>Ok, then a simple question to be answered using "Hero of a Thousand
>Faces".
OK, so maybe my answer was a little flippant. Still, it does explain htat a heroquest involve the hero leaving the safety and predictability of society and going into the unknown. If prepared, the hero comes back with power to change society so that it can grow. If unprepared, the hero is destroyed, and the society does not grow, but rather stagnates.
Now to the question.
>Assume that there exists this item, the Divince cup of victory and
>it is guarded by a pair of powerful guardians. How many cults get screwed
>over by someone annihilating the guardians and stealing the divine cup of
>vistory? What are they and how will this effect them in the mundane world?
>Which cults are the most likey to interfere with this plan? What are the
>benefits and disadvantages to stealing the cup vs just drinking from it,
>which is what you are supposed to do in the myth?
And the answer:
The group that now posesses the cup are the new guardians. Nothing substantial about the myth has changed; the path is still the same, though the details of the new path to achieve the cup are undoubtabley different. The group that can guard it best are, at the very least, secure from defeat. And if the group comes upon misfortune, than it must be that somebody got the cup away from them, leaving a reasonable facimille thereof where they had kept it, so they had beter go on the quest again, find out where the dang thing went, and get it back.
That is how the mythic structure answers the question. And I think that there is enough information avialable on many Gloranthan cultures that the rest of details are relatively easy to come up with.
>Maybe you can figure it out from "Hero of a Thousand Faces", but I don't
>think I can. From what I remember, Cambell did not seem to worry about how
>hero paths from multiple cultures could intersect and intertwine around
>each other and the effects of these interactions, which is what I see as
>the critical issue.
Rather, he says the the mythic structure is a universal consequence of how humans think. The myths explain how the culture is, and gives processes by which the culture can change and grow in repsonse to threats. One way to get the details you want is to play it out and see who comes out victorious. The goal of this type of heroquest is change, and once you start heroquesting, your world will diverge sinces your players are not playing in anybody elses world. But, since the structure is universal, it will still be the same. I think this paradox is why heroquest rules have been hard to produce.
The more thing change, the more things stay the same, Phil - - Philip R. Hammar jackal_at_alum.mit.edu You've entered another Code 6341 dimension, a dimension Naval Research Laboratory 202-767-4632 (off) of heat and flame. 4555 Overlook Av. 202-767-1697 (Fax) You've entered Usenet.Washington, DC 20375-5343
End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #207
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