In fact, a quite simple charade can be a powerful and insight-gaining heroquest. At Convulsion's Heroquest Party, the Orlanthi entry failed to gain top levels for entertainment, but on the other hand we participants had the chance to experience how Orlanthi villagers would stage that quest. I don't recall all the steps we were sent through as per script (does any RMM organiser still have it?), but the way we made up the various stations and crewed them with otherwise nondescript villagers must have been very similar to ordinary level Gloranthan reenactments.
Each participant in the seeker's party impersonated one special power ("I can cross the river, but I cannot pass through the forest" - "I can pass through the forest, but I cannot find the mountain pass" etc.) which helped all the community and the community's seeker to get to the hero. I doubt that actually performing this duty gained much insight out of that specific part, but as a part of the whole reenactment also those people (characters? players?) who acted as mountains, courtiers or whatever may have gained some insight.
It was a pity that the entire quest was ripped apart by the presentation as planned by the organisers - the rehearsal run of the quest, which was done more or less in one run, was quite impressive for all its simplicity. (We even got the handclapping right...)
>IMO, heroquesting is nothing more and
>nothing less than an exploration of the relation between myth and the
>individual/society.
Very theoretically put, Jeff. Heroquesting is to become part of the myth, to experience it, or at least to witness it.
Pam Carlson wondered
>One question: why do the folk of Farpoint specifically hunt badgers and
>otters - if not for fur? (They are hunted in fire season - all the
>other fur animals are hunted in dark season.) Otters never struck me as
>particularly plump or tasty, and must be tough to catch. Are they
>destroyed as competitors?
I suppose they have the nasty tendency to regard unripe (or even uncaught) sticklepick sauce. And their fur, of course, makes a nice profit on the side...
I doubt any mustelids make good eating - too protein rich diet...
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