Re: Re: Zorak Zoran at the Hill of Gold

From: Roderick and Ellen Robertson <rjremr_at_...>
Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 10:19:41 -0700


> I suspect that a quester who arrives at the Hill of Gold as Yelmalio
> does have fire powers. To succeed at the quest he loses them to ZZ,
> if he fails and wins he gets to keep a Fire affinity - presumably
> however he loses something else.

The questor *is* the Fire-enabled Yelmalio when he's at (the beginning of) the HoG quest - he *has* fire powers. In a sense he is Hero-forming (God-forming?) Yelmaliio while on the quest, and the Yelmalio he is 'forming is the pre-loss god. During the quest, if the normal events take place and the Yelmalian loses to ZZ, he feels the pain of the loss of the fire powers and will probably always be marked by the experience, but he won't have "lost" something of "his own" - he's lost the fire powers of the Yelmalio that he was 'forming. If, on the other hand, he wins against ZZ, I'd allow him to pick up a Fire Affinity at a good level (More than the starting 12, less than Yelmalios's Fire 12w7...). However, the ZZ station of the heroquest should be capable of defeating 99+% of the Yelmalian questors, otherwise you'd have a whole different cult of Yelmalio. Perhaps winning the ZZ station makes the later stations even worse, or there *is* a cult of Yelmalio (under another name, definitly not the one associated with the SDT) where Yelmalio keeps the Fire Affinity, and this path is the only way to join...

The loss of Fire is a crucial element in the cult and mythology. It's like saying "What if I Heroquest back to the crucifixition as Jesus, but instead of submitting meekly at Gethsemene I lead the Zealots against the Roman Army?" If you "succeed" at this version of the quest, it can have *major* repercussions! "Arkat" is a word that comes to mind, as does "Godlearner", both well-respected and beloved by all Gloranthans...

> How about giving the hero a Fire affinity in place of his Light
> affinity at the start of the quest (for cruel narrators at starting
> ability level). If he beats ZZ he keeps the Fire affinity and loses
> the Light affinity. There will be side affects for winning though -
> one might be that he can never learn his gods secret (after all he
> cannot raise his gods affinities to W2 - he is missing one of them),
> or if he has the secret already he loses knowledge of it but still
> may never again another one.

Another possibility, certainly.

RR

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