Harald Smith discovered RuneQuest (1978) and the world of Gloranthan in its early days, back when Chaosium still published Wyrms Footnotes magazine (1976-1982). Five years on, in 1987, he opted to start his own campaign. He was interested in the Lunar Empire, but wanted somewhere with its own traditions, so he wouldn't get gregged. That suggested the provinces of Holay or Imther. Holay had corn, while Imther was much more interesting with its dwarves, mines, and mountains. So Imther it was, which also offered a nice connection to Griffin Mountain (1981), a book that Smith owned.

However, the background material that Smith had to work with from Griffin Mountain was scant. It mentioned the date of the Lunar Empire's conquest of Imther, and the fact that there were farmers, herders, and miners within th ekingdom. That was pretty much it, though Smith also had the history of the Lunar Empire in Wyrms Footnotes to provide some more general info on the Lunars. Even Glorantha: Genertela, Crucible of the Hero Wars (1988) would only add a few sentences when it appeared. Nontheless, Smith built a Kingdom and a campaign from those scant references and his imagination.

The Imther Campaign lasted for ten years, through 1997, split into two parts. The first half was the "Earthwielder Saga" where a set of scoundrels settled in the city of Hortugarth and eventually came to quest for a set of four artifacts belonging to the eponymous Earthwielder. Due to the lack of Heroquesting rules at the time, that subcampaign came to an end, to be replaced by "The Founding of Amber Fort", a colony on the Elf Sea, which Smith detailed as "The Imther Campaign" in New Lolon Gospel #2 (1996).

Early on, Smith had a conspirator in his continued development of the Kingdom of Imther: James Polk. But his creative coterie grew even more at the first US RuneQuest-Con (1994), which was a pivotal event for the Glorantha Tribe because it brought together so many for the first time ever. That was true for Harald Smith, who attended and met (among others) Mike Dawson and Martin Crim. Crim soon joined Polk and Smith in working on Imther background. After Smith finally got internet access in March 1994, some of that Imtherian background then began to appear on Henk Langeveld's RuneQuest Daily (1993-1994) and afterward in the Glorantha Digest (1994-2005).

Meanwhile, Smith's connection to Dawson led to his first publication. Dawson was looking for content for Codex #3 (Winter 1995) and Smith ended up turning it into a "Imther Feature" by offering multiple articles on the Lunar province. Dawson said he was pleased to debut Smith to a "non-electronic audience" for the RQ-Con 2 release (1995), but as it turns out Smith published his own 'zine, New Lolon Gospel #1 (January 1995), at the same convention! New Lolon Gospel was the fourth RuneQuest fanzine of the era.

(Why "New Lolon Gospel"? Harald was thinking about classic titles such as the "Jonstown Compendium" and "Notes for Nochet" and decided to create a periodical with his own city-based name. He'd seen "New Lolon" as one of just two Imther cities identified in the Dragon Pass board game, and decided it was a great choice. As for "Gospel", that suggested both "truth" and religion to Smith, and he thought those was perfect for the world of Glorantha.)

But the New Lolon Gospel was just part of the picture. It was meant to contain the in-world information you wouldn't necessarily find in a gaming supplement, like details on Imtherian food and folk tales. It was meant to supplement actual gaming books that Smith was already working on, which were intended to be published as part of Avalon Hill's "RuneQuest Renaissance". There were two: "Edge of Empire" on the kingdom of Imther and "Winds of Deception" on the city of Hortugarth. Avalon Hill signed a contract for their publication in 1996.

What no one knew at the time was that the Renaissance that had led off so hopefully with Sun County (1992) had already come to an end with Lords of Terror (1994) and Strangers in Pass (1994). When Chaosium rejected Smith's two books in 1997, because they'd decided to bring Glorantha back home, it was simply an acknowledgement of that fact. Meanwhile New Lolon Gospel came to a premature end as well. #3 had been planned as an issue on "Magical Ecology", #4 on the Imtherian military and the Civil War, and #5 on the Conquering Daughter and the Daughter's Road. Though they would never appear, a few additional articles by Smith on Imther (or the nearby province of Vanch) appeared in other magazines such as Tales of the Reaching Moon (1989-2003) and Enclosure (1997-1998). But that was it for many years.

Harald's two manuscript had perhaps an even more miserable path over the next several years. First, Avalon Hill announced in 1997 that Smith would be revising them without the Gloranthan content. But, the RuneQuest line was never revived and Avalon Hill was sold to Hasbro on August 4, 1998. Then, Issaries produced a new Gloranthan RPG, Hero Wars (2000), and a new fanzine appeared for the game system called The Unspoken Word (2001-2004). "Edge of Empire" was planned as the fifth-or-so issue of that zine and was converted to Hero Wars as a result ... but The Unspoken Word shut down before it was published.

Fortunately, there was finally a happy ending 25(!) years later. After a new Chaosium produced a new RuneQuest (2018), they also launched the Jonstown Compendium, allowing fans to produce high-quality PDF and PODs through DTRPG. This allowed (at last) the publication of Edge of Empire (2022) as a handsome 224-page hardcover POD (and as a 224-page PDF, handsome in its own way).

About the Organization

This index focuses on the content of the two issues of New Lolon Gospel (much of which appears in the "Cults & Myths" section). However, this index also includes Harald Smith's other writings (and seminars) on Imther and Vanch from the time period. The following six zines and convention books are referenced:

• Codex #3 (cod3: Winter 1995)
• New Lolon Gospel #1 (nlg1: January 1995)
• The RQ-Con 2 Compendium (rqc2c: January 1996)
• New Lolon Gospel #2 (nlg2: February 1996)
• Tales of the Reaching Moon #16 (trm16: May 1997)
• Enclosure #2 (enc2: May 1998)

See the individual indices for Codex and Tales of the Reaching Moon for the rest of the contents of those zines.

Obtaining the Magazines

New Lolon Gospel was a small-press magazine from the '90s, printed in small quantities. (The original print-run of the first issue was 150, but it appears to have seen some reprinting.) It had light cardstock covers and spiral binding, which probably has resulted in a lot of copies being lost to the ravages of time. It rarely shows up in auctions, and so is very hard to obtain. Consider this index mainly a historical reference and an insight into Edge of Empire.

This index is © Copyright 2024 by Shannon Appelcline. It is released under a cc-by-4.0 license, allowing reuse with attribution. Map background is courtesy of Chaosium, used per their fan material policy.