I've taken this from a thread discussing whether RQG has priority over HQG to this forum, since it is of more relevance here and applies to all the current systems for playing in Glorantha.
On 5/2/2019 at 9:20 PM, lordabdul said:Can you expand a bit on that? I'm in the process of reading (for the first time) both the new RuneQuest and the last HeroQuest, and I'm actually surprised to see how very similar they are to each other. The way characters are modeled in RQG strongly echoes everything that's great about HQ (occupation, runes, tribe culture, cult, passions, etc... all being available as gameplay mechanics). It seems to me like both systems aim for the same goals of translating the highly mythological Gloranthan life into rules, and do it with very similar mechanics... it's just that one does it in a high-level narrative way, while the other does it in a crunchier way.
Or maybe you're talking about the sourcebooks in which case yes, I agree, but then it might not be fair to compare the 21st century HQ books with RQ books written in the 80s and 90s. I'm expecting future RQG sourcebooks to follow the high quality expectations set by 11L, GtG, and other "late-stage-HQ" publications.
3 hours ago, Joerg said:5 hours ago, lordabdul said:The main thing that's confusing to me is where a Heroquest comes from. I understand that the GM and players can either draw from the myths written in published books, or invent their own, but can you make any adventure into a Heroquest if you want? Or only specific adventures that are designed to be Heroquests from the start?
Yes and no.
Yes, there are ways to make any kind of adventure into a heroquest. And no, there are things that are at best quite hard to translate into a heroquest.
There are quests that serve to give the questers a personal exposure to the deeds of their deity in order to acquire their magic and an understanding of the deity's role in the world. The magics gained on such quests can be means for problem solving, to be applied to the specific task that is at hand. On the other hand, this works only for problems with sufficient build-up time.
There are quests where you enter the Godtime and interact with the myths directly, taking the role of your deity or a role that fits your position in life without being dedicated to that deity. Entering the Godtime and acting there requires identification with some actor or at least observer in that myth. (The type of quest mentioned before works both in a This World quest in ritual re-enactment and in actual crossing over to the Godtime, which entails ritual re-enactment, too.) Mostly, you will do like your role has done, and re-inforce the existing myth. Quite often, that will aid your cause by setting something right that has gone wrong, often through enemy action.
But then there will be moments where myths provide a choice, different versions to choose from, and your choice may affect the outcome, and how your actions in Godtime reflect to what happens to your community (or the community you have been recruited to serve). And there will be moments where the myths originally didn't have such choices, but you introduce one, and deviate from well-known paths. That may result in you getting new and surprising powers out of that, and that's already a great achievement. That may result in creating a new path through Godtime that others may traverse, reinforcing that branch of the story. And that may ultimately change mythic reality for all of Glorantha if you go deep enough, reinforce that new path enough, and find the way to make others accept that path. That's creative heroquesting and can be about the rise of a new way of magic, like the Red Goddess did and like Argrath is about to begin, and it can be vile God Learning, destroying the way the world works.
1 hour ago, lordabdul said:Thanks for the explanations. I'm still wrapping my head around this, and I'm sorry if I'm hijacking the thread (although I think it fits a bit into how RQ relates to HQ and how future sourcebooks may or may not work with both systems). I think it boils down to understanding why a "heroquest" concept exists at all in the HQ rulebook? Like, I understand what you're saying on a purely narrative/scenario-design aspect but, again, coming from the CoC side of the Chaosium offering, I'm wondering what does this actually bring to the table? CoC adventures might make you experience time in a weird way, send you to another planet or dimension, and even weirder things, face Elder Gods and so on, but that's all just part of the adventure itself, there's otherwise no "OtherwoldQuest" concept: the rules just let you take a flashlight and a magic book, and you're on your own.
Are there good examples of heroquests? (what you're saying about affecting God Time sounds super interesting, is there any published material with such adventures?) The only one I have so far is the Colymar Campaign from Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes, and even then, I don't quite get it. The third deed the PCs are supposed to undertake is to go free Hofstaring Treeleaper from the Underworld -- seems fun enough. But I don't see why this is a heroquest, and why it couldn't have just been "a very dangerous adventure where you go to weird places". Maybe it's a heroquest just because it has a hero challenge at the end?
Another way to phrase it is that "heroquest" is a label you can put on some adventures and not others, and the simple fact that the label exists means there needs to be some criteria for doing so... but these criteria are very unclear to me.
57 minutes ago, Tinkgineer said:My understanding is that a HeroQuest is more than just an adventure, but rather a repeatable interaction with a myth.
Suppose I told you the story of Excalibur, and that I knew the secret to the myth that would allow me to HeroQuest into it. The secret (maybe some sort of ritual) allows interaction with the myth, like you going into it. You would then be a character in the story, and by the end you may be able to change the reality that is built upon the myth, or bring some sort of magical ability back out with you. It's not just an adventure because it's already "happened" and is repeatable and changeable.
I remember reading on some source book about the god learners trying to convince two goddesses to switch places in order to prove that the gods were all interchangeable. They had to heroquest into these myths many times, and each time taking actions to eventually convince them that they were the same person or something.
Maybe think of it like getting sucked into a re-run of a TV show episode, and being able to change the story in subtle ways each time.
8 minutes ago, Joerg said:This has to do with Gloranthan cosmology and the concept of Godtime. While Glorantha kept evolving and devolving throughout its mythical ages (Green Age, Golden Age, Storm Age, Lesser Darkness, Greater Darkness, those "Gloranthan pasts" have never gone away (except for the bits which were rent apart retroactively in the Greater Darkness - while you may visit Genert's Garden with a plethora of his allies, you won't be able to recognize many of those which had been eliminated by the Chaos horde.
But in Godtime, the Golden Age keeps going on. Umath is born in an undying moment, and in another one he is fragmented into too many pieces by Shargash/Jagrekriand, and it is possible to visit these in reverse order (especially for Lunar questers knowing the technique of Chronoportation).
Heroquesters visit these events to experience their deity in them if theist (divine rune magic is the magic of being your deity), taking that feat back to the mundane world as an ability for themselves or to be shared with their (divine) cult, or the cult worshipping them as heroes. There is also the possibility to cross the paths of other heroquesters, and to exchange powers with them throuh a heroquest challenge. This does include obscure witnesses on some station of the myth your quest is following, too, if you can make a sufficiently reasonable identification.
In the end, it is about getting magical effects - either directly affecting the mundane world you return to, or affecting your own ability to wield magic in the mundane world and in Godtime.
Think of "Dream Journey to the Unknown Kadath", which has both the conventional, bookish way to enter the Dreamlands, and being suddenly dropped inside a dream.
That's like visiting the caves near to the Maggot beneath Snake Pipe Hollow, or sailing beyond the Inner World.
There are realities (or perhaps rather irrealities) in the Cthulhu mythos which are much like Godtime, and then there are simply distant worlds, and there are the Dreamlands. You can visit those, or chase villains on power trips there, and if you visit Yuggoth, you're likely to return with Mi-Go technology. Wielding the Ultraviolet or a sword taking on abilities of the Unbreakable Sword isn't that different.
In Dreamlands interactions with other Dreamers, you can alter the experience and knowledge of these, and of course your own. You might destroy them in a meaningful way.
The Eleven Lights (the campaign companion to the setting description in The Coming Storm) has the Red Cow heroquest, a clan secret which is regularly repeated in order to retain the distinctive magic of the red cows for the clan herd. It also has the Eleven Lights quest which takes you on a grand tour of the Outer Worlds of Glorantha, a different form of the Hero Planes. Get these books...
Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes has heroquests, too, but the two mentioned above are possibly more typical.
Another good introduction to heroquesting is playing King of Dragon Pass, the computer game for mobile phones and tablets by A Sharp, or its successor (and, in a way, prequel) Six Ages: Ride Like the Storm (?).
Read the reports on the Lightbringers' Quest in the Glorantha Sourcebook. It tells the journey of Orlanth and his Lightbringer Companions into the Underworld, to restart the universe. And then read the story how Harmast Barefoot brought back Arkat (and later Talor) by following this quest, with changes to the quest due to incomplete information and different choices in the Godtime.
In a way, yes, a heroquest is a very dangerous adventure where you go to weird places. What you do in those magical/mythical places will affect the magical reality of the mundane world you started from - much like time travel does in softer SF or the Cthulhu Mythos.
Having the hero chalenge is a bit a mechanical way of asserting that (and how) the journey into the realm of the myths has changed the protagonists.
But note that this quest isn't among those I suggested above. IMO this quest is rather specific and not that typical.
There are a few heroquests in the Sartar Rising scenario series for Hero Wars/first edition HeroQuest.
And 13th Age Glorantha has a bunch of other fun concepts on heroquesting, like the concept of a living dungeon, but that's a third rule system you would have to break out.
In a purely scenario-design aspect, that is correct.
Basically, if your adventure is about very mundane activities, there is a good likelihood that it does not turn out to be a heroquest. On the other hand, much of the mundane reality of Glorantha has its definition in Godtime, and it is possible that a perfectly ordinary cattle raid (or counter raid) suddenly turns into a Godtime myth that has a very similar story. Or possibly a bunch of very similar stories, leaving you the choice to choose one.
And no, only very few of these stories have official write-ups. The ones we have a good format for their descriptions are from the King of Dragon Pass computer game. A few of these are reprinted in Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes, IIRC. The complete collection should be in the Stafford library Vol.11: Book of Heortling Mythology.
The myths of Glorantha are more than background fluff. You can ritually enter them, and play them out as you know them, and learn how to be like your god, and to use the magics of your god. You can more physically enter them hoping to solve a problem you have, identify certain stations of the myth and protagonists therein with your foes, summon them into this myth and deal with them having the advantage of the mythical structure of the world behind you. However, you're hardly the only one to do so, and you may be drawn into this as one of the bystanders or opponents, making stations that sound like easy pushovers suddenly deeply challenging, and what you might have perceived as being in your advantage might turn out to be working against you - possibly on a different issue - as your opponents frame the mythical context.
It is possible to invoke a mythic parallel for a situation at any time in an adventure. Your player characters or the patron of the adventure may do so, and so may the opponents. This can elevate an ordinary conflict into a major magical change in the world.
The challenged opponents may turn down the transfer into the realms of myth, or they may steer you into a very different version of this myth, or a different myth altogether.
Reading the Glorantha sourcebook should give you a good basic idea of how the various Gloranthan deities are interconnected, and how they turn up in each others' myths. Over time, you will discover other possible connections, and testing these out - whether as a thought experiment or as an actual scenario - is pretty much like a heroquest for you as a player or GM (in addition to being one for your character or party).
Entering the Cthulhu Mythos, leaving ordinary sanity behind, is quite similar, but there the big goal is to return to a world unchanged by great magics. In Glorantha, everybody has left ordinary sanity behind and is quite willing, sometimes even eager, to accept such changes to their world, without ever jumping over the fence that Call of Cthulhu ultimately provides for the characters who have delved too deeply into the Cthulhu mythos, forcibly retiring them to a sanatorium or an evil cult.