> I would suggest it means that the PC has failed badly in their
> attempt to emulate their diety. A Humakti has dropped his sword,
> a Vingan has slipped on a patch of mud or a Rigsdali falls asleep on
> watch. That doesn't anger the deity, just damages the Pc's
> confidence in their ability to emulate them.
There is a ring of truth in that. Perhaps it's more of a state of mind thing though. So a humakti feels compassion or something and the magic won't come. That would not be catastrophic enough. How about a healer, whose rage twists her magic?
Anyway, in the context of HeroQuest, I would not make a PC "slip in the mud" or anything like that. I don't want the PCs looking foolish. In the only complete defeat in magic that we've had, our humakti tried to heal the landscape, drive away the undead. I didn't notice that it was healing at the time, but anyway our purification ritual didn't go too well. But it wasn't like our humakti fumbled and missed the sacrificial cow, (thus looking foolish) but the miasma of undeath was just surpirisingly strong and the sacrificial cow rose from the dead. I even gave the PC the choice of taking the blow himself and blocking the released death-power or loosing it on the community.
Anyway, it's not cool, if the PCs look foolish.
Olli Kantola
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