> Last night I read the brief sections in /Thunder Rebels/ about
> the rites for initiation into adulthood for Heortlings, and I
> have a few questions:
This is a very interesting topic, indeed one of the keys to understanding the HeroQuest game ... :-)
> (1) How do these guidelines change now that we have a distinction
> between "common magic" and "normal worship", and
> "speclialized worship"?
Only my opinion : just as a magician's life is a progression from being ordinary to becoming extra-special, from the banal to the exciting, so I think Initiation is (in Glorantha, not in RW) almost always the first step towards a specialisation of the soul.
In anthropowanking terms though, the initiand faces the dangers of potential deviation from the social norm, and either becomes just another one of the guys, AKA someone fully integrated into society but with no actual personality to speak of (in RPG terms, a "grunt"), or divorces himself entirely from a repressive norm, or (most likely) picks and chooses various options in-between.
In HeroQuest, given that characters are destined for great things, and are also the main source of Life and Change and et cetera, an initiation scenario should properly be used to establish exactly *why* these weirdoes aren't like normal stay-at-home boring normal people.
Strongly advise against this in RW, hassle generally not worth it, despite interesting life that ensues.
Not that one really has any say in the matter ...
> (2) Is there a reference to something on the 'net about what the
> rite feels like from the Not Adults' point of view? The
> description in /TR/ is evocative, but not very detailed.
Literature. Just read some Heroic Fiction, Mythology, see some classic movies.
Big Hint :if it's in Star Trek, then that's probably not what you're looking for ...
(except, admittedly, ST:TMP)
A *real* initiation is always an atrocious, heart-rending, emotionally violent, physically difficult, desperate undertaking : one that shouldn't usually be provided by an RPG ... we *are* doing this for FUN y'know ... :-)
> Motivation: I'd like to start off my campaign with the
> players-who-know-nothing-of-the-game as Orlanthi Not Adults who
> either have just passed through the initiation, or who will pass
> through the initiation in the first few sessions. I think the
> latter is more compelling, and will help immerse the players in
> the world more. But what I need now is descriptive scenes for Not
> Adult Orlanthi (both boy and girl) to help me paint a good picture for
> them.
I don't really think you should run it as a real scenario.
Anyway, the core Heortling Initiations are provided in two ways :
They must destroy themselves as sons, and become fathers; become their own fathers; become living manifestations of the Storm Tribe and cry out their freedom and their strength !!
> I already have a rough idea about the events for the first two
> sessions (an adventure I'll call "Lost Sheep" and will put
> writeup to web upon completion), but I think including the
> initiation rites is a pretty important part of that process:
> ideally, they'd be the climax points for the adventure, or maybe
> the denuement, I have quite decided on that yet..
Sounds like a good way to fuck up your players' PCs ...
... niot that that's necessarily a bad thing !!! :-)
> In that vein; has anyone does this with the game before? Does
> anyone have any tips for shepherding these novices into creating
> Orlanthi at a level that's younger than they otherwise might be?
> Start with scores of 15 instead of 17, frex?
I'd personally try and emulate RQ if I were to do that.
> Finally, I know that female and male rites happen on a different
> time scale amongst the Orlanthi:
That's not quite true : probably the most important initiation rite gathers the males and females together, establishing once and for all *exactly* why men and women are different.
> * Is it odd for men and women New Adults to be welcomed into the
> clan at the same (or roughly the same) age?
This is something that would vary from clan to clan.
One pointer is that there are Earth clans, Storm clans, Elmali clans, Yelmalion clans, Helering clans, Tarshite clans, etc etc, each having their own peculiar gender hierarchies and rules.
> * How early do Heortling women begin menstruating (I kind of
> assumed 12 to 14, but I don't know any historical data on the
> subject.)
Isn't it 9 to 16 ? Although I understand that 21C girls menstruate earlier because of hormones in the food they eat ...
Any women in the audience to knowingly ridicule our typical male ignorance and insensitivity re: menstruation ?
> * How do Heortling women cope with menstruation; what cultural
> taboos/rituals exist around this cyclical event? Are there any
> common magic, or theistic secrets, or myths about the event?
Someone else ? :-)
> (To what extent to other groups playing fantasy rolegames deal
> with this fact-of-female-life? Are there any essays on the net
> on incorporating it, or accounting for it, in one's game?)
Yep. They boil down to "don't do it, it's a bad idea."
> Digression: I feel blessed! A gaming group with more women than
> men! Any other women in Southern Ontario want to join our group
> to skew the stats even further?
I was GM to an unfortunately short-lived gaming group where I was the only male, so I can definitely connect with the amazing
feeling of
blessedness that cool RPG girls convey.
Sigh ...
OTOH : Menstruation in RPGs : Just Say No.
cheers,
Julian Lord
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