Anaxial’s Roster is the 255-page bestiary for the world of Glorantha and is one of the core books for Issaries, Inc.’s
Hero Wars, a.k.a. the successor to Chaosium’s
RuneQuest. Unlike supplements such as the
Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual, however,
Anaxial’s Roster is much more deeply rooted to a specific world. While this makes it perhaps less useful as a generic bestiary that can be used anywhere, it leaves the authors more freedom to tie over 300 animals, monsters and other creatures to Glorantha’s varied mythologies and cultures.
The connection to Glorantha carries even to the title of the supplement, named for “Anaxial’s Ark,” a flood myth akin to a strikingly familiar Biblical story, but as typical with Glorantha, its own peculiar twist. Anaxial’s story also sets a framework for a classification system and taxonomy for the many beasts: each of the chapters is organized so that they correspond with the appropriate deck of the ark. That is, flying beasts lived on the top deck of the ark and so are described in the first chapter. Each chapter moves down through each deck, covering in turn domesticated creatures, wild prey animals, wild predators, earth creatures; the bottom deck is reserved for aquatic creatures.
The second half of the book contains entries for creatures who did not remain on Glorantha because of the ark, but are nonetheless survivors of the great flood: the Elder Races, gigantic creatures, true monsters such as dragons (the size of a mountain range in Glorantha), and unnatural or Chaotic creatures. The final chapters describe otherworld entities such as daimones (children of the gods), essences (elementals, or entities from the realm of sorcery), embodied and otherworld spirits, demons (entities from the underworld), and finally, unusual entities that do not fall into any other category.
Anaxial’s Roster rounds out many of the rulebook elements that were left out of its companion volume,
Glorantha, Introduction to the Hero Wars. If
Glorantha gave an overview of the world in broad historical and mythological strokes, Anaxial’s Roster fills in the rules gaps for the many of the creatures described in the other supplement.
The real value of
Anaxial’s Roster, however, is the legends surrounding each entry. For example, in one of the stranger bits of turnabout in one corner of the world, large intelligent tapir-like beings known as the Morokanth, herd bestial, unintelligent, creatures called Gern, who look remarkably like humans. When the god Waha held games of chance to see who would herd beasts for food, the Morokanth won their toss of the bones, and so instead of being herded by humans, became the herders. Depending on who is telling the story, of course, the Morokanth were lucky or cheated.
Each entry has an associated story like this, and so when introduced to the game, there’s a lot more character and background to go on than plain statistics and biological notes. In addition to each entry, scattered throughout are more lengthy myths, similar to the introductory Anaxial’s Ark. One of the most poignant is the love story of Vrimak, god the Upper Air and Arvania, goddess of the Earth, and how they created the many birds of Glorantha despite the calling of their opposing natures. Also useful are a number of narrator aids: “What is Dragon Magic?” and “An Aldryami [Elf] Shaman’s Grove” are typical examples.
Anaxial’s Roster shows great improvement in layout in contrast to the
Hero Wars core rules and to
Glorantha, Introduction to the Hero Wars. The typos are under control this time, and the layout and callouts are much more logical, readable and consistent throughout. The index is a welcome addition, and the book comes in trade paperback format, which makes for easy carrying. Unfortunately, the art is only average and the base font used in the earlier supplements is still present – it’s not any easier to read than the last time. An encouraging sign is that more recent supplements from Issaries (e.g., Orlanth Is Dead!) are using more readable fonts.
The closest comparison to
Anaxial’s Roster for RuneQuest 3 aficionados would be the
Creatures Book from the
RuneQuest Deluxe Edition and the
Gloranthan Bestiary. In a nutshell those supplements boast sharper layout, higher quality art and handier play-aids (in the
Gloranthan Bestiary, it’s the mini-map of Glorantha illustrating the distribution areas for each creature). Those supplements lack the world detail of
Anaxial’s Roster, however, and are much more stat heavy and dry. The
Gloranthan Bestiary in particular seems to focus more on rare, infrequently encountered creatures than does
Anaxial’s Roster.
Anaxial’s Roster is a definitive step forward for
Hero Wars, although Issaries can still improve both the accessibility of the material to newcomers as well as their layout standards. For Gloranthan fans, the supplement has some excellent material that has not been published previously.
RuneQuest loyalists may not find the rules attractive, but the background material is still useful. Players looking for a generic set of beasties can find material here as well, but are hereby forewarned of Gloranthan-specific ties, which may or may not translate well elsewhere.
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