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Long Awaited
Under the Red Moon details the religion at the heart of the theocratic Lunar Empire. In the past this has been something of a hole in the Gloranthan material available, partly plugged by fan publications and Unfinished Works.
It is also the first release of HeroQuest material from Moon Design, which has taken over publication, leaving Issaries as a vehicle for Intellectual Property. This book is the first sign of what we can expect from this relationship.
Religion and Empire
The first three chapters are short. The first is mainly concerned with a Gloranthan-eyed view of the Moon and the Glowline The second is about how the Lunars fit into their Empire, and includes several new keywords (mainly Occupations). The third deals with the organisations that run the religion and the Empire. Only the second chapter contains any system-specific material (the keywords) and even that may be of some use to people using other systems.
The Lunar Way
This chapter resembles those on the different magic systems in HeroQuest.. It includes both the basics of the game mechanics of the magic (mainly in terms of existing rules). This is necessary because the magic of the Lunar Religion is a blending of the three different systems presented in the main HeroQuest rules. Because the Lunar religion is distinct new terms are used for it in place of terms like "Initiate", "Practitioner" or "Liturgist".
The Lunar Way is something of a magical pyramid scheme. As with Wizardry, power is passed up a chain starting from the ordinary worshippers all the way to the Goddess. But there is a difference - those near the top of the chain can become gods themselves. True, this was a possibility for theists in the original HeroQuest rules, but the Lunar way makes it easier.
Illumination
The original idea of Illumination goes back to RQ2 days. This is a new and more interesting treatment, dealing with Illumination in terms of mysticism rather than simply as a source of "kewl powerz". And now Illumination has a downside - the risk of Occlusion. Those who fail to integrate the insights of Illumination - either at their initial examination or later revelations encountered in their lives - go mad. It is possible for those who survive to regain a measure of sanity and become Illuminated again, but it is difficult.
The Lunar Calendar
Another short chapter This has a short description of the special and Holy days in the Empire. 5 pages are devoted to a complete yearly calendar, which could be photocopied as an aid to monitoring time in a campaign.
The Immortals
This is the real meat of the book. More than 50 pages - nearly half the book - are devoted to listing the religions and Gods of the Lunar pantheon. Some of them are rewritten or more detailed versions of material that appeared elsewhere (e.g Jakaleel) . Others are new, at least so far as official gaming oriented material goes - (e,g, Fjordaur, God of Holy Murder) - and there are a lot of them. Some are short listings, not even giving details of magic (in many cases - perhaps all - the god offers none). Others take pages, with subcults or Hero Cults included in the listings.
One of the more important changes is the use of the new magic rules. Yanafal Tarnils was listed as having Combat Soldier and Warlord Affinities in earlier books (Yanafal Tarnils was one of the cults given a minimal writeup, just a name, role and list of affinities). The full writeup here has spells in place of the Soldier affinity and spirit-equivalents in place of the combat feats. Yanafal Tarnils worshippers can use the advantages of all three types of magic, making them potentially very dangerous.
Not all of them are suitable for a typical player character. As with the earlier Heortling material there are gods whose role is mainly domestic. Others are fairly specialised. On the whole this is a good thing as it expands the possibilities for campaigns and provides gods that NPCs might follow.
Presentation
Early pictures of the cover seemed a bit disappointing. Fortunately it is one of those pictures that don't work so well below a certain size - the thumbnail sized images didn't work but the printed version is fine. Internal illustrations are variable - and I recognised several of them from earlier publications.
On a more practical note there is a decent-sized index, which is always a good thing. And the different chapters are distinguished by the runes in the shaded sidebars. I'm not sure that this is useful - putting a shaded bar at different levels in the different chapters might have helped identify the chapters with the book closed. And I'm not sure that many people will memorise the runes. However it looks OK on the page and doesn't hurt.
Conclusion
Obviously this is an essential purchase for anyone interested in playing in the "official" Lunar Empire using HeroQuest. It has obvious use for any HeroQuest games where the Lunar Empire has a significant presence. Much of the material is not game-specific so those who don't play HeroQuest for playing in Glorantha should still be able to get a good deal of the value out of the book. Even the game-specific parts are likely to be of some use - as conversion guides, for instance.
