>That never sat well with me, as I thought HeroQuests were supposed to be
>dangerous and special. I guess the answer is that "well known"
>heroquests are very safe. Or, that a part of Orlanthi fatalism is that
>in order to be a culture with more magicians than anyone else on
>Glorantha, they sacrifice a large proportion of their children who never
>come back from the adulthood rites.
Any pre-modern society accepts a fair number of deaths before adulthood. Whether due to disease, accident or whatever. Many RW initiation rites are dangerous and surviving the danger is what makes an adult in those societies. In a world where magic is important there will be deaths due to magical mishaps and a magical initiation isn't going to be really safe.
At the same time it isn't a large proportion because they are well practiced HeroQuests, performed regularly by many people and the community is used to rescuing those who stray from the path - failure but not lethal failure.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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