An altogether far too long message about the ongoing heroquest discussion. There is some good stuff in here, though, I think. But if the discussion bores you, skip this one.
Mike Cule and I continue bantering
>>I'm sure various people (like Pavis) eventually decide that
>>they would rather dwell on the heroplane.
>
>And I'm saying (and will continue to say, damnit!) that it isn't a
>rational decision. That eventually the point comes when you are forced
>by the cosmos to face the fact that you aren't a thing that belongs in
>the Mundane World anymore.
I don't really have a problem with the idea that this might happen to some people. But I fail to see any evidence that it happens routinely, and I fail to see any evidence that it happens as a result of 'one too many heroquests' - Pavis and Arkat (the only two clear unequivocal examples) both passed to the heroplane many years after they had performed their major quests.
>Otherwise people would never leave. We would
>(at this late date) be up to our arses in heroes left over from previous
>Ages.
I'm not convinced that they don't just leave voluntarily.
>I was re-reading the HeroQuest Seminar in the RQ-Con 2 Compendium and
>came across Greg talking about another of the perils of HeroQuesting,
>being forcibly dragged into the HeroPlane to take part in someone else's
>Quest because you once played the part of his enemy before.
Perhaps they leave and live on the heroplane partly because it protects them from that sort of thing? Ie an Orlanthi heroquester might be able to drag his Lunar opponents into his heroquest by meeting them on the magic road, but if the Lunar is living on the Moon, he can't, at least not without going to the Moon. Arkat protects himself from usurpers by going and living in his star. Pavis is safe from Wahas curses, at least unless the Waha worshippers can invade the inner sanctum of his temple.
>>There are several
>>examples of heroes who die on the mundane plane, and not only go on being
>>worshipped, but return from the dead. Takenegi, Arkat.
>
>I'm not sure who Takenegi.... Oh, the Red Emperor? Hmmm, but his divine
>part was passed on to a new combination of Mind, Body and Soul.
Well, thats if you believe the Lunars. And the Mind Body and Soul bit is not a pelorian idea (they have 6 bits, or 7 if your illuminated), and its far from clear which bit of the Emperor is what (ie where the Egi fit in). But he returned at least once as the same person (after Sheng killed him the first time).
>And did
>Arkat die? If so who/what killed him?
Some sources indicate that he died in his first attempt on Dorastor, via Kartolin. Which does explain what he was doing in Hell, to be rescued by Harmast. Jeff Richards will explain more about our theories on who killed him and how at GC V.
>I've been pondering why I find the idea of a Hero being forced to leave
>his mundane life behind so attractive. And I think it is this:
>
>That becoming a God is a trap. That in making yourself into a
>transfinite being you loose what is most valuable to yourself, that is
>you loose yourself.
I'm not sure its that simple. A being can be both divine and mortal at once (the Red Goddess before her ascenscion, the OOO). But I agree that to become a God is to lose something - I think I prefer to leave this as a subtle thing, rather than a mechanic ('haha, you've passed the godliness threshold and I get to take your character sheet away'). More than subtle, mysterious and transcendental even. Especially as I don't think its likely to happen in a forced manner to anybody in any campaign I run (though Simon Phipps may be in danger).
Alex and I
>> I'm sure there are plenty of mythicly significant events that are
>> never or seldom re-enacted. Mythical disasters, creation myths, and so on.
>
>I find that very unlikely.
I meant specifically heroquest re-enactment - I think there probably are myths not re-enacted at all, as well (in cultures that transmit the myths via oral or even written means) but what I meant was I'm sure that there are lots of real important myths that are very seldom re-enacted via heroquest.
>My point is that _all
>other things being equal_, the more "maintained" path, by worship, HQ,
>myth-telling, whatever, is the "easier" it's likely to be.
But its primarily the difference in what "easier" means that we are arguing about. I think its "easier" because the heroquester has an excellent idea of whats going on, knows how to prepare, has ritually re-enacted it, heard variations and so on - but the 'stats' of his oppponent (I guess thats what I mean by 'intrinsic' when translated to game terms) are much the same as they would be if he arrived at the exact same place via experimental heroquesting.
>> Now, I think it does get easier in practice, but because
>> everybody knows that they are doing.
>
>You mean, it gets "easier" for _both sides_, of an adversarial HQ?
Well, adversarial ones are a difficult question. Sometimes it does get easier for both sides - the Hill of Gold being a good example, where the Yelmalions (and those who follow their rough pattern for the quest, which is presumably the majority of questers) concentrate on survival, rather than beat up the Zorani, which happens to make things easier for the Zorani. But often one side will gain the ascendency (though I suspect even in those cases, the losing side will work out how to lose less dramatically eventually), and start taking their regular beating (the forces of Winter in the Kalikos quest, frex). I think it gets harder for both sides only when both sides are willing to get quite experimental in their desperation to win - and such situations seldom get repeated over and over again, because usually something dramatic happens first.
>So if the ZZers didn't quest for several generations, or conversely
>if several dozen Yelmalian questers in a row came back coughing up
>blood and expiring on the temple floor, it would effect neither the
>myth, nor the "ease" of the quest for either side?
Well, we know that changing the outcome doesn't necessarily affect the myths - the Yelmites still believe that Antirius got his butt kicked at the Hill of Gold in the Great Darkness, even though they know how to win there now. And if a Yelmalion killed ZZ, skipped out the quest there with his new fire powers, he will eventually meet up with the powerful chaos he has unleashed - so his changed outcome doesn't prove the myths wrong, it proves that they are the right thing.
But its a question of knowledge. If the ZZers didn't quest for several generations, they aren't going to know what they are doing, so they will be not as well prepared, and thus less likely to make a mistake (though there is the question of who the Yelmalions fought instead - maybe they've got used to fighting Shargashi in the mean time?). But a very capable ZZer could spent a lot of effort poring through old records, talking to ancient ZZ mummies and ghosts who knew how it used to be done, and so on, learn all he needed to know, and have a good chance (presumably the Yelmalions haven't changed their tactics in the mean time). Of course, in practical terms this means the preparation is considerably harder, though not necessarily the quest itself.
>That the next
>quester to try would discover exactly the same mythic environment,
>in either case?
Well, adversarial quests are a special case. But re-enactment quests (like Valare Addis, for example) probably remain much the same environment - except the infrastructure for that quest would have disappeared.
What I'm trying to demonstrate here really is not that quests don't get easier with repeated attempts - they sure do - but the cause and effect. I just want to say 'yeah, they tend to get easier', and leave it at that (because it seems obvious in practice that they do), rather than 'they get easier, and we need a set of rules for how this effect manifests, and what ramifications does this have for the heroplane, and what about this quest, shouldn't it be easier, and this one, shouldn't it be harder.... etc'. Its just a tendency of the world, not an inevitable heroplane determinist effect.
>You haven't solved any of the "mechanical" problems, it seems to me,
>just defined them out of existance by an act semantic will.
Well, I think the mechanical problems should be an extension of the magic system to cover hero style magic, not a set of arbitrary rules for how the heroplane functions.
>Now all we
>need is "just" a complete picture of, not just every actual myth in
>Glorantha, but of every _possible_ myth in Glorantha (the "unexplored"
>HP territory), and then all the HQ game system questions would be
>solved.
The same way we need a complete map of Glorantha in order to solve all the RQ game questions? :-)
No, what we need for the heroplane is what we have for most of Glorantha now. A rough, low detail map (a bit more than todays monomyth, though), plus a few detailed example areas, and we can make up the rest. Some people will like to run linear adventures (where they tell you the myth, and expect you to follow it, and beat you badly if you depart from it), and some will like to make free form ones where they map out lots of alternatives.
>> 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
>
>They do? Why? What kills them? I don't for a moment think so, myself.
If they manage to leave the quest at that point, they probably do fine, but they have at least in theory made chaos much stronger, which I suspect will come back to haunt them later, likely with disastrous results. If they attempt to carry on the end of the quest, where they would gain immortality, the chaos monsters that are the last (and hardest) part of the quest are much stronger (because ZZ and Orlanth didn't kill it), so they die horribly (given that Sandy was doubtful that anyone in modern Glorantha had got past the chaos parasites even taking the standard route). If they were properly prepared to fight the chaos, I'm sure they could, but I suspect they would have had to use quite a bit of heretical magic to survive (of course, troll or uroxi magic would be the best....) - they are no longer just a Yelmalion hero.
in a different discussion with Alex
>> b) rules for the results of heroquesting - which is, in effect, rules for
>> magic that are both more scalable and more flexible. But the important
>> thing is that the rules we need are not so much about the act itself, but
>> the capabilities of the returned hero.
>
>Speaking personally, I think that sounds like a short route to a very
>superficial idea of the "transformative" effects.
Well, no one said that the rules should attempt to address all aspects. I think the deeper aspects of the heroic transformation can only ever be addressed fairly superficially by the rules, with traits and passions being as close as we get (and they are fairly blunt instruments). The real meat has to emerge through roleplay, though as good a set of design suggestions as we can muster will help.
After all, the current cult and rune magic rules are at best a superficial idea of the religious experience, and I don't think that means they are bad rules.
>I feel, rather, that the insight (and the magical goodies) are only really
>going to be understood through the process intended to bring them about.
But its the mythic experience itself, not how much it alters this or that aspect of the heroplane, that is the core thing. And too much of the discussion has been 'the heroplane works this way, so the heroic experience is like this' (leading to discussion of the Will economy, how paths are maintained, etc), rather than 'heroes have done this, so the heroquest works this way' (from which I feel much of the observed heroplane tendencies will emerge naturally - eg our discussion about 'ease' of quests).
Alex replying to Mike
>> And each time you do the ritual that reinforces the new reality (every
>> High Holy Day or every Sacred Time) you feel a force to push you towards
>> permanent residence on the Hero Plane.
>
>That's doubtless true. But as I've argued before, by this point it
>probably seems that every minute of the day is a Mythic Moment anyway...
While in general I agree with the direction of Alexs comments, I'm not so sure about this - did Arkat spend the last 75 years of his earthly existence constantly worrying about this sort of thing? If so, why did he hang around that long?
And Mike about the two types of heroquesting (as Nick describes Greg using)
>But if you decide, just once, to say not "Thy Will be done, Orlanth, let
>me stand in your stead today." but "My Will be done, Orlanth get out of
>there and let me show you how it's done" you have changed something
>utterly in your relationship with the cosmos. Arkat did it by accident
>the first time and deliberately later.
I think the real distinction is stepping out of your 'home ground' on the heroplane. Re-enacting all you want in various temples and holy sites of your religion is a step onto the heroplane, and gets you some fairly reliable access to basic divine magic. But the danger is far less - you may be in the Otherworld, but you are surrounded by your gods magic, your cult spirits, you have the support of the congregation directly. The only enemies that will be there are those that you specifically invite in or summon (though even that can be a disaster), or those that manage to invade your ceremonies somehow. Once you step out of safe ground, into disputed territory, or the wider heroplane, then suddenly things get a whole lot scarier, and you really want a pretty good idea of what you are doing.
This fits with lots of observed facts. For example - initiations are normally routine, but Harmasts was dangerous - why? Because while the parts of the heroplane that initiates see are normally safe, Lokamayadon had access to it, so it became dangerous.
And the idea of 'entangling' yourself with the heroplane? Sure - but its the nature of the entanglement. Initiates have only 'entangled' themselves with the heroplane forces of their own religion. Thus, the only time they get 'drawn in' to heroquests in a personal adversarial way is if they end up opposing those forces - and we know that many cult spirits of reprisal can indeed draw people on the heroplane to some extent, such as by involving them in a spirit combat in their dreams.
Mike about maps and myths
>The point about maps is very good. A heroquest map would be more about
>relations between events than geography or geometry. ("This event-node
>leads to this one or that one. This marker leads to here or to there.")
I'm glad you like the idea. A myth is a heroquest map, or at least a heroquest mud map (showing how to get there, but not necessarily the surrounding territory). And yes, mostly it is more about events than geography, though geography will play a part, especially for those brave enough to do a little experimentation along the way (ie whats along the river Styx?).
>But.... HeroPlane Space in n-dimensional and Mundane World people can
>only perceive 4-dimensional space.
Yes. I have some ideas of how it would work, but vague ones only. Basically, the extra dimension is something like degree of abstraction, or 'deepness'. The further you go, the harder things get for humans to understand, until eventually you become one with the Creator. But at an intermediate degree, you are in a landscape laden with symbolism, with different degrees of symbolism depending on depth of the quest. Initially, the heroplane starts out looking just like where you are, except more magical (you see the nymphs and spirits of trees and plants and rocks and so on). But if you travel in a way that takes you 'deeper' (which may be by performing some act, not walking) you get to progressively more abstract areas. So you could travel to Orlanths stead or the place of wolves. Very magical places are also symbolic places in various myths (ie Kero Fin) so its a lot easier to get to the deeper parts of the heroplane from there. Or you could use magic to push your way deeper.
> And if Yelm's footstool in one Quest is in
>another aspect the Book of Law for a people on the other side of the
>lozenge then kicking it over when you alter the myth of Orlanth slaying
>Yelm may have consequences you never see and never suspected.
thats essentially GM territory, and I don't think there needs to be a reliable complete model of this sort of thing. After all, I don't think we understand cause and effect on the heroplane well enough to predict the consequences of every action, and it seems clear that not every action has strange far reaching consequences, so I feel happy ignoring it unless the GM wants that to feature in his story.
>And the third trouble is (and this is the one that caused Greg and co to
>stumble) that a referee has to have a map in his head of how the world
>of the game works.
Yeah, its hard. But I think the important thing is a really good idea of the specifics of the mythic landscape - and I'm with Jeff Richards on that one, knowing the myths well is the most important thing. The other important thing is how this all ties back to the rest of your game - which means mechanics for magic that heroquesters use, but you could probably often get away with making it up on an ad hoc basis for a lot of peoples needs. But mechanics for what this means in terms of the wider heroplane are not something I think we need to tackle first.
>And referees are only 4 dimensional too. Can
>a referee without an Insight into transcendent reality run a game that
>is set in transcendent reality.
Yes, badly. Or at least clumsily, without exploiting its full potential (just like you can run Call of Cthulhu without ever having read Lovecraft or other sources, based on your knowledge of having watched the Halloween series of films). But that doesn't mean to run good heroquests you need to be a practicing shaman (though I'm sure it could help), its means you need to know your myths, and theory of myths (such as it is) well. Same as being a competent swordsman is not essential to run RQ combats, but some familiarity with the basics of medieval warfare does help.
Cheers
David
End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #42
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