This is a good quest outline.
> 1) You asseble the materials for the mill (including the millstones-
-a major investment to make and transport!).
> 2) You build a shrine on the location (to whom?)
> 3) You gather the community at the site, go through various
> ceremonies, and start the quest.
> 4) You start off in the silver age. Large amounts of grain need to
> be ground for some reason, too much to do in the hand mills (or
maybe they were all destroyed somehow?)
The earth goddesses are all asleep. What seed is left is too hard to eat.
> 5) The hero goes to some wise person, who instructs them to build a
> giant mill, but can't tell them how to power it.
> 6) The hero performs some task to win the massive grind stones
> needed, and the community builds the basics of the mill
Sounds like the wheels of a giant's chariot. Maybe the hero must defeat the giant or win the chariot (and its wheels) in a contest.
> 7) Then the hero tries to get the people to power the mill, but
every strong hand is needed for other tasks (defense mostly)
The hero and his comrades are assailed by their dark (and hungry) foes--could be trolls or animals that can eat the grain (or Lunars now).
> 6) The hero sets off and tries to find an animal strong enough to
> power the mill, but almost all of the animals are dead, and those
> that are left are too weak to help.
Sounds like an encounter with Urox, but he is chained or wounded. In the original quest, Hiorl fails in this task. Should the questers succeed (Chalana Arroy heals Urox; someone wins the Strength of the Bull, etc), the questers gain a magical bull and are returned to the inner world. The quest has failed if this happens, though they still may be able to grind the grain.
> 7) Finally the hero turns to the only thing that is still strong,
the wind. He/she travels to (somewhere) and pleads/bribes/beats a
great wind daimone into agreeing to turn the mill. If the hero
succeeds the daimone explains exactly how he will blow, so that the
hero knows where to place the opennings on the mill, and the daimone
promises to blow constantly and evenly on the mill.
Probably requires a ritual challenge. If the hero loses, he could lose anything from objects captured in the quest to the grind stones to the giants chariot to some personal virtue. In the inner world, the mill might just stand empty or it might be struck down and destroyed by lightning.
> 8) The hero returns from the other side to find the community has
> almost completed the mill, and he or she gives the final few
> instructions, and just as they finish the wind starts blowing and
> powering the mill.
>
Again, I think this is a good outline.
Harald
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