Heroquesting - Questions from a Newbie

[mattcgso]

hello,

I found runequest about a year ago, and have been reading the books and lurking around online.  I've only recently started running the Broken Tower, and its been fun!

completely unrelated to play, though, I've got some questions about what exactly heroquesting is.  hopefully y'all can help me out.  a lot of this comes from my reading of the corebook, but more importantly from the sourcebook, which I just finished reading a few days ago.  I feel like I get the vibe of heroquesting, but I am struggling a bit with what gloranthans can do with heroquesting.  I'm not really interested in rules for it, I'm trying to grok what it is exactly.  I've possibly absorbed a lot of forum talk/threads that aren't official info though as well so that might be confusing me, hah!

here we go:

1) as near as I can tell, heroquesting is when gloranthans sort of LARP as their deities, but in this process, actually become them and re-enact their stories.  Seem like they need to do a good job of it, which I interpret as them needing to know the stories so they can repeat them correctly.  Maybe?  If done really well, then Harvest is good that year, but it seems like heroquesting can do more than ensure the crops grow.

2) It also seems possible that you can change the story and get some benefit out of it.  it also seems like you can get really rad powers/gifts from it (like the NPC in the GM screenpack who can't die).  Is this from living through the stories?  or from changing the stories?  or making new stories or something?

SO if yes, then my mind wants to push this to extremes to see if I really understand it:

3) was the red goddess a heroquest done by some lady or by the seven mothers?  did they make a new story, or discover an old one, and that was a heroquest so it made a new moon?  or was all that something else, not heroquesting at all?

4) if that is the case, though, then can someone heroquest into a famous myth and change it?  like can someone stop orlanth from killing yelm?  or change the ownership of the crimson bat?  or transform the crimson bat's chaos rune into like a fertility rune, so that it is a nicer bat that rains maize? (leaving aside how difficult all that would be... does this all fall under the scope of heroquesting?).

5) and if you can, is the only limit on this that you'd need to know the story?  For example, I've read the sourcebook, but most gloranthans haven't, so they wouldn't even know when/how the red goddess got the crimson bat (admittedly I barely know hah).  but if they did... could they change that myth?  and is sacred time, like, really important because you need to get all your people together to tell your stories again to make sure someone else doesn't change them?  Is that what Jar-eel did to Belintar and Kallyr?  interrupt their stories?

looking forward to hearing from folks!

[Squaredeal Sten]

As I understand it, and my understanding is not authoritative nor complete:

1. Yes, and there are different levels of heroquest ranging from in- world to actually entering the godtime.  The in world is the LARP while your adventurer will run considerably more risk in the hero plane, and actually entering the godtime is for either heroes or fools.

2. Yes as I understand it you can change the story.  Or at least (and more typically) affect which is the currently dominant story. (See my opinion in 5 below.)  Each quest deepens or strengthens the path the quester takes.  The Lunar heroquest that "killed" Orlanth and Ernalda deleted them at least temporarily (triggering the Windstop and Great Winter) and they were brought back by counter questing.

3. The seven mothers heroquested to revive a "dead" goddess, killed before Time.  Who was thereore not part of the Great Compromise and quested in her turn: one time was to get the Crimson Bat.  I can't enumerate other times, not being an authority on Sedenya.

4. I believe that is so.  The implications remind me of certain time travel story tropes popular in the 1950s and 60s.  What if you go back in time and kill your own grandfather before he reaches puberty?  Logical contradictions abound.

5. I am pretty sure that knowing the story is not the only limit.  For one thing: Different versions of a story can be equally true simultaneously.  Also there is a lot more power in the higher level quests than in the in world variety.  I don't know how to express that power difference.

But any heroquest is a step into myth.  And at the GM's option, how big a step it is may vary unexpectedly.

There are at least two and a fraction sets of heroquesting rules right now.  Plus Greg Stafford's notes in Arcane Lore.   Including reports of the playtest at Chaosium Con.  They are useful and overlap but as you know there is currently no final authoritative set.  So we are free to interpret as we please as long as we don't cross the line of suspended disbelief.

I am just another Glorantha fan and GM and none of what I have written is official nor does it bind Chaosium .  I am not trying to rock the boat, just trying to navigate.

Edited September 5, 2022 by Squaredeal Sten
Last sentence

[Jeff]

4 hours ago, mattcgso said:

hello,

I found runequest about a year ago, and have been reading the books and lurking around online.  I've only recently started running the Broken Tower, and its been fun!

completely unrelated to play, though, I've got some questions about what exactly heroquesting is.  hopefully y'all can help me out.  a lot of this comes from my reading of the corebook, but more importantly from the sourcebook, which I just finished reading a few days ago.  I feel like I get the vibe of heroquesting, but I am struggling a bit with what gloranthans can do with heroquesting.  I'm not really interested in rules for it, I'm trying to grok what it is exactly.  I've possibly absorbed a lot of forum talk/threads that aren't official info though as well so that might be confusing me, hah!

here we go:

1) as near as I can tell, heroquesting is when gloranthans sort of LARP as their deities, but in this process, actually become them and re-enact their stories.  Seem like they need to do a good job of it, which I interpret as them needing to know the stories so they can repeat them correctly.  Maybe?  If done really well, then Harvest is good that year, but it seems like heroquesting can do more than ensure the crops grow.

2) It also seems possible that you can change the story and get some benefit out of it.  it also seems like you can get really rad powers/gifts from it (like the NPC in the GM screenpack who can't die).  Is this from living through the stories?  or from changing the stories?  or making new stories or something?

SO if yes, then my mind wants to push this to extremes to see if I really understand it:

3) was the red goddess a heroquest done by some lady or by the seven mothers?  did they make a new story, or discover an old one, and that was a heroquest so it made a new moon?  or was all that something else, not heroquesting at all?

4) if that is the case, though, then can someone heroquest into a famous myth and change it?  like can someone stop orlanth from killing yelm?  or change the ownership of the crimson bat?  or transform the crimson bat's chaos rune into like a fertility rune, so that it is a nicer bat that rains maize? (leaving aside how difficult all that would be... does this all fall under the scope of heroquesting?).

5) and if you can, is the only limit on this that you'd need to know the story?  For example, I've read the sourcebook, but most gloranthans haven't, so they wouldn't even know when/how the red goddess got the crimson bat (admittedly I barely know hah).  but if they did... could they change that myth?  and is sacred time, like, really important because you need to get all your people together to tell your stories again to make sure someone else doesn't change them?  Is that what Jar-eel did to Belintar and Kallyr?  interrupt their stories?

looking forward to hearing from folks!

1) not really. A heroquest is when a mortal interacts with the God Time in any sort of prolonged manner. Because we are mortals, such interaction takes place (or forms, depending on your perspective) in what is called the Hero Plane - a Ven Diagram overlap of the Mundane World and the Gods World. Now such interactions are dangerous - as you are interacting with the primal stuff that is Glorantha. Screw it up and you might disappear forever, or everything you touch dies, or your grain becomes inedible, whatever. So normally people stick to what they know, what their ancestors have always done, etc. Such things we know - that's Rune Magic. Go to the God Time, sacrifice that point of POW, learn a new spell.

But for the really cool stuff - for the stuff we don't already have routines for - you need to go deeper into the God Time. And that's where it gets interesting! The only paths we have are what our Heroes have done (which is pretty few actually) or what we know the gods did in the God Time (lots more there). But again, we don't usually know each step they took OR even worse - we know many versions of the steps they took.

2) your story is what you experience. That experience is true, at least for you - and you might be able to teach others how to experience it as well. Somethings are hard-wired in all the stories - there is a basic structure to these stories. But even then there can be differences. In every story, the Storm God uses Death on the Bright Sun. That's why the Sun sets every evening and enters the Underworld. But maybe it wasn't the Emperor Yelm that was struck down, maybe it was Yelm's son, the Golden Emperor, who was killed and Yelm just collapsed out of outrage! Same basic story, but lots of variations.

3) Changing existing stories operates within that framework. We've all heard the story how Orlanth killed Yelm - every version of that story contains some elements of that archetype. Maybe Orlanth has help. Maybe Orlanth cheats. Maybe Yelm tries to cheat. But in every story, Yelm is killed. That's a cosmological truth - an archetype regardless of who we call the gods. Glorantha has lots of these. The Sword Story. Orlanth and Aroka. Magasta and the Homeward Ocean. Storm Bull and the Devil. Etc.

But you can also create new stories nobody every knew before. And they are also true. Like the time Orlanth slew the Mover of Heavens. Or that time Eurmal saved everyone in the Underworld. You have more latitude with those. The downside is they are more dangerous as you are likely experiencing them for the first time.

[EpicureanDM]

22 hours ago, Jeff said:

1) not really. A heroquest is when a mortal interacts with the God Time in any sort of prolonged manner. Because we are mortals, such interaction takes place (or forms, depending on your perspective) in what is called the Hero Plane - a Ven Diagram overlap of the Mundane World and the Gods World. Now such interactions are dangerous - as you are interacting with the primal stuff that is Glorantha. Screw it up and you might disappear forever, or everything you touch dies, or your grain becomes inedible, whatever. So normally people stick to what they know, what their ancestors have always done, etc. Such things we know - that's Rune Magic. Go to the God Time, sacrifice that point of POW, learn a new spell.

But for the really cool stuff - for the stuff we don't already have routines for - you need to go deeper into the God Time. And that's where it gets interesting! The only paths we have are what our Heroes have done (which is pretty few actually) or what we know the gods did in the God Time (lots more there). But again, we don't usually know each step they took OR even worse - we know many versions of the steps they took.

2) your story is what you experience. That experience is true, at least for you - and you might be able to teach others how to experience it as well. Somethings are hard-wired in all the stories - there is a basic structure to these stories. But even then there can be differences. In every story, the Storm God uses Death on the Bright Sun. That's why the Sun sets every evening and enters the Underworld. But maybe it wasn't the Emperor Yelm that was struck down, maybe it was Yelm's son, the Golden Emperor, who was killed and Yelm just collapsed out of outrage! Same basic story, but lots of variations.

3) Changing existing stories operates within that framework. We've all heard the story how Orlanth killed Yelm - every version of that story contains some elements of that archetype. Maybe Orlanth has help. Maybe Orlanth cheats. Maybe Yelm tries to cheat. But in every story, Yelm is killed. That's a cosmological truth - an archetype regardless of who we call the gods. Glorantha has lots of these. The Sword Story. Orlanth and Aroka. Magasta and the Homeward Ocean. Storm Bull and the Devil. Etc.

But you can also create new stories nobody every knew before. And they are also true. Like the time Orlanth slew the Mover of Heavens. Or that time Eurmal saved everyone in the Underworld. You have more latitude with those. The downside is they are more dangerous as you are likely experiencing them for the first time.

This is exactly the sort of obscurantist answer that really confused me for a long time as someone trying to play a game of RuneQuest with my friends. 

You're on the right track, @mattcgso. What makes the discussion about heroquesting frustrating is that over 40-ish years of being in print, RQ has never really published rules to support heroquesting. Chaosium has never published rules to establish what Gloranthans "can do", as you say, with heroquests. So if you're new to the game and you're trying to use the game's rules to understand how parts of the setting work, you're sort of adrift. I will try to answer your questions by referring to game concepts you might know (whether they're in RQ or some other game) as much as I can. Hopefully, that allows you to get your bearings.

1. This can definitely be heroquesting, but it isn’t always. Gloranthans definitely do a lot of LARPing and embody their gods as they tell those ancient stories. Your Harvest ritual example is the right idea. I think of these rituals as a community getting together to try and create year-long “buffs” for their community. If you do the Harvest ritual correctly during Sacred Time, your farmers get +20% to their Farming rolls throughout the year. (Maybe not that high a bonus, but that’s the idea.) A Gloranthan community might have all sorts of stories/heroquests they might want to perform at different times of the year to get those buffs. But these rituals cost time and resources, and they’re dangerous. You can fail them, maybe leading to a penalty to all Farming rolls throughout the year.

Once you think of hero quest in this way, big rituals to get in-game buffs, you’re in the right headspace. Instead of the annual Harvest heroquest, your community (or just you and your party!) might try to enact a heroquest about war before they launch an attack against a nearby Lunar force. You might hope to get buffs, or a bunch of free Rune Points, or some unique, one-use Rune spells that you can only gain through succeeding on the heroquest. The Gloranthan purists might quibble and say that not all heroquests have to be about getting buffs. That’s fine, but it’s hairsplitting and not really relevant to someone trying to actually play RuneQuest as a game.

2. Sometimes it’s by living the stories, sometimes it’s by changing them. It’s more common to get these buffs/feats/boons by living the story, since you know what the outcome will be in advance. You know that you’ll get magical sandals at the end of a particular heroquest/story, so you play through the story to get magical sandals. Changing the story isn’t always about getting a buff or reward. Sometimes, it’s about denying a benefit to your foes. You could change the heroquest in which a Troll god gets fire spells. Once that’s done, your assault against the Troll warlord will be safer, since you’ve extinguished their access to fire abilities.

You might think of heroquesting like netrunning in other games. Gain access to the code (myths and legends) that underwrite Gloranthan reality, and you can change them. You can make yourself rich by adding a bunch of zeroes to your bank account or you can delete your opponent’s identity from the megacorporation’s server, so they lose access to its resources.

3. Folks with a better grasp of that part of the setting can chime in. My fuzzy understanding is that the rise of the Red Goddess involved heroquests by the Goddess herself and the Seven Mothers. I think the Seven Mothers sort of discovered an old story and modified it to make the Goddess. That’s where the hacking analogy becomes helpful again. They found and assembled old bits of code and ran it on the mainframe, i.e. the Hero Plane, to try and make it real in the world.

The big thing to internalize about Glorantha and heroquesting is that the myths of the world create the reality of the world. So those who can interact with those myths, whether to reinforce those myths, or to change them, or to create new ones, are tinkering with reality itself. There’s a little bit of White Wolf’s Mage: The Ascension in it, if that’s a familiar touchstone. Again, Chaosium have never published actual rules to make this stuff concrete

4. Yes, definitely, people can change myths through heroquests. As you can imagine, it’s harder to change stronger myths than weak ones. Changing the myth about Orlanth killing Yelm? That’s pretty fundamental to the setting, so most GMs would probably shy away from it. Change the ownership of the Crimson Bat? Make it have the Fertility Rune? Most Gloranthan folks will tell you that most of the lore’s pretty important and should therefore be hard to change in the game. But, again, we don’t have any rules for what “hard” would look like in a RuneQuest game.

5. Yes, you’re right about all this stuff. Just as some groups/communities/empires might try to use “heroquest warfare” to fight their enemies, their enemies are using “heroquest warfare” to reinforce their important myths, strengthening the connection of that myth with the real world (the Mundane Plane).

This is where the analogy to Mage: The Ascension comes in handy again. In that game, the mages have the ability to tamper with reality through their use of magical Spheres. But they’ve got to fight against the resistance of mundane reality trying to prevent the mages from creating paradoxes. So if your community works and survives because certain myths are strong and true, it’s in your best interests to keep reinforcing those myths during Sacred Time every year. You might get the magical community buffs, but at the very least, you’re reinforcing “mundane reality” for your community so that it can’t be weakened by outside threats. You don’t want your enemies weakening or neutralizing your Shepherd goddess, because then your flocks will suffer.

In game terms, heroquests are where your players can get magical items or abilities that are stronger or more exotic than what’s in the book. Your best resource for understanding heroquests and how they might fit into your game is 13th Age Glorantha, published by Pelgrane Press. It was released at the same time as RQG, but uses a different system. It has a big chapter on heroquesting and, most importantly, describes how to do heroquests using game rules. Not the rules of RQG, but it’s very helpful to see how some rules interact with heroquests. As a bonus, you’ll get some good insight into the vibe of Glorantha by seeing how authors who aren’t connected to Chaosium interpret it.

 

Edited September 6, 2022 by EpicureanDM

[Jeff]

On 9/5/2022 at 4:57 PM, Jeff said:

1) not really. A heroquest is when a mortal interacts with the God Time in any sort of prolonged manner. Because we are mortals, such interaction takes place (or forms, depending on your perspective) in what is called the Hero Plane - a Ven Diagram overlap of the Mundane World and the Gods World. Now such interactions are dangerous - as you are interacting with the primal stuff that is Glorantha. Screw it up and you might disappear forever, or everything you touch dies, or your grain becomes inedible, whatever. So normally people stick to what they know, what their ancestors have always done, etc. Such things we know - that's Rune Magic. Go to the God Time, sacrifice that point of POW, learn a new spell.

But for the really cool stuff - for the stuff we don't already have routines for - you need to go deeper into the God Time. And that's where it gets interesting! The only paths we have are what our Heroes have done (which is pretty few actually) or what we know the gods did in the God Time (lots more there). But again, we don't usually know each step they took OR even worse - we know many versions of the steps they took.

2) your story is what you experience. That experience is true, at least for you - and you might be able to teach others how to experience it as well. Somethings are hard-wired in all the stories - there is a basic structure to these stories. But even then there can be differences. In every story, the Storm God uses Death on the Bright Sun. That's why the Sun sets every evening and enters the Underworld. But maybe it wasn't the Emperor Yelm that was struck down, maybe it was Yelm's son, the Golden Emperor, who was killed and Yelm just collapsed out of outrage! Same basic story, but lots of variations.

3) Changing existing stories operates within that framework. We've all heard the story how Orlanth killed Yelm - every version of that story contains some elements of that archetype. Maybe Orlanth has help. Maybe Orlanth cheats. Maybe Yelm tries to cheat. But in every story, Yelm is killed. That's a cosmological truth - an archetype regardless of who we call the gods. Glorantha has lots of these. The Sword Story. Orlanth and Aroka. Magasta and the Homeward Ocean. Storm Bull and the Devil. Etc.

But you can also create new stories nobody every knew before. And they are also true. Like the time Orlanth slew the Mover of Heavens. Or that time Eurmal saved everyone in the Underworld. You have more latitude with those. The downside is they are more dangerous as you are likely experiencing them for the first time.

As an aside, most heroquests are not about changing reality, or rewriting major myths - for what it is worth, I find such heroquests are not all that interesting. They are about discovering something new - in the mythology or in the characters themselves. Here's a really basic one:

The Earth priestesses are all in a worry this year as the winter solstice has passed and the Grain Goddess has still not begun to awaken. If she does not return, there will be no spring planting, let alone a fall harvest. Everyone is worried. Omens and divinations are taken, and it seems she is trapped in the Underworld by a "Demon Lord with a Bone of Power". 

The Earth Priestess writes names of those in the local community on shards of pottery and puts them in a cauldron. She picks them out in a ceremony attended by all- it is your characters who are named! She says that you all must enter the Smoking Cave (located near the Cinder Pits) and descend deep within until you pass out of this world. She gives you an emerald crystal with two powers - it is a spell reinforcing crystal of 4 points, and it glows brighter when held in the direction of the Grain Goddess!

Now go for it!

[Lordabdul]

12 minutes ago, Jeff said:

The Earth Priestess writes names of those in the local community on shards of pottery and puts them in a cauldron. She picks them out in a ceremony attended by all- it is your characters who are named! She says that you all must enter the Smoking Cave (located near the Cinder Pits) and descend deep within until you pass out of this world. She gives you an emerald crystal with two powers - it is a spell reinforcing crystal of 4 points, and it glows brighter when held in the direction of the Grain Goddess!

When I started playing in Glorantha around 2019-or-so I was wondering how heroquesting was different (or not) from "going to weird places" in other games. For instance, in Call of Cthulhu, most adventures happen on Earth, but every now and then there's a scenario for which you need to go through a portal to R'lyeh, summon some weird beasts to fly to Carcosa, or take some drugs to the Dreamlands. It felt to me like heroquesting was a bit similar, only you go to the magical eternal land of gods instead. And so I didn't really understand the whole "re-enactment" stuff from older RQ/KoDP/HQ material...

It sounds like you're using a similar approach here, ignoring the "mythic LARP" aspect, or am I misunderstanding?

[Jeff]

22 minutes ago, Jeff said:

As an aside, most heroquests are not about changing reality, or rewriting major myths - for what it is worth, I find such heroquests are not all that interesting. They are about discovering something new - in the mythology or in the characters themselves. Here's a really basic one:

The Earth priestesses are all in a worry this year as the winter solstice has passed and the Grain Goddess has still not begun to awaken. If she does not return, there will be no spring planting, let alone a fall harvest. Everyone is worried. Omens and divinations are taken, and it seems she is trapped in the Underworld by a "Demon Lord with a Bone of Power". 

The Earth Priestess writes names of those in the local community on shards of pottery and puts them in a cauldron. She picks them out in a ceremony attended by all- it is your characters who are named! She says that you all must enter the Smoking Cave (located near the Cinder Pits) and descend deep within until you pass out of this world. She gives you an emerald crystal with two powers - it is a spell reinforcing crystal of 4 points, and it glows brighter when held in the direction of the Grain Goddess!

Now go for it!

On the GM side, I would make a little mind map of the Otherworld, and a few mythic locations and obstacles that they might overcome. So there is some sort of Chomping Maw at the bottom that they need to pass through; there's a Plain of Grey Ash, populated by red skinless trolls that breathe fire; there's the Path of the Dead (but don't follow them, they are going somewhere else) where they might get to talk to an old enemy or an old friend; there's a Ball Contest with the Striped God where the characters need to wager their arms if they want to get the direction to the Demon Lord; and so on. THere's even a Red Woman who offers to show them the way. Maybe they fight, maybe they talk, maybe they sneak, maybe they make bargains - all are options!

In the end, they confront Monster Man, who has the Grain Goddess imprisoned as his house servant, but he's too strong in almost everything they try. But he's got a hideous wife who is surprisingly kind to the characters. She's willing to tell them her husband's weakness, for a price....

That kind of stuff. In the end, the characters interact with a number of archetypes which they might identify as various deities or entities. They get some neat powers or heroic abilities, get some increase in their Runic abilites, etc. They bring back the Grain Goddess and their community is filled with happiness. Or they don't and they get banished!

[Lordabdul]

30 minutes ago, Jeff said:

On the GM side, I would make a little mind map of the Otherworld, and a few mythic locations and obstacles that they might overcome.

The Well of Daliath actually has an illustration of this here, with the map you used for our game at ChaosiumCon (fun times!)  I'm sure it will help people better picture what you mean:

And more here.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Ludovic aka Lordabdul

[mattcgso]

thanks for insights y'all.

very interesting, lots to chew on.  I especially appreciate the examples!

So changing myths/realities etc. doesn't seem to be what most of these heroes are up to.  Instead the events of history seem more influenced by the results of their heroquests into the myths and is more about what they find there or how it changes them?  If that makes sense.  Emphasis on the QUEST in heroquest, and how the journey changes the traveler... if I am understanding that rightly.

[radmonger]

8 hours ago, mattcgso said:

So changing myths/realities etc. doesn't seem to be what most of these heroes are up to.  I

Well, it changes reality from one where you don't have a power, or know a secret, to one where you do.

Typically that change to reality is small. But sometimes the secret is something like 'how to sail on open water', or 'how to you wake up a sleeping Dragon?'.

[Jeff]

3 hours ago, radmonger said:

Well, it changes reality from one where you don't have a power, or know a secret, to one where you do.

Typically that change to reality is small. But sometimes the secret is something like 'how to sail on open water', or 'how to you wake up a sleeping Dragon?'.

Yes. So a mighty spell might Close the Oceans, but you can heroquest and find a secret way around the spell. You didn't change the spell, just discover a way around it. Same thing happens a lot in Greg's stories. The Orlanth cult has been hijacked by dragon-talking priests? Let's go into the Hero Plane and see if we can find the secret of Orlanth's kingship magic! And so on. But many heroquests are more along the lines of what I described above - something is wrong in the world because the magic isn't working how it is supposed to, lets go into the Hero Plane and find out what happened and bring back the good magic.

Waking up a sleeping dragon is easy. Just build a big temple on top of it and wake it up with music and dancing!

[Jeff]

11 hours ago, mattcgso said:

thanks for insights y'all.

very interesting, lots to chew on.  I especially appreciate the examples!

So changing myths/realities etc. doesn't seem to be what most of these heroes are up to.  Instead the events of history seem more influenced by the results of their heroquests into the myths and is more about what they find there or how it changes them?  If that makes sense.  Emphasis on the QUEST in heroquest, and how the journey changes the traveler... if I am understanding that rightly.

Yes, this is pretty spot on. The QUEST is what matters - and what the QUESTER finds and how that experience (and the decisions they need to make) changes them.

[Shiningbrow]

On 9/6/2022 at 6:16 AM, Squaredeal Sten said:

There are at least two and a fraction sets of heroquesting rules right now.

I'm not sure which you are referring to, so I'll be more specific.

When Mongoose Publishing had the rights to Runequest, they (officially) published two books that had Heroquesting rules in them - MRQ1's Magic of Glorantha which has about 25 pages on the topic (mostly examples of myths from various cults/gods), and MRQ2's Cults of Glorantha, which has a much shorter write-up. Both of these might be hard to get your hands on (legally). Many on here have a huge disdain for MRQ, however, like any good God Learner, they are worth plundering for ideas.

Unofficially, but certainly very good is Simon Phipps' (aka Soltakss) Secrets of Heroquesting. It's a good read, and readily accessible on the JC.

I am aware of some other rulesets on the web, but right now I can't recall who or where (or how long ago they were written).

 

I like the LARP analogy. I also like the analogy from @EpicureanDM about coding.. although, I'd alter stopping ZZ's access to fire powers to hacking someone's account and changing their password.. They can always go back in later and reset it (after a ritual and HQ of their own). But while that password is changed, they can't use those powers. It would be possible - after lots and lots and LOTS of HQs, to hack the entire site and remove those fire powers completely... but, you'd be up against all those who are trying to assert their control over the system as well....

On 9/6/2022 at 2:15 AM, mattcgso said:

or change the ownership of the crimson bat?

Yes. Not that difficult (relatively... to other insane heroquests...).

 

On 9/6/2022 at 2:15 AM, mattcgso said:

or transform the crimson bat's chaos rune into like a fertility rune, so that it is a nicer bat that rains maize?

Yes, although I'd suggest harder than changing "ownership"... (but, is it actually the same bat?)

[Squaredeal Sten]

4 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I'm not sure which you are referring to, so I'll be more specific.

When Mongoose Publishing had the rights to Runequest, they (officially) published two books that had Heroquesting rules in them - MRQ1's Magic of Glorantha which has about 25 pages on the topic (mostly examples of myths from various cults/gods), and MRQ2's Cults of Glorantha, which has a much shorter write-up. Both of these might be hard to get your hands on (legally). Many on here have a huge disdain for MRQ, however, like any good God Learner, they are worth plundering for ideas.

Unofficially, but certainly very good is Simon Phipps' (aka Soltakss) Secrets of Heroquesting. It's a good read, and readily accessible on the JC.

I am aware of some other rulesets on the web, but right now I can't recall who .....

I was thinking about (1) Secrets of Heroquesting,  (2) the notes on heroquesting in ALM's Company of the Dragon, and (3) the fragments we see from the Chaosiumcon playtest.  I have not read the Mongoose one, so that makes three  and a fraction in my updated  count.

The discussion above does point out that there is a spectrum of possible benefits from a successful heroquest: While the Original Poster asked about the spectacular world altering variety such as killing Orlanth and causing the Windstop, Jeff has answered about the more accessible personal benefits to player character level questers.  I suppose that getting a good harvest or obtaining a wyter or making peace  should be ranked in the middle. But those should also be accessible in-game.

 

[soltakss]

All of my answers are unofficial.

On 9/5/2022 at 7:15 PM, mattcgso said:

1) as near as I can tell, heroquesting is when gloranthans sort of LARP as their deities, but in this process, actually become them and re-enact their stories.  Seem like they need to do a good job of it, which I interpret as them needing to know the stories so they can repeat them correctly.  Maybe?  If done really well, then Harvest is good that year, but it seems like heroquesting can do more than ensure the crops grow.

LARPing of deities is close enough to what happens.

If you know the myths in detail, you can leverage them better, if not you know roughly what happens.

On 9/5/2022 at 7:15 PM, mattcgso said:

2) It also seems possible that you can change the story and get some benefit out of it.  it also seems like you can get really rad powers/gifts from it (like the NPC in the GM screenpack who can't die).  Is this from living through the stories?  or from changing the stories?  or making new stories or something?

You can change the story for yourself.

If you change the story for other people then you have to do it on the God Plane, to make it into a myth that they can access.

You get your gifts by living through the myths, yes, as a consequence of doing that.

Heroes can make new stories and get new gifts, some of which that can teach to other people, as Spells or Skills.

On 9/5/2022 at 7:15 PM, mattcgso said:

SO if yes, then my mind wants to push this to extremes to see if I really understand it:

Pushing things to the extremes is one of the best, and worst, things about HeroQuesting.

Gbaji, Arkat, the God Learners, the Red Goddess, Sheng Seleris, the Red Emperor, and Argrath did it and look what happened to them!

On 9/5/2022 at 7:15 PM, mattcgso said:

3) was the red goddess a heroquest done by some lady or by the seven mothers?  did they make a new story, or discover an old one, and that was a heroquest so it made a new moon?  or was all that something else, not heroquesting at all?

Historically, the Seven Mothers performed the HeroQuest and returned with the Red Goddess.

However, who is to say that the Red Goddess wasn't there all along and manipulated the Seven Mothers into rescuing her from her God Time Prison?

Look at how Yelm called for Justice and brought the Lightbringers to him to make amends and cure the world.

On 9/5/2022 at 7:15 PM, mattcgso said:

4) if that is the case, though, then can someone heroquest into a famous myth and change it?  like can someone stop orlanth from killing yelm?  or change the ownership of the crimson bat?  or transform the crimson bat's chaos rune into like a fertility rune, so that it is a nicer bat that rains maize? (leaving aside how difficult all that would be... does this all fall under the scope of heroquesting?).

Yes, they can,.. but it is very hard to do.

However, many people say that you can't do that.

In my opinion, if you create a counter-myth then you have two myths, one where something happened and one where it didn't. One myth will be like a rampaging elephant and the other like a tiny mouse. Making the mouse stronger defeats the elephant and people only remember the mouse myth.

Purging the Crimson Bat of Chaos is probably possible, but stopping it from having been Chaotic in the first place is very difficult.

 

On 9/5/2022 at 7:15 PM, mattcgso said:

5) and if you can, is the only limit on this that you'd need to know the story?  For example, I've read the sourcebook, but most gloranthans haven't, so they wouldn't even know when/how the red goddess got the crimson bat (admittedly I barely know hah).  but if they did... could they change that myth?  and is sacred time, like, really important because you need to get all your people together to tell your stories again to make sure someone else doesn't change them?  Is that what Jar-eel did to Belintar and Kallyr?  interrupt their stories?

People in Glorantha know their own myths, because they are told and retold all the time. Worship Ceremonies often have a stage play telling a myth, or story. Sacred Time is full of them. Some people know different myths that are not known by other temples.

Harmast Barefoot went to many Orlanth Temples and heard their myths, then he stitched them together to form a new myth of his own, that became the Lightbringers Quest.

I have a story where Orlanth gave Yelmalio back his arms, at the Hill of Gold, thus creating Elmal. Yelmalians forgot that myth and their Yelmalio did not receive his arms back.

Jar-Eel did exactly that to Belintar. She entered his story as one of the minor characters, and slew him with surprise. It didn't stop his myth, but changed it so that he couldn't use it to return.

[Jeff]

None of Mongoose's material was never considered "official" by Greg or I.