In which Berra, small but spiky GM, talks about re-writing a classic.
After the publication of Stone and Bone, I went straight into a new project, which was kindly supplied to me as a ready-made manuscript, by Pookie, a longtime tribe member. He had found out that the original authors of Jorthan’s Rescue were happy to have it updated and reprinted, and asked whether I could do it. Nobody’s arm got bitten off, although I was pretty eager. I updated the maps, and asked a few questions about stat block calculation, and then did a lot of tweaking. Rajar – Dom – remembered the original, and was able to dig it up and find the painting credits. The artist let us use a small picture of the original cover of the White Dwarf magazine, and I commissioned Kris to do a new cover, with troll art on it. A few weeks later, Jorthan’s Rescue Redux was ready.
The interesting thing about this scenario is that it plays with trolls doing what is expected of humans; asking money for safe return. The sum they ask is wrong for the man they have captured, but it makes trolls very much part of the ebb and flow of Sartar and Glorantha, and even the decision to use violence is a very Gloranthan one. This work is one of the reasons that all of my trolls have a ransom. For a trollkin it is a handful of bolgs. For a Lead Lord, it is several times their own weight in lead, or a significant amount of food, enough to feast a family for a year.
It was a pleasure to work with Pookie on this, and I’m happy that this old classic saw light again. Jorthan’s Rescue Redux is not part of the Beer With Teeth line, because other people did the actual writing… but I’m still proud of the fact it’s out there.
