Re: from Satar: KoH, This World quests - movement through the Mortal World

From: Stephen Tempest <e-g_at_Y3K7BJL_UN1F4XTqBjMgC4UkTxfA8U4VG8y4rncoM5jYVS6h75487Z-ay8x0ZhWVbwO3I8-q>
Date: Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:43:44 +0000

Hal Bowman <hal_bowman1_at_YtEJfdeztf0UCNvfXeuGJr61kvfeh6ZhGv0MolACDeYJlf2P3bqacSo1D7YcgDNY-BkgoBZnK9PJKySDQcsO.yahoo.invalid> writes:

>I guess the next thing that should happen is the right sort of enemiy
>(or next best, another sort) show up and ambush Rolf, beating him up.
>Do they know they are in a heroquest? Does it make a difference to
>them or to the fight?

The answer is, I'm afraid, "it depends". Several circumstances can apply, in ascending order of danger for the heroquester. It's up to the Narator to choose which applies in a particular scenario.

1. It's all been arranged beforehand. The heroquester and his friends captured some of the appropriate enemies, and at the right moment Rolf's allies cut their bonds, gave them weapons and chased them into the path of the questers.

This is likely to bring minimum magical benefit, because it's staged and unrealistic.

2. A random enemy is "drawn in" by the power of the heroquest magic. That person might realise something odd is going on; or he might not - it might just appear to be a coincidence.

For example, consider the knights in Arthurian legend who were often riding peacefully through the woods minding their own business when they suddenly encounter, let's say, a maiden dressed in white riding a grey palfrey and carrying a white brachet, being pursued by a knight on a roan horse dressed all in red. The Red Knight sees our protagonist and demands to know which way the lady went, and will fight him if he refuses to say. Our knight has just been drawn into the Red Knight's heroquest (or possibly the lady's heroquest).

3. Summons of evil. The heroquester's allies perform a ritual to magically summon a dangerous enemy into the quest for Rolf to fight. This is likely to be high risk/high reward.

4. Clash of heroquests. Rolf's enemy is performing his own heroquest in which he meets someone in the woods and beats him to within an inch of his life. He might not even realise that Rolf is a heroquester himself; from his perspective, he's just a random quest opponent.

5. Deliberate sabotage. The Lunar Empire is good at this; they discover Rolf is planning a heroquest, and deliberately infiltrate their own pre-prepared opponent into position - an opponent that Rolf will find much harder, if not impossible, to beat than he'd anticipated. The quest fails, the backlash hits Rolf and his friends, and the Lunar Empire march in to take control.

Stephen