Re: Some answers

From: Stephen P Martin <ilium_at_juno.com>
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 01:06:14 EDT

I hadn't planned on posting so soon, but I wanted to give our newcomers all the support they need to stay interested. Send us more questions -- I think it helps ground some of us (like me) who take such subjects for granted sometimes.

>> 1. HeroQuests: What exactly are they, and what are they supposed to
do?

Andrew and Alex both supply good answers here. I will only add that a long time ago, when Greg Stafford was still dealing with RQ and HeroQuests on regular basis, he wrote a "Practice Run" HeroQuest called Waha's Quest, or the Beastquest of Waha.

In that article, he stated that there were three types of HeroQuests:

1. Practice Quest. Waha's Quest was an example of this, as is The River Ritual of Sun County in (you guessed it) Sun County. Basically, you take a myth, and you enact it on the physical world. If you do it right, sometimes requiring a special ritual at the beginning of the quest, you will meet the same types of foes as your god, and get the same type of rewards if you win, act properly, etc. You may move on the edge of the Hero Plane, but you usually stay on the physical world the entire time. Benefits are usually a special Spirit Magic or Divine Spell, a magic item, etc.
2. Magic Roads. These were sort of the oddball of the HQs. Basically, you left the physical world and moved on to the Hero Plane, without really enacting a myth, but with the sole intention of travelling quickly through the Realm of Myth to reach another physical world destination. One such journey in Greg's campaign took Redbird (was that who it was?) from Cragspider's home to the Holy Country in less than a day. Most of these magical roads are mythically well-known -- from what I can tell, you can't just start in one place and go wherever you want -- if you start in one place, your destination is going to be pre-determined, though you may have a choice of several ending points to choose from. Encounters on such Magic Roads are likely, and may or may not have to do with the path of the road. The dragonewt roads mentioned in Elder Secrets and the boardgame Dragon Pass are examples of such roads, though they are extremely limited and specialized.
3. Full Quests. On these, you take the same myth as on a Practice Run, but you enact it on the Hero Plane and/or God Plane. Definitely takes a ritual in most cases to get there (see Troll Gods for a brief mention of one, under Jeset), though magic places can take you as well, certain magic items, etc. The foes you face will not be _like_ the ones your god faced, they will be _the_ ones your god faced. Basically, you _are_ your god on these quests. Originally, all you could do was what your god did -- where he had failed, you had to fail. And where he won, you would always win, too. Arkat changed all that (though others may have done it as well, such as Khordavu/Plentonius, and didn't necessarily recognize what they did), and the God Learners abused the hell out of it. Now, you can walk off the path if you are very brave and foolish, and make a new myth. This is where heros come from -- it was once described to me as teaching your god something he didn't know before, like a new spell or skill.

Steve Marsh did a lot of work on HeroQuests back in the mists of prehistory, and most of the results are available on his web page now. Only his Blue Moon HeroQuest and the Seven Sky Gates are yet to be typed in.

>> [...] Is there a definite purpose to HQ's or is it more of a "why is
the sky blue" question? :-)
>

The purpose, in the grossest sense, is to come back with "goodies". In a truer sense, the purpose is to make sure everything in the world works the way it should, or to bring back a benefit for your people, depending on the nature of the quest. So, during the Sacred Time of the Theyalans, most "heroQuests" are performed by large numbers of people acting together to keep the world the way it is supposed to be. They do this be doing the same things Orlanth and his pantheon did to make the world the way it is. When a lone questor goes out for aid against an enemy, for example, he is seeking some spell or ability or item to use against the same enemy. So, an Orlanthi whose clan is being harassed by trolls might walk on the path Orlanth did when he defeated Gore and Gash. If he succeeds, he will come back with a spell which causes all weapons used to do double-damage to trolls, perhaps; if he walked Elmal's anti-troll path, he might be able to make it warm enough to drive the trolls away.

The God Learners quested less responsibly, and were in it more for the personal goodies they could get out of it, or to make the world, not the way it is, but the way they felt it should be. And eventually the world rebelled, since I presume it liked itself the way it was. Cautionary tales abound with the God Learners. See Glorantha: Genertela, Crucible of the Hero Wars for the most information in print on the God Learners, what they did, and what the world did back.

>> 4. The Mostali: I like their "scientific" viewpoint and the World
>> Machine. Their technology has been described as "advanced", but how
>> advanced is this? Steel-making? Clockwork devices? Steam Power?
>
>It's not entirely clear if there exists such a thing a "steel" in
>Glorantha, or if it there does, if it's any different from "Enchanted
>Iron". But otherwise, yes, all three. (And what's worse, gunpowder.)
>

Apparently, yes, the Mostali have a secret to turn iron into something stronger, like steel, without using a simple Enchant Iron spell. One human group stole a bunch of steel swords from them one time, in Fronela; they are now known as the Steel Sword legion of the Lunar Army.

>> 6. Are _Gods of Glorantha_ and _Elder Secrets_ still published by AH?
>
>Not any more! If they're still in print, or even still in "copies
>available someplace", get 'em quick: they're about to become Out Of
>Print Forever. (If Glorantha: the Game is a HeroQuest, we're certainly
>Alone in Hell at the moment.)
>

Actually, any copies which still exist can continue to be sold by AH and the foreign companies, but no more can be printed. It is possible AH still has a back stock on these, as they did not too long ago on everything RQ3 from Gods of Glorantha on, except Land of Ninja (international issues there, so I'm told). I have seen both in game stores in the San Francisco area in the last couple of months. If you can't find em, try Crazy Egor's in New York if AH is out. Also, don't know if Chaosium actually carries any of the RQ3 supplements, I know they did at one time.

Stephen Martin
ilium_at_juno.com

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