Making the Storm Tribe quest

[jajagappa]

Over in the G+ group, Andrew Larsen posted the following question on the Making the Storm Tribe quest.  I thought it would be useful to carry over here.

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I'm going to be running the Making of the Storm Tribe quest for my PCs, who are hoping to use it to keep an allied clan from completely falling apart due to internal quarrels. Anyone have any thoughts about how to run this quest? I've definitely got ideas, but it never hurts to hear how others would approach it. For example, where would you put the Heroquest Challenge?

My initial thoughts:

There's a number of notable stations in the quest:
1) finding the other clans - with deeds, promises, and gifts Orlanth must persuade other clans to come to a Tribal Moot (there can be any number of these - the more gathered, the stronger the tribe, but the greater chance of conflict at the Moot) - these may include fighting other foes, solving puzzles, making bargains, etc. and Orlanth may have to overcome the Doubting Wheel at some point
2) gathering at the Moot - many found that they had been promised things that were not Orlanth’s to give or that clans they hated were at the moot
3) another Way - Ernalda must calm Orlanth and bring forth the chest of torcs, otherwise the clans fight and the Moot ends
4) Vadrus and his Hurt Everyone Clan - they refuse to become part of the tribe - Orlanth must determine whether to bring them in or let them go, and how to treat them - this is one point the HeroQuest Challenge could occur - Vadrus likely challenges for leadership here, and proposes enslaving all the other clans
5) attack of the "Night Tribe" - clans must find a way to aid each other - this may reveal some powers of the wyter (a good point for a HeroQuest Surprise - maybe its the Logic Tribe, or the Fire Tribe, or the Stonemen, or someone else who attacks)
6) acclamation of Orlanth as King - last troublemakers are settled, and all the clans agree on the king - the other point where the HeroQuest Challenge likely occurs
7) the Storm Ring is created - Orlanth must determine who is on the Ring - this establishes the tribe (and must call forth the wyter), but may create seeds of future discord.

Edited June 30, 2017 by jajagappa

[Joerg]

I am not sure that this quest can achieve something from without the clan.

If peace inside the clan is the desired result, then at least one quester should be a member of that clan. The support group and indeed the heroquesting support may very well come from outside of the clan, but with the clan wyter as beneficiary, starting the quest within the target clan or at least with a would-be leader with ties to the wyter appears to be a necessity to me.

However, this criterion might be winged if the questers include wives born in the target clan. Ideally from different factions of that clan.

How many quarreling factions are there? If there are basically two camps and one underpowered third party of conciliators, the Issaries quest might be more appropriate, targeting just the two camps, and doesn't need to be within the clan. Chalana Heals the Scars is another candidate that could be done from the outside.

 

 

Edited June 30, 2017 by Joerg

[jajagappa]

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

I am not sure that this quest can achieve something from without the clan.

I think it can, but I also think there's an implication in doing so.  Specifically, the clan that is falling apart can truly no longer manage on its own and will become something else, part of something larger.

I'd approach it that each of the bloodlines (where the divisions likely exist) is one of the "clans" to be united into the new Storm "Tribe".  The leader of the quest, must go to each bloodline within his/her clan to get them to agree to form a new unity, and then to each of the bloodlines in the target clan.  This will bring up divisions based on the bloodlines and the differing 'enemies' of the two clans.  I think this approach assumes that the clans/bloodlines merge in a somewhat equal partnership (i.e. not with one clan becoming thralls of the other).

[Joerg]

11 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I think it can, but I also think there's an implication in doing so.  Specifically, the clan that is falling apart can truly no longer manage on its own and will become something else, part of something larger.

I'd approach it that each of the bloodlines (where the divisions likely exist) is one of the "clans" to be united into the new Storm "Tribe".  The leader of the quest, must go to each bloodline within his/her clan to get them to agree to form a new unity, and then to each of the bloodlines in the target clan.  This will bring up divisions based on the bloodlines and the differing 'enemies' of the two clans.  I think this approach assumes that the clans/bloodlines merge in a somewhat equal partnership (i.e. not with one clan becoming thralls of the other).

But this would make the quester the new leader of the community that is shaped by this quest. Basically the questers provide the new leadership of the new community, and become part of it. I don't think this was the intention of the original post - that was to get a stable partner clan, rather than to take over management of the neighboring clan.

The Making of the Storm Tribe is a quest for leadership that unites separate communities into a new entity. As alternative benefits, its re-enactment provides proof of leadership ability, or it provides proof of the benefit of cooperation of the separate groups of one's community - under the leadership of the quester.

 

A tribe is something fundamentally different from a clan. A clan is a kinship group that shares your daily life, and your possessions. A tribe does provide much less of kinship, it is about cooperation between disparate groups, with separate possession and identities. It is an in-law relationship, often going hand in hand with marriage relations,

.The making of a new clan is a rare event, unless it is the result of a clan split. Old Man Colymar apparently merged together various groups of emigrants into a new clan before braving the Kitori Wilds and the forbidden lands beyond. I think that is basically a creation of family ties, of common ancestry. No idea whether it can be used to re-cement intra-clan relationsships.

[jajagappa]

6 hours ago, Joerg said:

But this would make the quester the new leader of the community that is shaped by this quest.

Yes, I think that would be the logical outcome.  And I agree that it's an extremely rare event.  But I'd certainly allow it in context of a game, and following the Making of the Storm Tribe quest seems a reasonable starting point.

Typically, I'd expect the surviving bloodlines of a broken clan would petition to be adopted into another clan.  The clan myths already describe how this is done - and whether the adoptees are given full clan status, or become thralls.  Some of this is visible in Ian's The Coming Storm.

[Joerg]

My point is that this would make the quester(s) change their clan. Probably not the desired outcome of the original post, which is why I suggested finding a quester from the clan requiring fixing, and become his "Batulco's Crew" (as per Oliver Dickinson's Griselda story "The Hero Bit"), the grey eminences doing the heavy lifting for the nominal hero.

 

Orphaned bloodlines from broken clans:

Petitioning for adoption into another clan is a likely outcome, but since Sartar's founding of the cities there is another option - enter a city and set up a trade. Quite likely they will join members of the bloodline who left the clan (through marriage or joining a guild) already there. The third option, gathering enough folk and founding a new clan on the orphaned tula, is a distant third.

Entering a new clan as thralls would be an act of desperation, and an unlikely display of cluelessness. After 300 years, there ought to have been almost any marriage combination you can imagine, and a custom like that ought to be known, and easy to avoid. The last time something like this happened was the destruction of the Maboder clans and their enslavement by the settlers of Wulfsland. I suppose that a significant portion of the Jonstown trailer trash may have come from this, and others in Boldhome, wherever they had kin they could hope to find at least a modicum of support.

Having a refugee background in my family, I think this is a process that might take a few years, but at least some members of the bloodline will have marketable abilities that enable a survival above destitution, be it in the city of the tribal confederation, Boldhome, or Nochet.

[jajagappa]

50 minutes ago, Joerg said:

The last time something like this happened was the destruction of the Maboder clans and their enslavement by the settlers of Wulfsland.

Also the Sambari after the Fire Bull Moot and the Dundealos, I think.

[Bohemond]

In my game, the Orlmarth PCs were helping their related/allied clan the Antorlings who were horribly riven by factions. The Antorlings had traditionally performed this quest every time it got a new chieftain, as a way of re-affirming the ties of the bloodlines that had been brought together to form the clan long ago. But two generations back, Gagarth the Bandit had turned up as a heroquest surprise and defeated the quester quite badly. Subsequent attempts at the quest became to encounter the same surprise and eventually the clan stopped performing the quest because it kept failing. As a result, Disorder spread within the clan, causing the bloodlines to quarrel, and eventually leading to the election of an Ernaldan who governed mostly through browbeating. To make matters worse, one member of the ring was seduced by Krarsht and began doing unspeakable things, and then framed another bloodline for his crimes, ultimately leading the chieftain declaring the whole bloodline outlaws. The clan was literally about to collapse.

When the PCs visited and learned what total disaster the clan was falling into, they decided to perform the Making the Storm Tribe quest as a way to quell the internal strife that their kinsmen were struggling with. The quest was quite a challenge for them--the stations came in a very unexpected order, they had trouble finding the gods they wanted to invite, Krarsht tried to kill Esra and had to be defeated, and Gagarth stole Ernalda's Chest of Treasures and had to be hunted down. But they got through it, and when they returned, the incompetent chieftain declared that she was stepping down, much to their relief.