Happy New Year!

I had posted up some past New Year’s blog posts, but I changed my mind. Rather than review the past year or even put out some goals of my own, I wanted to focus on an “Independent Creator Program”, the Jonstown Compendium, put out by Chaosium:

2023 has been a huge year for the Jonstown Compendium, our independent creator program for RuneQuest and Greg Stafford’s world of Glorantha at DriveThruRPG. Congratulations to the wonderful community of creators involved, and to everyone who has supported the program by buying products, and leaving ratings and reviews!

Since the Jonstown Compendium community content commenced in December 2019 there have been some 349 independently-created titles added, or an average of seven new titles every month!

And in October 2023 a highly significant milestone was achieved, with over 50,000 titles sold! This year alone, more than 80 new titles have been added! Thanks to our community creators we are truly living in a golden age of Glorantha!

Highlights of this extraordinary program include:

• regularly topping the best seller lists at DriveThruRPG;
• received critical praise from reviewers and customers alike;
• winning several ENNIE and other awards;
• the creation of a dedicated Storytelling Collective stream for first-time RuneQuest creators;
• promoting new releases in the Chaosium blog’s regular Journey to Jonstown series, as well as promotion on BRP Central, EN World and RPGNet;
• selling out at pop-up stores at conventions Chaosium attends including UK Games Expo, Dragonmeet, PAX Australia, and of course, Chaosium Con;
• serving as a stepping stone to further work as a professional in the TTRPG industry, a prime example being Greg Stafford Memorial Award winner Katrin Dirim whose art graces the 2023 RuneQuest release The Prosopaedia;
• and, most importantly of all, helping foster a growing and dynamic community of independent creators, each exploring Greg Stafford’s mythic universe in their own way, yet strongly supportive of each other in such groups as the Jonstown Compendium Creative Circle on Facebook.

Here’s to 2024: we can’t wait to see what is created!

And congratulations to the talented RuneQuest creators behind the Top 6 best-selling Jonstown Compendium titles released in 2023!

1. Harald Smith, for NOCHET: QUEEN OF CITIES
2. Ian A. Thomson & Friends, inc., Peter Johansson, R. Andrew Bean, John R. Hutchinson, Graeme Prowse, for OLD PAVIS: THE CITY THAT TIME FORGOT
3. Martin Helsdon, for SHIPS & SHORES OF SOUTHERN GENERTELA
4. Simon Bray & Friends, inc., Nick Brooke, Mark Galeotti, Michael O’Brien, Chris Gidlow, for FURTHEST: CROWN JEWEL OF LUNAR TARS
5. Nick Brooke, for CRIMSON KING
6. Ian A. Thomson & Friends, inc, Mike Dawson, John Hughes, Vincent Jugie, Cristoph Koring, Mitch Lockhart, Sergio Mascarenhas, Erik Nolander, Soren Petersen, Simon E. Phipp, Graeme Prowse, Jeff Richard, Bo Rosen, Alban Schmid, Robert Wolfe, for PAVIS COUNTY & BEYOND: SECRETS OF THE BORDERLANDS.

For those that aren’t familiar, you can find the content guidelines HERE. and the user templates HERE.

This program has been running for a number of years, and it appears that the content output and quality are quite good. I’ve always been intrigued by RuneQuest and curious how large the player base might be. Did this community content increase RQ’s base? Is it just supporting the existing one? Is this a viable path forward for RMU, which needs game content to support the rules?

I’ll end this with another request to our readers. If you want to contribute to the Rolemasterblog, even 1 post a year, just let us know. We encourage and welcome a diverse range of ideas and creativity!

Have a great 2024!