Trent Di Renna:
> I like how none of the cultures of Glorantha can make up their minds
> on who the Bad Guy is in the Arkat/Nysalor equation.
Take a look at the Telmori, or Dorastor, and make up your mind.
That's about as object an answers I can give. Please note that this
is one of the Forbidden Subjects. You can ask Greg, but instead of
waffling or uttering something obscure, he'll simple tell you that he
won't discuss it. At the RuneQuest I Lore Auction (where you pay a buck
and get a shgort answer to any question), I asked about Nyslaor, and
got my buck back. I was informed that I had asked one of the Seven
Unanswerable Questions.....
Now, some answers (I hope).
- HeroQuests: What exactly are they, and what are they supposed to do?
Questing is one of the things that makes Glorantha so rich and
lush in background. Questing runs the gamut of running through an intiation
ritual of manhood, to marraige (on the easy & common end) to
the full-blown LightBringers Quest (horrendously difficult). Somewhere
on the grey scale in between, people start calling quests Heroquests.
Just where on the scale is up to the speaker.
Basicly, most quests are re-enactments of the actions of Gods
or Heroes. You do what your god/hero did, although usually in a watered
down form (so it won't be so difficult). You will run through the
events that you have learned from the legends, suffering the same triumphs
and defeats. You can gain considerable gifts from such a quest,
but you can also suffer severe penalties. Usually permantly. Arkat's
quests to strengthen himself vs Nysalor resulted in his gaining the
Unbreakable Sword (some say, the original sword; Death). But he paid
for it but receiving a Wound That Would Never Heal.
The second form of HeroQuest is to go into the HeroPlane and
do something new. This is equivalent to leaving the trail in the
middle of an enchanted forest. The farther you get from the trail,
the more your adventure will differ from the standard quest path.
This is _dangerous_. A lot of people who play around this way disappear,
and are never seen again. But the ones who succeed can create
a new trail for others to follow, to gain similar gifts. Sit Ethilrist
is a good example of this. He developed a heroQuest path wherein his
cavalry troopers descend into hell (literallly), and tame for themselves
a demon steed. His Black Horse Troop is the most feared
cavalry in Dragon Pass, luckily, they are small in Numbers. The long
and short of this is that Sir Ethilrist is a hero; and he created
a new HeroQuest, and new path through the Hero Plane.
- The Hero Plane: Technically, in the map of Glorantha that shows
the mundane realm, the spirit realm, etc, the HeroPlane and the God-
are two separate realms. Some people, however, like to think of
them as another one of those grey scales. The closer you are to the
mundane realm, the weaker the individuals you run into are going to be.
Heroes, spirits, shades of the dead etc. As you go farther into this
realm, the larger the creatures you see. An occasional god, etc. If
you go way out, it's all gods.... Personally, I think the realms are
separate, but that the boundry zone is blurry. One (generally) passes
through the HeroPlane to get to the GodPlane. Sort of like learning
calculus before moving on to differential equations.
Example of 1 & 2: If you have been following the Last IceBreaker series
I have been posting, Harlios is on a HeroQuest, he has been following the
Path of Kalikos IceBreaker. But when he tries to follow one of the
rituals after she has been slain, and her work destroyed, the quest goes
wrong. He wanted to end up on the HeroPlane, but because the path is
'broken', he moves onto the GodPlane. He ends up confronting Valind, King
of Winter, directly. He is unprepared for this, and wouldn't have attempted
it knowingly anyway. He isn't strong enough to attempt such a
thing. It was everything he could do to escape certain death on the
GodPlane. He is still doomed; but he intends to sell his life dearly.
Wheesh! this is getting long, I think I'll let someone else
answer this rest.
Andrew
Drink Kalikos-Koolers!
End of Glorantha Digest V4 #333
WWW at http://rider.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html