Hello, all.
A while back, as some may recall, I posted a myth about the descent
of Uleria into the Underworld to bring back Flamal. Recently in my
campaign, I used that myth as the basis for a Ulerian Reincarnation HQ, and
I thought I'd share the results with the list.
The myth has Uleria seeking to for the Underworld and eventually persuading Issaries to lead her to the gates of Hell. I don't have a Ulerian in my campaign, but I do have an Issarion, so I ran the section 'Issaries Guides Uleria to the Gates of Hell'. The Ulerian was questing to find the spirit of a dead person and reincarnate him by giving birth to him. The player didn't ask, so I never decided who she wanted to reincarnate, but it was probably a Sartarite hero.
The myth involves Issaries and Uleria overcoming the forces of hatred, separation, and hunger. The first station involved bringing peace to two warring factions, which took the form of two brothers fighting over the same woman, who was lying to both of them. The Issarion acted as a go-between and eventually realized that the woman had given them two different stories.
The second, minor station involved Issaries trading with a gate keeper to get passage over a bridge that cover a vast ravine.
The third station involved crossing the Battlefields of Hatred, seeing various warring factions, like dwarves and elves killing each other, trolls torturing an elf by slowly eating him, Lunars crucifying an Orlanthi, and members of the player's clan being massacred by a rival clan. This culminated in the Ulerian fighting a troll who represented Zorak Zoran (who slew Flamal, and thus has to be overcome at some point) and finally fending him off by driving her sword into his thigh, symbolically defeating hatred and perhaps rendering him impotent. (Does Zorak Zoran have any children?)
The final station was crossing the Desert of Hunger, which is an endurance test. Because both characters were wounded by this time, they almost didn't make it. An enemy of the Issarion had quested to steal the food they needed to cross the desert. In desperation, the Ulerian finally had the Issarion plant her staff in the ground and then the Ulerian watered it with her breast milk until it produced a little foliage and some fruit, which sustained them until they got to the Gates of Hell.
Overall, I liked the way the scenario played out. It gave the characters their first real taste of an actual Heroquest (as opposed to trial runs or pilgrimages or initation rites), but was limited enough that it could be completed without too much trouble, and the Ulerian acted as an advisor to discourage overly dangerous actions. I guess it worked, because now the other players want to try heroquesting.
Andrew E. Larsen
Powered by hypermail