RuneQuest: Chaser and Company in Balazar [Play Report]

21 Apr, 2026

[This is a Living Document containing the notes on a RuneQuest campaign ran by Taliesin. Please enjoy!]

Characters:

• Chaser, Initiate of the Black Fang of the Fine City of Prax, a master-tracker (HP 6; STR 8; DEX 13, WIL 12)
• Iorek, Cultist of Vinga the Womanly-Orlanth, the Red-Haired Woman (HP 4; STR 10; DEX 13; WIL 12)
• Elu the Pelorian, Initiate of the Cult of the Seven Mothers, a Lunar Lapdog (HP 2; STR 13; DEX 4; WIL 16)
• Goodsmith, Disciple of Chalana Arroy, a Devout yet rather Entitled Passivist (HP 6; STR 5; DEX 10; WIL 12)
• Calamene, Orlanthi Steed-Warrior of Prax, and a Fine Archer (HP 1; STR 6; DEX 17; WIL 12)

Incidents and Events:

Sessions 1 & 2:

• We begin in the Frontier-City of Elkoi, a bridging-place between the Lunars and Balazar, between Peloria and Orlanth.
• We meet the rather foolish puppet-king in his palace, and more importantly his wife. We also run into Uriptus, Commander of Elkoi's Garrison.
• We meet Elekora Kindtongue, the Head Lunar Priestess of the Seven Mothers' Temple in the city, alongside her student. Her temple and her house swarm with cats. I adopt a nice black one.
• Myself and Goodsmith attempt to drum up business in the Pig-Quarter of the City but are met with naught but swindling swine-herds
• We stay overnight in a traveller-inn, though Elu is invited into Elekora's hospitality. Damn Pelorians.
• Calamene hears a rumour over breakfast in the inn, about a monster out in the wilderness of central Balazar. We also hear that at some point in the future there will be a festival in the city that attracts many pilgrims.
• I also chat to a humble worker over breakfast, discussing his employer: Sirial Endikar of the Lunar Empire, a Stone-Importer of White Marble and the Richest Man in Elkoi. Scum.
• We plan to go to Trilus, where there is a Caravan-Master and Trade-Priest of Isarys called Jof-Min.
• We meet a hunting-party by the city gates as we prepare to depart. They are West Balazarians, dressed in shoulder-pinned cloaks and aprons, armed with stone knives and spears, adorned by animal-bone trinkets. They are very intrigued by our metal weapons and armour. They love the stuff! Though they warn us: some Balazarians wish to return to the time they were the Votan-Ki and reject the New Ways and the Corrupting Influence of Metal and such.
• I talk everyone into joining the Balazarians on their hunt for a day or so instead of heading directly north-east to Trilus. It's very exciting! Free food! And they've got a youth with them who's on his Coming-Of-Age-Hunt. What an experience to share!
• The hunters don't immediately turn up any tracks but as an expert tracker - and with the help of my papoose-carried cat - I soon do: eight hooves. We follow them into the Dog Hills.
• In a small scrub-filled valley between two hills we spy our marks. Yet! Instead of two sets of horns to the eight hooves, there are four... Broo. Pissing on the trees and hunting for 'game': a dead dog slung over one's shoulder. According to the local hunters, Broo are normally rare in these parts: this gang of demons is almost certainly a group of deserters from a Lunar Army. Vile.
• The group scales one hill to get a better vantage while Calamene trots to the other hill. One of the Broo has a hide shield painted with the eight-point-cross of Chaos.
• The Youth - Gordril - is handed a long stone dagger by his father. It's time to perform his Youth-Birth-Killing. The hunters charge.

Session 3

• The Broo-Fight commences. In the below diagram, the four blue figures to the south are the Broo. The red figures are the hunters. The blue figures amongst the hunters are Elu and Chaser. The grey figure is Iorek. The blue horseman in the far south-east is Calamene.

• Chaser, Iorek and Calamene let loose a volley. One of the broo, wielding a sling-staff, is instantly crippled. Another is pin-cushioned: an arrow flies straight through his shin-pads, while another shatters his flimsy metal breast-plate.
• As the lines meet, Elu offers a prayer to the Red Goddess and charges. The Most Victorious Lady smiles upon us: the hoof-spawn's sling-stone goes wide of the charging Iorek, instead striking another of the beasts in the back.
• Iorek clashes with a Broo, smashing through the fiend's bracer, while Chaser delivers another horrible knee-shot to the slinger.
• Gordril the Youth hops over the stream and is met by a pair of Broo, one with a mace and one wielding a wicked bronze great-axe. There are mere moments before he is surely put down. Elu springs forward with her carp's-tongue and slashes the mace-broo in the side before batting aside his cudgel's blow (at the cost of her shield). The axe-fiend's attack is deftly parried by the child's dagger.
• The Youth's cousin springs forward, skewering the axe-goat's mouth with a flint spear. It falls dead. In the same moment, a perfect coin-hole appears in his apron: the sling-beast has gotten onto one knee and delivered a nasty lead-shot straight into his side. The man turns to the harrier and screeches a war-cry.
• Chaser deftly springs forward and trips into the stream as Iorek opens the stomach of her battle-match, stealing a kill which was the Black Fang's by rights. She steps over the corpse and comes down upon the sling-broo but is struck to the ground by a sudden and nasty blow to the head by the sling-staff's heft.
• Down the stream, the Youth is locked in melee with the mace-fiend. They trade blows. Elu and the boy's father stand back and watch nervously.
• A sudden whistle and Kurrack! The sling-broo's head is taken clean off by an arrow from the bushes: Calamene cries in joy as the beast collapses next to Iorek.
• One broo remains. It brings down a mace straight through Gordril's guard and into his ribs, felling the child. The boy's father uncoils and spears it in the back.
• A moment of silence, before the scuffling and scrabbling of a sudden rush to the wounded.

• The Boy is unblooded, yet lives. The Hunt is declared omen-doomed and called off. Gordril is fireman-hoisted upon his father's shoulder to be taken back to Elkoi.
• Elu skulks over to the fallen broo. She sweats. These defilers have metal weapons of clearly Lunar make. For what reason under the Red Moon are these war-beasts here?

Session 4

In the afterglow of battle...

• Elu in particular, for watching over Gordril, is given the respect of the Sable Clan in the form of the boy's erstwhile blooding-dagger.
• While caring for the boy, Goodsmith tries to pitch the boy on the light of Chalana Arroy: "there is another way... let go of the cycle of violence...". Yet, the wounded failure grits his teeth: he has already been condemned to the life of Foundchild the Hunter.
• Tigerteeth, the boy's father, becomes a fast friend of the Company. We join him on a rocky promontory as he smokes a hashish pipe and stares east.
• Trilus will be a fine home for us. There is scattered anti-Lunar sentiment that hasn't materialised into state violence: one of the citadel's inns is even run by one. Yalaring, the ruler of Trilus, seems to be a canny man. He rose from the Great Sable Clan, killed the old and stagnant leaders and turned the city into a centre for Balazarian culture, though some are still of a backwards-facing Votan-Ki inclination...
• Goodsmith considers the boons of Broo-Blood as a distillation of vivacious life, quite a taboo thought outside the Lunar Empire. She cares for one of the Broo and binds the beast's wounds as the rest are burnt. The Sable-Hunters look on in horror at Goodsmith's niavete and move to kill the demon, yet she saves the goatman's life by castrating it and ushering it away. Naturally, she keeps the phallus.
  

A quiet night of sombre chatter and flint-knapping ensues....

• Tigerteeth tells a story about a giant that hoarded all the rocks for himself, yet after being taken down a peg by his fellows finally understood that it's better to have only some boulders than none. Thosse giants went to sleep and became the Rockwoods...
• The Father's second story is far more interesting. He speaks of the legendary spear Heartpiercer, short in shaft and large in head, a boomeranging javelin that never misses. Retrieved from Sartar by an ancient hero, it has been inherited by King Skilful of Dykene, to the east. As the weapon was passed down so too have the ideals of Gloranth and the Heroes of Balazar. Iorek and Goodsmith recognise it as an ancient relic that was long ago lost from the Dragon Pass.
• After these yarns, Tigerteeth asks for beer. We have none. He goes to sleep.
• Myself and Goodsmith have brought no camping supplies, typical city-slickers. He goes to bed in Tigerteeth's tent while Goodsmith sleeps in a nearby mossy divot and feels like she's freezing to death.

[Chaser Levels Up after the hunt! He takes a hit die and goes up to 7hp.]

We part from the hunters and continue our journey to Trilus...

• Goodsmith takes the Broos' lunar-bronze weapons: a great-axe, a hand-axe, and a mace. She also takes a skull... for crockery...
• On our second day of travel we pass by a Grand Hill of flint.
• On our third, we come to the edge of the Dog Hills, the plains beneath us.
• Goodsmith becomes increasingly ill from hunger, her diet limiting her options. I muse that the rest of the group are quite hypocritical: they lacks the conviction to follow a real god like Arroy, one that espouses restraint and asks for one to Not Do in her name, as opposed to the rest of the lot who invite endless plunder and murder for their "glory". This is why Chalana Arroy and the Black Fang are the only real gods, in that they are honest.
• On the fourth day, I get a chance to prove his name to the Company. Myself and Iorek the Clumsy stalk a herd of impala. Iorek is spotted yet herds the deer towards the black-clad hunter. He strikes with his longbow, shattering the legs of one with a single arrow. They rout away in panic, straight towards Iorek, who spears one and chases it down, sword in hand. A good hunt. The pelts go to Goodsmith who - while successful in gathering some seed-grapes - is in much need of warmth.
• Following the hunt, as we pass through the copses of the plains, we meet some Balazarian hunters, armed with dogs and bronze. The leader has a helm and scale-shirt, as well as a grass cape. The rest wear aprons and a red ribbon on the shield-bicep (a cult-mark). They are fighters of the King of Trilus and inform us that the ruler will expect a gift, suggesting that we offer him the pick of the weapon-loot. Yalaring is said to be a pragmatist, and ruler of the cleanest city in Balazar. It sounds nice...

Session 5

We approach the Hill-City of Trilus, nestled between the other peaks.

• The place is a stone citadel, much like Elkoi, but afflicted by several agglomerations. A rim of shanties and pig-pens have spread out around the walls like a ring of scum. Further yet, a huge Light-Bringer temple-complex clings to the hillside like an arrowhead stuck in a beast's back.
• We pass through a portal of cyclopean blocks of granite: the city gates. Even the citadel's barbican is clogged with shanties and workshops and butchers and lamp-makers and brewers. Sharp and bitter memories of Pavis touch my mind: I get the sense this place hasn't been sieged in some time.
• We are here to meet two folks: Yalaring, the ruler of this place, and Jof-Min the trade-priest. Yalaring comes first. We are escorted by guards under the Griffon-Guardian of the Inner Gate's lintel, past a meagre city-shrine to Trilus, and into the palace-complex. The king-dwelling is a maze of defensive chambers and training yards and pool-courtyards, cluttered with columns and friezes.

The audience hall is huge: there is twice as much history in this place as Elkoi, yet half the wealth....

• We are greeted by a young king to whom we perform supplications and offer our weapons. However, after some grunting and heaving a heavier and older man barges in: this is the true king Yalaring. He ushers his churlish son Yavin away. The man looks scarred by long times of battle. He asks us how many years he has passed. I suggest thirty-five. He retorts that he is twenty-nine. He is almost certainly, by my estimation, in his early forties.
• We tell him of the Broos being armed by the Lunars and offer him a pick of the weapon-loot. He orders his choice to be placed next to all the others... The King does however gaze with glorious eyes upon our Sable-Dagger. As a Great-Sable himself, he tells us that it is a certain honour to be granted one by the Little-Sables. He suggests we show it to Jof-Min, who very much appreciates the craftsmanship of such killing-tools and even collects the things while travelling Tarsh and trading with Sirial Endikar of Elkoi.
• Yalaring also tells us of the Chalana-Priest Doushy-Sone. I wonder why he does not partake of her services: the king is clearly afflicted by some foe-wound or other. It does not take much prying for him to offer explanation of the plight's origin...
• He speaks of the occasion of his killing of a most dire chaos-beast: a Wolf-Bat-Scorpion that possessed three snapping heads, which melted when he struck the killing blow. The blight's stinger-tail is apparently the source of his consumption.
• We ply him for his thoughts on the subject of his eastern neighbour. The ruler believes his rival-peer in Dykene to be "alright". Skilful's city is rife with Yalamarian Sun-Worshippers, insufferable sorts who are soon to afflict Elkoi with their pilgrimage-festival in Elkoi.
• We - as a final point of order - inquire about the Trilus-Shrine we saw. Apparently the figure was one of the three citadel-founders of Balazar. Trilus is tasked with keeping the pigs fat, even if swine no longer graze the grounds within the city walls. Apparently the hero died on a mountain-side overlooking the city, though none are sure which.

With our audience concluded my party spreads out across the city to ply our various trades.

• I attend the Red Bear inn, supposedly a shady place. It quickly becomes clear that the Lunar owner - Regus Whitehand - runs a very typical sleeping-house, and that the place's reputation is entirely earned by his own origin (according to him the citadel's other inn is the city's Thief-Den). I find it hard to care about the veteran's plight ("I was in Pavis when we took that jewel into the empire"; "I was there too..."). I make some passing insinuations and threats, though soon ditch the Moon-Scum.
• My companion Goodsmith the Rank spends a considerable time washing herself with well-water as to not blacken the ablution pool before entering the Temple-Complex. She makes fast friends with Doushy, a former slave from Peloria, and together they lament the decline of Tarsh's beauty under the Empire's heel. My mendicant offers wise words: "no place is truly beautiful unless one is free to behold it..."
• Iorek, likewise entering the Complex, makes an acquaintance in Zix, a Sartarian Travel-Fighter and fellow Red-Woman. She complains of her rather soft-husband, who is soon understood to be Jof-Min, the Trade-Priest of Isarys (and our potential sponsor)! The man himself is still two nights from town though his wife knows he plans to run a caravan to Elkoi for the Late-Season. She also complains about one of her spawn, apparently a loathsome city-blighter like their father: he runs Trilus' first inn, the Stuck Pig. The rest are apparently of good maternal stock however and have swiftly become the ankle-biters of ogres.

Though enough of these Light-Folks...

• As the moon-tint tinges the horizon, I progress to the Stuck Pig with excitement and haste. I have never known a town where both inns are clean of crime. As I enter I am drawn by harp-song to the table of some well-dressed raconteur and his coin-fed-lover.
• I remember very little of what follows, though I find myself less than an hour later lightened of both my pockets and my stomach's contents. I have lost more coin-wealth than most will ever see in their lives.
• In my stupor my cat almost scarpers from my breast-sling as I clean his fur of spew. The dire tone of the situation strikes me as I am hit by the heart-threat that I would have compulsively fallen upon my own sword had my clawed companion escaped. I resolve to never allow myself to be wronged by such swinder-scum again. In that moment, I weep for the miles between myself and Pavis, my rubble-mother.
• Meanwhile, Doushy treats Goodsmith to a bath: "consider yourself, for this evening, to be the healed and not the healer". She is fed buttered toast and honeyed tea as her priest provides her with a fresh set of initiate's robes while also initiating her into the nuanced love-webs of the Temple-Complex: "Jof and Zix in the robing chamber... oh it was most salacious... though not to mention the look on Dim's face... and so on".

Session 6

Goodsmith and Iorek stumble upon a foul-smelling black pile upon the floor. That poor, pitiable pile was me...

• My companions hatch a plan to reclaim my possessions and then some (apparently to purchase supplies for our band).
• Goodsmith scouts out the Stuck Pig and asks the proprietor about the woman of ill-repute who stole from me, claiming that she needs to deliver a wart-soothing poultice. The beer-seller is Dim-Min, a tattoo of Isarys down his inner arm. He confesses that he is unsure of her location but does note that Arup the Silver-Stringed Bard (apparently a friend of his father) is lodging upstairs but probably off at the Red Bear currently. As further compensation he offers a place in the communal room to Goodsmith for free and promises any further Lightbringer companions half-prices.
• Following this, we head to the Red Bear. I note that the guards would love a chance to meddle in the Lunar's business, but Goodsmith the bleeding-heart denies this chance to stir up anti-Lunar sentiment.

Iorek goes in. There he is. The foul one...

• Long and delicate hair... Drooping blonde moustache.... White-and-blue checker tunic... One leg up on the table as he plucks away... Oh I hate him I hate him I hate him.
• He self-aggrandizes over his knowledge of old folk stories. "Here's a song about how Balazar fought in the Dragon-Killer War for the Sun-King! Tell me, do you know the Dragon-Killer War?"; "The one where we killed the Dragons?"; "Oh you are mistaken!". Blech.
• Iorek procures him. Arup apparently considers her quite the "libidinal type" and quite lucky, given her predilections, to be in the "lasciviously liberal" company of the Lunars! The man selling him that dog-ale personally pillaged Pavis!
• We learn from Arup that the girl has gone home. She's named for fecund Arytha. "She's not working tonight. In fact she's knocked it on the head... she's made quite a score... she's got kids you know!". Though the lech does suggest that Iorek hangs around the hero-shrine at this time of night if she desireth company and medicine.

We follow the bard's lead to the statue-shrine of Trilus, just below the rocky escarpment on which the palace sits...

• Iorek and Goodsmith raconteur. An annoying man with shitty stubble passes around spirits: "Try it. It's Fire-Water". "Oh! What a waste! That's strong enough to be medicinal!". He's a busy-body for Yalaring called Banari.
• Despite Goodsmith's chiding, we learn that Arytha lives in the western tenements, just four doors down from the Stuck Pig, on the right. The Chalana-Woman becomes increasingly incensed by this fool's poking and prodding, learning through further screeching that his 'Aqua-Vitae' is smuggled into the city by Regus Whitemane of the Red Bear.
• Meanwhile, Iorek goes off to carouse with the shrine's "petitioners". Apparently the Hunting-Master in Balazar lives here: Walani Oakbow, who once skewered an elk between the eyes from beyond the horizon line.

We hope our trail has reached an end as we approach the tenements. People sit on the doorstep chatting and hanging washing...

• We ask an old woman in the central staircase who kindly points us to the Virtuous one.
• I grow worried. This seems like quite a nice and close-knit community, full of people who watch out for each other. Most unlike Pavis, and therefore most poor for crime. Though it does make sense to learn that she herself is also from Pavis! Oh the sheer tragedy of it all... To be robbed by my own compatriot...
• We hear her singing a lullaby as we knock on her door. She answers the door in a white robe and red stole.
• Immediately Goodsmith launches into another rant about Arytha's misuse of medicine: "you Lightbringers have only just arrived at this place and you're already acting like the guards..."
• Regardless, the woman claims the bard has the money. Iorek threatens her, and in response she brings out her child. She sneers at me as I cower in the stairwell. I could throw up once more but match her glare: she almost certainly had a bigger role in this than she's letting on but I don't judge her a complete liar.
• We attempt to part on amicable grounds... The love-seller confesses that she picks her daze-drug from the slopes of the citadel's rear walls. Arytha erupts: "she was trained in herb-craft by the Arythans of Pavis and she uses it for this!? You abusing your knowledge! Your position! You could have been a healer like me!". Arytha retorts: "only one of us is abusing her position right now, with that thug behind you..."

With that chance for reconciliation squandered we finally - and I mean finally - return to the Stuck Pig.

• Iorek goes to talk to Dim but is distracted by a huge-armed beast of a woman. Tailed by her flunkies she boasts to the red-woman some dribble about shooting an elk that was so far away she couldn't even see it... Iorek kindly lets her down for the evening before turning back to the beer-man.
• Dim states plainly that he "is a Trader" before pointedly rolling up his sleeve to reveal the scale-bearer. We bribe him for Arup's key.
• Iorek and I let ourselves into his room. The runt is snoring. He got back from the Bear drunk, stripped, and collapsed straight into bed. In his pocket is my coin-pouch.
• I grease his room-chest's hinges before slipping my grabby little fingers inside. I rifle through his clothes and take his own loot-purse as well as a fine weapon he had stashed: a leaf-bladed cast-handle bronze sword with a sheet-metal scabbard. I hand it to the red-haired weapon-pervert before going to grab his instrument but the hypocrite threatens to wake him up.
• Back downstairs, we use one of my most dearly-missed gold coins to pay for a private room (with added discretion from Dim) as well as a round of drinks for Walaki's crew.

All in all, thirty-two gold coins and three silvers (not counting the sword). Altogether, we make twenty-eight gold from the venture, twenty-one of which is returned to me. I wince. In a single day I lost my whole life-wealth, comforted only by the stinging balm that I retrieved just half of it.