Kallyr’s light bringer quest

[jajagappa]

4 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

Six Seasons in Sartar is brilliant, and does a really good job of showing you how heroquests work as part of the religion. I’d also recommend looking at 13th Age Glorantha, which has loads of non-system-specific advice about running heroquests.

I agree with both of these suggestions - the latter is particularly good in suggesting stumbling into broken, lost, and forgotten places.

6 hours ago, Stephen L said:

Also, any handy hints for Questing rules?

As I'm fond of HeroQuests in my games, there's some basic ideas I follow in running them:

1. Be Prepared.  Do the research - talk to the priests, go to the LM temple, sometimes even find the village wise woman, or certain spirits.  This should suggest: the key roles (e.g. Orlanth, Ernalda, etc.) who were involved in the myth, what items they took along, what places they went to (the stages/steps/scenes of the story), who they bargained with or who they fought, etc.  It will not be complete.  There are always pieces missing, things forgotten, things overlooked, etc.  And determine what ritual objects should be brought along to hold rewards.
2. Use the Holy Day ceremonies to start the Quest.  If they're starting the Westfaring, then start from a hill sacred to Orlanth.  If they're trying to rescue Orane from Ty Kora Tek's hall, then descend into the Earth Temple.  Etc.  You want them blessed by their community and the priests.  The magic of the Worship service already makes the Gods World close, and allows you to make the Crossover (assuming you are doing an Otherworld heroquest - if it's a real-world quest, then no Crossover, but it still engages the "magic").
3. Have the questers invoke the roles.  Wear masks, costumes, etc. to assert their role.  The right day, right place, right costumes, etc. all should add bonuses for the Crossing.  Make Devotion (deity) rolls (augment if needed) to see how well they do.  If they succeed, carryover some benefit into subsequent rolls (or penalize if they fail).  
4. Don't stop the Crossover!  If you've got the players thinking HeroQuest, "make it so!"  This is Dorothy over the rainbow.  The world they've crossed into is Otherworldly.  Maybe it's brighter, more colorful in the Golden Age; or dark and foreboding during the Greater Darkness.  
5. The real-world fades away now, and the quest begins.  Scenes might shift slowly or abruptly.  In the Westfaring as they descend the hill, it is dark and the landscape seems dreary and barren.  Gradually they find themselves along a path leading into a dark forbidding woods.  The trees are dead, but grasping.  …
6. Real-world distance is immaterial - it's the story that matters.  Moving from one scene/stage to another requires (usually) making the right choice.  They survive the Terrors of the Nightwood and find themselves at the Well of Grief.  (For an idea of shifting scenes, an example I'm fond of is in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere where the hero has to cross over the Night's Bridge.)  If they take the wrong fork, do the wrong thing, get the wrong advice from Trickster/Raven/etc., then they are likely to be in a wholly unexpected scene.  Be creative and draw upon the Fears, Hatreds, etc. of the questers to see how they've gone astray (and whether they have any hope of getting back).
7. Death (depending on where it occurs) may just knock the quester out of the quest.  They find themselves back in the temple - maybe wounded physically or spiritually, or some part of them has been ripped away, etc. Unless they are beyond certain points.  In the LBQ, if they've crossed the River of Swords/River Styx, there is no dropping out.  If they die, they are on their way to the Court of Silence for Judgment.  Hopefully their companions (still living) will speak favorably there for them.  However, Death should also be an ever-present danger - they might not return.  
8. Replacements can be found.  If a quester dies/drops out, the other questers find/rescue/awaken someone.  Maybe someone trapped from some prior quest.  Maybe some Godtime denizen.  Or, they find a way to bind the other quester's soul to an enchanted object.  Provide ways for the players to continue.
9. If they reach the goal, it should be climactic, and it should be very, very difficult (not impossible, but certain avenues might be - i.e. combat may simply not work, or they face Humakt himself and they aren't ready or strong enough to defeat him).  
10. They are in the Otherworld.  Things will be bizarre, unexpected, dangerous, strange.  One of a kind creatures or foes or possible allies.  If they rescue a dwarf, it has repercussions later.  If they betray a troll, it has repercussions later.  Maybe within the quest, maybe after.
11. Loss is a critical part of any quest - they will come back changed.  Maybe they have to gamble (and lose) to the Raven to get the knowledge they seek (and maybe Raven is in the mood for their shadow - i.e. all their Darkness Rune).  Draw upon cinematic ideas to see how this fits in (HeroQuest: Glorantha includes the idea of the Pass/Fail cycle - a useful read; Six Seasons in Sartar talks about the Hero's Journey).  
12. The quest will likely end where it began.  Maybe the winds blow them back to the hill where they began, or to the Storm Temple.  Or they climb the stairs back up from the Underworld into the Earth temple.  Etc.  Maybe it's later the same day, or a week later, or a season later.  Depends on the rest of the broader story (did they make it in time to save the clan from disaster?), but reason for the quest comes into this.  The more wrong turns they take, the more likely they are delayed (the Crown Test of Leika Ballista in WF #14 has a good example of this where they keep drinking at the Duke of Disorder's feast).
13. You don't need any special rules!!!  Do take advantage of Opposed Rolls, Resistance Tests, utilize an array of skills, Passions, Runes (not just combat - boring!).  You don't have to go over-the-top on opponent's skills, either, but odds are the foes will have both some great strength and some weakness.  

Hopefully the above provides some additional ideas to work from.

[Leingod]

2 hours ago, jajagappa said:

It will not be complete.  There are always pieces missing, things forgotten, things overlooked, etc.

Not to mention that even if you have the full story of how it's supposed to go, sometimes you'll come to where you expect one thing to happen a certain way and for whatever reason it doesn't; maybe this myth has been altered somehow by other Heroquesters in the intervening time, or the presence of one of your enemies drawn into the Heroquest has changed it, or etc. Even when you're walking on the most well-worn paths through the Gods World, a Heroquest is always at least somewhat uncertain ground.

Edited June 25, 2020 by Leingod

[Nick Brooke]

4 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Therefore, the correct way to handle the Red Moon issue is to help it perform Utuma...

Yes. I’ve been saying this for almost thirty years. The correct way to handle the Red Moon Goddess is to become the tool she can use to fully integrate herself into the world.

[Stephen L]

21 hours ago, jajagappa said:

some basic ideas

Wow!  Thanks, that's *exactly* what I need.

[Stephen L]

On 6/9/2020 at 6:11 AM, soltakss said:

I'll write it up for the Jonstown Compendium

If I (cheekily) point out that I can't be the only person starting a campaign in 1625, and that as time goes on in the real world, so will in all those campaigns.  Kallyr's quest will become a moot point for an increasing number of people!

Thanks,

Stephen.

[Thaz]

1 hour ago, Stephen L said:

If I (cheekily) point out that I can't be the only person starting a campaign in 1625, and that as time goes on in the real world, so will in all those campaigns.  Kallyr's quest will become a moot point for an increasing number of people!

Thanks,

Stephen.

She stuffed it right up in ours, despite our best efforts. However we managed to bring her back after the Battle of Queens. Yes time moves on. YGMV and thats good

[soltakss]

On 6/24/2020 at 4:43 PM, David Scott said:

Quote

I think we would have heard if they went around doing full LBQs.

They were destroyed - from where ?

King of Sartar p142 has a list of successful and failed LBQs. One of the successful ones was against the God Learners.

Quote

Aringor Darstalsson
A hunter from Ralios, he foresaw the eventual conquest of his people by the lowlanders. After great struggle he reached the Underworld, and returned with the weapons to defeat the Shadow Empire and the God Learners. His prize was Narnarra the Greater.

Unfortunately, I know nothing about Aringor Darstalsson or Narnarra the Greater.

[metcalph]

8 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Unfortunately, I know nothing about Aringor Darstalsson or Narnarra the Greater.

I assume that Narnarra was an EWF Dragon because that's the only other power big enough to take on the Arkati and the God Learners.  He probably was from Lankst since the people there have a mysterious affinity with Dragons (Firebreathing, Aringor Kochalongson turns into a Dragon in the Hero Wars etc).  The date is perhaps before the fall of Paslac in 740 ST.  

[Stephen L]

Just resurrecting this thread, as, if anyone wants to play Kallyr's Lightbringer's quest, then there's there's a write up for the Lightbringers quest as an adventure for the Game-formerly-known-as-HeroQuest in issue 6 of Heart's in Glorantha.

But you'll have to hurry, you've only got to the end of the month to get a copy:

However, King of Sartar has a day by day account of the short lightbringers quest (p143, new edition), which is useful, with p127 describing what went wrong for Kallyr.  

P141 King of Sartar also suggests that Kallyr's quest wasn't done at sacred time.  Um, since I'm now mid Storm season, I might be ignoring that, although if anyone has any idea *when* it happened...

[Rodney Dangerduck]

7 hours ago, Stephen L said:

although if anyone has any idea *when* it happened...

Sea Season has a special Harmast day (don't recall exactly which right now) that we used in our campaign.  Not sure if that is canonical.

[JonL]

On 6/24/2020 at 11:49 AM, Akhôrahil said:

At a guess, I would imagine they kept it with modifications - Draconic Orlanth is still Orlanth, after all. Perhaps with saps like "Orlanth and Yelm discover their shared Draconic natures" or something, down in Hell.

<looks over at Emperor Sun Dragon>