WHAT IS A HEROQUESTER (HQ): A HeroQuest is a set of actions by which a person (or persons) that defines them as being super-normal, thus making them Heros. This Quest can be voluntary or involuntary ("some people are born heros, others have it thrust upon them"), and can take many forms, not only the Path of the Warrior, but the Path of the Lover, or Trickster and others, where fighting skills are not as important to suceed.
WHAT IS HEROQUESTING?: HeroQuesting is the uniquely Gloranthan activity of travelling to the HeroPlane to interact with the gods and other inhabitants of all myths and legends, and thus to derive power through it. This power can be taken back to the mundane plane and used to aid Glorantha. The HeroPlane allows a character to connect the microcosm to messocosm to macrocosm.
Whilst a HeroQuest normally involves travelling to the HeroPlane it is not always neccessarily so. Not all Heros gain mystic powers from the Godplane. Therefore it is possible to go on a HeroQuest without HerQuesting (confused?).
To go HeroQuesting requires great magical power and force of will to pierce the Veil of Time and reach the HeroPlane -- and thus many members of a community participate in lending their energies to getting a potential Hero to the other side. While upon the HeroPlane the Hero represents his community, whether that community is his cult, clan, family or nation.
If the Hero suceeds? If he returns with Mostal's toothpick? His community will benefit, if they supported him completley they will derive great power from him, if they gave partial support they will get less power but will have more faith in him for a future Quest.
If he fails? If he gets smunged by a god who mistakes him for a flea? A community which devoted itself to him wholeheartedly would be shattered, and might never recover. A community which gave only some support would think along the lines of "Geez, we lost a good Rune Lord there, and that enchanted sword we lent him -- never mind".
As you can see a Hero must be ready to accept responsibility.
WHERE IS THE HEROPLANE?: The HeroPlane is everywhere and no-where, it cojoins at everypoint in the Cosmos. The HeroPlane is actually more of a state of consiouness than a place to walk around. Imagine a scale, on one end is the Mundane Plane of trees and flowers, of logic and small mice, of hunger, of money. On the other is the Godplane where the mighty Storm Gods bubble in the Heavens or the Red Goddess speaks to her followers on the Red Moon (note: some parts of the mundane plane cross over fully with the Godplane, such as Dragon's Eye or the top of Stormwalk Mountain). As you travel further up the scale you begin to interact with more and more powerful spirits/beings, gain more power through your victories and have more connection with the realm of the gods i.e. you gain more powerful Divine Magic at first, and HQ powers later. To advance along this scale is simple at first, once you are intitiated you will have started this path. After that comes Rune Lord and Rune Priest, further on is Hero, then Superhero, then God. A Rune Lord, for instance, can control great powers, and an Orlanthi Rune Priest can sense the mystical methods of the weather.
Temorarily the connection to the HeroPlane can be increased. For instance, at High Holy Days the worshippers have great visions and images of their gods past heroism and other such oracular occurences. Of course, at the end of the rite this ends. In East Ralios the Orlanthi tribes enact these rites, and will materialise their avatars partially on the HeroPlane and in turn can gain magical powers through this, such as their mystical gifts they all have.
At the greater end of the spectrum, there are HeroQuests that take place on the Mundane Plane that have a chance of the character gaining magical bonuses. For an example see Simon Phipp's Pilgrimages on his Net Page. When the rite ends, or if the character leaves the HeroPath, then the connection to the HeroPlane vanishes. According to Cults of prax there was a certain light in the eyes of Ruric while he was on a HeroQuest. He was even capable of popping in and out of existence, an obvious example of someone's connection to the HeroPlane.
At the furthest end of the spectrum the character can, through certain rites, exist wholly on the Godplane with no Mundane Image. In other words, they have been teleported to the realm of the gods. You could use YAHQ's, Steve Maurer's rules or any of the host of other HeroQUest rules for this Godplane travelling. Whilst on the Godplane the greatest rewards are to be found, aswell as the greatest dangers.
WHAT IS A HERO?: A Hero is a representative of his community and all it stands for. An Orlanthi Hero is expected to embody all six virtues, whereas a troll Hero might plunder and battle, a Chalana Arroy Hero will be the most caring and attentive healer, and an assassin Hero the most cunning. A Hero is linked irrevocably with his/her community -- as something that affects the Hero will in turn affect his community.
A community on the other hand is part of the Hero, as the community changes so must the Hero and vice versea. There is a link between the microcosmic Hero and the mesocosmic Community, and the entire culture and world as a macrocosm.
A Hero is not just someone with power, anyone can have a big sword and a lot of armour. A Hero is someone who uses such power or insight to aid his/her community. A Hero is someone who is remembered by his community forever after, maybe not because he has power but for an act of courage -- "Yeah, John the Healer saved everyone in this village from plague but died from the same disease he cured, so we give him a prayer or two every holy day". Any character is a Hero if he gives something to his/her community at expense to themselves.
An Anti-Hero is a Hero who society sees as evil. For instance, the Orlanthi would say that the troll Hero's who rampage about slaughtering, are anit-Hero's whereas the trolls see Orlanthi Hero's as land-grabbing upstarts, and thus see them as anti-Heros. An Anti-Hero is just a Hero who gives to a community you don't like and so therefore anti-Hero and Hero are just two different ways of looking at the same thing.
Someone who HQ's with no respect to society, who is a selfish HeroQuester, is a villain. They take what they want and keep it for their own personal power. An example would be the God Learners or Harrek the Beserker.
Oh dear, you lost. Your plan to take the Lightbringer's Quest and return with the Almighty Lord of Universal Peace, Happiness and Peppermints failed. Using the Lightbringers Quest as an example, this is what goes wrong:
Small failures aren't too bad, sometimes necessary for the Quest to suceed. "Small" is a relative concept, however, on the Lightbringer's Quest if one of the canidates gets killed (quite difficult on the HeroPlane) the Quest might carry on if that canidates connection to the Quest is no longer neccessary. For instance, if Orlanth dies -- big problems, if Eurmal dies -- bad luck on the poor sod but the Quest goes on.
Large failures may mean personal problems. Death is one. Imprisonment upon the HeroPlane or insanity is another. Geases are also a result of failure. For instance, someone fights Humakt in a duel in the Diamond Chamber of Kargan Tor, and is bested. Humakt curses them with the HeroQuesting Geas that they might never again touch a Sword without it breaking. This is not a spirit of reprisal or a cult related geas, it is a curse, and Illumination doesn't help you at all. Sometimes to get a HQ Power you must accpet specific geases, the Daughter of Ralzakark (from Lords of Terror) is one such example.
If the Questers ruin the Quest then this is usually very, very bad. If Orlanth accidentally allowed Wakboth to live, or Yelm refuses his bid for recompense, then it has failed miserabley. Failed HQ's sometimes return back to where they started. But not always, sometimes they drop out at a wrong place, For instance Karsten Fardrosson (King Of Sartar p.164). Sometimes they even drop out at the wrong Time (some people think the Pharoah came from the future), and all this assumes they survive the failure.
This all pales in comparisson to the effect upon the Community. If Eurmal died then all the Eurmali supporters would be devastated. If the Humakt cult, as a whole, supported a Hero to Quest for Death and he failed, they might loose access to Sever Spirit, and Turn Undead. Also, Humakt, the Godplane aspect, would weaken.
A failed HQ may strengthen another community through this failure. For instance, a failed Hill of Gold Quest may strengthen Zorak Zoran, or if the Storm Bull worshippers mess up the HQ to kill Ragnaglar miserabley then they may wake up and find his new reincarnation being born. This is why cults may go head-to-head on HeroQuests, each seeking to ensure the others Quest fails by Mundane and Mystical means. On the HeroPlane it is imopssible to know if the person you are meeting are the actual HeroPlane aspect or an enemy HeroQuester (on the Hill of Gold quest are you meeting ZZ or a ZZ Hero?)
HeroQuesting is NOT Time travel, or at least you can't go back and change the present by killing your enemy's grandfather. When you change the past you only change the Mythical Past, only the myths will change. For instance, a Hero kills Orlanth. This doesn't mean that suddenley chaos wins the Godtime battle and the Cosmos dissolves because Orlanth is unable to make the Lightbringer's Quest. It does mean that Orlanth's Rune Priests lose access to rune magic, divination, divine intervention etc... Next, since Orlanth is the god of wind, the wind patterns become erratic and unstable. Then the mythical landscape begins to decay. The effects of the Lightbringer Quest fail, the cult of Yelm begins to lose his magic, Chalana Arroy and the other Lightbringer's start to die and their cults dissolve; the forces of chaos begin to swell -- obviously killing Orlanth has many ramifacations which would eventually result in the end of the Cosmos. However, Time has not changed, the priests in the First and Second Age do not loose their magic, people do not forget who Orlanth was -- but Orlanth is still dead. As you can see, the results of a HQ are gradual, as can be seen from the Syndic's Ban or Illiteracy Era.
HQing within Time is possible. Want to meet Arkat? Go to the First Age. Want a magic sword of the God Learners? Visit the Clanking City in the Second Age. The spells are more rare than those required to get to the Godplane, only the cult of Arkat will have spells to visit the Big Guy himself. Greg called the spells that allow this sort of travel "Chronoportation".
The effect of HQing within Time is the same as Before Time -- it is impossible to change the future. For instance, one goes back to save the Pharoah. He suceeds, but the Hero does not return to a future where the Pharoah has survived, instead the Hero who Quested may reincarnate as the new Pharoah as if he successfully won the Games of Luck and Death. If the Pharoah dies again, then future Hero's can retrace the steps of the first Quest to reincarnate him and bring him back again.
The rules for HQing within Time are exactly the same as normal RQ (or whatever system you use), and YAHQ's is not essential.
A Hero cult is a misleading name, it is not simply a sub-cult (although the vast majority are) but a variation of looking at religion. For instance, the Sygian Heresy is an Orlanthi/Darkness/Solar Hero Cult that is so large people recognise it as a religion -- it is a Hero Cult instituted by Arkat saying "Hey, this Invisible God/sorcery stuff is pretty neat -- I reckon it's correct and your way is wrong, so I'm going to teach people my way."
The Hero Cult is formed by a Hero with a uniquely new ability/philosophy, which is usually gained via HQing and teaching it to his people. If the Hero Cult grants Rune Spells or Spirit Magic then the Hero has managed to teach his god a new skill by meeting them whilst HQing. However, since Cults are limited by Time, and each cult's powers, spells and benefits were described in the Compromise, this new ability cannot be freely given to everyone. Instead it must be accessed through the Hero who intercedes on the worshippers behalf.
For instance, Mike the Yelmalion re-enacts the HoG quest and manages to beat ZZ. He keeps his fire abilities; the Yelmalio cult cannot now cast Sunspear but all those in Mike's Hero Cult could! Given enough time and effort the Hero Cult would spread world wide and everyone would be a member and whenever they join the Yelmalio cult they immediatley join the Hero Cult and so therfore every member of the Yelmalio cult has their fire powers.
A Hero Cult may not be like this -- a small village may have it's own Hero Cult. This form of Hero is remembered forever for his acts, and through his cult these acts can be re-enacted. For instance, Zarner the Centaur owns a powerful artifact, the Glove of Orlanth, Zarner HQ's and makes mystical preparations so that she could last forever on the HeroPlane. When the village comes to strife an aspiring Hero HQ's and re-enacts the Quest made to ensure his immortality (i.e. if Zarner fought through hordes of Darkness beasts to secure a haven in the Underworld the aspring Hero must do likewise to reach the Haven). Here the Hero can take the Glove back to his community.
Malkioni Heros sometimes elevate to the rank of Saint. This requires the entire support of the Western Church (Hrestol and Roakri are each individual churchs), which fuels the Hero with the energy to be canonized. Look at todays Catholic methods of Sainthood.
There is a reason that every god doesn't immediatley shower their worshippers with gold, arms, armour, crystals etc... and then bestows them with enough runes to make them a demigod.
Firstly, a demigod isn't much use to a god. That Demigod will be unable to return through Time and the Compromise will stop the new godling returning and the god will have a useless lackey lying around. If a Hero builds up a cult he may be elevated to Demigod by his own god as the god can then make use of his cult -- but it is a long and laborious task.
Secondly, every gift, every MP used, every Rune bestowed saps at the gods resources. These resources are finite. They must last the god forever, each Hero is an investment and a god expects a return, that god demands that a Hero goes out and gets him more power to replace that expended, and make a profit from, that which he expended.
Lastly, every god knows betrayl. A god knows it all too well. If he gives you all his available resources and then you defect, the god loses it all. Therefore a Hero must prove himself time and time again to his god, and each time the god will become more willing to give more power.