Gift If you wound somebody with a sword, you kill them. Geas If you wound somebody with a sword, you kill them.*
Balor was willing to kill his grandson to save his own life, and to make sure that he never existed. So his grandson (Lugh) killed him, as was prophesied.
Paul Chapman, milk-drinker, doesn't reject mastering runes. Indeed, but the rune is not a representation. Myth is not a language, though individual verbal tellings must be linguistic. If 'rune' is used to mean 'inscribed marking', of course you can't master it in this way.
Death is associated with courage in Sartar not just because that's how they see Humakt, but because Humakt, given the existence of death, took it upon himself the way he did (not necessarily in that order). The Orlanthi or their god-antecedents interpreted this act as brave. That perception is irrelevant or meaningless to the people who interpret what Humakt did as disastrous. So the rune-trait linkage is culturally determined (except that 'culture' suggests too much of Earth booklearning, collective consciousness, and bollocks-style cultural relativism).
You might think that on the godplane your actions and feelings/thoughts are not so distinct as they are in the mundane world. The Godlearners found/decided that you can manipulate the godplane to ends different from the original motivation of its contents. So it's possible to follow parts of heroquest paths even if you're faking it rather than acting spontaneously. Can someone suggest what it is I'm failing to see, or is it just that the 'technological' GL magic was able to get round this problem by its sheer quantity?
Heroquest mechanics: You could try the Toon rules. (Chance of success = 50%. The most successful heroquesters would be the ones who could do things most simply, as in the fewest steps.)
*bootstrapping
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