unconnected questors?

From: BEThexton <bethexton_at_...>
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2003 17:30:44 -0000


This is somewhere between rules and Gloranthan minutae, but hopefully at least the first order answers will be in the spirit of this list....

Obviously beings with no personal tie to an other world can be taken there under at least some conditions, or else you'd never be able to conduct initiation quests.

It is not quite explicitly stated that you can't normally take yourself directly to an other world that you have no link to, but it is so strongly implied that I would take it to be so. I.e. when questing as a heortling you always start off at your god's domain in the other world.

Clearly there will be exceptions to general rules, where there are weak spots that people can even accidentally go through (I keep thinking of Alice going down the Rabbit hole….I would think Wonderland would have to be an animist world of some sort, given its high degree of mutability?) But let's put those aside for a moment and focus on intentional crossings.

It can be inferred from the above that people with no tie to any other world can be taken on quests, but cannot initiate them. Such folk would include children, the very rare atheist (and according to the HQ teaser from GC, you'll now be able to play such folks, such as the inhabitants of God Forgot!), and possibly people who have severed all of their ties with their old religion (or had them severed), and lived to tell the tale.

My question is, can these people gain any benefit from a quest, other than the forging of a tie with the other world? In other words, to gain some benefit in the other world, do you have to have an other world tie of some sort? If this was the case, you could take an atheist along on a quest, he/she could help you succeed at it, could perform battles, etc, but would not gain any benefits, or suffer any consequences from the quest. Presumably he/she would also be subject to the penalties of an alien other world, which would make most hesitate to go along in the first place, but that is another issue.

Another option would be that you can take those with no other world connection on a quest, but they cannot really do anything unless and until they forge an other world connection. So you could take an atheist with you, but he would seem like little more than a ghost, able to observe in some manner, but not to do anything.

Finally, it is possible that except for certain carefully developed paths, such as initiation quests and whatever else the narrator desires, unconnecteds cannot fully penetrate the other worlds, and they get stuck in the veil or something like that.

Any thoughts? And how would all of this apply to something like your companion horse that you want to bring on the quest?

Also, if you are a communal worshipper you can clearly go along on a quest, but can you cross on your own, not having a specific god's domain to cross too?

Regards;

Bryan

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