How to get back from the Green Age?

[Harrek]

Hello, a character of mine is going to make an experimental heroquest to the Green Age. He's an Orlanthi(Vanganth) hero. He has his means to go to the Green Age, but not necessarily a way to come back. He's going to quest with a hero of Lanbril. The myth with which they are entering the Green Age is connected to Tada, but the characters will jump off from the myth's path and continue on their own. It'll be a hazardous choice, I know...

The problem is that there's  no Orlanth, or even Umath, in the Green Age. So there's no his lodge nor any normal "portal" to come back. Lanbril maybe existed in the Green Age as a young god  (yes, he's not a god actually), but I think he started to do his profession during the Golden Age and continued it through the Storm Age and Great Darkness.

I'd like to hear some ideas about how it could be possible for the described heroes to return to their time. Some ideas?

[Joerg]

So the characters carry some identification with Tada which is supposed to bring them to the Green Age, where they are going to drop that aspect and go do something else.

One way to treat this is that whenever you go to the Green Age and do something, you are automatically carried over into the Golden Age, and have imprinted the myths with your action, just as your action has been imprinted on you.

From the sound of your party composition, your players are very likely to fill the part of the disruptor. In Pelandan myths, this guy is called Vogmaradan. The Esrolians have a myth about the Three Bad Men, one of whom is Kodig - the same Kodig who is later named as the eldest son of Vingkot, but in Esrolia - Land of the 10,000 Goddesses he appears in what looks like late Green Age or Early Golden Age troubles myths.

Now Kodig is a convenient way out, a jump to the Vingkotling Age. Note, however, that emerging in Ezel with the marks of Kodig is bound to cause all kinds of grief for the characters.

But it doesn't have to be Kodig. You might just as well end up as one of the core supporters of Genert, and on the horizon there is this horrific army of Chaos gathering. You are right in the middle of Genert's Garden, you are honor bound to lead your portion of the Garden's forces into the maw of the opposing forces. You may exchange pre-battle witticisms with Yamsur, Seolinthur and all those other guys whose faces and names you cannot remember, for some odd reason, and strangely few if any of the other leaders present can remember your faces, or names, or may even bump into you as if they weren't aware of your presence. The Battle is approaching...

Okay, this was really nasty. But then, entering the Green Age is already big and fairly often bad mojo. Jumping off a somewhat trodden and predictable path will most likely place you in a much bigger fix.

You might use the cut scene above, and possibly a small number of similar unexpected consequences, as ominous flashes as the players prepare to deviate from Tada's path. Finding yourself in the Sword Story, as Grandfather Mortal. Fighting alongside Kargan Tor, leading the defense of the Celestial Palace atop the Spike. Plunging down from the Sky next to Sky River Titan, Hard Earth and a couple more deities, ten altogether. Appearing as the sworn bodyguards of King Vingkot in the Battle of Stormfall. If your players know at least some of these myths, they might wish to reconsider, and take on whichever burden Tada carried out of his myth. Maybe, after presenting these alternatives, you might saddle them with their desired outcome on a wave of very weird and possibly devastating changes.

Maybe there could be a cut scene where the rebels approach Yelm to deliver the fatal strike, but it all ends with two marriages - Tolat with Artia, and your Vanganth Character as Orlanth taking wedding vows with Sedenya. I don't know what makes your players tick, but things like this might shock them.

You might have them emerge as Rashoran, teaching their new insight of illumination to the other gods, finding eager disciples in Orlanth's Other Brother and his betrothed goat goddess.

The Green Age is deep trouble. Refusing the reward of the Lightbringers' Quest may look like an easy alternative.

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

The Green Age is deep trouble.

Deep, deep trouble.  If you DO anything, take ANY action, you have made a foe.  Maybe its an obscure one, maybe a significant one. 

The Green Age is the time of Naming.  Genert and his companions named things.  If you steal something, then you may be named as The Thief (this could become a new/alternate myth for Lanbril).  But, in being named, you bear The Mark.  Maybe The Mark was never noticed by any Lanbril cultist before, but when The Thief returns he/she will have The Mark, and suddenly everyone remembers what The Mark means.

Or, perhaps the heroes simply encounter Genert and the Namers.  Genert asks them what they are.  They make the mistake of responding (and likely a mistake not to respond too) and say they are Hands of Tada.  Well, Tada is among the Namers, and Genert says to Tada, "it seems you've misplaced your hands, here they are", and the heroes are literally gathered up and attached to Tada.  Oops.  Especially since Tada is now off to fight chaos and is going to be torn apart (and no one knows what happened to Tada's Hands).

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

One way to treat this is that whenever you go to the Green Age and do something, you are automatically carried over into the Golden Age

I think this is the right way to play it.  And it is likely that the heroes' actions invokes a response where the Golden Age figures are suddenly revealed in their glory.  For instance, the Lanbril hero steals from an innocent Youth.  The Youth is revealed to be Yelm the Glorious Rider, who directs the Golden-eyed Eagles to pursue The Thief and bring the Thief to Justice. 

 

[jajagappa]

4 hours ago, Harrek said:

I'd like to hear some ideas about how it could be possible for the described heroes to return to their time.

They are in a myth in the Otherworld, so the options are either: 1) they die and follow Grandfather Mortal to the Underworld when that event occurs; 2) there is some action that drops them out of the Otherworld. 

If they are still in the Green Age, then perhaps they must be broken or torn apart, or be cast into the Endless Chasm of the Earth, or be kissed by the Earth Queen, or swallowed by the Serpent Mother, or perhaps just Named by Genert.  One of these actions pushes them out of the story/myth and they awake somewhere in the Earth, perhaps a cave or an Earth Temple, maybe even the Earth Temple in Snakepipe Hollow!

If they've moved the story into the Golden Age, then perhaps they are captured by the minions of Yelm and brought before the all-seeing justice of Brightface.  His fiery Justice sears them, and they drop out/awake in a retirement tower by one of the Sun Dome Temples, though no one at the temple remembers what/when they arrived.

[Harrek]

Thanks for the answers. I think our characters are still going to go to the Green Age. They have already been there once, when they were sucked in by the enemy's myth. That time the characters had at least some myth to "protect" them. The characters just didn't know the myth.

We'll see what happens...

[Ian Cooper]

In the 11 lights we do have an adventure in The Green Age. But as pointed out here, the Green Age rapidly becomes the Golden Age as ideas of 'self' and 'other' emerge.

If you have used the clan generator then you will have an idea of your clan's first moment of consciousness, of identity. This emerging idea of consciousness is how your clan knows to exit the Green Age. It might be understanding that you are not food by killing and eating something for example.

So you need your players to assert their identity, somehow, to escape.

But this is very dangerous. Fail and your self probably gets lost on the hero plane, and your body in the middle world will enter a vegetative state.

[Roko Joko]

On 4/11/2017 at 2:33 PM, Harrek said:

The problem is that there's  no Orlanth, or even Umath, in the Green Age. So there's no his lodge nor any normal "portal" to come back.

Do you need to say that you need a portal to come back?

Seems like you could just as easily say that exiting a heroquest is easy, in general.  For example IIRC heroes in King of Dragon Pass often get kicked out of heroquests involuntarily.  Then, the theory might be more like: it takes an effort to remain on the Other Side, and typically what you do on a heroquest is run through a myth and then let yourself drop out either when you've completed it successfully or when things go badly.  And you don't necessarily *have* to drop out when you're done with the heroquest, but you choose to do it because it's dangerous to sit there dorking around on the Other Side without the guidance of a myth.

 

Edited April 12, 2017 by Roko Joko

[Darius West]

18 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Especially since Tada is now off to fight chaos and is going to be torn apart (and no one knows what happened to Tada's Hands).

Please don't tell me the Devil stole them and they are now roaming around Snakepipe Hollow?

Those broos sure bruised me and the hand definitely pawed me last time I went down there slumming.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Darius West

[JonL]

6 hours ago, Harrek said:

Thanks for the answers. I think our characters are still going to go to the Green Age. They have already been there once, when they were sucked in by the enemy's myth. That time the characters had at least some myth to "protect" them. The characters just didn't know the myth.

We'll see what happens...

That might be an angle you could work as well. Their enemy presumably had a road back in mind. It might be an unfriendly road for you two, but if there's no Death yet...;)