Because I am enjoying this, I’m going to continue on the heroquesting discussion. So lets first clear the table:
The annual Sacred Time rituals or High Holy Day ceremonies are NOT the heroquest to play. Any more than the annual tribal assembly or some regular council meeting is the adventure to play. This stuff goes on in the background and is better just treated as when you get new spells, sacrifice for Rune points, or replenish your Rune points. They are just the routine use of the Worship skill.
However, just like a tribal assembly or an otherwise regular council meeting, these regular ceremonies CAN BE a part of an adventure. The rituals go off and suddenly you find yourself on the Cosmic Mountain or riding an Umbroli across the lower world. Or maybe they are a springboard for deliberately doing that.
Alternatively, you might say that the Hill of Orlanth Victorious can at gamemaster fiat be a place where ghosts and gods confront you with your role in destroying the world and beseech you to save the world. And if you fly off it you are in the broken cosmos of trials.
Or maybe there is a cave that on the shortest day of the world allows entry into the actual Underworld. Go into it and once you cannot see the entrance any more and the light is barely there, there is no end to the cave.
And so on. We know that Snakepipe Hollow is one of these places during Sacred Time as is the Puzzle Canal. They are spring boards to a mythic adventure.
But the regular ceremonies – they bring the Proximate Realm to us, we perform the rites and experience the God Time but they are not adventures any more than the regular meetings of the Pavis City Council.
Next point. There’s not a heroquest for everything. The danger is real and the costs high. Want to tame a sky bull? Go to Stormwalk Mountain while chanting mantras along the spiralling path and when you get to the frozen top there’s Baskelos, his hounds, and the herd. Find away to get past Baskelos and his hounds (they are really big though!) and then use that lariat and a stick (for those of you not from the Western US, that’s “tailing down” or “tailing the bull” or “colear con garrocha”) to tail down the sky bull and fly away with him.
That’s high stakes, high rewards. Want to get rid of those rocks in the field? You are better off begging or paying the Earth Priestess to summon a big earth elemental and extend it for a few hours.
Want to find Death? Well maybe a good entry point would be go to Delecti’s Palace, get past all his zombies and skeletons and enter his basement until you find him guarding his treasure vault. And somehow get past him and into the vault. There might be Death (or at least a good copy). And if you get it, that’s one heck of a deadly magical sword. Or maybe this is Zorak Zoran’s copy?
Want to hire the Cannon Cult from The Dwarf but don’t have the Red Emperor’s ransom in gold? Easy, just get the Fusee Mechanism that Vadel stole in the God Time. You just need to travel from the Hill of Orlanth Victorious to the Vadeli Kingdom and steal it! Get past evil sorcerers, vicious cannibals, and moral monsters. But if you do it, the Cannon Cult is at your service!
Most of these are going to be very specific to the characters, which is why attempts to write standalone heroquests get terribly bogged down. And why the approach I’m taking in the new revision is much shorter and barebones and intended more as an exemplar than a scenario.
- Search this site for Heroquesting
See Also
But if you are going to do this you better be prepared. Learn the applicable stories, get as much magic and magical allies and possible. And bring some useful friends.
And come on gang, I just gave you the real secret of the Gorangi Vak heroquest!
My problem is making a HQ feel different to the rest of Glorantha. No amount of rules and tables are going to fix that. This gets at the very root of the issue. Here’s another way of looking at it –
Was Queen of the Demonweb Pits a regular AD&D game? Did it feel different from Steading of the Hill Giant Chief?
Was Vecna: Eve of Ruin a regular 5e game? Did it feel different from Lost Mine of Phandelver?
Both of those are how D&D interacts with its mythic. Now in Glorantha it is much less beat up the god and take its stuff, and more about interacting with Glorantha’s archetypes, mythic maps, and mythology. But it poses the same basic question – does the adventure “feel” different or does it feel just like Cattle Raid or another dungeon ruin in the Big Rubble?
Maybe more DnD (or 13A) is the answer. No DnD is not the answer IMO. Nor is 13A. It is just to think about what you are doing and not let RQ’s past confine you.
Okay, so let’s imagine this as a regular scenario. We are doing something ordinary (if important) in society and we somehow get The Call to Adventure. Maybe someone keels over dead as they address the City Council, maybe we are presenting the gift to the king only to discover it has been stolen, or whatever. Maybe the king asks us to rescue his daughter from the Snake Cult of Thulsa Doom. Or whatever.
Is there a price to pay when you return from your quest? Almost always. Do we need to weave this result back into what they were doing? Maybe. Maybe it just overwhelms it.
Or maybe you are being really literal – what happens when the quest is over? When you come back, maybe you’re physically in the same spot (or sometimes discover the ceremony circle has mysteriously moved a hundred kilometres away), but you are often radically changed—sometimes gifted with a new ability or perception, sometimes carrying a lifelong taboo or wound.