I’ve covered old school RuneQuest, the RPG inspired by Greg Stafford’s wargames set in his fantasy world of Glorantha, so let us turn to the most recent iteration of the game, Chaosium’s RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

This books is a goddamn masterpiece. Like the latest permutation of the Call of Cthulhu rules, the new RQ accomplishes the onerous task of updating a classic system (read: old, complicated, difficult for modern audiences, yet with legions of resolute partisans enamored of it) into something that is optimized for contemporary players while keeping the flavor of the original intact, and it does it with both skill and style.

Go ahead, flip through the illustrations. Tell me that the art team, particularly Andrey Fetisov, haven’t managed to create something that looks mysterious and intriguing and new while also somehow echoing a recognizable past (both historically and in the context of the visual language of fantasy RPGs). I am betting you can’t. And even if you can, I don’t care: I’m deeply in love with the new look of RuneQuest.

It is a hefty book, but it makes the vast store of Glorantha’s historical and cultural development manageable in game context. Centered in Dragon Pass, an elaborate character history generator roots players in the world while conveying a basic knowledge of the world. As the game progresses and characters become more involved in their cults and tribes, the act of “leveling up” in effect teaches the players the additional information they need to know. Exploring Glorantha can be an overwhelming prospect, but the systems of RQ7 carve off thin slices of the world for players to digest at a measured pace.

I don’t honestly know how involved Stafford was in designing the nuts and bolts of the system, but that is a bit beside the point. This is the perfect system for exploring the world of Glorantha and I can think of no better monument.