Re:Thedquest

From: aelarsen_at_facstaff.wisc.edu
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 13:40:30 -0600


>From: Andreas Mueller <mueller_at_faw.uni-ulm.de>
>Subject: Re: Thedquest
>
>Andrew E. Larsen:
>> So, the faint groundwork is laid for a new myth of Orlanth
>> punishing Ragnaglar.
>
>Interesting new thread:
>This goes straight to one of the major problems I always had with the
>heroquest-concept. Basically, this is a time warp with the heroquester
>changing history at a central place. It seems to be modelled the
>"Perception of Time"-Way. This means, only your history is changed,
>everybody elses history remains the same
<snip>

>So the (for me
>unsatisfactory but nethertheless seemingly official) line is, that you
>deliberately reenact the mistakes your god made, to represent his
>personal development (Some Digests before, I read that Orlanth learned
>from this incident, that law shouldn't be applied by the letter, but on
>a case-to-case-basis).

        I went into the scenario expecting that the resolution would follow your position--that the Orlanthi would acknowledge Orlanth's action and grant Thed her justice. But the Lhankor Mhy PC commented that Orlanth learned that there could be too much justice, and the Issaries PC noted that it would involve
punishing the innocent for the crimes of the criminal. Based on this, the Orlanthi decided to look for another way (shades of Ernalda) and found the new solution. I liked it enough to let it stand, and now the players are interested in trying to repeat the solution at some point. One of the NPCs was raped a while ago and is slowly dying inside, and someone suggested that this might offer a way to heal her. I'm not sure that this is the start of a new hero-cult yet.

>One other thought: Should it be possible, that a non-Heroquester can
>profit from a heroquest, in which he has been integrated as the enemy? I
>think, only other heroquesters would be suitable opponents and should be
>encountered at another plane of existence. If they win, they can
>justified demand benefits from excelling at _their_ heroquest, including
>the start of the subcult. Non-heroquesters, IMO, shouldn't get the
>knowledge necessary to start a new subcult.

   I don't think that the PCs should get any major benefit from this, since they weren't on a heroquest, but only got dragged into one. There might be a slight benefit, but nothing really important.

>Last but not least one question from me: Is rape in Glorantha considered
>chaotic or is it "just evil"? I think the first applies and had serious
>problems with an adventure in TotRM (first or second Prax Special) whose
>story relied upon Praxian Nomads raping an Orlanthi woman. While this is
>unfortunately part of real world warfare, I think this shouldn't be true
>in Glorantha.

        There was some discussion on this point a little bit ago, started by a comment I made about Uroxi sodomizing some of their captives. I don't think the list reached any real consensus on this point. I guess that my feeling is that rape is evil and might be chaotic depending on the circumstances.

Andrew E. Larsen


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