>I'm having great difficulty with the idea of instinctive heroquests.
>AIUI a heroquest involves deliberatly going to the hero plane with a
>specific objective in mind. Even that can be dangerous and yet it is
>being suggested that some instinct can manage to substitute for all
>the planning and ritual normally used.
rather than focusing just on Heroquesting in the classic sense, I think it's more usefull to think of a continuum with primitive ritual behaviour at one end of the spectrum and the lightbringer's quest at the other. Inbetween we have everything from the Orlanthis greeting ritual, to mariage ceremonies, up to annual high holy day festivals. Ultimately though, they're all the same kind of activity.
Childbirth involves brining a new life into the world, and so implicitly involves direct communication, and perhaps we can say even travel, between the otherworld and the material world. That seems pretty heroquesty to me. Childbirth certainly meets the 'dangerous' criterion as well.
>The mechanics of accidental conception in the real world is not
>necessarily applicable to Glorantha.
Why not? Are you suggesting that accidental conception does not occur in Glorantha?
>There's even a mythical background - When death was introduced into
>the world the gods realised that eventually all their followers
>would die even if they themselves didn't. So they pioneered various
>heroquests to ensure that their followers could reproduce.
Except that we know the gods already reproduced sexualy, and even that our ancestor grandfather mortal (substitute various cultural First Ancestors here) was born in this way, so this seems unnecessery.
Simon Hibbs
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