I'm sure there are plenty of mythicly significant events that are never or seldom re-enacted. Mythical disasters, creation myths, and so on. There are probably only a few that are recreated disastrously - after all, after the first few disasters, people might stop trying. Though note the Antirius Hill of Gold, which was a disaster the first few times.
>How many "insignificant" events are regularly
>and successfully re-enacted with great magical benefit?
I think there are 'insignificant' effects that are regularly and successfully re-enacted with minor magical benefits. Several published heroquests fit nicely into this category.
> I think the
>correlation is very high in practice, though it may not be possible
>to argue that the connection is "direct" or "intrinsic".
The point is that the difficulty and potential reward of a heroquest path is related to a number of things, including all those that we can blithely group together as 'mythic significance' (though what exactly that means is unclear in Glorantha), rather than simply being a function of how well trodden the path is. And 'experimental' heroquesting is dangerous because its venturing into the unknown, not dangerous because its just intrinsically harder.
>My intuition is that if some "unknown" heropath is suspiciously "easy"
>(that is, yields a similar magical "bang" for the difficulty/hazard
>"buck" than a known one, corresponding to a common cultic one used
>in ceremonies, or divine magic quests), then it's for some (unknown,
>natch) reason.
I agree. Part of the danger of experimental heroquesting is that even when things are going well, sometimes your not sure why - and you sometimes unleash the entirely unexpected (the Seven Mothers being a good example of heroquesters that succeeded for reasons they didn't entirely understand at the time). But that you can find previously unknown hero paths that work well is an argument against the idea that the difficulty of the heroquest is a function of how often its been performed.
>> if you are the first Zorak Zorani or the 100th to attempt to beat up
>> Yelmalio, he is just as tough.
>
>I don't agree with this, at least entirely, as it would seem to preclude
>the possibility that HQing can change the myth, or the HeroPlane --
>which is ultimately the whole point.
For one thing, I dislike the idea that the opposition gets gradually weaker because, if followed to its logical conclusion, it kind of trivialises the whole thing. Eventually the ZZer taps him on the head, and Yelmalio just falls over and his liver leaps out, because his defeat is inevitable. Now, I think it does get easier in practice, but because everybody knows that they are doing.
Also, I prefer to think in terms of the myth is a map, and HQing is exploring, rather than 'changing' the myths. The heroquester finds a way that works better, and the retelling of the myths are changed to reflect his new revelations. I mean, it really amounts to much the same thing in the end, but cuts through a lot of the bizarreness of heroquest mechanics discussed here, which leads me to suspect that its on the right track.
Another good example of what I'm talking about is Valare Addis quest. Her quest is unquestionably easier to those who follow afterwards. But its not intrinsically easier - you still need to mutilate yourself, and confront Natha, and work desperately in Hagu, and so on. But the knowledge of where to go and what to do is there, plus the people you meet along the way also understand what you are doing and know what is required of them, plus there is some 'magical infrastructure' in place to assist (like the goddess Addi in the care of the Kovarians).
>> Of course, it also helps that the Yelmalions know they are supposed to
>> lose (because all the guys that beat ZZ and carried on ended up getting
>> eaten by chaos bugs and never came back)
>
>I think that it's certainly possible to "win" the HoG quest, and even
>that some have done so, and got some or all of their fire powers "back".
>I'm not sure what the particular mindset of the Quester is, though. I
>don't think he "tries" to lose; perhaps rather, he just (consciously or
>otherwise) chooses a path where winning is unlikely, and the most he can
>do is to survive.
I think the Yelmalion version of the Hill of Gold has a lot of detail, and they try to follow it slavishly. Their version is accumulated from lots of successful heroquesters. They also probably have a few cautionary tales from people who failed badly. The version they follow has things like bargaining for healing blessings from Ernalda, magic items to sustain life, obtaining secret fires to keep you from freezing to death. And it talks about how they get beat up on by ZZ and survive. They might even have the cautionary tale of the guy who spent all his time collecting neat weapons instead, then got beat up by Orlanth anyway, and returned coughing maggots like Antirius. The guys who do it all wrong - beat up Orlanth, beat up ZZ, beat up Inora, they don't even have cautionary tales, because they die horribly (except one day, a real super guy might work out how to do all that without making the chaos foes at the end stronger, and come back immortal, AND with fire powers, but to do that he would probably need to use heaps of non-Yelmalion magic). So its not that the Yelmalions spend time trying to lose - its just that they know the guys who spend their preparation time and effort working out how to beat ZZ do a lot worse than the guys who spend their time working out how to survive his attack.
Cheers
David
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