I think usually, a band of raiding orlanthi find themselves "accidentally" facing a perfectly formed solar phalanx with all their battle magic cast/etc. Failing that, some poor pelorian farmer walking to market suddenly finds himself being called "rebel" and "stormer" and all sorts of other horrible insults.
I run "this world" heroquests using liberal dashes of strange luck and cooincidence to provide whatever is needed at the moment. In cases where a "real" participant is simply not possible to find, it is either the "heroquest suprise" and that station of the quest isnt supposed to go that way anyhow, OR the participants can "discover" things about otherwise familiar poeple and places that they did not "know" before...
"Worry not gentle townsfolk! I hast saved thee from Old Bob the Stickpicker who was really an Ogre all along!" "But he was just sitting there... eating a rabbit..." "It was a BABY, I could see his OGRE TEETH!" "but Bob didn't have any teeth..." "He doesn't NOW, because I hast smote the vile chaos from his mortal form!"
Heroquesters can be extremely dangerous to random passersby who do not know what quest they or doing, or how to respond to them safely.
> The other (lesser and more mechanical) problem is with deliberately failing stations on a heroquest. Assuming a band of PC's correctly identify a station as 'Orlanth was beaten up by Kygor Liter', how would you actually play this in a way that was fun for the players?
>
ahhh, That is a Lovely station, one of the best! :)
The PROPER way to do it, is to get the clan together, and summon the ancestors into our warlord and have him go beat the crap out of some isolated farmer and bring back cattle, sheep and delicious babies for us to eat!
Yeah, sometimes they are better prepared than others, but the story sez we beats THEM, and thats how it should go.
Now those dirty orlanthi, as they are wont to do, don't like the PROPER quest, and prefer to CHEAT.
The usual way they cheat is to get the local fat lady, or someone else of a "darkish" temperment to strap on some tusks and skins, and just SAY they are Kyger Litor, and feebly swat their chosen hero about a bit. Doesn't do us any good at all, but it seems to suffice for their purposes most of the time. cowardly buggers.
Other times, they herd up a trollkin or two to play the role, and talk the poor blighers up till they think they're really something. Then they let them "win" a fight, and send em off all puffed up and full of themselves till they come up against something actually dangerous (like a proper troll), and end up all dead on account of they's fergot their place.
Big Orlanthi Heroes, the dangerous ones what fly and stuff... those guys will actually come into our lands and take themselves a proper beating. Those guys yu better look out fer, cause they'll just keep looking for "the real Kyger Litor" if yer not tuff enough to give em what fer. Them guys kin hurtcha good if u aint ready fer em. Kill em if ya can, cuz they'll be back later on some other quest what aint so good fer uz.
Hope that gives you some useful ideas.
Also, trust your players to help you make the connections if you dont immediately see anything obvious. They are at least as motivated as you to keep the quest moving along, and will have all sorts of interesting ideas about what "should" happen ;-)
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