Hervé
I don't claim that any of the following is correct for anyone other than me--but maybe it will be of at least some use to you.
Heroquests are in many ways the easiest thing to plan. By their very nature they are linear, 'rail-road' experiences. i.e. either you follow the story, or you go off the rails with probably disastrous results. So as a narrator, you just have to decide which parts of the train ride are worthy of contests, and how you'll make them interesting.
For me, step 1 is to strip the myth down to the most basic elements. Basically, you want to get it down to nursery rhyme level. So perhaps there is an epic story of a time in the darkness when there was no water, and a great hero went to the to get enough to keep the clan alive, and he took grievous damage from the ice daimone when it through him off the mountain--but he hurt it before being tossed. His companion managed to escape with a shard of the ice daimone, which when combined with the hero's blood created a spring that let the clan drink. The full secret story no doubt takes hours to tell.
But in essence, it is of course:
Jack and Jill went up the hill
to fetch a pail of water
Jack fell down and broke his crown
and Jill came tumbling after
Stripped down like that, obviously you need Jack and Jill as the main actors, but in the Heortling way they may well have had companions and followers with them, so you could support more.
To me, the first contest would be getting up the 'hill,' the next would be where Jack has to get hurt, and the third is where Jill comes down in a more controlled way but with the required treasure.
So we know that there will be a hill to overcome, and ice being that has to beat Jack, and a way for Jill to escape with the treasure
Is there a particular hill or mountain with resonance to the players? What about hill folk who could oppose them? The challenge could be overcoming a difficult climb, it could be neutralizing the slick ice coating the hill, it could be dealing with the broken dwarves who don't want you climbing past their caves....whatever seems interesting.
Jack has to fight something, and poor hero taking on that roll, his objective is to lose at the end. The full myth suggests an ice daimone, so the actual opponent will probably be associated with ice in some way, so if there is anything interesting in your story so far to do with winter/ice this could be a way to link back to it. Could even stretch, perhaps, to be an ice troll?
Jill comes tumbling after, but we are assuming she comes out with the treasure. Depending on the foe in the previous contest, she could be waiting for part of it to be hacked off by Jack, she could be stealing something from its abode, she could be freeing a spirit that it had enslaved. But whether the contest is stealing the treasure, or escaping more or less intact, could depend on the player and character taking on the Jill role, and what would more interestingly highlight her abilities.
Assuming Jack ends up near the village, appropriately wounded, and Jill makes it back with the required treasure, then the spring appearing is a matter of course.
So basically, that is how I approach making hero quests.
--Bryan
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