> I have a magical landscape question. I've read
> the rules in HeroQuest, but I'm not quite sure
> how to adapt them to get the affect that I want.
> . . .
> Mud Lake is the home of a powerful spirit.
> The spirit is greedy, swallowing things and
> spirits (and probably occasional daimones or
> essences) that wander into its power. The
> clan conducts annual ceremonies to help the
> Broken-Head River raid Mud Lake and drain some
> of its waters, and performs other ceremonies
> to beat the lake back firmly from the rich soil
> that this exposes. Of course every storm
> season the lake swallows fresh melt water,
> swelling it up again.
>
> In addition, occasionally old Auntie Ranatyr,
> a shaman of Earth Witch, comes by, and less
> frequently strange shamans. Ranatyr gets
> clan support and battles the spirit of Mud
> Lake to win small "Greed" spirits, which she
> uses as curses. In return for clan support she
> does other magical favors. Strange shamans
> are more likely to bargain with the spirit,
> giving it something in return for extracting
> some lesser thing that it had previously
> swallowed.
>
> Because the clan is wary of strengthening the
> spirit they seldom grant permission for
> this (or offer support), but as they only really
> control one shore of the lake they can't always
> stop it.
>
> This back story has a number of rules components:
> 1) Supporting the daimone of the river to
> weaken the lake
> 2) Ceremony to weaken the lake and keep it
> from swallowing the crop land.
> 3) The recovery of the lake each year.
> 4) Shaman can extract "greed" spirits
> (passion spirits) which can be released to
> possess someone.
> 5) Shaman can "bargain" with the lake, trading
> one item/ability for another.
IMO without the rule book to hand, I'd handle it as a landscape spirit:
Point 1 seems easy to me. You give worship to the river daimon and use the resulting "Drain Land" ability in contests against the lake. This seems to work regardless of the nature of the lake spirit.
Point 2 is a little more difficult. It seems to me that the point of this ceremony is to create a physical effect in the middle world. If the spirit is a landscape spirit, the intrepid clan members would stake their Drain Land ability against the Lake's most appropriate ability (like Swallow Things). The ceremony begins by clearign the drainage ditches, starting downstream where the river is. The height of the ceremony would be when the leader tries to dig the last part of the drainage ditch out into the lake, which tries to sweep him off his feet and clog the ditch with mud. If clan wins, they have successfully cleared the drainage ditches; if they lose badly, someone drowned. If the spirit is an otherworld spirit, then the problem is easier (but less interesting) because the physical lake resists magic at a 14 (unless some evil shaman helps it resist . . . ).
Point 3 is the inverse of point 2. You are primarily talking about the lake swallowing up physical land. If it is a landscape spirit, then the lake would normally have to stake its "Swallow Things" (like land) ability against the 14 resistance of the land and drainage ditches. The lake gets a huge bonus for "propitious day" -- that being the middle of flood season, when it originally settled here. The clan could, of course, resist, maybe using its wyter's abilities, but would be wise not to chance it. If the spirit is in the spirit world, then the swelling of the lake is a simply natural phenomenon -- i.e. boring.
Point 4 is cool. If the lake is a landscape spirit, this diminishes the power of the spirit, which is why it resists and the clan support it. I don't recall the exact mechanic here, sadly. I'd make something up, like the greed spirits being the lake's children or the spirits of those it drowned or being the puddles it leaves behind when defeated. If the lake is an otherworld spirit, it is just an independent practice that grants little spirits.
In either case, I think the shaman's appropriate relationship would be "Dominate Mud Lake" or the like. Appropriate modifiers would be for propitious days, appropriate mythic preparations, having the right implements on hand for defeating greed (the tax code?), etc. She wades into the shallow part; if she loses, she gets stuck and loses her shoes or something; if she wins, that part of the lake drains away from the area; the fetish would be or be made of the remaining mud. She would need to use this (by way oof thrown mudball!?) to release the spirit she traps in the fetish (note, not a charm, I think). In either case, I think the rules have a mechanism that takes into account that the spirit is hostile (maybe reflected in what occurs at what level of success?).
Point 5 is also cool. It is also like point 4. Here, though, the shaman and the spirit are neutral rather than hostile. The appropriate ability would be either "Friend of Mud Lake" or "Trade with Mud Lake". I think it would resist with Greed (and if it loses, it got too greedy -- "Give me your eternal soul!"). Appropriate modifiers for success would include propitious days, propitious points on the shore, giving the lake a trinket before beginning to bargain, etc.
In this case, though, the lake would not want to give away anything that diminished its power without obtaining worship. I think that the rules modelled the effect of worshipping a landscape spirit. The laternative is that the lake simply gives up something it swallowed in exchange for something else. I'd assume that the clan would be very hostile to the former ("Go away!"), but less so to the latter ("What will you give me?").
I presume this is all clear as mud.
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