The Whispering Flowers of Lorthing Vale

Runequest / Glorantha Scenario by Jonstown Compendium / Chaosium

The Whispering Flowers of Lorthing Vale is an adventure for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is set in Sartar, near Jonstown in the lands of the Cinsina and Culbrea tribes, going through the territory of the Greenhaft, Lorthing and Mathiording clans.

The adventure takes place after the Dragonrise and Starbrow’s Rebellion: the Lunar Empire has left Sartar, and the tribes and clans are restless and Argrath is on the move.

The year and season of the adventure is left for you to decide to best fit with your existing campaign.

The core of the adventure is a quest for information and tracking down a specific person. As such it can be a straightforward story that travels through the terrain of the Lorthing Vale.

You can easily modify it by dropping some of the encounters if you want to run it in a single session, or just let it breathe to run over the course of more than one.

The adventurers are set a task by Gavolt, a Grey Sage, as repayment of a favour their cult owes the Lhankor Mhy temple.

They are to locate a young girl, Sia, and return her to the temple of Lhankor Mhy in Jonstown. It is known that Sia is somewhere in the Lorthing Vale: she is a shepherd that knows the area well.

On their travels in the Lorthing Vale, the adventurers should also gather what information they can on the ‘whispering flowers’, which have been rumored to be appearing in the vale.

They should act with discretion and not let it be widely known that they are working on behalf of Gavolt or the temple of Lhankor Mhy.

Find and retrieve a young girl? How hard can that be…?

Gamemasters:

The Grey Sages have been brought news that there are some strange flowers appearing in the vale, flowers that somehow whisper and cause those that listen to lose their minds. The flowers have been appearing for a few weeks now, in no set pattern or place, all over the vale. The Grey Sages suspect the flowers are somehow being used by the Seven Mothers to gather information, perhaps to allow a Lunar disruption of the next sacred ritual at the Hill of Orlanth Victorious.

The adventurers should try to gather as much information as possible on the whispering flowers while they are in the vale and collect some flowers if they come across them.

One of the Grey Sages, Gavolt, believes that Sia has something to do with the flowers though he’s not sure what. He also has reason to believe she may not be all she appears to be, but until he gets to meet and speak with her, he cannot say more.

There is of course more going on than the Grey Sages are aware of, and the White Moon have an interest in Sia and are trying to locate her for their own ends.

The Grey Sage, Gavolt Three-corners, has this to say about the Lorthing Vale:

“Since the Dragonrise and the Rebellion many things have changed, and yet many remain the same.

The tribes and clans have become restless, each looking to reopen and settle old scores now they are free of the Lunar oppression.

Have they lost sight of the fact that the Lunar Empire will not forget the uprising?

Things are moving in the wider world that all within Sartar needs to be aware of: Argrath has great ambitions!

And yet there are still things closer to home we should be paying attention to. The ‘whispering flowers’ among them.

What are they, where do they come from, what is their purpose and how does a young shepherd girl fit in with them, if at all?

Yes, we should have one eye on the wider realm, perhaps on Argrath especially, but we should also keep an eye on things right outside our window!

We must all do what we can to gather information and use it for the greater good.

And to this end, the temple of Lhankor Mhy has called for the help of those best equipped to be out in the wide world in these times of turmoil.”

The Whispering Flowers of Lorthing Vale is available through DriveThruRPG in PDF.

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