From: Jane Williams (janewill@mail.nildram.co.uk)
Date: Mon 30 Jun 1997 - 22:37:21 EEST
Alex seems to have come up with a very nice system of classifying HQs.
> 1. "Depth".
> 2. Re-enact vs. extrapolate.
> 3. Personal vs. social gain.
> 4. Hero, vs. Quester.
I like this a lot. But I'd add one more to the list, right at the start.
0. Physical verisimilitude. To what extent does your mundane ritual
mirror the myth? This would go from listening to the story being told,
with no re-enactment, to the extreme of actually physically doing the
entire journey, taking how ever many years it takes.
The trick here is to note that the depth of the HQ is by definition at
Also, the mundane time taken is determined by the ritual. Nothing else.
least as deep as the ritual. To take it deeper, you have to be good at
ceremony (or attuned to the HP, or something - I haven't quite got this
bit sorted yet).
So, suppose you want to do the LBQ (to pick an example we've all heard
of). The lowest physical level would be the story being told to the
children. No ritual content.
Next level would be a bunch of those children playing the game:
"hell" is the dark bit under the barn, and "dawn" is defined as when Mum
calls them in for tea. No real ritual content in the adult sense, though
it may be genuinely terrifyiing for children.
Next up: the fourteen-day ritual, described in KoS
Finally one could go for a walk: start at the Orlanth Victorious temple,
as the Stationary LBQ. Normally this would be accompanied by enough
ritual to make a HQ of it, though depth will vary. I'm not suggesting
every clan does a full LBQ every year!
head west until you find the sea... this takes time. Lots of time. But
turning it into a full HQ takes no ritual at all.
Looking at it the other way: what depth on the HP do you want? Making the
physical ritual as real as possible will make the plane-shift (go on,
give me a better term some-one) easier. But it will take longer. A really
good HQer could quite possibly shift a party to Hell by drawing a couple
of runes in the dust and telling a story. (A really, really good one
might do so accidentally...)
Jane Williams jane@williams.nildram.co.uk
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~janewill/gloranth/index.shtml
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