combatdroid113
Mongoose
Someone please explain hero questing to me in simple terms? Sorry i cant seem to get it through my head
Help an old fool
- Thread starter combatdroid113
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Dr_Snugglebunny
Mongoose
You ritually enter the realm of your/other god's myths and retread their steps. If you do well in their shoes, you return to the mortal world with new benefits appropriate to the myth. If not, Bad Things will happen to you (or your clan etc).
Your success generally depends on how well you emulate your god, although there is normally some wiggle room and the God learners have found ways to stretch that wiggle room.
Your success generally depends on how well you emulate your god, although there is normally some wiggle room and the God learners have found ways to stretch that wiggle room.
weasel_fierce
Mongoose
with the god learners, it seems the wiggle room has become a full blown soccer stadium, complete with PA and a guy selling hot dogs
GianniVacca
Mongoose
combatdroid113 said:
If you can get hold of the HeroQuest rolegame, it has a pretty long chapter about heroquesting, with a sample gaming session involving a heroquest.
My understanding is as follows (but I might be wrong, I've never played a heroquest neither as a GM nor as a player):
- the PCs find a sacred place relevant to the myth they want to re-enact
they pass through the gate to the Hero Plane
each PC plays the role of one of the actors of the myth
My personal idea (which I am going to experiment in my campaign) is to GM these minor heroquests much like a PlaneScape adventure: the PCs go through a gate, have a mission, do what they have to do, come back through the gate..
Any comments?
Heroquesting.
What makes the whole thing weird is that you can be heroquesting, re-enacting a myth, smiting a ritual enemy, etc, while outside observers just see you running around in the mundane world, acting a bit strangely (qv Biturian Varosh's encounter with Rurik in the story in Cults of Prax). Also, while in said mundane world, you act as a kind of magnet for other heroquesters (or even random passers by) who fit you particular story and get drawn into it (the Orlanthi Summons of Evil heroquest/ritual comes to mind).
One can visualise a heroquest as being a journey to the other side by powerful people and/or as a bit of amateur dramatics performed by a village holy man and his gang, all dressed up in an attempt to look like their gods. Either way, participants end up gaining tangible benefits for themselves of their communities (if they are successful).
Somebody mentioned on this list that a school Nativity play was a kind of heroquest: people (usually children) dressed up in home-made costumes, re-enacting a religious story. Believers who participate gain a sense or unity with their religion (or something) and a warm inner glow in seeing their kids acting out the roles on stage. If the God Learners put on a Nativity play they would charge the audience an entrance fee, keep the profits for themselves and steal the children's sweets.
Enough.
Andrew W
What makes the whole thing weird is that you can be heroquesting, re-enacting a myth, smiting a ritual enemy, etc, while outside observers just see you running around in the mundane world, acting a bit strangely (qv Biturian Varosh's encounter with Rurik in the story in Cults of Prax). Also, while in said mundane world, you act as a kind of magnet for other heroquesters (or even random passers by) who fit you particular story and get drawn into it (the Orlanthi Summons of Evil heroquest/ritual comes to mind).
One can visualise a heroquest as being a journey to the other side by powerful people and/or as a bit of amateur dramatics performed by a village holy man and his gang, all dressed up in an attempt to look like their gods. Either way, participants end up gaining tangible benefits for themselves of their communities (if they are successful).
Somebody mentioned on this list that a school Nativity play was a kind of heroquest: people (usually children) dressed up in home-made costumes, re-enacting a religious story. Believers who participate gain a sense or unity with their religion (or something) and a warm inner glow in seeing their kids acting out the roles on stage. If the God Learners put on a Nativity play they would charge the audience an entrance fee, keep the profits for themselves and steal the children's sweets.
Enough.
Andrew W
aww900 said:
I think their is only true-
(a) If you're realy performing a high powered ritual rather than a heroquest as such, or
(b) You're on the mundane-world leg of a heroquest in which you will physicaly pass into the otherworld, which was the case for Rurik IIRC.
Nativity plays are rituals, not heroquests which are often quite dangerous. Ritualy induced trance states in which fervent believers send themselves into violent, ecstatic fits are probably closer to the mark.
Dr_Snugglebunny
Mongoose
Reading some of Joseph Campbell's books is a good way to get ideas for structuring Heroquests too.
I always thought Heroquesting was a ritual, and Ritual enactment went hand in glove with heroquesting, whether on the hero plane or on the mundane plane. The same out comes occur just the magnitudes are changed/lessened.
Is shooting of through the Gates of Dawn really traditional Heroquesting... it sounds like normal adventuring not tinkering with Myth, as you're writing a new path rather than re-using an old one...
Anywhere 20 or so kids are gathered on stage is dangerous
ninthcouncil
Mongoose
Though at least, even if Mary drops the baby Jesus doll on its head and the 3 Kings have a fight with the shepherds, it doesn't mean you get no crops next year!Exubae said:Anywhere 20 or so kids are gathered on stage is dangerous
Exubae said:
I think one difference is that in a ritual you invoke otherworld powers to affect the world, but in a heroquest you travel to the otherworld yourself. I'm not sure how rigorous that definition is, but for a practical point of view in terms of the game that's how I see it.
Both are heroquests, it's just that striking out on a new or unknown path is even more suicidaly dangerous that any other form of heroquesting. However, this is how new heroquests are discovered.
simonh said:
I didn't think that there was such a clear division between acting out a story or ritual and going to the god/hero plane on a heroquest. It is just a difference in intensity. I imagine the mundane acting and the heroplane questing to occur simultaneously and the more power invested in the ritual, the more the ritual 'actually' takes place on the hero plane. At high levels, the participants are almost entirely in the hero plane and cannot be affected by the mundane world until the finish their quest. In Glorantha, the mythical and mundane worlds are intertwined and I don't think that there should be a clear boundary between the two.
This is in my personal Glorantha, of course. YGMV.
These are far from orthodox but might help:
http://www.indexo.pionexnet.co.uk/wimp/roleplaying/heroquests.html
- (Neil says intelligent things)
http://www.eiderweb.net/firetribe/episode21b.html
- (A HQ we ran [playing HQ, not RQ] - tell the story, then characters re-enact it and hopefully things don´t go according to plan. When it starts to feel like you are just repeating the story, mess the whole thing up and forget the rules (as Neil says). We had everyone enact the role of one goddess all together, so as to leave no-one behind*. The quest was successful but we are still coping with the consequences of the duck going and asking Orlanth or someone for wings, i.e. things going off-track.)
http://www.geocities.com/bernuetz/stories.html
- (Oliver´s list of myths)
Sam.
* Edit: Except for the one actual worshipper of the relevant goddess, her being an NPC and all.
http://www.indexo.pionexnet.co.uk/wimp/roleplaying/heroquests.html
- (Neil says intelligent things)
http://www.eiderweb.net/firetribe/episode21b.html
- (A HQ we ran [playing HQ, not RQ] - tell the story, then characters re-enact it and hopefully things don´t go according to plan. When it starts to feel like you are just repeating the story, mess the whole thing up and forget the rules (as Neil says). We had everyone enact the role of one goddess all together, so as to leave no-one behind*. The quest was successful but we are still coping with the consequences of the duck going and asking Orlanth or someone for wings, i.e. things going off-track.)
http://www.geocities.com/bernuetz/stories.html
- (Oliver´s list of myths)
Sam.
* Edit: Except for the one actual worshipper of the relevant goddess, her being an NPC and all.
Using the detailed descriptions in the HeroQuest book, there are actually different levels of heroquest.
A 'practice quest' is the nativity play type activity, and what Rurik was doing in that chapter in Cults of Prax. It involves dressing up and engaging in various ritual activities here in the Mortal World. A practice quest and a magical ritual are basically the same thing, except the quest often involves travel. Opponents encountered on a practice quest will be ordinary mortal creatures: a Yelmalio heroquester going on the Hill of Gold quest might fight a dark troll, for example. Rewards are equivalent to those expected from any other magical ritual (for example, knowledge of a new spell).
A "proper" heroquest involves the participants leaving the Mortal World and travelling to the Hero Plane. An outside observer might see them dressing up and starting a ritual just like in a practice quest; but at some point they would fade from view, or pass through a portal, or otherwise vanish from the world. Opponents are also heroquesters: the Yelmalion will be fighting a troll hero of Zorak Zoran. Rewards are either permanent new powers for the hero, or a temporary (a few years) benefit for the hero's tribe or village.
A 'god quest' is the ultimate: it involves travelling not to the Hero Plane but to the God Plane. On such a quest the Yelmalion will be fighting Zorak Zoran in person. If he wins, he will permanently change the world. Only a handful of heroes have ever succeeded in god quests: Arkat and the Seven Mothers are examples.
A 'practice quest' is the nativity play type activity, and what Rurik was doing in that chapter in Cults of Prax. It involves dressing up and engaging in various ritual activities here in the Mortal World. A practice quest and a magical ritual are basically the same thing, except the quest often involves travel. Opponents encountered on a practice quest will be ordinary mortal creatures: a Yelmalio heroquester going on the Hill of Gold quest might fight a dark troll, for example. Rewards are equivalent to those expected from any other magical ritual (for example, knowledge of a new spell).
A "proper" heroquest involves the participants leaving the Mortal World and travelling to the Hero Plane. An outside observer might see them dressing up and starting a ritual just like in a practice quest; but at some point they would fade from view, or pass through a portal, or otherwise vanish from the world. Opponents are also heroquesters: the Yelmalion will be fighting a troll hero of Zorak Zoran. Rewards are either permanent new powers for the hero, or a temporary (a few years) benefit for the hero's tribe or village.
A 'god quest' is the ultimate: it involves travelling not to the Hero Plane but to the God Plane. On such a quest the Yelmalion will be fighting Zorak Zoran in person. If he wins, he will permanently change the world. Only a handful of heroes have ever succeeded in god quests: Arkat and the Seven Mothers are examples.
Here goes ....
HeroQuesting is a way to interact with the Myths of Glorantha in order to strengthen the Myths, weaken the Myths, change the Myths, destroy the Myths.
Some people have created new Myths through HeroQuesting. Orlanth performed a re-enactment of a Vadrus Myth to free Heler from the Blue Dragon, for instance, nicely creating a new myth for people to interact with. Gbaji cursed the Trolls by performing a HeroQuest where he tricked Kyger Litor into swallowing him, then eating his way out of her womb.
Most HeroQuesting is not as powerful as that, fortunately.
In a nutshell, without all the religious flimflam, what you do on a normal HeroQuest is:
1. You take a particular myth of your deity, or another deity but that is harder.
2. You perform a ritual to take you into the land of myth, normally the Otherworld, but it can take place in this world instead.
3. You then take the part of the deity, your companions take the part of the deity's companions and you re-enact the Myth.
4. The Myth is split up into different logical stages, called Stations.
5. You have to perform certain acts on each Station in order to emulate your deity's actions.
6. The better/closer you emulate the deity's actions, the better you are doijng on the HeroQuest.
7. When the HeroQuest has finished,you return to the normal world with the benefits/spoils/results of the HeroQuest.
That is all there is to a HeroQuest, really.
They get more interesting and complicated when you try and factor in the possible results of the HeroQuest, who is affected, who is opposing the HeroQuest and various other factors.
In the same way that you are playing the part of a deity, you will be opposed by other people like you, playing the parts of their deity. You may well find that you have met these people before, as you can quite easily get a number of HeroQuest Foes, who become tied to you in different roles. So, you fought Dagblad the Bad, on an Orlanthi HeroQuest ages ago, and every time you meet Zorak Zoran, that dastardly Dagblad keeps on turning up and trying to pund you into dust.
This can mean that a HeroQuest Foe can trick you into a HeroQuest when you are unprepared, by deliberately targetting you as a ritual foe. This is rare, but not overly so. You can also pull in your HeroQuest Foes into a HeroQuest in the same way.
The rewards you get from a HeroQuest depend on how you performk the HeroQuest, who is behind you and who you are performing the HeroQuest for. Normally, you know roughly what benefits you want from the HeroQuest before starting it.
Normally, if you do the Quest by yourself or with a small group, the benefits only affect you or your group. If youn do it with the backing of your clan or village, the benefits may well affect the whole clan or village. If you do it with the support of your whole cult, then the benefits affect the whole cult. Being supported by a nation benefits the entire nation.
Typical benefits from a successful HeroQuest might include:
1. Learning a new spell/skill
2. Gaining a permanent ability related to the Myth
3. Performing an impossible task
4. Gaining new allies
5. Healing a wound or removing a curse or a blight
6. Gaining a magical or special item
7. Gaining permission to do something normally forbidden by your cult
8. Becoming a Hero, Demigod or Deity
There are some general things that apply to most HeroQuests:
1. You will normally face foes of a similar power level to yourself.
2. You can become tied to others as HeroQuest Foes or HeroQuest Allies.
3. HeroQuests can fail as well as succeed.
4. You can get magical benefits or curses as a result of a HeroQuest.
5. HeroQuests for more than personal gain can result in the changing of the nature of a clan or nation.
6. HeroQuest Stations do not always go according to the HeroQuest script. They may be missed out, have different participants or give different benefits.
7. You may well succeed in a HeroQuest but come out cursed and beaten, or you may fail and come out blessed and unharmed.
In Gloranthan terms, every HeroQuest is a restatement of your faith in your deity and his actions in God Time. You do the HeroQuest to stregthen your deity's place in the world and to weaken his enemies. This means that if you deliberately fail a Quest or throw certain Stations then you are betraying your cult and deity. This is normally regarded as a Bad Thing.
What else?
Some people say you can't perform the same Quest more than once. I don't agree, personally. You can repeat the same Quest many times, every Sacred Time for instance, and get the same or different benefits from it.
Some people say you can't get out of the Quest that which you didn't take into the Quest. So, if you want a magical sword, you have to take a sword into the Quest in the first place. Once again, I don't agree. The terms of the HeroQuest dictate what is available on the HeroQuest. If you take a pair of magical sandals from Kyger Litor then you will be able to take the sandals worn by the Kyger Litor Priestess. So, I suppose she must have brought them into the Quest in the first place.
HeroQuests can be performed on several levels. The most common types are:
1. Practice Run HeroQuests
2. Holy Day Ceremonies
3. Sacred Time Ceremonies
4. Other Place Quests
5. Other Side Quests
1. Practice Run HeroQuests normally only benefit you or your companions and are the simplest HeroQuests to perform. They take place in the normal world and are ritual re-enactments of myths to get personal benefits. You might get a magical sword, a speaking herd beast, a wound healed, a beautiful wife or be able to kill an enemy on a Practice Run Quest. You won't be able to kill a deity or smash a mountain.
2. Holy Day Ceremonies are ritual re-enactments of Myths that take place on certain Holy Days. These are magically charged and can attract enemies who take part in the myths and defeat you. Bituran Varosh takes part in one of these when he helps the Priestesses of the Paps against some attacking trolls. If these go wrong, it can affect a whole temple and its congregation for a year.
3. Sacred Time Ceremonies take part in Sacred Time and are similar to Hold Day Ceremonies, except they normally affect entire communites, clans, tribes or nations. Everyone takes part in these and people try to put the world back together in the same way their deity did in the Godtime. This often involves a lot of danger, so Orlanthi sometimnes use the Summons of Evil to attract a dangerous foe so they can destroy it and ensure they aren't affected by the foe in the following year.
4. Other Place Quests take part in the very magical areas of Glorantha. So, someone HeroQuesting on Valind's Glacier, on the Moon, in Luathela, Vithela, in Magasta's Pool, in the Underworld, in the Sky World or on one of Orlanth's Cloud Castles are performing an Other Place Quest. The benefits on these Quests can be very large as they are taking place in the actual place of the Myth. Argrath performs an Other Place Quest when he defeats Kalikos on Valind's Glacier and sacks her Castle, bringing Winter to Sheng Seleris' Pentians in the Hero Wars.
5. Other Side Quests are the most powerful of the Quests as they try to change the myths of Godtime. How can you change a myth? Easily, you go in the GodTime, perform your HeroQuest and change what the deity actually did. The amount yopu manage to change it reflects the effect it has on the normal world afterwards. So, if you performed the Arming of Orlanth aqnd instead of giving him a sword, you gave him a Klanth instead, then you might have succeeded in Draconising Orlanth slightly. Of course, you would be under extreme pressure to give him a sword and, unless you were a powerful HeroQuestor, you might well be unable to give him a Klanth, or the Klanth you gave him becomes a Sword in his hands. Arkat, Gbaji, Nysalor, The Seven Mothers, Red Goddess and others have Quested on the Other Side and changed the Myths of the world, so don't let anyone say it is impossible. It is pretty difficult, though.
So, that's what HeroQuesting is, in my opinion. There's a lot more that could be said about it, though. For instance, you can do Experimental HeroQuesting, which involves changing the myths very slightly to subtly affect the outcome of the HeroQuest. So, Hon Eel appears in the High Hold Day celebrations of the Tarsh cult and proves herself to be worthy of inclusion, usurping the King and replacing him with his son and heir. Argrath's Trickster used a section of the Light Bringer Quest to gain access to Kalikos' Castle and sack it, using one HeroQuest inside another.
I hope I haven't confused you, but I've tried to keep it as rational and simple as I can.
There's a lot of mumbo-jumbo and flim-flam said about HeroQuesting and how each one is a new myth and a religious experience. Maybe, but only in a Gloranthan sense. If I want a religious experience, I go to Church where, believe me, I have had enough the scare the willies out of me. I don't particularly want a religious experience through playing a Roleplaying Game and I don't really want to understand more about religion or mysticism through gaming, thank you very much. So, I try and keep my HeroQuesting descriptions, my HeroQuests and the HeroQuest scenarios I run very firmly down to earth and always as part of a gaming context.
So, has that helped or has it just made things worse?
HeroQuesting is a way to interact with the Myths of Glorantha in order to strengthen the Myths, weaken the Myths, change the Myths, destroy the Myths.
Some people have created new Myths through HeroQuesting. Orlanth performed a re-enactment of a Vadrus Myth to free Heler from the Blue Dragon, for instance, nicely creating a new myth for people to interact with. Gbaji cursed the Trolls by performing a HeroQuest where he tricked Kyger Litor into swallowing him, then eating his way out of her womb.
Most HeroQuesting is not as powerful as that, fortunately.
In a nutshell, without all the religious flimflam, what you do on a normal HeroQuest is:
1. You take a particular myth of your deity, or another deity but that is harder.
2. You perform a ritual to take you into the land of myth, normally the Otherworld, but it can take place in this world instead.
3. You then take the part of the deity, your companions take the part of the deity's companions and you re-enact the Myth.
4. The Myth is split up into different logical stages, called Stations.
5. You have to perform certain acts on each Station in order to emulate your deity's actions.
6. The better/closer you emulate the deity's actions, the better you are doijng on the HeroQuest.
7. When the HeroQuest has finished,you return to the normal world with the benefits/spoils/results of the HeroQuest.
That is all there is to a HeroQuest, really.
They get more interesting and complicated when you try and factor in the possible results of the HeroQuest, who is affected, who is opposing the HeroQuest and various other factors.
In the same way that you are playing the part of a deity, you will be opposed by other people like you, playing the parts of their deity. You may well find that you have met these people before, as you can quite easily get a number of HeroQuest Foes, who become tied to you in different roles. So, you fought Dagblad the Bad, on an Orlanthi HeroQuest ages ago, and every time you meet Zorak Zoran, that dastardly Dagblad keeps on turning up and trying to pund you into dust.
This can mean that a HeroQuest Foe can trick you into a HeroQuest when you are unprepared, by deliberately targetting you as a ritual foe. This is rare, but not overly so. You can also pull in your HeroQuest Foes into a HeroQuest in the same way.
The rewards you get from a HeroQuest depend on how you performk the HeroQuest, who is behind you and who you are performing the HeroQuest for. Normally, you know roughly what benefits you want from the HeroQuest before starting it.
Normally, if you do the Quest by yourself or with a small group, the benefits only affect you or your group. If youn do it with the backing of your clan or village, the benefits may well affect the whole clan or village. If you do it with the support of your whole cult, then the benefits affect the whole cult. Being supported by a nation benefits the entire nation.
Typical benefits from a successful HeroQuest might include:
1. Learning a new spell/skill
2. Gaining a permanent ability related to the Myth
3. Performing an impossible task
4. Gaining new allies
5. Healing a wound or removing a curse or a blight
6. Gaining a magical or special item
7. Gaining permission to do something normally forbidden by your cult
8. Becoming a Hero, Demigod or Deity
There are some general things that apply to most HeroQuests:
1. You will normally face foes of a similar power level to yourself.
2. You can become tied to others as HeroQuest Foes or HeroQuest Allies.
3. HeroQuests can fail as well as succeed.
4. You can get magical benefits or curses as a result of a HeroQuest.
5. HeroQuests for more than personal gain can result in the changing of the nature of a clan or nation.
6. HeroQuest Stations do not always go according to the HeroQuest script. They may be missed out, have different participants or give different benefits.
7. You may well succeed in a HeroQuest but come out cursed and beaten, or you may fail and come out blessed and unharmed.
In Gloranthan terms, every HeroQuest is a restatement of your faith in your deity and his actions in God Time. You do the HeroQuest to stregthen your deity's place in the world and to weaken his enemies. This means that if you deliberately fail a Quest or throw certain Stations then you are betraying your cult and deity. This is normally regarded as a Bad Thing.
What else?
Some people say you can't perform the same Quest more than once. I don't agree, personally. You can repeat the same Quest many times, every Sacred Time for instance, and get the same or different benefits from it.
Some people say you can't get out of the Quest that which you didn't take into the Quest. So, if you want a magical sword, you have to take a sword into the Quest in the first place. Once again, I don't agree. The terms of the HeroQuest dictate what is available on the HeroQuest. If you take a pair of magical sandals from Kyger Litor then you will be able to take the sandals worn by the Kyger Litor Priestess. So, I suppose she must have brought them into the Quest in the first place.
HeroQuests can be performed on several levels. The most common types are:
1. Practice Run HeroQuests
2. Holy Day Ceremonies
3. Sacred Time Ceremonies
4. Other Place Quests
5. Other Side Quests
1. Practice Run HeroQuests normally only benefit you or your companions and are the simplest HeroQuests to perform. They take place in the normal world and are ritual re-enactments of myths to get personal benefits. You might get a magical sword, a speaking herd beast, a wound healed, a beautiful wife or be able to kill an enemy on a Practice Run Quest. You won't be able to kill a deity or smash a mountain.
2. Holy Day Ceremonies are ritual re-enactments of Myths that take place on certain Holy Days. These are magically charged and can attract enemies who take part in the myths and defeat you. Bituran Varosh takes part in one of these when he helps the Priestesses of the Paps against some attacking trolls. If these go wrong, it can affect a whole temple and its congregation for a year.
3. Sacred Time Ceremonies take part in Sacred Time and are similar to Hold Day Ceremonies, except they normally affect entire communites, clans, tribes or nations. Everyone takes part in these and people try to put the world back together in the same way their deity did in the Godtime. This often involves a lot of danger, so Orlanthi sometimnes use the Summons of Evil to attract a dangerous foe so they can destroy it and ensure they aren't affected by the foe in the following year.
4. Other Place Quests take part in the very magical areas of Glorantha. So, someone HeroQuesting on Valind's Glacier, on the Moon, in Luathela, Vithela, in Magasta's Pool, in the Underworld, in the Sky World or on one of Orlanth's Cloud Castles are performing an Other Place Quest. The benefits on these Quests can be very large as they are taking place in the actual place of the Myth. Argrath performs an Other Place Quest when he defeats Kalikos on Valind's Glacier and sacks her Castle, bringing Winter to Sheng Seleris' Pentians in the Hero Wars.
5. Other Side Quests are the most powerful of the Quests as they try to change the myths of Godtime. How can you change a myth? Easily, you go in the GodTime, perform your HeroQuest and change what the deity actually did. The amount yopu manage to change it reflects the effect it has on the normal world afterwards. So, if you performed the Arming of Orlanth aqnd instead of giving him a sword, you gave him a Klanth instead, then you might have succeeded in Draconising Orlanth slightly. Of course, you would be under extreme pressure to give him a sword and, unless you were a powerful HeroQuestor, you might well be unable to give him a Klanth, or the Klanth you gave him becomes a Sword in his hands. Arkat, Gbaji, Nysalor, The Seven Mothers, Red Goddess and others have Quested on the Other Side and changed the Myths of the world, so don't let anyone say it is impossible. It is pretty difficult, though.
So, that's what HeroQuesting is, in my opinion. There's a lot more that could be said about it, though. For instance, you can do Experimental HeroQuesting, which involves changing the myths very slightly to subtly affect the outcome of the HeroQuest. So, Hon Eel appears in the High Hold Day celebrations of the Tarsh cult and proves herself to be worthy of inclusion, usurping the King and replacing him with his son and heir. Argrath's Trickster used a section of the Light Bringer Quest to gain access to Kalikos' Castle and sack it, using one HeroQuest inside another.
I hope I haven't confused you, but I've tried to keep it as rational and simple as I can.
There's a lot of mumbo-jumbo and flim-flam said about HeroQuesting and how each one is a new myth and a religious experience. Maybe, but only in a Gloranthan sense. If I want a religious experience, I go to Church where, believe me, I have had enough the scare the willies out of me. I don't particularly want a religious experience through playing a Roleplaying Game and I don't really want to understand more about religion or mysticism through gaming, thank you very much. So, I try and keep my HeroQuesting descriptions, my HeroQuests and the HeroQuest scenarios I run very firmly down to earth and always as part of a gaming context.
So, has that helped or has it just made things worse?
Oh, and as far as I am concerned, there is no real difference between a Practice Run Quest and a God Quest.
All levels of HeroQuest are full HeroQuests - if you have the magical invocation that turns it into a HeroQuest then a HeroQuest it is.
So, in my mind, there are no "Proper" HeroQuests or "Practice" HeroQuests.
So, Bituran Varosh being beaten up by Yelmalians is as much a HeroQuest as Bituran Varosh beating up trolls attacking Eiritha or Yanafal Tarnils rescuing the Red Goddess from Hell. They just operate at different power levels.
A low-power Quest will not affect the Godtime myths at all, no matter what you do on the Quest. A high powered Quest will always affect the Godtime Myths in some way and will change the spiritual makeup of the world.
The way I have explained this elsewhere is to imagine the God Time/God Plane as a stone plateau and all the individual myths, or God Time events, as grooves covering the plateau. Some of the grooves are very wide and very deep, these are the major myths of the Godtime, others are very shallow and narrow, these are the monor Godtime events. If you do a Practice Run Quest, then you are following the grooves with a feather, you aren't going to affect the groove/myth at all. If you do a God Time Quest, you are going over the myth with an iron sword, or adamantine claws in Gbaji's case, so you could well change the myth. But, what are you doing when you change a myth? You are carving your own groove, some sits on the old groove, other parts depart and carve a new groove. If your groove is very shallow then it will be hard to follow and will be only a minor change on the GodPlane. If your groove is very deep,the original groove will be hard to follow.
People performing Hold Day Quets, ceremonies etc are constantly wearing away at their grooves, trying to deepen and strengthen them. If you have opposing Myths, they have opposing grooves, if one is strengthen the other is weakened, so you have cults competing in HeroQuesting to weaken their enemies.
So, Trolls strive to break the Curse of Kin by continually trying to defeat Gbaji, but instead they continually swallow him and allow him to claw his way out, strengthening that part of the myth. If they decided en masse to not eat him, then perhaps they would stand a chance, but the "Eat Gbaji" part of the myth is so strong that they go over the edge like lemmings, always eating him and always being damaged.
All levels of HeroQuest are full HeroQuests - if you have the magical invocation that turns it into a HeroQuest then a HeroQuest it is.
So, in my mind, there are no "Proper" HeroQuests or "Practice" HeroQuests.
So, Bituran Varosh being beaten up by Yelmalians is as much a HeroQuest as Bituran Varosh beating up trolls attacking Eiritha or Yanafal Tarnils rescuing the Red Goddess from Hell. They just operate at different power levels.
A low-power Quest will not affect the Godtime myths at all, no matter what you do on the Quest. A high powered Quest will always affect the Godtime Myths in some way and will change the spiritual makeup of the world.
The way I have explained this elsewhere is to imagine the God Time/God Plane as a stone plateau and all the individual myths, or God Time events, as grooves covering the plateau. Some of the grooves are very wide and very deep, these are the major myths of the Godtime, others are very shallow and narrow, these are the monor Godtime events. If you do a Practice Run Quest, then you are following the grooves with a feather, you aren't going to affect the groove/myth at all. If you do a God Time Quest, you are going over the myth with an iron sword, or adamantine claws in Gbaji's case, so you could well change the myth. But, what are you doing when you change a myth? You are carving your own groove, some sits on the old groove, other parts depart and carve a new groove. If your groove is very shallow then it will be hard to follow and will be only a minor change on the GodPlane. If your groove is very deep,the original groove will be hard to follow.
People performing Hold Day Quets, ceremonies etc are constantly wearing away at their grooves, trying to deepen and strengthen them. If you have opposing Myths, they have opposing grooves, if one is strengthen the other is weakened, so you have cults competing in HeroQuesting to weaken their enemies.
So, Trolls strive to break the Curse of Kin by continually trying to defeat Gbaji, but instead they continually swallow him and allow him to claw his way out, strengthening that part of the myth. If they decided en masse to not eat him, then perhaps they would stand a chance, but the "Eat Gbaji" part of the myth is so strong that they go over the edge like lemmings, always eating him and always being damaged.
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