ZedAlpha

The party’s Earth Priestess wants this to protect Esrolia and gain political influence and fame. The party Humakti Duck wants to kill mammals and grow his legend as a peerless warrior. The party’s Praxian sorcerer/archer likes the idea of plundering the pirates’ stolen loot, and the party Trickster wants to avenge his family, who were killed by the pirates. They all have reasons that make sense in character.

Um. I just. Um. The Trickster player, who has never heard of Glorantha before this game, is nonbinary (like I am), their character is genderfluid (like me and the player both are), and he (player is fine with those pronouns right now) named his Trickster Androgenus as a joke. is that why the only experienced Gloranthan gamer in the group couldn’t stop laughing when Trickster player introduced their character?

Are they completely reliant on worship and sacrifice to keep them alive, a la American Gods and Discworld? Do they have completely separate existences like Forgotten Relms, say? Can people just make up new gods and have them pop into existence in the God Time having always been there, or are there no new gods after the Dawn?

ooh, that'd be something: Our Heroes kill Harrek, but later on his most devout followers find yet another way to claw him back from the Underworld. If they want him to stay dead, or not get back his horrible power, they'll later have to sort of counter-heroquest (if that's even a thing) to keep him from stealing his power from a Bear God that might-or-might-not be grateful that the PCs have liberated them. I could easily--if the campaign continues this long--hit them with news of Harrek's resurrection out of nowhere and then drop the news that not only is he alive, but he'll probably be able to steal the White Bear God's powers again, and then he'll be pissed.

yeah, that's the entire point of this thread, lol. I'd like to do the work, because my players either A) don't know/care about Gloranthan canon (but like the setting) and want to defeat the bear-clad supervillain that's raping and pillaging his way across their home country, or 2) really, really, really like Gloranthan canon, but hate gaming in settings where all-powerful NPCs get to do all the cool stuff and the PCs are stuck in the background. YYYEP. I'm aware. Thanks for the "Changing History" post, by the way, that's giving me some confidence that I won't just get shouted down for doing this like I would if I asked this kind of question around Dragonlance fans, or something. I need to look up like...90% of the names that @Eff and @jajagappa have dropped, but there's some interesting ideas there. I kind of enjoy @EricW's idea of recreating the Death Story writ large, and might incorporate elements of that. What @Joerg said about: really rings true for me in both parts. The players' plan (according to our Discord and me dropping more lore for them to devour at their leisure) right now involves separating the Bear God from Harrek, turning him into a "merely" incredibly angry and deadly pirate king with a big-ass axe, then finding some way to survive the ensuing swordfight.

Oh, that’s one of the vague things we can define for ourselves? Neat. In that case I might go with the “Multiple Argraths” model for the hero wars. Argrath the Mariner, pirate, explorer, and all around Orlanthi scumbag, he can be with Harrek, plotting how they’re going to keep on despoiling the Holy Country, then. I’m imagining this guy as having ties to a lot of sea spirits and the seedier side of Orlanth in his guise as the Thunderer.

Hm. Well, as to Argrath being there, I’m not sure. This is set the Sea Season immediately following the City of Wonders being sacked. Also, aren’t there like....three or four (possibly more) Argraths?

So my players are going to attempt to kill Harrek the Berserk in the next few sessions of our HQ:G game. Due to a heroquest performed by the party Trickster (who's now Illuminated as a side effect of the heroquest), they actually have a shot at doing this. My own experience with Glorantha (aside from this game) is pretty much limited to King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages, and only one of our players had ever played in any RuneQuest/HeroQuest/Hero Wars games before--and they're perfectly fine with offing important background NPCs if/whenever necessary to the story. My main question here is not the how but the what would logically happen next? If Our Heroes successfully murder (or otherwise 'take off the board' somehow) the god-king of the Wolf Pirates, the deadliest man in Glorantha, what political/religious/military/whatever fallout would logically (in your opinions or imagination) happen? Would the Wolf Pirates just pack up and leave Esrolia? Would they swear fealty to whoever offed their leader, Necromongers-style? Would they swear eternal vengeance and do even worse things to the Holy Country? Something else? I don't know. I'm curious as to what might happen. I'm also really curious about any times where any of y'all's games might have had a similar situation with another Big Important Named NPC From The Lore.

yeah, according to the bare rules of HQ:G, that character can now use Law, Order, and Harmony runes. After talking it over with the player, he's of the mind that yeah, like you said, it'd be sobering. He'd be able to (and probably wholeheartedly willing to) uphold certain rules and societal structures. You can't transgress unless there's some sort of valid structure to transgress against, after all.

My dumb theory? Humakt was originally a Durulz deity who was appropriated and then anthropomorphized by humans living in the Dragon Pass area, then became part of the Orlanthi pantheon shortly before the end of the Golden Age.

so in my campaign recently, our party Trickster got Illuminated as part of a HeroQuest involving a Eurmali myth. We defined it in the moment as the character perhaps seeing the Fourth Wall, which was great for a laugh, but we're trying to wonder what Illumination would feel like and seem like to a Trickster character now. Any thoughts, anyone?

The player came up with the (great, in my opinion) idea of a demonically possessed, sentient spellbook he found in the ruins of Old Pavis that taught him sorcery. He's...not a good person, but he didn't do all of what his clan accused him of.

by the way, if anyone wants to steal this idea for a Eurmali myth for their own Gloranthae, please do and let me know how it turns out.

That's actually precisely where I was wanting to guide the resolution to this, but the players like the idea of locking him in an infinite Groundhog Day time loop, stealing all of his powers, or just disintegrating him. Trickster player was thinking about literally dropping a giant anvil on his head.

Yeah, I showed Trickster's player this thread so he could figure out how he wanted to improvise his way through the myth, and really liked your take on a lot of the ideas. We all had a blast detailing how his character saw the fourth wall, and the Duck's player, who's the oldest one of us and REALLY into British comedy, quoted Blackadder when the Trickster got Illuminated: "As private parts to the Gods are we: they play with us for their amusement!" There was like half a swearing hour given over to Deadpool jokes and wondering if we should just switch to playing Toon for the rest of the campaign.

I have never seen so many critical successes or fails in any game for any system. Here's how it shook out in game: The heroes went to an obscure urban shrine of Eurmal, dedicated to an equally obscure sect: Eurmal the Lucid, an aspect of Eurmal in his role as the trickster with startling clarity on events. There, the Earth Priestess seduced the shrine's keeper, allowing the party trickster to learn the myth How Eurmal Stole the Infinity Rune. There was a hilarious in-character discussion about whether or not they should allow a vengeance-mad trickster who keeps making little "stabbing effigies," basically tiny voodoo dolls, of people who have slighted him in the past, to gain infinite power even for a second. In the end, it was decided that this was probably the only way they could kill Harrek. The quest began: Trickster took some very fun mushrooms and went into a religious trance as his spirit entered the God Time. He was led into the shrine's hidden cellar and made his first choice: he'd steal the infinity rune from the Beast Father Twins; in the mortal world, he was led into a stable, where he had a very heated argument with a passing Praxian mercenary's rhinoceros. Meanwhile in the God Time, he tricked Hykim into letting him "borrow" his Infinity Rune, and then ran away with it. One of the players brought up how this would probably make him Illuminated, and that Illumination drives people bugnuts. The Trickster critically failed a test to "keep it together on a cosmic scale," and is now hopelessly insane. It turns out that glimpsing the true, meaningless, fictive absurdity of Creation is bad for your health! Who knew? At the next station, the Duck (playing the role of Humakt) chased the Trickster throughout the town, where he flawlessly duplicated Death over and over and over in a mad rush to, as Jagajappa suggested, "make it all end," because the myth just wouldn't end. In the real world, the Duck got into a fight with a Redsmith over who had ownership of all the swords, spearheads, axeheads, and falx blades that were being duplicated Loaves and Fishes-style in his smithy. Duck got called an "impertinent feathery little beast," then proceeded to break both of the smith's arms. A critical success with the Duck's trait Unexpectedly Terrifying (tied to his Death rune) had the smith's apprentice make a generous gift of an enchanted shield to the Duck in the hopes that he and his very intoxicated friend with the glowing eyes would just go away. Meanwhile, the Earth Priestess had to pay off the city watchmen to not try and arrest the trickster after the Trickster, running away from "Humakt," caused a small stampede of livestock to cause a distraction. At the next station, the Earth Priestess then took on the role of Babeester Gor, and decided to contact that goddess directly to play the part right. There was a critical failure. A rather rude pack of bureaucrats who took issue with the heroquest going on in their city may or may not have been messily eviscerated by the Always Angry Goddess here incarnated in a small, fat priestess of Ernalda. Things kind of went off the rails here for a second as the Earth Priestess started to go on a rampage, but true to the myth, the Trickster got her drunker than drunk and used his magic to pin all the blame on a nearby Lunar sorceress who was shopping for reagents in the market square. Hilarity Ensued. There were few survivors. At the next station, the Praxian Sorcerer took on the role of the Sorcerer's Town people and tried to convince the Trickster to bind himself with his own rune, but the Trickster was too wily and ran away. The Quest threatened to fail--the corrupting power of Infinite Illumination was blasting the Trickster's mind away, and he was planning on just magically nuking the city they were in with the power of the Rune in a mad gambit to make it all end. A bare success to stave off cosmic suicide led him to try and commit actual suicide, which led to the next station. The Trickster disappeared entirely from the material world, reappearing in the God Plane as Orlanth cut him from his noose, which was the Infinity Rune. Orlanth bound the Trickster to him for the duration of the Lightbringer's Quest and dragged him to the Underworld. Unwilling to face continued existence, the Trickster dutifully performed his role but plotted revenge. Meanwhile, back in the real world, there was a pitched battle in the city's market square between the Lunar sorceress, the other members of her mercenary company that had been contracted to protect the city from Wolf Pirates, the local guards trying to arrest her, the Praxian rhino-rider (who turned out to be a devotee of Storm Bull and was itching for a chance to kill some Lunars), and the Duck, who was racing the Praxian to murder the Lunar first. The Praxian Sorcerer and the Earth Priestess hid in a tavern and got even more drunk, waiting for this to blow over. In the Underworld, the Trickster came to his senses after strangling the son of the Only Old One, thus breaking hospitality and dooming the Lightbringers. He successfully learned the lessons Some Jokes Just Aren't Funny after trying to amuse Issairies with a "humorous" depiction of what he'd done. There in the hopelessness of the Lightbringers, he realized that, well...nothing matters. Nothing matters at all. The God Time is an unending circular existence, doomed to repeat itself ad nauseum, and then the Darkness would eat it into pure nothingness. I had one last check for the heroquest, which the Trickster knocked out of the park, on a critical success with his breakout trait "Eurmal the Lucid cultist." He aced it, and accepted the lesson: "If Everything Is Meaningless, Then Everything Has Meaning If I Say It Does." Trickster reunited the Lightbringers, and tied the Infinity Rune to his part of Arachne Solara's net, giving the nascent goddess infinite power, and then tricking the other gods into locking themselves into the God Time forever. After the Great Time Prank was pulled, Trickster found himself forgetting that he ever even had infinite power, and came back to the material world... In the middle of a three-way swordfight. Using some of the magical powers he had just gained from becoming Eurmal, the Trickster made everyone as drunk as Babeester Gor, and pinned the blame for the fight on the Wolf Pirates. It was a hell of a fun session. We decided that he'd be able to call upon the Infinity Rune's power once before he forgot it entirely: phenomenal cosmic power is not meant for this world, and it might just destroy him in the process, but the players all think this is fair. In the end, they had to skip town before the Trickster's magic wore off. They're on the road now, aiming to murder Harrek the Berserk or die trying. Our next session won't be for several weeks but I look forward to ending this story one way or the other. Thanks for all the input, guys!

My PCs are all living in Esrolia, and have decided to kill Harrek the Berserk for what he did to the Holy Country. They might succeed if they pull off a hero quest this weekend. Maybe.

Hm. That could work too. Orlanth “saves” him (dooms him to a circular existence), so he betrays him in the Underworld and learns that Some Jokes Just Aren’t Funny and that If Nothing Means Anything, Then Everything Has Meaning If I Say It Does, and finally escapes through Arachne Solara.

that could work, but this group won't settle for less than absolutely murdering Harrek. I'll give this as a second prize if they can't pull it off.

I adore this. Maybe it's just because I read too much Kill Six Billion Demons (and that webcomic is honestly informing how I view Glorantha in a big way), but I see Eurmal stealing the Infinity rune and finally seeing the absurd, circular, meaningless shape of the God Time with it: an unending story, rendered meaningless by a lack of a true ending. Just acausal myths being told and retold, lived and relived, without any stopping point. In his madness, some part of him seeks Death, then seeks Babeester Gor, then just does crazy, awful stuff during the Darkness because nothing matters, then he learns that yeah, it does matter and rejoins the Lightbringers in the Underworld. Then that ties into the birth of Arachne Solara! It's his greatest prank: breaking the circle by causing infinity to end. Trapping all the other gods (and himself) in the God Time forever, ending the world by giving birth to another one. He gives Arachne Solara the Infinity rune, causing her to have the power to create and enforce the Compromise, then he just pisses off to, I don't know...relive the myth where he momentarily seduces Elmal or something.

Eurmal steals the Infinity Rune from Ratslaff, causing that deity to be mostly forgotten by mortals, OR he tricks one of the Beast Father Twins into giving him their infinity rune. In the process, he sees the true absurd nature of the universe, becomes very briefly Illuminated, and sees the true shape of all events to come. In this station, the rune would appear as the World Serpent, or Ratslaff's magician's rings. Eurmal uses the Rune to help himself steal Death again and again and again to help copy Death itself from one weapon into multiple smaller weapons with the same power of the original. In this, the Rune appears as a sideways eight, as in "eight copies of death," which is a lazy cop-out, but Eurmal is all about lazy cop-outs. Eurmal uses the Infinity Rune to get Babeester Gor so drunk that she momentarily stops murdering the entire world. In this station, the Infinity Rune is two drinking bowls being clinked together in a toast. Eurmal uses the Infinity Rune to bind a chaos beast during the Darkness so that Urox can slay it. Later, he's goaded into using it to bind himself in Sorceror's Town, then Orlanth browbeats the trickster into coming along with the Lightbringers' Quest; here, it appears as a pair of "but only when it's funny" handcuffs. Eurmal uses the Infinity Rune to murder the son of the Only Old One, and learns the lesson that "Infinite power isn't fun because you don't ever get challenged," then "Some jokes just aren't funny" in the aftermath of dodging the consequences of his horrific act. Here, the Infinity Rune is a garotte. Eurmal, recalling his Illumination, sees that Arachne Solara needs more power to come into being, and uses his Rune to anchor his strand of the Net, giving Arachne Solara the Rune. Then he just leaves, his part done. Here, it goes back to appearing as the World Serpent or Ratslaff's magician rings. I relish the idea of the Duck playing Humakt in the second station, the Ernaldan being Babeester Gor, and the Praxian probably pretending to be a sorceror in Sorceror's Town who tricks a power-mad (and therefore more stupid than usual) Eurmal into binding himself with his own cuffs. Does this sound good as a rough structure?

Oh wow, all of this is awesome. Thank you so much! I actually had to look up who the dragons you mentioned were (to my shame, all of my experience gaming in Glorantha before this campaign comes from King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages), but I love the idea that he originally stole it from the god-dragons at the beginning of time, or maybe Ratslaff the Primal Trickster, then used it to power all of his shenanigans in the more absurd myths, like stealing Death over and over again, putting Babeester Gor to sleep, or surviving during the Darkness until he was dragged along by Orlanth, then "forgetting where he put it" by using it to anchor his strand of Arachne Solara's net and just running away to go do Eurmal things. As far as benefits go, one of the players--the Duck's player--recommended that the best-case scenario is gaining very temporary, one-time access to the Infinity Rune to do some, quote, "Absurd Looney-Tunes-level magical jank" to someone who deserves the Trickster's ire. anyway, with all these ideas I've got a rough idea of the structure of the myth...

So I'm running a HeroQuest Glorantha game set (for now) in Esrolia, fighting Wolf Pirates, Horse-Spawn raiders, and Lunar mercenaries trying to carve a realm out of the Holy Country. To help with the backstories, I used the family history generator (with some modifications) from RuneQuest Glorantha. My players are: The obligatory scheming Earth priestess who wants to be Queen A Death-sworn Duck who wants revenge against the Lunar general who slew his clan A Praxian nomad and expert archer, exiled from his people for crimes of foul sorcery And an Esrolian trickster whose tragic family backstory gives him a serious grudge against Lunars and Wolf Pirates. In a bout of "yes, and"-ing, my players have decided that the best thing to do to safeguard Esrolia from being ravaged by bloodthirsty foreigners is to stop Harrek the Berserk from killing his way up and down the country with nothing to stop him, and I've decided to let them try, with the expectation that unless things go perfectly right, they're all going to die horrible horrible deaths. The point of this question is: the trickster player said that he loved the idea of heroquesting (he's brand new to Glorantha and loves the concept of reenacting a god's story/becoming a god to gain some magical benefit, and how wrong it might go--we both enjoy chaos at the table), and all the players love the idea that it's the trickster, of all people, who can come up with something to stop (or at least slow down) the most lethal person in the world. Again, through a bout of "yes, and"ing, the Eurmali player came up with a myth titled: "How Eurmal Stole The Infinity Rune (And Then Forgot Where He Put It)," but couldn't for the life of him come up with any idea of what the story would entail, and left that to me. I love this idea. What in the hell kind of structure would that heroquest have? I'm drawing a lot of blanks, here. Any ideas?