I for one could care less what length the digests are - I'm more annoyed by the mangling of Nick and Martin's posts by Compuserve.
Jane Williams wrote about Westfaring:
>Different, rather than deeper/shallower, I think. The risks vary. If you
>want to do a Westfaring, and there's nothing in particular in your way,
>load up a few mules and go on a trading trip. It'll take time, but you'll
>get there, with no more than the normal dangers. And you don't need any
>particular ritual skills. Any bare-footed peasant could do this :) (No, I
>haven't ever seen Harmast's Saga, but I've read KoS).
Having read Harmast's Saga, it seems to me that our bare-footed hero was very concerned about the ritual elements of the Westfaring. According to my recollections, in one section Harmast is annoyed because he encounters a dragonewt from the wrong direction!
KoS page 166 describes Westfaring as follows:
"Eight obstacles are presented to the traveler. He must overcome each of them, unless he is carried by a sacred Mastakos chariot. Either way, he ends at a poison sea.
At the sea, the quester must summon Sofala, the Mother of Turtles, who will bear him across the sea on her back. In this ritual, called the Sofalan Journey, the quester must be carried upon a shield and never dropped. Each corner of the shield is borne by one person representing a force which has pledged itself to the leader's cause. Around these Supporters are Compansions whose skills and magics must protect the Supporters from dropping the chief before the sun sets. These assailants are called the "Army of the Sea," and armed with buckets of salt water, one of which is poisoned with acid.
Luathela must be reached shortly before the sun has reached the horizen. The guardians, who all wear purple masks, question the visitor. There might be a fight. With either an honor guard escorting them or a vengeful army in pursuit, the companions must move westward, and before dark must find Rausa's House. Rausa, crimson Goddess of Dusk, is never happy to see the slayers of her father and poses problems which must be resolved, overcome, or bypassed in order for the ritual to continue."
It appears to me to be a VERY complicated little ritual. I would like to bring to attention the lack of events that seem to require new stats, skills or game mechanics. As a GM, this heroquest could be run using RQ, PenDragon Pass, GURPS or Prince Valiant. It is, as I keep insisting, a problem of plot not a problem of mechanics. Admittedly there are elements of RQ mechanics which don't help in running heroquests and require flexible GMing to overcome, but that is a general flaw with game mechanics. I guess I'd rather see the effort that is going into create a Generic Heroquesting mechanic into writing rituals and myths of the various cultures that could be the basis of heroquests. Of course, that might require reading books like KoS, the Fortunate Succession, GRoY, or even the Entekosiad. :)
At risk of hyping Enclosure again (available in a fortnight!), David Dunham and I have a section containing some sample Heroquests and how to run them. No new systems needed.
BTW, I am in the process of assigning roles for Fall of the House of Malan at the Victoria Con. I'm sure some of the folk out there are like me and haven't sent their registration material in. If you are one of those folk, give Neil or me an e-mail saying that you'd like to be in House of Malan as soon as possible. There's still room but I don't want to leave anyone out!
My e-mail is:
jrichard_at_cnw.com
Neil's e-mail is:
neilr_at_wolfenet.com
End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #8
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