As I promised/threatened earlier
One way of trying to get an advantage when heroquesting is to try and ensure you know just who you are going to encounter by taking the opposition with you, in the same way that you do for the sacred time rituals and other such minor re-enactments. Of course such a ploy is not always suitable, or without risks of its own.
In order for a quest to be successful all the participants need to be as closely related to the parts they are playing as possible. In Bruce's "Sword Called Death" quest posted here recently, then taking the sword from a child would not have had the same effect, since there is no real link between the child in "reality" and Humakt in the myth.
Secondly, if as the questors act out their part on the other side, they forge links with the parts that they are playing - indeed one of the aims of the questor is to return back with some of these links still in place - this can obviously have a negative effect on the participants if they were not prepared to take that role - there have been posts here about non-Humakti coming back from quests as Humakti in KoDP, and in the previous example the child given the sword to act the part of Humakt may be taken by Humakt (i.e. die on the quest) or come back singing his death song, dedicated to Humakt.
This link can also lead to the "weak" foe you have planned to face becoming empowered by the power of the "Strong" mythical foe you are trying to avoid (as in my example in an earlier post of the Dragonewt Scout becoming the Inhuman King, or a Trollkin Slave being imbued by the strength and fury of Zorak Zoran...)
Then there is the idea that connections you make while Heroquesting can act to pull you back through into other people's quests. You almost certainly don't know the previous life history of those prisoners you have captured to use in your rituals, so you can't guess who or what they may bring with then. That weak Dragonewt scout has previously taken part in a Draconic ritual re-enacting the Dragonkill war. His reappearance on the Hero plane starts to call his nest brothers, all looking for humans to eat...
Related to this, but in the mundane world, your captive's friends and/or family may have discovered where they are and be on their way to rescue them. Their appearance will disrupt the ritual and potentially rob you of vital support, even if they don't make some sort of appearance (real or allegorical) in the quest itself
Another point to bear in mind is that for you to be able to take your own participants with you, you need to be able to get them all through the barrier on to the other side. If they are an unwilling participant then they may be opposing your attempt to cross over. If you wanted to represent this even more stringently you could use the un-errattad rule for crossing over when considering an unwilling participant rather than the more generous "any success..."
Finally, you need to consider that the benefits you get from a quest seem to be related to the danger you face (which probably ties back to the first point about the degree of connection with the original myth). This was one of the themes behind the Convulsions Scenario, where the Grazer Chief's son has captured a more powerful foe than has been traditionally faced since he believes this will lead to him gaining more power from the ritual. The same applies in reverse - if you face a weak foe then the benefits will be lower. And now you have formed a link to your weak foe, so getting a more powerful foe in order to raise the effects will be that much more difficult for you on subsequent attempts.
Hopefully that doesn't sound too unreasonable?
-- Tim Ellis
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