Heroquesting, how is it done?

[Cassius]

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

As an analogy that may or may not be helpful, symbols are the words, myth is the syntax, ritual is the sentence, hero questing is the speaking aloud of the sentence. 

Or, alternatively, ritual is the alphabet, heroquesting is the sentence ? (And the sentence must obey the syntax, use the proper words, as they should be written, but inevitably introduces variation and invention, however slight, into these constraints.)

I like your analogy, anyway.

[Malin]

I have not written down the heroquest rules we use in detail (they are getting more into experimental heroquesting the longer the campaign progresses) but I did make proper HQ character sheets for them which tells a fair bit about what we do.

The way we do heroquests they mainly use passions, rune spells and runes, with charisma and power being the two starts. It's been a lot of fun so far, done two big ones and one small one.

[Ian Absentia]

5 hours ago, Malin said:

The way we do heroquests they mainly use passions, rune spells and runes, with charisma and power being the two starts.

Emphasis mine.  Notably missing is the other intangible characteristic, Intelligence.  What you've been doing is remarkably similar to an unrelated project I've been working on.  CHA, POW, passions, and magic are all sort of potential energy, poised to act upon the world, but without a conscious identity (INT) to direct them.  In Gloranthan terms, maybe this is the archetype or godform that occupies the timelessness of the Godtime, a script waiting for someone/thing to assume its mantle and play it out.

!i!

[Malin]

7 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

What you've been doing is remarkably similar to an unrelated project I've been working on

I basically tried to work backwards from heroquesting as depicted in the chaosium house campaign, and the sketch for a preliminary HQ stat sheet they showed but I can't remember where. The short lightbringer's quest as depicted in the White Bull campaign is the basis for this, so we might be drawing from the same well.

 

Edited January 27 by Malin

[Darius West]

14 hours ago, Cassius said:

Or, alternatively, ritual is the alphabet, heroquesting is the sentence ? (And the sentence must obey the syntax, use the proper words, as they should be written, but inevitably introduces variation and invention, however slight, into these constraints.)

I like your analogy, anyway.

The way I see it, symbols are the basic components.  Myth gives the basic symbolic components a formative structure.  Ritual further organizes that structure in relationship to other wider meanings.  The HQ is still a ritual after a fashion, but it HQ transcends the limits of the page, in a way that ritual doesn't transcend the limits of the temple.

[kalidor]

1 hour ago, Malin said:

I basically tried to work backwards from heroquesting as depicted in the chaosium house campaign, and the sketch for a preliminary HQ stat sheet they showed but I can't remember where. The short lightbringer's quest as depicted in the White Bull campaign is the basis for this, so we might be drawing from the same well.

 

There is an audio somewhere in YouTube. Is a session recorded with Jeff using rules and the heroplane map. You almost got It I think. You forgot about "techniques" as identify, challenge, range...

[Malin]

1 hour ago, kalidor said:

You forgot about "techniques" as identify, challenge, range...

Didn't forget, left them out! I didn't know if I wanted to handle them on the sheet. So far I have built them more into the actual quests, as different methods they can use to accomplish what they want. I see them more as tactics than actual skills they would have stats in. Like... I judge them more on how they roleplay and what acts they do when it comes to Identify.

Edited January 27 by Malin

[Runeblogger]

29 minutes ago, Malin said:

Didn't forget, left them out! I didn't know if I wanted to handle them on the sheet. So far I have built them more into the actual quests, as different methods they can use to accomplish what they want. I see them more as tactics than actual skills they would have stats in. Like... I judge them more on how they roleplay and what acts they do when it comes to Identify.

I’d like to read more about the heroquests you ran in your campaign!

[Malin]

29 minutes ago, Runeblogger said:

I’d like to read more about the heroquests you ran in your campaign!

Might write them up eventually, the ones we have run is the Quest for the White Bull (yep, getting into that whole thing from the start in my campaign), an borderline real world one one they were dragged into by another party (fighting the Wicked Writher), and a rather big dragon related one on the Plateau of Statues.

[radmonger]

There's certainly room for a bunch of additional sorcerous techniques that manipulate heroquests, some even in ways that won't get your soul eaten by Gift Bringers.

But think the idea that you would need a bunch of extra skills to even perform heroquests seems like a mistake. RQ:G already has  Worship skill, Cult Lore, Rune affinities and passions. Plus some characters might even have certain skills at a higher rating than their deity; Sartar was probably a better stonemason than Orlanth...

Why is that not enough?

[Joerg]

47 minutes ago, radmonger said:

There's certainly room for a bunch of additional sorcerous techniques that manipulate heroquests, some even in ways that won't get your soul eaten by Gift Bringers.

Sorcerous techiques for heroquesting? Sorcerous spells with some duration may be used to amp up the questers in ways that rune magic or battle magic cannot do, and "sorcerous" devices e.g. to capture spirits (like Pokeballs) are a thing (see Vadel loaning the Iron Energy Prison from the Mostali, and Zzabur coming up with the Bronze Energy Prison as the Malkioni home-made derivation thereof, starting the hostilities between the Brithini and the Mostali that led to the destruction of the Tadeniti and the revolt against the Kachisti.

But otherwise, other than enslaving lesser deities or spirits and negotiation with their greater kin (ransoming them?) there don't seem to be any remaining sorcerous techniques designed for heroquesting. Jrusteli heroquesting lore was re-engineered from Arkati secrets conquered in Tanisor, initially badly mis-understood. Theyalan Other Side knowledge was usurped in Slontos and Umathela while the Jrusteli methods seem to have been more esoteric, like the reduction to runes to provide tools to capture or overcome specific heroquest obstacles encountered when copying Arkati or Slontan natives' rites.

Foes of the God Learners like the Loper People start out as unmanageable while the sorcerers devise spells to identify their runic associations, then to devise spells weakening those runes or usurping the spirits or deities involved through brute power commands and/or summonings, or by faking Other Side identifications through spells providing approximates of typical Other Side protagonist powers. At some point the key advantages of these opponents get neutralized or even turned around on them, the Red Sword gets lost, and ultimately their leader gets overcome and the threat ended.

Fearing the Gift Bringers of the Sending Gods is a very Umathelan problem, contained by the Closing and never affecting the Slontan or Seshnegi God Learners. Slontos remained unaffected by the attentions of Halwal who apparently found counters to the God Learner holds on their Irensavalist or Arkati conquests, which may explain why Ramalia still "thrives" under its sorcerer kings. (If there was any generational change in Ramalian royalty at all since the Devastation of the Vent aided Slonta in rolling over.)

The Ramalians seem to have powerful magics against foes associated with the Sea or with Hykimi ancestral magics, and these magics might contain blueprints for other sorcerous control of Other Side foes, including proven techniques against followers of the Blue Moon (originally the Lopers) which might be brought to bear on the Lunar Empire. No idea whether Belintar's disciples ever got sent out to reconnoiter the Ramalian sorcerers, or if so, whether they succeeded in bringing back methods to counter Lunar advantages. History shows us that too little of that came into practical use too late, as Lunar heroquesting (championed by Jar-eel) pre-empted large scale use of any such knowledge, but a high magic campaign delving in stealing sorcerous knowledge might be built on this.

Following this line of development, God Learner-ish techniques are good for researching maguffins against core enemy powers to neutralize them in Other Side encounters.

Arkati techniques will more likely be based on feats of the many cults permeated by Arkat and his disciples, and superior mapping of intersecting mythic pathways. Arkati sem to have mastered genuine identification with the mythical protagonists where Jrusteli had mastered overpowering replication of such powers or specific neutralization of hostile feats and advantages.

At least that is how I conceive the influence of sorcerers on the Hero Wars, whether in the Dragon Pass arena or in Fronela and Ralios.

[Ian Absentia]

6 hours ago, Malin said:

I basically tried to work backwards from heroquesting as depicted in the chaosium house campaign, and the sketch for a preliminary HQ stat sheet they showed but I can't remember where. The short lightbringer's quest as depicted in the White Bull campaign is the basis for this, so we might be drawing from the same well.

Ah, that makes sense, though I haven't seen any of the White Bull actual play.  I think it's a similar, but earlier well.

!i!

[Rodney Dangerduck]

22 hours ago, Malin said:

The way we do heroquests they mainly use passions, rune spells and runes, with charisma and power

When I GMed, I ran a few short heroquests, also trying to follow the hints from Chaosium.  Rules mechanics got switched: instead of using Passions to augment skills, the heroes could use skills to augment their runes or passions.  That worked pretty well.  Definitely an interesting twist.

I am skeptical of emphasizing CHA.  it's already the most important stat in RQG, and I see no reason to make it even more so.

[Malin]

3 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

I am skeptical of emphasizing CHA.  it's already the most important stat in RQG, and I see no reason to make it even more so.

I think you have a point. I don't think I have ever had a charisma roll in a heroquest. It's on the form because it was on the one I got the inspiration from...

Edited January 27 by Malin