EricW

I think that one would deserve a SAN check, both the mind bending journey, and the realisation that Lhankor Mhy and Thanatar might have a stronger connection than anybody admits. Thanatar's library would also be a hideous experience, perhaps a library which eats adventurers. Copies of every book ever consumed by a cultist, all the knowledge stolen from the world, including really evil tomes which contain forbidden knowledge like the God Learner secret. An enormous temptation to stay and read - but whoever stays and reads has to fight the urge to stay forever. If they fail to resist temptation they themselves effectively become a piece of knowledge which Thanatar has consumed and removed from the world.

In that case Thanatar has access to chaotic book wyrm guardians through Treack Markhor?

The Lunars will help - all you need to do is become a Seven Mothers trainee initiate...

The Long Ships - a 1964 movie about vikings and arabs and Christianity and a gigantic crusader church bell made of gold.

Maybe Scooby Doo dog is like the Parrot out of Terry Pratchett's "Eric" - which Pratchett wrote after I met him at a book signing when I was a teenager. Most embarrassing...

What about "The Garden"? An idea I had on another thread, in which when a group of people sleep near or in the ancient ruins of an old Earth temple, one of them wakes up and find themselves in a vision of Genert's garden. None of their companions can see the garden, but as proof the affected party member can pick fruit from the garden nobody else can see, and hand it to their companions. But there is a terrible price for remaining in the vision of the garden - people who choose the illusion of the garden over the reality of the Prax wasteland cannot see or defend themselves against chaos. They also sometimes trip over things they can't see (hint). Since they are still part of the real world this makes them terribly vulnerable. People can leave the garden by an effort of will. The choice to reject the intoxicating vision of the garden and embrace the wasteland is the red pill decision to accept reality, and the need to fight chaos. Those who cannot bring themselves to reject the beauty of the garden eventually share its fate.

Shaman can potentially be multi cult enablers, lots of interesting small gods floating about who need the occasional worship ceremony.

Just a turn of phrase, not a documented quest. But you could make it up, maybe tell us about it. Make it difficult and perilous, otherwise lots of people would do it, to gain powerful combat magic when their village is threatened or whatever. Maybe include stations like being tempted by Gbaji or meeting the red moon goddess, both of whom would offer “gifts” the heroquester badly needs but must refuse. Gbaji could appear in disguise, attempt to gain the trust of the PC by being their helpful companion, but wolves can’t trust anyone right? 😉

Could get a lot worse than that. Given how the Telmori myths were likely contaminated to some extent by their pact with Nysalor, and the modern day connection with the moon, I'd say attempting a rebirth of the wolf heroquest could quickly turn into rebirth of chaos.

There is a rules compliant way for a lightbringer to potentially defeat the Crimson Bat using standard magic, the Trickster Swallow spell. A very large swallow spell. Of course if a PC attempted such a stunt, the Lunars would notice an uncommon accumulation of magic, and [correctly] suspect a rebel plot. Increasingly terrifying heroes would be sent to kill the PC, until someone epic like JarEel took an interest. Or given Tricksters are not known for self restraint, the sponsors of the bat swallow project might decide the cost of fixing all the damage caused by their "hero", on the path to destroying the bat, simply wasn't worth it. A Trickster roaming the landscape with hundreds of points of "Swallow" would be almost as scary as the bat. Having said that in general characters probably shouldn't be so powerful they can rip the Universe apart and re-arrange it as they wish. Consider the movie The Matrix vs all the sequels. I have no idea what happened in Matrix II and Matrix III, because I always fall asleep a few minutes after the opening credits. Leo was effectively a god by the end of the first movie, so Matrix II and III were just boring, at least for me.

If Malkion had accepted the compromise sorcery might have stopped working at night. The gods resurrected by the compromise have to spend time in the underworld.

Me bad, probably non-canon - http://www.jane-williams.me.uk/glorantha/vinga/bgor.cfm

Doesn’t Barb Gore have some kind of “sense despoiler” ability? I think I remember reading it’s triggered by overt chaos like Broos, not so much by civilised Lunar chaos…

I've always thought of "Swallow" as a Trickster version of "summoning of evil". Divination "Where is our missing relative / military commander / child" will point to the trickster 😉 As for Elusu, I don't think Elusu gave up being a "Little Shit" just because of hanging around with Argrath. I mean, don't you think it would be irresistible if you were a trickster infiltrator brimming with subversion magic to spread a little paranoia, with trickster lies like "your commander is actually an ogre who is sizing you up for his next meal", or "your commander never intends to promote you", or "I've received intelligence that your underlings are plotting to assassinate you, because you punished the squad after they were defeated by rebels". Or simply lie for convenience, like if someone asks the commander / infiltrator about their response to a report, shout at the underlying "I told you to rewrite that report, you slacker! And this time include some detail!".

Eurmal is a lazy drunken glutton who spend all his time stealing, pranking serious folk, chasing pretty girls, creating confusion with his lies, and running away from his responsibilities. Seems like "wasted potential" to me. The fact he helped save the world and is occasionally useful doesn't change that. A powerful Eurmali might accept a serious infiltration task, and genuinely mean to carry it through, but by the end of the day surely it would be fart cushions and total bedlam - competing groups on "special assignment" to root out traitors, pumped up on trickster lies, screaming and denouncing each other. Fistfights in front of the officers.

YGMV, but Orlanth had to bind Eurmal to make him stop messing up, and even then Eurmal did bad things on the LBQ. And much of the second age was Eurmal’s fault, after he taught humans to speak to dragons - for a laugh. Eurmal might have lots of useful spells, but he is the embodiment of wasted potential.

Infiltration seems way to organised for Eurmal, kind of like Jim Carrey's character in "The Mask" trying to use his sneak skill. Lanbril might do it, but Lanbril has no especial loyalty to Orlanth, huge risk of being sold out? The following is an example of Trickster attempting to infiltrate Lunar headquarters.

Cacodemon, Thanatar, Gbaji, take your pick 😉. Ralzakark might offer advice if you ask, and offer him an especially interesting magical artefact as payment.

I love the example in Lords of Terror of K'Rana, Scorpion Queen Sword of Humakt. Her illumination which she picked up while working as a caravan guard for Lunars enabled her to retain her sanity when she was reborn as a Scorpion, and helped her reconcile her life as head of a chaos tribe with her faith to Humakt. Now she's trying to help her tribe improve their lot by training her more advanced hatchlings in the ways of Humakt. I think given that example, an illuminate can pretty much impersonate anything they want. The question is, would Orlanthi rebels who badly need intelligence on Lunar activity tolerate and trust an illuminated spy? My guess is most wouldn't - which puts them at a significant strategic disadvantage to the Lunars, who have no problem messing with cult strictures in the name of the empire.

Orlanth is dead specifically says at the height of the Sartar occupation Orlanthi lands are full of spies - likely lay member low level informants, returned child hostages, maybe the occasional illuminated infiltrator. But it would surely be difficult to return the favour. Lunars make heavy use of mind link, and would likely coerce anyone they suspect into doing something chaotic, like casting an Etyries traded chaos gift spell, to prove they were not a lightbringer. An illuminate could get away with it - but their Orlanthi handler would at least suspect they were illuminated, so would have trouble trusting their own spy. Maybe Argrath had a handful of deep cover spies. And we know he had a least one chaotic informant, the not a man who pleaded with him to save the world

You could try making them twinkle rather than wriggle. Slightly elongated spots which twinkle as they move above and below the surface of the muck might work better - eye catching but ambiguous.

But Etyries is the messenger of the chaos moon. How would this impact a LBQ?

The real world name is Maroochydore. 1. Everything is dripping wet, mouldy and sticky. The waves of the Pacific Ocean continuously pound the nearby shore. 2. The locals are afraid to go out at night, and are frightened of talking to strangers. 3. Everything closes at 9pm. Then the streets are deserted, except some small. late night pubs, where surly locals ply visiting tourists with alcohol. 4. There’s lots of suspicious activity in the woodland near the shore. 5. Everything is heavily barred and locked at night.

The future. As technology advances, human knowledge edges ever closer to revelation and madness. The most advanced AIs, driven by unfettered corporate greed, and a desperate, amoral hunger to maintain their company’s razor thin technological lead, are beginning to penetrate the mysteries, to piece together the true nature of the universe. Corporate assassins and violent psychotics roam the streets, frequently augmented with stolen or experimental military implants. The darkest corners of the immersive 3D successor to the internet require a san check. … The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom. … “The Call of Cthulhu” by HP Lovecraft

There are examples in HP Lovecraft stories, of people who performed incredible feats while in the delirium of temporary insanity. One of my favourites is "Under the Pyramids", which Lovecraft co-wrote with the famous stage magician Harry Houdini, about a supernatural being who takes offence at a stage magician character's mockery of his art. The main character sees something which sends him temporarily insane, and in his delirium he does the impossible, finds his way out of the horrific catacomb in which he has been imprisoned, hundreds of feet beneath the Sphinx in Egypt. The point is, the characters who perform these feats are not in their right mind when they do these things, and rarely retain a clear memory of what happened. So arguably the player should not be fully in control of their character in such circumstances.