> Does one pronounce the 'e' in Mahome or not? Is it /'Ma home'/ or
> /'Ma home ay'/? I favor the latter, but I'm curious to hear how other
> people say it?
The Prosopaedia says "mah-HOE-may"
> How does one justify performing a heroquest for something that hasn't been
> done before? Simon Phipp's excellent material on HQing describes the
> Exploration HQ as going into new territory for the deity, but how is it
> justified mythically? Most heroquests, as I understand them, involve
> re-enacting a myth about the deity and trying to reproduce the deity's
> actions. Of course, one can intentionally branch off at some point, but
> how does this actually work? More problematically, how does one initiate a
> HQ if one can't find a relevant myth?
Well, it's really hard.
The Hero Plane is a place, and you can move about it. But it's very dangerous, and easy to get lost. The myths are known paths, so people reenact them. As Arkat discovered, some spots are the intersection of more than one myth-path, so you can jump from one to another. But if you don't know both myths, jumping off makes you lost.
I don't remember what Simon wrote, but exploration HQ sounds like Arkat and the God Learners, and thus frowned on by most modern Gloranthan cultures (with the likely exception of the Lunars).
> To give an example, one of the important NPC's in the game has been
> severely traumatized emotionally and is slowly 'dying inside'. One of the
> PCs is a Chalanan, who is concerned to save her, but none of the Chalanan
> magic addresses the mind, only the body. Theoretically, he ought to be
> able to HQ to create a spell like 'Heal Mind' that would do the trick, but
> where does he start? Since there is no myth of Chalana Arroy healing
> someone's mind, how does he go about doing the quest, when he's got no
> story to serve as a template? If he somehow succeeds, does this create a
> myth about CA that follows the course of his HQ?
There probably is a myth for this. A full-blown cult isn't going to be able to exist based on the paltry number of myths known to us non-Gloranthans. There must be dozens of Chalana Arroy myths we don't know yet. So, make it up. Get your players to suggest ideas.
Then you have to decide whether the Chalanan already knows the myth (which is quite likely), or whether he has to obtain it somehow (maybe the Chalana cult in East Ralios is known to have this myth).
Performing this myth wouldn't create a spell, it would result in the effect. (Performing the Orlanth and Aroka heroquest doesn't give you the spell Stop Drought, it *does* stop the drought.)
BTW, the myth Robin Laws wrote for King of Dragon Pass is summarized: "Chalana Arroy performs four great acts of mercy, curing Orlanth of his bloodlust, healing a disease suffered by Kolat, convincing Urox not to slay a chaos god, and bringing King Heort back to life over the protests of the death god, Humakt."
Curing bloodlust probably does count as healing someone's mind.
David Dunham <mailto:dunham_at_pensee.com> Glorantha/RQ page: <http://www.pensee.com/dunham/glorantha.html> Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Albert Einstein
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