Alien Worlds and Great Darkness (was Re: heortling orlanthi initiation)

From: parental_unit_2 <parental_unit_2_at_...>
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 00:08:03 -0000

I really liked Greg's post about Heortling Orlanthi men's initiations. It did raise one question, about both the nature of Glorantha and how to play through certain heroquests. Namely: How are Heortling men ever able to survive their initiations?

The reason I ask: As I understand it, the Great Darkness is an Alien Otherworld, like the Underworld. That means that most people are completely unable to function there, even with community support from an entire clan.

In HeroQuest game terms, a character in an Alien Otherworld like the Great Darkness is at -20 in all his abilities. That means that even with total support from a clan of 1,000 people, a character being initiated in the Great Darkness has single-mastery ratings in all his abilities, at best.

We've actually experienced this kind of scenario in the Seattle Farmers game. Our most capable warrior character, a senior tribal weaponsthane, ended up in the Underworld. He was just barely able to survive there. Granted, the character didn't have community or other ritual support, but the character also is substantially more seasoned than a typical initiand (in game terms, the character has four to five masteries in his best augmented combat skill).

So how do narrators play through heroquests in the Great Darkness, including the initiations of Heortling Orlanthi men? Do they ignore the Alien World penalty in the Great Darkness, lower the resistances of everything artificially, posit some additional magical support, or something else?

Rob