culture to the players without requiring any homework. It's done through play. You've created six scenarios that teach new players how to be Sartarites by providing rich cultural and theological detail that's actually used in play.

Glorantha's greatest weakness is its impenetrability and the effect that has on using the setting in actual play. Not only do your scenarios allow players to clamber over Heortling culture in an entertaining way, but the book's vignettes at the back also so much direct, practical meat on the bones of Sartarite culture. They succinctly describe the features and rituals of Sartarite life (birth, funerals, marriage, cattle raids) that are so often mentioned, but insufficiently explained to newcomers. And it doesn't take much! What you provide is enough to give a great sense of the culture without drowning players in detail or a Gloranthan fan's tendency...See more
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Andrew M May 30, 2020 4:10 pm UTC
CREATOR
Obviously, if pre-adulthood "Seasons" works for you, do it.

I felt that "your first year of adulthood" gave characters access to things they otherwise would not have. Uninitiated kids don't have romances or or go on cattle raids. More importantly, it was a better story choice. It felt to me it gave the player character greater agency. They are not at the beck and call of their parents, they have decision making capability. And yes, I do believe the book "Six Seasons" hangs together much much better than the blog did. It is cohesive. It is a story. But please, please, run it like the blog if you like! This was my theme the whole book. It is not my campaign. It is yours.
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David T May 30, 2020 4:21 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I'll put more thought into it and read it again more closely. You wouldn't have changed it if you didn't feel it was an improvement, and I should respect your design and actual play experience with these scenarios!
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Andrew M May 30, 2020 5:19 pm UTC
CREATOR
Nonsense.

I had one design principle. Once someone buys it, it is theirs. It is entirely your Six Seasons. Do what you want with it and then share the results with us!
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clive W May 17, 2020 10:41 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Will there be a print ( maybe POD ) version ? I much prefer print to PDF.
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Andrew M May 17, 2020 11:15 pm UTC
CREATOR
The Jonstown Compendium licensing agreement does not cover POD. Generally speaking, no JC titles have this option. However, Chaosium has very kindly offered a way to make this happen for "Six Seasons" so we are exploring the possibility. Nothing firm yet so i cannot make any promises, but we are working towards it.
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clive W May 18, 2020 7:02 am UTC
PURCHASER
Thanks Andrew,

I must admit I'm surprised that the Jonstown licensing doesn't cover POD, I think it's a great idea. being an , ahem, older gamer I just prefer print - nothing like curling up in a comfy chair with a new RQ supplement to read...
Anyway hope it comes to fruition, look forward to it.
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Andrew M May 18, 2020 7:49 am UTC
CREATOR
I think the reason the Compendium doesn't normally have the POD option is that the products don't tend to be large books like this. But Chaosium has been very helpful in making it possible. The main obstacle at this stage, Clive, is that "being an, ahem, older gamer" MYSELF producing the document for POD demands lots of new fangled skills and software applications beyond my aging brain. I am reaching out to someone who can help me. I will keep you posted!
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Kevin M May 18, 2020 3:31 pm UTC
Put me down for one who would LOVE a PoD version of this. :)
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Robert A May 25, 2020 11:30 am UTC
PURCHASER
I would also really like to see a PoD option realized.
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Andrew M May 25, 2020 11:42 am UTC
CREATOR
...and you shall be getting it!

Fortunately the support for the PDF was amazing, enough to justify a PoD. I had no intention of doing it if the PDF sales weren't there.
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Manuel L May 29, 2020 9:44 am UTC
PURCHASER
This is great news! Can´t wait!
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Jonathan G July 02, 2020 5:25 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Do you have an ETA for the PoD, thanks.
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Andrew M July 03, 2020 12:02 am UTC
CREATOR
Oh I wish it worked that way.

It has been approved by the printer. A proof copy is in the mail. Whenever that arrives, I will check it for flaws. If there are none, I will immediately authorize it to go live. So tentatively? Two or three weeks from now. It all depends on shipping and how the book looks.
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Jonathan G July 04, 2020 7:31 am UTC
PURCHASER
Thanks Andrew
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clive W August 02, 2020 3:04 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hi Andrew,

Do you plan to do a softback version ?
Customer avatar
Michael L May 17, 2020 5:47 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Bookmarks would be nice too.
Customer avatar
FRANCOIS G May 16, 2020 4:32 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hey would it be possible to get a 'printer-friendly' version of the file with the background layer disabled? Thanks!
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This title was added to our catalog on May 15, 2020.