Mythic Precedent

[Alan]

Hi all,

Here's bit of trivia I heard from a History Channel special on Egyption magic.

The written text would include a Historica, the full text of several stories relevant to the spells request.  These would often be myth stories that established precedent for the spell effect.

This strikes me as an interesting element to add to the beginning of a Hero Quest - gathering the myths, then ritually recapitulating them before setting out.

[lightcastle]

I think that's almost implied in some of the descriptions of HeroQuesting -- gathering the story is part of the preparation.  I think I would certainly encourage a public reading out of the myth before it happened. (In fact, it would be a great way for the players to make sure they agreed on what they thought the myth was going in -- so they would know what stations they intended to look for.)

[Harrek]

Yeah. In the heroquest we ran recently, we all had copies of the myth, and at times used it to determine the 'proper' reaction, or lines to speak. It also helped us know when we hit hidden stations. Ours was just a quick heroquest (to gain a Guardian), so we didn't do much research - we only dug up the one myth. Having multiples would probably be fun, especially if they disagree about key details.

[lightcastle]

I think having multiple copies would make a for a great way to identify hidden stations. Stations that appear in one version but not another, teasing the idea that something may or may not be an important station.

[RaconteurX]

This strikes me as an interesting element to add to the beginning of a Hero Quest - gathering the myths, then ritually recapitulating them before setting out.

Robin's original campaign material included exactly this sort of thing. The heroes discover a new myth, then ceremonially prepare their locale to fit conditions at the start of it. These preparations give a significant bonus to cross over to the Other Side, just as conducting an "Arming of Orlanth"  might. We may see this concept explored in the upcoming "Ship of the Sky" scenario (aka, the Boatrise) in Gathering Thunder (and throughout the entire Dragonrise book too, I imagine).

[Alai]

I think having multiple copies would make a for a great way to identify hidden stations. Stations that appear in one version but not another, teasing the idea that something may or may not be an important station.

I seem to recall Greg saying some things along these lines, indeed. In the context of Harmat's (first) Lightbringer's Quest, it appears he had to do rather a lot of mythic cutting and pasting -- finding different versions of different parts of the story, combining them where they usefully overlapped, having the luxury/dilemma of which to use where they had different accounts of how a particular 'stage' is successfully completed. (Crossing the ocean is the usual example, though I can only recall the Sofala the Turtle method currently.)

The other case in point is the Red Goddess's Quest, where apparently the source myths were _extremely_ fragmentary beforehand, to the point of being reduced to isolated folk-tales and rituals that were in some cases pretty bizarre, disturbing and meaningless without the bigger picture. (For example, women descending into hell and being hung up on meat-hooks, if I'm paraphrasing about right.)


At the other extreme, some HQs will be already well-known, and indeed codified. Particularly where there's a cult that upholds the practice and knowledge. For example, the Yelmalion Hill of Gold HQ springs to mind. And indeed in some sense, every standard cult ritual is a 'small' HQ in this sense, as are likewise, obtaining magic, founding a community, and taking on a geas. In such cases, the character will typically want to follow as ritualised a set of preparation and behaviour as possible, so as to get the most predictable and well-defined result he can.

Obviously the latter aren't going to be the ones that are the most interesting to play (except for their out-of-game value, and of course where the 'usual' preparations don't have the intended effect...).

[lightcastle]

The other case in point is the Red Goddess's Quest, where apparently the source myths were _extremely_ fragmentary beforehand, to the point of being reduced to isolated folk-tales and rituals that were in some cases pretty bizarre, disturbing and meaningless without the bigger picture. (For example, women descending into hell and being hung up on meat-hooks, if I'm paraphrasing about right.)

Being utterly new to Glorantha, I keep stumbling across these little tidbits and finding them compelling.

What I like is that to some extent the whole thing implies that not only can you make up a myth out of game, but that you can and, if my understanding of the "Big Premise" is right, should, make up a myth in game. (Should might be too strong a word here, it's an option.)

The players could go so far as to not simply tinker with existing myths, but take it upon themselves to IMPOSE a myth on the Gods and thus the World.  Admittedly, this would be a difficult thing to do, but for a certain type of campaign, a pretty spectacular conclusion, no?

[Jane]

What I like is that to some extent the whole thing implies that not only can you make up a myth out of game, but that you can and, if my understanding of the "Big Premise" is right, should, make up a myth in game. (Should might be too strong a word here, it's an option.)

The players could go so far as to not simply tinker with existing myths, but take it upon themselves to IMPOSE a myth on the Gods and thus the World.  Admittedly, this would be a difficult thing to do, but for a certain type of campaign, a pretty spectacular conclusion, no?

The idea that the players can and "should" make up myths is an important and fun one to my mind. Just make the distinction between player and character very, very clear! The character is remembering the myth ("mythology of X 5W", look, I rolled a success), asking grandad if he knows anything relevant, searching ancient libraries, or whatever fits your campaign. If the character is trying to impose new myths on the world, he's probably a GodLearner, and will die horribly due to the Universe objecting. Even variants on myths are probably a recipe for disaster. Yes, it can be done, but by then you're at the "turn your PC into a god" level of play.

What can be quite interesting is moving from one known myth to another, part-way through, at the point where they meet. Like Arkat seems to have done.  Still extremely risky, but not as bad.

But back at the player-created myth: they're about to have a wonderful time creating the plot for you! So it might be a good idea to make it a collabarative effort. And for the version of the myth they actually encounter to be subtly different from the one the players wrote (because the characters didn't quite remember it right).

Of course, creating myths that mesh in with a world as complex as this isn't necessarily easy. Stand-alone ones aren't too bad, but if you're fleshing out some detail of the LBQ, or writing yet another version of the Hill of Gold, or the Aroka story, then it may be worth asking for help on one of the various lists. At which point you will probably find yourself with more custom-built myths than you can shake a stick at :(

(We just had a wonderful time doing an Aroka variant with a bunch of Humakti. Trouble was, I'd written the myth so as to show off how much better Humakt is than Orlanth, Vadrus, or anyone else who kills dragons. All very well until your PC actually has to figure out how to kill a dragon in one blow :( )

[lightcastle]

The idea that the players can and "should" make up myths is an important and fun one to my mind. Just make the distinction between player and character very, very clear! The character is remembering the myth ("mythology of X 5W", look, I rolled a success), asking grandad if he knows anything relevant, searching ancient libraries, or whatever fits your campaign.

Oh, absolutely the Players should be making up some myths, because that's a lot of fun, and interesting, and they can make it relevant to what they want to have going on in their game.

If the character is trying to impose new myths on the world, he's probably a GodLearner, and will die horribly due to the Universe objecting. Even variants on myths are probably a recipe for disaster. Yes, it can be done, but by then you're at the "turn your PC into a god" level of play.

Absolutely, but I also like that that option if there. If you want to run an apotheosis scenario, or even just a MAJOR shift in the world (and, since it is the Hero Wars, this the time to do it) and how your community/religion/area/what have you sees the world and their place in it, you can go there as well. (Tinkering with the myth, rediscovering a forgotten and dangerous one, etc. etc.)

Sure, that's messing around on the cosmic scale and thus should never be an easy cakewalk, but it's there if you want it. Humans have turned themselves into gods in the past, it can happen again.  (In truth, I'd probably never run a game like that, but one never knows.)