From: Alex Ferguson (abf@interzone.ucc.ie)
Date: Wed 12 Mar 1997 - 04:13:00 EET
Jane Williams ponders the Quest of the Hill of Gold:
> As far as I remember the myth, it involved Yelmalio being beaten up by
> everyone in sight and losing his fire powers (alternate versions
> involving Elmal, I know). I don't remember anything about immortality.
I've never seen it in a printed version of the myth, but Sandy's asserted
this both here, and in the flesh. Furthermore, he's said that what you get
isn't Standard Issue "Apotheosis Now" immortality, but rather a sort of
Physical Indestructability kind. You _can_ be killed, but it's vastly
harder than merely chopping you to bits. Reason being, essentially, that
Yelmalio (and perhaps even moreso, Antirius) took all sorts of crappola at
the HoG, and Came Through in the End. (Admittedly requiring resurrection
in A.'s case.)
Somewhat confusingly, you have to "lose" the Quest to gain this benefit.
If you knock nine bells out of Zorak Zoran's designated fallguy, then you
can get fire-power type benefits back, but not the immortality.
Potentially cosy, then, for an oppositional HQ, if the Y. chap is trying
to lose, and the ZZ fellah to win, and both benefiting thereby, but there's
at least still the small detail of not getting killed in the process to
worry about. The minutitae of this can wait until page 3 of the HeroQuest
Rules Errata, though.
> Does that mean anyone who's done the HoG is immortal? That includes
> Belvani from Sun County, doesn't it?
I forget the details of his writeup, but I'd imagine he's effectively
performed the "Pilgrimage" version of the HQ, rather the the Full Monty.
My own feeling is that the "depth" or "level" of a HQ is a rather fuzzy
thing, and not a clear-cut "real"/"practice" distinction as is
occasionally implied; but obviously, there's a big difference between
doing the Short/Stationary LBQ at Sacred Time, and actually (meta-)
physically Harrowing Hell to bring back Yelm/Arkat/Sheng/Other. So,
doing the HoGHQ as a "mostly mundane" journey would likely yield lesser
benefits of the same, general, vaguely congruent with the myth sort;
increased CON, free automatic Resurrection, immunity to poison, etc.
(In fact, to harp on about a conjecture I already made, see the Yelmalio
gift (and geas!) list for the general sort of effect the quest will have
on you. Now ramp vastly up for sufficiently "advanced" versions of the
Quest... Try to avoid the "Return, coughing blood, on the back of a
maggot-ridden Ox. Roll thrice more." result, though.)
> Apart from this, how do HQers achieve immortality? I know it's not
> common, but what HQs have been documented, if any?
I believe that one or other sort of "immortality" is actually quite
"common", relatively speaking, for Heroes; Uzuz HQers routinely become
Unaging, it's somewhere opined; anyone with a Hero Cult has become at the
very least Mythically Immortal, and may be able to still manifest, to a
greater or lesser degree, after death/apotheosis. I don't know of any
others that work quite like the HoG quest, though.
> I don't see how you
> can get it from following your deity in a myth, simply because the gods
> are immortal to start with: they didn't have to gain it.
Hence, if you Emulate Your Diety enough, you will become immortal, in one
sense or another, at least, without necessarily ever actually performing a
specific Become Immortal HQ (in most cases). The snag is, by the time
you've successfully done so, you have about as much Free Will as your god,
too: to wit, none, or "switch to emergency my-existence-is-being-threatened
power, Scotty" type amounts. I know this begs the question of cause and
effect, but that's how I currently look at it, at any rate.
Another possible way of looking at this is via Hero Cults; rather than
emulating your God directly, one can follow the same path to Herodom/
Immortality as an _earlier_ Hero. There'd seem to be something of a
Bootstrapping problem here, mind you, so I plan on stopping digging
before I find myself any deeper, holewise.
Mortally,
Alex.
------------------------------
End of Glorantha Digest V4 #267
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