> A Hero is one who has gone into the GodTime and done something new. He has trod
> a path no-one else ever has before and found some unique power for himself and
> his people. He has become by the act of weaving his Will into the web of the
> world, part of the eternal pattern of Glorantha. This means he exists partly in
> the GodTime. It also means that his quest must be reaffirmed each Sacred Time
> by his Cult. To change metaphors, his cult must dance the steps that he took in
> the GodTime as part of the great Dance of the World to keep it real in the
> Mundane World. .
This reminds me of something that puzzles me a lot. When a Hero goes heroquesting and does his/her own thing they may gain some "unique" power. They can then pass this on to their followers using the Communication rune as Divine magic just like Garyunder from G:CotHW or any of the many heroes described in cult-write ups. Then what about those hero-cults which provide spirit magic? There are a few and I can't think of an explanation for them. Certainly in my limited experience of HeroQuest rules (Steve Maurers version and T0TRM#7) I have seen no mention of a means by which a hero can create a new type of spell spirit either consciously or unconsciously. There is a mention of a shaman who can find unusual, or unprecedented, spirit types in G:CotHW and maybe this is the explanation. However this sounds more like a shamanic activity than that of a warrior/Cult hero. Apart from which we could ask how come nobody knew about these spirits before?
I think the answer to this last question lies in the nature of spirits themselves. Spirits are broken bits of gods. Therefore new spell spirits are weak bits of dead gods. Despite the gloss of eternal stasis that myths give the gods they are as dynamic as the people who worship them. They gain powers (from Hero Divine Magic) and loose them. Some gods "die", in other words they loose all their worshippers. Where do lost powers go? They end up on the psychic rubbish tip: the Spirit Plane where like true Dragons they create "dream" versions of themselves; Spirits. Then some shaman or heroquester comes along, finds the broken gods/spirits and respectively captures them or gets the appropriate spellteaching spell.
That's all IMVHO but it still leaves the questions of how heroquesters
get at spirits in the first place and whether it is weaker or more
powerful questers that get spirit magic (instead of DM.) I would imagine
that it's the weaker ones that do; but then why does n't it feature in
Super RuneQuest rules.
- ------
Andrew Behan
e-mail: ajbehan_at_alf2.tcd.ie
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